VARIETES MODERNES

by Prof. Leon Verriest & Marie-Louise Michaud Hall. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1952. 314 pp. $2.95.

Variétés Modernes is a collection of readings for second year college French. It includes mostly short stories, fifteen in all. The addition of three one-act plays and five poems makes the first word in the title Varietes an accurate one. Modernes, is also justified. The selections are by authors of the 19th and 20th centuries, from the older Bourget and Courteline to Benjamins of literature like Merle, Anouilh, and Chauffeteau. Except for Erckmann-Chatrian's L'Esquisse Mysterieuse and Maurois' L'Ange Gardien, the selections are being presented to the American student for the first time. The latter will find challenging new material in this collection, with fast-going narrative and excellent humor; the teacher will find it refreshing and a welcome change from the whiskered collections where only the immortals of the short story—like Balzac, Maupassant and Merimee—are represented.

A very pleasant exception to most textbooks is the lack of misprints, stilted or even incorrect constructions and renderings in the editorial apparatus. The notes are to the point and in the vocabulary at the end of the book the English equivalents for French words and idioms fit the original to a T.

This reader contains all that can be expected from a book of this type: novelty of material, light touch of the introductions, accuracy of the notes. The one-act plays will be particularly appreciated by dramatic advisers of French Clubs who ransack collections of plays for one which is amusing and at the same time free from the almost omnipresent triangle. An attractive yellow and black cover, excellent type and arrangement of the material add to the pleasure that students and teachers will derive from using the book. Professor Verriest and Marie-Louise Michaud Hall have filled the need for up-to-date and lively material in collections of French readings.