13 NOVEMBER 1926, Page 30

HER SON'S WIFE. By Dorothy Canfield. (Jonathan Cape. 7s. 6d.

net.) -Miss Dorothy Canfield gives us in her new novel even better work than we have learnt to expect from fier: Mrs. Bascomb's moral problem as to whether she did or did not induce her tiresome daughter-inLliav to become what is called in the West Country a " bed-Her " remind 'the reader of the analogous question in Rosmersholm as to whether Rebecca West by suggestion really caused Mrs. Rosmeisholm to fling herself over the waterfall. Apart from this intriguing conundrum, the picture presented of life 'in a small American country town is extremely well drawn, and though Mary Bascomb, the elderly heroine, is intolerably virtuous in the beginning, the reader will follow her story with great interest.