The Jacket. By Jack London. (Mills and Boon. 6s.)— Mr.
Jack London has gone too far. In his last book he raised in our minds the question how far a novelist may be justified in writing of physical horrors ; now, in his analysis of a man's soul in the most hideous conditions possible to human existence, of a man in solitary confinement, under the prison torture of the "jacket," during the last few weeks before his hanging, be has overstepped the bounds of sensationalism and borders on literary indecency. The horror is unrelieved from beginning to end, since all the plot there is in the story contained in the visions of previous incarnations induced by Standing's self-hypnosis and delirium, and these are one and all nightmares. Mr. London possesses that power of adapting himself to any period or circumstance which characterizes Mr. Kipling's work ; he has written many novels on widely differing subjects, yet if we were to judge by the facile and confident style of this book we should credit him with life- long study of the psychological effect of solitary confinement. Only it does seem to us most pitiful that Mr. London should so misuse his brilliant gifts as to estrange even his truest admirers.
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