Tern Peterkin's Daughter : an Antipodean Novel. By W. B.
Chnrchward. 3 vols. (Sonnenschein.)—Australian novels have been rather numerous of late; indeed, "Rolf Boldrewood, " Taama," and two or three other writers seem to be establishing something like a school of Australian fiction, though Henry Kingsley's "Geoffrey Ilamlyn " still remains the only really memorable story of life under the Southern Cross. Mr. Church- ward also takes us to the South, but he breaks ground in New Zealand, and gives us a story in which the characters are mainly military, and the incidents those of conflict between the English and the Maoris. There is the inevitable love affair, but it is really quite subsidiary to the main action, which is itself slight enough; and the interest of the novel depends upon a group of rather bright character-sketches, and descriptions of New Zealand scenery and fighting skirmishes. The story, as a story, is very thin, and
the murder of Jem Peterkin, the wealthy settler, by the English officer Fraser, is explicable only on the hypothesis of the murderer's insanity, an explanation which robs the plot even of the rather poor kind of interest at which such stories aim. Mr. Churchward's Maoris bear rather too strong a likeness to the "noble red man" of Cooper to be quite credible ; but his English- men, with the exception of Fraser, are really lifelike, and have, in all probability, been studied from life. If not, the author has a very respectable creative gift, and his book, which is written in an easy, brisk style, is very readable.
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