8 APRIL 1871, Page 24

Revenge. By Gertrude Fenton. (F. E. Arnold.)—This volume has a

very aristocratic appearance. It displays on its cover the similitude of a crown, and it professes itself to belong to " The St. James's Series." But the fiction which it contains is rather of the style which we are accustomed to associate with St. Giles's. It is very like to those thril- ling romances which arrest us with their startling titles and harrowing frontispieces as we pass the newsvendors' shops in the neighbourhood of the "Seven Dials." Miss Gertrude Fenton in nowise believes the assertion, which we have not unfrequently seen, that the passion of re- venge is extinct. In her pages, on the contrary, it is exceedingly lively. The faces of beautiful women are convulsed with demoniac scowls under its influence. It prompts to crimes of very nearly every kind that we have yet seen recorded in the pages of fiction, and to one which is new to our experience, the personation by an evil-disposed girl of her twin sister in a marriage ceremony. Hero is a pretty scene, which we regret not to be able to see portrayed by the powerful pencil of a popular wood-engraver :-

"' Louie, for pity's sake, did you not marry me at Troll ?'—' No !'- 'Did you not write that letter ?'—' No!'—' My God! she is mad !'—'I am not mad, Gustave,' she said, in a pleading, piteous voice. Ah, my love, why have you never written to mo all this weary time ?'—It was now Guatave's turn to look bewildered. Not written, Louie ? I have, and here are all your answers, full of love and devotion. Let this end, I beseech you, or I shall die, my wife —'—' Is here, Gustave,' said the voice of Lola, as she entered the room."