Chapter D: G. W

_Jennifer Lorn._ By ELINOR WYLIE. (George H. Doran.)

A poet’s first novel usually brings forth a sharply defined list of questions. Is it anything more than expression? Is it a poem in prose? Is it sincere? Always “Is it sincere?” With Elinor Wylie none of these are permissable. She sub-titles her story, “A Sedate Extravaganza”, and that is just what it is—a burlesque on the latter eighteenth century. Its step-sister, “Nets to Catch the Wind”, shows its relationship only in the rare delicacy common to both and unsurpassed—even by Walter de la Mare. “Jennifer Lorn” is whimsical, satiric—at times reminiscent of Max Beerbohm in his early essays and yet far more like Jane Austen. It is a far cry from Beerbohm to Austen and yet in this story we have the union. There is the common outcry against willy-nilly women who swoon upon the slightest provocation; women who tremble before their lord and master, languishing beside their smelling salts.

This is the story of an aristocrat and his bride who voyage East for the East India Company only to find disaster, discontent, and disillusionment. Jennifer is dainty—and feminine. Gerald is dazzling—and masculine. True caricatures of their time, sketched by the hand of a most extraordinary stylist, it is delicate, diminutive, and diabolically clever—just what a poet like Miss Wylie should do.