NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18668, 17 April 1926, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

PARNELL

The value of the new book on Parnell by Sir Alfred Robbins ("Paroelh The Last Five Years") lies in the fact that Sir Alfred was the London correspondent of the "Birmingham Daily Post" whilo the Parnell Commission was sitting, and later also when Parnell met disaster in the Divorce Court. He is thus able to write at first hand of events with which most people now living have lost touch, and he claims also, apparently with ju&tice, that he was one of the very few Englishmen, and apparently the only English journalist, who was given Parnell s political confidence. It is not at all likely that Parnell ever gave his full confidence to anybody, and as he was notoriously inaccurate in matters of detail, and "in every matter of documentary record . . . was apt sorely to disappoint the expectations of his friends," the whole truth about his last five years will probably never be known.. But Sir Alfred Robbins tells some "inside" things that have not previously been told, and on parts of the story that ar9 already known and accepted, 'puts some newVonstructions. The average person to-day will turn with most interest to the last three chapters—Divorce and Discredit, Deposing the "Dictator," Defeat and Death"—but these are not really the most interesting. So many careers have been wrecked in the Divorce Courts that ParneU's story on the scandalous side is.merely one more. It would hardly be possible to read it agair but for the fact that no one. including Sir Alfred Robbins, has yet been able to account for the fatal fascination of Kitty O'Shea, and for the other strange 'circumstance that it is still unknown why the divorce case was either not begun sooner or never begun at all. The intrigue with Mrs 0 Shea had been going on for ten years or more, nearly all the time with the full knowledge of the husband, and Sir Alfred Robbins raises but does not settle the question whether action was not at last begun on the instigation of one of ParneU's enemies. But the permanently interesting fact about Parnell H his character; not his bad character, popularly so-called, but the war between his talents and his temperament on the political side. It is an extradordanary circumstances that a man so little inspiring by popular standards did in fact so hold the masses, and the classes both that with conformity to conventional standards of living he mights have had one of the greatest careers in the history of the Commons. Here, for example, is the account, of Sir Edward Clarke, Solicitor-General, and one of ParneU's bitterest opponents, of ParneU's conduct in the House in the hour of his triumph over the Pigott letters: "It was an incident which might have disturbed the balance of mind of a smaller man. . I saw Mr Parnell erect among'the whole standing crowd. He took no notice of it whatever. He had not asked them to get up. When, they had finished standing up they sat down, and he took no notice of their rising up or' sitting down; and when they had resumed their places he proceeded "to make a perfectly calm and quiet speech, in he made not the smallest reference, direct or indirect, to the incident, extraordinary as it was, which had just happened." And yet that man, calm, cold, dignified, almost contemptuous, had become, all-powerful, and no biographer so far has revealed why.— (London: Thornton Butterworth.)

" NOVELS... ..-,■■'.„ Stephen McKenna's new- book, "The Oldest God,"is an elaborate, fantastic, and rather heavily, ingenious attempt to blend modern and ancient paganism. The oldest god is Pan; but although Pan has plenty of devotees to-day, there is no longer enough simplicity in . the world-to. give his reincarnation a chance. Mr McKenna, drags him into a Christmas house-party in Northumberland in the year of grace 1924, but although he gives him most carefully chosen companions he does not once succeed in making him real. No one could conceivably succeed to-day .in getting a party of men and women, even at Christmas time, after too much liquor, five years of war-strain, and half a lifetime of "repression," to swallow Pan horns, heels, and all. Mr McKenna has tried every technical' • trick, and made desperate .use of his. scholarship and worldly experience, but all he has succeeded in doing—unless his object was to preach a seWon—is to have made respecters of his very real talents wonder what he has done with his sense of humour. The tale will, of course, : be widely read, since it is impossible to have.a venerable Scottish Professor, a shell-shocked poet, an obscene- Lord, an embittered widow, and an unhappily married politician sharing a country house for a week with a silly American woman (their hostess) and two or three ecstatic American girls without "situations." The situations will sell the book,' and the psycho-analytic touches perhaps enable some of those who buy it to persuade themselves that they have done so in the interests of science. But it could all have been, achieved without converting a good, honest human leg into a scrawny thing ending with a hoof. (London: Thornton Butterworth, Ltd.)

"The Black Glove," by J. G. Sarasin, is a romance of the days of the Merry Monarch, and will interest those who delight in courtß and chivalry. There are winsome maids-of-hono*ur, and dashing cavaliers; and of course intrigues and.other follies. Set off against these are forcible scenes of the panic caused by the Plague, and the Great Fire in London. A drunken jest by the Earl of Rochester involves Antonia Davyss with the dishonoured Captain Tyburn, and ultimatelv brings the Duchess of Albermarle within the tangle. Much colourful adventure ensues, and the part Rochester plays in straightening out matters is a romance in rtself. (London : Hutchinson and Co. Christchurch : Simpson and Williams.)

Although Mr W. B. Maxwell never descends to the production of shockers, the side of life has that kind of fascination for him that a blasting accident has for a face surgeon. The dominant character in "Fernande." his latest novel, is a 'woman with a past—and a present-4>oth rather garishly portrayed. Despite her code of morals, however. Fernande is a remarkable person, and her friendship with Eric Bowen, in the midst of her many trammels, reveals the essential worthiness of her nature. Fernande assists him* 1 on the road to fortune in the world of commerce, but the possibility that ho may soon fade out of her life leads to a dramatic climax. Tho intervention of Bowen's one-time employer, saves him from a total self-sacrifice. (London: Thornton Butterworth, Ltd.)

"Forest received news of the encounter with her usual distressed air.. Her tender heart would never cease grieving at bloodshed. . . •" And'it must be confessed that Forest Glade, the-heroine of "The Valley of Strife/', by Marshall B. Hall, was occasioned

many grief-stricken moments as' the outcome of the warlike propensities of the band of Bangers, led by "Tex" Morgan, who came to wipe out the enemies of Swinging J. ranch. Inevitably, »the unscrupuldus element is routed, and in the process there are many examples of cowboy resourcefulness, and love of fight and frolic. (London: Hutchingmvand'Co.' Chfistehuich: Simpson and Williams.) •