+ Booklist 17:119 D ’20
“An exquisite fantasy of youth and autumn.” A. C. Moore
+ Bookm 52:259 N ’20 670w
“W. W. Tarn has written a book so beautiful, so whimsical, so exquisite alike in its humor, its loveliness and its sheer charm that it will be a dull reader indeed to whom it does not bring an abiding joy. This is a rare and beautiful book, a real discovery.”
+ N Y Times p28 Ag 15 ’20 850w
“The fact is that Mr Tarn, apart from his lovely scenery, has adorned his tale with a remarkably bushy moral, excellent for Fionas and Urchins as such, but un-fairyish.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p740 D 11 ’19 900w
TASSIN, ALGERNON DE VIVIER. Craft of the tortoise. *$1.50 Boni & Liveright 812
19–18735
A satirical play in four acts tracing the evolution of the present status of woman, especially her social supremacy over man, from the ancient faraway beginnings to the present day. The play is built on the premise that woman, at first a slave, subjugated to man’s will and power, had to resort to trickery, exploitation of her sex attractions, and a clever use of clothing and adornment, in order to get ahead of her lord and owner; and that she finally made a complete reversal of social conditions. In his long introduction, brilliant and with a certain Bernard Shaw piquancy, the author is complimentary to neither sex. Having in his introduction compared woman with the tortoise in the fable racing with the gamboling hare, the author has titled the four acts respectively: The tortoise finds herself; Tortoise turns the first corner; Tortoise strikes her gait; Tortoise on the home stretch. The first three are remotely laid in that past so alluring to the imagination, the last is a satiric picture of modern life.