LITERARY COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 131, 29 November 1902, Page 11 (Supplement)

LITERARY COLUMN.

NEW BOOKS AND XEW EDITIONS. "Robeit Miner, Anarchist." By H. Bari ton Biker. London: AVard, Lock, I and Co. U. Baillic and Co., Wellington. Mr. Baker has written a highly imaginative story, dealing with a cl.uss* oi people of whom — for obvious re.isons — the ordinary novelist cau have very little actual knowledge. Probably this is an advantage to tthe fiction-lover, as the , n riler's fancy is so much the les-s rei strained. " RoberL Miner" is a readable bfcok — the more so as tho author disdains the "frowsy clubs in tho neighbourhood of Fitzroy-faouare, the cheap lestauranls behind^ Leicester-square, ond secret dens in Soho." " The regenerators of the world," he says, " number among their members men and women of wealth and position. Socialism and its sequel, anarchism, have all the charm of paradox for the&e . . . there is in such vagaries something of the excitement of playing with fire in the neighbourhood of a powder-magazine." So, in a luxuri-ously-uippointed mansion ne find these aristocratic paradoxes entertaining ancc freely associating with jail-birds and scoundrels of the lowest type, of both S'jXes, "men with prrubby hands and 'imelling of stale tobacco, women in coarse- garments, with frowsy ' hair." There is a decided attempt at character discrimination in the anarchist crew, and we have accordingly three well-de-fined classes — the wealthy amateurs aforesaid ; the rank and file, whose ob- , ject is to live in idleness on a future division of spoils and who are always 1 ready to betray 'their associates for a j consideration ; and p. small minority with • whom, the movement is a religion, to j which they are prepared to sacrifice all, ! not excepting life itself. The hero is one of these, and in the elaborate characi ier-study of Robert Miner one may easily I lose sight of the inherent improbabilities of the story. Naturally, there is , little harmony and much .suspicion nmojig the ill-assorted group the author \ has brought together, and the conclusion is tragic. Two love-stories diversify the narrative ; and the scenes bet-ween Miner i -md Wenda, the Polish lady anarchist, are the strongest pas-sages in the book. " The Empire's Greeting." London : Isbi&ter and Co., Limited. This volume is a lesult of the enterprise of the proprietors of Good Words, J who offered three prizes for Coronation I odes, the compslition open to all the j world. Four odes Areie chosen, two bracketed in third place, one of the . latter being by Miss L. E. Smith, Dunedin. Out of the vast mass of matter with which «the selectors had to deal — one thousand and eighty-four poetical effusions in all — sixty-nine, including the prize poems, were deemed worthy of publication, and are collected in the present handsomely-printed -volume. All parts of. the British dominions are represented in this anthology, Zealand by three contributors— Mijs Smith, already mentioned, Mr. J. L_ Kelly, of Wellington, and Mr. J. Ball, Wanganui. With much that is trite, obvious, and commonplace, as was only to be expected, there is some genuine poetry to be found in this collection by those who take the trouble to seek it. An egregious imitation of Kipling's "barrackroom" stylo has mysteriously found its way into the volume — possibly, in order that the Punjaub may be represented. The handsome decorative title-pages to , the territorial sections, the work of Mr. James Allan Duncan, give an additional touch of distinction to a book which is marked throughout by h.ind--ome typo-gra-phy. - ,