6 DECEMBER 1902, Page 37

Children, of the Frost. By Jack London. (Macmillan and Co.

6s.)—If there is any one who cherishes the romantic conceptions of the Red Indian which were commonly accepted a couple of generations ago, let him read Children qf the Frost, sketches, we may explain, of life among the tribes which wander over the Barrens, "the bleak and bitter home of the musk-ox and the lean plains wolf," as Mr. London puts it. The stories, at least some of them, are of a recent time, for we hear of the "Spanish fleet bottled up in Santiago" and Cronje being "cornered." The author imports into them something of the dialect of the problem novel, "the ruthless tenderness of the Eternal Woman," for instance. This does not improve the matter. The book is about as repellent as any that we have road for some time.