"The Copeland Translations," New Anthology, Called Ideal by Hillyer

THE COPELAND TRANSLATIONS, chosen and arranged with an introduction by Charles Townsend Copeland. Charles Scribners Sons, New York and London. MCMXXXIV, Pp. xxiii--1080. $5.00

A great anthology is an unusual achievement. It should be a sample box wherein the reader may find sufficient material to form his taste with a view to reading fully those authors whose works attract him. "The Copeland Reader" and now "The Copeland Translations" fulfill this ideal because they represent the choice of an epicure in literature. The popularity of the earlier volume, among young and old, was heartening to anyone interested in the dissemination of great writing. This supplement in translation should find equal favour.

Mr. Copeland was wise to limit his selections to the literatures of four great modern languages: French, German, Italian, and Russian. Had he gone farther, into the Classics for example, his book would have been too comprehensive. As it is, we have generous selections from Villon, Ronsard, La Rochefoucauld, Moliere, de Sevigne, Balzse, Louys, Goethe, Nietzsche, Zweig, Dante, Destoyevsky, Chetchov, Andrayev, and scores of others, each in a standard version and selected with the highest discrimination. As far as I know, this collection is unique. It should be of incalculable value in providing the modern reader with a full assortment of foreign writers from whom to choose more extensive reading.

The book is unusual, too, in that it is dedicated to "Maxwell Perkins, a great publisher and steadfast friend." It is not often that we find an author on speaking terms with his publisher. Mutual gratitude, however, is here quite in order, because Scribners has put forth Mr. Copeland's excellent work in an appropriately fine format.

Another feature of the book is the introduction, composed of literary comment which ordinarily would appear at the end of the book in the form of notes. The quotations in this introduction, together with the compiler's remarks, combine in an informal and pleasantly rambling discourse which stimulates the reader's interest in the text to which it applies. Reading it, we can almost hear Mr. Copeland conversing in his old study in Hollis on a score of literary matters that come to mind in the course of an easy talk.

Altogether, "The Copeland Translations" is a Harvard contribution to American letters of which we may justly be proud. When we consider the scope of the work and the vast amount of reading which serves as its background, we wonder that the selection could have been accomplished, even in the several years Mr. Copeland devoted to it. It is a happy sign that he retired only from classes, not from teaching