Skipper Worse. By Alexander L. Kiella,nd. Translated from the Norwegian
by Henry John, Earl of Dade. (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle,and Rivington.)—A Norwegian novel will have an attraction for many of us as taking us to a new field of fiction; if our first acquaintance with it should be made through this tale, we shall most of us welcome any opportunities of becoming more familiar with it. "Much of the narrative hangs upon a religions movement in Norway, resulting from the laboars of Hans Nilson Hauge, who soon aroused a real Christian life among the common people." The story is told in one volume of three hundred pages, and while doing justice to the movement, is more concerned with its dark side, the gloom and the narrow life in which to love even natural beauty was looked upon as dangerous. The tale is a sad one, but lifelike and natural ; the several characters and inci- dents are developed with the ease and power that can dispense with the sensational, and the whole picture is continually lighted up with quiet humour and kindly wit, nu less than with a keen and penetrating observation. We can well understand that "the works of Herr Kiel- land have attained a deservedly high reputation among his country- men." The translator regrets that "no translation can hope to compass those sympathetic relations between author and reader which are indispensable to a jast appreciation of the resources, versatility, and imaginative powers of Herr Kielland ; " at any rate, he has given us a translation with which the English reader will be well satisfied, and for which he will be grateful.
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