Novels in Brief
The Trail-Makers of the Middle Border (John Lane. 7s. 6d. is a book of uncommon charm and distinction. Mr Hamlin Garland has the combined gifts of noveli historian, and essayist. His story covers the period fro 1840 to 1864 and follows the adventures of an Amen family migrating from New Zealand, by way of the Cm Lakes, to Wisconsin. • The tale has sufficient plot, but main appeal lies in its picture of pioneering life. As social historian the author is comparable with the Mr. Arno' Bennett of the Five Towns novels; but his style has grace repose, and spiritual sensibility. Some Civil War scenes a included. * * * Tomek the Sculptor (Butterworth, 7s. 6d is the most ambitious and successful novel Miss Adelaid• Eden Phillpotts has written. It describes the artistic an emotional development of a Bohemian peasant who kerma a great sculptor, and, though it is unexciting, it is strong' characterization, imagination, and feeling, and present well-observed scenes of modern life in Central Europe au England. * * * Simon Baird, the hero of Mr. Owe Rutter's Chandu (Benn, 7s. 6d.) is Commissioner of Opium Monopoly in Port Malaya. An unromantic Scot he is single-minded in his devotion to Government until h falls in love with a young Englishwoman who has take to the opium habit, from which he finally redeems her at th• cost of his career. Mr. Rutter, who writes with authority. of the Far East, has given us a sinple, vigorous, and maul! story. * * * A Girl in the Art Class, by Mr. Jan Gordo' (Hutchinson, 7s. 6d.) reads more like a leisurely autobiogralth` than a novel. The heroine's rebellion against the tight-la aristocracy of her father and her defiant marriage with a you artist supply a connecting thread of incident. But it the obviously first-hand scenes of life in the Latin Quart; and in Bohemian London that give the book its inteirl * * * In With Eastern Eyes (Nash and Grayson, 7s. 6(1 Mr. Ernest Poole describes the visit of a Russian astronomr to an American scientist's home, and of the reactions whirl it causes. It is a quietly dramatic story and admirably suggests the gulf between Western and Eastern mental' 311 * The heroine of Custody Children by Mr. Ever'. Young (Duckworth, 7s. 6d.) is a girl of wealth and positr," predisposed to a restless and artificial life both by liett`I' and environment. The book reflects cleverly the feverishn of post-War Society in New York and Paris.
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