Extensive pref., introd. (summarising history of Earls of Desmond), and notes. Scene: Mallow, various parts of Munster, and the Tower of London. All the great personages of the time, English and Irish, figure in the story, but several fictitious characters are introduced, and many fictitious episodes are throughout the story mingled with the facts of history. The main plot turns on the Sugán Earl’s love for, and marriage with, Ellen Spenser (an imaginary daughter of the poet). The bias is strongly anti-Catholic. Fr. Archer, S.J., is the villain of the piece, stopping at no crime to gain his ends. It is also, though not to the same extent, anti-Irish. He relies for his facts entirely on _Pacata Hibernia_ (point of view wholly English). The Irish chiefs are made to speak in vulgar modern-Irish dialect (“iligant,” “crattur,” “yr sowls to blazes,” &c., &c.). The humour is distinctly vulgar, as in the case of the Author’s other novel. Raleigh is one of the personages. ⸺ DEARFORGIL, THE PRINCESS OF BREFFNY. Pp. 287. (LONDON: _Hope_). [1857]. Second edition (_Longmans_). 1884. Pp. xxiv. + 284. Story of Diarmuid MacMurrough’s abduction of the wife of O’Ruairc of Breffni, and subsequent events, including an account of the Norman Invasion. The tone throughout is anti-National and most offensive to Catholic feeling. The frequent humorous passages are nearly always vulgar, and in some instances coarse. There are many absurdities in the course of the narrative. =GIBSON, Jennie Browne.= ⸺ AILEEN ALANNAH. Pp. 86. (_Stockwell_). 1_s._ net. One good illustr. 1911. Desmond Fitzgerald and Aileen have been sweethearts from childhood, D. has to go to America. Percy Gerrard intercepts their letters, and tries to marry Aileen. She is broken-hearted, and goes as nurse to a London hospital. Percy at the point of death confesses his wickedness, and No. 27 in one of the wards turns out to be⸺. Scene: at first Donegal. A very pleasant story, full of kindly Irish people, entirely free from bigotry, and with an excellent though unobtruded moral purpose. =“GILBERT, George;” Miss Arthur.= Has written also _In the Shadow of the Purple_ (1902), and _The Bâton Sinister_ (1903). ⸺ THE ISLAND OF SORROW. Pp. 384. (_Long_). 6_s._ 1903.