New and Forthcoming Books
THE AUTUMN publishing season has already seen the appearance of a number of important books of varied biographical and auto- biographical interest—among those that have been reviewed in the Spectator are Noel Annan's Life of Leslie Stephen (Mac- Gibbon and Kee), the Duke of Windsor's A King's Story (Cassell),
The Pillar of Fire by Karl Stern (Michael Joseph), Blake's Hayley by Morchard Bishop (Gollancz), and two revealing but strongly contrasted collections of letters, those of Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murry (Constable) and of The Young George du Maurier (Peter Davies). Many other promising biographies are announced for publication before Christmas, notably Laurence Irving's life of his grandfather, Henry Irving : The Actor and His World (Faber), the second instalment of James Pope-Hennessy's life of Monckton Milnes, subtitled The Flight of Youth (Constable), Mr. and Mrs. Hansbn's study of Jane Welsh Carlyle, Necessary Evil (Constable), Hesketh Pearson's Dizzy, a new biography of Disraeli (Methuen), and Kenneth Robinson's pioneer life of Wilkie Collins (Bodley Head). An outstanding naval biography will be The Life and Letters of David Beatty, by Admiral W. S. Chalmers (Hodder and Stoughton).
Political biographies will include Thomas Jones's Lloyd George (Oxford University Press), The Life of George Lansbury by his son-in-law Raymond Postgate (Longmans), and W. H. Armytage's A. I. Mundella, 1825-1897, which is subtitled "The Liberal Back- ground to the Labour Movement" (Benn). Of the• forthdonaing autobiographies. none will be awaited with greater interest than the second instalment of Freya Stark's reminiscences, covering the years 1928-1933, Beyond Euphrates (Murray): the excellence of the first volume has aroused expectations. Miss V. Sackville-West will review this book in the Spectator. Also from Murray come My First Eighty Years by Dr. A. V. BaiLlie, former Dean of Windsor, and Kingdoms of Yesterday by Sir Arthur Lothian, a commentary on the last phase of British rule in India.
Messrs. Collins have announced a new series of biographies at 7s. 6d. each entitled "Brief Lives," of which the first three volumes, to be published this autumn, are on Sir Francis Drake by J. A. Williamson, Queen Victoria, by Roger Fulford, and Montrose, by C. V. Wedgwood. The venture recalls the two series on similar lines sponsored by Duckworth and Peter Davies in the 'thirties= though the prices in those days (it may mournfully be noted) were respectively 2s. and 5s. per volume. Collins apparently envisage a wide " readership ": "The aim of the authors "—says an adver- tisement—" is to tell in about 35,000 words the story of a great man or woman in English or American history in such a manner that it can be enjoyed by young readers—as it doubtless will be by their elders." In this sentence the words " young" and " doubt- less " seem to stand in special need of elucidation.
Several important historical works will be published this autumn, among them Professor Sir Charles Webster's two-volume study of The Foreign Policy of Palmerston 1830-41 (Bell), and the second volume of E. H. Carr's The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-23 (Mac- millan). Compton Mackenzie's account of the Indian Army's war-time achievements, Eastern Epic, is to come from Chatto and Windus ; and a book from Michael Joseph that promises well is The Letters of Private Wheeler, edited by Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, which contains the letters which Private William Wheeler of the 51st Regiment of Foot wrote home to his family while on Army service between 1807 and 1828. A book that is bound to arouse controversy is U.N.O. and War Crimes by Viscount Maugham, with a postscript by Lord Hankey (Murray).
In the department of poetry and criticism, there are Gerald Brenan's The Literature of the Spanish People (Cambridge University Press), which Professor Allison Peers will review for the Spectator ; Dr. Edith Sitwell's anthology, The Book of the Flower (Macmillan) ; and Professor Bonamy Dobrde's Alexander Pope (Sylvan Press). Among art books is Laurence Gowing's Vermeer of Delft (Faber).
Novels by Graham Greene, C. P. Snow, Charles Morgan, and several other established practitioners have already appeared this autumn. In the coming weeks Collins will publish Children of the Archbishop by Norman Collins ; while from Chatto and Windus will come Mr. Beluncle, V. S. Pritchett's first novel for fourteen years, from Methuen A. P. Herbert's Number Nine, or The Mind- Sweepers, and from the Cresset Press The Village by Marghanita Laski. Forthcoming first novels that arouse interest include Philip • Trower's Tillotson (Collins) and William Goyen's The House of Breath (Chatto and Windus).
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