Essays on Modern Novelists. By William Lyon Phelps. (Mac- millan
and Co. 6s. net.)—We have said more than once that it is an unprofitable thing to criticise criticism. We shall not, there- fore, notice Professor Phelps's essays otherwise than by descrip- tion, though we may say generally that they are well worth reading. It is interesting to observe the choice of examples. We find seven English writers (William de Morgan, Alfred 011ivant, Thomas Hardy, R. L. Stevenson, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Rudyard Kipling, and Richard Black-more under the title of "Lorna Doone," his one great novel). There are two Americans (Mark Twain and W. D. Howells), one Norwegian (Bjornson), one Pole (Sienkiexvicz), and one German (Sudermann). It is curious that no Frenchman finds a place. Zola and Daudet can hardly be ignored when one writes of "modern novelists."
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