Scheherazade a London Night's Entertainment. By Florence Warden. 3 vole.
(Ward and Downey.)—The two principal char- acters in Scheherazade are so good that they far more than counter- balance any faults of conception and execution that may be found in the story. A London Night's Entertainment may be expected to be something of a romance, and we are accordingly not surprised at the very strange circumstances under which the hero discovers the heroine. It is not impossible that a dingy London street should produce each marvels as the young lady and her surroundings, though it is impossible not to be reminded of the Oriental palace which " Codlingsby " finds opening out of an " old-clo " shop in Holywell Street. We are, however, soon so interested in Scheherazade and her paladin of a husband, that we forget to laugh or to be incredulous. She is the Oriental woman, heiress of a long tradition of oppression encountered by deceit, coming into contact with the freedom, the honour, the truthfulness of the best morality of the West. As she is passionately fond of amusements, keenly alive to the personal vanities of woman, there follows, it may be supposed, a very considerable corn- plioation, which requires all the courage, devotion, and patience of the moat admirable of husbands to deal with. There are other dis- turbing circumstances, chief among them the heroine's mother, who does not add to the attraction, or, we are inclined to say, to the merit of the book. Miss Warden shirks, it would seem, the realistic; treatment which would make this portrait effective. Nor, indeed, are we surprised.. A Zola would be wanted for the task. Some of the earlier scenes in the book might be spared, or, at least, toned down with advantage. On the whole, it is a striking and effective story.
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