SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2944, 2 December 1916, Page 10

SOME RECENT FICTION

"Madame Prinoe," by W. Pett ltidge. 1 confess to a never-failing delight in Air. Pett Itidge's stories of homely London lite. They, are so genuinely numorous, so full of genial satire, so' essentially wholesome and cheery, that they come as a splended tonic to a jaded mind. In. "Madame Prince" the novelist gives some pleasant variations upon what has always been a favourite theme with him, namely, the struggles of a ianuly thrown upon tho world to make their way by their own merit, and under what at first are somewhat depressing conditions. Madame is a dressmaker, in the picturesque little village—village that was, but populous London suburb that .now is—of Highgate. She has three daughters and a uoy who passes as her sou, but who is really the offspring of a dead sister, to : provide for and ■ launch upon the world, and for a time her path is by no means rose-strewn. But the youn<* people have real grit in. them. They are typical Londoners, quick-witted, full of lite and fun, and, best of all, they pull well together, albeit greatly given to chaffing each other in a way which outsiders might mistake for bickering. Madame, the ever-industrious, thrifty, worldly-wiso mother, wrapped up in the happiness of her children, self-sacrilic- j ing, resourceful, and the personification of tho British spirit of "dogged is as does it," is simply a delightlul character, lhere is no great plot in the story, although it does possess a minor character, who is a half-hearted sort of villain, easily vanquished by the redoubtable Madame. Its chief merit lies in its clever characterisation, and the genuine humour of its dialogue. By all means make the acquaintance of Madame Prince. She is worth knowing. . • "The Neapolitan Lovers," by Alexandre Dumas; translated by It. S. Gamett. (Stanley Paul and Co.) This is a half-forgotten novel by the great'; Alexandre Dumas, now for tho nrst time, available in an Eugiish dress. It is an historical romance,- the scene being laid at .Naples in 1798, the principal figures- in the story ben)" the wretched King Ferdinand, his Queen, Nelson and Lady Hamilton. • It is not, generally known that Dumas's father was murdered at Naples by the order..of the Queen, a sister of Mane .Antoinette, by the way, and when on a visit to Naples the great novelist got access..to a forgotten collection of State papers, he decided to revenge his parent by writing a story in which the Neapolitan tyrants should be shown in their .truo and very ugly colours. The love story of Palmieri and Luisa di San Felice is merely a subsidiary interest. The: novel' :is vigorously written, and, allowance made -for" the author's very natural bias, throws many curious and valuable sidelights upon Italian history. "Leatherface," a Talc of Old Flanders, by Baroness Orczy (Hodder and Stoughton; per Whitcombe and Tombs). The author of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" hover fails to present her readers with a well-planned plot, much vigorous action,' and some effective : characterdrawing, and in, this romance of the scapegrace son of the Burgomaster of Ghent, what time the sinister shadow of Alva lies heavy over afflicted Flanders,' she is well up to her old standard.' The love story of Leatherface, as the hero is called from his habit of wearing a peculiar mask when engaged on his mysterious missions, and of the lovely Spaniard, Leonora de Vargas, is brimful of dramatic incident; indeed, the whole story is redolent of the true spirit of romance. Tho Flemish background affords the author an .opportunity for the introduction of some very picturesque local colour. "The .Red Cross Barge," by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes (Methuen and Co.). Mrs. Belloe Lowndes has written a very realistic and patiietic war story. The heroine is a Red Cross nurse, the daughter of an old doctor retired from practice and living a quiet life in a little town on the Marne. To this town comes a regiment of Germans, and a German doctor, a somewhat stupid but kindly hearted man. He finds the heroine in charge of an extemporised hospital on a barge, and is assisting 1 herwhen the German soldiers who had passed on are driven back, and swarming into tho town in hurried retreat display the usual Hun brutality. The young German doctor is touched by tho girl's loneliness, for her father dies from shod;, and is assisting her to a place of safety when lie is struck down and mortally wounded. Nursed by tho young Frenchwoman he passes away peacefully, but not before he has made it clear what iiis feelings are towards her. On her side, intense patriotism does not dull a woman's natural pity for a wounded soul in a death-stricken body. "Tho Red Cross Barge" merely recounts an episode, but io is replete with a very genuine pathos. "Oranges and Lemons," by D. C. F. Harding (Cassell and Co.; per Whitconihe and Tombs). Dolores Fane, the daughter of a reckless spendthrift of good family but deplorable morals, is left stranded in Nico by tho death of her father. Befriended by an Englishman and his wife, excellent people, but, alas, \msympathetic towards a Bohemian tcmpcramdnt, she is taken to London, aud becomes in time a famous dancer, not before, however, she has become the victim of a rascally Argentine, who treats her infamously. She' makes money at her profession, squanders it recklessly liko a true Fane, and dies, a consumptive, and in direst poverty, in the arms of an'old artist lover. The artistic, temperament is sometimes a very dangerous possession. The story is well told, but it makes on the whole somewhat painful reading.