BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue XII, 23 March 1901, Page 562

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

“IN THE BANKS (IF THE C.1.V.” Though it takes the rvailer among the fighters in South Africa Ibis nook deals little with the bluo-i-kiluliing asq>ects of war. with th-.- hot battle, the dashing assault, the stubborn defence- It is the unpretentious tecord of the ex|*erieiK-vs of due man, aud chiefly details the round of rough prosaie duties and trivial incidents of the life of a driver with a section of the C-J.V. Bauery that came iiU.e into contact with the enemy. But, all the same, the book is imeresing—decidedly interesting. In the firs' I‘‘ace it is well written, and. next, it tins that .--tamp of iwtuality upon it w irieh never fails to invest even tne most trifling details with interest. The question c what he eats, or i« going to :r. occupies a very conspicuous pla in t’.ie b'.ok. but then so it did in the life of t'. • writer and his comrades. w l ••• £t r.<—ally suffered from the monotony an-’. scantiness of their rations. When it eotues to fighting, we get no sv..-h description of the battle as an onlooker with a good telescope ranging a field of many miles might be able to give us. Driver Childers simply relates the confused and cirri'- -.scribed imprt ssions that came to bn; as lie sat waiting for his ho'-ses while the guns of his battery were in action. He does not attempt to do more than tell what he learned through his own eyes and ears, and what he tells has all the attractiveness of actually experienced facts. “IN THE PALACE OF THE KING.” Spain, not Mrs .Marion Crawford's well-loved Italy, holds the scenes of this latest of his novels, and they all take place within the precincts of the palace of King Philip the Second. This volume may not be written with quite so much thought and skill as its last predecessor. “Via Cruets,” but the story is amply picturesque, and it marches with a swiftness unequalled by any of the author's other storiesThe whole action of the story, finishing up with the marriage of the hero and heroine, is confined to a few

bom>, aud rpiaoJt after episode, rotiiigiv, heroic, loughs each other uiib uuiaziug cekriiv and fu rngxus»rss the reader s iptrre*t that the ImaA is not llkt-Ij u> be laid down until the end is reached. The story is intensely dramatic, and, indeed, looks if with wry little alteration, it co I.ld lake i.*s place upon the boards as .. pin o exceptionally strong huin;>!i ’.an r. st, with opportunities for greu’ spei :.;*•!»iar effects. The character*. bl-* Lorival or purely fictional, to whom we are introduced in these pages are exceedingly well drawn, v ith :r tou h calculated in some cases : fix them permanently in the read•’lN THE NAME OF A WOMAN.” IL re we have a dashing tale of adventure, political intrigue, plot, counter plot iii'd plot within plot. and. woven weil into the m-shes t»f the v,i»oi< business. a story of highly ro-maza-v love. The hero is a prodigy vf \alour and chivalry, and the heroine is all th:»*. and more than a*! iha\ the most romaaiically exacting nov I tea:', r could expect. The story swings a!o: ; g a? a great rate, and is verv ii : 'i» . up-to-da’.e, giving, with a very credi aide appt.irance of historical vt i.-iiiiiiitude. an account of Kii.ssiauinacl inalivrs in Dulgaria.and the creditable appearance of hisrorica! vt ‘ i ditude. an aevonni of Russian mr.vklnntions in Bulgaria, and the m-' ans taken Ty the hero and others to circumvent them. It is. perhaps, rather in the action of the novel than in the characters themselves that our interest is engaged, hut engaged. and strongly engaged, it is throughout the hook, which we finish with the pleasant feeling of being ready to welcome another from the same pen whenever it makes its appearance. •ONE OF OIRSELVES.” Mrs. Walford is not. in my opinion, at her best in “One of Ourselves.” The various people whom she endeavours to make us know, even in the smallest details of their daily life, are undoubtedly very like, in general, the people whom we meet in our own lives. But Mrs. Walford wastes far too many words in bringing this fact home to us. The meagreness of plot and incident are enveloped, but not. disguised, in a huge covering of

word*—words of descriptions untucxa&arily protracted and repeated, words of lengthy conversations often woefully banal or silly. The novel boiled down to half its length would have made better reading, but, event as it stands, it is very far from unintervstuig. and is likely to recommend itself to a large section of the fi-rn’i-ine public. -FOES IN LAW.” The clever and popular Miss Broughton adds fresh laurels to her brow by her latest production. It is a very brightly written, and, therefore, very readable book this, and there is a special piquancy of Interest in the development of the relations between two sisters-in-law, who are as unlike each other in their respective characters, geneses and up bringings as they well could be. These two principal personages are ponrtrayed with much skill and not a little humour, and nothing could be better managed than her description of the Kergonet family, from the father to the youngest child. The authoress stems to have studied many varieties of human nature with a keen eye and a sympathetic comprehension. and she has the art to make her studies live again before her readers’ eyes, so that, when they reach the end of “Foes in Law" thev are tempted to wish that there had been more of a book from which dulness is so conspicuously absent.