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Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17815, 13 June 1918, Page 6

Stephen Leacock's latest collection of humorous sketches is entitled " Frenzied Fiction." The continued success of his books is somewhat astonishing, for after all there is nothing either specially original or brilliant in his latest work, nothing, at least, much abovo tho ordinary run of humorous writing in tho English and American weeklies. English and Irish newspapers alike speak highly of some now Irish stories, "Mary of the Winds" and "Other Talcs," by a writer who calls himself —or herself—Enedeen. Murray is issuing a colonial edition. Clever Stephen Gwynn has written a brief appreciation and criticism of Mrs Humphry Ward's novels. Incidentally he informs us that Mrs Ward's fnmous novel, "Robert Elsmero," was reallv the outcome of a pamphlet, "Unbelief and Sin "—issued, but withdrawn within a few hours, because the Oxford bookseller's neglect to give the printer's name made its publication an i'legnl act. In this pamphlet Mrs vvard protested against an arraignment bv Dr John Wordsworth, in n Bnnwton Lecture, of certain of her friends as "Unsettlers" in religion. It was from the two tvpe« of character named merelv A and B. sketched in that DnropMet, that tb« novel developed in which Lnngham, Elsmere's squire, reflects the Ontario*- or intellectual I'nenmentSy of Mark Pattison. R L. Npt+KshiD ""d Amiel (wlmsn ".Toumal" Mrs was meanwhile fmnslating), while Elsmere's monitor Grev. actually sneaks «omo published words of Profpcco'- T. H Green.