Te Pre or Ovemcoon—By Edward Woodward. ""Huteninson, London Bram Seaker was born in a Jearavan and, although the blood of 2 gentlemanly inherited circus at the peak of its prosperity, and puts his plan into faction by purchasing a" country estate and its stable. He unfor-[Gunately comes into violent contact with crooks and the story depicts the Guerilla warfare between good and evil forces. Apart from the racing and gang interest, an appealing love story is_woven throughout and the Tender finds the book at moments breathless in its undlagsing interest. Mr. Woodward shows an intimate Knowledge of life on the Turf and makes the story thoroughly enjoy-
Wright.
Vernon Stokes. Allen Unwin, London.
Dan, the hero of a dozen stories, comprised under the title, is the lead er of @ gang of stray dogs who live The Protie ano tar Geemur A Centenary Study of Charles Lamb-—By Ward. Methuen, London. 6/~ It is very seldom that the study of an author's life is as edifying as a study of his work, and the lives of only too many of our greatest authors were better left "in obscurity. With Lamb, however, it is otherwise, for apart from. his addiction. to smoking and the bottle, surely ver) venial offences even when occasional might be proud to imitate. His devation to his sister, his scholarship which his wide humanity gave life, hhis calm and philosophic outlook are all qualities which we appreciate the more owing to the fact that they are: 80 rare to-day. Lamb was, however, only what many men have been before and will be again, but he differed" from them in this, that carried his very "averageness" to perfection.
"The Keynote of his writing is sincerity, and there can be few authors who are as sincere as he. One feels as one reads that here is someone who really telling us what he thinks and feels, without reservation, and] with infinite tact, That this is what hho himself intended we may infer from the fact that he goes to such trouble to conceal his identity, for} apart from using a pseudonym (I am speaking, of course, only of the essays), he is careful always to con+ fuse the names of places and persons, and at times even to talk of himself by name as one of his friends. Surely all devices adopted out of a feeling of modesty, of shame lest his innermost thoughts attached irrevocably to him should become too public. He only really Decomes great when he at last frees hhis personality from his name, and were it not for the fortunate device of the Elia pseudonym, adopted only_ in middle age when' his collected works had already been published, English literature would be poorer bby the essays of Elia, and the name of Charles Lamb, except perhaps in Conjunction with' that of his sister, would be unknown; -for his early, work contains little that would arest our attention.
The two works on Lamb that form the heading of this review have lit-in common unless it be that both fare about Lamb and that both are fu their way first-class. Mr. Lucas already known as an expert in this field, and the papers included in the Uitle volume "At the Shrine of St Charles" deal only with one or two minor details in Lamb's life, and while they 2re all interesting in themselves presuppose a knowledge! of Lamb's rife and work almost wide as Mr. Lueas's own. They can, however, be read with pleasure everyone and may even have the Deneficial result of driving their readers to Mr. Lucas's own great) life of Charles Lamb in two volumes, or even better, begging Mr. Lucas's pardon, tothe Essays themselves. Lovers of London will find a lump rising in their throats as they read Of Pickering Place and the "Coffee BINI" "a few yards from the foot of] St. James St. on the left as you ée-scend the hill," where Mr." Lucac unearthed the' curious information that Lamb in 1814, when he was thirty-nine, "turned the scale in his boots at 8%t. 5 1b"; but this is only] one among many other delightful ieees of information collected in these papers. Do you know, for 'n-stance, who" Hell-fire Dick—was? Well, you can find on: all about him pages 80-82.
Very different in purpose and_execution is "The Frolic and the Gen-
"""rodger & Stoughton, London. 7/6. who like English country Savoured with little county society. Somewhat reminiscent of Mr. Beverley Nichols' "Down the Garden Path," end "A Thatched Roof," in that one seems to get the very essence of the country with all its absorbing inter-fest, but with much more human feel-ting and a wealth of incident, mixed with a pleasant philosophy and wis JGom, which is both refreshing and helpful, All the characters, and there fare many, both the simple country folk, and the more, sophisticated feounty, are so well drawn and so true 1 type, that one feels one almost Knows them.
When the story opens, Dr. Frazer, Jan eminent London physician, at the height of his success, has met with tragic accident whereby he will be rippled for life. He retires with his faithful _manservant to a charming cottage on the borders of Hampshire, there expecting to live in desolation and loneliness for the rest of his existence, He finds, however, that life in the country can be as full of interest as one chooses to make it, and soon he knows everyone, and [with his sympathy and understand Ing wins the confidence of all, and st is. through his tact and cleverness {that he straightens out all the tangles in their lives. So he was the "terry~ man" not only because he owned the Terry rights across a river running through his property, but because helped his fellow men across the [waters of doubt and uncertainty. well written pleasing book that everyone should enjoy—atr.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.