NOTABLE NOVELS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15433, 20 April 1912, Page 14

NOTABLE NOVELS

Mr W. Hcinemnnn . announces a novel by Ralph Straus, "The Prison Without a Wall. It is the story uf a collegian's adventures in London and Cambri'dijc. Of Mr Hcinema'nn's new novel, " Ono Who Has Passed," the New York Times Rook Review remarks:—" Hero is a ■simple story, simply told. 'To M. 1,. (!.' has much of the clarity, the directness of ' Marie Claire.' The 'story of the girl's childhood is told almost as a child would tell it; experience or Renins has made it. possible for the author to see those first years with the eyes of a child. Tlirmiphout Ihe narrative there is no forcing of the tragic, the contrasting, no straining after effect. Yet the literature of the day lias little to offer more dramatic than the description of the vaudeville actor's death in the theatre, or the brief account of a play in Paris, whose effect turned the current of the writer's life. The- hook abounds, too, in striking similes, in figures that seem a3 spontaneous as they are fine. Have we not all of us seen the smoke of incense, 'that floated half away between floor and ceilinu' like torn rags of pale chiffon,' and tried to find words for*t? And have not some of us known what it was to ' feel cold, mysterious fear crawl back like, a wet snake?' " A modern version of the old. old tale of Joseph and the woman who tempted is told liy Frank Danhv, otherwise Mrs .lulia Frank.™, in " Joseph in Jeopardy," told with hardly less reticence and much more elaboration than the Biblical story which was the beginning and forerunner of all stories of that kind. And, by the way,

whv is it that the English writers of fiction seem so rarely able nowadays, or, ;it least, so rarely attempt to portray tho illusions'of "la grando passion" without an amount of physiological description that would really seem more in place in a medical man's account of a hospital clinic? In the great days of English storytelling the writers of romance could sulfunc their pages with tho glory and tho rose-colour of love's call and response with never a line of offensive realism, never a step bevond that decent reticence of description which inado it possible for their books to hold an honoured place in the open shelves of the family library. Bnl wc have fallen upon smaller and weaker (not stronger) times in fiction. The two most notoblo " first books " thus far published this year the " Tho Shadow of Power." a historical novel, by Paul Bertram, and " The Story of a Ploughbov." by James Boyce. Both these author's' names are pseudonyms, Paul Bertram being an English-writing Italian, and James Boyce a young Scotchman named Anderson, who began life as a ploughbov an'' is now a gardener. Reviewing at length "Hie Story of a Ploughboy" the London Nation says of the writer:—" While-his tone is more refined than that of most middle-class writers, his pictures, fortunately, are almost as frank and unvarnished as those of an eichtecnthcentury novelist. This is indeed his value, for no man of cultivated intellify""*" would desire the blacks of his pie J» to Ik> toned down to suit the snscop (ihililios of the drawing ro'm. Frankly, the brutality of the manners of the Scottish peasantry, as exemplified in the ploughman. Big Pate's, revolting cruelty to tho lad Jamie, and tho neighbours' indifference to tho same, appears almost medieval. Tho narrative of Jamie's daily tortures at tho hands of his tyrant, and the latter's reckless savagery, is quite in keeping with tho hard brutalitv of the fiourlays in ' The House with the Green Shutters.' To find a parallel in an English story wo should havo to go hack many years, Ihniich. of course, isolated examples of vindictive cruel) ■• are ouite as common in English as in Scottish life."

Foremost among articles of contemporary interest in "The llibbert Journal" for January is that by &ir Oliver Ixxlgo defending the philosophy of Henri lkrgsuii against the recent strictures of Air Jkdfonr. Messrs SUnley Paul and Co, announce fur immediate publication, under the title of '• A tireat itussiau Realist: Tlvo Romance and Reality of Dostoieffsky," u new work by Mr J. A. T. Lloyd. Three books by Mr John Galsworthy hold a prominent place in the publishing lists. Two of thct*! aic plays,—"The likkst Son" and "The Pigeon;" t.lio other ii a volume of poems, entitled '• Wild Oats : Moods, Songs, and Doggerels.'' Messrs Methiien will begin the- periodicaJ issue of the pocket edition of i>amb, prvp.ucd by Mr E. V. Lucas for his large edition. There will bo six volumes in all, adequately annotated, and certain additiono and re-arrangements have Ivceu made. liaeli volume has a photogravure frontispiece and a special symbolical Klin.ii cover has Iveen designed bv Mr F. D. Bedford. In his new book, " The Cliild of the Dawn," which will bo published by Messrs Smith, Elder, and Co., Mr Arthur Jfonson deids by meai:6 of aji allegory or fantasy with tlio hope of immortnlily. The book is based uipon an intense belief in find, ami a no less intense conviction of perrona] immortality and personal responsibility, and it aims at. bringing out the fact that life is a very real pilgrimage to high and far-off things from mean and sordid beginnings.