A Crooked Mile Part 37

By ARNOLD BENNETT, Author of 'Clayhanger.'

This is a re-issue of one of Mr. Bennett's most famous novels.

THE WAY HOME

By BASIL KING, Author of 'The Wild Olive.'

This is the story, minutely and understandingly told, of a sinner, his life and death. He is an ordinary man and no hero, and the final issue raised concerns the right of one who has persistently disregarded religion during his strength, in accepting its consolations when his end is near: a question of interest to every one. The book, however, is not a tract, but a very real novel.

OLD ANDY

By DOROTHEA CONYERS, Author of 'Sandy Married,' etc.

No one knows rural Ireland and its humours better than Mrs. Conyers, whose intensely Hibernian stories are becoming so well known, and throw such amusing light on that eternal and delightful Ireland which never gets into the papers or politics. In _Old Andy_ there is a very charming vein of sentiment as well as much fun and farce.

THE GOLDEN BARRIER

By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE, Authors of 'If Youth but Knew.'

The main theme of this romance is the situation created by the marriage--a marriage of love--of a comparatively poor man, proud, chivalrous, and tender, to a wealthy heiress: a girl of refined and generous instincts, but something of a wayward 'spoilt child,' loving to use the power which her fortune gives her to play the Lady Maecenas to a crowd of impecunious flatterers, fortune hunters, and unrecognized geniuses. On a critical occasion, thwarted in one of her mad schemes of patronage by her husband, who tries to clear her society of these sycophants and parasites, she petulantly taunts him with having been a poor man himself, who happily married money. Outraged in his love and pride, he offers her the choice of coming to share his poverty or of living on, alone, amid her luxuries. There begins a conflict of wills between these two, who remain in love with each other--prolonged naturally, and embittered, by the efforts of the interested hangers-on to keep the inconvenient husband out of Lady Maecenas' house--but ending in a happy surrender on both sides.

THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND

By ALICE PERRIN, Author of 'The Anglo-Indians.'

A lively and entertaining story of Anglo-Indian life dealing with the matrimonial adventures of a young lady whose forbears have all been connected with the Indian services, and who is sent out to India to find a husband in her own cla.s.s of life, but marries an official of humble origin ignorant of the circ.u.mstances of his birth. Troubles and disappointments, which come near to real tragedy, end in the triumph of grit and sincerity over social barriers.

THE FLYING INN

By G. K. CHESTERTON.

This story is partly a farcical romance of the adventures of the last English Inn-keeper, when all Western Europe had been conquered by the Moslem Empire and its dogma of abstinence from wine. It might well be called 'What Might Have Been,' for it was sketched out before the legend of the Invincible Turk was broken. It involves a narrative development which is also something of a challenge in ethics. The lyrics called 'Songs of the Simple Life,' which appeared in _The New Witness_, are sung between the Inn-keeper and his friend, the Irish Captain, who are the princ.i.p.al characters in the romance.

THE WAY OF THESE WOMEN

By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM, Author of 'The Missing Delora.'

In this story Mr. Phillips Oppenheim, who is never content to remain in the same rut for long, has boldly deserted the somewhat complicated mechanism which goes to the making of the modern romance. He has contented himself with weaving a tensely written story around one Event, and concentrating the whole love interest of the book upon two people.

The Event in itself is one simple enough, its use in fiction almost hackneyed, yet the circ.u.mstances surrounding it are so tragical and surprising, its hidden history so unexpected, that it easily serves as the pivot of an interest arresting from the first, startling in its latter stages, almost breathless in its last development.

A CROOKED MILE

By OLIVER ONIONS, Author of 'The Two Kisses.'

This is a story of a very modern marriage following the author's previous story, _The Two Kisses_, of a very modern courts.h.i.+p. In it two _menages_ are contrasted, the one run on new and liberal and enlightened lines, the other still dominated by the ideas of the benighted past.

What the difference between them comes to in the end depends entirely on the interpretation put upon the story, but the comedy 'note' speaks for itself. It may be remembered that _The Two Kisses_ touches on the foibles of certain artists. _A Crooked Mile_ deals with the vagaries of a certain airy amateurism in Imperial Politics.

THE SEA CAPTAIN

By H. C. BAILEY, Author of 'The Lonely Queen.'

One of the great company of Elizabethan seamen is the hero of this novel. There is, however, no attempt at glorifying him or his comrades.

Mr. Bailey has endeavoured to mingle realism with the romance of the time. Captain Rymingtowne is presented as no crusader but something of a merchant, something of an adventurer and a little of a pirate. He has nothing to do with the familiar tales of the Spanish Main and the Indies. His voyages were to the Mediterranean when the Moorish corsairs were at the height of their power, and of them and their great leaders, Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa and Dragut Reis, the story has much to tell.

Captain Rymingtowne was concerned in the famous Moorish raid to capture the most beautiful woman in Europe and in the amazing affair of the Christian prisoners at Alexandria.

FIREMEN HOT

By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE, Author of 'The Adventures of Captain Kettle.'

In _Firemen Hot_, Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne has added three clearly etched portraits to a gallery which already contains those marine 'musketeers,'

Thompson, McTodd, and Captain Kettle. The marine fireman is probably at about the bottom of the social scale, but, in Mr. Hyne's pages, he is very much the human being. In each chapter the redoubtable trio play before a different background, but whether they are in New Orleans or Hull, in Vera Cruz or Ma.r.s.eilles, one can tell in a paragraph that the author is writing of his ground from first-hand knowledge, and his characters from intimate and joyous study of them. A few Captain Kettle stories have been added.

SIMPSON

By ELINOR MORDAUNT, Author of 'The Cost of It.'

Simpson is a retired business man in the prime of life, who, beneath a rugged exterior, possesses a sympathetic heart. Yet, finding no woman to fill it, he organizes a bachelor's club of congenial spirits and leases a fine old English country estate, there to live in _dolce far niente_ untroubled by feminism in any form. How first one member of the club and then another drops away for sentimental reasons until only Simpson is left, and then his final capitulation to the only woman--all this makes a delightful bit of comedy. The book, however, is more than a comedy.

Running through it is a sound knowledge of human life and character, and the writing is always brilliant. It is a book out of the ordinary in every way.

TWO WOMEN

By MAX PEMBERTON, Author of 'The Mystery of the Green Heart.'

DAVID AND JONATHAN IN THE RIVIERA

By L. B. WALFORD, Author of 'Mr. Smith.'

Two simple, unsophisticated bachelors, respectively minister and elder of a Scotch country parish, go to the Riviera for health's sake, and the rich and jovial 'Jonathan,' older by fifteen years than his friend, means to have a merry time, and to force the reluctant, shy, and sensitive 'David' into having a merry time too. He 'opines' that David needs waking up. Jonathan Buckie reminds us of Mrs. Walford's earlier hero 'Mr. Smith,' but unluckily his heart of gold is not united to the latter's personal charms, and he continually jars upon his companion, especially when making new acquaintances. His habit of doing this in and out of season eventually leads to disaster, and both men pa.s.s through a never-to-be-forgotten experience of the sirens of the South before they return home. An old Scotch serving-man, who attends Mr. Buckie as valet, plays no small part in the story, and his sardonic comments, grim humour, and the way in which he handles his master, whose measure he has taken to a nicety, make many amusing episodes.

THE ORLEY TRADITION

By RALPH STRAUS.

The Orleys are an old n.o.ble family, once powerful, but now living quietly in a corner of England (Kent). They do nothing at all, in spite of people's endeavours to make them reach to the older heights. But they are happy in their retirement, and the real reason for this is that they have few brains. John Orley, the hero, has all the family characteristics, and is preparing himself for a humdrum country life, when he meets with an accident which prevents him from playing games, etc. He becomes ambitious, goes out into the world, and--fails at everything. He recovers his strength, and sees the mistake he has made, and the book ends as it began, the Orley Tradition holding true.