⸺ MISS ERIN. Pp. 357. (Methuen). 6s. [1898]. Included in Benziger’s (N.Y.) series of Standard Catholic Novels at 2s.; also $1.00.
The story of a girl who, brought up as a peasant, afterwards becomes a landowner. She tries to do her best for her tenants, and her difficulties in the task are well depicted, the Author fully sympathizing with Irish grievances. There are some sensational scenes—among them an eviction. The love interest is well sustained, and the character-drawing very clever.
⸺ NORTH, SOUTH, AND OVER THE SEA. Pp. 347. (Country Life, and Newnes). Charming Illustr. by H. M. Brock. 1902.
Somewhat on the plan of Frieze and Fustian by the same Author, q.v. Three parts, each containing five stories or sketches. The first part deals with North of England life, the second with South of England, the third with Ireland. Humble life depicted in all. In last part the subject of the first sketch (an amusing one) is a rustic courtship of a curious kind; 2, an old woman dying in the workhouse; 4 and 5, a rural love-story. Studies rather of the minds and hearts of poor Irish folk than of their outward ways. The author has reproduced almost perfectly that brogue which is not merely English mispronounced, but practically a different idiom expressing a wholly different type of mind.
⸺ THE STORY OF MARY DUNNE. Pp. 312. (Murray). 6s. 1913.
The love story of Mat, “the priest’s boy,” for Mary, beginning as a sweet and tender idyll in the home in Glenmalure, ending in the tragedy of a law-court scene, where the hero is on trial for murder and Mary faces worse than death in telling the story of her wrongs—she has been an innocent victim of the white slave traffic. Full of exquisite scenes, with touches of humour as well as pathos. But in the main the book is a tragedy. Its purpose seems clearly to be a warning and an appeal. The poignant consequences of Mary’s undoing are not suitable for every class of reader, but there is nothing approaching to prurient description.
⸺ DARK ROSALEEN. Pp. 392. (Cassell). 6s. 1915.
The story of a “mixed marriage” between Norah, a Connemara peasant girl, and Hector, a young engineer of Belfast origin. They go to live at Derry. Bitterness and misunderstanding come to blight their love, and the end is tragedy. The two points of view, Protestant and Catholic, are put with impartiality.—(T. Lit. Suppl.).
FREDERIC, Harold.