29 NOVEMBER 1930, Page 30

• ON THE EDGE. By Walter de la Mare. (Faber

and Faber. 10s. 6d.)—Some of the short stories in Mr. de la Mare's new collection are frankly macabre ; others imbue " actual " life with that curiously dreamlike quality which is the writer's own, and which is full of inward vision and spiritual significance. The longest tale in the book—" At First Sight "—is a masterpiece in its mingling of the natural and the fantastic. It begins with fidelity to experience, as objectively understood, and penetrates gradually beyond "the edge" until truth becomes something gTeater than fact. Mr. de In Mare is one of those few authors who hardly need to be reviewed. His range and manner are peculiarly has own, and he is too fastidious and conscientious an artist to give us anything but his best. The schoolboy in his concluding story is one of his finest creations.