Her Fair Fame. By Edgar Fawcett. (Ward, Lock, and Bow-
den.)—The two stories of which this volume is composed will not justify in this country the reputation their author has acquired on the other side of the Atlantic. The second novelette, "The Story of a Statue," is puerile—we had almost said silly—and cannot be said to be even original ; at all events, the jealousy of a woman for a statue or a picture is an old stage trick. There is, indeed, plenty of originality and passion in Her Fair Fame—at all events, the passion is distinctly original because it is excessive— but is extremely unpleasant. We may hope, if not believe, that Ogden Hamilton is an impossibility. He certainly is a mon- strosity. He has certain good and even benevolent instincts. He loves art,—after a fashion. He loves Foulke Bradhurst, the artist —after a fashion—and unquestionably does seek to promote his interests. He loves his ward, Phyllis Lorremore—after a fashion. But he loves himself above everybody and everything else, and so he enters into a positively loathsome conspiracy against the fair fame of Phyllis, after she is married to Bradhurst. Mr. Fawcett is good enough to allow this conspiracy to end in failure, and to make Hamilton commit suicide. But the whole story leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth, and its style is not such as to compensate for the shortcomings of its plot.
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