A Pasteboard Crown. By Clara Morris. (Isbister and Co. 6s.)
The scene of this story is laid in New York. The Lawtons are a poor family of good origin. Upon their tiny income the father, mother, and two daughters can barely live up to the lowest standard of gentility. Both daughters are beautiful, amusing, energetic, and unsophisticated. The younger pursues a course of true love which runs remarkably smooth, while her sister, who is the real heroine of the novel, goes on to the stage. By far the best scenes in the book deal with the theatre and "the profes- sion." (Those who have read Clara Morris's former book, "Life on the Stage," will realise that this writer knows her subject.) The hero, a brilliant actor who has forsaken his art to become a manager for the sake of money, behaves all through the story like a scoundrel. Yet the reader is brought to a great extent under his fascination, and is made to feel that he is a good man acting a bad part, and that circumstances have forced upon him a rele for which Providence did not intend him. He discerns the latent genius of the heroine, and in helping her to develop her powers finds consolation for his own wasted talents. The actress takes New York by storm, and of course falls in love with her mentor, who cannot find courage to tell her that he has a wife in Europe. How Sybil Lawton succeeds, and why the crowns of love and of success turn out to be but pasteboard, we recommend the reader to discover for himself.
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