THE NAKED LADY By Bernard Falk
The Naked Lady (Hutchinson, 18s.) presents a neat psycho- logical problem : Will the title sell the book, or will readers' better natures be outraged by its price ? It is a poor bargain in anything but quantity. The lady of the title was Adah Isaacs Menken an American actress of dubious reputation, and no ability, who achieved notoriety by appearing in an " act " entitled " Mazeppa," in which the audience beheld her clad in pink silk fleshings and a brief skirt, strapped to the back of a horse. She came to London in 1864, where she became a succes de seandak, and was able to gratify her own ambition of associating with as many literary lights as possible. The author does his prolix best to paint her as a strange, unhappy victim of ambition, and a renowned beauty worthy to be the prototype of Swinburne's " Dolores," which she is supposed to have inspired. But he cannot dis- guise the vulgarity of her character, or the absence of any real interest in her career. His style is ponderous and dis- cursive ; he is too. fond of referring to the irony of Fate ; and he is guilty of an absurd caricature of the '60s. as a world equally divided between fanatical prudery and " unbridled " licence. Perhaps the most interesting thing in 'the• book ds an appendix containing some of Menken's poems, which imitate those of Walt Whitman.
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