Sunday, December 8, 2019

Some Book Reviews by Kenneth Morris?

Some years ago I found a few book reviews in the UK journal The Bookman for 1930-31 that are signed only with the initials "K.V. M." Are these reviews by Kenneth Morris?  I wonder, but the timing might be seen to work out for them to be by Morris.  In January 1930, Morris moved back the England after living in southern California for twenty-two years.  He certainly sought some literary work at that time, for he contributed some articles to The Welsh Outlook in 1931 and early 1932. 

The "K.V.M." reviews appeared in only two issues of The Bookman, that of December 1930, and of March 1931. The first review covers only one book, A Woman of the Tudor Age, edited by Lady Cecille Goff. The reviewer notes that the book is "a realistic and human, if somewhat incoherent biography of one of the most important women of that time, and starting from the point of view of a contemporary and often of a participant, has thrown on some of the outstanding events of the political and social history of the period, sidelights which are the more valuable because they do not come from the usual coldly logical, external standpoint." 

The second review covers six books, and begins:
These six books are all written in historical settings, and fall chronologically and geographically into three groups of two. Two are set in nineteenth century England, two in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and two in mediaeval Europe. None is preeminently concerned with mere events, but The Distant Storm [by David Emerson] and When Joan was Pope [by Richard Ince] both create an excellent historical atmosphere, and the latter reveals a careful study of the history of thought. 
Most interesting are the sparse comments on Alexander de Comeau's Monk's Magic:
Of the two mediaeval stories the first [Monk's Magic] is a lively fantasia of black magic, and the second [When Joan was Pope] a serious attempt to outline the early free thought of the Middle Ages.  To understand and enjoy "Monk's Magic" the reader must enter into the spirit of the dark ages of the human mind. The story is very well told. 
[I liked Monk's Magic so much that I reissued it last year. See here for details.]  But are these book reviews by Kenneth Morris?  Stylistically I tend to think they are not. But I don't think that's a definitive answer, and there likely will never be one.

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