30 DECEMBER 1893, Page 25

A Dozen All Told. By Twelve Authors, (Blaokie and Son.)—

The dozen writers who furnish a tale each to this collection are

all well known, and the sexes are equally divided. They are all good, for it is becoming a sine gut non of a well-known writer that

he should be able to spin a short story as well as a long one. Most of these ladies and gentlemen are novelists, but they seem as much at home with only twenty pages to disport themselves in, as they are with two hundred. Mr. W. E. Norris heads the list and writes the first story, and it is second to none ; even the short space allotted to him gives full play to his facility and satirical vein. It is called " The Duffer," and relates the his- tory of a mongrel, an apparently useless creature, but whose death is heroic; indeed, nothing in this life became him so well as the leaving of it. A Dozen All Told will pass many enjoyable minutes. It is not a gift-book for boys, but those no longer in- fants might do worse than read it.