s, and
it is certain that there are few better. It is not a story so much as a
vast and varied transcript of life. It is also a delightful romance, and
Gerard and Margaret are among the immortals of fiction.

=Romola.= GEORGE ELIOT.

This is the only novel of George Eliot's in which the scene is laid
outside her own country. It is a story of Florence during the time of
the Renaissance, a marvellous picture of the intellectual and moral
ferment which the New Learning created. With amazing learning and
insight the author portrays the souls of men and women, and her study of
a weak man and a strong woman has rarely been surpassed in English
literature for dramatic power and moral truth.

=Silas Marner.= GEORGE ELIOT.

This, the shortest and the most exquisite of George Eliot's tales,
represents her great powers at their best. In the picture of the hero
she shows a profound understanding of human nature, and the feelings
which were then moving rural and industrial England.

=The Abbot.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.

One of the Waverley novels which has always been deservedly popular.

=Bride of Lammermoor.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.

The story is a tragedy on the lines of Greek drama, and the ending has
been pronounced by great critics to be the most moving in prose
literature. In the Master of Ravenswood, Scott has drawn perhaps his
greatest tragic figure, and in Caleb Balderstone one of his most
humorous creations.

=The Black Tulip.= ALEXANDRE DUMAS.

This was the last of Dumas' great stories. It is a veritable _tour de
force_, for in it the reader follows with consuming interest the
vicissitudes of a tulip, and the human element in the story is quite
subsidiary. Nevertheless, it contains such strongly-drawn characters as
Cornelius van Baerle, the guardian of the tulip, and Rosa, the jailer's
daughter.

=Tom Cringle's Log.= MICHAEL SCOTT.

A brilliant story of West Indian life by an author who combined abundant
personal experience with keen observation, sprightly temper, and
delightful humour. "Tom Cringle's Log" has been many times reprinted,
and has lost nothing of its popularity and power to please.

=Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.=

Tens of thousands of readers have been led to Shakespeare by the
charmingly told stories which Charles and Mary Lamb, about a hundred
years ago, extracted from the plays of the greatest dramatist of all
time. Though produced by Lamb at the very outset of his literary career,