The Autumn publishing season will undoubtedly be affected by the war,
several firms having decided to withhold most of their forthcoming
books. Messrs. Odder and Thynne, however, being convinced that the
reading public cannot subsist entirely on newspapers, have with great
public spirit resolved to publish their full programme, which is
unusually full of works of interest.
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The foremost place in their list is allotted to Principal Toshley
Potts's volume of essays, which bear the attractive title of _The Hill
of Havering_. Principal Potts was recently hailed by Sir NICHOLSON
ROBERTS as "the Scots A. C. Benson," and this felicitous analogy will,
we feel sure, be triumphantly vindicated by the contents of this
epoch-making work, which by the way is dedicated to Dr. Emery Cawker, of
the University of Brashville, Ga.
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Another work of outstanding significance is a volume of poems, entitled
_Kailyard Carols_, from the accomplished pen of Mr. Alan Bodgers, whom
Mr. DAVID LYALL, in a three-column article in the _Penman_, recently
declared to be the finest lyric poet since SHELLEY, and Mr. LYALL seldom
makes a mistake. Mr. Bodgers, it may be added, is the sub-editor of the
_Kilspindie Courant_, and has a handicap of twenty-two at the local golf
club.
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Very welcome also is the announcement that Professor Hector McGollop has
undertaken to edit a series of Manuals of Moral Uplift, to which he will
contribute the opening volume on _The Art of Unction_. Other
contributors to the series are Dr. Talisker Dinwiddie, Principal Marcus
Tonks and the Rev. Bandley Chadd.
* * * * *
In the department of fiction the most remarkable of the novelties
promised by Messrs. Odder and Thynne is _The Nut's Progress_, by Mr.
EWAN STRAW. It will be remembered that in a four-column review of Mr.
STRAW'S last book, _Nothing Doing_, which appeared in the Xmas number of
the _Book Booster_, Sir CLEMENT SHORTHOUSE declared that this talented
fictionist combined the lilt of FRANK SMEDLEY (the author of _Frank
Fairleigh_) with the whimsicality of BARRIE and the austere morality of
ANNIE SWAN. Otherwise we may be sure the firm of Odder and Thynne would
never have published a work with so risky a title.
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