he party which she gave, according to plan, to the
Princess and, not according to plan, to other guests let loose on her by
her scapegrace brother-in-law."

=iii=

Stephen McKenna, the author of _Sonia_, not to be confused with Stephen
McKenna, the translator of Poltinus, belongs to the Protestant branch of
that royal Catholic sept which has had its home in the County Monagham
since the dawn of Irish history. Some members, even, of this branch have
reverted to the old faith since the date of Stephen McKenna's birth in the
year 1888 in London.

He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner of Christ Church,
Oxford. After he had taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, an
elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald McKenna, K. C., the last
Liberal Chancellor of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him to
travel desultorily and to try his luck in the great literary adventure.

On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which is delicate to the point
of frailness, debarred him from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first
volunteered for service at his old school, and, after a year, joined the
staff of the War Trade Intelligence Department, where he did valuable war
work for three and a half years. He represented his department on the
Right Honourable A. J. Balfour's mission in 1917, to the United States,
where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made himself very popular; and he
did not sever his connection with the government service until February,
1919, four months after the conclusion of the armistice.

Stephen McKenna's first three novels--_The Reluctant Lover_, _Sheila
Intervenes_ and _The Sixth Sense_--were written and published before their
author was 27 years of age! But _Sonia_, the story that made him widely
known, was written entirely during the period of his activities on the
staff of Westminster School and at the War Trade Intelligence Department.
The book won the public favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel
that has appeared in our time.

The success of _Sonia_ was largely due to its description in a facile,
popular and yet eminently chaste and polished style, of the social and
political situation in England for a half generation before and during the
early stages of the war. This description Stephen McKenna was peculiarly
well-equipped to produce, not only as the near relative of a prominent
cabinet minister, but also as an assiduous frequenter of the leading
Liberal cen