Books: Of Human Bondage

ULTIMA THULE—Henry Handel Richardson—Norton ($2.50).

Selected by the Book of the Month Club for September.

From the heroically borne ordeals of Job to the wretched suicide of Anna Karenina, the great stories of the race have been compounded of suffering. Anguish is constant in Ultima Thule, which is already being called great. Though modern critics are hasty with their wreaths, this story of impoverished Dr. Richard Mahony, 49, who began anew in Australia, is indubitably a deep-dug, searing novel. Huddling his wife and three lateborn children within bleak walls, the Doctor felt too...