12 OCTOBER 1929, Page 30

SHUDDERS. (Hutchinson. 7s. 6d.)—It is customary for collections of stories

such as those contained in this volume to be published in time for Christmas. Perhaps, however, it is as well that these should have appeared already, and not waited till the season calculated to assist them in producing their effects, for a better collection could hardly have been brought together. They include every variety of . horror, from the orthodox but vague " powers of evil " of R F. Benson, to the collective auto-suggestion of the modern house-party living in a house where a murder has been com- mitted. This story, The Cat Jumps, by Elizabeth Bowen, is probably the most horrible in the book, since it is the most realistic, but there are also stories by Cynthia Asquith, Walter de la Mare, L. P. Hartley, and others, which- should leave the nerves of very few utterly unwrung. The type is big and good, and the book light in the hand.