Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-02-04
REVIVE THRILLER
BY ARNOLD BENNETT.
His publishers Unearth Giddy,
Gladstone Melodrama of 1899
In Gates of Wrath"

Ihe first shall be last this month with
Arhoid Bennett; for Ills American pub
llshers' George II. Doran Company New
YORK have dug UP his first thriller"
The Gates of Wrath" It was part
product of the year 1899. when Bennett
was pot-boiling himself into some sort
oil fortune with 1895 $40 words. grand to-
tal' as he confessed in his Journal
innings That Interested me-"
Gates of Wrath" is not so ingenlouslv
genial as Buried Alive" or so genially in
genious as "The CITY of Pleasure" n
ISM half so well worked out as the rest
Oh the "fantasias on modern times"
Whlch succeeded It. But 1t is amazingly
sood run Just the same. 1t involves the
usual supply of heroes and heroines, viii
ialhs and villainesses in adventures over
tne Killing off of husband for the good
or his wife and the problem of a rich
young man with penchant for tossing a
thousand sovereigns into we'll each
week. With his own verbal ingenuity and
his flair for satire, Arnold Bennett writes
circles around the ordinary purveyer of
popular thrillers.
In general, critics should kee, away
from the ink bottle of fiction. Let them
leave novel writing to novelists and con-
sole themselves with taking it out on any
of their tribe who are unfortunate enough
to imagine themselves creative writer's"
But only "in general" For every now
and then one of them turns the trick
John Palmer who succeeded Shaw as
dramatic critic of the London Saturday
Review has done it in peter Paragon"
0Dodd, Mead & Co., New York;. 1t is not
an ambitious tale The modest subtitle,
"a tale of youth" sets its limitations.
But it is Il readable and satisfying char
acter-study, with a good deal of ante
bellum England squeezed in between the
covers. Love, of course, makes the
theme, but the substance, for a good
many readers, is more likely to be the in
tellectual adventures of its young uni
versity-radical hero in the process of
growing up.
There is no autobiographic surgery IN
"The One / Knew Best of All" Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York;. In her
searching of the heart of girl Mrs.
Burnett refrains from the probe and
scalpel of a Marie Bashkirtseff but (to
vary the fgure) the delicate brushes and
pastel colors of the aquarelist Her
book is intimate, penetrating, essentially
truthful, but it is romance, not vivisec-
tiOn. Rcread after a score of years, "The
One | Knew Best of ALP holds its status
as classic of childhood; it belongs on
the shelf next to "Cuorc." which Isabel
Hapgood translated as "The Heart of
Boy" though possibly it has not been
translated into as many languages as
De AmCis book. The revived and re-
INSTRUMENTATION has all the illus
trations of Reginald Birch. pictorial cre-
ator of Cedric and cordially detested by
every juvenile victim of the Fauntleroy
suit.
CbndOwa of tho nOrthern
log cabins yellow light along the trail
ahead, the laughter of husky lumber
jacks. the twanE of a banjo, shuffling
feet, a sneaking figure mong the rattlins
iCe-sheathed sumac bushes as a spy from
the rival lumber company looks over the
days progress, the howl of a distant wolf,
n hurrying sleigh VIII girl clear-eyed
and laughter-lipped, sitting beside a gruff
old NAV, then a young man, tall, yet
broad of shoulder, a city ma2 with the
virility of the athle field. swinging in
on gliding skis, his cheeks aflame with
the cold and his eyes alight with love as
he sees the sleigh, such are details of a
romance told in THE Ian Trail" by
Henry Oyen and published by George II.
Doran Company of New York. Mr.. Oyen
knows whereof he speaks as he now. lives
l.. the .yisconsin timbeTlands.
1.-THE Red Stain" by Achmed Abdullah.
said to be a nephew of the Emir of
Afghanistan .Hearst's International Lii |
lrary Company, New York;, is a thrilling |
ale of my. terry and crime, which starts |
n Washington and ends i'm India. The |
story is written in a strong, vivid style. |
Many victims are sacrificed to the God |
If the Invincibly Strong Arms before the |
blot is solved by the usual intrepid Ameri- |
,an.