BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12853, 29 April 1905, Page 6 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

At Sunrise: By Herbert Spurrell. Greening and Co., Limited, 20, 'Cecil Court, Charing Cross - Road, London. (.Received through Messrs.. Gordon and, Gotch, Book Department, 15, St. Bride-street, London, K.C.). —An ambitious tale of Druid Devon, placed abouts4 A.I). A young British chief, captured by the Romans, after three varied years in the Roman service, obtains a passage from Tyre to Britain in a Phoenician vessel. The Phoenician caplain plots with the deputy-commandant of a Roman camp to plunder the voting chief s tribe, but the hero escapes from their hands in the usual remarkable and hairsbreadth maimer, and wins a great victory for his people by breaking down the Roman square with a great war chariot. Meanwhile, lie noble Roman commandant has married tho young chief's sister, and been detained a prisoner by the tribe: for allowing him to escape the hero is sacrificed by the Druids after vainly attempting to convey to his people the ethics of the new religion he bad heard preached in Judiea. There is a painstaking effort to reproduce the life. men, and manners of the time, and the book will therefore have for many a sociological interest.

The Hypocrite: By Ranger Gull. Greening and Co.. Limited. London (received through Messrs. Gordon and Gotch, London).--This is a. peculiarly juvenile l>ook, which is reprinted apparently because Messrs. Mudie included it in the long list of books which they have at- various times refused to handle, and thus gave it some notoriety. It is a juvenile account of a juvenile bounder and blackleg, written liv a juvenile author, who, grown old,' admits iu a preface that/ he now knows better.

The Yat.u.v of the Shadow: By Wil- | Ham Lo Queux. Methuen and Co., 56, I Essex-street, London. W.C.— The author tells us in the beginning that he heard the story over his own dinner-table at Florence, and that the narrator. " in telling it, stirred by certain memories, burst into tears." Presuming this to be literally correct, the story has an added interest as a powerful searchlight upon the alien question. A Florentine sculptor who has fallen in love with an English girl of beauty and rank, and whose love is returned for no very obvious reason, has a mysterious duty placed upon him by a past acquaintance who had suddenly died of " heart disease" on an Atlantic liner, really murdered by anarchists for being on the trail of a great plot. The sculptor deciphers this plot, in London, by following secret, passages and sewers, and learns that it is designed to murder Humbert of Italy nnd all the other crowned heads. An Englishman would promptly go, to the nearest police office, or to the nearest magistrate, but the Florentine trusts nobody, and apparently very few Italians are to be trusted if the story is in any way founded on fact. London is riddled with them, as criminals and gamblers and anarchist associates of criminals and gamblers, while their own authorities are in league with villainy. We are told, by the way, that it is better now. So the Florentine gets an audience of King Humbert, who astonishes him by sending him to lie Marquis Mazzanti, Minister for the Interior, a notorious villain nnd the best hated man in Italyin whom students of political history may recognise a leading member of the Crispi Cabinet—under pledge to say nothing of his having first warned the King. Mazzanti, whose son is one of the anarchists, takes all the credit of unearthing the plot, reveals the Florentine's name to the anarchists in order to get him assassinated in revenge, and on that failing has him locked up as insane. the sufficient reason for this not being given, but apparently to avoid paying a reward promised by the King. However, the King is finally summonfd to the rescue by the haughty and high-bom English girl, who is engaged to 'Maazantfs villainous sou, but. loves the sculptor. The Marquis is dismissed, .the son suicides, and the lovers marry, the King presenting his rescuet with ancestral estates redeemed from the Jews.

Shares : By Guy Thorne and Leo Cttstanco. Greening and Co., Limited, London (received through Messrs. Gordon and Gotch, London) —One o'f the most readable of topical satirical novels: it deals with company-floating on the credulity of the British public, culminating in a huge swindle, by which the public is persuaded that a scientist has discovered how to " raise" land. The "Lost Continent Company" is floated, and the shares lifted to fancy values by pretended work in the Atlantic, and the false report that land has actually appeared above the ocean, amid wild enthusiasm. The promoter. Slygne, departs from England in his steam yacht to view the new land in the interest of the shareholders never returns. With him goes his daughter and a young man from his office, who. scent an opportunity to make a fortune,'had fought Slygne with his own weapons, and secured not only a share of the spoil, but a beautiful and charming wife.

The-Celestiax, Ruby : By T. W. Speight. Digby, Long, and Co., 18. Bouverie-street. Fleet-street, London, E.G. (received through Messrs. Gordon and Gotch, London). The "celestial ruby" comes to earth in a meteorite, in further examining which Sir Humphrey Dalincourt is killed by a mysterious explosion. The ruby disappears, having been taken by an insane criminal. Sir Humphrey's brother, who has escaped from an asylum, and was lurking in a secret passage. The madman causes much trouble, through his pranks and perversities, before he ia finally murdered in an Exrnoor inn for the jewellery he had also stolen, leaving the way open for the happy marriage of Sir Humphrey's daughter and secretary, the latter being a wealthy young man. who had played being poor in order to win the love of the lady.

The Goi.nF.v Bowl: By Henry James. Methuen and Co., Ltd.. London.—.Mr. James does not write in order to add to the long list of seasonal novels, which to-day are but to-morrow are not. Like his greater fredecessor of tho same name, he aims at ligher things' and produces books of more than passing merit. In "The Golden Bowl" we are presented with a microscopically detailed analysis of the motives which induce a simple young American heiress to love and marry a poor but inherently "gentlemanly' - and blue-blooded Italian Prince, the simple and artistic 'American millionairefather to marry the beautiful poor American girl who was his daughter's bosom friend and the Prince's affinity, and an Anglicised American woman to play amateur Providence to the quartette. It all comes out well in the end after much carefully developed entanglement and much equally carefully developed unravellment. the study of which involves a week's careful reading if the process of the mathematical evolution is not to be missed. Inevitably, such a, book cannot expect to become greatly popular, but it will probably be read and spoken of, like "The Spoils of Poynton." when much more popular books are as dead as last year's leaves. For Mr. James is a searcher of the human heart who spares no pains to expound what he sees of it and its workings—and must be spared no pains by those who would read 'aim with understanding.

Dr. Johnson: Bv John Dennis. (Bell'? Miniature Serins of Great Writers). George Bell arid Son-!', Portugal-street, Lincoln's Inn; London.Dr. Johnson, as Mr. Dennis points out, is known by name much better than by his work. The cause or this, and the character of the large amount of literary work done by the great dictionary-maker, is sympathetically dealt with in a most readable little biography. There are various illustrations, including one of Boswell. And there are a number of the famous quotations, as that never-to-be-forgotten dictionary definition of oats: " Oats—A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." ("Yes," said Lord Elihank on hearing this definition, "and where will you ever see such horses and such men!")

Thb Handy Atlas of tub British Empire: By J.. G. Bartholomew, F.R.G.S. George Newnes. Ltd., Southampton-street, Strand, London, W.C.—This is a cheap but excellent!v printed and bound pocket collection of 120 maps and plans, covering the whole of the Empire, and containing summarised encyclopedic information upon each British colony and possession. The information thus supplied in map and text is reliable and fairly modern, as shown by the map id our North Island and the included sketchplan of Auckland city and its environs..