SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 205, 18 May 1918, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"Love and Liberty." Last year Messrs. Stanley Paul and Co. placed lovers of romantic fiction under u debt of gratitude by publishing a translation of a little-known but excellent novel by Dumas, dealing with Neapolitan lifo in Uio days of tho Bourbons. A companion volume has now been issued by the tiamo publishers, unrter tho title "Love and Liberty" or' JSel--6011 at Naples," tho translation being written by that well-practised hand Mr. 11. S. Garnett. It is astonishing that so many years should havo been allowed to elapse before English translations of the two romances were made available, for Dumas never wrote two better storie9 than these—tho immortal D'Artagnan and Yalois romances, of course, always excepted. In "Love and Liborty" the great romancer gives us a series of brilliant word pictures from Neapolitan histoj'y. Tho period is the two years from 1797 to 1799, when Fordinand was at war with France, his tottering throno being supported only by Nelson's fleet. Tho erection of the Parthenopeau Republic, the counter-revolution ill favour of tho Uoui'bons, led by that militant churchman, Cardinal Rufl'o, and tho restoration of the vacillating and cruel monarch aro all described iu that vividly picturesque style of which Dumaa was a master. No one was better fitted to clothe the dry bones of history in a veil of romance than Dumas. Thero aro passages in this story, notably tho description of how tin- French general insisted upon the priests "operating" the liquefaction of tho blood of St. Januarius, and the highly dramatic situation where Ferdinand, in .the moment of triumph, is confronted by Wie corpso of tho bravo Admiral Carncciolo, which havo never been surpassed in romantic fiction. In , tho basio lovo story, that of tho patriot

girl Luisa San Felico and lior gallant lover Salvato, Dumas shows his irnaginalivo powers at their bust, but to many readers tho novel will chielly appeal by reason of ils portraits of such famous historical characters as Nelson and Lady Hamilton, tho dissolute Queen Caroline, and tho masterful Cardinal Uull'o. Nelson's portrait is by iio means unsympathetic, but the author does not spare iliis contempt for, and detestation of, that sinister figure, the Bourbon monarch. The story is one which will please all admirers of Dumas's vigorous style and vivid powers of imagination. Tho translator contributes a specially interesting prefaoe, which, unliko most prefaces, should not bo skipped.

"Flames in tho Wind." .Miss Helen Hudson, the author uf ''Flame* in the Winit" (Hodder and Stoughton) has evidently great gifts of imagination, and although her story 01' the sufferings of a small party of Queenslanileis who set out to discover, if possible. the long-lost explorer Loiohardt occasionally degenerates into melodrama, it possesses a certain fascination of its own. Tho leader 01' tho party is more concerned with getting rill of his chief companion (whose wito 'he covcts) than with discovering the unfortunate Leichardt, whose sulferings, after tho awful end of Jiis companions at the bands of a tribe of cannibal biacks, are narrated with a positively gruesome realism. A "ghost woman" of the blacks, who befriends tho unhappy explorer, is a strongly drawn character, and tho revenge of tho black boy, Jacky Jacky, whose brother had been murdered by the villain of tho utorv, is dramatically worked out. How far tho author's ethnological studies are correct I am unable to say, but in any caso the supply of sensational incident is so liberal that the average reader is not likely to question tho accuracy of. tho local colour. "Flames in the Wind" is certainly thrilling enough to satisfy tho most exigeant lover of the sensational,

"Mrs. Holmes—Commandant." "Mrs. .Holmes—Commandant," by Robert Ernslio Forbes (London, Jiklward Arnold), is a very lively and entertuining story, dcseriptire of life in a convalescent home conducted by an exceedingly mastcrtul lady known as the Commandant. Thu narrator is a middle-aged gentleman who volunteers to <lo "war work," and finds himself commandeered by tho forceful Mrs. Holmes as a secretary and general factotum to the establishment over which she presides with so much tact, good humour, and general capacity. The author gets some capital fun out of tho vagaries and escapades of certain of her sofdier charges—and their female_ friends—and underlying the general spirit of good-natured satire in which tho story is conceived is much homely and wholesome social philosophy. In tho last chapter tllio author seems to hint at the Commandant and her "general utility" friend becoming lifo partners on their own account. Quite, a jolly book.