T The Bookman's Manual By Bessie Graham II. BRITISH FICTION-MODERN PERIOD—WOMEN NOVELISTS* HE work of women novelists in Great Britain at the present day is remarkable for its diversity and originality. Not only do the women not write like the men, they do not even write like one another. They are born innovators, and are given to ever fresh experiments in fiction. Women writers seem to have fewer literary forbears than men. They do not imitate; they originate. Dorothy Richardson does the most unusual work of all. Her books are such a departure from the ordinary, and their queerness is so pronounced, it is to be expected that much reading of her should lead to much imitation. No other writer of this generation, except O. Henry, has been so much patterned after as Dorothy Richardson. Sheila Kaye-Smith writes less like a woman than any woman that has ever written. She as much an anomaly among women writers as William Sharp was among men. The only woman contemporary who approaches her in masculinity is Elinor Mordaunt who has the male love of deeds rather than words. May Sinclair is the most ultra-modern of novelists in her thought and interests, while Ethel Sidgwick is the most subtle and microscopic in her analysis. Oliver Schreiner is the mystic who speaks in parables; Rose Macaulay, the humorous pathologist who cures with ridicule. The works of Mrs. Ward and of Mrs. Harrison, so many of which are out of print, are the last of the old-fashioned thesis novel of Victorian days. Miss Delafield and Mrs. Woolf are occasional exponents of the purpose novel. The gruesome and sombre stories of Mary Cholmondeley have made new records in the horrible lengths to which imagination can go. The only women novelists who condescend to write simply to shed "sweetness and light" are Elizabeth Robins and the author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden." Katherine Mansfield stands alone in a field in which a woman has never before been so successful, the field of the short story. Many women novelists have given us single volumes of short stories, but these have never equalled their longer novels. Katherine Mansfield has brought the art of the short story to a perfection that it had never attained before in English literature. [This is the second of a series of seven chapters, new material to be added to the forthcoming second edition of "The Bookman's Manual."-EDITOR.] Women novelists show an even standard of excellence in their work which their brother novelists cannot approach. Women write far less than men and they are never guilty of potboilers. None of them can be called prolific to the spawning extent of a Wells, or a Phillpotts, or even a Bennett. The fiction of modern women writers illustrates the original derivation of the word novel from that which is new. English women's novels have novelty. Staleness is unknown to them. And they are as underivative as anything can be in a world where there is nothing new under the sun. HARRISON, MARY ST. LEGER KINGSLEY. "LUCAS Sir Richard Calmady. Dodd. 1901. (o. p.) Damaris. Dodd. 1916. ̧0. p. The Tall Villa. Doran; Grosset. 1919. The Survivors. .Dodd. 1923. Lucas Malet is a daughter of the novelist, Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, and Chaplain to Queen Victoria. She was also the wife of a minister, Canon Harrison, who died in 1897. Mrs. Harrison's novels have strong religious feeling and ethical purpose. "The Gateless Barrier" deals with life after death. Her strongest work, "Sir Richard Calmady,' treats of pre-natal influences and made a great sensation in its day. Mrs. Harrison's ill-health caused her to live some time in America and in India. Her novel, "Damaris," and its continuation "Deadham Hard," reflect her life in India. "The Survivors" is a story of the effects of the war upon a group of English people. It is a book crowded with characters but they are all well individualized. Mrs. Harrison criticizes her country very severely in this story. As a writer she is always painstaking and careful; her plots are well-defined; and her point of view is strictly conservative. SCHREINER, OLIVE. 1860-1923. Dreams. Little. Mosher. 1908. Woman and Labor. Stokes. Little. 1911. o. p. Stories, Dreams and Allegories. Stokes. 1923. Olive Schreiner, (Mrs. Cronwright), used the pen name of Ralph Iron. She was born in South Africa and wrote one very famous novel of life in her native land, "The Story of an African Farm." It consists more of musings on life than of plot or of narrative. Few books have been held in such affection by the public. Her first work is a collection of allegories told in the form of dreams. "Woman and Labor" is a fragment of a more extensive book of which the manuscript was lost during the Boer War. WARD, MRS. HUMPHRY. 1851-1920. Her best known books are: The History of David Grieve. Macmillan. 1892. o. p. Marcella. Macmillan. 1894. Lady Rose's Daughter. Harper. 1903. 0. p. The Marriage of William Ashe. Harper. 1905. o. p. Sir George Tressady. Macmillan. 1905. The Testing of Diana Mallory. Harper. 1908. The Case of Richard Meynell. Doubleday. Mrs. Ward was the granddaughter of Thomas Arnold, the Master of Rugby portrayed in "Tom Brown's School Days" by Hughes, and the niece of Matthew Arnold. Her husband compiled the famous anthology known as Ward's "English Poets" (Macmillan), to which Mrs. Ward contributed several introductions. Her first book, a translation of "Amiel's Diary," (Macmillan), is not unlikely to be her most enduring work. "Robert Elsmere," in 1888, was a sensational success for a first novel. It owed much of its fame to Gladstone's unfavorable review of it. It is the first of a long line of novels dealing with unorthodoxy in religion. The theme has ever since been a popular one, from "The Damnation of Theron Ware" to "The Calling of Dan Matthews" and "The Inside of the Cup." Mrs. Ward wrote the journalistic novel, the novel dealing with some social question of the day. Her books are all but one treatises on some timely topic like theology, the labor question, the army, divorce, or shell shock. She aimed to be very contemporary in her thought. "The History of David Grieve" is her only novel but concerned with some ethical problem. Mrs. Ward was fond of basing her characters on real persons in history. "Lady Rose's Daughter" was modeled on Julie de Lespinasse and her life story. William Ashe recalled the marriage of Byron. "Eltham House" was Holland House in London. These Who's Who novels are now out-of-print. CHOLMONDELEy, Mary. Her best known books are: The Danvers Jewels. Harper. 1887. Sir Charles Danvers. Harper. 1889. o. p. Diana Tempest. Appleton. 1893. Red Pottage. Harper. 1899. o. p. Mary Cholmondeley's first book is a detective story that rivals in popularity "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." It is one of the few "gentlemen" detective stories in which the crooks have good manners and speak good English. Her later books are novels of contemporary London life. "Red Pottage," her strongest work, is a sinister story of two lives spent under sentence of death. It is the very refinement of horror. Mary Cholomondeley is an excellent story teller and has a gift for devising exceptionally interesting situations. Among women writers today she stands alone in her mastery of the grim tale of horror. In the Mountains. (Anonymous). Doubleday. 1920. Vera. Doubleday. 1921. The Enchanted April. Doubleday. 1923. This pseudonymous and anonymous but well-known author is an Englishwoman whose first husband was a German, Count Von Arnim. He died in 1910. The Countess in 1916 became the third wife of Earl Russell, brother of the philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Her first book is a charming love story combining much flower-lore with comparisons of German and English national traits. Her intimate manner of writing in the first person savors strongly of the essay. H. G. Wells has called "Elizabeth" "a litttle sister of Montaigne." The Dull Miss Archinard. Century. 1898. o. p. The Confounding of Camelia. Century. 1899. A Fountain Sealed. Century. 1907. Franklin Winslow Kane. Century. 1910. Tante. Century. 1911. The Encounter. Century. 1914. A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago. Century. 1918. 1920. The Third Window. Houghton. Adrienne Toner. Houghton. 1922. Anne Douglas Sedgwick was born in New Jersey, spent her early years in France, and married an Englishman, Basil de Sélincourt, the author of an excellent biography of Walt Whitman. "Tante" in 1911 was a great popular success. It is one of the most famous of "musical" novels. It is of the same type as the equally popular "Charles Auchester" by Elizabeth Sheppard (McClurg; McKay). It hardly merits comparison with such superior novels as Henry H. Richardson's "Maurice Guest" (Duffield), or Rolland's "Jean Christophe" (Holt). "The Encounter" is a novel with the philosopher Nietzsche as one of the leading characters. It owed much of its fame to its timeliness, for it appeared at the moment when the Nietzsche craze was at its height. "The Third Window" was another opportune publication. It dealt with spiritualism and came right after the war when interest in spiritualism was rife. "Adrienne Toner" is the most legitimate success which this author has had since her first great book, "A Fountain Sealed." Adrienne Toner is an American girl who marries a young Englishman of very excellent family and strict upbringing. Her dabbling in Christian Science and New Thought opens the way for an estrangement with her husband, for whom in the end she makes an incredible sacrifice. SINCLAIR, MAY. 1879 Her best known books are: The Flaw in the Crystal. Dutton. 1912. The Three Brontës. (Biography). Houghton. 1912. The Combined Maze. Macmillan. 1913. The Three Sisters. Macmillan. 1914. The Return of the Prodigal (short stories). Macmillan. 1914. The Belfry. Macmillan; Boni, Modern Library. 1916. The Tree of Heaven. Macmillan. 1917. Mr. Waddington of Wyck. Macmillan. The Life and Death of Harriett Frean. Anne Severn and the Fieldings. Macmil- May Sinclair is a novelist of many manners. Each new book is a fresh experiment in some modern vein of thought. Her early novels and her later are so unlike as to seem to be the work of different authors. This, however, is because her thought is so progressive. She has a genius for keeping young. May Sinclair is always up to date and interested in contemporary life. She is alive to whatever is new. "The Divine Fire" is the one book of May Sinclair's that everybody likes. It is the story of a genius, a character said to be the prototype of the poet, Ernest Dowson. It is dramatic and romantic, a novel quite unlike any of the later books. "The Three Sisters," which is perhaps her next greatest book, is a penetrating psychological study of a Vicar and his three daughters, a work of pitiless realism. No more diabolical feminine nature has ever been drawn than that of the eldest sister. "The Belfry" is the most idealistic and poetic of the novels. It is the unhappy story of a social bounder, a man who marries above him, causing suffering to himself and others because he cannot hold a position to which he was not born. The change from the English title of "Tasker Jevons" to the American title of "The Belfry" was in keeping with the book's subtle and allusive qualities. In her latest novels, May Sinclair has come under the influence of Dorothy Richardson. Her style has become abrupt and her sentences loose-ended. The triple period, the ellipsis, is now her most usual punctuation. The new psychology dominates the later books. "Anne Severn" seems written expressly to illustrate Freudian complexes; "The Romantic," to show how glands regulate personality. "The Tree of Heaven" is a story of a family during the war, a book crowded with characters. Its successors have all been books of a single character. "Harriett Frean" and "Mary Olivier," both cradle-to-the-grave novels, and "Mr. Waddington of Wyck," the study of an egoist, are stories with one character shown in bold relief while the others are drawn dimly in the background. Elizabeth Robins wrote for a time under the pseudonym of C. E. Raimond. She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but her marriage to George Richmond Parkes, an Englishman, classes her under British writers. Elizabeth Robins first made a name for herself as an actress, an interpreter of Ibsen characters. She left the stage to take up novel writing. Among her books there are two stories of adventure which are very remarkable for a woman to have written. "The Magnetic North," dealing with Alaskan gold mines, and "Come and Find Me," another story of the far north, contain very strong characterizations of men. "The Messenger" is a mystery story, while her latest novel is a poetic story of a love that comes late in life to a couple who find that their happiest years are their later years. Shoe and Stocking Stories. Lane. 1915. The Family. Lane. 1916. o. p. Laura Creichton. Small. 1923. Elinor Mordaunt is the pseudonym of Evelyn May Clowes, now Mrs. Wiehe. She has written fifteen novels, but only four of the earlier ones have been published in this country. Her many travels have provided her stories with varied backgrounds. In 1897 she visited the Island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. This island figures as Terracine in several of her books. Later she went to Australia on a sailing ship which she has described in another novel as "A Ship of Solace." Elinor Mordaunt's novels are eventful, tempestuous, rather melodramatic tales. They are full of action and happenings. "The Family," her most ambitious novel, written in 1915, might be the title of all her books. Her theme is invarably the clashing interests, the uncongenial tastes, and the home bondage in the life of a large family. Tamarisk Town. Dutton. 1920. Joanna Godden. Dutton. 1922. The End of the House of Alard. Dutton. 1923. Sheila Kaye-Smith is the most masculine woman novelist in English literature. She writes with her intellect, never with her emotions. Toil and sweat, and a hardihood of heart and muscle are her admiration. Her point of view and her choice of subjects are alike mannish. She is virile to the point of brutality. Her earliest work, "The Tramping Methodist," is an historical novel of the eighteenth century, a story, autobiographical in form, of a religious conversion. A sporting clergyman's son turns Methodist and goes tramping for Christ. One other historical novel she has given us in "The Challenge to Sirius," which reconstructs the period of the Civil War in America. "Sussex Gorse" and "Joanna Godden" are two stories of Sussex farm life, companion full-length portraits of a man and of a woman. Reuben Backfield of "Sussex Gorse" and his greed for possession of more and more land is an epic of the soil and a drama of fierce conflict. Joanna Godden, a woman farmer, very masculine in her ways but very feminine at heart, is a powerful study of elemental human nature. The love of place is a strong motive in all of Sheila Kaye-Smith's novels. She portrays attachment to a certain locality as a love more devoted, tragic, and more controling than a love of animate beings. "The Four Roads," published abroad "Little England," is a tragic story of the war and its effect upon poor rustics. "Tamarisk Town" is a study of egoism, and a story in which love of a city is shown instead of the author's usual passionate country love. MACAULAY, ROSE. Potterism. Boni. 1920. The Mystery at Geneva. Boni. 1923. as Rose Macaulay is known to America only by her later work in which she reveals herself as a satirist. She has, however, written nine earlier novels which are unpublished here and only two of these are in satirical vein. "Potterism" added a new word to the English language. "Potterism" is a mental disease. It is spiritual humbug and cant. The plot is told in an unusual way in the form of six different versions of the same story. Part Three, told by the mother, a popular novelist, is a clever satire on potteristic writing. The plot of the whole involves a detective story of which the mystery is very well handled. "Dangerous Ages" is a story of three generations in a family, each having its own par Accolade. Small. 1916. Hatchways. Small. 1916. Jamesie. Small. 1918. Madam. Small. 1921. Restoration. Small. 1923. 1914. Ethel Sidgwick's first novel is the story of a musical genius. As a masterly study of the artistic temperament it is to be compared with "The Divine Fire" of May Sinclair. Its sequel, "Succession," appeared three years later. The next four novels, "A Lady of Leisure," "Duke Jones," "Accolade," and "Hatchways," all deal with one family, a different member of the family being in turn the leading character of each book. This intricate interweaving of her characters and the tracing of the different effects of the same heredity and environment on the various members of the family make the novels at times seem very much involved. Nor is the sequence chronological. The heroine of the first book goes on her honeymoon in "Duke Jones" and then reappears as a child again in "Hatchways." Ethel Sidgwick's writing recalls the method of Henry James. She unravels the thoughts of her characters in complex and laborious detail. She is never outspoken, she hints. Her meaning has always fine shades and her thought has many twists. Her talk sounds very much written. It belongs to books. RICHARDSON, DOROTHY. Pointed Roofs. Knopf. 1916. Revolving Lights. Knopf. 1923. All of Dorothy Richardson's novels have been published in this country as installments in a series known as "Pilgrimage." They are the progressive story of the pilgrimage of the soul of Miriam Henderson. All the novels have the same heroine. "Pointed Roofs" shows Miriam as a governess in a German boarding school; "Backwater," as a teacher in a London school; "Honeycomb," as a governness in a rich family in an English country house; "The Tunnel," in an office job as assistant to several London dentists. "Interim" records her flirtation with a fellow boarder in a miserable boarding house; "Deadlock," her engagement to a Russian Jew and the deadlock of their religious differences. This last is the novel that critics seem to regard as her best, for it is rich in discussions of philosophy, literature, feminism, Zionism, and other topics. It was humorously predicted by Joseph Collins in "The Doctor Looks at Literature" (Doran) that "Impasse" would be the next title in the series, but "Revolving Lights" is just announced. Dorothy Richardson's style is one of the most curious ever written. It has been described as the dot and dash, or telegraphic style of writing. Her sentences are all broken to imitate as closely as possible real conversation. Talk in company is always full of starts and stops and silences. Even her spelling is imitative of actual pronunciation. It is a phonetic travesty of English pronunciation: climut, ow-de-do, drorinroom, whattapitie, berrer, etc. It has been suggested that Dorothy Richardson may be trying to do in prose what the Imagists are trying to do in verse. Every word she writes is an inner reflection of an outer picture. A critic has written, "her books are not novels, they are studies of herself in the form of fiction." The influence of Dorothy Richardson on other contemporary writers has amounted to a widespread contagion. There has rarely been a style so much imitated. The Richardson blight has injured some of the best fiction writers of the time. WOOLF, VIRGINIA (Stephen). The Voyage Out. Doran. 1920. 1921. Mrs. Woolf is the youngest daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen who edited the "Dictionary of National Biography." She has lived in an atmosphere of writing all her life, and has made novelists and journalists the heroes of her books. Besides being the novelist of professional authors, she has also been called the novelist of falling in love. Her books are concerned with courtship and with the unmarried's idea of marriage. Her first two novels are love stories, the first ending tragically and the second happily. "Monday or Tuesday" is a collection of |