LITERARY COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 79, 30 September 1905, Page 11

LITERARY COLUMN.

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. " Poverty Bay." A Nondescript Nov-el. Illustrated by Harry Furnis3, and ■written by ihe artist. London : G«orgo Bell and Sons. In more than one respect, Mr. Furniss's aptly-deecribed book reminds us 'of Mr. Chesterton's " Club of Queer Trades." In each case the author has indulged in a literary frolic, and has ! illustrated his work with 'his owa hand. But the parallel does not go mucb further. Primarily Mr. Furniss'io an artist, as he- recognises in the arrangement of his -title-page, and Mr. Chesterton, ithough he has a certain t skill in rendering facial expression, can make no pretence to 'the artistic gift. 'Mr. Furcnss's I somewhat disconnected story b told in the first pereon. The > narrator is ono born in wealthy circumstances and in'herrting a large income which has been not quite honestly acquired by his fathei. He is selfish, misanthropic, and discontented. A fancy tak&j hurt to Redcliff Bay (the "Poverty Bay" of tho story), which turns out .not to be a '.bay afc all, having long sinicv been deserted by tho sea and left hi^li and, dry. But nothing is what it seems to bp at Pov.erty Bay. The xeader io introduced to a, postman who is nob & postman, a farm -that is not* farm, \ baby that, is not a baby, -and many more simulacra, which, however ingeniously described, go far to destroy that pleading illusion which one looks for in a gocd aovsl. By a sudden whim, t'h-o hero buys, the " Gull's Nest," a 6eventeenth-century mansion, with aM its furmshiugs and a large collection of curiosities, including a ghost, Which, of course, is not a ghost. Hs finds the -will of the lateowner, curiobsly written in the form of a seagull standing ovor her neeb — an ingeniously contrived document' which is reproduced in. facsimile. The house has been a smugglera' roeort, and treasure is concealed in an underground vault. Strange- adventures follow; association with ifho folk of the Bay gives the proprietor of the "Gull's Nest" ,1 better appreciation of his fellows and some degree of sympathy with tilieun, the love-element comes in, and somewhat to tha reader's surprise, tho straggling threads aro gathered together at the end into something like order, and the book ends in the time-honoured fashion to the music of wedding-bells. Tho author has taken the opportunity of expressing stray thoughts on many subjects, as, for instance, where he shows how the law discriminates between fashionableand vulgar fortune-tellers. A -woman is speaking — her husband, an artist who had fallen into poverty, .had taken to th« highway in a van. "My husband used the. van as a. studio ; -and I—lI — I turned for-tune-teller. I pructised exactly in tha same manner, and ©very bit as -honestly in that caravan as I ,had in the Londoa drawing-room — perhaps more honestly. But I was arrested and sent bo prison aa a rogue and a vagabond, by a magistrate whose own .daughters had paid me many and many a sovereign to tell their fortunes. It was only when I told their servants' fortunes I came into collision with t'ho law." And whore he writes of tha wicked dastruefcioa of produce by London middlemen to keep up prices: — "Thero is more pure fresh food and fruit wasted and deliberately destroyed in London every day than would feed the starving thousands and nourish the sick." At times his indignation is almost too evident; b»t he writes of what he has seen and known. After all, 'the story is a secondary consideration. Mr. Furniss is one of the most delightful of living masters ia black 'and white, and* in "Poverty Bay" we have a lavish display of his best imaginative -work — oveT a hundred sketches and finished pictures, drawn with complete freedom irom the trammels imposed upon 'the arti3t who .strives to represent the ideals of another mind. As a picture-gallery alone the book would be a prize to any book-lover.