SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3059, 21 April 1917, Page 13

SOME RECENT FICTION

"Frailty." Mis'B Olive Wadsley's latesf novel, mF 1 <P aEB P n and-Co., per S. and w. Maokay), deals to some extent-with the noxious results of the cocaine-and dnhk habits,, but the moral y«ry fortunately does not overweight what is an uncommonly, good and readable story. Tho hero, Charles Ley, is the son of an Italian mother and an-Bno , . lish father, having Romany blood in his veins on the father's side.... On. the death of his father, his , mother, being offered,'& training, : operatic : stage, sends the lad to his'gipsy gran<jmotherin England. He lives a wandering life until he'is nearly twenty, :and then is, befriended by an old lover of his mother. This.fcan, now crippled through, a tiger having mauled him, takes him with him as his personal attendant to 'Amerioa, where jn; San Francisco Ley being badly injured by some rowdies, ho gives ■ tho ■' young fellow a dope of opcainej to the use of which he himself is a victim. This he docs despite the earnest protests of a doctor, who warns him against what may bo the evil consequences to the young man. Eventually the latter finds himself a veritable slave' to the drug. _ Ho then breaks with his patron, and lives- for some timer on an island in tho Pacifio, where he conquers his craviug and becomes a new man. He educates himself at a Californian .college, enters the service of a great railway corporation, and becomes (perhaps too rapidly for the reader to accept this particular stage of his career as convincing) an engineer of almost Continental reputation, and'an enormously wealthy railway magnate. The scene now: changes to London, where:-he meets and falls in love with a lovely girl,of aristocratio birth. The wooing on both sides is perhaps a trifle volcanic, and it is not until after his marriage that Ley discovers that his Lady Diana inherits a craze for alcohol against which all "treatments" had proved unavailing. Forgetting his own old habit of drug-taking, ho leaves the unfortunate woman, to her fate and sails for the States, i There, however, he is sought out by a faithful old admirer of his wife, who fells him sho is at death's door through a peculiarly sovere attaok of her malady, and ;hat the presence and forgiveness of the husband is the! only means by which she can bo saved, 'ilie story ends with Ley taking his wife with him out to the far-away South' Sea island, where he himself had fought with and conquered tho drug demons, with fair promise of the cure being equally effective in Diana's case. The story, as will be .seen, is rich in interesting incident, and the author never. fails to retain the attention of her readers. Hero and there, as in tho character or Berkeley, the man who first gives Ley tho cocaine, there is percoptiblo a certain suggestion of the melodramatio, but on the whole the story reflects a spirit of convincing realism. ';■ "Jock 0' Rlppon," Despite an occasional lapse into what Stevenson called Tushery, Mr. Charles Swinton's story, "Jock .0' Ripnon" (Cassell and Co., per S. and W. Mackay) is an exceptionally meritorious effort in a class of fiction of whicn Mr. Maurice Hewlett and Mr. Warwick Deeping have been earlier and successful exponent's. Tlio period is the sixteenth century, the scene being, cast, fop the most part, in and around the ancient town of Rippon, in Yorkshire (modern epolling allows the name but one "p"). The principal figures are a young follow of highly adventurous spirit, the son of a knight, who, becoming n priest,, had kept:secret the fact of his marriage, and Lady Bertha of Clotuerani, the daughter of an ex-inerohant-ndvcnturor, pirate, and a foreign mercenary in thopayvof Portugal and Spain, who returns homo to die peacefully in bod in his native Yorkshire. Bertha's hand is sought by moro than one lover. She is capricious alike in her nfl'oction its in her. temper, hut finally dopes with a hamlo"'"Vv','l. lfi rPC,i,ras . VOU "E Kcntloman, Sir Wilfred Mallory. Jock 0' Nippon, In wever, by nn ingenious device, lakes tho place of the favoured lovor, whom he suspects'of being more in love with the fortuim in gold unci jewels which had been left the lady by her worldroaming father. ' Oneo married to the Indy, but only in naino, he proves himself indeed ;i preux'chevalier,'eventiijiily winning her love, though tint until after she has playoil tho termagant to somo purpose. Tho author is liheral in his supply of fighting, both with

fists,- staves, and swords, and skilfully, suggests the wild lawlessness of the times. The local colour of the story, which goes with a fine swing throughout, is picturesque and convincing, and as one wlio lias a personal knowledgo of much, of tlio story's background, "Liber" can testify to the accuracy of its topographical references. All admirable story in its own class. (Reviews of other novels are held over.)