NEW
MACMILLAN FICTION
HOW 'TWAS: !
Short Stories and Small Travels
By STEPHEN REYNOLDS. 5*. net.
This volume contains thirty sketches, some of considerable length. It is, in a sense, an addendum to the author's A Poor Alaifs House, and Alongshore, for many of the stories and sketches deal with the same working-class life and people, and with coast and fishing scenes. Much of it is, in fact, a fictional enforcement of his Seems So! and ranges from the grimmest tragedy to the ironical and purely humorous. It will be found that the individuality of the author comes out strongly in the work. Mr. Reynolds is as forceful and outspoken as usual in expressing his convictions and comments, while his knowledge of, and sympathy with, working-class conditions and types of character are no less apparent. In its variety, and in its freshness of view, How 'Twas is a remarkable piece of work, and should add considerably to its author's reputation.
PAN'S GARDEN:
A Volume of Nature Stories
By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD Illustrated by GRAHAM ROBERTSON. 6s.
In this book Mr. Blackwood again takes for his theme Nature ; and from various points of view treats aspects of Nature trees, snow, sea, mountains, fire, sand, and so on in their effect upon different human beings. He seeks to interpret the powers of Nature as expression of life, life similar to our own in kind though lesser in degree. As in The Centaur, he develops this tenet of his imaginative creed that in all the universe there is nothing dead. Life hides even in so-called inanimate things latent, embryonic perhaps, but still life. Its link with human beings is effected, moreover, through the subconscious portion of men's minds. Hence his protagonists in these stories usually know that touch of deeper moods which most people dislike because they deem it abnormal. For him, however, it means the awakening of the subconsciousness, and is in the direction, therefore, of an extension of life that need not necessarily involve un- balance.
