Until I had very nearly reached the end of _The Cormorant_ (MELROSE) I could not, though I tried, make up my mind as to which of three possible claimants was filling the title-role. When I did discover the "Cormorant's" identity with a fourth person quite unsuspected, I found myself just a little inclined to wonder whether perhaps the authoress had not had the mystification of her readers as her real aim when she chose her title, and merely introduced a pleasant American, who called people names with a sincerity few of us would dare to imitate, in order to justify her choice. But all the same I am not going to tell her secret here, for I feel that much will be added to the interest of a very pleasant book if readers will pause long enough at the end of chapter sixteen to try to "spot" the "Cormorant" and--as I hope and believe--guess wrong. Miss ANN (or ANNE, for her publishers seem to be in two minds about it) WEAVER has compounded her tale from the somewhat ordinary ingredients of a heroine, as aggressively red-haired as only red-haired heroines can be; a philandering but finally faithful hero; a worthless but charming married man, and a number of less important people, many of whom are well drawn, though I think that I have met that scheming and malicious French maid before. _The Cormorant's_ lines are chiefly laid in country houses of the more delightful sort and the story is well told. When Miss WEAVER invents a more distinguished plot she should do something very good indeed.
Mr. HORACE BLEACKLEY'S _Anymoon_ (LANE) is a reasonably diverting because superbly improbable account of England under the new Socialist Commonwealth, with _Joseph Anymoon_, a highly popular Cockney plebeian, as President. Follows an era of feminist control and a Bolshevist revolution contrived by one _Cohen_ (with the authentic properties, "Crimson Guards" and purple morality), and finally the Restoration through the loyalist Navy, the complacent _Anymoon_ consoling himself with the reflection that if he was a failure as CROMWELL he can at least be a success as General MONK. Perhaps the wilder critics of the present order have no reason to complain if their impatient generalisations are marshalled, however disingenuously, against them. But the judicious folk of every school who are now trying to take their bearings may wonder if much is to be gained by putting up and knocking down such flimsy figures of straw. Mr. HAROLD COX contributes a rather too solemn preface, which labels this otherwise irresponsible novel as a serious tract. I rather think that the engaging spectacle of the biographer of WILKES and the editor of _The Edinburgh_ (the author of _The New Republic_ surely somewhere in the offing) crouching among the headstones with a candle in a hollow turnip will make a certain appeal to those with a sense of humour and proportion ... The others may like it even better.