Reprints and New Editions

54 REPRINTS AND NEW EDITIONS Recently a colleague wrote to tell us he was preparing a textbook list for a course in the ELT period. He asked which paperback edition of ESTHER WATERS we would suggest he use. This question, and others we have received about texts for use in ELT courses, caused us to check through publishers' lists and reference sources such as PAPERBOUND BOOKS IN PRINT. We found ourselves comparing the merits of various "reasonably priced" editions; considering the needs of the teacher and the students in matters such as textual accuracy, introductions, biographical and bibliographical material included in paperbacks; and checking prices and the availability of titles. We found more paperbacks by major ELT authors in print than might have been expected. However, a compilation like PAPERBOUND BOOKS IN PRINT does not help in making an estimate of the usefulness of a particular title, and neither do publishers' catalogues, which are written to sell books. In "Reprints and New Editions" we propose to survey as well as list the material available to the teacher of ELT literature. We hope that the listings in this section will give some idea of the the critical material included in various paperback editions, and we also hope to list new titles which, because they are paperbacks, usually do not receive review space as they are published. And as we receive biographical, bibliographical and critical works, reprinted in paper covers, which deal specifically with ELT material, we will list these. We plan to cover as many titles as we can in each issue of ELT and hope that gradually we can compile a rather thorough index to this information. A little-known series of paperbacks, distributed by Bruce Humphries (48-50 Melrose St, Boston, Mass) and titled International Pocket Library, includes six titles pertinent to the ELT period: Hardy, Thomas. TWO WESSEX TALES. Foreword by Conrad Aiken. 1919. .50. Housman, A. E. A SHROPSHIRE UD. Intro by William Stanley Braithwaite. 1319. .50. Kipling, Rudyard. Tl-JO TALES. Intro by Wilson Follett. 1919. .50. Thompson, Francis. THE HOUND OF HEAVEN AND OTHER POEMS. Intro by G. K. Chesterton. 1936. .50. THREE IRISH PUYS. Intro by Harrison Hale Schaff. 1936. .50. Wilde, Oscar. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Intro, by Lester Cramer. 1931. .50. We suspect that the International Pocket Library was never planned specifically for classroom use. The introductions are extremely brief and, for the most part, general appreciations which we assume were written about the time of the copyright date. However, these general introductions do not invalidate the usefulness of the texts. The most specific and sparkling introduction with brief comment on the end-ofcentury milieu is that by G. K. Chesterton for Thompson's HOUND OF HEAVEN. Perhaps Chesterton over-estimates and over-praises Thompson, but of the ELT titles in the IPL list, the Thompson volume is probably the most useful. Besides the title poem, it includes 24 others which give a sampling of Thompson's religious work, his poems on children, his sonnets and his miscellaneous verses. 55 TWO TALES by Rudyard Kipling combines "The Man Who Would Be King" and "Without Benefit of Clergy." Wilson Follet's introduction is again more specific than most of the IPL introductions; Follet attacks the biographical interpretation of Kipling and gives brief critical comment on the two stories. Lester Cramer also makes many critical points in his introduction to THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, but he never expands these remarks, hurrying on to the next and the next. Conrad Aiken's remarks on Hardy are very general. The two Wessex tales are "The Three Strangers" and "The Withered Arm." W. S. Braithwaite's introduction to Housman's SHROPSHIRE UD is also vague. Harrison Schaffs introduction to THREE IRISH PUYS gives a brief, general sketch of the Irish Literary Renaissance. The three one-act plays are William Butler Yeats' THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE, Douglas Hyde's THE TVJISTING OF THE ROPE, and J. M. Synge's RIDERS TO THE SEA. This volume would be useful for sampling the dramatic productions of the Celtic Renaissance or for courses in modern drama. Houghton Mifflin's Riverside Editions are prepared expressely for use in...