Books: Costume Novels

THE SUN IS MY UNDOING—Marguerite Steen—Viking ($3).

In the endless stream of endless picaresque costume novels that sprang from the huge success of Anthony Adverse (1,224 pages) and Gone With the Wind (1,037 pages), this one has two distinctions. It is one of the longest (1,176 pages) and it is Viking's first gamble with this gargantuan species. Being in other respects no better and no worse than other imitators, it spreads sail before some of the steadiest book-trade-winds that blow.

Its hero, Slave Trader Matthew Flood, is built like a souped-up Abraham Lincoln and...