The Purple Cloud. By M. P. Shiel. (Chatto and Windus.
5s.)—Mr. Shiel once more, as in his book " The Lord of the Sea," reviewed about three months ago, has recourse to his in- troduction of a clairvoyante lady notes of whose visions are just now furnishing him with plots. We are glad to observe that there is only one more of these stories to be published, for Mr. Shiel is more amusing when he is, to use a common expression, "on his own." His present story, which shows what happened to the world when a second Adam angered the Creator by reaching the North Pole, to which man should never have penetrated, is too full of the odour of decaying corpses to be in the least pleasant reading. Of course this is to be expected, as the whole of the races of mankind perish except Mr. Shiers hero. After about fifteen years' solitary self-indulgence, this gentleman discovers a young girl alive to act as a second Eve, and hopes that their progeny will redeem the world. We fancy not, as Mr. Shiers obese and sensual Adam is anything but an improvement on the first Adam, who even after the Fall was a decent, hard-working gardener, and did not live on the abandoned potted meats of a perished civilisation.
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