My Turkish Bride. By Arthur Crawshay. (Harper and Brothers. 6s.)—If
this book had ended at the twenty-eighth chapter, it would have been possible to speak of it as rather a favourable example of the melodrama of fiction. As it is, it is a little too Turkish for English taste. In Mohammedan Circles, as far as can be judged by the outsider, it is not considered the correct thing at present to have two wives at a time. Therefore the first wife is got rid of by divorce as soon as a Mohammedan gentleman falls in love with a second. Mr. Crawshay makes his hero behave (having regard to the Western system of morality) in somewhat the same fashion, only that of course wife number one has to die of a decline before the hero can be made happy with wife number two. Exigencies of space cause these last events to be squeezed into a few pages at the end of the book, and this completely spoils the effect of the whole. A good end is desirable in a melodrama, but if the hero is to marry all the ladies he has been in love with in the course of the story, that end will be unduly prolonged.
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