SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1848, 6 September 1913, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION.

THE~RECENT. Those who enjoyed that most amusing of Arnold Bonnett's novels, "Tho Card," will be glad to'renew acquaintance with tho ingenious Mr. Edward Henry Machin, whom his mother called Denry, but who, to the good people of the Fivo Towns, was over "the Card," a person of surpassing eccentricity, a popular hero by reason of his amusing impudence and unfailing . persistence aloug tho paths which lead to local celebrity and financial success. In "Tho. Regent" (Methuen and Co., per Whitcombe aiid Tombs), Mr. Bennett gives us the further adventures of his hero who, sated with his facile success in tho Five Towns, is now daring enough to transfer his energies to the wider, and, for him, almost unknown field of London. "The Card," as those who recall his famous Llandudno venture will remember, is a born speculator, and an accident offering him the chance of securing a share in an option on a theatro site in Piccadilly _ Circus, he provides himself with a big "wad" of bank notes, and is off up to London, and busily engaged in his new venture, before lie is fully aware of the extent of the responsibilities he is shouldering. Mr. Bennett is at his very best in describing how tho unabashed Denry, conscious of his provincialism, but determined to maintain at all hazards his reputation as "a card," accepts a bet that he will not put up at Wilkin's Hotel (a thin disguise for Claridge's), where monarchs and -ambassadors' aro quito ordinary guests. He has to exercise all his nativo prudence, plus impudence, to successfully cajole and bounce out of their bargain his threo partners in the option, but a clever if rather unscrupulous ruso is successful, and after a tough fight with an old-fashioned firm of buyers, a combat in which his earlier careor as a law clerk stands him in good stead, he finally secures the coveted " site, and sets to work to build tho famous Regent Theatro. • How it comes about that he is persuaded into accepting, for his opening production, a "poetic drama," "The Orient Pearl," and of allotting the principal role to an actress whose stilted delivery and faded personal attractions quito unfit her for the loading part; how tlio theatre is opened with a reclame which the most ingenious " theatrical manager had never surpassed; how the receipts fall so rapidly that Denry sees himself faced by ruin; how ho hurries of! to New York, and of tho expedients ho uses to persuado a notorious Suffragette, "wanted by the polico," to star in the "Pearl"; and how tho tide turns, and be converts a dismal failuro into a brilliant' success, you must road 'for yourselves in Mr. Bennett's vastly entertaining pages. The story, which is on very different lines from those of the Balzacian "Olayhanger," and "Hilda Lossways," is a mastorpiece of ironic liumoun Denry himself is a good enough character to make the fortune of any novel, but Rose Euclid, the pathotic "back number," Sir John Pilgrim, tho supremely conceited actor-manager (surely hero is a portrait .from life I): Carlo Trent,.the poetic dramatist; and the two lawyers, Slosson and Wrissell theso latter quito Dickensian figuresare all excellent. The "Card" is for a time just in peril of losing his head, but although ho philanders unwisely with a pretty actress, Elsie April, ho returns in tho end to Hanbridgo and his faithful Nellie, a true and honest husband, and when we leave him on the last page wo-aro in full agreement with the filial criticism, "Isn't father a funny man? The "Cardis a "funny man,''but ho mingles a singularly useful hardheadedness with his apparent eccentricities. "The Regent" is distinctly a jolly book, a book full of clever character sketches, good-humoured satire at the fashions, frivolities, and follies of the presentday life, especially theatrical life, of London. The interest of its narrative never flags for a moment the action is as rapid* as in the still unfinished Clayhanger" trilogy, it is deliberately leisured. Mr. Bennett has been out, as his "Card" would say, to amuse us, and ho who cannot laugh over the • Regent" must be a dull fellow indeed. 1 THE CITADEL. When tho novelist becomes a preacher of political sermons and puts controversy before narrative, he is apt to weary a large class of readers who desire, first and foremost, to bo amused. I Honestly, without iu any way contend- ' inpr that the political novel should dis- " "appear altogether, I have arrived, of > late, at something akin to satiety bo 1 far as the American political novel is concerned. In Mr. Samuel Merwin s 3 "The Citadel" (N.Y. The Century Com--1 pany; per Georgo Robertson and Co.), 5 tho author presents the sadly familiar figure of the honest young journalist, of extreme Radical views, whoso I purppso and ambition it is to drive "grafters" and "boodlers," both poli- ' tical and commercial, out of tho land. . To make the young mail fall in lovo [ with tlie beauteous daughter of a wealthy and unscrupulous politician is also a familiar trick, but the experienced reader knows full that the sterling John Garwood will sacrifice both lovo and fortune for the cause. In this instance > tho reformer, rejecting all tho attempts . of the "Stand Patters," the old con--1 gressional hands of his party, loses both 1 his party's support and a rich wife, and, for a time at least, his soat in 5 Congress.! Once again tho story is told " of an election in which the would-be " reformer has allied against him all tho forces of wealth and class' infiuenco. Tho description of tho eleotion is the > best thing in tlio book, but tho long ' political speeches and extracts from ' newspaper articles, and political "dodg--5 ers" mako but dull reading for a non- • Amcricau public. SHORTER NOTICES. 3 In "Rosnlind in Arden" (J. M. Dent 3 and Co., per Whitcombo and Tombs), s the ox-Now Zealandor, Mr. H. B. Mars riott Watson, deserts for onco his favi ourite subject of highwaymen and their s lady-loves, and gives us a slight but - pretty, and in placos very amusing story of a young Englishman who sees what ho believes to bo tho homo of his any costors fall into tho hands of a bustling, ■- bullying American millionaire. For a n time, a long time, a bitter feud rages ,- between Rogor Rocliford, who believes i, himself to bo tho rightful thirteenth •- Earl of Westwood, and tho muclis dollared Hollis. But there is a Miss y Hollis, and in tho end—well, I must i- not- give Mr. Watson's plot away or hint o at the unexpected, but in many ways satisfactory denouemont. An agreeably readable, if not brilliant, novel. " Mr. Robert Barr has been dead and buried now somo months, but now books

from liis pon continue to appear, so I presume this industrious author was well ahead with his "contracts" at-tho time of his much-lamented death. "Lord Stranleigh Abroad (Ward, Lock, and Co., per S. and W. Mackay) is another instalment of the wonderful and often highly-diverting experiences of Mr. Barr's well-known character, a wealthy peer, who combinos philanthropy with keen and audacious speculation, and has a famous knack of getting out of a tight comer with skin and fortuno uninjured. Lord Stranleigh's adventures in the United States are quite as astonishingly varied as were his former escapades as chronicled in previous books from Mr. Barr's facile and clever pon. "Tho Gate of Horn,"- by Be>u] all Marie Dix (Methuen and Co., per'Whitcombo and Tombs), recounts tho experiences, mainly in Cornwall, of an American young lady, whose ancestors were of "The Duchy." Tho heroine is greatly given to dreaming dreams of a. past existence in which a stalwart, rcd-dish-haircd man plays no small part, and when she comes to live with her Cornish relatives, these dreams not only multiply, but becomo singularly more vivid. How Sydney Considino comes to meet the ruddy-haired mail' of her dreams in real life, how another woman forestalls her in bis love, as in the dreams of her 'teens in America, how Nick Roscrow's wifo is conveniently removed by a motor accident, and how at last tho heroine enters through tho "Gate of Horn" —in company with tho Cornish giant aforesaid, my readers must find l out for themselves. There is a supernatural element in the story which, despite its careful elaboration by the author, is hardly convincing. But "Sonny" Considino is a charming girl, although the detail of her too frequently recurring dreams is somewhat overdone, and there are many excollent minor characters. The Cornish background is delightful. To Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton's excellent Sevonpenny Library has been added that striking story, "Catherine Furze," by the author of "Mark Rutherford." The recent and justly lamented death of tho author lias been followed by a renewed interest in bis work, and in its cheaper fcirm, "Catherine Furze," admittedly his masterpiece, should attain much wider popularity. As a picture of certain phases of Victorian lifo the story well deserves to live. Tbtae recent additions to the popular scries of shilling novels published by the New South Wales Bookstall Company are "Foj* Turon ,Go!d' a story of the early goldfields- in New South Wales, and of tho bushrangers; Tho Captain of the Gang," a highly sensational story in which racing and bushranging episodes aro prominent, _ and "Tho Calling Voice," by E, F. Christie, a story of life in tho bush. All three are readable yarns, just tho kind of. literary pabulum which many travellers by train or steamer prefer to more ambitious fiction.