SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2540, 14 August 1915, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "QUEED." "Angela's Business" (Constable and Co.; per D. 0. Ramsay and Co.) marks a distinct advance in cho art of Mr. Henry Snydor Harrison, the clever American novelist, whose "Queed" won for him such widespread, and, it is only fair to say, so well-deserved popularity. Mr. Harrison's latest novel is vastly superior to tlie much over-rated "V.V.'s Eyes." Few American, or, for that'matter, few English novels that "Liber" has 'recently read excel it in its characterisation, and it is a welcome relief to find a story dealing so largely with tho feminist raovomcnt, in which Jier.o is au utter, ftcedqa frog the

healthy suggestion and crude caricatures which have disfigured: so many novels in which the "New Woman" of the purely prosent-day variety' has figured. The dominant note of Mr. Harrison's book is one of quiet- ironic hujDour and good-natured satire. The characters, too, are no mere fictional puppets, but belong to real life. The .story relates the experiences of a young American tutor, who is also an aspirin", but, alas, an unpublished novelist, with two young ladies, cousins. One, Mary Wing, a school teacher, is an ardent exponent of the gospol of woman's mental and social independence of, and equity with, man. The other, : Angela Flower, is a young lady ivho may be regarded as typifying the "sweet, old-fashioned woman,". whose highly proper, and according to certain 'minds, whose sole ambition it should be to marry well, ■ and to perform the duties of a wife and mother with a constant abnegation of self, and a calm indifference to the intellectual side of life. Charles Garrett, -the young author, is at first depicted', as an ardent admirer of the advanced typo of woman, and fights hard, and with much self-sacrifice, in championship of Mary Wing, whose' goodnatured friendship for a friend with an awkward "past," seriously threatens her worldly 'prospects. After a time, howover, having met the pretty,, but rather empty-headed, and, to tell the truth, not a little artful Angela,, he exhibits a tendency to swing round to a belief in the old-fasbionea, so-called "womanly" woman. Fortunately 'for himself he comes in time to'recognise the shallowness of -Angela, and relinquishes his idea, of making her. the heroine of the. novel he is-- writing, wbiohhe fondly- hopes is destined to bo hailed as the last word in fiction on the muoh-vexed woman question. Finally, the advanced Mary, having decided to give up - her ambitions rather than desert an old and'invalid mother,, the tutor-author, Saving freed himself from the saccharine ' enchantments of Miss Flower, awakes to the fact that it is Mary, and not her cousin Angela, whom he has loved all along, and the story ends precisely as it should do, Angela consoling herself . with a. highly-eligible young gentleman, of pronounced Philistine tendencies, but agreeably for matrimony with a well-Uned purse. The story, is .replete, with a quiet drollery whidh-is most captivating. It is good, light comedy .throughout, but with an underlying moral which readers may be left to discover for themselves. I can warmly commepd Mr. Harrison's latest novel ;as an expeedingly pleasant story, in which much 'agreeable and wholesome entertainment may be found. When once the good qualities of "Angela's Business" come to be realised by the novel-reading public, the book should I Business" come to : be realised by'the become almost as • popular- as was "Queed" itself. . 1 ; ALLWARD. There is a suggestion of a Borrovian influence in. "Allward" (Mills and Boon, per George Robertson and Co.). The author. Miss E. T.' Stevon.% whose earlier 'novels'. ' "The Veil,'' "The Lure," and "Sarah Eden,"'will'be gratefully remembered by some of my readers, has now-taken for her-subject the allurements, to a'city-jaded man, of-the wild, vagabond life led by the ! 'latter-day Romany of the .English-"'countryside.' That life is hardly,'maybe,so picturesque and rommtic as' tliat drawn by Borrow ill "Lavengro" and "The Romany Eye," ,for the. gipsies have changed with the times,', and to-day; almost: that of as prosaic an existence as the every day country yokel. Still, there-are exceptions, and the uncontrollable desire to wander, wander—"northward, southward, eastward, westward, allward" —must;, ever,, invest. them: with a curious -fascination for ordinary, stay-at-home .folk." ;• The;herp of■ tho story meets" with an ; ' accide;nfr '' "whilst ,feii a walkilie tour in. one' of tho, southern countries—the background of tile story is,-! should.say, Dorsetshire—and is-friended.-by aiyild', uneducated, gipsy, girl, with whoni he soon .'falls in love. It is a.'prettily-told romance, which, unlike so many rojnajnces of the kind, 1 ends very happily, hilt for many readers the chief charm of the story will be found to lie in its fresh and vivid and quite' delightful pictures of the openair life led -by. the. principal characters. "Allward" may be commended as a very original and readable story.' ' "ON DESERT ALTARS." In her new story, "On Desert , Altars" (Stanley, Paul),- -Miss, Norma .Lorimer, whose agreeable books of travel, '"By the Waters of Germany" and "By the Waters of-Sicily," have found so many readers, follows up tho 1 success she made -with her'first hovel; "A Wife Out of Egypt," with an equal-, ly striking and clever story, the background of which is to a large extent Tunis. Miss lorimer, however, : skims over some 1 very' thin ice when she makes her heroine sell herself to a wealthy and sensual Jew, morally a most disgusting character, in order to provide the necessary funds for bringing her sick, husband home from, some feverstricken hole in l Nigeria. ■ I can hardly believe that such a mail as Samson Rathbone would-ever have forgiven either his' erring but loving wife, or that thrice odious financial magnate, Sir Frank Maccabeus. The Maccabeus incident is not- the - only disagreeable episode in the story, and it can safely bo said that "On Desert Altars" is hardly a book for la jeune personne. No doubt, however —perhaps-on that very account —it is sure to be widely read. "THE TURBULENT DUCHESS.'' The heroine of Percy James Breb*. ner's story, "The Turbulent Duchess" (Hodder'arid, StOught-on) is the ruler of Podina,' "the smallest and most pros-' perous of those.States which had watched with'anxiety-the Duchy of Brandenburg growing into the Kingdom of Prussia." The'hero is the Prince Maurice of Savaria, who courts, his whimsically humoured lady: love in. the humble guise of , a court jester. Mr. Brebner is generous with his supply of excitingly dramatic incidents," and a, fine flavour of romance pervades his story, which makes decidedly pleasant reading. "THE BARBARIANS.", Mr. James Blyth, in his "Barbarians" (John Long) tells a very unpleasant, indeed ugly, story, the chief characters in which are two sisters, Margery and Emmeline Vandermeer, one a school teacher, tho other a postal employee, two vulgar-minded, luxury-loving, , and incurably selfish creatures, whose set purpose in lifo it is to get into "smart" society arid live an idle, luxurious life. It is with Margery's career that the story is,chiefly concerned. She "goes in" for nursing, and cleverly secures a highly eligible parti in the person of. a clever young doctor who has a fashionable practice.. Large, as, is his income it is insufficient to meet the demands of his extravagant wife. . This lady resorts to treachery, next to fraud, and finally would fain, persuade her, husband to commit .murder in order to secure a large sum of money. A more unpleasant story I' have' rarely. read, arid not a few readers of tho novel will join with me in ' 'regretting that the author leaves such ' a highly objectionable heroine unpunished and apparently quite foTgiven by ; her uxorious, and, outside his professional character, very stupid husband. "A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS." The author of "Tho Scarlet Pimpernel" has a faithful band of admirers in Now Zealand, and 1 her latest novel, a companion story, "A Bride of the Plains" (Hutchinson and' Co.. per Whitoomho and Tombs),- should further increase her popularity. It is a companion story tb "A Son of tho People," from the same pen. Lik© its predecessor, it describes the life of . the Hungarian ptfß.fin.nt3, ths Hun*

' industrious and happy folk. Tlie period is not, howover, that of the present war, and the story deals with the love of a young peasant lad for a beautiful girl of his natives-village, from whom ho is separated by the exigencies of his two years' service as a military conscript in the Austrian army. The hero is reported dead, but returns just as his betrothed is on the point of being forced into marriage with a wealthy young _ farmer. Dramatic, and, indeed, tragic, incidents now crowd the story, tlio plot being complicated by the treachery of a hand? some young Jewess, and the passionate, jealousy of ■ her fiance. Baroness d'Orczy is a past-mistress in the art of conceiving and working out an ingenious and 1 dramatic plot, and, in this her latest story she fully maintains her wide reputation as a skilled and deservedly popular novelist. LA BELLE ALLIANCE. • Rowland Grey's story "La Belle Alliance" (Geo. Bell and Sons, per WMtcombe and Tombs), introduces us .to "some,vei;y pleasant people, both French and Europe, the. scene, being., laid -alter? nately on the two sides of the Channel. Some , very agreeable pictures of French life, in. the country and smaller provincial towns, are given,'and there is a pretty love story which should vastly please tho sentimental-reader. An unpretentious but wholesome and very interesting story. The period is that of the Victorian eighties. - • '