Books: Super-Man*

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The Author. Matthew Phipps Shiel was born of Irish parents in the West Indies in 1865. He studied medicine and mathematics; chemical experiments and mathematics are still his chief amusements. He appears to know a little about almost everything. His first venture as an author was the publication of a paper, written out by hand, at the age of 13. His particular pride is his body. He boasts that he, "over 40 years old, can run nine miles with sprightliness." He sees a fundamental identity between genius and physical health. Among his novels—some 20 in number—are Prince Zaleski, Shapes in the Fire, The Purple Cloud, The Pale Ape, Children of the Wind. The Lord of the Sea was first published in 1901.

New Books

The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:

Heavy Huxley

YOUNG ARCHIMEDES—Aldous Huxley —Doran ($2.00). The skilled dispenser of cleverness to the sophisticates becomes excessively painstaking and elaborately voluble in a set of six not particularly short short stories. They are exhaustive studies in human nature. Uncle Spencer enlarges upon the love of an elderly Englishman for a cockney male impersonator in a German internment prison. Little Mexican tells about a romantic Italian Count and the thwarted life of his son. Hubert and Minnie relates the abortive misconduct of an unwilling young man and a willing young woman. Fard, short and not without poignancy, is no more than a snapshot of an overworked chambermaid and her temperamental mistress. The Portrait describes the selling of a fake Old Master. Young Archimedes discovers an infant mathematical prodigy, recounts his frustration and early suicide. All the stories are careful, ambitious work. All are dull.

Huck Finn Redivivus

GOIN' ON FOURTEEN—Irvin S. Cobb— Doran ($2.50). John C. Calhoun Custer had his 13th birthday the day before the first page of this book. He is spiritual brother to "Penrod," to "Huck Finn," to "Tom Bailey," to all the other naughty urchins whose pranks bring reminiscent lumps to shriveled throats. The story—or series of stories—is true to form. There are adventures with dogs and cats, a treasure-hunting expedition, the inevitable circus, a running away from home. There is tragedy when the village bad boy dies to rescue a contemporary from drowning. The book is like a score of others, but Mr. Cobb's insight into the preadolescent intelligence or his recollection of the days immediately before the first hair curved proudly on the youthful chest is shrewder than most.