A book just published by Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons (two vols.; 28s. net.), and entitled "Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle," will, without doubt, be particularly interesting to Thackeray lovers, for, not only are there many new anecdotes, but many hitherto unpublished drawings of the great novelist included. There are also anecdotes about a number of other people whom everyone knows-the Tennysons, Hallams, Lyttletons, and Kembles, Wellington, Gladstone, Browning, Carlyle, and a host of others. The book is based almost entirely upon family journals and papers which, until now, have never seen the light, and amongst the rest there are some new letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle. Altogether, this is as pleasant a volume of literary chit-chat as one could wish for, and will please the general reader no less than the Thackeray student. While on this subject, we are prompted to mention a delightful edition of "Esmond," just published by Messrs. Macmillan, which contains illustrations by Mr. Hugh Thomson. Those who remember Mr. Thomson's delightful line drawings for the editions of "Cranford" and "The Vicar of Wakefield," published by

66

Soprano: A Portrait." By F. Marion Crawford. (Macmillan : 6s.)

"The Man from America." By Mrs. Henry de la Pasture. (Smith Elder: 6s.)

"The Speculations of John Steele." By Robert Bari. (Chatto: 6s.)

"The Cherry Ribband." By S. R. Crockett. (Hodder: 6s.)

shows us in this book that he is everything we give him credit for being a sportsman from head to heel, a man of resolute courage and daring, and one of the best companions, in spite of his exalted position, that ever supped round a camp-fire. This is the sort of thing the book is full of :

On but one occasion was I ever regularly charged by a grizzly. To this animal I had given a mortal wound, and without any effort at retaliation, he bolted into a thicket of what, in my hurry, I thought was laurel (it being composed, in reality, I suppose, of thickgrowing berry bushes). On my following him and giving him a second wound, he charged very determinedly, taking two more bullets without flinching. I just escaped the charge by jumping to one side, and he died almost immediately after striking at me as he rushed by. This bear charged with his mouth open, and made very little noise after the growl or roar with which he greeted my second bullet.

Thus, although his very life was in danger, the intrepid "Teddy" was cool enough to notice that the bear's mouth was not shut, from which he proceeds to make several deductions of interest to the naturalist. With a book like this in hand time passes quickly, and those to whom winter evenings bring ennui should get it at G. F. J.

once.

An Australian on Ourselves Up-to-date criticism of himself is always welcome to the patient, phlegmatic Britisher, and therefore we hail with the usual joy "An Outlander in England " (Methuen: 6s.), by the Australian author, Mr. J. H. M. Abbott. The strenuous man from "down under" is not, as a rule, at his nicest when discussing John Bull. Of the old country they think but little down below, and think that little loud, and, in fact, twisting the lion's tail, once the sole prerogative of the Americans, is now quite a habit

66

A BOOKMAN'S GOSSIP

Whatever may be said with The Modern Novel truth about the lack of great writers to-day, as compared

with twenty or thirty years ago, there can be no manner of doubt as to the general excellence of the body of contemporary fiction. It is vastly superior

to any standard that has ever obtained since the novel rose into favour. I do not believe that "the dead have all the glory of the world," and I am certainly of opinion that at no past time in the history of our literature has so much native talent been devoted to reactive literature. The fact that so many of our novels are doomed to lives of butterfly briefness is but stronger proof of the high level which the art of fiction has reached. So, at least, I am inclined to think when I find my table laden with the latest work:: of such competent novelists as Mr. and Mrs. Egerton Castle, Mr. S. R. Crockett, Mrs. Henry de la Pasture, Mrs. Edith Wharton, M. E. Francis," Mr. H. G. Wells, Mr. Charles Garvice -to mention but a very few of the many whose books have come my way within the last eight or ten days.

of the little people in the big south-sea island. Quite a different different tone, however, pervades Mr. Abbott's volume. Here is no "spread-eagle" critic, no hustling John Bull-baiter. There is in Mr. Abbott's description of English life a real literary feeling, a genuine philosophy, and a good deal of epigram. The Englishman new to Australia is known as a "new chum." "By Jove! This is where they breed 'em is, says Mr. Abbott, an Australian's first impression of England-a land where everybody is a new chum" except oneself! Of the vastness of London, its solitude, its beauty, its ugliness, he writes with graceful impressionism. Of our King, and our loyalty towards him, he is analytical, and decidedly pointed. An Englishman, he says in effect, speaks of Edward VII. as a god in one breath, and a "good bloke" in the next an amazing compound of idolatry and familiarity! Of our House of Commons he is only mildly enthusiastic; of our Army, he is on the verge of despair; of our Navy his admiration is unstinted. He is amazed at our wealth, vividly horrified at our poverty. He is enthusiastic about Liverpool and Manchester, and their industry and munificence. Altogether, Mr. Abbott runs the whole gamut of emotion in his survey of England, but never once do we think of him as any other than a friendly critic. He is really one of ourselves. What he says about us is what we have all along been thinking, only, in our true British way, we like some other fellow to be the first to say it.

Mr. Marion
Crawford's

"Soprano"

The psychology of the prima donna is a deservedly popular

it!

Mrs. Henry de la Pasture

This really graceful writer, who has succeeded so admirably in realising for us in fiction that "far-away," dreamy charm of rustic Devon, quite startles us with the title of her latest novel, "The Man from America" (Smith Elder: 6s.). Has she deserted her own delightful field? you ask. Not a bit of Although Iron Brett comes from America, he speedily finds his way to Devonshire, where the engaging little comedy is enacted with all that daintiness which is characteristic of Mrs. de la Pasture's work. As a rule, she is not quite so successful with her male characters as she is with her women folk. This was especially noticeable in "Deborah of Tod's," but one of the real successes of her latest book is her sympathetic study of an old French vicomte. The other male figures are all deftly drawn, and the whole marks a distinct advance in craftsmanship over her previous work, not excluding "Peter's Mother." Mrs. de la Pasture, by the way, is something of a cosmopolitan in her interests, having been born in Naples, where her grandfather was British Consul General, and resided a good deal on the Continent, her father

theme with modern novelists, and many books of late years have treate 1 of the conflicting emotions, the moral questionings of the beautiful woman with the beautiful voice. In the hands of Mr. Marion Crawford, with his almost incomparable knowledge of cosmopolit in life and his graceful humour, the theme is sure of interesting treatment, and "Soprano - a Portrait" (Macmillan : 6s.) is in no way disappointing. "Soprano" herself, Miss Margaret Donne ("La Cordova "), is refreshingly free from mawkish prudishness, and conducts her inevitable love-affairs with full knowledge of the number of beans that may be supposed to make five behind the scenes of the operatic stage. There is an admirably smooth villain in the guise of Logotheti, a Greek Croesus, a delightful "supreme" donna in La Bonanni, and uite a quaint study in Lushington, a too youthful, too successful, too industrious, critic. The story is extremely bright, and happens mostly in Paris. Crawford in his lighter vein, which spells pleasure to the rea ler.

It is Mr.

having been Consul at Calais. Her husband's father is a descendant of one of the French emigré nobles who escaped the guillotine during the Terror. One of her books, "A Toy Tragedy," has had the distinction of being produced in raised type for blind readers.

"M. E. Francis"

There are some points of resemblance between the work of Mrs. de la Pasture and that of the lady who writes under the nom de plume of "M. E. Francis" (Mrs. Francis Blundell). are happy in their outlook on life; take the same pleasure in introducing us to clean, wholesome people; have the feeling for romance; and are clearly in love with the local scenes amidst which they lay their stories. Their territories, also, "march" together; for while the one is true to Devon, the other is no less devoted to Dorset. Mrs. Blundell, in her manner, is more inclined to the idyll, and even when she does not quite convince us of the realness of her characters, as in her latest novel, "Wild Wheat" (Longmans: 6s.), yet she does not fail to charm us with the idyllic grace of her story. It has that pastoral sweetness which we find in all her works, and is certainly one of the new books to place on your library list. Mrs. Blundell resides at the Manor House of Blandford, in the heart of "Dorset Dear."

Mr. Crockett's Latest

does not rise to the romance level of "Men of the Moss Haggs," or to the pastoral felicity of "The Lilac Sunbonnet," it still remains a graphic and profitable tale.

The novel of modern business Fiction and Finance is one of the most remarkable, and, in some ways, the most promising feature of American fiction. For it is at least a healthy thing that the novelist, whatever his method, should turn for his subjects to the life of the day with which he is presumably familiar. It was thus that the great masters of the past painted even their historical pieces, which, utterly wrong in costume, remain everlastingly right in feeling and character, since they were the outcome of personal observation. Certainly the novelist who essays to depict the life of our time must observe acutely, and if he is to succeed he must be no less imaginative than he is accurate. Some of the best American fiction that I have read seems to me to fill this bill, although, on the whole, it has not been popular on

to his

Mr. S. R. Crockett is one of my favourites, and I have no patience with the "niggling " critics who are fond of lecturing him for writing too much. The novelist who fusses over one book for two or three years is not necessarily a better writer than he who gives us three or four in the same time. Had Shakespeare been alive and writing to-day, the Daily Chronicle would, doubtless, have drawn attention scandalous fertility in producing a masterpiece every six months! How it would have lectured Dumas and poor Sir Walter on the same score! Whether it is "good business" for a novelist, so thoroughly in love with his craft as Mr. Crockett, to write as he listeth, does not concern me. Enough that he is an author who can always be relied upon for a good story; indeed, he has no superior in the art of telling a tale. That he is not always at his best, I readily admit, and it is true he is not at his best in "The Cherry Ribband" (Hodder: 6s.). This is, to me, the more surprising, as he is essentially at home. in dealing with the Covenanting days in Scotland, and his interest in Peden the Prophet, through the acknowledged master of his own literary style, Patrick Walker, is of very long standing. It is not in manner so much as in construction that he falls short of himself, displaying at times a tendency to somewhat melodramatic effects. This notwithstanding, there is excellent matter in "The Cherry Ribband," and if it

this side of the Atlantic, where the great possibilities of commerce and finance for fictional treatment seem to be only dimly realised by our popular novelists.

Mr. Robert Barr

In this connection one, of course, thinks instantly of the work of the late Frank Norris, which had an earnest and intense feeling that is, perhaps, lacking in such a book as "The Speculations of John Steele" (Chatto: 6s.), by Mr. Robert Barr. Yet, Mr. Barr's new novel is far from being a frivolous production. It may be because I seldom missed anything which he wrote in his old "Luke Sharp" days, that I always begin the reading of a book by him anticipating brightness rather than seriousness; but I never get far without remembering that this clever writer can provide both with equal facility. If his latest is not his best, it is certainly one of his most characteristic stories, and should rank high among those novels which deal with America's "Frenzied Finance." The story is full of dramatic interest, brightly told, and, I had almost said, as speedy as train Number Three, which, thanks to the sagacity of John Steele, thunders so finely through Hitchen's Siding in Chapter I.. but that were an exaggeration. There is, at least, little "side-tracking," and one follows the marvellous career of Steele with breathless interest. The book is thoroughly American in spirit; but, of course, it is only in America that the novelist can find a background for a rural railway porter who is to become a millionaire and then a pauper, and yet in the end to win. At some points in Mr. Barr's story one is tempted to think he might have spelt Steele's surname differently!

[PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUSSELL]

To the uninitiated the value of a pigeon is something between ninepence and sixteenpence, and so, perhaps, the statement that they may be worth their weight in gold sounds-well, to put it mildlyexaggerated. Yet it is strictly in accordance with fact.

For the last six or eight months some thousands of pigeon fanciers have been striving to produce what up to the present time has never been bred, viz., a perfect bird-perfect, that is to say, from the fanciers' standpoint.

is now

What is known as the "Show season upon us, and this will continue until about February of next year, during which period some hundreds of exhibitions will be held throughout the Kingdom, there being hardly a town (however small) in England which cannot boast of its "Grand Annual Show."

The "Great National Poultry and Pigeon Show" opened on Tuesday, November 7, and closed on the following Friday. As it is at this Show that the cream of the "fancy" puts in an appearance, it seems a convenient time to dilate upon some of the triumphs of the breeders' art which were to be seen at the Crystal Palace.

No less than between 4,000 and 5,000 pigeons were entered in the 365 classes provided, and the competition was in all cases most keen for the cups, trophies, and money prizes offered, which amounted in value to considerably over £1,500.

By H. P. SCATLIFF

Pigeon Shows differ from most other live-stock exhibitions, inasmuch as there is no "ring," for the judges make their awards without knowing to whom the birds belong.

The way this is arranged is as follows: A label is forwarded to the exhibitor for each entry, upon which is a number, a pen is provided at the Show with a corresponding number, and when the exhibits arrive at the Show, the attendants have only to place the exhibit in its pen, where it remains during the Show, being subsequently transferred from the pen to its compartment in the basket and returned to the exhibitor. Naturally, the greatest care has to be exercised in the process, else the result would be chaos, but it is surprising how few mistakes are made when one considers the vast amount of labour involved.

Judging-book and Judging-stick

The preliminary arrangements having been made, the judge is handed his "judging-book " early on the first day of the Show, containing a list of his classes and the numbers only of the pens in each one.

Armed with this and a judging-stick only (a judgingstick is about eighteen inches long, with which to stir up the birds so that he may see their gooʻl, and bad, points) he is turned into the arena, and has to place the birds according to their merits.

It is a somewhat easy matter to an expert to "place" the birds at one of the smaller Shows, as generally one or two good ones stand out from the