BY EVELYN BRENTWOOD.
HENRY KEMPTON. A Novel. Crown 8vo. 6/-
⁂ In his second novel, Evelyn Brentwood has again given us a vivid picture of soldier life, and has again chosen for his hero a very unconventional character. Cool and calculating, ambitious and heartless, Henry determines to climb the social ladder by every means in his power. Articled to a solicitor when the story opens, he is only waiting for an opportunity to follow his inclinations and enter the army, when an accidental meeting with a duke's daughter precipitates matters, and he immediately throws up the study of the law. Later, we follow his career as a soldier; see how he falls under the spell of one of his senior officers in the 24th Hussars; how he wins the V. C. for the mere purpose of bringing his name into prominence; how he is invalided home and meets Lady Violet for the second time; and finally how he is taught, through his experience with a worthless woman, to estimate at its true value the love of one who stands by him in the hour of his humiliation.
HECTOR GRAEME. Third Thousand Crown 8vo. 6/-
⁂ The outstanding feature of "Hector Graeme" is the convincing picture it gives of military life in India and South Africa, written by one who is thoroughly acquainted with it. Hector Graeme is not the great soldier of fiction, usually depicted by novelists, but a rather unpopular officer in the English army who is given to strange fits of unconsciousness, during which he shows extraordinary physic powers. He is a man as ambitious as he is unscrupulous, with the desire but not the ability to become a Napoleon. The subject matter of the story is unusual and the atmosphere thoroughly convincing.
Morning Leader—"Provides much excitement and straightforward pleasure. A remarkable exception to the usual boring novels about military life."
BY JAMES BRYCE.
THE STORY OF A PLOUGHBOY. An Autobiography. Crown 8vo. 6/-
⁂ As will be seen from the title of its parts—"The Farm," "The Mansion," "The Cottage"—the characters whose passions and interests make the plot of this story are drawn from the households of the Labourer, the Farmer and the Squire; the book is therefore an attempt to present country life in all its important aspects. In this, again, it differs from all other novels of the soil in our own or perhaps in any language: its author writes not from book-knowledge or hearsay or even observation, but from experience. He has lived what he describes, and under the power of his realism readers will feel that they are not so much glancing over printed pages as mixing with living men and women. But the story has interest for others than the ordinary novel-reader. It appeals as strongly to the many earnest minds that are now concerned with the questions of Land and Industrial Reform. To such its very faithfulness to life will suggest answers startling, perhaps, but certainly arresting.