Evening star., 1901-11-02
EW PUBLICATIONS

N EW PUBLICATIONS
LIFE ON THE STAGE; My Personal Experiences
and Recollections By Clara Norris New York:
ward & Lothrop.
The theatergoers of a generation ago
knew Clara Morris as one of the leading
lights of the stage an actress of great
power and emotional effectiveness. The
reading generation of today is being de-
lighted with evidence of her literary YER
satility, which has permitted her to pro-
duce number of charming short stories
and to present now one of the most read
able books of stage reminiscence which
has appeared for many years. She tells
her story in this volume with a directness
and frankness which must appeal strongly
to all classes, whether they are inclined
toward or prejudiced against the stage.
She does not attempt autobiograph ply in
the sense of accounting for herself from
birth to date, but she outlines her earlier
theatrical career in a sufficiently complete
manner to indicate her struggles as well
as her successes, her disappointments while
awaiting an engagement as well as her
triumphs when, at the height of her power,
she moved great audiences as through
the remarkable force of her acting as
Camille" Yet In the telling of these
latter episodes of success she does not
show the least sign of egotism. She tells
though she were writing of parsonage
In fiction The chapters are somewhat
fragmentary in places, and have little mar
rative connection. Many of them are
broken into paragraphs relating to the
leaders of stagecraft for the past half CEN
tury. 1t is in the midst of an anecdote
about Tomasso Salvini that the author
breaks off abruptly from her task with
an exclamation that indicates that, bar
ring the limitations of the publisher, she
could go on forever telling of interesting
incidents and people of the early green
room.
THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN. BY Harold Beg
apolis: The Bowen Merrill Company.
This is a very disagreeable story told in
a spright1y manner. 1t relates to the mat
rimoniai experiences Of a British nobleman
of low tastes and peculiar appearance, who
divorces one wife in order to marry his
child's governess. This woman is passing
through a process of moral awakening
although clergymans orphan-and does
not scruple in the earlier stages of the
process to spy upon her predecessor, to
place an honest man whom she ardently
loves under a suspicion that wrecks his
political career, when word from her
would acquit him, and, finally, TO attempt
to poison her husbands child by the first
marriage to make way for her own son to
SucCeeu 10 the title. Ihare Is, how
ever, an awakening in season to put the
personages on fairly wholesome basis be-
fore the curtain falls leaving a promise
or later romance more pure and de-
sirable than that which animates the story
in chief.
THE TICKLE WHEEL: Tale of Eizabethan Lon
don. By Henry Thew Stephenson. Illustrated
by e. NJ. Relyea. Indianapolis: The Bowen
Merrill Company.
1t is strictly not Elizabethan London
which furnishes the scene of this romance.
but the London of the first days of the
reign of James, whose entry into the capt.
tai affords the first ensemble Of the tale
The course of true love runs through in
trigue, court favor, parental cruelty, re-
ligious plotting, swashbuckling ventures
literary enterprise, and, finally into the
wholly unfold until the heroine is dressed
In male attire and sent forth into hangers
without which device no truly romantic
novel is supposed nowadays to be quite
complete. The Bard of Avon appears
in several scenes and there is decidedly
Shakespearean flavor to the atmosphere
THE ALIEN; Story of Middle Age. BY F. F.
MontresOr, author Of AT the Cross Roads;
etc. New York: d. Appleton & Company
The author in his preface calls attention
to four lines of Whittier's verse with which
he precedes his text declaring that it is
cheering to make sure that one good SEN
tence will live between the covers There
are many good sentences of his own de-
vice in the story, which deals with English
country life OF the present period intro
ducing mystery involving an investiea-
tion in a South American republic The
structural fault of the story is that its cli-
max occurs too early, when the mystery
is resolved to the readers satisfaction by
the confession of Mrs Mordaunt After
return startles the community Is not the
lad who was supposed to have been
drowned years before, but her ilegitimate
offspring, the chief concern wanes into a
pallld interest In the goings and comings
of the characters and in the rather unsat-
isfactory love development. However 1t
Is well told and possesses decidedly dra-
matte quality.
LIVES OF THE HUNTED; Containing True Ac-
count of the Doings of Five Quadrupeds and
Three Birds and, In the Elucidation Of the
Same, over 200 Drawings. By Ernest Seton
Thompson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Washington: VIM. Baiiantyne & Sons.
Ernest Seton-Thompson-or THOMPSON
Seton, as the court has decreed since the
preparation Of this book-has awakened a
keen popular interest in wild animals. His
types have become familiar through both
the text descriptive of their adventures and
the pictorial representations. 1t is difficult
to determine which of these two elements
for him and his works the pronounced
vogue they enjoy today The tales he now
Includes In book form have all been pub