THE LAND OF COCKAYNE

By MATILDE SERAO

Some Press Opinions

The Pall Mall Gazette.—'It is long since we have read—and, indeed, re-read—any book of modern fiction with so absorbing an interest as "The Land of Cockayne," the latest book by Matilde Serao, and surely as fine a piece of work as the genius of this writer has yet accomplished. It is splendid! Powers of the highest order, an intensity of feeling almost painful in its acuteness, a breathless vigour that carries the reader off his feet and away, like some turbulent mountain stream—these are but some of the qualities manifest in this astounding epic of superstition, sorrow, and shame.'

The Spectator.—'An elaborate and ruthless study of the gambling instincts as developed by State lotteries in modern Italy. The tragic consequences of indulgence in the gambling mania are traced out with a wealth of convincing detail. "The Land of Cockayne" is a great novel, with a most laudable purpose, the lessons of which, mutatis mutandis, should not be thrown away on English readers. One can only regret that the theme has never been adequately treated by an English writer of equal genius to that of Madame Serao.'

The Speaker.—'Matilde Serao has great gifts, perhaps the greatest: she is simpatica. To translate this quality into an English epithet baffles my vocabulary, but it amounts to this: that we like Matilde Serao in her writings.'

The Academy.—'Matilde Serao has the direct, impersonal manner that belongs only to the efficient. In her books are no asides, no pauses, no extraneous interpolations. The story moves in the uninterrupted fashion of life. Having set out to deal with such and such a subject, Matilde Serao does that, and nothing else, the unwavering concentration of her methods rendering the average English novel, with its slipshod construction and frequent digressions, like so many 'prentice efforts by comparison.'

The Daily Chronicle.—'This is an absorbing and, on the whole, a very persuasive book. Cockayne is Naples in these pages—Naples given over to the lottery, crazed, debauched and beggared by it. If the colouring is high, the outline is unmistakably true. Matilde Serao's fascinating book has, however, another side, and those who know anything at all of the city which it describes will delight in the countless incidental sketches of social life—high, middle, and low.'

THE BALLET DANCER

By MATILDE SERAO

Some Press Opinions

The Spectator.—'These stories are at once beautiful and terrible. "The Ballet Dancer" is a cruel tragedy, but it is justified by its powerful truth and exquisite art. "On Guard" gives us a glimpse of convict life in Italy.... The whole situation, and every character in the story, stand out with a distinctness and vividness that is more than picturesque—it is sculpturesque.'

The Bookman.—'The effects in these two stories are carefully arranged. No words are wasted. Scenes and circumstances, and atmosphere and narrative, are contrived in an admirable harmony in each of them. Yet we hardly pause to admire, for in all Matilde Serao's work the strongest flavour is always that of human sympathy, and we are borne on its quick wave to the end. In the two tales before us the sentiment is delicate, sincere, and robust. Madame Serao has worked successfully on larger canvases; but we are inclined to think the translator has shown us in these two stories the finest flowers of her art.'

The Pall Mall Gazette.—'The appearance of a volume from Madame Serao's pen must now be reckoned as one of the treats of a publishing season. Few living writers have given us anything equal to her splendid story of the Neapolitan lotteries, "The Land of Cockayne," and it is much to say that those who were stirred to enthusiasm by that book will experience no reaction upon reading the two stories here bound together. It is easy enough to say that the intense directness of Madame Serao's work, or the completeness of vision and sympathy with which she sees her picture, is its secret; but genius is not too big a word for her, and genius has no communicable secret.'

The Sunday Special.—'Tense, passionate, and dramatic, are terms one can apply without exaggeration to "The Ballet Dancer."

The Saturday Review.—'The work of Madame Serao, a novelist with rare gifts of observation and faculties of execution, only needs a little more concentration on a central motive to rank among the finest of its kind—the short novels of realism. She curiously resembles Prosper MÉrimÉe in her cold, impersonal treatment of her subject, without digression or comment, the drawing of clear outlines of action; the complete exposure of motive and inner workings of impulse; the inevitable developments of given temperament under given circumstances. She works with insight, with judgment, and with sincerity.'