Frexaxot—by W. B, Maxwell, Thorn ton Butterworth, London 1920
If to call a book by the name of the most outstanding character in it is to name it, well then Mr. Maxwell had certainly chosen wisely in this case. Fernando is a remarkable woman and from the time we first meet her in the pages of Mr. Maxwell's novel she dominates the story. The plot is apparently intended to centre round the figure of Erie Bowen, who has come to London to seek his fortune and, working in Covent Garden for a short time, is lucky enough to get taken on the staff of a paper called the "Mayfair Gazette—there would be fewer unemployed if jobs were obtained as easily as this ono—th: paper is in low water, but has just been financed, for sentimental reasons, by a wealthy merchant. named Cornish. The Editor is Cyril Faulkner, who is living with Fernando who has parted from her husband. Eric Bowen does nothing particularly startling and beyond a certain charm of manner and an ingenuous outlook on life is nothing out of the common and although he does "get on" in his search for fortune one can't help wondering just how he does it. The explanation seems to be Fernando who wields a certain amount of] influence and exercises it on his behalf. He has another stroke of luck in being taken up by Cornish and made to share in his prosperity, but one feels that, were it not for two pieces of phenomenal good fortune, first in getting on the staff of the "Mayfair Gazette" and making friends with Fernando, and, being taken up, for no particular reason, by Cornish, he would not have got very Fernando first helps, then interferes with, Eric's career and affairs and after keeping up a platonic friendship for a long. time the inevitable happens just at the time he is about to marry Ruth Cornish. He goes off with Fernando, but eventually all comes right in the good old way and he marries Ruth. Fernando is an extraordinary character complex and difficult to understand,-but she holds one's interest at a high pitch and is cer tainly one of Mr. Maxwell's most successful portraits, Cyril Faulkner a clever cynical man of the: world and Erie Bowen the youth who would the world are both acters but suffer by As the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.