Miss M. J. Farrell has already written two or three novels with an Irish setting which are lively and amusing in their way, but nothing nearly so good as Mad Puppetstown…. It, too, is light and amusing, but it has its serious side also and the observation displayed in it is acute. Above all, the three chief characters, Easter Chevington and her twin cousins Basil and Evelyn Curtis, are delightful creations. The author's heart is evidently in Ireland, and she has weighed down the scales in Ireland's favour when contrasting life in an Irish and in an English country house. One cannot say, however, that she has exaggerated the charm of the former….

Puppetstown is the Irish mansion of fiction, but none the less real for that. The scene opens some seven years before the War, when Easter is eight and her cousins a year older. Miss Farrell...