Monkey Business

APPIUS & VIRGINIA--G. E. Trevelyan--Putnam ($2).

Readers who liked John Collier's His Monkey Wife, David Garnett's Lady into Fox, or Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue might each find something to his liking in Authoress Trevelyan's Appius & Virginia. Those who have watched babies in the nursery or monkeys in the zoo with mixed but fascinated feelings may also find it reminiscent.

Virginia, English spinster and university graduate, had a great idea. She would adopt a newborn orangutan, bring him up like a human child, make him gradually over into a human being. She got the orangutan, called him Appius, removed herself and him to an isolated cottage where for ten years she carried out her great experiment. Mother, servant and teacher all in one, Virginia brought up Appius with firmness and faith in the way well-behaved little boys should go. Up to a certain point things went well. Appius walked erect, called Virginia "Mama," spoke out his simple ideas in pidgin English. But when Appius and some little boys got their first sight of each other over the garden wall they called him an ape; Appius had a relapse to the jungle. After that Virginia's faith in her experiment became desperate; she began to see, though she would not admit, the tragedy that was coming.

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