NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1802, 19 September 1906, Page 24

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS

*The Woman of Babylon.” By Joseph Hocking. London: Casetell and Co.

As the title implies this rather bulky volume contains a Story with the rather ■worn-out theme of the! 'proselytising wiles of the Church of Home. There are many complications, but the gist of the matter is that into the family of a not very strictly Protestant lawyer there enters! by way of friendship a priest, who, by subtle arguments, wins the wife and family over to his own communion. When money is inherited by a daughter of the family the agents of the Church have mercenary designs, and use unscrupulous measures to get control of it. The heireets is induced to leave her home and enter a convent, where she is detained against her will. A love attachment prevents the young woman from taking the l vows, the scheme to despoil her of her wealth is eventually frustrated, and on regaining her liberty she returns to her earlier forms of belief. In construction and literary workmanship the etory is well enough, as one naturally expects from an author of Mr Joseph Hocking^s repute, bub the odium theologieum in it is too insistent in its appeal to meet the tastes of more than a limited circle of colonial readers.

“The Sin of George Warrener.” By Marie Van Vorst. Heinemann’s Colonial Library.

George Warrener id a . middle-aged clerk, whose thoughts and energies are wholly given over bo the interests of the New York financial firm by which ho is employed. His soul is soaked in figures, and his life an unambitious routine of duty faithfully done. He lives in a dmall suburb of the city in the unpretentious way of a man earning %nly twenty-five dollars a week, and when he daily returns to his house and wife is too tired and preoccupied with business to have! much time for the amenities of social life. His wife, who is much younger than he, is) a woman of limited education and small fetellectual power, and her daily life is in its way even more prosaic and circumscribed than that of her husband.

Into tlie suburban village in which these two live there descends a rich American family, the members of which have lived so long abroad as to find themselves almost foreigners in their own country, and utterly out of sympathy with the homely ways' of the people about them. An acquaintance with these, which comes about because a man of the party has become attracted the beauty of Mrs Warrener, causes a great change in the prospects and social outlook of the city clerk and hie wife. Because of the recognition extended t</ him by the wealthy newcomers), George Warrener finds his employers awakened to a higher sense of his abilities, and promotion follows. With promotion come even more intense business preoccupation than before on the part of the husband, and discontent and social ambition on the part of his wife. Dazzled by the splendour of her new acquaintances, and easily led on by the attentions paid to her by the designing man who early marked her down as an object of unworthy attention's, Mrs Warrener, with little scruple of conscience, plays her too confiding husband false. Not content with betraying him she daily grows more extravagant and exacting, driving him at last to embezzlement to meet her demands on his limited resources.

On the whole the story is a distinctly unpleasant one, but the psychological study which it presents ie not without interest, and is indeed its chief redeeming feature.

“By Wit of Woman.” By A. W. Marchmont. London: Ward, Lock and Co.

The scene of this romance is BudaPesth, and the fictitious characters involved are a preternaturaily shrewd American woman and the leaders in the Hungarian national party. Tho woman, whose mental alertness and insight lend a title to the story, though of American up-bringing is the daughter of a Hungarian father, who died in exile under the stigma of having committed a foul political crime. To her is left the task of clearing his memory of the odious charge lying unchallenged against it. So as to do this she goes to live in Buda-Pestli, and under another name than her own enters boldly into the coil of Hun2.ar.on

plotting and politics. Her preternatural acuteness enables her, easily to interpret things mysterious to others, her intellectual deftness to unravel the most subtly woven tissue of motive action and/ intention. Incidentally to the pursuit of her main 'purpoete she becomes involved in quite a number of subtle schemes, including interesting love affairs of herself and others. Out of every entanglement she emerges with triumph and honour, and to crown all, as befits so able and shrewd a young woman, she succeeds not only in clearing the memory of her dead father but also in winning for herself a title and a husband. ‘‘Rembrandt: A Memorial.” William Heinemann, London. The tenth and concluding part of this cheap hut excellent artistic production is of equally high quality with the preceding numbers. The biographical work, while adding nothing to what is already well-known concerning the career of the great Dutch artist, is well and concisely written, and the criticism of his work is marked by a of the chief masterpieces which are the world’s legacy from one of its greatest painters. The plates in this number are—“ Tobit and his Wife with the Goat” (Berlin Gallery), ‘‘A Winter Landscape” (Cassel Gallery), “Portrait of Jan Six” (Amsterdam Collection), “The Shipbuilder and his Wife” (Buckingham Collection).

There are besides several studies in colour and some fine photographs and etchings. Subscribers are notified that a handsome binding case in green cloth and gold may be obtained by post for 4s 4d.

“The King’s Empire Pictured by the Camera.” Cassell and Co., London.

This instructive work has reached its eleventh part, the numbers recently to hand being nine, ten and eleven. The illustrations are of remarkable merit, and represent a wide diversity of scene and subject. Portion of part nine deals with the navy in various parts of the Empire, vessels, docks, poi’t defences and crews affording matter for very interesting pictures. The homes of the King’s subjects are shown in photographic views which range from Windsor castle to a native hut in Natal. Part 10 continues the latter subjects, and adds several views of work and workers in Great Britain, Africa, and India. Part eleven has (further views of the Empire’s industries, the subjects ranging from lumbering in Canada to the drying of silk cocoons in India. The whole work is fipo highly educational that it o-ught to he taken by every family. and have a place in every school library. It is to be completed in twenty numbers, the price (ninepence per number) being such as to place it easily within s the reach of all.