The widespread fame of Mr: Charles Garvice, whose death has just been announced, was a phenomenon less for the literary critic to examine than for the expert in national psychology, says the "Manchester Guardian." From the standpoint of Mterature it is. very "easy to scoff at this achievement; so little indeed of fine wri ing or of the authentic novel technique was in his books that it might seem the easiest thing in the world for any man or woman at all skilful with the pen to turn out similar stuff at will. Even his admirers will tell you "there is nothing in Garvice" in the way of craftsmanship. Nevertheless there are, on any day in the year, hundreds of writers all over the world trying to emulate Garvice's success—clever writers, too, with long practice at the job. Yet Garvice had his 7,000,000 readers, while most of his imitators can hardl; afford to pay their typewriters: bills, To say that Garvice merely glorified the modern "flapper," by presenting her in a setting to which her half-baked romantic aspirations readily turned, only begs the question of his conquests. A good many of us' would be Willing. to "glorify" our typists at Garvice's fee if we knew the formula. And pure formula it surely must have been, for not only was he " prolific writer, but his vast output necessitated a minimum of brainwork, fundamental or other. He himself admitted he did not take his work seriously. His vogue was the more difficult to understand inasmuch as he did not exploit the dubious sensationalism which make too much of our popular fiction. He simply took commonplace people and moistened them with commonplace sentiment. And, after all. there is a surprising number of commonplace people in the world: With all his slack of art, it is probable that Garvice had a shrewd inet for precisely those elements of human nature dominant in the majority of his countrywoman and for that matter. his country men too. For though they will never admit it, men did read Garvice, and will persist as long as any-women in doing so.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.