Hugh Walpole

238 4. Hugh Walpole Elizabeth Steele. Hugh Walpole (NY: Twayne Publishers, 1972). Since Sir Hugh Walpole's death in 1941, only one book-length study of this once-popular author's works has appeared, Rupert Hart-Davis' excellent work on Walpole's life and his many friends, Hugh Walpole. A Biography (1952). Professor Steele therefore surveys all the works and only when necessary calls upon facts from Walpole's life. She arranges the novels in groups according to the role the author as narrator assumes relevant to the content of the novel in each instance. Each theme centers on "a work recognized as outstanding at that time," but Steele takes the liberty - quite properly - of using her own judgment in evaluating the works. According to this arrangement, Walpole the Acolyte is best represented in Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill (1911), Walpole's "most long-lived novel" but no longer thought of so highly. Walpole as Artist is best seen in Fortitude (1913). once included in the Modern Library series but surpassed in quality , according to Steele, by Hans Frost (I929). The Dark Forest (I9I6) is the best of Walpole in the role of Witness, that is, in his comments on political matters. Walpole appears at his best as Evangelist in The Cathedral (1922) and as Critic in Wintersmoon (I928). As Romanticist, Walpole created his best novel, Rogue Herries (1930). Steele ranks the six best novels in order: Rogue Herries, The Cathedral, The Dark Forest, Wintersmoon . Hans Frost, and Judith Paris (1931). She also analyzes Walpole's other works: his critical studies of Joseph Conrad and Anthony Trollope, his short stories, and his Fragments of Autobiography. In wondering why Walpole's literary prestige collapsed almost completely after his death, Steele suggests that the most prolific and, partly through his lecture tours, the most widely known man of letters of his time suddenly almost disappeared from view because World War II greatly overshadowed his death; because his death necessarily ended a personality cult; because, as time passed, several major critics turned from the traditional novelists (Bennett, Wells, and Galsworthy, with whom Walpole is often grouped), to an interest in the experiments of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce; because Walpole's approach to writing was largely emotional; and because Somerset Maugham's exploitation of Walpole as Alroy Kear in Cakes and Ale (I93O) caused a serious decline in his achievement. Steele valiantly attempts to justify Walpole's place as an important novelist, but on one page alone she includes more faults than excellences in his works. She finds about fifteen titles that are suitable for publication today. On the whole, however, she seems to be reasonably fair to Walpole, finding him of interest still partly because he is a transitional novelist between the traditional works of Dickens, George Eliot, and Thackeray and the more "modern" creations of Forster, Virginia V/oolf, and Aldous Huxley. Such aspects of his novels as Gothicism, Utop- 239 ianism, and the rebellion of youth are of special interest to readers today even if they cannot be highly regarded for their literary qualities. Of the younger traditionalists, Walpole became, however, in his own time the best known by means of "his talents, his hard work, and a certain penchant for publicity." According to Steele, his positive advantages are "overwhelming sincerity, compelling style, genuine humor, and characters that live." This praise seems somewhat exaggerated to the present reviewer, who recognizes, nevertheless, the sincerity in Steele's assessment of Walpole's works. Central Washington State College Bruce E. Teets BOOKS RECEIVED Listing here does not preclude the publication of a review in a future issue of ELT. Publishers receive two copies of the review. Brisman, Leslie. Milton's Poetry of Choice and Its Romantic Heirs (Ithaca« Cornell UP, 1973). $12.3ÖT Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, ed by Margaret Smith (Lond« Oxford UP, 1973). $i475oT Crackanthorpe, Hubert. Collected Stories (1893-1897) of Hubert Crackanthorpe. Together with an Appreciation by Henry James, introd by William Peden (Gainesville « Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, I969). $25.00. Lazarus, Arnold, and H. Wendell Smith. A. Glossary of Literature and Composition (NY« Grosset & Dunlap, 1973 [Part I of Modern English, rvd; orig pub 1971, 1972]). $3.95· Snukal...