The Books of the Year-A Retrospect
Eriousu authors and publishers-and, we believe, the book- sellers too-can look back through the, months of- the closing year with no little satisfaction.- Many notable books have appeared, and the public -interest in literature has been -keen and well sustained. Memoirs and biographies have on the whole excited most attention ; theology in the widest sense has been popular ; there have been a few good novels in a mass of very ordinary fiction. .
Two of the outstanding books of the year were concerned with the War. Mr. Winston Churchill's The World Crisis, 1916-1818 (Thornton Butterworth, 42s.), is, in the opinion of many good judges, one of the ablest literary performances of our day. The author treats a great subject in the grand manner, and his considered views will always have to be taken into account. Colonel T. E. Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert (Jonathan Cape, 30s.) has a flavour of its own. Mr. Bernard Shaw, reviewing it in our columns, said of Colonel Lawrence that " He can re-create any scene, any person, any action, by simple description, with a vividness that leaves us in more complete possession of it than could ' the sensible and true avouch of our own eyes '," and Mr. Shaw is hard to please. With Colonel Lawrence's book we may place Hie fascinating Letters of Gertrude Bell (Benn, 42s.), which show what a most gifted woman thought of the desert Arabs whom she knew even better perhaps than Colonel Lawrence does. Another War book that has been read with eagerness and that has aroused furious controversy is Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson : His Life and Diaries, by Major-General Sir C. E. Callwell (Cassell, 42s.), with its extremely candid comments on the Ministers and Generals with whom he worked during the War. Admiral Harper's The Truth About Jutland (Murray, 5s.) embodies the conclusions of the expert whom the Admiralty detailed to study the records of the battle.
The year's biographies were headed by the late Sir Sidney Lee's scholarly and valuable second volume of The Life of King Edward VII. (Macmillan, 31s. 6d.), dealing with the late King's eventful reign. Miss Kathleen Woodward's charming life of Queen Mary (Hutchinson, 7s. 6d.) has been deservedly popular. Herr Emil Ludwig's boldly impression- istic studies of Napoleon and Bismarck (Allen and Unwin, 21s. each) have been widely read, together with M. Andre Maurois' witty and sympathetic biography of Disraeli (John Lane, 12s. 6d.) and M. Maurice Paleologue's brilliant life of Cavour (Benn, 16s.). A formidable and exhaustive memoir of Turgenev, by A. Yarmolinsky (Hodder and Stoughton, 20s.), is to be recorded. But it will not please the reader half so much as the more artistic, though not less careful, Life and Letters of Joseph Conrad, by Jean Aubry (Heinemann, 42s.) ; Conrad's letters reflect only too clearly that strange self-tortured genius. The Journals of Katherine Mansfield (Constable, 7s. 6d.) is another genuine and pathetic human document. In sharp contrast is the lively and cheerful biography. of Sir _Arthur Sullivan, by his nephew, Mr. Herbert Sullivan and Mr. Newman Flower (Cassell, 21s.), which every lover of the Savoy Operas must read. Another happy book is The Diary of Lady Frederick Cgvendish, gdited by Mr. John Bailey (Murray, 80s.), which recalls mid-Victorian days with singular charm. The third volume of the Diary of a Country Parson, edited by Mr. John Beresford (Oxford University. Press, 12s. 6d.), is unfortunately the last, but the Rev. James Woodforde's homely record of his quiet life in an obscure village a hundred and more years ago is. a permanent addition to the select company of books that one may read again with increasing pleasure. Another good book of the same kind is the late George Sturt's A Small Boy in the Sixties (Cambridge University Press, 10s. 641.).
Lord Birkenhead's two substantial volumes on Law, Life and Letters (Hodder and Stoughton, 42s.) contain the reflec- tions of an able inind on mar* things, but nothing better than his fragments of autobiography: Another work of varied interest is The Book of Marriage, edited and partly written by Count Hermann KeYserling (Jonathan Cape, 21s.), - a sympdsium, as we have said; on the theory-arid practice • of this diffidult art which is well worth reading. • Mother India,•by Miss liathariee -Mayo, an American lady (Jonathan
Cape, 10s. 6d.), has stirred up a veritable tornado of- indignation in India by its drastic criticism of Hindu marriage customs and usages, and will not soon be forgotten. The most important book of the year on industrial problems in the broad sense is unquestionably Sir Alfred Mond's Industry and Politics (Macmillan, 12s. 6d.), which virtually outlines a programme for the economic regeneration of England.
If there were not a widespread interest in religion, it would be hard to account for the large number of new books on religious questions. The Impatience of a Parson, by the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard (Hodder and Stoughton, 3s. 6d.), and The Church in the World, by the Dean of St. Paul's (Longman, 6s.), are two books that have excited much comment, and Miss Maude Royden's I Believe in God (Benn, 7s. 6d.) is even more unconventional in its handling of institutional Christianity. A more serene atmosphere is to be found in Baron Friedrich von Hiigel's Selected Letters, 1896--1921, with a memoir by Mr. Bernard Holland (Dent, 21s.), which is the religious book of the year.
In fiction Mr. C. E. Montague's Right off the Map has increased the author's high reputation, since it has an ingenious and well-sustained plot as well as the brilliant style for which the author is noted. Mr. R. H. Mottram in a third volume has rounded off his Spanish Farm trilogy (Chat°, 7s. 6d.), and assured his place among the most promising of our younger novelists. Miss Margaret Kennedy in Red Sky at Morning (Heinemann, 7s. 6d.) has maintained, but not increased, the reputation that The Constant Nymph gave her. Mrs. Anne Douglas Sedgwick in The Old Cwintess (Constable, 7s. 6d.) has produced a singularly charming story of French provincial life. Mr. Wells, in conjunction with his publishers, Messrs. Benn, essayed a daring experiment with success in producing a three-volume novel, The World of William Clissold (22s. 6d.), and also wrote another novel of contemporary politics, Meanwhile (Benn, 7s. (id.), dealing with the coal stoppage of last year. Miss Myrtle Johnson, a young author still in her teens, has astonished and delighted at least one hardened reviewer by her Hanging Johnny (Murray, 7s. 6d.), which we described as " au extraordinarily mature first novel." But the novelist of whom most has been heard this year is the German, Lion Feuchtwanger, whose formidable and grim historical romances Jew Siiss and The Ugly Duchess (Seeker, 7s. 6d. each) have found many readers. Mr. E. F. Benson, reviewing Jew Sass in our columns, went so far as to say that " It is a long time since there has appeared in the English language a book of such stark unquestionable power . . . or one of such frank brutality."
We must name two good books of poetry, Requiem by Humbert Wolfe (Berm, Os.), and Thi Dark Breed by F. 11, Higgins. (Macmillan, 3s. 6d.). Lord Grey of Fallcidon has written an incomparable little book on The Charm of Birds (Hodder and Stoughton, 12s. 6d.). No review of the literary year would be complete without a grateful tribute to Messrs. Dent for their continuation of their excellent Everyman series (2s. a volume), and to Messrs. Benn for their enterprise in producing a first-rate sixpenny series of little books on great subjects, always cnnpetently handled.
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