30 MARCH 1929, Page 41

ROBBERS AND SOLDIERS. By Albert Ehrenstein. Translated by Geoffry Dunlop.

(Gerald Howe. 7s. (Id.)— To the man who knows only the Treaty Ports and Inter- national Settlements of China this translation of an old thirteenth-century Chinese novel will open out what is nothing less than a new world. It is a world of heroes and murderers, of lovely ladies and double-dyed villains, all of whom talk in a surprisingly modern manner. Herr Ehren- stein has taken the main facts of the legend of Wu Sung, the Chinese Robin flood, and woven them into what he hopes has " taken shape " as a " primitive epic." And it is all pretty strong stuff. The characters do not mince their words, and their epithets are sometimes. more reminiscent of Billingsgate than anywhere else. TheY are all, in spite Or the strangeness of their setting, very much alive.