BOOKS & AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2408, 13 March 1915, Page 4

BOOKS & AUTHORS

(By Liber,).

SOME RECENT FICTION,

TWO NEW AMERICANS, Two new novels, each in its own way vory readable, if hardly notable specimen of American fiction, are entitled respectively "The Jam Girl," by Frances R. Sterritt (Appleton and Co.; per George Robertson and Co.), and "Sweetapple Covo," by George Van Schaick (Small, Maynard and Co.; iwr George Robertson and Co.). Miss Sterrott's is essentially a."jolly" story, its piquantly original plot is built up from the casual meeting, at a French railway station, of Judith Henderson, only daughter of Horatio Henderson, a magnate of the American jam industry, and Hiram Bingham, only son of a rival jam manufacturer, between whom and his ox-partner, but now most deadly rival, Henderson, there exists a feud only comparable to that which existed between the Montagues and the Capulets, made famous in "Romeo and Juliet." The young people not only fall in love at Pontarlier, but also, wheu waiting for a train, at the little town which most people who have stopped there on a journey between Paris and Lausanne would probably call "that deadly hole," pick up the receipt for a jam, La Raisinea de France, which, the author tells us, is of a positively unsurpassable succulence. Unhappily,

when the pair get back to their native Waldo, on the Mississippi, they find paternal wrath at the proposed match to be a very serious affair, and to make matters worse, a meddling and jealous cousin of the girl plays a very dirty trick with regard to the famous recoipt, and sows suspicion and much temporary misunderstanding between, the lovers. The author, however, straightens out the tangled strings very cleverly, and the final scene occurs up m the woods, where at a health resort, the hero saves his Juliet from a fiery death, and the rival jam-makers shake hands, and declare the feud ended, the famous receipt becoming tho source or vast wealth for the newly-formed Bingham and Henderson Jam and Conserves Trust. A very amusing story. Tlie hero of George Van Schaick s story "Sweetapple. Cove" is a young doctor who, wearying of life in hew York, goes for a rest to an isolated fishing village on the Newfoundland coast, and, becoming interested in the fisher people, remains there, . winning the esteem and affection of hip neighbours by his professional skill and natural goodness of heart. To "Sweetapple Cove" there comes a rich city man in his palatial yacht. The merchant, who is accompanied by his daughter, breaks his leg, and is attended by the young surgeon. Then commences, tho inevitable love story, very prettily told, by: the way, in 1 a series of letters written by the young lady to a friend in New York. Apart from its sentimental interest, the story is rich in well-drawn piotures of the simple-mannered fisher folk, and of. the pathos and comedy of their lives.

OLIVER ONIONS'S LATEST. f Unless "Liber", is much - mistaken, ' ;ho original of Llanyglo, the Welsh sea- j side resort which is the scene of Mr. Jliver : Onion's latest novel, "Musli- ' •oom Town" (Hodder and Stoughton; I )er Whitcombe and Tombs) is none '• jther than the popular AVelsh water- ] ng-place, Llandudno. The author ad- • nits, in his preface, that he.has made ) 'a composite of certain features of . sxisting places," and I should say that 1 Blaokpool, with its flamboyance and vul. ; parity, enters into the picture of the ictional "Mushroom Town" to no small sxtent. Be thiß as it may. Mr. Onions bis written 'a very entertaining story in which he displays as keen an insight into Welsh' and. Lancashire life is that which he exhibited of London life in the memorable trilogy which began with that quite remarkable novel "In Accordance With the Evidence." . [n "Mushroom Town," the chief figr ures are found in the family of the . Gardens, the father being a Liverpool merchant, who, first going to Llanyglo, then a desolate fishing village, to find rest and pure air for a delicate daughter, cleverly foresees the possibilities of the place, and starts upon a long and . successful career as land speculator. A humorous touch is predominant in the story, which is well worth reading, if only for its studieß of Welsh character and its satirical sketches of the well-to-do Lancashire people, who flock to Llandudno in the summer months, just as the factory hands throng the beach at Blackpool. Mr. Onions is quit© as hajjpy in drawing the successful Lancashire man as is Arnold Benuett in depicting the people, of his favourite "Five Towns." CANADIAN SKETCHES. In "A Green Englishman and Other Stories of Canada" (George Bell and Sons j per Whitcombe and Tombs), Miss S Macnaughten, whose earlier novels, "A Lamo lJog's Diary," and "The Fortunes of Christina M'Nab," were 60 much onjoyed, gives us a : series of stories and 6ketohes of Canadian life, dealing in particular with the often very trying experiences of the British "tenderfoot," or "new chum" as we know the type hero in Now Zealand. Both pathos—even tragedy—and humour are represented in the collection. One peculiarly pathetic story deals with what is, unfortunately, an all too frequent ocurrence in the North-Western provinces, namely, the insanity which attacks, as a result of the isolation and general dreariness of existence on' a prairie farm, a delicately-bred and nervous young Englishwoman. In "The. Man Who Succeeded," on the other hand, Miss Macnaughton draws ,an agreeably effective sketch of the pluck and determination with which so many/ of the Scottish immigrants in Canada light against advorse fortune, and win through by sheer force of indomitable will, strenuous industry, and equally stern economy. AN INDIAN STORY. . An Indian story, of a very different kind to those witli which we have been made familiar in die pages of Iludyard Kipling, to say nothing of Mrs. Croker, Mrs. Verrin, and Mrs. Penny, is Mr. Edmmid White's "The Path" (Methuen and Co.). Herein is 110 liberal admixture of the Sahib—and especially the Mem. Sahib element, with the details of native life, as is to bo found in the average Anglo-lndiau novel. The interest in Mr. White's book is almost purely native, his story dealing, with the experience amongst his own people, of a clever, well-cducated Mohammedan, and would-be Indian social reformer, who has lost his old religious faith, • and replaced, it by a devotion to scienco. He returns to India to deliver what lie deems to be a true message of comfort aud happiness to his race. The story of his mission involves the introduction of many, striking scenes in Indian native life, and the stage 19 crowded with characters, 6ome of whom, notably a dancing girl, are drawn with a firm hand. The chief fault of the story is its length and the occasional vagueness of Sayyid Ali, Husain's philosophy of life. "THE GREAT RELEASE." "The Great Release,'' by K. Keith' (George 801 l and Sons; per Whitcombe and Tombs), is a clover but somewhat pathetic story of a young man who is afflicted with a curious physical cowardice, and, in particular, a dread of the sea, which results from an experience met with bv his mother before the lad's birth. The toy grows up into a I highly intellectual man, who becomes

a popular novelist, but' spoils his life by marrying a selfish and worldly French girl,, who had endeared herself to liira by being the means, when ho was a. child playmate of hers, of temporarily strengthening him against his ourious affliction. The novelist would fain work "to pleasb himself," and dreams of something better than fame of the Marie Corolli or Charles Garbage class of story-maker. But the wife insists upon a luxurious life, and to satisfy her desires the husband deliberately stifles his ambitions and turns out, as a mere machine, fiction of a purely "popular," but, _to hie own knowing, grievously inartistic character. Eventually, he broaks down in a fit of depression, and meets his death in the sea he has always dreaded. The minor characters, especially the hero's easo-living mother and father, are well drawn, Dut Rose Marie, the" novelist's wifo, is just a trifle too cattish a woman in view of the picture we are given of her in hor childhood. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STORY. Miss Katherine Tynan strikes out in what is, for this popular novelist, quite a, new line, in her latest story, "Molly, My Heart's Delight" (Geo. Bell and Sons; per Whitcombe and Tombs). For instead of giving us a love story of 1 present-day Ireland, she has delved deep into Mrs. Delaney's famous autobiography and letters, and upon a fictional foundation which possesses. a pretty romantic interest, she has built up a story into which are introduced a whole host of more or less famous celebrities of the period depicted, including Dean Swift, Pope, Feilding, and the author of "Clarissa" .and . ' ! Sir Charles Grandison," amongst the litterateurs Handel and Hogarth, and even John Wesley. A very birght and pleasant story.,

THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT. Miss Mary Agnes Hamilton's last novel "Yes" (William Heiiiemann; per George Robertson and Co.), deals exclusively with artistic life in Edinburgh and Paris. The heroine, Joan Traquair, is a young artist, who, greatly against her father's wishes, marries a painter comrade, Sebastian Mackay, an erratic genius, who paints unsaleable post-Futuristio pictures. The couple are in sore straits' when Mackay is befriended' by a great French painter, and goes to Paris for further study, a misunderstanding preventing his wife from accompanying him. Separation, the tragic death of a baby, an incident in which the art-mad husband sees, for a time at least, only the suggestion of a "good subject," and much sorrow, are all features of the story as it proceeds, but reconciliation and the growth of a deeper and better leve duly follow, and the conclusion is all, or nearly all, that a sentiment-loving reader could desire. The story will chiefly appeal to +hose who practise art or who are specially interested in the various art movements of the day, but it also contains some exceptionally clever character drawing. "FREEDOM." J Alice and -Claude Askew are by this very skilled compounders of a class of novel which appeals very successfully to readers of "newspaper serials." Their latest story, "Freedom" (Hurst, and Blackott; per Whitcombe and Tombs), has for heroine a restless, over-ambitious girl who scorns conventionality and is everything which is most modern. She' pushes originality'to the extent of running away to London on her wedding day, rather than many a man for whom she has decided she does not care. In London she meets and marries another man, of a rather dreamy type, arid'the young pair have for a time a very uphill struggle. Eventually, however, the young author and his artist wife' conquer fortune, and Jennifer makes the belated but happy discovery that there h no rear freedom but" the freedom of the spirit.