Books: Submerged Triangle

STOKER BUSH—James Hanley—Macmillan ($2.50).

Geometry is not class-conscious. The pons asinorum is free to all comers and even the eternal triangle's points are true for either hemisphere. On such a Euclidean axiom James Hanley posits his latest diatribe, in novel form, against the race that calls itself human but shows itself English. Readers who fear the proletarian author even when he is writing about love can safely pocket their qualms: Author Hanley complains of nothing more subversive than the fact that stokers, too, have hearts and flea-bitten wenches can make them bleed.

Chris was...