or two at a woman's college, and a one-sided love affair, Rosamond Lehmann has created a novel that has the touching minor-keyed beauty of a Housman poem. Her title, "Dusty Answer," is taken from a line of George Meredith's, but her kinship is more with the author of "A Shropshire Lad."

A poetical analogy may seem farfetched with a novel, but it is quite implicit in this lyrical story, with its simple, insistent rhythms, its unrestrained outpouring of pagan moods and unashamed emotions. Here there is no striving for dramatic effects, no self-conscious literary technique, only something that is felt and tasted and told. It is as though the author never knew that any books had been written before, or had forgotten, and set out at the beginning of things, unhurried, intent, to tell what it feels like to be young and have dreams, to grow up, and bruise yourself against stone walls.

"Dusty Answer" tells of Judith Earle, a shy, "difficult" girl, who matured to realize that she was in love with Roddy Fyfe, who lived in the interesting house next door; of how, with the queer bravery of

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timid people, she told him so; and of how, without being at all a vil

lain, he "misunderstood." No recriminations; no illegitimate child; no social disgrace; only the melodrama of an intolerable memory. Puzzled, beaten Judith, trying to reason her way out of it all without self-pity, goes her inquiring way in the end, with a high dignity.

Basically, the theme of "Dusty Answer" is the incurable loneliness. of the human spirit. Judith's love for Roddy Fyfe is ironically paralleled with the hopeless love of the fumbling Martin Fyfe for Judith, and logic tells her that the thing to do is to say yes to Martin's inept pleading. Logic loses, as it generally does in life.

A rare sensitiveness colors the pages of Miss Lehmann's book with memorable impressions of gardens. and woods, of children's paperchases and grave discussions, of the ridiculous importance of small things when one happens to want them, of the baffled childishness of grownups in friendship and love. She writes with her eyes and ears and scent and touch as well as her mind; and the result is a book that, for all its pathos, is defiantly flooded with life. Published by Henry Holt and Company.

MISS DE LA ROCHE PULLS
THE STRINGS

The Atlantic Monthly Press's prize competition has yielded a novel that is really a prize. It is "Jalna," by Mazo de la Roche, an accomplished and aristocratic novel about bourgeois people.

The name of "Jalna," taken from a military post in India, was given to his pretentious home in Ontario by Captain Philip Whiteoak when he shed the British uniform and went to Canada to live on an inheritance. The grandiose hopes of the Whiteoaks faded in their ineffectual children, and it is with their grandchildren that we are concerned as the story opens. There's Renny Whiteoak, an immature patriarch, running the farm and governing his brood of brothers and sisters; Meg Whiteoak, filling her days with unforgiveness of an erring fiancé; Piers, efficient farmer and lover; Finch Whiteoak of the caddish conscience; Eden the thin-blooded poet; and little Wakefield Whiteoak, most lovable and spankable of children.

In an elaborate design, this generation of Whiteoaks is patterned through the book, with the frayed Uncle Nicholas and his Yorkshire terrier at one end, Uncle Ernest and his cat at the other, and Grandma Whiteoak, chewing a peppermint, smiling uncomfortably down at them all. And, since Miss de la Roche's highly developed sense of design leaves no unfinished pictures, Grandma has her malign Hinducursing parrot. So aptly and precisely does each of the protagonists, including the animals, bow and strut his stuff when Miss de la Roche pulls

the strings, that they might all be puppets. The remarkable thing is that these people, and their ambitions and quarrels and muddling loves, are real.

The stodgy walls of "Jalna" inclose a quite complete miniature world, though occasionally a newcomer is admitted, as when the fastidious Alayne Archer of New York, marries Eden.

It's the story of Alayne and Eden that provides the central motive of the complicated pattern. Alayne, brought to "Jalna" by her romantic young poet, fell in love with the matter-of-fact Renny, and he with her. The poetical Eden, in turn, found a wayward sister-in-law more attractive than his wife. "Jalna" rumbled with impolite drama, and all its long-smoldering volcanoes went off at once.

Craftsmanship of a high order animates every corner of this little world, and keeps the varied stories moving to their neat climax. But the author's finest achievement, I think, is in the portrait of that elusive, life-loving youngster, Wake Whiteoak, who is as much out of place in the solemn doings of his elders as a kitten at a state funeral. More than technique went into the drawing of Wake. Published by Little, Brown & Company.

FAR FROM THE CHESTNUTS

OF CLERMONT

At a time when biographies are generally being written like novels, Willa Cather comes along with a novel that's written like a very able biography. "Death Comes for the Archbishop" is the straight-away story of Jean Marie Latour, ap

pointed by Rome as vicar apostolic of New Mexico, of his lifelong friendship with his assistant, Father Joseph Vaillant, and their deeds of methodical and plodding heroism for the glory of God.

In the year 1851, Father Latour started from Cincinnati to find his bishopric. About a year later, after a taste of every peril of the road, he reached it-only to find that his credentials hadn't been forwarded by the church official in old Mexico to whom they had been intrusted. So Father Latour mounted his horse and set out again, baptizing, marrying and saying mass on the way. His position assured at last, the bishop settled down to organize the fold of straggling Mexicans and Indians, while Father Joseph took on some of the cruder duties.

It was Father Joseph who cooked the noble onion soups that were the cure for a Frenchman's nostalgia, and cunningly imported the angelus bells. It was Father Joseph, too, who begged that inseparable pair of mules, Contento and Angelica. Riding his wretched old horse into the far-away ranch of Manuel Lujon, he pointed out ever so casually that one of the good mules would be the saving of his life on the long desert journey. The mule was proffered for the good of Manuel's soul. But no! Could he, a humble priest, accept this wonderful steed while the bishop himself rode a windbroken hack in Santa Fé? Sadly he shook his head. . . . And so Angelica went with Contento across the desert, and the two mules did more than their share in the spreading of the faith.

There are bad priests as well as

good ones in Miss Cather's storyFather Martinez, who was half desperado and half Friar Tuck, and the acquisitive Father Lucero. Martinez was cuffing a boy when his bishop arrived at Taos and remarked casually: "He is my own son, Bishop, and it is time I taught him manners." Could the gentle bishop, thousands of miles from his source of power, combat such intrenched arrogance? The gentle bishop could, and how he did it, makes very good reading.

There were many meetings and partings between Bishop Vaillant and the beloved Father Joseph, until Contento and Angelica took the stout missionary West on his last trip. Then the bishop, his battles fought, dreamed of the chestnut trees of Clermont and waited for death. It's a mellow story, unhurried and full of serene power. Published by Alfred A. Knopf.

WILL, THE DARK Lady, and W. H.

A Shaksperian scholar is often written of as some one lacking the juices of life, drowning poetry in sheaves of references and gloating over foot-notes. There is a satirical glimpse of one of these dry-as-dust Shaksperians in "Jalna." But scholarship that can really throw new light on the career and personality of Shakspere is important, all the same-important because interest

ing.

"Shakspere: Actor-Poet," by Clara Longworth de Chambrun, is a book that represents a prodigious amount of painstaking, luminously intelligent work. Madame de Chambrun shakes out the basket of known facts about Shakspere's life, and exhibits them from every possible angle, but,

realizing that the measure isn't and never can be a full one, refrains from stuffing it with far-fetched imaginings. Her chronicle can't help being fragmentary, but it's alive as far as it goes.

Just as a politician is required to lay down his platform on the tariff and farm relief (the fact that Madame de Chambrun is a sister of Nicholas Longworth may have suggested the analogy), the Shakspere biographer is expected to answer these questions: Who was the dark lady of the sonnets? Who was the Mr. W. H., to whom they were dedicated?

Madame de Chambrun is one of those who believe that the lady was Mrs. Davenant, hostess of the inn at Oxford, and she has an impressive array of arguments to prove it. W. H. she holds to be a transposition, caused by the printer's fear of censorship, of the initials of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Out of her patient marshaling of facts to this effect, there arises the arresting picture of Shakspere and his noble patron competing for the love of a beautiful woman who was out of bounds for both of them.

Not afraid of being undignified, the biographer quotes a spicy old anecdote in connection with the Davenant theory. Young Will, the son of Mistress Davenant, was running home happily, and a townsman asked where he was going in such a hurry. To see his godfather, Mr. Shakspere, was the reply. "There's a good boy," said the neighbor; "but have a care how you take the name of God in vain."

But I should hate to leave the impression that gossip sets the tone

of any part of this book. There's no wielding of a whitewash brush here, and neither is there any smirking. This is the most human and sensitive full-length portrait of Shakspere I have come across. Published by D. Appleton and Company.

DIVIDENDS IN SPANISH SILVER

The not so jolly life of Francis Drake, and his not so rollicking cruises on the Spanish main, are the subject of E. F. Benson's biography in the "Golden Hind" series. Those who like to have their buccaneers buccaneering, will grieve to learn that Sir Francis wouldn't allow his men. to frequent low roistering places of amusement, and wouldn't tolerate card-playing and dice aboard his ship.

Cruel historians have washed all the piracy out of Captain John Kidd in recent years, and now they make of the swashbuckling Sir Francis, a little calculating business man, nursing a grudge. Mr. Benson tempers his unromantic facts with an oft-repeated phrase about Sir Francis singeing the beard of King Philip of Spain, and it has a brave ring to it; but it's quite drowned out in the sputter of scratching pens as Sir Francis figures out his dividends. And as for good Queen Bess, one has to commit an anachronism to imagine her at all-it's a whole battery of adding machines that goes with that royal lady.

Great courage, genius in seamanship and outstanding leadership Mr. Benson grants to Sir Francis, but never a hint of the joyous daredevilry that has always savored the name of Drake. The piety of this short, sober man, and his conviction

that he was doing the work of the Lord each time he ballasted his ship with another ton of Spanish silver, are disconcerting. If historians keep on being so distressingly truthful, in time to come we'll have to lavish all our stored-up impulse of hero-worship on the mythical but satisfying Paul Bunyan. But I mustn't vent my disappointment on Mr. Benson, who has done a good job. Published by Harper & Brothers.

READING RUMORS

Here's the latest contribution to the fund of Shaw stories:

A very attractive young lady came hastily out of the Royal Automobile Club and had a head-on collision with an elderly gentleman whom she recognized as G. B. S. When she had recovered her breath, she said contritely, "Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. Shaw!" G. B. S. surveyed her blandly. "Well, I'm not!" he replied.

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When an American publisher on his buying trip in London comes across a book that he would like to have on his list but which seems to have small sales possibilities, he buys a few hundred sets of sheets of the book and has them bound up with his imprint. This is the basis on which Elliott Holt acquired Rosamond Lehmann's "Dusty Answer" for Henry Holt and Companywhereupon it proceeded to become one of the outstanding books of the year.

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Quite a few outstanding successes have been taken originally as sheet importations among them "The Constant Nymph." But in this case, as with "Dusty Answer," the tre

mendous possibilities of the book were seen, and an American edition printed, before publication date, thereby protecting the copyright.

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In general, the custom of buying sheet editions from England is falling into disfavor-partly because of our exceedingly unfair copyright laws, which give no protection to a book not actually printed in this country within a few months of English publication. No such restriction is imposed on American books in England.

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Apropos of the international book market, it is interesting to note the speed with which American books are penetrating England. Five years ago Wild West stories were almost the only American books in general demand in England. Now nearly every English publishing house is on the lookout for good books from the States. Much of the credit for this belongs to the enterprise of Jonathan Cape.

The blurb-writer and editorial assistant of to-day is the novelist of to-morrow. Sinclair Lewis used to work for Doran and Stokes, Louis Bromfield for Putnam's, Barry Benefield for THE CENTURY Co. But it would be wide of the mark to suppose that their publishing training has had anything to do with their success as authors. Publishing jobs attract young writers as a logical means of making a livingbut that's quite a different matter from creating writers.

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Konrad Bercovici, cruising about Europe wherever the lure of a story