20 MAY 1899, Page 26

The Edna Lyall Birthday Book. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 3s. 6d.)

—The popular novelist has taken another of the steps in the great staircase of fame,—the birthday book. There is a certain absurdity in the idea of making such a book out of any author's work. Some of the extracts are sure to be ludicrously inappropriate. Still, people who would not buy a book of extracts pure and simple will buy them when they are divided by months and days, and have blank pages opposite. That is, in a way, a justification. Edna Lyall's books, too, lend themselves to extract better than many.