17 FEBRUARY 1912, Page 27

The House of Lieronan. By Miriam Alexander. (Andrew Melrose. es.)—"

A 250-guinea Prize Novel," we are told. We can understand the decision, but only by imagining a reward offered for the invention, not, as the old story ran, of a new pleasure, but of a new pain. All literary qualities are here skil- fully and successfully used for this ond. It seems that there are readers enough to make this kind of thing a profitable venture. It is not our idea of the final end of fiction, but we have to recog- nize facts. Even so in the Roman amphitheatre an audience, tired of seeing victims suffocated by the hug of a bear or torn to pieces by a tiger's claws, might have awarded a prize to the ingenious master of tho show who introduced a boa-constrictor.