5 NOVEMBER 1892, Page 12

Won in Spite of Him. By the Rev. C. Houghton.

(Digby, Long, and Co.) — This is a very poor sort of " dreadful," better bound, to be sure, than the ordinary "penny dreadful," but of equal merit in every other respect, full of sounding epithets, scenes meant to be tragic and dramatic, but which are really melodramatic. It is one of the most meaningless specimens of its class of literature we have ever seen, without even those transient gleams of better things or bits of humour that sometimes redeem these monstrous products of an idle brain. Let us quote one sentence; it will doubtless be sufficient. A girl's lover turns out to be a married man. " The news came like a lightning stroke. It broke in upon the peaceful home like a Thug invasion, like a blast from hell."