GALSWORTHY, JOHN. Plays; 4th ser. *$2.50 Scribner 822
20–9081
The book contains three plays: A bit o’ love; The foundations; The skin game. In the first play a young clergyman, Michael Strangway, is deserted by his wife, who returns during the first act to plead with her husband not to divorce her out of consideration for the career of her lover. He consents and thereby makes himself impossible with his narrow-minded parishioners. His struggle is between his love as a cosmic manifestation and the essence of Christianity, and his love for the woman, his wrongs and his worldly prospects. When, at the moment of the most hopeless desolation, he has prepared a suicide’s noose for himself, the cry of a little child for “a bit o’ love,” and the brave fight with his sorrow of a brother in affliction, recall him to the world and his stronger self.
“This fourth volume of Mr Galsworthy’s plays is hardly up to the best of his earlier dramatic work. Of the three plays which it contains, ‘The skin game’ is the most skilfully and convincingly written; but even ‘The skin game’ leaves us comparatively cold.”
+ − Ath p733 Je 4 ’20 560w
“Written with the usual sincerity and dramatic intensity.”
+ Booklist 16:337 Jl ’20
“It is sufficient of the first two, ‘A bit o’ love’ and ‘The foundations,’ to say that they are ‘good Galsworthy,’ which means that they are more than readable and that they are beautifully constructed and phrased. More must be said of ‘The skin game,’ the third play. It is Galsworthy at his best.”
+ Drama 10:355 Jl ’20 280w