"FRANK MELTON'S LUCK."

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 141, 15 June 1892, Page 2

"FRANK MELTON'S LUCK."

Tun Canterbury " Press " says : — " Outwardly this book has the appearance of a shilling shocker, but inwardly it is crammed full of love-making, adventure, description of station, goldinining, and bush-fighting life in New Zealand, together with quite a respectable allowance of the history of the colony woven in." Wairarapa " Standard :"—V This IS a capital story. By its combination of fiction wibh fact, ox stirring historical occurrences with love-making and up-country race meetings, ' Frank Melton's Luck does something bo roll away the reproach thab we have no distinctive literabure, nothing redolent of the land and life of New Zealand. ..• Mr Cobble has a greab gift of description, and with, tho minute touches of a Defoe, he makes his readers realise the scenes ho pubs before them." , ..... •'Northern Advocate": — "Of scenes typical of station life, the cattle muster,, tho pie hunt and bbc Christmas party are admirably described, and the truth, accuracy, and vividness of bhe depiction given ot the gold fever in « bho good old mining days, and of the Hauhau War. .. . . can be attested by thoso who took parb in " Otago Witness " :—" We read the first few chapters of bhis book from a sense of duty and a conscientious desire to do justice to a colonial author, whose preface intimated that his aim was to realistic^ ally and faithfully depict station lite in New ; we read bhe balance without rising, because we liked it. Tho writer has very sensibly woven his

description of the phase, of colonial life to which ho refers into a narrative. Some good descriptive 'bits ' there are, some fair power of narrative, as for instance the description of an up-country race meeting in the Norbh Island, while the Wanganui Cup is won by an outsider euphoniously christened Dot-and-gb-one, which is really an excellent name, and the dramatic incident in the church which precedes the fall of the curtain on virtue triumphant, and vice dragged off to merited- punishment, which is the goal where ail good stories—and plays, according to Miss Kemble—ought to end."