Part 16
=The Morning Post.=—‘Boldly conceived, probing some of the darkest depths of the human soul, the tale has a vigour and breadth of touch which have been surpassed in none of Mr. Stevenson’s previous works.... We do not, of course, know how much Mr. Osbourne has contributed to the tale, but there is no chapter in it which any author need be unwilling to acknowledge, or which is wanting in vivid interest.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
BY I. ZANGWILL
With A Photogravure Portrait of the Author
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=Morning Post.=—‘The merits of the book are great. Its range of observation is wide; its sketches of character are frequently admirably drawn.... It is extremely refreshing, after a surfeit of recent fiction of the prevalent type, to welcome a really clever work by a writer who is certainly not hampered by conventional prejudice.’
=The Queen.=—‘It is impossible to deny the greatness of a book like _The Master_, a veritable human document, in which the characters do exactly as they would in life.... I venture to say that Matt himself is one of the most striking and original characters in our fiction, and I have not the least doubt that _The Master_ will always be reckoned one of our classics.’
=The Daily Chronicle.=—‘It is a powerful and masterly piece of work.... Quite the best novel of the year.’
=Literary World.=—‘In _The Master_, Mr. Zangwill has eclipsed all his previous work. This strong and striking story of patience and passion, of sorrow and success, of art, ambition, and vain gauds, is genuinely powerful in its tragedy, and picturesque in its completeness.... The work, thoroughly wholesome in tone, is of sterling merit, and strikes a truly tragic chord, which leaves a deep impression upon the mind.’
=Jewish World.=—‘For a novel to be a work that shall live, and not merely please the passing taste of a section of the public, it must palpitate with the truth of human experience and human feeling.... Such a novel is _The Master_, Mr. Zangwill’s latest, and assuredly one of his best works. Interest in the story is sustained from beginning to end. From the first page to the last we get a series of vivid pictures that make us feel, as well as understand, not only the personality and environment of his characters, but the motives that compel, like fate, their words and actions.’
=Leeds Mercury.=—‘_The Master_ is impassioned and powerful, and, in our judgment, is vastly superior to _Children of the Ghetto_. From the first page to the last the book is quick with life, and not less quick surprises.... The impression which the book leaves is deep and distinct, and the power, from start to finish, of such a delineation of life is unmistakable.’
=Liverpool Mercury.=—‘The accomplished author of _Children of the Ghetto_ has given us in _The Master_ a book written with marvellous skill, and characterised by vivid imaginative power. It is not a volume to be taken up and despatched in a leisure evening, but one to be studied and enjoyed in many an hour of quiet, or to be read aloud in the family circle, when the toils of the day have given place to retirement and peace.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO
A Study of a Peculiar People
BY I. ZANGWILL
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=—‘From whatever point of view we regard it, it is a remarkable book.’
=The Athenæum.=—‘The chief interest of the book lies in the wonderful description of the Whitechapel Jews. The vividness and force with which Mr. Zangwill brings before us the strange and uncouth characters with which he has peopled his book are truly admirable.... Admirers of Mr. Zangwill’s fecund wit will not fail to find flashes of it in these pages.’
=The Daily Chronicle.=—‘Altogether we are not aware of any such minute, graphic, and seemingly faithful picture of the Israel of nineteenth century London.... The book has taken hold of us.’
=The Spectator.=—‘Esther Ansell, Raphael Leon, Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, Reb Shemuel, and the rest, are living creations.’
=The Speaker.=—‘A strong and remarkable book.’
=The National Observer.=—‘To ignore this book is not to know the East End Jew.’
=The Guardian.=—‘A novel such as only our own day could produce. A masterly study of a complicated psychological problem in which every factor is handled with such astonishing dexterity and intelligence that again and again we are tempted to think a really good book has come into our hands.’
=The Graphic.=—‘Absolutely fascinating. Teaches how closely akin are laughter and tears.’
=Black and White.=—‘A moving panorama of Jewish life, full of truth, full of sympathy, vivid in the setting forth, and occasionally most brilliant. Such a book as this has the germs of a dozen novels. A book to read, to keep, to ponder over, to remember.’
=W. Archer in ‘The World.’=—‘The most powerful and fascinating book I have read for many a long day.’
=Land and Water.=—‘The most wonderful multi-coloured and brilliant description. Dickens has never drawn characters of more abiding individuality. An exceeding beautiful chapter is the honeymoon of the Hyams. Charles Kingsley in one of his books makes for something of the same sort. But his idea is not half so tender and faithful, nor his handling anything like so delicate and natural.’
=Andrew Lang in ‘Longman’s Magazine.’=—‘Almost every kind of reader will find _Children of the Ghetto_ interesting.’
=T. P. O’Connor in ‘The Weekly Sun.’=—‘Apart altogether from its great artistic merits, from its clear portraits, its subtle and skilful analysis of character, its pathos and its humour, this book has, in my mind, an immense interest as a record of a generation that has passed and of struggles that are yet going on.’
=The Manchester Guardian.=—‘The best Jewish novel ever written.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
THE KING OF SCHNORRERS
=Grotesques and Fantasies=
BY I. ZANGWILL
With over Ninety Illustrations by PHIL MAY and Others
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Athenæum.=—‘Several of Mr. Zangwill’s contemporary Ghetto characters have already become almost classical; but in _The King of Schnorrers_ he goes back to the Jewish community of the eighteenth century for the hero of his principal story; and he is indeed a stupendous hero ... anyhow, he is well named the king of beggars. The illustrations, by Phil May, add greatly to the attraction of the book.’
=The Saturday Review.=—‘Mr. Zangwill has created a new figure in fiction, and a new type of humour. The entire series of adventures is a triumphant progress.... Humour of a rich and active character pervades the delightful history of Manasses. Mr. Zangwill’s book is altogether very good reading. It is also very cleverly illustrated by Phil May and other artists.’
=The Literary World.=—‘Of Mr. Zangwill’s versatility there is ample proof in this new volume of stories.... More noticeable and welcome to us, as well as more characteristic of the author, are the fresh additions he has made to his long series of studies of Jewish life.’
=The St. James’s Gazette.=—‘_The King of Schnorrers_ is a very fascinating story. Mr. Zangwill returns to the Ghetto, and gives us a quaint old-world picture as a most appropriate setting for his picturesque hero, the beggar-king.... Good as the story of the arch-schnorrer is there is perhaps an even better “Yiddish” tale in this book. This is “Flutter-Duck.”... Let us call attention to the excellence, as mere realistic vivid description, of the picture of the room and atmosphere and conditions in which Flutter-Duck and her circle dwelt; there is something of Dickens in this.’
=The Daily Telegraph.=—‘_The King of Schnorrers_, like _Children of the Ghetto_, depicts the habits and characteristics of Israel in London with painstaking elaborateness and apparent verisimilitude. _The King of Schnorrers_ is a character-sketch which deals with the manners and customs of native and foreign Jews as they “lived and had their being” in the London of a century and a quarter ago.’
=The Daily Chronicle.=—‘It is a beautiful story. _The King of Schnorrers_ is that great rarity—an entirely new thing, that is as good as it is new.’
=The Glasgow Herald.-=-‘On the whole, the book does justice to Mr. Zangwill’s rapidly-growing reputation, and the character of Manasseh ought to live.’
=The World.=—‘The exuberant and even occasionally overpowering humour of Mr. Zangwill is at his highest mark in his new volume, _The King of Schnorrers_.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
THE PREMIER AND THE PAINTER
BY I. ZANGWILL AND LOUIS COWEN
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Cambridge (University) Review.=—‘That the book will have readers in a future generation we do not doubt, for there is much in it that is of lasting merit.’
=The Graphic.=—‘It might be worth the while of some industrious and capable person with plenty of leisure to reproduce in a volume of reasonable size the epigrams and other good things witty and serious which _The Premier and the Painter_ contains. There are plenty of them, and many are worth noting and remembering,’
=St. James’s Gazette.=—‘The satire hits all round with much impartiality; while one striking situation succeeds another till the reader is altogether dazzled. The story is full of life and “go” and brightness, and will well repay perusal.’
=The Athenæum.=—‘In spite of its close print and its five hundred pages _The Premier and the Painter_ is not very difficult to read. To speak of it, however, is difficult. It is the sort of book that demands yet defies quotation for one thing; and for another it is the sort of book the description of which as “very clever” is at once inevitable and inadequate. In some ways it is original enough to be a law unto itself, and withal as attractive in its whimsical, wrong-headed way, as at times it is tantalising, bewildering, even tedious. The theme is politics and politicians, and the treatment, while for the most part satirical and prosaic, is often touched with sentiment, and sometimes even with a fantastic kind of poetry. The several episodes of the story are wildly fanciful in themselves and are clumsily connected; but the streak of humorous cynicism which shows through all of them is both curious and pleasing. Again, it has to be claimed for the author that—as is shown to admiration by his presentation of the excellent Mrs. Dawe and her cookshop—he is capable, when he pleases, of insight and observation of a high order, and therewith of a masterly sobriety of tone. But he cannot be depended upon for the length of a single page; he seeks his effects and his material when and where he pleases. In some respects his method is not, perhaps, altogether unlike Lord Beaconsfield’s. To our thinking, however, he is strong enough to go alone, and to go far.’
=The World.=—‘Undeniably clever, though with a somewhat mixed and eccentric cleverness.’
=The Morning Post.=—‘The story is described as a “fantastic romance,” and, indeed, fantasy reigns supreme from the first to the last of its pages. It relates the history of our time with humour and well-aimed sarcasm. All the most prominent characters of the day, whether political or otherwise, come in for notice. The identity of the leading politicians is but thinly veiled, while many celebrities appear _in propriâ personâ_. Both the “Premier” and “Painter” now and again find themselves in the most critical situations. Certainly this is not a story that he who runs may read, but it is cleverly original, and often lightened by bright flashes of wit.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
THE COUNTESS RADNA
BY W. E. NORRIS
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=—‘He is a remarkably even writer. And this novel is almost as good a medium as any other for studying the delicacy and dexterity of his workmanship.’
=The National Observer.=—‘Interesting and well written, as all Mr. Norris’s stories are.’
=The Morning Post.=—‘The fidelity of his portraiture is remarkable, and it has rarely appeared to so much advantage as in this brilliant novel.’
=The Saturday Review.=—‘_The Countess Radna_, which its author not unjustly describes as “an unpretending tale,” avoids, by the grace of its style and the pleasant accuracy of its characterisation, any suspicion of boredom.’
=The Daily News.=—‘_The Countess Radna_ contains many of the qualities that make a story by this writer welcome to the critic. It is caustic in style, the character drawing is clear, the talk natural; the pages are strewn with good things worth quoting.’
=The Speaker.=—‘In style, skill in construction, and general “go,” it is worth a dozen ordinary novels.’
=The Academy.=—‘As a whole, the book is decidedly well written, while it is undeniably interesting. It is bright and wholesome: the work in fact of a gentleman and a man who knows the world about which he writes.’
=Black and White.=—‘The novel, like all Mr. Norris’s work is an excessively clever piece of work, and the author never for a moment allows his grasp of his plot and his characters to slacken.’
=The Gentlewoman.=—‘Mr. Norris is a practised hand at his craft. He can write bright dialogue and clear English, too.’
=The Literary World.=—‘His last novel, _The Countess Radna_, is an excellent sample of his style. The plot is simple enough. But the story holds the attention and insists upon being read; and it is scarcely possible to say anything more favourable of a work of fiction.’
=The Scotsman.=—‘The story, in which there is more than a spice of modern life romance, is an excellent study of the problem of mixed marriage. The book is one of good healthy reading, and reveals a fine broad view of life and human nature.’
=The Glasgow Herald.=—‘This is an unusually fresh and well-written story. The tone is thoroughly healthy; and Mr. Norris, without being in the least old-fashioned, manages to get along without the aid of pessimism, psychology, naturalism, or what is known as frank treatment of the relations between the sexes.’
=The Westminster Gazette.=—‘Mr. Norris writes throughout with much liveliness and force, saying now and then something that is worth remembering. And he sketches his minor characters with a firm touch.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
A VICTIM OF GOOD LUCK
BY W. E. NORRIS
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Speaker.=—‘_A Victim of Good Luck_ is one of those breezy stories of his in which the reader finds himself moving in good society, among men or women who are neither better nor worse than average humanity, but who always show good manners and good breeding.... Suffice it to say that the story is as readable as any we have yet had from the same pen.’
=The Daily Telegraph.=—‘_A Victim of Good Luck_ is one of the brightest novels of the year, which cannot but enhance its gifted author’s well-deserved fame and popularity.’
=The World.=—‘Here is Mr. Norris in his best form again, giving us an impossible story with such imperturbable composure, such quiet humour, easy polish, and irresistible persuasiveness, that he makes us read _A Victim of Good Luck_ right through with eager interest and unflagging amusement without being aware, until we regretfully reach the end, that it is just a farcical comedy in two delightful volumes.’
=The Daily Chronicle.=—‘It has not a dull page from first to last. Any one with normal health and taste can read a book like this with real pleasure.’
=The Globe.=—‘Mr. W. E. Norris is a writer who always keeps us on good terms with ourselves. We can pick up or lay down his books at will, but they are so pleasant in style and equable in tone that we do not usually lay them down till we have mastered them; _A Victim of Good Luck_ is a more agreeable novel than most of this author’s.’
=The Westminster Gazette.=—‘_A Victim of Good Luck_ is in Mr. Norris’s best vein, which means that it is urbane, delicate, lively, and flavoured with a high quality of refined humour. Altogether a most refreshing book, and we take it as a pleasant reminder that Mr. Norris is still very near his highwater mark.’
=The Spectator.=—‘Mr. Norris displays to the full his general command of narrative expedients which are at once happily invented and yet quite natural—which seem to belong to their place in the book, just as a keystone belongs to its place in the arch.... The brightest and cleverest book which Mr. Norris has given us since he wrote _The Rogue_.’
=The Saturday Review.=—‘Novels which are neither dull, unwholesome, morbid, nor disagreeable, are so rare in these days, that _A Victim of Good Luck_ ... ought to find a place in a book-box filled for the most part with light literature.... We think it will increase the reputation of an already very popular author.’
=The Scotsman.=—‘_A Victim of Good Luck_, like others of this author’s books, depends little on incident and much on the conception and drawing of character, on clever yet natural conversation, and on the working out, with masterly ease, of a novel problem of right and inclination.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
THE POTTER’S THUMB
BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Pall Mall Budget.=—‘For this week the only novel worth mentioning is Mrs. Steel’s _The Potter’s Thumb_. Her admirable _From the Five Rivers_, since it dealt with native Indian life, was naturally compared with Mr. Kipling’s stories. In _The Potter’s Thumb_ the charm which came from the freshness of them still remains. Almost every character is convincing, and some of them excellent to a degree.’
=The Globe.=—‘This is a brilliant story—a story that fascinates, tingling with life, steeped in sympathy with all that is best and saddest.’
=The Manchester Guardian.=—‘The impression left upon one after reading _The Potter’s Thumb_ is that a new literary artist, of very great and unusual gifts, has arisen.... In short, Mrs. Steel must be congratulated upon having achieved a very genuine and amply deserved success.’
=The Glasgow Herald.=—‘A clever story which, in many respects, brings India very near to its readers. The novel is certainly one interesting alike to the Anglo-Indian and to those untravelled travellers who make their only voyages in novelists’ romantic company.’
=The Scotsman.=—‘It is a capital story, full of variety and movement, which brings with great vividness before the reader one of the phases of Anglo-Indian life. Mrs. Steel writes forcibly and sympathetically, and much of the charm of the picture which she draws lies in the force with which she brings out the contrast between the Asiatic and European world. _The Potter’s Thumb_ is very good reading, with its mingling of the tragedy and comedy of life. Its evil woman _par excellence_ ... is a finished study.’
=The Westminster Gazette.=—‘A very powerful and tragic story. Mrs. Steel gives us again, but with greater elaboration than before, one of those strong, vivid, and subtle pictures of Indian life which we have learnt to expect from her. To a reader who has not been in India her books seem to get deeper below the native crust, and to have more of the instinct for the Oriental than almost anything that has been written in this time.’
=The Leeds Mercury.=—‘_The Potter’s Thumb_ is a powerful story of the mystical kind, and one which makes an instant appeal to the imagination of the reader.... There is an intensity of vision in this story which is as remarkable as it is rare, and the book, in its vivid and fascinating revelations of life, and some of its limitations, is at once brilliant and, in the deepest and therefore least demonstrative sense, impassioned.’
=The National Observer.=—‘A romance of East and West, in which the glamour, intrigue, and superstition of India are cunningly interwoven and artfully contrasted with the bright and changeable aspects of modern European society. “Love stories,” as Mr. Andrew Lang once observed, “are best done by women”; and Mrs. Steel’s treatment of Rose Tweedie’s love affair with Lewis Gordon is a brilliant instance in point. So sane and delightful an episode is rare in fiction now-a-days.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
FROM THE FIVE RIVERS
BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=—‘Time was when these sketches of native Punjabi society would have been considered a curiosity in literature. They are sufficiently remarkable, even in these days, when interest in the “dumb millions” of India is thoroughly alive, and writers, great and small, vie in ministering to it. They are the more notable as being the work of a woman. Mrs. Steel has evidently been brought into close contact with the domestic life of all classes, Hindu and Mahomedan, in city and village, and has steeped herself in their customs and superstitions.... Mrs. Steel’s book is of exceptional merit and freshness.’
=Vanity Fair.=—‘Stories of the Punjaub—evidently the work of one who has an intimate knowledge of, and a kindly sympathy for, its people. It is to be hoped that this is not the last book of Indian stories that Mrs. Steel will give us.’
=The Spectator.=—‘Merit, graphic force, and excellent local colouring are conspicuous in Mrs. Steel’s _From the Five Rivers_, and the short stories of which the volume is composed are evidently the work of a lady who knows what she is writing about.’
=The Glasgow Herald.=—‘This is a collection of sketches of Hindu life, full for the most part of brilliant colouring and cleverly wrought in dialect. The writer evidently knows her subject, and she writes about it with unusual skill.’
=The North British Daily Mail.=—‘In at least two of the sketches in Mrs. Steel’s book we have a thoroughly descriptive delineation of life in Indian, or rather, Hindoo, villages. “Ganesh Chunel” is little short of a masterpiece, and the same might be said of “Shah Sujah’s Mouse.” In both we are made the spectator of the conditions of existence in rural India. The stories are told with an art that conceals the art of story-telling.’
=The Athenæum.=—‘They possess this great merit, that they reflect the habits, modes of life, and ideas of the middle and lower classes of the population of Northern India better than do systematic and more pretentious works.’
=The Leeds Mercury.-=-‘By no means a book to neglect.... It is written with brains.... Mrs. Steel understands the life which she describes, and she has sufficient literary art to describe it uncommonly well. These short stories of Indian life are, in fact, quite above the average of stories long or short.... There is originality, insight, sympathy, and a certain dramatic instinct in the portrayal of character about the book.’
=The Globe.=—‘She puts before us the natives of our Empire in the East as they live and move and speak, with their pitiful superstitions, their strange fancies, their melancholy ignorance of what poses with us for knowledge and civilisation, their doubt of the new ways, the new laws, the new people. “Shah Sujah’s Mouse,” the gem of the collection—a touching tale of unreasoning fidelity towards an English "Sinny Baba"—is a tiny bit of perfect writing.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
THE LAST SENTENCE
BY MAXWELL GRAY
Author of ‘The Silence of Dean Maitland,’ etc.