Hanover Browsing
ONE of my many frailties is a love for Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. It is, of course, a minor vice, and one that is shared by many all over the world.
Sherlockians will be pleased, I think, with a new two-volume edition of all the stories and novels connected with the master detective. This is published by Doubleday. Volume I includes two novels, A Studyin Scarlet and The Sign of Four, and two volumes of short tales, the Adventures and the Memoirs. Volume II includes The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound ofthe Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear, TheCase Book, and His Last Bow. Christopher Morley contributes an introduction. The type is good, and all in all, this is an edition worth having.
The Oxford World Classics also has a nice new pocket-sized selection of Holmes' stories which I can recommend.
If you are one of the diehards I think you would enjoy getting Sherlock Holmes:Master Detective, issued by the Norwegian Explorers, of St. Paul, Minnesota. Besides containing a fine "salute" to Holmes, there are papers on "Sherlock Holmes and the Law," "Did Sherlock Holmes Return?" and other sketches. This may be ordered from 2077 Commonwealth Avenue, St. Paul. The editors are two deans at the University of Minnesota.
If you happen to be interested in the American West you will enjoy looking at and reading Harold McCracken's Portraitof the Old West (McGraw-Hill, 1952). There are well over a hundred painters in the checklist given, and there are chapters on the more important artists such as Catlin, Miller, Kane, Brush (who died in Hanover in 1941), Remington, Russell, and others. The reproductions are not perfect by any means and the artists must not be judged by them.
Theodora Keogh's sensitive novel TheTattooed Heart (Straus) is expertly done. The mystery of childhood and youth is sensitively and sensuously realised. One of the better novels of 1953 so far.
Those interested in English literature will enjoy reading the latest life of "the stricken deer," William Cowper, written by Prof. Maurice J. Quinlan, and issued by the University of Minnesota Press. Here you will find revealed some of the mystery which will always surround this recluse. Cowper's translation of Homer is forgotten, but he stands supreme among letter writers (it could be argued he invented whimsy), and ranks as a poet with the preromantics Burns and Blake. Professor Quinlan taught at Dartmouth from 1931 to 1933.
Miss Ruby Daggett, knowing of my interest in the Civil War, gave me her greatgreat-grandfather's copy of Life in RebelPrisons, a contemporary account of the horrors of Andersonville and Libby Prisons by one who had been a prisoner in the former. This is a Hartford, Connecticut, imprint of 1865. The book is described as a "history of the inhuman and barbarous treatment of our brave soldiers by rebel authorities, inflicting terrible suffering and frightful mortality, principally at Andersonville, Georgia, and Florence, South Carolina."
The moral here is that there has never been a war fought without atrocities committed by both sides.
Basil O'Connor'12 kindly sent me Turnley Walker's most interesting book, Roosevelt and the Warm Springs Story. Few, save the professional Roosevelt haters, will deny that Franklin D. Roosevelt had courage. This chapter of his life, in which he overcame polio and out of victory founded a famous spa at Warm Springs for polio sufferers (ably helped by his friend Basil O'Connor, who since Roosevelt's death has made it a great institution), is a stirring one.
In 1952 the National Foundation for In fantile Paralysis raised nearly forty-one and a half million dollars. One of these days polio will be conquered, and the fear of its consequences lifted from the hearts of millions of parents. When this time comes both the late Mr. Roosevelt and Basil O'Connor will deserve a lot of credit.
Anyone interested in studying the Japanese language, or Japanese grammar, will find very helpful George Sansom's An Historical Grammar of Japanese (Oxford). I picked up this fine book at a sale and have been enjoying reading it as if it were a book of history or an interesting philosophical treatise.
President Dickey to Visit Alumni on West Coast
PRESIDENT DICKEY will cross the country to meet with seven alumni groups during April and May on a trip that is being awaited with special interest by those clubs in the West that are far from the center of the campus.
The President goes first to the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Southern California in Los Angeles, on April 28.
On April 29 he will be the guest of honor at a luncheon given by the Dartmouth Club of San Diego.
The Dartmouth Alumni Association of Northern California and Nevada, whose membership covers a large area, will welcome the President in San Francisco on May 1.
Mr. Dickey will leave California to travel to Oregon in time for a dinner meeting with the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Oregon in Portland on May 4. The next day he will be the guest of an alumni group in Eugene, Ore., at a luncheon given in his honor.
May 6 takes President Dickey to Spokane, Wash., where he will speak before the Spokane and Inland Empire Dartmouth Alumni Association.
His last Western engagement will be at a dinner meeting with the Dartmouth Club of Western Washington in Seattle, on May 8.
Two Deans from the College will also speak before alumni associations during April and May. Joseph L. McDonald, Dean of the College, will address the Dartmouth Club of Western Connecticut in Stamford on April 29, and the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Eastern New York in Schenectady on May 6.
Stearns Morse, Dean of Freshmen, is scheduled to speak before the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Rhode Island in Providence, on May 20.
Robert S. Monahan '29, the College Forester, will address the Quebec Alumni Association in Montreal on April 17.
