hing _John o' Jamestown_ over in England, another firm is flooding
the States with it. Mr. KESTER is a confirmed "best-seller" on the other
side of the Atlantic. Probably his American publishers have issued a
first edition of a hundred thousand of this story. The result may be
imagined. Wild-eyed literary agents will carry the fiery cross
throughout the country, crying that the historical novel is not dead
after all, that there is still money in it; and thousands of estimable
young men who might have been turning out quite decent stories of
American life will thrust paper into their typewriters and begin, "Of
the days when I followed my dear lord through many a hard-fought fray it
ill becomes me, plain rude man that I am, to speak...." And it will be
Mr. KESTER'S fault. It would not matter so much if the great army of
American writers could do the thing even half as well as he has done it
in _John o' Jamestown_; but they cannot. I know them, and that is why a
great trembling runs through me so that I can scarce hold my pen to
complete this review.

* * * * *

The name of Mr. GORDON GARDINER is unfamiliar to me; but I have little
doubt that if _The Reconnaissance_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is a first novel
its author will improve upon work that struck me as at present somewhat
ingenuously conventional. There are two parts to the tale; the first
shows how _Leslie_ earned popular applause and the V.C. by remaining
with a wounded comrade whom he was actually too frightened to leave.
That was a good beginning, and I said to myself that Mr. GARDINER was of
the right stuff; he had a vigorous, incisive style that suited well the
matter of pain and anguish that he had in hand. But, alas! in its hours
of case the story became much more uncertain. All the characters,
including the involuntary hero and the man he rescued (now a lord), turn
up at an hotel on the Lake of Como. There is some mild word-painting
that may remind you pleasantly of pleasant places; and a
disproportionate pother because in one of the sudden lake storms
_Leslie_ dashes for shelter into what he supposes to be his own bedroom
(actually the heroine's) and is imprisoned there by the sticking of a
shutter. An awkward incident, of course, especially as it occurred in
the dead of night, but scarcely enough to make half a novel out of.
Naturally, in the end _Leslie_ owns up about the heroism, and goes away
to justify his unearned credit upon