13 AUGUST 1887, Page 28

A Leader of Society. By Mrs Alexander Fraser. 3 vols.

(F. V. White and Co.)—The title which Mrs. Fraser gives to her heroine and her novel is evidently an arriese pensee. Heine Ferrara's career as a 'leader of society" does not occupy more than a part of the third volume. During the greater part of the story she in an adventuress, and one of a very noxious kind. The author exhausts her vocabu- lary in describing her magically fascinating beauty, and seems to delight in the evil triumphs which it wins over good sense and principle and honour. It is certain that such witches as Reine Ferrers and such fools as Gordon Alleyne are rare; rare or not rare, they are not desirable subjects of the literary art.