MISS BOBBIE. By Ethel Turner.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 60

MISS BOBBIE. By Ethel Turner.

Melbourne: Ward, Lock, and Co., Limited.

Dunedin : Joseph Braithwaite.

Mrs Curjewis is rapidly becoming a voluminous writer. Stimulated by the success of " Saven Little Australians," she produced in quick &ucc3asion -" A Family at Miprule," "The Little Ducneas," "The Scory of a Baby." " The Little Larrikin," and now we have " Miss Bobbie." In colonial mining parlance the authoress struck a rich lode, and she evidently thinks its possibilities have not yet been exhauated._ We are afraid her latest book will lead to the impression tbat she is mistaken. In " The Little Larrikin " we had a ragged young Lord Fauntleroy, some elder brothers, and a young lady or two. Bat there was rannirjg through it all s, love fitory, and a tender one at that. If tbe book had contained nothing bat the doings of the Little Larrikin, we are afraid it would not have been so popular, for tbe writer had already skimmed off most of the cream in "Seven Little Australians." 'In the latest book, " Miss Bobbie," there is nothing else but the doings of a family of neglected and consequently wayward boys and a girl who for two years is quartered, with them in the abode of their widowed father — a country clergyman. We must confess to disappointment with it, but Mrs Curlewis is herself responsible for that. If we had not read her previous books we should have called her descriptions charming, but when we are already familiar with the sams children under other names, performing almost precisely the same tricks and becoming little gentlemen under precisely the same circumstances, they become just the least bit tiresome. And the risk of tins is heightened from the circumstance that "Misa Bobbie" contains hardly the shadow of a story to carry off the delineations. The curtain is merely lifted on the country clergyman's ill-regulated hosae for a couple of years, and that is all. A grand opportunity has been missed in the delineation of Bertha, the colonial domestic who essays tbe task of managing 'this unruly household. She means well, no doubt, bnt is hardly the woman the amiable doctor of divinity would have permitted to act as housekeeper. The book is admirably illustrated by Harrold Copping, and we must suppose that the authoress approved of the sketch of Bertha. As depicted, she is a slatternly female, whose appearance would discredit a cheap boarding house, and without a trace of that dignity which is ascribed to her. Without doubt Mrs Curlewis is a talented writer. We regret that she has become so enamoured of her ideal family of Australian boys that we are to have them served np in book after book, tricked out jn" different habiliments, but with unalterable characteristics. We shall welcome her appearance with another set of characters where her undoubted talent for story-telling may have scope.

AUSTRALIAN FAIRY TALES. By ATHA Westbury. London; Ward, Lock, and Co., Limited. Danedin. Joseph Braithwaite. At la»t the fairy baa been acclimatised to

Australia. There is no reason why this should not be so. The elves can frisk in the antipodean moonlight quite as nimbly and as appropriately as in the ruins of a mediosval castle, and come to the assistance of the ion of a poor selector in the back blocks quite as appropriately as to that of a woodcutter's son in the Harlz Mountains. We have here the well-known fairy tales of childhood in a colonial setting. The fairies do not disdain to visit the inmost recesses of the mine and softly press the eyelids of the weary sleeping miner. Especially do they haunt the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. Fairies love secluded dells and dark valleys where there are precipices to be scaled and caverns to be explored. But mountains are scarce in Australia, and the story-teller must use the material at hand. The stories are charmingly told. They are, of course, intended for children, and for that purpose might have been couched in simpler language ; but we shall not carp at that. The youngsters will be delighted to find tbat their parents did not leave tbe " good people " behind them in their old home. They will be able to people the scenes familiar to them with brown elves, little old women, and other phenomena so familiar in childhood's vocabulary, and accordingly they lie under a deep debt of gratitude to the gifted lady who has eff.cted the transportation. There are some really beautiful stories in this voluminous collection — stories which are not strictly speaking fairy Btories, and yet find a fitting place in such a collection. " Australian Fairy Tales " would form an exquisite Christmas present to a readiDg and imaginative boy or girl.