26 DECEMBER 1896, page 24

Recent Novels.*

DR. CONAN DOYLE'S stories are always welcome, if only for their manliness and hearty geniality. In Rodney Stone he has essayed to give us a picture of what he very justly calls......

The Web Of An Old Weaver. Given In By J.

Beighley Snowden. (Sampson Low and Co.)—This story by the very able author of "Tales of the Yorkshire Wolds " is one of the best "local" stories, not too heavily burdened with......

The Squire Of Wandales. By A. Shield. (methuen And Co.)—if

the final confession of Ninian Scrope, the squire of Wandales, is accepted by the readers of this book as it is by at least one of those to whom it is entrusted in the story, we......

Tomalyn's Quest. By G. B. Burgin. (a. D. Limes And

Co.)— Mr. Burgin can produce a very agreeable story, and one full of genuinely good fun—when he is not striving too anxiously and assiduously to rival the Professors of the New......

The Evolution Of A Wife. By Elizabeth Holland. (john Milne.)

— One feels sorry to be unable to speak in terms of quite hearty praise of this book. For the author has evidently a not incon- siderable ambition, and meant to make a genuinely......

Current Literature.

AU -Fellows. By Laurence Housman. (Began Paul, Trench, Trebner, and Co.)—In point of tone, which is as far removed as possible from the jollity that is generally associated with......

The Dead Prior. By C. Dudley Lampen. (elliot Stock.)—this Is

a pleasant, mildly exciting, but obviously juvenile book. Gilbert Aubrey, the wicked and irreligious doctor of Monkton Friars, and Henry Purcell, the weak and easily led......