The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 10

10 THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN FRIDAY JULY 9 1954 BATSFORD CASE OF CONSCIENCE a rainy day WARREN HASTINGS KEITH FEILING 'This masterly life. C. V. Wedgwood in The Bookman. 'A colourful tapestry, as enthralling as a The Times.

Book Society Recommendation. Illustrated. 30s. Arthur Koestler The Invisible Writing The finest analy is I have read of the very complicated reasons why people become Communists, and then, if they are still alive, become Perhaps the most remarkable autobiography since Rousseau." NEW STATESMAN DAILY MAIL CHGfCE With Hamish Hamilton Illustrated 21s. John Moore The White Sparrow New novel by the creator of Brensham and many charming novels of English country life.

As beautifully written as ever." MANCHESTER GUARDIAN An honest, acute, and extremely well observed telegraph 10s. 6d. The World of the Honeybee Colin G. Butler One of the best books of this century on uel jnl. "An excellent guide to the mysteries of bee life.

For the general reader as well as for the bee keeper. Copiously illustrated with fine close-up photographs." Yorkshire pos H9 photographs. 21s. By NOEL ANNAN to tell Tom Stent that instead of pleading his suit he had made Tom's girl his mistress, or when he determined to return to Anne Stent knowing that however he acted he would do evil. Here, then, in the form of autobiography is Constant's Adolphe." Here is a character from the pages of Richardson, or a counterpart to George Eliot's portrait of the young doctor in Middlemarch." It is a study in conscience, and only those who know nothing of human nature or literature will scoff at the analysis which Stephen makes of his will.

Like many great stories it can be read in different ways in the way that Stephen saw it, as a miraculous example of the workings of God, who turned a passionate and wilful nature to do good in the world or as a triumph of goodness of heart and clarity of mind and force of character over circumstances which would have crushed most young men or though think this would be entirely wrong as a singular example of the ability of the godly to persuade themselves that whatever is most advantageous to them is also God's will. These memoirs are edited by Mr M. M. Bevington, who knows more about the Stephen family than anyone else and is one of the leading American scholars on nineteenth-century England. He is a model of accuracy, discretion, and good judgment.

What a relief to read such a well-presented book by one of our ancestors instead of reading more books about them Parochial That no Englishman could find it impossible to read Geoffrey Grigson's Freedom of the Parish (Phoenix, pp. 203, 21s) is a statement that says more about Englishmen than about this book. The parish in question Pelynt, in East Cornwall is as ordinary as any in England. The author rambles and speculates, with the amiable piety of a country parson's son. about its undistinguished past and its unremarkable present, its buildings and barrows, fauna and flora, villagers and visitors.

His discourse is blessedly free from sentimental Cornishery," but equally devoid of the poetic quality that might universalise its microcosmic subject matter. For him, indeed, what gives thing significance is not that it partakes of a wider reality, but just that it is particular to Pelynt. So strong, however, is our civilisation's race-memory of its parochial cradle that people who could not care less about Pelynt will find the result a most agreeable bedside companion provided they do not want to stay awake D. S. The Memoirs of James Stephen.

Edited by Merle M. Bevington. Hogarth Press. Pp. 439.

30s. James Stephen died in 1832, a revered member the Clapham Sect, a notable opponent of slavery and the beloved friend of William Wilberforce, whose sister he had married on the death of his first wife. One of his sons was "Stephen on Pleading," another Sir James, the Colonial Under-Secretary, who drafted the bill which freed the slaves in British Colonies. Among his descendants are numbered Fitzjames and Leslie Stephen, A. V.

Dicey, J. K. Katharine Stephen of Newn-ham, Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Adrian Stephen, Quentin Bell, and several distinguished lawyers in this country and in Australia. He wrote his memoirs for his children in his prosperous old age, but they do not relate to the time of his success. They cover the first 25 years of his life when he was desperately poor and without a settled job, the victim of a father who had failed and they are a document of absorbing interest, not merely of late eighteenth-century London or of a segment of the middle class hovering on the brink of bankruptcy and destitution, but of a powerful and acute conscience strug gling tor mastery over a passionate will, sinning and repenting, equivocating and controverting, determined to gain self-respect and win a place in the world by turning his talents to good use.

Stephen's father was not without ability, but in his case his determination to be independent was nullified by his rashness and passion, which led him to fail in business, quarrel with his associates, champion hopeless causes in law, and which brought him to the debtors' prison he sank lower and lower, picking up legal bv.siness in taverns, and bringing his large family down with him. His was a typical Scots background of a kind to rouse Dr Johnson's ire. The Stephens were descended from an Aberdeenshire laird and considered themselves, and were accepted, as gentlemen some made their way others felt, in Disraeli's words that only want of a few rascal counters stood between them and success, and one of the tortures which James Stephen's youthful pride endured was having to solicit loans from his disapproving relatives. It is astonishing to see how cheaply one could live in the 1770s and still retain respectabilitv and how desperately the family fought to retain their status rather than fall into the pit of trade or dependency or worse and one can also catch a glimpse here of the amusements and diversions which were open to the middle classes when voung Stephen was a reporter in the House of Commons. Objector By Gerard Fay William Douglas Home's Hall Term Report (Longmans, pp.

209, 15s) is mainly a piece of self-justification for behaviour in the Army which made him proud to exercise the glorious privilege of being independent." His explanation of why, holding peculiar views on war, he continued as an officer candidate and took a commission is artistic as writing rather than convincing as argument. His last gesture of refusing to take part in an attack has a truer ring about it. It led to his being cashiered and sent to prison (where he gathered material for the play Now Barabbas The reason he refused to fight was that he thought the civilians should have been evacuated from Le Havre before it was attacked. They should have been. Thousands of them need not have died in the bombardment.

Mr Home made a useless gesture which caused pain and shame to many people, but for once his motive was absolutely clear. Before Calais was enveloped in battle a request for civilian evacuaton was granted. "Hardly daring lo believe" (Mr Home writes) that I had been instrumental in this new departure from the custom at Le Havre. I yet found it difficult to believe that it could be onlv a coincidence that the request and permission for a civilian evacuation from Calais had been received and granted on the same dav as the publication of the story of my protest at Le Havre. Perhaps he was right and perhaps disgrace and imprisonment were a reasonable price to pay, but one is sun left in doubt about whether it is proper for a border-line objector to get himself so involved in war that men look to him for leadership and fail to get it.

Treasure The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen is rounded off with a treasure, Dr Chapman's bringing together of the Minor Works (Oxford University Press, pp. viii. 474. 21s). Hitherto they have been scattered among seven or eight different books, some of them hard to come by.

It is more than another of his many pious services to the immortal memory. If the Juvenilia are often thin the irony is delightfully turned and gives foretaste of what is to come. But as we advance through Lady Susan and The Watsons and still more when we reach Sanditon." regrets tantalise. Sanditon bore promise of being as great as anything Jane Austen wrote. It deserves to be much better known.

It has bite and a broader vein of comedy than usual. Even if she might later have toned down the fierceness it would have been something quite different. As it is the atmosphere of the South Coast Regency watering-place is inimitable. If it were to have been a three-volume novel on the lines of Emma we have only a sixth, but fragment though it is it deserves to be read in its own right. This is a unique gift book the recipient who already has all that is collected here must be rare indeed.

ENGLISH CHILDREN'S BOOKS 1600 1900 Percy Muir This important work is by a leading authority. The illustrations are as charming as they are valuable. "A mine of reference for collectors, librarians and publishers." Manchester Guardian Weekly SCOTLAND IN COLOUR Moray McLaren A. F. Ker sting The colour photographs are the finest yet published in book form; Moray McLaren's long accompany' ing essay is a brilliant piece of descriptive writing.

15s CORSETS AND CRINOLINES Norah Waugh This study the female silhouette from the 16th to the 20th centuries makes absorbing reading for the general reader as well as for the social historian and student of costume. 42 CONTEMPORARY EMBROIDERY DESIGN Joan Nicholson This stimulating, copiously illustrated book, breaking away from traditional designs, gives the modern embroiderer hundreds of original motifs and applications. With full practical instructions. 16s CLEVER MR TWINK by Freda Hurt Illustrated by Nina Scott Langley This feline hero will quickly become a favourite. The writer knows how to make a happy approach to the love of gangsterism in all children, and supplies the just retribution that their ideas of morality demand Liverpool Daily Post 7s 6d net CHILDREN'S PRAYER TIME by Donald Soper, M.A., Ph.D.

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Illustrated, 6s net ROMANY'S CARAVAN RETURNS by C. Kinnaird Evens Never since Romany died has his love of nature and outdoor life been recaptured quite so stirringly as in this latest book by his son. 7s 6d net 14 WHAT-DO-YOU-KNOW-STORIES by Leila Berg These stories are the work of a gifted story-teller who knows how to charm the mind of a child by rhythmic phrasing and the fine use of repetition. Illustrated, is 6d net 25-35 CITY ROAD LONDON I What Did It Mean? ANGELA THIRKELL Coronation Year in Barsetshire provides the setting for Mrs. Thirkell's latest and gayest novel.

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net. BLACKIE Recent Books THE LOST VILLAGES OF ENGLAND Maurice Beresford Many English villages were des-troyed during the Tudor period, of which the author has found over 450 sites. Here he discusses the reasons for their depopulation. It should be an inspiration to economic historians Manchester Guardian. Illustrated 45s net I DRANK THE ZAMBEZI Arthur Loreridgc The enthralling personal account of an African safari.

The author's descriptions his encounters with strange animals, and his colourful adventures make this one of the best travel books in recent years. Illustrated 15s net Lutterworth Press READING DAVID ST ACTON Delightful account, delightfully illustrated, of a fascinating young Frenchman's travels in John Company's India. Deserves to be best-seller." Birmingham Post. Demy 8vo Illustrated 16- net GUY COLE The remarkable adventures of a polio victim who sailed the Atlantic in a racing yacht. A good deal of very useful advice in a highly personal and highly entertaining story." Yachts Yachting.

Demy 8vo Illustrated 16I' net ALEXANDER CORDELL A novel about those forgotten heroes who developed our war weapons in constant danger of death. Intensely gripping." Liverpool Daily Post. 10! 6 net SPIKE HUGHES A joy for enthusiasts, whether of county or coarse cricket." Reynolds News. Very funny." Observer. 2nd large printing.

Illustrated y6 net PRESS LTD. 1660-1840 cuvirs MURRAY. But the climax of the book is Stephen's story of his heart. As a boy he had fallen in love with a Miss Stent, whose parents forbade him the house. Later he renewed his suit and became unofficially engaged.

She asked Stephen to plead the suit of her brother one of Stephen's closest friends with a girl whom she knew well. Stephen then fell in love with this girl, betrayed his friend, had an illegitimate child by her, finally broke with her, returned to Miss Stent, and nearly had an affair with the mistress of the Duke of Gordon while he was preparing to marry his first love. The deceptions he practised and the explanations he furnished to both girls were all made at a time when he was praying daily to God for guidance and the memoirs break off as he leaves after his marriage for the West Indies to join his brother and make his fortune. A hypocritical cad By no means. Stephen describes with sincerity and candour his state of mind, never excusing himself, minutely noting the power of self-deception possible to the human mind.

His memoirs are a masterly exposition of the Evangelical vision of life. He never doubts that all twists of fate and all apparently random decisions are the work of God, who, wrestling for his soul, ordains his salvation and that all his wrongdoing was the offspring of a sinful will insufficiently humbled. If his prayers were not answered it was, he muses, because God saw that the evil desires in his heart were still uppermost when they were answered it was not for any merit in him but as a sign of God's mercy when he fell into further sin it was because Satan had become his taskmaster. He writes his memoirs as the tale of his deliverance and salvation. Yet he is never unctuous.

He knew at the time that he was behaving badly towards the Stents, and his struggles to redeem himself are the index of a decent and upright character exceedingly perplexed by finding that a man could genuinely be in love with two girls at the same time. Nor can one doubt the agonies of conscience which he suffered when he had Squire Frog and Mr Rat, an illustration by Momca Walker from Ditties for the Nursery," reviewed on page 11 HOODED By Norman The Home Letters of T. E. Lawrence and His Brothers. Oxford Blackwell Pp.

xvi. 731. 3 3s. It is no wonder that T. E.

Lawrence continues to haunt the imagination. His significance lies less in what he did or in what he wrote than in what he was the first characteristic hero of our age, doomed to be torn if not cancelled out by contradictions. If he had not lived he might have been invented in theatrical terms and acted, with a sort of drab brilliance, by Mr Alec Guinness the ranker general, the self-conscious man of action preoccupied with ruins and machines, the religious man without a creed, fiercely self-effacing, preserving his ego by retreating into the herd, hurrying at the end to a pointless death. A born actor and up to all sorts of tricks," Bernard Shaw (whom he so admired) misleadingly said of him. The part he played was compulsive.

He was a conscript in the internal drama of battling opposites, the Hamlet of our day. Here are some hundreds of letters written to his family over thirty years, only a few of which have been published (wholly or in part) before. Useless to look in this new material for much of literary value in the usual sense. Whac we find is the trying out of gesture and voice, the dedicated actor at rehearsal. We see the passion for detail, the egotism (can he really have thought his mother to be interested in all that data about ruined driven by a surging mental energy, the sardonic humour.

Poor father he is writing in 1911 his sons are not going to support his years by the gain of their professions and trades. One is a missionary one an artist of sorts and a wanderer after sensations one thinking of lay education work one in the Army, and one too small to think. Then he adds, as if remembering his part One of us must surely get something of the unattainable we are all feeling after." We read of his love of plains, of the great and unbroken level of peaceful-ness." It is when we come to the excavations that we get the first strong sense of stage properties being quietly prepared for some ruthless oriental show. Here is the alarming tranquillity of the Lawrence world in action, or getting ready for action. The countryside out here is very quiet," he writes from Car-chemish there have been no religious troubles or suspicion of them for a year and a half and Ibrahim Pasha, the Kurd chief of Kiranshehir, was poisoned nine months back by the Vali of Aleppo so there is complete peace." The things they dig up are casually reported a relief inscription, some Roman coins and some god-heads, the bronze greaves of a Hittite soldier, a sculpted demon with horns and bull's legs.

Then, from Egypt, a sudden scene of Elizabethan horror. It is a strange sight to see the men Bloomfield little younger than those titans, was by disposition on Thackeray's side leaning to that "allegiance to Truth and Nature," or introvert observation, which Dickens found so sublimely dispensable for him characters grew on gooseberry bushes. Disraeli's Sybil is probably more often read to-day than Mrs Gaskell's Mary Barton (published three years later), but I quote Miss Tillotson quoting Disraeli knew his material as a traveller knows the botany of a strange she as an ardent naturalist knows the flora of his own The neighbourhood in question was, of course, Manchester, and the subject the plight of the kind of people on whom Britain's prosperity was going more and more to depend. In its 22 miles from Axe Edge until it ioins the Weaver at Northwich the river Dove passes through some attractive moorland scenery and through some of the most characteristic bits of pastoral Cheshire. Mr Clifford Rath-bone's Dove Valley Story (Macclesfield Press, pp.

x'ii. 84, 2s) is a well-illustrated guide which draws attention to many unfamiliar places it originally appeared as articles in the Macclesfield Times." I a to a to a a to TO NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM DAVID MARCUS A novel about the dilemma of a young Jew living in a small Irish town, of his love affair with a non-Jewish girl, and his urge to join the struggle in Palestine and settle there. 12s. 6d. THE NEW MEN C.

P. SNOW The much talked-of novel about the discovery of nuclear fission. A great book, part of a great Richard Church. 12s. 6d.

THE WHITEOAK BROTHERS MAZO DE LA ROCHE With each of the long series of the Whiteoak chronicles, Mazo de la Roche adds to our feeling of intimacy with her Daily Telegraph. 12s. 6d. AN IMPOSSIBLE MARRIAGE PAMELA HANSFORD JOHNSON An obviously successful novel, sharp in outline and moving at a cunning Time and Tide. 12s.

6d. FOR YOUNGER READERS THE ADVENTURE OF WHALING FRANK CRISP The amazing story of whale-hunting from earliest times to the present day, told by a man who is himself a seafarer with experience aboard a whale-catcher. Illustrated. 6s. 6d.

ACMILLAN The Medieval French Drama GRACE FRANK This is the first history in English of the medieval French drama. It incorporates the latest results of scholarly research, appraises as literature the many plays examined, and discusses the competence of their authors as dramatists. Published today: 30s. net The Doctor's Disciples A Study of Four Pupils of Arnold of Rugby: Stanley, Gell, Clougb, JVilliam Arnold FRANCES J. WOODWARD Four biographical studies which present, in quotations from letters, and by their perceptive criticism, well-drawn portraits of these typical Victorians.

There is also an essay on Thomas Arnold and his influence. 21s. net OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Graham Greene and the heart of the matter MARIE-BEATRICE MESNET A critical study of the work of one of the few living masters of fiction. For an independent evaluation of this important book, see the review by Miss fanet Adam Smith in the Nezv Statesman and Nation of July 3rd. ios 6d net CRESSET PRESS COLLINS LEWIS CARROLL aged 13 wrote and illustrated Useful and Instructive Poetry Highly amusing EASTERN DAILY PRESS Full of happiness SUNDAY TIMES Charmingly produced DAILY TELEGRAPH "Mischievously instructional NEWS CHRONICLE 6s A first novel by PAMELA DUNCAN Too Quick Despairer Miss Duncan's insight into character, her poetic feeling for language, make this a distinguished achievement.

Charmingly evocative JOHN o' LONDON'S ios 6d Still Going Strong T. W. TURNER'S Memoirs of a Gamekeeper (Elveden 1868-1953) It will go on my shelf beside Richard efferies HENRY WILLIAMSON Illustrated 2nd imp. 15s Another children's book by J. G.

LOCKHART Mrs. Macnab goes West Mrs. Macnab is even more masterful than ever with Roaring Bill and Little Jake Illustrated ys 6d GEOFFREY BLES HOLIDAY A RIDE ON A TIGER SAILING IN IRONS A THOUGHT OF HONOUR COARSE CRICKET MUSEUM a EAGLE Shrapnel forcing open a square wooden coffin, and taking out the painted anthropoid envelope within, and splitting this up also to drag out a mummy, not glorious in bright wrappings, but dark brown, fibrous, visibly rotting and then the thing begin come lo pieces, and the men tear off its head, and bare the skull, and the vertebrae drop out and the ribs, and the legs and perhaps only one poor amulet is the result: the smell and the sights are horrible." But the Elizabethan would have seen all mortality in a single skulL Lawrence, with a pile that would do credit to follower of Genghis Khan," manages keep very cool about it. Hamlet is suffering from over-production. The war letters are tight-lipped signals from it is his own word a monomaniac.

In glimpses we see him blowing up locomotives, killing Turks, reluctantly accepting decorations and promotions have now given me D.S.O. Also apparently I'm a colonel of sorts Afterwards the story flickers past like an old newsreel Paris in 1919. Cairo in 1921 we live in a marble and bronze hotel, very expensive and luxurious horrible place: makes me And soon we see him as an airman on fire picquet duty, popping out of camp to have a meal with Lady Astor. The book also gives us letters from the third and fourth brothers, Will and Frank, who both died in the 1914 war. Both sets have period interest, one as picture of India at the height of the sahib period and the other as a description of an infantry subaltern's early days at the front It is a driving willpower that seems to link the brothers, who in their youth reminded' Sir Ernest Barker of a nest of young eagles." The essential point about T.

E. Lawrence was that he chose in the end to be hooded and ohained. He was a character in retreat from a climax. ESKIMOS I-; Nukaluk, a young woman of a dwindling Eskimo tribe Alaska an illustration from Nunamiut Neither writers nor readers seem to be losing their appetite for the Arctic, and the time may come when the Eskimo observers outnumber the Eskimos. It is easy to understand a romantic interest in the last of the noble savages, before they are ruined by aeroplanes, baths, monogamy, regular meals, and an awareness of what goes on in the world.

Nunamiut, by Helge Ingstad (Allen and Unwin, pp. 256, 21s), is not the first book reach us about the Inland Eskimos of North America. We have read about the caribou hunters west of Hudson Bay, and are now introduced to another diminishing tribe living in the Brooks Mountains of Alaska. Their story is well and simply told, but the main attraction of the book is its illustrations not only good photographs but some vivid sketches by an Eskimo and examples musical notation of their songs and dance tunes. N.

sf nr; Four Famous Books ELIZABETH BARRETT TO MISS MITFORD Hitherto unpublished letters, Edited and Introduced by BETTY MILLER author of "Robert Browning" This illuminating correspondence covers a vital period in the life of Elizabeth Barrett the years 1836-46. This was the Barretts in London, the establishment of her fame as a poet, and the arrival of Robert Browning, and the marriage. Illustrated- 25s. net A FEW LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS JOHN BETJEMAN These poems have been written since the appearance of Selected Poems in 1948. They all have that magic which escapes definition but which can so unmistakably be identified with Mr.

Becjeman. 9s. 6d. net By Paul Dons are different from creative artists, so when they take these for the subjects of a book whom do we recommend the book to The donnish, the creative or would-be creative, the general reader We can warmly recommend Kathleen Tillotson's Novels of the Eighteen-Forties (Oxford Clarendon Press, pp. 328, 21s) to anyone interested in Dombey and Son," Mary Barton," Vanity Fair," and Jane Eyre," for although it seems odd at first that an entity should be made of a particular decade for purposes of criticism, Miss Tillotson comfortably justifies herself, and says many things worth hearing.

Of all English novels is not Vanity Fair" the Great English Novel? Not in the estimation of Mr Somerset Maugham, who nevertheless unifies his own stories by a device related to Thackeray's manner. Dickens and Thackeray were more or less the same age. but while Vanity Fair was the latter's greatest book Miss Tillotson can only say of Dombey that it was the earliest example of responsible and successful planning among his novels nearly twenty years were to pass before he wrote what is not sufficiently recognised as his masterpiece, Our Mutual Friend." Charlotte Bronte, a A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY i i rtm OF ENGLISH ARCHiTfcLis H. M. "Supersedes the older works on arch.tectural biography in comprehensiveness and detail.

None of the arts England has been served with a book of reference of anything like the finality of M- u.i John Summerson. 70s. net JOHN.