The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-12-18
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

masterpieces OF the Masters OF
Fiction" is an entertaining book.
1t is written by William Dudley
Foulke and published by the Cosmo-
politan Press of New York,
Mr.. Foulke is an easy and graceful
writer and holds the attention through
his manner Of presentation as we'll
as the matter under consideration
He has, in short, the narrative style
which should be as necessary, as 1t is
alluring out of fiction as well as in.
The great thing is to tell your story.
No matter what it's about.
Many technical faults can be passed
over if the story is a story and must
tell itself.
But when the technical faults are
absent, as in Masterpieces of the
Masters of Fiction" and the story
races along on the straight, smooth
stretch-then you have something
with which you're going to sit up late
o. nights.
Mr. Foulke makes his commentary
as absorbing as the latter's object.
Especially is this true of Tom
Jones'" in which, Mr.. Foulke states,
he fails to find "in either plot or por-
traiture that excellence which should
entitle the book to take a pre-eminent
rank among works of fiction"
But which he proceeds to treat in
terestingly. So much so that one who
had not read the novel would at once
HE to the library to secure a copy.
n n
whose anna Kerenina" Mr. Foulke
regards as the great Russian writer's
fictional climax, although Tolstoi
treated this earlier emanation of his
genius with some disdain, counting it
as worse than nothing since it repre-
sented an earlier phase of his develop
ment, a phase which was self-obscur-
ed by his later propaganda.
Mr. Foulke states in his preface:
"a short time ago | determined that
| instead of taking up any new works
of fiction l would go over the master
pieces which had read long since and
see what changes time had made in
my impression of them.
"To do this | chose some forty of
the most distinguished authors and
decided to select one story from each
the best one if l could make up my
mind which that was-at all events,
one which stood in the first rank of
his production.
Il determined to read these in sue
cessjion, one after another, in the
shortest time possible, and thus get
comprehensive notion of the whole.
"Of course, under such conditions,
exhaustive criticism would be out of
the question. The produc-
lions of living authors were discarded,
as we'll as all fiction in verse"
Aside from the interest the book
itself excites, this is an invaluable
list of some of the literary masterpie-
ces which everyone should read and
could be taken as a guide by the nov
ice.
Miss Bertha Grace ROBBIE, of this
city, has collected her verses, some of
which have appeared in print, others
now published for the first time, into
a volume for private circulation.
The edition is limited.
And put out by the Nicholson Print
ing Company.
The latter has done an admirable
bit of book-making.
The cover is a handsome one, in
purple ooze calf, with the books
name, "In Memory's Garden and that
of the writer, in broad gilt letters.
Miss ROBBIE has the enviable trick
of versification and lifting line that
lends itself to lyric expression with
resultant poetic eclat.
The contents are under three heads:
'Travelettes," in which are included
a number of verses written while
abroad; Rhymes" and Song Poems"
the latter the words of the familiar
songs which Miss ROBBIE has put out
| from time to time-"Mammy's Lula
by" In June" when My Dreams