[Review of The Marrow of Tradition]

THE MARROW OF TRADITION. By Charles W. Chesnutt. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.50

"The Marrow of Tradition" by Charles W. Chesnutt, author of "The House Behind the Cedars," "The Conjure Woman," etc., is a novel of character rather than of politics. The story is laid in a Southern city and the time is that of the exciting moment for negro disfranchisement. The fates of individual actors in the drama are fraught with tragic elements. There is a murder, a great wrong terribly avenged and a bloody race riot in which many of the characters are involved. Yet the course of the novel is not one of gloom, it is relieved by the story of an honest and successful love, and also by the conviction pervading the book that these dark ways lead toward a good issue. Mr. Chesnutt has written a story that will recall at many points Uncle Tom's Cabin, so great is its dramatic intensity and so strong its appeal to popular sympathies. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. For sale in Portland by Loring, Short & Harmon.