LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 203, 22 May 1920, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

A correspondent ("M.G.H.") , asks 'Liber" to give her "a list of ten really good recent novels." She adds that she does mot like "Americans" and "detectives," nor "fiction of the Charles Garvice and Florence Barclay type," 1 comply with my correspondent's request, but with 6ome hesitation, for, in fiction, as in so 'many other things, tastes are apt to differ /However, here is my list, for whatever it may be worth:—'

. "Arrow of Gold" Joseph Conrad. ■ "September," Prank Hwynnerton. "Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant." Gilbert Erankau. . "Tho llaBk," John Cournos. ""Sir Limpidus." Marmaduke' Pickthall. , Mrs.. Marden,' Kobert Hichcns. Tho House" of Baltasar." W. J. Locke. . "Legend," Olemenco Dare. .''Shepherd's Warning," Erio Leadbetter. . 'The Great Kouse," Stanley Weyuian. Despite my correspondent's expressed barring of "Americans," I would also warmly recommend' Christopher Alorley's "Haunted Bookshop.''' Some of the novels on this list ''Liber" has read in "advance'copies," courteously sent hini by the publishers, and tho regular trade supplies may not havo yet reached tho Now Zealand bookshops. They may not be all immediately procurable locally, but they can bo ordered. Unfortunately many of the best novels nowadays do not como out in "colonial and are consequently more expensive. , Amongst the many presents given to rihe Prince of Wales during the visit which closes this week was a. copy of Mr. Thomas Buiclr*s "Old Marlborough,", presented to the Prince when he was at Blenheim. The bcokwa9 specially and handsomely,bound by Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs, It would not ,be a bad idea were the Government to send the Prince a set of historical' works dealing with New Such a gift 'would be an agreeablo change'from the inevitable caskets and so forth. Sir Harry Johnson, who wrote that clever novol, "The Gay Dombeys," in which the author introduced a number of characters who are supposed to bo descendant of the leading figures in "Dombey and Son," has written a new story, "Mrs. Warren's Daughter," which is described as a sequel to George Bernard Shaw's-play, "Mrs. Warren's Profession," the most unpleasant of his "Plays Unpleasant." One might have imagined that-what witTi Blr. W. L. George's "Bed of Roses" Mr. Arnold Bennett's "Pretty Lady," and Mr. Gilbert Cnnnan ? s "PinK Roses," the demimonde had been sukV cicntly exploited'in latter-day English 'fiction.'- The Victorian 'novelists are' often belittled —by people who havo nover read their works—for their "cowardly avoidance" of certain ugly phases oi life, 'but it is an open question whether their alleged "cowardice" be not preferable to the excessive realism of certain novelists of the new Georgian period. As' a great- French critic once eaid, apropos of Zola and the De Goncourts, "life may have its muck heaps, but why explore them intimately."

Joseph Conrad's latest novel, "Tho Rescuo," which ran as a ( serial story in "Land and Watot," will be out very shortly in volume form. Meanwhile the last year' 6 Conrad, "Tho Arrow of Gold," is reported to bo still selling well, although it has failed so'far lo pleaso tho "big public" as much as did "Victory." A complete collected edition of 31. G. Wells's stories is, I see, rumoured to be in preparation. Personally, lam not keen on complete editions, and whenever I sco long rows of volumes by one author I wilt away. Uniformity does not greatly appeal to me, although I confess to having succumbed io the charms of a complete Stevenson and a similarsct of Thomas Hardy. 33ut H. G. Wells scarcely seems to me to hn wprthy of tho honour of a complete uniform edition. For my own part, lam content -with ■my "Kipps" (a eevenpimny— alas, where are now the sevenpennies of pre-war time?), my "Love and Mr. Lewisham" (one of the earliest and best of the Wells- books, and very largely, I am told, autobiographical), the delightfully humorous "Mr. : Polly," and that strongest, most scornful of satiro on modern commercialism, the inimitable "Tono Bungay." To these add that half-forgotten comedy, "The Wheels of Chance, the roinnnhc adventures of a draper's assistant on an old-timo "boneshaker," and a little one-volume Election ofshort stories, oud I am (juito content to bo without Wells's many psoudosciontilic and semi-political stories. But chacun a son gout, and no doubt there are many to'whom a "complcto Wells" will provo an' exceeding joy. One gets just a little ' fid up"—to >so a popular. but usoful bit of latter-day slang—with tho "puffs preliminary" which are being circulated with regard to Mrs. Asquith s autobiography, shortly to be published. The latest bit of advance reclame, which I road in an English periodical, is that "right through the Paisley election campaign Mrs. Asquith worked at it (the autobiography) for sevoral hours a day, often beginning at six o'eftock in the morning, before there was daylight." Tho book, I read in another "par.," concocted, no doubt, in the publisher's advertising department, is expeoted to bo "blazingly indiscreet." And so on, and so on.