Beyond the Veil

Southland Times, Issue 24650, 23 January 1942, Page 7

Beyond the Veil

STRANGE CARAVAN. By Margery Lawrence. Robert Hale, London, through Whitcombe & Tombs. Price

Margery Lawrence may be remembered as the author of “The Bridge of Wonder,” a novel which drew its theme from the seamy side of spiritualism. Her interest in the occult is again revealed in the nine stories collected in this new book. Nearly all of them depend for their dramatic effect on the intervention of persons or forces from “the other side.” There is, for instance, the story of the elderly lady who enters into the tenancy of a quaint old country house and finds herself wooed by a shadowy entity whose love story had ended tragically 100 years earlier. And in “The House on the Wall,” the German woman of easy virtue who helps two prisoners to escape from a concentration camp discovers that she is the reincarnation of Rahab, known a long time ago to the inhabitants of Jericho. Readers who can accept the ideas upon which, these stories are based will find that they are skilfully written.

tained a Diploma of Honours in Latin, and also a New Zealand University Macmillan Brown Prize for original verse. In 1937, as a travelling scholar of the University of New Zealand, Miss McQuilkan proceeded to Somerville College, Oxford, where in 1939, she gained her B.A. degree with first-class honours in English. Miss McQuilkan has many interests other than academic. She holds the L.T.C.L. diploma for pianoforte and has been an active contributor to various university and other periodicals both in New Zealand and overseas.