The Penguin New Writing. No. 9. Edited by John Lehmann.
(Penguin Books. 6d.) THE success with the public of Penguin New Writing when launched last autumn has led to its making further and, let us hope, regular appearances. Its editor, in a foreword, declares that his expectation of receiving " a regular flow of stories, poems and sketches " has been rewarded by an inrush of manuscripts " in some weeks rising to flood level "; but he has also to admit being left " with a definite sense of disappointment. The MSS. which showed any quality even slightly out of the ordinary have been such a tiny proportion." It must be confessed by one reader at least that he shares this disappointment even in reading what has been printed. There are those in the list—such as C. Day Lewis, Graham Greene, Stephen Spender—who reach an expected level of competence but nothing more ; the only con- tributions in which there is something fresh said in a fresh way are by Andre Chamson, in an excellent sketch The Power of Words, translated by John Rodker, and by Yuri Olyesha, a Russian writer, whose story Love, translated by Anthony Wolfe, has true imagination. One would like to hear more of these two writers.
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