BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13193, 2 June 1906, Page 5 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Folly : By Edith Rickert. Edward Arnold, "London. —" Folly" is a tempestuous young married woman, who, finding out that an old sweetheart is dying of consumption, goes away to the Italian Rivera with him in a purely Platonic and sisterly mood and soothes his dying months, so as to make his dying quite pleasant and enviable. Naturally, the husband doesn't like it, and there is a considerable coolness between him and : the tempestuous " Folly," but finally he gives in and forgives her, after she has devoted their months of separation as nurse in a London institution for abandoned babies. .

Barbara Rebell: By Mrs. Be Hoc Lowndes. William Heinemann, London.— Barbara Re boll is a young woman —ho has married unwisely and loves another, the situation thus created being aggravated by the existence of a high-tempered and wealthy but paralysed aunt, who in her time had also married ..11 wisely and afterwards loved too well. This plot might have been permissible in the Victorian periods if the husbands were martyrs and the lovers villains, but unfortunately the reverse is the case, and the suggestion is evidently made that divorce ought to be more free than it is in some countries. However, in Barbara's case there is no ultimate i.eed for divorce, for the objectionable husband dies and Barbara is happily married again. Whether this is sound moral teaching is open to question, but the story is well told and the numerous characters are cleverly drawn.

The Great Refusal : By 'Maxwell Gray. John Long, London.Those who still read the Bible will remember a young man who went away from Jesus exceedingly sorrowful because he had too much to " rell all that thou hast and give to the poor." A similarly minded young man in modern London is depicted as making not shirking the great refusal of wealth and place. Sir Daniel Bassett has made money as a, universal provider" 01 uoubtfui scrupulousness, but Adrian Bassett, the son. Oxford-bred, refuses a shure in the business, and goes out disinherited to earn his own living. He loses his betrothed by this act but none of his friends ; and gains in the end a, finer and better bride, while the wealth-worshipping woman marries a Cabinet Minister and takes to laudanum. Incidentally a Christian Brotherhood colony is organised in East Africa, wherein the precepts if Christ arc the basis of'social law and order.

'J'in'. Mayo of Troy: By "Q." Methuen and Co., London.—Troy Town, in Cornwall, and its most locally famous of Mayors are tlie subjects of as charming a story as Mr. Qui!lex- Couch lias ever told. There were " the Mtiyor of i'almouth, who thanked God when the town gaol was enlarged ; "the Mayor of Market Jew, sitting in his own light;" "the Mayor of Tregoney, who could read print upside-down, but wasn't above being spoken to;" "the Mayor of Calenick, who walked two miles to ride, one;" "the Mayor of East Looe, who called the King of England * Brother.' " And there was the Mayor of Troy, so popular that the town made him ex-Mayor the year following." It is of this popular Mayor that " Q." tells lis, of his pompousness and his smuggling and of his organising of the Troy Gallants in the Napoleonic times; and how lie made love and was " pressed'' to sea and lay in a French prison, and returned home like a Rip Van Winkle to find his sweetheart married to his friend and his property taken possession of by his heirs and all that was lei of him it vain memory and a curiosity. *.

The Sphinx's Lawyer : By Frank Danby. William Heinemann, London.— With'- her usual proclivity for unsavoury subjects Frank Danbv has undertaken to defend the memory of Oscar Wilde, doing this in the course of a novel which is as powerful and dramatic as it is unpleasant. In the dedication to her brother, " Owen Hall," •she says: —" Because- you ' hate, and loathe' my book and its subject, T"dedicate it- to yon. - For, incidentally, your -harsh" criti- : cism has intensified iuy <nvictiou of the righteousness of the cause I plead, and revolt' from your narrow judgment has strengthened me against any personal opprobrium that such pleading may bring upon me. 1 have heard all your argument; I know where I stand. It is - at the foot of the Throne of Mercy, with my client by my side, the client of the Sphinx's lawyer. You. as well as I, know what he was in his brilliant youth, you, no less than 1, know how weak he was in Ids strength, of what flawed physique and untoward inheritance. Pity was the one unsounded note in the chorus 'of execration that followed this poor leper to the grave, and beyond it; to awaken pity I have written. For was it not pitiful to' see that fine brain set in that unstable body?"

II Kit Highness: By Fred. Wish aw. John Long, London.—The "Her Highness" of the story is Catherine, afterwards Catherine the Great oi Russia, and the story itself is another of those clever and graphic presentations of life at the Courts of the Tsars for which Mr. Wishaw* is becoming noted. That the life is not a pleasant one is not Mr. Wishaw's fault, but lie makes it intensely Nor is the story merely interesting as a historical romance. It will enable English readers to understand somewhat more than they commonly do of the conditions under which the Russian autocracy has grown up and of the influences which have made it the brutal power it is.

Thr Waxdebixu or Joyce : By E. M. Devcn'ish. Duckworth and Co., London.— This is a weird and mystical story, depending upon the instability of Geoffrey Considinc, who can neither be true to the wife who doesn't love him., nor to "Joyce Lawless, who does. Having asked Joyce to elope witli him, he disappears at the fateful moment, having for some freakish reason shared in a gruesome Welsh phantasy and taken a dead man's sins upon his own shouldeis. He is thought to be dead, but Joyce knows lie isn't, and wanders the world for years looking for him. She discovers how he disappears, and loses her faith in him. After marrying a better man she meets Considine, an outcast, and has the great- satisfaction of telling him what she thinks of him.

Victory : By. L. T. Meade. Mcthuen and. Co., London.--Floribel Herrics is the heroine who wins the victory over all the troubles and trials and temptations that beset a beautiful, wilful, badly used woman. She has a wicked father, who starves and straps her in the good old style, even though lie is a Church of England clergyman; and she marries a villainous surgeon, named Marsh, who buys her for £50,000 from a man who doesn't own her. The wicked husband makes her life a purgatory and vivisects her dog, and is finally struck down by illness and is left comfortably dying with Floribel holding his hand. She is still young, will be wonderfully rich, and a man who worships her with reverent eves lives round the corner. The victory is complete.

Two Ykars Among X i;w Or ink a Savages: By A. E. Pratt. With 54 illustrations and a map. George Bell and Sons, London.—By far the best of modern contributions to our knowledge of this little known region is mode in this interesting account of " a naturalist's sojourn among the natives of unexplored New Guinea," written by this well-known scientist and explorer, and accompanied by the notes and observations of his eon and' companion. Mr. Henry Pratt. The photographic illustrations are unique and praiseworthy, while the appendices on the scientific result of the expedition are invaluable to naturalists. Leaving the coast Mr. Pratt boldly penetrated into the mountainous interior, and while engaged in the work of collecting specimens of fauna and ova- studied and noted the habits, customs, and social organisations of a number of the Papuan tribes. In truly modern spirit he brought tho camera to the aid of his notebook? and the printed results show him to be a'photographer of the highest class, as will as an acute and untiring observer. Itwill bo many years before tho second largest island in the world surrenders all its secrets, but in the meantime 'more has been discovered concerning it. and its peoples, in many branches of scientific investigation, by Mr. Pratt tliau by any of the explorers and investigators who preceded him.