The times., 1901-04-07
Minor Fiction.

Minor EIcttons
John VytaI," by William Farquhar
Payson. is a story of the Lost Colony of
Virginia. a colony planted IN the time of
Elizabeth, which mysteriously disap-
peared and was never again heard of. 1t
has been supposed by some that the
Colonists wandered away into the for
ests and were either killed by the Indians
or adopted into some tribe and so lost.
The novelist has made Kit Marlowe,
the dramatist; Sir Walter Raleigh, and
other historic characters, figure in his
romance. which is well written and full of
the atmosphere of the time. CNew York:
Harper &, Brothers $l-20)
without a Warrant, by Hildegard
Brooks, is q mystery story of rather an
unusual type, and to put II mildly, more
improbable than most such tales are. The
plot turns upon the mysterious kidnap-
ping of young lady, for purpose which
is not revealed till the end Of the book,
and upon her detention, IN masculine at
tire, in a country house, of which five or
six determined men have taken posses
sion. These men are under the command
Of a leader with melancholy eyes and
brusque manner, and apparently hid
den sorrow, and the reader perceives at
ii
predestined to marry the young woman in
the case. After she-not he-has captured
and subdued the villain single-handed, the
betrothal is allowed to take place. The
story deserves more credit for its ingenu-
ity than for its probability. CNew York:
Charles Scribner's Sons. $500
kings End" by Alice Brown, is
story of a New Hampshire hill town, in
PRODUCING much the same type OF char
acters as those with whom the previous
work of this author has made us familiar
1t must be said, however that her talent
is less suited 10 the form Of a novel than
to such short stories as those in her for
mer books, Meadow Grass and "Tiver-
ton Tales" There is much good char
acter work in this novel, but the plot is
not impressive. 1t is simply a series of
scenes loosely hung together; and had
the different chapters been short stories,
each with a separate theme, but all con-
nected by the community of characters
and locality, the book would have been
quite as charming and rather more ar
tistic AS 1t stands, however, it is worth
reading. The various characters are dis
tinctly new types. Luke, the village out
cast and Ishmael, Nancy Eliot. the girl
ish religious enthusiast, "the Elder" the
old travelling preacher; even Big JOAN
the Nova Scotia domestic, are all sharp
" individualized, and not one of them is
copied from the work of anybody else
Whatever else Miss Brown is, she Is al
ways original In opening a new book OF
hers one is always sure Of not coming
on the average New England dialect
story, with the average allowance of dia-
lect and description, and the usual feeble
attempts at humor and dry efforts at
pathos. Moreover, her work is natural
and realistic, and there are no caricatures
IN it. She can be original without being
bizarre, and that is a rare and refreshing
thing among writer's Of dialect fiction
(Boston: Houghton Miflin & Co $l50)
Martin Brook" by Morgan Bates, is
a story which starts out in a promising
way, but dwindles pitifully after the first
few chapters. The hero appears as a
small and ragged boy, and the passages
describing him, his protector. Judge
NoTthcote, the aristocrat Of the village
and their picturesque meeting, are very
well done But the rest of the book is
fat. Martin subsequently blossoms out
into a prig, for one thing, and not a very
satisfactory prig at that. (New York:
Harper & Brothers. $l.50)
THE Column" by Charles Marriott, is
n fanciful romance Of rural English life,
the real hero of the book being a column
which an antiquarian enthusiast has TAX
en- from a Greek temple and placed I'm
the middle Of laurel hedge, on his lawn
There is obviously intended to be a re-
semblance between the fair, unconscious,
classic heroine of the book, daughter of
the antiquarian, and the column. The
hero is no hero at all, and there is an
Other Woman. When one has said that
one has said it all. The book is a TRACE
dy. 1t is frightened by one epigram
which is worth preserving. We ire in
formed that the hero always knew at the
time when he had made a fool of himself
which saved him the inconvenience of re-
pentance That is not bad at all. (New
J ork: John Lane; The Bodley Head.)
"Graustark" is n fanciful story of ad-
venture by George Barr McCutcheon, who
has already a considerable reputation as
a war correspondent and artist 1t is
clever, as one might expect from the au-
thors other work, and the story goes
with q rush. The style is something like
that which Anthony Hope has made fa-
miiiar to novel readers, "Graustark'' be-
ing a wholly ina Sinary kingdom some