Evening star., 1935-05-12

London Bridge would be a history OF
the CITY," Only bits of this history
are given by Mr.. Tomlinson in this
brief book. We wish there could have
been more. The world under Tower
Bridge, the Pool of London, Rother-
hithe, where John Evelyn once had
his home: the Surrey docks, which re-
ceive cargoes of wood from Canada
and Northern Europe; Mapping Basin
Stepney. Limehouse. Poplar and the
East India docks; Greenwich and the
Royal Naval College, the Royal Albert
dock and the King George v dock at
Silvertown were all included in the
tour, which we should have been glad
to take with the Tomlinsons. Their
book would be an appropriate accom-
paniment to Philip Lindsay's vivid
historical novel of the reign of Henry
VI, London Bridge Is Falling"
THE SANCROFT SISTERS. BY
Beatrice Curtis Brown. New York
G. P. Putnam's Sons.
THERE are three of the Sancroft
sisters, Cicely, Sorrel and Joanna.
They are all discontented and per-
suade themselves that they suffer.
Probably they do, for they live in the
1920's, when introspection and intro
version are common. They haven't
enough to do. AS the story opens on
gray day in November, they have
met to close the house Of their father,
Joe Sancroft, who has died some
years before His wife died five years
later and the house has since been
rented furnished. Cicely is now 20,
married ana lives in Cambridge, where
her husband is bursar to one of the
colleges. Sorrel, "a, lives in her own
fiat in London and works to add to
her already fair income. Joanna, %,
has been living with her mother S
relatives. We Immediately become
interested in these three girls, because
Miss Curtis Brown compels cur in
terest by her extremely simple way
of introducing them and then quite
naturally, telling us all about them.
Only gradually do We become aware
that. though they are neither exces-
sively plain, poor, uneducated or
friendless, they are not entirely happy.
Cicely's friendship with Charles Man
ming Is disturbing element in what
seems a serene life Sorrel is some
what dazed by the complexities of
life. Joanna has had too much de-
pendence on relatives and has come
to resent them. OF course, Sorrel and
Joanna have love affairs during the
course OF the story, and, as all three
are really quite normal young people,
we leave them on the way to settling
all their Sturm und Drang.
ABRAHAM. PRINCE OF UR. BY w.
G. Hardy. New York: Dodd, Mead
g. Co
FOLLOWING in the path Of Thom-
as Mann, w. G. Hardy has gone
back through the centuries to the He
brew patriarchs for story material.
Abraham was not always a patriarch;
he was once young, though from the
Old Testament narrative We think of
him as forever old. Mr.. Hardy shows
him first as a youth in his fathers
shop in the Street of the Image-Mak-
ers in Ur. He rebels against his par
ents, like modern youth. fees to the
desert and there meets the daughter
of a desert queen, who becomes his
wife. He flies before the Babylonian
hosts and comes to the green fields of
Aram. In the court of Pharaoh he
meets Hagar. who becomes the cause
of domestic discord, even though po-
lU0o ic tho H.
brews. Back he goes to the plain
country and finally becomes a pas
toral prince of Canaan on the slopes
of Hebron. The story is told with
rich imagination, so that the life of
Abraham undoubtedly appears more
colorful than was actually the fact,
If We are to Judge by historical infor-
nation concerning the nomad Jewish
tribes.
DELIVERANCE. By Helen R. Martin
New York: Dodd. Mead & Co.
WHILE Mrs. Martin remained true
w to her Pennsylvania Dutch locale,
her stories had certain distinctive
ness, rivaled only by those of Elsie
SingmaSter, however much her plots
repeated themselves. Now that she
has deserted the section of Pennsyl-
vania which she knows so we'll that
of "Tillie, Mennonite Maid, "Barna-
BETA" and The Schoolmaster of
Hessville." and writes of cruise court
ships and the sad fates of a New
York gambler and his daughter. her
fiction falls to a low average. De
nverance" has double plot, is really
two stories. The first narrates the
rapid courtship Of Gertrude Austin
by Nevil Crawford on the steamer
California en- route from Panama City
for New York, their marriage by the
captain the day before they reach
port, and the disillusion which fol-
lows. The disillusipn has more rea-
sonable foundation than that follow
ing many marriages, for Nevil has
courted Gertrude under the mis-
apprehension, promoted by his friend
George Armstrong, that she is the
wealthy Mrs. Bucher Bagger, whose
secretary she really is. Nevil Is a
gambler and thorough bounder, but
not stupid enough to have been so
easily tricked by George Armstrong;
falSehood so the plot falls to pieces
at the very beginning, at least for
those who require degree of plausi-
bility. The second plot follows the
fortunes of Nevil's most disagreeable
and unscrupulous daughter by first
marriage. Dora, and Gertrude's sweet
and insipid daughter by first mar
riage, Susie. The scholarly sentiment
talist, Walter Parkmore, who becomes
infatuated with Dora, in spite of the
warnings of Mrs. Bucher Bagger, is
dumbly and unfalteringly loved by
Susie from the beginning. In the end
Dora receives her deserts and Susie
settles into the placid domesticity
which will make her completely happy.
Mrs. Martin has created set of char
acters who, in their devious motives,
are not at all convincing.
THE ONE-EYED MOON. BY Mar
guerite Steen. Boston: Little,
Brown g. Co.
A 8 IN "Matador," the scene of this