A New RYECROFT and the Repetition of Error

244 Professor Draper does, however, find quite a bit to praise in this novel. His argument that the frequent intercourse between Connie and Mellors is of structural and thematic significance is a welcome antidote for the adjective "monotonous," so often applied to these encounters. The chapters titled "The Tales" (30 pp) and "The Poems" (12 pp) are quite disappointing. This space might better have been utilized to add further depth and length to the discussions of the novels. Lawrence wrote some brilliant poems and many equally brilliant tales; to see them raced through in 42 pages is a frustrating experience. Professor Draper makes interesting observations on the poetry, but he does not take the space to let them grow to full significance. He says of Lawrence's early poems that they "are in general marred by artificiality both in diction and form, but the true Lawrentian note is often heard. . .especially in poems dealing with the three main themes of Love, Nature, and the mother-son relationship." Considerations of specific poems, however, are too few and too brief to allow such interesting generalizations to be developed adequately. The chapter on the tales is not quite so disappointing, since several of the longer and better known tales are treated individually. But here, too, one could ask for a fuller treatment of this vital portion of Lawrence's total creative work. Several aspects of Professor Draper's study will recommend it to students and more casual readers of Lawrence. It contains a valuable annotated bibliography of primary and secondary material, and its index is soundly arranged. The chapter on reputation and influence is most useful in helping one trace the vicissitudes of Lawrence's fame since his death, and the chronology traces for us the vicissitudes of his own 1 i fe. Purdue University W. Eugene Davis 5. A New RYECROFT and the Repetition of-Error. George Gissing. THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY RYECROFT. Foreword by Cecil Chisholm. New York: Dutton; London: Dent, 1964. "Everyman's Library." 10/6. The inclusion of Gissing's best known book in Everyman's Library will be appreciated by his admirers as a worthy consecration of its literary merit and autobiographical interest. In fact, though the publishers state that it now first appears as No. 607 in their famous series, some readers and collectors could take down from their shelves an earlier edition, dated September, 1927, bearing No. 800 in Everyman's Library and said to be the "Author's only Authorized American Edition." For want of a critical edition for which the necessary material is available, the publication of the usual text in clear, pleasant type satisfies one perfectly. But, unfortunately, thei rends the praise one feels able to give to the publishers. By reprinting Cecil Chisholm's foreword to the 1953 Phoenix House edition they have merely appended a long list of errors to a book which would better stand by itself than be preceded by some nine misinformed pages altogether out of touch and sympathy with Gissing's books and career. For the incomprehension they reveal they deserve to rank with Douglas Goldring's fulminatory essay in REPUTATIONS. When Mr. Chisholm writes that "apart from the single and brilliantly achieved picture of a woman who drinks secretly in THE ODD WOMEN, Gissing risked and therefore achieved nothing heroic in the development of the novel," he shows that he has forgotten, to say the least, the twenty books he implicitly and sweepingly condemns. In fact, Gissing did risk much with nearly all his novels up to the mid-nineties. He wrote them to satisfy himself—not the public and the circulating libraries—and paid for his courage by 245 starvation (as late as I89O he had to sell'off his books to keep himself alive while writing NEW GRUB STREET), hostile reviews and poor sales. Again when we read that "with LIZA OF LAMBETH Somerset Maugham bettered all Gissing's earnest novels of working class life," we regret that the editor fails to make a difference between the sincere, soul-moving pictures of THYRZA or THE NETHER WORLD and the pastiche of a medical student trying his hand at literature. If these are after...