THE HORSE-STEALERS AND OTHER STORIES, and THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND
OTHER STORIES, by _Anton Chekhov_ translated from the Russian by
_Constance Garnett_ (The Macmillan Company). Mrs. Garnett's
excellent edition of Chekhov is rapidly drawing to a conclusion. In
the two volumes now under consideration we find the greater part of
Chekhov's very short sketches, notably many of the humorous pieces
which he wrote in early life. These are most often brief renderings
of a mood, or quiet ironic contrasts which set forth facts without
drawing any moral or pointing to any intellectual conclusion.
LITTLE PIERRE, and THE SEVEN WIVES OF BLUEBEARD, by
_Anatole France_; edited by _Frederic Chapman_, _James Lewis May_, and
_Bernard Miall_. (John Lane). The first of these volumes presents
another instalment of the author's autobiography in the form of a series
of delicately rendered pictures portrayed with quiet deftness and a
laughing irony which is half sad. In "The Seven Wives of Bluebeard" he
has retold four legends and endowed them with a philosophic content of
smiling ironic doubt which accepts life as we find it and preaches a
gentle disillusioned epicureanism. Both volumes are faultlessly
translated.
PEOPLE, by _Pierre Hamp_; translated by _James Whitall_
(Harcourt, Brace, and Company). Among the poets and prose writers who
have emerged in France during the past ten years and formulated a new
social and artistic philosophy, Pierre Hamp is by no means the least
important figure. He has already published about a dozen volumes of
mingled fiction and economic comment which form a somewhat detailed
history of the French workingman in his social and industrial relations,
but "People" is the first volume which has yet been translated into
English. His attitude as revealed in these stories is full of indignant
pity, and he gives us a series of sharply etched portraits, many of
which will not be forgotten readily. He does not conceal his
propagandist tendencies, but they limit him as an artist less in these
stories than in his other books. Mr. Whitall's translation is excellent,
and conveys the author's rugged style convincingly.
LITTLE RUSSIAN MASTERPIECES in Four Volumes, chosen and
translated from the Russian by _Zénaïde A. Ragozin_ (G.P. Putnam's
Sons). This collection is valuable as a supplement to existing
anthologies because it wisely leaves for other editors the most familiar
stories and concentrates on introducing less known writers to the
English-speaking public. The editor has broadened her scheme in order to
include Polish authors. Among the less familiar figures who are here
introduced, I may mention Lesskof, Mamin-Sibiriàk, and Slutchefsky. I
can cordially recommend this admirable series.
THE TWO FRIENDS AND OTHER STORIES, by _Ivan Turgenev_;
translated from the Russian by _Constance Garnett_ (The Macmillan
Company). Mrs. Garnett, to whom we are ever grateful, has surprised us
delightfully by offering us some hitherto untranslated novelettes by
Turgenev which seem to me to rank among his masterpieces. In each of
them he has compressed a whole life cycle into a brief series of
significant incidents and made them the microcosm of a larger human
world. This is one of the most important volumes of the year.