SHOWMAN LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1927, Page 21

SHOWMAN LIFE

"Rogues and Vagabonds." By Compton Mackenzie. London: Cassell's.

Readers familiar with the style of Dickens may detect aoine points of resemblance to it in this latest novel by Compton Mackenzie.' The subject, at any rate, is one that Dickens would have enjoyed handling, namely, the showfolk of nearly a hundred years ago and the diversions of London of that date. It is" pleasing, too, to see Compton Mackenzie returning to something of the style of his earlier novels, the majority of. -which, it must be; confessed, are to. be preferred to his later ones. Briefly, the story concerns several genorations of the Fuller family, some of whom we made the acquaintance of in "Fairy G01d.." Caleb Fuller, after forcing, his employer's daughter to marry, him, disinherits his grandson, who runs away and becomes an actor. He marries, and is accidentally killed, leaving his wife to support a daughter. Brother Caleb of the second generation refuses to help, and when ultimately the struggles of mother and daughter are rewarded, tries, but without success, to curry favour. Many characters and generations flit through the story, many unpleasant and a few nice. There are somewhat harrowing details of life as lived by the poorer classes a hundred years ago, and all is very much in the Compton Mackenzie style.