W

20–17412

“A suburb of London is the scene of Derek Vane’s story. Basil Monck, a member of the London stock exchange, whose antecedents are unknown to his most intimate acquaintances, is found shot dead in his home. There is not the slightest clue to the identity of the murderer, but there are many people who might logically be suspected of the crime. Monck had more enemies than friends; he was generally known to have used his fascinating personality unscrupulously in his dealings with women, and more than one man blamed him for the loss of a fortune. Motives for the murder are plentiful and every man or woman who had cause to hate Monck falls naturally under suspicion.”—N Y Times

“It is a pleasure occasionally to find one story of the kind which justifies the publisher’s contention. The latest book by Miss Derek Vane is a worthy example. It is above the average of its kind.” C. H. O.

“In choosing the character upon whom to settle responsibility for Monck’s death, the author has displayed a courage and an originality that may react against the popularity of her story.”

VANE, GEORGE (VISCONDE DE SARMENTO).Waters of strife. *$1.75 (2c) Lane

20–12603

Beginning before the war in England we get a glimpse of the pre-war intrigues carried on by a German count, exiled in England, and his accomplices. But the greater part of the story transpires on Belgian soil in war-time showing up the ruthlessness of the Germans, and the indignities to which the Belgians were subjected. The heroism of an American boy and girl of Belgian descent furnish most of the thrills, and some fine friendships among the English aristocracy and the middle-class are depicted.

“The story is full of vigor and coloring befitting the day and scene in which it is laid.”

“The book is very badly constructed and the character drawing amateurish, but the account of Aline’s experiences in Belgium is interesting and occasionally dramatic.”

“The book has some good episodes, but in the ordinary way it is difficult to work up much excitement, principally because the heroes and scoundrels alike ignore probabilities.”

VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM.[2]Ancient man. il *$3 Boni & Liveright 571

“‘Ancient man’ is to be the first of a series of nine history books in story form, which ‘will explore the intricate wilderness of the bygone ages’ and in summing up ‘try to show where the human race has lived up to its highest possible achievements and wherein it has failed to rise above the status of the earliest cavemen.’ (Ind) “It begins about fifty thousand years ago with a broad sketch of prehistoric man, struggling against elemental nature. It skips to the Nile and comes on down the ages to the Phoenecians.” (N Y Times)

“The text is terse, up to date, and thoroughly interesting.” A. C. Moore

“The famous historian undertook this task for his own boys, eight and twelve years old, and he has sensed unfailingly the way to stimulate the interest and satisfy the curiosity of youngsters of about that age.”

“Absorbingly interesting. This is the way to tell history to children—and to the rest of us.” Hildegarde Hawthorne

VANSITTART, ROBERT GILBERT.Singing caravan; a Sufi tale. *$2 Doran 821

(Eng ed 19–14218)

The device of the pilgrimage, with alternating narrative and song, is put to new uses by this young English poet. For the end of the matter is not mere entertainment by the way, but philosophical discussion, in which the views of the watchmen, the merchant, the scholar, the sheikh, the sceptic, and even the camel, are represented.

“‘The singing caravan’ hammers mysticism into clean, efficient verse, which in its ease and correctness, displays the immense technical equipment of the recent English poets; but his subject matter shows the lack of freshness and homeliness that handicaps the Georgian poets as a group in comparison with their American rivals.”

“Eastern mysticism and the imagery of the caravan form the vehicle by which Mr Vansittart conveys his mind upon final things; but there is no affectation of the Orient in his thought, and even his words are straightforward and plain; he has Schubert’s knack of turning common phrases into bewitching melody.”

“The charm of Persian landscape, the wealth of Persian poetry have been woven into these tales, and they may be read just as profitably for the pictures they paint as for the lessons they teach.”

“‘The singing caravan’ is ‘a tale of Persian mystics,’ and with the Persian mystics we are few of us on intimate terms. But its rich and clear colouring, innocent of purple patchwork, though ‘local,’ may none the less charm the untravelled; and the poem may be enjoyed either for its landscape and characters, its allegory, its remarkable craftsmanship, or for the sake of the mind and spirit which are revealed in it.”

VAN VECHTEN, CARL.In the garret. *$2 (3c) Knopf 780.4

20–926

From the garret of his memory the author produces many things, scrutinizes them whimsically and chats about them at random. The things are authors and books and music and people he has met. Contents: Variations on a theme by Havelock Ellis; A note on Philip Thicknesse; The folk-songs of Iowa; Isaac Albéniz; The holy jumpers; On the relative difficulties of depicting heaven and hell in music; Sir Arthur Sullivan; On the rewriting of masterpieces; Oscar Hammerstein: an epitaph; La tigresse; In the theatres of the purlieus: Mimi Aguglia as Salome, Farfariello, The negro theatre, The Yiddish theatre, The Spanish theatre.

“He has a magnificent way of being unimportant. His touch is light and artistic. His culture is Hunekeresque. His scholarship is musicianly, sometimes jazzy.” Mary Terrill

“The author does himself injustice by opening with the least attractive essay in the book, though it shows the most erudition.... It is when he surveys the American scene that we go all the way with Mr Van Vechten.”

VAN VECHTEN, CARL.Tiger in the house. il *$5 Knopf 636.8

“I have written, how skilfully I cannot tell, on the manners and customs of the cat, his graces and calineries, the history of his subjugation of humankind. Through all the ages, even during the dark epoch of witchcraft and persecution, puss has maintained his supremacy, continued to breed and multiply, defying, when convenient, the laws of God and man, now our friend, now our enemy, now wild, now tame, the pet of the hearth or the tiger of the heath, but always free, always independent, always an anarchist who insists upon his rights, whatever the cost. The cat never forms soviets; he works alone.” (Apotheosis) The illustrations are many and beautiful. There is an exhaustive bibliography and an index and the contents are: By way of correcting a popular prejudice; Treating of traits; Ailurophobes and other cat-haters; The cat and the occult; The cat in folklore; The cat and the law; The cat in the theatre; The cat in music; The cat in art; The cat in fiction; The cat and the poet; Literary men who have loved cats; Apotheosis.

“The book is a revelation concerning the more or less important part which cats have played in history and literature.”

“The suggestive ingenuity of its title is matched by the far-reaching skill with which he has amassed and arrayed his facts so as to make them into a continuous story that blends both fact and the imagination.” E. F. Edgett

“Mr Van Vechten is less fortunate in his choice of pictures than in his text.” J. W. Krutch

Reviewed by E. L. Pearson

VAN VORST, MARIE.Fairfax and his pride. *$1.75 Small

20–4010

“Miss Van Vorst’s narrative is the story of the struggles of Antony Fairfax to gain distinction as a sculptor. He is largely self-taught, but soon after coming to New York in 1880, at the age of twenty-three, we find him perfecting an epoch-making piece of modeling in the studio of a famous sculptor. The latter steals the credit for Fairfax’s work, and starts the young man on the career which threatens to snuff out his ambition and great talents. It is after this mischance that Fairfax becomes successively fireman and engineer for the New York Central. His railroad service ends abruptly with the receipt of a small inheritance from an admirer. This takes him to Paris, where he establishes his fame, experiences a brief romance, and finally has the satisfaction of confounding the man who stole the early fruits of his genius.”—Springf’d Republican

“Not as interesting as ‘Big Tremaine’ and will not be as popular.”

“It is safe to say that no American novel of the season so far surpasses the quality of ‘Fairfax and his pride.’ It tells a story that takes you astray and brings you back to the main current of events with surprising interest. The characters are all well drawn. We close the book with the consciousness that here is a real American novelist.” W. S. B.

Reviewed by H. W. Boynton

“The young sculptor and his difficulties do not produce a very lively impression. Miss Van Vorst never brings her readers into intimate touch with him, and the short, jerky chapters are irritating in their effects.”

VAN WESEP, HENDRIKUS BOEVE.Control of ideals. *$2 (5c) Knopf 171

20–18312

This “contribution to the study of ethics” (Sub-title) is concerned primarily with the problem of war prevention. The author holds that man is more an imaginative than a rational animal and apt to mistake his imaginative world for the world of reality. By learning to control our ideals we learn to distinguish between an ideal and a fixed idea and to live by rather than die for them. The book takes up in turn the origin, nature, and function of human ideals and the supreme worth of the individual and of human life. Contents: Variety of ideals; Attitude toward ideals; Assimilation of ideals; The survival of ideals; Nations; Development of self-consciousness; Society versus the individual; Utopianism; Democracy; Tolerance; Harmony; Symbiosis; Atomism; Functions of ideals; Moral courage; Index.

“Scholarly but written for the layman.”

“His optimism seems a little too easy for a disillusioned civilization, but at least he is intelligible, a great recommendation for any one educated among the fogs of metaphysics.”

VAST, HENRI.Little history of the great war. il *$2 Holt 940.3

20–20075

A short history of the war, translated from the French by Raymond Weeks of Columbia university. Contents: The German race—pangermanism; The environment—William II and Europe (1900–1914); The critical moment—responsibility for the war; The sudden attack—battle of the Marne; Eastern front—Serbia and Russia (1914–1916); Distant theaters of war—in the Orient—on the sea and in the colonies; The Italian effort—the army of Saloniki; Retrospective preparation (1915–1916); The ruin of Russia (1916–1918); American aid; Peace offensives; Victory—capitulation of Germany. There are twenty-seven maps, but no index.

“A wonderfully compact story of the war, composed with characteristic French clarity.”

VAUGHAN, WALTER.[2]Life and work of Sir William Van Horne. il *$5 Century

20–20625

The life of Sir William Van Horne is something of a romance, he having made his way from a poor boy in Illinois to an English peerage. He gained his fame and his fortune as a builder of railroads of which the Canadian Pacific was his greatest achievement. With his natural abilities, says his biographer, he would have achieved greatness in any field; as a military commander, as an engineer or architect, as a painter or in the natural sciences. The book has several maps, illustrations and an index.

“The chief merit of the book is its really vivid picture of a striking personality.” Allan Nevins

VEBLEN, THORSTEIN B.Place of science in modern civilization, and other essays. *$3 Huebsch 330.4

20–6953

“The assumptions of the existing economic order are studied in Thorstein Veblen’s latest book, ‘The place of science in modern civilization.’ This is a carefully selected series of papers published in economic journals during the past twenty years, and sums up the principles of an economic attitude so popular among modern economists that it has been entitled ‘Veblenism.’”—Springf’d Republican

“If these old essays are valuable, in the face of all that their author has since contributed, it is because of their emphasis upon the spirit of his work; because, as much as anything he has done, they show the impulse and intention of his scholarship. There are here, as elsewhere, passages that rouse impatience because of the author’s very carelessness of pragmatism.” Babette Deutsch

“There are serious difficulties in the way of a ‘scientific’ treatment of economics, over which Mr Veblen does not help us, and many of which he does not see. A keen critic, he is not a close or clear thinker; destructively valuable, we can hardly follow him as a constructive leader.” F. H. Knight

“The book is a rich contribution to economic and social literature, and is, in a way, Mr Veblen at his scientific best.” H. A. Overstreet

“Nowhere in them is there any indication of that subtle wit, the telling thrust, the finely pointed characterization that rewarded the hours of toil through his other writings. While our author’s standing as a humanist is enhanced by the essays, his reputation as an economist will not be.” N. W. Wilensky

“One cannot help wondering whether Mr Veblen himself knows what an excellent literary quality his writings have, and what a boon to the jaded reader is the absence in his work of certain conventional literary virtues—solemnity, geniality, sonority, and the like.”

“The position of Mr Veblen is so deserving of attention that one must regard his involved style and ponderous vocabulary as a misfortune.”

“Several of them are on academically important topics which, nevertheless, the more general public that has become interested in the author’s theories can afford to skip. Others deal with fundamental issues which the layman should try to understand. Among these we would class the three papers on the preconceptions of economic science which demonstrate the shifts in the boundaries of that science, and especially the newer emphasis on its human aspects.”

VERNÈDE, ROBERT ERNEST.Port Allington stories, and others. *$1.90 (2c) Doran

20–21335

A volume of short stories by an English author who was killed in the war, issued now as he had prepared them for publication, with a preface by his wife. Some of them had appeared in Harper’s Magazine. Contents: “This is Tommy”; The greatness of Mr Watherstone; The outrage at Port Allington; The offense of Stephen Danesford; Soaring spirits; The bad Samaritan; The sunk elephant; The adventure of the Persian prince; The smoke on the stairs; On the raft; Madame Bluebird; The missing princess; A night’s adventure; The maze.

“Deftness of phrasing, and a sense of character and of the social ironies mark a volume of tales whose sarcasm is never bitter and whose laughter is always good-natured.”

“Nowhere except in Mrs Wharton’s matchless ‘Xingu,’ and possibly in Mr Benson’s current ‘Queen Lucia,’ have the humors of feminine club-made culture been more amusingly displayed.” H. W. Boynton

VERNÈDE, ROBERT ERNEST.War poems, and other verses. *$1.50 Doran 821

20–20444

Edmund Gosse in his introduction gives a biographical sketch of the author, an Englishman of French descent who, altho past military age, enlisted at the beginning of the war and was killed in 1917. Among the war poems are England and the sea, The call; The Indian army; A legend of the fleet; To the United States; Christmas, 1914; To Canada; Before the assault. These are followed by a small group of “other verses” on such themes as The July garden, Friendship, To an English sheep-dog. The volume was published in England in the fall of 1917.

Reviewed by E. L. Pearson

“In Lieutenant Vernède’s unhesitating and uncompromising verse the man sustains the poet, but the poet merits that support.” O. W. Firkins

“Some of the finest poems that have come from the trenches. They are instinct with an exalted patriotism.”

VERRILL, ALPHEUS HYATT.[2]Islands and their mysteries. il *$1.75 Duffield 551.42

20–20916

The author offers this volume as a companion to “The ocean and its mysteries.” It explains in a non-technical manner how islands are formed, how they resemble or differ from one another, how they become covered with vegetation, and are inhabited by animal life and many other puzzling and interesting features of islands and insular life. Imaginary trips to imaginary islands of various types hold the young reader’s attention. Contents: The romance of islands; Islands and islands; Volcanic islands; Coral islands and other islands; Island life; Island vegetation; A ramble on a lake island; An island in the sea; Exploring an island in a tropical river; A visit to an island in tropical seas; The island of salt; The island of pearls; When people dwell in a volcano; Islands of the frozen seas. There are illustrations.

“The story is an extremely fascinating one and although designed undoubtedly for the reading of adults, cannot fail to be both interesting and instructive to boys and girls in their teens, whose minds are beginning to expand and to reason and inquire into the causes of things.”

“Always he retains a human viewpoint, so that his book reflects the wonder and mystery of life instead of degenerating into a mere scientific treatise.”

“Although the style, which smacks somewhat of the elementary geography, grows a bit monotonous at times, he leaves one wishing for more.”

VESTAL, SAMUEL CURTIS.Maintenance of peace. *$5 (2c) Putnam 341

20–9987

“The foundations of domestic and international peace as deduced from a study of the history of nations.” (Sub-title) At the hands of history, going as far back as ancient Assyria, the author endeavors to prove that peace can only be secured on a basis of militarism and preparedness and on a “balance of power” rather than on a world confederacy or a league of nations. Sea power ought naturally to belong to the nation weakest in land power, in order that the balance of power may be maintained and “freedom of the seas” can be little more than a phrase. Of pacifism he will have none for it teaches “a spiritless doctrine of cowardice.” Preparedness is as necessary for the maintenance of domestic peace as of peace between nations. A partial list of the contents is: The domestic peace of nations; The integration of nations; World federation; The balance of power; Early history of the balance of power; The thirty years’ war; Part taken by England in maintaining the balance of power since the treaty of Utrecht; Lessons that should be drawn from attempts to overthrow the balance of power and establish world empires; The Holy alliance; Arbitration as a panacea for war; Neutralization of small states; Disarmament; Germany prepares for world conquest; Growth of pacifism outside of Germany; Index.

“Many new ideas are broached in this thoughtful volume, which is worthy of the close study of statesman and militarist.”

VILLARS, MEG.Broken laugh. *$2 (1c) McBride

The heroine, a very simple and trusting little English girl, who answers to the name of Kissy-Girl, is betrayed at the age of seventeen and goes to London alone to await the birth of her child. A chance clue from a newspaper sends her to Paris in search of the man and she is there decoyed into a house of ill fame. Refusing to become one of the professional inmates she is allowed to remain as a servant. In this capacity she meets Jim Crighton, an Englishman who falls in love with her and takes her to Brussels. He has made up his mind to marry her when the war breaks out. He enlists and succeeds to a title. His intention to marry Kissy remains, but a German bomb puts an end to everything.

“If she had been content to develop her whole story in the milieu she knows best, she would probably have produced a really effective narrative.”

“A novel of more than usual literary excellence. The reader’s sympathy with this story will depend almost entirely upon his conception of the importance of conventionally fixed morality.”

“Like much latter-day fiction, this work has numerous touches of interest and reality; but, as a whole, gives an effect of weakness.”

“Such a tale might be sensational, but, in Miss Villars’s telling, it is delicate.”

“Obviously the war should not have been allowed to intrude; it spoils everything. But one day she may write a book as good from cover to cover as the first hundred pages of ‘The broken laugh.’”

VILLIERS, FREDERIC, il. Days of glory. il *$5 Doran 940.49

20–4792

“The sketch book of a veteran correspondent at the front.” (Sub-title) The volume consists of a series of fifty full-page illustrations showing scenes at the front, each accompanied by brief descriptive comment. Philip Gibbs contributes an introduction, “A salute to Frederic Villiers.”

“A well made book.”

“It is worth whole tomes of verbal description. The pictures are vivid and accurate.” N. H. D.

“Villiers represents the type of the old-guard war correspondent at its best. The sketches in ‘Days of glory’ have no special artistic merit. They look very old fashioned beside the modern methods of Nevinson and Nash. In character they are topographical, anecdotal, documentary. There is no doubt that they possess a certain historical significance.”

“The artistic merit of Mr Villiers’s work consists not merely in the personal element wrought into the pictures as contrasted with the mechanical work of a camera, but also in the fact that here are pictures at which no camera had a chance in 1914–15, and the other pictures which no camera could have furnished with all the license in the world.”

VILLIERS, FREDERIC.Villiers, his five decades of adventure. 2v il *$6 (7½c) Harper

20–20650

Two volumes devoted to the life of a veteran war correspondent and artist. He was born in 1851, in England, and his first association with wars came in 1870 when he went over to Paris to pick up material for a panorama of the Franco-Prussian war. The next adventure that offered was the war between Serbia and Turkey in 1876, and others followed, taking him to every part of the earth, down to the great war. The volumes are illustrated.

“These tales of five decades of adventure must be placed among the greatest of autobiographies.” E. J. C.

“Here between covers are the dramatic figures and the stirring events of two and a half generations presented by a writer trained throughout a lifetime in the art of bringing out all the high lights and shades of dramatic contrasts.”

“With long practice in telling the public what it wanted to know, it might go without saying that this autobiography is chatty and interesting from start to finish.”

VINCENT, FLORENCE SMITH.Peter’s adventures in Meadowland. il *$2 Stokes

20–18753

A nature-fairy story for children. Peter is a little boy who has no playmates. For saving the life of an oak tree that his father had wanted to cut down, he is rewarded with the friendship of all the living things. He not only learns their language, he is able at will to make himself smaller and smaller until he meets butterflies and grasshoppers and crickets on equal terms. He can enter their houses, climb up spider web ladders and ride on a butterfly’s back. So he learns of their ways, and finds out that they are just as wise, and sometimes wiser, than humans.

VORSE, MARY MARVIN (HEATON).Growing up. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright

20–12378

“This book is concerned solely and entirely with the growing up of a small family of children and the trials, perplexities and mooted questions which the parents of those children faced every day of their lives in their effort to do the right thing by their offspring.” (N Y Times) “Very likely many who start this book will be impressed with a sense of familiarity since Tom and Alice Marcey and their three children have already seen the light some years ago in the pages of a magazine, but we must know Robert and Sara and Jamie in book form to fully appreciate them.” (Boston Transcript)

“Will delight all modern troubled parents and other grownups.”

“One of the most interesting characteristics of the book is the breadth of its appeal. The children are so natural, their parents are so natural, that it seems impossible that anyone could fail to find something attractive in their story.”

“The tale presents a more or less deft but quite obvious mixture of pedagogy and feminism, in an ample solution of juvenile prattle and misdemeanour. The whole, however, is so well spiced with humour and sweetened with domestic sentiment that (to quote the publisher’s tribute) ‘the tired business man and the weary housewife will find a real release in reading it.’” H. S. H.

“Her humor is fresh and rich and delicate. One may quite forget her psychological implications and yield to the mirth and human charm of her story and her people.”

“Mrs Vorse’s story, though backed by sound psychology and keen observation, is yet light fiction. Its merit is rather in the contribution it makes to the growing volume of child thought, to the explanation of such pieces as ‘The young visiters’ than in the intrinsic value of either the tale or the style.” Henrietta Malkiel

“It is a most engaging book. The freshness, the humor and the spontaneity that characterized Mrs Vorse’s former novel are equally manifest here, along with a deeper purpose and a greater significance.”

“Every one who enjoyed ‘The Prestons’ will be glad to read ‘Growing up.’”

“This story is as delightful as ‘The Prestons,’ and that is saying much for it. The author has an uncanny understanding of children and the problems that they offer to conscientious parents.”

VORSE, MARY MARVIN (HEATON).[2]Men and steel. *$2 (3c) Boni & Liveright 331.89

After a graphic description of the power of iron and of how coal, iron and steel rule our civilization, of the great machines in the mills to which man is but a negligible adjunct, of the mill towns—the slummiest and the comparatively decent—all with the common motive: “Man is puny; Industry great”—the author gives the history of the great steel strike which she has personally followed up and observed in detail. The book falls into four parts: Strike background; The steel strike; Silence; The dying strike.

“Skillfully written the book is, but it proves next to nothing, for throughout the author uses the individual’s story (easy to find among several hundred thousand people) to prove broad truths.”

“It is a beautiful and a terrible book, because like a true work of art it embodies the elemental beauty and terror of life.”

“This book of Mary Vorse’s is a thrilling and a perfectly sane and down-on-the-ground contribution to the history of that historic steel strike of last winter. It is a book really of stories—of stories of men and of women and of children and of homes.” W: Hard

“At the beginning of chapter II there is a really powerful bit of writing.... And there are other pieces of really good writing in the book. The rest too frequently tends toward the bathos of film captions and magazine stories. The story she tells is not only improbable, but she puts her own opinions and feelings into the mouths of her Slovaks with a ruthless roughness. Where they do not speak as she would have them she makes them think her thoughts.”

“On the whole, she has done an illuminating bit of work. It is propaganda rather than detached painting, but it is propaganda of a high quality. At times one regrets that the artist in Mrs Vorse was not more rigorous in its exactions on the other side of her personality, but, after all, no one else has given so moving a picture of the routine of life in the steel towns.” W. L. C.

VORSE, MARY MARVIN (HEATON).Ninth man. il *$1.25 (7½c) Harper

20–15068

This story, set in a medieval Italian city, is a study of hate and fear. Mazzaleone, the conqueror of the city, has decreed that it shall mete out its own punishment and to each ninth person passing in review before him he has given a black disc which signifies power over life or death. For within thirty days each possessor of a disc may designate secretly one who is to be put to death. First mad lust for life breaks loose, then hatred and revenge, and lastly fear. But among the frenzied populace there moves one who preaches love and forgiveness and who offers to take on himself the death for all. This is Brother Agnello, who carries one of the black discs and who was first shown the way to keep his own hands clean and then the way to redeem his townsmen.

“It is a colorful tale, and will appeal to those who have found pleasure in the earlier Italian stories of Maurice Hewlett and the romances of James Branch Cabell’s invention.”

WADSLEY, OLIVE.Belonging. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd

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