21 APRIL 1906, Page 25

The Art and Craft of the Author. By C. E.

Heisch. (Elliot Stock. 2s. 6d. net.)—Miss Heisch gives some excellent counsel, which will do as much as counsel can do for the improving of an author's work. She says judicious things, and she fortifies her precepts with good illustrations. One thing the reader may well learn from Miss Heisch's chapters : he will see what the special excellences of authors whom he has vaguely admired really are. After all, it is in small, or what seem small, suggestions that the utility of such a book as this will often be found. Two may be specially emphasised : read aloud whatever you write ; talk over your subject, if possible before you deal with it, certainly before your treatment assumes its final shape. It is amazing how fertile in suggestion conversation is.