LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 272, 14 November 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY.

The arrival of Christmas books is an indication that the festive season is fast descending on us again. A good book for children is that by Raymond Jacberns entitled "Three Rascals," which, although it hardly possesses the light humorous touch characterising E. Nesbit's charming child stories, nevertheless contains a series of excellently conceived childish adventures. This volume relates the adventures of two small boys and their sister, who go to stay in the cottage of an old Scotch housekeeper, and near to the country house of some friends. At "the House" are a boy and girl with whom they make friends and quarrel, but the main part of then adventures happen on the neighbouring demesne of a choleric old gentleman, who resents trespass, and who keeps under strict control a grandson expelled from school under an undeserved suspicion of theft. The book ends with the justification of the expelled boy, and the arrival of the father of the "Three Rascals," who is summoned when one last scrape seems about to end badly, till the lost little girl is discovered by a friendly keeper in the hole where she had fallen in a quest after rare moths. Photography is for the most part used in the illustrations, and rather effectively in some instances.

In the very excellent series of Thackeray reprints which Messrs Macmillan are issuing, a seasonable volume is Thackeray's "Christmas Books." It is a pleasure to renew acquaintance with these wholly delightful and quite inimitable sketches with their quaint humour. The arrangement is by Lewis Melville, and the illustrations of GeoCruickshank, Richard Doyle and the author, are excellently reproduced. To this series Messrs Macmillan have added as a volume "Burlesques Cornhilll to Cairo and Juvenilia." This collection contains the series on "Mrs Perkin's Ball," "Our titreet," "Dr. Birch and His Young Friends," "The Kickleburys on the Rhine" and "The Rose and the Ring." The general excellence of the finish of this, edition will make it warmly welcome in many libraries.

While on the subject of reprints it is interesting to note that the popularity of Dickens calls for regular new issues. Messrs Chapman and Hall, the original publishers, are engaged on a 22 volume "Fireside Dickens," containing the illustrations of Cruickshank, Phiz and others. Taking "The Old Curiosity Shop" as an example, it must be freely admitted that they are producing a very excellent edition at a very moderate price, for no fault can be found with printing, illustration or binding, and two shillings is by no means an excessive figure.

Guy Boothby's imagination is as prolific as ever, and shows few signs of being jaded in his latest volume, "A Twofold Inheritance," which Messrs Ward, Lock & Co. forward us through Messrs Wildman, Lyell and Arey. The proverbial young scion of the nobility without an ounce of real harm in him, but decidedly inclined to go the pace, becomes engaged to a very fascinating widow in a fast set, whose reputation is not as sweet as rose perfume. Simultaneously he conies a very fair cropper over backing one of his horses in The 2000 Guineas. When away on a good friend's yacht recovering himself a bit, his fiancee, who is in trouble, jumps overboard, and the sprightly lord follows- Neither is picked up by the yacht, but the lady is the only one to find a last resting-place in Davy Jones' locker. His lordship turns up a trifle loony on a Pacific island. The wicked cousin who has succeeded him eventually learns of this, and organises an expedition to quietly put him out ot the "way. The bosom friend of the flightly one starts a rival expedition for the purpose of rescue, and is ac« companied by a delightful young lady who is interested in,the marooned lordIt were not fair to divulge the progress of the two rival parties, but quite sufficient has been revealed to show that the incident is not allowed to drag or the reader's attention to wander from the temporarily-clouded fortunes of the hero-

A somewhat uncommon book is W. R. H. Trowbridge's "The Situations of Lady Patricia," which Mr T. Fisher Unwin rTublishes. This charming young lady, subsequent to the death of her mother, finds a position in the house of a somewhat distant relation, Lord Cotterdole, made wholly unbearble by.his exceptionally objectionable Jewish wife, who his lordship had not married because he was particularly attracted by her, but because her money was a commodity rather useful to a somewhat straightened peer. Lady Patricia determines to take a situation. As companion to a vixenish old peeress, head housekeeper to a family whose wealth has just bought them a title, chaperon to an American girl who is in matrimonial search of a lordling as a mate, and companion in an aristocratic Parisian family, she has in her various places quite exceptional opportunities to see the inner side of a varied run of fashionable homes. Lady Patricia's observations are both discriminating and analytic, and a very clever and readable book is made out of the material. Eventually the central figure is rescued from rather uncongenial tasks by a brother who has amassed a fortune in the East.

, The authors of that delightful book, "Experiences of an Irish R.M.," have just issued through Messrs. Longman an equally fascinating picture of Irish life in a novel entitled, "An Irish Cousin." Miss Sarsfield, an American, arrives on a visit to her uncle in the West of Ireland. She rapidly becomes involved in a love complication between her cousin and the son of an adjoining landowner, the O'Neill. There are not only, in the course of the story, good breezy pictures of the hunting field and healthy free existence of the upper classes in the Emerald Isle, but also clever sketches of peasant life. The uncle turns out to be an unmitigated villain, and meets a deservedly tragic end, but not before the-young people, who are all engaging personalities, have satisfactorily sorted themselves out. Messrs. Sommerville and Ross have given us some of the best pictures of Irish life in contemporary fiction. A copy of the book reaches us through Messrs. Upton and Co. "The Way Back." Albert Kinross's latest novel, which Messrs. A. Constable and Co. publish, is rather tragic in its development. The exceptional brilliance of Bartoll, who has built up a great metropolitan daily, is ruined at its zenith by the unfortunate fascination Madame Hertha exercises over him. Prosperous in his clandestine wooing, and eventually inducing her to elope, his success is but the prelude to ruin. There are many dramatic scenes in the book, which must rank as one of the powerful, if least pleasant, Mr Kinross has written.