BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11200, 21 October 1899, Page 6 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

George Eliot's Works: Wm. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.— have to acknowledge receipt of the People's Edition of " Adam Bede," one of the popular works of the famous novelist. This enterprising firm deserve every credit for popularising wholesome fiction in this way among the masses. The novel is published at tho price of sixpence. We have also received the illustrated edition of the same author's novel, "Scenes of Clerical Life," illustrated by over 20 illustrations. Professions for Boys, and How tc Enter Them : By M. L. Pechell and James J. Nolan. Beeton and Company, Limited. —This work, to which a preface-has been written by the Most Rev. J. E. C. Welldon, M.A., D.D., Bishop of Calcutta, has run into a second edition. The author deals concisely with more than 40 vacations. The subject-matter is contained under the heads of tho Home professions, tho 14 Indian professions, and the 13 miscellaneous professions. The work contains much useful information and advice, and should prove especially acceptable to parents or guardians. | The second edition has been increased by the 1 addition of some 22 new articles on various professions. All the information has been brought up to date, and no trouble has been spared to make the information as completo as possible. From toe Land of the Wombat: By Wm. Sylvester Walker. John Long, 6, Chandos - street, Strand, London. — The volume is a series of stories of Australian life, powerfully and racily written, showing the lights and shadows of life in the "Land of the Wombat." Somo of the stories are tragic, others pathetic, and some j humorous; but all interesting to the general reader. The descriptions of life "in the back blocks" are wonderfully realistic. The book is profusely illustrated. In the Dark By Esme Stuart. Long's Colonial Library.—The story is a pleasantlynarrated one, full of exciting incidents, the scenes of which are laid in Venice and in France. The Crime in the Wood: By T. W. Speight. Long's Colonial Library. —A j member of a secret society has been appointed to assassinate a Baron von Rosenberg at Warsaw. The guilty man at first escapes, and an innocent oik is arrested for the crime. Ultimately tlir. innocent man is freed, and the real assassin, who revenged the wrongs inflicted upon l is daughter, is found to be the culprit. T.'ie plot is somewhat involved, and the denouement is unlooked for, the interest being sustained till the close of the story. The Craze of Christina: By Mrs. Lovett Cameron. Long's Colonial Library. —The plot of this well-written story is somewhat novel. A wealthy miser named Clifford died, leaving bis fortune to a nephew he had never seen, hampered by several singular conditions. He was never to be away ; from the family estate for more than a week 1 at a time, under a penalty of £50,000, to go to a second cousin of his, in Australia. He was not to marry for three years, and was to keep the old miser's butler in his : service for life under a penalty of £20,000. j The Australian relative had two daughters, ; one of whom was named Christina, and ! they became aware of the singular terms of ' the will. " The Craze of Christina" was to j raise her family, which had been reduced to , poverty through speculation in Australia, 1 and which had returned to London, where ' the two girls were earning their bread, to fortune again, by becoming acquainted with I the heir, under an assumed name, getting him to fall in love with her, and inveigle - him to stay away from the estate for a week, and thus bring the £50,000 penalty to her , family. By a series of adventures, and j wonderful diplomacy, she succeeds in her I scheme. Her father dies as he succeeds to 1 the money, and it falls to Christina, who, , marrying the heir, thus retains the £50,000 ias his wife. The story is cleverly written, and the interest is well sustained through- ' out. Kit Kennedy's Country Boy: S. R. Crockett. Unwin's Colonial Library.— novel, as the name of the author indicates, 1 is told in Scots, in fact it is not too much to quote with reference to it a phrase which Crockett puts into the mouth of one of his characters, and say it is told "in the raciest form 0' Scots, free from the defilements of Glasgow Irish, and shining with a lustre undermined by secondary education." The opening part of the story is of a rather melodramatic type, and in this respect is hardly what we expect from one of the most prominent of the "kailyard" school of novelists. There is a double-dyed villain, who, in the orthodox fashion, crosses the path of the hero Kit Kennedy at every turn, and the early incidents are set round the threadbare tale of the villain of the piece obtaining possession of the property in which the victims of his scheming and their forefathers have been tenants for generations. Matthew. Armour, ruling elder in the Cameronian Kirk, is driven from his homestead because he dares to shelter Kit Kennedy, against whom the villainous laird, Walter Mac Waller, has an unreasonable hate. All this in the hands of the ordinary storyteller would be a rather tiresome tale, but Crockett has woven into, the grand picture of the Cameronian elder, and the second half of the .book, relating how Kit Kennedy won the bursary, and how he was tutored by the orra man, ex-classical master, has Galloway written all over it—a perfect and not too flattering picture of the series from which Auld' Scotia's grandeur springs. There is much that is essentially human and ' pathetic in the story, especially in the fife of the classical master, and, of his guar-, dianship over Kit Kennedy; it is full of keen - Scottish humour, and altogether should rank high', among : Crockett's . numerous -'works, 'dealing; with the humours, the virtues, and : ; the vices of the Lowland Scot.