Clemence Dane

Legend Clemence Dane

Messrs. Mitchell and Bent will shortly issue 'The Life of Madala Grey' by Anita Serle: a critical biography based largely on private correspondence and intimate personal knowledge. That was in The Times a fortnight ago. And now the reviews are beginning-The Cult of Madala Grey.... The Problem of Madala Grey.... The Secret of Madala Grey.... I wish they wouldn't. Oh, I wish they wouldn't. No admirer of the late Madala Grey's arresting art can fail to be absorbed by these intimate and unexpected revelations.... Delicately, unerringly, Miss Serle traces to its source the inspiration of that remarkable writer.... And-this will please Anita most of all-We ourselves have never joined in the chorus of praise that, a decade ago, greeted the appearance of 'Eden Walls' and its successors, and in our opinion Miss Serle, in her biographical enthusiasm, uses the word genius a little too often and too easily. Madala Grey has yet to be tried by that subtlest of literary critics, the Man with the Scythe. But whether or not we agree with Miss Serle's estimate of her heroine, there can be no two questions as to the literary value of the 'Life' itself. It definitely places Miss Serle among the Boswells, and as we close its fascinating pages we find ourselves wondering whether our grandchildren will remember Miss Serle as the biographer of Madala Grey, or Madala Grey as the subject matter merely, of a chronicle that has become a classic.