BY H. G. WELLS.
THE NEW MACHIAVELLI. Crown 8vo. 6/-
Also Bound in Cloth with Illustrated paper wrapper 1/- net.
⁂ The New Machiavelli is the longest, most carefully and elaborately constructed and most ambitious novel that Mr. Wells has yet written. It combines much of the breadth and variety of Tono-Bungay with that concentrated unity of effect which makes Love and Mr. Lewisham, artistically, his most satisfactory work. It has the autobiographical form which he has already used so effectively in Tono-Bungay, but this time the hero who surveys and experiences the vicissitudes of our modern world is not a commercial adventurer but a Trinity man, who directs very great ambitions and abilities to political ends, who is wrecked in mid-career and driven into exile by a passionate love adventure. From his retirement in Italy he reviews and discusses his broken life. The story he tells opens amidst suburban surroundings, and the first book gives a series of vivid impressions and criticisms of English public school and university life. Thence, after an episode in Staffordshire, it passes to the world of Westminster and the country house. The narrator recounts his relations with the varying groups and the forces in contemporary parliamentary life and political journalism in London, and the growth and changes in his own opinion until the emotions of his passionate entanglement sweep the story away to its sombre and touching conclusion. In addition to the full-length portraits of Margaret, the neglected wife—perhaps the finest of Mr. Wells's feminine creations—Isabel Rivers, and Remington, there are scores of sharply differentiated characters, sketched and vignetted: Remington the father, Britten, the intriguing Baileys, the members of the Pentagram Circle, Codger the typical don, and Mr. Evesham the Conservative leader. It is a book to read and read again, and an enduring picture of contemporary English conditions.
BY MARGARET WESTRUP.
ELIZABETH'S CHILDREN. Crown 8vo. 6/-
Daily Telegraph—"The book is charming ... the author ... has a delicate fanciful touch, a charming imagination ... skilfully suggests character and moods ... is bright and witty, and writes about children with exquisite knowledge and sympathy."
HELEN ALLISTON. Crown 8vo. 6/-
Pall Mall Gazette—"The book has vivacity, fluency, colour, more than a touch of poetry and passion.... We shall look forward with interest to future work by the author of 'Helen Alliston.'"