SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 50, 23 November 1918, Page 3

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"The- Man in Grey." . Tho author of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," Baroness Orczy, is at her best in historical romance, and : her la tea t book, "The Man in Grey" (Cnssell m<l Co.. per S. ami W. Mackay and Tombs), is a cleverly-compounded pastiche of historical fact and sensational fiction. In a series of brierhtlywrit.ten sketches, the principal figure in ■which is a secret agyit of the Napoleonic Government, the author describes various sensational incidents in IV lnng-sus-tainod resistance, or revolt, of the Bretons against the Republican, Mid later the Imperial, Government. The period and the chief incidents are those of Balzac's famous story "Les Cliouans". 'nnd the almost equally well-known story In- Dumas. "The Whites and The Blues." The Man in Grey, the mysterious hero of the story, is sent to Normandy and Brittany by Nanoleon's, "Minister of Police, the famous Fouche, to track d'nv l, nnd arrest. tl" , organisers and vi'incipul ncrents in the Chonan conspiracies. The Chouans, so called from their iidoptui , ; the cry of the screech 'owl. the "chat huant." as their secret; watchword, , were in c otw> instances men of aristocratic birth, in others )«pre bri?n"ds nnd vulgar criminals. They constituted a secret society which pave Xapoloon no small anxiety, and under the , guise of patriotism often committed fie. most ' nlyminoble excesses. In thf mysterious Man in Grey, whoso exact identity, so Baroness Ore/.v insures l's, has never bp°n ascertained, they met. more , .'than their ni'nWi in cunning nnd audacity. The record hwi si von of the spy's exploits makes capital reading for a few spare hours. "The Rr.e of a Star." Mrs. Edith Ayrton Znmjwill's latest novel. ''The Uise of a Star" (T.ondon, John Murray, per AVhitcombe nnd Tombs), f'-ils with theatrical life of America. Tlie "star" is the daughter of a million■aire, andthe granddaughter of a popular actress. Tho heroine's mother is a silly and selfish creature, but her nnd the grandmother not only possess dramatic talents of a liigli order, but are. women of ftrent force of chnrßcter and as lovable as they are strong-willed. ■\V'\ei) Jonii Vi'mlelcur defies her father, ivho loathes the stiigp, and ndoiits her granilniotlier's jn'ot'essioii, she travels with a provincial tlipatricnl coinpaiiy. of which her grandinotlipi , , i>. warni-hearved, 5 ,....-;|;J.. ~M l:»ly is n'si. i> ini-iiiljrr. Tl.e author's <lcscii]itian of the Bohemian life of the nair is vividly realistic, biith the nlpiisai't and .-inrdid <-i<lc> «f tin , Tlu'.spian life beins cleverly depicted. The author is perhaps a little less hnpny in her pictures of tin , , social life nf Hie liiillinuniro conper uiii«uiit.e, and the young Socialist, who evontuiiily [icrsuades Joan to ?ivc U]i the is 'curcely a convincing fkurcr The story ilrass a little here and tlic.re, but on tliß whnlo the interest with which (he r"ad-;r follows the narrative of .Toau North's somewhat vnriegated stage career is well maintained. Pmnc nf the theatrical characters are extremely amusing. "Towards Morning," That most evil feature of German militarism, its soul-destroying effect upon so many of its willing \otarics or umviliiiijr slnvcii. provides llio motif of Miss 1. A. K. Wylio's lioivert'iil nnd pnthetic story, "Towards Morning" (Oassell and C/i. wr S and \V, Jlackay). A well-

.practised story-teller, Miss IVylie is specially qualified by an intimate personal knowledge of German life (she is the author of that excellent book, "My Ger- • man Year") for writing such a etory as the one under review. The story opens with tho birth of the hero, Helmut Felde, and follows his career through schoul life, as a private in a German infantry regiment before the war, and thence onward to his pitiful end, the brief official record of which reads: "Helmut Feldeat dawn—for disobedience in face of the enemy!" Hiss Wylie gives us a close study of life in a little Rl.enish town before the war, and here she is at her best. Also, her description of how the horrible poison of German militarism slowly but surely corrodes and distorts what is naturally a fine, even noble nature, shows the author has a fine gift of psychological analysis. Towards the close of the story there is more than a suspicion of the melodramatic, but to a certain extent that is what the novel-reading public have learnt to expect in a war novel. "Towards Morning* , is well worth reading, even now the war is over. In his latest novel, just published in America, Jeffery Farnol, whoso "Broad Highway" and "Amateur Gentleman wei'3 so popular, but whose more recent long 6tory dealt with life in the under- ' world of New York, has returned to the merry England of the eighteenth century. In his new story, "The Admirable Betty," he takes us back to the period of "wigs, powder, end patcheE," the period ,of "Tristram Shandy" and "Tom Jones," and gives iw a full-flavour-ed romance, in which soldiers of fortune and highwaymen and blustering English squires, bepatched co'jrt beauties, buxom village hoydens, and fair young English maidens all besport themselves vivaciously in the old and approved Farnolian manner. So much of our latter-day fiction deals with the grimly realistic and sordid in. modern life, that a personallyconducted tour through eighteenth-cen-tury England should come, as a very agreeable change. It . will be some weeks, however, before the new Farnol story will make its. i>ppenrance in our local bookshops. If it be here in time for holiday reading so much the better.