NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18545, 21 November 1925, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

COURTSHIPS OF AN EMPRESS. It is not a surprise that Mr Philip W. Sergeant s book, "The Courtships of Catherine the Great," has been reissued in a newer and larger edition. The book appeared first iu 1905, and ran through three editions, and it does not seem likely that tue publishers will have an .\ reason to regret their enterprise iu trying it on the public again. Whate\er our opinions may be about monarchy or about morals, Catherine is a personality, and personality is the secret of interest in history and in literature. Besides, what Russia was in the 3Sth century lias a great deal to do with what she is now, and for what she was at the end of that century Catherine had a big responsibility. But of course it is Catherine the woman, and not Catherine the Empress who is the justification for a new book. In spite of everything that has been written ab"ut her. there is something to be written still, while the things that we already know seem amazingly vital and fresh in Mr Sergeant's re-telling. Most people think of Catherine as a great sinner and nothing else. She was a great sinner—great even for an age and a Court in which not to be a sinner was abnorm.'il—but she was n woman also of great character in thf widest sense: and that is too often forgotten. The fact that she "yawned and prow weary" in the society of her stupid husband is no longer counted to tu>r for unrighteousness. Peter was not merely a fool: he was a combination of baby and brute, who, when he was not drunk, was intriguing with the Maids of Honour, or turning the palace into ;t kennel or a barracks. Mr Sergeant gives him the place that he deserves in history, bur. docs it without, attempting tile impossible so far as Catherine is concerned. Nothing will make Catherine virtuous, or passably virtuous, or even reasonably decent. But. it was at least true of her that vice did not make her stupid. It is also true, though most people forget this, that and everything combined to make virtue difficult for her, especially in those early years when she was trying to reconcile herself to society's choice of a husband for her. When the long procession of favourites begins, the biographer can, of course, do nothing but tabulate. But how many remeir.ber that Catherine was a student of literature, that she. read and re-read Voltaire until the revolution poisoned her mind against him and against France, and that there were even times in her life when she took refuge in religion? London: T. Werner Laurie, Ltd.) DUNK ISLAND.

"W*hen E. J. Banfield died two years ago the world lost one of its happiest x'omantics, and perhaps, as ilr A. R. Cbisholm claims in his introduction to "Last ,Leaves from Dunk Island," the "most striking natural-ist-recluse of modern times.'' For twenty-five years Banfield had done what he wanted to do in the way in which he wished to do it, and in the place of all others that he had chosen tor his groat adventure. Those who have read "Confessions of a Beachcomber," "My Tropic Isle," and "Tropic Days," will not need to be told that it was an adventure begun and carried through in a high and cheerful spirit—the spirit in which Thoreau went to Walden Pond. Banfield was born in Liverpool, moved to Australia while still a boy. and became a journalist. In 1882, being then thirty years of age, he joined the staff of the "Townsville Daily Bulletin,'' and began fifteen years' hard work ih that gruelling climate, which ( fortunately made him ill. Then he went back'to England on a visit, married, meditated, nnd was converted — as truly as 1 Tolstoy, as truly as George Fox. From 1897 till he died he lived on Dunk Island, monarch not only of all he surveyed, but of that world which so few ever honestly survey, his own soul. He went to Dunk Island because he was tired of the labour that profits not, tired of convention, of the restraints of civilisation, and especially of having no leisure for "loafing and inviting his soul." Fortunately the "cultured, courageous, merry little woman" who had married him. was as glad to leave the world as he was, and it is she who, with Mr Chisholm's assistance, has now-arrang-ed and edited the "Last Leaves." Like the other three books this one is admirably illustrated and is neither a diarv. nor a history, nor an essay, nor a scientific treatise, but something of all these and of the beachcomber philosophy as well. On the slab on the cairn on Dunk Island where Banfield lies there is a quotation from Thoreau: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears." It was Baiiiield's great achievement that he stepped to the music which he heard for twenty-five years. (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, Ltd.) NOVELS. All who would desert stufly modern ways, and go romancing over blue seas with a Jacobite fugitive, should read "The Slave Ship " of Mary Johnston.- This is the same Mary Johnston who wrote those fine tales of the American Colonies, "By Order of the Company," and "Cease Firing," and of whom, so rapidly does ■ the scene shift in the history of fiction, some readers will already have lost trace. "The Slave Ships, is the story of the tumultuous years of David • Scott, a Jacobite prisoner after Culloden. frho, after desperate attempts at gaol-breaking, is transported to Virginia to serve as a plantation labourer. Here he breaks free from bondage and manages to join the Janet, outward bound from the little town of Norfolk, on the river James. The master of the ship is a kinsman, and David is persuaded to become Hie supercargo, although he is told the ship's mission—to collect negroes from Daga on the Slave Coast and transport them as slaves to the West Indies. So he who had known bondage himself works to keep others iu captivity, and dims the uneasy questionings of conscience with liquor. Adventures come thickly: there are mutinies and dire storms and shipwreck, and then David finds deliverance in a strange way. of which the reviewer must not tell. Miss Johnston has written a tale which moves forward with quiet power, carrying the reader along not in a flurry of excitement, but steadily and intently to a definite end. Beauty of phrase aDd grace of style arc never absent, and there are striking word pictures of the forest-lands of Virginia and of Africa. David Scott, the hero-narrator, is a skilfully drawn and convincing character, a lover of books, a mystic who sees visions, and vet a fighter when the occasion calls. Whether lie is as convincing as some other characters of Miss Johnston, it is perhaps useless to ask, but it need not be said that he is in a different class altogether from that of the heroes of ordinary thrillers. (London: Thornton, Buttcrworth, Ltd.) "The Invisible Net," by J. J. Bell, will commend itself to those who like something a little out of the ordinary. The fact that it is written by the author

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of "We Macgregor" is a guarantee that it is not dull, and that the blending of loVo and adventure which makes up romances is done with a certain will. . The lives of those concerned are lived so vividly that the story grips even when the incidents are of the standard pattern of shilling shockers. From the title connoisseur with his eccentric ways, to the crook who masquerades as a* gentleman, each of the characters is interesting, and as convincing as characters ever are in a book which seeks first of all to be amusing. (John Long, London.) Those who read "The Great Accident" will recall what Ben Aymes Williams had to say iu that publication and how well he said it. His latost book, "The Rational Hind," is very different from 'The Great Accident," and will ©specially delight lovers of Nature in field - and creek and garden. Those who have "farming in their niako-up," though perhaps no others, will understand why the hero adds .field to field and comes at last to look upon every blade of scrass as a personal friend. (Hills and Boon, Ltd., London.) "Her Mother's Honour," by "Valentine," is a £IOOO prize story—a goodly wage for the relation of the miseries endured by Lady Millicent Painsv.ick in order that her husband shall not discover her "secret." And it is not such a dreadful "secret" after a<l, though the telling of it is distinctly interesting. In any case, the loyalty of Rosemary Painswick, despite "all * the doubts raised by her mother's intrigues, will appeal to the sentimental, who will also soundly condemn Gordon Stroud, a stockbroking "crook" who battens on his knowledge of the "secret"—without, however, reckoning on the artfulness of Julius P. Rosebank, a simple American, and a friend of the Paiuswieks, a really colourful character. (Ilodder and Stoughton: London.)' There is so much in the method of telling a story that "The Land of Big Rivers," a talc of North-West America by A. M. Chisholm, will interest those even who have read f!*ne hundred and ninety-nine books of the same general description. The incident throughout is lively, dealing with the quest for a cache of valuable furs in the region of the Great Lakes. The usual gang of "bad -men" plot for the outwitting of the seekers of the treasure, and there follows a strenuous pitched battle, the changing' fortunes of which are full of : thrill. Naturally there is a love story, and its occasional showing adds a nic« J touch to a .breezy book. (Hodder and StoughtonLondon.) ~ |