THE DAILY EXPRESS

London, England

9 July 1929

(page 19)

THE TALK OF LONDON.

The Mandrake Press, which is in the public eye at the moment as the firm responsible for publishing a book containing reproductions of Mr. D. H. Lawrence’s seized pictures, must be credited with the enterprise as well as the faults of youth.

It is only a few months since it’s birth was first announced in these columns—the mandrake, you may remember, is a fabulous plant which shrieks loudly if uprooted - but it’s proprietors have an ambitious programme still in hand. Among other works, they intend to reprint all the books by the black magician, Mr. Aleister Crowley. And some translations from the Gaelic, and a young author who once starved in Berlin has written a volume entitled "Starving in Berlin." But perhaps the most vigorous of the volumes so far published is by Mr. P. R. Stephensen, a partner in the firm. It is called "The Bushwhackers," and is a collection of virile little sketches of life in Australia.

Mr. Stephenson is a thin and immensely energetic young man, with a sandy moustache, fierce, keen eyes, and a quick, nervous manner. He was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, where his views were rarely exactly coincident with those of the university authorities.