In this book Mr. Swift has recorded the history of a woman born under strange conditions, of strange parents, who faces life alone after long experience in a New York slum. Strange to say, she finds nothing unusual or unbeautiful in slum life, and, stranger still, she emerges quite unsophisticated and fa firm believer in daintiness and hilarity. "Cuckoo" is, to say the east, a very superior creation indeed, Tt is a pity that in a book of this kind, which is obviously intended for light veading, the author could not resist the temptation to take what our friends the 'Americans are wont to term a slam" at a country which can have done him no harm. In the first few lines he emphasizes that "Cuckoo" lived with her foster-father, Hagen, whose ancestors had course" been kings in Ireland. Mr. Swift' may lay no claim to Tug Sraxtsn Vingine'—By chert, Published by Messrs, jet Benn, LU, London, In this one volume are included one short novel and ten short star: ies, The novel relates the reac~ tions of a mother and daughter to unexpected penury in a series of vivid episodes; the short stories re realistic in their comedy and life-life in their tragedy and fan tosy. The settings vary with the theme, from Spain and the sunny Mediterranean to Iveland and England, Two of the short stories, Tragedy in a Greek Theatre" and The Corsican Inn," have been included in Me, E. J. O'Brien's annual anthology, "Best Short Stories of the Year" The book a a whole is undoubtedly a brilliant and impressive performance.— kingly forbears, he may, in facty be a "modern," but his motives are open to doubt when he drags in Ireland, by the scruff of its nocent neck, so to speak, when starting the story of a slum with slum-born heroine-—H.M.0.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.