New-York tribune., 1921-04-24
By Samuel Abbott

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. BY Edith
Wharton. Appleton.
IN THIS faithful recreation of the
seventies of the past century Edith
Wharton has strengthened her position
among the responsible interpreters of
American customs and manners.
The people of the novel revolve
about the romantic Countess Ellen
Olenska and her lover, Newland Archer,
and their impingements upon and their
retreats from the twain furnish the
episodes necessary to the continuity
and fruition of the theme. This method
of construction gives field for kindly
satire on social precedents of a half
century ago, and results in resurrec-
tion of certain phase of metropolitan
life now fading into tradition.
The love of Ellen Clenska and New
land Archer is treated in spirit of
gentle sympathy, and the novel as a
whole is rich in tempered restraint and
generosity of motive. 1t should be ac-
cepted as an historical document,
valuable for its deep-toned contrasts
with novels that portray the American
of to-day.
THE MOUNTEBANK. BY William J.
Locke. John Lane.
4 TYPICAL w. J. Locke novel, with
IA happy and perhaps unexpected
ending. Shadowed here and there by
moments reminiscent of his earlier
stories, the theme is yet new in it's
treatment of the dominant character,
General Andrew Lackaday, formerly
Petit Patou of French circus.
Locke takes his tail, gaunt, towsle-
haired clown, who has made a secret
study of military strategy and tactics
a hobby. and throws him into the open
ing struggles of the great war, tc
emerge a brigadier general respected
In England and loved by beautiful
Lady Auriol.
The war ends. Lackaday seeks re-
spectacle employment in public or busi-
ness life, finds all doors of opportunity
closed to him and slips back to France
and to the debacle of a return to the
circus and the clowns mask The
despair of the man, the irony of his po-
sition and> his eventual redemption
from ignominy are pictured in Locke's
facile and delightful style
THE sIsTERs-IN-L BY Gertrude
Atherton. Stokes.
ERTRUDE ATHERTON'S latest
W novel is ear-marked all through
with the evidences of her brilliant and
courageous thought at play over the
hypocrisy and the saving hardihood of
the contemporary American of the
praetorian class.
The storv, with settings in San Fran
cisco and az the front in France dur
ing the closing days of the war, un-
folds rapidly, develops triangle of
two women and man, gives it's author
an opportunity to set will against will
and state without equivocation the
terms of challenge of one mind to an.
other.
In the contest of the girl, Alcxins
Groome, refined product of San Fran
cisco's old pioneer stock, and the wo
man Cora Dwight, passionate, secret
i've creature, for the ultimate winning
of the Englshman Gathbroke, Mrs
Atherton introduces tense moment:
with bold frequency. One of the few
strictly American novels of the season
that command respect.
THE HAPPY HIGHWAYS. BY storm
Jameson. Century.
A NOTABLE novel by comparative
newcomer into the field of Eng
lish fiction. A group of young people
at the heart of self established coali.
tion of writer's and advanced thinkers
undertakes to study the superior cur
rents of life social and political in
London, with the purpose of under
standing movements and men and do
ing what can be done to better ccndi-
tions.
Each member of the group is in