DAYBREAK. By Arthur Schnitzler. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1927. $1.50.

ALREADY in its third printing, Schnitzler's "Daybreak," has quite proved its right of succession to "Rhapsody." Probably no living writer excells this author in the short episodic novel form. Old enough to retain the fine art of story telling, Schnitzler knows the use of the new school of psychology, and employs it without intrusion. The story is remarkable for its drama, and yet the author escapes the melodramatic without sacrificing emotion.

The story concerns a remarkably decent young Austrian officer who loses considerably more than he can pay at a game which has points of similarity, if it is not really the common variety, of Vingt-et-un. The account of his first night's gaming is the high point of the narrative. Willie is not an inveterate gambler, in fact he is naive to the point of ignorance. Temperamentally he is a graceful loser, but fundamentally he is at a loss to cope with the situation. From the general nature of Schnitzler's work, the tremendous coincidence of Fate at the end, was hardly to be expected. One looked for a more realistic, if less dramatic ending. The chief characteristic of the book is the manner in which it sustains the interest even through a seant two hundred pages. It is literally impossible to put it down, once started, which is a high tribute seldom deserved.

News comes to us from a former CRIMSON president now studying at the University of London, that neither of the two books that head the list of English best-sellers is written by an Englishman. One of course, is Thornton Wilder's "Bridge of San Luis Rey." The Lawrenceville teacher seems to have won quite a following abroad with the restrained writing of his philosophical novel. "The Bridge", however, is not the first in the eyes of Englishmen. That honor goes to "The Ugly Duchess", Feuchtwanger's historical romance which is among the first five on this side of the Atlantic. The publishers of "The Ugly Duchess" report that as far as they have been able to ascertain, no other translation of a German novel has made such a record in the English speaking countries.