17 OCTOBER 1908, Page 26

Round-the-Fire Stories. By A. Conan Doyle. (Smith, Elder, and Co.

6s.)—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle frankly announces in his preface that his stories are all concerned with the grotesque and the terrible, and therefore the reader must not be too critical if he finds some of them a little difficult to believe. Much the most horrible is one in which there is no hint of the supernatural, "The Pot of Caviare." It will be impossible for the must hardened lover of horrors to read this story of China without a. shudder. Of the other stories, the most ingenious is "The Lost Special," and the most exciting are "The Club-footed Grocer" and "The Brazilian Cat." The reader who takes up the book may make sure of having quite enough thrills to last him for some time.