Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
“Rondah; or, Thirty-three Years in a Star,” by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné,is an exceedingly bright, clever and fascinating novel. It is cast in a peculiar mould,and holds the reader as much by its weird singularity as by its ingenious plot andstriking incidents. The theme is mainly the strange adventures and experiences offour people, three men and one woman, who, in the midst of a storm, are cast fromthe Earth to a small star, which is as yet in a volcanic state and but partially cooled,Rondah, the heroine, being left behind. There they remain for over thirty-three years,during twenty of which, the winter season, they sleep, as is the habit of the inhabitantsof the star, who are mostly bird people with wings. These bird people are vegetablesand grow in enormous pods. The action never pauses and surprise is followed by surprise.Love and jealousy are mingled with mystery, forming a romance of decidedinterest and much power. The heroine is afterwards brought to the star and takes partin a number of startling episodes, notably the exploration of the wonderful Sun Island.“Rondah” is one of the best of the fanciful novels now so popular.
“Rondah; or, Thirty-three Years in a Star,” is one of the brightest,most ingenious and most absorbing of the fanciful and mysterious class ofnovels recently made so popular by H. Rider Haggard. It is much betterthan “She” or “King Solomon’s Mines,” and will give greater satisfaction.The plot is strange and weird and the incidents surprising in thehighest degree. The scene is laid chiefly in a little star with subterraneanvolcanic fires and boiling seas. To this small planet, not yet entirely fittedfor human inhabitants, some of the characters are conveyed by extraordinarymeans from the Earth while a tempest is in progress. Their adventuresduring the luxuriant summer and the icy twenty years’ winter arevividly and strikingly depicted, love, hate, jealousy and enthusiasm enteringlargely into their very peculiar and interesting experience. The heroine,who for a time remains on Earth, has also a strange career. Sheeventually reaches the star and plays a prominent part in the disclosureof the mysteries of the Sun Island, a wonderful region of marvels and magnificence.The romance is by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné, and is finelywritten. It will be widely read and greatly liked.