22 SEPTEMBER 1888, Page 23

Who is Vera ? By A. E. Schlotel. 3 vols.

(Griffith, Farran, and Co.)—Mr., or Miss, Schlotel describes his or her book as a "novel wherein English and Russian lives are interwoven ;" and if we were compelled to choose between the English and the Russian element in the story, we should perhaps pronounce in favour of the latter; but, as a matter of fact, all the characters seem so unreal, and many of the incidents so far-fetched, that the main- tenance of any interest at all is rather hard work. The book has good things in it, but the reader is likely to be tired before he finds them.