New-York tribune., 1920-10-17
to us as we we're at this point in our
manuscript.


manuscript.
A New Novelist
Surrey gives US, in Virginia Woolf.
an antithesis of the Castles. The lat
ter found their early fctional coun-
tries in the terra of the sword WELD
ers and the beautiful maiden rescuers
OF past centuries. Even their recent
works are not devoid Of moments when
emotion gets little the better of
sensible restraint. Mrs. Woolf is in
tensely Of to-day, fearlessly, relentless
ly modern. A reviewer in June of this
year spoke Of her as the --latest addi-
ton to that brightly shining constel-
lation of English realists which in
cludes Walpole, Bennett, Wells, Beres
ford and Swinnerton"
Her first novel, The Voyage Out
(Doran), was published this summer.
In it she revealed an ability to trans
fer ordinary mortals to paper and
make the pages live as muted tran
scripts of men and women acting and
speaking.
We had scarcely recovered from the
shock of our surprise at witnessing
new and real novelist walk into the
field of our vision, when out came a
second Woolf novel for 1920 Night
and Day (Doran). This book has
Just arrived at our desk, and sincere
review of it Will have to wait our
leisure. One statement we can make,
however, in confidence to that ever
enlarging portion of the population Of
the United States that puts its dollars
on the counter when England sends
over novel of the first rank. You
cannot go wrong if you add Virginia
Woolf's two novels to your shelf of
modern British worth whiles. In pass
ing, Mrs. Woolf's address in England
sounds alluring Hogarth House,
Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey.
To the north of London lies Norfolk,
and there dwella Rider Haggard. 'front.'
ing the sea of the early Morse barriers.
He ls a member Of the group that is
prone to plant Englshmen on foreign
soll, or on plot of land in q dominion
OF the empire, and then construct
stories around them, using racial diff
terences and strange surroundings to
acccntuate characters and precipitate
dangers and escapes. Haggard must
nave been bounded and besieged as
was Conan Doyle during his Sherlock
holmes days, by ardent readers of his
books who entreated him to keep Allan
Quatermaln alive and going strong.
Early IN this year he gave US what may
be accepted as a final before curtain
OF the redoubtable Allan, The Ancient
Allan (Longmans). In it are manifest
the same vigor in conception and mas
terry IN execution that made the primal
Haggard novels such remarkable sue
cesses.
Allan IS, at the outset, on English
soil, in the home of woman who
knows his history and feels drawn to
HIM by a singular, almost psychic
force. The plot develops rapidly and
the two are thrown back over the
decades and the centuries to ancient
Egypt, where they meet again in the
flesh of their original, tirst-incarna-
tion selves. This throwback to a day
OF regal splendors and tropic loves
and hates gives Haggard a great
chance TO stride along through mo-
ments of carnage, of glittering scenes
enacted under the shades Of obelisks
and by the languid Nile. The Ancient
Allan is decidedly refreshing when
stacked up against some Of the mush
and milk stuff of the year
An Orgy of EmotionalIsm
Two of the women novelists, Ethel
NJ. Dell and Flarence L. Barclay. are
essentially Of the country lands OF
England. We don't want to be cruel.
but we do wish that the latter had
strayed afar in her county, Norfolk
we believe, and left Returned Empty
(Putnam) under bush in a great.