. The renderings have the same qualities
of idiomatic speech and subtly rendered nuance which is always to be
found in this translator's work, and although both of these volumes
represent the minor work of Dostoievsky, his minor work is finer than
our major work, and characterized by a passionate curiosity about the
human soul and a deep insight into its mysteries. It is idle to argue as
to whether these narratives are short stories or brief novels. However
we classify them, they are profound revelations of human relationship,
and place their author among the great masters of the world's
literature. Nor is it pertinent to discuss their technique or lack of
it. Their technique is sufficient for the author's purpose, and he has
achieved his will nobly in a manner inevitable to him.

BILLY TOPSAIL, M.D., by _Norman Duncan_ (Fleming H. Revell Co.). In this
posthumous volume Norman Duncan has woven together a selection of his
later short stories, in which further adventures of Doctor Luke of the
Labrador are chronicled. They represent the very best of his later work,
and in them the stern physical conditions with which nature surrounds
the life of man provide an admirably rendered background for the
portrayal of character developed by circumstance. Norman Duncan can
never have a successor, and in "Billy Topsail, M.D." the reader will
find him very nearly at his best.

MY PEOPLE by _Caradoc Evans_ (Duffield & Co.). "My People" is a record
of the peasantry of West Wales, and these chronicles are set down with a
biblical economy of speech that makes for a noteworthy literary style. I
refuse to believe that they are a truthful portrait of the folk of whom
Mr. Evans writes, but I believe that he has created a real subjective
world of his own that is thoroughly convincing. H. G. Wells has written
eulogistically of the book and also of the author's novel, "Capel Sion."
I appreciate the qualities in the book that have won Mr. Wells' esteem,
and the book is indeed memorable. But I believe that its excellence is
an artificial excellence, and I commend it to the reader as a work of
incomparable artifice rather than as a faithful reflection of life.

IN HAPPY VALLEY by _John Fox, Jr._ (Charles Scribner's Sons). Of these
ten new chronicles of the Kentucky mountains, gathered from the pages of
Scribner's Magazine during the past year for the most part, "His Last
Christmas Gift" is the most memorable. But all the stories are brief and
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