REVIEWS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCIV, Issue 14393, 7 January 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

REVIEWS.

A : CANTERBURY NOVELIST. I It is not now divulging any secret to 1 identify 3liss Lyttelton, of Rakaia, with l&at "G. B. Lancaster," who is the nominal author of half-a-dozen strenuous novels of New Zealand and Australian back-blocks life, of which the latest is entitled "Jim of the Rarig<k." How :i lady who can have had but little personal experience of the roughest side of pioneering life should have been moved to write these ultra-virile tales of saddle _ and stock--whip, pistols and damper, is something of a psychological mystery, but 3liss Lyttelton does write them a 9 if she had known no other companions from her childhood than the strong, rugged, restlessly active men and women whom "she has chosen to pourtray. There are no doubt faults in the pourtrayal, I a tendency to exaggerate* the primitive strength and energies of her heros, and an absence of repose which makes the events "narrated seem le«s like the progress of real life than the rapid proces-, sion of incidents shown in a kinematograph film manipulated at an unnaturally liigh soeed. It is usual to consider "G. B. Lancaster's" stories as j " Kipling, only rather more so," but j we think a closer parallel could be found with some of the American writers, and the great popularity of her ■novels in America seems to indicate the I recognition of a kinship. "Jim of the I Ranges" is* a story which we are glad , for a colonial and a New Zealander j to have written. It is concerned with i the affection between two foster brothers, Jim, who is a mounted policeman, and goes straight, and Nick, who is a and goes cooked. The crisis only commences when Jim s?ti out to arrest on a serious oharcro the I brother for whom he would will ; nglv I his life. There is a delightful | bn"k-b!ocks «rirl. who makes a wonder- | ful r ; do in boy'c attire to asris.*" Jim, j :t*l another "irl who almost brings ! : r < <} -iv/1 c'5V-ts of {> G H. T..m- j - arc avpU exhibit- : "I ii» ,-t rw Th- publishers are j Constable and Co.. London, and our i copy i: from P. \V. TTnHjcn nn'l I Co. Price, 2s Gd and 3s