JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 



BY GEORGE VANE continued 



THE CHIMERA. Crown 8vo, 6/- 



^^*^^^n^Unsla0oT^we meet some Sicilians ol old lineage and considerable wealta 

 settled in a gloomy manor in England. The family consists of an aged and partly 

 demented Princess, obsessed by a monomania ior revenge, her grandson, an attach^ 

 of the Italian Embassy to the Court of St. James, and his half sister, a fascinating, 

 winning, wayward and fickle creature. This girl captures the heart of Lord Drury 

 whose father murdered the Principe Baldaseare di Monreale son of the old Princess. 

 The contrast between these Southerners and their English neighbours is strongly 

 accentuated. Don S'orza and his half sifter Donna Giacinta are no mere puppets 

 with Italian names; they give the reader the 'mpression of being people the author 

 has met and drawn from lite. The tragedy in which they are involved strikes one 

 as inevitable. Poor Lord Drary, in his utter inexperience, has taken a beautiful 

 chimaera for reality and starts in the pursuit ol happiness when it was all the 

 time within his grasp. The love-interest never flags to the last page when the hero's 

 troubles come to an end. The glimpses of diplomatic circles in London are 

 obviously not written by an outsider. 



BY CLARA YIEBIG. 



ABSOLUTION. Crown 8vo. 6/- 



Times" There is considerable strength in ' Absolution.' ... As a realistic 



study the story has much merit." 



Daily Telegraph" The tale is powerfully told . . . the tale will prove 



absorbing with its minute characterisation and real passion." 



OUR DAILY BREAD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 



AtiitiiKPam" The story is not only of great human interest, but also extremely 

 valuable as a study of the conditions in which a large section of the poorer classes 

 and small tradespeople of German cities spend their lives. Clara Viebig manipu- 

 lates her material with extraordinary vigour. . . . Her characters are alive." 



B\ H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON. 



THE TOMBOY AND OTHERS. Crown 8vo. 3/6 net 



Author of "Galloping- Dick." 



BY H. G. WELLS. 



A NEW MACHIAVELLI. Crown 8vo. 6/- 



*** Th New Alachitivelti is the longest, most carefully and elaborately 

 constructed and most ambitious novel that Mr. Wells has yet written. It combines 

 much of the breadth and variety of Tono-Enngay with that concentrated unity 

 of effect which makes Love and Mr. Ltwisham, artistically, his most satisfactory 

 work. It has the autobiographical form which he has already used so effectively 

 in Tono-Bungay, but this time the hero who surveys and experiences the 

 vicissitudes of our modern world is not a commercial adventurer but a Trinity man, 

 who directs very great ambitione and abilities to political ends, who is wrecked 

 in mid-career and driven into exile by a passionate love adventure. From his 

 retirement in Italy he reviews and discusses his broken life. The story he tells 

 opens amidst suburban surroundings, and the first book gives a series of vivid 

 impressions and criticisms of English public school and university life. Thence, 

 after an episode in Staffordshire, it passes to the world of Westminster and the 

 country house. The narrator recounts his relations with the varying groups and 

 lorces in contemporary parliamentary life and political journalism in London, 

 and the growth and changes in his own opinion until the emotions of his passionate 

 entanglement sweep the story away to its sombre and touching conclusion. In 

 addition to the full-length portraits of Margaret, the neglected wife perhaps the 

 finest of Mr. Wells's feminine creations Isabel Rivers, and Remington, there 

 Are scores of sharply differentiated characters, sketched and vignetted : Remington 

 the father, Britten, the intriguing Baileys, the members of the Pentagram Circle, 

 Codger the typical don, and Mr. Evesham the Conservative leader. It is a bock 

 to read and read again, and an enduring picture of contemporary English conditions. 



