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Fortunately Maurice Francis Egan, one of the most beloved of Americans, lived to complete for us his Recollections of a Happy Life. The author of Everybody’s St. Francis, Ten Years Near the German Frontier, Confessions of a Book-Lover and other volumes had a scroll of memories which began in Philadelphia in the 1850s and which included political and social Washington in the Civil War period. In Recollections of a Happy Life the New York of the Henry George era is touched in with delightful anecdotes of Richard Watson Gilder and the group that surrounded him; there is a crisp picture of Indiana where Dr. Egan was professor of English at Notre Dame; and the book fairly launches itself with a full record of life in Washington and of the author’s close association with Presidents McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson, under the last three of whom Dr. Egan held the post of Minister to Denmark. Scholar, poet, critic, and most winning of companions, Dr. Egan’s autobiography reflects a good deal of America in the past half-century as well as his own varied experiences here and abroad.
Of even more definitely literary interest is C. K. S. An Autobiography, by Clement K. Shorter. An indefatigable book collector whose library is rich in first editions, original manuscripts, and autograph letters, Mr. Shorter is probably best known as an editor and dramatic critic. He has had thirty years in each rôle, and still writes weekly causeries which carry, on occasion, a provocative sting. George Meredith, Stevenson, Andrew Lang, Thomas Hardy, and Gissing each are the subject of a chapter founded primarily on personal impressions of the man.
Such personal impressions, mixed with estimates of the writer’s work, form the substance of The Literary Spotlight, edited, with an introduction, by John Farrar, editor of The Bookman. These anonymous literary portraits have been aptly called “Mirrors of Literature.” The anonymity has made possible a great deal of frankness, humor, and penetration worth having, and Mr. Farrar has added bibliographies, biographical facts and such data as make the volume handy for reference. Edna Ferber, Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Floyd Dell, Mary Johnston, Edwin Arlington Robinson and others of high contemporary interest are presented.