BOOKS.
THIS WEEK'S BOOKS.
Orro BRAUN, whose Diary is published in translation by Messrs. Heinemann, was a German youth of great energy and beauty of character who was killed in the trenches at the age of twenty-four. The wideness of his interest and the depth of his mind was astonishing from childhood : at the age of twelve he possessed " a knowledge of German literature which would do honour to a candidate for a doctorate," and had learnt. Greek in order to study the pre- Socratics. He was, however, free from any disagreeable precocity : he was " such as one might well suppose the boy Goethe to have been." This edition of the Diary includes extracts from his letters and translations from his poems ; and, though nothing shows the completeness or maturity of good creative work, we gain from it an impression of a most engaging and lovable spirit. The Journal of Marie Leneru (Macmillan) has a different poignancy : it is turbulent, speculative, sceptical and profoundly egotistic. Mlle. Leneru was a modern• French playwright who struggled for twenty years with the afflictions of poor sight and complete deafness.
Mr. Carleton Browne has edited a collection of Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century (Clarendon Press), and anyone who can overcome the slight difficulties of language (no worse than in dialect poems) will find himself very well rewarded. Mrs. Olwen Ward Campbell excuses herself for writ- ing Shelley and the Unromantics (Methuen) by reminding us that Shelley seems to change in each fresh interpretation of his life ; and that it will give us a more stable and satisfactory view of him if we contrast him with his friends and with his surroundings. We have received from Messrs. Macmillan Kestrel Edge, five new poetic plays by Mr. Wilfred Gibson.
The Barsetshire Novels of Anthony Trollope are published in eight volumes by Messrs. Bell. Mr. Rabindranath Tagore has written, in Gora (Macmillan), a novel of " stronger dramatic interest " than his others. The Best Short Stories of 1923 (No. 1 : English) is produced by Mr. Jonathan Cape and edited by Mr. E. J. O'Brien and Mr. John Cournos.
The Trustees of the British Museum publish a book of reproductions from The Lindisfarne Gospels. There are three plates in colour and thirty-six in monochrome, and a detailed introduction of forty pages by Mr. E. G. Millar.
THE LITERARY Enrron.
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