The Island of Youth is the fourth volume of verse by a poet whose powers have been steadily maturing. Two years ago Mr Shanks's The Queen of China won the Hawthornden Prize, and the present volume contains all the poems he has since written. It contains one long poem, a beautiful idyll in blank verse, and a number of short poems. Mr Shanks's language is refreshingly pure and his rhythm refreshingly musical, in an age which has made many attempts to glorify gibberish and raucous discord. He is, as all good poets must be, at once original and in the stream of national tradition, and in no respect more traditional than in his affection for and knowledge of the English landscape which has breathed its fragrance into so much of our great poetry in all ages. Those who know his previous books, or the selections from them in Georgian Poetry, do not need to be told this, and those unacquainted with Mr Shanks's previous work can be most emphatically assured that they will not be disappointed in The Island of Youth. It is one of those books familiarity with which breeds an ever deepening admiration and love.
Ibsen and His Creation JANKO LAVRIN
Crown 8vo, Cloth, 7/6 net
This is a further contribution to 'psycho-criticism' by Mr Janko Lavrin, whose able study of Dostoevsky was so favourably received. His aim is to present a new and original solution of the central problem of Ibsen, and to show how Ibsen's individual psychological conflict is worked out in his plays.
Mr Lavrin reveals in a new light the great significance of Ibsen as a representative of modern consciousness, and in so doing illuminates not only Ibsen's dilemma but also our own.
Last Studies in Criminology H. B. IRVING
Demy 8vo, Cloth, 15/- net.
With photogravure portrait of H. B. Irving
With the death of H. B. Irving one of the most remarkable figures of the English stage disappeared, for not only was he an actor of great merit, but a man of very versatile mental attainments. His bent was always towards criminological study, and his various studies in crime and criminals are familiar to many readers. These, the last of his essays, will be read with great attention. They are mainly studies of persons accused but not convicted of crime, men such as Adolph Beck; and the element of uncertainty that attaches to so many of these cases gives them an added point of interest for so subtle and penetrating a mind as that of the late Mr H. B. Irving.