LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3512, 5 July 1921, Page 54

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. * . —John Long’s Reprints. — The popularity of Curtis Y'orke is testified to by the inclusion of three of her stories in the budget sept iy Mr John Long. Curtis York© is essentially a feminine writer, and we should imagine her popularity is chiefly with her own sex. Love stories in an English domestic setting; the course of true love bpset by snares and pitfalls; a happy ending more frequently than not; well-defined plots, showing considerable diversity within a limited range; an easy, animated style; fair characterisation and fair command of both humour and pathos—on the whole a world rather sentimentally than realistically portrayed—this is ' what Curtis Y'orke provides for her readers. Those who demand reality, strong interest beside that of a love tale rather artificially | tangled, and profundity of thought or | feeling, may be pleased with one or two : of Curtis Yorke’s novels, but will soon ; feel they have exhausted what she has to i give them. But if her fiction lacks both i the stern atmosphere of reality and the j spell of idealism, it is very good reading i f° r those who read mainly to pass the I time and who dislike realistic present- | merits of the shadier aspects of human | existence. Nearly all Miss Yorke’s I heroines are young and beautiful, a thing which is a good clue to an author's method of treating fiction. Curtis Y'orke is fond of fixing oil a very young and very childish heroine, who usually makes an ill-advised marriage, which again usually turns out right after the necessary amount of misunderstands and trounle. ‘'lrresponsible Kitty,” who gives her name to one of the stories, is such a heroine. She makes the worst trouble for others. She marries secretly, and when she finds that she is about to becpme a mother persuades her devoted sister, who is openly married, to give out that the baby is hers, and the sister weakly consents to practise this gross deception on her husband. jh “The M. omrn Ruth ’ the heroine renounces happiness through fidelity to a promise that should never have been asked nor given. In Alix of the tflen,” the third | story, we have two types of heroines fre ! fluently recurring m Curtis Yorke’s | books—a beautiful woman with little heart or mind, who inspires passion she does not merit, and the innocent childwoman who can love. "The Lure of Crooning Water,” bv Marion Ilill, was first pub-lisetid a year or two ago, and is now filmed. " Mr Clement K. Shorter characterised it as the best new novel that I have read in the present year. The book has infinite charm. The present reviewer unfortunately cannot feel the charm, and finds the heroine unconvincing and irritating. ; She is a. woman, an actress, who lives to befool men, and who in process of a rest cure goes to a quiet farm to destroy the peace of husband and wife. “Number 3, The Square” is a mvsterv story by that popular weaver of tales of j crime and mystery; Florence Warden. It i is rather a long story, and the interest 1 is well maintained 'throughout. “The ' Juggler and the Soul," by Helen Mathers, ; is quite a short one, printed in large type to make it uniform in size with the ; rest of the shilling series. its plot re i calls Frankenstein and other novels of ■ horror and magic of the same period, t The narrator of the tale, working, like j 1 rankenstein, in his laboratory“lias | wrested from Nature a prerogative that i bad hitherto been accounted divine j has shifted the vital spark so that the j dead was tne living and the living tne j dead. This, it seems, by no more re- | eondite process than transfusion of blood. | Practising this knowledge m ail unforeJ seen crisis, lie saves the life of his son j at the cost of possessing him with the | personality of his enemy, the villain of the piece. “Curios: Some Strange Adventures of Two Bachelors” is another book that j will please those who enjoy uncanny ! mysteries, but had better be left alone i by the nervous. The tales are recounted 1 in turn by two curio-collecting bachelors, j and the curios are such pleasant things as a pipe enwreathed with a reptile, car veil, yet endowed with malignant life, and a ! severed woman’s hand, likewise endowed, i which in pursuance of a curse strangles i fbe lineal representatives of an ancient enemy. 1 he Scarlet Seal, by Dick Donovan, is a romance of the time of the Bormas. It opens with the election to the Pontifij cate of Roderigo Borgia, known in history as that wickedest of Popes Alexander VI. The date was the 9th of August, 1492, just six days alter Columbus sailed from the Spanish port of Palos on the voyage of discovery that revealed the existence of the New World. Centering round the Borgias—father, son, and I daughter--the story necessarily deals j largely with intrigue and crime. The author gives the traditional view of Lucrezia as a. perfectly beautiful and perfectly devilish woman. whereas the general view of modern historians is that she was a comparatively commonplace and respectable character. T he story will please those who like sensational incidents in a picturesque historical setting. ‘A Beautiful Rebel,’ bv Ernest Glnnville, is a tale the scene of which is South Africa at the time of the Boer Vt ar. The heroine is a beautiful Irish girl, who allies herself with the Boers. Mr Glanville knows South Africa well, and has constructed a. very readable romance of the war. “The Three days’ Terror.” by J. g. Fletcher, is extremely sensational. Lord Grandminster, Prime Minister, receives a letter purporting to be from the agents of a secret society which purposes to exact ransom from all European Powers, beginning with England. It demands one hundred milllions sterling; the

amount to be paid into various European banks. Failing payment by a stated date, it will work destruction on a scale the world has never dreamt of. for its leaders have gained command of natural forces unknown to the rest of the woikl. The British Government decides not to give in to .the threat, wherefore on the day of the expiry of the time of grace a large area in London around Charing Cross is totally wrecked at noonday bv some invisible agency. There is no sound of explosion, the area of destroy t.ion is definitely limited, buildings out side its boundary being unscathed. And, more mysterious still, the wreckage, com posed of ruined buildings and slain human beings and animals, at once begins to crumble, so that in a short space of time nothing is left but fine grev dust, driven along by a rising wind. It is a weird conception, and this part of the story is very effective. This introduction may suggest a. scientific romance after the manner of Jules Verne or H. G. Wells. But .it is in no sense scientific ; the writer makes no attempt to explain the natural forces capable of being used to such an end; he merely spins a tale of wonder and witchery—-which is easier. Alter an interval of incredulous bewilderment, London is seized with panic, and its population of seven million people trample one another in their haste to get out of the doomed city. A somewhat mysterious character, a French Count, has been introduced in the first chapter. Some of the chief actors in the storv, seeking refuge, are conveyed on his yacht to an island in a Norwegian fiord, the headquarters, as it is later known, of his sinister activities, for it is he who holds the secret of the destruction that had been worked. He possesses superhuman knowledge and powers, among others that of vastly extending the term of human life. Here mysteries, are piled up with a lavish hand by Mr Fletcher—and tne final wonder is that the mysterious Count, possessing such should suffer his schemes to be defeated and himself put out. of existence, so that the terror is only a “Three Days’ Terror." In Jess of the River,” by T. Goodrioge Roberts, vve come down to ordinary human lile with a pleasant tale with a breezy background of Canadian scenery. “Jess” is a spirited heroine, who with her mother lives with a distant relative called, uncle, a backwoods magnate styled chief in the neighbourhood. He is a man of most violent temper, who, owing to a long-standing grudge against a former associate, cherishes a violent antipathy to the son of the latter, who is Jess’s lover. The actors and their environment ])io\ ide material for much lively incident graphically narrated.