BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Benedict Kavaxagh :'■■ By George A. Birmingham. Edward Arnold, Loudon. —The revival of Gaelic, and the development in Ireland of a* spirit which sees in social fregeneration rather than in political revolutions the hope of the future, is earnestly set forth in this story by an author who never tries without a purpose. Benedict Kavanagh, son of an Irish leader, and -■;; of a woman who counted the world well lost for love] is brought'-up a Protestant; and in a Western land office comes into direct contact with the- life of the people. After much neutral and spiritual conflicts, he inherits a small property from his mother mother, and resolves to devote his life to working among and with the people whom his father loved. • s The Golden Hawk: By Edith Bickert. Edward Arnold, London.—A quaint story, with originality pervading every page, • and a passionate South French love affair all the motive of it. The '-Golden Hawk," a" modern troubadour, kisses on the top of a precipice the peasant girl he lias met and '.■'■'. set his soul upon and determined to wed. Her mother, for j>ast sins, has resolved to make her daughter a nun,, and the girl, though resenting this, has a haU-promiso wrung from her at* her mother's death-bed. The priest, a dubious character;"' thus becomes master of her fate, but the " Golden Hawk," after a series of fantastical doings that all veil his shrewd common sense, wins his bride and carries her off to Latin America beyond the seas. "The Lone Hand" is an: illustrated monthly, published by the Bulletin News- ; paper Company, Ltd., Sydney.—-The initial number is for May, 1907, and consists of selected short stories, articles, and poetry of the well-known Bulletin style, illustrated after the same popular fashion. Taken altogether it is a much better skill ingsworth than the imported magazine, and has the great condemnation of being -a wholly colonial production, ' Daily Mail Sixpenny Novels: Amalgamated ';. Press, Ltd., London. {Received through Messrs. Gordon and Gotch, Ltd. Wellington.)— great London dailies are steadily increasing their sphere. i The London Times runs a servants' registry, and the London Daily Mail is publishing cheap reprints of popular novels. Whether the tendency Jis an admirable one is another matter, but the Daily Mail's reprints will be cheap at sixpence if they are to be judged by the three first issued. •W. B. Maxwell's "Viaren," illustrated by C, H. - Talis and Reginald Pennett; Robert Hitclien's, " The Woman With the Fan," illustrated by John Cameron and Reginald Pennett; f and Hall Caine's, "Eternal City," illustrated by S. Spurrier -and Reginald Pennett; are well and favourable known to all eclectic novel-readers, and will certainly attain to extended popularity in their new form,' which is well printed and ; illustrated, and with an illustrated coloured' cover 1 , portraying the heroine of the particular story, v • Passion's Peril: By Stuart Young.; ! Hermes Press, Cecil Court, St. Martin s; Lane, London. (Received through Messrs. I ' Gordon and Gotch, London.) —When a book j has 300 closely printed pages it r must 'be- , very good not to be wearisome, particularly , when it deals with topics in themselves,; without attraction. Mr. Young describes with infinite detail the life of. p, quadroon■ = woman, whom an educated Englishman had . married on the West Coast of rilfrica; and , taken to England. is mixed up-with [ a depressingly abnormal lot of:,people, and | finally leaves her '". husband ; in ; the orthodox I manner, to meet the orthodox fate. = Years -, afterwards she is "rescued." and finally , rejoins her forgiving husband, dramatically P perishing in a great fire at Paris. There is ! a long introduction, written in French, . which" shows the school .but the French 5 do it much better, and in half the.space.. Temptation: By.Richard Bagot. Me!j thuen, London.This is already Use second 1 edition of a story which appears to those [: who admire , the good ';: old •* crime" story, 1 with "its villains, its heroes,* and its knave's, » not (forgetting the good priest and the 3 shrewd family. physician, who" detect the 3 poisoning, and bring the wicked to justice. , It ;is ? Italian, and the modern i Roman, a* * we i have ; him in the "police reports,":; is ex- ' hibited before us in Mr. Bigots beat style. I Fabrizio loves the wife of Ugo, and in ! Ugo's family there are traditions of women who made matters uncomfortable for those 3 who thwarted them. Ugo is warned by a, ' faithful servant, and confides in a beauti- ' ful widow, Ids iplatonic"; friend, i who tells' ! the good priest. But CVistinaj the wicked wife; poisons Fabrizio, in spite of them, though lier :Villainy-:: is discovered tby the '. useful physician when too late. " Disowned ! by her indignant lover, she commits sui- ' cide; and Ugo's platonic friend comforts r the repentant Fabrizio.

i ' Ckicket ; AnjukCjo : Spalding's Athletic ■ Library. !■ British r Sports Publishing - Com-; I pany, Ltd., Hind \ Court, Fleet-Ktreet, Louj don.— book contains over 50 full-pago photographs of the most famous present; day cricketers, and the contents include:' ißeview of the 1906 season,; Hirst and Hayward— players of ■'. the year, the chamI pionship campaign, J how ;. the % second-class counties finished, batting and bowling aver* ages, centuries and spectacles in first-chum* county cricket, facts about the /incomparable W. G. Grace, highest individual scores' in both first-class and other matches, Hirst's wonderful bowling, Hirst's' world's record, ; Kent v. England, Gentlemen v. Players, North v. South, England v. Australia, Oxford v. Cambridge, University matches from 1829-1906, Eton v. Harrow, chief fixtures for 1907, South Africans' tour. .

The Long Road: John Oxenbam. Me* theun, London.One of the most realistic '(i stories of the day, and profoundly touching ; :i also distinctly topical, / and throwing X; a bright light upon the Russian situation and the Russian character;' 'The "Long ; j Road" is that which stretches from ; Russia ;> to Siberia, and along it travel, in the begin-'& j ning, an honest blacksmith, with his wife | and little son, exiled for " taking snuff." A little girl gives the little boy a cake, and becomes his ideal, to be found and married > i later on. Poushkin, the ' Governor !of'li -■' | kutsh, is "a ; brute, made mad by unbridled ! power. 1, He knouts women, decimates re- ;- bellious tribes, invents "strange tortures and % sentences. The blacksmith, grown prosperous, in spite of his caution and self-suppres-sion, is done to death; his son for a mere whim of the tyrant is condemned to exile from Irkutsh, and never ,to - stay 'onger than ten days in any one place. After a'. period of despair he turns pedlar, and is joined by his wife and children, and is wonderfully happy, but in the winter exposure kills his wife; then his children die. ; He determines to kill Poushkin, but when the '■■ tyrant is ■ under his axe forbears for his little daughter's sake, and lctn him depart. ■'; Then the over-wrought man goes mad, and for three, years lives out ;in the tundra, tho great desei-ted land of the Arctic coast, but finally returns to, the " long road," and dies beloved by all children in cherishing whom, —and in "killing wolves—he has found solace. ; Altogether a fine story, well told, and on a subject entirely new.

The School Journal : May, 1907. ; Education Department, Wellington.—The May number of €. the inucb4coked-for S" School Journal" is nothing more nor less than parts of a reading book. Part I. »is for lasses I. and II i Part XL for Classes 111. and IV.; Part 111. for Classes V. and VI. There -will be vast differences of opinion | among teachers ;as to its: merits, for their judgments have been made erratic by the '■ quite • casual manner in which "readers" 1 have been chopped and changed about, .at j the 1 parental J expense. But the parental ! eye will consider it quite good enough \ for children .to learn':< from, and the parental puree will find it an enormous gain. ,