depends on parliamentary law, rules and legislation, rulers and
officers, and a constitution. Part II, Self-government in cities,
applies these elements to all the details of city government; Parts
III and IV do the same for the states and the United States. Part V,
Some general ideas about self-government, has chapters on: Socialism
and capitalism; Parties and leaders; Organized government; and Real
international law. In the appendix some of the accepted principles of
political cooperation are discussed, i.e. the short ballot principle;
civil service reform; the executive budget; the principle of
responsible leadership; etc.
* * * * *
“The book is sure to take its place among the few best ones in its
field.”
+ =School R= 28:548 S ’20 530w
=DAWSON, RICHARD.= Red terror and green: the Sinn-Fein-bolshevist
movement. *$2.50 Dutton 941.5
20–5381
“Mr Dawson builds his thesis that Sinn Fein is Bolshevism by
quoting Sinn Fein leaders, and refers the reader to name, page,
date of his authority. He goes back to the earliest attempts of
Ireland to free herself from England, and traces the whole
movement, the influences behind it and the work of the leaders who
led, up to today, when the new (Irish) nationalism ‘starting with
lofty ideals of national regeneration on the old lines of the
ancient culture, begins to seek its inspirations from modern
sources of unspeakable corruption.’”—Boston Transcript
* * * * *
=Ath= p496 Ap 9 ’20 100w
“Will not please those who take the opposite stand, but worth while as
a well done presentation of the objections to Ireland’s attitude.”
+ =Booklist= 17:24 O ’20
“As a polemical writer Mr Dawson is a comfort because his proofs are
not of the unidentified sort so common in the mouths of platform
orators. He does not employ vituperation as argument nor blackguarding
as punctuation. ‘Red terror and green’ is a timely, excellent guide
book to the present meaning and purpose of Sinn Fein.” W. R. B.
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 Ap 14 ’20 1650w
“So evidently prepared from the standpoint of reactionery British
interests as to become propaganda in its most palpable and, therefore,
most useless form.”
− =Cath World= 112:550 Ja ’21 80w
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
=Nation= 110:768 Je 5 ’20 250w
=N Y Times= p1 Ag 1 ’20 750w
“The intrigues of Casement with the Germans make excellent material
for building up a theory that Sinn Fein was part of a German plot, and
in a world torn by Bolshevism it is plausible to suggest that Sinn
Fein emissaries have been seeking to combine the forces of disorder at
home with the agencies of disorder in other countries. But Mr Dawson
will not easily convince those who know rural Ireland that its
peasantry—now bitterly Sinn Fein—are now or were ever bolshevistic.”
H. L. Stewart
− + =Review= 2:601 Je 5 ’20 1150w
=R of Rs= 61:556 My ’20 80w
+ =Spec= 124:388 Mr 20 ’20 1200w
“The reader will be impressed rather by the care with which the author
has followed Irish events than by his insight into the psychic and
temperamental change which has affected the Irish people during the
period which he reviews.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p110 F 12 ’20 340w
=DAWSON, WILLIAM JAMES.=[2] Borrowdale tragedy. *$2 (2½c) Lane
20–19918
The tragedy of the title, altho the central incident of the book, is
by no means its central theme. The tragedy is the death of old James
Borrowdale, and the subsequent trial of his young wife Flora and her
friend Cecil Twyfold for his murder, of which they are acquitted. The
major part of the book, however, is taken up with the love of Cecil
and Flora, its development while Flora was still bound and the
reaction of the tragedy upon them. The expansion of their characters
is along lines contrary to convention, as Cecil expresses it, they
have taken the “downward path to salvation,” downward, that is, from
the standards of material success that the world sets up. A plea for
individual freedom, as opposed to the usages of conventional society,
is really the keynote of the book.
* * * * *
“There is an undeniable simplicity in the writer’s style, a genial
mellowness that in a tale like this is really extraordinary. There is
hardly a writer today that could take the structure of this novel and
its strong plea for individualism as opposed to social conventions,
with its technically unhappy ending, and not make it despite
brilliancy, a hard and cynical book. On the contrary Dr Dawson has
written with deep humanness and charm. We have had the fortune to read
few novels of the present season with such genuine delight.” S. L. C.
+ =Boston Transcript= p8 D 1 ’20 420w
=DAY, CLARENCE SHEPARD=, jr. This simian world. il *$1.50 Knopf 817.
20–10010
Ours is a simian civilization. If we had not descended from the monkey
what would our world be like from the point of view of
extraterrestrial beings? If the ant and the bee, or the big cats, or
the elephant or any of the other beasts had achieved the hegemony?
Such whimsical questions with their conjectures were suggested by a
Sunday afternoon Broadway crowd to the author and his friend Potter.
The author’s illustrations are as amusing as his fancies.
* * * * *
“It was a good idea, and Mr Day has a real though immature gift of
lightness in treating a solid subject. But his theme is really too big
for his ninety pages, and although his thinking is honest and
courageous it tends to become unsubstantial.”
+ − =Ath= p145 Jl 30 ’19 150w
“Aside from the amusing quality there is a basis of shrewd comment.”
+ =Booklist= 17:21 O ’20
+ =Boston Transcript= p4 O 6 ’20 270w
“No less complete and varied than his estimate of man is Mr Day’s
expression of it: a natural blend of wisdom with lightness, humour
with profundity, hope with art, economy with abundance, kindliness
with malice. The quality that makes possible such alliances is the one
most infrequently granted to mortals: Mr Day sees things as they are
beneath accumulated centuries of appearances; he cannot, he will not
be fooled.” Robert Littell
+ =Dial= 69:197 Ag ’20 1300w
“Mr Clarence Day’s whimsicality is quite virile; it is the expression
of a naturally ingenuous mind; ‘innocent’ in the Nietzschean sense and
not incapable of a certain gentle philosophic malice.”
+ =Freeman= 1:358 Je 23 ’20 280w
“The most amusing little essay of the year.”
+ =Ind= 103:318 S 11 ’20 360w
=Nation= 111:76 Jl 17 ’20 500w
“It ought to interest any lively spirit because of its grace and
reasonableness. And it ought to entrap and enlighten any slack soul
who may pick it up in search for amusement. Amusing it unquestionably
is, but a great deal more than amusing, to follow this grim parallel
between the ways of apes and men.” R. T.
+ =New Repub= 23:233 Jl 21 ’20 650w
“While his treatment of the subject is amusingly interesting, it is
none the less a serious one. The whole essay is, in fact, a bitter
arraignment of our present order of civilization.” Alvin Winston
+ =N Y Call= p10 Ag 1 ’20 640w
+ =Review= 3:306 O 13 ’20 1400w
+ =Springf’d Republican= p11a Ag 22 ’20 500w
=Survey= 44:450 Je 26 ’20 200w
=DAY, HOLMAN FRANCIS.= All-wool Morrison. *$1.90 (2c) Harper
20–13700
Stewart Morrison has inherited St Ronan’s mill from his Scotch
ancestors and is himself a canny Scotchman. In his absence and against
his will he is elected mayor of the city of Marion and then things
become lively. Within twenty-four hours and by sheer intimidation he
beats the governor, the politicians and vested interests at their game
of falsifying election returns and barring duly elected members from
the legislature. He prevents the forming of a syndicate for stealing
the state’s water-power. He teaches some bloody anarchists, athirst
for martyrdom, what’s what by taking one of them across his knee and
spanking him lustily before an admiring mob. He diverts a howling mob
from the state house thus protecting the conspirators within while
teaching them a wholesome lesson. And he wins his bride in the
bargain. All within twenty-four hours.
=Booklist= 17:31 O ’20
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 O 13 ’20 220w
“The fun of the book lies for the most part in this unity of time. A
quality of the book is that its characters and happenings possess that
delightfully feverish and slightly unreal aspect that things often
acquire after dark.”
+ =N Y Times= p10 O 17 ’20 420w
“Mr Day’s homely, racy humor goes some distance toward minimizing the
glaring artificialities to which he resorts in stimulating the action
of the narrative.”
+ − |=Springf’d Republican= p11a S 5 ’20 380w |=Wis Lib Bul= 16:193 N
’20 60w
=DAY, JAMES ROSCOE.=[2] My neighbor the workingman. *$2.50 Abingdon
press 331.8
20–8266
“This book is an outspoken word for the capitalistic system and
against the methods of organized labor. Chancellor Day has been
speaking with strong conviction on the somewhat unpopular side of this
controversy. He displays the abuses in the trades union. He calls the
labor union ‘an artificial and unnaturally and illogically attached
institution in our country, working not for the common good but to
create conditions altogether possible and profitable to its own
members without regard to how its act may bear upon business of
construction and manufacture.’ Chancellor Day calls collective
bargaining ‘meddling’ and says: ‘It is high time that the country
pronounced with unmistakable law against strikes of all kinds. There
should be no doubt left that strikes are crimes.’”—Bib World
* * * * *
“Full of ‘ginger’ and worthy of attention by everyone who is ready to
consider both sides of the burning question of the day. He does not
represent the honorable attitude in the contest that will finally make
for peace. He is violent and bitter. He is absolutely unjust to the
majority of the immigrants who land on our shores.”
+ − =Bib World= 54:647 N ’20 260w
=Ind= 103:320 S 11 ’20 60w
“The readers of this book will find in it much repetition and too much
vehemence. It provides in places quite as much heat as light, and is
not without a touch here and there of a rather narrow type of
politics. There is not great use made in it of the mantle of sweet
charity, and small allowance appears for those with whom the author
disagrees. Yet with his attacks upon radicalism in its Red form we
must sympathize.” W: C. Redfield
− + =N Y Times= p9 D 5 ’20 2150w
“It would be difficult to find a volume more filled with hatred and
misunderstanding than this product of the chancellor of Syracuse
university.” W. L. C.
− =Survey= 44:417 Je 19 ’20 260w
=DEALEY, JAMES QUAYLE.=[2] Sociology: its development and applications.
*$3 Appleton 301
20–20107
The book is an enlarged and revised edition of the author’s
“Sociology” issued in 1909. It gives a survey of sociological
development so that the student may have in fairly brief compass a
general view of its rise and its relations to other sciences, a sketch
of the development of social institutions, and a short discussion of
social problems and of the factors to be considered in social
progress. Its contents fall into three parts: Sociology and its
kindred sciences; Society and its institutions; and Social progress.
Some of the chapters are: The beginnings of social science; Sociology
and biology; Sociology and psychology: Social behaviorism; Achievement
and civilization; Civilization static and dynamic; Social gradations
and genius; Society and the individual; The elimination of social
evils; Racial factors in social progress; Economic factors in social
progress; Educational factors in social progress. There is a
bibliography and an index.
=DEAN, BASHFORD.= Helmets and body armor in modern warfare. il *$6 Yale
univ. press 399
20–17513
“This book is one of the publications of the Committee on education of
the Metropolitan museum of art, in which Dr Dean is curator of armour.
It is an account of the various types of body protection used or
experimented with by the nations engaged in the great war, with a
brief historical survey of the development of armour in earlier times.
As chairman of the Committee on helmets and body armour of the United
States National research council the author had special opportunity
for the study of his subject, not only in America but in the allied
countries in Europe.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
* * * * *
“Within his field of special knowledge he has touched and illuminated
almost every phase of the art and craft of the armorer ancient or
modern. Rarely indeed has such historical erudition as Mr Dean’s been
applied to a theme so recent and in most respects so businesslike.”
+ =Nation= 111:108 Jl 24 ’20 360w
“This volume is definitive in its field.” C. O. Kilnbusch
+ =N Y Times= p6 Je 27 ’20 2550w
=Springf’d Republican= p8 Je 12 ’20 50w
“The practical treatment of the question makes the book a valuable
contribution to military literature, apart from its historical and
antiquarian interest.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p554 Ag 26 ’20 150w
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p647 O 7 ’20 1150w
=DEARMER, NANCY (KNOWLES) (MRS PERCY DEARMER).= Fellowship of the
picture. *$1.25 Dutton 134
20–17392
“Professor Dearmer states in an introduction that on July 31, 1919, at
their country cottage, his wife felt impelled to sit down, and allow
her hand to write automatically; after that she wrote regularly, being
quite unaware of what she was writing. On September 10 Professor
Dearmer, reading the script aloud to her, found that the book had
reached its end. It came as from a man of high academic distinction
who was killed in France in 1918, and who had already written
contributions to religion and philosophy. ‘The fellowship of the
picture’ claims to be a book which he had been anxious to write after
the war. It is composed of thirty-six short chapters setting forth a
religious philosophy of life and fellowship.”—The Times [London] Lit
Sup
* * * * *
=Ath= p108 Jl 23 ’20 340w
=N Y Evening Post= p26 O 23 ’20 120w
“There is no particular exhilaration in reading automatically penned
platitudes than there is in the reading of the platitudes penned by
ordinary beings.”
− =Springf’d Republican= p9a O 17 ’20 220w
=The Times [London] Lit Sup= p443 Jl 8 ’20 120w
=DECKER, WILBUR F.= Story of the engine; from lever to Liberty motor. il
*$2 Scribner 621
20–6990
“This book tells about the first prime movers and traces the early
history of the steam-engine. A chapter is devoted to each of the
following subjects: Steam-boilers, furnaces and connections;
reciprocating engines; the locomotive; the steam-turbine; measurements
of power; gas-engines; gasoline engines; and oil-engines. ‘It is the
aim of this book to show how man first learned to apply mechanical
principles; to trace the gradual development of heat engines; to
furnish accurate and reliable information regarding present-day types,
and to prepare the way for possible later scientific studies.’
(Preface)”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
* * * * *
“Unusually readable, more accurate than the ordinary book of this
type, and well supplied with diagrams.”
+ =Booklist= 16:302 Je ’20
=N Y P L New Tech Bks= 5:32 Ap ’20 100w
=St Louis= 18:220 S ’20 40w
=DE HAAS, J. ANTON.= Business organization and administration. il $1.60
Gregg 658
20–9408
The book is intended for a high school textbook and is limited to a
statement of the most essential facts of business practice, including
the problems of labor management and payment of wages. At the end of
each chapter are references to standard works, a list of study
questions, and of test questions. Contents: The elements of business
success; Business organization; The proprietorship of a business;
Financing an enterprise; Financial institutions; Management; The wage
question; The service department; Selecting the site; Planning the
building; Purchasing; Marketing; Selling and advertising; Foreign
trade; The technic of foreign trade.
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:98 D ’20
“While the volume has some drawbacks in its function, it has
nevertheless a broader appeal. Many a professional man or woman ought
to have a deeper knowledge of this subject. Professor De Haas’s work
is admirably suited for his or her use.”
+ − =N Y Evening Post= p19 O 23 ’20 230w
“The book is written in a pleasing style and is well arranged. Its aim
is to aid the teacher in awakening proper attitudes in the minds of
the students. Teachers will find it helpful in this respect.”
+ =School R= 29:75 Ja ’21 300w
=DE KOVEN, ANNA (FARWELL) (MRS REGINALD DE KOVEN).= Cloud of witnesses.
*$2.50 Dutton 134
20–4626
“‘A cloud of witnesses’ is the title of a new book by Mrs Anna De
Koven (the widow of the musical composer, Reginald De Koven). The
messages, which largely constitute the book, are believed by Mrs De
Koven to be from her sister, Mrs Chatfield Taylor, whose death
occurred some two years since. Between the two sisters there was an
unusually intense affection, and this ‘rapport’ is one of the most
potent factors in any communication between the seen and the unseen.
There is in New York a woman with abounding mediumistic gifts; a woman
of society and culture, whose intelligent interest in the work is such
that she gives much time to accredited sitters who seek her. She is
known as ‘Mrs Vernon,’ which is not her real name. Mrs De Koven went
to Mrs Vernon, an entire stranger, and with no possible clew to her
identity. Messages from her sister came of such genuineness as to be
unmistakable. Dr Hyslop contributes the introduction to this
book.”—Springf’d Republican
* * * * *
“Deeply sincere, intimate, and instinct with refinement.”
+ =Booklist= 17:137 Ja ’21
“Certainly, except to the most determined skeptic, there is much in
the book to convince one of the action of supernormal intelligence.”
+ =Boston Transcript= p4 Je 9 ’20 1050w
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
=Dial= 69:207 Ag ’20 140w
“Unfortunately for the sympathy every one must feel with this
beautiful record of a sister’s affection, it is impossible to accept
Mrs De Koven’s views of what is ‘evidential.’ As propaganda the book
is only one more tale of credulity; but it has unusual value in being
entirely free from the sordid crime of ghosts for revenue. Mrs Vernon
receives no remuneration when she summons Mrs De Koven to hear a
message from the dead.”
+ − =N Y Times= 25:230 My 2 ’20 600w
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
− =Review= 3:43 Jl 14 ’20 700w
=Springf’d Republican= p11a Ap 11 ’20 280w
=DE LA MARE, WALTER JOHN.= Collected poems, 1901–1918. 2v *$4 Holt 821
20–21987
Volume 1 contains Poems: 1906; The listeners: 1914; and Motley: 1919.
Volume 2 is in two parts: Songs of childhood: 1901, and Peacock pie.
* * * * *
Reviewed by J. M. Murray
+ =Ath= p466 O 8 ’20 750w
“Enough has been said to show Mr de la Mare’s attitude towards poetry
and towards life. The question now arises whether this attitude is not
somewhat too severely limited to make of him anything more than a
delicate craftsman, a painter of miniatures, a carver of
cherry-stones.” J: G. Fletcher
+ − =Freeman= 2:477 Ja 26 ’21 900w
“His artistic presence in our modern world is so surprising that we
are tempted to doubt the certainty of it when his books are not in our
hands. He is a delightful anachronism. Out of our tangle of violent
and discordant colors he makes his white magic. Of Mr de la Mare’s
poems for children it is difficult to speak moderately.” Marguerite
Wilkinson
+ =N Y Times= p16 D 19 ’20 1550w
“The poems are like silk threads which are individually fragile, but
which, woven together, make a fabric of unmatched fineness and
strength, and are capable of taking on the softest, clearest colours.
Some of the poems for children are exceedingly successful.”
+ =Spec= 125:571 O 30 ’20 500w
“Few of our poets have availed themselves of their privilege of
prosodic freedom more delicately than Mr de la Mare. He has a
musician’s ear; his rhythms have the clear articulation and
unpredictable life-lines of the phrases in a musical theme. The course
of his verse reminds us frequently of the fall of a feather launched
upon still air and fluttering earthwards, tremulously in dips and
eddies.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p657 O 14 ’20 3300w
=DE LA MARE, WALTER JOHN.= Rupert Brooke and the intellectual
imagination. pa 75c Harcourt
20–1238
“It is the brilliant quality of Rupert Brooke’s passionate interest in
life, his restless, exploring, examining intellect, that chiefly
concerns Walter de la Mare in a lecture on Brooke first given before
Rugby school a year ago, and now issued in booklet form. He suggests
that poets are of two kinds: those who are similar to children in
dreamy self-communion and absorption; and those who are similar to
boys in their curious, restless, analytical interest in the world.
Poets of the boyish or matter-of-fact imagination are intellectual, he
says: they enjoy experience for itself. Poets of the childish or
matter-of-fancy heart are visionary, mystical; they feed on dreams and
enjoy experience as a symbol. He thinks that Brooke’s imagination was
distinctly of the boyish kind.”—Bookm
* * * * *
=Booklist= 17:60 N ’20
“Those many who admire the peculiar mysticism and subtlety of Mr de la
Mare’s reaction to the terms of experience will not be surprised that
this essay of his seems the most valuable comment that has been made
on the poet of the ‘flaming brains,’ the most romantic and appealing
figure of youth and song that has crossed the horizon of these riddled
years.” Christopher Morley
+ =Bookm= 51:234 Ap ’20 650w
“An interesting and valuable contribution to poetic interpretation. It
is a beautifully written piece of prose woven with subtle analysis and
keen perceptions, the kind of spoken meditation which takes one back
to the days of Pater and Symonds.” W. S. B.
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 Mr 31 ’20 650w
+ =Cleveland= p73 Ag ’20 80w
“Mr de la Mare does him a service by silencing the hysterical
plaudits, and presenting with cool and exquisite certainty the more
enduring aspects of Brooke’s spirit. Of this little book both Mr de la
Mare and Brooke may well be proud.”
+ =Sat R= 129:62 Ja 17 ’20 260w
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p739 D 11 ’19 1350w
=DELAND, MARGARET WADE (CAMPBELL) (MRS LORIN FULLER DELAND).= Old
Chester secret. il *$1.50 (6c) Harper
20–18606
When Miss Lydia Sampson promises to take Mary Smith’s child and keep
the truth about his birth secret, she means to keep her word and does
so in the face of Old Chester gossip. Later the proud grandfather,
whose heart has been won by the boy, wants to adopt him but meek
little Miss Lydia agrees only on the ground that he acknowledge the
relationship. Still later when the weak parents also wish to go thru
the formality of adoption she makes the same condition. When the
mother is finally moved to make her confession the son casts her off
as once she had cast him, but Dr Lavendar intervenes in her behalf,
telling the boy that her soul has just been born.
* * * * *
“An exquisite bit of character work.”
+ =Booklist= 17:115 D ’20
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
+ =Bookm= 52:253 N ’20 70w
“With what truth and delicate artistry Mrs Deland handles the
narrative of what happened to Johnny, his foster mother, and his
parents, no one who is at all familiar with the other Old Chester
tales will need to be told. Simple as is its plot, the story has the
quality of suspense, never permitting the reader’s interest to flag.”
+ =N Y Times= p19 N 14 ’20 550w
“The story is not entirely convincing, but the reader remains under
the spell of the writer’s dramatic skill.”
+ − =Springf’d Republican= p7a D 12 ’20 800w
“It lacks the vitality of the earlier Old Chester stories and suggests
that this vein is wearing thin.”
+ − =Wis Lib Bul= 16:237 D ’20 80w
=DE LA PASTURE, EDMÉE ELIZABETH MONICA (E. M. DELAFIELD, pseud.).=
Tension. *$2.25 (3c) Macmillan
20–17523
The story revolves about the faculty and directors of a provincial
commercial college. Lady Rossiter, wife of one of the directors, is an
officious person who dispenses sweetness and light in theory and in
practice spreads malicious gossip. An incident in the early life of
Pauline Marchrose, who come to the college as superintendent, is so
magnified that the girl is forced to resign her position. She has been
greatly attracted to Mark Easter, a man of charming personality
without force of character, and her leaving the college has all the
elements of defeat with a shattered ideal added, but an unexpected
turn is given to the story by Fairfax Fuller, principal of the
college, and in Lady Rossiter’s opinion, a misogynist.
* * * * *
“A convincing personality but not a satisfying plot.”
+ − =Booklist= 17:115 D ’20
“The interplay between two temperaments is one of the most searching
things in recent fiction. But, indeed, Miss Delafield is very rich in
creative vigor.”
+ =Nation= 111:568 N 17 ’20 410w
“The end is abrupt, and may be unsatisfactory to those who read
‘Tension’ for any other reason than to watch Miss Delafield pillory
objectionable characters. This she does most competently to Lady
Rossiter, to a simpering young authoress, and to two dreadful
children, but the nice people, it must be admitted, leave very little
impression.” S. T.
+ − =New Repub= 24:246 N 3 ’20 540w
“‘Tension’ has got scarcely anything to recommend it. The story may be
life, but it is altogether too drab and uninteresting for fiction.”
− =N Y Evening Post= p22 O 23 ’20 140w
+ =Outlook= 126:600 D 1 ’20 60w
“Miss Delafield presents her characters through their own words, and
their speech is sustained self-revelation. Almost all of them are
eccentric, and their eccentricities are expressed with something of
Dickens’s inventiveness and humorous exaggeration. We have to smile or
laugh whenever they open their mouths.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p401 Je 24 ’20 660w
=DELL, ETHEL MAY.= Tidal wave, and other stories. *$1.75 (2c) Putnam
19–5814
The first of this collection of short stories tells of the love of a
big red-headed young giant of a fisherman for a lovely vision of a
girl whose awakening to womanhood came to her in an overpowering
passion for an artist. The latter’s love was for his art to which he
would have unscrupulously sacrificed the girl. A catastrophe which
would have cost them both their lives but for the timely intervention
of the red giant, taught the girl through much sorrow the difference
between the love that stands like a rock and the passion that sweeps
by like a tidal wave. The stories of the collection are: The tidal
wave; The magic circle; The looker-on; The second fiddle; The woman of
his dream; The return game.
* * * * *
“Six tales with well drawn characters which rather compensate for the
melodramatic features of the book.”
+ − =Booklist= 16:312 Je ’20
“Of the six short stories contained in this volume, ‘The looker-on’ is
perhaps the least stereotyped.”
+ − =N Y Times= 25:4 Mr 7 ’20 300w
Reviewed by Christine McAllister
=Pub W= 97:604 F 21 ’20 300w
=DELL, ETHEL MAY.= Top of the world. *$2 (1½c) Putnam
20–13065
Sylvia Ingleton is a very miserable girl when her father brings home a
stepmother, who proves so domineering and hard that Sylvia realizes
her happiness is ruined unless she gets away. So she goes out to her
fiancé in South Africa, a fiancé whom she has known only by
correspondence for the last five years. Upon her arrival there, Guy
fails her, but his cousin Burke steps into his place, and when Sylvia
realizes she cannot count on Guy, she consents to marry Burke. The
remainder of the story is taken up with the struggle between her old
dying love for Guy, and the new love which springs up in her heart for
Burke, which at first she fights against and denies. In the end it
conquers her, however, but not before she and Guy and Burke have gone
through many bitter waters.
* * * * *
“The amazing thing about the Dell fiction is that it is so good of its
kind. There is almost no sensual appeal in it, and very little of
anything that is revolting. As full of sob stuff as Florence Barclay’s
immortal works, it has still a virile fibre. The South African
descriptions are excellent. Much of the subsidiary character work is
distinctly good.”
+ =Boston Transcript= p7 N 24 ’20 390w
“That’s the kind of a story it is—lingering madness long drawn out—562
pages of mawkishness.”
− =N Y Times= p28 Ja 2 ’21 470w
“Almost alone in a tired world, Miss Dell continues to sound the
clarion note of melodrama. Taken by themselves Miss Dell’s heroes are
rather tedious.”
− =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p385 Je 17 ’20 140w
=DELL, FLOYD.= Moon-calf. *$2.25 Knopf
20–19503
A biographical novel relating the childhood, adolescence and young
manhood of Felix Fay. He was the youngest of a somewhat misfit
family—his father’s early turbulence ending in failure and his
brothers’ artistic proclivities in resigned adaptations to the
necessities of life. Only in the dreamer Felix, because life was so
unreal to him and his dreams so real, was there enough persistence to
make some of the dreams materialize—after a fashion. The reader
accompanies him through school life with its unquenchable thirst for
reading, his religious development, his loneliness and poetic
aspirations, his economic struggles and his acquaintance with
socialism, his adolescent longings with their culmination in a love
episode and his early career as a journalist.
* * * * *
“A subtle character study accomplished by narrated episodes rather
than detailed analyses. Some readers will object to this on moral
grounds. Probably not for the small library.”
+ =Booklist= 17:157 Ja ’21
Reviewed by R. C. Benchley
+ =Bookm= 52:559 F ’21 380w
“We realize how very close Floyd Dell has got to the heart and ideals
of America in this portrayal of the family glorifying of Felix’s
education.” D. L. M.
+ =Boston Transcript= p11 D 1 ’20 1000w
“‘Moon-calf,’ as it stands, has the importance of showing how serious
and how well-composed an American novel can be without losing caste.
It is an effective compromise, in manner between the school of
observation and the school of technique.” E. P.
+ =Dial= 70:106 Ja ’21 90w
“Mr Dell’s first novel, in short, shows us that a well-equipped
intelligence and a new perception have been brought to bear on the
particular instance of the sensitive soul, the particular instance
that lies at the heart of all our questioning, and that the endless
circle of sensitive souls and terrifying American towns is broken at
last.” Lucian Cary
+ =Freeman= 2:403 Ja 5 ’21 500w
“Any lover of fine fiction must rejoice in the surfaces of Floyd
Dell’s first novel much as a cabinet-maker does when he rubs his
fingers along a planed board or an old gardener when he turns a cool,
firm, ruddy apple over and over in his hand. The style of ‘Moon-calf’
will arouse despair in the discerning. Colloquial and flexible, it is
also dignified as only a natural simplicity can make it.” C. V. D.
+ =Nation= 111:sup670 D 8 ’20 580w
“One must have a good deal of fluid romanticism to be able to revel in
Felix Fay. In his struggle toward reality there is a good deal of
vivid and sympathetic narrative, and one feels that his plight as an
imaginative youth is honestly understood. But is it generous or
engaging imagination? And is it associated with intelligence? The
subsequent development of Felix Fay may say yes, but so far he is
mainly an exactingly hungry and under-fed literary ego.” F. H.
+ − =New Repub= 25:49 D 8 ’20 1250w
“His words develop a dull and unpenetrative edge while his form is not
at all illuminative. One is lost in a meandering of incident which has
been given no significance by any concerted impulse, any synthetic
grasp of the subject, any consistent overtone or generality.” Kenneth
Burke
− + =N Y Evening Post= p3 D 31 ’20 1150w
“So skillfully has the author drawn his poignant portrait of a
sensitive idealist in conflict with a hostile, workaday world that the
reader will soon cease to think of Felix as a character in a novel.
Rather, he will think that he is the novelist himself dressed in the
incognito of a few imaginary experiences.”
+ =N Y Times= p20 D 12 ’20 1100w
“It is written by a man who thinks for readers who think. It is
addressed to those persons who want to know what makes us what we
are.” M. A. Hopkins
+ =Pub W= 98:1885 D 18 ’20 300w
“A story told with ease and restraint. There is no animated showman in
the foreground to divert us with his witticisms. The action, quiet and
leisurely though it is, steadily unfolds itself by means of certain
persons who are and mean something to us, without our effort.” H. W.
Boynton
+ − =Review= 3:623 D 22 ’20 280w
=DELL, ROBERT EDWARD.= My second country (France). *$2 Lane 914.4
20–8528
The author’s qualifications for talking about France and the French
people rest on the facts that France has been the home of his choice
for over twelve years, that he has lived intimately with the people in
their own homes, and that his friends are of various classes and
opinions, including the proletariat and the rural folk, and that the
more he saw of them the more he loved them. The object of the book is
to draw attention to certain defects in French institutions and
methods, to show that the political situation gives signs of nearing
the end of a régime and is full of glaring fundamental
inconsistencies; and that in other than political respects, also,
France is behind the times and in need of drastic changes. Contents:
The French character; Problems of reconstruction; The administrative
and political systems; The discredit of parliament and its causes;
Results of the revolution; Small property and its results; Socialism,
syndicalism and state capitalism; Back to Voltaire; Index.
* * * * *
“When we leave actual people, and come to institutions, the political
system, banking, railways, religion, etc., Mr Dell displays all the
peculiar excellences of his type. His analysis is acute, modern and
thoroughly interesting.” J, W. N. S.
+ − =Ath= p178 F 6 ’20 1050w
=Booklist= 17:26 O ’20
“His book is a bitter attack upon France, her people and her
institutions. Where are the ‘fondness’ and the ‘sympathy’ that the
author claims in his introduction?”
− =Boston Transcript= p6 Je 30 ’20 500w
=Cleveland= p90 O ’20 40w
“A book of real illumination, one wonders whether any one will really
like it.”
+ =Dial= 69:666 D ’20 90w
“I know of no recent book which gives a better picture of the French
people as they really are, both of their lovable and unpleasant
qualities, nor of the economic and political and intellectual life of
present day France than that by Mr Robert Dell, ‘My second country.’”
Harold Stearns
+ =Freeman= 1:595 S 1 ’20 2050w
“Mr Dell writes of the French people with sympathy and affection, but
does not allow those feelings to color his judgment or subdue his
criticism.” B. U. Burke
+ =Nation= 111:103 Jl 24 ’20 1150w
=R of Rs= 62:223 Ag ’20 40w
− =Spec= 124:281 F 28 ’20 200w
“The book contains a great amount of concrete information, such as we
require when trying to understand a foreign country. In fact, the
whole book is valuable if the reader allows for the author’s bias. The
account of radical political movements is particularly good.”
+ − =Springf’d Republican= p8 Je 15 ’20 450w
=The Times [London] Lit Sup= p94 F 12 ’20 850w
=DENNETT, TYLER.=[2] Better world. *$1.50 Doran
20–8457
“In brief the contention of this book is that we must have a better
world; that the proposed League of nations is far from the effective
agency to produce it, although it is a long step in the direction
indicated; that the Christian religion has in it the power to create
the convictions and popular demands which alone will guarantee any
organization of a better world or bring into being more just and
democratic programs than the one now under such discussion.”—Bib World
* * * * *
=Bib World= 54:652 N ’20 260w
“Mr Dennett is always worth reading because of the wealth of his
personal experience and the freshness with which he presents his
facts. In the present case, unfortunately, his endeavor to make out a
good case for American mission work has led him to exaggerate certain
tendencies and to argue at times illogically.” B. L.
+ − =Survey= 44:540 Jl 17 ’20 300w
=DENSMORE, HIRAM DELOS.= General botany for universities and colleges.
il *$2.96 Ginn 580
20–5036
The book is intended for use in universities and colleges and is an
outgrowth of the author’s long experience in giving introductory
courses in botany to students. “The author’s aim in writing the book
has been to furnish the student with clear statements, properly
related, of the essential biological facts and principles which should
be included in a first course in college botany or plant biology.”
(Preface) Emphasis is placed throughout the book on the plant as a
“living, active organism, comparable to animals and with similar
general physiological life functions.” The contents fall into three
parts of which the first is subdivided into the sections: Plants and
the environment; Cell structure and anatomy; Physiology; Reproduction.