Evening star. [volume], December 24, 1939, Page 16, Image 64

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
I
THIS WEEK'S authors make news, influence opinion,
lead in entertainment — and push the world along.
Here are some you'll meet in 1940 —
Tins Week Magazine looks toward the New
Year with an ever-new resolve — to bring you
the best work of the best authors and artists in
the world. Let me tell you about a few of them: *
To many people, accounts of the meeting
held in Madison Square Garden last February
by the German American Bund had a strangely
Sinclair Lewis
familiar sound. That was because in his book
It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis had
prophesied such a meeting in almost every
detail. He also made the uncannily accurate
prediction that when Fascism came to Amer
ica, it would call itself “true Americanism.”
Ever since Main Street first jolted us out of
our complacency, and was followed by such
candid portraits of American life as Babbitt,
Arrowsmith and Dodsworth, Sinclair Lewis
has been accepted as the man who knows
more about Americans than they know about
themselves. Europe joined the applause when
he became, in 1930, the first American to win
the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Lewis has as strong a gift for humor as for
prophecy. For This Week he has written a
group of serialized short stories whose two
leading characters, a ham actor and his wife,
are as human and funny as any he has created.
You have a treat in store for you when you
meet Matt and Myrtle Carnival, whose first
adventure is called: Is This a Dagger — So
What?
Andre Maurois is now writing for This
Week from “somewhere in France.” “In
spite of my white hair,” he says, “I am prepar
ing to serve as I did twenty-five years ago as
French Liaison Officer with the British Army.
Even now in the next room, my uniform lies
ready. I am a lieutenant, just as 1 was at the
end of the last war in 1919. The only difference
is that I now have a son who has just enlisted
as a student-pilot in aviation ...”
Since the first World War. Maurois has
earned fame both in Europe and America as
an interpreter of English history and litera
ture. But now, as a soldier of France, he is
helping to make history — and his articles
will interpret today’s history for the readers
of This Week. Maurois is one of many famous
authors whose articles will bring you the news
of current world thought and world action
in 1940.
In a recent article in Asia, Pearl Buck
expressed this opinion about the war between
Japan and China: “Its outcome, whatever it
may be, will affect the world more vitally in
the future than the outcome, whatever it
may be, of the war in Europe.” Such a point
of view is startling to those who have en
visaged the European struggle as the turning
point of civilization, but time may prove the
statement to be correct.
Pearl Buck
To those who have read Pearl Buck’s great
and often tragic Chinese novels, for which
she received, in 1938, the second Nobel Prize
for Literature to be awarded to an American,
it will be a surprise to learn that in her private
life she has a lively, almost mischievous sense
of humor. When she confided to us that she
had always wanted to write humorous fiction,
we said, “Hurrah! Write some for us.” The
result is a delightful series which reveals a
new angle of this great writer’s gifts. Look for
the first one on December 31: Revenge in a
Beauty Shop.
Rita Weiman’s stories are so true to life
that sometimes fact and fiction mingle in a
startling way. Once, I’m told, she read a news
item about an executioner whose friends
turned against him when someone discovered
the secret of how he earned his income. She
wrote a novel about this man. In the climax
he took his own life because he had become
the object of his wife’s suspicion, and an out
cast from society. Before the novel was pub
lished, the real character who had inspired
it committed suicide — for the same reasons
as those given in the story!
Rita Weiman’s tales have appeared in all
the country’s leading magazines. She gathered
Rita Weiman
background for her writing from several
years of experience as an ace reporter of
famous murder trials, notably the Snyder
Gray trial and the Hall-Mills case. For This
Week she has written a group of serialized
short stories which tell how the experience of
testifying at a trial changes the lives of five
of the witnesses. These tales are the real stuff
of life, something not to be missed. Look for
the first in February.
James Hilton sends us this message: “I
believe," he says, “in the enjoyment of simple
things — a child’s love for a toy, a smile be
tween friends, a touch between lovers, being
tired after a long walk, being old after a
busy life."
It is because he loves people that James
Hilton has been able to create books and
characters that are loved by millions of
Americans. Most of you have read or seen the
screen versions of Goodbye Mr. Chips, Lost
Horizon, and. more recently, We Are Not
Alone. James Hilton’s swift rise to fame at the
age of 33 is one of the great success stories of
recent times. This Week is proud to list
him among its contributors, and to announce
that he is now preparing some new articles
for you.
Some other This Week headliners for 1940:
E. Phillips Oppenheim, Sherwood Anderson.
Everett Rhodes Castle, 1. A. R. Wylie, Joseph
Harrington, Ben Ames Williams, Joseph
James Hilton
Auslander, Octavus Roy Cohen, Channing
Pollock, Edna St. Vincent Millay.
* * •
These authors — and many more — will
write for you in This Week in 1940. They hare
been chosen because they meet your require
ments — for brilliance and brevity —for stories
that are swift and short —for articles that never
drag. Each week in 1940, they will bring enter
tainment and inspiration to 6,000,000 Ameri
can families from coast to coast.
The Editor,
This Week Magazine
Andre Maurois