⁂ “From the author of ‘Tales of Old Japan’ his readers always hope for more about Japan, and in this volume they will find it. The earlier papers, however, are not to be passed over.”—Times.
⁂ “Lord Redesdale’s present volume consists of scholarly essays on a variety of subjects of historic, literary and artistic appeal.”—Standard.
⁂ “The author of the classic ‘Tales of Old Japan’ is assured of welcome, and the more so when he returns to the field in which his literary reputation was made. Charm is never absent from his pages.”—Daily Chronicle.
MY LIFE IN PRISON. By Donald Lowrie. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
⁂ This book is absolutely true and vital. Within its pages passes the myriorama of prison life. And within its pages may be found revelations of the divine and the undivine; of strange humility and stranger arrogance; of free men brutalized and caged men humanized; of big and little tragedies; of love, cunning, hate, despair, hope. There is humour, too though sometimes the jest is made ironic by its sequel. And there is romance—the romance of the real; not the romance of Kipling’s 9.15, but the romance of No. 19,093, and of all the other numbers that made up the arithmetical hell of San Quentin prison.
Few novels could so absorb interest. It is human utterly. That is the reason. Not only is the very atmosphere of the prison preserved, from the colossal sense of encagement and defencelessness, to the smaller jealousies, exultations and disappointments; not only is there a succession of characters emerging into the clearest individuality and genuineness,—each with its distinctive contribution and separate value; but beyond the details and through all the contrasted variety, there is the spell of complete drama,—the drama of life. Here is the underworld in continuous moving pictures, with the overworld watching. True, the stage is a prison; but is not all the world a stage?
It is a book that should exercise a profound influence on the lives of the caged, and on the whole attitude of society toward the problems of poverty and criminality.
AN IRISH BEAUTY OF THE REGENCY: By Mrs. Warrenne Blake. Author of “Memoirs of a Vanished Generation, 1813-1855.” With a Photogravure Frontispiece and other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
⁂ The Irish Beauty is the Hon. Mrs. Calvert, daughter of Viscount Pery, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and wife of Nicholson Calvert, M.P., of Hunsdon. Born in 1767, Mrs. Calvert lived to the age of ninety-two, and there are many people still living who remember her. In the delightful journals, now for the first time published, exciting events are described.