FICTION

Articulator

PEOPLE ROUND THE CORNER--Thyra Samter Winslow--Knopf ($2.50). Mrs. Winslow puts together a good deal of formula fiction for the mass magazines. Most self-supporting writing women in Manhattan do the like. They have to. But Mrs. Winslow writes "for herself" as well, a less common practice. The better magazines await this work eagerly. Perhaps soon she will be free to do no other kind. If so, U. S. literature will benefit.

Like Arnold Bennett, she knows about the inarticulate necessities of unimportant people. Like the Russians whom Mr. Bennett so admires, she can articulate such matters with appropriate simplicity. "Her Own Room," in this volume of short turns, is simply the story of an old woman who lived in a flat with her son and his dependents. His homely daughter married. The old woman thought she might no longer be relegated to the davenport in the dining-room, but did not complain when this breathtaking likelihood collapsed.

"When we Get in With Nice People" is the vegetative tragedy of a couple who progressed from Greenwich Village to Park Avenue without discovering that "nice" is the emptiest word in the English language.

Another story expresses the spiritual poverty of traveling salesmen by showing how, for one of them, a routine Sunday letter to "the wife" became more necessary than a wife.

Again, Mr. Holmes

It was in a first-floor room on Baker Street, London. Things-- fresh tobacco and old pipes, bottles of acids and a violin case-- seemed to be in disorder, but one had a feeling that their owner could find them, even though blindfolded. Dr. Watson and Billy, the page, were worrying around the room because the owner, Sherlock Holmes, had gone to bed with instructions that he wanted dinner "at seven-thirty, the day after tomorrow."

Billy was drawing the window curtains apart and asking Dr. Watson if he wanted to see the people across the street who were watching them. "Watson had taken a step forward when the bedroom door opened, and the long, thin form of Holmes emerged, his face pale and drawn, but his step and bearing as active as ever. With a single spring he was at the window, and had drawn the blind once more.

" 'That will do, Billy,' said he. 'You were in danger of your life then, my boy, and I can't do without you just yet. Well, Watson, it is good to see you in your old quarters once again. You come at a critical moment.' "

Thus begins another exploit of Mr. Holmes: "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone."*

People who had found that they could not go to sleep without reading some new adventure of Mr. Holmes will welcome the news that Author Sir Arthur has made the "discovery of another forgotten notebook of Holmes in a strong box that had been hidden away for years." The twelve stories in The Case Book are conclusive evidence that, despite his dubious doctrines on spiritualism, Sir Arthur has lost none of his persuasiveness in inductive yarn-spining.

In "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" Mr. Holmes upsets the delightful scheme of one Killer Evans who, posing as a Mr. Garrideb, tries to get another Mr. Garrideb out of his house with a lure of $5,000,000 providing a third Mr. Garrideb is found. Mr. Holmes makes unwary readers feel like pulling their ears early in this story. In "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" a domestic tragedy is averted because Mr. Holmes reveals that a woman who sucks blood from the neck of her child is not necessarily a vampire. In "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman" Mr. Holmes sniffs paint, draws conclusions, asks a withered man of 61: "What did you do with the bodies?"

Few readers will agree with Sir Arthur in his preface: "I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to indulgent audiences." Most readers mourn the fact that Sir Arthur is 68, that The Case Book may well be what His Last Bow (1918) proved happily not to be.

Edgar Allan Poe is sometimes called the father of the mystery story, but Sir Arthur was the first to use the detective paraphernalia and to create a glamorous character with an inductive mind. Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in 1887 in A Study in Scarlet, had his first of three resurrections in The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1904).

William Gillette, able U. S. actor, who many times has darkened his eye-sockets and pulled the lobe of his left ear in stage impersonation of Sherlock Holmes, last week published a detective story of his own.* But the plot involves no Sherlockian super-brain. The main character is Hugh Pentecost, swindler; the victim, Charles Haworth, young inventor. The solution is masked by a clever inversion, establishing the alibi before relating the horrid act.

Picnic Papers

THE HONORABLE PICNIC--Thomas Raucat--Viking Press ($2.50). The first pages of this oriental extravaganza--those in which a European gentleman makes arrangements for the seduction of a Japanese girl he has met in the Tokyo exposition grounds--allow the reader to suppose that he is about to witness the usual crude vaudeville skit, salted with Gallic salaciousness. The consequent pages dispose of this impression. In them, by a diverting series of complications, Author Raucat compares the ceremonious good taste of the East to the casual impatience of the West, each at the expense of the other.

The complications begin when a Japanese friend of the intriguer proposes to organize an honorable picnic to supplant the proposed seduction. The picnic is so elaborate that it resembles a royal procession. The interference of polite pomp at every turn prevents the accomplishment of the foreigner's design--to the relief of his oriental companions who wish no breach of good form to mar the excursion. When, at dinner, a geisha girl is substituted for the lady of his inclination, he is annoyed; but when the lady leaves his room after dinner, with no hint of a return, he admits defeat. She, summoned from his couch to a sudden marriage, goes instead to find a romance as pale and sad as the story printed on a Hokusai fan.

Writing in a medley of moods, Author Raucat places the reader behind each of his characters in turn. The result is a set of complete reactions--everyone's viewpoint is defined. Mildly mocking, Author Raucat describes the festivities surrounding the arrival of the European at the pleasure resort. Says the stationmaster: "As a favor to my guest I offered to weigh him on the baggage scales. What a figure he made the arrow jump to! It exceeded the maximum weight authorized for a piece of passenger train baggage; we burst into cries of admiration. Next I weighed myself; and then in token of friendship we weighed ourselves standing on the scales together, hand in hand. This would have made a fine picture for the papers." Author Raucat's book-- laughing, ironic, fantastic, sad--mingles the gayety of two nations; should excite the admiration of a third.

NON-FICTION

Civilizers

THE RISE OP AMERICAN CIVILIZATION (2 vol.)-Charles A. & Mary R. Beard--Macmillan ($12.50). The history of a people burns in tiny villages, in towns, in lonely farms. Sparks and flames glitter between the hills and pepper the wide deserts of land, spinning together, breaking, flaring, in a bright, continuous, tangled pattern, like stars and planets.

To write the story of a great civilization one must know where the electricity of existence has darted, one must know where the dynamic force of life has sparkled, and how, and why. All this eccentric and scattered heat produces the energy which makes a country flourish and grow strong. The huge engines of government are powered by insignificant fires, lighting a far-away gloom. In charting these fires history differs from documents, becomes imaginative literature.

Authors Beard, tracing the rise of American civilization, produce no hotchpotch of trends and directions. With delicate care they measure the currents which have furnished the nation's momentum. Concerned most largely with political events they analyze these in detail, showing from what sources they sprang, to what results they led. Their book is crammed with small, juicy facts, which like the raisins on a pudding, give it taste.

The first volume, "The Agricultural Era," carries the story to the pre-Civil War period, from which "The Industrial Era" continues it to the present. The second volume is perhaps the more important, dealing with a less colorful period but one through which fewer able historians have ventured. Authors Beard write in what has been regarded as the proper manner for historians since Tacitus published his Annals, with taciturn detachment, thoughtful compactness, dignity.

The Authors have previously collaborated on two books--a History of the United States and American Citizenship. Previous to this collaboration, Author Charles A. Beard produced many works on history and jurisprudence, American and foreign. The Beards live at New Milford, Conn., whither they retired after Dr. Beard had professed politics with distinction at Columbia University, after Mrs. Beard had made a name as suffrage and labor student. Students now of civilization, their work is a potent civilizer.

*One of the twelve stories in THE CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle--Doran ($2).

*THE ASTOUNDING CRIME ON TORRINGTON ROAD--William Gillette--Harper ($2).