Good Books

The following estimates of books most in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion: THE CAPTAIN'S DOLL--D. H. Law-rence--Seltzerr ($2.00). This volume contains three long stories, each a vivid symbolic study of a character caught in the spiritual unrest following the war. In The Captain's Doll an Austrian countess is forced to earn her living by making doll-figures, one of a Scotch captain whom she marries after the death of his wife. The doll symbolizes the fact that even an adoring wife tries to "make a doll of her husband." In The Fox a young returned soldier woos and wins an older woman, who tries to run a farm. In Ladybird an English countess is fascinated by the strange philosophy of a wounded Hungarian count. These tales are free of the tiresome sex discussions which marred Lawrence's last two novels. Their intense mysticism shows his work at its best, though it may puzzle readers accustomed to straight stories. THE ROAD TO THE OPEN--Arthur Schnitzler--Knopf ($2.50). Schnitzler is better known as a dramatist than a novelist. The present novel is a translation of his longest and best fiction. With his accustomed subtlety and melancholy it pictures the life of a young man in Vienna who lives for pleasure only, his various entanglements, his interest in and creation of music, his friends both in the gay upper society and the humbler middle class. Schnitzler here, as always, regards life as a poetic dream. The meaning and moral of his novel are woven skillfully into the substance, and the characters are always real people caught into the mystery of life. Schnitzler writes always with the utmost distinction; but the range of his work varies little from certain artistic and social circles in Vienna. THE HOUSE OF THE SECRET-- Claude Ferrere--Dutton ($3.50). Three infamous old men live like cruel spiders in a dark house in a rocky ravine. They are the possessors of an appalling secret. A French captain penetrates to their retreat. They demonstrate to him an experiment in the latest methods of magnetism and hypnotism. Through the course of the action horror creeps nearer and nearer. Spirits summon a man bound in a trance. The whole interest of this shuddery tale lies in the culminating horror. It does not take rank with the best work of Algernon Blackwood. But it has all the necessary substance of a very exciting horror story.