What is essentially characteristic of George Barr McCutcheon’s stories, is his disregard of conventional methods in his selection of material for his plots. This is true of his Graustark stories—though some captious critics profess to see in them a similarity to Anthony Hope’s work—and the same quality is found in “The Day of the Dog.”
His latest book is “The Purple Parasol,” Dodd, Mead & Co., and it furnishes the same sort of more or less fantastic entertainment that distinguishes the author’s other stories. Few people, we imagine, would be likely to select, a purple parasol as a clew by means of which to track an eloping wife; it seems a little incongruous that a woman, in arranging an elopement, should include such an article among her effects. A purple parasol is not a necessity on such a trip, and, besides, it is apt to be conspicuous.
But Mrs. Wharton did take one, and, as luck would have it, Helen Dering also had one; therefore it is not to be wondered at that Sam Rossiter made the mistake that he did. Though his blunder was the cause of considerable unhappiness to him and some humiliation for Miss Dering, the explanations, when they came, were of the most satisfying kind.
The book is handsomely illustrated in colors by Harrison Fisher, and decorated by Charles B. Falls.
Alaska is a region of which much has been written in the last six or eight years, since the opening of the Klondike, but the literature on the subject, having been confined mostly to newspaper accounts of gold discoveries and the stories of Mr. Jack London and Mr. Rex E. Beach, has not been such as to impart a very wide variety of information upon important points.
A book which the publishers announce as the first “to deal in any adequate way with our great Arctic possession,” is John S. McLain’s “Alaska and the Klondike,” McClure, Phillips & Co. Mr. McLain accompanied the sub-committee of the Senate Committee on Territories on their visit to Alaska in 1903, and, of course, had unusual opportunities to gather interesting facts.
The trip was a comprehensive one, and the result, now embodied in this book, shows that its author lost no chances to observe and record important and more or less unfamiliar matters that will entertain as well as instruct his readers.
The book is written in a natural, unpretentious, flowing style, and the material is skillfully handled so as to concentrate the attention and stimulate the imagination. Besides this, there are a great many half-tone reproductions of photographs, which help to make the narrative more graphic.