Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens, was

published 1856-57, when the author's popularity was at its height. The plot is a slight one on which to hang more than fifty characters. The author began with the intention of emphasizing the fact that individuals brought together by chance, if only for an instant, continue henceforth to influence and to act and react upon one another. But this original motive is soon altogether forgotten in the multiplication of characters and the relation of their fortunes. The central idea is to portray the experiences of the Dorrit family, immured for many years on account of debt in the old Marshalsea Prison, and then unexpectedly restored to wealth and freedom. Having been pitiable in poverty, they become arrogant and contemptible in affluence. Amy, "Little Dorrit,» alone remains pure, lovable, and self-denying. In her, Dickens embodies the best human qualities in a most beautiful and persuasive form. She enlists the love of Arthur Clennam, who meantime has had his own trials. Returning from India, after long absence, he finds his mother a religious fanatic, domineered over by the hypocritical old Flintwinch, and both preyed upon by the Mephistophelian Blandois, perhaps the most dastardly villain in the whole Dickens gallery. The complications, however, end happily for Arthur and Amy. The main attack of the book is aimed against official "red tape" as exemplified in the Barnacle family and the «Circumlocution Office.» It also shows up Merdle the swindling banker, "Bar," "Bishop," and other types of "Society." The Meagleses are "practical"> people with soft hearts; their daughter is married to and bullied by Henry Gowan, whose mother is a genteel pauper at Hampton Court. Other characters are Pancks the collector, "puffing like a steam-engine," his hypocritical employer Casby, the humble and worthy Plornishes, the love-blighted and epitaphic young John Chivery, and the wonderful Mr. F.'s aunt with her explosive utter

ances.

Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dick

ens. "In these times of ours," are the opening words of this book, which was published in England in 1864-65. The scene is laid in London and its immediate neighborhood. All the elaborate machinery dear to Dickens's heart is

here introduced. There is the central story of Our Mutual Friend, himself the young heir to the vast Harmon estate. who buries his identity and assumes the name of John Rokesmith, that he may form his own judgment of the young woman whom he must marry in order to claim his fortune; there is the other story of the poor bargeman's daughter. and her love for reckless Eugene Wrayburn, the idol of society; and uniting these two threads is the history of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, the ignorant, kindhearted couple, whose innocent ambitions, and benevolent use of the money intrusted to their care, afford the author opportunity for the humor and pathos of which he was a master.

Among the characters which this story has made famous are Miss Jenny Wren, the doll's dressmaker, a little, crippled creature whose love for Lizzie Hexam transforms her miserable life; Bradley Headstone, the schoolmaster, suffering torments because of his jealousy of Eugene Wrayburn, and helpless under the careless contempt of that trained adversary-dying at last in an agony of defeat at his failure to kill Eugene; and the triumph of Lizzie's love over the social difference between her and her lover; Bella Wilfer, "the boofer lady," cured of her longing for riches and made John Harmon's happy wife by the plots and plans of the Golden Dustman, Mr. Boffin; and Silas Wegg, an impudent scoundrel employed by Mr. Boffin, who is, at first, delighted with the services of "a literary man with a wooden leg," but who gradually recognizes the cheat and impostor, and unmasks him in dramatic fashion.

As usual, Dickens finds occasion to incite his readers to practical benevolence. In this book he has a protest against the poor-laws in the person of old Betty Higden, whose dread of the almshouse haunts her dying hours. By many, this volume, published among his later works, is counted as among the most important.

Fool's Errand, A, by Albion W. Tourgee. 1879, purports to have been written by one of the fools. It is the first of a series dealing mainly with events connected with the Civil War. "The Fool" is Comfort Servosse, a Union colonel, who removes from Michigan to a Southern plantation after peace is declared. The story of his reception there and the diffi

culties encountered, arising out of old prejudices upon the one hand and his own training and convictions upon the other, is told with great detail and strong local coloring. The author with great fairness considers the questions of reconstruction, while some thrilling chapters deal with the outrages of the Ku-Klux. A love episode is introduced, which proceeds as a simple narrative with no complications of plot.

Floyd Grandon's Honor, by Amanda

M. Douglas. The scenes of the story are laid in a New York suburb. Floyd Grandon, a young widower, returning from England with his motherless child, Cecil, to wind up his deceased father's affairs, promises over the death-bed of one of the partners, Mr. Percival, to marry his daughter, Violet, a seventeenyear-old girl; a promise made and afterward redeemed through pity for her defenseless position, fear of the avowed designs of another partner, Jasper Wilmarth, and gratitude for her rescue of his own child from a terrible death. This marriage, contracted without the usual conditions of courtship or even previous acquaintance, is the theme of the story. Transplanted exotics require special treatment before they become acclimated; and marriages à la française, amid prosaic American surroundings, afford ample opportunity for the imagination of a novelist, an opportunity of which the author has made the most.

Reverend Idol, A, by Lucretia Noble

a

(1882). The Reverend Idol is Rev. Kenyon Leigh, a popular New York clergyman, who, pursued by the unwelcome attentions of his feminine parishioners, flees to a quiet boarding-house on Cape Cod for a summer outing. There he meets Monny Rivers, a charming Boston girl and an artist of no mean ability. Commencing with slight feeling of hostility, they drift first into toleration, then companionship, and finally to love. The course of this affection does not run smooth. Mrs. Van Cortlandt, who has marked the Reverend Idol for her own, invades the solitude of sand and sea. She recognizes in her young and beautiful rival a participant in an adventure, which, though harmless in reality, in appearance was scandalous in the extreme. She imparts only the semblance of the truth to Kenyon Leigh, who, believing

himself deceived, seeks out Carroll de Lancy, the other party in the affair, and from him learns that, when he was too ill to travel, his sister had masqueraded in his West Point uniform, taken Miss Rivers as companion, and reached the death-bed of an uncle in time to secure the favorable disposition of his property. The scene of reconciliation follows immediately. The story is well told, and the dramatic possibilities of the unconventional adventure lend color to an otherwise commonplace narrative. Into the Highways and Hedges, by Miss F. F. Montrésor (1895) is a plea for the ideal in daily life. To Margaret Deane, the beautiful imaginative young heroine, life becomes intolerable under the guardianship of her uncongenial and worldly aunt, Mrs. Russelthorpe. Her spiritually sensitive nature is touched by the preaching of Barnabas Thorpe, an earnest revivalist; and by conforming to his teaching, she incurs her aunt's contemptuous persecution. An unfortunate chance throws the two together late at night; and to protect her from insult, Barnabas marries her. He is poor, uncouth in manner, barely able to read and write; while Margaret is refined and book-loving, and accustomed to all advantages of wealth and position. In picturing the results of this hazardous marriage, the author emphasizes a contempt for moral makeshifts. Barnabas and Margaret desire at any cost to live sincerely. Her friends regard her as a disgrace to them, and blot her name from the family Bible; but her new life teaches her to disregard rank, wealth, and popular esteem. She knows poverty, sorrow, humiliation, danger, yet feels richer than in her days of ease. There are striking pictures of prison life at Newgate, and many dramatic incidents; but the interest lies above all in the analysis of emotional life based upon a conviction of human instinct for what is true and noble.

Jerome, by Mary E. Wilkins. Jerome

is the vignette of a New England youth, relieved against a background of provincial types. When hardly out of his teens, he is called upon by the sudden disappearance of his father to take upon his shoulders the burden of the family. His course is a pathway of misfortune, sacrifice, and hardship, leading by rugged steps to a summit of

well-earned prosperity. A great sacrifice to a high ideal is the turning-point of the story. Like Miss Wilkins's other works, Jerome is a careful and truthful study of New England village char

acter.

Agnes of Sorrento, a romance by Har

riet Beecher Stowe. The scene is laid in central Italy during the time of the infamous Pope Alexander VI. (from 1492 to 1503). Agnes is the daughter of a Roman prince who secretly marries, and then deserts, a girl of humble parentage. The young mother dies of grief, and Elsie, the grandmother, takes Agnes to Sorrento, where she lives by selling oranges in the streets. Her beauty and her purity attract to her many lovers, worthy and unworthy, and involve her in many romantic and dramatic incidents. The story is delightfully told, the Italian atmosphere is well suggested, and the book, though not Mrs. Stowe's best, takes good literary rank.

Colonel Enderby's Wife, by "Lucas

Malet» (Charles Kingsley's daughter, now Mrs. Harrison). The scene of this story, published in 1886, is laid in England and Italy during the seventies. Colonel Enderby is a disinherited Englishman of middle age, whose life has been shadowed by his father's neglect and injury. At the age of forty-eight he marries in Italy a glittering young creature of wonderful beauty. The tragedy which follows is that which always comes when a crass and brutal selfishness arrays itself against the generosity of a higher nature, if two people are so bound together that they cannot escape each other. The ending, though sad, is that which the logic of the situation makes inevitable. The book has been very widely read and praised.

Dictator, The, by Justin McCarthy.

When Justin McCarthy published "The Dictator,' in 1893, he had been known to the novel-reading public for twenty-six years, and had written a score of books. The Dictator,' a story of contemporary life in England, gives scope to its author for the display of his knowledge of politics.

The Dictator of the story, Ericson, when first introduced to the reader, has just been ejected by a revolution from his position as chief of the South American Republic, Gloria. Of mixed English and

Spanish blood, he has a fearless and honest soul. The novel comes to a climax in a plot made against him by his enemies in Gloria. Besides the hero, The Dictator introduces two or three other characters of especial interest: Captain Sarrasin, who has traveled and fought in many countries, and whose wife on occasion can don men's garments and handle a gun; Dolores Paulo; and the Duchess of Deptford, of American birth, a caricature rather than a true type. The plot involves the use of dynamite, and much mining and countermining; in spite of which the book remains an entertaining domestic story.

The Life and Adventures of Jack of

the Mill, commonly called Lord Othmill, created for his eminent services Baron Waldeck and Knight of Kitcottie. A fireside story, by William Howitt. The scenes of these adventures lie partly in England during the reign of Henry V., partly in Bohemia and Germany. They are a succession of bloodthirsty and thrilling conflicts, in which Jack, the hero, with scarcely an effort, overcomes robbers and gipsies, fights the opponents of the Lollards and the Hussites with equal vigor, and obtains honors, preferment, and a lovely wife. From the moment when, a runaway boy, he fills his pockets with fish-hooks to trap the hands of thieving companions, to the time when, with a single companion, he overcomes the robber-baron Hans von Stein, with his train, a semi-historical character whose castle, honeycombed with dungeons, is still visited by tourists in Germany, his wit and success never fail; and as valor as well as virtue has its due reward, Jack, the vagrant frequenter of the old mill, becomes in turn John Othmill, respected and feared by society, and finally the great Lord Warbeck. The author allows himself considerable latitude of imagination and plot, and the result is aptly named in the quaint term of apology he uses in the preface, a "hatch-up."

Cudjo's Cave, by J. T. Trowbridge, an

anti-slavery novel, first published in 1863, was, like its predecessor Neighbor Jackwood,' very widely read. The scene of the story is eastern Tennessee, at the outbreak of the rebellion. The State, though seceding, contained many Unionists; and their struggles against the persecution of their Confederate neighbors,

slave-holders, and poor whites, form the plot of the book. The ostensible he o is Penn Hapgood, a young Quaker schoolteacher, whose abolitionist doctrines get him into constant trouble; but the really heroic figure of the bock is a gigantic full-blooded negro, Pomp, a runaway slave, living in the woods in a great cave with another runaway, Cudjo. Cudjo is dwarfish and utterly ignorant, a mixture of stupidity and craft; but Pomp is one of nature's noblemen. Cudjo's cave becomes a refuge for the persecuted abolitionists of the neighborhood, a basis of operations for the Union sympathizers, and finally the seat of war in the region. The novel, though written with a strong ethical purpose, is interesting and effective simply as a story, containing much incident and some capital characterstudies.

Voemi, by S. Baring-Gould, (1895,) is a

No

tale of Aquitaine, during the English occupation, in the early fifteenth century. The country was in a state of civil war; and free companies, nominally fighting for French or English, but in reality for their own pockets, mere plunderers and bandits, flourished mightily. The most dreaded freebooter in the valley of the Dordogne was Le Gros Guillem, who from his stronghold at Domme sweeps down upon the farms and hamlets below; till at length the timid peasants, finding a leader in Ogier del' Peyra, a petty sieur of the neighborhood, rise up against their scourge, destroy his rocky fastness, and put his men to death or flight. Guillem's daughter, Noémi, a madcap beauty, joins her father's band of ruffians; but soon sickens of their deeds, and risks her life to save Ogier from the oubliette, because she loves his son. The book is filled with thrilling and bloody incident, culminating in the storming of L'Eglise Guillem, as the freebooter's den is ironically called, and the strange death of the robber chieftain. The descriptions of the wild valley of the Dordogne, and the life of the outlaws, are striking; and the pretty love story, set against this background, very attractive. As a picture of a fierce and horrible period, it is hardly less vivid than the 'White Company' of Conan Doyle.

and picturesque descriptions of the Riviera, where the author passed the last months of her life. Published in 1879, it was left unfinished, the last chapters being written by Mrs. Macquoid. The story principally concerns itself with the love affairs of two cousins, Emmie West and Alma Rivers; and the moral of it is that tribulation worketh patience, and patience godliness. Lady Rivers, Sir Francis, and charming Madame de Florimel, are cleverly sketched characters. The story, which is very simple, is so natural and homely, and its psychology is so faithful, that it became at once a favorite, and is still one of the most popular domestic novels.

Newport, by George Parsons Lathrop.

(1884.) Newport' is a story of society,— the intrigues, adventures, and superficialities of one summer affording the author opportunity for many epigrammatic remarks, vivid descriptions of the principal places of local interest, and photographs of men and women of the leisure class. The love affair of a charming widow, Mrs. Gifford, and a widower, Eugene Oliphant, incidently engages the reader's attention; a love affair which, after a slight estrangement and separation, is ended by a sudden and incredible catastrophe, an unexpected finale strangely out of harmony with the preface of elopements, Casino dances, polo games, flirtations of titled heiress-hunters, and other trivialities of social existence. The characters are well chosen and very well managed, the individual being never sacrificed to the type, though the reader is made to feel that the figures are really typical. In no other piece of fiction has the flamboyant and aggressive life of Newport- that life wherein amusement is a business, and frivolity an occupation — been more vividly painted. Phroso, by Anthony Hope (Hawkins),

Doubting Heart, A, by Annie Keary.

234

about to be stricken to death before the populace, when Phroso, the "Lady of the Island," leaps to his aid, declaring that she loves him better than life. Wheatley shows the people that Constantine has lately assassinated his uncle and is now plotting the murder of his own (secret) wife, Francesca, that he

society girl, Bessie Lynde, who flirts with Jeff for the sake of a new sensation. The scenes are laid partly in Boston, partly in the mountains. The vulgarity of certain aspects of both city and country life is mildly satirized. The novel is supremely American.

the island. Constantine becomes the prisoner and Wheatley the Neopalians' favorite, since Phroso, their dear lady, loves him. His joy, however, is not unmixed,- he is betrothed to Beatrice Hipgrave in England. Nowraki, a Turkish Pasha, arrives and woos Phroso, greatly complicating matters and nearly demolishing Wheatley's plans. After many exciting exigencies, the brave Wheatley weds the lovely Phroso; but not till Constantine, Mouraki, and Francesca are slain, and Miss Hipgrave is found to be already consoled. Plot is rapidly succeeded by counterplot throughout the story, which is written in the characteristic romantic style of the author.

La

andlord at Lion's Head, The, by W. D. Howells, published in 1897, is a subtle study of types of character essentially the product of present-day conditions of life in New England. It is

a masterpiece in the sense of its having been written with the strong and sure hand of the finished artist. The author assumes complete responsibility for his work, and the reader is at ease. The story is concerned chiefly with the fortunes of the Durgin family, New England farm-people, who Own little but a magnificent view of Lion's Head Mountain. By the chance visit of an artist, Westover, they are made to realize its mercantile value. Mrs. Durgin's ambitions, aroused by the success of her "hotel," are centred in her son, Jeff Durgin. The portrait of this country boy swaggering through Harvard, standing, but with a certain impudence, always on the edge of things, is drawn with wonderful clarity. Another admirable creation is Whitwell, a neighbor of the Durgins, a sort of rural philosopher, with a mind reaching helplessly out to the pseudo-occult, and to the banalities of planchette. His daughter Cynthia, the most hopeful figure in the book, is a sweet, strong mountain girl, "capable" in the full sense of the word. In strong contrast to her is the Boston

Hardy, was published in 1896. The bar sinister which crosses many of his books is most prominent in 'Jude.'

It is the story of a young man of the people, ambitious to go to Oxford and to become a scholar. He is prevented from rising in the social scale by himself, by his environment, by a vulgar natural woman who loves him, and by a refined morbid woman whom he loves. Arabella first drags him in the mud; Sue then seeks to soar with him to the stars. Between Arabella's earthiness and Sue's heavenly code of love, poor Jude has not a shred of morals left.

He is pushed farther and farther from Oxford as the story goes on. The novel becomes at last a hopeless jumble of illegitimate children, other men's wives, misery, more misery, revolt, and death. It is a remarkable work, but not a cheerful nor edifying one.

Barry Lyndon, the best of Thackeray's

shorter novels, originally written as a serial for Fraser's Magazine, was published in book form in 1844. It is cast in the form of an autobiography. The hero is an Irish gambler and fortunehunter, a braggart and a blackleg, but of audacious courage and of picturesque versatility. He tells his story in a plain matter-of-fact way, without concealment or sophistication, glorying in episodes which would seem shameful to the most rudimentary conscience, and holding himself to be the best and greatest but most ill-used of men. The irony is as fine as that of Fielding in Jonathan Wild the Great, a prototype obviously in Thackeray's mind.

Adventures in Criticism, by A. T.

some of the

Quiller-Couch, is a collection of brief critical essays, including a handful of graceful commentaries on Elizabethans, two or three eighteenthcentury studies, an examination of Zola, some excellent appreciations of Ibsen, Björnson, and the Scandinavian cult, and twenty or more estimates of modern English writers from Scott to Caine. The