4 AUGUST 1923, Page 21

The Literary Renaissance in America. By C. E. Bechofer. (Heinemann.

6s. net.) This is rather a grandiloquent title for what is in reality a bandy little primer on the better known of the younger American prose-writers. It contains chapters on such writers rs Cabell and Hergesheimer and O'Neill, with short sum- maries of their work. Admitted that it is a difficult job, these precis are not quite so good as they might be—are not always even absolutely accurate ; but, on the whole, the book is sensible and well-informed, and can be recommended to anyone trying to " get up " the state of literature in America in a hurry.