Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
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.
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