Geoffrey Harrington's Adventures. By Harry Collingwood. (S.P.C.K. 5s.)—This is a
romance of a very romantic type indeed. The hero, a manager in an engineering firm, falls on bad days, emigrates, and on a voyage from San Francisco to Yokohama is wrecked and cast up on the island of Avelia. The Avelians, cultivated and prosperous, having never discovered the art of sailing, welcomed the hero as a genius. He falls in love with the Queen, and saves Avelia from spoliation by a neighbouring island. There are some inconsistencies—Maxims are freely used in the fights—and we cannot help regarding the supposition that any human beings could long remain ignorant of the use of sails as preposterous. If we ignore this, we can find much pleasure in the dignified and rotund style which is considered suitable to a pure romance of this type. To some extent it compensates for the lack of sufficient imagination to carry the reader enthusiastically with the narrative. Mr. Collingwood must remember that the pace has been set in this species of fiction. It is, however, a good story, and quite readable.
Previous page
