Word: authorative
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Professor of chemistry in the University of Kansas, Author Taft devotes more than half his book to the decades before 1870 when west of the Mississippi was the U. S. frontier. Matthew B. (for nothing) Brady was then the affluent kingpin of Eastern photographers, organizer of the most ambitious photographic survey of the century-the Civil War in 7.000 plates. No tough daguerreotypist who trundled over the Great Plains in that period could afford such scope, though from the Gold Rush on, photographers went along with the pioneers, the troops, the railroads. A disheartening revelation of the Taft book...
This week, when she publishes Black Is My Truelove's Hair, it is plain that Author Roberts has escaped from her blind alley in brilliant fashion. Her new novel reads like a folk tale of the Kentucky countryside, depends on no archaic trappings or high-flown language for its effect, takes place in a recognizable world of village gossip, youthful lovemaking, Kentucky feuds, with characters who are farmers, truck drivers, wise widows and runaway girls. The telephone and radio have reached Miss Roberts' countryside but the people have not changed much: they are superstitious, religious, poetic, great musicians...
Despite the burden of versatility, Churchill has succeeded in writing one impressive work: a six-volume biography of his famous Whig ancestor, John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, the English Napoleon. The last volume, published last week, is perhaps the most interesting, is also the volume in which Author Churchill had to wage his stoutest defense...
...brilliant defense, resounding with rich invective against Marlborough's Tory enemies: Harley, St. John, Queen Anne, Dean Swift. But it adds up to something less than Author Churchill intended. What he proves, chiefly, is that Marlborough was merely no worse than his enemies. They signed a pussyfoot treaty at Utrecht but probably prevented a revolution of the war-weary English masses. They drove Marlborough to exile, but he revenged himself with interest when he returned to riches and honors at Queen Anne's death. They hatched the great South Sea Bubble swindle, but Marlborough forced the Government...
...challenged. A number of proletarian romances, realistic enough at first glance, have much the same ring about them. Latest is Cranberry Red, a story laid in a Cape Cod cranberry cannery and the surrounding bogs. The scenery is authentic and picturesque, the language lusty, the story lively. But the author puts too many over on the boss...