The Dop Doctor

Mr. Dehan's idea of realism includes more than a touch of brutality, if not, indeed, of coarseness, he contrives in The Dop Doctor to present his readers with a vividly interesting novel. The best thing in the book is the author's minute account of the siege of Gueldersdorp, a name which is a transparent alias for Mafeking. It may be doubted, however, whether his portraits of the living people who were the chief actors in the scenes he depicts are in the best of taste, even though he disguises their identity under pseudonyms. The end of the book is much less engrossing than the description of the siege. The situation of the married couple, in which the husband is in love with his wife, but leaves her free, and she gradually returns his affection, but does not like to say so, is rather conventional and commonplace.