BOOKS and AUTHORS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XX, 16 November 1895, Page 613

BOOKS and AUTHORS.

A LITERARY CAUSERIE for COLONIAL BOOKBUYERS and BORROWERS. BOOKS marked thus (*) have arrived in the colony, and could at the time of writing be purchased in the principal colonial bookshops, and borrowed at the libraries. For the convenience of country cousins who find difficulty in procuring the latest books ana new editions, the ‘BOOKMAN' will send to any New Zealand address any book which can be obtained. No notice will, of course, be taken of requests unaccompanied by remittance to cover postage as well as published price of book. It is requested that only those who find it impossible to procure books through the ordinary channels, should take advantage of this offer. The labour involved will be heavy and entirely unremunerative, no >ees or commission being taken. Queries and Correspondence on Literary Matters Invited. All Communications and Commissions must be addressed THE BOOKMAN,’ Graphic Office, Auckland. There are several interesting features in * The a B a2ines t jj e iyi„j gor f or September, and Messrs for the Month. Ward, Lock, and Bowden are evidently determined to keep up to the high standard they achieved in the initial numbers of this now popular monthly. Major Arthur Griffiths, who probably knows more of the subject than any man living, writes a very good paper on ‘ Criminals in Private Life.’ A Modern Kingmaker gives a most interesting description of the ‘ Life of a Very Famous and Extremely Clever Diplomat, Sir Lepel Griffin.’ Mr T. Foster Fraser contributes a chatty page or so on ‘ The Building of a Battleship.’ All these articles are not merely very readable, but contain a very considerable amount of genuinely useful and instructive information. They are, moreover, very fully and very admirably illustrated. Fiction is represented by Mr Bengin, whose story, ‘ The Man Who Was Goin’ to Kick,’ is not quite up to that author’s usual standard. ‘The Grey Lady, ’Mr Merriman's fine serial, is carried forward another stage, and Guy Boothby is even more interesting than usual in his monthly instalment of ‘ A Bid for Fortune.’ Ladies will probably appreciate an article on ‘ What Women’s Dress Costs,’ by Charlotte Eccles.

Apart from the illustrations, which are * ‘Pall Mall as near perfection as possible, the Magaz.ne for Q c j o i Jer num b er o f the Pall Mall Magazine October. is a decided disappointment. The editors have unlimited capital at their disposal, but their efforts in the selection of contributors do not seem to be happy. A poem on the ‘ Westminster Bell,’ by Mr Edward Tyrrell Jaques, is without exception the very weakest verse we have ever seen in a first-class magazine. Mr Edward Jaques had a magnificent subject but his attempt to grapple with it is a failure of the most pronounced description. Several really exquisite illustrations by Mr W. Hyde half reconcile us to the poverty of the poem, but they also serve to throw into sharper relief the incapacity of the poet to deal with so poetical a series of scenes. The dullness of an article on ‘ Bell Tones,’ by the Rev. A. B. Simpson, is also redeemed to some extent by the beauty of the illustrations. Mr Grant Allen proses on about the ‘ Evolution of Art’ in a lifeless and spiritless fashion, and Mrs Parr’s paper on ‘The Follies of Fashion’ is uninteresting and dull, without being instructive. In fiction things are somewhat better. ‘ A Man of Honour,’ by Agnes Parry Cook, is a clever little story, containing some capital character studies. Mr Alden and Mr Francis Provost both contribute readable stories, the ‘ Head Winds ’ of the latter being the better of the two. Arthur Patchett Martin absorbs twelve pages with a dreary and absolutely uninteresting memoir of ‘ The Friends of Viscount Sherbrook —Bobby Lowe.’ Mr Zangwill, too, is not at all up to the mark in his usually amusing causerie, ‘ Without Prejudice.’ In fact, all things considered, the October number is, as I have said, a disappointment.

In this, his latest, and perhaps the best * rhe Martyred novels he has produced recently,

Fool.' M r Christie Murray sets forward, as is his wont, to tell a story. Like Wilkie Collins, Mr Murray prefers to let his characters unfold themselves through narrative rather than to spend time and labour on the analytical and microscopic delineation which is so generally adopted by modern writers of fiction. If memory serves me well, Mr Murray has not before given us a novel where the principal personages are anarchists, socialists, and their friends. The Martyred Fool is, I am inclined to think, the best fiction of this class I have read for some considerable time. It is sombre in tone, unexaggerated in treatment, and the plot is extremely well worked up to a conclusion

which cannot fail to leave behind it a deep impression. The plain, matter-of-fact way in which the story is told shows how skilful a master of his craft Mr Murray is, for it immensely increases the verisimilitude of what he tells us, and throws into fine relief the powerful and passionate writing which flashes out when occasion demands. There is, too, a fine display of humour—that humour which is never far from any human tragedy. In fact, to be brief, the novel is one of quite unusual excellence, and had it l>een written by one of the younger generation of writers whom it is the fashion to boom, it would have been pronounced one of the books of the year. This I believe it to be, and confidently recommend it as such.

*‘The Martyred Fool Macmillan. 2s 6d. Postage 4<l.