THE
BOOK REVIEW DIGEST
[ANNUAL CUMULATION]
VOLUME II
BOOK REVIEWS OF 1906 IN A SINGLE ALPHABETICAL ORDER

This volume is the second annual cumulation of the Book Review Digest. In the main it includes the books of 1906 that have been commented upon by the best critics. It aims, on the one hand, to record truthfully the scope, character and subject content of books as they appear, and, on the other, to supplement this descriptive information from month to month with excerpts culled from the best current criticism appearing in forty-five English and American magazines which make a prominent feature of book reviews, thus furnishing to the librarian and bookseller a basis for the evaluation of books.

Frequently the best reviews of a book appear during the year following its publication, so in this volume will be found supplementary excerpts relating to books which were entered in the 1905 annual.

It will also be observed that a number of entries include only the descriptive note. These titles look to the year 1907 to furnish the material for appraisal, and excerpts will be published in current numbers of the Digest as fast as reviews appear.

During the first year of the Cumulative Book Review Digest’s existence the question of its being entered as second class matter was pending. It was finally ruled out on account of the cumulative idea. So the second year a new name and a new plan which would meet the postal requirements cut off the recognition of the first volume, and the Book Review Digest was launched as volume one. Now that the post office ruling has been reversed, the present volume may take its place chronologically as volume two of our series.

OTHER ABBREVIATIONS:

Abbreviations of Publishers’ Names will be found in the Publishers’ Directory at the end of The Cumulative Book Index.

An Asterisk (*) before the price indicates those books sold at a limited discount and commonly known as net books. Books subject to the rules of the American Publishers’ Association are marked by a double asterisk (**) when the bookseller is required to maintain the list price; by a dagger (†) when the maximum discount is fixed at 20 and 10 per cent, as is allowable in the case of fiction.

The plus and minus signs preceding the names of the magazines indicate the degree of favor or disfavor of the entire review.

In the reference to a magazine, the first number refers to the volume, the next to the page and the letters to the date.

No book previously noticed has its descriptive note reprinted. Books noticed for the first time this month have descriptive note which is set off from excerpts by a dash.

The publications, named above, undoubtedly represent the leading reviews of the English-speaking world. Few libraries are able to subscribe for all and the smaller libraries are supplied with comparatively few of the periodicals from which the digests are to be culled. For this reason the digest will be of greater value to the small libraries, since it places at their disposal, in most convenient form, a vast amount of valuable information about books, which would not otherwise be available.

We shall endeavor to make the descriptive notes so comprehensive, and the digests so full and accurate, that librarians who do not have access to the reviews themselves, will be able to arrive at substantially correct appreciations of the value of the books reviewed.

This is particularly true in regard to the English periodicals, which are practically out of the reach of the ordinary library; we shall endeavor to make the digest of these reviews so complete that there will be little occasion to refer to the original publications.

Abbot, Henry L. Problems of the Panama canal. $1.50. Macmillan.

Abbott, G. F. Through India with the prince. *$3.50. Longmans.

As special correspondent for the Calcutta Statesman, Mr. Abbott accompanied the Prince and Princess of Wales on their recent tour thru’ India. The author gives the route of the royal party making the description interesting with receptions and fêtes; he records observations socially and politically; he “touches on every imaginable topic that India offers to a writer.” (Dial.) “Disposed to be epigrammatic, sarcastic, and ironical, in epigram he is sometimes betrayed into excess.” (Lond. Times.)

“The style is, as the French say, ‘tortured,’ or, in other words, there is some straining after effect. We are, nevertheless, able to commend Mr. Abbott’s volume: and his photographs are among the best of the many good Indian photographs we have seen.”

“The want of descriptive power and the too pronounced personal note are the two blemishes that detract from the main value of the book, which is found in the writer’s comments and observations on the political status of India.” H. E. Coblentz.

“Mr. Abbott made lively use of his exceptional opportunities and shows himself to be a man of, at any rate, independent judgment.”

“He has not written daily newspaper ‘stories,’ but a book that will quite probably endure.”

“He had opportunities of seeing pageants, and we allow that he has a gift for describing them. But where is his call to deal with the ‘serious problems of British rule?’”

Abbott, Lyman. Christian ministry. **$1.50. Houghton.

“The book is a valuable one for the modern ministry. It is full of reality, of suggestion, and of inspiration.” J. M. English.

“The book is characterized by keen analysis, comprehensive thought, practical interest, and by vigorous and clean-cut expression.” E. A. Hanley.

Acton, Sir John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st baron. Lord Acton and his circle; ed. by Abbot [Francis Aidan] Gasquet. *$4.50. Longmans.

The letters of Lord Acton render a direct service in throwing light on a personality little known and little understood. “With the exception of a few letters written to Mr. Wetherell, all those here published were addressed to Richard Simpson, one of the most brilliant though least famous of the Oxford converts to Rome, and they are all concerned with the conduct of ‘The rambler,’ ‘The home and foreign review,’ and the other periodicals which occupied the energetic youth of Acton.... We see in the letters how thoroughly Acton was imbued with the principle of growth in religious thought.... We get a series of interesting glances into European and Papal politics before either Bismarck had won his laurels or the Pope had lost his crown.” (Ath.)

“It may be said of the letters as a whole that they will possess most importance to the liberal section of English Catholics, for whom, indeed, the book seems to have been written.”

“On the whole the picture of Lord Acton as it appears in this volume is a very favorable one.”

“Attractively edited.”

“The letters contained in the present volume are of surpassing interest.”

“The editor has done his work of annotating the letters and explaining the allusions admirably; and it could not have been an easy task.”

Life on the frontier in the eighties is vividly portrayed in the fourteen stories which Mr. Adams, “a veteran cowboy,” has included in this volume. These are tales “of the desperado; of man-to-man difficulties; of queer characters; the adventures of the cowboy in the field of politics, the capture of outlaws by rangers; and the ransom of rich rancheros who have been kidnapped.” Some titles are: Drifting North, Bad Medicine, A winter round-up, A college vagabond, The double trail, Rangering, and The story of a poker steer.

“These stories are somewhat slight in texture, more suited to the ephemeral needs of a magazine than a bound volume, but they have a ring of sincerity about them and an insight into essentials.”

“To many people they will seem more enjoyable than the longer stories by Mr. Adams. Their merit lies wholly in the obvious truth to life of the scenes.”

“The new book will seem to most readers too much like an echo of ‘The log of a cowboy’ to allow of its producing the same effect of sincerity.”

Reviewed by Louise Collier Willcox.

2Adams, Frederick Upham. Bottom of the well. †$1.50. Dillingham.

The capture of a smuggling craft by a revenue cutter off the Jamaica coast brings into view the hero of Mr. Adams’ story, a lad of twelve, the charge of the smugglers. Once separated from them, he is adopted and educated by a titled Englishman. From England the scene shifts to New York where young Stanley Deane espouses the cause of some much abused strikers whose plans brew within the four walls of the “Well.” He is convicted of murder, but cleared of the charge when the supposed victim dramatically appears and reads a serious lecture to the supporters of a police system that “makes justice a market place for the employment of incompetence and the enriching of pettifoggers.”

“In one respect this volume is superior to the first. It indicates with care the reason for attributing newspaper letters and other papers to Adams. Little more if anything can be demanded. The notes are numerous and helpful.” A. C. McLaughlin.

“Mr. Cushing has followed Wells too closely, and has not made such a careful, critical study of the contributions to journals as to give his decision the requisite weight.”

Adams, Thomas Sewall, and Sumner, Helen L. Labor problems: a text book; ed. by Prof. R. T. Ely. *$1.60. Macmillan.

“The ground covered has not been well covered in any other text book. The scope of this book is unusually broad.” John Cummings.

Addison, Mrs. Julia de Wolf. Art of the National gallery: a critical survey of the schools and painters as represented in the British collection. **$2. Page.

“Will be likely to hold its own for several generations.”

“Is brightly and sympathetically written.”

“Is for a person visiting the gallery who has a fair general knowledge of art, one who would like to be guided by impressionistic criticism rather than by accepted scientific connoisseurship.”

Adler, Elkan Nathan. About Hebrew manuscripts. *$2.50. Oxford.

Nine detached pieces compose this group: Some missing chapters of Ben Sira; An ancient bookseller’s catalogue; Professor Blau on the Bible as a book; A letter of Menasseh Ben Israel; Jewish literature and the diaspora; The humours of Hebrew mss.; The romance of Hebrew printing: and Zur jüdisch-persischen litteratur, by Prof. Bacher.

“Much of his work is, of course, tentative: but he at the same time provides very useful material for further study.”

“To the true book worm, to the man who loves ‘erudition’ for its own sake without looking very deep for the substantial contents of rare prints or manuscripts, this work will be welcome.”

Adler, Felix. Essentials of spirituality. **$1. Pott.

“In fact Dr. Adler does not mean quite what he says. His theory followed logically would lead us all into a moral Nirvana.” Edward Fuller.

“Four popular addresses which are very readable and elevating in tone.” E. L. Norton.

Adler, Felix. Religion of duty. **$1.20. McClure.

Reviewed by George Hodges.

Aflalo, Moussa. Truth about Morocco; an indictment of the British foreign office; with introd. by R. B. Cunninghame Graham. *$2. Lane.

Agnus, Orme, pseud. (John C. Higginbotham). Sarah Tuldon. [+]75c. Little.

A popular edition of a 1904 book. Sarah Tuldon, an English peasant girl, is the type of heroine which one expects to find in historical novels, but her spirit, energy, good commonsense and generosity are directed towards leavening sordid conditions among the laboring classes. She is self-reared from most unpromising surroundings, and thru never-wearying perseverance reaches a position of self-command and generalship in her community.

“Its greatest claim to importance lies in the artistic and sympathetic treatment the author has given the subject.”

Ainger, Alfred. Lectures and essays. 2v. *$5. Macmillan.

Canon Ainger, “of blessed memory, never forgot in the pulpit that he was a man of letters, or out of it that he was a clergyman.” In these volumes, he “ranges over a wide field, from Chaucer to Tennyson, giving five lectures and two essays to Shakespeare, and writing also of Swift, Cowper, Burns, Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Dickens, of children’s books, of actors, modern plays, conversation, of wit, and of euphuism.” (Spec.)

“The saving grace in Canon Ainger was his appreciation of perfect language. In his critical estimates we think he very often wandered wide.”

“Had the Royal institution lectures been omitted, our judgment might have been much more favourable.”

“That the author has found the secret of charm in literature no one who is familiar with his genial and sympathetic work on Lamb needs to be reminded.”

“The two volumes are likely to find contented readers best among those who look for a discussion of style and obvious quality rather than verbal felicities and critical niceties.”

“The two volumes will not take rank as permanent additions to the literature of the English essay, but they form most agreeable reading.”

“Sanity and sympathy is the keynote of these essays.”

“It is, indeed, no small merit in a writer when he expresses his most subtle thought with the lucidity, ease, and completeness that are to be found here.”

3Alden, Raymond MacDonald. Knights of the silver shield; with il. by Katharine H. Greenland. †$1.25. Bobbs.

Out of such ingredients as castles, knights, giants, palaces and fairies, the author has fashioned a story for little people abounding in good deeds and true.

Aldin, Cecil Charles Windsor. Gay dog; pictured by Cecil Aldin. †$1.50. Dutton.

Mr. Aldin’s “gay dog” is a bull terrier owned by an actress. And the creature is as veritable a bit of canine irresponsibility and pomposity as one could imagine. He indulges in the fun-loving, care-free pursuits of his mistress, gets into scrapes, and is finally sent into the country to recuperate. His dog-philosophy is this: “Some dogs are too readily imposed upon—not I.”

“No display of cleverness quite compensates for unsuitability in choice of subject-matter.”

“The text is poor, but Mr. Aldin’s drawings have some spirit.”

“This year of a dog’s life is very amusing.”

Aldington, Mrs. A. E. Love letters that caused a divorce. [+]75c. Dillingham.

The title is quite self-explanatory of the contents of the book. A series of letters which at first intend no harm, grow to the proportion of Platonic missives, and later become the unlicensed love-letters that cause a separation.

Aldis, Janet. Madame Geoffrin, her salon and her times. **$2.75. Putnam.

From the journals and letters of friends have been gathered the interesting phases of a unique salonist’s life. Madame Geoffrin was “a homely bourgeoise without rank and connections,” yet able to draw about her kings and princes, dukes and maréchals, in short, the literary, artistic and social lights of all Europe. Aside from being simply a diversion, the book sets forth much economic and social history of the latter half of the eighteenth century.

“The central story is well enough told, though in rather a rambling manner.”

“The scraps of information of which it is made up are of exactly the right kind. We cannot commend the style of the book, which is unpleasantly jerky.”

“A most interesting volume.”

“It is an extremely vivacious and interesting throng of men and women that pass before us in the pages. The author is an amiable and communicative cicerone.”

“The volume is remarkably crisp and concise in its treatment of material which in many hands would have remained an incoherent medley, and, what is of prime importance in a work of this kind, its clever and sprightly pages slacken to no dull word.” Jessie B. Rittenhouse.

“It is bright, easy, extremely anecdotal, and studded with word-miniatures of the notables of the day.”

“An interesting and readable book.”

Aldrich, Richard. Guide to The ring of the Nibelung. $1.25. Ditson.

“The book furnishes a very helpful aid to the study of Wagner’s great tetralogy.”

“An analysis which in completeness and usefulness surpasses those of his predecessors.”

“Particularly useful to students is the second part of this little book.”

“For general use this guide is most convenient.”

Volume 1, (1774–1832) follows the movements of political parties in New York from 1777, when the state constitution was drawn up, to 1832 and the formation of the Whig party. Volume 2, (1833–1861) takes up the story and carries it down thru the formation of the republican party in 1854, to the crippling of the Weed machine in 1861. The causes of fractional divisions during these years are carefully traced, and the subtle methods by which such men as George Clinton, Hamilton, Burr, De Witt Clinton, Van Buren, Seymour and Thurlow Weed achieved leadership and in succession ordered the political course of the Empire state receive detailed analyses.

“These volumes will have small value for the special student of New York politics, but they are capable of rendering a real service to the general reader until the time when a more thorough and comprehensive study of this subject shall appear.”

“In this limited field Mr. Alexander writes with vigor, and shows generally a sound judgment which partly atones for his tendency to hero-worship and his lack of research.” Theodore Clarke Smith.

“The author has contrived so well to adorn the necessary political facts with items in personal biography, that the chronicle rises to a place somewhere in the domain of masterpieces.”

“What Mr. Alexander has done is to give an interesting, although, perhaps, a too uncritical account of political leaders and events in a field of American history that was practically unoccupied. To the reader, who has hitherto found it impossible to get anything like a general idea of early New York politics in a single work, the volumes should prove a boon.”

“Mr. Alexander is very successful in conducting the reader through the mazes of New York politics.”

“In the main, Mr. Alexander has succeeded well in presenting the personalities that have figured conspicuously in New York’s history.”

Alexander, Eleanor. Lady of the well. †$1.50. Longmans.

“This novel is a romantic story of Guelf and Ghibelline, of troubadour and queen of beauty. The Emperor Frederick II., grandson of Barbarossa, is the central figure, and the troubadour, Bernart, is very properly the hero. There is a great deal of real romance in the book, and the clash of arms and perilous adventures which occur in it are very much more lifelike than is usual in works of this kind.”—Spec.

“It is a pretty story, gracefully written, as such a story should be; but a little nebulous, as is the troubadour himself.”

4“Miss Alexander writes with distinction, and her book may be recommended as a quiet and artistic piece of work.”

“Just the proper amount of realism and humor to make a pretty and fairly plausible tale.”

“A picturesque piece of work in many ways, but the style is stiff and affected and at times careless and slipshod.”

“The beginning of the story certainly drags a little. The book is altogether an extremely successful attempt to portray an exceedingly difficult subject, and we may congratulate the author on the mediaevel atmosphere which she has contrived to impart into her story.”

Alexander, Grace. Judith. †$1.50. Bobbs.

Camden, Ohio, in the days of the Omnibus bill furnishes the setting for this romance. The principal actors in the little drama, which is barely saved from being a tragedy, are the following: Stephen Waters, a stalwart young minister; Judith La Monde who is to be sacrificed matrimonially to atone for her mother’s wrong done to the fiancé’s father; Abel Troop, the colorless but altogether good youth, for whom Judith is making her sacrifice; and a group of town’s people who lend a social and political atmosphere to the story. Judith’s battle between conscience and heart’s desire is waged valiantly and her patience has its reward.

“The story shows painstaking effort and some skill in handling, but it lacks the subtle power and imaginative grasp that mark a novel of the first rank.”

“A volume that is not devoid of merit.”

“Some of the scenes are well done, and the characters stand out with a good degree of boldness.”

Reviewed by Mrs. L. H. Harris.

Alexander, Hartley Burr. Poetry and the individual: an analysis of the imaginative life in relation to the creative spirit in man and nature. **$1.50. Putnam.

“If it be necessary to analyze the reason for the expression of thought in poetry, then Dr. Alexander has done a useful thing. If not, he has at least done an interesting thing, in tracing from a philosophical standpoint the evolution of poetry since its earliest manifestation.” (Pub. Opin.) The question is dealt with under the general subjects: Impulse and song, Evolution of poetic spirit, The worth of life. The universal and the individual, The imagination, Aesthetic expression, Beauty and personality, and Nature and poetic mood.

“His style impresses me as surprisingly inconsistent. It is both brilliant and stilted, fluent and awkward. The book is admirable for its sympathetic and sure apprehension of the present age (its individualism, introspection and courageous faith) and for a captivating string of poetry and eloquence which pervades the whole.” Ralph Barton Perry.

“Doubtless many will question the validity of his logical process at various points, and a still larger number will find it extremely difficult to read his pages with confident grasp of his meaning, for it is not the habit of the day to carry such discussions quite as far beneath the surface as he has presumed to go.”

“It is a well-ordered and well-reasoned treatment.”

“The book is not unusual at all, but shows care in its preparation, and somewhat more interesting than this, an actual love for the subject.”

Alexander, J. H. Elementary electrical engineering in theory and practice. $2. Van Nostrand.

A class book for junior and senior students and working electricians. The volume is fully illustrated.

“It is difficult to find much in this book to recommend.”

Alexander, Lucia. Libro d’oro of those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life; tr. from the Italian by Mrs. Francis Alexander. *$2. Little.

“Her translation is in excellent English, and reads like an original; she has given us an altogether delightful book.”

“Mrs. Alexander ... has discharged the translator’s task very faithfully and gracefully.”

“As a whole, the book will undoubtedly appeal to a limited and definite class of readers, but the legends are picturesque enough to make a casual dipping into the treasures of the book decidedly pleasurable. The English rendering of the text is simple and graceful.”

Alexander, William. Life insurance company. **$1.50. Appleton.

“It is, indeed a ‘primer’ with all a primer’s defects and merits; a text of so great skill in presentation that it may be trusted pretty nearly to teach itself; of surpassing snap and go; of perfect mastery in technique of exposition; of consistent actuality and concreteness of method: of interest almost rivaling a storybook.” H. J. Davenport.

Alger, George William. Moral overstrain. **$1. Houghton.

“Eight essays dealing with the moral aspects of modern business and law.... The writer ... who is a New York lawyer, discusses ‘graft’, the influence of corporate wealth, the irresponsible use of money, and the man with the ‘muck-rake.’”—R. of Rs.

“In the flood of, to say the least, ill-judged revelation with which the magazines are being flooded at the present time such calm reviews as these are of the greatest benefit as a needed antidote.”

“One feature of the book which recommends it is that in almost every case the lawyer-author has a remedy to suggest for the evil he exposes.”

“Any American citizen will be benefited by reading the eight essays. They are sane without being commonplace, and interesting without being sensational.”

“They are vigorous in thought, and written in a nervous and virile English.”

“It is still the only book on the subject and serves its purpose well as an indispensable book of reference.”

Allen, Frank Waller. Back to Arcady. †$1.25. Turner, H. B.

“It is a pretty and poetic book, perhaps without much substance, but all the better for its delicacy of touch and feeling.”

“Mr. Allen’s fancy is tenderly delicate, and entirely free from sentimentality.”

Allen, Philip Loring. America’s awakening: the triumph of righteousness in high places. **$1.25. Revell.

An optimistic view of America’s reviving ideals in business and politics. “This book is an attempt to catch, while the subject is still close and living, some of the spirit and accomplishment of this revival. Dealing, as it must with movements only half worked out and men still active in the same fields, it cannot pretend to be in any sense critical or final. Yet it does hope to make the citizen who reads it a little better acquainted with some of the personalities and some of the forces most prominent in this remarkable period.”

“He does not hold a brief for any reformer or any fad. The novelty and assured interest of Mr. Allen’s book lie chiefly, of course, in his interpretation of events.”

“A readable and suggestive little work.”

Alston, Leonard. Modern constitutions in outline: an introductory study in political science. *90c. Longmans.

“May be of some service to the reader who wishes to get a little knowledge of a big subject in a short time and with little effort: it is a short cut to learning.”

Ambler, Sara Ellmaker. Dear old home. †$1.50. Little.

A happy wholesome story for young boys and girls. Two city children spend the summer with their grandmother in an Amish settlement of Pennsylvania. The story records the pranks and sports of these youngsters aided by two Pennsylvania Dutch children.

Amelung, Walter, and Holtzinger, Heinrich. Museums and ruins of Rome; ed. by Mrs. S. Arthur Strong. 2v. *$3. Dutton.

Each of these volumes gives a “synthetic and comprehensive view” of the subject with which it deals. “The plan of the work is very simple. Beginning with the Vatican, the student is taken through the papal collections, the municipal collections, and the national collections, the text describing and characterizing the masterpieces, with sufficient biographical data relating to the sculptors, with succinct but clear accounts of the character of the work, and descriptions which enable the reader to fasten his attention on special characteristics with the enforcement of a profusion of illustrations.” (Outlook.) A short bibliography prefaces each volume.

“Altogether, these little books are without their match, and no one should go to Rome without them.”

“This manual, however, is not calculated to please the ordinary visitor to Rome, nor the student of Roman antiquities in general, on account of its bias in favour of one class of specialists.”

“It is very evident that our author has given us the latest and best theories as to the different works of art.” James C. Egbert.

“The volume becomes quite a liberal education in the history of antique sculpture, which is made more thorough by its historic index in the concluding chapter.”

“Amelung’s knowledge and experience are broad and solid, his perception keen, and his writing vigorous yet pleasant. The translation represents him as worthily as perhaps any translation of a book of æsthetic as well as historic criticism could reproduce its original.”

“Gives the traveler a convenient and suggestive guide for his rambles about the Roman capital.”

“A convenient work.”

“Probably the best compendium yet produced of the art treasures of the mother city of the world.”

“The idea embodied in these volumes is an excellent one, and it is, upon the whole, carried out with a large measure of success. Some points, however, invite criticism. Dr. Amelung’s verdicts on ancient sculptors are not free from that dogmatism which is the besetting sin of German archæologists.”

American Jewish yearbook, 5667. Sept. 20, 1906, to Sept. 8, 1907; ed. by Henrietta Szold. 75c. Jewish pub.

The eighth issue of this yearbook. Among the new features are a table of the time of sunrise and sunset, and the beginning of dawn and the end of twilight for six northern latitudes, on three days of each month of the solar year; two new lists including respectively a record of the United States during the current year and notable articles appearing in the Jewish press and thru secular mediums, and notably a table of Jewish massacres in Russia during the period “whose entrance and exit are guarded by Kishineff and Bialystok as blood stained sentinels.”

Ames, V. B. Matrimonial primer; with pictorial matrimonial mathematics and decorations by Gordon Ross. **$1.50. Elder.

Amsden, Dora. Impressions of Ukiyo-ye, the school of Japanese colour-print artists. **$1.50. Elder.

“Accurate investigation of personalities, epochs and eras, and warm appreciation, expressed in highly rhetorical terms, of Japanese art characterize this informing volume.”

“This little book tells us things we desire to know about a fascinating subject.”

6Anderson, Asher. Congregational faith and practice: principles, polity, benevolent societies, institutions. *5c. Pilgrim press.

A little pamphlet for pastors and church workers.

Anderson, Sir Robert. Sidelights on the home rule movement. *$3. Dutton.

“Sir Robert Anderson’s ‘Side lights on the home rule movement’ is emphatically a controversy-breeding book. It contains the recollections of the well-known British secret service official so far as they pertain to his activity in connection with Fenianism and later aspects of Irish agitation, and it may also be described in large part a scathing criticism of the Irish sections of Mr. Morley’s ‘Life of Gladstone,’ which Sir Robert attacks as the work of a romanticist rather than a historian.”—Outlook.

“It has fallen to the lot of hardly any other man in our time to have so intimate a knowledge of the darker aspects of Irish Separatist politics as Sir Robert Anderson.”

“It will be difficult for most readers who are not of his immediate social or political circle to see any advantage that can result from the publication.”

“Apart from these personal interests, the book has an undoubted historical value as a contribution to our knowledge of the events with which it mainly deals. Especially interesting are the chapters on the Fenian movement, the dynamite campaign, and the much too historic Clerkwell explosion.”

Anderson, Wilbert L. Country town; with introd. by Josiah Strong. **$1. Baker.

Dr. Strong says “The author has faith in the country town, and is able to render a reason for the faith that is in him.” Mr. Anderson maintains that the great drift from the country to the city will only benefit the rural districts, for there will be left an enduring residuum with the stout heart that battles with problems of civilization and advancement. He says “that there is no scientific reason for the popular notion that the rural population is under a fatality of evil. The future depends almost wholly upon the power of environment—upon education, upon commerce, upon evangelization, upon participation in the great movements of the age.”

“This study of existing conditions will be found valuable even by those who do not agree with all the conclusions reached.”

“Though he cites numerous authorities, he writes in the graceful style of the essayist.”

“It is involved in style; is loaded with quotations and citations having no particular bearing on the case, full of repetition, and not clear in its manner of reaching conclusions, which are, however, sane ones.”

“The most serious criticism that can be advanced against it is that the author carries the argument from evolution to an extreme in conducting a sociological inquiry along biological lines. To be commended for its readableness as well as for the sanity and fair-mindedness.”

“Extremely interesting and informing work.” Edward Cary.

“Mr. Anderson is an optimist where optimism is rare.”

Andreas and The fates of the apostles: two Anglo-Saxon narrative poems; ed. with introd., notes, and glossary by G: Philip Krapp. *$2. Ginn.

This volume in “The Albion series of Anglo-Saxon and middle English poetry,” contains all the material essential to a thoro study of these two poems. The text of both poems is based upon Wülker’s Codex Verallensis and the variant readings present a full history of the textual criticism of the works. A comprehensive introduction discusses the Vercelli manuscript, the sources of the poems, their history, and their authorship. The volume is fully annotated and contains a classified bibliography and a glossary.

“Altogether, this much-needed edition is one of the most scholarly contributions that have been made in recent times to the illustration of Old English literature.”

Andrews, Arthur Lynn, ed. Specimens of discourse. *60c. Holt.

A miscellaneous collection of specimens chosen with the object of teaching a student to present near-at-hand occurrences in clear English. The introduction gives a variety of themes, analyses them, and shows how to elaborate various types of composition, as description, narration and exposition.

Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman (Mrs. William S. Andrews). Bob and the guides; il. by F. C. Yohn, A. B. Frost and others. †$1.50. Scribner.

A book of ten Canadian hunting stories with Bob, a small boy, for the hero. In each he gives in boyish fashion some camping adventure, admitting that he gets “big words mixed sometimes unconscientiously.” but having a “noble ear for general picturesqueness.”

“Can be read aloud and out of doors, two severe tests for a book.”

Angus, S. Sources of the first ten books of Augustine’s De Civitate Dei. $1. Univ. library, Princeton, N. J.

A three-part thesis which treats “Literary sources of Augustine.” “Annotations on books i-x,” and “Augustine’s knowledge of Greek.”

Annandale, Nelson. Faroes and Iceland; with 24 il. and an appendix on the Celtic pony, by F. H. A. Marshall. *$1.50. Oxford.

“Is pleasant reading. He might with advantage have given a little more time to contemporary Icelandic literature before printing his censures: he is too ready to cry ‘All is barren,’ and hardly appreciates the variety of life, the mixture of old fashions and modern culture in that wonderful country. Some of his statements may be flatly contradicted by other travellers, who have found better entertainment there and little of the squalor which seems to have beset Mr. Annandale.” W. P. Ker.

7Anstruther, Elizabeth. Complete beauty book. **$1.25. Appleton.

“Beauty is a matter of health, dress, and winsomeness,” the author declares in her introduction, and she follows her assertion with sensible advice upon the care of the body, a detailed plea for fresh air, exercise, and cold water, with some additional counsel upon clothes and conduct. The skin, diet, digestion, the hair, the hands, feet, and teeth, fatness and thinness and charm of manner are treated in successive chapters.

“With the utmost good sense and simplicity, we are told just how to keep well and to be beautiful.” Hildegarde Hawthorne.

Arbiter in council: a collection of papers on war, peace and arbitration. *$2.50. Macmillan.

“Is there any reason to hope that right ever will be ready? This is the question which the ‘Arbiter in council’ essays to answer. In form, the work is a series of colloquies initiated by a veteran Liberal, a disciple of Bright and of Cobden, and a lifelong advocate of peace and arbitration.” (Lond. Times.) The subjects discussed, one for every day during a week, are the causes and consequences of war, modern warfare, private war and the duel, cruelty, the federation of the world, arbitration, the political economy of war and Christianity and war.

“The scheme is a well-imagined one and the discussions are full of interest, information and suggestion. Nevertheless the result is far from satisfactory. The book is pervaded throughout by the assumption more or less openly avowed that war is always and everywhere a wrong thing—not merely that most wars are wrong, and that many wars are wicked: and the several parties to the discussion are all too much of the same way of thinking.”

“As a summary of all that is to be said on the subject, thrown into a readable form, the book is well done; nevertheless, after reading it there is left in the mind of the reader the perhaps unavoidable feeling that it is an old story.”

“A clever piece of special pleading rather than a serious contribution to political thought.”

Argyll, George Douglas Campbell, 8th duke of: autobiography and memoirs; ed. by the Dowager Duchess of Argyll. 2v. *$10. Dutton.

In his autobiography the Duke of Argyll sketches a “long career filled with notable activities. Acceding to the title very young and unexpectedly ... he was of a serious and energetic bent. Early called to share in the government, he was a member of several cabinets.... For years he was an enthusiastic follower of Gladstone, but broke with him on the land question and Home rule; but their personal friendship remained unimpaired. Yet his chief distinction was as a controversial writer. He had considerable scientific attainments. From early life an eager naturalist ... and was practically skilled in geology. He read widely in science, too, and being, as he innocently observes, ‘inclined to question rather than to harbor doubt’ he ‘took most naturally to religion and theology.’” (Nation.)

“His biography was well worth writing; though it might have been advantageously condensed into half the size.”

“The Duke might have curbed his pen to advantage.”

“It differs in two particulars from most British biographies. It deals with political and social life in Scotland as well as in England; and more than any biography of recent times, except perhaps that of Earl Granville, it deals with life almost exclusively from an aristocratic point of view.”

“Has an interest and a value little below Morley’s ‘Life of Gladstone’ in the brightness of the light which it throws on the English history of its time.”

“The chapters which follow the autobiography give a most inadequate picture of what the Duke was in his prime and of what he did. The chapter on his science is particularly disappointing.”

“The various kinds of interest that belong to the memoirs of a statesman, relating great events in which he has a borne a part, and the chronicles of a recluse, of a naturalist watching the lower lives about him, belong to these volumes.” Montgomery Schuyler.

“To the biographical library these volumes will be a valuable addition. Will be interesting as a biography to the reader who is versed in the art of judicious skipping, and valuable as a contribution to the history of the nineteenth century.”

“The Duke of Argyll’s literary gift was considerable, as is shown, not only by his speeches, but by his descriptive criticism of the great men by whom he was surrounded.”

“It is full of interest, and displays almost on every page a love and knowledge of nature which add to its charm.”

Armitage, Albert B. Two years in the Antarctic. $5. Longmans.

A personal narrative of the British Antarctic expedition to which Dr. Nansen contributes a preface.

“Those who have studied Captain Scott’s weighty volumes may skim with some amusement and interest Lieutenant Armitage’s lighter pages.”

“He is a good narrator and carries the reader along with a warmth that is surprising in such a chilly subject.” Stephen Chalmers.

“Mr. Armitage supplies some points of detail which supplement Captain Scott’s narrative.”

Armour, John P. Edenindia: a tale of adventure. †$1.50. Dillingham.

Edenindia is a Utopian realm into which an airship drops the hero of this tale, Victor Bonnivard. Jilted by a heartless maiden, and weary of life at best, it touches his vanity to be called to join the king’s counsellors and family of state. Edenindia is a socialistic kingdom whose inhabitants have been kept in ignorance of any other people. Ennui finally compels young Victor to elope with the king’s daughter.

8“His imagination, if bold, is rather heavy and lumbering in its gait.”

Armour, Jonathan Ogden-. Packers, the private car lines and the people. $1.50. Altemus.

In which Mr. Armour defends the packers. He tells of the conditions that brought the private car-line into existence and what it has accomplished to facilitate traffic and to improve the business situation.

“Mr. Armour is not a stylist; but he knows how to put his arguments clearly and effectively.”

“The book is vigorously written, and probably must be regarded as the authoritative reply of the packers, by one of their most eminent representatives, to the accusations brought against them. It is an able plea in defense and avoidance. As such the careful student of the problem will find it valuable. He will not find it conclusive.”

“Mr. Armour writes in a rather bitter tone.”

Armstrong, Sir Walter. Gainsborough and his place in English art. $3.50. Scribner.

“Has already come to be justly regarded as a standard biography.”

Armstrong, Sir Walter. Peel collection and the Dutch school. $2. Dutton.

“A meritorious contribution to museum literature.” Royal Cortissoz.

“The volume is perhaps the best contribution to the critical study of Dutch painting since the publication of ‘Les maîtres d’autrefois.’ It is something new in the literature of art. Its criticism is fresh and stimulating.”

Armstrong, Sir Walter. Sir Joshua Reynolds, first president of the Royal academy. *$3.50. Scribner.

“Excellent critical life.” Royal Cortissoz.

“His whole aim seems to be to belittle and disparage Sir Joshua as a man, and as a result to lessen the potentiality of his art.” Charles Henry Hart.

“It is probably the best book that has yet been written about Sir Joshua.... His presentment of Reynolds’s character is, perhaps, more just than the pæans of the hero worshippers; and his critical opinions on Reynolds’s art are worthy of the most careful attention.”

Armstrong, William Jackson. Heroes of defeat. $3. Clarke, R.

Six heroes who thru no fault of bravery failed to attain their hoped for success “are here described with all the vivid and picturesque power of a Froude, a Macaulay or a Hugo.” (Arena.) They are Schamyl, the soldier priest and hero of Caucasus; Abdel Kader, the Sultan of Algeria who for fifteen years kept France from any stronghold in Algeria; Scanderbeg, the Albanian who saved Europe from the Turk’s dominion; Tecumseh, our own Shawnoe hero; Vercingetorix, King of Gaul, who fought against Julius Caesar; and Kosiuszko, the hero of Polish freedom.

“It is a real acquisition to our literature, a work of permanent value.”

“Mr. Armstrong tells the story of all these with some skill, though his style is considerably marred by flights that suggest stump oratory.”

Arnim, Mary Annette (Beauchamp) gräfin von. Princess Priscilla’s fortnight. †$1.50. Scribner.

“Priscilla’s adventures are a shade too preposterous for genuine enjoyment.”

“The most charming extravaganza imaginable.” Wm. M. Payne.

“A gentle cynicism, which we fancy a little mellower, and a style a little riper than in the earlier books, leave a pleasant fragrance in the memory, when the strange experience ends, precisely as it should.”

“‘Priscilla’ is an unworthy successor to ‘Elizabeth,’ though she will be probably quite as popular.”

“The strength of the book lies in its faithful picture of the contrast of two modes of life, brought on this occasion sharply together—a true comedy-motive when, as in this case, both are adequately understood.”

Arnold, Matthew. Sohrab and Rustum: ed. for schools and general use by W. P. Trent and W. T. Brewster. *25c. Ginn.

Supplied with an accurate text, footnotes and an introduction, this poem is offered to the general reader by way of preparation for the study of Arnold no less than to the preparatory school student.

Arthur, Richard. Ten thousand miles in a yacht. **$2. Dutton.

A narrative which follows the incidents of the celebrated cruise made by Commodore E. C. Benedict’s yacht among the West Indies and up the Amazon in the winter of 1904–5. The author and also Mr. Ivins who contributes the introduction were among the eleven cruisers. The volume contains numerous illustrations from photographs.

“Some readers may wish that the author and the introductory writer had exchanged places.” H. E. Coblentz.

“A singularly naïve narrative it is.”

“A slight but readable account of quite an unusual cruise.”

“Mr. Arthur has a knack of telling his experiences pleasantly.”

Asakawa, Kanichi. Early institutional life of Japan. *$1.75. Scribner.

Reviewed by Munroe Smith.

Ashley, William James. Progress of the German working classes in the last quarter of a century. *60c. Longmans.

“An example of judicial and balanced argument.” Charles Richmond Henderson.

Aspinwall, Alicia. Story of Marie de Rozel—Huguenot. *75c. Dutton.

The wife of Marie de Rozel’s great-greatgrandson 9has written the true story of this brave little Huguenot maid and what befell her in the days when the people of her faith were persecuted in Catholic France. It is a pretty little tale and the author has given it to us unembellished, just as it came to her out of the dim past.

“Not quite so interesting as it should be, considering the material.”

Asser, Bishop of Sherbourne. Life of King Alfred, trans. from the text of Stevenson’s edition, with notes, by Albert S. Cook. *50c. Ginn.

The Bishop of Sherbourne’s quaint contemporary account of England’s greatest king is here given in a form which will appeal to students in schools and colleges as well as to the general reader. The Latin text, thru the critical labors of Stevenson, has been cleared of many Elizabethan interpolations, and the present translation is accurate and well annotated.

“Presents in convenient form a valuable document whose authenticity is now generally conceded.”

“The advantages which Professor Cook’s translation enjoys over previous ones is due mainly to the fact that he has been able to use the results of the investigations of these two scholars [Plummer and Stevenson.]”

Forty years of research and study in Japanese literature, language and history have provided material for this treatise. It is “chiefly intended as a repertory, for the use of students, of the more significant facts of Shinto, the old native religion of Japan before the introduction of Chinese learning and Buddhism.”

Reviewed by Henry Preserved Smith.

“So attractively written that the reader hardly appreciates at once the amount of learning, Eastern and Western, which it implies.”

“In his arrangement of the book, with its abundant translation of ancient text and ritual, all well indexed, we have just what the volume professes to be—a handbook for the study of Shinto.” William Elliot Griffis.

“This master of facts is very modest in theory and generalization. This is ‘the’ book on Shinto. There is no other.”

“It is the one complete monograph on Shinto.”

“No part of his subject has escaped his notice, and his materials are arranged in a logical sequence which makes them clear even to a casual reader. But the book is not for casual readers.”

“Incidentally points a moral, if she cannot be said always to adorn her tale.” G. W. Adams.

“Can scarcely be considered with its writer’s more serious work.” Olivia Howard Dunbar.

“The book possesses its author’s characteristic faults of hardness and exaggeration; it is almost destitute of sympathy and moderation, while of the unusual virtues of bold plot and suspended creation that we have come to associate with Mrs. Atherton’s name, it has scant measure.”

“The book as a whole is rather too suggestive of the pages of a guide-book; but if slight, the story is amusing, and is written with Mrs. Atherton’s usual vivacity.”

Atkinson, Fred Washington. Philippine islands. *$3. Ginn.

“It attempts to cover the whole field, history, geography, commerce, government, religion and the characteristics of the people. The last is probably the most important part of the book, because in Filipino psychology lies the problem, and this is the hardest part of the book to write, and it is a part upon which the author’s experience should enable him to make a real contribution.” J. Russell Smith.

“This is a wholesome, stimulating, enjoyable book, the ripe fruit of an earnest worker, a lover of ideals, yet a master of facts. It is a real illuminator of the theme treated.”

“This latter section is by far the most valuable portion of the work, for here the writer has apparently felt at liberty to speak with somewhat less restraint than elsewhere, and to give expression to his own views. The book as a whole, especially in its earlier portions, gives the impression of having often been read before, and follows with minute care the official view at almost every point.”

“Is both valuable and interesting where it presents the author’s own observations and opinions, but is often inaccurate where sources of encyclopaedic and historic information which should now be discarded have been relied upon in the work of compilation.”

“This is one of the most interesting of the many books which have been published on the new possession of the United States. This book is indeed a manual of its subject.”

Atkinson, George Francis. College textbook of botany. *$2. Holt.

“Professor Atkinson has been exceptionally fortunate in accomplishing a very difficult piece of work. The studies have been carefully prepared and this scientific survey of the botanical field will be widely appreciated.” Carlton C. Curtis.

Atlay, J. B. Victorian chancellors. 2v. v. 1. *$4. Little.

“Mr. Atlay purposes to deal in two volumes with the careers of the Lords Chancellors during the reign of Queen Victoria. The first volume contains the memoirs of Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Brougham, Lord Cottenham and Lord Truro.... Mr. Atlay’s work is extremely interesting whether he is writing of men about whom there are voluminous biographies too cumbrous to be read pleasantly, or of men such as Lord Cottenham and Lord Truro about whom he has had to collect data for himself.... Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham have been much written about; but Mr. Atlay has used information either not open to Lord Campbell or used by him invidiously; and as to Lord Lyndhurst especially he corrects Campbell’s unfair sketch following Sir Theodore Martin’s biography.” (Sat. R.)

“To measure two men so dissimilar in character, opinion and temperament as Lyndhurst and Brougham, with an equal hand is no small 10achievement, and Mr. Atlay deserves all the commendation that we can give him.”

“This volume is lively and entertaining, well compiled from a variety of authentic sources, and as regards Lyndhurst and Brougham much more trustworthy than the rather spiteful and far from accurate biographies which the late Lord Campbell wrote of his two contemporaries.”

“Mr. Atlay. though neither a subtle thinker nor a masterly writer, does provide his readers with a clear, sensible, and, above all, an honest narrative of the career of the men whose lives he undertakes to write.”

“To lawyer, politician, student of manners, and lover of good stories alike his book will furnish the best of entertainment.”

Aubin, Eugene. Morocco of to-day. *$2. Dutton.

“M. Eugene Aubin is a French observer of Morocco, with the gift of precise, delicate, sympathetic appreciation. This he is able to convert into words, and the result is a very good book.... There are ... some exceptionally good chapters, notably that on Du Hamara, in which Moroccan warfare is described.... The author describes many places, institutions, and customs, together with some of the internal incidents of the years 1902–3, but he does not deal with international questions save for a few trade statistics.”—Nation.

“His descriptions are vivid; the information he supplies is lucidly set forth, and upon the whole remarkably trustworthy. The number of equally informative English books about Morocco is extremely small.”

“Without doubt this book contains more information about modern Morocco than any other book to be obtained. To many M. Aubin’s explanations of the Sultan’s life and position will be in the nature of a revelation.”

“It suffers from a certain unevenness. The translation is fair and contains few slips.”

“An excellent translation.”

“A scholarly work.”

“It is the most complete book of its kind upon the subject, of to-day.”

“An ingenious but useless addition to the already extensive literature based on the desire to interpret the book of Daniel as literal predictions of dates and events far in the future.”

This is a manuscript record of a trip from New York to Texas, and an overland journey thru Mexico and Arizona to the gold-fields of California. There is a biographical memoir by Maria R. Audubon, daughter of the diarist, and an introduction, notes and index by Frank Heywood Hodder.

“Persons interested in early California history will find here some descriptions of the conditions in the early days really worth reading.” Edwin E. Sparks.

Reviewed by Theodore Clarke Smith.

“On the whole, the volume leaves nothing to be wished for, either in the editor’s or the publisher’s field.”

“The journal is of very great interest, and admirably edited.”

Austin, Alfred (Lamia, pseud.). Door of humility. *$1.50. Macmillan.

A poem of 57 cantos in which a poet “is perplexed in youth with some obvious theological doubts, and his lady refuses him till he comes to a better frame of mind. He straightway proceeds upon a kind of grand tour, which gives him the opportunity to describe elaborately Switzerland, Rome, Greece, and other places. After much trite metaphysical speculation he arrives at a sort of solution, and returns home.... Humility, the poem, teaches, is the only gateway to truth.” (Spec.)

“Mr. Austin has read his ‘In memoriam’ too lovingly, and, in his poem, at least, has not been able to rid himself of the domination of the great mind and to stand on his own feet. This result is rendered the more conspicuous and deplorable by the thick sowing of the text with phrases that can only be described as journalistic.”

“The philosophy and its sentimental setting are patiently planned on the Tennysonian model, but unhappily it is not enough to succeed a poet in order to be successful in imitating him.”

“The piece is as a whole marked by a suavity and a kind of thin dignity, though not seldom there is a lapse into banality.”

“The most obvious excellence of Mr. Austin’s work is its metrical purity in the matter of rhythm he never offends. But his excellence is bought at the price of his liberty.” Jessie B. Rittenhouse.

“We have no wish to be unkind to a writer who is so transparently ingenuous and well-meaning, and we readily admit that he is not without his felicities.”

Austin, Louis Frederic. Points of view; ed, with prefatory note by Clarence Rook. **$1.50. Lane.

Essays selected from the author’s contributions to London newspapers compose this volume. Such subjects are treated as Sir Henry Irving, America at Oxford, Men and modes. Logic for women. Motor cars and nervous systems, A famine in books, etc. “Mr. Rook’s prefatory note contains an impressive idea of Mr. Austin’s strenuous life. It is, indeed, ironical that a man should be strenuous in chatting with his pen; but it is also tragic.” (Ath.)

11“The papers collected in this memorial volume are fresh, witty, and shallow in the sparkling way of champagne.”

“There are in fact, few writers nowadays who can write this kind of essay, and fewer still who can make their own writing, on the whole, so much worth while as Mr. Austin.”

Austin, Martha Waddill. Tristam and Isoult. $1. Badger, R: G.

“The finished play appears to us possessed of acting possibilities. Besides being liberally endowed with no small measure of beauty in poetic figure and expression.”

“The workmanship throughout is excellent, with vigorous lines, pictorial imagery, and ease of movement.”

Reviewed by Louise Collier Willcox.

Austin, Mrs. Mary Hunter. The flock; il. by E. Boyd Smith. **$2. Houghton.

Mrs. Austin’s flock is a literal flock of sheep. “This is a sort of epic of the sheep pastures. She begins with a sort of New Englandish landmark, the year of the Boston massacre, which was also the year Daniel Boone moved into the West east of the Mississippi, but the country of her pasture is the Pacific slope, where she has lived among the herders and their woolly charges. Mrs. Austin tells of the work of these herders in the mountain valleys, in rain and drought, of the shearing baile, of the dogs, of the struggle for the control of the feeding grounds. She tells how the wild beasts come down upon the fold or the grazing flock, and how the sheep are protected by the faithful shepherds. There are stories, too, of individual shepherds who have had adventures, an account of a particular old California sheep range, and a chapter on ‘The sheep and the forest reserves.’” (N. Y. Times.)

“The poetic temperament which so well fits Mrs. Austin for writing stories of the West has been of equal advantage to her in telling of the shepherd-life with ‘its background of wild beauty, mixed romance, and unaffected savagery.’” May Estelle Cook.

“The charm of the whole lies in three qualities: the novelty and interest of the subject, the picturesque texture of the author’s mind, and in a style which is both cultivated and racy, and adapted to conveying her unusual sense of beauty.”

“As a matter of fact the sheep are only an excuse for an outdoor book which takes on a certain pastoral stamp because of them, but rejoices chiefly in the open—the free earth, the sun, and the wind.”

Austin, Mary. Isidro. †$1.50. Houghton.

“A not too probable Spanish-American romance gaining color from a picturesque setting.” Mary Moss.

A new picture of the period of reconstruction in the South drawn by one who has made a first-hand study of her subject. “The book is the aftermath of defeat described in poignant words, in sorrow rather than in anger, and without a trace of bitterness.” (Lit. D.) “Mrs. Avary sets forth in a serio-comic way the blunders and even the corruption incident to military dictatorship, and in the course of the volume throws many side-lights on what most Northerners now admit to have been the serious mistake of reconstruction policy.” (R. of Rs.)

“Probably about all we can reasonably expect in the way of fairness and soberness, in dealing with the reconstruction period, has been done in the volume under review. The book is written in a lively anecdotal style; the author has a keen sense of humor and a profound conception of the value of a good story.” Walter L. Fleming.

“A little judicious pruning, a little more care for style, a little more regard for accuracy in historical detail, would have made of this a really good book.”

“As a collection of anecdotes and observations the book may be found entertaining, but it should not profess, as it does, to be an exposition of social conditions in the South.”

“It vividly brings before the reader the way Southern men and women felt and talked in a most trying period.”

“An unusually vivid portrayal of the actual social conditions in the South during the years immediately succeeding the fall of Richmond.”

Avery, Elroy McKendree. History of the United States and its people. In 15 vol. ea. *$6.25. Burrows.

“A history that reflects and epitomizes the verified historic data of our preceding historians, and that is of special worth in that accuracy has been made the crowning aim of both author and publishers.”

“What is lacking is precisely the quality which makes Mr. Channing’s book noteworthy,—the impression of personality and individual authority.” Theodore Clarke Smith.

“In spite of a few trivial errors in the matters of date and the like, this second volume is in the highest degree satisfactory.”

“Excellently adapted for the public for which it is designed.”

“Maintains in general the level of its predecessor, and in some important respects shows improvement.”

“Throughout is evident the master desire for accuracy and impartiality, and both have been attained to a really remarkable degree.”

“As to the text of this history, while it has had the benefit of readings and suggestions by many historical experts, it retains the great advantage of a continuous narrative written by a single hand, and thus adhering to a well-proportioned scheme.”

12Ayer, Mary Allette. Joys of friendship. **$1. Lee.

A companion volume to the author’s “Daily cheer year book.” The extracts are arranged under the following sub-headings: The love of friendship, Companionship, Sympathy, Influence, Immortality of friendship, and The Divine friendship.

“A book of this character, however, loses much through lack of an author’s index.”

“First, as to its general design, it undertakes to exhibit each book both in its general teaching and in the specific teaching of its several sections. Next, as to the school of criticism represented, it is composite, some of its volumes representing the older and others, especially in some Old Testament books, the newer school. The present ‘Index’ is by subjects, texts, and authors quoted; there are, for instance, forty-eight citations from Renan. The accompanying Introductions present an appreciative and discriminating review of the progress and general results of Biblical criticism up to the present time.”—Outlook.

“Seems to be quite adequate.”

“This ‘Index’ is very full and will be of great value to all users of the ‘Expositor’s Bible’.”

A reprint of Everett’s translation of Babelon’s work with a chapter which includes M. de Morgan’s discoveries in Susa. He “gives a chronology of the ruins according to recent discoveries, and describes the principles of building, stone sculpture, bronze metal work, jewelry, and the industrial arts. The region described in this chapter has hitherto been almost unknown.” (N. Y. Times.)

“This added chapter only makes more evident the need of a revision or rewriting of the whole work.”

A strong plea for the preservation of our forests. The author says “It is in no sense a literary performance. It pretends to be nothing more than a simple account of one summer life, pretty much as it was lived, in a part of the Adirondacks.” Silas Strong is a woodland philosopher, and his camp is the scene of the wooing of a wood-nymph by a young politician. “The incidents include a forest fire, while among the leading characters is a dog said to be particularly engaging.” (N. Y. Times.)

“Many will be unable to feel either great admiration for, or any unusual interest in, Silas.”

“Altogether, it is a book that deserves to be read, and, having been read, to be pondered.”

“Strong, fine-flavored story of the woods.”

“The actual story is not as impressive as it might be.”

Bacon, Alice Mabel. In the land of the gods: some stories of Japan. †$1.50. Houghton.

“Ten true pictures of fairyfolk and phenomena set in the frame of a dainty English style.” (Ind.) They illustrate “Japanese beliefs and traditions which Miss Bacon regards as the sources of the Japanese qualities and traits which have been so clearly shown the world during the great crisis of the last two years.” (Outlook.)

“This book is a ‘Japanese fairy world’ to date, but with something of Hearn’s witchery of style.”

“All are worth telling, extremely well told, and full of interest both for children and for their elders.”

“There is certainly much pleasure to be had from reading these ten little stories.”

“These stories are very happily phrased, full of the spirit of intuition, and thoroughly sympathetic with the life which they describe.”

Bacon, Mrs. Dolores Harbourg. King’s divinity. †$1.50. Holt.

They met at a ball given by royalty, he a cousin of royalty, she a charming American girl. The course of true love is interrupted by court conventions and obdurate counsellors, but the divinity of love finally proves itself more than that of majesty.

“Is pleasant reading, but thin in quality and imperfect in its plot development.”

Bacon, Edgar Mayhew, and Wheeler, Andrew Carpenter. Nation builders: a story. $1. Meth. bk.

An appreciation of the itinerant preachers of Methodism who went out to possess the American frontier a century ago.

“It is an inspiring record and the joint authors have well presented it.”

Bacon, Edwin Munroe. Connecticut river, and the valley of the Connecticut; three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea: historical and descriptive. **$3.50. Putnam.

Under the headings “Historical,” “The romances of navigation,” and “The topography of the river and valley” the author has “traced all the interesting movements and events associated with New England’s chief river down to the present day.” The book abounds in the picturesque and traditional no less than in well authorized historical fact.

“Is a book of notable interest to New-Englanders.”

13“The proportions of the long stretch have been duly considered, and the narrative, not unlike the river which it portrays, runs consistently, though compressed within brimming pages, from cover to cover—a happy concurrence of literary ease and historical severity.”

Bagley, William Chandler. Educative process. *$1.25. Macmillan.

“Students of schoolcraft and teachers will find that Mr. Bagley’s elaborate account of the processes of education repays careful study.”

“The contribution in this book lies in the careful selection of biological and physiological principles which have educational bearings, and which can be seen as such by the average teacher.” Frederick E. Bolton.

“What has been especially needed for some time is just such a work as Dr. Bagley has written. It will be generally agreed that Dr. Bagley has given us here a sound and scholarly statement of educational theory.” Edwin G. Dexter.

Bagot, Richard. Italian lakes; painted by Ella Du Cane, described by Richard Bagot. *$6. Macmillan.

“Mr. Bagot gossips not unpleasantly, if with no great indication of profound historical research.”

“His book contains much valuable and interesting information, but the pleasure of reading it is somewhat marred by the uncalled-for apologetic tone adopted throughout, and the ever-recurrent use of the personal pronoun.”

“Charming pictures—with a very inferior text. Indeed it would have been better had the sketches followed one another and the printed matter been condensed into notes.”

“We have found this the most pleasing volume of a class of books which appear now to have a certain vogue.”

Bagot, Richard. Passport. †$1.50. Harper.

“Mr. Bagot’s style is clever and finished. It lacks a definite clear-cut motive that should give it force and value.”

Bailey, Mrs. Alice Ward (A. B. Ward, pseud.). Roberta and her brothers; il. by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. †$1.50. Little.

A lively story with a wide-awake, ambitious young heroine who is mother, sister, housekeeper and counsellor in her father’s home. Her trials, her triumphs, and her longings offer wholesome entertainment to young readers.

“Is a book with plenty of life and vim between its covers.”

“The story is wholesome, lively, and sufficiently natural to arouse a response in the heart of all girl readers.”

“The characters are nicely differentiated, the expression fresh.”

Bailey, Mrs. Alice Ward (A. B. Ward, pseud.). Sage brush parson. †$1.50. Little.

The sage brush wastes of Nevada furnish the general setting of Mr. Ward’s story while the particular interest centers in one of the little towns filled with rough miners. Among these carousing groups there appears one day an Englishman of deep religious zeal and culture bent upon the mission of saving souls. The reader’s sympathy is readily won for the lonely figure, whose apparent asceticism is not bred in the bone, but the outgrowth of a bitter heart load. The melodramatic touches are thoroughly in keeping with the locale of the story-drama.

“This is one of the strongest and most human stories we have read in months.”

“It is a good example of how much weakness in a plot and in style may be pardoned, if the central characters win our affection and hold our interest.” Frederic Taber Cooper.

“There is much strength in this vivid narrative, combined with humor, realistic description, and incisive characterization.” Wm. M. Payne.

“The style is crisp, virile, incisive; and although there may be suggestions of Bret Harte, perhaps even of ‘The Virginian’ here and there, this is yet a new story, strongly told, with a character all its own.”

“Logic is not A. B. Ward’s strong point, but she ... writes a readable story and one that keeps the attention right up to the last word.”

Bailey, Liberty Hyde. Outlook to nature. **$1.25. Macmillan.

“We see that the writer is a passionate lover of nature with a strain of the poet in him, but we do not always find his treatment convincing.”

Bailey, Liberty Hyde. Plant-breeding: being lectures upon the amelioration of domestic plants. **$1.25. Macmillan.

To this fourth edition of his volume in the “Garden craft series,” Prof. Bailey has added a new chapter on current plant-breeding practice. “For one who already knows something of garden plants ‘Plant breeding’ affords a royal road to modern evolutionary doctrine, while the changes in the text between the first and the present fourth edition show how rapid has been recent progress in this field.” (Atlan.)

“Gives a remarkably simple and readable account of current practice in this department of horticulture, interpreting every process in the light of recent theory.” E. T. Brewster.

+ + |Atlan. 98: 424. S. ’06. 150w.

“Most accomplished writer of pure horticultural English.” Mabel Osgood Wright.

Bailie, William. Josiah Warren, the first American anarchist: a sociological study. **$1. Small.

“Warren’s anarchism was of a type different from that exemplified in the terrorists of today; was, in fact, philosophical anarchism in its purest form. Upholding the doctrine of the sovereignty of the individual and the abolition of all government but self-government, and cherishing the idea that the restraints of government are not needed to induce each individual to exercise his liberty with due regard to the rights of others, Warren spent many years in the endeavor to demonstrate in practice the validity of his theories.”—Outlook.

14“Those who are interested in the growth of social theories in this country will welcome this little volume.”

“The story of the way in which Warren sought to put his teachings into practice makes entertaining and not unprofitable reading.”

“Mr. Bailie doesn’t succeed in conveying any impression of his personality.”

“As stories of an ancient civilization, these flowery, unhurried tales have a charm of movement and meaning. As love stores the tales are pure and ardent, mixing earthly and heavenly motive and passion in the intimate way of the early world.”

Baird, Jean K. Cash three. 60c. Saalfield.

A little lad, as cash boy in a department store, fighting poverty with his father while his mother’s relatives are trying to find him. The tale, ending in a happy Christmas, is full of hardships, relieved by a father’s devotion and a child’s natural cheerfulness.

Baird, Jean K. Danny. 60c. Saalfield.

Goat Hill, an Irish washerwoman settlement, furnishes the setting of a story in which Mary Shannon, and Danny, the pride of her heart, are the principal characters.

Baker, Abby G., and Ware, Abby H. Municipal government of the city of New York. *90c. Ginn.

Altho written for eighth grade pupils in the New York schools, much of the discussion exceeds local interest and offers suggestions for every city’s government as well as help along the line of preparation for civil service examinations.

Baker, Cornelia. Queen’s page. †$1.25. Bobbs.

“Is one of the most delightful children’s books of the year.” Amy C. Rich.

Baker, Louise R. Mrs. Pinner’s little girl $1. Jacobs.

Baldwin, May. Girls of St. Gabriel’s. †$1.25. Lippincott.

Baldwin, May. That little limb; il. †$1.25. Jacobs.

A misunderstood, unconsciously naughty little girl lives a riotous life in her canon uncle’s home until he has to send her away to school. Her friendship for a young doctor just over the wall who is her prince and who understands her is the foil for all her childishly weird thrusts at life and people.

“Is rather a disappointing book.”

Baltzell, W. J. Complete history of music. Presser.

A book for schools, clubs and private reading. “The author begins at the beginning, with the prehistoric music of Assyrians and Egyptians, and follows down through Hebrew and Greek music, through the beginnings of mediaeval music, through the great period of the polyphonic ecclesiastical composers, and so to the modern schools, and the most modern schools There are chapters on musical instruments, on singing, on the origin and development of the opera and of the suite and sonata.” (N. Y. Times.)

“The most useful and up-to-date history of music in any language.”

“For its purpose, and within its limitations this history is unusually good, and an uncommon skill has been shown in its compilation and in the arrangement of its parts.”

“Especially full and informing are the early chapters dealing with the origin and primitive evolution of music.”

Baly, Edward Charles Cyril. Spectroscopy. *$2.80. Longmans.

“Briefly the volume may be described as an excellent scholarly compendium of terrestrial spectroscopy brought up to date. The subject of astrophysics is barely touched upon. Of the seventeen chapters which the treatment includes, the first seven are devoted to what might be called ordinary spectroscopic practice, including the theory and use of the prism and the diffraction grating; the remaining ten chapters are given to more advanced and special problems, such as those occurring in the infrared and ultra-violet regions, spectroscopic sources, the Zeeman effect, spectral series, etc. Concerning each of these chapters it may be said that the problem is always definitely stated, the English is clear and simple, and the references to original sources are ample.”—Astrophys. J.

“The volume as a whole is characterized by a fine perspective and by always putting the emphasis in the right place. It should find a place in the library of every student of physical optics.” Henry Clew.

“The book, indeed, fills a gap in spectroscopic literature which has long existed. Notwithstanding the few drawbacks to which attention has been directed, the book reflects the greatest credit on its author.”

The conflicting traits and characteristics of Raffles and of Sherlock Holmes are strangely blended in this new hero, Raffles Holmes, who introduces himself as the grandson of the famous cracksman and the son of the great detective. His history and adventures as recorded by Jenkins, who is his Dr. Watson and his Bunny in one, are highly amusing. In the double capacity of thief and detective he enjoys a successful and spectacular career, for while the Raffles in him perpetually cries “Take” the Holmes in him thunders “Restore” and he does both to his own advantage.

15“A parody needs to be remarkably well done to secure the forgiveness of the admirers of the original. It is to be feared that Mr. Bangs must go unforgiven.”

Banks, Rev. Louis Albert. Great promises of the Bible. $1.50. Meth. bk.

This is the fourth volume of a quartette, the first three of which are “The great sinners of the Bible,” “The great saints of the Bible,” “The great portraits of the Bible.” There are thirty sermons which comprise a complete survey of the Bible promises including the promise of a new heart, forgiveness, answers to prayer, sleep, home of the soul, victory, morning and immortality.

Barbey, Frederic. Friend of Marie Antoinette (Lady Atkyns). *$3. Dutton.

“Lady Atkyns an English actress, lived in France long enough to acquire violent Royalist sentiments, and to be presented to the lovely queen Marie Antoinette, to whose cause she forever swore allegiance. Her recently discovered correspondence reopens the puzzle of the disappearance of the Dauphin. However, the case remains as completely unsolved as ever.... Lady Atkyns seems to have been a monomaniac of very generous impulses, who was the dupe of excited French Royalists, and they appeared as eager for English gold as for the rescue of their king.”—Outlook.

“A most disappointing book. Indeed, one is tempted to ask oneself, when wading through the excellent translation of M. Barbey’s work whether that distinguished writer really made the best of his material.”

“The translation is, as a whole, very tolerably executed.”

“Although M. Barbey is a good compiler of evidence, he has no gift for vividness.”

“There are more exclamatory passages by the author than authentic quotations from Lady Atkyns’s letters.”

“It is a pretty romance anyway, and a few words at least of it might be given as a foot note to the history of France.”

Barbour, Mrs. Anna Maynard. Breakers ahead. †$1.50. Lippincott.

This story outlines the life of a “sublime egoist.” A young Englishman, Thomas Macavoy Denning, leaves home because he has been expelled from school, and comes to America with the resolve to make in the new world, single-handed, a name which shall equal his father’s in the old. He succeeds in so far as wealth and position are concerned, by sheer will, force, and self confidence he succeeds financially; but on the eve of his political triumph, just as his election as governor of a western state seems assured, the results of a lax past, of a period when he sowed wild oats rises up to defeat him—and his was not a soul which could bear defeat.

“The effect as a whole is not convincing. The author’s style is rather stilted and the dialogue is somewhat less than natural.”

“Otherwise the story is exceptionally well put together, and rises steadily toward a climax of interest that proves fairly enthralling.” Wm. M. Payne.

Life at the Ferry Hill school as Roy Porter, brother of Porter of the Harvard eleven, found it, forms an interesting study of the smallness and the breadth of various boy natures as well as a series of pictures of football, hockey, cross country runs, boat racing, base-ball, and other sports as they were played there. Harry, daughter of the head-master, furnishes a wholesome girl element and is Roy’s comrade thru the various ups and downs that made up his school life from the time when, as a boy, he rescued her pet rabbit, to the time when, having won his place as leader of the school, he is carried on the shoulders of his triumphant classmates at the close of the game in which Ferry Hill at last beat Hammond.

“Although the book was intended primarily for boys, the wholesome, outdoorsy girl will find it just as interesting on account of the hearty friendship between the boy and one of his girl schoolmates.”

“It is perfectly safe to predict a large reading for this book among American schoolboys.”

Barbour, Ralph Henry. Maid in Arcady. †$2. Lippincott.

An aimless Vertumnus drifts into Arcady and beholds Clytie, a daughter of the gods. He gazes spellbound. So begins a tale of love which has the stamp of Olympia upon it, but which in reality is very modern after all, and, true to the adage, does not run smoothly. Believing that she is Laura Devereaux the girl whom his friend loves, he takes himself miserably away striving to forget that he had ever stumbled into Arcady. After a long and weary waiting he discovers his mistake and a happy ending ensues.

“The new story is longer and somewhat more substantial than its predecessors, but equally graceful and amusing.”

“The story is graceful and more spirited than one would expect from the emphasis given to its externals.”

Bard, Emile. Chinese life in town and country. **$1.20. Putnam.

Barine, Arvede, pseud. (Cecile Vincens) (Mrs. Charles Vincens). Louis XIV. and La Grande Mademoiselle. **$3. Putnam.

The present story continues the career of La Grande Mademoiselle where the author’s “The youth of La Grande Mademoiselle” dropped it, just at the close of the Fronde,—that protest of the French nobility against centralization. Mme. Barine’s heroine was related to Louis XIII., was the richest heiress in France, and aspired to be an empress, a political power and a nun. “Her mad vagaries and misguided impulses” furnish material for a comic as well as a tragic study of a fascinating period.

“It is a book of striking interest, and the rendering is tolerably well done, though it retains French idiom too much, and gives us occasionally but jerky English.”

“The proof of the merit of Mme. Barine’s work lies in the fact that one is eager to read it in spite of the very bad translation. To a subject replete with picturesque interest Mme. Barine has done full justice.”

16“The narrative has all the vivacity of fiction, though at the same time its historical care and accuracy are evident at every turn. The translation, which is anonymous, is easy and unaffected.”

“Is, to say the very least, vastly entertaining.”

“There is a lack of delicacy in some of the passages, which the translator would have shown better taste either by omitting or toning down, but the sketch given of the court and its manners is admirably drawn, and the pathos of the often ridiculous adventures of the heroine is well brought out.”

“The story may be read at length in these pages, admirably told by the author, so far as a deplorable translation permits us to appreciate it.”

Barnard, William Francis. Moods of life: poems of varied feeling. $1. The Rooks press.

A hundred and some poems which portray the grave as well as the gay moods of life.

Reviewed by William M. Payne.

Barnes, James. Outside the law. †$1.50. Appleton.

“A detective story with the detective left out.” (Outlook.) Lorrimer, a man of great wealth, imparts to an old servant the secret process by which he can reproduce the works of old engravers with great fidelity. The servant’s treachery in joining a band of counterfeiters starts a series of situations which implicate the innocent Lorrimer, and weave a relentless mesh about him.

Barr, Mrs. Amelia Edith Huddleston. Cecilia’s lovers. †$1.50. Dodd.

A companion book to Mrs. Barr’s “Trinity bells.” New York life of to-day is portrayed, but Cecilia’s “Quakeress benefactor and Quaker home are the most pleasing and realistic features of the book. Her worldly friends and lovers are by no means satisfying to the reader.” (Outlook.)

“As regards the literary quality of the book there is not much to be said, but it is bright and pleasant, and likely enough to find readers.”

“There is not a dull page in the story. It moves on to a happy ending and the situations are so well handled that the reader’s attention is held from the beginning to the end, while as he reads he begins to understand why the mere pursuit of unearned wealth in this country is so absorbing.” Mary K. Ford.

“We cannot believe that Mr. Steele really did that which he is alleged to have done.”

“Eugene Valmont is an addition to the large number of private detectives who have betrayed the confidence of their clients by recording their achievements.” (Ath.) His exploits carried thru a group of stories frequently reveal a deviation from English legal methods, and hence an opportunity for other than machine made results. “The story of how the famous diamond necklace brought ill fate to every one connected with it from Marie Antoinette down is capitally told and helps to explain why Valmont lost his place as chief of detectives in Paris.” (N. Y. Times.)

“The creation of Eugene Valmont may, indeed, be counted one of Mr. Barr’s best achievements.”

“The stories are readable but not absorbing.”

“Some ingenious and amusing detective stories.”

Barrett, Alfred Wilson. Father Pink. †$1.50. Small.

A wily tho good-natured priest enters a fight to secure for his niece, Lucretia, money and diamonds which, by right of an unsubstantiated claim, go to the heroine of the tale, a young French girl. Interested in righting the much-tangled up affairs of fortune is a young bachelor who, tho outwitted on several occasions and who sees Father Pink disappear thru a tiger’s cage with the coveted diamonds, none the less wins the heroine and restores to her her wealth.

Barrington, Mrs. Russell. Reminiscences of G. F. Watts. *$5. Macmillan.

“The author of this affectionately fashioned memorial reveals no critical qualifications for her task.” Royal Cortissoz.

Barrows, Charles Henry. Personality of Jesus. **$1.25. Houghton.

Mr. Barrows is a successful lawyer who was formerly president of the International Young men’s Christian association training school. The author discusses the personal appearance, growth and education, intellectual power, emotional life, will, and unwritten principles of Jesus.

“This indifference to the large lessons to be learned from recent historical study of the Gospels is the more to be regretted, since the author proves himself so well qualified, in his general knowledge and by his warm religious feeling, to discuss the high theme upon which he has expended so much patient labor.”

“The author has done as well as anyone could be expected to do without the aid of criticism.”

“Its practical common sense, its freedom from theological predilections, its sincere spirit, and its unpretentious style combine to make it a useful aid.”

Barry, J. P. At the gates of the east: a book of travel among historic wonderlands. $2. Longmans.

“The information contained in the volume was not obtained from other books of travel, but derived at first hand. The places were visited 17in separate circular tours ... both in the spring and the autumn. The volume opens with descriptions of the capitals of Eastern Europe ... Cairo is the next city dealt with, after which come the cities of Southern Greece ... the eastern Adriatic towns ... and in the Western Balkans, Cettinje and the Provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A chapter on ‘Ways and means,’ in which the author tells the prospective tourist how to plan the trip outlined in his book, where to start and at what time of the year, what places to see, a word concerning costs and money, guide books, etc., closes the volume.”—N. Y. Times.

“When the author becomes eloquent or sentimental, as he often does, he is apt to show imperfect knowledge, and make statements which jar on the educated reader. Yet ... the book is pleasant and often instructive.”

Barry, John D. Our best society. †$1.50. Putnam.

“It lacks Mrs. Wharton’s subtlety and finish, and is far from evincing great sophistication but it is none the less an accurate portrayal of certain phases of New York life.”

“A sprightly and acute narrative. Considered as a novel, the book lacks conventional structure and plot, but so does the life it discriminatingly portrays.”

“Is written with some skill.”

Barry, Richard. Sandy of the Sierras. $1.50. Moffat.

Sandy, true to his name, is a red-headed Scotch lad who goes from the Sierras down to San Francisco to make his fortune. He rises from the lower rounds of the ladder to the heights of political fame. He “becomes boss of the Pacific coast, and is not above the tricks of his trade. You leave him happy in having at one stroke won his love and made his father-in-law Senator.” (N. Y. Times.)

“The author has a better command of journalistic slang than of literary English.” Wm. M. Payne.

“Those who are familiar with the word-painting and lurid touches of Mr. Barry’s ‘Port Arthur: a monster heroism,’ will not miss them in his new story.”

“Mr. Barry, no doubt, could write a better novel now.”

“Much as I like Sandy I should like him better if his creator liked him less.”

Barry, William (Francis). Tradition of Scripture: its origin, authority, and interpretation. *$1.20. Longmans.

“This is a volume of the ‘Westminister library,’ a series intended for the use of ‘Catholic priests and students,’ presumably ecclesiastical students.... The author’s preoccupation is theological, not scientific; and in his treatment of critical questions, he inquires, not what are the conclusions established by the evidence, but what proportion of these conclusions can be reconciled with the pronouncements of Roman authority.” (Acad.)

“The book is no doubt well adapted to those for whom it is intended, many of whom will learn from it much that they do not know, particularly about the Old Testament; and it will serve well enough as material for sermons. But priests and students will be well advised not to rely on Dr. Barry’s treatment of the critical problems of the New Testament, should they ever be called upon to discuss those problems with persons having a real knowledge of them.”

“It is an encouragement to find a Catholic writer thus generously and intelligently treating the critical study of the Bible, and thus ready to welcome the results of honest and truth-loving scholarship.”

Bashford, Herbert. Tenting of the Tillicums; il. by Charles Copeland. [+]75c. Crowell.

“Tillicums,” the Indian word for “friends” is adopted by four boys who ran the round of camping adventure on Puget Sound. Their fearlessness is put to the test by wild animal as well as desperado, and is the real keynote to the spirited tale.

Bashore, Harvey Brown. Sanitation of a country house. $1. Wiley.

“This little book would form a useful, popular and non-technical guide on sanitary matters to anyone about to build a country house.”

“A clean-cut, authoritative little exposition.”

Bassett, Mrs. Mary E. Stone. Little green door. †$1.50. Lothrop.

“The story is pretty in its pale, anemic way, but there are so many lustier blossoms to be gathered.”

Bastian, Henry Charlton. Nature and origin of living matter. *$3.50. Lippincott.

“For the past thirty-five years Dr. Bastian has consistently upheld the doctrine that life not only in the past originated, but does at the present time originate, from dead matter—the doctrine once generally known as that of spontaneous generation.... The present book ... dwells particularly on the importance to medical science of proof that disease germs may arise de novo.... Our boards of health are proceeding on the assumption that one typhoid germ, for instance, is always the offspring of another similar germ, and that if we can exclude these germs we can exclude the disease.... If it be true that a typhoid germ may under certain conditions arise where no such germ existed before, our precautions, tho necessary, will often be unavailing. And that they are sometimes failures for this very reason is Dr. Bastian’s belief.”—Lit. D.

“That the author is convinced of the truth of what he sets forth in his book none can doubt, but that it will succeed in making converts among men of science is not to be expected.” W. P. Pycraft.

“Whatever one may think of the group of opinions which Dr. Bastian has maintained for a generation, consistently and almost alone, he is at least a learned man and a skillful writer, so that his discussion of the general problem is most illuminating.” E. T. Brewster.

“The observations and experiments are absolutely inconclusive.”

“No one will suggest that of the two hundred and forty-five micrographs reproduced in this book, a single one has been falsified; yet it will be almost universally held that the interpretation put upon them by their author and the inference drawn from them are incorrect.”

18“Dr. H. Charlton Bastian re-expounds his well known biological heresies with a vigour and industry worthy of a better cause.” J. A. T.

“Dr. Bastian’s work is an interesting one, both scientifically and, so to speak, psychologically. One cannot but feel in reading the work that the author is a man with an extraordinary amount of learning and industry, and it is not unlikely that the learning and industry will be useful at least, in drawing more attention to the subject of heterogenesis.” Charles Loomis Dana.

“If this author is not quite a Huxley, he is more readable than Haeckel: we wonder that it never struck him that proper ‘contents,’ page headings, and side summaries are indispensable accompaniments of a serious scientific book.”

Batten, Rev. Loring W. Hebrew prophet. $1.50 Macmillan.

“His treatment is interesting, fresh, and skillfully related to modern life.” John E. McFadyen.

“The closing chapters, on the prophet’s relation to the church and on the prophet’s vision, are somewhat one-sided and disappointing. As a whole, gives an excellent portraiture of one of the most remarkable figures in the history of religion.” Kemper Fullerton.

“It speaks well for the American pulpit that a work of such ability comes from the rector of an important city parish.”

Battine, Cecil. Crisis of the confederacy: a history of Gettysburg and the Wilderness. $5. Longmans.

“Captain Battine is a clever, a vivid and an engaging writer. But his judgments, both of men and of events, are often airy and unbased.”

“A confessed Confederate bias does not interfere with impartial treatment, and the work is quite worth study by those who are interested in our history as well as by professional soldiers.”

Baughan, Edward Algernon. Music and musicians. *$1.50. Lane.

The twenty seven articles included in “Music and musicians” are reprints of the author’s contributions to English periodicals. He treats such subjects as “The obvious in music,” “Richard Strauss and his symphonic poems,” “Richard Strauss and programme music,” and “Wagner’s ‘Ring.’”

“He has a way of his own in looking at men and things, and it is therefore not surprising if one cannot in all points agree with him. There are many excellent comments and criticisms in the volume.”

“He has ideas of his own, and his lucid style enables him to convey them to the general reader even when they relate, as they must now and then, to matters technical.”

“In all these matters, Mr. Baughan writes interestingly and gives frequent fillips to thought and discussion, even if he has not all the conviction of an aggressive advocate.” Richard Aldrich.

Baxter, James Phinney. Memoir of Jacques Cartier, Sieur de Limoilou: his voyages to the St. Lawrence, a bibliography and a facsimile of the manuscript of 1534; with annotations, etc. **$10. Dodd.

“This volume contains a new translation from the original French of Cartier’s ‘Voyages’ in 1535–1536 and 1541, and the first translation of the manuscript discovered in 1867 in the Bibliotheque Nationale, of the voyage of 1534. A bibliography and a collection of all the pertinent documents thus far discovered in the French and Spanish archives and included, as well as an exhaustive memoir of Cartier.”—Am. Hist. R.

“Dr. Baxter has given us what may almost be regarded as the last word on the great navigator of St. Malo. His work is authoritative.” Lawrence J. Burpee.

“This volume, which seems to have been a true labor of love, is a worthy tribute to his memory.”

“His book is distinctly valuable and an important addition to any library aiming to keep up with the development of the knowledge of American history.”

Bayliss, Sir Wyke. Seven angels of the renascence. **$3.50. Pott.

“Unfortunately, however, it can scarcely be said that he has really contributed anything new to the vast mass of literature on the same subject already in circulation.”

With a dramatic power which is moving in its forcefulness this Spanish author has written the story of the lost dauphin, the little son of Louis XVI, who was long supposed to have died in prison. It is a book of such realism that the reader feels thruout that it is the dread hand of fate and not the author who relentlessly orders the unhappy life of Naundorff, and forces him finally to give up voluntarily the recognition he has struggled a lifetime to gain. The story of his lovely daughter Amélie, whose happiness is sacrificed, gives to the book a deeper human interest.

“This particular version of the imagined history of the Dauphin has a romantic atmosphere of hopeless unreality, and arouses only a languid sort of interest.” Wm. M. Payne.

“Her literary style is remarkable for clarity and simplicity.”

“It belongs to the highest type of the historical novel, drawing its inspiration from authentic sources and rich in those elements which invest the dry bones of history with flesh and blood.”

“The novel is so well constructed, there is so much rich color in the landscapes, and so much clever character drawing that, at first sight, it seems strange that it does not interest one particularly. But the reason is not far to seek. It is a novel of propaganda.”

19“Generally speaking, the English will do well enough. For the story, in spite of Senora Bazan’s reputation, it does not in the present version afford those thrills which one demands in fiction of the lost Dauphin school.”

A story which breathes the “wild west” atmosphere of Nome and the outlying mining camps, one whose brutality (of the daring Jack London order) proves the truth of Kipling’s “there’s never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-three.” The plot involves a conspiracy against the joint owners of the Midas, the richest mine of Anvil Creek. A charming girl is the unconscious agent of the villains, and is also the cause of bitter rivalry between one of the owners and one of the conspirators. There are brawls, shootings in the streets, riots, battles at the mines, and murderous hand-to-hand fights—all of which show elemental savage man free from moral restraint.

“The only trouble with his method is that it results in an absolutely false picture of life.” Edward Clark Marsh.

“He mistakes vulgarity for strength and brute force for manliness; and he discusses without reserve matters which emphatically demand discreet treatment.”

“Grips us by sheer brute strength, and almost makes us forget how devoid it is of anything like grace or delicacy of workmanship.” Wm. M. Payne.

“In turning his material into the form of the novel, however, the writer has won no success other than that of maintaining a high sensational tension.”

“He is chiefly intent on his story. That’s a thing full of dramatic incidents and dramatic figures. If the hero and heroine are less effective than the others, that is one of the proved penalties of the dignity.”

“The young novelist knows the men he writes of, and he knows, also, the place in which he has located them.”

“It is distinctly a man’s book, just as the north was a man’s country.”

“No one can read these lives without being renewed in spirit, and for young women we know of no works so instinct with spiritual virility or so potential for good as the ‘Daughters of the Puritans.’”

“A collection of brief biographical sketches, characterized by a real interest of subject-matter and a pleasantly unconventional manner of treatment.”

“The author has used pretty faithfully all printed matter relating to his subject; but there is absolutely no evidence of that added exploration of manuscript material which is now demanded by the thoughtful reader.”

“The author’s style and treatment are sufficiently fresh and original to justify publication.”

Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli. Lord George Bentinck: a political biography; new ed; with introd. by Charles Whibley. **$2. Dutton.

“It seemed timely, amid the great free-trade electoral campaign just closed across the water to bring out on behalf of the losing side a new edition of Disraeli’s political biography.... It opens on the eve of the repeal of the Corn laws, of which it gives the Tory view. Bentinck forestalled Chamberlain in thinking that England’s commercial policy should be not free trade but reciprocity.” (Nation.) Mr. Whibley in his introduction “leads thru unsparing denunciation of Cobden and Peel up to a parallel between the leader of the Protectionists in 1846 and the leader of the Protectionists to-day. Thus it trenches so closely upon present politics that we, being non-political must leave Mr. Whibley’s opinions to speak for themselves.” (Ath.)

“An eloquent, not to say vehement, introduction. Frankly partisan in tone.”

“Mr Whibley has certainly managed to compress into a few pages an exhibition of a lack of political judgment and foresight, along with a degree of supercilious cocksureness which will not conduce to recommend his work to the reading public.”

“Mr. Whibley has written as if he had lost at once his temper and his sense of historical perspective.”

“From the historical standpoint, too, there is ample room for criticism. The sweeping statements common to campaign documents abound.”

“Disraeli sums up the character and career of Peel with an impartiality and a penetration that make this biography an English classic. It is the only instance we know of contemporary history being written with a due sense of perspective. But Mr. Whibley is more than sympathetic: he is discerning.”

Bearne, Catherine M. A queen of Napoleon’s court. **$2.50. Dutton.

A sketch of Désirée Bernadotte whose interest centers in “the picture it gives of her times rather than of her life, for she seems to have been an exceptionally dull product of a brilliant age.” (Acad.)

“Miss Bearne has put together a book which will appeal to the reader who is not particular in the matter of strict accuracy.”

“No more interesting book of gossip about famous and infamous people has appeared in recent years.”

“A book that has caught something of the glamour of that extraordinary age. Mrs. Bearne is not always correct, she repeats herself, she will drag in a fine tale, gallantly regardless of any right it has to be there; but she is pleasant gossip, full of mirth and entertainment.”

“It will please a class of readers unacquainted with Bourrienne and Madame Lenormand, indifferent as to criticism and judgment, unskilled in matters of grammar and rhetoric, intent merely on promiscuous anecdote and cheap sentiment.”

“Out of these persons and adventures the author has made a readable volume.”

20“Mrs. Bearne’s amusing book gives a capital picture of Napoleon’s France.”

Bearne, Rev. David. Charlie Chittywick. 85c. Benziger.

The tale of a resolute little lad who battled against a whole family of idle, shiftless, worthless members, and step by step becomes a self-respecting bread-winner.

An edition of Beaumont and Fletcher in the series of “Cambridge English classics.” It gives the text of the second folio, which contained the thirty-four plays of the first folio with the addition of the wild-goose chase and all other known plays of the authors published previously to 1679. All the variant readings appear in the appendix, but there is no critical apparatus provided.

“Does not seem to us to possess any advantage over the Variorum edition ... except that of greater cheapness.”

“Within its restricted limits it seems to be well done. But it is not the twentieth century edition of Beaumont and Fletcher which is wanted by all students of the history of the English drama.” Brander Matthews.

“The text ... is that of the second folio ... which causes us both wonder and regret.”

“The work has been executed with scrupulous care, but the result is far from satisfactory.”

Mr Bullen’s variorum edition of Beaumont and Fletcher was some years ago announced to “include all that was of importance in the work of previous editors, together with such further critical matter as the investigations of the past half-century supplied, and also a fuller record of the variant readings of early texts.... It follows in the main the lines laid down by Dyce, and offers an excellent reading text, while much learning is accumulated in the notes; textually, however, it is hardly what the modern philological scholar will regard as altogether satisfactory.” (Spec.)

“Where all the old editions are unanimous in one reading, but that reading is to modern editors inexplicable, the Variorum edition does not hesitate to change it.”

“The most striking of its deficiences is that it appears in what the general editor terms ‘modern spelling.’” Brander Matthews.

“There is no astonishing amount of erudition displayed in the very concise introductions.”

Beavan, Arthur H. Fishes I have known. $1.25. Wessels.

The author’s many and varied experiences in landing strange fishes in out-of-the-way abodes are given instructively enough for cyclopedia information and entertainingly enough to captivate the most indifferent angler. “Dolphins, turtles, pilot-fish—very seldom caught it seems—the Australian barracouta, the Murray cod, the catfish and other antipodean fishes, have been among his prey.... After experiences in faraway waters he comes back to England, and always an entertaining guide, conducts us to more familiar scenes.” (Spec.)

“A pleasant non-technical little volume upon fishing in general and particular—from the British standpoint.” Mabel Osgood Wright.

“It is a book which any intelligent reader might presumably enjoy if he enjoys animate life, travel and adventure of any kind; but we imagine the average ten year-old boy would read it with keener interest and more profit than the angler.”

Beck, (Carl) Richard. Nature of ore deposits; tr. and rev. by Walter Harvey Weed; with 272 figures and a map. 2v. $8. Engineering and mining journal.

The work “has that temper which has marked the Freiberg work for a century, and which took shape in the like work of his predecessor, Von Cotta, and the many successive scholars of that school.... The aim of the treatise is to give a compendium of what is known as to the origin and distribution of all those deposits which afford important metallic elements, with a measure of attention to each in some proportion to its economical importance, and by the means of a systematic classification of the occurrences.”—Engin. N.

“Coming to the matter of this work, it may summarily be said that within its limits it is almost beyond praise. What is essential of all the important metalliferous ore deposits of the world is briefly, yet clearly, set forth, and this with a surprising evenness of presentation. The present writer knows of no other treatise dealing with as varied and wide-ranging features which approaches it in its accuracy and sufficiency. The work of the translator in his emendations as well as his renderings from the German is generally excellent.” N. S. Shaler.

“The subject of ore deposits is treated in an exhaustive way.” E. W. S.

Becke, (George) Louis. Adventures of a supercargo. †$1.50. Lippincott.

“Given a setting which includes a man or two, a ship and a stretch of the Pacific, Mr. Louis Becke may be relied upon to reel off yarns of adventure to any extent.... The young hero is caught by a ‘southerly buster’ while sailing in Sydney harbour, and driven out between the towering ironbound Heads which guard the entrance to that famous haven, we settle down with confidence to the perusal of a string of adventures in which no break is likely to occur.... A [story] that should find much favour among boy readers.”—Ath.

21“The opening part of the present book inclines to dullness. The critic may quarrel with such books for their lack of any artistic scheme of construction, and upon many other grounds. But it is a fact that the adventures do not halt.”

“To enjoy the book to the full one should not be more than seventeen.”

“We imagine that ‘The adventures of a supercargo,’ although disappointing from the viewpoint of Mr Becke’s old admirers, will prove an enjoyable book to boys and those fond of taking their travels in such fictional form.”

Bedford, Randolph. Snare of strength. †$1.50 Turner, H. B.

A tale of Australia which “shows intimate acquaintance with Australian miners, politicians, company promoters, and prodigal sons.” (Ath.) The atmosphere of vitality, of invincible youth greedy of life and domain is fairly heroic. Three young men “run their race with extraordinary vigor and leave the reader breathless, as was the way of the early Australian novels of the bushranging days. Modern worship of athletics has resuscitated the old type of wild rider and bold lover, but he has the modern touch of self-consciousness and knows himself for the man he is.” (N. Y. Times.)

“But because there are signs of power in Mr. Bedford’s book, we would beg him not to squander his language as Ned the prodigal squandered his life.”

“In the matter of style he sometimes errs through striving after force of expression, but there are passages in the book that are admirably written. Taken as a whole ‘The snare of strength’ is a remarkable book.”

“If you can forget its shortcomings, you will find in it no small measure of rugged human nature, and you will get some new and interesting impressions of Australian life, physical, social and political.” Frederick Taber Cooper.

“No more man-book has appeared since Theodore Roberts gave us ‘Hemming the adventurer’ in ’94.”

“Is in its very being a book ‘worth while.’”

“While the book is defective in proportion and literary art in some respects, the author has a genuine knowledge of human nature, and often writes acutely and with a real grasp on his characters and their motives.”

Beebe, C. William. Bird: its form and function. **$3.50. Holt.

An untechnical study of the bird in the abstract, which, the author believes, with an earnest nature-lover, should follow the handbook of identification. Among the phases of physical life discussed are features, framework, the skull, organs of nutrition, food, the breath of a bird, muscles, senses, beaks, and bills, body, head and neck, wings, feet and legs, tails and eggs of birds. The book is handsomely made and copiously illustrated.

“A valuable contribution to nature study, for it is both scientific and popular.”

“It is to the fascinating drama of the evolution of bird life that he devotes most attention, and it is this feature of the book that will probably be found the most interesting.”

Fifty-two short essays form the text of a chronicle which deals with interesting forms of the twelve-months’ life including plant, fish, insect and the neighbor in fur and feather. The sketches are direct invitations to enjoy the wild beauties of out-of-door life, and the illustrations fully second the call. The volume represents perfection in book-making combining strength with artistic points of excellence.

“The most sumptuous nature book of the year. Anyone who absorbs this book will become in his own person a fairly accomplished naturalist, besides having a very good time in the process.” May Estelle Cook.

“A most useful handbook.”

“We find only one false note in the present volume, and this was sung by a ‘bob-white’ in January.”

“His words should reach a larger audience than holiday buyers and recipients.”

Beebe, C. William. Two bird-lovers in Mexico. **$3. Houghton.

“A simple, unforced and delightful narrative.”

“They have made one of the most delightful of nature-books.”

“Mexico is an attractive country, and the account of the profusion of bird life, especially in the marshes of Chapala, is vividly written. But the book is not a work of great literary merit.”

Beecher, Henry Ward. Life of Christ: without—within: two sermons. $1. Harper.

Two of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher’s strongest and most inspiring sermons. Christ’s life from without is sketched as it appeared to pharisee and publican; from within, as the greatest moral force the world has ever known.

Beecher, Willis Judson. Prophets and the promise. **$2. Crowell.

“The real strength and interest of Dr. Beecher’s book lie in the second part, ‘The promise.’” Kemper Fullerton.

Beet, Joseph Agar. Last things. *$1.50. Eaton.

A reprint, carefully revised and partly rewritten work published in 1897. The principal topics discussed are “The second coming of Christ,” and “The doom of the wicked.”

22“Of real value to the student of musical history.”

Reviewed by Richard Aldrich.

Beldam, George W., and Fry, Charles B. Great batsmen: their methods at a glance. *$6.50. Macmillan.

“We think [its value] considerable from every point of view save the pictorial.”

An ardent Southern girl brought up abroad refuses to be comforted when her father dies. “How can you believe in a God who punishes you and sends all manner of evil on you while calling himself a God of love” expresses the burden of her distracted mind. She loses her fortune, she falls from a horse and becomes a cripple. Life looks hard and bitter. To her, in this state comes the healing truth of Christian science with its deep revelations of the power that can bind up the broken hearted, make whole and restore harmony.

Bell, Nancy R. E. Meugens (Mrs Arthur Bell) (D’Anvers, pseud.). Paolo Veronese. $1.25. Warne.

Bell, Nancy R. E. Meugens (Mrs. Arthur George Bell) (N. D’Anvers, pseud.). Picturesque Brittany; il. in col. by Arthur G. Bell. *$3.50. Dutton.

The text and illustrations work out a unity of presentation interesting from a descriptive, historical and artistic standpoint. It is the record of a summer holiday in Brittany, and the observations include scenery, people, their homes, customs and manners, with now and then a dip into the religious and political aspects.

“We think [Mr. Bell’s drawings], indeed, better than those of any other colour-book on Brittany that has yet been issued. Mrs. Bell reveals in the arrangement and proportion of her book the skill of a practised writer, if in the loose style we are sometimes allowed to see the author almost ‘en déshabille.’”

“To journey through this romantic region with such accomplished guides is indeed a privilege.”

“The text is agreeably written, and the pictures ... are sober, truthful, and sufficiently able, and are without any of those extravagances of color that have grown, of late, somewhat too familiar.”

Bell, Ralcy Husted. Words of the woods. **$1. Small.

Verse, “ranging from patriotic addresses to our country, through appreciation of nature in many moods, and eulogiums of friends, to impassioned love-songs.” (Outlook.)

“Conventional verse of a rather commonplace kind, devoid of anything like originality and not noticeably felicitous in diction.” Wm. M. Payne.

“An impression is left upon the mind that prudent pruning would have made the volume smaller and saved the reader from occasional commonplaces both in thought and phrase.”

Benn, Alfred William. History of English rationalism in the nineteenth century. 2v. *$7. Longmans.

Mr. Benn’s book “includes intelligent summaries of the various systems of philosophy which have influenced English thought, and gives much detailed consideration to the influence of Coleridge and the neo-Platonists, to utilitarianism, and Benthamism, to the Oxford movement, and to all literary work of distinction which has influenced the spread of rationalism or tended to curb its spread.”—N. Y. Times.

“His book strikes us as neither amusing nor particularly instructive.”

“It is a singularly interesting and well written account of the movement of theological (and, to some extent, of philosophical) thought in England during the last century. The fulness and accuracy of Mr. Benn’s information regarding the books and writers whom he passes in review makes his survey instructive and suggestive even to those who dissent from the barren negativity of his conclusions.”

“The discussion is necessarily far less simple than Sir Leslie Stephen’s account of the eighteenth century, and its dramatic unity correspondingly weaker; but it has a richness and variety that are not without their compensating interest.”

Bennett, John. Treasure of Peyre Gaillard. †$1.50. Century.

While Jack Gignillatt, a young civil engineering student is recuperating among his Southern relatives, an old box is found at the end of a secret stairway which contains the legend of treasure buried in an adjoining swamp by an ancestor in the Revolutionary days at the time of a Tory raid. Jack’s nimble mathematical wit, aided by a cousin’s intuition, is put to the test of unravelling a cryptogram’s secret, which when once revealed starts an excited group on its way to the sure unearthing of a fortune.

“A remarkable ingenious and vigorous yarn of mystery.”

“The manner of the book is unconventional, and its combination of poetic imagination with rugged, somewhat broken style gives it a peculiar charm. The author’s one love scene, although it is told with poetic beauty and elevation of feeling, is a serious fault in construction, because in it he makes the sole departure from the first person in which the rest of the book is written.”

“Will certainly hold a high place among tales of modern treasure-trove.”

Eighteen essays whose subjects “are exceedingly diverse and unless they can all be brought under the heading, ‘criticism of life,’ there is no real bond of connexion amongst them.” (Ath.) The author writes upon religion, education, and literary subjects.

“He is always suggestive, and writes in a style that must commend itself to every lover of letters.”

23“We find an ease and withal a grace, in these essays that charm out of the reader his sense of the pettiness of their reflections.”

Reviewed by C. H. A. Wager.

“After reading ‘From a college window,’ it is still possible to hold that ‘T. B.’ is a more engaging and even a more ‘convincing’ person than Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson.” H. W. Boynton.

“There is nothing musty about these essays. They are characterized by good sense, clear discrimination, and sane judgment, but they were written with scholarly ease, and they are invested with the atmosphere of well-bred leisure.”

“The interesting and attractive personality of the author stands out from the discussions, which are clothed in the best of modern essay style.”

“The chief fault one finds in these agreeable papers is here and there a touch of sentimentalism.”

Benson, Arthur Christopher (Christopher Carr, pseud.). Peace and other poems. *$1.50. Lane.

“Mr. Benson does not seek verbal felicities, and he has few lines that stand out from the rest, but all his writing is at a high level of thought and style. Sincerity and simplicity are too rare endowments at any time for us to pass them by lightly.”

Benson, Arthur Christopher (T. B. pseud.). Walter Pater. **75c. Macmillan.

A life of Walter Pater written for the “English men of letters” series. The biography “is arranged chronologically in seven chapters; each chapter stands as a complete story either of events or of mental development. Pater’s early and long-forgotten writings are recalled, the raison d’etre of his Oxford life is clearly defined, the authorship of ‘Marius the Epicurean’ is analyzed with much care, and, finally, the fifty-odd pages devoted to ‘Personal characteristics’ are an achievement in graphic and intimate personalia which will doubtless be generously cited by reviewers of the book.” (N. Y. Times.)

“The life of Pater could not have fallen into safer, kindlier, or more sympathetic keeping than that of Mr. Arthur Benson.”

“The biographer has entered so thoroughly into the spirit of his work that he writes of Pater with almost Pater’s own felicity.”

“On the whole, however, the book is to be counted among the best of this excellent series.”

“Mr. Benson writes with the most scrupulous self-effacement. Throughout, he walks warily, reverently, seriously, decorously, and his admiration is so constant that in one or two passages, as in the opening pages and the last chapter of the book, he falls somewhat into the manner of the master. Pater has been given into uncommonly sympathetic hands.” Wm. T. Brewster.

“It does not perhaps dig very deeply into Pater’s curious mind, and it has certain definite limitations; but it is a living sketch, vivid, tender, engaging, taken from a particular point of view, and touched off with real grace and ease.”

“It is quite an ideal biography.”

“His book is readable. He has marshaled his facts and given them to us in an interesting style.” James Huneker

“Is, so far, the best expression of the life and mission of that Oxford dilettante in Roman English art and letters that we have.”

“Mr. Benson, with extraordinary skill, has caught the butterfly, and yet produced the impression upon our minds that it is still free and alive, still floating in the air that gave it being.”

“This little volume is the best summary of Pater’s life and work we have yet seen.”

“With a fine and delicate reserve he refuses to do more than to suggest how and in what spirit we should approach so lovable, so reticent, so shy a man. Just this, so it seems to us, is the chief value of his work.”

The hero of this new tale by the author of “Dodo” is a fine young Englishman, inheriting wealth and strength, but “a man with an iron hand who did not always remember to put on the velvet glove.” He proceeds in much too business-like a manner with his courtship, but is accepted by Madge Ellington chiefly through her ambitious mother’s persuasion. On the eve of the marriage, Madge finds that she loves a poor painter, and so begins a series of tragic happenings which lend hurried action to the story. There is a character worthy a Maeterlinck, Tom Merivale, who can give and receive messages from bird and beast.

“We have no patience with the chapters in which the hermit appears.”

“The book is full of clever satire, trenchant analysis and a certain underlying vein of symbolism that is full of suggestion, but it lacks heart. There is not quite enough human nature in it, of the better sort, to make the characters convincing.” Frederic Taber Cooper.

“Mr Benson has gained much in solidity; he can no longer be called merely clever. But he has lost in vitality.”

“He has simply spoiled a story of genuine human interest by a reckless indulgence in sensational imaginings.” Wm. M. Payne.

“Is a good story and is something more.”

“Leaves us with the impression that, for all its laboured length and solid paragraphs, the book is the result of incomplete imagination and undigested thought.”

“The book is undeniably a little disappointing at first, because somewhat lacking in the amusing qualities which we have learned to expect from its author but it grows upon one 24as the characters slowly develop and the theme is worked out through the medium of their lives.”

“A singular mingling of the attractive and the disappointing. It is in its plot and situations distressing, but in its pictures of English society it is extremely interesting, and there are several characters worth knowing and rather carefully worked out.”

“It is unusual, and well executed in a way but it is decidedly not a cheerful tale.”

“Mr Benson would do well to shun the supernatural: it does not suit his style.”

Benson, Edward Frederic. Paul. †$1.50. Lippincott.

Paul Norris and Norah Ravenscroft who had played together since childhood find that they love each other after Norah marries Theodore Beckwith, a mean-spirited shrivelled up specimen of mankind. Paul becomes Beckwith’s private secretary and incidentally is compelled to be a modern type of court fool, tho sacrificing none of his dignity and courage in playing an entertainer’s rôle to amuse a pagan, sensuous nature. Paul’s hatred for the man tempts him to run him down with a motor car, he repents at the last moment but too late to avert the tragedy. The second part of the story shows Paul’s remorse which would drown itself in drink, his conversion, his marriage with Norah, and his final reparation to a “calm, un-angry, inevitable justice” by saving the child of Theodore and Norah from certain death.

“An unpleasant laboured story.”

“We are disposed to rank this novel as Mr. Benson’s best work accomplished since the public ear was captured by the specious cleverness of ‘Dodo.’”

“The writing is hardly less slovenly and involved than usual, and, as usual, the minor characters are delightful.”

“The villain is too villainous to be true, and the hero too amiable to engage sympathy; the heroine is simply a nice girl in an awkward position.”

“It would be a safe prediction that the people who have liked Mr. Benson’s other books will like this new one even better.”

“There is just a tinge here of that diabolism toward which Mr. Benson seems to have a bent.”

“Mr. Benson is a writer who never quite gets the effect at which he seems to be aiming. The book would be twice as interesting if it were half as long.”

Benson, Godfrey R. Tracks in the snow: being the history of a crime; ed. from the Ms. of the Rev. Robert Driver. †$1.50. Longmans.

The rector of an English country parish has recorded the story of the mysterious murder of his friend and neighbor, Eustace Peters and the unravelling of the mystery to which certain tracks of heavy boots found in the snow furnish the chief clue. It is from this manuscript that the present thrilling detective story with its mazes of suspicions, its strange adventures and narrow escapes is supposed to have been edited.

“We do not remember reading such a clever murder story since Grant Allen’s ‘The curate of Churnside.’”

“The book, in short, shows considerable crudeness, but also an imaginative faculty by no means contemptible.”

“It is the history of a crime set forth with much artistic literary ability.”

“A good detective story of a somewhat novel kind. The book is really interesting.”

A piece of controversial fiction which portrays Elizabethan times and doings, and which specifically deals with the suppression of the monasteries and the proclamation of the Royal supremacy in religious affairs. “Father Benson frankly takes sides.... The good is all on the side of the monasteries, the bad on the side of Henry and Cromwell and their creatures.” (Acad.)

“An exceptionally good historical novel, as such things go. It is a clever, a thorough, and a powerful work; but, in our opinion, it was a mistake to write it.”

“The story, which is long, is mainly used as a vehicle for expressing the author’s decided views upon the religious and political matters of the day, and is rather overweighted by the historical detail which obtrudes itself too persistently in the foreground.”

“The work does not, on the whole, show as much careful elaboration as its predecessor [‘By what authority?’]. In compensation, however, the story has more unity and proportion, chiefly because there are fewer characters to claim the attention.”

“He draws his characters with ease and sympathy, but not with that intensity of insight which creates a type and yet gives it the force of an individual. But they are not complete and striking human beings; and this is the flaw in what is a really beautiful and sensitive piece of work.”

“We gladly recommend the book not only as a romance but also as history, inasmuch as it gives a far more truthful picture of the great sacrilege of the sixteenth century than most of the (so-called) histories of the period.”

Benson, Rev. Robert Hugh. Queen’s tragedy. $1.50. Herder.

The court setting is a prominent feature of Father Benson’s portrayal of Queen Mary, against which background he outlines her as “human and a woman.... First love, a passion for Philip of Spain in the breast of a woman of thirty-seven, is tragedy in suspense from its commencement, and the novelist makes her foolish heart flutter before us till we need the annalist to reduce the temperature of our pity.” (Ath.)

“Whatever else may be thought of Father Benson’s latest historical novel, no one will fail to find it fresh, suggestive and interesting.” J. H. Pollen.

“The writing at the end of the book is fine and grandiose.”

“Though it is a creditable piece of work is scarcely on a level with either ‘By what authority?’, or ‘The king’s achievement.’”

25“It is first and foremost an engaging book. The author has what is called ‘a way with him’ ... his humour is fresh ... then, too, though the style is firm and good, it is all so easy, so limpid, so light.”

“Two historic scenes are depicted with great power, the marriage of Mary and Philip at Winchester, and the burnings of Ridley and Latimer at Oxford.”

Benton, Joel. Persons and places. $1. Broadway pub.

“Mr. Joel Benton came into casual contact with many people we want to know about—Emerson, Thoreau, Matthew Arnold, Horace Greeley, Barnum and Bryant—and he chats about them in a pleasant way, tho without contributing anything very novel or important to our knowledge of these men.”—Ind.

“Writing largely of things a part of which he was and nearly all of which he saw, Mr. Benton can by no means be accused of producing merely the echo of an echo.”

“Most of the papers are not of serious importance.”

Benziger, Marie Agnes. Off to Jerusalem. *$1. Benziger.

A happy account of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem during which the narrator gained “many graces, deep and holy impressions, and an enthusiastic love for the Holy land.”

Berard, (Eugene) Victor. British imperialism and commercial supremacy; tr. by H. W. Foskett; with a pref. to the Eng. ed. by the author. *$2.60. Longmans.

Mr. Foskett says: “At the present time, the antagonistic opinions of free trade on the one hand, and the protection, fair trade, preference to the colonies on the other, are shaking to its very foundations the economic structure on which commercial Great Britain has rested and flourished undisturbed for the past fifty years. Under the circumstances the comprehensive survey made by M. Victor Bérard of the commercial and industrial situation of Great Britain among the leading communities of the day must undoubtedly appeal to the intelligence of all thinking Britons.” The translator’s aim is to emphasize the necessity for a thoro application of modern scientific methods.

“The analysis of the book is keen, its style lively, and it is interesting reading.”

“On the whole, the translation is meritorious, and pains have been bestowed upon the book.”

“The figures are now so far out of date that an appendix bringing them down to within the year—if it be impossible to recast the text—is necessary. The translation is excellent.” Edward A. Bradford.

“Suggestive and entertaining.” Alvin S. Johnson.

“M. Berard is at best an able journalist juggling with second-hand knowledge and snippets from Blue-books and consular reports. Seriously, M. Berard’s English friends ought to have revised this undoubtedly interesting volume before it was allowed to appear before the English public.”

“M. Bérard is a charming writer, but of English politics, of the English temperament, of Imperialism, of the personnel of English government, his conception is wholly farcical. The English version, in our opinion, might have been better done, for it is full of misprints, and many of the phrases are awkwardly rendered.”

Bergamo, Rev. Cajetan Mary da. Thoughts and affections on the passion of Jesus Christ for every day of the year taken from the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the fathers of the church; new tr. by the Passionist fathers of the U. S. *$2. Benziger.

“The principal object of this new translation is to rescue from oblivion a valuable work for many years out of print.”

Bernheimer, Charles Seligman, ed. Russian Jew in the United States: studies of social conditions in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, with a description of rural settlements. **$2. Winston.

“All are written out of a wealth of precise information and, though deeply sympathetic, exhibit a perfectly sane and fair minded spirit.” Frederic Austin Ogg.

“The book could still be rescued for the mass of American people who ought to read it, by careful editing, by the elimination of one third of its material, which is useless repetition, and by giving it that typographical dress in which the average reader expects a book of such popular value to appear.” Edward A. Steiner.

Bernstein, Hermann. Contrite hearts. †$1.25. Wessels.

“In its pictures of facts and conditions the book is entirely convincing, but as a story is not signally impressive.”

“The story has a curious interest, as an interpretation, from the inside, of a theory of life utterly foreign to the average reader’s ideas.”

“Is a simple, affecting tale of Russian-Jewish life.”

Bertin, L. E. Marine boilers: their construction and working, dealing more especially with tubulous boilers; tr. and ed. by Leslie S. Robertson, with a new chapter on “Liquid fuel” by Engineer-Lieutenant H. C. Anstey and a preface by Sir William White. *$5. Van Nostrand.

A second edition of this work by a Frenchman appears with such revision and extension as the strides in marine practice, make necessary. The editor says that “progress has been rather in the direction of concentrating practice, along well acknowledged lines, than by the introduction of any noticeable departure in the design of boilers. Considerable development has taken place in the application of steam turbines to marine propulsion, but it has not called for any change in the types of boilers already in use.” A notable addition to the volume is a chapter on “Liquid Fuel.”

“On the whole, the book is to be commended as the most satisfactory treatise on water tube boilers from the historical and constructive standpoint of which the reviewer has knowledge.” Wm. Kent.

26Besant, Walter. Mediaeval London, v. 1. Historical and social. *$7.50. Macmillan.

This division of the posthumous work of Walter Besant on “The survey of London” will be complete in two volumes. “Mediaeval London, historical and social” to be followed by “Mediaeval London, ecclesiastical.” “The first volume discusses the history of the city in relation to our kings, whose dealings with the capital are succinctly recorded. The social condition of the town is also exhibited in its many and varied phases.” (Ath.) “The numerous and excellent illustrations are not the least attractive feature of the book. Many are taken from manuscripts in the British museum and elsewhere.” (Nation.)

“The great charm of these volumes is the individuality of the writer.”

“His notes are exceedingly valuable, and no future historical novelist of London will, we imagine, ever pass them by.”

“Parts of the whole volumes are suggestive rather of a collection of materials than of the production of a literary artist.”

“It is impossible here to do justice to the ability with which this picture of the past is drawn. Sir Walter left out nothing that could help us to realize the vigour of the great city, its pride of patriotism, its wealth, its far-reaching commerce. His name will be linked with it in such a fashion as we can hardly find paralleled in the history of the world’s capitals.”

Some of the oldest and the best nursery rhymes are grouped here and charmingly illustrated in black and white with six full-page colored plates.

A need of the day is supplied in this volume of Bible stories which is a new and revised edition of a book originally issued at double the price. In making the text interesting to young readers, genealogies, doctrines and the hard-to-understand passages have been omitted. The illustrations are fine reproductions of the work of old masters.

“The present edition is in more popular form than when it first appeared.”

“The compiler has shown discrimination and taste in her selection of material. While primarily appealing to young people, this admirable compilation will interest grown readers as well.”

Bible—Proverbs; tr. out of the original Hebrew and with former translations diligently compared and revised. $1. Century.

This little volume uniform with the “Thumb nail series” contains for introduction a chapter on “The proverbs of the Hebrews” from Dr. Lyman Abbott’s “The life and literature of the ancient Hebrews.”

Bible. Book of Ecclesiastes: a new metrical translation, with an introduction and explanatory notes by Paul Haupt. 50c. Hopkins.

“The translation here presented is a good one—accurate, fresh, suggestive, and rhymical. The conclusions embodied in this work ... seem to rest upon too uncertain and subjective grounds.” Ira Maurice Price and John M. P. Smith.

Bielschowsky, Albert. Life of Goethe; authorized tr. from the German by W: A. Cooper. 3v. ea. **$3.50. Putnam, v. 1, ready.

A three-volume life of Goethe, with full critical estimates, designed for the student rather than for the general reader. The author devoted a life-time to the work and based it upon material made accessible by the opening of the Goethe archives and by recent philological investigation. The first volume covers the period from 1749–1788,—from Goethe’s birth to his return from Italy.

“Mr. Cooper approves himself a competent German scholar, and a writer of sound English as well. His rendering is now and then a trifle loose.”

“Bielschowsky’s book, by reason of its fuller and more accurate information will now take the place in our libraries that Mr. Lewes’s held so long. Professor Cooper’s translation is, in general, a very satisfactory piece of work. The language is usually well-chosen, and renders the thought, and in some degree the style, of the original.” Lewis A. Rhoades.

“Is remarkable for the impartiality with which, as a general thing, it keeps the balance between literature and scholarship.”

“Bielschowsky has brought to his task the two indispensable requisites: on the one hand, familiarity with the details of Goethe research, a world of scholarship by itself; on the other hand, the ability to think and feel and enjoy independently and to write with clearness and charm.”

“Two things seem defective in this volume: Bielschowsky has been no more successful than his predecessors in getting at the details incident to Goethe’s administration of public office at Weimar, and less even than others has he appreciated the dramatic significance of Goethe’s first touch with Schiller when Goethe visited the military school in Würtemberg, which he disposes of in two lines.” J. Perry Worden.

“Is probably the most complete and authoritative life of Goethe.”

“The story of the years covered by this installment—1749 to 1788—is told clearly enough, but with all his study, all his industry, all his admiration of Goethe’s genius Bielschowsky has not written a great biography.”

“It has been the author’s endeavor to trace 27in this volume the development of human thought in regard to the phenomena of nature from the introduction of Christianity downwards, in the same way that was done in a previous volume for the time of the Greeks and Romans. This has been done mainly by the study of writings, both in prose and poetry, in which natural phenomena, whether connected with scenery, weather, birds, or flowers, are spoken of with admiration.” (Nature.) “Ample quotations, pertinent notes, and a good index give point to Herr Biese’s discussions.” (Outlook.)

“The vague and unsatisfactory impression left by his generalizations is, no doubt, due in some degree to his style, though for this the translator may be to blame. On the whole, however, the translation is workmanlike.” C: H. A. Wager.

“Useful and comprehensive handbook.”

Bigelow, Melville Madison, and others. Centralization and the law; scientific legal education, an illustration, with an introd. by Melville M. Bigelow. **$1.50. Little.

Eight lectures delivered before the Boston university law school “on various recent occasions ... as part of the plan of legal extension now on foot there.” “The main lines of thought centre around the ideas (1) of Equality which according to the author, was formerly the dominant legal force in American life; (2) of Inequality, which is characteristic of present conditions; and (3) of Administration, which is the supreme end of legal, and, in fact, of all education intended to fit men for the practical affairs of life. Specifically, the more important subjects discussed are the extension of legal education, the nature of law, monopoly, the scientific aspects of law, and government regulation of railway rates.” (Dial.)

“The economic philosophy underlying these essays is of a somewhat conventional, if not dangerously superficial order.”

“The book is one that can be recommended to the general reader as well as to the lawyer and the law student. The historical presentation is excellent, and the citation of modern cases gives to the conclusions an immediate interest which either presentation by itself would not possess.” Worthington C. Ford.

“As an exposition of law regarded as a progressive science, ‘Centralization and law’ is a valuable contribution to real progress, and in a department where that contribution is greatly needed.”

Bigelow, Poultney. History of the German struggle for liberty, v. 4. **$2.25. Harper.

“In the details of book-construction the volume is unusually faulty. A large proportion of the text, probably a third, consists of quotations worked in with so little skill that the volume suggests the note-book rather than the finished production. The worst feature of the book, however, is its unfortunate tone.” Frank Maloy Anderson.

“It contains the same slap-dash miscellaneous kind of matter as do its three predecessors, and does not deserve, any more than they, to be ranked as history according to any established canon, nor as literature if grace of style and a clear thread of consecutive narrative are to be regarded as necessary.”

“The tone of the work is throughout journalistic, often hysterical; but some later writer will doubtless find in this mass of material abundant matter for a single volume that will clearly and logically present the subject without sacrificing what has evidently been Mr. Bigelow’s paramount aim—the readableness and popular character of the narrative.”

“Occurrences are treated rather in accordance with their picturesqueness or with the degree of attention which they excited at the time than with their permanent significance.”

Bigg, Charles. Church’s task under the Roman empire. *$1.75. Oxford.

“They are delightful reading, fresh and breezy in their manner, with an ease of handling the material that speaks of long familiarity. The footnotes add very much both to the size of the book and to its value.” Franklin Johnson.

Bigham, Madge A. Blackie, his friends and his enemies: a book of old fables in new dresses; il. by Clara E. Atwood. †$1.50. Little.

Thirty-five stories made new with the furbishing suggested by the “Story lady’s” imagination are told a little street boy by way of compensation for his pet rat that died.

“An animal book which children will find very charming.”

“It is interesting to compare with Mr. Beach’s novel the somewhat similar ‘Alton of Somasco.’ Here the scene is British Columbia instead of Alaska, and there is no political deviltry to impel the action, but otherwise the situation is the same, being evolved out of the conflict between legitimate settlers and unscrupulous schemers for the possession of valuable ranching and mining properties.”—Dial.

“A novel which is terse, powerful yet graceful, showing intimate knowledge and acute observation, never overweighted with description yet containing many delightful pictures of colonial life and manners.”

“We have no hesitation in pronouncing this his best story, nor in recommending it particularly to the attention of adventurous young England.”

“The interest of the plot is fairly well sustained, but the book is carelessly written.”

“An admirable novel is the result, and one which introduces us to a territory hitherto almost unexploited in fiction.” Wm. M. Payne.

“In ‘Alton of Somasco’ Mr. Bindloss is seen at his best.”

The transition-period when the boundless cattle-lands 28of the Northwest were first opened to the home-steader is well handled in this story of the cattle-baron’s daughter and her divided loyalty to her father, the champion of the old order, and to her lover, the leader of the homestead boys. The characters are well drawn Western types and the scenes of feud and riot, of miniature war and revolution, are stirring, because behind the hero is the spirit of the times, the steady march of the settler leading to the final triumph of the plow.

“A tale of thrilling adventure with plentiful humorous relief.”

“The interest is well sustained to the end of the story, which is much above the average and is well worth reading.”

In Mr. Binns’ biography and interpretation it has been the aim to write about Whitman rather than to give Whitman’s work with running commentary. The author is an Englishman “who ‘loves’ the United States,” and thinks the time is not yet ripe for a final and complete biography, and therefore his work is suggestive rather than conclusive in the sense of literary decisions. “It is as a man that I see and have sought to describe Whitman. But as a man of special and exceptional character, a new type of mystic or seer.” (N. Y. Times.)

“As a biography, it will easily take its place as our most exhaustive and authoritative record of Whitman’s career.”

Reviewed by M. A. DeWolfe Howe.

“Both in biographical detail and in critical comment the book is an excellent piece of work, perhaps the fullest and best study of the poet’s life and writings that has yet appeared.” Percy F. Bicknell.

“A book of some interest and value, which yet has a few of the faults common to most biographies. In the first place, it is too long.”

“The poet’s work is, indeed, vindicated simply and naturally by Mr. Binns, with no violence of argument, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge the fine quality of spirit which he displays.” Jessie B. Rittenhouse.

“Mr. Binns’ book, granted a few somewhat soulful peculiarities, is not at all bad.”

Birney, Mrs. Theodore W. Childhood. $1. Stokes.

Believing that “discord in the home is in most cases due to a lack of comprehension of child nature and its needs,” Mrs. Birney offers parents and teachers the benefits of her earnestly acquired experience. “She is singularly free from fads; does not write as if she were the whole Law and the Prophets on the subject of children.” (Critic.)

“A careful perusal of the book should bring help to many households.”

“Very little is said of the poetry upon which his reputation rests.”

“A collection of short essays on a great variety of subjects by a writer who is, by nature and training, a spectator and commentator of the school though not of the genius of Charles Lamb.” (Outlook.) “He opens his service, so to speak, in the name of the Bodleian, and goes to tell us of book-worms—the literary bookworm, not the one with spectacles—confirmed readers, first editions, libraries, old booksellers, collecting, and some score of similar things of value to the bibliophile.” (Acad.)

“If his work is always slight, it is very nearly always agreeable.”

“Represents him favorably enough as a critic none the less stimulating because he touches his topics with a light hand.”

“Is characteristically full of quaint fancies, brilliant sallies of wit and humor, keenly-calculated judgments of men and things, and an erudition that pointedly avoids beaten highways to cull its treasures from old nooks and dusty corners.”

“Without being in any sense of the word a great essayist, Mr. Augustine Birrell is a brilliant and lucid writer.”

“It would be a limited taste indeed that could not extract from [these essays] several half-hours of entertainment.”

“None of them will seem really trivial to lovers of ‘Obiter dicta’ and its successors. For they are all marked with the good-humored acuteness, the animated nonchalance, which engaged us in him long ago.” H. W. Boynton.

“This volume is more fragmentary and discursive than the earlier books from the same hand, and the papers are, on the whole, less valuable.”

“These essays, aside from the Arnold fling, are charming in tone and in their literary quality, which ranges from Baconian formality to a very effective use of modern slang.”

“It is always easy, but not always comforting, to read Mr. Birrell. When he is writing about books he is commonly delightful, though even here he cannot resist the temptation to ‘get his knife into’ something or somebody that he dislikes.”

Birukoff, Paul. Early life of Leo Tolstoy, his life and work. **$1.50. Scribner.

The work of a man who was a friend of Tolstoi’s and in his employ. The outlines of M. Paul Birukoff’s biography were filled in by notes furnished by Tolstoi himself which fact lends a serious and authoritative value to the work. This first volume gives an account of the origin of the Tolstois, the novelist’s childhood, youth and manhood, and ends with his marriage. “A great deal of attention is devoted to the moral development of the young prodigy and very little to those amusements and external interests that probably were of far more importance in shaping his character.” (Acad.)

“It is indeed a most serious work and suggests that the author was much more anxious to exhibit Leo Tolstoy as a prophet and teacher than as a literary artist whose province it is to hold the mirror up to nature.”

29“This most interesting publication ought to find many readers.”

“There can be no doubt that this work will be a mine of information to the more critical biographer as well as in itself of much value.”

“It is an exhaustive analysis of the youth and early manhood of a personality of exceptional interest, with whose later years of achievement the reading-public is generally familiar.” Annie Russell Marble.

“When completed bids fair to become one of the important contributions to our biographical knowledge during recent years.” Wm. T. Brewster.

“One can pardon somewhat his lack of literary skill, in view of his transparent honesty, and modest attitude toward his work as ‘material’ for the use of more competent workers hereafter.”

“There is in his attitude towards his literary master a certain servility of indiscriminate admiration, a too thoroughgoing sympathy. The net result of which simplicity is that the eminent Russian’s worst enemy could have wished him no other biographer.”

“The undisguisedly autobiographic portions are exceedingly frank in places, and always intensely egotistical.”

“The book is thus chaotic and almost incoherent, yet most of the material is of intense interest.”

Black, Rev. J. F. Bible way: an antidote to Campbellism. *50c. Meth. bk.

An argument in dialogue form which presents arguments against the doctrine of so-called Christian or Campbellite church.

Black, John Janvier. Eating to live, with some advice to the gouty, the rheumatic, and the diabetic: a book for every body. *$1.50. Lippincott.

“Forewarned is forearmed” might be said to be the watchword of Dr. Black in his present work. He aims to save from pitfalls the mortals who eat and drink from instinct rather than from reason. He discusses the economics and values of different foods and gives dietary advice to people variously afflicted.

Blackmar, Frank Wilson. Elements of sociology. *$1.25. Macmillan.

“On the whole, the author has furnished us with a very serviceable text. It is a logical development of the principles of the science and the different branches have been brought into proper correlation. Its style is sufficiently simple for easy comprehension and the student will find it a working manual of great value.” George B. Mangold.

“Is a singularly ineffective and eminently mediocre book. It affords no real penetrating insight into the nature of society. It has no intrinsic coherence.”

“In general it may be said that Mr. Blackmar has made effective use of the new sources of material and new developments of theory that have become available since the publication of Mr. Fairbanks’ book.... Many pages of Mr. Blackmar’s book are marred by English not merely faulty, but incorrigibly and persistently so to such an extent that the sense may be recovered only with difficulty.” Robert C. Brooks.

“The chapters on social pathology bring the science down to earth, and constitute probably the most valuable part of the book.”

“Will serve a useful purpose ... for intelligent general readers and social workers who wish to gain a social attitude of mind in relation to all varieties of man’s activities.”

“In eight volumes just under consideration, ninety documents ... are produced in translation, as are parts of the whole of seven old printed works. The editorial work upon these documents shows painstaking care and much discrimination. The translations—and this is important—appear generally to deserve the same commendation.” James A. LeRoy.

Reviewed by James A. LeRoy.

“The volumes of 1905 are, all in all, the best edited and most carefully arranged and translated of the series thus far.”

Blake, Katharine Evans. Hearts’ haven. †$1.50. Bobbs.

“A stirring romance, rich in lights and shadows, full of human interest and possessing the peculiar charm of new scenes and surroundings. Another excellence of this work is the remarkable knowledge of psychology displayed.”

“The author of ‘Hearts’ haven’ has made clever use of her material, and the admission that the book leaves behind it a sense of depression is in itself a tribute to her strength.” Frederick Taber Cooper.

Blake, William. Poetical works: a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letter-press originals; with variorum readings and bibliographical notes and prefaces by J. Sampson. *$3.50. Oxford.

“‘Blake’s final version is uniformly adopted as the text, while all earlier or cancelled readings are supplied in foot-notes.’ All the poems are arranged exactly as they are found, and each group is given, as far as is known, in chronological order. The two main MS. sources, the Rossetti and the Pickering MSS., are now printed for the first time from careful and accurate transcripts, made by the present owner, Mr. W. A. White of Brooklyn, N. Y.”—Ath.

30“If it be desirable to possess a scholarly and complete edition of Blake, it would be impossible to imagine anything more suitable to the purpose than the edition before us.”

“Mr. Sampson’s edition of Blake is a masterpiece of editing and Blake, of all modern English poets, was most in need of a good editor.”

“We cannot be too grateful for this beautiful and scholarly edition of the great mystic.”

“Mr. Sampson has compiled texts, compared different readings, grasped and illuminated obscure points, with all the tact and insight of the born commentator. His book should become the standard authority for all Blake students.”

“Is in point of laborious research and painstaking arrangement, one of the most admirable pieces of editing that we have lately seen.”

The three Virginia acres on which the somewhat impoverished Corner family lived formed the center of the stage upon which the four little Corners, Nan, Mary Lee, and the twins, a cousin, an old mule named Pete, an angora cat, a mongrel dog, and a few delightful grownups, act out a little family drama. In it, sad little economies, sickness, and trouble bravely met, are contrasted with the joys of healthy girlhood with homely adventures, and happy little surprises. It is a story that will make careless little girls thankful for their blessings.

“It is a peasant, homy sort of tale.”

Blanchard, Amy Ella. Little Miss Mouse. †$1. Jacobs.

Miss Hester Brackenbury in days of affluence adopts two little waifs, a small boy and a girl, and when a few months later, she becomes poor she refuses to give them up but moves into a cottage and supports them by making buttonholes. It is a pretty story for grown-ups as well as children, for in the background is an old love-story which throws a mellow light upon the children in the foreground, their joys, their contentions and their troubles. In the end, thru little Miss Mouse and an old receipt, Aunt Hester is restored to her old estate.

“A study of an accomplished and refined male flirt who plays the game of love with counters only to find that at last he must play with gold. Contrasted with this superfine trifler is a straightforward, even impulsive English girl whose common sense and simple ignorance of the early Empire. These last three studies her girl artist life in Paris. The story has movement, variety, and originality.”—Outlook.

“It is essentially bright, witty, superficial work, and we are sorry to be, more than once, confronted with problems and situations which demand a stronger treatment and a deeper insight into human nature.”

“There are several reasons why ‘The incomplete amorist’ is deserving of attention. To begin with, it treats old and well-worn material in a new and whimsical way.” Frederic Taber Cooper.

“To judge by the experiment her true vein would promise to lie not in the picturesque region of Bohemian romance, but on the quiet levels of rustic comedy.”

“‘E. Nesbit’ has shown that she understands grown-ups as well as she does children, and in ‘The incomplete amorist’ has written a novel original, clever, and full of interest.”

“It has the great affirmative merit that it never bores the reader.”

“As this novel is a study in masculine psychology it is unsatisfying.”

“The greater part of the story is extraordinarily vulgar, and to that part of it which is not vulgar it is impossible to apply any epithet but that of ‘stagy.’ The story cannot but remind its readers of the sentimental fiction of about twenty years ago.”

“In the midst of the inrush of novels it is one of the few that deserve a better fate than that of serving as a time-killer.”

“By a family misfortune these children are for a time deprived of their father, compelled to leave their pleasant home, and obliged to live in a little cottage close to the railway. All their strange joys and troubles are in one way or another connected with this railway and its surroundings.”—Outlook.

“A fragrant and sweet story. It would be indeed difficult to find one better suited for reading around the nursery fire or one which boys and girls alike would more enjoy.”

“The interest—of which there is fair amount—is fortunately independent of the weak pen-and-ink drawings.”

“E. Nesbit has put into a book for children some of that cleverness and charm which characterize his grown up stories.”

“The incidents are worked out in a decidedly original way, and the story is strong enough to hold the attention of older readers as well as of young people”.

“It seems to us a pity that she has introduced into her latest story so very tragic and unpleasant a subject as imprisonment, whether wrongful or otherwise; to say nothing of implanting a premature distrust of British justice in the youthful reader’s mind.”

“We can thoroughly recommend ‘The railway children’ as an excellent story.”

This volume of poems shows the author to be “Skilled in her craft.... We like her best in her village monologues, which are full of insight and humour and sound philosophy. But when she pleases she can write also graceful songs.” (Spec.)

“Full of clever things in the conventional condescending mood which ought not to succeed, but unquestionably does. For the rest, E. 31Nesbit is not a poet, not a minor poet, not even an exquisite maker of verse; but all that an able woman who is not these can do by means of verse, she can do.”

“Many of the occasional pieces here tremble on the verge of success, and it seems as if a little more trouble and thought would have made them excellent.”

“Her work always pleases. It reaches about the level of Jean Ingelow’s thought and sentiment, but never quite achieves the distinction of Christina Rossetti.” Wm. M. Payne.

“Has the same qualities that has given her other collections rather exceptional circulation. Mrs. Bland’s poetic sentiment is appealing rather than poignant with the true poetic poignancy; though she has no gift of verbal magic, she has verbal adequacy, and her verse is always readable.”

“The ‘Rainbow and the rose’ ... is neither decadent nor revolutionary, but fresh and individual in a simple way that makes agreeable reading of her more or less subjective verse.”

“Shows much dexterity in versification, and a wider range than is usual in modern lyrics.”

Bliss, Frederick Jones. Development of Palestine exploration. **$1.50. Scribner.

This book which presents in amplified form the lectures delivered before the Union theological seminary in 1903 “treats of the progress made in the art of identifying sites, of the shifting point of view of travellers of different times, of Edward Robinson, Renan and his contemporaries, and of the Palestine Exploration fund and the exploration of the future.” (Am. Hist. R.)

“The work, as a whole, is written in an admirable spirit. Justice is done to the labors of each writer mentioned, though Dr. Bliss does not hesitate to mete out fair criticism to each when it seems necessary. The book contains an occasional misprint.” George A. Barton.

“His tone is scholarly and his criticism remarkably just and well balanced. In a future edition Dr. Bliss might correct some misprints.”

“An ambitious work covering in small compass a large tract of history.”

“The book is full of important information, not only for the Bible student, but also for the modern traveller, who incidentally receives some good advice.”

“His work is neither a complete bibliography, with such notes as will enable a student to select what he wants for study, nor, on the other hand, is it a narrative of exploration. It falls midway between.”

Blomfield, Reginald. Studies in architecture. *$3.25. Macmillan.

Mr. Blomfield who is a “practising architect of distinction and enthusiasm sends a side-glance at Byzantium and Lombardy, but is chiefly occupied with the architecture (and architects) of the French and Italian renaissance.... Mr. Blomfield has not fallen into the faults he denounces: what he writes is full of interest because of his standpoint (and standing) as an architect, his personal knowledge of the buildings of which he writes, and his researches into their history. Above all, he has great enthusiasm for his art, a passion which archæology (while admitting others) tends, it would seem, to exclude.” (Spec.)

“A book as interesting as it is sound.”

“The volume is a real contribution to architectural criticism.”

“Can be heartily recommended to layman and architect alike. Its literary flavour is delicate; its architectural criticisms are sound, to the point, and keen.”

Blundell, Mary E. Sweetman (Mrs. Francis Blundell). Simple annals. †$1.50. Longmans.

Natural simple stories of humble village life. “Mrs. Blundell says in her Foreword that a golden thread runs through the homespun of even the most commonplace life. In each of these stories she has followed the golden thread. The village girls are innocent and charming, the men are chivalrous—their purpose is invariably marriage, and courtships end, as they should, with wedding-bells.” (Acad.)

“Our only quarrel is with her claim in the Foreword to call these charming fables ‘studies.’ For that, they are surely too slight and too determinedly optimistic.”

“None of them reaches the high level which the best of ‘Dorset dear’ attained.”

“It is as charming a book of the kind as we have come across in many a long day.”

“The book is full of delicately handled studies of the lights and shadows that fall across the existence of the modern workaday world.”

“A collection of short stories, which are even better from a point of view of comprehensive description than her novels.”

Blundell, Mary E. (Sweetman) (Mrs. Francis Blundell; M. E. Francis, pseuds.). Wild wheat: a Dorset romance. †$1.50. Longmans.

Another tale of the West country, which “carries its readers’ thoughts far afield on to the blue hills and into the wild woods.” (Spec.) “It has more of passion and sorrow in it than most of her romances, but is all the stronger for this, while there is enough of the humorous and cheerful to balance the whole. The love story is sweet and wholesome.” (Outlook.)

“‘Wild wheat’ is an admirable story and Peter’s character is finely handled, but in general interest it does not reach the level of some other Dorset tales.”

“This is a very readable story of country life, though it is not equal to ‘The manor farm.’ The plot is a little thin.”

“A correct, pretty, unpretentious tale that will please those who love the primroses of literature.”

32“Inconsequent as the story is, it is readable, and perhaps we have found it the more provoking because indications are not wanting of the author’s capability of really good work.”

Boas, Henrietta O’Brien (Owen) (Mrs. Frederick Samuel). With Milton and the Cavaliers. **$1.50. Pott.