SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3012, 24 February 1917, Page 13

SOME RECENT FICTION

"The Maohine," by Hugh F. Spender (Eveleigh Nash; per AVhitcombe and Tombs), is an exceptionally well-written novel, tho period being that immediately preceding the war. The central figure is a clever j'oung fellow, who, after taking his degree at Oxford, is rather at a loose end, and accepts an appointment on a London daily, owned by his uncle, a wealthy manufacturer, an influential Liberal of the "strictly moderate" brand of Liberalism. Rupert Egton finds it difficult_to square his personal political views with those of his paper, and when he marries a fashionable beauty and goes into Parliament he soon has to decide between political independence and a comfortable living The situation is by no means new in latter-day fiction—and real life—and in Egton's case is complicated by the fact that his wifo is a selfish, extravagant woman. Towards the close of the story the scene shifts to Berlin, and the interest becomes almost melodramatic, for wife and husband find themselves in sore trouble, the work of an unprincipled British nobleman, who is, alas, a secret agent of the Kaiser. ' Mr. Spender gets his hero out of''an awkward position by sending him off to the front, where, so runs .the. closing sentence of the story, "in spite of the uncertainty of the future, he was nearer to happiness and peace of mind than ever he had been before." Tho author is evidently very much at homo in liiß political and journalistic scones, and the story throws some curious sidelights upon tho working of the British party system. Its_ main, indeed, its only, defect, is that it is almost totally lacking in humour. "The Coconut Planter," by D. Egerton Jones (Carroll and Co-., per Whitcombe and Tombs). "Tho Coconut Planter" of the story is a young lady, who after-.being for some time a teacher in Sydney, inherits a legacy, and sets o for New Guinea, there to make a fresh start in life. She has been secretly married to a young fellow who, for family reasons, had left her on his wedding day, asd gone off to Papua, on an exploring expedition,, and has, it is supposed, met his death at the hands of a savage hil ltribe in the interior. The heroine has a fellow-passenger, with whom she at first flirts, and finally falls in love, and a very awkward sitaution is crpated when at last she learns that this gentleman i stlio brother of the man she has married. It would be unfair to the author to say how the story ends. It is an ending which, we are afraid, may disappoint the sentimental reader. "With the, heroine it is im'possiblo to feel much sympathy, for she is clearly a born coquette, and is, besides, nltogethertoo solf-conscious to bo pleasing to the reader. The food colour of the storv is picturesque and convincing, although it is not such ps to make the reader pine for a residence in New Guinea. "The Sheltered Sex," by Madge Moars (London, John Lane). This is tho story of a revolted daughment, and for a time her path is by no means rose-strewn. But sho has pluck in plenty, and when at hist she marries her skating rink instructor, and emigrates with him to Tasmania, sho will carry with her the good wishes of all readers of this woll-lold story, tor, who, tiring of the inexpressible banality of middle-class existence in a dull littlo seaside town, escapes to London, and, as sho fondly imaginos, to a delightful freedom. Unfortunactly, circumstances seem to point, at least in the opinion of her relatives, to the. young lady having eloped with a goodlooking "instructor" at the local skating rink, and this evil reputation the girl finds it difficult to livo down.' She finds a now home a somewhat sordid lower-class Bohemian environ-

"Half a Lie," by Lady Napier of Magdala (John Murray; per Whitcombe and Tombs). Lady Napier is hardly at her best in her latest story, the heroine of which, dosiring to help a silly, selfish' friend who is blackmailed by a rascally chauffeur, becomes the victim of a scandalous report, and finds herself boycotted by the county society of which slio has hitherto been a popular and 1 respected niomber. The villain of tho piece, a nouveau richo named Glossop, is a perfectly unspeakable bounder, and every reader of the book will rejoice over his final and complete discomfiture. Lady Napier's descriptions of hunting and country life generally are brightly done, but the story is rather carelessly written, more than ono of the French phrases with which it is so liberally interlarded being wrongly spelt. "Flower of the Corse," by Louis Tracy (Cussell and Co., per Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd.). A special and pathetic interest attaches to Louis Tracy's latest novel in that it is dedicated to the memory of the author's only sou, tho late Lieutenant Louis Turgis Tracy, who fell in action at St. Eloi in June, last year. The scene of the story is laid at the picturesque Breton fishing port, Pont Avon, so favourite a resort with English artists; the heroine, Yvonne Ingorsoll, being the daughter of an artist whose wife had left him soon after the child was horn, and had afterwards married a rich American. The wreck of a yacht brings tho woman to Pont Aven," her second husband being drowned, and tho story then turns upon the woman's repentance and hor lovo for her long-deserted child, and how this affects the relations between father and daughter. It is a very pretty and wholesome story, and tho local colour is fresh and picturesque.