The San Francisco call., 1905-04-16
JOINT AUTHORSHIP
BY MAN AND WIFE

Joint authorship in fction-making
again has test of its effectiveness to
promote success I'm the two new novels,
The Princess Passes, by C. N. Will
hanson and his wife, and Return" by
Alice McGowan Cooke and her sister,
Grace. AS armethod it might be
imagined to be both stimulative and
corrective to composition, somewhat
as conversation multplies ideas and
words as they rebound from mind to
mind, or like the balls In tennis as
they rebound from player to player
and so keep I'D the racket Certain
classes of light work could surely be
done to advantage by such interplay of
mutual suggestion. emulation and
alternate catch upon the opportunities
each brain brings to the fore; but
probably no important work requiring
complete unity in its designing could
be thus wrought, for the finest things
come in too nebulous form to the
brains which first dream and then do
them for the plan to be expIainable to
any co-worker, however sympathetic
and intuitively perceptire. Our minds
and hearts are not yet advanced to that
stage where thought leaps out to wed
with thought, ere thought can wed IT
self to speech
Whosoever wishes to study the pos
sibilities of this coadjutant fiction
making will find the two stories bright
enough to entertain all the way
through the investigation. No doubt
there is often some fun TO the authors
IN this method, and as there is an ele-
ment of playa JOY in doing, in. near
" all good work, this pleasure would
naturally add to the brightness of the
performance.
In the case Of THE Princess Passes"
there is not only the contrast Of man
and a woman Interviewing their
thought and expression, but the man
is English and the woman American:
so there is double chance for good
guessing at each bright passage as
to which of the co-workers did 1t.
The story Is sort of continuation
of The Lightning Conductor" which
pleased so many readers last year. Sell
dom, however, does an imitation either
Of others or ones own work succeed
like the original, and The Princess
Passes although it goes like the pre-
vious story in a motor car, is not apt
to make the great run of the former
book.
In the present story, The Lightning
Conductor of its predecessor, and his
wife, Molly, take Lord Lane, who tells
the tale in the first person, for a trip
through picturesque Europe in order to
cure him of imagining he loved a wo-
man whom Molly said he didn't Cheer
fuI society and amusement, Molly said
would do it, and it did. However it was
not so much just that as it was "the
boy" whose fascinating picture fronts
the first page in the book Here is the
way in which the first meeting with
him is described by the man whom the
boy cured of his love-sickness for the
woman who had Tilted him.
Food for the gods, and with only a
boy to eat it-but a remarkable boy.
gazed and did not know what to make
of him. He also gazed at me, but his
look lacked the curiosity with which
honored him. 1t expressed frank and
impudent disapproval. Having be-
slowed it, he ,nonchalantly continued
his conversation with the landlady, who
was evidently enraptured with him.
Purely from the point of view of the
picturesque there was some excuse for
madanie's preoccupation. The boy
would have delighted an artist, no
doubt. though our first interchange of
glances gave me a strong desire to
smack him.
However, the man and the boy get to
be great friends later on, and the prin-
cess who passes and who is the heroine
Of the book, being the boys putative
sister and represented to be very like
the bov and also romanticallv in trou-