TALES.-A Regular Fraud. By Mrs. Robert Jocelyn. (F. V. White
and Co.)—Mrs. Crawford, having had offered to her a lucrative post of chaperon to three young ladies, finds this difficulty : her one child, who, of course, will share the home that she is to make for her charges, is not a daughter, who would be useful, but a son, who is quite impossible. She induces the son to dress up as a girl. This is not a secret from the reader, so there is no harm in revealing it. The reader, who need not question too curiously as to the probability of such a complication arising, will find fair amusement in discovering how this "regular fraud" works.—Honor Ormthwaite. By the Author of "Lady Jean's Vagaries." (Bentley and Son.)—We do not quite under- stand how the village girl of the first chapter develops into the stately and beautiful gentlewoman whom we find in the latter part of the story. But let that pass. The author has given us here an excellent study of character, quite sane and wholesome, and free from that odious taint of the unlawful which it is so rare and so delightful for the reader of the modern novel to escape.—Marsena. By Harold Frederic. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—This is a tale of the "Great Civil War," strongly marked with both humour and pathos, altogether an admirable little bit of work, and quite worthy—and this is no little thing to say—of the writer. Marsena himself is a slight and not very distinctive sketch, but Julia, with her three lovers, is very good indeed, and so, in a very different province of life, is Newton Shull. What a happy phrase is this, "As she was in those days,—or rather as she seemed to be to the unskilled sunbeams of the sixties."— Simon Ryan, the Peterite. By Rev. Augustus Jessopp, D.D. (Same publisher.)—" What," some one may ask, "is a `Peterite'?" We might answer, "The opposite to a Paulician." There were heretics in the Church (beginning in the latter half of the seventh century) who refused to acknowledge any teacher but St. Paul ; so there are—unless the sect has died with Simon Ryan—Patentee who pay the same honour to St. Peter. The story gives us a very curious picture of a nature warped by a religions fanaticism that developed into mania. When Simon demands to be married forthwith to the Lady Elects. (having provided himself with a special license), he bids the rector fetch his surplice,—" You men of Paul can do nothing without the tent-maker's sail-cloth." There is a very strong pathetic element in the tale, which, slight as it is, seems to us as good work as Dr. Jessopp has done.—Wrongly Con- demned. By Mrs. Begot !fade. (Jerrold and Sons.)—This is a story that has been told many times before, and will be told many times again, for every one has a chance of being "wrongly condemned." There is a good parson and a very bad brother, deception, revenge, suicide, all the elements, in fact, of a sensa- tional tale, made up with fair skill.—The Man who Disappeared, by Rivington Pyke (Bentley and Son), is a very curious tale, turning upon a ease of mistaken identity.—The Chain of Gold. By Standish O'Grady. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—This "tale of ad- venture on the West Coast of Ireland" makes a pleasing variety to the ordinary run of tales. Two brothers are compelled to play the part of Crusoes on a lonely island off the Irish ccast, and play it very well. The effect is heightened by an admixture, kept judiciously within very narrow limits, and hinted rather than displayed, of the supernatural. We have not found it always easy to realise the situations in which Mr. O'Grady's heroes find themselves, but their tale of adventure is unquestionably full of interest.—Emmanuel; or, Children of the Soil. From the Danish of Harry Pontoppidan. By Mrs. Edgar Lucas. (J. M. Dent and Co.)—This is a story of Danish rural life, full of picturesque scenes. The main incident of the tale is the marriage of a Danish pastor to the daughter of a peasant farmer. This event, the like of which would not cause any very great sensation in this country, appears to produce something like a revolutionary shock in Danish society, and this not so very long since, for the period of the story is, we are told, but twenty years ago. The book is well worth reading, and, we are glad to say, absolutely wholesome from beginning to end. The illustrations by Nelly Erichsen are
noticeably good.—Behind the Magic Mirror. By Olive BirrelL (Osgood, Mellvaine, and Co.)—This is a tale of spiritualism, with its curious mixture of the fraudulent and the genuine, not very pleasant reading, we are bound to say, but distinctly able.— In something of the same category may be placed Black Spirits and White : a Book of Ghost-Stories, by Ralph Adams Cram. (Chatto and Windus).—No Place for Repentance, by Ellen F. Pyneent (T. Fisher Unwin), is one of a series of "Little Novels." A story of some power, telling the tale of a great moral conflict ending in a defeat which was yet half a victory. It is worth reading.
Previous page
