KINLOCHMOIDART'S DIRK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20988, 26 September 1931, Page 9 (Supplement)

KINLOCHMOIDART'S DIRK.

SCOTTISH HISTORICAL TALES. This is a rare book, one of the kind a comes seldom from the press and to be treasured when it comes. A Scotsman attempting to classify current -fiction would place it in a select list among the books of the year: even readers who might be less interested in the incidents of Scottish history with which it deals could hardly miss its charm or fail to appreciate the originality of the work. By any standard it is worthy of a high place among tales well told. The author is Lord Sands, one of the senators of the College of-Justice in Scotland, who lias found time in the course of a busy life as an advocate and a judge to make several notable excursions into literature. It is evident from his writing that he knows Scottish history intimately, that he has a fine appreciation of the characteristics of his kinsmen, gentle and simple, and that he writes his book not. as a professional story writer, but as a Scotsman seeking, with a love of his subject, to give a glimpse of Scotland and of Scottish folk in a historical setting with just a " keek" at the Scot of a quite recent, day. He has done, his work with exceptional insight and the result is a collection ot gripping Scottish tales which it would be hard to match. Lord Sands vouches for the accuracy of historical details There arc thirteen stories and there is nothing unlucky about the number except that it might have been doubled. Several, including " Kinlochmoidart s Dirk" from which the book takes its title, are set in Jacobite times but others bring the picture down to the end of last century, notably "My Shakespeare Lecture "a humorous account of a lecture elivered in a Scottish village by Lord Sands win 11 he was a briefless advocate. I his is a prime, sample of Scots humour in a vein quite distinct from the historical tales which make up the P'eater part o the book. In literary quality these tales s t ■ms&p%ssz read with pleasure and profit. .wood and Sons, Ltd.}