New-York tribune., 1922-07-16

/ % fofded ME so much pleasure
| as the news that Heinemaun
in London and Duffield In
New York have issued new edition
Of Henry Handel Richardson's novel
Maurice Chest" one Of the creates,
English novels Of the last fifty years,
and one of the least known. In the
new EDITION there is preface by
| Hugh Wapole, but one can skip that
! Maurice Guest" was first published
| by Henemann in 1908, and shortly
afterward in America by Duffield In
! credible as it may seem to any reader
| of the book, at that time it did not
| arouse much discussion. 1t was first
| brought TO my attention in 1911 by
! Robert Hichens, n friend of the author
who was in this country as guest of
| George Tyler. who was producing a
stage version of "The Garden of Allah"
/ Hlchens gave me copy and recon-
mended that read it at once. He also
Informed me that the author was a
| woman, an Australian, who had studied
music in Leipzig with the intention of
I becoming a concert pianist, but on &C.
count Of i'll health had abandoned this
projected career to marry an English
doctor and to settle down to quiet
life in the English country. At this
! time the book seems to have been out
| OF print in both England and America,
and the only copy in the New York
Public Library was a German transla-
tion, by Otto Neustatter, Mr.. Rich
ardson (for convenience, I retain the
authors symboD has since published
two other books, "The Getting Of Wis
| dom (l910) and "The Fortunes of
Richard Mahony" (1917), the first vol
ume of trilogy which bears the gem
eral title, "Australian Felix"
7 FIRST wrote about Maurice Guest"
in a paper called "Modern Musical
Fiction which was included in my
book. Interpreters and Interpreta-
tions" (1917), now out of print. think
that this was the first long article call
ing attention to the novel. Nearly two
years later, walking down Sixth Ave-
nue. with James Huneker. after a con-
cert at Carnegie Hall, we stepped into
corner saloon for a few seideis of
dark beer, and while we were enjoying
this beverage he referred to my com
ment on Maurice Guest"
Il am Convinced" he said, "that YOU
have exaggerated it's value. The WON
an never lived who could write a great
novel;
IF send it to you will you read it ?''
i | asked, and he agreed to do so.
But then | discovered to my chagrin
that ! could not find a single copy in
| New York. The book had achieved a
certain underground fame which had
made it very much in demand at the
secondhand bookshops. Under the cir
cumstances, had no desire to lend jim,
my copy, and so did not refer to the
matter. He must, however, have re-
membered our conversation and
sought out a copy for himself, for a
few months later | was delighted to
find his account of it in his Sunday
article in "The New York Times
august II, 1919. He discovered, evil
IDENTIFY, that at least one woman could
write a novel. He said in part:
Il have to thank Carl Van Vechte!,
for sending me to Maurice Guest
which he reviews in the Interpreters
and interpretations 1t is somber,
powerful, imaginative, and it's recon
struction of musical life at Leipzig is
as vivid as Dostoevsky. The heroine
Louise, might have stepped from the
pages of The Idiot; indeed, there is a
certain resemblance between her pas
slonate, cruel, capricious, unsatisfed
nature and that of the unhappy, half
mad Nastasya Filippovna. It
is woman who has written this most
moving, human, yet morbid tale. Both
Tolstoy and Artzibasheff are evoked.
confess that l read the book through,
at long sitting (it contains about two
hundred thousand words!) and then
reread 1t. / haven't read any
of the present~day novels that can old
a candle to Maurice Guest in it's slow
dissection of -tormented souls"
IN THIS extraordinary book Mr.
NJ Richardson has dealt with what is
generally ignored in imaginative works
about musicians, the study years
Maurice Guest" is novel of music
student life in Leipzig. With unfalter-
ing. authority and a skillful pen the
author has drawn such a hectic picture
of this existence (from my own knowl.
edge of similar life in Paris I can
say that it is not overdrawn) as should
trighten any American mother to the
point Of preventing her offspring from
emDarklng on a musical career which
snail al, require any such preparation.
The character of the title is an Eng
lish boy, no colossal exception, no ab-
normality-rather the average boy who
takes up music for vocation without
much reason for doing so. Huneker
has described him as "fabby but sym-
pathetic" His somewhat negative, ro-
mantle, sentimental but very serious
temperament quickly involves him in
the maelstrom of student life, in which
Tor him, there is no escape. While
Others. more brilliantly equipped for
an artlstic career, speed quickly to
their goals, at the same time leading
d!ssordered and drunken existences, he
falls IN his piano studies. The theme
Of the book is the tragic comparison
OF the real artist with the man who
tnlnKs ne is one, written in terms of
the student. Tchekoff, in one of his
greatest plays, The Seagull." com
pares the two types, as Trigorin and
ireplieff. And Frank Wedekind has
dealt with the subject in Musk" OF
the thousands of music students in
Germany only a few, comparatjvelv
speaking, develop into artists, while OF
those who master the art still fewer
are capable of proflting financially by
II. Inc prottagonist of Musk" Klara
Huhnerwadel, is a neurotic girl, in.
saneiy in love with her singing teach
ef. The play has a tragic and, accord
ing to Wedekind's wont, bitterly
iromc ending. In Mr.. Richardson's
BOOK Maurice, who is not unlike Octa-
slus in Man and Superman," not, in.
oeed' unlike Hamlet, is contrasted with
nrlilant and inscriptions Polish
Voinlst, Schilsky, successful in love
successful as virtuoso, successful as
composer. - a.
The conflict in Maurice Cues+" ;s