Owen Glendower
$5.00 By SIMON & SCHUSTER
AT the hands of Mr. Powys, Wales comes in for its share in the current vogue of the historical novel. His story is set in the fifteenth century, at the time when a nationalist revolutionary movement was striking out for freedom — or one might rather say, striking out for a change of masters, since that is about all that such enterprises ever came to, or that they are likely ever to come to.
The novel is built around the figure of the national hero whom legend has glorified as a sort of unsuccessful Washington or Cromwell. Those like ourselves who get what they know about Wales and the Welsh mostly by way of George Borrow can no doubt add somewhat to their learning by reading Mr. Powys, but we are bound to say that they must work for what they get. The book is far too long for its substance, very diffuse, and done in an archaic literary manner and a baroque style which make the task of going through it rather formidable. A. J. N.