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The Author. Coningsby (William) Dawson, born in England in 1883, came to America in 1905. Since then he has been a conspicuous contributor to magazines and papers here and abroad. He was literary adviser to the George H. Doran Publishing Co. He served throughout the War in the Canadian Field Artillery, was wounded. He has lectured on the War and its results. One of his War books, Carry On, caused considerable discussion. He disliked Three Soldiers. Among his works are: The Test of Scarlet, It Might Have Happened to You, The Kingdom Round the Corner, The Glory of the Trenches.
New Books
The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion: SILK—Samuel Merwin — Houghton ($2.00). This is the story of the great adventure of Jan Po, "native of P'ing Ling in Shansi, pupil of Ma Chung at Lo Yang, mandarin of the eighth rank with button of worked gold," as told in the journals and letters of the polished Jan himself. He tells of his journey beyond the edge of the world, along the route of the silk; of Ibn Shu Eer Din, Wa Zir of Balkh and his wily plans for the acquisition of the secret of the weaving of silk; of Roxana, spirited young Queen of Balkh, and her love for the Prince Imperial of China, come disguised and almost alone into her land; of Jan's own love for Mosul-la, the slave girl. He tells of trial and treachery, of nights of passion, blood, flight. A book for the tired Mah Jongger.
THE MIDLANDER—Booth Tarkington —Doubleday ($2.00). Mr. Tarkington has written the booster's epic. Dan Oliphant is the apostle of hustle. He is a gorgeous, epochal Babbitt. Unfortunately, he imports his wife from the East—a pretty, self-willed little product of civilization who hates the West fully as much as the West hates her. The book proceeds through pages of mutual irritation and tantrums, until, between the wife and the son who is like her, Dan is brought to an early grave just as the town, justifying his faith in its power of growth, vindicates his years of fierce struggle. The book is an adequate exposition of the other side of the picture of Gopher Prairie.
THE POET ASSASSINATED—Guillaume Apollinaire (Translated from the French by Matthew Josephson)— Broom ($5.00). Wilhelm de Kostrovitsky (Guillaume Apollinaire), was a Frenchman famous for his eccentricities. He was a familiar figure in the Latin Quarter, leading about in his trail a gang of writers and freaks, artists and idiots. Idol of the professional modernists in literature, he was the friend of such distinguished artists as Matisse and Picasso. The Poet Assassinated is a work containing practically all of its author's unlimited peculiarities. It is remotely autobiographical, the history of a poet, whose birth is described with a somewhat appalling minuteness of detail, whose death takes place in a world-wide pogrom of poets.
The book is anything but usual. It bristles with the unusual. Incidentally, it has been discreetly published in a limited edition. The censors are not always in sympathy with the acutely modern.
Lizette Reese
Gay, Young, She Makes Poetry Popular