GOOD SIR. JOHN. By Phoebe Fenwick Gaye. (Seeker. 7s. 6d.)-Often
the successor to a brilliant first novel is dis- appointing,.but Miss Gaye has more than fulfilled the promise of Vivandiere, and her account of " the rise and fall of Sir John Falstaffe " is a joy. The idealization of her hero might be irritating if the method were not so clever, but so smoothly has she evolved the young from the old that we feel no doubt that our Falstaffe would, in youth, have 'behaved exactly like Miss Gaye's Falstaffe. She -shows us little John, an infant Gargantua, fat and' adventurous, John, the Knight, gross but very likeable, and the John we know with Bardolph and Nym, Pistol and Mrs. Quickly. There is no single jerk in all the even narrative. Good though the story is, the telling is even better : the style is clean and Crispand sparkling, and the first chapter with its description of the colours of.England is alone-worth the price of many novels.
Previous page
