Jottings

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 23, 18 December 1931, Page 40

Jottings

"HE RUNNING FOOTMAN" is a story of the eighteenth. century, when romance ran riot, and where men and women were decidedly more. callous toward the sufferings of their.employees than would be tolerated in these enlightened days. Its author, Mr. John Owen, may be relied upon to tell his tale with subtlety and: appreciation of the less obvious beauties of life and love; and in this tale of. John Deere, who took service with an arrogant aristocrat, there is a wealtl® of delightful detail, .The life below stairs is done excellently well, even at that far-back period there existing bravely socialistic rebels within the social. order, who loudly insisted that all men are equal. But it is upon the menial who runs before the great one’s coach that interest centres-the gentle and chivalrous menial, with bis hopeless, chivalric love for the governess, whose humble and true knight he becomes. * * % jy "Tess Than the Dust" Mr. Joseph Stamper gives his readers the odyssey of a down-and-out, Nothing is extenuated, and the poverty that brings strange bedfellows, the horrors of a night in the doss-house, and the apathetic attitude of society are presented without fear or favour. All sorts and conditions of men and women are encountered in the hopeless trek of an out-of-work, with unexpected gestures of kindness from a criminal who has done time for manslaughter, a bit of human flotsam belonging to an alien race, and a frank and friendly daughter of joy, now too old to continue to follow her immemorial calling. The book gives a tragic picture of life in the raw, and -raises many questions, or rather reasserts apparently insuperable difficulty of adjusting, with any degree of success. the industrial and economic problems at present confronting the world, s * * TILL another Wodehouse riot of uproarious adventure, compact of the usual-popular mixture, In "If I Were You" sport a lovely manicurist, a Socialist barber, an earl’s son who is the fiance of the metallic daughter of a millionaire soapmaker, and the rest of the jovial crew. There is much play on mistaken identity and a skeleton in the family cupboard. we have the fine flower of the witty Wodehouse tradition, and the mixture can be recommended to those who do not tire of this particular brand of literary merry-go-round.

ALTHOUGH he admits playing editor, Major Wren would have us take "Sowing Glory" not as fiction bu t as the real memoirs of "Mary Ambree,’ an Englishwoman who joined the French Foreign Legion. Whether it"be fact or fiction or a cunning mixture of both-and it is known that a woman once did manage to join the Legion with her twin brother-the book is good to read. Mary duly joins up with her pal, the disgraced Terence Hogan, and not only hears the most exciting stories from her comrades, but meets with exciting adventures herself. In other words, Mr. Wren is at his brightest and best. R. ANTHONY GIBBS has chosen in "The New Crusade" a subject that periodically crops up and never fails dovecots. Surely in a merry mood the to cause a flutter in the conventionel f author created Lord: Surbiton, an al truistic Croesus, who dreams dreams of a race of supermen who, with their female mates, shall always: be healthy and happy and nude. But his plans go agley, as is the way of plans the world over, and though his crusade is ultimately established it is at considerable material and spiritual cost. Bu t money speaks, and after a time the leader, the excellent and courageous " Dawk, has numberless disciples. We are introduced to the world in the very near future, where hundred-story ‘skyscrapers rear themselves in- Fleet Street, and London rollicks along in the wildest form. Mr. Gibbs’s novel is broad burlesque, and excellent of its kind. ® * * TWO decades ago everyone read "The Roadmender" and "The Grey Brethren," and now the complete works -a regrettably slim collection-of the author of those tender, thoughtful, wise sketches have been published in one volume. "Michael Fairless," to give Margaret Fairless Barber the pen-name she adopted and which became so. beloved by a very large circle of readers, was a valiant worker for the maimed, the halt, and the blind, and known as the "Wighting Sister" of the London slums, where she literally fought a good figh t in street brawls, in her endeavour to succour the perishing and oppressed. Only J thirty-two when she died, her last years were spent in the enforced leisure 0 ¢/ an invalic, and it was then that she found time to write those books, which have proved a solace and. joy to thou sands, in which were mirrored her brave spirit, artistic gifts, and mystica faith. ; i