Book Notes
IT is good to see the classics gradually reappearing in the bookshops. The demand is just as great as ever, but many publishers have schemes in hand to better the supply. Many who remember the attractively produced pre-war Zodiac books published by Chatto and Windus will be glad to hear of six titles in a new series under the same imprint which were due on December 5. They are The Vicar of Wakefield, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Warden, Bar- chester Towers, Kidnapped. Then, and the information will probably pain Sir Patrick Abercrombie, the O.U.P. have added three more Trollopes to their World's Classics, Mr. Scarborough's Family, John Caldigate, The Golden Lion of Grandpere. Also on the way, and due before Christmas, are A Christmas Carol (King Penguin) and a new illustrated edition of Jane Austen's Persuasion (Avalon Press).
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Cambridge is responsible for two new books on Ibsen which appear to be, in part, complementary. Ibsen the Norwegian (Chatto and Windus), by Miss M. C. Bradbrook, a fellow (if that is the right word) of Girton, is a revaluation of the dramatist based on original research. Ibsen : the Intellectual Background (C.U.P.) is by Brian W. Downs, Fellow and Tutor of Christ's College and at one time Director of Scandinavian Studies at Cambridge. It is the account of the background of ideas, artistic conventions, and historical events against which Ibsen moved and not a biography or criticism of his writings.
* * * * The S.C.M. are responsible for a new series of Bible stories for children of six to nine years of age. Both in the style of narrative and in the presentation Torch Bible Stories break new ground. The stories are retold by Geoffrey Hoyland, and the coloured illustrations are by well-known artists with a " contemporary " outlook. The first three titles are Mr. Z's Adventure : The Story of Zacchaeus, Matthew's Party : The Calling of Levi, Wake Up! The Raising of fairus's Daughter. Also from S.C.M. is a new child's prayer book illustrated in colour and called My Own Picture Prayer Book. * * * * The titles of children's books which have been promised for Christmas are too numerous for individual mention, but attention must be drawn to Methuen's reprints of the Babar and Christopher Robin books, to Cape's reprinting of six old Arthur Ransome titles, to Hodder and Stoughton's publication of two new books by Enid Blyton called Five Go Off in a Caravan and Gay Story Book, to Allan Wingate's publication of The Glass Slipper, by Eleanor and Herbert Far jeon, which is to be produced this Christmas in London by Robert Donat for the third time. * * * *
For the Library List : Top Secret (Partridge), by Ralph Ingersoll, the facts and fancies of a junior American staff-officer ; The Heart of Another (Home and Van Thal), by Martha Gellhorn, short stories by the wife of Ernest Hemingway ; The Contemporary Theatre, 1944-45 (Harrap), by James Agate, the reprinting of articles which originally appeared in the columns of The Sunday Times. G. W.
* * * * For some time Mr. Simon Harcourt Smith has been writing each week an agreeable commentary on the uninspiring way of the world in the glossy pages of one of our contemporaries. From internal evidence it was relatively easy to guess that the author must have been a diplomat—in fact he spent eleven years in the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office—and a more than adequate historian. And both these characteristics are again evident in a pungent long essay, A Letter to a Lover of Liberty (Home and Van Thal) which, addressed to the possibly uneasy shade of Charles James Fox, deplores the present accelerating decay of freedom. * * * * This autumn there has already been a remarkably heavy crop of poetry but the end is not yet in sight. Of a number of new volumes promised for this month there are two that will be of especial interest to readers of The Spectator. Fossils of a Future Time ? (O.U.P.) is by the late W. J. Turner, who was, until his death, the Literary Editor of this journal. A Garland of Indian Poetry (Oriental Book Service) is an anthology compiled by H. G. Rawlinson, one of our regular book-reviewers. Hollis and Carter are bringing out a new collected edition of The Poems of Francis Thompson, the Cresset Press have just published Dr. H. B. McCaskie's new trans- lation of The Poems of Francois Villon, and volume one of The Collected Poems of Donald Cowie is due from The Tantivy Press on December to. Poems from New Writing 1936-46 is published today by John Lehmann.
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