The plain people of the South, the sturdy common folk who made no pretensions to aristocratic grandeur but who in self-respect, prosperity and character, formed in this section, as elsewhere, the backbone of civilization and society, have not received their due representation in Southern fiction, generally speaking. Baronial splendors, “po’ white trash” peculiarities, and darky picturesqueness have been the favored themes of most Southern story-tellers, moving in the lines of least resistance to romantic and dramatic interest, while the great middle class has been made to occupy a disproportionately small place in their pictures of Southern life. It is not mere accident that the Georgia writers have given us the fullest and best treatment of this class, for in Georgia pre-eminently it dominated and colored the political and social body to a marked degree. Richard Malcolm Johnson, Joel Chandler Harris, and Watson have all given us stories with a strong flavor of the soil and the people who chiefly owned and cultivated it, and Mr. Harben’s tales of north Georgia have been notably successful in this line of fiction. In “Abner Daniel,” Mr. Harben achieved one of the rarest things in modern fiction—a genuine creation. Typically, sympathetically, imaginatively, Abner Daniel rings true; in spirit and letter he is a perfect presentation. Broadly human as he is unmistakably North Georgian, he may be described as a Southern David Harum; but of the two characters Abner Daniel seems to us far more vital, far less dependent on his make-up and gags for reality. In “The Georgians,” Abner reappears, this time as the _deus ex machina_ of a mysterious murder case, involving the love affair and various other interests of the story. The little village of Darley is sketched faithfully and sympathetically, and it is peopled with folk, whom we either know, or instinctively recognize as real. Under the not very deceptive alias of Tom P. Smith, Mr. Harben pictures a certain noted evangelist of Georgia and his revivalist methods, while as a companion piece he presents Jack Bantram, of another ecclesiastical type, who makes a simple and direct appeal to conscience and manhood. The religious ideals and customs of such communities have never received fuller or more sympathetic treatment than in this story, and, indeed, we may find here in simple, but effective narration, a most truthful picture of plain, provincial Georgia life in all its phases and forms. Among the real historical novels—those which are recording the vanishing social history of our nation—“The Georgians” deserves place and consideration. MYSTERIOUS MR. SABIN. By E. Phillips Oppenheim, Author of “A Prince of Sinners,” “Anna, the Adventuress,” etc. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Price, $1.50.