ABOUT BOOKS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7238, 26 October 1901, Page 7

ABOUT BOOKS.

"Alice of Old Vincennes,"., ..by., Maurice Thompson. Capsejl's .Cy^oa^XftcaryCliristcaurch : Whuc.omb?i ,a^^Co^te. OUI American stories .: ■ lia-vei been irarv fashionable of late, and within a year aU most a score of novels have lywi their scenes laid in the United States or Canada in the eighteenth or •early nineteenth century. Nor is the field showing any signs of being worked out. "Alice of Old Vincennes" is a fresh, breezy story of a frontier post on the Wabash in the days of the revolt ol the colon/e.s. A hhu]ons number j of copies of the novel are said to have been sold, and one or two critics have found in "Alice" the book of the year. There is no occasion for adulation, and the book itself affords no marked justiHc.it ion of ihe "boom": the story is comparatively slight and the vortimaitelity not •unifuvmly^gcod, while Mr I| Hi > b : m"lssarsf-stjac"-'i* un'qiiestWljably amateurish. But the tale was well worth telling, and the "spirit" and "atmosphere?' those indefinable qualities winch make or mar all books, are in this case admirable. There ;u^ one or two character sketches, too, of unusual merit, Uncla Joznn, Old 'Rcussillon, Pere Beret, Bevevle y and .Alice herself are carefully and distinctly drawn. "The Green Passion," by Anthony P. Vert. Greening's Colonial Library. Christchuvch : Whitcombe ar.d Tombs. The journal of a jealous Avoman has already been "written up"' in recent years, and there was really no occasion for Mr Vert's novel. But Olga Cleeve is impressive in her persistent and unreasoning 'jealousy, and the book therefore- does i.ot lack a* certain power. But it is rather tiresome reading for those who do avot cultivate tho gentle art of skipping. "The Adventure- of Princess Sylvia," by • Mrs C. N. Williamson. Medium's Colonial Library. Chmtehureh : Whitcombe and Tombs. Setting aside- the probabilities, Mrs Williamson's story is entertaining enough for the most confirmed pessimist in the wono. A princess sets out to marry an emperor, and determires to make him love her for herself. So she travels to his country as a common woman, behaving rather boldly, ■ it must be confessed, bub she achieves her , object. The princess is nob quite so )as- ] cinatine as Mrs Williamson would like her readers' to- think, bub the point may be ignored, seeing that so much else has to ba taken for granted. There is no reason why an Ausi.ra.lasi.m magazine should not pay, provided it is run on business lines. Probably a monthly venture would have to be assisted over the first year, but after that it ought io live and flourish. The mistake made Inmost promoters was the obvious one o. supposing that the colonial public would put up with poor stories and poorer lllus- j trations, simply because they happened to bo the productions of local industry. If the colonial magazine, is to obtain a place worth having it must compete, with English productions., and it cannot afford to be^inferior to them in literary matter and illu-s---trations. The latest proposal to establish an AwrtraWian magaz'nc has laken shape ■in "The Commonwealth Annual, -wniun from all points of view, shows good promise The stories i;i the first issue are bright atwl entertaining, and the illustrations are really admirable. Australasian magazines have* not hitherto been brilhantIv successful in the matter of illustrations, but there is nothing crude or amateurish about this department of "Tho Commonwealth." In this respect, at least, it makes a great advance on its predecessors. Ihe new magazine, however, will «'•»'«;«« \\ it encourages only writers of the 'Bulletin school Ht> far'" The Commonwealth has been announced only as an annual, but the style and form are so obviously those ot a monthly periodical that a little encouragement wmdd probably convert "The Commonwealth Annual" into "The Commonwealth Monthly." There is no index, by the way, to the first issue. The publisher is Mr A. 0. Rowlandson, of Sydney, and the price is !*■ In the New York "Outlook" Mr Arthur Lynch says he was recently one of a party of journalists who discussed the re*pgctive merits of French, British ami American newspapers. •*■ It swj*:O*e " >! unt >{*O nes tot sentential," but the opinion that attracted -meat attention, possibly on account of its epigrammatic form, was t.iat of a Vnizzled veteran who had equal familiarity with all three nationalities "The French papers.- he said, "are the least informed and the btst written ; the English the. worst written and the best informed " "And the American?" demanded a representative of the United States. "The American journals," responded no sage, "oscillate between the two extreme?." Affl&ii" recent announcements are: — A novel dealing with Finland, by Mr James Baker, author of "The <Cardiu*l'« PftE«O"> a volume of poems by Katharine Tynan and a novel by h«r l)U>bafid^fM\ I£\ A* '■ Hinkson; a translation "of a Z«fa. novel, entitled "A Dead Woman's Vow"; an.i new ni:ve!s by Mr G. Manville Fenu, M-f R. W. Chambers, Mrs Cn-ker, -.Mr G. R. Sim?. Mrs L. T. Meade. Mr Algernon Gissing, Mis.s Florence Warden, Dorothea Gerard, Miss Jane Barlow, Mrs Ban-, Mr Louis Becke. Mrs Campbell Pracd. Mr Eden PH'.potts, Mv W. W. Jac<»J»s, Mr A. K W. Mason, Mr Marriott Watson, Mrs j W. K. Clifford, Mr W. I. Nun-is, Mr Barintr-Gould, and Mr F. Maricn Crawford ("A Maid of Venice'").