Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-20

Those readers who wish to get q
comprehensive view of the real place OF
the new biography" in our current lit
erature are recommended to the No
vember issue of Current History, where
in they will find an article by James
Truslow Adams, the historian, entitled
New Modes in Biography"
Mr.. Adams thesis is that most OF
them, no matter What their pretensions
to portraying the real man" and the
true man." derive from superiority
and inferiority completes on the part
of writer's, and are read by the bulk OF
readers from corresponding viewpoints,
Those most delightful people, readers
who have honored this column with
steady peruSal, will realize at once that
we have, at several times during the
past year, attempted to point out much
the same thing.
AS far as we got in the process was
to rather hint that universal education
had bred up a great group Of readers
who were easily satisfied, who wanted to
read, but had no real critical standards.
1t can be imagined that Mr.. Adams
goes a great deal further in the matter.
All the biographies published last year,
he claims. form but one biography. "a
single work rejecting the mass mind of
1928"
He points to writer's who have sWal-
lowed bit of psychology, endocrinology
and other sciences, and, as a result. have
got an amazing superiority complex, or
| "swelled head"
Many of the remaining hundreds of
new biographies" he indicates, are pro-
duced by writer's who are catering to
the newly lit~rate, whose standards are
none too high, and who are suffering
from inferioritv complexss. and are thus
willing to belittle great men and women
of the past.
This is but the barest outline OF
Mr.. Adams article: 1t must be read
in its entirety. as no doubt 1t will be
by those interested in the amazing
phenomenon known as the new biog-
raphy."
New Modes in Biography" we pre-
dict, will be widely quoted by those
interested in books. And who today is
not interested? One may point out the
low-brow tendencies of universal edu-
cation, without vitiating the good eff
fectS that flow therefrom.
Despite the huge sales of half-baked
types OF biography, many of the very
people who buy and read them are not
fooled. They would be- first to admit the
Justice of Mr.. Adams charges, and the
first to applaud his keen thruStS.
After all, such movements as the
new biography" actually are, and will
not down until they have gone through
their little evolution. whatever It is,
or how long it may take.
1t is curiously interesting that the
really most successful biography" of
them all is a slim pamphlet of half a
dozen pages, bound in boards, which
sells for ST.
The sales are rapidly mounting to
the half-million mark. We have it on
good authority that this rather amaz-
ing indication Of the American mind
was intended to sell for IS cents, which
would have been q normal price.
What" exclaimed an expert In such
matters. IF you put that on the mar
ket at two bits copy, nobody will
buy 1t. tell you what to do. Put it
out at a dollar copy, and you will
see"
And the publishers, succumbing to
this good advice, have been seeing"
ever since. The biography" under
dfcuSsion purportS to be the after-dinner
speech OF an old gentleman who was a