“Mr. Archer’s edition is, as would be expected, scholarly and trustworthy.”
+ + Acad. 71: 199. S. 1, ’06. 1970w.
“The ‘Mermaid’ texts are now issued in those thin-paper editions which are the detestation of most good book-lovers.”
– Nation. 83: 200. S. 6, ’06. 100w. Outlook. 84: 141. S. 15, ’06. 60w.
Farrer, Reginald J. House of shadows. †$1.50. Longmans.
“Tempest Ladon, is a north-country squire of ancient lineage, who marries a young Italian lady. Elena dies in giving birth prematurely to a son, and leaves behind her a casket of love-letters written, she says, to her husband, which he promises never to read. The son, St. John, in his turn, marries a beautiful middle-class girl and brings her home to his father, who hates her as she hates him. Meanwhile Tempest discovers that he is dying of sarcoma, and is so afraid of hell-fire if he commits suicide that he tries to persuade his son to take the chances of damnation and kill him. Ultimately the daughter-in-law is tempted into handing him the overdose which ends him, but not before he has discovered that Elena’s letters were written to an Italian cousin, who is the real father of St. John.”—Acad.
“It is clever enough to make us hope that, when Mr. Farrer has read more widely and thought more sanely, he may yet do good work.”
+ – Acad. 70: 406. Ap. 28, ’06. 370w.