23 JULY 1927, Page 37

DARK ANN. By Marjorie Bowen. (John Lane. 7s. 6d. net.)—Miss

Marjorie Bowen is more at home in the fifteenth century than in the twentieth, and her attempts at psycho- logical insight into the minds of the moderns are, to say the least of it, superficial. But her stories are always readable, the best in this volume being " Dark Ann," a tale over which the flavour of the supernatural sheds an air of romance. Miss Bowen appears to be ignorant of the fact that Mr. Holman Hunt long ago painted the picture described in her story, " The Scapegoat," as the work of the clever modern painter, Charles Castor Mallot. It cannot be said that the collection displays Miss Bowen's art to advantage.