KIRKLAND, WINIFRED MARGARETTA. View vertical, and other essays. *$2 (3½c) Houghton 814
20–17902
Life and books form the background of these essays. In the initial essay the author compares our prevailing post-war frame of mind to a universal neurasthenia and insomnia, and discourses amusingly on the mental obscurity of the insomniac and the worthlessness of his conclusions. She pleads for the vertical position with “feet to the sturdy green earth, head to the jocund sun,” as the best antidote for the still lingering nightmares of the war. Whimsical humor is the keynote to all the essays whether treating of facts of everyday life or literary subjects. Some of the titles are: The friends of our friends; On being and letting alone; The perils of telepathy; In defense of worry; Family phrases; The story in the making: Faces in fiction; Robinson Crusoe re-read; Americanization and Walt Whitman; Gift-books and book-gifts.
“Piquant essays happily turned and worded.”
+ Booklist 17:146 Ja ’21
“I have noted with pleasure the rightness of ‘Faces in fiction’: the particular thing has never, so far as I know, been said so clearly and directly. But my delight is in ‘Hold Izzy,’ which suits me as catnip suits a cat.”
+ Bookm 52:266 N ’20 130w
“Given ‘a shady nook’ and Miss Kirkland’s book of charmingly written essays one is sure of being delightfully entertained and at the same time given a good-humored push into the realm of thought.”
+ Boston Transcript p4 Ja 19 ’21 180w