Some Novels in Brief
IT is seldom that such an able collection of stories is pit together as those by Miss' Kathleen Freeman under the name of The Intruder (The Story Series No. 3. Jonathan Cape. 7s. 6d. net). All the studies display a great gift of imagination together with that quality without which even imagination Cannot have its due effect-the powier of writing. The reader will be rewarded by whichever of the score he chooses to read first. * * * Stags, foxes, hounds, and wild birds are the dramatis personae of Mr. Henry Williamson's studies of Exmoor, in which " The Old Stag ' plays the title role (Putnam. 7s. 6d.• net). The -author. 'writes with the picturesque touch which makes his readers hear the call of the wild sounding in their ears. All lovers of nature will delight in the book. * * * Miss 'Rosalind Murray makes her autobiographic heroine express a doubt whether her commonplace story, which she calls The Happy Tree (Chatto and Windus. 7s. 6d. net) was worth writing. The reader Will not be quite sure. The book is competently written, but there is no denying that it is rather dreary. * * * Miss Isabel Paterson takes " the spacious days of great Elizabeth " as the theme of her romance; The Fourth Queen (Leonard Parsons. 78. 6d. net). It begins with the running fight up Channel in which the Armada was defeated. The rest of the book is concerned with the personages of the 'Court. The story is brisk and vigoroas, but surely even in the latter days of her reign Gloriana was not so utterly unattractive a figure as she is .painted here. * * * People who, like the present writer, know nothing about racing will find a go deal of enlightenment in a cheerful little novel by Stephen Donoghue entitled The Luck of the Gentle Grafter (Hutchinson. 7s. 64. net). The plot is not very original, but the technique of the story is good. * * * The reader will thrill over the .first chapters of Four Knocks on the Door (by John Paw Seabrooke, Jarrolds, 7s. 6d. net), but the interest is hardly kept up to the end. The curious thing about the book is that but for the place-names and a few technicalities it would be difficult for the English reader to discover that the scene ie laid in America. * * * Explorations and discoveries in Pata. gonia are the subjects bf Mr: Alan Sullivan's novel, in the Beginning (Hurst and Blackett, - 7s..6d. net). The characten are a little commonplace, but the monsters are terrifying.
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