This delightful novel takes its place beside Miss Bentley's "Inheritance" and Miss O'Brien's "Without my Cloak" asa chronicle of the Victorian era and beyond; the period ranges from 189 to 1914. In the established "Cavalcade" tradition portrays a pageant of family history for four generations. Rex Whistle {coloured sketch on the dust "cover, showing Hanson's cigar shop in old Paragon Street, Bloomsbury, "with fis austere Adam frontage and bows [windows the lady ina poke bonnet and a. bustle, the cobble-stoned street, and the large spindle-wheel~ barouche, suggests the rich Aavour of the frst part of the novel, which describes the fortune of Hanson's from 1848 to 1908. During this period Catherine Ducrox, the chief character, learns the trade in her father's snop, a place of adventure and romance, full of snuff boxes and the aroma of tobacco leaf imported from Java, Manila, and Havana, and upon nis death takes over control—a deed of some daring of a time when (to quote the author) "to say a woman was running a business was almost as bad.as to say she was running a brothel" Catherine is a irl of spirit and force of character, and when her indulgent father ounces that he has engaged a highly respectable governess "to make a lady of her", she replies, "Don't want to be a lady." This independ-fence of mind and refusal to be moulded toa conventional pattern persist throughout her life, Refer fuses to relinquish: her business tivities and supports her family by the successful management of the shop. She is the first to introduce Indian Cneroots into England, also to popularize the For de: Maduro brand, and in 1876 she is instru mental in making the first. Egyptian and Turkish cigarettes a commercial Success. When, later on, cigarettes are ten for threepence, a rival firm—Roscoe's—manages to buy out the smaller' shop, but Catherine, even after she has' married William Ros coe, retains a share in the Hanson's, the barnacles of modern trade fas tened upon it" The faithful and prosaic William runs a vast combine, consolidates capital, builds factories, and plasters London with hideous posters. He gains popular favour by distributing thousands of penny packets of cigarettes to the "C.LV.5" uring the South African War; his sole interest in outside events Is the effect they have upon the rise uty on. tobacco.
The fast section of the book deals with the family's affairs from 1900 to 1914." Criticisms may be levelled at the ultra modernity of the youths and emancipated maidens who sugest post-war rather than pre-war London: while the coincidence in Chris Mallory's- meeting with the grandchild of his grandmother's rival rounds out the pattern of the story atthe expense, perhaps, probability, But such details do not greatly detract from a very human and readable book, written with humour and sincerity.—a4,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.