Briefer Mention

254 Of these, the more surprising is Pierrot's statement that Salomé was performed at the Théâtre de l'Oeuvre in Paris on 11 February I896, "as an expression of admiration for its author by French artistic circles on the occasion of his release from jail." Wilde, of course, was not released until May, I897. Elsewhere, Pierrot states that Wilde attended Portora Royal School in Dublin. The school, however, was located in the ancient Ulster town of Inniskillen. These are minor errors compared to the abundance of riches that Pierrot spreads before us: of Decadent obsessions and of the Angst that produced them. Karl Beckson Brooklyn College, CUNY BRIEFER MENTION Rudyard Kipling. American Notes, ed. Arrell M. Gibson (Norman: University of Oklahoma P, Ι98ΙΠ$~9.95. Since this edition of American Notes appears as Volume 54 in the Western Frontier Library, we cannot be surprised to discover that "the primary purpose of this enterprise is to resuscitate American Notes and present it as an illuminating treatise on a portion of the American West (most of the content is devoted to the territory west of Omaha) during the late nineteenth century" (p. xv). Kipling landed in San Francisco 28 May I889 and spent four months touring Washington, Oregon, Vancouver, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone National Park, Omaha, Chicago, Buffalo, and Boston, sailing for England 25 September. During the trip Kipling sent a series of letters describing his experiences to the Allahabad Pioneer, published under the general title of "From Sea to Sea." Early in I89I extracts from the letters appeared in several American newspapers, including the New York Herald, from which the New York publishing company of M. J. Ivers produced a pirated edition - American Notes. (The title was taken from Charles Dickens's American Notes of 1842.) Other pirated editions appeared but in 1899 Kipling issued an authorized text under the title From Sea to Sea, with the letters heavily revised and many of the passages uncomplimentary to the United States deleted. That some care was not taken to produce a text as close as possible to what Kipling originally wrote at the time of his visit in I889 is regrettable. An American edition of I910 "is the basis of this edition" (p. xiv). Whatever this might mean, other features of the edition do not inspire confidence. The introduction is repetitious and uninspired. One portrait in the volume bears the caption "Rudyard Kipling after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in I907" but cannot be dated later than I89I, Kipling's last visit to India, as the reproduction in one of Gibson's sources, Angus Wilson's The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling, makes clear. There the photographers' names are given underneath the portrait - "-Bourne & Shepherd, Simla, Calcutta & Bombay." The other is labelled a caricature and is not. Well, the volume is a fun read and a bargain at $9.95 in hard covers. 255 C. H. Sisson, English Poetry 1900-1950 (NYt Methuen, 1981). Paper $7.95Originally published in 1971 this survey is now available in paperback . The publisher's flyer quotes a review by Michael Hamburger: "What makes this work outstanding is that in it history of literature is combined with a definite point of view - just what is needed most at a time when all critical standards are muzzy, fuzzy, or non-existent ." We can all agree that Sisson has a definite point of view. Whether you agree with him or not, he can be stimulating and illuminating . You might enjoy Stephen Medcalf's review in TLS, 23 April 1982, p. 457· As many of you will recall, the survey actually begins with the poets of the nineties - Lionel Johnson, Ernest Dowson, John Davidson - and moves through Hardy, Kipling, Housman to Imagism, and beyond. ...