Hugh Walpole
Potpourri
by . Macmillan. $5.00.
I dipped into this book with the conviction that I would soon put it aside — I saw no great interest in the biography of a novelist whose work is notable only for its enormous volume. But I was quickly drawn into reading the book through and was handsomely rewarded. For Walpole is revealed as a touching, rather likable personality; his career is a remarkable story of uninterrupted success; his friendships give us a panorama of the English literary world from the end of the Edwardian Era to the Second World War; and Rupert Hart-Davis has turned in an entertaining and consummately well-done biography.
The remarkable and cheering thing about Walpole’s life story is that — though he was hideously bullied at school; though he was shy, and permanently unsure of himself, and naïvely romantic — he was consciously determined to be happy, and, judging from his journal, very frequently was. He won the battle not to let his fears and unsatisfied cravings spoil his enjoyment of life’s gifts to him — the prodigious sums he earned; his great celebrity; a knighthood; and a staunchless flow of invention that transferred itself to paper as fast as he could move a pen.