WRITERS OF TO-DAY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7865, 29 July 1911, Page 12

WRITERS OF TO-DAY

A North-Country Novelist. A few weeks ago I was recommending my readers to sample the novels of a North-coxmtry lady novelist, Airs Buckrose, whoso “Down Our Street,” has recently made quite a hit in the Old Country. This week I would draw attention to tho fine work which is being done by another lady writer, who hails from the North Country—from Westmoreland, and whose latest story, “Moll o’ the Toll Bar,” plus a good fire, a comfortable arm chair, and a reasonable allowance of the weed so roundly condemned by a certain great judicial functionary who shall be nameless, enabled “Liber” to laugh to scorn tho rain and wind and spend a most enjoyable Sunday. The writer to whom 1 allude is Miss Theodora AVilson-Wilson. (Miss Wilson can be best described as a North Country Blackmoro. Born and bred in Westmoreland, most of her stories reflect tho scenery, character, and dialect of that country, and the adjacent •Cumberland. There is a certain rough virility about her work which suggests more tho masculine rather than the feminine pen, and yet it is surely only a woman who could have drawn such a ciiaraeter'as her Boss of llardcndnle, one of the strongest, most original, most

NO. 60. EVISSS TS-SSODORA W3LSOM WSLSON

attractive figures in recent fiction. 'Moll o’ tho Toll Bar,” which is published by Hutchinsons ..(my copy came through, Whitcombe ami Tombs) is a fascinating l study of the power which a strong female, personality can exercise over rough, un-. tutored and superstitious peasant-folk., Moll is a heroine of whom Blackmoro' could rightly have been proud, but thcri? is almost as much the bade ground! against which tho principal figures inj tho story are set, as iu those figured themselves. The period is the dawn of the last century, and (Miss Wilson’s local colour—tho scene is Ullerdale, a littlel Cumberland village—is most, picturesque., Even Mr Halliwell Sutditfo in his “ Ricroft of Witheus” —a much neglected book bv the wav—never drew the moor and fell folk more “,lo the life’’ than, does Miss Wilson. I learn from a notr in ‘‘The Bookman” (from tho Juno number of which I reproduce the accompanying portrait) that Miss Wilson has written fourteen books in all, including soven novels and; five books for children. She has three new novels in preparation, two of modern life, and one a historical roraa'nco of ,tho days of King John. All I can say is that if her novels to come are as good as “ Moll o’ the Toll Bar ” I shall give them a hearty welcome. “LIBER.”