... MISS MARY MITCHELL'S new novel is a long, long step away from A Warning to Wantons; a step towards the sober, revealing light of the everyday. There is little room for gaiety in the theme the writer has chosen, and the emphasis is decisively on facts rather than fancies. Neverthe less, THE PILGRIMAGE OF MRS. DESTINN (Methuen. 9s. 6d.) is very far from being a dull book. It may not have the ...

... THE PLANTAGENETS A New Estimate of a Dark Era in Our History What manner of men were the Plantagenets? No other dynasty has reigned so long over England since the Norman Conquest, and yet somehow they remain shadowy figures, those Kings who wore the sprig of broom, descen dants of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, and the Empress Maud, or else, where Shakespeare turned the floodlights upon them, we ...

... THERE are some good novels this week and, though none of them is necessarily of great significance, they make a satisfying and notable list. First of all, A QUIET NEIGH BOURHOOD (Heinemann. 8s. 6d.), a book of considerable character in spite of its gently restricted theme. Mrs. Anne Goodwin Winslow writes, if I may use an old-fashioned term, like a lady, with restraint, delicacy and a polite ...

... THAT distinguished and witty scholar, Mr. G. M. Young, describes himself as one of the very few now living who can not only write but think Victorian. If that is to be his definition of one who can think straight and express-- himself with a beautiful lucidity and grace, then no one will quarrel with it. A new collection of his essays and addresses has just been published, and I cannot counsel ...

... DEAN INGE may now be a gentleman of advanced years, but in his new collection of essays, THE END OF AN AGE (Putnam, 10s. 6d.), he writes with all the lucidity and force of a man and a thinker in the prime of his life. Of these seven essays, the Dean writes that the titles of the chapters mav sound more despondent than the text, a phrase which recalls the days when he was known as the gloomy ...