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35 REVIEWS Stephen Hudson. RICHARD, MYRTLE AND I. Newly Edited by Violet Schiff With a Biographical Note and a Critical Essay by Theophilus E. M. Boll. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962. $4.50. Since no biographical study of "Stephen Hudson" [Sydney Schiff: 1868-1944] exists and since even cursory sketches of his life are scarce, T, E. M. Boll's 40-page biographical note is a welcome addition to literary history. Similarly, Professor Boll's nearly 50-page critical essay is the first really serious extended study of Stephen Hudson's work. In this essay Boll surveys Hudson's books in just enough detail to entice the reader to read and, one hopes, the critic to revaluate. In the main, Boll sees the novels as illustrating the "progress toward a realized self" and "insight into individuation." The novels are characterized by directness and lucidity of style and, Professor Boll asserts, have for this reason not interested modern critics looking for puzzles. Yet Boll shows that these novels are psychologically complex, especially if the volumes in the Kurt saga are considered as a sequence. RICHARD, MYRTLE AND I, originally published by Knopf in 1926, Boll writes, has as its main theme "the evolution of Stephen Hudson as novelist." Although little more than the length of a long short story (about 43pp), this short novel has many of the kind of complexities the modern reader has come to expect in serious fiction. There is, as always in Hudson, the complex concept of individual characters and the complex concept of subtle human relationships. There are also interesting techniques: abrupt shifts in time and scene and a sometimes puzzling point of view in the use of the memoirist, the "I" of the story. It makes for interesting comparison with the work of James and Proust, especially since this novel, and the related series in which it is a chapter, is an artisthero novel. This novel also makes for an interesting study in collaboration, for Mrs. Schiffs editing of this version of the story appears to be much more an act of collaboration than the more modest task of editing with which the title page credits her. RICHARD, MYRTLE AND I can be read as a separate unit, but I believe it is better judged in the context of the other novels, especially if these are arranged chronologically according to the life of the protagonist Richard Kurt. Such an arrangement was made in the several versions of A TRUE STORY. Because Hudson is so little known, a list of his major work with some brief notes, drawn from T. E. M. Boll's fine critical essay, may be useful here: CONFESSIONS (1913). A novel excluded from the canon by the author. WAR-TIME SILHOUETTES (19'6). A series of seven stories and sketches. RICHARD KURT (1919). A novel dedicated "To M. P." [Marcel Proust]. ELINOR COLHOUSE (1921). A novel covering the time six years before the opening of RICHARD KURT. 36 PRINCE HEMPSEED (1923). A novel dedicated "To the Memory of My Beloved Friend, Marcel Proust, November 8, 1922," this volume records Richard's memories from babyhood to age 18. TONY (1924). A novel which presents "the self-portrait of Richard's younger brother, who had been excluded from the earlier volumes of the Kurt saga.., Begins at the time of Richard's first trip to America and ends in 1919. MYRTLE (1925). A novel, "structured as a dossier novel in nine parts," introdu a renewing love into the life of Richard, who has been married for twenty \ypArc: RICHARD, MYRTLE AND I (1926). A novel which fills some gaps in Richard's story "between the time of Elinor's starting her divorce action and Richard's completing his second novel." The newly edited version (1962) has been somewhat cut. CELESTE AND OTHER SKETCHES (1930). A collection of six stories and sketches first published in American magazines, 1920-1925. A TRUE STORY (1930). Contains, rearranged in the order of events in Kurt's life: PRINCE HEMPSEED, ELINOR COLHOUSE, RICHARD KURT, "Postscript" (the ninth memoir from MYRTLE). The version of RICHARD KURT here is much reduced. A revised edition of 1937 added THE OTHER SIDE...

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