26 JANUARY 1951, Page 28

SHORTER NOTICE

Late Harvest. By S. L. Bensusan. Illustrated by Joan Rickarby. (Routledge and Kegan Paul. 16s.) Tins collection of fifty-five short sketches about people who live in the Essex Marshland continues Mr. Bensusan's study of those humble but hardly simple folk who describe themselves as " right forward " or honest. The main pleasure of the stories is the dialect, and just occasionally the charm of words deludes the author into thinking that unusual words must mean original ideas. The boy who says that a cottage is " kivered o' meese " is not really, because of this, more interesting than one who says " covered with mice." Mr. Bensusan is a good story-teller and each little sketch holds the interest till its central event is discovered, but the shortness of the tales is disappointing. They are more suited to hearing than reading, and some have already found their way to the radio. Here the pungency, the odd words, the sly huinour and moving moments have their full effect. Although, as in other regions, some of the Marsh- land folk are honest, unselfish and affectionate, and others arc treacherous, self-seeking and cold, they are one and all conditioned by poverty. Love is known, but not romance. Sorrow, more bearable as " dolour," is as constant in Marshland as in London, but there arc no agonies.