A series of humorous and exciting episodes, forming the adventures of an officer home from India on sick leave. Most of them are located in Antrim. No religious or political bias, but a tinge of the stage Irishman.
⸺ THE GOLDEN BOW. (Holden & Hardingham). 6s. c. 1912.
Story of the sorrows and suitors, from her unhappy childhood to a happy engagement, of an Irish girl, who is poor, proud, and pretty. A lovable character is Judith’s crippled sister Melissa. Scene: N. of Ireland. There is a good deal of dialect, and the ways of the peasantry are faithfully depicted.
CROSBIE, Mary. Born in England. Educated privately and at various English schools. Has frequently visited and stayed in Ireland. Her first novel, Disciples, was publ. in 1907; but it was the second that was most successful, three editions being called for within a short time.
⸺ KINSMEN’S CLAY. Pp. 389. (Close print). (Methuen). 6s. First and second editions. 1910.
Main theme: wife and lover waiting for invalid and impossible husband to die. The treatment of this theme and that of a minor plot makes the book unsuited for certain classes of readers. Moreover, the tone is alien to religion. God is “perhaps the flowering of men’s ideals under the rain of their tears.” But the tone is not frankly anti-moral. The personages are all of the country Anglo-Irish gentry, except one peasant family, and this shows up badly. The types are drawn with much skill, and there is constant clever analysis of moods and emotions. The story brings out in a vague way the transmission through a family of ancestral peculiarities.
⸺ BRIDGET CONSIDINE. Pp. 347. (Bell). 6s. 1914.
Bridget’s father is the son of a broken-down shopkeeper somewhere beyond the Shannon, but clings to aristocratic notions. She grows up in London along with “Lennie-next-door,” but her mind outgrows his. She goes to stay W. of the Shannon as secretary to a rich lady. There she becomes engaged to Hugh Delmege, a young landowner. All her yearnings seem fulfilled, yet somehow it is not what she had expected; a short separation from Hugh still further opens her eyes, and she returns disillusioned. This is the bare skeleton: it does not do justice to the philosophy and the style of the book, both of which are remarkable.
CROSBIE, W. J.