28 AUGUST 1886, Page 26

The Otway's Child. By Hope Stanford. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)—That

it is quite harmless is the beat we can say of this book. The plot is difficult to follow, and when unravelled is not so original as to repay the trouble involved in discovering it. The dramatis personce are not individualised, and the actions ascribed to Elionor might have just as well been done by Constance, and vice versa,. That the writer is painstaking is only too evident, for the book leaves on one the impression of having been produced only after an intense and prolonged effort. Novels can afford to be improbable, and often, we regret to say, profit by being immoral ; but dullness is what the modern novel-reader will never pardon, and dull this book un- doubtedly is.