THE PURSUIT OF PHYLLIS. By JOHN HARWORD BACON. Henry Holt, New York.
Price, $1.25.
Tom Mott, a clever literateur of New York, is ordered to take a rest by
his physician, and goes abroad to seek recreation and relaxation. At his
London hotel, he finds in his dresser drawer some letters addressed to
Miss Phyllis Huntingdon in the handwriting of an old chum, and impelled
by a Quixotic impulse, he determines to restore them to their owner in
person. From London he proceeds to Paris, thence to Marseilles, through
the Mediterranean to Port Said and the Orient, very much in the style of
an up-to-date Gabriel and Evangeline affair, always finding at each port
that Miss Huntingdon’s departure had antedated his arrival by a few
hours. Finally his quest is rewarded at Colombo on the island of Ceylon,
where he meets Phyllis, a ruddy-haired, winsome young woman, who is
likened successively by the imaginative Mr. Mott to a dish of pink ice
cream, a rosy-tipped peony, and the summer girl on a magazine cover.
They come back together across the world, ending the trip, after the
excitement of a misunderstanding and a quarrel, in orthodox fashion. A
lively trifle of globe-trotting and philandering is “The Pursuit of
Phyllis,” easy to read, and disarming criticism by its utter lack of
seriousness and significance.
DAPHNE AND HER LAD. By M. J. LAGEN and CALLY RYLAND. Henry Holt, New
York. Price, $1.25.
A story told in letters—the brilliant and showy correspondence so much
affected in fiction and so rarely indulged in in real life. The writers,
too, are newspaper folk, a man and a woman, each editor of a woman’s
page, and we mildly wonder how they ever found time to sacrifice so much
good “copy” to private correspondence. At first, the exchange of letters
is but a journalistic flirtation between two unknown personalities, and
it is maintained and continued to the point of intimate self-revelation
and ardent lovemaking before the writers meet in the last chapter. The
disclosure and denouement of the conclusion come with somewhat of a
shock to the unsuspecting reader who has followed the airy persiflage
and sentimental outpourings of these industrious letter writers with no
thought of such a tragic ending as that on which the curtain falls. It
was Stevenson who said that to give a bad ending to a story meant to end
happily, or vice versa, was an unpardonable literary crime, and we must
hold the authors of “Daphne and Her Lad” guilty of this offense. The
story was not framed along the tragic lines which logically or
artistically lead to hopeless misery, and the final impression is
disturbing and ineffective.
THE MILLIONAIRE BABY. By ANNA KATHERINE GREEN. The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, Indianapolis. Price, $1.50.
A startling crime, innumerable clues, the gradual elimination of every
reasonable and plausible theory, and the construction of the wildest,
most improbable explanation to fit the problem—these are the lines on
which the detective stories of Anna Katherine Green are invariably
framed, and “The Millionaire Baby” is no exception to the rule. A little
girl, heiress to an immense fortune, is kidnapped during a garden fete
at her parents’ palatial home on the Hudson, under most unusual
circumstances, and the reader is at once lost in a labyrinth of
mysterious old men, magnetic ladies, amazing coincidences, and secret
chambers. The way out is pointed ultimately by a young detective, and
the reader emerges feeling rather “sold.” Despite the writer’s
unspeakable rhetoric and crude methods, her stories have a way of
getting themselves read, and a large constituency will welcome “The
Millionaire Baby.”
TENNESSEE HISTORY STORIES. By T. C. KARNS. B. F. Johnson Publishing
Co., Richmond, Va.
The writer belongs to that loyal band of missionaries who are spreading
abroad among the children of the nation the knowledge of the importance
of the western chain of settlements on the Tennessee and Kentucky
frontiers in the history of the United States. The stories he tells of
John Sevier, of James Robertson and Daniel Boone, while written for the
children, are well worth reading and the book is sure to earn a place in
the curriculum of the primary schools.