4 DECEMBER 1909, Page 10

Palm Tree Island. By Herbert Strang. (H. Frowde and Hodder

and Stoughton. 6s.)—Mr. Strang takes up the old Crusoe theme, and makes a capital story out of it. There is nothing specially new about it. The mutiny, the landing of the hero and his humble friend (not a man Friday, but a ship boy), the discovery of how to make fire—they fail, as we believe all white men fail, in making it out of two sticks—and all the rest of the Crusoe circumstances, including, of course, the savages, are here. We have seen them before, and in unskilful hands they might be tiresome ; but Mr. Strang has the art of making an old story new. One of his qualifications is the ease and naturalness of his dialogue.