BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3783, 14 September 1926, Page 74

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

SALLY ACHIEVES SUCCESS. “Sally in Rhodesia.” By Sheila Macdonald. (Cloth/ Cs net.) Third Australian Edition, completing 7000 copies. Australia: Cornstalk Publishing Company (per Angus and Robertson). “Sally in Rhodesia,” reviewed in these columns a few mouths ago, is enjoying a phenomenal success. It has received favourable notice from all publishers, has been proclaimed a best seller by the public, and has passed into its third Australian edition, completing 7000 copies. Few books of a similar nature have been so eagerly received. The author, Sheila Macdonald, is the daughter of the late Mr Scobie Mackenzie, a well-known M.P. of 30 years ago. Bom and reared on a Central Otago sheep run, in her early twenties she married Mr Walter Macdonald, son of the late Dr Macdonald, then rector of the Boys’ High School, Dunedin, and went with him to settle in Rhodesia. Her husband died about two years ago, and Sheila Macdonald is now resident in England, where she divides her time between looking after the family of four which figures in “Sally in Rhodesia,” and her literary labours.

LETTERS OF A LADY OF QUALITY. “The Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart.” Selected, with an introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. (Cloth, 6s net.) London: John Lane, the Bodley Head (Ltd.) Lady Louisa Stuart (1757-1851) was the youngest daughter of a large family, and did not care much for her parents. She was snubbed and bullied by her brothers and sisters, who accused her of being priggish because she was fond of reading. An early love affair went wrong, and she never married. She had a wide circle of friends, men and women both older and younger than herself; she was intellectual and secretly given to writing prose and verse; she was a great reader, and a shrewd and humorous looker-on at life, enjoying society with a certain detachment. that never made her unsympathetic or cold. She was an entertaining and voluminous letter-writer; she could address herself' to 10 different people with wit, good sense, and remarkable vitality. She died at the age of 94. Mr R. Brimley Johnson, to whom we are indebted for several volumes of belles-lettres, has made a judicious collection from the correspondence of this eighteenth century lady of quality, and produced a book which from cover to cover sparkles with wit, humour, and charm. A granddaughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu would naturally, perhaps, have a taste for expressing herself in writing together with a dread of making the fact known. She thought it was plebeian for a woman to publish books, and dreaded being numbered among the blue-stockings. In other respects she is unprejudiced, and jn many of her opinions in advance of her age. She expressed herselt more forcibly in writing than in conversation, and once declared tliat in the houses she was wont to frequent “ they would all allow i was an inoffensive piece of furniture, and otherwise think as little of me as I am apt to do of them.” Her earlier letters are chiefly to her sister Caroline, Lady Portarlington, intimate family chronicles full of fun and affection, in spite of the sharp raps she can deal out to her brothers or an ill-mannered niece; and she had an intimate friendship with Scott. To him, more than to anybody else, she, revealed her secret writings, and in return she w'as his confidante in regard to his own work. Some of her most delightful letters are to him, and she greatly enjoyed being in the secret of “ Waveriey.” Her powers of discrimination were finely formed, and often she saw fit to criticise the great man frankly and fearlesly. Lady Louisa, who retained “ the full and unclouded use of extraordinary faculties ” for nearly a century, is spoken of in most of the memoirs, diaries, and reminiscences of the period. The selections of her work presented in this book show a vigorous and attractive personality, who knew the world without losing herself in it, who made literature, who belongs to history, and who will charm

all modern readers for her wit and humanity.

18 MARRIAGE A FAILURE? “The Lady of the Heights.” By Joanna Cannun. (Cloth, 7s Cd net.) London: T. Fisher Unwin. The hero of this story was so convinced by the disastrous issue of his first matrimonial experience that marriage must be a failure that, falling ardently in love with a girl whom he felt to be bis perfect affinity, he refused to ask her to marry him. The story begins with the death of his incompatible wife, Nina, and then goes back to relate the story of the ill-fated union. Roger Wilberforce,. artist and athlete, met Nina when he was in hospital during the war. She was beautiful; they fell mutually in love, were married, and after the armistice set up housekeeping in Chelsea. Nina was unintelligent, matter-of-fact, conventional, and society loving, while Roger found ordinary society excessively boring. He was soon utterly miserable, while she was coldly uncomprehending; jars were perpetual, and one day, in sudden exasperation, he flung his palette at her. The same evening she was taken suddenly ill with appendicitis, and died without any words of reconciliation. Roger, tormented by remorse, goes to Paris, and seeks relief in the pursuit of his art in the daytime, and drinking in the evening. An accident pulls him up from his down-grade course, and in the Savoyard Alps lie meets Christine Erskine, “the lady of the heights.” She, like Nina, is beautiful, but she is intrepid, athletic, unconventional, and everything else Nina was not. The two are soon ardently in love, but Roger dreads to run the risk of a second marriage, and tells Christine the history of his unhappy first marriage. Later they meet in England, and Christine, who is uioroughiv up-to-date, proposes that they shall set up house together on the understanding that either shall be at perfect liberty to dissolve the partnership if it is felc oppressive. So they begin life together happily on this basis, but before long complications break down their defiance of “convention”, and the last pages show them happily married. The theme of free love unions is sufficiently hackneyed to-day, and there is nothing original or specially interesting in the writer’s treatment of it. But the story is naturally told; the scenes are well contrived, and the backgrounds of artists’, surroundings and of Nature are well delineated.

A BUNDLE OF REPRINTS. “A Bundle of Reprints. ” (doth 2s net.) Each published by John Long (Limited), London. “Many Engagements.” By J. S. Fletcher. Fletcher. In “Many Engagements,” Mr J. S. Fletcher is in his best vein. His invention is as new and fertile, and his narrative as easy and natural, as ever. The book indeed affords striking evidence of his ingenuity and skill, and also, in particular, of his abounding versatility. Many tributes have been paid to the high standing of this author, and in the book to hand his fresh, easy spontaneity is kept up to an extraordinarily high level of attainment which in no wise disappoints. * * * “Storm.” By Halliwell Sutcliffe. The scene is laid in the wild romantic country of Bolton Abbey and Barden Tower, known to all readers of Wordsworth’s “White Doe of Rylstone.” Like so many of the author’s novels, it is a tale of feud, but feud with a difference—not open fight between clan and clan, but the struggle of the master of Logie, almost unaided, against a people inhabiting a sinister valley of the uplands Three stark men of the wilderness folk challenge the master of Logie at the outset of the tale His answer is quick and passionate, and his life afterwards is made up of peril, ambush, and love of the pedlar’s girl who shares his hardships. * * * “The Red Moon.” By J. B. HarrisBurland. Aa an author of mystery novels, Mr J. B. Harris-Burland is unsurpassed, and he. has done nothing finer than his latest achievement, “The Red Moon.” With a powerful plot is combined plenty of incident and a compelling love interest. The novel primarily concerns one Richard Fromanteel His honeymoon is no honeymoon at all, except in name. He is a man marked down for death, and yet he has licence to kill. If he commits murder the law will not punish him. If he is killed his murderer will go free. These are strange utterances, but this is a strange story of affairs that lie beneath the surface of ordinary life. * * * “If Riches Increase.” By Victor Whitecliureh. Author of “The Canon in Residence,” “Left in Charge,” “The Templeton Case,” and similar popular novels, Victor L. Whitechurch has written an arresting story in “If Riches Increase.” John Harris, an iron-willed, stubborn yeoman farmer of the Downland, is the chief character in a talc which tells of a broken romance in the past, and its sequel in the present, constituting a very intriguing love interest. John Harris himself, proud and grasping, planning the disposal of his possessions until he takes that very course with others which had soured his own life, is powerfully and vividly portrayed, and the other characters are living and real.

“The Rose of Algiers.” By Cecil H. Bullivant.

To those who like a romance instinct with life and passion against a background which is truly Eastern, “The Rose of Algiers,” from the pen of Mr Cecil H. Bullivant, will make an instant appeal. The author’s last and fourth journey into the heart of North Africa provided the materials for this book, and lie shows how strongly he has been impressed by the strange dramas brought about by the contact of the white and coloured races. “The Rose of Algiers,” replete with the glamour and drama of the Orient, and written in this author’s most brilliant style, deals with a problem of vital interest to every thinking man and woman.

* * * ‘The Hidden Hour.” By J. B. HarrisBurland.

When John Merrington came to his senses after the motor accident, he could remember neither the face nor the name of the married woman he had persuaded to run away with him. And Ruth Bradney, the woman, regretting her folly, thanked heaven that she had been saved from sin, and returned to her husband, hoping that he might never know of that mad drive through the night. How she fought to keep him in gnorance, how she suffered all the agony of suspense, not knowing whether he knew or suspected anything, and how she tried to do her duty to the man she had wronged—this is the story of “The Hidden Hour.”

• * * Desire of the Desert.” By Arthur Applin.

The plot circles round a young girl who travels from England with a girl companion to join her father in the Sudan. They meet Paul Lamotte, a soldier of fortune, who journeys with them to Cairo, and induces them to visit the Sphinx, accompanied by a wealthy Egyptian prince, on the night of their arrival. Neither of the girls return from that midnight excursion; the prince and the adventurer also disappear. Their adventures, the clashing of wills and sex, the instincts of the west at war with the instincts of the east, are developed with cunning and fascination. The book is “intriguing,” and will inspire the reader with a desire to visit the scenes where the story is laid.

‘The Man With the Vandvke Beard.” By Fred. M. White.

In this powerful story the hero finds himself in the amazing position of being practically accused of his own murder, and yet unable to speak and expose the conspiracy against him, since by so doing he will bring unspeakable trouble antf humiliation on a blind woman to whom is assigned an important part in the story, and who, had she her sight, could and would straighten out the tangled skein. What, then, is the hero to do in the circumstances? What should he do when he stands in the dock face to face with the sightless woman who is giving vital evidence against him without realising what she is doing? The novel must be read to the end before the puzzle is solved.

“Mary of Many Loves.” By Amy J. Baker. Like all Amy J. Baker’s novels, which include of recent publication “The Crepe-de-Chine Wife” and “The Slim Outline.” “Mary of Many Loves” is of strong human interest. The scene is laid for the most part in South Africa, of which country the writer has a wide knowledge. To this she adds insight and sympathy, the rarest gifts of the story-teller, and presents her characters, unfolds her plot, and manipulates her situations in the same attractive background and in the same convincing manner as have characterised her best work. The tale of Sister Mary Fletcher, who casts off her convent robes to be a woman of the world, and who attracts love as readily as did Helen of Troy, is an arresting one, and the climax as unexpected as it is artistic. * * * “The World Outside.” By Harold MacGrath. A young man, reared in a country village by a father who had never shown him affection, and who had denied him the luxuries of life, suddenly finds himself, by the . mysterious death of his father, the possessor of a huge fortune, to do with as he pleases. To the young man, Collingw r ood Jeremiah Bancroft, brought up as he was in a gossipy, narrow-minded little village, the w'orid outside was a closed room of which he had heard but had never entered. To satisfy his thirst for romance and adventure, he enters into an agrement with “The Great Adventure Company,” which contracts to furnish unlimited thrills, involving the possibility of battle,

murder, and sudden death, for a nominal sum. How he saw the world outside, and what he found there is told in the true Harold MacGrath style. * * • “Three of a Kind.” By Emmeline Morrison. Heather Dene, tired of the monotony of life in a small country vicarage, longs for freedom. She assists a stnuided airman on Salisbury Plain, and rater, solely in order to get aw'ay from her narrow and uninteresting life, becomes engaged to a wealthy manufacturer. A half-hearted love affair, with the husband of a former girl friend, leads to a flying joy-trip with him before her marriage takes place. The jealous wife follows them, and a tragedy occurs. This leads to the flight of Heather, who finds herself stranded in Paris. The airman providentially comes to the rescue, but the situation is complicated by the advent of her fiancee, who turns out to be his half-brother. She becomes involved with all three men, and only gets out of difficulties to fall into greater. Eventually she linds happiness with one of the three. * * * “The Dancing Girl” and “The Slave Bangle.” By Gaston Leroux. Gaston Leroux iias been called the present-day Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, Charles Reade, and Marcus Clarke. Such praise is not too high. The two books reprinted here are pregnant with romance and grip the reader’s attention from*first to last. In “The Dancing Girl” the scene shifts from convict settlements and gold diggings to society in Paris and Nice; and looming through the story is the bizarre and fantastic figure of the great Cheri-Bibi playing in his grotesque fashion the Good Samaritan. The novel is one of romance, mystery, and adventure, with an unceasing progression of incidents. In “The Slave Bangle,” Joseph Rouletabille, prince of journalists and detectives, plays the lead. It is a mystifying part. Why was Prince Henry of Albania shot, and who murdered Ivana and the Professor? Was Ivana’s lovestory true, or what lay behind it ? These questions arise in this tale of mystery and passion, and the author outwits the reader, captures him, and holds him spellbound. * # * “A Brilliant Season” and “First in the Field.” By Nat Gould. The sales of this author, who lias been called “the prince of sporting novelists,” to date exceed 24 millions, a figure far beyond tliat of any other contemporary author. Among all lovers of sport the name of Nat Gould has become a household w'ord; and as sportsman, journalist, and globetrotter, few men have gone through more varied experiences, and still fewer have used their experiences to such excellent purpose. The secret of his success lies iu the straightforward and pleasing way in which his stories arc unfolded. They are healthy tales of the open air, and are enjoyed by millions of readers of both sexes. No other writer depicts with so spirited a pen the romance of a racecourse or the hairbreadth escapes of the hunting field. In “A Brilliant Season” the hero and heroine have strong dominating * personalities, and the love interest is ivell sustained, while in “First in the Field” the element of sport predominates and the thread of a charming love-story runs throughout.