No one knows the lower side of London life so well as Arthur Morrison, and this novel is his most masterly presentation of the underworld with which he is so familiar. He has knit mean characters, mean pa.s.sions, mean stage setting into a powerful drama of life that thrills as much because of the realism with which it is drawn as because of the exciting scenes that come treading helter-skelter upon each others heels. The rough sailors, the thugs and criminals that frequent the "Hole in the Wall" Inn lose none of their picturesqueness, nor any of their sordidness either, from Mr. Morrison"s treatment of them. He handles his material in a way that suggests strongly the work of d.i.c.kens. As an intimate picture of the lowest life in London, the novel is without an equal.
"It is a section of human life showing true lights and shadows, a section cut by an exceedingly sharp blade. Some of the things that d.i.c.kens is most praised for are evident in the work of Mr.
Morrison."--_Springfield Republican_.
"All of Mr. Morrison"s work deserves the recognition it has attained, but this is undoubtedly the most artistic, the most virile, and the most heartrendingly true."--_Baltimore Sun_.
McClure, Phillips & Co.
By Arnold Bennett
Author of "The Great Babylon Hotel"
ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
Probably no story of the year is so simply and yet so artistically told as this one. It portrays the development of a sweet and natural girl"s character, amid a community of strict Wesleyan Methodists in a Staffordshire town. How her upright nature progresses with constant rebellions against the hypocrisy and cant of the religionists, by whom she is surrounded, is brought out by the author faithfully and with great delicacy of insight. Many will love Anna, and not a few will find something in her to suggest "Tess of the Durbervilles." The plot is extremely simple, but the reader will find a surprise in the last chapters.
The English letter from W. L. Alden, in the _New York Times Review_ says:
"It will be promptly recognized by the critics whose opinion is worth something _as the most artistic story of the year_."
McClure, Phillips & Co.