Amazingly Good First Novel

lagdalena. By Helen Douglas Irvine. (Macmillan, 7s. 6d.) ielorious Troy. . By John Masefield.. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d.).
ier Soul to Keep. By Ethel Cook Eliot. (Sheed and Ward. 7s. (ed.) 'he Faleoncr's .13■,, Ethel Mannitt.
(Jarrolds, 7s. 6d.) Reviewed by FRANCIS BURDETT
The publishers tell us that Magdalena is first novel. It is amazingly good, and as a beauty and charm that is all its own. The story itself is a tragedy, of an .ppalling and rimost unbearable pathos. young woman of an aristocratic family n one of the smaller South American tates falls in love with a man of bad .cputation who, by a sort of trick,carries let off to his country estate. In that :ountry whers religion and morality still told sway it was considered an unfor4ivable outrage.
From that moment the girl was forced .o live a dreadful life. For many years marriage was denied her by the man she had loved, and when at last it came it was swiftlY followed by the ultimate outrage.
The story is told to an English woman cm a voyage to South America by some of Magdalena's compatriots who happened to be oa the heat. She hears it as told by various people with more or less knowledge, muse or less sympathy and understanding. As the whole tale is gradually and most skilfully revealed muclthat seemed inexplicable, puzzling and snful, becomes understandable and falls hsio place.
The crucial point, of course, is Mag dalena's own character. Bit by bit, as truth after truth comes slowly to light. it is revealed as one of extraordinary beauty and strength. We learn how she recovered from that first fatal passion but never went back on the man who had ill-treated her and failed her two children. Faith and perhaps love in spite of everything (or if not love, a profound understanding of him she had once loved) upheld her until the final consummation.
There is an amazing skill in the manner in which the character is gradually re vealed. There is, also, a reticence and dignity that seem like a reflection of that Spanish splendour that goes with simplicity but not with luxury. Miss Irvine is to be congratulated on writing a book that stands immeasurably apart from the ruck of contemporary fiction..
Victorious Troy is one of those books that arouse an enthusiasm for the sea even the most sea-hating reader. What some will eagerly spot as disadvantages others, less prejudiced, will welcome with enthusiasm. The end papers contain sketches of the ship, the Hurrying Angel, with all the parts shown and named so that the most ignorant have only to mark, learn and digest.
There is besides, at the end of the book, an extensive glossary of nautical terms. Some of the earlier pages bristle with them and might put off the very half-hearted to their own great loss. For it is a vivid and moving story of how the sailing-ship was caught in a cyclone; how, dismasted and dismantled, having lost several of her crew and with the captain disabled, she was cleared of wreckage and brought safely to port by the senior apprentice, Richard Pomfret, a boy of eighteen.
Some idea of what such a cyclone means is conveyed to the reader; we feel something of the strain and the horror, as well as the amazement at the sinister atmospheric changes. Dick Pomfret will live in our memory with the crew and the culpable captain, whose place he took.
Her Soul to Keep is the English edition of a novel that seems to have had a great success in America. It deals with a difficult subject but the treattrr-1 of the problem raised is admirable and informative. A girl, deeply in love with and practically ' engaged td a devoted young man, finds herself suddenly confronted with an overwhelming temptation, and succumbs to it.
She becomes a mother and the unhappy married man, who is the father of the child, is as upset as the girl herself. The latter had been adopted by a young married woman with children of her own The problem is how she, and others, should deal with the unfortunate girl and her child. Both the mother and the adopted child are Catholics. The solution may surprise, and even shock, some readers but would seem to be a solution wholly in accord with Catholic teaching.
The young married woman is a remarkable and attractive character. It is possible to see points for criticism but they belong more to the manner than to the matter. It is a noteworthy book that may do a,great deal to help.readers understand ti Catholic attitude to a problem that is f r from being merely academic. We olatly regret that the publishers have not secit their way to anglicise the spelling in this edit ion.
The Falconer's 'VOiee forms about a
third of the book to which it gives its name. It is a mush of sentiment and "sex" of the barn-yard type. Its humbur is unconscious, as . when the heroine recalls the beauty of Barcelona in spring with the "young girl S in their Confirmation dresses" and the "contirrnation bouquets" on the . flower-stalls. Other stories complete the yr:antic.