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THIS WEEK'S authors make news, influence opinion, lead in entertainment — and push the world along. Here are some you'll meet in 1940 —

the next uniform lies Tins Week Magazine looks toward the New Even now in room, my as 1 was — I am a lieutenant, just at the Year with an ever-new resolve to bring you ready. of the last war in 1919. The only difference the best work of the best authors and artists in end * is that I now have a son who has just enlisted the world. Let me tell you about a few of them: as a student-pilot in aviation ...” Since the first World War. Maurois has To many people, accounts of the meeting fame both in Europe and America as held in Madison Square Garden last February earned an of English history and litera- by the German American Bund had a strangely interpreter ture. But now, as a soldier of France, he is Rita Weiman helping to make history — and his articles will interpret today’s history for the readers background for her writing from several of This Week. Maurois is one of many famous years of experience as an ace reporter of authors whose articles will bring you the news famous murder trials, notably the Snyder- of current world thought and world action Gray trial and the Hall-Mills case. For This in 1940. Week she has written a group of serialized short stories which tell how the experience of of five In a recent article in Asia, Pearl Buck testifying at a trial changes the lives expressed this opinion about the war between of the witnesses. These tales are the real stuff Japan and China: “Its outcome, whatever it of life, something not to be missed. Look for may be, will affect the world more vitally in the first in February. the future than the outcome, whatever it may be, of the war in Europe.” Such a point James Hilton sends us this message: “I of view is startling to those who have en- believe," he says, “in the enjoyment of simple

as the — visaged the European struggle turning things a child’s love for a toy, a smile be- the Sinclair Lewis point of civilization, but time may prove tween friends, a touch between lovers, being statement to be correct. tired after a long walk, being old after a That was because in his book familiar sound. busy life." Here, Sinclair Lewis had It Can't Happen It is because he loves people that James such a in almost every prophesied meeting Hilton has been able to create books and He also made the uncannily accurate detail. characters that are loved by millions of that when Fascism came to Amer- prediction Americans. Most of you have read or seen the it would call itself “true Americanism.” ica, screen versions of Goodbye Mr. Chips, Lost Main Street first us out of Ever since jolted Horizon, and. more recently, We Are Not and was followed by such our complacency, Alone. James Hilton’s swift rise to fame at the candid of American life as Babbitt, portraits age of 33 is one of the great success stories of Sinclair Lewis Arrowsmith and Dodsworth, recent times. This Week is proud to list been as the man who knows has accepted him among its contributors, and to announce more about Americans than they know about that he is now preparing some new articles themselves. the applause when Europe joined for you. in the first American to win he became, 1930, Some other This Week headliners for 1940: the Nobel Prize for Literature. E. Phillips Oppenheim, Sherwood Anderson. a for humor as for Lewis has as strong gift Pearl Buck Everett Rhodes Castle, 1. A. R. Wylie, Joseph Week he has written a prophecy. For This Harrington, Ben Ames Williams, Joseph of serialized short stories whose two group To those who have read Pearl Buck’s great leading characters, a ham actor and his wife, and often tragic Chinese novels, for which are as human and funny as any he has created. she received, in 1938, the second Nobel Prize You have a treat in store for you when you for Literature to be awarded to an American, meet Matt and Myrtle Carnival, whose first a to learn that in her private — it will be surprise adventure is called: Is This a Dagger So life she has a lively, almost mischievous sense What? of humor. When she confided to us that she had always wanted to write humorous fiction, Maurois is now writing for This Andre we said, “Hurrah! Write some for us.” The Week from “somewhere in France.” “In a result is a delightful series which reveals of white hair,” he says, “I am prepar- for spite my new angle of this great writer’s gifts. Look serve as I did years ago as ing to twenty-five the first one on December 31: Revenge in a Officer with the British Army. French Liaison Beauty Shop.

Rita Weiman’s stories are so true to life that sometimes fact and fiction mingle in a James Hilton startling way. Once, I’m told, she read a news item about an executioner whose friends Auslander, Octavus Roy Cohen, Channing turned against him when someone discovered Pollock, Edna St. Vincent Millay. * • the secret of how he earned his income. She *

— wrote a novel about this man. In the climax These authors — and many more will he took his own life because he had become write for you in This Week in 1940. They hare the object of his wife’s suspicion, and an out- been chosen because they meet your require- cast from society. Before the novel was pub- ments — for brilliance and brevity —for stories lished, the real character who had inspired that are swift and short —for articles that never it committed suicide — for the same reasons drag. Each week in 1940, they will bring enter- as those given in the story! tainment and inspiration to 6,000,000 Ameri- Rita Weiman’s tales have appeared in all can families from coast to coast. The Editor, Andre Maurois the country’s leading magazines. She gathered This Week Magazine