* * * * *
In _A Merchant Fleet at War_ (CASSELL) it takes nearly a hundred
pictures to illustrate the fighting effort and experiences of the
Cunard Steamship Company. Quite a lot of them are from snap-shot
photographs actually taken while in action with submarines, and where
through an unfortunate oversight these have not been available someone
with vivid brush and imagination has done wonders to fill the gap.
Certainly such a subject as the passing of the _Lusitania_, her decks
still packed though her great bulk is three-quarters gone, the sea
crowded with boats and, presumably, drowning Englishmen, is perhaps a
little poignant to be handled in this fashion; but no one can object
to seeing a U-boat nose-diving at the instance of S.S. _Phrygia_,
or another being messed up by a shell from the _Valeria_; while
the historic fight between _Carmania_, in Prussian blue, and _Cap
Trafalgar_, mostly crimson, competes for lurid splendour with
the _Mauretania_ in "dazzle" costume, staged with a sky to match.
Incidentally Mr. ARCHIBALD HURD has acted as showman for the
collection. One might have found his exposition rather more
substantial but for Sir JULIAN CORBETT'S first volume of _Naval
Operations_, which has set an uncomfortably high standard in sea
history. Frankly, the deeds of the men of our merchant fleets, of the
Cunarders no less than others, were so magnificent that a book to be
worthy of them must be in itself as modest and unpretentious as they
were. This book is not.
* * * * *
_The Tall Villa_ (COLLINS), by "LUCAS MALET," has a strange theme--no
less than the deliberate wooing, by a sensitive unhappy woman, of
a more unhappy ghost. _Lord Oxley_ had lived in this odd villa on
Primrose Hill a hundred years ago with a noted stage beauty who had
finally jilted him. One of his descendants, _Frances Copley_, banished
from Grosvenor Square by her husband's financial failure and conscious
of the growing rift between them, detaches herself more and more from
the world of sense till she is--well, till she is in just the right
mood for seeing ghosts. First it is a mere shadow that stands by her
piano; next a faceless figure, exquisitely dressed, sits brooding in
her chair; then she hears a pistol shot; later--but this will
spoil your entertainment. I cannot say I was quite convinced, but I
certainly was held to the end by a tale very skilfully, almost
too carefully, told, and by the cleverness of the four portraits--
_Frances_ herself, the adorable _Lady Lucia_ her cousin, _Charlie
Montagu_ the passionate bounder, and, a little less definite,
_Morris Copley_ the stockbroking husband.
* * * * *
Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON have beaten up various American magazines
and shepherded a few _Waifs and Strays_ of short stories by the
late "O. HENRY" (WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) into a final volume of their
excellent edition of his works. They have also included appreciations
by various American and British critics of the author's achievement,
together with some sparse biographical details. The stories are of
varying value, exercises on a sentimental motive cloaked by humorous
or bizarre exaggeration of language, with those unexpected but
ingeniously plausible endings which are of the essence of "O. HENRY'S"
method. Of the criticisms, English readers will be most affected by
Mr. STEPHEN LEACOCK'S "The Amazing Genius of O. HENRY," an analytical
appreciation in the most handsome terms, deploring English neglect of
this master of one of the most difficult of art-forms--a neglect which
we have done something of late to remedy.