The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-09-16
Book Reuieu,s


The literary and historical sensa-
ton of the year is published by
Houghton, Miflin & Company, of Bos-
, ton and at the same time in England
and Australia and sold for publica-
ton and translation in Holland, Ger
many and France Kansas has a fin
ger in the sensation as usual.
Twenty odd years ago, on the prai-
ries of southern Kansas, a young girl
who already knew seven or eight Ian
guages was teaching herself alone how
to read Russian. Her experiments in
learning foreign tongues were inter-
esting. She learned to read some of
the northern tongues from printed ad-
vertisements sent out by a clothing
house for the prosaic purpose of SELL
ing mems clothing. A pile of little
books they sent; one in English, the
others literal tranSlationS into various
northern tongues, to sell to untamed
westerners, whom New York's more
untamed ina gination had evidently
given wild tongues, civilized and con-
ventional clothes. 1t was of course an
| Incompatible piece of humor. But it
was useful to Ter. 1t is a poor sail
| boat indeed than can not take advan-
| tage of an opposing wind, or any wind
| that happens to blow.
| In those early days, in order to
learn the Slav tongue, she made trans
| lations from almost all the great poets
| of Russia. That translation, nearly
| 500 pages in manuscript, is deposited
| in the Sutro Branch of the state Ii
brary of California, in Frisco. For
years it has been made free to the
people of California.
About that time the late car came
to the throne. One of his first i'm
perial DEGREES was to offer a prize of
a million rubles for the best historical
| work or work o. fiction-the contest
being open to the entire world-which
| should interpret the motives and the
life of Alexander the First of Russia.
The young girl-now Edna Worthley
Underwood, poet, novelist, and trans
lator from many languages, began to
take an interest in this subject. One
of the first results of her study of
Russia-after the big verse compila-
ton of her girlhood-was a novel
! 1.-The Whirlwind,' a book of the
Russia of the eighteenth century, and
a play (about Czarina Catherine the
Great) called, "A Petersburg Night"
and resembling the striking continent
tai success of the past ten years
| which success was duplicated in New
| York last winter. Another was the
diary of Tatjana Tschaska called
| zone of Napoleons Loves a book of
the Polish eighteenth century, which
| critics believed and accepted seriously
| translatfons from the Polish poet,
Adam Mickiewicz, and her critical
study of his writing
At length the idea began to clarity
| that Alexander the First of Russia. was
the first person whom new era of
life and changing civilization began
to touch perilously. He was-in short
1.-The symbol il maximum of lives of
| little people to follow. For the ex-
ploitation of this idea Mrs. Underwood
read in many languages, not only in
all the great libraries~of America, but
I those E,TrOna.
| idea which the car had suggested
when he first came to Russian throne.
| This work is now completed. 1t shows
the unusual union of the vision of the
poet and the patience of the scholar.
It will continue to be-in the future
Gas it is in the presently the most ex-
| haustive and authoritative picture of
this pitiful leader of a complex period
in any literature.
The first volume of these years of
study is printed and for sale. 1t is
called THE Penitent." 1t is Volume
One of the New World Trilogy-three
novels picturing the crumbling of the
great civilization of the past, whose
first serious blow was the French
Revolution, and whose last and final
blow was the Great War. The two
| books to follow are THE Passion
| Flower" and 1.-THE Pageant Maker
! Every authoritative book in the world
in any language has been consulted in
| L
| order to make this unique fiction
| trilogy not only fascinating, but
thing of fact and reliability, for the
questioning minds of them who long
to feel the pulse beats of other civil
| cations, and who try-somewhat ac-
| curately-to scan or to estimate, the
vast destructive tides of history and
of time.
The historical and philosophical
idea to be developed new inter-
! ~ 1I,
Penitent' is Volume 1 and the firm
foundation stone-will show certain
types of life which civilization created
in fluent and extravagant richness,
but which cannot come again today.
These three novels will bridge swiftly
as they will picturesquely and pow
erfully-the time from Alexander the
First of Russia to the present day in
America, and the third and final vol
un1e of the Trilogy will be an exploita-
I.tion of American life written from a
viewpoint that has never before been
suggested or attempted. The books are
the work of q student of history and
social economy reinforced by years of
study and travel. After al the in
tervenint time, the destruction of I'm
perial Russia, and the tragic death of
the car, and most of the Romanoffs-
the cars boyish, enthusiastic decree
has been carried out exactly as he
wished it! book interpreting the
motives of Alexander the First-the
idol of the Romanoffs-has been writ
ten. a book, which is the result of
twenty years of research.
Kansas people especially will be in
terested in this Trilogy; the largest
thing in the fiction line to be at
tempted by an American, comparable
with the far-visioned plastic creating
of Zola, because it was conceived
wholly, and begun, on Kansas soil-in
the early days Mrs. Underwood is
the only modern writer who handles
| masses as Zola handles them.
When people are talking of art, as
well as of dollars, grain, progress and
| politics-of the energetic land where
corn, cabbages and cranks grow to
monstrous size-can they ask with
any show of right: What is the mat
| ter with KanSas?"
Mrs. Underwood has been invited to