A Biography on John Gray

262 demanding format. The book is remarkably free of errors, although one would have expected Twayne to get Graham's dates correct on the title page. I spotted one error in Spanish, and have some quibbles about inconsistencies (Prof.? Dr.? for some but not others) in the Index. My main complaints are, as before, with the Bibliography. I would not agree with Watts's descriptions of some of the most recent anthologies. Also, Alexander Maitland1s Tales of Horsemen (1981) is missing. As in the Critical Biography, the bibliography is neither complete nor up-to-datT: Although it is a Selected Bibliography, the section on Secondary Sources is, in my opinion, overweighted with minor articles by well-known writers like Galsworthy and D. H. Lawrence, plus other mediocre pieces, but does not include more current scholarship including bibliographies and scholarly articles published in the last decade and a half. Nor are the missing items even mentioned in the body of the text in the appropriate discussion of the authors, themes and areas. 1 was delighted to see Richard Haymaker's privately printed study of Graham receive deserved, if belated, recogniti on. However, as I seem to be saying increasingly more often these days, this book on Graham is a welcome addition to what was until recently a barren field. Cedric Watts has produced much scholarly work on Graham over the years, including his meticulous, fascinating volume of Joseph Conrad's Letters to R. B. Cunni nghame Graham (1969) and the aforementioned now definitive Critical Biography, which, unfortunately, has tended to haunt tIiT! rwayne volume in the sense that the author is constantly trying not to repeat himself. Watts need have no fears of such defects. If there are any flaws in this book, they are the products of the aim and format of the series. We are grateful to Twayne and Cedric Watts for an important addition to the field of English literature. John Walker Queen's University, Ontari o 8. A BIOGRAPHY ON JOHN GRAY Brocard Sewell. 1934. Cornwall In the Dorian __ Tabb House, 1983 Mode: A Life L18 of John Gray, 1866Lionel Johnson once dismissed John Gray as "a sometimes beautiful oddity." When Johnson so labelled his friend, Gray was more interested in playingthe role of a man of letters than in actually being one; yetlater, when he determined to play the part in earnest, Gray won the admiration of Wilde, Pater, Dowson, Beardsley, and a host of other well-known Nineties figures. Fifty years have elapsed since his death, and Gray's reputation has more than merely lingered. Though he was sadly neglected for some thirty years after his death, over the past 263 twenty years interest in his life and work has been steadily building. All of his poetry is being collected and prepared for publication, his letters are being searched out and annotated, and his place in the Oscar Wilde circle is being fully investigated. As for biographical details, in 1961, under the editorship of Brocard Sewell, the Ay1esfore Review devoted its spring issue to several articles on Gray and hTs companion of some forty years, Andre Raffalovich. Two years later, these articles and several more made up a symposium edited by Sewell, which he entitled Two Friends: John Gray and Andre Raffa 11 ovich. In the same year, Gregory Gr igson accorded Gray a full-page notice in his Conci se Encyclopedi a of Modern World Literature. In 1968, SeweTT published his Footnote to the "Nineties: A_ Memoi r of John Gray and André* Raf f al o vi eh. Last year, a biocrftical study of Gray in the Twayne English Author Series (reviewed in ELT, 26:4) maintained that to think of John Gray only as a Nineties poet is hardly accurate, that Gray's literary promise survived into the twentieth century and was ful filled. In the Dori an Mode is the first complete biography of the poet and later priest who had once been rumored to be the prototype of Wilde's Dorian Gray. Its author has researched thoroughly the multiple facets of Gray's life. He has dutifully examined all pertinent documents, letters and papers, inquired into Gray's literary...