Recent Books: Non-Fiction

A BOOK of HOURS—Donald Culross Peattie—Putnam ($2.50). Rosary-like, 202-page addenda to Author-Naturalist Peattie’s An Almanac for Moderns, brummagem “classic.” Illustrations by Lynd Ward.

CANADA—André Siegfried—Harcourt, Brace ($3). Best modern atlas of Canada’s complex, uneasy mixture of British, French and U. S. influences, her thermostatic role in British-U. S. relations; by a shrewd French observer, author of America Comes of Age.

THE Du MAURIERS—Daphne du Maurier—Doubleday, Doran ($3). Most famed but not most interesting Du Maurier in this fictionized family chronicle is George, the Victorian caricaturist and author of Trilby, which created an English vogue like the U. S. “Gibson Girl.”

A COMMONER MARRIED A KING—Baroness cle Vaughan—Washburn ($2.50). Guarded but self-revealing confessions of “Très Belle,” who at 16 became the mistress of 65-year-old Belgian King Leopold II, bore him two sons, married him four days before his death in 1909.

THE CONQUEST OF POWER (2 Vols.)—Albert Weisbord—Covici-Friede ($7.50). Ambitiously attempted 1,208-page encyclopedia tracing the rise and decline of Liberalism, Anarchism, Syndicalism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism; by a onetime U. S. Communist.

RODIN : IMMORTAL PEASANT—Anne Leslie—Prentice-Hall ($3). Lively biography of a lively subject, the lusty, redheaded, great French sculptor, whose eventual fame at 60 left undimmed the traits which prompted Robert Louis Stevenson’s wife to call him “a horrid old man.”

WASHINGTON : CITY AND CAPITAL—Federal Writers’ Project—U. S. Government Printing Office ($3). Handsome, hefty (5 lb. 9 oz.), 400,000-word guide book, with fine maps and photographs, in which the Federal Writers’ Project turns the Capital’s history, buildings and scenery inside out. The second (1st: Idaho: A Guide in Word and Picture) in a projected 48-State series.

Murders

THE BURNING COURT—by John Dickson Carr—Harper ($2). Skilfully written, highly improbable murder mingled with Black Magic in a Philadelphia suburb.

THE CLUE OF THE SILVER CELLAR—Miles Burton—CrimeClub ($2). Ingenious investigation of the disappearance of an unpleasant woman whose body could not be found. Good detective work but rather slow and plodding in parts.

THE UPSIDE DOWN MURDERS—Hugh Austin—Crime Club ($2). Feeble account of murder in an amusement park, with a distinctly trick ending.