23 JUNE 1923, Page 19

The Reincarnations of Lupus Andronicus. By Adolphe Orna. (Jonathan Cape.

7s. 6d.) A group of people are connected, in each of their four suc- cessive incarnations, by varying circumstances or family ties. The periods range from early Scythia, through the Roman Empire and seventeenth century Moldavia to modern Rumania, with the Danube running as a kind of connecting thread throughout the book. The writing is plain and straightforward, and the author does not attempt to point a moral. His first period is the most successful ; elsewhere the reader feels that he has taken on rather too big a job for the limitations of his style.