One of the Baron's Critical Faculty sends him his opinion of our Mr.
DU MAURIER's latest novel, which is also his first. And here let it be
published _urbi et orbi_ that there is no truth whatever in a report
which appeared in an evening paper to the effect that Mr. DU MAURIER,
however retiring he may be, was about to retire or had retired
from _Mr. Punch's_ Staff. The _St. James's Gazette_ has already
"authoritatively" denied the assertion; and this denial the Baron
for _Mr. Punch_, decisively confirms. Now, to the notice of the book
above-mentioned. Here it is:--
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"There has been a certain deliberateness in Mr. DU MAURIER's incursion
into literature that speaks eloquently for his modesty. He is, to our
certain knowledge, at least 40 years old, and _Peter Ibbetson_, which
Messrs. OSGOOD & CO. present in two daintily dressed volumes, is
his first essay in romantic writing. Reading the book, it is hard to
conceive this to be the fact. The work is entirely free from those
traces of amateurishness, almost inseparable from a first effort. The
literary style is considerably above the average modern novelist; the
plot is marked by audacious invention, worked out with great skill;
the hero is a madman, not in itself an attractive arrangement, but
there is such admirable method in his madness, such fine poetic
feeling in the conception of character, and the ghosts who flit
through the pages of the story are so exceedingly human, that one
feels quite at home with _Peter_, and is really sorry when, all too
soon, his madness passes away, and he awakes to a new life, to find
himself an old man. Apart from its strong dramatic interest, _Peter
Ibbetson_ has rare value, from the pictures of Old Paris in the last
days of LOUIS-PHILIPPE, which crowd in charming succession through the
first volume. Mr. GEORGE DU MAURIER, the well-known artist in black
and white, has generously assisted Mr. GEORGE DU MAURIER, the rising
novelist, by profusely illustrating the work. 'Tis a pretty rivalry;
hard to say which has the better of it. Wherein a discerning Public,
long familiar with DU MAURIER's sketches, will recognise a note of
highest praise for the new departure."
The Baron recommends Mrs. OLIPHANT's _The Railway Man and his
Children_, which is a good story, with just such a dash of the
improbable--but there, who can bring improbability as a charge against
the plot constructed by any novelist after this great Jewel Case so
recently tried? Mrs. OLIPHANT's types are well drawn; but the story is
drawn out by just one volume too much. "For a one-volume novel commend
me," quoth the Baron, "to Miss RHODA-BROUGHTON-CUM-ELIZABETH-BISLAND's
_A Widower Indeed_. But ... wait till after the festivities are over
to read it, as the tale is sad." _En attendant_, A Happy New Year to
everyone, says