Page:The Red Triangle.pdf/324

4

Works of Charles G. D. Roberts (Continued) Earth's Enigmas.

This is the author's first volume of stories and the one which discovered him as a fiction writer of advanced rank. The tales deal chiefly with those elemental problems of the mysteries of life,—pain, the unknown, the strange kinship of man and beast in the struggle for existence,—the enigmas which occur chiefly to the primitive folk on the backwoods fringe of civilization, and they arrest attention for their sincerity, their freshness of first-hand knowledge, and their superior craft.

By the Marshes of Minas.

This is a volume of romance of love and adventure in that picturesque period when Nova Scotia was passing from the French to the English regime, of which Professor Roberts is the acknowledged celebrant. Each tale is independent of the others, but the scenes are similar, and in several of them the evil "Black Abbé," well known from the author's previous novels, again appears with his savages at his heels—but to be thwarted always by woman's wit or soldier's courage.

Manasseh. Translated by P. F. Bicknell. With a portrait in photogravure of Dr. Jókai.

An absorbing story of life among a happy and primitive people hidden away in far Transylvania, whose peaceful life is never disturbed except by the inroads of their turbulent neighbors. The opening scenes are laid in Rome; and the view of the corrupt, intriguing society there forms a picturesque contrast to the scenes of pastoral simplicity and savage border warfare that succeed.