The Puppet Crown

“The Puppet Crown” shows no traces of the hand of a beginner in fiction. The style is terse, strong and clear, the narrative is well sustained, and the dialogue would do no discredit to Anthony Hope, the master in this branch of the story-teller’s art. The characters are mostly real people. The only one who impresses the reader as not exactly true to life is Fitzgerald, who could scarcely have spent years in the British army in India and come out of it with so little experience of women and their ways. All the incidental description is strictly subservient to the story, but it is finely done.