SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2647, 18 December 1915, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION

"THE VICTORIANS."

"The story of Hose Cottingham is to oe continued in the near future." So runs an "author's note" on the filial page of Miss Not-ta Syrett's novel, "l'lio Victorians" (T. Fisher TJmvin). WqII, if Hiss Syrett is to give us -a trilogy, in the stylo of those of Mr. Arnold Bennett and Mr. J. D. Beresford, or merely a sequel, as Messrs. Compton Mackenzie and Hugh Walpolo have done, , there will at least be one unconiplaiu- . mg reader —the writer of these lines — . ; that is, of course, if tho fine quality of "Tho Victorians" is maintained. Miss i Syrett's novel is tho story of a young ikdy from her earliest childhood to the ('time when she triumphs over an unsympathetic environment and many other obstacles in t'ho path • of literary success, and blossoms forth as •a successful author. . Tlio period is that of tile 'eighties of the last century, and |in its o\yn way tho story is a singularly Isuccessful presentment of the later Vicjtcrian atmosphere. The best feature of ' the book is its description of life and character at an advanced girls' school of the period. Many of my older readeve, particularly lady readers, will, I jtiiink, recognise an old friend—acquaintjance would perhaps be a better term— [in Miss Quayle, tho autocratic head' of ;Minerva House; indeed tho whole of :the heroine's school experiences have a ■distinct air of -realism. The minor ch&Tacters are as well drawn as tho chief figures, and the pictures of Victorian literary and artistic "influences" and! "movement's" —it was the period wlnm -Beardsley shocked so many peo,ple, and the "Yellow Book" was regarded as something "most improper I ?—are most amusing.. We leave Kost> Cottingham on the last page with "all the glamour of youth about her. . . ..' .profoundly, ecstatically-grateful to be alive .... and Jack Colquhonin liked! her book." In the sec-ond-instalment of Rose's history, Mr Colqruho.un, I make hold'to predict,-will play'no small part. : V( "THE PIONEERS." , A g.pod many'novels have been written on! the. life of the early settlers in Australia, but there was room for Mrs. Pritehard's really excelent story, "The J'ioneeijs" (Hodder and Stoughton," per S. ana .W.. Mackay), which is the Australasian prize- novel iii. the "All' British £MOO Prize Novel Competition instituted by its' publishers. Here is a well-plaiiftiied, well-written, arid 'in every way adiiairable story, full of interesting pictures bf a kind of life which lias long ago 'passed away in Australia, a 1110 which was;often replete, with dramatic incidents, Tho plot turns upon the kindness.'shown by . Mrs. Cameron, the i'oung' wilie—Welsh by birt'h—of a dour Scots settler in Victoria, to a- pair . of escaped oonvicts from "The Island," as fan Dieuian's Land was then generally ■ailed. Tlhe Camerohs incur the enmity if a' horrible fellow, Thad M'Nab. a jublican, ; who adds to his rum-selling >rofit-s ; by -blackmailing escaped convicts ivho had Cnecome honest, hard-working iettlers-ami. amassed wealth,, sometimes' even heing mean -enough to betray them to the -police after he'had re-' reived his u.uholy reward for silence as .a.-their real! identity. The feud be.ween this scoundrel/and the Camerons 5 ; carried on . for . some years, and- in it' iecome involved young -Davy i proud, obstinate, but lion-liearted.fel--ow arid bis chiairming sweetheart, Deidre : r arrell. Theire is sad troiible and sprow for some of the characters ere the : nd is .reached, but happiness promises o be the lot of the younger -folk. For ®e character '\alone old Mrs.. Cameron, he over patient loyal wifo and loving ' aether, the ■ stay deserves more than ' phemeral popularity. "You ought to , |o,;a great mail'.-, Dan-," .she. tells her grandson (the soti of: Deidre and David), i "because foiir great nations liave : gone to the malking of -you." I didn't know what, she meant at'.first; . Then, she told me - that my -foiir grandparents wero English, . Irish, .Scottish, and-'- Welsh. "They have qua-Erelled and fought among themselves, but. yon are a' 1 gathering of thom in a new cbuhtry, Dan," she said. "There mil be ia great-future for' the nation that comes of you and the boys and girls like you.. It will be a nation pioneers withi. all the adventurous toiling strain of tilie men and women wli< came across the sea and conquered tin wilderness: ... . . They may tall about .vour birthstain bj- and'by, Dan,' she. said, ('but that will .not. troubli you, .because ,it ivias not this country made the' stain. Tljis country has beer the ..redeemer and. Wotted out all those old stains." ■' > 1 A. "The Pioneers" is far and away tli£ Australian novel we, have had foi many a-day. . > BETTY WAYSIDE. "Betty Wayside," - by Louis Stone (Hodder and Stoughton, per S. and W. Mackay) is a well-told, amusing story of Sydney life, dealing with a higher social strata than that described in Mr. Stone's clever but excessively realistic "Jonah." In has new story, Mr. Stone introduces us to' a very charming heroine, who is an exceptionally clever musician,, and to an Equally pleasant lover, a musical composer, ! whose creative work for a long time fails to ob-recognition,-and who is driven .to playing his , violin in a band of street musicians. The artistic, semi-Bohem-ian atmosphere of. the story is very fasand for one character alone, tho -heroine's' uncle . "the Colonel,", whose connection . . 'with the army .is purely fictitious, tho. story ; is well worth reading. The Colonel, a well-dressed, selfish loafer,. is quite a 'Thackerayan figure. .-"Betty Wayside" has no plot worth speaking of, but its clever charac-ter-draiying and / its genial, wholesome humour well atone for any deficiency of construction. THE'MAN WHO BOUGHT LONDON, Mr.. Edgar Wallace, w'liosa: stories of romantic adventure on the' West Coast of Africa have been, so popular, now gives us, in his latest novel, "The Man Who Bought London" (Ward, Lock and Co.; per Whifccombe and Tombs) a highly sonsational story, somewhat in the style of what Arnold Bennett calls liis ''fantasias." Tho hero is a Yankee multi-millionaire, who, half speculator, half philanthropist, buys up whole blocks of properties in the West End if London._ Other Americans, not quito so oppressivoly rich, oppose him, andlie is specially pursued by a half-insane person who 'removes his enoraies by poisoning tbem or engaging. Anarchists to_ strangle them, and who—this surprise is reserved for the final chapter turns out to be a woman, tho giant speculator's own wifo. Tho story is a ;lcver mixture of melodrama and- comxly. It is all frankly impossible, but nucli can be forgiven the author in view )f tho 'audacity of his imagination. HIS WIFE'S SISTER. "His Wife's Sister," by Mrs. Carter ftead (John Long), is a well-written story of Anglo-Japanese life, the intor-i-st centring round a 'handsome Englishnan whom a Japaneso servant, wrong:ully holding him responsible for the leath of his fiancee, a Geisha girl, tries ;o murder. The hero's life is' saved >ya skin-grafting operation,- and the >atch of brown skin on the white man's ace becomes a barrier between husband tnd wife. The wrong is righted by tlio ;elf-siierificc of tho wife's sister, a selfincrifico rewarded by the gain of tho ove- for which slio. had craved. The Tapaneso scones are roploto with picaresque colour,. and' tho story as a I'hole is decidedly readable. A RISKY CAME. One can always depend upon a new tory by Harold Bindloss being good or a few hours' - wholesome entertainment. In his latest effort, "A Risky JLack 2UU OOi.i per

Whitcombe and Tombs) Mr. Bindloss introduces us to a Scotsman of good family, who, with a young American of equally adventurous tastes, engages in fclio dangerons adventure of "rurifiine" cargoes of rifles, to a Central American State. Here the adventurers become entangled in a revolutionary movement, and tho excitement soon becomes fast ajid furious.- Two young ladies, one an American, tho oflier a Spanish girl, play important roles in the "drama, the curtain falling upon a scene which the sen r timentally inclined' are bound to ai> plaud. Tho author has evidently made a close study of Central American life and his local colour is picturesquely realistic. An exceptionally good adventure story. "the generatio?* between." Thomasine Latimer, the heroine of The Generation Between," by C. M. Mattheson (T. Fisher Unwin), is a young married woman, and mother, who finds her lifo unsatisfying, and .thinks to find escape from an uncongenial environment by becoming a member of a ivoman's Settlement, in which the "advanced feminine" is very much to the tore. Here, however, she finds that overything in life does not proceed on the lines laid down by intellectually' clever "pamphleteers" and apostles of new movements, and after a- period of disillusion she returns to her husband, with whom she is now very much more in love than when she first married him, mainly to please her dying father. There is much shrewd common sense in the author's descriptions of the "Settle:ment" life, and the character-drawing throughout is clear cut and 1 effective. 'Some readers may think that Thoma■sine could never have brought herself to admit failure, but personally, if there be a real Thomasine, I fancy that socalled failure really spelt, for her at least, happiness.