Saved from Success

RETURN I DARE NOT-Margaret Kennedy-Donbleday, Dor an ($2.50).

Hugo Pott was too successful too soon. Young Englishman of low beginnings but with a face that might have been his fortune, he had made money by writing a succession of theatrical hits.* London lionized him nearly to death: he never got enough sleep, was worn out by the continuous effort to be nice to everybody, not to let his work interfere with his social engagements. The story opens with his departure into the country for a weekend in no sense a vacation, for Hugo knew exactly why he had been asked, what person he was expected to amuse.

Everything turned out even worse than his expectations. After a respectable performance at dinner his fatigue overcame him, drove him to bed much earlier than he had any right to go. Lady Aggie, whom he was supposed to entertain, yawned when he read her his new play, left the houseparty ostentatiously early. Philomena embarrassed him by promising to leave her husband for him. then made him feel a fool by telling her husband all about it and changing her mind. On the verge of a breakdown Hugo made an unforgivable scene, pulled gossipy Corny Cooke's nose. In despair he confided his trapped feelings to Marianne, wise young daughter of the house. She advised him to go away, stop writing hits, stop being lionized. Gratefully he took her advice, went off into obscurity with the hope of coming back some time for her.

The Author-- Margaret Kennedy (Mrs. David Davies) dictated stories before she could read or write, wrote her first novel, Laura, at 15. She burned it soon after, as she did four more novels, three plays. She went to Somerville College, Oxford, sang in Sir Hugh Allen's famous Bach choir. After she took her degree she was commissioned to write a modern European history textbook (A Century of Revolution) over which she spent two years, from which she gained much useful writing practice. With her second published novel (The Constant Nymph, 1924) she became a bestseller. Very English-looking, with dark hair parted in the middle and ending in ear-protecting buns, with a head that rises to a point and sinks to chinlessness, Margaret Kennedy's face is not as attractive as her writing; but you can tell by her eyes that she is intelligent, humorous, keen. Other books: The Ladies of Lyndon, A Long Weekend, Red Sky at Morning, The Fool of the Family.

* Playwright Noel Coward, 32, is reputed currently to enjoy an income of $6,000 per week from his new play Cavalcade in London and various road companies of Private Lives and Bitter Sweet.

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