Experiments
THERE is an agreeable fashion growing up among publishers of issuing longish short stories or single essays in small and orna- mental books at moderate prices. These books give one the opportunity of judging a single piece without the crowd Of impressions of other pieces which surround it in collections and also, to some extent, in detachment from the rest of the author's work ; they also give the author the opportunity of making an experiment. They give the ordinary reader, especially at this season, the opportunity of making very acceptable presentS.
The two most recently issued by Messrs. Heinemann (1s. each) are The King Waits, by Clemence Dane and Illusion : 1915, by H. M. Tomlinson. These stories have both been
Previously published in periodicals and, therefore, require no further recommendation. The King Waits is a particularly happy example of this kind of book making. It is a historical
vignette, depicting the thoughts of Anne Boleyn in the minute before her death on the block, and is done with all Miss Dane's skill. Illusion, an impression of the War, is also well selected for preservation. The covers are simple but attractive, and the type clear.
Messrs. Heinemann have also given us at 7s. 6d. The Hill qf Cloves, by Romer Wilson. It is, the sub-title tells us, "A Tract on True Love, with a Diversion upon An Invention of the Devil "—the latter in the shape of mechanical invention. It is mildly pleasing, but no more. The two parties to the dialogue are rather etiolated creatures for their setting, and the book hardly deserves the fine typography and decoration which the publishers have given it. It is signed by the author.
The Woburn Books, issued by Messrs. Elkin Mathews and Marrot, are not quite so moderate in price (Os. each), but they are all, we believe, the first publication of the stories in ques- tion and they are all signed by their respective authors. They are, therefore, in some sort collectors' pieces.
Of the nine of these books now before us the best worth mentioning is, perhaps, The Shout, by Robert Graves. It is the story of a lunatic, told by himself to the other scorer at a cricket match played at the asylum. In spite of its access- ories of black magic and coincidence, it is written with technical mastery. It has, in fact, in places the true fabulous simplicity. How Richard and Rachel were reunited, and Crossley, the owner of the Shout, had his soul broken into pieces is, as the narrator modestly says, " a Milesian tale of the best."
Of the rest of these little books, there is none particularly outstanding, though almost all are competent. The only exception is A Ghost in the Isle of Wight, by Shane Leslie. The story is told so quietly as to appear lame. We imagine that the quietness is intentional, but the effect is none the less boring for that.
The Male Impersonator, by E. F. Benson, is an amusing story of village gossips in their complicated circumnavigation of an " event." Alice and The Lost Novel, by Sherwood Anderson, in the same volume, arc a character sketch and short story in the author's most romantic manner. Some World Far from Ours and Stay Corydon, Thou Swain ! also in one volume, by Sylvia Townsend Warner, are short fantasies of some fascination. The Linhay on the Downs and The Firing Gatherer, by Henry Williamson, are stories of the pathos of physical suffering in an animal and a human being respectively. Full Circle, by Algernon Blackwood, is the familiar Algernon Blackwood.
A word must, however, be said about two stories which do not so easily conform to the authors' usual styles. Trial by Armes, by Joseph Hergesheimer, is in finer shades than those which we are accustomed to find in this author's work. It is also rather less competent, though the mystery of the rich father's motives in promoting his son's marriage keeps the reader thinking for a minute or two after putting the book down. The conflict between father and son is not clearly brought out. Fame, by May Sinclair, is almost a short novel. The effort to be concise has been good for Miss Sinclair, and the story is well told, though sometimes in very slipshod English. The character of the man reflected in the characters of the women he had known grows gradually throughout the book, and the final revelation is moving.
Finally, we must repeat that it is interesting to see these single stories singly, and in good format, with hard covers. Though some of them individually arc disappointing Messrs. Elkin Mathews and Marrot's venture deserves—and, we hope, is achieving—success.
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