SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 287, 30 August 1919, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

"Crofton's Daughter," Miss Jessie' Leckie Herbertson's latest novel, "Crofton's Daughter" (Methuen and Co.), is a clever and powerful study in feminine psychology, in which the author.well 'maintains the high literary standard reached in her earlier stories. Julie. Crofton, tho heroine, is the orphaned daughter of a handsoine_, reckless, and generally impecunious, and not a little selfish, Bohemian, who lives for -some'years oh the Continent, where the daughter, early deprived of. maternal care, is-educated and brought up in an easy-going, methodloss fashion, which tends ■t6 create. and stimulate her natural- disregard for straitlaced English conventionalities.- When , her father dies and leaves her almost penniless, she ' -is taken' ..into ,- the household of r.n 1 English relative,' li'er mother's' brother, and is strnightwav transported into what is,, to her, a decidedly alien atmosphere. Against tho intenso "respectability," which is almost u fetish with good Mrs. Bentley '■ and her family, poor Julie is impelled into something like open warfare, and' there comes a time whon her hankering, after tho old Bohemiauism very nearly makes her "throw her bonnet over tho windmills/' as' the. French say,- and . become, an easy prey to a handsome' seusualist, a married maii of middle age, -who' ,~ohceives what.lie deems-'to bo a desperatepassion for the young lady.'. Underlying the Crofton strain of. waywardness in 'her Wood, there is, however, a veur of more robust moral forco. In the cud .it is tho good, rather than' the mischievous, influence'which dominates the girl's coin-. ■ piex nature, and the story closes wiin fair promise of rest and happiness..for a once sorely strained, soul. A clever, well-wrilten story, in which some of the minor characters rival the more prominent figures in the sharpness and, convincing quality of their drawing. A M'Glusky Reprint. 'The popularity of Mr. A. G. .Halesssensational, but highly, entertaining, "M'Glusky books", is evidenced by the frequent appearance of new editions of these-, amusing ' yarns. Messrs. Hodiier and Stoughtou luivo just issued a-cheaj reprint of "Ginger and M'Glusky,' : in which the Scots-Australian hero of to many of Mr. Hales's tales of adventure is again to the fore, as a member of an An7,ac battalion in which the equally redoubtable Ginger, with two jolly young Australians, Joe and Snowy, are' his staunch comrades, and, should <x"viiioii pprmit. his boon companions. It is the homorous rather than the tragic side of war which' Mr. Hales here mainly desuibes,' and he is as readable as ever. :■.- I ■' :