16 JANUARY 1932, Page 26

New Novels

THE KINGDOM THAT WAS. By John Lambourne. (Murray. 7s. 6d.)—This novel is a fantasy, describing how an explorer in Africa, losing not only his. way but his reason, is mysteriously switched back to prehistoric times. He becomes almost an animal among the animals, who are imbued with human speech and are themselves the main characters in the tale, which, if hardly com- parable with The Jungle Book, fulfils with originality and some brilliance its twofold aim of providing.an amusing " yarn" and of imaginatively reconstructing the primaeval world. Homo sapiens, stripped of the artificial aids of civilization cuts a pretty figure.