23 DECEMBER 1893, Page 24

Princess Adelaide. By Emily Sarah Holt. (J. F. Shaw and

Co.) —This fairly well written little historical romance takes us back to the times of the struggle between Simon de Montfort and Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I. The horrors of the siege of Kenilworth and of an anti-Semitic crusade are earefully reproduced. The Princess Adelaide is herself rather a. phantom than a reality, but there is plenty of life in her waiting-maids, more particularly Juliet Rivers, who, in the beginning of the book, is cruel and flippant, but in the siege of Kenilworth is starved and educated by a pious woman into goodness that is by no means superficial. Altogether, Princess Adelaide is a careful story ; it is quite unnecessary to add that it is a thoroughly wholesome one.