LATEST NOVELS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 17, 21 July 1928, Page 21

LATEST NOVELS

BOOKS FOR VARIOUS TASTES "Man's Chief End," by Edward Albert (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd.) introduces children in an Edinburgh slum. These youngesters reach adolescence at the outbreak of the Great War, and all react according to their natures. It is essentially a story of ordinary lives, brightened by traces of innate nobility that even slum life cannot obliterate. Tho writer shows a deep knowledge of life in all its phases. Peter Dowrie i. a scraggy, very ordinary little chap, but he is so natural that his unimportant sorrows and circumscribed delights make better reading than the imaginary brilliance of so many fictional heroes. Young, generous, and filled with high ideals, Effio gives Peter back _is tawdrj presents and refuses an ergagemon" so as not to hamper his career, but when Peter, become exceedingly rich, is about to deteriorate in a riot of post-war pleasures, it is an Effie carrying hor own scars of the war laxities who brings him peace and content. A serious study of life, without an improbable event. Penalties of Success. "Cats and Clover," by George C. Poster. (London: Herbert Jenkins.) The author of "The Oldest Profession" and "The Thief of Time" has written a most entertaining novel around the life of a strong, ruthless, ' money-making man, John Woden, a story remarkable for its stark realism. Woden was born in 1827, the son of an impoverished vicar. Prom Canning to Baldwin is quite a good innings for a man. John AVoden lives through three roigns, and is entering on his fourth when the narrative concludes. From the. days of his youth he has many varied adventures. His seduction of his uncle's maid servant when still in his 'teens, prepares readers for the amorous adventures that befall such a sensualist, and are rather nauseating in their repetition. Despite the appeal that women have for John Woden, they do not prevent him from making a financial success of his life. Many women aro necessary to the happiness of this man. Yet he loves' his wife, the sweet Angelino, who is so many years younger than her stalwart husband at the time of their marriage. In the tale the ghost of Lizzie, the serving maid, haunts the Woden residences before calamities visit the family. The story is engrossing in its references to England's political periods, wars, and internal problems. A Brisk School Story. "The Lost Legion,"-" by Guuby. Hadath (London: Hodder and Stoughton.), is a wholesome story telling of a private English school where a dry rot set in, chiefly because the head of one of the school houses was so earnest an archeologist as to think of littlo else. The country round the school was rich in Komau historical remains, y and the motto of a famous Roman legion was that of tho school. Its salvation was accomplished through a "legion" formed by the boys themselves to counteract the influence of a snobbish and selfish houso captain. Thence forward the story is as thrilling as a detective novel, and the reader is led by many false scents, with an exciting entombment of relic hunters before the "Legion" triumphs. There is some excellent character drawing in this talc. EAST END LIFE "East of tho Mansion House." By Thomas Bourke. London: Cassell's, Ltd. Limehouse owes much to Mr. Burke for its notoriety, but its Asiatic association are not what they wero when he wrote his '' Limehouse • Nights.'' In fact, the East End of London is changing every day and of once wild quarters little but their names remain. In this his latest work of fiction Mr. Burko has collected a round dozen of realistic short stories, including of course some in which Chinese have their entrances and exits. "The Dream of Ah Lum," the opening story in the series, is pathetic in the extreme; showing a poor drudge in a boarding-house, a poet and dreamer at heart, but bound body and soul to his job, backing out at the last when his passage to China had been taken by benevolent friends, to that China he had dreamed, spoken and sang about but had never seen — for he was London born. "The Tablets of the House of Li" is another pathetic story of Chinese life in tho East London. Mr. Burke knows his subject, and, bettor still, how to deal with it in order to reach the world-wide circle of his readers. His sympathy with tho poor of London and his ability to sec things from their standpoint qualifies him to writo about them with conviction and force.