OCTAVIA. By Margot Oxford. (Cassell. 7s. 6d.)—The most surprising thing
about Octavia is its old-fashioned and ingenuous air. The characters are thoroughly and even heavily described ; and, though the date is a little indefinite (they argue about Clough, and dance valses and the lancers); the general attitude is Late Victorian. Octavia Daventry, whose love-affairs make the book, is the most brilliant membet• of a well-to-do family with a house in the Lammermoor Hills'. Octavia grows up spoiled, unconventional, and lovely, with her brothers and their friends for her slaves. Her learned neighbour, Professor Horncastle, is also an adorer of hers: When she is seventeen, Robin Compton, who has taught her to ride, suggests that Octavia should try hunting as an " outlet." So she goes to visit the Brabazons in an English hunting county ; and dazzles everybody by her performance oil the first day afield. All the agreeable unthinking hunting men fall in love with her ; she decides on Greville Pelham; who has brains, but does not hunt. As she is determined not to lose her freedom in marriage, the unfortunate Pelham has cause to remark that " It's your honeymoon, not mine." However, she does surrender, and nearly dies in childbirth. Immediately after this she rather surprisingly offers Min another honeymoon. Octavia is a very self-absorbed creature and her naive conversation leaves us wondering why every- body, even a Labour candidate, should submit to her. Pre- sumably her charm is in her vitality. The style of the book is very uncertain, and the dialogue is lacking in those ironic niceties to which most contemporary novels have used uli; But the picture of a hunting set will amuse many • and possibly will be of value to the social historian of the futur4.
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