ON THE STAIRCASE

By FRANK SWINNERTON.

The scene of Mr. Frank Swinnerton's new novel is set in the heart of London, in the parish of Holborn. The reproduction of manners, and the revelation by this means of the spirit underlying those manners, forms the framework of a story of pa.s.sion. In the main, therefore, _On the Staircase_ is a romance with a clearly defined setting of commonplace happenings, in which the loves of Barbara Gretton and Adrian Velancourt are shown in conflict with the action of circ.u.mstance. The book is in no sense photographic, but it has value as a social picture, being based upon genuine observation.

MAN AND WOMAN

By L. G. MOBERLY, Author of 'Joy.'

This story, which is based on Tennyson's lines--'The woman's cause is man's, they rise or sink together'--has for its chief character a woman who takes the feminist view that man is the enemy; a view from which she is ultimately converted. Another prominent character is one whose love is given to a weak man, her axiom being that love takes no heed of the worthiness or unworthiness of its object. The scene is laid partly in London, partly in a country cottage, and partly in India during the Durbar of the King-Emperor.

MAX CARRADOS

By ERNEST BRAMAH, Author of 'The Wallet of Kai Lung.'

Max Carrados is blind, but in his case blindness is more than counter-balanced by an enormously enhanced perception of the other senses. How these serve their purpose in the various difficulties and emergencies that confront the wealthy amateur when, through the instigation of his friend Louis Carlyle, a private inquiry agent, he devotes himself to the elucidation of mysteries, is the basis of Mr.

Ernest Bramah's new book. The adventures that ensue range from sensational tragedy to romantic comedy as the occasions rise.

THE MAN UPSTAIRS

By P. G. WODEHOUSE, Author of 'The Little Nugget.'

Under this t.i.tle Mr. Wodehouse has collected nineteen of the short stories written by him in the past four years. Mr. Wodehouse is one of the few English short-story writers with an equally large public on both sides of the Atlantic: but only two of these stories have an American setting. All except one of this collection are humorous, and some idea of the variety of incident of the remainder may be gathered from the fact that their heroes include a barber, a gardener, an artist, a playwriter, a tramp, a waiter, an hotel clerk, a golfer, a stockbroker, a butler, a bank clerk, an a.s.sistant master at a private school, an insurance clerk, a peer's son who is also a leading member of a First League a.s.sociation football team, and a Knight of King Arthur's Round Table who is neither brave nor handsome.

SQUARE PEGS

By CHARLES INGE, Author of 'The Unknown Quant.i.ty.'

This novel raises again the absorbing question as to what is failure and what success. It tells how a big man from South Africa sets out to conquer London--the London of the Lobby and the Clubs--with a threepenny weekly paper and sympathy for the unemployed; how he fails, but in failure wins his woman; how she too suffers in the London of women workers. There is, on the other side, the little solicitor who calculates for and succeeds by the other's failure; but in succeeding loses. The background includes the life drama of an enthusiast for Labour reform.

MESSENGERS

By MARGARET HOPE, Author of 'Christina Holbrook.'

A story of the sudden yielding to temptation of a woman of good position. She suffers for her fault in prison, but her sufferings on release are ten times greater. She tries her utmost to keep the knowledge of her guilt from her daughter, a girl just left school, but in vain. The girl, in a painful scene, demands to be told the truth, and the mother, unable to bear the sight of her child's misery, flies from home, hoping still in some way to retrieve the past. But the net of circ.u.mstance is too strongly woven.

ENTER AN AMERICAN

By E. CROSBY-HEATH, Author of 'Henrietta taking Notes.'

The hero of Miss Crosby-Heath's new novel is a self-made American, who comes to London and enters a Home for Paying Guests. He is an optimistic philanthropist, and he contrives to help all the English friends he makes. His own crudity is modified by his London experiences, and the dull minds of his middle-cla.s.s English friends are broadened by contact with his untrammelled personality. A humorous love interest runs through the book.

THE FRUITS OF THE MORROW

By AGNES JACOMB, Author of 'The Faith of his Fathers.'

_The Fruits of the Morrow_ is a novel showing the consequences of a man's and a woman's conduct in the past and how it affects the lives of their two sons. The other characters of the story are in different degrees involved in the results of the old romance, but not irredeemably. There is no hero in the ordinary sense of the word, the four male characters being of almost equal importance. The action takes place mainly in East Anglia and during the months of one summer.

A GIRL FROM MEXICO

By R. B. TOWNSHEND, Author of 'Lone Pine.'

Adventures are to the adventurous, and a very young Oxford man who strikes out for himself in the wild and woolly West is apt to come in for some lively developments. He gets an exciting start by going partners with a Mormon-eating American desperado, and when the unsophisticated youth falls in love with a velvet-eyed Mexican senorita, and then finds himself called upon in honour to play the part of Don Quixote, things begin to get tangled up. Finally he becomes involved in a struggle, not only with Mormons but with Mexican self-torturers in a great scene on the Calvary of the Penitentes which forms the climax of the story.

SARAH MIDGET

By LINCOLN GREY.

In the sedate atmosphere of a quiet country town there develop the later phases of a man's sin, when he has become rich and powerful, and the woman whom he thrust aside in his early manhood learns, all unconsciously, to love the son of her successful rival. How Sarah Midget rises, in the shock of a great tragedy, to supreme heights of self-sacrifice, is shown in poignant and moving scenes.

AN ASTOUNDING GOLF MATCH

By 'STANCLIFFE,' Author of 'Fun on the Billiard Table' and 'Golf Do's and Dont's.'

The narrative of the adventures of two golfers of equal handicaps, but different styles, who being dissatisfied with the result of two home and home matches, decide that golf across country from links to links, would be more scientific and interesting than golf where all the hazards are known. The troubles that befell them, and how the match came to an abrupt termination, to the discomfort of one and the joy of the other, are told in this book.

BLACKLAW

By Sir GEORGE MAKGILL.

This is a study in temperaments--a contrast between the old and the new views of the relations between parent and child. Lord Blacklaw throws up rank and fortune, takes his children to the Colonies to live 'the Patriarchal Life,' and sacrifices their future to his own impulses. John Westray, on the other hand, gives up happiness, even life itself, for what he deems his son's welfare. Each from his own point of view fails, yet neither life is wholly wasted. The scenes are laid in Scotland, New Zealand, and in a Cornish Art Colony.

POTTER AND CLAY

By Mrs. STANLEY WRENCH, Author of 'Love's Fool,' 'Pillars of Smoke,' 'The Court of the Gentiles,' etc.

In this story the author returns to the peasant folk of the Midlands whom she knows so well, and of whom she has written with sympathetic frankness in several books already. Just now, when the land question is so much discussed, this novel, dealing in the main with tillers of the soil, should receive careful attention.

A ROMAN PICTURE

By PAUL WAINEMAN, Author of 'A Heroine from Finland.'

Mr. Paul Waineman, the Finnish novelist who has so far allowed his pen only to describe his native land Finland, has in his latest work essayed a new and also very old hunting ground for those in search of romance.

_A Roman Picture_ is a romantic love story, set in the Mother City of the world, Rome. The author, from personal experience, shows up in a daring manner the hatred that still exists between the old and the new Rome. The heavy shadows and many memories within the vast decaying Roman palace, haunted by the living presence of the young and beautiful Donna Bianca Savelli, the last representative of an ancient line, form a pen-picture which will appeal to the many lovers of Rome.