Précis

ELT 38: 1 1995 Précis Louise Kennelly University of North Carolina, Greensboro Beerbohm, Max. A Christmas Garland. N. John Hall, intro. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. lxxx + 197 pp. $25.00 When A Christmas Garland first appeared in 1912, reviewers agreed that Beerbohm had not merely captured the styles of his subjects but had "unbared their brains and heart." Beerbohm is still considered one of the period's greatest writers of parody. A Christmas Garland includes spoofs of Beerbohm's well-known contemporaries—James, Shaw, Hardy, Conrad, Kipling, Wells, Meredith, Galsworthy and others. This handsome edition is illustrated with thirty-two of Beerbohm's caricatures of the authors he parodies. N. John Hall includes a distinguished introduction. Bullen, J. B. The Myth of the Renaissance in Nineteenth Century Writing. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. xi + 336 pp. $55.00 During the Victorian era, the Renaissance was characterized as a period when Satan ruled as well as the most marvelous era the world had ever known, all of which means Victorian culture was "fluid, full of doubts and uncertainties." While Bullen is not directly concerned with the Transition period, he illuminates aspects of the Victorian character that figure into important tum-of-thecentury literary developments. Bullen's account of how English writers appropriated the term Renaissance from the French—who themselves were using it as a key factor in acrimonious political and religious debate—in order to fuel discussions about the relationship between power, authority and individualism should be of interest. Fine Feathers and Other Stories by E. F. Benson. Jack Adrian, intro. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. xviii + 302 pp. $23.00 Here we find E. F. Benson's satirical wit in a collection of stories that range from society spoofs to tales of the supernatural. Benson (1867-1940), a prolific and popular novelist, wrote numerous short stories for magazines such as Longman's, Pall Mall, and The Sketch. Adrian compiles an entertaining variety of those stories, most of which have never before appeared in a book. You will not want to miss the appearance of Benson's heroine Dodo, described by one contemporary reader as a "pretentious donkey with the heart and brains of a linnet." Kirkus Reviews says: "A perfect bedside book—guaranteed to send you off to sleep with a malicious smile on your lips." 148 BOOK REVIEWS Gervais, David. Literary Englands: Versions of'Englishness' in Modern Writing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xvi + 280 pp. $54.95 Literary Englands explores the ways in which a sense of nationality has informed and shaped the work of a range of writers, including Forster, Lawrence, Orwell, Waugh, and Eliot. Gervais shows the extent to which English writers have been influenced by a consciousness of working within a long-established literary tradition and goes on to elucidate a nostalgia which he argues lies at the heart of English culture. Myers, Stephen W. Yeats's Book of the Nineties: Poetry, Politics, and Rhetoric. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. xx + 185 pp. $32.95 This study of the literary work produced by William Butler Yeats in the 1890s—his poetry, essays, and short fiction—attempts to trace a subtle interfusion of aesthetics and politics. The book contains six chapters. Of particular interest may be chapter 4, The Book of the Nineties: The Secret Rose." The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry. Ian Hamilton, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. xvi + 602 pp. $35.00 This is a must-have for students, instructors, readers and reviewers of poetry. The Oxford Companion charts the development of poetry from 1900 to the present. It offers concise biographical entries of 1500 individual poets as well as entries on magazines, movements, literary terms, and concepts. There is plenty missing but what is here satisfies in terms of basics-only information. The healthy three-page entries for Yeats and Eliot would suggest that the basics are not being skimped either. Poet-critics write on other poets here: Seamus Heaney writes on Robert Lowell, Ann Stevenson weighs in on Sylvia Plath, and William Pritchard comments on Robert Frost and Randall Jarrell. Powys, John Cowper. Autobiography. J. B. Priestley, intro. Hamilton: Colgate University Press, 1994. xxi...