Prince CHARLIE of the Jacobite legend, Miss MARJORIE BOWEN'S _Mr.
Misfortunate_ (COLLINS) will dispose of it. She gives us a study of
the YOUNG PRETENDER in the decade following Culloden. Figures such as
LOCHIEL, KEITH, GORING, the dour KELLY, HENRY STUART, LOUIS XV., with
sundry courtiers and mistresses, move across the film. I should say
the author's sympathy is with her main subject, but her conscience
is too much for her. I find myself increasingly exercised over
this conscience of Miss BOWEN'S. She seems to me to be deliberately
committing herself to what I can only describe as a staccato method.
This was notably the case with _The Burning Glass_, her last novel.
Her narratives no longer seem to flow. She will give you catalogues
of furniture and raiment, with short scenes interspersed, for all the
world as if she were transcribing from carefully taken notes. Quite
probably she is, and I am being authentically instructed and should
be duly grateful, but I find myself longing for the exuberance of her
earlier method. I feel quite sure this competent author can find a
way of respecting historical truth without killing the full-blooded
flavour of romance.

* * * * *

There is a smack of the Early Besantine about the earnest scion of
a noble house who decides to share the lives and lot of common and
unwashed men with an eye to the imminent appearance of the True Spirit
of Democracy in our midst. Such a one is the hero of Miss MAUD DIVER'S
latest novel, _Strange Roads_ (CONSTABLE); but it is only fair to
say that _Derek Blunt_ (_né_ Blount), second son of the _Earl of
Avonleigh_, is no prig, but, on the contrary, a very pleasant fellow.
For a protagonist he obtrudes himself only moderately in a rather
discursive story which involves a number of other people who do