NON-FICTION: Requiem

REQUIEM—Humbert Wolfe—Dor-an ($1.50). In English drawing-rooms which once echoed with frantic praise of Shelley’s Adonais or censure of Keats’ Endymion people now prefer, if literature must be mentioned, to comment briefly on what Bernard Shaw said to the old lady from Nantucket. The one astounding exception to this rule is found in the poetry of Humbert Wolfe, a young Briton whose work has actually inserted itself into the lists of best sellers. Possessed of a dexterous though partly imitative technique, it has none of the raucous and hurtling sentiment which usually gives poetry a popular appeal. The music of his verses is delicate and blurred; his gentle comments on saints and harlots, soldiers and nuns, unlike his previous satire, seems too wan to provoke a storm either of praise or censure.