Hardy's Letters Continued

important critics, and fellow authors for each collected volume. Alphabetically arranged commentaries on each story foUow. In treating the individual stories Page again apportions space efficiently—the critical disagreements around stories Tike "Day Spring Mishandled" or "Mary Postgate" are adequately sketched while well-known stories that require little more than a two-sentence summary are handled accordingly. General comments on the relation of a story to Kipling's life or work as a whole are incisively phrased: of "The Arrest of Lieutenant Gohghtly," "This is an early example of a type of story to which Kipling was to become addicted, involving the physical humiliation of the morally objectionable." Page's summaries are on the whole notably superior to those in A Kipling Dictionary, edited by Young and McGivering (1967), though the latter retains its usefulness for identifying characters, first lines of verse, and certain scenes and other place names. (Comparison of the plot summaries in Knowles' Primer, Young and McGivering's Dictionary, and Page's Companion gives intriguing evidence of the differences in what is regarded as important by different readers.) Page helpfully treats the circumstances around the writing of and the strengths and weaknesses of each of the four novels while mercifully omitting plot summaries (summaries of Kipling's stories are very useful to those of us wno have read a large number of them over the years, but one has either read the novels or one has not). Equally merciful, and astute, is the avoidance of special pleading for Kipling as novelist. Page exhibits tact and good sense in nis evaluation of Kipling's varied achievements as a poet; this section introduces a "Select Guide to Kipling's Verse" treating 40 of the best-known poems. The volume also contains a helpful biographical listing of family, friends, and people of importance in Kiphng's life; a section on miscellaneous prose; a rilmography; and a briefly annotated "Select Bibliography." My list of flaws is minor indeed. The cryptic references to Kipling s feud with his brother-inlaw Beatty Balestier unnecessarily suggest something more mysterious and perhaps sinister than was apparently the case. Those seeking The Reader's Guide to Rudyard Kipling's Work will find that it is usually catalogued under the name of its founding editor, Roger Lancelyn Green, rather than that of R. E. Harbord (who edited the later volumes). The secondary bibliography is all too select, omitting a number of items to which a reader's attention should be called (for instance, in addition to Boris Ford's Scrutiny article, something like H. E. Bates' attack on Kipling in The Modern Short Story [1941] might well have been cited as an example of the strong aversion some fully competent readers hold toward Kipling.) And the references to the annotated bibliography of articles about Kipling in English Fiction in Transition (now ELT), which constitutes issues 3, 4, and 5 of Volume UJ (1960) and the greater part of issues 3 and 4 of Volume VUI (1965), ought certainly to have included the names of its dedicated editors, Helmut E. Gerber and Edward Lauterbach. Wendell V. Harris Pennsylvania State University 2. HARDY'S LETTERS CONTINUED The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, Volume V, 1914-1919. Eds. Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. $37.00 92 Two changes, of some importance in the history of this seven volume edition of Hardy's conespondence, ought to be noted immediately. The first is a decision, made at least partly because of objections raised by a number of Hardy scholars, to be more selective in printing letters written in response to "requests for autographs or permissions, invitations to lend practical or symbohc support to persons, organizations, or causes," and, for that matter, letters written by somebody other than Hardy (but signed by Hardy). These more rigid criteria for inclusion have eliminated some or the trivia that for several years threatened to overwhelm the materials of genuine interest. The second is an effort, no less welcome for its being unadvertised, to supply fuller information about the nature of the stimulus that led Hardy to wnte a letter, or about the content of a periodical essay, story, or book on...