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FICTION —(continued)

Vera is a girl of mixed English and Russian descent, who is gifted with a beautiful voice. A wealthy Polish impresario, Prince Zaleski, marries her, and spares no expense in training her for the operatic stage. At the last moment before her début she discovers the call of Love to be stronger than her Art. How she finds her mistake, and in the end fulfils her vocation is the subject of this story, which also describes life in the English colony of a Russian provincial town.

Mr. George Kennan probably knows more Russian political exiles than any other man. Ever since his first visit to Siberia, undertaken more than forty years ago, he has kept in touch with many persons prominent in "underground Russia," and in his travels through Russia and Siberia he has met with many interesting adventures and heard many strange stories of the police and spy systems. He has gathered these stories into "A Russian Comedy of Errors."

"Mr. Leadbitter enters the literary arena with an equipment rare in a novice. He works with conscientiousness and consistency on the lines he has chosen, and if he deliberately limits his canvas he works well within his powers. And his style, unaffected, clear, and thoroughly efficient, is in harmony with his theme."—Spectator.

"There are few novels written nowadays with more of the qualities that mark the 'worth while' in fiction. A really remarkable first novel."—Observer.

"Has an amazing reality about it . .. coming near to inspiration at times, extraordinarily sincere from the first page to the last."—Evening Standard. LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LIMITED