18 MAY 1929, Page 29

CROUCHBACK. By Carols Oman. (Hodder and Stonighton. 7s. 6d.)—This is

a romance of the fifteenth. century, with Richard the Third as the central figure and his . wife,: Anne of Warwick, daughter of the "Kingmaker," as the heroine. For her incident Miss Oman keeps strictly to historical fact, but her reading of Richard's complex character • is individual and penetrating. She has obviously studied . thoroughly the social background of her period, and her colotir, if laid on a little too mellifluously, is essentially: convincing.