The Keynotes Series.
16mo.Cloth.Each volume with a Titlepage and Cover Design.
By AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Price . . . . $1.00.
| I. | KEYNOTES.By George Egerton. |
| II. | THE DANCING FAUN.By Florence Farr. |
| III. | POOR FOLK.By Fedor Dostoievsky. Translated from the Russian by Lena Milman. With an Introduction by George Moore. |
| IV. | A CHILD OF THE AGE.By Francis Adams. |
| V. | THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.By Arthur Machen. |
| VI. | DISCORDS.By George Egerton. |
| VII. | PRINCE ZALESKI.By M. P. Shiel. |
| VIII. | THE WOMAN WHO DID.By Grant Allen. |
| IX. | WOMEN'S TRAGEDIES.By H. D. Lowry. |
| X. | GREY ROSES AND OTHER STORIES.By Henry Harland. |
| XI. | AT THE FIRST CORNER AND OTHER STORIES.By H. B. Marriott Watson. |
| XII. | MONOCHROMES.By Ella D'Arcy. |
| XIII. | AT THE RELTON ARMS.By Evelyn Sharp. |
| XIV. | THE GIRL FROM THE FARM.By Gertrude Dix. |
| XV. | THE MIRROR OF MUSIC.By Stanley V. Makower. |
| XVI. | YELLOW AND WHITE.By W. Carlton Dawe. |
| XVII. | THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS.By Fiona Macleod. |
| XVIII. | THE THREE IMPOSTORS.By Arthur Machen. |
KEYNOTES.
A Volume of Stories.
By George Egerton. With titlepage by Aubrey Beardsley.16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
Not since "The Story of an African Farm" was written has any woman delivered herself of so strong, so forcible a book.—Queen.
Knotty questions in sex problems are dealt with in these brief sketches. They are treated boldly, fearlessly, perhaps we may say forcefully, with a deep plunge into the realities of life. The colors are laid in masses on the canvas, while passions, temperaments, and sudden, subtle analyses take form under the quick, sharp stroke. Though they contain a vein of coarseness and touch slightly upon tabooed subjects, they evidence power and thought.—Public Opinion.
Indeed, we do not hesitate to say that "Keynotes" is the strongest volume of short stories that the year has produced. Further, we would wager a good deal, were it necessary, that George Egerton is a nom-de-plume, and of a woman, too. Why is it that so many women hide beneath a man's name when they enter the field of authorship? And in this case it seems doubly foolish, the work is so intensely strong. . . .
The chief characters of these stories are women, and women drawn as only a woman can draw word-pictures of her own sex. The subtlety of analysis is wonderful, direct in its effectiveness, unerring in its truth, and stirring in its revealing power. Truly, no one but a woman could thus throw the light of revelation upon her own sex. Man does not understand woman as does the author of "Keynotes."
The vitality of the stories, too, is remarkable. Life, very real life, is pictured; life full of joys and sorrows, happinesses and heartbreaks, courage and self-sacrifice; of self-abnegation, of struggle, of victory. The characters are intense, yet not overdrawn; the experiences are dramatic, in one sense or another, and yet are never hyper-emotional. And all is told with a power of concentration that is simply astonishing. A sentence does duty for a chapter, a paragraph for a picture of years of experience.
Indeed, for vigor, originality, forcefulness of expression, and completeness of character presentation, "Keynotes" surpasses any recent volume of short fiction that we can recall.—Times, Boston.
It brings a new quality and a striking new force into the literature of the hour.—The Speaker.
The mind that conceived "Keynotes" is so strong and original that one will look with deep interest for the successors of this first book, at once powerful and appealingly feminine.—Irish Independent.
THE DANCING FAUN.
By FLORENCE FARR.
With Title-page and Cover Design by Aubrey Beardsley.
16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
We welcome the light and merry pen of Miss Farr as one of the deftest that has been wielded in the style of to-day. She has written the cleverest and the most cynical sensation story of the season.—Liverpool Daily Post.
Slight as it is, the story is, in its way, strong.—Literary World.
Full of bright paradox, and paradox which is no mere topsy-turvy play upon words, but the product of serious thinking upon life. One of the cleverest of recent novels.—Star.
It is full of epigrammatic effects, and it has a certain thread of pathos calculated to win our spmpathy.—Queen.
The story is subtle and psychological after the fashion of modern psychology; it is undeniably clever and smartly written.—Gentlewoman.
No one can deny its freshness and wit. Indeed there are things in it here and there which John Oliver Hobbes herself might have signed without loss of reputation.—Woman.
There is a lurid power in the very unreality of the story. One does not quite understand how Lady Geraldine worked herself up to shooting her lover; but when she has done it, the description of what passes through her mind is magnificent.—Athenæum.
Written by an obviously clever woman.—Black and White.
Miss Farr has talent. "The Dancing Faun" contains writing that is distinctively good. Doubtless it is only a prelude to something much stronger.—Academy.
As a work of art, the book has the merit of brevity and smart writing, while the dénouement is skilfully prepared, and comes as a surprise. If the book had been intended as a satire on the "new woman" sort of literature, it would have been most brilliant; but assuming it to be written in earnest, we can heartily praise the form of its construction without agreeing with the sentiments expressed.—St. Jame's Gazette.
Shows considerable power and aptitude.—Saturday Review.
Miss Farr is a clever writer whose apprenticeship at playwriting can easily be detected in the epigrammatic conversations with which this book is filled, and whose characters expound a philosophy of life which strongly recalls Oscar Wilde's later interpretations. . . . The theme of the tale is heredity developed in a most unpleasant manner. The leading idea that daughters inherit the father's qualities, good or evil, while sons resemble their mother, is well sustained.—Home Journal.
POOR FOLK.
A Novel.
16mo.Cloth.$1.00.
A capable critic writes: "One of the most beautiful, touching stories I have read. The character of the old clerk is a masterpiece, a kind of Russian Charles Lamb. He reminds me, too, of Anatole France's 'Sylvestre Bonnard,' but it is a more poignant, moving figure. How wonderfully, too, the sad little strokes of humor are blended into the pathos in his characterization, and how fascinating all the naive self-revelations of his poverty become,—all his many ups and downs and hopes and fears. His unsuccessful visit to the money-lender, his despair at the office, unexpectedly ending in a sudden burst of good fortune, the final despairing cry of his love for Varvara,—these hold one breathless. One can hardly read them without tears. . . . But there is no need to say all that could be said about the book. It is enough to say that it is over powerful and beautiful."
We are glad to welcome a good translation of the Russian Dostoievsky's story "Poor Folk," Englished by Lena Milman. It is a tale of unrequited love, conducted in the form of letters written between a poor clerk and his girl cousin whom he devotedly loves, and who finally leaves him to marry a man not admirable in character who, the reader feels, will not make her happy. The pathos of the book centres in the clerk, Makar's, unselfish affection and his heart-break at being left lonesome by his charming kinswoman whose epistles have been his one solace. In the conductment of the story, realistic sketches of middle class Russian life are given, heightening the effect of the denoument. George Moore writes a sparkling introduction to the book.—Hartford Courant.
Dostoievsky is a great artist. "Poor Folk" is a great novel.—Boston Advertiser.
It is a most beautiful and touching story, and will linger in the mind long after the book is closed. The pathos is blended with touching bits of humor, that are even pathetic in themselves.—Boston Times.
Notwithstanding that "Poor Folk" is told in that most exasperating and entirely unreal style—by letters—it is complete in sequence, and the interest does not flag as the various phases in the sordid life of the two characters are developed. The theme is intensely pathetic and truly human, while its treatment is exceedingly artistic. The translator, Lena Milman, seems to have well preserved the spirit of the original.—Cambridge Tribune.
A CHILD OF THE AGE.
A Novel.
BY FRANCIS ADAMS
(KEYNOTES SERIES.)
With titlepage by Aubrey Beardsley.16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
This story by Francis Adams was originally published under the title of "Leicester, an Autobiography," in 1884, when the author was only twenty-two years of age. That would make him thirty-two years old now, if he were still living. He was but eighteen years old when it was first drafted by him. Sometime after publication, he revised the work, and in its present form it is now published again, practically a posthumous production. We can with truthfulness characterize it as a tale of fresh originality, deep spiritual meaning, and exceptional power. It fairly buds, blossoms, and fruits with suggestions that search the human spirit through. No similar production has come from the hand of any author in our time. That Francis Adams would have carved out a remarkable career for himself had he continued to live, this little volume, all compact with significant suggestion, attests on many a page. It exalts, inspires, comforts, and strengthens all together. It instructs by suggestion, spiritualizes the thought by its elevating and purifying narrative, and feeds the hungering spirit with food it is only too ready to accept and assimilate. Those who read its pages with an eager curiosity the first time will be pretty sure to return to them for a second slower and more meditative perusal. The book is assuredly the promise and potency of great things unattained in the too brief lifetime of its gifted author. We heartily commend it as a book not only of remarkable power, but as the product of a human spirit whose merely intellectual gifts were but a fractional part of his inclusive spiritual endowments.—Boston Courier.
But it is a remarkable work—as a pathological study almost unsurpassed. It produces the impression of a photograph from life, so vividly realistic is the treatment. To this result the author's style, with its fidelity of microscopic detail, doubtless contributes.—Evening Traveller.
This story by Francis Adams is one to read slowly, and then to read a second time. It is powerfully written, full of strong suggestion, unlike, in fact, anything we have recently read. What he would have done in the way of literary creation, had he lived, is, of course, only a matter of conjecture. What he did we have before us in this remarkable book.—Boston Advertiser.
THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.
BY ARTHUR MACHEN.
KEYNOTES SERIES.
16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
A couple of tales by Arthur Machen, presumably an Englishman, published æsthetically in this country by Roberts Brothers. They are horror stories, the horror being of the vague psychologic kind and dependent, in each case, upon a man of science who tries to effect a change in individual personality by an operation upon the brain cells. The implied lesson is that it is dangerous and unwise to seek to probe the mystery separating mind and matter. These sketches are extremely strong and we guarantee the "shivers" to anyone who reads them.—Hartford Courant.
For two stories of the most marvelous and improbable character, yet told with wonderful realism and naturalness, the palm for this time will have to be awarded to Arthur Machen, for "The Great God Pan and the Inmost Light," two stories just published in one book. They are fitting companions to the famous stories by Edgar Allan Poe both in matter and style. "The Great God Pan" is founded upon an experiment made upon a girl by which she was enabled for a moment to see the god Pan, but with most disastrous results, the most wonderful of which is revealed at the end of the story, and which solution the reader will eagerly seek to reach. From the first mystery or tragedy follow in rapid succession. "The Inmost Light" is equally as remarkable for its imaginative power and perfect air of probability. Anything in the legitimate line of psychology utterly pales before these stories of such plausibility.—Boston Home Journal.
Precisely who the great god Pan of Mr. Machen's first tale is, we did not quite discover when we read it, or, discovering, we have forgotten; but our impression is that under the idea of that primitive great deity he impersonated, or meant to impersonate, the evil influences that attach to woman, the fatality of feminine beauty, which, like the countenance of the great god Pan, is deadly to all who behold it. His heroine is a beautiful woman, who ruins the souls and bodies of those over whom she casts her spells, being as good as a Suicide Club, if we may say so, to those who love her; and to whom she is Death. Something like this, if not this exactly, is, we take it, the interpretation of Mr. Machen's uncanny parable, which is too obscure to justify itself as an imaginative creation and too morbid to be the production of a healthy mind. The kind of writing which it illustrates is a bad one, and this is one of the worst of the kind. It is not terrible, but horrible.—R. H. S. in Mail and Express.
DISCORDS.
A Volume of Stories.
By GEORGE EGERTON, author of "Keynotes."
AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION.
16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
George Egerton's new volume entitled "Discords," a collection of short stories, is more talked about, just now, than any other fiction of the day. The collection is really stories for story-writers. They are precisely the quality which literary folk will wrangle over. Harold Frederic cables from London to the "New York Times" that the book is making a profound impression there. It is published on both sides, the Roberts House bringing it out in Boston. George Egerton, like George Eliot and George Sand, is a woman's nom de plume. The extraordinary frankness with which life in general is discussed in these stories not unnaturally arrests attention.—Lilian Whiting.
The English woman, known as yet only by the name of George Egerton, who made something of a stir in the world by a volume of strong stories called "Keynotes," has brought out a new book under the rather uncomfortable title of "Discords." These stories show us pessimism run wild; the gloomy things that can happen to a human being are so dwelt upon as to leave the impression that in the author's own world there is no light. The relations of the sexes are treated of in bitter irony, which develops into actual horror as the pages pass. But in all this there is a rugged grandeur of style, a keen analysis of motive, and a deepness of pathos that stamp George Egerton as one of the greatest women writers of the day. "Discords" has been called a volume of stories; it is a misnomer, for the book contains merely varying episodes in lives of men and women, with no plot, no beginning nor ending.—Boston Traveller.
This is a new volume of psychological stories from the pen and brains of George Egerton, the author of "Keynotes." Evidently the titles of the author's books are selected according to musical principles. The first story in the book is "A Psychological Moment at Three Periods." It is all strength rather than sentiment. The story of the child, of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told by one to whom the mysteries of the life of each are familiarly known. In their very truth, as the writer has so subtly analyzed her triple characters, they sadden one to think that such things must be; yet as they are real, they are bound to be disclosed by somebody and in due time. The author betrays remarkable penetrative skill and perception, and dissects the human heart with a power from whose demonstration the sensitive nature may instinctively shrink even while fascinated with the narration and hypnotized by the treatment exhibited.—Courier.
PRINCE ZALESKI.
BY M. P. SHIEL.
Keynotes Series.American Copyright Edition.
16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
The three stories by M. P. Shiel, which have just been published in the Keynotes series, make one of the most remarkable books of the time. Prince Zaleski, who figures in each, is a striking character, most artistically and dramatically presented. "The Race of Orven," the first story, is one of great power, and it were hardly possible to tell it more skilfully. "The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks" is in something the same vein, mysterious and gruesome. It is in "S. S.," however, that the author most fully discloses his marvellous power as a story-teller. We have read nothing like it since the tales of E. A. Poe; but it is not an imitation of Poe. We much doubt if the latter ever wrote a story so strong and thrillingly dramatic.—Boston Advertiser.
The first of the three tales composing this little volume is entitled "The Race of Orven," which supplies the character from whom is taken the title of the book. The other two are, "The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks" and "The S. S." There are three maxims on the titlepage, probably one for each of the tales,—one from Isaiah, one from Cervantes, and one from Sophocles,—but they are a triple key to the spirit of book altogether. The Prince, however, rules the contents entirely, pervading them with mysticism of every imaginable character. The "S. S." tale is decidedly after the manner of Poe, full of mysterious problems in murders and suicides, to be treated with ingenious solutions. There is a morbid tendency running through the entire trinity, the author seeming to invent characters and complications only to exhibit his ingenuity in unravelling them, and in stringing on these ingenious theories the spiritual conceptions in which he is wont to indulge his thought. But the thought is both magnetic and bold, and rarely illusive. Hermitages, recluses, silences and funereal glooms, and the entire family of grotesque thoughts and things, are not merely wrought into the writer's canvas, but are his very staple, the warp and woof composing it. It is an across-the-seas collection of conceits, skilfully strung on one glittering thread by a matured thinker. The attempt is made to carve out the mystery of things from the heart of the outward existence. The men and women on whom the scalpel is made to work are real flesh-and-blood entities, of such strong points of character as to be actually necessary in developing the author's thought as much as his purpose. The book belongs to the increasing class that has come in with the introversive habit of modern thought and speculation—call it spiritual or something else.—Boston Courier.
THE WOMAN WHO DID.
BY GRANT ALLEN.
Keynotes Series.American Copyright Edition.
16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
A very remarkable story, which in a coarser hand than its refined and gifted author could never have been effectively told; for such a hand could not have sustained the purity of motive, nor have portrayed the noble, irreproachable character of Herminia Barton.—Boston Home Journal.
"The Woman Who Did" is a remarkable and powerful story. It increases our respect for Mr. Allen's ability, nor do we feel inclined to join in throwing stones at him as a perverter of our morals and our social institutions. However widely we may differ from Mr. Allen's views on many important questions, we are bound to recognize his sincerity, and to respect him accordingly. It is powerful and painful, but it is not convincing. Herminia Barton is a woman whose nobleness both of mind and of life we willingly concede; but as she is presented to us by Mr. Allen, there is unmistakably a flaw in her intellect. This in itself does not detract from the reality of the picture.—The Speaker.
In the work itself, every page, and in fact every line, contains outbursts of intellectual passion that places this author among the giants of the nineteenth century.—American Newsman.
Interesting, and at times intense and powerful.—Buffalo Commercial.
No one can doubt the sincerity of the author.—Woman's Journal.
The story is a strong one, very strong, and teaches a lesson that no one has a right to step aside from the moral path laid out by religion, the law, and society.—Boston Times.
A STRANGE CAREER.
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JOHN GLADWYN JEBB.
BY HIS WIDOW.
With an Introduction by H. Rider Haggard, and a portrait of Mr. Jebb. 12mo, cloth.Price, $1.25.
A remarkable romance of modern life.—Daily Chronicle.
Exciting to a degree.—Black and White.
Full of breathless interest.—Times.
Reads like fiction.—Daily Graphic.
Pages which will hold their readers fast to the very end.—Graphic.
A better told and more marvellous narrative of a real life was never put into the covers of a small octavo volume.—To-Day.
As fascinating as any romance. . . . The book is of the most entrancing interest.—St. James's Budget.
Those who love stories of adventure will find a volume to their taste in the "Life and Adventures of John Gladwyn Jebb," just published, and to which an introduction is furnished by Rider Haggard. The latter says that rarely, if ever, in this nineteenth century, has a man lived so strange and varied an existence as did Mr. Jebb. From the time that he came to manhood he was a wanderer; and how he survived the many perils of his daily life is certainly a mystery. . . . The strange and remarkable adventures of which we have an account in this volume were in Guatemala, Brazil, in our own far West with the Indians on the plains, in mining camps in Colorado and California, in Texas, in Cuba and Mexico, where occurred the search for Montezuma's, or rather Guatemoc's treasure, to which Mr. Haggard believes that Mr. Jebb held the key, but which through his death is now forever lost. The story is one of thrilling interest from beginning to end, the story of a born adventurer, unselfish, sanguine, romantic, of a man too mystical and poetic in his nature for this prosaic nineteenth century, but who, as a crusader or a knight errant, would have won distinguished success. The volume is a notable addition to the literature of adventure.—Boston Advertiser.
Foam of tbe Sea.
By GERTRUDE HALL,
Author of "Far from To-day," "Allegretto," "Verses," etc.
16mo.Cloth.Price, $1.00.
Miss Gertrude Hall's second volume of short stories, "Foam of the Sea and Other Tales," shows the same characteristics as the first, which will be instantly remembered under the title of "Far from To-day." They are vigorous, fanciful, in part quaint, always thought-stirring and thoughtful. She has followed old models somewhat in her style, and the setting of many of the tales is mediæval. The atmosphere of them is fascinating, so unusual and so pervading is it; and always refined are her stories, and graceful, even with an occasional touch of grotesquerie. And there is an underlying subtleness in them, a grasp of the problems of the heart and the head, in short, of life, which is remarkable; and yet they, for the most part, are romantic to a high degree, and reveal an imagination far beyond the ordinary. "Foam of the Sea," like "Far from To-day," is a volume of rare tales, beautifully wrought out of the past for the delectation of the present.
Of the six tales in the volume, "Powers of Darkness" alone has a wholly nineteenth century flavor. It is a sermon told through two lives pathetically miseraable. "The Late Returning" is dramatic and admirably turned, strong in its heart analysis. "Foam of the Sea" is almost archaic in its rugged simplicity, and "Garden Deadly" (the most imaginative of the six) is beautiful in its descriptions, weird in its setting, and curiously effective. "The Wanderers" is a touching tale of the early Christians, and "In Battlereagh House" there is the best character drawing.
Miss Hall is venturing along a unique line of story telling, and must win the praise of the discriminating.—The Boston Times.
There is something in the quality of the six stories by Gertrude Hall in the volume to which this title is given which will attract attention. They are stories which must—some of them—be read more than once to be appreciated. They are fascinating in their subtlety of suggestion, in their keen analysis of motive, and in their exquisite grace of diction. There is great dramatic power in "Powers of Darkness" and "In Battlereagh House." They are stories which should occupy more than the idle hour. They are studies.—Boston Advertiser.
She possesses a curious originality, and, what does not always accompany this rare faculty, skill in controlling it and compelling it to take artistic forms.—Mail and Express.
FAR FROM TO-DAY.
A Volume of Stories.
BY GERTRUDE HALL,
16mo. Cloth.Price, $1.00.
These stories are marked with originality and power. The titles are as follows: viz., Tristiane, The Sons of Philemon, Servirol, Sylvanus, Theodolind, Shepherds.
Miss Hall has put together here a set of gracefully written tales,—tales of long ago. They have an old-world mediæval feeling about them, soft with intervening distance, like the light upon some feudal castle wall, seen through the openings of the forest. A refined fancy and many an artistic touch has been spent upon the composition with good result.—London Bookseller.
"Although these six stories are dreams of the misty past, their morals have a most direct bearing on the present. An author who has the soul to conceive such stories is worthy to rank among the highest. One of our best literary critics, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, says: 'I think it is a work of real genius, Homeric in its simplicity, and beautiful exceedingly.'"
Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, in the Newburyport Herald:—
"A volume giving evidence of surprising genius is a collection of six tales by Gertrude Hall, called 'Far from To-day.' I recall no stories at once so powerful and subtle as these. Their literary charm is complete, their range of learning is vast, and their human interest is intense. 'Tristiane,' the first one, is as brilliant and ingenious, to say the least, as the best chapter of Arthur Hardy's 'Passe Rose;' 'Sylvanus' tells a heart-breaking tale, full of wild delight in hills and winds and skies, full of pathos and poetry; in 'The Sons of Philemon' the Greek spirit is perfect, the story absolutely beautiful; 'Theodolind,' again, repeats the Norse life to the echo, even to the very measure of the runes; and 'The Shepherds' gives another reading to the meaning of 'The Statue and the Bust.' Portions of these stories are told with an almost archaic simplicity, while other portions mount on great wings of poetry, 'Far from To-day,' as the time of the stories is placed; the hearts that beat in them are the hearts of to-day, and each one of these stories breathes the joy and the sorrow of life, and is rich with the beauty of the world."
From the London Academy, December 24th:—
"The six stories in the dainty volume entitled 'Far from To-day' are of imagination all compact. The American short tales, which have of late attained a wide and deserved popularity in this country, have not been lacking in this vitalizing quality; but the art of Mrs. Slosson and Miss Wilkins is that of imaginative realism, while that of Miss Gertrude Hall is that of imaginative romance; theirs is the work of impassioned observation, hers of impassioned invention. There is in her book a fine, delicate fantasy that reminds one of Hawthorne in his sweetest moods; and while Hawthorne had certain gifts which were all his own, the new writer exhibits a certain winning tenderness in which he was generally deficient. In the domain of pure romance it is long since we have had anything so rich in simple beauty as is the work which is to be found between the covers of 'Far from To-day.'"
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