Title: The Book Review Digest, v. 16, 1920
Sixteenth annual accumulation. Reviews of 1920 books
Author: Various
Editor: Mary Katharine Reely
Pauline H. Rich
Release date: February 20, 2024 [eBook #73004]
Language: English
Original publication: Minneapolis, MN: The H. W. Wilson Company
Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
Entered as second class matter, November 13, 1917 at the Post Office at New York, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879.
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Combined rate for Book Review Digest, Cumulative Book Index and Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature $60 per page per month; two of these publications $50; one of these publications $40 per page per month. Smaller space and contract rates furnished upon request.
The editorial staff for the year has consisted of Mary Katharine Reely, Pauline H. Rich, Emma Heller Schumm, Elsie Jacobi, Wilma Adams and Selma Sandler. Acknowledgments are also due to Miss Corinne Bacon who contributed the classification numbers for the first months of the year, and to Miss Eleanor Hawkins who succeeded her; to Miss Mary E. Furbeck of the New York Public Library for the list of documents for small libraries; and to the Applied Science reference department of Pratt Institute Library for the quarterly list of technical books.
In addition to the periodicals listed on the reverse side of this page the following magazines have been drawn on for occasional reviews: Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Social Hygiene, Mental Hygiene, Socialist Review, Nation [London], Theatre Arts Magazine, Drama, World Tomorrow, Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering, and a few other technical journals. The literary supplement to the New York Evening Post, now issued under the editorship of Professor Henry Seidel Canby of Yale University, is an important permanent addition to the list of periodicals. During the year the magazine which began its career as the Review, changing later to Weekly Review, has been listed under its original name.
The year just past has been notable for a number of novels of unusual quality. Among them is a group of books by and about women: Clemence Dane’s “Legend,” Catherine Carswell’s “Open the Door,” Miss de la Pasture’s “Tension,” and Mrs Holding’s “Invincible Minnie.” Three others are novels of the Middle West: Sherwood Anderson’s “Poor White,” Floyd Dell’s “Moon-calf,” and Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street.” Zona Gale’s “Miss Lulu Bett” might be named in either class.
“George Santayana has recently spoken of the barbarian realities of America. ‘The luckless American who is born a conservative, or who is drawn to poetic subtlety, pious retreats, or gay passions, nevertheless has the categorical excellence of work, growth, enterprise, reform and prosperity dinned into his ears: every door is open in this direction and shut in the other; so that he either folds up his heart and withers in a corner—in remote places you sometimes find such a solitary gaunt idealist—or else he flies to Oxford or Florence or Montmartre to save his soul—or perhaps not to save it.’ That is and has been the traditional conception of aesthetic fate in barbaric America, especially in the hinterland beyond the Hudson. But the past ten years, and particularly the years since the war, have shown new possibilities to the present literary generation. The Bohemian immigrant in Nebraska, the local dentist in Wisconsin, the doctor’s wife in a small Minnesota town, the young newspaper man in Iowa, the co-educated farmer’s daughter in Ohio—all these figures can be seen with the same meditative zeal, the same creative preoccupation, as the ripened spiritual personalities of Europe.”—New Republic.
We now have anthologies and year books for the short story, for the best plays, for magazine and even for newspaper verse. The annual volume of the Digest might be added to the list as the year book for book reviews. Without entering into elaborate summaries and statistics we may say that the two most reviewed books of the year are Keynes’s “Economic Consequences of the Peace” and Wells’s “Outline of History.” And without attempting to create a new category of “best” reviews we may suggest that the following will be found well worthy of reading: Richard Burton’s review of “The Ordeal of Mark Twain” by Van Wyck Brooks in the Bookman of January, 1921; W. S. Braithwaite’s review of “Smoke and Steel” by Carl Sandburg in the Boston Transcript of October 16, 1920; the reviews of Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” by Carl Van Doren in the New York Evening Post, Nov. 20, 1920, and by Francis Hackett, in the New Republic, Dec. 1, 1920; and J. Saywyn Shapiro’s review (with footnotes) of Wells’s “Outline of History” in the Nation of Feb. 9, 1921.
Am. Econ. R.—American Economic Review. $5. American Economic Association, New Haven, Conn.
Am. Hist. R.—American Historical Review. $4. Macmillan Company, 66 Fifth Ave., New York.
Am. J. Soc.—American Journal of Sociology. $3. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Am. J. Theol.—American Journal of Theology. $3. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Am. Pol. Sci. R.—American Political Science Review. $4. Frederic A. Ogg, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.
Ann. Am. Acad.—Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. $5. 39th St. and Woodland Ave., Philadelphia, Pa.
Astrophys. J.—Astrophysical Journal. $6. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Ath.—Athenæum. $5.60. 10 Adelphi Terrace, London, W. C. 2.
Bib. World—Biblical World. $3. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Booklist—Booklist. $2. A. L. A. Publishing Board, 78 E. Washington St., Chicago, Ill.
Bookm.—Bookman. $4. G. H. Doran Co., 244 Madison Ave., New York.
Boston Transcript—Boston Evening Transcript. $5.50. (Wednesday and Saturday). Boston Transcript Co., 324 Washington St., Boston, Mass.
Bot. Gaz.—Botanical Gazette. $9. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Cath. World—Catholic World. $4. 120–122 W. 60th St., New York.
Class J.—Classical Journal. $2.50. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Class Philol.—Classical Philology. $4. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Dial—Dial. $5. 152 W 13th St., New York.
Educ. R.—Educational Review. $3. Educational Review Pub. Co., care of G. H. Doran Pub. Co.
Elec. World—Electrical World. $5. McGraw-Hill Company, Inc., 10th Ave. at 36th St., New York.
El. School J.—Elementary School Journal (continuing Elementary School Teacher). $2.50. Dept. of Education, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Engin. News-Rec.—Engineering News-Record. $5. McGraw-Hill Company, Inc., 10th Ave. at 36th St., New York.
Eng. Hist. R.—English Historical Review. $6. Longmans, Green & Co., 4th Ave. and 30th St., New York.
Freeman—Freeman. $6. The Freeman, Inc., 116 W. 13th St., New York.
Hibbert J.—Hibbert Journal. $3. LeRoy Phillips, 124 Chestnut St., Boston, Mass.
Ind.—Independent. $5. 311 Sixth Av., New York.
Int. J. Ethics—International Journal of Ethics. $3. Prof. James H. Tufts, Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Int. Studio—International Studio. $6. John Lane Co., 786 Sixth Av., near 45th St., New York.
J. Geol.—Journal of Geology. $4. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
J. Home Econ.—Journal of Home Economics. $2. American Home Economics Assn., 1211 Cathedral St., Baltimore, Md.
J. Philos.—Journal of Philosophy. $4. Sub-Station 84, New York.
J. Pol. Econ.—Journal of Political Economy. $4. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
J. Religion (Bib. World and Am. J. Theol. merged under this title Ja ’21) $3. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Lit. D.—Literary Digest. $4. Funk & Wagnalls Co., 354–360 Fourth Ave., New York.
Modern Philol.—Modern Philology. $5. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Nation—Nation. $5. Nation Press. 20 Vesey St., New York.
Nature—Nature. $14. Macmillan Company, 66 Fifth Ave., New York.
New Repub.—New Republic. $5. Republic Publishing Co., Inc., 421 W 21st St., New York.
N. Y. Times—New York Times Book Review. $1. N. Y. Times Co., Times Square, New York.
No. Am.—North American Review. $5. North American Review, 9 East 37th St., New York.
Outlook—Outlook. $5. Outlook Co., 381 Fourth Ave., New York.
Pol. Sci. Q.—Political Science Quarterly. $5. (including supplement). Academy of Political Science, Columbia University, New York.
Pub. W.—Publishers’ Weekly. Zones 1–5, $6; 6–8, $6.50. R. R. Bowker Co., 62 W. 45th St., New York.
Review—Weekly Review. $5. National Weekly Corporation, 140 Nassau St., New York.
R. of Rs.—American Review of Reviews. $4. Review of Reviews Co., 30 Irving Place, New York.
Sat. R.—Saturday Review. $5.60. 9 King St., Covent Garden, London. W. C. 2.
School Arts Magazine—School-Arts Magazine. $3. Davis Press, Inc., 25 Foster St., Worcester, Mass.
School R.—School Review. $2.50. Dept. of Education, Univ. of Chicago, Chicago. Ill.
Science, n.s.—Science (new series). $6. Science Press, Garrison. N. Y.
Spec.—Spectator. $7.80. 13 York St., Covent Garden, London. W. C. 2.
Springf’d Republican—Springfield Republican. $10.50. The Republican, Springfield, Mass.
Survey—Survey. $5. Survey Associates, Inc., 112 E. 19th St., New York.
The Times [London] Lit. Sup.—The Times Literary Supplement. $7.40. The Times, North American Office, 30 Church St., New York.
Yale R., n.s.—Yale Review (new series). $3. Yale Publishing Ass’n., Inc., 120 High St., New Haven, Conn.
In addition to the above list the Book Review Digest frequently quotes from New York Call; New York Evening Post; Bulletin of Brooklyn Public Library; Cleveland Open Shelf; N. Y. Best Books; N. Y. Libraries; N. Y. City Branch Library News; New York Public Library New Technical Books; Pittsburgh Monthly Bulletin; Pratt Institute Quarterly Book List; St. Louis Monthly Bulletin; Wisconsin Library Bulletin (Book Selection Dept.), and the Quarterly List of New Technical and Industrial Books chosen by the Pratt Institute Library.
OTHER ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations of publishers’ names will be found in the Publishers’ Directory at the end of this number.
An asterisk (*) before the price indicates those books sold at a limited discount and commonly known as net books.
The figures following publisher’s name represent the class number and Library of Congress card number.
The descriptive note is separated from critical notices of a book by a dash.
The plus and minus signs preceding the names of the magazine indicate the degrees of favor or disfavor of the entire review.
An asterisk (*) before the plus or minus sign indicates that the review contains useful information about the book.
In the reference to a magazine, the first number refers to the volume, the next to the page, the letters to the date and the last figures to the number of words in the review.
ABBOTT, MRS JANE LUDLOW (DRAKE). Happy House, il *$1.60 (2c) Lippincott
When Anne Leavitt is invited to spend the summer with some hitherto unknown relatives in Vermont, she is just starting to Russia to teach. But there is another Anne Leavitt in her college class, whom she persuades to take her place. So Nancy comes to Happy House, a misnomer for the gloomy old mansion where Miss Sabrina, Miss Milly and B’lindy spent their embittered lives. The story tells how Nancy brings happiness to them, but how her sense of guilt at the deception she is practising keeps her from perfect contentment herself, until finally unexpected events clear up the situation, and all are happy together. Meanwhile a part of Nancy’s joy has come from friendship with the “hired man” next door, who proves to have been sharing the general deception and to be a very desirable suitor.
“Girls from twelve to seventeen will like it as well as older women who like a sweet, pretty story.”
“Girls in their higher teens will enjoy this book.”
“We regret that deception plays such an important part in the plot. Nevertheless, and setting this aside, the story is well told and interesting, and will amply repay the reading.”
“It is possible that its maple-sugarish, sweet cake flavor may cloy the reader who enjoys more invigorating fare, but, as a sample of the ‘good’—‘goody-goody’ is perhaps a better word—style of story which has taken on added popularity of late, there is nothing to criticise in the offering.”
Reviewed by Marguerite Fellows
ABBOTT, MRS JANE LUDLOW (DRAKE). Highacres, il *$1.75 (2½c) Lippincott
The author of “Keineth” and “Larkspur,” etc., has written another story for girls. Jerry Travis is the heroine of “Highacres.” She is a little girl of the mountains, who finds John Westley when he has lost his way. He recognizes that she is a child who should have opportunities for education and offers to send her to school with his own nieces and nephew. Then follows an exciting year for Jerry, working and playing with Gyp and Graham and Isobel and Tibby, and going to school at Highacres. Jerry is an unspoiled little girl, and the end of the year does not find all the benefits on her side. There is an element of mystery in the story, which works out to Jerry’s advantage, and she looks forward to another year of school with her new friends.
“This new juvenile by the author of ‘Keineth’ is full as it can hold of the things dear to the heart of normal girlhood.” R. D. Moore
ABBOTT, KEENE. Wine o’ the winds. il *$1.75 (1½c) Doubleday
A story of the plains in the days of pioneer settlement and Indian warfare. Dr Harry North, because of a professional error, feels himself dishonored and goes West to hide his disgrace. He leaves behind him the girl he loves and is resolved never to practise medicine again. But the new country puts new life into him. He meets a typical daughter of the prairies who attracts him greatly and thereafter there is an unexpressed conflict between this girl and Alice Arden, who, still true to her old love, has come West to be near him. The scene changes from place to place and many glimpses are given of the varied aspects of life along the frontier.
“In subject matter and in treatment it differs from the large numbers of new books. There is a power in the author which allows him to mold his material and to invoke an atmosphere which stirs and interests us.” D. L. M.
“‘Wine o’ the winds’ possesses the worst of faults—it is dull. This is partly because the plot is neither well presented nor well put together and partly because the characters, with the single exception of the minor one of little Matt, the hunchback, lack that vitality which wins a reader’s interest, his liking or disliking. Now and then, it is true, there comes a moment which seems to hold out promise of better things in future, and the last scene of all is not without a certain degree of impressiveness.”
“Magic there is in this narrator’s vivid style, above all in the visual quality of his descriptions, which always remain a part of the narrative.” H. W. Boynton
ABDULLAH, ACHMED. Man on horseback. *$1.75 McCann
“A tale of a gold mine taken in exchange for a poker debt, and of results which bring the American cowboy owner of the mine into international complications and make him an actor in the great war.”—Outlook
“The excessive simple-mindedness of the hero, combined with the heroine’s complete failure to win the reader’s liking, does much to injure an otherwise interesting book.”
ABDULLAH, ACHMED, and others. Ten-foot chain. il *$1.50 Reynolds pub.
The sub-title, “Can love survive the shackles? a unique symposium,” indicates the trend of the book. The unnamed editor, in the introduction, states the circumstances of its writing. At a dinner where four distinguished writers were present, the question was raised, “What mental and emotional reaction would a man and a woman undergo, linked together by a ten-foot chain, for three days and nights?” The writers differed in their solution to this problem, according to their individual interpretation of human nature, and the result was that each consented to present his conclusions to the public in fiction form. This book comprises the four stories, which are: An Indian Jataka, by Achmed Abdullah; Out of the dark, by Max Brand; Plumb nauseated, by E. K. Means; and Princess or percheron, by Perley P. Sheehan.
“Interesting as an editorial jeu d’esprit, the experiment has also brought out four short stories of high quality.”
ACADEMY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.[2] Inflation and high prices; ed. by Henry Rogers Seager. pa $1.50 The academy 338.5
“A series of addresses and papers among which are: Causes and progress of inflation, by E. W. Kemmerer; Treasury methods of financing the war in relation to inflation, by R. C. Leffingwell; The relation of the federal reserve system to inflation, by H. P. Willis; Remedies for inflation with special reference to the French situation, by M. Casenave; Remedies for inflation with special reference to the Italian situation, by B. Attolico; Inflation as a world problem and our relation thereto, by P. M. Warburg.”—Am Econ R
ADAM, H. PEARL. Paris sees it through; a diary, 1914–1919. il *$4 (4c) Doran 940.344
Mrs Adam was an English resident in Paris before and throughout the war. Her book describes her Paris just before and at the outbreak of the war and follows its course in its reactions on the city until the signing of the peace. She gossips intimately about the effect of the war on the daily lives of the people and of the people’s interest or lack of interest in the political events. Among the contents are: The onslaught (1914); Endurance (1915); The distant guns (1916); The long wait (1917); Rationing (1917–1918); Boloism; Some war Parisians; Paris under fire (1918); Armistice; Paris in 1919: the making of peace. The appendix describes the Paris of today: a chapter for visitors. There are illustrations.
“This book by a lady who spent the period of the war in Paris writing for English newspapers is much better reading than many works of higher authority and greater importance.”
ADAM, WILLIAM AUGUSTUS. Whither? a human fragment of contemporary history. (1906–1919). *$5 Dutton 354
“‘Whither? or, The British Dreyfus case,’ by Maj. W. A. Adam, is the story of a British officer who fancies that his case parallels that of the unfortunate Capt. Dreyfus of the French army. Maj. W. A. Adam, a staff officer of the British army, is practically dismissed from the service on secret evidence, which is not shown to the accused. After vainly seeking to be reinstated the author finally sues various officials of the British war office in a civil court and is awarded damages. In spite of it all, during the great war this ‘British Dreyfus’ is relegated to obscure positions in the army. In his opinion, he should have been leading divisions and army corps. This volume throws light on the circumlocution and red tape of the British bureaucracy—and, it might be added, of most government officialdom the world over.”—Springf’d Republican
“Major Adam’s statements are carefully documented. The book, as Major Adam has framed it, is undoubtedly an absorbing fragment of human history.”
“Reading between the lines of his book, one gains the impression, that the gallant major is one of those unfortunate persons who ‘seize the hot end of the poker,’ or, in other words, are their own worst enemies. But this volume is interesting.”
ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS; ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS, jr., and ADAMS, HENRY. Cycle of Adams letters: 1861 to 1865; ed by Worthington Chauncey Ford. 2v il *$10 Houghton 973.7
The editor of these two volumes of family letters has selected them from many others for their description of social conditions, discussion of public questions and contribution to the social, military and diplomatic history of the War of secession. With the great conflict as a back-ground, they supply “no little new history, much untold detail, much discussion, many rumors and predictions, expressed with individuality and in a literary form.... It is an old story, but the manner of telling it is new, all the more remarkable because unstudied and spontaneous.” (Introd. note) The books are illustrated and indexed.
“The two volumes are not merely interesting, but fascinating. Of their contributions to history, aside from the personal views here quoted or described, there is not space to say anything, but they are important and valuable. No better book about the war of secession has come out in many a year.”
“The editor of these letters would have enhanced the value of the collection for the general reader if at certain points (not many) he had added a brief note indicating the event out of which the letter grew or to which it referred. The reader gets from these letters a much pleasanter portrait of Henry than from his autobiography.” Lyman Abbott
“It would be difficult for a master hand at fiction to devise for his own purpose a better stage setting, and a more ingenious relationship of leading characters to the end of developing the intricacies of a big international drama.” F: T. Cooper
“The ‘Cycle of Adams letters’ is all very interesting, if only as correspondence, and parts of them will add authentic material to the history of the Civil war—all the more so that the letters were probably written without idea of future publication.”
ADAMS, FRANKLIN PIERCE. Something else again. *$1.50 Doubleday 817
“The editor of the Conning Tower, New York Tribune, amuses himself writing verses in the styles of Horace, Longefellow, Amy Lowell and others and by writing desk copy for the tragedies which formed the subjects of some famous old ballads.”—Booklist
“Good fun.”
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
ADAMS, HENRY. Degradation of the democratic dogma. *$2.50 (3½c) Macmillan 901
Brooks Adams has edited some of the literary remains of his brother Henry and published them with a long introductory essay on The heritage of Henry Adams. In introducing the work he writes: “I want to make it clear, once for all, that I am not proposing to write anything approaching to a memoir of my brother.... Nor do I suggest any criticism of his essays which are annexed.... I am seeking to tell the story of a movement in thought which has, for the last century, been developing in my family, and which closes with the ‘Essay on phase,’ which ends this volume.” The essay in which this purpose is embodied is devoted to the principle of democracy which John Quincy Adams upheld and which in the estimation of himself and his descendants received its death blow with the triumph of Jackson. The writings of Henry Adams included in the volume are: The tendency of history (1894); A letter to American teachers of history (1910); and The rule of phase applied to history (1909).
“The title seems ill suited to the papers that make the substance of the volume. The degradation of the democratic dogma which is here in question is thus far from being a general movement of thought; it is a movement within the Adams family, exemplified chiefly in Brooks and Henry.” Carl Becker
“Readers of this volume are advised to omit the essay at the end, entitled ‘The rule of phase applied to history.’ Henry Adams had all the virtues of the great amateur—penetration, aloofness, style. It is sad to record that in the end he did not escape the pitfall of most amateurs. He began taking himself seriously, and that as a prophet!” E: S. Corwin
“Whoever takes up this book in the expectation that he has been invited to a sort of second table of the wondrous banquet spread before the readers of ‘The education of Henry Adams’ will soon learn his mistake. Not that it is not as marvellous in its way, but that it is a separate and distinct production of a mind as varied as it was powerful.” L. S.
“Of interest to historians, scientists, and educationists.”
Reviewed by C: A. Beard
“Why have they been resurrected, and why are they published at the present time, with this preposterous introduction and with a misfit title? The uninitiated will say that the popularity of Henry Adams’s ‘Education’ furnishes the answer.”
“We took it up anticipating pleasure if not profit in getting Henry Adams’s views on democracy. We have been disappointed. Whatever views on this subject Henry Adams may have elsewhere expressed, he expresses none here. He discourses on views of the universe in general, and the philosophy of history in particular, but he has nothing to say of the degradation of the democratic dogma, or of the democratic dogma itself. Nor do we find that Mr Brooks Adams increases our knowledge of these subjects.” D. McG. Means
“A curiously interesting and depressing series of historical papers, which serves to explain some of the author’s pessimism. Henry Adams makes some rather unwarranted historical generalizations. His papers are a remarkable example of the method by which an unscientific mind may apply scientific conclusions to unrelated data.”
“‘A letter to American teachers of history’ is a brilliant achievement. It is single and swift and passionate, as an exclamation or a command. Nervous and mordant in style, it rises often to eloquence and is illuminated by flashes of ironical humor.” C: A. Bennett
ADAMS, HENRY. Letters to a niece and Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres; with A niece’s memories by Mabel La Farge. *$2.50 Houghton
These letters are introduced by “A niece’s memories” which together with the letters, reveals a side of the heart and mind of Henry Adams veiled to the world and to the readers of the “Education,” but poured forth to the young. “To them all he was the generic Uncle, the best friend—to whom they not only could confide their innermost secrets, their perplexities, hopes and aspirations, but also at whose feet they could sit endlessly, listening to the most thrilling talk they had ever heard, or were likely to hear again.” The table of contents is: Henry Adams: a niece’s memories; Letters to a niece; Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres. Under the last heading is included: Prayer to the dynamo.
“A book of undeniable savor. The Adams pickle is everywhere. They are very kind letters—lazily, unconcernedly, uncommittedly kind. That he writes very good English will surprise nobody, and his faculty is brought out by a certain waywardness in its exercise.”
ADAMS, KATHARINE. Mehitable. il *$2.50 Macmillan
To Mehitable in her Vermont home comes the opportunity to go to school in Paris. Mehitable has just passed her sixteenth birthday and it all seems to her like a dream, so quickly is she whisked away from familiar scenes to find herself in a strange land. In spite of the little home-made frocks with which Aunt Comfort and the village dressmaker have fitted her out and which make her look old fashioned and quaint to the other girls, she makes a place for herself in the Chateau d’Estes and finds friends. Irish Una is the dearest of them and Mehitable spends a happy vacation at her home. The story ends with the outbreak of the war.
“The book is singularly pleasing, the heroine a living creature good to know, and there are many interesting characters and situations. A book all girls in their late teens will delight in.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“Her school life near Paris, her trips to other lands, and her fine love story form a superior kind of story for older girls.”
ADAMS, SAMUEL HOPKINS. Wanted: a husband. il *$1.75 (4c) Houghton
This story falls into two parts. The first tells of the transformation of Darcy Cole from a peevish, spoiled, unhealthy, unhappy girl into a radiant and captivating bit of womanhood. Physical culture plus grit does the trick. In the old days Darcy had been so unattractive that she had had to invent a fiancé and the second part of the story is taken up with the adventures into which this mythical person leads her. He is a certain Sir Montrose Veyze, selected from Burke’s Peerage. Fortunately he never appears in person and the attractive American lover who acts as his substitute proves perfectly satisfactory as a permanent feature.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Of course he does the thing well, but it hardly seems worth the doing when the author is capable of so much better things.”
“It is by no means as good an example of its type as his earlier book, ‘The unspeakable Perk,’ but it is entertaining in its way, and presents a fervent plea for athletics.”
“Its humor and gaiety compensate to some extent for the lack of plausibility.”
ADE, GEORGE. Hand-made fables. il *$1.60 (2½c) Doubleday 817
“The studies in American vernacular which comprise this volume first appeared in the Cosmopolitan Magazine.... Although the period in which these fables appeared enveloped the great war and lapped over on the great unrest, the author has proceeded upon the theory that old human nature continues to do business, even during a cataclysm.” With this introduction Mr Ade proceeds to his fables, which are in his old manner and are accompanied by John McCutcheon’s pictures.
“Barring his treatment of this arid topic [prohibition], the rest of the book is sheer delight.” G. M. Purcell
“Here Mr Ade once more demonstrates that the American slang vernacular has capacities for clearness, force, and (yes!) elegance that quite escape the base-ball reporter.”
“Isolated and perused at the rate of one a month, they yield a sharp and pungent flavour; bunched thus for permanence, they are flat.” L. B.
“A great deal of it is amusing, poking fun in a way provocative of chuckles, and giving new point to the old saying that there is many a true word spoken in jest.”
ADLAM, GEORGE HENRY JOSEPH. Acids, alkalis and salts. il $1 Pitman 661
In this volume of Pitman’s common commodities and industries series, the author has endeavored “to give prominence to the commercial and domestic importance of the substances dealt with.” He has also “included some considerations of a theoretical nature which may well be taken as a first step towards the continuation of the study of chemistry.” (Preface) Contents: Introduction; Sulphuric acid and sulphates; Nitric acid and nitrates; The halogen acids; Carbonic acid and carbonates; Phosphoric, boric, and silicic acids; Organic acids; Mild alkali; Caustic alkalis; Electrolytic methods. There are diagrams and other illustrations and an index.
“This book aims at being not only instructive, but also interesting.” C. S.
AGATE, JAMES E. Responsibility. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
An English novel in which the author discourses at large on matters of art, morals and life. The scene is laid in one of the northern industrial towns and it follows the hero’s story from childhood on, depicting his escape from business into letters as a profession. In his early manhood he has a love affair with a young dancer, who when she sees that his love is waning writes to tell him she is to bear a child and disappears out of his life. Twenty years later he is confronted by his son, who is on the point of enlisting for the war. Both recognize that the usual parental relation is not to be looked for, but they become friends. The son is totally disabled in the war, the father partially so.
“It is a brave theme, but the author’s treatment of it is a deal too confident to be successful. He cannot resist his hero’s passion for display. And this passion is so ungoverned that we cannot see the stars for the fireworks.” K. M.
“Not for the average reader. Good work but not remarkably good.”
“The novel as a whole is excessively chaotic and immature, an obvious attempt at a youthful smartness which seems incapable of artistic restraint. Mr Agate has been a wide reader, but he shows at the present moment little power of assimilation.” E. F. E.
“A first and promising novel.”
“Undoubtedly Mr Agate has both talent and promise. Today he is not an ageless portent but a beginner with very much to learn.”
“It is a sober-minded book, this novel of Mr Agate’s. But it is also a very rich book, rich in character, in thought, in understanding, in comment upon life and art, original in style and treatment. We are much mistaken if Mr James E. Agate has not definitely ‘arrived.’”
“The book is a hodge-podge.” H. W. Boynton
“The genius of the book might as well be a grown man’s as a boy’s—it is ageless as genius always is. But the faults—and they are grave—are a young man’s or at any rate a young writer’s, faults. We should plump for Mr Agate being, say, in the early thirties. We profoundly hope that we are right, because we want many more books from him. We do not ask for them to confirm our judgment, but because English literature is starvingly in need of a new and still young first-rate performer.”
“A novel which bears clear traces of models so diverse as Wells and James and, perhaps, even the author of ‘Tristram Shandy.’ But such strength as the novel possesses lies in what is simple and straightforward. There are good glimpses of character.”
“The great quality of the book is a manly and vigorous brilliance, which is enough to supply ten ordinary novels; the chief faults are a rhetorical exuberance of style and an inability to see that the reader wants time to appreciate the really good passages, such as the page where Edward’s father sends him to school or the illegitimate son’s explanation of what moved him to join the army.”
AIKEN, CONRAD POTTER. House of dust; a symphony. *$2 Four seas co. 811
A series of poems defining the delicate shadings of sense perceptions. They correspond to the so-called “tone poems” of music. Among the titles given to individual pieces are: The fulfilled dream; Interlude; Nightmare; Retrospect; The box with silver handles; Haunted chambers; Porcelain; Clairvoyant. Parts of the book have appeared in the North American Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie and the Yale Review.
“Mr Aiken possesses many poetical merits. He has a flow of language that is refreshing in this age of meagrely trickling springs. He has vivid sensations and a felicitous ease in exactly expressing them. But he has the defects of his qualities. His facility is his undoing; for he is content to go on pouring out melodious language—content to go on linking image to bright image almost indefinitely. One begins to long for clarity and firmness, for a glimpse of something definite outside this golden haze.” A. L. H.
“He is not easy to understand, and some minds would doubt whether a drift of phenomena so irrational as this, however delicately and imaginatively it is described, can be worth describing, except from the point of view of scientific interest. That Mr Aiken’s work is both delicate and imaginative, there is no question.”
AIKEN, CONRAD POTTER. Scepticisms; notes on contemporary poetry. *$2 (3c) Knopf 809.1
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Mr Aiken is not quite a good enough talker; his gossip is entertaining, but he has not the knack of telling a story well, of putting an idea into a forcible and convincing form. A certain diffuseness—it is noticeable, but to a lesser degree, in his poetry—takes the edge and point off what he says; a fact that is the more regrettable, since we believe his psychological methods of criticism to be fundamentally sound and fruitful.” A. L. H.
“At times rather technical for the lay reader but worth while for all interested in contemporary poetry.”
“It makes good sedative reading after you have got tired of Mencken, Cabell, Powys and some few others of the real brains of America—in the matter of the essay, I mean.” Mary Terrill
“The poets and the books that he makes an intellectual flourish of judging in the re-printed reviews which make up this volume have, for the most part, their fundamental purposes and qualities befogged and perverted by such critical charlatanry, no matter how brilliant the execution may be. Often Mr Aiken makes a most convincing case for or against a poet, but the average reader will be inclined to discount his own agreement because he cannot be sure of the critic’s motives.” W. S. B.
“One’s quarrel with Mr Aiken will be with his limits, not with his accomplishment within his limits. What in most instances he sets out to do, namely, to particularize (he says illuminate) with a careful casualness, he certainly does well. It is because he has done so much carefully that dissatisfaction arises at the incomplete significance of the whole work.” C: K. Trueblood
“In so far as Mr Aiken’s lucid and discriminating opinions may offset the mawkish and meaningless eulogy of ‘poeteering’ journalists, we may be unqualifiedly grateful to him. He does, however, invite disagreement with his critical principles by announcing them with excessive candor.” G: F. Whicher
“Mr Aiken’s book shows a nicely adjusted intellect at work, weighing and measuring contemporary achievements, with whatever degree of bias human nature can never escape, as he admits himself, but with some degree of impartiality. He is chiefly interested in aesthetic values. His style is adroit and sharp and restrained.” Marguerite Wilkinson
ALBERTSON, RALPH. Fighting without a war. il *$1.50 (7c) Harcourt, Brace & Howe 947
This “account of military intervention in north Russia” (Sub-title) is given by a Y. M. C. A. secretary assigned to work with the army landing at Murmansk, November 1918. He took part in every phase of the campaign from the northernmost to the southernmost points of the expedition and was the last American to leave. He is scrupulously careful in handling army rumors and most of his matter is based on his own personal observation and knowledge. On the whole he considers intervention as a “bad job” on the part of the governments who undertook it. “We organized civil war in Russia. The Russians were not fighting the Bolsheviki—not our way. They did not want to fight them—in our way. We made them. We conscripted them to fight for their own freedom. It was difficult, but we had our army there and the army made the peasant patriotic—our way.” Contents: The expedition; The Archangel government; Management; The fall campaign; The winter campaign; Kitsa; Fighting without a flag; “America dobra”; America exit; The new British army; The new Russian army; Making Bolsheviki; The white man’s burden; Atrocities; The mutinies; The debâcle; Military intervention finance; Propaganda; Concerning military intervention; Concerning Russian peasants.
“Settles any lingering doubt about military intervention in Russia.”
“So amazing is the story of British arrogance, tactlessness, and brutality in northern Russia, revealed by Ralph Albertson that it would be well nigh impossible to accept it, if the trustworthiness of the writer was not in a striking manner vouched for by the two citations which he gained from the British.”
Reviewed by A. C. Freeman
“This little book of 140 pages, read at a sitting, but unforgettable for many a day, is full of valuable information, all the most vital of which was from his own personal and careful observation.” W. H. Crook
Reviewed by Reed Lewis
“The reading of the book helps to an understanding not only of the Russian problem but of what British imperialism—or American—always means in countries where a foreign army is in control.”
ALDERSON, VICTOR CLIFTON. Oil shale industry. il *$4 Stokes 622
The book heralds the birth of a new industry: the extracting of oil from oil shale, which, in the face of our growing demand for oil, the diminishing supply of underground oil, and the almost inexhaustible supply of raw material in the form of oil shale, promises to be one of paramount importance. Contents: The dawn of a new industry; Nature, origin, and distribution of oil shale; The history of oil shale; Mining oil shale; Retorting and reduction; Experimental and research work; Economic factors; Summary; Opinions; The future; Bibliography, index and illustrations.
“Not a finished work as far as statistics are concerned, but a good survey of a comparatively new industry.”
“For a scientific work it is too uncritical and in such remarks as ‘mountains of shale’ it is reminiscent of a promoter’s prospectus. In fact, the whole book is written with too much apparent intention to see all the favorable points and to disregard the at present unfavorable ones.”
ALDON, ADAIR. At the sign of the Two Heroes. il *$1.75 (3½c) Century
The scene of this story for boys is laid on South Hero island, one of the two islands in Lake Champlain that are named for Ethan and Ira Allen. The old Frenchman, Pierre Lebeau, suggests to the three boy campers, Christopher, Andrew and Howard, that they spend a night in the deserted old inn that commands a view of the bay and surrounding islands. He is under the stress of emotion and obviously has a purpose in making the suggestion. Their curiosity aroused, they take his advice and what they see and hear convinces them that smuggling on a large scale is going on. They also learn the cause of old Pierre’s emotion, for his scapegrace grandson is one of the smugglers. The story tells how the three boys, animated by the spirit of Ethan Allen, put an end to the law breaking.
“Keeps the interest and is not too improbable.”
“The background is well laid in and the story is full of ‘thrills’ having some really dramatic situations. A good tale of its type.”
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
ALDRICH, LILIAN (WOODMAN) (MRS THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH). Crowding memories. il *$5 Houghton
These reminiscences of the wife of a poet center about her celebrated husband but are rich in pictures of other great personages that she has intimately known, notably Edwin Booth, William Dean Howells, Samuel L. Clemens, Robert Browning, James McNeill Whistler, Julia Ward Howe, Charles Dickens. The book is well illustrated and has an index.
“Mrs Aldrich’s memories are of superlative interest because of both their subject matter and the great intimacy of their manner.” E. F. Edgett
“The author’s stilted phrasing, trite similes, and thinly veiled snobbery offer a melancholy contrast to the easy-flowing naturalness and genial democracy of her gifted husband. Nevertheless, ‘Crowding memories’ is a valuable book because of the deep and abiding interest of many of the figures who appear in it.” A. R. H.
“She has not produced a quite independent volume, for she quotes from Mr Greenslet’s book at considerable length and uses excerpts from Aldrich’s semi-autobiographical writings to complete the structure of her narrative. Nor has she the special gift of the great memoir writer, that easy command of detail which gives its solid reward in social documentations. But as a casual record of certain trivialities ‘Crowding memories’ is something of a social document.” C. M. Rourke
Reviewed by Brander Matthews
“Even in unskillful hands the result would have been useful, and Mrs Aldrich has handled the rich material with good judgment and much insight, making a total that is always interesting, and often enlightening, entitling it to a definite place in our literary chronicles.”
ALEICHEM, SHALOM. Jewish children; authorized tr. from the Yiddish by Hannah Berman. *$2 Knopf
“Nineteen stories by one of the best known of contemporary Hebrew novelists and journalists, the Russian Shalom Rabinowitz (‘Shalom Aleichem’): picturing with a vividness and intimacy which has gained him the name of ‘the Yiddish Dickens’ the life of Jewish children in the villages and small towns of the Russian pale.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup F 26 ’20
“They are written with a terse, beautiful simplicity. An especial appeal for those who recognize the truth of the picture.”
“Undoubted power of camera-like observation, the God-given genius for interpretation of the sorrows and sadness of life so surely a heritage of Jew, Irish or Russian, help make this little volume a delight.”
“Studies at once tentative and precocious, executed with a rare economy and a vivid understanding. Moods are evoked as if by the striking of a chord; the effect is instantaneous and sharp, yet softened with queer overtones of feeling.”
“‘Shalom Aleichem,’ speaking generally is a humorist, and often broadly so. Instances could be cited in which a verbal audacity, almost a horseplay in phrasing, stands out as his most striking characteristic.” C. K. Scott
“Perhaps the best quality of these stories is their humor, and such characters as Isshur the Beadle and Boaz the Teacher do, indeed, allowing for less breadth and vigor, justify the comparison of Rabinowitz with Dickens that has been made.”
“It is difficult to determine whether without the species of prestige conferred by unfamiliarity of subject and idiom, the spice of strangeness imparted by the mere fact of translation, the book would arouse much more than curiosity. It is a collection of incidents in the lives of Russian Jewish children, told with perhaps too unrestrained a fluency, as the matter is usually of the slightest, but with a pervading kindness, an unshakable good humour, a pleasant if not inspired drollery, that enlist one’s sympathy.”
ALEXANDER, HARTLEY BURR.[2] Latin American [mythology]. (Mythology of all races) il *$7 Jones, Marshall 299
“The present volume follows the general plan [of the series]. The author has aimed at a descriptive treatment following regional divisions, directed to essential conceptions rather than exhaustive classification.” (Booklist) “The book includes the Antilles, Mexico, Yucatan, Central America, the Andes (North and South), the tropical forests, the Orinoco and Guiana, the Amazon and Brazil, and finally, the pampas to the Land of fire. The notes and bibliography comprise almost a fifth of the volume. More than forty illustrations add to the interest of a text that really illustrates itself.” (Bookm)
“The book is more than a succinct history. It embodies the poetry of ancient days and the cruelty and the splendor of ancient ways, without abandoning the calm attitude that wards the scientist from hasty or sentimental judgments.” I: Goldberg
ALLEN, ARTHUR WATTS.[2] Handbook of ore dressing, equipment and practice. il *$3 McGraw 622.7
“The book aims to supply a handy and practical vade mecum for millmen and engineers, covering in condensed form the various stages in the mechanical handling and preparation of ore for metallurgical treatment. Good drawings and half-tone illustrations. Bibliography of 86 references.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
ALLEN, FREDERICK JAMES. Advertising as a vocation. *$2 Macmillan 659
“This book by Mr Allen of the Bureau of vocational guidance of Harvard university is intended to place the subject of advertising as a vocation especially before that part of the public concerned with the choosing of a vocation. It is an extensive exposition of the field of advertising, the emoluments, the qualities needed for it as a vocation, and a thorough investigation of the various fields. It considers advertising as a business rather than as a profession, since in the main it is connected with the trades, and it aims to show the future of advertising as an important element in the choosing of a life work.”—Boston Transcript
“Sets a high standard. Excellent bibliography.”
ALLEN, NELLIE BURNHAM. New Europe. (Geographical and industrial studies) il $1 Ginn 914
This volume is a revision of the book issued in 1913 with the title “Europe.” It has been revised and partly rewritten to conform to changes growing out of the war. New chapters have been added on: Ireland and the linen industry; The brave little country of Belgium; Finland and Lapland; The country of Poland, and The countries of the Balkan peninsula.
ALLEN, STEPHEN HALEY. International relations. *$5 Princeton univ. press 327
“The reader will find here in outline the ancient and modern conceptions of a nation, and especially a clear statement of what has been done to regulate international intercourse by conventions, efforts to prevent war by arbitration and mediation and to mitigate the barbarities of war when it does come. Included in the volume are the documents representing the important general conventions that were in force at the outbreak of the great war, and in conclusion the peace treaty itself and the constitution of the League of nations are presented.”—R of Rs
ALLISON, WILLIAM. My kingdom for a horse! *$8 Dutton
“The recollections of one who has had so varied a career as Mr William Allison cannot fail to be interesting. His pages cover a great variety of ground, life in Yorkshire in the middle of the last century, Rugby in the ‘sixties, Balliol in the ‘seventies, the bar, horse racing, and the selling of blood stock, breeding of fox terriers, political and society journalism, editorship, and special commissionership in the Sportsman—a multitude of memories, in fine, with fluctuations of fortune to give a savour to the whole.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Well charged with readable gossip.”
“The ordinary reader will wish that his own interest had been a little more consulted by omitting many of these equine records. He will wish, too, that Mr Allison had not been so generous in quoting from his voluminous correspondence. Barring this overplus, we think the author too modest in describing his memoirs as a ‘farrago of insignificant events.’”
“His book shows quite exceptional familiarity with the thoroughbred, set forth in English free—though split infinitives are to be counted against him—from the distressing phraseology common to most men who write about racing.”
“His digressions are rather bewildering and his arguments not all strictly convincing. When Mr Allison gives himself, as he rarely does, the time to describe something with enthusiasm, William Hickey himself could do no better.”
ALLISON, WILLIAM. Secret of the sea. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
The story has evidently been suggested by Poe’s “The murders in the rue Morgue.” An American millionaire’s pleasure yacht, touring on the Mediterranean, encounters a derelict yacht, fitted up most luxuriously with every evidence of recent occupancy but not a soul on board. Here’s mystery, and Peter Knight, the millionaire’s secretary and lover of his daughter, Betty, sets himself to unravel it. His rôle as detective proves full of danger but brings to light much past history and romance. An Italian duke of fabulous wealth is discovered to have been the owner of the yacht, and Peter Knight’s father—and thereby hangs a tale of dark plots and poison cups worthy of the middle ages. The outcome of this tale would have been a different one had not a baboon, one of the yacht’s inmates, taken a hand in it to do some of the murdering on his own account. Peter himself barely escapes with his own life, but in doing so is enabled to rescue his beloved Betty who has in the meanwhile fallen into the clutches of the same criminal family.
“A mystery yarn, fantastic and impossible, but quite readable.”
“A well-conceived and engaging mystery tale.”
ALLISON, WILLIAM. Turnstile of night. il *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
This tale of mystery begins in India where three white men combine in a successful attempt to gain possession of some priceless diamonds worn as the “breastplate of the seven stars” by an idol in a temple of Buddha. Then the scene shifts to England; two of the treasure seekers are dead, by fair means or foul, and the third is trying to keep for himself the whole treasure, part of which belongs in reality to Honour Brooke, daughter of the one, and Ronald Charteris, nephew of the other adventurer. Loris St Leger, the villain, aided by his wicked old uncle, and using his beautiful cousin as his tool, stops at nothing, and as Honour and Ronald are entirely ignorant of his game or his reasons for playing it, he soon has them completely in his power. But there are some influences at work that he has no knowledge of, which are acting against him, and in the end his evil purposes are defeated, after many harrowing experiences for Honour and Ronald.
“Unfortunately the bright promise of the earlier chapters is not fulfilled. There are thrills and mystery a-plenty, but the author takes too long in expounding them and by the time they are cleared up they have ceased to thrill.”
“In spite of the story being such a jumble, the writing evidently is that of a trained hand, for the sentences are neatly put together and the author is not devoid of descriptive power. Readers who enjoy hurrying along from one disconnected incident to another and who like a long story will probably find this one to their taste.”
AMERICAN labor year book, 1919–1920; ed. by Alexander Trachtenberg. (v 3) *$2 Rand school of social science 331
“Part I of this book deals with labor in the war, with the organization of many governmental boards of adjustment and policy-making, and with the actual administration of those laws which were drawn to curb ‘seditious activities.’ Part II is a record of organized labor, with historical reviews of different trade union ventures (including such interesting experiments as the work of the United labor education committee) and with records of strikes and lockouts during the last two years. The third section of the book contains a digest of new labor legislation, of court decisions affecting labor, and of the progress of plans for health insurance, pensions and the minimum wage. Part IV is a more general discussion of social and economic conditions. It deals with the cost of living, profiteering, unemployment, woman suffrage, plans for public ownership of the railways, and the history of the Nonpartisan league in North Dakota. Part V is a short record of the recent activities of cooperative, labor and socialist movements in some thirty different countries. And the final section of the book is devoted to the socialist movement in America.”—New Repub
“While the volume bears the imprint of the Socialist, it manifests much less of class or partisan bias than do many articles and volumes prepared and circulated by ultra-conservative organizations.” F. T. Carlton
“Unfortunately it is rather an incoherent volume. Though the arrangement could be better and the statistical tables less partial, still the year book contains useful material, much of which is nowhere else easily accessible.” H. J. Laski
“The editor should be especially commended for his broad and tolerant attitude towards all phases of the social problem and for his good judgment in collecting within the covers of one volume so many significant documents and statistical tables. The volume is indispensable to teachers, writers, lecturers, and every one else who has an intelligent interest in the facts and problems of the labor movement.” L: Levine
“There is evidence of a purpose to stick to facts. If allowance needs to be made it is for omissions of facts unfavorable to the cause rather than for inclusion of direct propaganda.”
“‘The American labor year book’ preserves much that otherwise is hard to obtain and at the same time offers the best available compendium of current information in its field.”
AMOS, FLORA ROSS. Early theories of translation. (Columbia university studies in English and comparative literature) *$2 Columbia univ. press 808
The history of the theory of translation, the author holds, is by no means a record of easily distinguishable, orderly progression. It shows a lack of continuity and is of a tentative quality. “Translation fills too large a place, is too closely connected with the whole course of literary development, to be disposed of easily. As each succeeding period has revealed new fashions in literature, new avenues of approach to the reader, there have been new translations and the theorist has had to reverse or revise the opinions bequeathed to him from a previous period. The theory of translation cannot be reduced to a rule of thumb; it must again and again be modified to include new facts.” (Preface) Contents: The medieval period; The translation of the Bible; The sixteenth century; From Cowley to Pope; Index.
“The greater one’s knowledge of the literature dealt with, the more likely one is to approve the care and reading which she displays.” G: Saintsbury
ANANDA ACHĀRYA. Snow-birds. *$3 Macmillan 891.4
“This volume contains prose-poems or rhapsodies in free verse on nature, Indian mythology, sentimental or ideal themes, in a style analogous to that of Sir Rabindranath Tagore.”—Ath
“Mr Achārya is not as inspired by any means and he does not get the atmosphere and charm into his lines that Tagore did. But he is interesting, for he presents the thought of the East.”
“The poems contained in this volume can scarcely be said to uphold his title convincingly as either artist or metaphysician. His vision is neither profound nor vital enough to awake the pulse of verse, nor has it the mentality that makes the muscle of decisive prose.”
ANDERSON, BENJAMIN MCALESTER. Effects of the war on money, credit and banking in France and the United States. *$1 Oxford; pa gratis Carnegie endowment for international peace 332
A volume brought out by the Carnegie endowment for international peace as one of the preliminary economic studies of the war. An introduction sketches in broad outline the effects of the war on money, credit and banking in the countries of Europe and the United States. The author then takes up in detail the various problems involved in the case of France, with a briefer treatment of the United States. Tables, charts, etc., are given in an appendix and there is an index.
“That the work is well documented, well proportioned, and highly wrought, even brilliantly done, is not to be gainsaid.” C. A. Phillips
“Readers with an interest in finance will appreciate this clear, detailed account.”
Reviewed by C. C. Plehn
ANDERSON, ISABEL WELD (PERKINS) (MRS LARZ ANDERSON). Presidents and pies; life in Washington, 1897–1919. il *$3 (5c) Houghton 975.3
This is a book of inside gossip about social Washington, where “there is always something new under the sun.” The author has met and listened to the “‘senators, honorables, judges, generals, commodores, governors, and the ex’s of all these, as thick as pickpockets at a horse-race, ... ambassadors, plenipotentiaries, lords, counts, barons, chevaliers, and the great and small fry of legations’ who make the life here so varied and fascinating. Some politics, a touch of history, a dash of description, with a flavor of social affairs—such are the ingredients of my ‘pie,’ which, whatever its faults, I hope may not sit heavily on the reader’s digestion.” (Chapter 1) The book is well illustrated and the contents are: Looking back; “A red torch flared above his head”; Rough Rider and buccaneer; Parties and politics; Enter Mr Taft; Sundry visitings and visitations; Cruising and campaigning; Divers democrats; Allied missions; Pies; A topsy-turvy capital; Royalties arrive.
“It is regrettable that, owing to the lack of a sufficient background, she has not given us a definitive book on the city of Washington and its society; but, nevertheless, ‘Presidents and pies’ is a pleasant and sometimes a brilliant book. At least, it is easy reading, although its illustrations hardly add to its value.” M. F. Egan
“A delightful narrative. The style is chatty without being flippant, and there is always a touch of humor.”
ANDERSON, ROBERT GORDON. Leader of men. *$1 (7c) Putnam
A tribute of love and devotion to Theodore Roosevelt, opening with a poem by the author reprinted from Scribner’s Magazine. In conclusion Mr Anderson writes: “Theodore Roosevelt was a brave warrior of the body, he was the mightier warrior of the soul. His life was a chord of many notes, blending in noble harmony.... Its music is not mute. It still echoes round the world, sounding the forward march for the souls of men to that nobler warfare—to victory—to peace.”
“The author has avoided equally the danger of sentimentalism and that of over-analysis; his fine sanity of tone gives to his little book the qualities of lasting excellence.” Margaret Ashmun
“The author tells nothing very new about Roosevelt, but he relates in a charming manner what he knew of him.” J. S. B.
ANDERSON, ROBERT GORDON. Seven o’clock stories. il *$3.50 (9½c) Putnam
A story in short chapters suitable for bedtime reading. It is a book about three happy children, Jehosophat, Marmaduke, and little Hepzebiah. They live on a farm, and children who read the book will learn all about their three dogs, the other farm animals, the scarecrow and their friend the Toyman. The pictures are by E. Boyd Smith.
ANDERSON, SHERWOOD. Poor white. *$2 (1c) Huebsch
In this novel, as in his Winesburg stories, Mr Anderson tells the story of an Ohio town. It is a story of the transition period of the eighties and nineties between an agricultural and an industrial civilization. There was a time in that period, says Mr Anderson, when art and beauty should have awakened. Instead, the giant, Industry, awoke. The hero of the book, however, is not an Ohioan. He is a poor white who wanders up from Missouri, an indolent, dreaming boy, shaken out of his lethargy by a New England woman who tries to train his mind to definite channels. The result is the development of an inventive strain which the awakening giant, Industry, takes and uses to its own ends. The author’s treatment of Hugh is pathologic. He is attracted to women but is afraid of them. On his wedding night he is seized with panic and runs away, to be brought back by his father-in-law the next day. And never, except for fleeting moments, does he find satisfaction, either in his marriage or his work.
“Will undoubtedly be criticised by many readers for its sordidness of detail and its emphasis upon sex, but will be read by those who do not object to this with admiration for the frank truth of portrayal of a certain section of life.”
Reviewed by R. C. Benchley
“Structurally the story is chaotic and badly put together, being obviously the work of an ambitious young writer who has been emboldened to do something imaginatively big, but who has no control of the superabundance of material at his disposal. His ‘Poor white’ is in its way a remarkable piece of work, but it is not the first novel that has been written about the life it depicts or the last word in American fiction.” E. F. Edgett
“He has made his story a ‘Pilgrim’s’ progress,’ peopled with characters as actual and as full of meaning as those of the immortal allegory.” R. M. Lovett
“While as a novel the design, rhythms, texture and synthesis are about as bad as can be, as a book of miracles it is beautiful. The unexpected marvels of understanding, the terrible flashes of accuracy, the strange pity and enfolding passion are all incidental and personal: the epic he sought to write is cumbersome and dead, but the souls born from his soul live and suffer before us.” C. K. Scott
“In veracity and intellectual honesty Mr Anderson’s book is incomparably superior to most of our novels. But compared to ‘Main street’ it lacks fire and edge, lucidity and fulness.”
“To deny that ‘Poor white’ is a creation, an organism, with a life of its own, would be to sin against the light: but it is only fair to say that Mr Anderson’s limitations make ‘Poor white’ an incomplete, a maimed, organism.” F. H.
“‘Poor white’ remains a poetic novel in half a dozen broad senses. It has the clarity and concentration as well as some of the music of poetry. In its hold upon certain large pulsations of American life it is close to Whitman. It certainly belongs with Whitman rather than with Howells.” C. M. Rourke
“The book is a careful, conscientious study of certain phases of the industrial development of America, and especially of the Middle West.”
“Important American novel.” Eric Gershom
“The totality of the book gives the effect of a wood carving done with a hatchet by a man who could do well if he had a knife. But its faults are made up for by the dominant fact that Mr Anderson has a story to tell. The book is not great, but it has the seeds of greatness. It is worth while, and its author is worth watching.”
ANDERSON, WILLIAM ASHLEY. South of Suez. il *$3 (6½c) McBride 916
The book contains sketches of the author’s wanderings in East Africa during the war. They are not a consecutive series, but they are full of local coloring and echoes of the European war. Three of them give an account of the apostasy of the Abyssinian ruler, Lidj Yassou, from Christianity to don the turban, and the following uprising, of which the author was an eye-witness. The contents, with many illustrations, are: A coin is spun; Soldiers, sand, and sentiment; Aden of Araby; Cross and scimitar in Abyssinia; Es-Sawahil; Zanzibar—the spicy isle; The wilderness patrol; Kwa Heri.
“Delightful reading.”
“His tales of peoples so like us in their passions and ambitions, so different from us in habits and environment, assuredly make for edification as well as pleasure, and we could stand more of them.” C. F. Lavell
“The impressions do not always ‘get across,’ good as the author’s material is.”
“His experiences do not form a well-connected story. His impressions are patchy, with much left for inference. But as it is, the interest is absorbing and some passages one will read over and over again.”
ANDERTON, DAISY.[2] Cousin Sadie. *$1.75 (3c) Stratford co.
The scene is a college town in Ohio to which the heroine, Sara Dickinson, descendant of a long line of Calvinistic forebears, returns after a long absence. She thinks she has shaken off the teachings of her childhood, but in a crucial situation, involving love between herself and the husband of a young cousin, the sharp sense of distinction between right and wrong reasserts itself.
“The atmosphere of an Ohio college town is well done.”
ANDREA, MRS A. LOUISE. Dehydrating foods. il *$1.75 Cornhill co. 641.4
“‘Dehydrating foods’ tells of a method recently perfected, which will effect a revolution in the means and methods of food preservation. As distinguished from drying, it reduces the bulk of foods without destroying the flavoring, coloring or nutritive properties. The process used in America is far superior to the European methods. All this and much more of lively interest may be gleaned from this volume by Mrs Andrea, lecturer on food, cookery and canning at the Panama-Pacific exposition, San Francisco, and the New York International exposition. The book contains detailed instructions for home dehydration as well as numerous recipes.”—Cath World
ANDREIEFF, LEONID NIKOLAEVICH. Satan’s diary; authorized tr. *$2.25 (4c) Boni & Liveright
Satan has assumed human form in the person of a Chicago billionaire, Henry Wondergood and gives an account of his mundane exploits in the form of a diary. He finds that, with the body of Wondergood, he has also acquired some of his human qualities and is no longer proof against human emotions. Thus, when in Rome he meets one Magnus and his daughter Maria, a madonna-like woman, he falls in love with her and allows Magnus to out-satan him to the extent of robbing him of all his money and finally to blow him up in his palace after revealing to him that Maria the madonna, is not his daughter but his mistress. The story is a bitter satire on human life. In a long preface Herman Bernstein gives a brief sketch of Andreieff’s life.
“This is not only caustic comment on the conditions and problems of today on this world, it is a denunciation of all life, a renunciation of illusions and hopes. Without a doubt this latest and last work of Andreyev is for the time the last word in iconoclastic criticism.” W. T. R.
“Many of the ideas are brought out in long, rambling conversations dealing in the characteristic Russian manner with the purely abstract phases of life, and tending to mystify rather than clarify. At other times the satire is quick and amusing in its unexpected turns of keen humour. Sometimes Andreyev shows a gentler side, one might almost say a romantic strain.” L. R. Sayler
“A theme, this, to tempt one of the ‘masters of free irony and laughter,’ a Voltaire, an Anatole France. Its development in Andreyev’s hands is disappointing. We have too great a respect for the Satan of Job and of Milton to believe that he could have been so easily gulled. But the source of disappointment in the handling of the theme lies deeper. In this book, as in most of his other writings, Andreyev shrinks back appalled before the torturing riddle of human destiny. He hurls his vain questions against the blank wall.” Dorothy Brewster
“Marie Corelli is so far below Andreyev that it may excite derision to compare them, and yet in one of her bombastic novels, ‘The sorrows of Satan,’ she actually succeeded in making a more probable Satan than this one of the great Russian’s. This book is too savage either for satire or burlesque—and too inconsistent. Besides, even a good fairy tale should be plausible. Nevertheless, as a story the book is interesting.”
ANDREIEFF, LEONID NIKOLAEVICH. When the king loses his head, and other stories. (Russian authors’ lib.) $2 International bk.
“The half-dozen ‘other stories’ intimated in the title of this volume are ‘Judas Iscariot,’ ‘Lazarus,’ ‘Life of Father Vassily,’ ‘Ben-Tobith,’ ‘The Marseillaise’ and ‘Dies irae.’ The last two are poems in prose. The title-story is a high-strung imaginative picture of the French revolution; ‘Judas Iscariot’ might be interpreted as an attempt to corporealize an arch-fiend compelled to bring about the final tragedy of Jesus’ life in order that prophecy might be fulfilled.”—Boston Transcript
“It is to be hoped that out of Russia’s chaos, when once more life becomes normal, there will be an end to such masterpieces of outrageous dissection. They may represent an epoch, but they are unwholesome and smack of the deadly amanita. Mr Wolfe’s translation has some good passages, but there are many infelicities.”
“This art has passion and humanity and a strange fervor. But to many its glow will seem the glow of phosphorescence and decay.”
ANNESLEY, CHARLES, pseud. (CHARLES TITTMANN and ANNA TITTMANN). Standard operaglass. *$3 Brentano’s 782
This new edition, revised and brought up to date, includes “detailed plots of two hundred and thirty-five celebrated operas with critical and biographical remarks, dates, etc.” (Title page) There is a “prelude” by James Huneker. and an index to operas and one to composers. The work was originally published in 1899 and was revised in 1904 and again in 1910.
“Well told, with the chief points brought out with admirable directness. The arrangement is simple and the indices ample.”
“One of the best existent guides to opera librettos.” H: T. Finck
ANNIN, ROBERT EDWARDS. Ocean shipping; elements of practical steamship operation. il *$3 (2½c) Century 656
This is the first volume in the Century foreign trade series, edited by William E. Aughinbaugh. The author, who is lecturer on economics in New York university, says in his preface: “Within the limits of a volume like the present it is possible only to touch upon even the fundamentals of ship management and operation.... The aim has been to exclude, as far as possible, the academic and legalistic, and to make the book what its title implies—a practical, if elementary, guide, based on experience, rather than a theoretical treatise based on maxims.” The book is divided into three parts. Part I, The ship, has chapters on An American merchant marine; Range of the business: Freight rates; The labor problem; Officering and manning; The cargo carrier, etc. Part II is devoted to The office, with discussions of Machinery of foreign trade; Foreign exchange; Traffic manager; General cargo, etc. Part III devotes thirteen chapters to Charters. There are six illustrations, appendices and index.
“Although the book cannot be described as having a scholarly style and although the author’s ideas on economics seem to be a bit unorthodox at times, the reader will find this volume far more useful than many written in a more literary vein. The author seems to be thoroughly familiar with his subject-matter.” M. J. S.
“The language is simple and direct and free from technical terms. It has evidently been the aim of the writer to produce a book of thorough practical value to those engaged in ocean shipping.”
“Excellent manual.”
ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE D’. Tales of my native town. *$1.75 (2½c) Doubleday
This collection of short stories is translated from the Italian by Professor Rafael Mantellini and has an introduction by Joseph Hergesheimer. This is an appreciative comparison between our Anglo-Saxon short story and that of the great Italian. Mr Hergesheimer calls attention to the intense realism of D’Annunzio, which knows no reservations and no shrinking. The tales are: The hero; The countess of Amalfi; The return of Turlendana; Turlendana drunk; The gold pieces; Sorcery; The idolaters; Mungia; The downfall of Candia; The death of the duke of Ofena; The war of the bridge; The virgin Anna.
“Here writing is done with the big stick. They are tales of the noisier passions, executed with meticulous consideration for the formidable detail, since D’Annunzio writes with all the heat and strength of pulse that is supposed to belong to the southern temperament. The translation, with the possible exception of parts of the conversation, is very smoothly done.”
“It takes, as Joseph Hergesheimer points out in his exceedingly interesting preface, a rather carefully prepared attitude of mind to thoroly enjoy them. They are written with art and skill but with a lack of reticence in description which is likely to disturb the Anglo-Saxon. If you enjoy Russian short stories you will probably enjoy these.”
“The stories are of course arresting and at times brilliant. D’Annunzio’s powerful gifts are beyond question today.” L. L.
Reviewed by Rebecca West
“In their English dress, certainly, they are not overwhelming. One can with a fairly good conscience own to the impression that, with all their marvel of detail, several of them are oppressively squalid and even tedious; squalor and tedium having, of course, their part, a relative part, in the spectacle of living.” H. W. Boynton
“These tales neither convince nor move the reader. There is a quickness of action in these sketches, foreign to D’Annunzio’s novels; his writing has lost a great deal of that sensuality and voluptuousness so cloying to the American mind. But it has also lost in beauty and harmonious detail.”
ANSTRUTHER, EILEEN H. A. (MRS JOHN COLLINGS SQUIRE). Husband. *$1.75 Lane
“The story of a very modern young lady, Penelope Brooke, befriended in the early chapters by a cousin. Later on the heroine embarks on the adventure of earning her bread in London, during which time her relations with her cousin’s husband become involved. In the end the inconvenient Mrs Dennithorne dies, and the reader is led to anticipate a happy sequel.”—Spec
“The author has good powers of description and characterization.”
“A pleasant tale of English life. Never very exciting, it yet holds the reader’s interest sufficiently for an evening’s enjoyment.”
“This book is well written—the characters clearly drawn; but that is the whole measure of commendation that can be bestowed upon it. It is an exceedingly dull story of contemporary English life. It seems a pity that such good writing and so much print paper should be wasted upon a dead level of mediocrity.”
“Well written with the principal characters clearly portrayed, ‘The husband’ lacks vitality. A certain stiffness and awkwardness make the tale in numerous places ‘heavy going.’ Penelope, with a mild, Quakerish manner, is the most human and attractive principal.”
“Her choice of the moment for a description and her choice of the scene to be described show psychological understanding as well as good craftsmanship. The story is anything but ‘didactic,’ but it is none the worse for having an ethical direction.”
ANSWER to John Robinson of Leyden; ed. by Champlin Burrage. (Harvard theological studies) pa *$2 Harvard univ. press 274.2
“John Robinson is considered by some to be the real father of American democracy with its emphasis upon the separation of church and state. The answer to Robinson by a Puritan friend is against his advocacy of separation from the Church of England. In this answer practically the entire argument of Robinson, the Pilgrim pastor at Leyden, for the separation of church and state is given. The manuscript is of the date 1609, eleven years before the Pilgrims left Leyden for their ultimate destiny, America. It is now published for the first time.”—Boston Transcript
Reviewed by Williston Walker
ANTHONY, KATHARINE SUSAN. Margaret Fuller; a psychological biography. il *$2.25 (4c) Harcourt
A study of Margaret Fuller from the standpoint of modern psychology, analyzing the hysteria of her childhood and the neurotic element in her later life. Her contribution to the feminist movement and her relation to the revolutionary struggle in Europe are also dealt with from a modern point of view. Incidentally there are brief and searching criticisms of Emerson, Hawthorne, Horace Greeley and others. Contents: Family patterns; A precocious child; Narcissa; Miranda; A woman’s woman; The transcendentalist: The journalist; Contacts; Her debt to nature; The revolutionist; 1850. There is a bibliography of four pages and the book is indexed.
“Written in a straightforward, interesting literary style.”
“Taken as a whole the book opens up wide intellectual and imaginative horizons.”
“The book is like some fine-grained granite rock of solid psychological and historical scholarship, all sun-flicked with glinting humor and warm-hearted common sense.” E. F. Wyatt
“Margaret Fuller’s genius was akin to madness, and how far such an analysis of so abnormal a character is of real value is questionable. It is, however, unquestionably well done.”
“To explain Margaret’s hysteria by a purely Freudian hypothesis is folly, and something a good deal worse than folly.”
“Katharine Anthony’s ‘Margaret Fuller,’ a ‘psychological biography’ is infested with preconceptions and is unpleasantly provocative in tone.”
ANTONELLI, ÉTIENNE. Bolshevik Russia. *$2 (3c) Knopf 947
This book, translated from the French by Charles A. Carroll, is from the pen of a former professor of the College de France, an economist and sociologist, who as military attaché to the French embassy studied the Russian situation with its historical background and the character of the Russian ever in view. The conclusion he arrives at is that Bolshevist Russia, “if not crushed by a new ‘Holy alliance,’ will prepare for humanity the spectacle of a singular democracy, such as the world will not have known until then, a democracy which will not be made up of gradual conquests plucked by shreds from a plutocratic bourgeoisie, but which will build itself up out of the very stuff of the people, a democracy which will not descend from the powerful ones to the people, as in all present forms of society, but which will rise voluntarily and surely from the unorganized and uncultivated folk to an organizing intelligence.” (Conclusion) The contents are in two parts: Bolshevism and politics; and Bolshevism and society.
“The detailed recital of events in chronological order is straightforward and clear but for the confusion of names of individuals and of parties and factions which are almost meaningless to an ordinary reader in this country. The psychological analysis of the Russian is interesting, but its over-simplification makes one feel that it is inadequate.” V: E. Helleberg
“His record, covering almost the same period as that of Robins in point of experience, has a much broader historic background and a more carefully scientific sociological basis.” O. M. Sayler
Reviewed by Harold Kellock
“He has not only produced the most authentic record that has yet appeared of the opening months of the second revolution, but has written some of the clearest and wisest words which have thus far been uttered about it.” Jacob Zeitlin
“It is distinctly a relief to read one book about Russia that is not written by a journalist, amateur or professional. M. Antonelli does not describe a tremendous historical upheaval in the manner of a reporter describing a street fight. Some of M. Antonelli’s statements and conclusions are contradictory; but this circumstance merely confirms his general reliability as a witness. Every revolution carries within itself the seeds of many contradictions. It is only the conscious or unconscious propagandist who smooths out all difficulties and represents the acts of his own party as uniformly righteous, correct and consistent.” W. H. C.
“Valuable as well as interesting. The calm, broad view taken and the absence of anything like passion or partisanship are not the least appealing elements in this volume.”
“A colorless but informative historical narrative.”
“Although not himself a believer in Bolshevism, he is capable of judging fairly the administrative aims of the Lenin-Trotsky régime. At any rate his contribution contains more fact and less hysteria than most current publications dealing with Russia.”
“This book inspires confidence in the author’s impartiality and freedom from bias. This is the best book on the subject we know of.”
“A sane and helpful account of his subject.” Reed Lewis
“Written with the clarity and quick intelligence one expects from a well known French sociologist and professor.”
“M. Antonelli describes his work as a ‘philosophical survey’; but the philosophical or rather psychological study of Bolshevism stands out less prominently than the very full and interesting account of the methods by which the Bolshevist leaders grasped and held power during the first few months after their coup d’etat.”
ARMFIELD, CONSTANCE (SMEDLEY) (MRS MAXWELL ARMFIELD). Wonder tales of the world. il *$2.50 Harcourt 398.2
Seventeen folk tales from as many countries compose this collection. Among them are: The food that belonged to all (America); The birds who befriended a king (Arabia); The cattle that came (Bulgaria); Lazy Taro (Japan); The prince and the eagle (Greece); The seven sheepfolds (Hungary); The clever companions (India); Tom of the goatskin (Ireland); Cap o’ rushes (England); The little cabin boy (Norway); The chess players (Wales).
ARMSTRONG, DAVID MAITLAND. Day before yesterday. il *$6 (5c) Scribner
These “reminiscences of a varied life” (Subtitle) are edited by the author’s daughter, Margaret Armstrong. Mr Armstrong was born in 1836 at Danskammer near Newburgh, lived an interesting life as artist, government official and traveler until his death in 1918. The contents are: Danskammer; New York when I was a boy; My brothers; The South before the war; At college; Travels and a shipwreck; New York when I was a young man; Rome—church and state; Some Roman friends; The Campagna; Venice; Saint Gaudens and others; Some pleasant summers; The Century club; My farm at Danskammer.
“It is singular that so sweet and amiable a book should be so interesting, so amusing. So much of the charm of the man seems to me to have got into the book that I expect for it a marked success, and, what is better, a long life in the future.” E. S. Nadal
“A delightful narrative of one phase of American life at its best.”
ARMY and religion; an inquiry and its bearing upon the religious life of the nation. *$2 (2c) Assn. press 261
This inquiry had its origin in the desire of certain British Y. M. C. A. workers “to consider and interpret what was being revealed under war conditions as to the religious life of the nation and to bring the result before the churches.” The first step in the inquiry was the preparation of a questionnaire to be submitted to various classes of persons, including officers, privates and war workers of all classes. This questionnaire covered three topics: What the men are thinking about religion, morality, and society; The changes made by the war; The relation of the men to the churches. The report is in two parts, Part 1 dealing with the facts, Part 2 with religion and the army. The report is edited by D. S. Cairns and has a preface by the Bishop of Winchester.
“The really disappointing section of this volume is that which deals with the remedies. One confesses to some occasional irritation in reading ‘The army and religion,’ due to a certain complacent assumption that the traditional religious synthesis with its dogmatic superstructure is still valid.”
“The witnesses do not always see eye to eye with one another, or report the same thing. The result is a certain impression or spontaneousness and of the actual. The writers do not say what they feel under an obligation to say; or tell us what they, or those behind them, wish us to believe. They give us the facts, as they have come to their knowledge. The compiler, Professor D. S. Cairns, sums up, and he has done so admirably.”
“A document of much importance both in its enlightening disclosure of a state of things in many ways disquieting, and in the suggestions of future policy which arise out of it.”
ARNOLD, JULIAN B. School of sympathy. *$1.60 Jones, Marshall 824
“Several essays and poems are presented by Julian B. Arnold in a volume entitled ‘The school of sympathy.’ The author is the son of Sir Edwin Arnold, author of ‘The light of Asia,’ and is himself favorably known in England as a traveler, archaeologist and lecturer.”—N Y Times
“The reminiscent portions of the book are doubtless the best.”
ARONOVICI, CAROL. Housing and the housing problem. (National social science ser.) *75c McClurg 331.83
“Mr Aronovici’s definition of housing reform is: ‘The furnishing of healthful accommodations adequately provided with facilities for privacy and comfort, easily accessible to centers of employment, culture and amusement, accessible from the centers of distribution of the food supply, rentable at reasonable rates and yielding a fair return on the investment.’ Nor does he overlook the close connection of housing policy with larger aspects of industrial development, distribution and growth of population and national economy. Following the lines of previous studies of social survey methods, he suggests a plan of inquiry for the housing reformer who wishes to arrive at an accurate view of the housing situation in his community and for the legislator who is concerned with improvement of the law. He has no easy panacea for stimulating housing activity or supplanting private by state enterprise, but rather lays down some fundamental considerations without which either must fail.”—Survey
“This small but weighty volume is likely to do a world of good in correcting mistaken view-points and vague programs yet all too current among laymen who tackle housing reform with more enthusiasm than knowledge and wisdom.” B. L.
ARTHUR, SIR GEORGE COMPTON ARCHIBALD. Life of Lord Kitchener. 3v il *$12.50 Macmillan
Lord Kitchener’s private secretary has written his life, now issued in three volumes as the official biography. The marquis of Salisbury writes a preface in which he says, “Sir George Arthur has undertaken the difficult task of writing a life of Lord Kitchener within four years of his death. He has, I believe, in so doing been well advised, and he has produced a work of great value. The interest of Lord Kitchener’s career, its extraordinary culmination, the public enthusiasm which in these last critical years centred upon him, and the dramatic end, demand immediate treatment by a friend whose inside knowledge of recent events from Lord Kitchener’s own point of view is second to none.” There is also a brief introductory note by Earl Haig on Lord Kitchener and the new army. The first of the three volumes covers the early years, the Sudan campaign and the period to 1900. Volume 2 completes the account of the Boer war and deals with India and Egypt. Volume 3 is wholly devoted to the world war and closes with a chapter summing up personal traits. Each volume is illustrated with portraits and maps and there is a full index.
“Sir George Arthur, it will be seen, leaves us with no real vision of either Kitchener or his work. But there is one characteristic which the unreality, the romantic haze, and all the clichés of this biography cannot conceal. Kitchener had a real simplicity and honesty of mind.” L. W.
“The book is good history but not light reading for hero-worshippers.”
“We have a genuine respect for the workmanship of this long-expected and interesting book, but it would be a mistake, we think, to ‘place’ it in the line of great biographies. And for a double reason. Kitchener was admittedly a two-sided man. Wanting the highest military talent, he was still the most conspicuous example since Wellington of the handy-man-soldier.... At the same time, he was capable of thinking and acting for her as a political and a moral force. But Sir George Arthur is the soldier pure and simple, and if politics talks to him at all, it speaks to him in the unsophisticated accents of the Guards’ mess. He is also an assiduous, if an extremely competent, hero-worshipper. There was no need for over-reverence about Kitchener. His character, built in the main on lines of simplicity, crossed with shrewd rather than subtle calculation, would well have borne a more detached view even of its excellencies than Sir George Arthur maintains.” H. W. M.
“The biography is presented with such vividness that the careful reader can discern the man apart from his work.”
“That Lord Kitchener served to the very limit of his powers is amply and nobly proved by these volumes. But they do not solve the deeper problem of the quality of his powers.” H. J. L.
“It is a plain, straightforward story of absorbing interest, told without hysteria, without malice, without criticism of others—differing so widely in this respect from the books of Lord French and Sir Ian Hamilton—but with sound judgment.” F. V. Greene
Reviewed by Archibald MacMechan
“Furnished as he is with a keen sense of proportion and a wide knowledge of men and things, possessor of a literary style which is at once graceful and trenchant, and having at his disposal much documentary matter which few besides himself have seen, he was equipped with special qualifications for undertaking this memoir of one of the foremost figures of our time when he accepted the task. But the very fact of his intimate association with his late chief has in certain directions proved a handicap.”
“Sir George is no doubt better fitted than any other to weigh without undue bias the character and achievements of this outstanding British military figure. His devotion to his chief is revealed throughout, but at the same time he exercises calmness in weighing his strength and weaknesses.”
“Here, with its element of mystery, is a great theme for a master-biography. Sir George Arthur’s three volumes are not that. He is an easy writer with a simple, unaffected style, who for the most part contents himself with a plain narrative of concrete facts. He has, too, something of the reserve of his subject, and when one gets to the difficult and contentious passages in the life he is apt to become general and elusive, a bad fault in a biographer. But Sir George Arthur has the great virtue of honesty with his subject.”
ASH, EDWIN LANCELOT. Problem of nervous breakdown. *$3.50 (4c) Macmillan 616.8
In writing this book on nervous disorders the author has had in mind “the family doctor, the trained nurse, and the anxious relative,” and his main purpose has been “to review the problem as it affects the individual and as it concerns the state; to discuss the origin of the more common disorders, and to indicate in what direction it is possible for us to redress the balance in favour of nerve and efficiency.” (Foreword) The four parts of the book are: The origins of nervous breakdown; the varieties of nervous breakdown: The hygiene of nerve; and The breakdowns of war. There is an index.
“The subjects are discussed temperately and sanely. He has no fads and attacks none, though the field is large.”
“Dr Ash’s book is a timely warning of the dangers of emotionalism as well as an important contribution to the subject of neurasthenia, and it is so free from medical terms that it can be understood by all.”
“This is a commonsense work on a subject which is of universal interest.”
ASHFORD, DAISY (MRS JAMES DEVLIN). Daisy Ashford: her book. *$2 (2c) Doran
A volume containing the remaining novels of the author of “The young visiters” together with “The jealous governes,” by Angela Ashford. Daisy Ashford’s works are: A short story of love and marriage; The true history of Leslie Woodcock; Where love lies deepest; The hangman’s daughter. They were all written before the author was fourteen. Angela Ashford’s offering, “The jealous governes, or The granted wish” was written by that young person at the age of eight. Irvin Cobb contributes an introduction to the American edition.
“We think that the author of ‘The young visiters’ has been unwise to respond to the greedy public’s desire for more. Her new book was bound to invite comparison with the other; it is not a patch on it.” K. M.
“Quite a tome in quantity compared to ‘The young visiters’ but except in the most childish efforts, not so happily naïve in quality.”
“Nothing is to be found either in Sir James Barrie’s introduction to ‘The young visiters,’ or in Mr Cobb’s tribute to the author of these tales, to show us that they believe in the identity of Daisy Ashford or in the claim that their humor is a juvenile product. In fact, at times both seem to be writing in jest more than earnest, or with a superficial seriousness that scarcely attempts to cover up the jest. Sex is the basis of the humor in all these stories, as it was in ‘The young visiters.’” E. F. E.
“None is in the same class with ‘The young visiters,’ though each has here and there a touch worthy of her best year, her tenth, her annus mirabilis.” Silas
“We doubt whether the book will repeat the success of its predecessor. It is hard to say why one doesn’t get as much out of it, but probably it is because a little of this sort of thing is amusing while a good deal palls.”
“These five stories, with their deeply romantic titles, contain enough to give the admirers of the earlier book many of the same thrills of pleasure and amusement.”
“The present writer would unhesitatingly say that it is upon the subjects of meals and packing and costume that ‘Daisy Ashford’ shines pre-eminently.”
“‘A short story of love and marriage’ and ‘The jealous governes’ have the truly original ring of the book that made Daisy Ashford’s name famous and her identity wondered at. But the longer efforts of the new volume are merely uninteresting stories amateurishly told. The charm of the precocious but still unsophisticated mind is gone.”
“None of the surviving products of Miss Daisy Ashford’s pen is quite up to the standard of ‘The young visiters.’ The longest, ‘The hangman’s daughter,’ contains some amusing passages, but it is a more ambitious work, written at a later age, and gives the effect of a burlesque of a ‘grown-up’s’ novel more than of a spontaneous efflorescence of childhood.”
ASHMUN, MARGARET ELIZA. Marian Frear’s summer. *$1.75 (3c) Macmillan
Marian Frear and her mother live together on an isolated little farm on the lake shore. They have been very happy together and keep busily occupied with the vegetable garden that supplies their living. But Marian misses the companionship of other girls and the lack of educational opportunities troubles both mother and daughter. Then a happy family of young people comes to spend a summer on the lake. Marian learns to play with other young people and in the fall finds the desired way to education open to her.
“A cheerful, wholesome, natural story for girls.”
“The young people are simple and natural and the incidents are never strained to produce dramatic effects, but those who have lived in the country may feel that the absolute superiority of Marian and her mother to all their neighbors is exaggerated.”
ASLAN, KEVORK. Armenia and the Armenians from the earliest times until the great war (1914). *$1.25 Macmillan 956.6
“In this little volume an Armenian historian gives a concise account of the rise and progress of his people, including the formation of Armenian royalty, the early religious ideas and customs, the conversion to Christianity, the dawn of Armenian literature, and finally the four centuries of bondage to the Turk. Many little-known facts have been gleaned from the somewhat obscure records of this long ill-treated people.” (R of Rs) “The work is translated from the original French by Pierre Crabites, whose introduction is an impassioned plea for Armenian independence.” (Dial)
“While at times the author seeks to present his nation in the most favorable light, as in the omission of any mention of the outrages perpetrated by the revolutionary societies at the close of the nineteenth century, his book is free from any attempt at propaganda. Unfortunately, this cannot be said of the preface written by M. Crabites.” D: Magie
“It is a concise and readable outline, giving not only the main currents of political development but also some information concerning economic and social organization.”
“Unlike most writings on the subject the history is stated in a matter of fact way free from propaganda.”
“There is grievous need of a map and almost equally of an index. But the book is good and solid, sober with historical sense and conscience.”
“A carefully prepared, though naturally sympathetic, history.”
ASQUITH, MRS MARGOT (TENNANT). Margot Asquith, an autobiography. 2v il *$7.50 Doran
With astonishing frankness Mrs Asquith tells the story of her life and when she says in her preface that she has taken the responsibility of the telling entirely upon herself, one can easily believe her. Her dash and courage and unconventionality, her affectionate nature and clever wit, her social position and close association with events and people of prominence make the book unusual. In her own words, she has related of her “manners, morals, talents, defects, temptations and appearance” as faithfully as she could. Her reminiscences are all of a personal nature without reference to politics and public affairs. Both books are indexed and illustrated.
“Mrs Asquith is a sentimentalist, and a sentimentalist of the worst kind, one who keeps it all for herself. She imagines that she is a very rare, very misunderstood person. She has made a serious mistake in writing this book; in it she delivers up her secret to the first-comer. Her book is really a very dull one unless it is regarded as an unconscious self-revelation. From that aspect it is quite interesting though the type it reveals is not very intriguing.” J. M. M.
“The self-revelations of Margot Asquith and those of Benvenuto Cellini present more than one parallel. Margot Asquith’s autobiography is essentially human. She has painted a portrait of herself that will live, and she has filled in the background with pictures of many who are sure of a permanent place in the history of English literature and of the politics of England.” J. C. Grey
“Few writers have at once the intimate acquaintance and the analytic tendency to put forward such keen and living figures. We can hope to possess very few such living documents as is this record of the last forty years.” D. L. Mann
Reviewed by H: W. Nevinson
“Being a woman born into a society where her game was to be charming, and where she had no chance to be seriously educated, we find her at the age of fifty-six publishing idiocies that Marie Bashkirtseff was too sophisticated to utter at fourteen, and never once attaining Marie Bashkirtseff’s noble realization that ‘if this book is not the exact, the absolute, the strict truth, it has no raison d’être.’” F. H.
“Her lack of reticence is, plainly, offensive to good taste. It is not the less offensive because it is apparently entirely unconscious. The surprising thing is, however, that with all the material for interesting memoirs that Mrs Asquith should have stored away in her mind, she has given us relatively so little that is of any permanent value.” Stanley Went
“The book is fascinating from the first page to the last.”
Reviewed by R. R. Bowker
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“It is after a fashion moral in tone, even religious, as is apparently, the writer’s character; it is reticent in political matters; and it is undeniably clever. With a little more pruning Mrs Asquith’s ‘Autobiography’ might have been a valuable and innocent record of a memorable society and an interesting period; as it stands, it is a scandal. Not, as we have said, for moral reasons in the narrower sense of the word, but for its wanton disregard of reticence and decorum.”
“The fascination of the book lies in its bold defiance of British literary and social tradition, and its studied departure from the conventional.”
“A book, particularly one written on some of the first figures in the country, should have some solid worth, and represent some substantial judgment. Mrs Asquith prides herself on saying exactly what she likes, on writing exactly what she thinks; but the result is not often judicious, nor of any importance, except as a tribute to the taste of the age.”
“In spite of the errors in taste, and of certain occasional breaks in a style quite admirable when its purpose is considered, the book justifies those who have declared it to be ‘a true piece of literature’ with all that such words import.”
“This autobiography is a revealing as well as an amazing book. The toes on which it treads are all English. Americans may not approve entirely of its material and its bumptious method, but they still find in it much significance and a great deal of entertainment.”
“Mrs Asquith has moved through great scenes; but the motion is a flitting, rather than an act of spiritual observation, and therefore when she sits down to recall her impression, it is apt to lack both sharpness and refinement.”
“She is not well equipped for the panoramic display of the outer world, and the remarkable fulness of her opportunity in that direction is largely wasted. Mrs Asquith is no story-teller, it is not her line; she lacks the seeing eye and the vivifying phrase. And yet she elects to write a book that is all storytelling, all an attempt to reproduce the brilliant phantasmagoria in which she has lived.”
ASTON, SIR GEORGE GREY. Memories of a marine, an amphibiography. il *$5 Dutton
“This volume is in autobiographic form and while it does not pretend to be a complete story of the author’s life it is written along autobiographic lines. The writer gives us some account of his subaltern days, when he was a student and then a budding naval officer. Then he recalls the period of the disturbances in Ireland and the Phœnix park murders. But he soon leaves this region for the East. It is the pleasant side of naval service that he shows us. After this sea experience, the writer tells of his transfer to the admiralty office in London and his experiences. He gives an agreeable account of Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee in 1887, at which the German Crown Prince Frederick, father of the recent Kaiser, was a conspicuous figure. Then, in 1889, Sir George though not then knighted—had an experience at the staff college. Then, later, there were some vigorous experiences to record in connection with the war in South Africa.”—Boston Transcript
“The book is one to be read with enjoyment and interest.”
“Sir George throughout his narrative is chatty, never tedious or prolix and intersperses his story with frequent anecdotes, which are always fresh and well told.”
“Altogether, he has given us an exceedingly attractive addition to the literature of reminiscence.”
ATHEARN, WALTER SCOTT. National system of education. (Merrick lectures) *$1.50 Doran 377
“Professor Athearn frankly states that the church cannot ask the state to teach religion, but the church can teach religion at odd hours during the week and on Sunday. The church can and must organize and administrate a national system of religious education that will parallel and correlate with the national secular system which is in process of formation at the present time. He regards the Smith-Towner bill as a large step in the direction of a unified, national, secular system of education, and accepts it as a challenge to the educational leadership of the church to produce a program which will be equally scientific, equally democratic, and equally prophetic. His discussion of national control, or direction, of a system of secular and religious education is extremely worth while at this, the most critical, time in the history of education in the United States.” (School R) “Bibliography on educational organization and administration.” (Booklist)
Reviewed by J. A. Artman
“Timely and vital book.”
ATTLEE, CLEMENT RICHARD. Social worker. *$2.50 Macmillan 360
“‘The social service library,’ of which this is the first volume, is issued under the ægis of the University of London Ratan Tata department of social science and administration. The subjects dealt with in order, each subject being treated under certain general sub-headings, are Social service and citizenship, Charities (these are classified, and one section discusses Waste and over-lapping), Organization, Social service in conjunction with central and governing authorities, the Qualifications and training of the social worker (a talk on the subject which would be of great value to all entering on social work), Religious agencies, The settlement movement (one of the subheads is, The school mission), Varieties of social worker; and there is an instructive chapter at the end on The social service of the working classes (The friendly society—The trade union—The cooperative society—The working men’s club—self-education).”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is written in a philosophical spirit and with close-hand knowledge of the subject. Although its descriptions of the various agencies is based on British material, the book as a whole is bound to be useful for the American social worker and student of social problems.” J. H. T.
“The book is full, racily written, and made alive with interesting first-hand illustration.”
“To an American social worker possibly the chief interest of the book is the philosophy of the author. He reflects a modern faith in the power of the community as such to deal with the conditions that menace social welfare.” P. R. Lee
“The book is a singularly thoughtful and instructive study of a subject in which a widely interested public really needs well-considered guidance.”
AUDOUX, MARGUERITE. Marie Claire’s workshop; tr. by F. S. Flint. *$2 (3½c) Seltzer
“Marie-Claire,” to which “Marie Claire’s workshop” is a sequel, was published in 1911. Marie Claire is now employed as a seamstress in a workshop in Paris, and the book describes her life and work there, with character studies of her shopmates. Monsieur and Madame Dalignac are the kindly proprietors and they are portrayed vividly as are Sandrine and Bouledogue and Duretour and her lover and Gabielle and the others. There is also Clement, Madame Dalignac’s nephew, who wishes to make Marie Claire his wife. The strain of working against time to fill a promised order, the monotony of the dull season when there is no work, the everyday contact of the girls, all enter into the picture.
“Very simple and very real, told with sympathy, grace and a fine, sure artistry, this picture of ‘Marie Claire’s workshop’ is a most appealing book.”
“In short, this is a special type of realism, and the cumulative effect of it ... recalls as its nearest parallel, not prose but verse, Hood’s ‘Song of the shirt.’” Calvin Winter
“This is a book for gentle souls; although it is too deeply human for the ingenuous.” A. G. H. Spiers
“Possesses all the qualities of its forerunner, truth, serenity, freshness, keen observation, united with a deeper understanding of human nature and an even wider sympathy.”
AULT, NORMAN. Dreamland shores. il *$3 Dodd 821
Poems for children with such titles as My dog, Clouds, Ducks, Pirate gold, The wind, The weathercock, The magic garden, Seasons, Noah’s ark, The moon’s adventure, The clock-man, Travels, A castle in the air, Tree-top. There are six colored plates and other illustrations by the author.
AUMONIER, STACY. One after another. *$2 Macmillan
“Success jostles failure in the pages of Mr Aumonier’s latest novel. His hero is his own biographer, and we follow him through a picturesque childhood, along a divergent manhood, and into a more or less ebullient middleage. When the end of the story, but not the end of his life, is reached, we find that after adverse beginnings he has become a prosperous business man, whose temperamental sister has caused him more trouble than any of his own emotions, that he has been twice a happily wedded husband, that he is the loving father of a very desirable daughter, and the expectant grandfather of a child whose father has sacrificed himself to the god of battle in the great war. Except for that single episode near the end of the story, the chronicle has to do with the ways of national, if not individual peace.”—Boston Transcript
“It is rich and poor, cold and hot, dull and deeply interesting. But the impression of the whole is of something which has just not succeeded.” K. M.
“Readers who care for presentation of character rather than for plot, will like this, though some describe it as tedious. Not for the small library.”
“Although his theme and the form of his story are conventional, Mr Aumonier has written in ‘One after another’ an unusual novel.” E. F. E.
“‘One after another,’ though reminiscent of Butler and Bennett, is of the very recent type, the vegetable school, that deals pleasantly with mediocrity at its best.”
“By this sharp definition of the generations blended with his brooding sense of life’s fundamental continuance, Mr Aumonier has made his book as suggestive as it is entertaining and as philosophical as it is concrete.” L. L.
“The novel is one whose appeal will be to those who care for style and thought rather than for plot and incident. It is a better book than ‘The Querrils.’”
“Naturally the interest is of the quiet rather than of the exciting order, but the situations are well thought out and the human interest and humor of sound quality.”
“Here is something to be read by both the new generation and the old, for it links them together, with a fine understanding of both.” D. W. Webster
“The development of the narrator’s character is, to our mind, particularly well done—a very difficult task, and taken altogether the author more than justifies the high opinion we hold of his abilities.”
“The book tends more to reflection than to entertainment, and is considerably above the usual run of modern novels.”
“Mr Aumonier in this work, while displaying a good deal of keenness alike of observation and thought, fails in the essential task of creating people that impress us as individual and significant. Mr Aumonier’s touch, however, is incisive and dramatic. And, in intention at least, he is not commonplace.”
“The scenes are described with the ability which ‘The Querrils’ showed Mr Aumonier to possess; but the book is less carefully constructed, and the sense of incomplete finality which marred the effect of the earlier novel in this one is more obtrusive. Mr Aumonier studies situations rather than characters, and in contriving a situation with a climax that is dramatic but not ‘stagey’ he has a particular skill. At the same time, the book has a tendency to fall into vaguely connected episodes, while the characters approximate too closely to collections of impersonal attributes.”
AUSTIN, MARY (HUNTER) (MRS STAFFORD W. AUSTIN). No. 26 Jayne street. *$2 (2½c) Houghton
The action of the story takes place in the year after America’s entrance into the war. Neith Schuyler, the heroine, has lived abroad with an invalid father for a number of years, and following his death has done relief work in France. She returns home hoping to learn to understand America. To come nearer to the problem she leaves the luxurious home of her two great aunts and takes a modest apartment on Jayne street, just off Washington square. Here she comes into contact with many shades of radical opinion and contrasts it with the “capitalistic” attitude of her own family and friends. Two men fall in love with Neith, Eustace Bittenhouse, an aviator, and Adam Frear, a labor leader. She becomes engaged to Adam and then learns that there has been another woman in his life, Rose Matlock, one of the radical group. The attitude of the two women, who represent the new feminism, puzzles Adam and he leaves for Russia. Eustace is killed in France and Neith is left to grope her way into the future alone.
“Rather obscure and vague in some places, it will not have many readers.”
“Both in subject and in treatment, Mrs Austin’s work discloses its kinship to the social novel of Wells.”
“Mrs Austin’s is a sincere and intelligent handling of an intricate subject. Owing to her careful consideration and presentation of the attitudes of her characters the book moves slowly, but it is easy to feel the dynamic forces behind it.” H. S. G.
“Her attempt is original and subtle and its subtlety of presentation is heightened by the fact that, before writing this story, Mrs Austin seems to have steeped herself in Henry James.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“One should not chide Mrs Austin too much for her somewhat blurred vision of the surface, since the greatness of her work lies in the much rarer faculty, which she possesses, of being able to focus on the inner significances.” J. C. L.
“It gives you no more idea of conditions among New York radicals than do the New York newspapers. The story moves slowly and uninterestingly.” Henrietta Malkiel
“The novel which is written primarily for some purpose outside itself is a novel which from the beginning is heavily handicapped. Usually the characters tend, in such instances, to become mere mouthpieces to express such divergent views as the author may wish to have uttered, and its situations are likely to descend into the condition of mere obvious illustrations. Mrs Austin’s new novel, ‘No. 26 Jayne street,’ has escaped none of these dangers. The book is very long, more than a little intricate, and at times profound.”
“Earnestness and background and an adroit hand belong to it, but all its data, its types, its ‘ideas’ are recognizable and timely. Its style may easily be called admirable. But its art conceals nothing. You do not lay down the book with the feeling that it is a big interpretation effortlessly embodied in its predestined form.” H. W. Boynton
AUTOBIOGRAPHY of a Winnebago Indian, ed. by Paul Radin. (Publications in American archaeology and ethnology) pa $1 Univ. of Cal. 970.2
“‘The autobiography of a Winnebago Indian’ is edited with explanatory notes by Paul Radin. A middle-aged Winnebago called ‘S. B.,’ who belongs to a prominent family of the tribe and has had typical experiences, relates them in considerable detail and with great candor. He tells of his youthful amusements and fasts, of his courting and his many affairs with women, of his various travels, of his time spent with shows and circuses, of his term in prison charged with murder, of his conversion to the peyote rite and of his subsequent visions of Earthmaker (God). The narrative extraordinarily adumbrates customs and sentiments which have almost always been studied from the outside but which here have the most intimate ring of actuality.”—Nation
“A human document of extraordinary value alike for the ethnologist, the psychologist, and the lay reader.” R. H. Lowie
“As ethnology the account is of great value, and merely as general reading it is highly delectable.”
AYRES, LEONARD PORTER.[2] Index number for state school systems. 75c Russell Sage foundation 379
“In ‘An index number for state school systems,’ Dr Ayres finds a single number which expresses the average of ‘ten different measures of the diffusion, the quantity, and the quality of the public education received by the children’ of the several states. The ten measures averaged into the index are: (1) the per cent of school population attending school daily; (2) average days attended by each child of school age: (3) average number of days schools were kept open; (4) per cent that high-school attendance was of total attendance; (5) per cent that boys were of girls in high schools; (6) average annual expenditure per child attending; (7) average annual expenditure per child of school age; (8) average annual expenditure per teacher employed; (9) expenditure per pupil for purposes other than teachers’ salaries: and (10) expenditure per teacher for salaries. The publication includes tables giving the index numbers of the several states for the census years since 1890 and for 1918, the resulting ranks of the states at the several periods, the correlation between the several items and the final index, and the correlation between the average of the five items that are based on attendance and the average of the five that are based on expenditure.”—School R
AYRES, RUBY MILDRED. Richard Chatterton, V. C. il *$1.75 Watt
“One fails to fathom the reason why handsome, indifferent Richard Chatterton, jilted as a slacker by millionairess Sonia, should extort an iron-clad promise from a nice old gentleman, never to tell of his departure as a private in the Blank brigade to France where he chums with his own valet and performs the double deed of heroism which wins him the most coveted of English decorations. One word of that and Sonia would never have thrown herself into the artful arms of his false friend Montague. When unavoidable evidence jams upon her slow credence the facts about Richard, she sees him in London, invalided home, and insane jealousy of his pretty nurse makes her conduct still more complicated. Later, the mistaken report of the hero’s death, the showing up of the villain in lurid tints and Sonia’s abrupt disappearance, get things into a grand tangle. The lovers show a genius for miscomprehension that keeps the action going strong until the pallid convalescent is accidentally discovered by Sonia in a convenient sitting-room, where fate and the author have to get behind the two and push them into each other’s arms.”—Pub W
“The triteness of the story is unrelieved by any felicity of style; this is the sort of novel dashed off in a hurry to meet an uncritical demand.”
“There are vivid scenes of departing troops, trench warfare and base hospitals, contrasted with gay glimpses of London society and country life. And pleasant is the mellow romance of the plump chaperone and the ‘God bless my soul’ old family friend—they at least have the saving grace of humor.” Katherine Perry
AYSCOUGH, JOHN, pseud. (BP. FRANCIS BROWNING DREW BICKERSTAFFE-DREW). Abbotscourt. $2 (2c) Kenedy
This is preeminently a story of human kindness with enough of harshness in it to throw the kindly people and their doings into relief. The two sides of the picture are represented by two branches of the same family: the clerical, younger son side in spiritual and worldly prosperity throughout successive generations; and the baronet side in as steady degeneration. At last there is a reversion to type in Eleanor, the physically and mentally sound and beautiful daughter of the ramshackle Sir Anthony Abbot of Abbotspark, whom the Rev. Thomas Abbot of Abbotscourt heroically resolves to adopt into his family on her father’s death. The story revolves around poor Eleanor’s plight as a misfit both in the vicar’s family, surrounded by kindness, and in her dissolute brother’s house, exposed to his low designs. To escape both she flees into an unknown world and when her trials have reached their climax a veritable conspiracy of kindness and good will bring her back to life and love.
“The story is a vivid picture, drawn with the author’s customary skill, of provincial social life in ecclesiastical circles and interest is well-maintained.”
“There is something delicately feminine about John Ayscough’s handling of his theme, his humor, his almost imperceptible irony. ‘Abbotscourt’ cannot be called a great book, nor would its author claim such a distinction for it. But it is worth reading for its style, its purity, and for that fragrance as of lavender and old lace which permeates its pages.”
“It is worth dwelling on the method of approach to the characters; it differs so greatly from much that passes for character drawings now. It is open perhaps to a smile here and a shrug there, but it is supported nevertheless upon a basis of thought which though delicate is secure.”
AYUSAWA, IWAO FREDERICK. International labor legislation. (Columbia univ. studies in history, economics, and public law) pa *$2 Longmans 331
“This book traces the origin and development of international labor legislation from the time of Owen (1818), with chapters on progress toward international agreements (1890–1900), labor conferences and treaties (1900–1913) and the labor development of the world war. Part 2 deals with the difficulties in international labor legislation and Part 3 with the Washington conference of 1919 including a summary of the discussion of the eight-hour day and the employment of women and children.”—Am Econ R
“The assembled material will be useful to the student in the field of labor, even though he may be puzzled by several indefinite references and by some errors (possibly typographical).” Amy Hewes
Reviewed by J: B. Andrews
BABSON, ROGER WARD. Central American journey. (Interamerican geographical readers) il $1.20 (3c) World bk. 917.28
This is the story of the Carroll family in their travels through Central America—an attempt to combine in the form of a story for children and an account of travel, certain information on our commercial relations with our southern neighbors. Its aim is to teach children that, in the process of linking nation with nation the world over, friendly trade relations contain the romance of the immediate future, that they imply human relations, fair dealing, and honorable business standards. Among the contents are: Castles in New Spain; The gateway of the world; The great waterway; On the trail of Columbus; A plantation in Costa Rica; Mules and mountain trails; The ancient land of Nicaragua; The wonders of a wilderness; The treasure of San Juancito; The small republic of Salvador. The book has an index and many illustrations.
BABSON, ROGER WARD.[2] Fundamentals of prosperity; what they are and whence they come. *$2 Revell 174
“In this book the statistician of Wellesley Hills holds that we must look to religion and not to modern efficiency methods to insure national prosperity. He contends that down to this hour, mankind (or humanity—or the world at large) has lost its way, chiefly because of its refusal to accept the golden rule as the basis of true living.”—Springf’d Republican
“It is a courageous book, inspired by an unshakable faith in the pricelessness of character, filled with wholesome advice to business men, and garnished with anecdotes that would be equally appropriate at a meeting of the stock exchange and a dinner party.”
“It is a business man’s call to business to change its aim, a sermon of a high order of eloquence that if heeded would change the course of civilization.”
BABSON, ROGER WARD. W. B. Wilson and the Department of labor. *$2 Brentano’s 353
“The present head of the Department of labor at Washington has had the kind of life history that is often described as ‘typically American,’ but it happens that he was born and passed his childhood days in Scotland. He was taken from school at the age of eight and sent to the mines. As he grew up he worked as a common laborer, iron miner, locomotive fireman, lumber-jack, log-driver, farmer, and union organizer. He was sent to Congress from Pennsylvania for three terms, and when the Department of labor was created he became by President Wilson’s appointment the first Secretary of labor. All this and much more is told in the present volume by Roger W. Babson, the statistician, who was himself formerly chief of the Information service of the Department of labor. Mr Babson’s book describes and analyzes the machinery and policy of the department.”—R of Rs
“A well-constructed and interesting biography.”
“It is a little hard to tell where Babson begins and Wilson leaves off, for the biographer has not been quite able to play the part of Boswell to his Johnson.” J. E. Le Rossignol
“Mr Babson has both succeeded and failed. He has done effectively what he set out to do. He has failed to do the much greater thing, such for example, as that which Graham Wallas has accomplished in his life of Francis Place. In a word, his book is not a biography insofar as biography is an art.” W. L. C.
BACON, FRANK. Lightnin’; after the play of the same name by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon. il *$1.75 (3c) Harper
A novel made from a popular play of the same name in which Mr Bacon has been playing the title part. Lightnin’ Bill Jones, so-called because it doesn’t describe him, is a gentle, genial old humorist who keeps a hotel in Calivada, on the California-Nevada line. In fact the state line runs thru the house, so that divorcees wishing to obtain the advantages of the easy divorce laws of one state might do so and at the same time enjoy the privileges of a California resort. Two land sharks, who for reasons of their own, wish to get control of the property, talk Bill’s wife and adopted daughter into their scheme, and then, unable to win Bill’s consent, persuade the wife to get a divorce. But their plans are foiled, and Bill with his genius for “fixing” things also brings about a happy ending to the love romance of two young people.
“The pathos and humor of the play seem dry and forced in the story. Still the charm of old ‘Lightnin’ Bill’ Jones stands to some extent.”
“The author continually insists that Jones is a ‘lovable character,’ but to the reader he seems no more than a lazy, shiftless, old drunkard, who looks to his wife and daughter for sustenance. Mr Bacon does not succeed in freeing the narrative from the atmosphere of the footlights.”
BACON, SIR REGINALD HUGH SPENCER. Dover patrol, 1915–1917. 2v il *$10 (4½c) Doran 940.45
“At Dover during 1915, 1916 and 1917, more operations were initiated and carried out than under any naval command since the wars at the beginning of last century.” (Preface) The author enumerates his reasons for writing the book: to write while memory is still accurate; to fill the need for an adequate account of the work of the Dover patrol; to contradict the untrue statements of the press anent his dismissal. Contents of volume 1: Historical; The ships of the Dover patrol; Matters of strategy; Coastal bombardments; The work of the trawlers and paddle mine-sweepers; The Belgian coast, its patrol and barrages; Landing the guns on the Belgian coast; A proposed attack on Ostend; Preparations for a great landing; Plans for blocking Zeebrugge and Ostend; The control and protection of traffic. Contents of volume 2: The incomparable sixth flotilla; The downs and merchant shipping; The barrages in the channel; The drifters and their tasks; The French coast; C.M.B.’s, M.L.’s, submarines and smoke; Operations; The air services of the Dover patrol; Dover harbour and dockyard; Epilogue; Appendixes; Index. Each volume is abundantly illustrated and supplied with charts and diagrams.
“An important contribution from the standpoint of historical truth.”
“As a question of strategy one of the most interesting parts of the book is that dealing with the plans drawn for a joint army and navy effort to turn the enemy out of his Belgian bases.” C. C. Gill
“Admiral Bacon’s book has in it much matter for the layman and much for the expert. For that reason it is more shapeless than have been many books written about the war. For that reason also, it is a truer presentment of the conditions obtaining.” Muriel Harris
“For this lucid and sailor-like account of an essential service Admiral Bacon deserves praise.”
“This notable book wavers a little between treatise and narrative, but it is well worth reading all the same. A certain sense of grievance animates Sir Reginald Bacon’s pages. But it only obtrudes itself here and there, for instance, in a tendency to belittle the method of Admiral Keyes’s attack on Zeebrugge.”
“Sir Reginald Bacon’s detailed narrative of the Dover patrol is a well-written and highly interesting book, which will rank with Lord Jellicoe’s history of the grand fleet among the chief authorities on the naval side of the war.”
“It is a striking and interesting narrative, gracefully related, with a thousand sidelights on this little-known field of naval operations.”
“The 633 pages of ‘The Dover patrol’ are crowded with statements of fact, criticisms not indeed of persons (for, apart from his official enemy, and vague indications of contradicting sinners, Admiral Bacon is generous in his tone to his colleagues and subordinates), but of principles and the methods of the art of war at sea. Admiral Bacon sometimes writes expressly for the professional reader, but he remembers the little knowledge of most of us, avoids pedantry, and has a respectable share of the blessed faculty for making things clear.”
BADEN-POWELL, SIR ROBERT STEPHENSON SMYTH. Scoutmastership. *$1.50 Putnam 369.4
This “handbook for scoutmasters on the theory of scout training” is the American edition of the author’s book on British scout training with a few alterations by way of adaptation. Its arguments are elaborations on the four main principles on which, according to the author, scout training is based, and which require of the scoutmaster that “(1) He must have the boy spirit in him; and must be able to place himself on a right plane with his pupils as a first step; (2) He must realize the psychology of the different ages of boy life; (3) He must deal with the individual pupil rather than with the mass; and (4) He then needs to promote a corporate spirit among his individuals to gain the best results.” After the introductory exposition of these principles the contents are: How to train the boy; Character; Health and physical development; Making a career; Service for others; Reconstruction; The education act and the Boy scout; The attitude of labour towards scouting; Be ye prepared; Appendix.
“A readable handbook.”
BAFF, WILLIAM E. Inventions, their development, purchase and sale. *$2 Van Nostrand 608
“This book is essentially a manual on the marketing of inventions.... In its broader aspect it is a book on business policy and is sent out on its mission of enlightening inventors and others about plans by the aid of which inventions may be profitably exploited.... The problems discussed are the manufacturers’ problems as well as those of the individual inventor.” (Preface) Among the subjects covered are: Value and price of patents; Gauging the merits of an invention; Developing inventions; The market for inventions; Patents as property; Inventor and capitalist; Elementary contract laws. The final chapter consists of Suggestions from the author on every phase of selling inventions. There is an index.
“It should prove of essential service to the inventor who is about to market his ideas.”
BAILEY, CAROLYN SHERWIN. Broad stripes and bright stars. (For the children’s hour ser.) il $1.50 (3½c) Bradley, M. 973
A series of stories from American history. The author says, “I have written this book because I believe that the story of the American people as it is embodied in the history of our United States supplies the most important material for character building in the entire field of elementary education, and should be offered to children in a new, humanitarian way as a means of helping them to understand the present.” (Preface) The stories are arranged chronologically and include: Pilgrims for freedom; The first fight; The freeman’s charter; Following the beaver’s trail; At the gate of old Harvard; Ringing in the fourth of July; In the wake of the first steamboat, etc. A chronology of main events referred to comes at the close.
“The stories are well told.”
BAILEY, CAROLYN SHERWIN. Wonder stories. il $2.50 (3½c) Bradley, M. 292
All the well-known myths are here retold for boys and girls. There is an introduction on How the myths began, followed by the stories of Prometheus, Pandora (Hawthorne’s “Paradise of children”), Vulcan, Orion, Perseus, Pegasus, Phaeton, Apollo, Mercury, Proserpine, Jason, the golden apples, the wooden horse, and others. There are six pictures in color by Clara M. Burd.
“An attractive collection.”
BAILEY, HENRY CHRISTOPHER. Barry Leroy. *$2 Dutton
“When the story opens Barry is a spy in the service of Napoleon; the war is on between France and England. Barry had learned to believe in the people who were fighting for liberty and equality. But there comes a time when Barry’s regard for the French consul is turned to contempt and hatred. The abduction and execution of the Duc d’Enghien, whom Barry knew to be loyal to Napoleon, was the cause of his revolt. Asserting that he would never forgive the Little Corsican for his cold-blooded treachery, he goes over to the other side and offers his services to the British. He forces a duel on Nelson at one moment and saves his life at the risk of his own at another.”—N Y Times
“Rather disconnected and has not quite the charm or vivacity of ‘The gamesters’ or ‘The highwaymen.’”
“In criticizing Mr Bailey’s methods in portraying his most difficult figures, I would not subtract from the extent of his accomplishment. He has, we must admit, failed in Napoleon and Nelson. ‘Barry Leroy’ is an excellent story in spite of this lack. It possesses the fine dash, the romance, the joy of adventure for itself, that we have come to associate with other times than our own.” D. L. M.
“Throughout the book the action never lags; there are no dull moments. As a spy-story having an historic background and interwoven with a charming love affair, ‘Barry Leroy’ is above the average in construction and sustained interest.”
“The fantastic vein of the story is well sustained, though necessarily told in episodes with little organic connection, as if written for serial publication.”
BAILEY, LIBERTY HYDE. Nursery-manual; a complete guide to the multiplication of plants. (Rural manuals) il *$2.50 Macmillan 631.5
“Rewritten and reset, L. H. Bailey’s ‘The nursery-manual’ is off the press in its 22d edition. It deals fully with seeds, layers, cuttings, buds, grafts and otherwise. To those who are acquainted with the earlier editions—the first having been issued early in 1891—little introduction is needed, save to say that the material is brought up to date with addition of observations gained in further research. An extended alphabetic list of plants with full directions for each is included. The volume also includes an illustrated account of the main diseases and insects of nursery stock, valuable to the commercial grower.”—Springf’d Republican
BAILEY, TEMPLE. Trumpeter swan. il *$1.90 Penn
“The hero, a young soldier, returns from France to face changes of fortune and soon to realize that the girl he loves has lost her heart to another man. How Randy makes good, writes the romance of ‘The trumpeter swan,’ and wins back the wandering heart of his lady, is all set down. Interwoven is the minor story of baby Fiddle Flippen.”—Boston Transcript
“The plot of Temple Bailey’s latest story is practically nil, but its settings are wonderfully picturesque. The hills of old Virginia and the moors of Nantucket are powerfully contrasted to furnish a background for a readable light tale.” C. K. H.
“Her readers will like this new book. The love passages are wholesome, strike the note of sincerity, and therefore cannot but be acceptable.”
Reviewed by Marguerite Fellows
“A good simple natural harmless story.”
BAIN, FRANCIS WILLIAM. Substance of a dream. il *$1.75 (3½c) Putnam
The author disclaims all responsibility for his stories which he says come to him “suddenly, like a flash of lightning all together.... I never know, the day before, when one is coming: it arrives, as if shot out of a pistol.” (Introd.) This exotic Hindu tale is half love-story, half fairy tale, and depicts in the extraordinary queen, Táráwalí, a being half male half female. It is in three parts: On the banks of Ganges; The heart of a woman; and A story without an end.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Those who have read Mr Bain’s other Hindu stories will not need to be told of the unique place he now occupies in the world of letters. Here the exigencies of space will permit us to say only that ‘The substance of a dream’ is a worthy successor to the other and earlier volumes.”
“‘The substance of a dream’ will please those whom the other books of the author have pleased. It is very feminine; sensuous to the point of orgies of kissing; sensual with soulhuntings and langours and faintings; fleshly in artistic ecstasies; and psychological in imaginative suggestion.”
“By no means the least delightful of Mr Bain’s long series of Indian romances.”
“You cannot say whether his style is artful or artless; but the words make new associations for us, create an unfamiliar state of being, though they are familiar words.”
BAIRNSFATHER, BRUCE.[2] Bairnsfather case; as tried before Mr Justice Busby; defence by Bruce Bairnsfather; prosecution by W. A. Mutch. il *$2.50 Putnam 827
In alternating chapters Bruce Bairnsfather and W. A. Mutch tell the story of Mr Bairnsfather’s life and struggles for success. There are illustrations from Bairnsfather drawings.
“If anything in late years has been more amusing than Mr Bairnsfather’s adventures in print, it is his adventures in black and white as drawn by himself. Forty drawings grace the book, and many of them are better than the original ‘fragments.’”
“It has that satirical note without which a whole book of humour is apt to be sticky reading.”
“The whole book is a happy means of bettering one’s acquaintance, book fashion, with the delightful Bairnsfather.”
BAKER, ERNEST. Life and explorations of Frederick Stanley Arnot. il *$5 Dutton
“Mr Arnot died in May, 1914, at Johannesburg, having just completed his ‘Missionary travels in Central Africa.’ He first went to Africa, inspired by the story of Livingstone, in 1881, and during his seven years’ residence gained the friendship of the King of the Barotse and was held in much esteem by the natives. Altogether he made nine journeys to the centre of Africa, and his self-devotion and the vast distances he traversed give him a high place among travellers and among missionaries. His life story is worth telling and it is given almost entirely in extracts from his own letters and diaries.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“A valuable contribution to the literature of brotherhood and religious democracy.”
“Arnot was a noble character, and deserves a much better biography.”
BAKER, GEORGE PIERCE, comp. Modern American plays. *$2.25 Harcourt 812.08
Professor Baker has in this volume collected five American plays chosen from the output of the last ten years because decided success has been theirs, and they are worthy of professional revival, and because the selection shows the greatest possible variety. In his introduction he briefly analyzes each of the plays and ends his general remarks on American play-writing with the assurance that “We have the right to hope that the next decade will give us an American drama which, in its mirroring of American life, will be even more varied in form, even richer in content.” The plays are: As a man thinks, by Augustus Thomas; The return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco; Romance, by Edward Sheldon; The unchastened woman, by Louis Kaufman Anspacher; Plots and playwrights, by Edward Massey.
“All the plays collected here are significant—all have added to the pleasure of playgoing. This book makes their remembrance the richer.” W. S. B.
“Most decidedly, these are not the measure of American drama. They are just five American plays. When a man has done what Professor Baker has done at Harvard, it is disappointing to find him fathering so trivial a venture as the collecting of these five dramas into a single volume.” K. M.
“All these pieces, probably, profit by being printed in their entirety, but a somewhat deliberate study of them leads to the conclusion that, judged by any moderately critical standard, only two of them would be marked for revival on account of their actual merits. The best of them, by all odds, is the somewhat awkwardly named ‘As a man thinks.’ Of the other pieces in the list, ‘The unchastened woman’ is the only one that has substantial or abiding value.” J. R. Towse
“Four out of the five at least have interesting stories, and are flawless in their adaptation to the theatre; but gayly as they trip on the stage, they drag a little in the reading.”
“This book is intended to interest both readers and amateur players. It has, perhaps, no great significance as a compendium of modern American drama but it should serve its purpose.”
BAKER, KARLE (WILSON) (MRS THOMAS ELLIS BAKER) (CHARLOTTE WILSON, pseud.). Blue smoke. *$1.50 Yale univ. press 811
“The poems have been written ‘at intervals since 1901,’ the author says, and consequently their moods are various.” (Springf’d Republican) “Love, children, the cause of woman all move her to song. Among other pieces we have specially noted the well-handled conceit called ‘Winter secrets’; the happy introspective fancy called ‘The lost one’; the truly heartfelt elegy for ‘The dead fore-runner’ of the woman’s movement; and the delightful literary reverie called ‘The love of Elia.’” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“These poems are not all smoke. There are many glowing embers and a few blazing coals. Mrs Baker shows something of antique restraint and not a little of the newer and freer impulse.” C. M. Greene
“Not ambitious in manner, Mrs Baker has the soundness and felicity of art to make her themes poetically alive.” W. S. B.
“Hers is a gentle gracefulness, a light timidity that succeeds most when it is least emphasized.” L: Untermeyer
“Mrs Baker’s metaphors from nature have an almost unexampled finesse. She draws down trees, birds, stars, prints them on her page with a diamond delicacy, heats and lights them into a tender, fiery transparency. Her ideas are often second-hand, and her ardors, sweet and genuine though some of them, particularly those for her children, may be, are not perhaps distinguished enough to wear well. The solid core of her work, however, though small, is fine.” M. V. D.
“‘Blue smoke’ is a book of happiness and hope. It is unpretentious, modest, and sincere. The poems read as though publication had been an afterthought; they were not written to catch an exclusive or ‘appreciative’ audience.”
“Mrs Baker, an American writer, is a craftswoman of much skill, who is never at a loss for ideas, various and fruitful, and can fit them to apt expression. Hence her book is always interesting, though it does not succeed in giving us the thrill of beautiful utterance.”
“Possibly given overmuch to introspection, at times a little over-wistful, this poet gives only her best. Her style is simple, vivid, never précieuse; there is perfect ease in all the beauty of these songs.” E: B. Reed
BAKER, RAY PALMER, ed. Engineering education. *$1.25 Wiley 620.7
“These fourteen selected articles, written during the past decade by eminent engineers and scientists, are designed not only to inform engineering undergraduates concerning the broad aspects of their profession, but to serve as examples of good English. Simon Newcomb and Sir J. J. Thomson discuss the origins of engineering education; J. B. Johnson and Howard McClenahan deal with the types of engineering education; the relation of language to the profession is considered by J. J. L. Harrington and C. P. Steinmetz. The place of mathematics is discussed by Sir W. H. White and Arthur Ranum; physics by M. A. Hunter and R. A. Millikan; chemistry by J. B. C. Kershaw and Alfred Senier; and the role of the imagination in engineering by Isham Randolph and J. C. Smallwood. The editor is professor of English in the Rensselaer Polytechnic institute.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
“Each is not only well chosen for its primary purpose of use in engineering schools but might also be read, or read anew, by engineers in practice.”
“It strikes a reader that these addresses, each advocating the claim of some one branch of science, interesting as they are, would have been more useful if there had been a recognition of the distinction between what should be included in the school course preceding the technical course, in the technical course itself necessarily restricted, and what extra academic self-education should be expected to accompany and follow it.” W. C. U.
BAKER, RAY STANNARD (DAVID GRAYSON, pseud.). New industrial unrest; reasons and remedies. *$2 (4c) Doubleday 331
“The battle is on” between employers and employees, says the author in explaining the raison d’etre of the present volume whose object it is to “present a survey, for the general reader, of the present industrial crisis, and the various reconstructive experiments now under way to meet it.” It is the author’s conviction that the problems are very pressing, very real and intensely human and that, if the American people can only be made to see and know and understand where truly reconstructive experimentation is going on and who are the thoughtful leaders on both sides, they will decide aright regarding them. Some of the contents are: The industrial crisis as it appears from above to the capitalist-employer; The industrial crisis as it appears from below to the worker; The imputed causes of the unrest; The real causes of the unrest; Awakening of the public to the industrial crisis; Approaches to a solution of the problem—by political action, as suggested by the workers—the new labor party; The new shop-council system as applied in a typical small industry—the Dutchess bleachery at Wappingers Falls, New York; Development of the shop-council system in America—method of organization—the movement in England and Germany; Foundations of the new co-operative movement in industry: the new profession of management, and the labor manager.
“As a trained journalist, he sees the problem clearly, without that hard definiteness such as an economist who is more reliable but less readable, usually believes essential to correct understanding.”
“Combining the lucidity of the trained writer, the quick eye of the reporter and the orderly reflectiveness of the born philosopher, Mr Baker’s birdseye view of what is wrong with American industry is the best book of its kind which has yet appeared.”
“There is nothing the matter with Mr Baker’s observation, as far as it penetrates, but it does not penetrate to the causes which maintain the struggle in spite of anyone’s reasonableness or good intentions.” G: Soule
“He is always the reporter standing outside, trying to understand a technical problem and to help his audience to understand.” Ordway Tead
Reviewed by J. E. Le Rossignol
“An outlook free from confusing prejudices and a well disciplined ability to obtain facts were carried to the inquiry. Mr Baker’s principal prepossession seems to have been a desire to learn those things which are favorable to the public well being. That, I take it, is not an insuperable handicap. On the whole there is perhaps no other single book which tells so well and so truthfully the story of a large and important part of ‘the new industrial unrest.’”
“Mr Baker’s writings are in more or less popular style which makes them decidedly readable without detracting in the least from the accuracy of the facts which he presents.”
“Mr Baker’s honesty and fair-mindedness verge upon genius—though they are plainly aided by his refusal to break through the surface where he is unable to see clearly.” W: E. Walling
BAKEWELL, CHARLES MONTAGUE. Story of the American Red cross in Italy. il *$2 (4c) Macmillan 940.477
The story tells of the material aid that the American Red cross gave to Italy: at the front, in canteens, in assistance to hospitals, and in helping refugees and the needy families of soldiers, but the emphasis is put less on its achievements than on its contribution to a better understanding between our two people and on the finer and more discriminating appreciation of Italian character that our workers in the field have invariably gained. Some of the topics are: The American relief clearing house; The Baker commission, Red cross emergency commission; Organization; Civilian relief and the “inner front”; Cash distribution to soldiers’ families; Station canteens; Rolling canteens; Surgical dressings; Hospital supplies; Hospitals; Work with American troops in Italy. There are numerous illustrations and statistical appendices.
“A readable book not overloaded with statistics.”
BALDWIN, CHARLES SEARS. God unknown. *$1 Morehouse 231
A study of the address of St Paul at Athens, based on lectures delivered at Columbia and Indiana universities. There are five chapters: Religion in the open; Greek and Jew; Philosophy and religion; Personality; Symbol and reality. The author is professor of rhetoric and English composition in Columbia university and has written a book on “The Bible as a guide to writing.”
“One feels grateful for such an intellectual and scholarly work as that of the author of this small volume, who has made real one of the most famous events of ancient times.”
BALDWIN, JAMES, and LIVENGOOD, WILLIAM WINFRED.[2] Sailing the seas; introd. by E: N. Hurley. il *$1 Am bk. 656
“A sailor’s imaginary log, full of interest for boys and written at the request of the U.S. Shipping board to promote in the younger generation an understanding of the development of types of American boats of commerce, of the interdependence of peoples and of the importance of the merchant marine. Includes whalers, tramp steamers and ocean liners.”—Booklist
BALDWIN, MARIAN.[2] Canteening overseas; 1917–1919. *$2 Macmillan 940.48
“What one Y. M. C. A. worker saw in France is told in a collection of letters written by Marian Baldwin and published under the title of ‘Canteening overseas.’ The dates on the letters run from June 30, 1917, to June 19, 1919. The first one was written on board the ship that took Miss Baldwin to France and the last one from Coblenz. Between the two are letters from Paris, Bordeaux, Aix-les-Bains, the Lorraine sector, the Argonne, the St Mihiel front, from Verdun and from Germany. All the letters are reprinted as they were originally written, except for the insertion of names of places, persons, and a few other indications, which, because of the censorship, had perforce to be omitted from the letters as mailed from Europe.”—N Y Times
“There is a gay spontaneity in parts of the book, a sincerity running through it, and more than all else it serves to reveal the effect of these dark days of service, of endurance, often of hardship upon the writer herself.”
“These letters are made vivid by a natural descriptive touch, by an ever-present sense of humor, and by an admirable spirit.”
BALDWIN, SIMEON EBEN. Young man and the law. (Vocational ser.) *$1.50 Macmillan 340
“Professor Baldwin, ex-chief justice and ex-governor of Connecticut, bears a leading name in the history of the legal profession. He discusses the majesty of the law and the lawyer as its minister, the cultivation of mind and heart incident to the legal profession, the lawyer’s various opportunities, the personal and educational qualities requisite of success, and the ideals of the profession.”—Boston Transcript
“The dominant note of the book is its idealism. Judge Baldwin has the fortunate faculty of seeing things at their best.”
“Eminently worth while for any young man who is thinking of the law as his profession.”
BAMBER, MRS L. KELWAY, ed. Claude’s second book. *$1.60 (7½c) Holt 134
“This book records a continuation of the ‘talks’ already published in ‘Claude’s book,’ which described a young airman’s first impressions and experiences of life after death in the spirit-world in which he suddenly and unwillingly found himself when he was killed.” (Preface) The present volume is furnished with an introduction by Ellis Thomas Powell and some of Claude’s “talks” are: Some difficulties of mediumship; The circle of power; Ideal sitters; Spiritualism and occultism; Man’s reincarnation; Dreams; The power of mind; Spirit helpers; God—the war—the Christ-spirit; Development of personality; The prerogative of spirit; Prayer.
“In this second book of Claude’s talks with his mother, we find a considerable advance in thought. Certain chapters, such as that on prayer, would be recognized for their worth, even if they were entirely disassociated with this type of book.”
“The explanations themselves are as unconvincing and improbable as usual.”
BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK. Cheery way. *$2 Harper 811
“A bit of verse for every day” says the subtitle, and, indeed, the verses contain a cheery message for every day in the year, full of courage, humor, sympathetic understanding of all human moods, and good advice. The page decorations by J. R. Flanagan are in four designs, one for each season.
“These little stanzas are full of the philosophy of good humor with some real gospel messages.”
BANGS, MARY ROGERS. Old Cape Cod; the land, the men, the sea. il *$3.50 (4c) Houghton 974.4
The table of contents indicates the scope of this book about Cape Cod. The chapter headings are: The land; The old colony; The towns; The French wars; The English wars; Theology and whaling; Storms and pirates; Old sea ways; The captains; The county; Genius loci. There are eight full-page halftone illustrations from photographs and two end maps, one a modern map of Cape Cod and the other a facsimile of a part of Captain Cyprian Southack’s map, made in 1717. There is no index.
“One of the best Cape Cod books.”
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
“Good stories of pirates, Indians, and sea captains make the book lively reading.”
Reviewed by E: L. Pearson
BANKS, LOUIS ALBERT.[2] Winds of God. *$1.75 Funk 252
A volume containing thirty of the author’s sermons, among them: The east wind; The north wind; The whirlwinds of life; The need of a red-blooded Christianity; The banishment of anxiety; The sorrows of a tangled soul; The freedom of the city of God; Abraham Lincoln; The blessings that come from prayer; The romance and joy of the pioneer; Keeping the soul alive; The Bible ideal of a noble womanhood.
BANNERJEA, D. N. India’s nation builders. *$3.50 Brentano’s
“Fifteen biographies and character sketches of eminent Indians whom the author regards as pioneers of modern India. The leaders include Sir Rabindranath Tagore, Keshab Chandra, Sen., Dadabhoy Naoroji, Gopala Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and others.” (Brooklyn) “The writer would urge, by constitutional means, the immediate grant to India, subject to the stability of the empire as a whole, of a substantial measure of self-government.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup Jl 10 ’19)
“The defects of the book lie on the surface. The author follows neither a logical nor a chronological order of treatment. But when due allowance has been made for these unfortunate short-comings, Mr Bannerjea’s realistic character-sketches are on the whole satisfying, critical and varied enough to attract American readers to a closer study of the Indian point of view.” B. K. Sarkar
“It is unhappily evident that Mr Bannerjea, for all the sedulous good nature and tolerance which he consciously or unwittingly affects, caters for the kindly enthusiasts who find the careful study of historical origins a bore and an impediment to their pious belief that all men are alike, that India is and always has been ‘a nation,’ and that British administration is an oppressive and obsolete anomaly.”
BANNING, MARGARET CULKIN. This marrying. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
In this tendency novel the problems of the modern woman are sympathetically discussed. Horatia Grant has taken a course in journalism at college and breaks away from her dull, respectable, middle-class home to make her own way. She shocks her relatives by taking a desk at the Journal, a progressive daily of socialistic leanings with its editor, Jim Langley, socially under a cloud. She meets a new class of people, acquires new outlooks, faces new problems. Putting herself and her friends to the test she learns to discriminate between the real and the acquired instincts. She finds herself and she and Jim Langley find each other.
“The success of the story lies not in an original plot, nor even in an unusual manner of telling the story, but rather in a certain freshness and joy in the experience of it all.” D. L. M.
“The book is so distinctly pleasing, and is written with such unmistakable sincerity, that one passes over the blemishes—very trifling, after all—and gives himself up to the quiet enjoyment of a work that maintains its interest throughout without any strain or outbreak of violent emotion.”
“Whether one does or does not think all the incidents probable, one cannot help enjoying the genuine American enthusiasm of Horatia.”
“A bright and busy story.”
BARBOUR, RALPH HENRY, and HOLT, H. P. Joan of the island. *$1.75 Small
“The story opens in an extraordinary way, by a sailor slipping overboard into the South Pacific ocean, just after killing the captain of the tramp steamer in which he sailed. The escaped sailor, who has taken with him no baggage save just a life-belt, is a strong swimmer and after some thirty hours of alternately swimming and floating, the fugitive reaches shore on an island of the South Sea. It is inhabited and the traveller lands just in time to save Joan, the heroine, from injury at the hands of an angry native. With such a beginning proceeds a romance of the Sulu sea and islands. Joan and her brother are the only whites in this vicinity and the brother is absent in another island, leaving his sister who is in care of a great Dane. The dog is poisoned by a treacherous native and Joan is barely saved from attack by the sudden entrance of the fugitive. Of course there are adventures without number, thrilling escapes from peril, a love episode and a pleasant ending.”—Boston Transcript
“Fairly readable.”
“This is as good a novel of adventure as has appeared for some time, not only because there is a clean-cut story, but on account of the splendid lucidity with which it is related.”
“The story is hardly more than mildly interesting.”
BARBOUR, RALPH HENRY, and HOLT, H. P. Mystery of the Sea-Lark. il *$1.75 (3c) Century
Jack Holden and his chum George Santo salvage an abandoned sloop, the Sea-Lark, and fit her up for use as a ferry boat. Sometime before, Jack’s father had been forced to sever relations with his business partner, Simon Barker, under a cloud of suspicion and Jack is glad of the opportunity to help out the family finances. The venture is a success, but the boys are surprised at the sudden desire of two strangers to buy the boat. Then comes a series of strange midnight visits and finally both boat and boys are kidnapped and taken out to sea. They outwit their captors and in solving the mystery of the Sea-Lark clear Mr Holden’s good name and restore the stolen money that had been the foundation of the trouble.
“What a boy will call a ‘dandy yarn.’” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“A capital story for boys.”
“The story is well told and the interest is cumulative.”
“A good mystery story which, refreshingly, is quite free from German spies.”
BARCLAY, FLORENCE LOUISA (CHARLESWORTH) (MRS CHARLES W. BARCLAY). Returned empty. *$1.75 (5c) Putnam
A strange story of reincarnation. Luke Sparrow is brought up in a foundlings’ home, where the only clue to his identity is the label found on him bearing the inscription “Glass with care” on one side and on the other “Returned empty.” He is a lonely baby, and grows up to be a lonely man, with one queer trait: he has a passion for peering thru the windows of comfortable homes, as if seeking for something he cannot find. And then one day, he finds it in the home of a beautiful woman. She tells him the strange story that explains his life. In a previous incarnation he had been her husband, and at his tragic death, she had grieved so deeply that her love had called him back to this world to live again. But this great love, altho it brought them together, cannot keep them so, and she steps out of his life again leaving him infinitely richer, for the short remaining span of his life, for the contact.
“She has made a most appealing story which will interest readers who do not usually number Mrs Barclay among their favorite authors.” Cornelia Van Pelt
BARCLAY, VERA C. Danny again; further adventures of “Danny the detective.” il *$1.25 (5c) Putnam
This sequel to “Danny the detective” is a book of short stories. The first is a wartime story in which Danny again appears as the captor of a German spy. The other titles are: Christmas eve; A sporting kid; A midnight adventure; The secret room; In mid-air; Dicky’s chance; The bishop’s story. Some of the stories are reprinted from The Wolf Cub, an English Boy scout publication.
BARCYNSKA, HÉLÈNE, countess. Rose o’ the sea (Eng title Pretty dear). il *$2 (2c) Houghton
Eccentric Henry Eton was the only father Rose had ever known since he had rescued her from the sea sixteen years before. Now at his death, she determines to go to London to make her way alone rather than stay in the little village which is so lonely without him. She is fortunate in London to fall at once into a congenial occupation and among friendly people. Among her new acquaintances is Denis Mallory, a lovable, wayward boy, whose father, Lord Caister, is much worried about the lad. Rose’s sweet spirit and common sense so appeal to the father that he arranges an engagement between Rose and Denny hoping thus to keep the boy straight. They both try to enter into the arrangement honestly altho Rose realizes she is doing it for Lord Caister’s sake rather than for his son’s. But when she comes into a large inheritance Lord Caister’s pride releases her from the agreement, which Denis, by a hasty marriage with an actress, has already made impossible. There is now no barrier between Rose and Lord Caister himself except pride, and that is finally broken down by Denny’s tragic death.
“The heroine is remarkably artless; a little too artless, indeed, to seem real—in this world, at all events. The author’s experience as a writer of eminently readable fiction enables her thoroughly to enlist the reader’s interest in this wild-flower heroine.”
“A novel which many girls and women will like.”
“Rose in ‘Rose o’ the sea’ is a sort of female St Francis of Assisi. The novel may help an undiscriminating mind to while away a dull hour.”
“It is a little story sure to delight every lover of impossible romance.”
BARKER, ARTHUR.[2] British corn trade; from the earliest times to the present day. (Pitman’s common commodities and industries) il $1 (2½c) Pitman 338.1
The term corn trade in British usage includes “all trade not only in wheat, ... but also in any other cereal for which there is any commercial demand, such as barley, oats, maize, rye or rice.” Contents: The British corn trade and its units; The corn trade in old England; The English law on the “cornering” of wheat and other grain; Two hundred and fifteen years of wheat prices in England; The corn laws era; The growth and development of the modern corn trade; The effect of the great war on the corn trade. There are notes at the close and an index.
BARKER, D. A.[2] Great leviathan. *$1.75 (2c) Lane
Tom’s life was regulated by principle. As a lad at Harrow his principles brought him into trouble because they ran counter to the rules of the school. Later they interfered with his adopting a settled career and he led a wandering life as a lecturer against social evils. Even as a child he had begun to look upon marriage as wrong, for he had witnessed his mother’s unhappiness, and free unions had become a matter of principle with him. He makes a convert of his beloved Mary. At first they are happy, but as little by little the great leviathan breaks her spirit, love goes and she leaves him. His other endeavors also meet with the world’s scorn and a complete nervous breakdown is the result. After his recovery he goes to India and there he joins a devout and aged Hindoo on his last pilgrimage and finds peace in the “glory of God” as taught by the Bhagavad Gita.
“For a first attempt it is a commendable piece of work, but it does not—if one may be permitted the expression—cut any ice. It is pleasantly written, and there are many happy touches, but we are never certain as to what it is that the author is after.” K. M.
“Mr Barker’s story is really very well told, he is greatly in earnest, and the ideals he handles are much ‘in the air’ just now, especially in England.”
“A clever account is given of how he spoils his life by his experiment in evading the chains of matrimony. The end of the book is not quite so convincing.”
“Technically ‘The great leviathan’ is interesting as showing what Mr Wells’s technique may become in unskilful hands. But the book, though a failure, is an interesting failure. Mr Barker could not have written it without learning a good deal of the difficulties of novelwriting. He has things to say. His next book will probably be worth reading.”
BARKER, MRS HELEN GRANVILLE (HELEN MANCHESTER HUNTINGTON). Songs in cities and gardens. *$1.25 Putnam 821
The princess’s garden, The narrow glass, To snow, The garden on the hill, The wayfarer, The playmate, Lost gardens, On the river, Songs of the rain and the wind, are some of the titles from part 1 of this collection of poems. Part 2, containing the Songs in cities, is devoted to such themes as: The house; The portrait; Night, and the curtains drawn; Beyond knowledge; Old age; Twilight; To fire; The city; Harvest of dreams. A note says that some of the verses have been printed in earlier books by the author, now out of print.
“Mrs Granville Barker’s great technical accomplishment is the source both of her triumphs and of her failures. Sometimes she is simply exercising her ingenuity in the void, creating bubble-shapes of a tenuous and fleeting prettiness. But at other times, when she has good material on which to employ her skill, she produces finished and distinguished work.”
“Mrs Barker’s verse may not be for those who can ‘see heaven in a grain of sand,’ but it has a quality that intelligence and taste can thoroughly enjoy.” W. S. B.
“These songs are quite short and slight little wisps of fancy, as it were. But one cannot read on without being truly moved by the passing thoughts so tenderly expressed.”
BARKER, J. ELLIS.[2] Economic statesmanship; the great industrial and financial problems arising from the war. *$7 Dutton 330
“The publishers have brought out a second edition of J. Ellis Barker’s ‘Economic statesmanship.’ When this book was first published in the autumn of 1918 the negotiations at Spa and Versailles were still in the future. The new edition accordingly includes about two hundred additional pages dealing with problems and movements which have come to the front during the last two years. About half the new material relates to the economic position and future of Russia and Japan.”—Am Pol Sci R
“The descriptive and analytical features of the book are admirable; they contain a wealth of economic facts condensed in statistical form and ably presented to the reader, retaining his interest throughout with no sacrifice of accuracy and precision of detail. Mr Barker does not succeed so well in the development of the theoretical features of his book.” E. S. Furniss
“One may not agree with all Mr Barker’s conclusions, but there is no doubt that his book is a storehouse of important facts and figures.”
“Neither in the views expressed nor in the compilation of statistics is there much matter of importance for the American student: moreover, many of the chapters are inevitably out of date.”
BARNETT, EDWARD DE BARRY. Explosives. *$5 Van Nostrand 662
In this volume of the Industrial chemistry series “the author has endeavoured to give a clear but concise account of the manufacture of explosives, together with an outline of the methods used for investigating this class of substance.” (Author’s preface) Contents: Introduction; Gunpowder; Explosive compounds; Smokeless propellants; Blasting explosives; Safety coal mine explosives; Percussion caps, detonators and fuzes; Matches, pyrophoric alloys and pyrotechny; Explosive properties; Sensitiveness and stability; Conclusion. A brief bibliography follows the introduction. Other references come at the chapter ends and there is an index.
BARNEY, DANFORD. Chords from Albireo. *$1.50 Lane 811
This is the author’s second volume of poems. “Dust of stars” was published in 1916. “The present collection includes the work that Mr Barney has done since the publication of his first volume, and hence covers the varied periods before his enlistment, during his service in France, and since his return and discharge.” (Foreword) The four sections of the book are headed: 1917; France; 1919: By the sea. The foreword is by Lawrence Mason of Yale university.
Reviewed by W: S. Braithwaite
“‘Chords from Albireo’ is a worthy successor to his ‘Dust of stars.’ It marks a deepening of the poetic instinct and a firmer grasp of technique. Mr Barney’s work is important because of its spontaneous evocation of moods, its impressionistic appeal to the senses.”
“My complaint against Mr Danford Barney is that my understanding is a horse which he overworks—and starves. All this would not have been worth saying in this place, had Mr Barney been destitute of poetical capacity.” O. W. Firkins
BAROJA Y NESSI, PIO. Youth and egolatry. (Free lance books) *$1.75 (4) Knopf 868
“When I sat down to begin these pages, somewhat at random, my intention was to write an autobiography, accompanying it with such comments as might suggest themselves. Looking continually to the right and to the left, I have lost my way, and this book is the result.” (Epilogue) The result is a collection of aphoristic, partly whimsical, partly cynical, always sincere sketches of the author himself, his personality, his beliefs, his literary opinions and inclinations, the main facts of his life. The translation from the Spanish is by Jacob S. Fassett and Frances L. Phillips with an introduction by H. L. Mencken who says of the writer that he is more Spanish than most of his famous contemporaries. The contents are grouped under: Fundamental ideas; Myself, the writer; The extraradius; Admirations and incompatibilities; The philosophers; The historians; My family; Memories of childhood; As a student; As a village doctor; As a baker; As a writer; Parisian days; Literary enmities; The press; Politics; Military glory. The appendices are: Spanish politicians; On Baroja’s anarchists; Note.
“Baroja is a Latin: lucid reasoning and clear patterns of thinking teach him to gauge and adapt life.” Stark Young
“The book is annoying and at the same time distinctly fascinating. The pages that are worth while are immeasurably fewer than the worthless ones; but these are so worth while that the book’s existence is justified.” C. W.
“He is wilful and headlong, but sometimes discerning in his literary judgments.”
BARR, MRS AMELIA EDITH (HUDDLESTON). Songs in the common chord; songs for everyone to sing, tuned to the C major chord of this life; introd. by Joseph C. Lincoln. *$1.50 Appleton 821
“From among the hundreds of poems I have written during forty years I have saved enough to make a small volume which some day I may publish.” So Amelia E. Barr is quoted in the introduction to this, the promised small volume. Among the titles are: The great happiness; The old piano; Lost flowers; The empty purse; At fifty years; Quiet hours; An old street; Harvest song; A country place in heaven; The tree God plants; At the last; A writer’s question.
“Mrs Barr frankly was content with fireside narrative and easy injunction, with good deeds and cheerful rhythms. Her rhythm occasionally cantered too fast, so that her cheeks flushed and her bonnet bobbed; but there always was a halt somewhere, with no real effect of a runaway.” M. V. P.
“Mrs Barr was no master of the flaming phrase, to be sure, yet she had her felicity of line. What she looked at she saw clearly, and there was something of the folk quality in the best of her work.”
BARRETT, WILTON AGNEW. Songs from the journey. *$1.25 Doran 811
Among the contents of this book are poems reprinted from Poetry, the Forum, Contemporary Verse, Boston Transcript, McCall’s Magazine, and “Victory,” Mr Braithwaite’s anthology of peace poems. The author employs both free verse and regular meters. Titles are: Songs from the journey; A New England church; To a pair of scarlet tanagers in the square; Soldiers, behold your beauty; The valley and the shadow; The holiday; A song of fulfillment.
“Mr Barrett is one of the quieter young American poets who is not likely to be very much talked about, but who will leave an influence upon his readers wherever his book finds them.” W. S. B.
“Novel conceits of fancy expressed with appealing grace and fraught with the glamour of dreams.”
“Once only, in ‘Songs from the journey,’ does Mr Barrett touch authentic poetry—in the suave and colorful ‘The vase.’ The book is not distinguished verse.”
“Mr Barrett is a poet of great promise, a spirit clear-eyed and keen.”
“He has mastered the not too recondite, yet also not too facile, secret of expressiveness in free verse.” O. W. Firkins
BARRON, CLARENCE WALKER. World remaking; or, Peace finance. *$1.75 (4c) Harper 330.9
“All history is bound up in the human problems of personal and national finance—personal and national protection to daily subsistence.” (Foreword) It is the object of the book to set forth from the point of view of the financier and the enemy of socialism “the true relations between the work of capital and the work of hand, and the relation of both to the labor of brain,” and to show their bearing on our present-day problems. Some of the articles are: England the great war loser; England’s weakness and restricted output; Ships and shipping; The value of the pound sterling; Protection and protected shipping; Reducing hours and increasing efficiency; The spirit under British finance and business; The social unrest; Peace “without victory”; Helpless Russia; Indemnities and signatures; Socialism versus democracy; Inflation by currency, war bonds, and taxes; Are we to pay for German intrigue at Panama? Bolshevik danger and the remedy.
“The book is gossipy and readable, and yet is trustworthy, for Mr Barron had entrée to authorities who talked freely.”
“There are many little affectations of speech scattered through the book which some may find irritating. But it is, nevertheless, a good book and well worth reading.”
BARRUS, CLARA. John Burroughs; boy and man. il *$3.50 Doubleday
“The incidents here related have been told me by Mr Burroughs himself, and are sanctioned by him. During the midsummer and fall for many years past I have wandered with him over the fields and hills and through the woods where he roamed as a boy. In these rambles he has pointed out the places where the narrated events occurred. He has explained in detail the curious and interesting ways and means of long ago—old-time ways which will never come again. And not only in his youthful haunts, but also during many an evening by the fireside at The Nest, he has again recounted the childish recollections, the boyish pastimes, and the youthful dreams recorded here.” (Preface) After a characterization of the “grown-up boy” and his forebears the contents are grouped under the headings: Childhood; Boyhood; Youth; Maturity. There are numerous illustrations and an index.
“Originally intended as a boys’ life of Burroughs, this is full of the human, humorous life of the country boy, with the story of the work and play of the man written in a way to interest readers of any age.”
“Cheerfully condescending and commonplace. Mr Burroughs deserves something better.” D. M.
“It is true to the life, sympathetic and intimate. No admirer of John Burroughs can do without this pleasant book.”
“It is a good book for boys and girls as well as for older people up to the nineties.”
BARRY, RICHARD HAYES. Fruit of the desert. *$1.50 Doubleday
“A race of sun-worshippers, the Sunnites, rescue the hero, left starving on the desert of Arizona by bandits. He finds his new friends to be survivors of an ancient civilization. Inevitably, as in all stories of this type, he falls in love with their high priestess and escapes with her to the less romantic but more comfortable life of every-day America.”—Outlook
“Having elected to write a romance, and a romance of a very romantic sort, Mr Barry is entirely justified in using romantic methods and in paying just as little heed as pleases him to probabilities. He writes with the skill of a craftsman, he keeps the interest well sustained.”
BARTHOLOMEW, WALLACE EDGAR, and HURLBUT, FLOYD.[2] Business man’s English, spoken and written. il *$1.48 Macmillan 808
“Bartholomew and Hurlbut have prepared a book which ‘intends to interpret English as used by the careful business man of today.’ Chapter I of this book indicates the need of a study of business English. Succeeding chapters take up such subjects as the business vocabulary, ‘Common errors,’ clearness and emphasis in written expression. Chapters VIII, IX, and X deal with oral English. Five chapters are devoted to the study of various forms of letters. The subject of advertising is given thorough consideration.”—School R
Reviewed by Brander Matthews
“The book is well organized for use as a textbook. Persons giving English courses in secondary schools will find it helpful.”
BARTLETT, WILLIAM HENRY. Handbook of American government; rev and enl ed. by H: Campbell Black. *$1.25 Crowell 353
The last previous edition of this book appeared in 1912. The present revision is designed to cover changes since that time, including three amendments to the constitution, changes in the judicial system, and changes brought about by the war. The editor has also “taken advantage of the opportunity to explain or discuss at greater length various important topics mentioned in the original text, and to introduce comments or explanations of some clauses of the constitution, or of the practical working of government under it, which had not previously been included.” (Editor’s note)
BARTLEY, MRS NALBRO ISADORAH. Gorgeous girl. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
Stephen O’Valley became rich quick. He strained every nerve to become so because he wanted to marry the “gorgeous girl,” Beatrice Constantine, the spoiled daughter of wealth. When the engagement gaieties, the wedding and honeymoon were over, and Steve proposed to Beatrice that they quiet down and “find themselves” the disillusionment began. A perpetual round of social excitement, a reckless spending of money was Beatrice’s entire world and Steve’s comparisons between her and Mary Faithful, his right hand in business, became more searching. In time Mary assumes the rôle of critic holding the mirror up to Steve, to show not only his own life but Mary’s heart. When the failure of Steve’s business sends the heartless Beatrice to Reno another kind of “gorgeous girl” takes her place.
“Nalbro Bartley has mastered the style of American magazine fiction. She has the light touch, the gift for quick, clever characterization and a modicum of American slang. It is quite noticeable that the women of the story are much more real creations than the men.”
“While Nalbro Bartley’s new story of ‘The gorgeous girl’ cannot be called particularly convincing, it is less glaringly improbable than some of her other tales. The book has some neat phrasing, Mary’s home life is nicely sketched, and there are a few clever touches of characterization.”
Reviewed by E. C. Webb
BARTLEY, MRS NALBRO ISADORAH. Gray angels. *$1.90 (1½c) Small
The first notice the world took of Thurley Precore was when she “sang for her supper” and then continued to sing herself into people’s hearts generally. The rich ghost lady heard the voice in her living tomb and came out to take Thurley to New York and give her a musical education. She became a prima donna, lived in an intimate circle of first class artists, experienced their disappointments, their boredom and the restlessness of fame. She tried to become reckless and flirted with the forbidden, when her singing teacher, also a man of genius, whom she secretly loved, set her right by confiding to her his vision of America’s supreme mission in art. Winning the violet crown he called it. Later the war with its war madness showed to Thurley that her own particular mission lay in helping to restore a hysterical people to sanity and to become one of the gray angels to the broken ones of the war.
“The book is entertaining, the characters are well drawn. Fewer characters would have been better. Thurley’s interesting career, with its pleasing denouement, might have been told in considerably less than 420 pages.”
BARTON, BRUCE. It’s a good old world. *$1.50 Century 814
The book is a collection of contributions to various magazines. They all look upon the cheery side of life, pick out the amenities from the commonplaces, and abound in good advice and cheery encouragement for the passengers on this “Good old world” whose “quiet, patient fashion in which he goes around about the same old task, day after day and year after year” the author admires. Some of the titles are: I expect to be entirely consistent—after ninety; A great little word is “why”; The second mile; It’s a moving picture world, and the film changes every few minutes; The fine rare habit of learning to do without; That fine old fake about the good old days; Everybody has something.
“Brief and pithy and filled with common sense philosophy.”
BARTON, GEORGE. Celebrated spies and famous mysteries of the great war. il *$2 Page 940.3
“George Barton has gathered together some of the strange happenings of the war. It is no connected tale of espionage, but rather a series of pen pictures relating to only a few of those involved in the conflict, and those few among the best known. The opening chapter deals with the disappearance of the Hampshire, with Kitchener and his staff; the final one, with the murder of Ferdinand at Sarajevo. In between are such dissimilar persons as Edith Cavell, Capt. Fryatt, Bolo Pasha, Roger Casement, Ram Chanda and Werner Horn.”—Springf’d Republican
“Every chapter reads like an Oppenheim novel in little, and there is matter enough in the book to furnish material for all writers who are seeking plots for stories of mystery.”
“This book contains more promise than performance. Whatever interest the stories themselves might hold is entirely spoiled by the stagey dressing.”
“An especially interesting chapter is ‘Eugene Van Doren and the secret press of Belgium.’ If Mr Barton has told nothing new he has at least gathered together the fragments of interesting and varied careers reflecting differing aspects of the war.”
BARTON, WILLIAM ELEAZAR. Paternity of Abraham Lincoln; was he the son of Thomas Lincoln? an essay on the chastity of Nancy Hanks. *$4 Doran
The author says that this book may be considered a footnote to his earlier book, “The soul of Abraham Lincoln” and as a suppressed preface to a “Life of Abraham Lincoln” which he plans to write. He states that in collecting data for the first book he came upon a considerable body of material bearing on Lincoln’s paternity and discovered that a number of intelligent collectors of Lincoln books and students of history were convinced that Abraham Lincoln was not the son of Thomas Lincoln. “Moreover, the author found himself at length compelled to ask of himself the question, What if these reports are true? And he pursued his investigations with an open mind.... The author has endeavored to trace every rumor and report relating to the birth of Abraham Lincoln, to assemble all the available evidence in favor of it and against it, to judge each one of these reports upon its own merits, and to render what, he believes, is a judgment from which there can be no successful appeal.” The judgment is a refutation of the supposed evidence and the author believes that he has covered the ground so thoroughly that the matter need not be referred to again.
“A convincing study which leaves not a square inch of ground for the scandal to stand on. Mr Barton’s researches have been exhaustive and—barring a few minor slips—accurate.” C. V. D.
“It is undisputedly and indisputably a good work to which Dr Barton has set his hand.”
“A scholarly monograph.”
BARTON, WILLIAM ELEAZAR. Soul of Abraham Lincoln. *$4 (3½c) Doran
“The fact that there are so many books on the religion of Abraham Lincoln is a chief reason why there should be one more.” (Preface) The author explains his volume by stating the considerations which differentiate it from earlier works. He has provided an adequate historical background for the study of Lincoln’s religious life in successive periods and has been aided in this effort by the fact that he spent seven years in the same environment in which Lincoln lived during two important epochs of his career. He has assembled a larger body of essential evidence than any previous writer has compiled, and subjected it to a critical analysis. He has opened several entirely new avenues of investigation and he has set forth his conviction concerning the faith of Abraham Lincoln aside from his theological opinions. Accordingly the book falls into three parts: 1, A study of religious environment; 2, An analysis of the evidence; 3, The religion of Lincoln. The appendices contain extracts from addresses and books of other writers and there is a bibliography and an index.
“For libraries attempting a complete Lincoln collection, though it is rather lacking in charm for general reading.”
“This book is so important in its field that it must be regarded as necessary to any library, public or private, fittingly equipped for the critical consideration of Lincoln’s religious history. His book is so well done that it is likely long to remain the standard work on the subject.” L. E. Robinson
“The conclusion of the whole matter is that despite its entertaining and its authoritative biographical qualities, such a book as ‘The soul of Abraham Lincoln’ is utterly futile. It leaves us exactly at the point of its beginning. In its last page we have no clearer idea of Lincoln’s religious belief than in its first. Despite the mass of material he assembles, Dr Barton proves nothing.” E. F. E.
“His viewpoint, the skilful analysis of conflicting evidence, and the ability which the author shows in reaching a logical conclusion, seems to us to make this book one with which all students of the lives of Lincoln must hereafter reckon.”
“His volume will probably be the final authority on the much-debated topic of Mr Lincoln’s religious faith.”
“Like many others who would like to have Mr Lincoln pictured not exactly as he really was, but as they are eager to think him, Mr Barton labors hard to show what he believes to have been the president’s religious ideas. The result is a new literary portrait of Mr Lincoln, interesting and agreeable in details of the president’s family life, but leaving one unconvinced regarding his religious convictions.”
“Mr Barton has done his work with good feeling and well. In one thing we dissent from him seriously. He quite naturally ascribes Lincoln’s refusal to follow his wife all the way into the Presbyterian fold, or some other, to the weak side of his intellect and character. In all this there is something astray.”
BARUCH, BERNARD MANNES. Making of the reparation and economic sections of the treaty. *$3 Harper 940.314
Having been intimately concerned with the creation of the reparation and economic sections of the treaty, the writer, in his introduction to the book, gives an apologetic review of the then existing conditions. The treaty was made, he says, in the still smouldering furnace of human passion. In the reparation clauses the conference was not writing a mere contract of dollars and cents; it was dealing with blood-raw passions still pulsing through peoples’ veins. He concedes that the treaty is severe but also insists that it is a flexible instrument, qualified to help effectuate a just and proper peace, if that desire and purpose be really present. Contents: How the reparation clauses were formed; Drawing the economic clauses; Reparation clauses; Economic clauses; Appendix; Index.
“He writes with more caution and less indignation than Keynes but his conclusion is essentially the same.”
“It is straight history, instead of being, like Keynes’s book, a blend of history, literary satire and propaganda.”
“Though Mr Baruch is still somewhat under the influence of the pall of Paris, he lifts something of the veil of secrecy, and when he does he speaks with authority, and not as the journalists. It is an invaluable contribution.” L. S. G.
Reviewed by Alvin Johnson
“Mr Baruch seeks to explain, rather than to defend—which is the more enlightening method. His simplicity, candor, and restraint let the reader in to an apprehension of the true facts as he sees them. Where is it, then, that Mr Baruch’s conception of the relations of men and nations fails us and dismays us? Because he counts too low the significance of words. Mr Baruch comforts himself that the parts of the treaty which he hates not less than I do are empty because they are impossible, and harmless because they can never happen. But they have wounded, nevertheless, the public faith of Europe.” J. M. Keynes
“The author has given a valuable account of the matter; clear, dispassionate, uninvolved. His contentions gain in force through the strictness with which he keeps within the field that he has marked out for himself.”
“Should prove a valuable book of reference.”
“Mr Baruch’s chapters are brief and direct, while also persuasive to the point of carrying conviction. The atmosphere in which the work was done is well reproduced. This volume will be a necessary part of every public and private library that includes the essential books relating to the making of peace.”
“His new book is short and concise, but it is in some respects the most illuminating comment upon the treaty that we have seen.”
BASCOM, LELIA. Elementary lessons in English idiom. *$2 Appleton 425
A work prepared in the Extension division of the University of Wisconsin as a textbook for students in correspondence-study. It is “designed to aid two types of students,—those who are not native Americans but who have had a season of study in night school or elsewhere so that they read and write English a little; and those native Americans who are handicapped by a lack of knowledge of good English usage.” The teaching thruout the book is by examples and exercises for practice. Rules are reserved for a summing up at the end.
BASDEN, GEORGE THOMAS. Among the Ibos of Nigeria. il *$5 Lippincott 916.6
“The country of the Ibos is a district in British West Africa on the lower Niger immediately above the delta, and mainly on the eastern bank of the river. The people—some of them—are cannibals and addicted to the offering of human sacrifices with every circumstance of cruelty; they eat snakes, except the python which is sacred; their occupations are primitive, farming, fishing, and hunting—all three it will be noticed connected with the necessity for procuring the prime necessity, food. Their customs will be found detailed in this book.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“There are annoying misprints both in English and Ibo; the map, especially in the southern portion, must be termed misleading, it does not even contain all the names mentioned in the text; but Mr Basden has brought together much interesting material, some of it novel, though in many instances insufficiently localized to be of use to the scientific student. The errors pointed out above need not alarm the general reader, who will find the life of the people set forth in an interesting manner.” N. W. T.
“It is by a missionary of wide experience, rare open-mindedness, and a real gift of observation. He makes no pretension to literary excellence, but has made a book that is entertaining as well as valuable ethnologically.”
“If we did not begin by crediting Mr Basden with sincerity, we should be convinced of it in a few pages.”
BASS, JOHN FOSTER. Peace tangle. *$4.50 Macmillan 940.314
“Mr Bass traces recent diplomatic history from the secret treaties entered into by various nations through the Paris peace conference and the subsequent period. He devotes special chapters to conditions in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, the Balkans, and Turkey. Particular interest attaches to the comment on the League of nations.”—Outlook
“Not so much a study of the treaty itself as Scott or of particular sections of it as Baruch but more an evaluation in terms of actual conditions and hoped for results. Less well organized than Keynes but more detached in spirit (opinions are presented coldly, without any attempt to persuade).”
“His book falls short of some of the other accounts, notably that of Keynes, in organization of material, in charm of style and subtlety of argument. In compensation it offers superior evidence of candor, freedom from preconception and party bias and respect for the independence of the reader’s judgment.” Alvin Johnson
“We know of no better volume to commend either to the man in the street or to the serious student. The matter reveals a keen observation, a rich experience, and a ripe maturity of judgment.”
“It is the best single book that has been written showing how the peace treaty has actually worked in its application to political and economic conditions.”
BASSETT, JOHN SPENCER. Our war with Germany; a history. il *$4 (3c) Knopf 940.373
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Taken all together the account of Professor Bassett is the clearest and best that has yet attempted in one volume the story of our part in the world war. New sources will modify parts of the work, but the main outlines will stand much as this historian has dispassionately presented them. The chief complaint that some readers will make with justice is that the book is placid rather than penetrating or analytical.”
“Professor Bassett has written modestly and intelligently in a field in which it would be easy to go far astray, and has attained more than the ‘reasonable accuracy’ that his preface hopes for. No better book is as yet available for the student interested in our participation in the world war, and no other is so detached and historical-minded as this. The least successful portion of the book is that which covers the obscure yet significant leadership of the United States in the development of the ‘single front,’ military and economic.” F: L. Paxson
“Carefully studied and judicially written, this book is sure to be one of the useful authorities. In a broad survey of the field, the only notable lack is a consideration of the economic effects of the war and of its financing.” Preserved Smith
BASSETT, SARA WARE. Paul and the printing press. il *$1.50 (2½c) Little
Paul Cameron, president of his class in Burmingham high school, conceives the idea of a school paper. With boyish daring he approaches the leading editor of the town with a business proposition and to the great man’s surprise persuades him into printing the paper. The venture is a success and Paul learns much of modern printing methods as well as something of the history of early manuscript books and of printing. The book is the first volume in the Invention series.
“Miss Bassett has made the story readable and enjoyable. One is not too conscious of the didactic intention while on the other hand her information stands out clearly, and she never allows it to be smothered by the story interest.”
BASSETT, SARA WARE. Wall between. il *$1.90 Little
“A feud of four generations between two New England families is the motif of Sara Ware Bassett’s new romance, ‘The wall between.’ Since the days of Great-Grandfather Webster and Great-Grandfather Howe, the two families have quarreled over who shall keep in repair the stone wall dividing their farms. Ellen Webster, a narrow-minded, vitriolic spinster of seventy-five, and Martin Howe, forty, are the respective heads of the families of this generation. Matters change when Ellen brings her young niece Lucy from the West into the old home. Lucy, who has heard nothing of the feud, makes the acquaintance of Howe’s three timid sisters, and eventually meets him. It follows that the two fall in love. On her death bed, Ellen discovers how matters stand with her niece and neighbor and determines on final revenge. When her will is read it is found that she leaves all her property to Howe provided he repairs the long-disputed wall. Otherwise it is to become the town poor farm. The situation develops into a battle between Howe’s pride and the inclinations of his heart. But love, as usual, finds a way out.”—Springf’d Republican
“A wholesome and pleasant, though not remarkable story that will please girls and women.”
“Her previous novels, if one reads right, were somewhat saccharine, but with growing firmness of touch due to experience in writing ‘The wall between’ is more natural, more real, than its predecessors.” R. D. W.
“While different from her ‘Cape’ tales, this story is fully as interesting, for, in spite of its artificialities, it is told with understanding of human nature and the perversion of human instincts.”
BATES, KATHARINE LEE. Sigurd our golden collie and other comrades of the road. il *$2 (3c) Dutton 636.7
Under the first title we have the biography of a beloved dog, household pet of two professional women, teachers in Wellesley college, who tended him from puppyhood until old age ended his career. The other comrades of the road were birds, a cat, and Hamlet and Polonius, another dog and a parrot. Poems occur between the chapters.
“The grownup lover of pets will enjoy this book of dog, cat and bird biography much as children enjoy their numerous animal books. The writer’s fondness for collies is tempered with a sly delightful humor which relieves the book of sentimentality.”
“She has, in short, made literature out of a dog and enshrined one lovable member of that remarkable race in a work as thoughtful as it is delightful. Sigurd, I believe, will take his place among the canine immortals, along with Greyfriars Bobby, John Muir’s Stikeen, and the great dogs of fiction.” W. A. Dyer
“It was almost inevitable that in writing the life-story of Sigurd Miss Bates should have woven into the book so much of the atmosphere of Wellesley that it will take on for the alumnæ of those years the character of an unfading memory.” D. L. M.
“It may be that Miss Bates really understands dog nature, but she has not expressed it here.”
“We like her writing best when it is most bookish. That is its note. We have other books on our shelves aplenty in which the canine hero plays a more tragic or pathetic or even humorous rôle, but none in which he is more humanly literate than Miss Bates’s Sigurd of the golden fleece.”
“Cannot fail to please all animal lovers.”
BATTERSBY, HENRY FRANCIS PREVOST (FRANCIS PREVOST, pseud.). Edge of doom. *$1.75 (2c) Lane
A novel with scenes laid in England, East Africa and on the western front. Rumors of Julian Abingdon’s disgraceful conduct in Central Africa, where he has held official position, reach London, together with an unconfirmed rumor of his death. Believing him still alive and desiring to clear his name, his fiancée, Cyllene Moriston, insists on going out to look for him. His cousin, Jim Chaytor, who has always disliked Abingdon, takes charge of her expedition. Cyllene is stricken with fever and is left in the care of German missionaries while Chaytor goes on to find Julian. He finds him alive and well and living voluptuously with native women and hence desiring to remain officially dead. He does not tell Cyllene the truth; marries her himself and is then separated from her by the outbreak of the war. During his absence she meets Julian, finds that her old love is dead, and turns with full hearted devotion to her husband.
“‘The edge of doom’ is a very capable piece of work, serious without being in any way disagreeable, absorbing both on account of the intensity of the emotion, the consciousness of beauty both in emotion and in the physical aspect of things, and the importance of the historic background.”
“The book reads very much as though the author had started out to write one kind of a story, then suddenly changed his mind and proceeded to produce another. This is the more deplorable because the second part of the book, the war section, is well done and interesting.”
“The story is skilfully told, with a deft, yet sparing use of local colour which helps to carry conviction. It is well worth its place on any bookshelf.”
“The novel part cannot be commended as a story. At the same time there is no doubt that the whole book is well written; the dialogue and the narrative skilfully and vividly handled.”
BAXTER, ARTHUR BEVERLEY. Blower of bubbles. *$1.75 (2½c) Appleton
Five unusual stories based on the war, with a sparkling iridescent quality remote from, yet not antagonistic to, reality. The title story depicts a delightful, apparently carefree personality, a gentleman, university bred, who has no set vocation in life, is a dilettante in almost everything it is possible to be, and who spends most of his time and energy making unfortunate or gloomy people happy: in other words, blowing bubbles. In spite of his weak heart he contrives to get into the war, is permanently crippled, yet sitting in his invalid’s chair in a picturesque garden on the Isle of Wight, blows brighter, gayer, more luminous bubbles than ever before, and gives one person, at least, a lasting happiness. The other titles are: Petite Simunde; The man who scoffed; The airy prince; Mr Craighouse of New York, satirist.
“All are readable.”
“The very fact that the actors are of various nationalities affords a wide scope in character drawing and the author has done this work with an incisive delicacy of feeling which one cannot fail to appreciate. Humor is not lacking and forceful, thought-compelling passages add to the graceful style of every story.”
“They are whimsically written. But the regularity with which the various characters undergo a metamorphosis under the stimulus of the patriotic impulse becomes wearisome.”
“In this brightly written collection of five short stories we have proof—rather sorely needed—that fiction with the recent great war as a setting can avoid bathos on the one hand and obviously false joviality on the other. One of the best books of unassuming and yet purposeful fiction that has seen the light this season.”
“Perhaps the last is the best—‘Mr Craighouse of New York, satirist.’ His visit as a typical American to Lord Summersdale makes a very taking story.”
BAXTER, ARTHUR BEVERLEY. Parts men play. *$2 (2c) Appleton
Austin Selwyn, an American writer in England, has first hand opportunity, in his intercourse with the family of Lord Durwent, to observe the parasitism of the English aristocracy. The colorful personality of Elise Durwent and her latent protest against the uselessness of her class arouse his interest and love. When the war breaks out he sees in it a hideous wrong into which the people of all countries have been trapped by their ignorance. He embarks on a crusade against this ignorance and writes pacifist literature, which leads to a break with Elise. She declares indignantly that, far from crying out against the infamy and cruelty of the war, women feel the glory of it in their blood. The usual thing happens: Selwyn is gradually convinced of the error of his ways and his subsequent bravery in France wins him Elise.
“When he writes of London society as it was before the world war he exhibits a deft, light touch in drawing character sketches. Later he loses his attitude of detachment and ends in a loud outburst of jingoism which sounds strangely hollow in these disillusioned times.”
“The author wrote another novel, ‘The blower of bubbles,’ which proved that he had a facile style, a whimsical spirit, and the power to divine and portray human nature. This book possesses all those qualities and an original undercurrent of philosophy as well.” Katharine Oliver
“A work of considerable promise. It is crude in parts, but crudeness is only a synonym of unripeness, and Mr Baxter’s literary defects are of a kind that experience can cure. Meanwhile, he has a vitality, a gift for swiftly moving narrative, and a creative power in flinging his characters upon the canvas which augur well for his future development.”
BAXTER, LEON H. Boy bird house architecture. il *$1 Bruce pub. 680
Mr Baxter, director of manual training in the public schools of St Johnsbury, Vt., has prepared this book out of his own experience with boy architects. “Each drawing offered is of a proven house, one that has served as a home for some of our songsters and if the directions, here set down, are faithfully followed, equal success will crown the builders’ efforts.” (Author’s preface) Some of the topics covered by the text are: Our friends the birds; Birds that adapt themselves to nesting boxes; Bird house material; Methods of conducting a bird house contest; Bird house day; Winter care of the birds. There are twenty plates with full working drawings for bird houses of various designs.
BAYFIELD, MATTHEW ALBERT. Measures of the poets. *$2 Macmillan (Cambridge univ. press) 808.1
“Mr Bayfield’s aim in ‘The measures of the poets’ is to ‘provide students of English verse with a system of prosody that is on the one hand sound in principle, and on the other not liable to break down when brought to the test of application.’” (Spec) “The broad outlines of Mr Bayfield’s system are fairly adequately apprehended if we blend together our existing notions about a foot in verse and a bar in music. Metre in music is built up out of a succession of equal time divisions marked off by the recurrence of an accent, the accented beat falling at the beginning of each of them. Mr Bayfield considers that the basis of metrical structure in poetry is essentially the same: and he therefore lays it down that the first syllable of every foot must bear an accent. The bulk of English poetry being written in dissyllabic feet or their equivalents, it follows that the typical English foot must be the trochee. The main portion of Mr Bayfield’s primer is devoted to an exposition of the system of scansion which he deduces from this governing perception.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“Mr Bayfield expounds his theory with bold lucidity, and illustrates it with telling examples from every variety of English verse.”
“Like almost all prosodic theories which look at theory first, Mr Bayfield’s necessitates, even on its own showing, endless easements and epicycles to get it to work at all. There is no plain sailing; in fact, Mr Bayfield would seem to agree with Dr Johnson that ‘pure’ metre is dull and inartistic.” G: Saintsbury
“Mr Bayfield’s general treatment and scansions are by no means so convincing as those of his predecessors, [Lanier in ‘The science of English verse’ and Thomson in ‘The basis of English rhythm.’]” J. R. Hulbert
“The principle of his scheme is sound, and in the application of it to English verse he has shown, besides the wisdom of his instinct, a careful patience that is beyond praise.”
“His theory has not cut him off from vital contact with poetry. The things of which he is chiefly aware are the essential things, and to read him is to have the ear quickened to a new enjoyment.”
BAYLEY, HAROLD. Archaic England. *$7.50 Lippincott 942.01
“This is in the nature of a sequel to a book which Mr Bayley published some years ago called ‘The lost language of symbolism.’ He has long been an enthusiastic and industrious student of symbolisms and emblems and their hidden meanings, and of esoteric doctrines generally. The present work is copiously illustrated and offers controversial theories as to the peopling of Britain. Mr Bayley, among other things, sees in the Cretan discoveries a wholly new standpoint for the survey of prehistoric civilization. He believes that the Cretans systematically visited Britain, and that men of Trojan race peopled the island.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“No doubt, Mr Bayley has worked hard and honestly. Use him as a quarry and one will find gold, and, may be, other things. But how accept his doctrine as a whole?” R. R. M.
BAZALGETTE, LÉON. Walt Whitman, the man and his work. *$3.50 (2c) Doubleday
This work, the author says, was for him not a mere literary enterprise, but the fruit of close and fervent communion with Whitman’s work and character. Speaking of Whitman’s universality he says: “The America which dreams and sings, back of the one which works and invents, has given the world four universal geniuses: Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman.... And among these four figures, one of them more and more dominates the group: it is Walt Whitman.” (Introd.) The translator of the volume from the French, Ellen FitzGerald, attempts an explanation of the American masses’ neglect of Whitman, from the geniuses’ inevitable disregard of “untrained” minds, in deference to whom she has taken it upon herself to abridge M. Bazalgette’s treatment of the New Orleans episode and to lighten his emphasis on the “Leaves of grass” conflict. The book is in eight parts: Origin and youth; The multitudinary life; “Leaves of grass”; The wound dresser; The good gray poet; The invalid; The sage of Camden; The setting sun.
“Some remarkable pen portraits, a little Gallic exuberance at times.”
“The Frenchman’s biography, sympathetic and glowingly eloquent as it is, can scarcely rank as an authoritative chronicle of the poet’s life. It possesses, however, multiple values of its own. The translator has taken the liberty of abridging M. Bazalgette’s book. This is regrettable and not easily justified.” J. Black
Reviewed by James Oppenheim
“M. Bazalgette communicates an absolute sense of Whitman’s greatness. His book, like his theme, is ample and magnificent.” V. W. B.
Reviewed by B: de Casseres
“Well informed, and adjusted to all the aspects of his subject, M. Bazalgette has written what is in all points as good a short life of Whitman as a reasonable person could wish. But M. Bazalgette is often illuminating, seldom penetrating.”
“Admirers of Whitman will find it a stimulating and suggestive treatment of the poet from a new angle.”
“The book has been prepared with some care. But M. Bazalgette is inseparable from his subject; his jubilee from page 1 to page 355 is uninterrupted. When the author is too lavish of exclamation points the reader parries with the question mark.”
“The biography, though rhapsodical rather than critical, will rank high among the scarce half-dozen of impressive books about the poet which have appeared in the quarter century since his death.”
BAZETT, L. M. After-death communications. (Psychic ser.) *$1.60 Holt 134
The communications were received through automatic writing and the author says of them: “Whether these communications can come under the heading of telepathy from the living, or whether as the title suggests, they are partly due to telepathy from discarnate minds, is for the reader to decide.” (Preface) J. Arthur Hill, in his introduction to the book is inclined to attribute them to discarnate agency. Contents: First communications received; Cases where some link with communicators existed; Cases where relations were present; Cases where relations were not present; Character sketches; Special relationships; Erroneous, confused and irrelevant matter; Guides; Supernormal sense-impressions, etc.; The potential value of communication; Index.
BAZIN, RENÉ FRANÇOIS NICOLAS MARIE. Pierre and Joseph. *$1.75 Harper
The story takes us to an Alsatian village at the outbreak of the war where the German subjects have all remained French at heart. Of the two brothers, Pierre and Joseph Ehrsam, the elder at once decides to flee the country and go to France to enlist, while the younger deems it wise to sacrifice himself in another way, to save the factory and the Ehrsam estate from confiscation by the Germans, by joining his German regiment. Pierre, in the French army makes unfavorable comparisons between French ways and German efficiency and is but slowly won over to complete enthusiasm for the spirit of France. Joseph at the eastern front develops an increasing hatred for the German spirit and when he is sent to the west and faces the necessity of fighting the French, he kills his superior officer and deserts to the French side. The translation is by Frank Hunter Potter.
“This latest novel of the gifted Frenchman adds not a single leaf to his laurel crown. For the most part, the interpretation is labored, and much space is devoted to moralizing upon the obvious. The general effect of the novel is accentuated by a translation which is awkward and infelicitous.”
“Interesting in itself, the story has an added interest through what it tells us of some of the events of the war, events which though important have not been much written about.”
“In its English dress, ‘Pierre and Joseph’ is not markedly distinguished from several earlier romances of Alsace-Lorraine in wartime, unless by its simplicity and precision.” H. W. Boynton
BEAMAN, ARDERN ARTHUR HULME. Squadroon. il *$2.50 (3c) Lane 940.48
The cavalry in the great war was most of the time in little demand, and had to take its turn in the trenches and at digging parties to relieve the infantry. “Towards the end of 1917 ... a horse soldier could hardly pass an infantry detachment on the road without being greeted by ironical cheers and bitter abuse.” (Foreword) But the time came when their prestige was reestablished. The war episodes sketched in the book are the reminiscences of a clergyman attached to a cavalry brigade. Among the contents are: Joining the squadroon; Day marching; The gap; The trench party; The devastated area; The great advance; The last lap.
“We commend the book most heartily: it is well and simply written, and deserves a wide popularity.”
“Those who happen not to have read many ‘war books’ of the kind, or not to be tired of them, will find these genial, graphic, fluently-written pages pleasant enough.”
BEARD, DANIEL CARTER. American boys’ handybook of camp-lore and woodcraft. il *$3 Lippincott 796
This volume of the Woodcraft series is profusely illustrated by the author. The first chapters have to do with outdoor fires under the captions: Fire making by friction; Fire making by percussion; How to build a fire; How to lay a good cooking fire. Other chapters take up: Camp kitchens; Camp food; Packing horses; The use of dogs; Preparing for camping trip; Saddles; Choosing a camp site; Axe and saw; Council grounds and fires; Ritual of the council fire.
“His book is interesting, cheery, practical and constructive.”
“A really valuable and comprehensive volume.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
BEARD, MARY (RITTER) (MRS CHARLES AUSTIN BEARD). Short history of the American labor movement. *$1.50 (4c) Harcourt 331.87
As the title indicates, the book is intended as a brief and simple story of the labor movement in the United States from the day of independence to the present time. After pointing out that every modern industrial country has a labor movement and that, although there are national peculiarities, it has overleapt national boundaries; that the origin of the movement lies in self-defense; and that it has a deep spiritual and social significance, the author limits herself to a plain statement of the facts in each phase of the movement as it appeared. Contents: Nature and significance of the labor movement; Origin of American trade unions; The century old tactics of labor; Labor’s first political experiments; Return to direct industrial action; Industrial panic, political action and utopias; Trade unionism and the Civil war; A decade of panics, politics and labor chaos; Rise of the American federation of labor; The American federation of labor and politics; Revolutionary philosophies and tactics; Labor and the world war; Index.
“It is well organized, carefully definitive of simplest terms, and adapted to a less advanced student or reader of labor policies than Carlton.”
“Mrs Mary Beard has not only supplied the student of the works of Professor Commons and his associates with a text-book admirably lucid and condensed, but she has achieved what is far more difficult in writing a text-book—especially where no text-book exists—a connected and in many ways a dramatic story.” A. L. Dakyns
“Mrs Beard’s book could hardly be better, as a readable and brief summary.” G: Soule
“Naturally, a large field has been covered in so small a work, but the reader in search of a small volume that will give him the essentials of this history will find this one valuable for the purpose.” James Oneal
“An excellent summary of American labor history. The book is based on recent more voluminous works, but the clarity of explanation and the skill in selecting the salient facts of somewhat complicated situations and incidents are largely the author’s own.”
“In her ‘Short history of the American labor movement’ Mrs Beard performs with interest, competence and wide sympathy a much needed service.”
“It gives a clear impression of the ups and downs of a movement which in one form or another goes back to colonial times. But its value is impaired by the author’s laudable desire for brevity. Her book is so general that it gives no sense of the real life and color of the labor movement and but little understanding of the contending philosophies within it. So important a phase of the modern labor movement as the development of the Amalgamated clothing workers is not even mentioned.” N. T.
“The book preserves an admirably sane and restrained tone to the end.” W: B. Walling
BEAUMONT, ROBERTS. Union textile fabrication. (Pitman’s textile industries ser.) il *$7.50 Pitman 677
A work dealing with the British textile industry. The preface states: “‘Union textile fabrication’ touches, in its technological aspects and interests, the many grades and branches of spun and woven manufacture.... The subject, when thus viewed, assumes proportions and bearings of paramount significance to the practitioner, the manufacturer, and the investigator, whether distinctly associated with the cotton, the wool, the flax, or the silk trade.” The book is made up of three sections: Bi-fibred manufactures; Compound-yarn fabrics; Woven unions; and the illustrations consist of “numerous original diagrams, sectional drawings, and photographic reproductions of spun and woven specimens in the text.” The author was formerly professor of textile industries, Leeds university.
“The book is well printed, neatly illustrated, and will be found valuable by all who are engaged in these branches of the textile industry.”
BEAVER, WILFRED N. Unexplored New Guinea. il *$5 Lippincott 919.5
“This interesting book is concerned with the primitive races of western Papua, where the author, a young Australian, acted as a resident magistrate for ten years before the war. Professor Haddon, in a preface, declares that Mr Beaver’s death in Flanders, where he was serving with the Australian corps, was a great loss to anthropology.” (Spec) “His narrative is an account of personal experiences along the Bamu and Fly rivers; and he makes good his claim to be an explorer. Little is known of the country behind the coastline; means of transport have to be improvized and the inhabitants are savages. In fact, savage is a mild term, for many of them are cannibals and all apparently head-hunters. Mr Beaver enumerates such of their customs as came under his notice, and throws out suggestions as to their origin, but without committing himself to any theory.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“Mr Beaver’s descriptions of the customs of the Goaribari, Bamu, and other tribes are remarkably interesting; and Dr Gunnar Landtmann has added a noteworthy chapter upon the religious beliefs and practices of the Kiwai-speaking natives.”
“In short, considered from the standpoint of what Sir Richard Temple would term an applied anthropology, Mr Beaver’s book is eminently useful and instructive. Lack of space allows but a passing reference to his important chapter on property and inheritance.” R. R. M.
“An interesting and sound ethnological study, which is also an object lesson on the administration of aboriginal tribes by those who would introduce Caucasian culture.”
“This is one of those books, by no means rare from British pens, that make the American ethnologist green with envy. It suggests what stores of information on tribes now extinct or acculturated to the white man’s ways might have been garnered by our Indian agents if they had been selected from the class represented by Mr Beaver.” R. H. L.
“The author had the gift, not common among anthropologists, of writing well and of describing savage tribes with sympathy and humour. The book abounds in curious anecdotes.”
“Mr Beaver is no globe-trotter concerned to make a good story out of a few days spent in a strange land. He is absorbed in a subject that is organically interesting, and he is content to let it produce its own effect. Unintentionally he has framed an indictment of mechanical progress.”
BECK, ERNEST GEORGE. Structural steelwork. il *$7.50 (*21s) Longmans 691.7
“The book contains technical information for the designing and constructing of ordinary steel-framed buildings. ‘The principal endeavor throughout has been to make the work broadly suggestive rather than particular or exhaustive.’ (Preface) The appendix contains tables useful for reference. Partly reprinted from the Mechanical World and The Engineer.”—Booklist
BECK, HERBERT MAINS. Aliens’ text book on citizenship; laws of naturalization of the United States. $1; pa 50c McKay 353
“In preparing this book the aim has been to provide means of thoroughly and quickly acquiring the knowledge necessary to pass the examinations for naturalization and to assist those who have been deprived of the advantages of our modern public schools.” (Preface) The steps required for naturalization are first set forth. Then follows the texts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States and a final section is given up to questions and answers on laws and government. There is an index. The author is chief of naturalization, Camden county courts, Camden, N.J.
“This business-like explanation of the law’s provisions is infinitely more satisfactory and useful than the mushy, sentimental and verbose expository books for the foreign-born of which there are so many.” B. L.
BECK, JAMES MONTGOMERY. Passing of the new freedom. *$1.50 Doran 940.314
In part in the form of imaginary conversations, the book discusses the essential nature of President Wilson’s policies. The dialogues, in which the chief personages of the Peace conference take part, abounds in biting sarcasm. In the first dialogue Mr Wilson is made to appear upon the scene literally exuding “omniscience,” and to expound his new freedom with sounding grandiloquence. In his final estimate of Wilson the author says: “Already the world is conscious of a distinct revaluation of that interesting and complex personality, and it must be sorrowfully added that this revaluation adds nothing to his prestige.” The chapters are: Mr Wilson explains the new freedom; The old freedom; “It might have been”; The apostle of the new freedom.
“The use of imaginary conversation as a means of plucking the mystery out of the heart of the Peace conference may be questioned as to its integrity, but Mr Beck has employed the medium with such rare degree of skill that no one will question its effectiveness for literary purposes.”
“Mr Beck has produced in these dialogues a kind of literature that is not often written after so much cool, thoughtful preparation, and that is seldom found to be, as in this case, profound and exact as well as amusing.”
“‘The passing of the new freedom’ gives him some claims to rank as a political satirist—that rare bird in American letters.” E. L. Pearson
BECKER, CARL LOTUS. United States; an experiment in democracy. *$2.50 Harper 342.7
The book gives all the outstanding facts of our political history with such impartiality as to appeal to the reader’s critical faculty and to challenge independent conclusions. A “habitual dislike of thinking” the author holds to be a characteristic of Americans, which at the present time exposes them to the danger of mistaking the “form for the substance of democracy” and may prevent America from being in the future what it was in the past—“a fruitful experiment in democracy.” Contents: America and democracy; The origins of democracy in America; The new world experiment in democracy; Democracy and government; New world democracy and old world intervention; Democracy and free land; Democracy and slavery; Democracy and immigration; Democracy and education; Democracy and equality.
“It is to be hoped that the inaccuracies will not seriously injure the usefulness of a readable book, which is on the whole filled with sagacious comment and treats in a telling way a number of traits and tendencies of American democracy.” A. C. McL.
“The author has given a valuable sketch of the political history of America.”
“Keen, clear, impartial analysis of American institutions and traditions, reminding the reader in many ways of Bryce’s ‘American commonwealth.’”
Reviewed by C: A. Beard
“Interesting, and would be valuable as a brief and rapid résumé of America’s early history and political problems were it not for one fatal defect. It lacks that aspect of detachment which we used to expect from college professors in dealing with debatable topics. Such a book must be read with the same caution with which the wise man reads the current political press during the presidential campaign.”
BECKWITH, ISBON THADDEUS. Apocalypse of John. *$4 Macmillan 228
“This book is a veritable encyclopedia of information regarding the interpretation of Revelation. A series of introductory studies deals at length with a history of eschatological hopes among Hebrews, Jews, and Christians. An extended description is given of apocalyptic writings among the Jews. There is also a detailed account of the occasion, purpose and unity of John’s apocalypse. Other topics discussed minutely are the literary characteristics of the author, the content of his composition, the permanent and the transitory elements in his book, the main features of his theology, the different methods that have been used in the interpretation of the book, its circulation and canonical recognition in the early church, the question of authorship, the two Johns of the Asian church, the meaning of the ‘beast,’ and the condition of the Greek text of the book. The commentary proper, which embraces slightly less than half the volume, is of the usual analytical and statistical type.”—Bib World
“It is a real service to religion and sanity when a scholar equipped with common sense as well as knowledge provides a good commentary on the book of Revelation. This has been done by Professor Beckwith. The book fills a real need.”
“A splendid treatise it is upon a splendid book, and a fresh honor to American scholarship.”
BEERBOHM, MAX, comp.[2] Herbert Beerbohm Tree: some memories of him and his art. il *$7 Dutton
“The volume is at once a biography and a tribute. The first half of the book is written by Lady Tree. After short contributions by Sir Herbert Tree’s two daughters and Max Beerbohm (who, it will be remembered, is his half-brother) come A sketch, by Edmund Gosse; A tribute, by Louis N. Parker; From the stalls, by Desmond MacCarthy; Herbert Tree—my friend, by Gilbert Parker; From the point of view of a playwright, by Bernard Shaw; and An open letter to an American friend, by W. L. Courtney. By no means least in interest are the appendices, which contain Sir Herbert’s ‘Impressions of America,’ as written for London papers in 1916 and 1917, and some extracts from his ‘Notebooks,’ as well as the speeches made at the unveiling of the memorial tablet at His Majesty theater and the sermon preached by the Bishop of Birmingham at the memorial service.”—Springf’d Republican
“Why did not Mr Max Beerbohm give us a whole book himself instead of a ‘carved cherrystone’ called ‘From a brother’s stand-point’? That, no doubt, is his business. But why did he not persuade (or bully) Lady Tree into writing the whole work and inserting his and Mr Shaw’s contributions at the appropriate places? Certainly the half of it which she has contributed under the title ‘Herbert and I’ is delightful, in style and individuality.” D. L. M.
“When all is said this book serves its purpose. It is readable; it contains the facts; it gives personal anecdotes; it has a host of portraits in character and out; it provides a variety of points of view.”
“A most interesting book about a great actor. Throughout, it is informal and lively.” E. L. Pearson
“Lady Tree’s portrait of Tree is the most vivid and the most life-like the world is likely to possess.”
“The whole book—all the contributions from all the different sources are in the mass so sparkling, that it is clear that for so many hands to write so amusingly, they must have been inspired by a thoroughly witty and amusing subject.”
“It is an amusing macédoine, never insipid, giving all the flavours of the subject, without perhaps any one flavour that can be called dominant. And that is right, for Tree’s was a ‘mixed’ temperament, and his art was a good deal ‘mixed’ too.”
BEERBOHM, MAX. Seven men. il *$3.50 Knopf
Six men and the author make seven. The book contains six imaginary sketches of six imaginary men: Enoch Soames; Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton; James Pethel; A. V. Laider; “Savonarola” Brown; with an appendix of drawings of these men by the author. As the drawings are caricatures so are the pen sketches satires on human vanities, weaknesses and foibles, literary and otherwise.
“In none is the author’s authentic touch wholly absent, but there are tedious pages.”
“Our only regret on finishing the book is that he might have paraded his seventh, and after all his most amusing puppet, himself, a little more lavishly.” S. W.
“The motif of each story in ‘Seven men’ is slight, the working out of it spread thin—very thin.” C. K. H.
“Another thing that gives feature to four of the five stories in ‘Seven men’ is their author’s love of design. Even upon his essays this love has left its mark, less distinct upon whole essays than upon single pages now and then.” P. L.
“Max is more than a humorist—he is an ironist. His irony is exquisite in its nuances, a carefully wrought method of workmanship that grows almost precieuse at times. ‘Seven men’ is assuredly one of the most amusing books of the year. It will recapture an undefinable atmosphere that could only go with youth that was audacious and laughable, and, by strange flashes, poignantly serious.” H. S. Gorman
“Not even a good comedy is so rare as genuine satire, and when an example of the latter is produced some indulgence in superlatives may well be excused. In the case of Mr Max Beerbohm’s new volume, which brilliantly achieves what ‘Zuleika Dobson’ as conspicuously missed it is difficult to restrain praise within the bounds of judgment, for its beneficent, limpid ridicule is an undiluted joy.”
“The fragrant quality of the book, the solemn malice of the papers on Brown and A. V. Laider; the imaginative subtlety of the account of Enoch Soames, and the glorious remedy of the rivalry between Braxton and Maltby—they all show Max at his best.”
“Not only are his characters interesting in themselves but Mr Beerbohm depicts them with such skill that the book is a welcome relief from the work of less accomplished writers.”
BEERS, HENRY AUGUSTIN.[2] Connecticut wits and other essays. *$2.25 Yale univ. press 814
“Mr Henry A. Beers’s ‘Connecticut wits’ consists of eleven brief literary essays on subjects whose diversity is undisguised. He has found nothing in the tradition or the atmosphere of his Yale habitat to discourage the inclusion of an essay on Cowley and an essay on Riley in the same volume.” (Review) “He unearths Joel Barlow and those other neglected spirits of old Connecticut; and then allows his fancy to range over such themes as the poetry of the cavaliers, Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Thackeray and Sheridan.” (Freeman)
“In manner, these essays are scholarly, informative, and suavely graceful.” L. B.
Reviewed by Brander Matthews
“Scholarship and humor are admirably blended in these essays.”
“Mr Beers is a clear expositor, is at ease with facts, and can make them agreeable by almost imperceptible departures from the jogtrot of chronicle. Without humor, he has something of the buoyancy of humor.”
“In his essays there is no trace of a professional tendency to carry on with the class room manner in one’s relations with the world beyond the class room.”
BEGBIE, HAROLD. Life of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation army. 2v il *$10.50 Macmillan
In the preface to this life of the founder of the Salvation army, the author says: “William Booth is likely to remain for many centuries one of the most signal figures in human history. Therefore, to paint his portrait faithfully for the eyes of those who come after us—a great duty and a severe responsibility—has been my cardinal consideration in preparing these pages. Only when circumstances insisted have I turned from my attempt at portraiture to examine documents which will one day be employed by the historian of the Salvation army.” The work opens with an account of social conditions in England at the time of William Booth’s birth and reflections on the probable effects of his early surroundings on his mind and character. Volume 1 covers the years up to 1881 and volume 2 continues the story to his death in 1912. There are a number of portraits and other illustrations and an index.
“The world may be divided into people who pray with General Booth, people who are angry with General Booth, and people who turn their face away and look out of the window. Mr Begbie, unfortunately, seems to have considered that it was necessary for his official biographer to pray perpetually with the General, and his 1,000 pages of biography even conform to the tradition of prayer in their repetitions, vagueness, and verbosity.” L. W.
Reviewed by O. L. Joseph
“There can be no doubt that Mr Begbie has laid us all under immense obligation through the unusual blend of candor, insight, and reverence with which he has limned the picture of this noble soul. And yet we must confess to a feeling of disappointment. At important places the story lacks clarity. Perhaps the most serious disappointment of all is the paucity of reference to General Booth’s immediate touch with the outcast. We miss the bugles and the tears of the Army too much.” A. W. Vernon
“Mr Begbie has done his work well. We could have dispensed with some of his own observations concerning Darwin, Bergson, Nietzsche, and other figures of interest which are unhelpful to the story and whose omission might have sensibly reduced the size of the volumes. But where he has been content with simple narration of events and the selection of letters and writings, he has proved himself a good biographer.”
“Every small detail is entered into sympathetically and fully. This is a human document worth the reading.”
“The life-story of the man who created the Salvation army, written with a sympathy and understanding such as Mr Begbie puts in it, is an extraordinarily welcome book.”
“Mr Begbie’s life of William Booth would be for the general reader twice as good if it were half as long.”
“For the general reader there are rather too many ‘interesting cases’ of conversion described in the more or less technical diction of revivalism, too much journalism in the way of press clippings and tributes from royalty. But the record as a whole is an inspiring one of heroic achievement.”
“These portly tomes on the founder of the Salvation army are torrential in their eloquence and typhoon-like in their denunciations. They resemble nothing so much as an exceptionally lively rally at the Army headquarters, with the penitent-form in full view. Apart from his exuberance, Mr Begbie has an interesting tale to tell.”
“Though to the modern man this modern story has more to say than most of the annals of hagiology, it is as a romance, as a love story, that William Booth’s ‘Life’ is perhaps most to be valued. The pawnbroker’s assistant and the half-invalid girl from Brixton are the hero and heroine of a love romance which for passionate intensity, for sublimity, for tempestuous vicissitude, stands head and shoulders above the tales of Paris and Helen, of Tristram and Iseult.”
“The biography is a thorough, exhaustive, vividly personal piece of work.”
“In spite of a tendency to repetition, his book will be welcomed widely as the good thing which it undeniably is—a book frankly written and free from prejudice or exaggeration.”
BELL, JOHN KEBLE (KEBLE HOWARD, pseud.). Peculiar major. *$1.75 (2½c) Doran
“An almost incredible story” says the subtitle, and so it is. The major had been given a ring by an old Turkish priest in ransom for his life. This ring was found to possess the magic property of making its bearer invisible. It first brought the major into repute as a lunatic, then into all manner of scrapes and out again and so from one Arabian nights’ entertainment into another until the war was over and we leave him returned to England and in the arms of his best-beloved.
“Mr Howard has produced a book that will be a welcome relief from much of the dreary fiction of the day.”
“A book of irresponsible fun.”
“We thought the humours of the ring that makes the wearer invisible had certainly been pretty well worked out by now. But this was a delusion.”
BELL, WALTER GEORGE. Great fire of London in 1666. il *$6 Lane 942.1
The book comes with forty-one illustrations including plans and drawings, reproductions of English and foreign prints, and photographs. It is the first authentic account of the fire resulting from thorough historic research. The sources have largely been manuscript and the subject matter includes measures taken for meeting the distress occasioned by the catastrophe, the temporary housing of the citizens, the restoration of trade and the work of rebuilding. Among the appendices are letters from residents in London and contemporary accounts (English and foreign) describing the great fire. There are also notes, a list of authorities consulted and an index.
“In every chapter sidelights are cleverly thrown upon the habits and daily lives of the rather unpractical citizens.” E. G. C.
“Mr Bell had, of course, previously proved himself a scholarly and responsible historian, a good literary craftsman, and an excellent guide to old London. Here we have all his qualities at their best, lighted up with an enthusiasm which good Londoners at any rate will find exceedingly sympathetic. Now and then, perhaps, he allows his fervour to run away with him.”
“We commend Mr Bell’s excellent book, with its wealth of new material and its many illustrations and maps, to all who are interested in the history of London.”
“The book is well and accurately referenced throughout.”
BELL, WALTER GEORGE. Unknown London. il *$1.50 Lane 914.21
“In the eighteen essays which make up this book—for most of them are sufficiently personal to be given that name—is nothing that is not interesting. Mr Bell has chosen, for the most part, from among those antiquities of which everybody has heard but of which most people know nothing. His ‘Unknown London’ deals with very familiar things—with such things as Domesday book, the shrine of Edward the confessor, London stone, the wax works in the abbey, the Roman baths, the bells of St Clements, the bones of the mummy of Men-Kau-Ra in the British museum, and London wall.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup D 11 ’19
“His book, while necessarily desultory, is readable and full of information gathered at first hand.”
“If Mr Bell is so human and hearty an antiquary it is that in him the antiquary and the journalist are admirably joined. The one gives to his book the gusto of an enthusiast. The other prevents him from ever forgetting, in his accumulation of knowledge, the art of interesting others.”
“The merit of his book is that the stories are retold here in a simple, personal, and most attractive way. From first to last Mr Bell is an admirable guide to old London, an enthusiast, well stored, humorous and unfailingly entertaining.”
BELLAIRS, CARLYON WILFROY. Battle of Jutland; the sowing and the reaping. il *$5 Doran 940.45
Lord Jellicoe has written his own account of the Jutland battle. This book is by one of the critics of his policy, who says: “The ban on discussion, which was felt by many as applying right up to the time of the surrender of the German fleet, no longer exists. Nothing that can be done now can remedy the past; but much that can be said may safeguard the future. Hence this book, which must stand or fall in proportion to its influence on future thought and action. It is not intended to be any more than a critical survey. It is not a full history of the battle of Jutland, for the policy of secrecy pursued by the Admiralty, and the failure to hold an investigation, have made an accurate history impossible for the time being.” (Preface) The book is illustrated with diagrams and there is an appendix containing a chronology of the battle; also an index.
“It has the authoritativeness that will give it value to historians.”
“For the general reader it has less value than for the naval expert. Yet it is an interesting example of the kind of criticism which seems to be encouraged among British naval officers, not for the sake of mere controversy but in order to draw conclusions that may be useful in the future.”
“We do not quarrel with Captain Bellairs’s main conclusion, ... but we could wish that his tone did not sometimes suggest that he fails to be judicial.”
“If his captious tone be ignored, there is much in Commander Bellairs’s criticism in his more general chapters on the sowing which is well said and is well worth saying. But we cannot commend his tone and temper; and for the reasons we have given we can attach very little weight to his onslaught on Lord Jellicoe.”
BELLOC, HILAIRE. Europe and the faith. $2.25 Paulist press 940
“Mr Belloc’s essay may be regarded as having a twofold aim, although, to the mind of its author, this aim appears to be one and indivisible. The first, and more narrowly historic aim of the essay, is to present a new picture of the decline of the centralized Roman empire and the subsequent building up of Europe, and the second, more obviously philosophic aim, is to account for the modern European consciousness in terms of (1) the Catholic faith and (2) the reformation. To Mr Belloc these two objectives are not really distinct. An account of Europe is an account of the Catholic faith, and an account of the Catholic faith is an account of Europe.”—Ath
“The most convinced opponent of Mr Belloc’s views of the historian’s qualifications will probably agree instantly that an acquaintance with the Catholic faith is necessary to writing a history of Europe, although he may not agree that the historian must be a Catholic. But the strangest part of Mr Belloc’s assumption is that he regards this condition as sufficient. We feel that Mr Belloc, although a Catholic, has not understood European history, and that he does not understand the modern European consciousness.” J. W. N. S.
“If many points of detail are not new, the explanation of their import and bearing is original. In some cases the author’s critical examination of sources is particular and minute.”
“Mr Belloc writes with great earnestness. One could wish that the solution of civilization’s difficulties were as simple as he judges it to be; and that for the strength of his argument history were as universally confirmatory of his preconceived thesis as it seems to him.” Williston Walker
“Our real objection to him is not that he has twisted history to his own view—everybody does that—but that he has given us an incomplete book, and even on his own showing he has left out the vital part. He discusses at length the unified Roman state of Europe. He discusses at length the unified Roman church of Europe. But he omits to discuss the relations between the two.”
“It is needless to say that from Mr Belloc’s whole conception of Protestantism we profoundly dissent. He cannot conceive of men opening their eyes and realising that they were serving an institution and not the cause for which the institution stood. This fatal lack of insight and comprehension effectually disqualifies him from giving the impartial presentation of European history which he is desirous of exhibiting, and almost completely nullifies the graphic force and admirable clarity of his narrative.”
“He has the courage of his consistency and the merit of a principle; but neither is adequate to the perplexities of the modern world.”
BEMAN, LAMAR TANEY, comp. Selected articles on the compulsory arbitration and compulsory investigation of industrial disputes. 4th ed, rev and enl (Debaters’ handbook ser.) *$2.25 Wilson, H. W. 331.1
Altho issued as a revised edition of the handbook on compulsory arbitration first published in 1911, this is practically a new work. The explanatory note states: “This volume is compiled according to the general plan of the Debaters’ handbook series, but it differs from other members of the series in that it covers two questions.... In this case the two questions are closely related, and much of the literature deals with both, so that it is impracticable to present them in separate volumes and yet impossible to combine them into one question.... The volume contains a full general bibliography revised to the date of this issue, but not separated into affirmative and negative references.... It also contains briefs and reprints of the best material on both sides of each question.”
Reviewed by S. M. Lowenthal
BENÉT, STEPHEN VINCENT. Heavens and earth. *$2 Holt 811
This collection opens with a long poem in two parts, Two visions of Helen followed by Chariots and horsemen; The tall town; Apples of Eden; The kingdom of the mad. The tall town is made up of poems of New York.
“So many moods and themes spread over the compass of this book, riotous and rapturous, whimsical and ironic, and undulating on waves of swift and thrilling music make ‘Heavens and earth’ an enjoyment to those who admire poetry when it is first of all music and imagination, and may be after these anything in the way of subject and ideal.” W: S. Braithwaite
“He has a swirling dexterity in syntax and rhythm, and practices a gorgeous, hot impressionism.”
“Originality marks his work in spite of the intimation that his themes are somewhat threadbare. He possesses a virility that is manifest at all times and a delight in swinging measures and emphatic rhymes.” H. S. Gorman
BENET, WILLIAM ROSE. Moons of grandeur. *$2 Doran 811
This collection of poems is reprinted from contributions to various magazines. With a few exceptions the poet takes his inspiration from history: the renaissance, ancient Egypt, medieval England furnishing him with subjects. Some of the titles are: Gaspara Stampa; Legend of Michelotto; Niccolo in exile; The triumphant Tuscan; Michelangelo in the fish-market; The ballad of Taillefer; The priest in the desert; Dust of the plains.
“The rich color and vigor of his poetry have caught some of the brilliance and romance of these times. The vocabulary and allusions make demands upon the reader which to many will be a serious drawback.”
“A poet so fertile and diversified is bound to be interesting, and one cannot but recognize Mr Benet’s gifts of streaming phrase and bannered fancy; at the same time one often misses the clear, strong note of nature, often feels the absence from this work of actual blood and bone.”
“The vigor, the individuality, the natural sources of growth and development in his work, deserve the first word. Mr Benet’s limitations in making the renaissance, in its essence, live again are inherent in his method and approach. There was a roundness of gesture in these years which is missed by nervous actions and pouncing words.” Geoffrey Parsons
“In ‘Moons of grandeur’ he includes ten such poems that may be ranked among quite the best things he has done. It is apparent in this book that he has grown greatly in stature as a poet. An extravagance that was once fatal to him as an artist at times has been finely curbed and turned into channels where it becomes a virtue.” H. S. Gorman
“Mr Benet’s poems possess the essential qualities of beauty and imagination.”
“In these pictures of renaissance Italy Mr Benet proves his possession of rhythm, of knowledge, of an allusiveness as ingathering as a scythe, of energy, of a lambent and vibrant picturesqueness, of the gait and swing, if not the soul, of passion. ‘Moons of grandeur,’ with all its attractions, errs somewhat in the obscuration of the rhyme.”
BENET, WILLIAM ROSE. Perpetual light. *$1.35 Yale univ. press 811
“A memorial to the poet’s wife, who died early in 1919. ‘This verse is published in her memory,’ says the poet in a foreword, ‘because I wish to keep together the poetry she occasioned and enable those who loved her—and they were a great many—to know definitely what she was to me.’” (Springf’d Republican) “Some of the poems are reprinted from former books of Mr Benet, and a few of the others have appeared in American periodicals.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“Mr Benet has a great command of rich language and rich rhythms, and many of his poems are of a high literary value.”
“A tribute full of deep and delicate feeling.”
“Poems of much delicate beauty, tenderness and deep feeling.”
“Mr Benet has written no better lyrics than some of those included in this volume. They are both brave and simple.”
“Mr Benet has given his best to this little book.”
“The dignity, the courage, the faith, the aspiration of these verses are like a beacon in this time of unrest and uncertainty.” E: B. Reed
BENGE, EUGENE J. Standard practice in personnel work. il *$3 Wilson, H. W. 658.7
A work which aims to cover the subject of personnel work thoroly, showing what the standard practice at present is. “The author has attempted to preserve an impartiality of viewpoint, not by evading frank statement of conditions, but rather by presenting the pros and cons on each side of the labor question.” (Preface) Daniel Bloomfield, editor of the three volumes on industrial relations, contributes a foreword. Contents: The personnel audit; Job analysis; Study of the community; Labor turnover and labor loss; Organizing the personnel department; The employment process; Selection by mental and skill tests; Methods of rating ability; Education and training; Health supervision; Maintenance of the working force; Incentives and wages; Employee representation; Record keeping in the personnel department; Personnel research; Index.
BENNET, ROBERT AMES. Bloom of cactus. il *$1.50 (3c) Doubleday
Jack Lennon goes prospecting for a lost copper mine in the Arizona desert. He encounters a fair amazon who, at the risk of her own safety, tricks him into becoming a partner to her scheme of rescuing her weak, drunken father from the clutches of a criminal white brute, and “Dead Hole, dad’s ranch” from marauding renegade Indians. She succeeds and so does Jack, after facing incredible dangers, cruelty and all-round slaughter, for Carmena becomes his own dearly beloved. She proves her metal by not only fighting her foes in the flesh but her own jealousy of her much more femininely frail, clinging and pretty foster-sister, Elsie.
BENNETT, ARNOLD. Our women; chapters on the sex-discord. *$2.50 (5c) Doran 396
Sex-discord exists, the author avows; it will always exist; it will continue to develop as human nature develops—but on a higher plane; it is the most delightful and interesting thing in existence—a part of the great search for truth. In this vein a mere man writes broadly, sanely and humorously about women. Contents: The perils of writing about women; Change in love; The abolition of slavery; Women as charmers; Are men superior to women? Salary-earning girls; Wives, money and lost youth; The social Intercourse business; Masculine view of the sex discord; Feminine view of the sex discord.
“‘Our women,’ being witty, human, and full of challenging contradictions, will bore no reader, but will interest everyone, if only for the sake of that argument dear to every mind.” Dorothy Scarborough
“He is not always sensible when he is serious, and he is not always funny when he seeks to be humorous. His discourse is merely the attempt of a glib and facile writer to toy with a theme upon which he can play endlessly, and at the end be no nearer his goal that he was at the beginning.” E. F. Edgett
“The book is diverting to read, but is not without that vein of vulgarity which mars so much of Mr Bennett’s work.” L. P.
“Mr Bennett writes as a novelist and more or less for the human fun of it.” K. F. Gerould
“We believe that most of his own countrywomen, though they may praise, will not altogether like his book.”
“Though fresh enough in style and not philistine in precepts, ‘Our women’ is as conventional as ‘Godey’s lady’s book,’ which regaled several generations of young women; it is, however, a book modern in sentiment.”
“His pictures of the modern woman are kaleidoscopic—a medley of truths and halftruths picked more or less at random from past, present and future.”
BENNETT, ARNOLD. Sacred and profane love. *$1.50 Doran 822
A dramatization of the author’s novel “The book of Carlotta.” The story is that of Carlotta Peel, who as a young girl of twenty gives herself for one night to Emilio Diaz, a world famous pianist. She does not see him again for eight years and then, on learning that he has become a morphinomaniac, goes to him and nurses him back to health and manhood and restores him to his old place on the concert stage.
“It is, evidently, not the Arnold Bennett of ‘Clayhanger’ who plays upon the glittering instrument of the theatre. And it is that Arnold Bennett who could fortify the English drama.”
“The dialog leaves us unconvinced and shadowed by the feeling that sooner or later Carlotta will awaken to the futility of her task. We glance with foreboding into the future. The present is temporarily serene, but beyond the final curtain lurks a suspicion that the real conflict of human emotions is still to come.”
“Mr Bennett could hardly write a play without putting into it some insight into character, some witty or suggestive comments upon human life, at least one or two interesting situations and some passages of good dialogue. Hence, this play is readable enough, but it is clumsy and unconvincing.”
BENNETT, RAINE.[2] After the day. $1.50 Stratford co. 811
A volume of poems written after the war, reflecting the impressions of war of one who took part in it. The author is a Californian who has written dramas for local groups and had one play produced at the Greek theatre in Berkeley. The introduction, by George Douglas of the San Francisco Chronicle, says: “These ‘after the day’ or ‘nocturnal’ impressions were all written with a view to their being read aloud, and as dramatic reading they take on a singularly magnetic quality.” Free verse is the form employed.
“The poems, dramatic rather than lyric, are an earnest expression of a man—one who has something to say in free verse that is worth saying.”
BENOIT, PIERRE. Atlantida (L’Atlantide). *$1.75 (2½c) Duffield
This prize novel of the French academy is translated from the French by Mary C. Tongue and Mary Ross. Two French officers engaged on a scientific expedition into the wilds of Sahara, discover the mythical island of Atlantis and find that instead of having been immersed in the sea, the desert had emerged about it preserving it with all its ancient treasures and through mysterious contact with the outside world, making it a storehouse of all the sciences and lore of all the ages. Antinea, its present ruler, a descendant of Neptune, is continually supplied with men from the outside world, who all die of love for her while she is unable to love. At last she loves one of the two officers of our story, but being scorned by him, she compels his companion to kill him. This one, by the aid of a slave girl in love with him, succeeds in escaping, but ever after wanders about a restless spirit, consumed with the desire to return.
“There is a glamor of mystery in the story; there is a flavor of the Orient, a glint of gold, an aroma of perfume which attracts the senses and beckons the reader onward to the end. The French have a fascinating way with them.”
“Benoit has learned from Anatole France to display erudition but the translators make a sad mess of it. What they do to classical names should be a warning to reformers of the curriculum.”
“The tale is told with an economy, a sureness and a subtlety that show how a French writer can come near to salvaging for literature themes which, in English, are condemned to a humbler sphere.” H. S. H.
“Excellent as Monsieur Benoit’s book is, it does not equal, either in imaginative power, fertility of invention, ingenuity and abundance of incident, suspense, dramatic effectiveness, construction, character-drawing, sustained interest or the ability to make the reader feel that the events narrated actually occurred, any save perhaps some one among the lesser of the many romances written by Sir Rider Haggard. This is not to say, however, that it is not an admirable and very entertaining story, with a conclusion both artistic and dramatic, and more than one scene of fine imaginative quality.”
BENOIT, PIERRE. Secret spring. *$1.75 (3c) Dodd
In this story within a story Lieutenant Vignerte tells his brother-in-arms the story of his life, which is still casting a melancholy spell over him. Just before the war he had been a tutor to the heir of the Grand Duke of Lautenburg-Detmold. He had fallen in love with the Grand Duchess, received much friendly encouragement, had come on the track of a mystery which points to the murder of her first husband—brother to the present duke—by discovering old records and a secret spring opening a door into a hidden chamber. A conflagration in the castle and the outbreak of the war prevented complete disclosure. The duchess herself took him in her private car to the French frontier and saw him safely into the hands of the French commander there. While in action in the trenches a German prisoner of high rank is discovered, by Vignerte’s confidant, to be the arch-fiend in the Lautenburg tragedy, but here again a complete revelation of the secret is foiled by a shell that kills both Vignerte and the prisoner.
“In spite of the involved plot, the annoyance of a story within a story, and the somewhat cloudy narrative style—which latter may or may not be partly the fault of the translator—the spirit of romance in this volume makes it fairly acceptable to the leisurely reader.”
BENSHIMOL, ERNEST. Tomorrow’s yesterday. *$1 Small 811
Marsh dreams, The passing of a shadow, Morning and evening, Confession of hope, Atonement, In the wilderness, The tale of the grey wolf, The moon on the Palisades, At dusk, Evening, The end of the trail, are some of the themes in this volume of poems. The author is a young poet, a graduate of Harvard, class of 1917.
“It is pleasing to discover a poet today who thinks in every line he writes. There is no superfluous word-painting in any of Benshimol’s poems. They are the genuine and spontaneous expression of a highly imaginative and reflective mind. Here and there, unfortunately, the reader comes across an image that is obscure or jumbled.”
“The writer is a true poet and this first volume not only has great promise for the author’s future development, but has great charm in the present.”
BENSON, EDWARD FREDERIC. “Queen Lucia.” *$2 (1½c) Doran
Riseholme was a strictly Elizabethan village, and “The Hurst,” the Lucas’s house, more Elizabethan than all the rest, was its social centre. Here Queen Lucia reigned. For ten years she had been the undisputed ruler when the smoldering rivalry between herself and her neighbor, Mrs Quantock, threatened open eruption. Not content with having set the town’s pace with her classic taste, Queen Lucia must also make herself the leader in each new fad discovered and introduced by Mrs Quantock. With the coming of the famous singer, Olga Bracely, as a resident of the town, all social observances, rules and precedents are knocked into a cocked hat and one by one the bubbles, in which Mrs Lucas saw her own greatness reflected, are pricked. She no longer rules and social oblivion threatens to engulf her when Olga, in large-hearted pity, executes a series of maneuvers which reinstate a humbler and wiser queen in something of her former position.
“The dismallest feature of all is that Mr Benson’s humour should have gone—not to the dogs, but to the cats.” K. M.
“Fantastic in the extreme, Mr Benson’s latest novel may be accepted more as a light and airy fantasy than as a contribution to the study of English social manners. It is, in fact, a merry farce transferred from the lights of the stage to the printed pages of fiction and it bears further tribute to the ingenious qualities of Mr Benson’s humor.” E. F. E.
“A clever and amusing satire.”
“The book is lacking in what we are constantly told is necessary for a good novel. There is not much plot; there is no love interest; there is no climax. But it is long since one has seen such a masterly bit of satire, such a piece of character-study as Lucia.”
“The book is a great treat from beginning to end.” E. L. Pearson
“Apart from its humor and comic sense of character, the narrative emphasizes Mr Benson’s versatility and his mature art.”
“Taken as pure farce, ‘Queen Lucia’ is an altogether satisfying entertainment; full of humorous situations, sparkling with wholesome wit. The characters, too, are for the most part consistent and original. So very little restraint would have kept it within the limits of comedy and we do not feel that it gains in any way from the touches which incline to extravaganza.”
BENSON, EDWARD FREDERIC. Robin Linnet. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
The book shows us English society “snug and comfortable and stereotyped” in various aspects. First among the students and faculty of Cambridge where, in the former, the spirit of youth occasionally pierces through the stereotyped smugness doubly emphasized in the faculty. There we meet Robin Linnet, nicknamed “Birds,” a lovable boy, full of fun and horse-play with his chums, but fortified by a rare love and respect for his mother. The latter, Lady Grote—brilliant society woman, patroness of celebrities, shining center of an aristocratic coterie absorbed in “a fever of mere living, a determination to make the most of the present moment, whether bridge or scandal or games”—has for her saving quality her great and sane love for her son. The war-change that English society suffers, topples Lady Grote’s world over like a house of cards, when her son goes to France. She decides to superintend the Red cross hospital, into which her husband converts their country house, in person. When Robin is killed her spirit rises nobly to the occasion and what was a fill-gap and a duty now becomes a work of love.
“Full of bright and entertaining dialogue.”
“Parts of the book are so slow moving that some readers may not care to finish it.”
“The action moves cumbrously; too much time wasted in irrelevant talk by superfluous characters. This tries the reader’s patience, and makes negligible a book which might have been one of Mr Benson’s most successful efforts.”
“The concluding pages of the book are beautifully written and very moving, making the whole worth while. It is a book practically devoid of even a slight thread of plot, and it is very much too long.” L. M. Field
“Not Mr Benson’s best work in fiction. The whole [is] thrown together rather than thought out.”
“The story is told with Mr Benson’s usual vivacity, but the conversion of Lady Grote is far less convincing than the elaborate and often acute analysis of her emotions in her unregenerate days.”
“The closing chapters are beautifully written. Mr Benson is deeply sympathetic without giving way to the strong temptation to be highly sentimental. The characters are excellently individualized.”
“Has the same merits and weaknesses as Mr E. F. Benson’s previous novels.... Mr Benson, in fact, is almost entirely preoccupied with the superficial.”
BENSON, STELLA. Living alone. *$1.75 Macmillan
“This little book describes the adventures of Angela and the adventures of those with whom she comes in contact while she is caretaker of a small general shop which is also part convent and monastery, part nursing home and college, and wholly a house for those who wish to live alone. She is an out-and-out, thorough witch, a trifle defiant, poor, always hungry, intolerant of cleverness and—radiant.... We have said that ‘Living alone’ is a book about the war. There is an air raid described from below and from above, together with a frightful encounter which Harold has with a German broomstick, and one of the inmates of the house of ‘Living alone’ is Peony, a London girl who is drawing her weekly money as a soldier’s wife—unmarried. The story that Peony tells her fellow-lodger Sarah Brown of how she found the everlasting boy is perhaps the highwater mark of Miss Benson’s book.”—Ath
“We hardly dare to use the thumbmarked phrase, a ‘born writer’; but if it means anything Miss Stella Benson is one.” K. M.
“Stella Benson possesses the rarest of attributes among writers—that of personality.” D. L. M.
“The particular merit of ‘Living alone’ is that it is a fairy-tale for grown-ups, a piece of whimsical madness without rhyme or reason.” H. S. G.
“No one but a poet could have written ‘Living alone.’ It is Barrie at moments; again it is Chesterton, that preposterously humorous Chesterton of the romances; and, after all, it is Stella Benson. It is a book for the lonely and it is a lesson for the self-conscious. Best of all, it can be read for the sake of the narrative by those who do not care to trouble themselves with allegory.”
“It is a book to dally over and reflect on.”
“There are many amusing sketches of people.”
“It is a pity that mere manner should so have marred this new essay in beautiful nonsense. Beautiful is none too grand a word for ‘Living alone.’ The book teems with beautiful ideas, beautiful imaginings, best of all—beautiful feeling.”
BERESFORD, JOHN DAVYS. Imperfect mother. *$2 (2c) Macmillan
A story based on what the Freudians term the “mother complex.” Cecilia Kirkwood, a woman of dynamic personality, is married to a sombre little book-seller and is mother to three grown children. At forty-one she falls in love with the cathedral organist and leaves her family to go to London with him. Before taking the step she tells her story to her seventeen year old son thinking him the only one who will understand her. Stephen at this time is just beginning to fall in love with little Margaret Weatherly and his mother, hungry for admiration and sensitive to all shades of feeling toward herself, is conscious of the slight change in his attitude, and the one bond that might have held her to her home is broken. All thru his young manhood Stephen is influenced by the tie that binds him to his mother and all his relations with women, including his love for Margaret, are affected by it. With the dissolution of the conflict her spell over him is broken and he moves forward unhampered to business success and happy marriage.
“Reads like a case book on the ‘Oedipus complex.’ But in spite of the author’s effort to get everything right according to Freud it is not a bad story.”
“The story is woven with great delicacy and with unobtrusive skill and is remarkably interesting. Yet it is doubtful whether really great fiction would thrive on so much scientific awareness.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“‘An imperfect mother’ is certainly one of the best of the recent English novels. The author is secure in the consciousness of a ripe and finely developed art.” W. H. C.
“It is all symmetrical enough. And yet it is all quite unconvincing. It is even uninteresting. Cecilia alone emerges—a splendid creature bursting through the murky moralities of stuffy Medboro.”
“It is an easy enough book to read; but there is nothing much to carry away from it, except the impression of an experienced chronicler rehandling his materials in the light of an ‘idea.’”
“Where it might be thought to fail, is in the too subtle characterisation of Celia; older hands would have broadened their touches. It is a fine piece of work.”
“The merit of the book lies in the skill with which the conflict between Cecilia’s better instincts and her invincible egotism is drawn. Mr Beresford is an admirably self-effacing narrator.... Allowing for the improbabilities we have noted, this is an excellent and restrained study of an ‘a-moral’ type of womanhood.”
“Judged as an essay in morbid psychology, ‘An imperfect mother’ is an interesting document; judged as a novel, it is a failure.”
BERGER, MAURICE. Germany after the armistice. *$3.50 (5c) Putnam 914.3
“A report, based on the personal testimony of representative Germans, concerning the conditions existing in 1919.” (Sub-title) The author of this book, which is translated from the French, with an introduction, by William L. McPherson, was a lieutenant of the Belgian army. He went to Berlin after the signing of the armistice to engage in a series of personal interviews with men of prominence in diplomacy, the army, industry, finance, politics, journalism, the arts and sciences. These interviews are here published in full and contain such names as: Brockdorff-Rantzau; Prince Lichnowsky; General Kluck; Karl Helfferich; Hugo Haase; Karl Kautsky; Theodor Wolff; Maximilian Harden; Hermann Sudermann, and many others. In his conclusions the author treats of: Germany and the war; Germany and the atrocities; The Kaiser—militarism—bolshevism; Public spirit—the government; Germany and the society of nations; The new Germany. The book also contains a preface by Baron Beyens, former Belgian minister in Berlin, and has an index.
“A full revelation is this volume of the true inwardness of the German character.”
“The interviewer writes with the violent prejudice of an enemy who still fears his defeated foe. But many of the conversations are of peculiar interest none the less. Especially valuable, perhaps, are the statements of Kautsky and other Socialists; also the account of the shameless murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.” H: W. Nevinson
“No better account has appeared of the individuals who are directing the destinies of the young republic.”
“Lieutenant Berger draws with bold strokes the portraits of the men he met—they stand out with lifelike distinctiveness. His style is simple and vivacious and his subject matter is engrossing.”
“There is a tone of sincere frankness in the interviews which carries weight. Lieutenant Berger is evidently a man of tact and discernment; he refused to enter upon useless discussion, but he was able to guide the conversation so skilfully as to secure for his superiors the desired information.” C: Seymour
BERGSON, HENRI LOUIS. Mind-energy. *$2.50 (3c) Holt 194
This collection of lectures and essays, translated from the French by H. Wildon Carr, is not only an authorized translation, says the translator, but has been carefully supervised by M. Bergson himself, as to details of meaning and expression, in order to give it the same authority as the original French. The lectures are partly in exposition of philosophical theory, partly detailed psychological investigation and metaphysical research illustrative of their author’s concept of reality as a fundamentally spiritual activity. Contents: Life and consciousness; The soul and the body; “Phantasms of the living” and psychical research; Dreams; Memory of the present and false recognition; Intellectual effort; Brain and thought; a philosophical illusion; Index.
“Bergson is brilliant, and he is in close touch with the life of men. He is always worth reading for his intellectual strength and his insight into things spiritual. In this book Bergson is found at his best.” F. W. C.
“The present volume is valuable for students of Bergson just because its confident reaffirmations proclaim that, in the author’s judgment, his theories have stood the test of time. Hence this is a good opportunity for attempting a total estimate of Bergson’s work and a sorting out of what is likely to live from what is likely to die.” R. F. A. Hoernle
“The student who lacks either the time or the training to study Mr Bergson’s larger and more difficult work will find in this volume of essays clues not difficult to understand and profitable to follow.”
“The essays before us, though diversely prompted, all converge towards one centre, which is revealed by the title of the book. At the end they leave the feeling that he has been pursuing the same subject all the time. The tenacity with which he applies his principles is certainly to be noted in a thinker who suggests such a flexible, almost elusive, view of reality. There is a fascinating essay about ‘false recognition.’”
BERNSTORFF, JOHANN HEINRICH ANDREAS HERMANN ALBRECHT, graf von. My three years in America. *$5 Scribner 940.32
“As a pendant to Mr Gerard’s reminiscences of the American embassy in Berlin during the war, Count Bernstorff’s account of his work as German ambassador at Washington is of some historic interest. He is mainly concerned to defend himself and to put all the blame for the quarrel with America on the Berlin foreign office and on the military chiefs. He denies, of course, that he had anything to do with the campaign of bomb outrages which German-Americans, assisted by Irish-Americans, waged against American and Canadian factories and allied shipping. He records the profound horror and indignation caused by the torpedoing of the Lusitania, but disclaims all previous knowledge of that foul deed.”—Spec
“For the historian and student of the war Count von Bernstorff’s book has undoubted value. The excellence of the translation may be due in part to the style of Count von Bernstorff; for, unlike many German writers, he does not hide his thought behind dense and complicated entanglements of language, but sets it forth in clear, short, crisp sentences.” E. E. Sperry
“There are many curious statements in the book, some of which no sophisticated reader will believe without confirmation. At any rate students of political science will find many things in this volume to provoke dissent, and some also that will meet with hearty concurrence.”
“The book is interesting and has a certain historical value.”
“The tone is reasonable and conciliatory, the logic sometimes too smooth.”
“Throughout the narrative Count Bernstorff is wonderfully frank. Whether this frankness arises from an honest openness of mind or from an utter absence of ability to realize his own obliquity is a question for each reader to solve for himself.” E. J. C.
“Count Bernstorff himself is not a thinker like Norman Angell and Bertrand Russell, but he is intelligent to a high degree, exact, fearless, without cheap pride, living in a much more real atmosphere than most of the German war statesmen. He has the prime advantage, for a time of such complexity, of having a good mind that functions without interference from his prejudices or his passions.” Norman Hapgood
“The story is told coolly and without any sign of prejudice, except for an occasional slurring reference to Colonel Roosevelt or Ambassador Gerard. The narrator analyzes his characters in an objective sort of way, unmoved by anger or enthusiasm, except for one exclamation of admiration for Colonel House; he dissects, he does not eulogize or condemn.” C. W. Thompson
“This book, as a real contribution to history, will assuredly take its place alongside volumes of such permanent value as Viscount Haldane’s, General von Falkenhayn’s, and Count Czernin’s. Indeed, in none of these is there sharper, more illuminative, and more cynical observation both of men and events.”
“It would be a serious mistake to consider his ‘plaidoyer’ as dispassionate history. It is a further and exceedingly interesting addition to that large library of self-justification now appearing in Germany. It differs from other volumes only on a point of good taste.” Christian Gauss
“The reader into whose hands it may come will not fail to find its chapters exceedingly interesting, as they review familiar episodes from what to Americans is an unfamiliar standpoint.”
“We think that all the great actors in the German tragedy, military, political and diplomatic, have now told their story, except the ex-Kaiser. Count Bernstorff’s is certainly the best of these ‘pieces justificatives,’ for it shows that the writer’s judgment was better than that of his masters, and his style is temperate and logical.”
“His attempt to gauge American character is on the whole happy. Even those who differ with him will find it difficult to disprove his findings. There is no rancor in his judgments. There is no attempt to add piquancy to the narrative by gossip.”
BERRIMAN, ALGERNON E., and others. Industrial administration. (Manchester univ. publications) il *$2.40 Longmans 331
“The lectures published in this volume were delivered in the department of industrial administration in the College of technology, Manchester, during the session 1918–19, by various well-known authorities on subjects relating to industrial administration.” (Nature) “Contents: Social obligations of industry to labour, by B. S. Rowntree; The applications of psychology to industry, by T. H. Pear; Education as a function of management, by A. E. Berriman; Occupational diseases, by T. M. Legge; Atmospheric conditions and efficiency, by L. Hill; Industrial councils and their possibilities, by T. B. Johnston; Training for factory administration, by St G. Heath; Industrial fatigue, by A. F. S. Kent.” (Am Econ R)
BETTER letters; a little book of suggestions and information about business correspondence. $1 Herbert S. Browne, 608 S. Dearborn st., Chicago 658
“This little book has been compiled for the average person in business, whether executive or stenographer, who wants a statement in simple and direct form of the elementary things that are essential to good letters. It is a first-aid manual of style for business correspondence, suitable for adoption by any commercial concern, large or small.” (Introd.) Contents of part 1—The letter itself: Appearance; Substance; Phraseology; Punctuation; Paragraphing; Abbreviations; Miscellaneous. Contents of part 2—Words, right and wrong; Some misused words; Verbal vulgarisms; Similar words often confused; Pronouns: their use and abuse; Miscellaneous.
BIERSTADT, EDWARD HALE, ed. Three plays of the Argentine; tr. from the Spanish by Jacob S. Fassett, jr. *$1.75 Duffield 862
In his introduction to these plays Mr Bierstadt has given us a glimpse of the culture of one of our American neighbors to the South, of whom we have hitherto known too little. His historical sketch of the folk drama of the Argentine, known as the drama criollo, shows it to have sprung from the very heart of the people, the gaucho, and to have had its inception in the sawdust ring of the circus. As given in the translation, the plays are transcriptions from the original popular and unprinted versions and although modified, have retained their true atmospheric and colorful qualities. Of the two first Mr Bierstadt says: “They are perhaps the most famous in all the category of gaucho plays, and carry as do no others the very spirit of the pampas.” These are “Juan Moreira” and “Santos Vega.” The third, “The witches’ mountain,” is not in the same sense a gaucho play, as it is set in the mountain country, but is considered as marking the last milestone in the epoch of truly native drama.
“‘The witches’ mountain’ is the only one of the three plays included that conforms to the canons of real drama.”
“The second, while sufficiently crude and violent, has elements of great beauty. The third, The witches’ mountain, is a really magnificent piece, both in conception and construction.”
“When we come to the actual texture of the ‘dramas criollos’ the impression is one of slight disappointment. The figure of the wandering ‘gaucho’ and minstrel is romantic rather than naive. Speech and verse, at least in their translated forms, present a curious mixture of the sentimental and the artificial. In The witches’ mountain there is high and concentrated dramatic passion. But this play is obviously the least primitive of the three.”
“These plays have a freshness and vigor of spaces our Wild West scenarios somehow lack. There are the same conventional gestures, the same corroborated sentiment from which any informing fire has gone out. But at least these are reminiscent of authentic instead of manufactured emotion.” Lola Ridge
“However primitive the plays, they possess what our American drama strives in vain to discover, the soul of their native land.... The witches’ mountain is doubtless the most actable, and the most easily understood by an American audience.” D. Grafly
“If these plays seem immature rather than naive; crude, rather than in the spirit of the folk; if Mr Bierstadt seems to have mistaken the drama inherent in the life and character of the ‘gaucho’ for drama in the plays that represent him, there is still nothing but gratitude due him for introducing the ‘gaucho’ to our unromantic world.”
BIGELOW, MELVILLE MADISON. Papers on the legal history of government; difficulties fundamental and artificial. *$2 (4½c) Little 320.1
The author warns against making a fetish of history and points out the difficulty in the way of its infallibility as a teacher. The number and complexity of the facts, in part hidden, in part incomprehensible, impede correct judgment. Besides, latent energies may at any time spring into action to change men’s reactions to given facts. On the other hand there is a certain fundamental principle on which society rests and which serves as constant in the interpretation of history. It is the object of the book to study the past, to give assurance of the principle and then to see how men have acted and are acting in its presence. Contents: Unity in government; The family in English history: an inquiry; Medieval English sovereignty; The old jury; Becket and the law; Index.
BINDLOSS, HAROLD.[2] Lister’s great adventure (Eng title, Head of the house). il *$2 (2c) Stokes
George Lister, a young Canadian engineer, has his pluck and natural ability rather than a defective scientific training to thank for a moderate success. His self-reliance scorns the help of friends. He rescues a young girl, Barbara Hyslop, from an amorous crook who has induced her to run away with him. Later he is instrumental in returning the girl to the bosom of her family. Having lost his job he resolves to see something of the world and goes to England, and while there undertakes to raise a wreck off the African coast for Barbara’s step-father. After heroic efforts he succeeds but succumbs to the fever-ridden locality. Barbara, who from conscientious scruples over her romantic exploit, had refused his love, now calls him back to health with the gift of it.
“The heroine and the various members of her family have more individuality than is usual in this class of literature.”
“There are no improbabilities and no excesses of sentimentality, the style is simple and effective, and the pace is brisk and unwavering.”
BINDLOSS, HAROLD. Wilderness mine. il *$1.90 (1½c) Stokes
This story is divided into three distinct parts, the first and third of which take place in England, and the second in Canada. Creighton and Stayward are partners in business until Creighton, driven on by his wife’s extravagances and his daughter’s need of an education, misappropriates some of the funds and Stayward dissolves the partnership. Creighton disappears and his wife spreads stories about Stayward’s cruelty and dishonesty to her husband. The Canadian part of the story has to do with Geoffrey Lisle, Stayward’s nephew, who is managing a mine there, and who comes in contact with Tom Carson, cook and chemist, who helps him defeat the rival mining company he is working against. Upon his return to England at his uncle’s death, Geoffrey again meets the girl who has been in his thoughts ever since he left England, to discover that she is Ruth Creighton, and theoretically his enemy. The timely discovery of who Tom Carson really was helps him to win the girl and to clear his uncle’s name in her eyes.
“His latest effort is a far more polished production than some of those that have gone before it. As it is not the best kind of romance, quite naturally it is not the best kind of adventure, but it serves very well for an hour or so’s amusement, and lovers of Mr Bindloss will find in this tale all the ingredients of his other efforts.”
“Mr Bindloss is one of those writers (all too few) who handle the adventure story without stressing the adventures to the disadvantage of all the other parts of the story. In other words, his characterization is always clear and distinct and worked up with some elaboration, and he has a quick eye at the description of natural scenery.”
“The Canadian part of the book is much the best.”
BINDLOSS, HAROLD. Wyndham’s pal. *$1.75 (2c) Stokes
Harry Wyndham having inherited from his forefathers an old business enterprise of somewhat doubtful credit, along with a romantic, restless, daring temperament, sets out on a trading adventure in the wild lagoons, mandrake swamps, fever atmosphere, and mysterious dangers of the Caribbean coast. There is a girl back home in England, for whose sake he wishes to return wealthy and successful. He achieves his purpose, although in order to do it he has to deal with a dangerous, sinister, mysterious creature called the Bat, and has to compromise his honesty and honor. Found out by his bride and business partner he seriously undertakes reparation and re-establishes his own self-respect, as well as the respect of others.
“Men, and boys in their teens, will like this story.”
“Without being particularly exciting or particularly vivid, it holds the reader’s attention.”
“To an astonishing degree, he maintains his average. And his average is good.” H. Dick
“We have read better stories by this author.”
“The story is rather better than many of the author’s recent books, and his readers will find considerable entertainment in its pages.”
BINNS, OTTWELL. Mating in the wilds. (Borzoi western stories). *$2 (2c) Knopf
Hubert Stane, who has served a prison sentence on a false charge, is in the north woods. Here he meets Gerald Ainley, the man who was responsible for his sentence. Ainley apparently stands high in the estimation of Hudson Bay company officials and is a suitor for the hand of Helen Yardely, a beautiful English girl who is making a tour of the posts with her uncle. Helen is lost in the woods. Stane finds her and fate forces the two to spend long months of exile together. Helen takes naturally to primitive life and when Stane’s name is cleared the two are married at an English mission and continue their wilderness life.
“An exciting tale told with literary excellence beyond the average of adventure stories.”
“It is all admirably and romantically told. Though we know the tale of old, it is still alive when the right chronicler takes it up; and Mr Binns never for a moment lets it flag.”
BIRDSEYE, CLARENCE FRANK. American democracy versus Prussian Marxism. *$2.50 Revell 335
“Clarence F. Birdseye, in a volume entitled ‘American democracy versus Prussian Marxism,’ presents what he calls ‘a study in the nature and results of purposive or beneficial government,’ his object being to warn his fellow-citizens of the great danger threatening the American form of government through the attacks that are being made upon it by Marxian socialists. In order to make clear the danger is real, and not fanciful, Mr Birdseye analyzes both governmental forms and shows conclusively that no tolerance of the Marxian idea can be permitted in this country without damage to American institutions and ideals.”—N Y Times
“In this compact little volume, rich in well selected facts and information throughout, the author has performed a useful service.” W. B. Guthrie
BIRNBAUM, MARTIN. Introductions; painters, sculptors and graphic artists. il *$5 Sherman, F: Fairchild 704
“Papers by an American critic on Beardsley, Conder, C. H. Shannon, C. Ricketts, Pakst, Dulac, Alfred Stevens, John Flaxman, and some younger American artists—Maurice Sterne, Paul Manship (sculptor), Alfred Sterner (painter, lithographer, etc.), Robert Blum (illustrator, decorator, pastellist), Edie Nadeloman (Polish sculptor), Kay Nielsen, the Danish water-colourist, Jules Pascrin, the Austrian satiric artist.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The Aubrey Beardsley and Conder introductions may be taken as the perfect models for this form of art. Mr Birnbaum, himself, never quite arose to the same plane of detachment in his later writings. The citations, though brilliant, become too incessant and the authorities parading through the pages scarcely give each other elbow room. The feats of memory displayed are prodigious, comparable to those of Mr Huneker. In fact, stylistically, there is more than a suspicion that Mr Birnbaum is Mr Huneker’s child.” H: McBride
“To be graceful, informing, and readily understood was the problem. The author has solved it with sure literary tact and offers as well a fine criticism which was not in the bond.”
BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE. Frederick Locker-Lampson. il *$8 Scribner
“A kinship of spirit as well as relationship by marriage bound Mr Birrell and Locker-Lampson, and in every page of his character sketch, he reveals a sympathy that is both personal and professional. Few books are both more and less a biography than this. It is merely a series of impressions and appreciations. Less than half its opening pages contain the biographical matter, and then follow some fifty pages of letters from eminent literary men—including Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, Holmes, Ruskin, Hardy and Stevenson—which reveal the esteem in which Locker-Lampson was held by his contemporaries. The other material which completes the volume includes six letters written by him to his son at Eton, some family bookplates, bibliographical notes on the books in the famous Rowfant library, and a brief account of the Rowfant library at Cleveland, with a list of its publications.”—Boston Transcript
“Mr Birrell’s biography reads so queerly because it brings before us a real human being. It is not that he is more profound than others, or that he has a story to tell to which we cannot fail to listen. It is that the values of life are quite different from those of biography. There is such a thing as living. One of the chief merits of Mr Birrell’s method, which is a peculiar compound of wit and sanity, is that it reduces these nineteenth-century phantoms to human scale.” V. W.
“It has been a long time since ‘London lyrics’ first appeared, but none the less this intimate and accurate character sketch of their author has a genuine interest and value.” H: L. West
“A gentle and a genial tribute, it may well be said, is this volume to the personality, the achievements and the memory of a rare being.” E. F. E.
“As a piece of book-making, the offering is admirable; as a book—! But Mr Birrell is a devoted chronicler and if, from these impeccable pages, his placid father-in-law emerges an even less interesting figure than he seemed before one’s perusal of his memorial, the meticulous chronicler himself can not escape scot-free.” L: Untermeyer
“Hitherto the best analysis of Locker’s work was to be found in the sympathetic study prepared by Austin Dobson in 1904. Mr Birrell’s sketch is ampler than Mr Dobson’s and it is also more discursive. It abounds in playful digressions and in pleasant irrelevancies.” Brander Matthews
“His sketch is somewhat discursive and casual, containing more background than definite statements, but it includes some agreeable Birrelling.”
“Nowhere has he gossiped more charmingly; and if he cannot resist an occasional divagation from his main topic, his obiter dicta are as pleasant as ever.”
“In reading this book, and noticing how Mr Birrell is always sliding away from his subject to talk about himself, or about somebody or something other than Frederick Locker, you ask why he chose ‘Frederick Locker-Lampson: a character sketch’ for the title of a book that might just as properly have been called ‘Scraps,’ or ‘Chips,’ or ‘Jottings.’ In the end nevertheless, you feel that you have been unfair. Mr Birrell, in his odd, slipshod way, is a man of letters—at least a man who delights in letters; and he gives you a faint character sketch of Frederick Locker-Lampson.”
BISHOP, CARLTON THOMAS.[2] Structural drafting and the design of details. il *$5 Wiley 744
“The author was formerly chief draftsman to one of the largest bridge companies, and is now a professor at Yale university. Part 1 covers comprehensively the duties of the draftsman and what he should know in a general way about organization of plant and office, as well as a survey of the manufacture and fabrication of structural steel. Part 2 tells in detail about the technique of drawing, with special chapters devoted to beams, girders, trusses, bracing systems, bills, checking, etc. Part 3 deals closely with the theory and practice of designing different types of construction members.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
“To the student or inexperienced draftsman the book is invaluable. The experienced draftsman can hardly fail to add to his efficiency by reading it. The typography of the book is all that needs be desired. This, with the general excellence of the contents, will make it a standard in the field of structural drafting for some time to come.”
“On the whole we are inclined to name this the best book on the subject.”
BISHOP, ERNEST SIMONS. Narcotic drug problem. *$1.50 Macmillan 613.8
“‘It is becoming apparent that in spite of all the work which has been done there has been practically no change in the general situation, and there has been no solution of the drug problem.’ This is the conclusion of Dr Ernest S. Bishop, clinical professor of medicine in the New York polyclinic medical school. Two outstanding elements appear to Dr Bishop to have received insufficient consideration in the efforts to solve the narcotic drug problem. One of these elements is the suffering of the addict: the other is the nature of the physical disease with which he is afflicted. Dr Bishop asserts that the exploitation of human weakness and suffering would be checked on any large scale, if the disease created by continued administration of opiates were recognized and its physical demands comprehended and provided for in legitimate and relatively unobjectionable ways.... Dr Bishop also recommends the establishment under proper supervision and management of stations or clinics at which those who for financial or other reasons are unable to secure honest medical help, may obtain their necessary opiate at minimum expense without ‘resorting to underworld associations and illicit commerce.’”—Springf’d Republican
“Occasionally, very occasionally, one finds a book upon a somewhat technical subject which is not merely readable and informative, but actually liberating. Such a book is Dr Bishop’s discourse on the narcotic drug problem.”
“A criticism of the book might well be directed against its redundancy. Nor does it appear just what type of audience he had in mind when inditing his message. Obviously it is not intended for the narcotic drug addict. If addressed to the physician, it is incomplete and fragmentary. If meant for the layman only casually interested in the problem, the message should have had greater emotional appeal.” H. E. K.
“Dr Bishop’s study of the situation is scientific, thorough and humane. It will authoritatively inform the public regarding a subject on which enlightenment is needed.
“The real problems of the narcotic drug situation are related to the origin and prevention of heroin and cocaine addictions and the treatment and after-care of those so addicted. This book avoids these questions and is sterile of information on these essential points of the narcotic drug problem.” Medicus
BISHOP, H. C. W. Kut prisoner. (On active service ser.) il *$1.50 (3c) Lane 940.47
The author, a subaltern of the Indian army reserve of officers, gives an account of prison life at Kastamuni in Asia Minor, and of his escape in company with three other officers, their recapture, and rescue by Turkish brigands and their voyage across the Black sea in a small boat, to the Russian border and freedom. Contents: Ctesiphon; Kut; From Kut to Kastamuni; Life in Kastamuni; Escape from Kastamuni; The first night; On the hills; Slow progress; Bluffing the peasants; Reaching the coast; Recaptured; Rescued; In hiding with the Turks; Continued delays; Three days on the Black sea; The Crimea and home; Friends in captivity. There are maps, illustrations and appendices.
“The book is interesting.”
“Mr Bishop describes his adventures simply and clearly, and his book is worth reading.”
BISHOP, JOSEPH BUCKLIN. Theodore Roosevelt and his time shown in his own letters. 2v il *$10 Scribner
“Seven years ago, when Theodore Roosevelt published his ‘Autobiography,’ he prefixed to it a foreword, which began with this sentence. ‘Naturally, there are chapters of my autobiography which cannot now be written.’ Yet he had written from day to day, on the spur of the moment, in his frank letters to one or another of his multitude of friends, the very passages which he could not give to the public while he was still in the thick of the fight. And it is these passages which enliven and illuminate the two volumes which Mr Bishop has now selected and set in order, and explained and annotated. The work was begun while Roosevelt still lived; it had his complete approval; parts of it were read to him and amplified from his recollections.”—N Y Times
“The biography which will be most worth while to libraries.”
“One of the most notable works of the season is Joseph Bucklin Bishop’s ‘Theodore Roosevelt.’” Margaret Ashmun
“With perfect taste and judgment Mr Bishop has stood aside and allowed the story to be told through Roosevelt’s letters. He has made an excellent book, important, always readable and often extremely amusing. With the ‘Autobiography’ and Mr Thayer’s book, the present work, ‘Theodore Roosevelt and his time’ is one of the three indispensable books on this subject. With Mr Huneker’s ‘Steeplejack,’ it is one of the two best American biographies of this year.” E. L. Pearson
“It is a work of notable artistic merit. Perhaps fifty years hence it may generally be conceded that this book preserves what is important in ‘the true Theodore Roosevelt’s’ character. At present one cannot help feeling that Mr Bishop’s figure of rugged integrity, unerring rectitude, and loftiest patriotism has been shorn of some of its beams.” S. P. Sherman
“A difficult task has been accomplished triumphantly, and the result is a portrait of Roosevelt by himself, set in an editorial frame which is artistically unobstructive. Mr Bishop has given us a work which does for one president of the United States what was done for an earlier president by the publication of Grant’s ‘Personal memoirs.’ And neither of these great men would object to the comparison.” Brander Matthews
“There are a few little errors, nothing of consequence. But the book is undoubtedly partisan; which does not prevent it from being a thoroughly good and complete biography.” C: W. Thompson
“It is a work after Roosevelt’s own heart, the sort of record that he himself would have endorsed just as it stands, showing him in the full strength and weakness of his very human quality.” F: T. Cooper
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“These two volumes, as they stand, will serve not only for the present time but for future generations.”
“Mr Bishop has succeeded in giving us two volumes of great value and readability.”
BISHOP, LOUIS FAUGÈRES. Heart troubles; their prevention and relief. il *$3.50 Funk 616.1
A book written in popular style and addressed to the layman. The author believes that a patient is entitled to the full confidence of his physician and thinks that in heart disease “the educated patient can help more when wisely advised than in almost any other form of disease.” The book is in two parts: Physiological and symptomatic, and Therapeutic. The final chapter is devoted to Nursing in heart troubles. The book is illustrated and indexed and there is a one-page list of collateral reading. The author is professor of the heart and circulatory diseases, Fordham university, New York city.
“The immediate effect of this sane and sensible work should be a wider dissemination of modern knowledge of the heart, its affections and their treatment; the ultimate result should be a reduction in the alarming death rate from heart disease in the United States.” V. B. Thorne
“A ‘doctor book’ of an unusual sort and one which will be found of great interest and of much practical value.”
BISPHAM, DAVID SCULL. Quaker singer’s recollections. il *$4 Macmillan
“For thirty years and more David Bispham has been prominent, here and abroad, as a baritone of note, a singing actor, and an advocate of the use of English speech in opera. In these recollections he has packed into one volume the record of a long and busy life—a life of many strange and varied experiences. Unlike most men who have their hour in opera, he has had his in society. He has traveled far and wide, and mixed with people who were worth knowing and far-famed in many ways. To this it may be added, unreservedly, that he has more than an instinctive turn for setting down, in plain but vivid words, what he would tell.”—Review
“The style, unfortunately, is plainly that of a singer, and wavers continually between the exclamatory and the sentimental.”
“While Mr Bispham’s book may appeal primarily to singers and students of singing, it is none the less a valuable text book for students of the drama.”
“It is an interesting volume full of the writer’s personality written with more literary skill and taste than many such books, giving many sidelights on the musical life of the period of which it treats.” R: Aldrich
“If we were disappointed in David Bispham’s ‘A Quaker singer’s recollections,’ it was not because of lack of thoroughness, but because that delightful singer’s fund of anecdote has not been used to advantage.”
“A singer who can write with ease and style is rarer than that rare bird, the black swan. One artist of the kind is David Bispham.” C: H: Meltzer
“An excellent volume of reminiscences.”
“He has perhaps not grasped the first bitter truth to be learned by an author that of all the countless incidents which his own mind makes picturesque in retrospect only those are interesting which he can make picturesque to others. The bald stretches, however, are only occasional.”
BISS, GERALD. Door of the unreal. *$2 (3c) Putnam
Strange disappearances are common in fact and in fiction, sometimes involving equally strange explanations, but surely in either realm, nothing could rival the solution of the mystery of this story. Of the four people who completely vanish from a well-traveled English road about midnight of a moonlight night, the only one who is ever seen again is Tony Ballingdon, and he is found unconscious and bruised in a nearby wood. Lincoln Osgood, an American who happens to be on the scene, makes a study of the case and soon forms a theory which proves to be the correct one, altho so weird and uncanny is it that he himself can hardly credit it. It is based on lycanthropy and its strange lore: in fact, it presupposes the existence in the neighborhood of two werewolves, Prof. Lycurgus Wolff and his old servant. By his knowledge of the subject Osgood prevents further tragedy and frees Dorothy, Wolff’s daughter, from the curse that is threatening her.
“With the understanding that the solution of the mystery of the novel lies along the lines of lycanthropy, the reader finds before him a smoothly written, straightforward narrative, lucid and compelling in its admirable simplicity, and endowed with that sustained interest which before anything else connotes a good story.”
“A readable yarn it is.”
BLACHLY, CLARENCE DAN. Treatment of the problem of capital and labor in social-study courses in the churches. *50c Univ. of Chicago press 330.7
“The social-study movement in the churches of America has developed on lines both sound and broad in recent years, and a review of its present status would be decidedly helpful. Mr Blachly, however, has found the material so large that in the present essay he confines himself to only one aspect of that movement. He presents an analysis of several hundred pamphlets and reports, replies to questionnaires and letters of inquiry, the texts of the social study courses used in the leading Protestant churches, the principal church magazines and other literature. He distinguishes five methods of approach to the discussion of capital and labor by the churches: deductive study which he finds as a rule incomplete and non-conclusive; controversial discussion, especially the adoption of a definite political or economic platform, which is dangerous to church harmony; control of experience through attitude of mind and heart, i.e., emphasis on the spiritual rather than the legal control of conditions; scientific, critical examination—which is rare because the religious attitude is as different from that of the student as it is from that of the legislator; the incorporation of modern, scientific and sociological facts into teaching that is primarily religious. Evidently, the author’s preference is for the last named method.”—Survey
“This is a valuable summary of information for the student of the teaching of organized religion on present-day problems of the social life and a suggestive criticism of the different policies that have been adopted.” B. L.
BLACK, HUGH.[2] Lest we forget. *$1.50 Revell 824
“In the eleven chapters which make up this book the author discusses among other things the meaning of the victory, a democracy safe for the world, patriotism, true and false, peace and pacifism, the binding of the nations and the English-speaking peoples. In the chapter on the binding of the nations he says: ‘All men of goodwill must recognize that the plan for a league of nations is inspired with their highest ideal, and they can make it invincible.’”—Springf’d Republican
BLAKE, A. H. Things seen in London. il *$1.35 Dutton 914.21
“This book is a pocket-sized volume, belonging to the Things seen series, which contains descriptive and historical chapters on points of special interest with post-card sized illustrations.”—Booklist
“It hardly exhausts the city. But it is a good introductory description, written by a person who appreciates historic flavor. The little book is well illustrated.”
BLAKEMORE, ARTHUR WALKER.[2] Make your will. *$1.25 Appleton 347.6
The book is “a guide to the drafting of a valid will under the laws of any state.” (Sub-title) In the introduction the reasons for making a will, its essentials, and definitions of the terms used are given. The other chapters are: Form and essentials; Provisions of will; Execution of will; Codicils; After execution of will. The book is indexed and has an appendix containing a synopsis of laws affecting wills for every state.
BLANCHARD, PHYLLIS MARY. Adolescent girl. *$2.50 Moffat 136.7
“A pioneering into the field of girl life in a direction, says Dr G. Stanley Hall in his preface, which his studies took with the adolescent boy. The book is a summary of the main theories of Fichte, Schelling, Von Hartmann, Bergson, Freud, Trotter, Adler, Jung, Maeder and others.”—Booklist
“More helpful to the serious student than Evans [‘Problem of the nervous child’] because of its carefully selected chapter bibliographies.”
“Unfortunately, she does not resist the temptation to adopt the evangelistic tone. Although ostensibly based on the findings of Freud, Jung and Adler, there is never any suggestion that their researches may ultimately lead to a questioning of some of our moral standards. But this is an eminently safe book.” Fola La Follette
“To the reviewer the book commends itself most particularly on account of the richness of first-hand clinical material, put in a simple, readable manner, the frankness with which the author has handled the subject of the instinctive determinants of conduct, and finally because it reflects throughout a ‘mental hygienic’ rather than a therapeutic aim.” Bernard Glueck
“The chief value of Miss Blanchard’s work is in line with her own real interest, philosophy. Busy workers with girls, who may feel that their knowledge of the main developments of psychoanalysis is rather vague, and who wish to know some of its real possibilities in their own field, will find this a useful and interesting introduction.” M. E. Moxcey
“She endeavors to give a social direction to her material. But it remains a good deal of a jumble.”
Reviewed by A. E. Morey
BLAND, JOHN OTWAY PERCY. Men, manners and morals in South America. il *$4.50 Scribner 918
“This book is the outcome of two or three journeys which Mr Bland, the author of several books on China, made to South America in the course of the war. They took him to Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “He protests against the ‘blue-book stodginess’ of many works which deal with that portion of the western hemisphere south of the equator. It is undeniable that the general reader wants, not dry particulars of South American trades, industries, and manufacturing possibilities, but silhouettes of the men and women and their social life; descriptions of the prairies and forests, of mountain gorges and the ‘everlasting hills.’ Mr Bland, who portrays numerous types of South American humanity, and spiritedly describes the places he has visited, successfully avoids the faults to which his strictures apply.” (Ath)
“His book is heartily to be commended.”
“All that he tells is well worth the reading.” E. J. C.
“Tho rambling in manner and somewhat cynical in tone, is an illuminating introduction to a little understood part of the world.”
“In no place in the present work has he attained or even attempted that subtlety of characterization, that inimitable charm of description which enchants us in Hudson. The outsides of people he has faithfully observed and studiously catalogued; the insides he has missed. Not that there are lacking passages of rare beauty and memorable description in the present work. Had Mr Bland chosen any other theme than this one, which has already been covered by a master, his volume would stand out as an unusual contribution to the literature of travel.” H. L. Varney
“He writes because he likes writing, and as he writes very brightly the reader has no cause to complain. He conjures up people and customs that were strange to him in phrases of so much colour, point, and pungency that we are well content to see them with his eyes.”
BLAND, OLIVER. Adventures of a modern occultist. *$2 Dodd 133
To acquire psychic power, says the author, presupposes certain unusual natural gifts and the object of the volume is to render assistance to those possessing such gifts. It contains disclosures of hidden facts which have been abiding their time for years in the author’s notebooks, and which are of interest to the spiritualist, the theosophist, and the student of psychic research. Contents: The dead rapper; The automatist; Astral light and psycho-lastrometer; An experiment on the theory of protective vibration; Sex in the next world; The reality of sorcery; Incense and occultism; Beasts and elementals; Possession; Some new facts and theories; Oriental occultism.
BLASCO IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE.[2] Enemies of women (Los enemigos de la mujer); tr. from the Spanish by Irving Brown. *$2.15 Dutton
“In a fairy-like villa on the Mediterranean, Prince Lubimoff, a Russian Apollo, surfeited with luxury and liasons, gathers a group of friends,—a savant, a soldier, and a musician,—in order to live in calm contemplation, free from the most disturbing element in life—the feminine. These ‘enemies of women,’ as they style themselves, start with a sense of satiated superiority that makes renunciation easy, but the gradual defection of each from the code and the coterie forms an intriguing study of human nature and its inevitabilities. In the end, all the ‘enemies of women’ have succumbed to the eternal feminine and chiefly because of it have gone to fight on the side of idealism, even that incorrigible epicurean, the Russian prince, losing an arm in the Foreign legion and gaining some semblance of a soul.”—Pub W
“Taking it by the large, the book, though not without its weak spots, is a decided improvement over the two that went before it in point of time, and thus provides a genuine climax to the trilogy.” I. G.
“While the book is a colorful, cross-section of the hectic war and post-war fragments of European civilization, it lacks the directed drive of the ‘Four horsemen’ and ‘Mare nostrum,’ as well as the concentration of theme and treatment of the Spanish stories.” Clement Wood
“The book is so full of splendid, glowing color, so rich in characters, each one clearly set forth and individualized—it has so many dramatic scenes, so many statements upon which one would like to comment, that to choose among them is extraordinarily difficult. That the book is beautifully written, and the descriptions of scenery remarkable, goes, of course, without saying.”
“Blasco Ibáñez has, with master hand, painted a broad, crowded canvas, teeming with life and glowing with primary colors. It is undeniably a strong book and thoroly characteristic of the author, tho with rather an over-emphasis on the sensual side and coronetted classes, and with different ethical values from those to which the Anglo-Saxon mind is trained.” Katharine Perry
BLASCO IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE. Mexico in revolution; tr. by Arthur Livingston and José Padin. *$2 Dutton 972
“The author of the ‘Four horsemen of the Apocalypse’ happens to be one of the few Spaniards of distinction who have recently visited the United States. That he should prove to be a journalist as well as a novelist occasioned some surprise among his admirers in this country. His visit to Mexico was distinctly a journalistic enterprise, the outcome of which was a series of articles printed in the New York Times and other important newspapers and now brought out in book form.”—R of Rs
“Statements cited as facts are sometimes based on hearsay, or incomplete knowledge. The style is that of a vigorous piece of reporting, particularly in the vividness of the personalities portrayed.”
“It is interesting reading, and is, of course, excellently written. The book is of only temporary interest, however, and from the standpoint of historical study will be of little or no value.”
“His shrewd, quick-glancing political insight, his wit, his sense of the picturesque, his fundamental common sense views of life and the smooth, even flow of his style are all illustrated at their best in his little book on ‘Mexico in revolution.’”
“Señor Ibáñez owes a great deal to his translators. They had an inspiring task, for Ibáñez is a born journalist of the highest type, and the swift rush of his narrative, the power of terse description, the characterization, the wit to ‘make you see it,’ should be a spur to any translator.”
“Ibáñez will seem to the friends of the Mexican people to have erred as badly in going to the opposite extreme [from the radical position]. Yet Ibáñez’ picture, even if overdrawn, is an honest one. It is a depressing picture if one accepts it as it stands. But the artist has overcharged his canvas.” W. J. Ghent
“Señor Blasco Ibáñez is gifted with a ‘nose for news’ and an unusual ability to give literary form to his observations and impressions. In short, he is a first-rate reporter. He employed his time in Mexico to good advantage.”
BLASCO IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE. Woman triumphant (La maja desnuda); tr. from the Spanish by Hayward Keniston; with a special introductory note by the author. *$1.90 Dutton
“The central theme concerns the intimate tragedy of a great painter, Renovales, who, beholding the loveliness of his young wife, persuades her to pose for him, promising that the picture shall be destroyed. But when his inspired hand has added the last brush-stroke, Renovales knows that this is his master piece, and when exhibited will bring him fame. The wife, however, in a sudden revulsion of outraged dignity, flings herself on the picture and slashes it into ribbons. Her act cleaves asunder the artist’s two-fold worship. Meanwhile, a blight has fallen upon the wife’s former beauty. With pitiful futility she admits to herself that he might freely paint and exhibit her if only it would bring back her vanished charm. Yet she clings to life until the day when she becomes aware that even his technical fidelity is at an end. But when the prematurely old and faded wife is dead and buried, the memory of her comes back to haunt Renovales with the elusive charm of her girlhood. And it is borne in upon him that while pursuing unattainable desires he has missed the best life had to offer, and that now it is forever too late.”—Pub W
“‘Woman triumphant’ is, if one may say so without sounding dogmatic, one of the three great novels by Blasco Ibáñez that will endure. There are power, irony, depth and greatness in this novel. Josefina is one of Blasco Ibáñez’s few convincing portrayals of women, and Renovales is not merely an artist type, but a flesh and blood creature. The atmosphere is vibrant with interest, there are admirable pages of art-criticism, and the ever attractive scenes out of Bohemia.” I: Goldberg
“It shares the vivid pictorial quality, the sweeping rhetorical strokes characteristic of his fiction, but the slightness of its structure, tenuity of its philosophy and a certain morbidity of theme relegate it to the secondary rank among his novels. There is too much in the book that has this charnel-house atmosphere, and while it has unmistakable power, power does not redeem it.”
“Vicente Blasco Ibáñez is the great storyteller of today. In sheer ability to narrate, to make even the minutest analyses of the thought-processes of his characters part of his action, he stands peerless. ‘Woman triumphant’ only serves to emphasize those traits which have brought him enthusiastic homage before. The translation, like the original, is far above the average.” T. R. Ybarra
Reviewed by F: T. Cooper
“What moves us in it is that for all their blundering and wantonness something real and abiding has sprung from the union of Renovales and his maja.” H. W. Boynton
“Despite an inherent tendency to sensationalism, ‘Woman triumphant’ may be enjoyed for keen interpretation of human nature, sustained romantic creation, strong plot and vigorous action.”
BLEYER, WILLARD GROSVENOR. How to write special feature articles. *$2.25 Houghton 070
“A handbook for reporters, correspondents and free-lance writers who desire to contribute to popular magazines and magazine sections of newspapers.” (Sub-title) “The book is the result of twelve years’ experience in teaching university students to write special feature articles for newspapers and popular magazines.... The success that these students have achieved leads the author to believe that others who desire to write special articles may be aided by the suggestions given in this book.” (Preface) A careful analysis of current practices is the basis of the methods presented and an effort has been made to show the application of the principles of composition to the writing of articles. The book falls into two parts of which the second is devoted to a collection of typical newspaper and magazine articles, with an outline for the analysis of them. Part 1 contains: The field for special articles; Preparation for special feature writing; Finding subjects and material; Appeal and purpose; Types of articles; Writing the article; How to begin; Style; Titles and headlines; Preparing and selling the manuscript; Photographs and other illustrations. There is an index.
BLISS, DANIEL. Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss; ed. and supplemented by his eldest son. il *$2.25 Revell
“Daniel Bliss is not a name of resounding fame, and yet the man who bore it lived a long and useful life, reaching well into its ninth decade, and this long life was for the most part spent in doing good to his fellowman. This book is largely an autobiography written, it is believed, wholly from memory, in his eighty-second year. His life was the life of a missionary, a teacher and the founder and president of the Syrian Protestant college at Beirut. He was born in August, 1823, in Vermont, the son of a farmer of the olden time. In his own language Mr Bliss records many incidents of his childhood. He follows these anecdotes with the story of his school life, his apprenticeship to a tanner, his course later at the academy and at Amherst, where he was graduated in 1852. It was during his college course that he became interested in missions and resolved to become a missionary. Soon after his graduation he received ordination to the ministry. Three years later he was married, and with his wife sailed for his lifework in Syria.”—Boston Transcript
“Exceedingly readable book. There is something extremely restful and benign in the manner and matter of the narration.”
“One of the most interesting biographies of the year.”
BLOCKSIDGE, ERNEST WALTER. Ships’ boats. il *$9 (*25s) Longmans 623.8
“The first detailed text-book on this important subject. It follows mainly the requirements and classification of the British Board of trade and aims to deal essentially with practical applications and to avoid all abstruse theory. Form, stability, strength and capacity are carefully considered. Constructional details of the various classes are given and there are chapters on timbers, pontoon boats, motorboats, nested boats, and sail-boats; lifting and lowering appliances, buoyancy air-cases; miscellaneous equipment; galvanizing methods, painting, repairs and maintenance, fire and boat drifts, and stowage and transporting arrangements. The book is illustrated with photographs and line details. The author is ship surveyor to Lloyd’s register.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
“Mr Blocksidge presents for the first time a complete and authoritative work on a very important branch of naval construction.” C. M. Peabody
BLOOD, BENJAMIN PAUL. Pluriverse; an essay in the philosophy of pluralism; with an introd. by Horace Meyer Kallen. *$2.50 Jones, Marshall 191
“In 1874 Blood wrote and circulated a pamphlet entitled ‘The anaesthetic revelation and the gist of philosophy,’ which brought him into correspondence with Tennyson and Gurney, Emerson and Sir William Ramsay, Stirling and James. In the last years of his life he returned to the topic, and the result is ‘Pluriverse,’ posthumously published. The central point of the book is simple enough. It is that philosophy is ‘of all our vanities the motliest,’ and that the ‘satisfaction’ which it seeks, the sense of security through insight into the mystery of being, is not to be obtained through argument and reasoning but through the illumination or revelation which comes under the influence of anaesthetics.”—New Repub
“Another obscure volume is added to the literature of philosophy. And this will have to be acknowledged despite the fact that the diction of the author is in many places very beautiful, and his thoughts very often exceedingly suggestive.” F. W. C.
“Blood, in thorough keeping with the best in American philosophy, thinks waveringly and writes excellently.” E. P.
“Even Dr Kallen’s interesting and sympathetic introduction does not convince me that the aftermath was worth gathering in.... At any rate, most sane and reasonable men do not gather their religion in the obscure by-ways of abnormal experience, and one cannot help feeling that Blood’s memory would have been better served had it been allowed to live only through the pages of William James.” R. F. A. H.
BLOOMFIELD, DANIEL, comp. Selected articles on modern industrial movements. (Handbook ser.) *$1.80 Wilson, H. W. 330.4
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“The selection on the whole is a fair and representative one. There is an exceptionally complete bibliography.”
“The editor seems to have been able to detach himself from any bias in making his selections. An excellent bibliography is presented, and an index completes what is, on the whole, a very useful documentary work. If the other volumes in the series maintain the standard set by this one they will prove valuable as a source of reference and study.” James Oneal
“As in all compilations of broad scope and limited size, the judicious but fallible editor has included things that he might have left out, and excluded things that he should have put in, and none of his readers will be altogether satisfied; but for all that, he has set before them some good material, for which those who have appetite for industrial problems should be truly thankful.” J. E. Le Rossignol
“The compiler has made a discriminating selection of material. Papers on Bolshevism give a much needed insight into that creed, and tend to check the trouble-breeding application of the term to all radicals. Both the student and the man of business will find here ample material on which to base intelligent conclusions.”
“Throughout an attempt is made to treat controversial subjects from various points of vision. Least successful in this respect is the chapter on Bolshevism, particularly as it relates to the achievements of the Soviet government. On the whole, however, the cream of the literature on both sides is impartially presented.” H. W. L.
“The reader is left free to make his own deductions from the fund of valuable information contained therein. The selected bibliography which starts the volume is a real contribution to literature on the subject of industrial relations.”
BLOOMFIELD, DANIEL, comp. and ed. Selected articles on problems of labor. (Handbook ser.) *$1.80 (1c) Wilson, H. W. 331.8
This is volume 3 of Mr Bloomfield’s series of books on industrial relations following “Employment management” and “Modern industrial movements.” The compiler has selected for reprint the best of the recent material on the subject, grouping this material under the headings: Causes of friction and unrest; Cost of living; Methods of compensation; Hours of work; Tenure of employment; Trade unionism; Labor disputes and adjustment; Limitation of output; Industrial insurance; Housing; Methods of promoting industrial peace; Occupational hygiene; Women in industry. Bibliographies have been provided for each subject and there is an index. Meyer Bloomfield writes an introduction.
Reviewed by R. W. Stone
“All phases of the labor problem are ably and concisely treated.”
“This series has become indispensable for those who, unable to maintain a large filing system of their own, wish to keep important articles on industrial topics that appear in the periodicals.” B. L.
BLOUNT, BERTRAM; WOODCOCK, WILLIAM H.; and GILLETT, HENRY J. Cement. il *$6 (*18s) Longmans 691.5
“The present volume forms one of the series of Monographs on industrial chemistry which is being edited by Sir Edward Thorpe, F.R.S., and published by Messrs Longmans. The book contains an introduction, thirteen chapters, and five appendices. In the introduction it is explained that, although cements may vary in chemical nature from casein to iron oxide, yet, by common consent and because of the enormous practical importance of calcareous cements, the term cement, used without qualification, is restricted to them; and it is of calcareous cements alone that the book treats. There are, as Mr Blount points out, numerous varieties of such cements, but they all fall into two groups, (1) the calcium silicate group, and (2) the calcium sulphate group, the first being typified by Portland cement and the second by plaster of Paris. Strictly speaking, it is with the first group alone that the author is concerned.”—Engineer
“This is a welcome addition to what may be described as the ‘popular’ literature on cement. There is indeed much in the book that should cause the cement manufacturer of today to think.” S. G. S. Panisset
“One has become accustomed to connect Mr Blount’s name with novel and interesting points of view on a variety of matters and we are not surprised, therefore, to find that he has in large measure treated his subject in a manner quite different from that adopted by any previous author.”
“Rather fuller references to continental and American methods would have been welcome. A very useful book.” C. H. Desch
BLÜCHER VON WAHLSTATT, EVELYN MARY (STAPLETON BRETHERTON) VON. English wife in Berlin. *$6 Dutton 940.343
“Evelyn, Princess Blücher, English wife of the great-grandson of the famous marshal of Waterloo, lived throughout the war among her husband’s people, mainly in Berlin, and set down a record of what she heard, saw, thought and felt. As one of that strange colony of distinguished internationals who were war-bound in the German capital, she met everybody of note and enjoyed exceptional advantages for seeing what was going on behind the scenes during those eventful and tragic years. She saw the war also as the country-folk saw it, for she was frequently at the Blücher family seat in Silesia; and at the same time she played a useful rôle in the care of the British prisoners and wounded.”—Freeman
“There is nothing stale or war-worn in this account.” Margaret Ashmun
“Remarkably shrewd and impartial record.” C. R. Hargrove
“Almost alone of the chronicles that have come out of the enemy country, her diary presents a portrayal of events that is neither envenomed by partisanship nor warped by propagandist intention.” Amy Loveman
“Takes high rank among the really worthwhile books of the war.”
“Princess Blücher’s book adds hardly any fact of importance or of permanent historical value. The author saw German life during the war from only a few angles. The attraction of the book for the general public lies almost wholly in the appeal which it makes to persons who are interested in people of title for the title’s sake.”
“This book, simply written by an English lady, with a decided sense of humour and deep religious faith, is far more amusing and informative than the many documented narratives of the famous war correspondents, because it is written from the centre of things in Germany, and has no political or partisan object.”
“Its tone is moderate, neither violently pro-English or anti-German.”
“This is not exactly an important book, but it is one of the most interesting of those that have been written about life in Germany during the war. Princess Blücher writes with ease, sympathy, and charm, but no special distinction.”
BLUNDELL, MARY E. (SWEETMAN) (MRS FRANCIS BLUNDELL) (M. E. FRANCIS, pseud.).[2] Beck of Beckford. *$2 Kenedy
“The Becks of Beckford were baronets—alternatively Sir John and Sir Roger—and through an honest endeavour to repay money that had been embezzled by a member of the family they have come down in the world and live as hardworking farming folk. Young Sir Roger, the Beck of Beckford of the story, after school and Oxford, comes back to the farm; and instead of marrying an American heiress with whom he fell in love, wins through his hardships and difficulties by hard work.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The book is wholesome and pleasant enough, but seems best suited to readers who are still at the naïve and unexacting age.”
“This is a simple, pretty tale, but saved from insignificance by the skill which never fails this novelist.”
BODENHEIM, MAXWELL. Advice; a book of poems. *$1.25 Knopf 811
Among the titles are: Advice to a street-pavement; Advice to a buttercup; Foundry workers; Rattlesnake mountain fable; Advice to a butterfly; Fifth avenue; Boarding house episode; Steel mills; South Chicago. Some of the poems have appeared in the Yale Review, Smart Set, New Republic, Touchstone and other magazines.
“Mr Bodenheim uses words in a cryptic, esoteric fashion, attaching to them meanings of his own, as though they were his private property and not the common possession of the race.”
“Mr Bodenheim has proved himself a very capable artist. Once the reader is willing to lend a bit of sympathy to his theory there is much to enjoy in his poems. The clew to their virtues may be a little difficult to get, the harmony may seem discordant, the images a trifle confusing and fantastic, but careful discernment will bring unity out of the picture, and with a vivid phase of imaginative suggestion.” W: S. Braithwaite
“His unfailing sentiment for things leads him at moments whimsically to indulge both word and thought with frantic gestures, even occasionally with unworthy figures of speech. Such tricks, although they often steal distinction from surprise, wear out the power of the brain to respond and eventually develop a resentment toward the kind of verse that leaves us jaded. But it must be observed that Mr Bodenheim has not made a habit of these literary capers; as occasional lapses, his can be condoned.” Stewart Mitchell
“There is not a single piece in the volume that fails to possess a fresh outlook, a precious intellectual attitude; but these are labored over and strained at so painstakingly that whatever poetry existed in the original concept has long left, and only dry intellectual husks remain.” Clement Wood
“‘Advice’ is indubitably one of the important books of the year, as it is one of the books most compact with beauty, actually worthy of frequent rereading. It is a book small only in size, for behind its lines tremble the multitudinous vibrations of a world of beauty and thought.” H. S. Gorman
BOGARDUS, EMORY STEPHEN. Essentials of Americanization. $1.50 (3c) Univ. of Southern California press, 3474 University av., Los Angeles, Cal. 325.7
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“The book is written in splendid spirit and should be of good service to foreigners and to untrained Americanization workers. The chapter dealing with Democracy and the square deal, one of his four Americanisms, is the best in the book. It is much better than the other three. The chapter on the negro is very good but inconclusive.” A. E. Jenks
“On the whole, the book is a valuable contribution to a subject in which there is much interest at the present time.”
BOGARDUS, EMORY STEPHEN. Essentials of social psychology. new and enl ed $1.75 Univ. of Southern California press, 3474 University av., Los Angeles, Cal. 301
This is a revised and much enlarged edition of a work published in 1918. “In this edition the problems have been re-stated and increased in number.... The subject matter has been re-written and elaborated. The original eight chapters have grown into fifteen chapters.” (Preface to 2d ed) Contents: The field, development, and literature of social psychology; Psychological bases of social psychology; The social personality (three chapters); Suggestion-imitation phenomena (three chapters); Invention and leadership (two chapters): The nature of groups; Group conflicts; Group loyalties; Group control; Social change and progress. Problems and references follow the chapters. There is a general bibliography and an index.
“The volume makes no particularly new contribution to its subject; its value lies in its outlining of the field in its differentiations, and its opening up to the student of volumes of pioneer inquiry.”
BOGART, ERNEST LUDLOW. Direct and Indirect costs of the great world war. *$1 Oxford; pa gratis Carnegie endowment for international peace 336
In this volume of Preliminary economic studies of the war Professor Bogart of the University of Illinois presents a discussion, with tables and estimates, of the war costs in each of the countries concerned. The foreword says: “In the following pages the direct outlays of the governments, which are matters of usual financial procedure, may be said to be fairly accurate; the attempt to estimate the indirect costs of the war, however, is attended with a considerable amount of conjecture and must be regarded merely as the best guess which is possible at the present time.” The work closes with a bibliography of thirty pages and an index.
“It is not as an accurate summary of the costs of the war, but as an outline of the financial history of the great powers, that the book will prove permanently useful.” Alzada Comstock
“This book by Professor Bogart is the most complete and authentic account now in print of the losses of the war, stated in terms of dollars. The work bears the mark of painstaking cautions and scholarly method. An extensive bibliography and good index adds to its value.” C. J. Bushnell
Reviewed by C. C. Plehn
“Professor Bogart has produced a careful, sober, and thoughtful analysis of the cost of the war to the world at large, so far as the items can be stated without over-indulgence in ‘estimates,’ and with all proper caveats.”
BÖHME, JACOB.[2] Confessions of Jacob Boehme; with an introd. by Evelyn Underhill. *$2 Knopf 189
“Mr Scott Palmer has done a valuable piece of work in getting together in a small volume the more personal utterances of Jacob Boehme. It is a book that will appeal to many people who have felt an interest in the great mystic, but, at the same time, have found his writings, when presented to them in mass, heavy and difficult reading.”—Freeman
“Mr Scott Palmer has been wise in keeping as far as possible to William Law’s eighteenth-century translation, the simple language of which is so admirably adapted to the profound meditations of this homely tradesman. Quite apart from their speculative and philosophic value, certain sentences in this volume have about them the intense and innocent beauty of really great literature.” Llewelyn Powys
“We are grateful to Mr Scott Palmer and Miss Evelyn Underhill for their help in faithfully elucidating Böhme’s doctrine and revealing the man himself.”
BÖHME, JACOB. Six theosophic points, and other writings. *$3 (1½c) Knopf 189
This book, written in 1620, has here been newly translated into English by John Rolleston Earle. In addition to the Six theosophic points, the contents are: Six mystical points; On the earthly and heavenly mystery; On the divine intuition.
“Valuable for helping to clarify a book written four hundred years ago in a very difficult vocabulary. Too obscure and special for any but the student of the question.”
“These new translations have something more than the face value of new translations of an old and more or less inaccessible author. Students of German mysticism are indebted to the scholarship of John Rolleston Earle as a commentator as well as a translator.” G. H. C.
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
“In the ‘Six theosophic points’ one will wander long unless one is provided with some chart. Page after page record the wanderings of a puzzled, ever-searching, ill-equipped, penetrating spirit, with no compass or chart; often over-stepping, it would seem, the bounds of sanity, but from time to time letting fall a pregnant saying. Even in his incoherences are gleams of light.”
BOJER, JOHAN. Power of a lie. *$2 Moffat
“The novel tells the story of two men living in a small Swedish town or village, tells what the power of a lie did to them, to their families, and to those persons who came in contact with them—and it. Knut Norby, a wealthy farmer, has indorsed a note for a friend, Henry Wangen, a note for 2,000 kronen. Three or four years later Wangen becomes a bankrupt and Norby denies his signature, denies that he ever saw the paper, or ever signed one for Wangen. The witness is dead; Wangen is convicted of forgery and sent to prison, while Norby is given a banquet by his fellow-townsmen. The innocent man is punished; the guilty man is fêted.”—N Y Times
“Here is a novel of compelling power and dignity, illuminated by a bleak beauty like that of the aurora borealis.”
“Bojer does not allow himself the luxury of beauty except where it aids his story. He strips his narrative bare, trims it exquisitely to the least detail, and lets it glide straight before the wind. Johan Bojer is undoubtedly a great artist, although by no means a luxuriant and happy one. He has been aided in his American venture by the admirable translation of Jessie Muir, which deserves the highest praise.” R. L. Duffus
“The novel is indeed admirably written, the author indulging neither in verbal fireworks nor in splashes of black, white or scarlet. One reads it with the feeling that it is the truthful account of a real occurrence, but of an occurrence seen from all sides. ‘The power of a lie,’ in short, stands head and shoulders above the average contemporary novel.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The idea is presented with fine suggestiveness and artistic vitality.”
BOJER, JOHAN. Treacherous ground; tr. from the Norwegian by Jessie Muir. *$2 Moffat
“Young Erik Evje has two characteristics; he is a man whose former immoral aberrations weigh heavy on his conscience, and a man imbued with high ideals in connection with social reform. By putting into practice his ideals he hopes to atone for his sin. He can find no solace in religion, and he makes of his philanthropic work his crucifix. The little colony that he plants on a hillside is the only tangible evidence of his ideals, and at the same time his atonement. But he is told that his house is built on sand, that a landslide will carry it away. It is too necessary as his last grip on the best part of himself for him to give it up. The landslide occurs and wipes out several families.”—Springf’d Republican
“A story with interesting characters, a pleasant background and well sustained suspense, that is thoughtful without a touch of heaviness.”
“Its trenchant clearness is almost frightening, like transparent glass where one expected wooden walls; its teaching is both true and tragic.” R. M. Underhill
Reviewed by R. L. Duffus
“The tale has the bite and ‘follow through’ of an Ibsen play, a ‘Wild duck’ or an ‘Enemy of the people.’ It lacks, accordingly, the rich sympathy of ‘The great hunger.’” H. W. Boynton
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The theme is peculiarly and very strongly developed. Johan Bojer employs a very realistic style and presents a vivid picture of the Evje farm.”
BOK, EDWARD WILLIAM. Americanization of Edward Bok; the autobiography of a Dutch boy fifty years after. il *$5 Scribner
In writing his autobiography the author has treated himself objectively, which accounts for the title. It is with the editor and publicist that the book deals, not with the author’s private self. Not until he retired from the editorship of the Ladies’ Home Journal, did he cease to be two personalities and become simply himself. The book abounds in reminiscences of editorial experiences and of famous men, contains facsimiles of autographs and manuscripts, a list of biographical data, illustrations and an index.
“Mr Bok has done more than merely carry the reader with him along the pleasant paths which he has trod. He has thought deeply upon the problem of the immigrant and the result is a valuable contribution.” H: L. West
“This autobiography of the ex-editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal is likely to produce upon the sophisticated reader that impression of exasperated amusement which I have noted in more or less civilized Britons when they have undergone a course of the Saturday Evening Post, at my suggestion, in order that they might become familiar with that microcosm of the United States.” E. A. Boyd
“This is an extraordinary array. In all the account of it there is not one gleam of intellectual speculation, not one sign that Mr Bok ever heard of the world of ideas, or that he understood any passions stronger than sentimentalism. His criticism of the America in which he lived and which he seems to have understood so well, is always merely trivial.” I. B.
Reviewed by A. M. Jungmann
“Considered in every aspect, ‘The Americanization of Edward Bok’ is an affording and a significant book. In style it is as simple and perspicuous as Xenophon’s ‘Anabasis,’ which was also written in the third person and by a man of shrewd common sense who trusted his instincts.”
“There is a great deal that is stimulating to energy, originality, and resourcefulness in this autobiography, as well as much that is amusing and agreeable reading.” R. D. Townsend
“It is pleasant reading and happily stimulating to wholesome ambition.” R. R. Bowker
“All in all, this is a remarkable book. Edward Bok is as compelling a writer when telling his own story as when writing on other themes, and this ought to be one of the ‘best sellers’ of the year.”
BOLTON, GUY, and MIDDLETON, GEORGE. Light of the world. il *$1.75 Holt 812
The scene of this three-act play is Oberammergau, the village of the Passion play, just previous to a new performance; the time, between the choosing of the actors and the opening of the play; and the theme, the disparity between the teachings of Christ and the daily life of Christians. Anton Rendel, the chosen Christus, discovers, on the eve of his friend Simon’s wedding, that Simon has betrayed the girl Anton had loved. Anton forgives but advises confession to Ruth, the bride, and is left under the impression that it was made. The girl and her baby seek refuge and find shelter in Anton’s house. His rivals among the actors throw suspicion on Anton and insist that he drive out the girl or give up his rôle as Christus. He does the latter and before the play is to open a mob comes to set fire to his house. At that moment the truth of the situation has just been revealed to Ruth. She exacts open confession from Simon as the price of her love, whereupon the rôle of Christus is once more offered to Anton.
“In no sense is this a play that will live, but it is a workmanlike performance with a creditable motive—defence of the unfortunate and misunderstood.”
“Guy Bolton and George Middleton have made a real addition to the literature of our contemporary stage. Yet curiously, perhaps, the illustrations interspersed through the published play serve as a check rather than a spur to the reader’s enjoyment.” Dorothy Grafly
BOLTON, HERBERT EUGENE, and MARSHALL, THOMAS MAITLAND.[2] Colonization of North America, 1492–1783. il *$4.25 Macmillan 970
“A solid treatise (arranged in headed paragraphs) by two American history professors, giving a comprehensive survey of the colonization of North America from 1492 to 1783, and providing a more complete account than previous works have done of the colonies of nations other than the English and of English colonies other than those which established their independence. A special attempt has been made to do better justice to Spanish achievements in North American colonization. Of the three sections into which the work is divided the first deals with the founding of the colonies, the second with their expansion and the international conflict (Anglo-Spanish and Franco-Spanish as well as Franco-English), and the third with the revolt of the English colonies. Numerous convenient maps elucidate the text. Index 53 pp.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“A convenient and readable sketch of the whole subject.”
“The style of the work is far from distinguished, and it is a text-book rather than a work of history; but it shows just that breadth and firmness of treatment which will aid the student to acquire a true perspective of past events. The excellence of the idea should have considerable effect on the elementary teaching of history.”
“Because of this comprehensive character, from the point of view of our present interests instead of from that of the original thirteen states of the union, it will be particularly appreciated by those of us who feel the importance of intelligent acquaintance with our historical backgrounds but have not the time to specialize in colonial history.” Lilian Brandt
BONI, ALBERT, ed. Modern book of French verse in English translations. (Modern books of verse) *$2.50 Boni & Liveright 841.08
“‘The modern book of French verse’ covers the whole field of French poetry from Guillaume de Poitier’s writing in 1071 to Jules Romain’s, who was born as late as 1885. All the famous figures of French poetry are generously included, the book being starred with the names of Villon, Marot, de Ronsard, Du Bellay, Chenier, De Beranger, Victor Hugo, De Musset, Gautier, De Lisle, Baudelaire, Prudhomme, Mallarmé, Verlaine, Samain, Laforgue, De Régnier, Jammes, Paul Fort and Vildrac. Among the translators may be casually noted Jethro Bithell, Robert Bridges, Chaucer, Austin Dobson, Ernest Dowson, James Elroy Flecker, Andrew Lang, Arthur O’Shaughnessy, John Payne, W. J. Robertson, Rossetti, Swinburne, J. A. Symonds, Arthur Symons and Francis Thompson.”—N Y Times
“Mr Boni’s admirable compilation of English translations of the best French poetry makes a delectable volume. There are very few false notes in this varied chorus.”
“An excellent anthology of translations. Should be valuable in courses in comparative literature.”
“The wealth of material at Mr Boni’s command must have made his editorial task a pleasure as it has undoubtedly made the resultant book invaluable. In future editions, however, Mr Boni should fill a few very obvious gaps.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“His anthology has many gaps, judged as a selection of French verse. However, it is useful and interesting to have this collection of translations, not only for a better idea of French verse among those to whom the originals are sealed, but for a study of poets of the whole subject of translation.” W. P. Eaton
“It must have been a labor of love on Mr Boni’s part, and, like all labors of love, it vindicates itself by its completeness and high average of value. The book will be found invaluable by those who do not read French easily.”
“The quality of the verse is comparatively high; none of it is high enough to dissuade a sensitive reader from learning French.”
Reviewed by E: B. Reed
BONJOUR, FELIX. Real democracy in operation: the example of Switzerland. *$1.50 (3c) Stokes 342.4
The author of the book, a former president of the Swiss national council, outlines and explains the constitution and the workings of the Swiss federal republic, which he considers to be in the vanguard of democratic evolution. The twenty-five more or less autonomous states comprising this confederation are political laboratories which borrow one from another those forms of government which appear to succeed best—a practice which insures continuous democratic growth. Contents: Federalism in Switzerland; The evolution of democracy in Switzerland; The Landsgemeinde; The referendum; The results of the referendum; The popular initiative; The results of the initiative; The election of the government and officials by the people; Democracy in the communes and the churches; Compulsory voting and woman suffrage; Proportional representation; Democracy in the army and maintenance of neutrality; The future of democracy in Switzerland; Appendix; Index.
“Written in a pleasing style and admirably translated.” R. C. Brooks
“We recommend those who are interested in the theory and art of modern politics to read this volume of Mr Felix Bonjour with attention, even though they may be bored occasionally with its inevitable parochiality.”
“A book such as M. Bonjour’s was much needed.”
BOOK of Marjorie. *$1.50 (6½c) Knopf
The book is an idyl of married life told by the husband. It begins with that night in spring when he first told Marjorie that he loved her and makes the reader a confidant of all the intimate details that lay between then and the time when they both bent over Peter’s bassinette and knew that they “should live forever in Peter and Peter’s children.”
“The book offers no unusual problems and its reactions are simple and happy.” D. L. M.
“The telling is graceful and natural; the little autobiographical fragment is a thing to cherish.” C. W.
“‘The book of Marjorie’ is a simple description of a happy marriage by a writer whose main charm is simplicity.”
BORDEN-TURNER, MARY. Romantic woman. *$2 (1½c) Knopf
The story of a Chicago heiress who marries into the British aristocracy. It opens in Chicago, here lightly disguised as “Iroquois,” with the heroine’s own account of her democratic and rather hoydenish girlhood and an introduction to the childhood friends, Louise, Phyllis, Jim Van Orden and Pat O’Brien, who play a part in her later life. Perhaps she should have married Jim and settled down to a conventional and comfortable American life, but traveling with her father in India she falls romantically in love with a handsome cavalry officer, not knowing that he is heir to a dukedom. He, on his part, tho genuinely attracted to the girl, is not unconscious of her wealth. Marriage brings disillusionments and introduces the naïve American into a society whose standards are quite incomprehensible. There is considerable analysis of the two contrasting points of view and the story ends with a glimpse of the war.
“If you can find either constructive idea or positive personality in this book, I cannot; and therefore it remains for me, despite its clever elaboration of detail, that thing which Mr Hewlett rightly dismisses as not worth the name—a string of anecdotes, and no more.” H. W. Boynton
“Her picture of that city [Chicago] and its people is one of the very brilliant things in recent literature. Its temper is not harsh, but it has an edge and the edge cuts clean every time. Always she conveys the richness, the distinction, and the vigor of an arresting character and mind.”
“Miss Borden is not a little pretentious. She does not avoid trying to take more soul out than she has really put in. At the same time, she has a rich theme and she knows her theme. She has a real Englishman in hand and she knows him; and she has a vitality almost as good as the vitality of art. Hers is not the detachment of art or the sincerity of artistic self-expression. It is the drive of emotion, the sincerity of a personal confession told in provisional terms.” F. H.
“Except where it becomes too involved the book is well written. Where its author has been most successful is in the atmosphere of dull discontent, of poignant disillusion, which she evokes throughout. There are neat characterizations, epigrammatic bits of phrasing and some passages written with unblushing frankness.”
“It is a book worth reading slowly and must be so read, for it is told in that peculiar manner practiced by Conrad. It is a taxing style, but it has its fascination.” M. K. Reely
“The work is characterized by contrasts, there are times when the climaxes and the description are vivid but between these there are pages where the writing is labored.”
BOSSCHÈRE, JEAN DE. City curious. il *$3 Dodd
A fantastic fairy tale, retold in English by F. Tennyson Jesse. Smaly and Redy, husband and wife, who live in a charming little white house, regret that they haven’t three daughters to occupy their little bedrooms. They wished for them and said a magic verse, but nothing happened. Then they set out to look for them. The story follows their strange adventures and describes the very curious people they meet. The grotesque pictures by the author are in keeping with the text.
“The Belgian turns of thought and imagery have been kept, but not at the expense of good English, as is sometimes the case in a translation.”
“It is really ingenuous of M. de Bosschère and his admirers to imagine him as qualified to draw for children. We should hide all his pictures from them.”
BOSTWICK, ARTHUR ELMORE. Librarian’s open shelf; essays on various subjects. *$3 (3c) Wilson, H. W. 814
“The papers here gathered together represent the activities of a librarian in directions outside the boundaries of his professional career, although the influences of it may be detected in them here and there.” (Preface) The book forms a companion volume to “Library essays” and like that volume is composed of collected papers and addresses prepared for various occasions. Partial list of contents: Do readers read? What makes people read? The passing of the possessive: a study of book titles; Selective education; The uses of fiction; The value of association; Modern educational methods; Some economic features of libraries; Simon Newcomb, America’s foremost astronomer; The companionship of books; Atomic theories of energy; The advertisement of ideas.
BOSTWICK, ARTHUR ELMORE. Library essays. *$3 (2c) Wilson, H. W. 020
The author celebrates his twenty-fifth year of librarianship with the publication of this volume of collected essays and addresses. They are arranged chronologically and “reflect to a certain extent the progress of library work during the past quarter century.” (Preface) Among the subjects covered are: Pains and penalties in library work; How librarians choose books; The work of the small public library; Lay control in libraries and elsewhere; The whole duty of a library trustee, from a librarian’s standpoint; Library statistics; The love of books as a basis for librarianship; The library as the educational center of a town; The librarian as a censor; How to raise the standard of book selection; The library and the business man; The future of library work; The library as a museum; The library and the locality. There is an index.
BOSWELL, A. BRUCE. Poland and the Poles. il *$4 (4½c) Dodd 943.8
The book is based on a study of Poland extending over many years and on personal contact with Poles during a five year’s residence of the author in their country. It is rather a series of essays than a continuous narrative and aims to treat Poland ethnically rather than politically and to describe all the region where Polish civilization is an important element. The contents are: The land; The people: National characteristics; The past of Poland; Divided Poland; Political parties; The country-side; Commerce and industry; The Ukraine question; Work at the foundations; The capital city; The great romantic poets; Modern currents in Polish literature; Education and science; Art and music; The war; Three maps, numerous illustrations and an index.
“A valuable contribution to the literature dealing with a country of which too little is known by the English reader. The Polish national characteristics are very clearly described.”
“We would draw attention to Mr Boswell’s able summary of the Ukrainian problem.... On the other hand, although he devotes a whole chapter to Polish affairs during the war, his treatment of the Teschen question is, in our opinion, neither adequate nor correct. The purely informative sections of Mr Boswell’s book are accurate and thorough. His treatment of ethnographical matters is particularly good, while the two chapters he devotes to Polish literature cover a large amount of fresh ground.” P. S.
“One of the foremost impressions made by the book is that of the earnest effort of the author to give a truthful delineation of the country and the people of whom he writes. This after the long years of propaganda on the part of both Germany and Russia is too important to be overlooked.” D. L. M.
“A readable and instructive book by a competent authority. The concluding chapter gives a useful sketch of Polish policy during the war which was very perplexing for western readers.”
“Unlike some supporters of the Polish cause he has no need to make up in sentiment what he lacks in knowledge; on the contrary his knowledge saves him from an unqualified and undiscriminating enthusiasm. The historical and political side is naturally the most important at the present time, and it is in regard to this that Mr Boswell’s work is most illuminating.”
BOSWORTH, THOMAS OWEN. Geology of the mid continent oilfields. il *$3 Macmillan 553
A work covering the oil fields of Kansas, Oklahoma and north Texas. A bibliography of four pages following the introduction shows the sources on which the author has drawn. The sections of the book are then devoted to: Geographical and geological situation of the mid continent oil region; History of the development of the mid continent oil region; Geological structure of the mid continent oilfield region; Geological history of the oil bearing deposits; Stratigraphy and the oilfields; The oil accumulations and their relation to geological structure; Character of the oil; The natural gas; Production of gasoline from natural gas; Salinity of oilfield waters; Some general conclusions. There is a folding map showing the region under consideration, with additional maps and drawings and eight illustrations from photographs. The book is indexed.
“Although the vocabulary of the book is more or less technical, nevertheless the lay reader may pursue it with comfort and understanding.” I: Lippincott
“There is certainly nothing strikingly new in Dr Bosworth’s book, and one further perceives in the work a strong undercurrent of bias to prevalent American opinion. For the rest, the book certainly contains some useful features.” H. B. Milner
BOUCICAULT, RUTH BALDWIN (HOLT) (MRS AUBREY BOUCICAULT). Rose of Jericho. *$1.90 (1½c) Putnam
Sheelah Brent was literally picked up by a traveling theatrical company and pressed into their services as substitute for a sick stage child, when she was only seven. For six weeks she thus tided over, with her earnings, a crisis in her family while her widowed father was ill from overwork. Later, when she came to choose her own course, it was the theater. She made good in her profession and in due time became an artist. Towards this latter development her love experiences as a woman helped. But it meant struggle and heartache for Sheelah and defiance of all conventions. Heart solitude once more overtakes her when her son Michael, the fruit of her first girlish and illicit love, is sent to school in England under the guidance of his English father. It is then that she finds so much solace in a book that she writes to the author for more spiritual help. With the coming of the war both Michael and his father volunteer and the latter rescues his son at the cost of his eyesight. The usual thing follows but not before Sheelah has turned to religion, Michael has been killed and she has discovered in her former lover the author of the helpful book.
“A good deal of the novel is well written, particularly the first two ‘books,’ but it drags badly toward the close.”
“The beginning is cleverly human, but the close is strongly-presented pathos of the type commonly classed as ‘sob stuff.’”
BOUCKE, OSWALD FRED. Limits of socialism. *$1.50 (1½c) Macmillan 335
After having made it clear that he considers socialism as neither a chimera nor a crime the author makes an attempt at a sympathetic examination of its various tenets with a view to laying bare its weak points and demonstrating the necessity for amendments of the original creed. “Revision is a step in the onward march of civilization. Science itself is nothing if not continual growth and redefinition of terms, whose finest fruit is the advancement of humanism.” The book falls into two parts. Part 1, The limits in theory, contains: The problem; Karl Marx and the economists; The economic interpretation of history; Justice. Part 2, The limits in practice, contains: The limits in production; The limits in distribution; The limits in consumption; The limits in government; A petition. There are seven statistical tables and an index. The author is professor of economics at Pennsylvania state college.
“In regard to the program of socialism, the author makes a worthy contribution to a much neglected subject in that he points out the difficulties which socialists will encounter in trying to realize their ideals, and the limited success which they are likely to attain.” J. E. Le Rossignol
“When he leaves the field of economics he is less convincing. The book will prove rather stiff exposition to the general reader, who will be annoyed at the needlessly scientific vocabulary.”
“The book is stimulating to thought because it is itself thoughtful, a model in manner and temper, a better antidote to socialism’s errors than denunciation or denial of the evils it seeks to cure.” E: A. Bradford
“There is much good stuff in the book, some shrewd ideas, and some sound generalizing, which if turned into language understanded of the people would be valuable.”
BOULENGER, JACQUES. Seventeenth century. *$3.50 (2c) Putnam 944.03
This work forms one of the volumes of the National history of France. It is preceded by “The century of the renaissance” by L. Batiffol, published in 1916, and is followed by “The eighteenth century,” by Casimir Stryienski, also issued in 1916. Contents: The youth of Louis XIII; Richelieu; The preponderance of France (1630–1643); The kingdom under Louis XIII; The beginnings of society and of classic literature; The Fronde and Mazarin; The “Roi-soleil”; The glorious years, 1661–1678; Decline; Religious matters; Sunset; The kingdom under Louis XIV; The great age. References come at the end of the chapters and there is an index.
“Distinctly a readable book.”
“This new presentation of the greatest period in the history of France is brilliantly written.”
“Boulenger has undertaken a difficult task, and he has done it well. Though treating the general history of a whole century in some detail, he is neither superficial nor tiringly technical. One feature of his book is especially commendable; the author’s desire to be non-partisan. It may be well to bring out the fact that, for the real or quasi-specialist, Boulenger treats his subject too much from the outside, and thus fails to emphasize sufficiently at least one feature of much importance for the proper understanding of the epoch he treats.”
“His portraits of Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert and the great King himself are vivid and unforgettable. M. Boulenger is a learned historian but, like so many French scholars, he wears his learning lightly.”
“M. Boulenger’s subject is relatively simple, but it is a big one, and it has the disadvantage of being hackneyed. The best praise that can be given to his book is to say that it is on a level with M. Madelin’s ‘French revolution,’ and superior to any other volumes in this attractive series.”
BOULNOIS, HENRY PERCY. Modern roads. il *$5.75 (*16s) Longmans 625.7
“The author was a member of the British Advisory engineering committee appointed in 1910 as a result of the increasing dust nuisance due to poorly constructed roads. Much information regarding British conditions was obtained and standard specifications produced. This book covers in a comprehensive way the subjects of motor traffic, the various kinds of roads and details of construction, waves and corrugations, slippery streets, with appendices relating to traffic regulations.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
BOURNE, RANDOLPH SILLIMAN.[2] History of a literary radical; and other essays. *$2 (3c) Huebsch 814
This collection of essays, reprinted from various magazines, is edited with an introduction by Van Wyck Brooks. The latter is a sketch of the author’s intellectual development which is corroborated in the first essay, “History of a literary radical.” What Bourne stood for, says Van Wyck Brooks, was a new fellowship of the youth of America, a league of youth, for the purpose of creating, out of the blind chaos of American society, a fine, free, articulate cultural order. “He, if any one, in the days to come, would have conjured out of our dry soil the green shoots of a beautiful and a characteristic literature: he knew that soil so well, and why it was dry, and how it ought to be irrigated!” (Introd.) The essays are: History of a literary radical; Our cultural humility; Six portraits; This older generation; A mirror of the Middle West; Ernest: or Parent for a day; On discussion; The puritan’s will to power; The immanence of Dostoevsky; The art of Theodore Dreiser; The uses of infallibility; Impressions of Europe; Trans-national America; Fragment of a novel.
“The essay which gives its title to the book is a piece of intellectual biography which is worth the careful study of everyone who is puzzled by the open revolt of the choicest intellects in our undergraduate bodies against the ideals and discipline of our universities. In ‘The Puritan’s will to power’ and in ‘Transnational America’ Randolph Bourne’s feelings were perhaps too deeply involved to permit him to attain the complete clarity and cogency usual with him. But the gently whimsical ‘Ernest, or Parent for a day’ would be a sufficient compensation for any imperfections there might be elsewhere in the book.” Alvin Johnson
“It is impossible, in spite of all that makes it valuable, to read this book without a final sense of disappointment. Randolph Bourne’s interests were as wide as the world; his views were true and tempered; his style is simple, and it is effective chiefly because the words he uses are wise and exact rather than original; but his appeal, after all, is very narrow. He is the pure intellectual addressing the ‘younger intelligentsia,’ and his exclusiveness gradually becomes slightly tiresome even as the phrase quoted becomes irritating.” Freda Kirchwey
BOURNE, RANDOLPH SILLIMAN. Untimely papers. *$1.50 (3½c) Huebsch 320.4
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Written during America’s war preparations, these papers are well named untimely, for they question with the rigor of a clear minded, uncompromising pacifist and idealist, America’s attitude in combating the spirit of the war lord with war. They are an interesting portrayal of the courage in his belief of the author.”
“Dying just when he should have come into his own, Randolph Bourne left behind him a set of brilliant essays on the political life of yesterday. These have been gathered and edited by James Oppenheim with a foreword perhaps a thought too laudatory. Yet much can be said for Mr Bourne’s keen insight and flashing style. His sentences are diamond cut, his reasoning clear even to the most undiscerning.”
Reviewed by E. C. Parsons
“They are courageous papers in that they represent an unwincing defence of an attitude which can never have been at all popular. They are turned from protest into positive statement by a long and unfinished essay on the state, in which Mr Bourne was clearly searching to vindicate the ultimate rights of personality against the demands of authority outside. The whole essay is a superb cry of anger against a tyranny which he felt to be grinding. Yet I venture to think that the essay is in fact largely devoid of realistic basis. It has a specialized motivation which makes it valuable as the record of a personal experience, but impracticable as a contribution to political science.” H. J. Laski
“It is the book of a too sensitive spirit, dying brokenhearted in a world that seemed hopelessly insane and misdirected. Whatever we may think of the substance of these essays there can be no question of the delicate beauty of their expression or the evidence they give of the patrician dignity and courage which marked the author’s personality.”
“No educated, honest, able-bodied man can read the war essays of Randolph Bourne without some degree of admiration for their dead author and some sort of shame for himself. What we say now without being either brave or original he said then, not, perhaps, with the maturity of a Bertrand Russell or a Romain Rolland, but at least with fine courage and imagination. It may turn out that the cleanest picture of ourselves when we were not ourselves is here in these two hundred and thirty pages.”
“The unfinished fragment on the state, which was to have been so great a book, is still a keen and impressive analysis of social psychology.... And after the self-styled peace what would Randolph Bourne have added, what doubly bitter denunciation, to the temperate ironies of these searching papers? Perhaps nothing but the tolerant smile of one who foresaw.” Marion Tyler
“Academically, his arguments may have been right, but it is obvious that they were uttered at a time when they must have proved the reverse of helpful. They may now be read with the dispassionate calm to which they are entitled, and they well repay careful consideration.”
“He proved right in many of the pronouncements which can now be weighed against actual happenings; and for this reason there is hope that a kindly hearing may yet be given to the essays here reprinted.”
“These papers are overshadowed by the war; and as the war figured in Bourne’s outlook as a tragic impertinence which had rudely choked the young shoots of a new life in America with which his dearest hopes were bound up, there is a steady undertow of resentment which disturbs the balance of his thought. But all the same, these papers were worth printing as a historical document to show the generations to come how the war struck a profound and honest mind that had enthroned the spirit of life and was already seeing afar off the triumph of life over the forces of death.” R. R.
“He could write—there is no question about that—and he could think, but these two fine qualities do not excuse the fact that his first principles are nearly always wrong.” M. F. Egan
BOWEN, WILLIAM.[2] Enchanted forest. il *$2.50 Macmillan
In this series of fairy tales a forest is turned into paper, its brooks petrified and the voice of the birds stilled by the bad temper of a king. How the forest was redeemed by Bilbo the woodcutter’s son, who thereby won the princess; how the pair cured the old king’s temper through an “Interrupter” and his “Encourager”; and how little Prince Bojohn and his playmate Bodkin had many adventures with elves and fairies, is all told in these tales with delightful humor. The book is illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham.
BOWER, B. M., pseud. (BERTHA MUZZY SINCLAIR) (MRS BERTRAND WILLIAM SINCLAIR). Quirt. il *$1.75 (2½c) Little
Lorraine Hunter lives in Los Angeles and has absorbed her ideas of the “West” from the movies. She has never known her father, a rancher in Idaho, but she pictures him as a cattle king and sees herself in the rôle of cattle king’s daughter. She finds the Quirt, Brit Hunter’s ranch, a very different place from her imaginings. It is one of the few small ranches allowed to survive in the shadow of the great Sawtooth cattle company’s holdings. Other small owners have been absorbed or have met “accidental” deaths, but Brit and his partner, as two highly respected old-timers, have remained unmolested. On the night of her arrival Lorraine loses her way and finds herself mixed up with one of the “accidents” referred to. She talks, and talk is dangerous to the Sawtooth. In the fight that follows Lone Morgan lines up with the Quirt but it is Swan Vjolmar, the seemingly innocent Swede, who plays the final card.
“The tale begins interestingly enough, but what with deeds of violence, and thunderstorms of a like violence, soon passes into the realms of mediocrity.”
“The story moves briskly, with plenty of sensational incident, while all its detail, as always in B. M. Bower’s novels, is colorful and convincing.”
“A story of western life that is both fresh and plausible.”
BOWMAN, ARCHIBALD ALLAN. Sonnets from a prison camp. *$1.50 Lane 811
The author, professor of philosophy at Princeton university, says of these sonnets written in captivity that they “stood between my soul and madness,” and hopes that what has meant so much to him under one of the heaviest blows that can befall a soldier will have some general human interest. They are grouped as follows: In the field; The nadir; On the march; Rastatt; Hesepe; Thoughts of home; Influences; Watchwords and maxims; England and Oxford; Home thoughts once more; Interlude; England.
“When he begins to write of those reflective themes to which the sonnet form is fitted, Mr Bowman reveals himself as an interesting and talented writer. Mr Bowman’s chief defect is a certain stiltedness and overnobility of language, which sometimes leads him to talk of prosaic or trivial things with a pomp which does not become them.”
“Benvenuto Cellini also wrote sonnets in captivity: and they are as perfunctory and uninspired as are Professor Bowman’s.” R. M. Weaver
Reviewed by Marguerite Williams
“Grave and eloquent sonnets, a little sententious and here and there a little prosaic.”
BOYER, WILBUR SARLES. Johnnie Kelly. il *$2 (3c) Houghton
Johnnie Kelly is a red-headed Irish boy of thirteen when he makes his debut at Public school 199, Amsterdam ave., the Bronx. The teachers regard him as a terror, but one instructor, Daniel Parks, takes enough interest in him to try to show him how he can be a leader. His various escapades fill the book, culminating in his being elected vice-president of the Amsterdam Republic, and receiving the wrist watch which is offered to the pupil who sells the most liberty bonds. Incidentally, he plays no small part in the romance that develops between Mr Parks and the pretty new teacher, Helen Bouck.
“Many schoolmasters are of a cut-and-dried sort, who cut circles in deep ruts and see nothing in life beyond the daily routine of the schoolroom. But Mr Boyer sees beyond this and has made a natural study of the boy and his characteristics. Not this alone, but he himself has a rare gift of humor, and the two are combined in ‘Johnnie Kelly.’”
“The efforts of a ‘Bronix’ policeman’s son to attain popularity in a Manhattan public school are amusing enough, and he and his young associates are human and healthy.” M. H. B. Mussey
BOYNTON, PERCY HOLMES. History of American literature. *$2.25 Ginn 810.9
Omitting authors of minor importance the book has been written “with a view to showing the drift of American thought as illustrated by major writers or groups and as revealed by a careful study of one or two cardinal works of each.... The growth of American self-consciousness and the changing ideals of American patriotism have been kept in mind throughout.... As an aid to the student, there are appended to each chapter (except the last three) topics and problems for study, and book lists which summarize the output of each man, indicate available editions, and point to the critical material which may be used as a supplement, but not as a substitute, for first-hand study.” (Preface) Beginning with the 17th century, the contents contain chapters on the earliest verse, the poetry of the revolution and the early drama, all our American classics as: Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, Mrs Stowe and Holmes, the later poetry and Walt Whitman, the rise of fiction and contemporary drama. There are also two maps, three chronological charts, an appendix characterizing the most significant American periodicals and an index.
“The style throughout is marked with a crispness and vivacity that are missing in too many textbooks in the same field. The author’s scientific knowledge and scholarship are winningly displayed on every page of his book.”
BRACKETT, CHARLES. Counsel of the ungodly. *$2 (3c) Appleton
When Peter van Hoeven, scion of an old and wealthy New York family, lost his fortune at the age of sixty-two, he determined to earn his living as a butler. Luck brought him into a newly rich family, mother and daughter, of whom the mother is exuberantly vulgar and the daughter sensitively aware of their short-comings. Jacob Smith, alias Peter van Hoeven, becomes Mary’s guardian angel and she relies on him and confides in him more and more. When it is subsequently discovered that Mary is not Mrs Davison’s daughter, as the long lost husband with the real daughter turns up, Peter resolves to adopt Mary as his niece, trumping up a story of a lost brother Richard whose daughter she is. That she really is his niece becomes probable later. He now makes himself known to his family to whom he introduces his niece. He also undertakes to cure her of an undesirable love affair by first engineering her into and then out of an engagement by ungodly counsel. As the right fellow is waiting just around the corner it all ends well.
“Light and fairly amusing.”
“It is a delightful atmosphere into which you are led in this swiftly moving story, where almost every one is pleasant to know.”
“The author’s flexible style and skill in drollery, distinctly above the average, makes one regret that he has not employed his literary ability in a less inconsequential plot.”
BRADFORD, GAMALIEL. Prophet of joy. *$1.50 Houghton 811
This tale in verse relates the career of a millionaire’s son, a golden-haired vision of a boy, imbued with a faith that it was his mission to redeem the world with the gospel of joy. His first convert was a spinster cousin, Theodora, who undertook to stand between him and his stern father, to be ever his haven of refuge and to smooth the way for him generally. His exploits are many and fantastic. He meets all manner of people, the lowly and the artists, the pious and the rich, and he meets them all alike with laughter, gaiety, and love. With this love and joy in life he at last undertakes to assuage a striking mob and meets his death. The woman agitator whose method, unlike his, had been to stir up hatred and revenge as a means of salvation, but who had long loved the boy, vows before his body that violence must die and dedicates herself to “joy’s pure torch” and to love as the “Star of immortal hope to mortal men.”
“Characters, incidents and beauty of telling combine to make an interesting story and a poem of wide appeal.”
“What fun the author must have had composing all this! He has not only worked with his subject, he has played with it. He keeps up his own and the reader’s courage, sometimes by whistling. It is one of the most original contributions to literature that I have seen, and I know nothing in American literature which it resembles. And it is written in the American, not the English language.” W: L. Phelps
“When the ‘prophet of joy’ is killed in an attempt to mediate between a band of strikers and their employer, there is little sense of pathos because the character has been largely a creature of fancy and as such has engaged the reader’s attention rather than his affection. But Mr Bradford is fluent and dexterous and the rhymes carry one along through one hundred and ninety-three pages of easy and agreeable reading.” L. M. R.
“He takes pains to show what it is that he is not talking about—Christian Science, Sunday school morality, silly altruism—but we are never sure what it is that he is talking about, and never sure that his is not the nambiest-pambiest of palliatives.”
“Mr Bradford is a poet, and a good one. Much of the present poem shows a deftness and a skill that place him high among writers of light verse. But in all fairness he must leave his ivory tower and acquaint himself with causes he dislikes before writing unfairly of them. The book, barring this one capital fault, is a capital one, and as such may be recommended.” C. W.
“It seems to the present reviewer, indeed, the most stimulating and absorbing volume that has appeared in American poetry since ‘The Congo’ and ‘Spoon River.’ It is not an imitation but a vital incarnation of the Byronic satire, proving that modern life may be dressed in an ancient mode at least as effectively as in the fashions of the hour. The ‘Prophet’ should find an audience for many years to come; should even, one is tempted to say, win a permanent place among the classics of lighter American verse.” C: W. Stork
“Nothing can be gayer, idler, saucier, easier, more winningly devious and desultory than his treatment of the eight-line Italian epic stanza. The story is agreeable, and the only point of failure is the point in which in a poem of this kind failure is most forgivable and least important—the nature and handling of the thesis.”
BRADLEY, ARTHUR GRANVILLE. Book of the Severn. il *$5 Dodd 914.2
“The ancients had river gods; we too have them in our minds and feel their qualities. For rivers are things of life and personality, of soul and character.... Some of our river gods are men and some are women.... Father Thames has proclaimed his sex for all time; but the Severn has been a lady since literature began.” (Chapter 1) The author shows his readers not only the scenic but also the historic Severn and conducts him from its cradle in Plinlimmon to Gloucester with sixteen color plates to mark the way. There is no index.
“The author tells the story in ample detail and with full knowledge.”
“In brief, this is a most entertaining volume. The coloured plates do not add much to its attractions.”
“Mr Bradley has a mingled zest for scenery, for history, and for the humours and graces of life, which makes him one of the best of all-around companions on such a series of excursions, either afoot or in an armchair.”
BRADLEY, GLENN DANFORD. Story of the Santa Fe. (Frontiers of America) il *$3 Badger, R: G. 656
“The [story of the] railroad known as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe describes the beginnings and development of one of the most extensive of American railroad systems. Projected by the vision of Cyrus K. Holliday, and developed by the energy and financial support of other farseeing Americans, this railroad was built to develop the business which was originally conducted in primitive fashion from the Missouri river across the Kansas prairies and through the mountains to the old mining centre, Santa Fe. It is an account of what real men by the exercise of push and profanity have been able to accomplish, even in the face of tremendous obstacles and hindrances, both natural and those presented by the devilish ingenuity of man.”—Boston Transcript
“The story as written by Mr Bradley is very complete. The author has done his work very well.” J. S. B.
BRADLEY, MRS MARY (HASTINGS). Fortieth door. *$1.75 (2c) Appleton
A romantic adventure story staged in Cairo, Jack Ryder, altho young and good to look at, has managed to evade the society of girls and devote himself wholly to the fascinations of Egyptian tombs. He is bored unspeakably at thought of the masked ball to which his compatriot, Jinny Jeffries, is dragging him. But at the ball he meets Aimée, the alluring veiled figure who is to lead him so far on the road to romance. It is only when the dance is over, his heart already well lost, that he learns that her attire is no picturesque disguise donned for an evening, that she is a high born Moslem escaped for a few mad moments from the haremlik. Fate and ancient custom are against him, but he learns by accident that Aimée is of French birth, and youth, daring and good luck conspire on his side to bring all to a happy end.
“Here is a ‘romantic incident’ carried through from start to finish without a false note, though some of the harmony toward the end is, as is were, a trifle close.” H. W. Boynton
“Mrs Bradley transports us to the realms of romance. We realize that we are not moving among scenes of reality, but we do not greatly care.”
“The story is well thought out and interesting. And it has the merit of being smoothly written and vividly as well.”
“Cleverly told with plot of interest and original details well sustained throughout.”
“A good adventure story.”
BRADLEY-BIRT, FRANCIS BRADLEY. Bengal fairy tales. il *$5 (7½c) Lane 398.2
These fairy tales have been collected by the author from the natives of Bengal by word of mouth. They breathe the spirit of the East and are unlike any of western tales, as are also the six full-page illustrations in color by Abanindranath Tagore. The contents are in three parts, the first of which consists of the stories told by Bhabaghuray, the traveller.
“The really ideal illustrator of this kind of literature is, of course, the artist who is himself a product of the land which has given birth to it, and from this point of view the book illustrated by Mr Tagore is of special interest.”
BRADY, LORETTA ELLEN. Green forest fairy book. il *$2 (4c) Little
A book of new fairy tales into which the author has put much of the true fairy-land atmosphere. Some of the titles are: Dame Grumble and her curious apple tree: A tale of the Northland kingdom; The little tree that never grew up; The tale of Punchinello; The strange tale of the brown bear. The illustrations are by Alice B. Preston.
BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY BEAUMONT, ed. Anthology of magazine verse for 1919; and Year book of American poetry. *$2.25 Small 811.08
Mr Braithwaite who omits from this annual volume his usual critical introductory essay takes occasion to call attention to Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “The valley of the shadow,” as a poem demanding careful attention and study. Other notable poems are Leonora Speyer’s “The queen bee flies,” Sara Teasdale’s “August moonrise,” Vachel Lindsay’s “The empire of China is crumbling down,” Lola Ridge’s “The everlasting return”; also poems by Witter Bynner, Scudder Middleton, Edna St Vincent Millay, Louis Untermeyer, Maxwell Bodenheim, Amy Lowell, and others.
Reviewed by H: A. Lappin
“Taken as a whole, the ‘Anthology of magazine verse for 1919’ possesses distinct merit as a collection of contemporary verse. As a stepping-stone in the steady advance of American poetry it is even more interesting.” D. L. M.
“All in all the anthology is valuable not only as literature, but as a barometer of the spirit of the times.”
“There is poetry here of a grade we like to boast of being able to find every day in the magazines, that of Conrad Aiken, Sara Teasdale, Clement Wood, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and sundry others. There is singing here that is something more than verse, and there is verse that is something less than poetry.” R. P. Utter
“The year book is, if anything, more representative and satisfactory than its predecessors. The critical material at the back is more restrained than hitherto, and gains thereby. For those who wish to keep up with the best of the new poetry, the book is indispensable.” C. W.
“Critics have often told Mr Braithwaite that his collections of magazine verse can never have the highest value because the best American poetry is not published in magazines. This year, at any rate, that would seem to be untrue. It is doubtful whether anything better than Edwin Arlington Robinson’s ‘Valley of the shadow’ has been published in any of the books of the year.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“Mr Braithwaite’s annual ‘Anthology of magazine verse’ improves from year to year. The present volume is no exception to this rule. Particularly to be commended is the elimination of Mr Braithwaite’s usual attempt at rating the verse of the year according to merit.”
“Mr Braithwaite has done his work with knowledge, with discernment, and with a liberality which sometimes compromises his discernment.”
“He is too generous in his appreciation, including much that is excellent but not significant. As with every anthology, we quarrel with the selections. Though the book would gain by omissions, the general level is a high one.” E: B. Reed
BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY BEAUMONT, ed. Book of modern British verse. *$2 Small 821.08
“A collection intended to acquaint American readers with contemporary British verse in the period which ‘began with an assault upon reality and a shock of symbols’ to be disturbed and perhaps re-directed by the forces of war.” (Booklist) “John Masefield’s ‘August, 1914,’ is included, and G. K. Chesterton’s booming ‘Lepanto,’ also favorite poems by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Walter de la Mare, J. C. Squires, Ralph Hodgson, Joseph Campbell, James Stephens, Thomas MacDonald and many others. William Butler Yeats, probably the greatest of all living makers of lyrics, is not represented. But it is generally understood that his work seldom appears in anthologies.” (N Y Times)
“It has Masefield’s ‘Biography,’ ‘August, 1914,’ and ‘Cargoes’; Belloc’s ‘South country’; Brooke’s five splendid sonnets; Julian Grenfell’s ‘Into battle’—finest of all the ‘war poems’; de la Mare’s ‘The listeners.’ And these are only a few of the memorable things included.” H: A. Lappin
“Due to something more incomprehensible than his taste he has failed signally. ‘The book of modern British verse’ begins as a misnomer; it ends as a misrepresentation.” L: Untermeyer
“It exhibits the period fairly enough without characterizing it, and with this book as with other anthologies, even the best, the critical reader will miss old friends and make new ones.” R. P. Utter
“A pleasant and interesting little book. Mr Braithwaite has over-emphasized the importance of Cicely Fox Smith’s verse.... Nor do the ‘Songs from the evil wood’ represent Lord Dunsany’s poetic talent as well as would a passage from his imaginative and often beautiful prose.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“The sheer beauty and spontaneity of these poems must surprise pleasantly those who have believed this period of social unrest and of war incapable of producing art of the highest order.” B. L.
BRAND, MAX. Trailin’! *$1.75 (3c) Putnam
A wild-west story that opens in Madison Square garden, where Anthony Woodbury accepts a challenge and rides a man-killing horse. Shortly after, the man Anthony has always regarded as his father is killed and Anthony goes West to follow the trail of the slayer and learn the secret of his birth. With the foolhardiness of a tenderfoot he takes unrealized risks, but his skill and daring always carry him through, and he is successful too in winning a western bride.
“The story undeniably grips.”
BRANOM, MENDEL EVERETT. Project method in education. (Library of educational methods) *$1.75 Badger, R. G. 371.3
In his first chapter on “The nature of the project method,” the author discusses the term “project” and the different meanings assigned to it, saying, “There is no fundamental difference of opinion concerning the meaning of the word, but the difference lies in the degree of elasticity that should be permitted. In every case a unit of purposeful, intellectualized activity is involved.” The chapters that follow take up: The evolution of the project as an educational concept; The relation of the project method to instincts; The social basis for the project method; The significance of motivation; Teaching by projects; Learning by projects; The project-question; The project-exercise; The project-problem; Manual or physical projects; Mental projects not involving manual activity; The project method in history; The project method in geography; The reorganization of the course of study; The preparation of the teacher. There are twelve pages of references and an index.
“A valuable discussion of the project method.”
“The author sets forth in clear terms one of the existing needs in education, namely, to get away from the ‘bookish, theoretical education of former days.’ There are times, however, when his distinctions are not exactly clear to the reader.”
BRASOL, BORIS L. Socialism vs. civilization. *$2 Scribner 335
As indicated by the title, the object of the book is to prove that socialism is the most dangerous enemy to civilization and that socialist agitation “threatens to ruin not only the existing order but also every attempt to improve it and to insure social progress and general prosperity.” The author claims to be a close student of Marx whose economic and social theories he attempts to explain and to refute. Professor Thomas Nixon Carver of Harvard university writes an introduction, and the contents are: Modern socialism—its theories and aims; Criticism of the Marx theory; The great socialistic experiment in Russia; Socialist explanations of the failure in Russia; Socialistic agitation in Europe and America; Social revolution or social reconstruction.
“Mr Brasol’s book gives a just though not a neutral estimate of the character and aims of modern socialism.” J. E. LeRossignol
“Brasol’s treatise is a valuable criticism of radical socialism, it fails to meet in a convincing way, the issue as raised by Laidler, Spargo, Vandervelde, Rauschenbusch and others, although the constructive proposals given in the last chapter might to some extent at least mitigate the admitted evils of the present system.” L. M. Bristol
“He makes out his case by infinite omissions, by a near-sightedness that throws the whole subject out of proportion, and by a plentiful use of epithets like ‘soap-box agitator’ and ‘parlour Bolshevist’; and his constructive suggestions are of an incredible banality.”
“The chief moral to be drawn from the volume is that he wastes his time who tries to interpret present-day social movements without being at least sympathetic with the spirit of social unrest and demand for change.” H: P. Fairchild
“His book is full of ammunition for those who feel a call to oppose propaganda to propaganda, and of reassurance to those who consider the facts disquieting.”
“In offering opinion on his book a sharp distinction should be drawn between the first four chapters and the last two; the book would be twice as good with the last two eliminated.”
“While it cannot be recommended to the opponent of socialism as an altogether reliable armory of arguments, the book, nevertheless, often hits the nail and should prove stimulating and useful to the convinced Socialist and the impartial student.” B. L.
BREARLEY, HARRY CHASE. Time telling through the ages. il *$3 Doubleday 529
“When the Ingersolls of watchmaking fame desired to celebrate the quarter-century of their experience in that industry, a book relating the evolution of time-keeping devices was adopted as a fitting memorial and as an anniversary contribution to horological art and science. The anniversary occurred in war time and the book had to wait until the establishment of peace. It is a handsomely illustrated volume, ‘Time telling through the ages,’ and bears the name of Henry C. Brearley as author, although credit is given Miss Katherine Morrissey Dodge for the research work necessary. The book relates the development then of watchmaking in England, France, Switzerland and America, past the days of the guilds and of handmade watches to the era of machine made standard parts at a price within the reach of everybody. Among the illustrations are many photographs of rare and curious old watches in the museums of the world. There is also included as an appendix forty-two pages of encyclopedic dictionary, defining and often illustrating all the terms pertaining to watchmaking and all the names of people identified through the ages with the progress and perfecting of the art.”—Springf’d Republican
“Most ingenious compilation. The illustrations are numerous and interesting.”
“The story is interesting and valuable.”
BREASTED, JAMES HENRY, and ROBINSON, JAMES HARVEY. History of Europe, ancient and medieval. il $1.92 Ginn 940
A work based on the authors’ “Outlines of European history.” “Chapters 1–20 have been completely rewritten, simplified, and condensed; and more space has been given to Roman history and less to that of the ancient Orient.... As for the rest of the work, much condensation has been effected and the details of presentation have been reconsidered from beginning to end.” (Preface) The bibliographies have also been revised. Part 1 of the book, Earliest man, the Orient, Greece and Rome, is by Professor Breasted. Part 2, Europe from the break-up of the Roman empire to the French revolution, is by Professor Robinson.
“The writer sees no reason why the book should not meet with immediate success, for it is without question one of the best in a somewhat barren field.”
BREBNER, PERCY JAMES (CHRISTIAN LYS, pseud.). Ivory disc (Eng title, Gate of temptation). *$1.75 (1½c) Duffield
Dr Bruce Oliver had, until nearly his fortieth year, found women only an interesting study, and had not regarded them sentimentally. But when Estelle Bocara came into his life, his heart awakened. She felt and responded to his love, but she was already married to an eastern professor and mystic. As their acquaintance grew and their intimacy developed, Dr Oliver found Estelle at times to be under the strange mesmeric power of her husband, when she committed crimes of which she had no knowledge. Thinking her mental condition due to physical injury received in her childhood, Dr Oliver performed a successful operation on her brain. In an effort to complete the cure, Oliver put himself in Bocara’s power, with almost disastrous results. Fortunately for him, another victim of Bocara’s cruelty freed them both, and the obstacle to marriage with Estelle was removed. The ivory disk of the title is the amulet, the gift of Estelle which Oliver believes saved him from death.
“To become an adept in the craft of storytelling sometimes means advancement in literary style; had it been so in Mr Brebner’s case he would not have opened one of his chapter-sections with such a passage as ‘The crisp air of the morning had not yet let go of the world.’”
“‘The ivory disc’ will furnish the reader with a harmless kind of diversion and will make no extortionate demands either upon his attention or upon his intellect.”
“The book can be recommended to lovers of sensation and cheap sentimental versions of occultism.”
“A distressing story. Apparently the author wants to make our flesh creep. But, somehow, he does not.”
BRERETON, FREDERICK SADLIER. Great war and the R. A. M. C. *$6 Dutton 940.475
“‘The great war and the R. A. M. C. takes up the work of the Royal army medical corps on the western front during the first months of the war and relates with full detail the whole story of its efforts, failures and achievements, with especial reference to the service of its field ambulances.” Springf’d Republican
“His succinct accounts of the various actions and manœuvres are just sufficient to support the main thread of the story without diverting the interest from it.”
BRIDGE, SIR FREDERICK. Westminster pilgrim. il *$8 Gray, H. W.
“This bulky but entertaining book recounts a great deal more than the story of a pilgrimage to Westminster. It might excusably claim to be the history of the Abbey itself during the last half-century—coronations, funerals, choral functions, musical services, etc., having all the prominence that the organist would naturally consider their due. First and foremost, it is an autobiography of the chatty gossipy order; the life-story of a singularly busy musician who rose from the ranks, who came into contact with many of the leading men of his time, and who by his own showing never lost an opportunity for profiting by his talents or his peculiar fund of ready wit and jocularity. But in addition to this it deals now and again with serious musical topics, more particularly, of course, those which have come within the orbit of the author’s own wide professional experience.”—Sat R
“On the whole, however, the book suffers from those very excellences which make Sir Frederick so eminently suited to his office.”
“The Illustrations are of exceptional interest, and the whole book is excellently got up.”
“The emeritus-organist of Westminster has led a full and successful life, and the record of his professional activities makes excellent reading, for Sir Frederick Bridge is an admirable raconteur.”
“He records meetings with a few great men outside his profession—Dickens, Tennyson, Browning; but it seems that the organist of the Abbey is most likely to meet great men at their funerals. His friends who were not great in the worldly sense are much more entertaining.”
BRIDGE, NORMAN. Marching years. il *$2.50 (3c) Duffield
The above title is given to the autobiography of a noted physician of New England origin, the eighth generation in direct descent of Deacon John Bridge, to whom a bronze statue has been erected near Harvard university. Dr Bridge was graduated from the Chicago Medical college, served on the teaching staff of Rush Medical college for two decades and is the author of many publications on medical subjects, a list of which is appended to the text.
BRIDGES, ROBERT. October. *$1.50 Knopf 821
“‘October, and other poems’ does not bring anything particularly new to bear on Mr Bridges’s poetry. Its principal value is to show the poet laureate’s reactions to the war.” (N Y Times) “The best that we get is a quiet sound to arms in ‘Wake up, England,’ a tribute to victory in ‘Der tag: Nelson and Beatty,’ a ghostly dialogue between the victorious admirals of the past and present, some stanzas on ‘Britannia victrix,’ in the orthodox tradition of rehearsing the spirit of England’s greatness, some tributes to personal friends who were lost in the war, laurel-verse for the great soldier Lord Kitchener, sonnets to America in joining the fight for liberty, praise for the dominions for throwing in their lot with the mother of the brood, and other such occasional verses.” (Boston Transcript)
“The disappointment, if we may call it disappointment, of this small book is that so much of its room is taken up by poems of a more or less official inspiration. Nothing he writes, be the occasion never so official or the inspiration tenuous, is marred by a touch of shoddy; the dignity of poetry is safe in his hands. This dignity has no pomposity. It is only a name for the austerity and candour that mark the true artist.”
Reviewed by S: Roth
Reviewed by W: S. Braithwaite
“The collection is hardly representative of Mr Bridges’ best work, but at its least, it is good verse.”
“Mr Bridges was created to do small things in poetry, and to do them very well.”
“The one drawback to Mr Bridges’s poetry is a lack of fire. It all seems conscious, coldly worked out to a well-defined formula. He carves carefully and with meticulous skill the clever cameos which he offers the public.” H. S. Gorman
“The name ‘October’ which the poet laureate has given to his new book of poems is exceedingly appropriate. There is the perfection and completion of autumn about them, the sense of something rounded and finished, a matured and considered beauty.”
BRIDGES, VICTOR. Cruise of the “Scandal,” and other stories. *$1.75 (2c) Putnam
A volume of short stories by an English writer who introduces them with graceful apologies to “the countrymen of Edgar Allan Poe and O. Henry.” Mr Bridges is author also of “The lady from Long Acre” and the stories are written in the light-hearted manner of that novel. Among the fifteen titles are: The cruise of the “Scandal”; The man with the chin; Tony and his conscience; With the conquering turkey; A bit of Old Chelsea; Full-back for England; The bronze-haired girl; His reverence.
“A cluster of very delightful short stories.”
“Here is an English author who is satirical, keenly observant and above all humorous.”
“Most of the tales are amusing, the author’s style is light and readable, and several of the stories reflect pleasantly the easy-going existence of the well-to-do young English bachelor as it was before the war.”
“The short story which gives this book its title is charming and gay. Some of the others are flippant or rummy.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
BRIGGS, THOMAS HENRY. Junior high school. (Riverside textbooks in education) *$2 Houghton 373
A work by a professor of education, Teachers college, Columbia university. “The purpose of the book is to present the facts, so far as they can be ascertained, concerning the newly established junior high schools, or intermediate schools, and at the same time to set forth a constructive program for the reorganization if it is to be educationally effective.” (Preface) The author states that he has visited personally more than sixty junior high schools, that he has supplemented the information thus obtained by a study of the literature of the subject, by questionnaire returns, conferences and correspondence. He has also acted as educational advisor of the Speyer experimental junior high school in New York. Contents: The need of reorganization of schools; The development of the junior high school; Claims and objections; Organization; Special functions of the junior high school; Curricula and courses of study; Methods of teaching; Teachers and salaries; The administration of the schedule and of class units; Social organization and control; Buildings and grounds; Costs; Results; In conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
“The book will serve a moderately useful purpose as a textbook for classes of beginners who need to be taught some definition of the movement, but will probably do little to influence practice in the present or the future.”
BRIGHAM, ALBERT PERRY. Cape Cod and the Old Colony. il *$3.50 (6c) Putnam 974.4
The book considers the Cape in its entirety: geologically, geographically, and historically. We are told of its relation to the glacial invasion, of its changing shoreline, due to the corroding and depositing force of the waves, and “how the first colonists and those who followed them have adjusted themselves to the mobile conditions of nature and of man.” (Preface) Contents: The Pilgrims around the bay; The origin of the Cape; The changing shoreline; Old Colony names and towns; On the land; The harvest of the waters; Roads and waterways; Three centuries of population; The environment of the sea; illustrations, index and maps.
“Clear, informative, and without distinction of style. Good photographs and charts.”
“It is sort of glorified geography, with a good deal that is both interesting and instructive.” W. A. Dyer
“One thing at least is certain—he has presented science in a garb that does not repel the layman, and that in itself is always in the nature of an achievement.” B. R. Redman
BRIGHOUSE, HAROLD. Marbeck inn. *$1.75 (2c) Little
Sam Branstone’s cradle had stood in a laborer’s cottage. Through a deed of heroism in his boyhood he secured a grammar school education and his face was set towards success. A loveless marriage to an extravagant woman emphasizes the necessity for money. The means he employs for getting it are not of the highest. To business he adds politics and the ambition for power. Then in the capacity of his secretary, comes Effie, the woman of beauty and charm and a talent for self-sacrifice. She loves Sam and resolves to sacrifice herself for him by putting the beauty, that has never found a place there, into his life. During a week at Marbeck inn together, she changes his outlook and as he sinks in the social scale he rises spiritually.
“A book full of clever detail but somehow without any final whereabouts. For myself, I am unable to like or believe much in either Sam or his Effie, and can’t feel that I ought to have been bothered with them, despite the craftsmanship of their sponsor.” H. W. Boynton
“‘The Marbeck inn’ is, as far as we know, Mr Brighouse’s first novel. In it may be found certain of the characteristics discoverable in all his plays, a shrewd knowledge of and a censorious attitude towards the life and the people of his own section of England, and a contempt for the ruling powers of both city and nation. The basis of Mr Brighouse’s art, both as dramatist and novelist, is character.” E. F. E.
“The unregenerate Sam and his world have a magnificent solidity and lifelikeness. His formidable and admirable mother, his moral slattern of a wife, the Rev. Peter Struggles, George Chapple, and even Mr Alderman Verity—these people are authentic, vivid, and memorable.”
“As a study of certain phases of life in and about Manchester, this English author’s new book is to be commended for its faithfulness. That the story is decidedly sordid in tone may be the consequence of its environment. Certainly there are few pleasant people among its characters.”
“The action of the story is rapid and free. It has a dash that savors somehow of the movies, and the characters are perhaps equally moviesque—bold in outline without much delicacy of shading. One feels that one has to take the author’s word for their third dimension—all except Anne, the watchful mother, and Peter Struggles, loved pastor of St Mary’s.” Marguerite Fellows
“One agrees with the author that Sam is worth staying with until the moment arrives when he is to discover that he has a soul. On the other hand, exception will be taken to Mr Brighouse’s method of showing Sam his soul.”
BRIGHOUSE, HAROLD. Three Lancashire plays. $2.50 French, S. 822
“The first of the three plays, ‘The game,’ proposes to be about football. The true subject of the play is parents and children. The daughter of the ‘gentleman’ rebels against her father and wants to marry the footballer; the footballer clings to his stern old mother and will not marry the girl unless he may keep his mother. And naturally the girl realizes that that would never ‘work’ and gives up her lover. ‘The northerners’ is a play about the introduction of machine-looms and the new tyranny of the masters of labour in the Lancashire of 1820. ‘Zack’ is a character comedy.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The first two plays in the volume are hardly adaptable to use in America, but ‘Zack’ will be a valuable addition to the repertory of amateur groups.”
“His plots are neither simple and exact, nor, on the other hand, marvels of good carpentry. They are either too weak or too strong, invertebrate or too dependent on situation. But ... we have here three plays in which Brighouse’s keen sense of good stage-humour, and his knack for observing character are applied to a people and a life that he could know honestly at first hand.” K. M.
“Mr Brighouse’s touch and temper are equally uncertain. In ‘The northerners’ his action is ingenious in the bad and artificial sense, and flares into the noisiest melodrama in the last act. ‘The game’ is a far sounder and less pretentious play than ‘The northerners’; ‘Zack’ is negligible.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“‘The game’ is, perhaps, a trifle too local, with an appeal to a more specialized audience whose chief interest lies in the fair play of organized sport. It is a relief to discover in the last play, ‘Zack,’ amusement for its own sake.”
“As for ‘Zack,’ it cries out for acting. But the dialogue and the situations go for little in print.”
“All show a sense of the theatre, good situations, lively talk (and, one might exclaim, ‘What more could you ask, in Heaven’s name?’), but for all this they are at best but commonplace.”
BRINKLEY, FRANK, and KIKUCHI, DAIROKU. History of the Japanese people. il *$4.50 Doran 952
This history dates from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji era and has been compiled with the collaboration of Baron Kikuchi who also contributes the foreword. He claims that among the many books on Japan there has not yet been a history of Japan so essential to the proper understanding of Japanese problems. Besides that part of the contents devoted especially to dynastic and political history there are chapters on: The historiographer’s art in old Japan; Japanese mythology; Rationalization; Origin of the Japanese nation; Language and physical characteristics; Manners and customs in remote antiquity; The capital and the provinces; Recovery of administrative authority by the throne; Manners and customs of the Heian epoch; Art, religion, literature, customs, and commerce in the Kamakura period; Foreign intercourse, literature, art, religion, manners, and customs in the Muromachi epoch; Christianity in Japan; Revival of the Shintō cult; Wars with China and Russia. The appendix contains: The constitution of Japan; The Anglo-Japanese agreement, 1905; and the Treaty of Portsmouth, 1905. There is a list of Japanese works consulted; an index; 150 illustrations engraved on wood by Japanese artists; half-tone plates and maps.
BRINTON, REGINALD SEYMOUR. Carpets. $1 Pitman 677
This volume of Pitman’s Common commodities and industries series comprises the following chapters: History; Materials; Dyeing; Hand-made carpets; Brussels; Wilton; Axminster; Chenille; Tapestry; Ingrain; Design and colour; Statistics; Employers and employed; Conclusion. There are thirty illustrations and an index.
BROOKE, STOPFORD AUGUSTUS. Naturalism in English poetry. *$3 Dutton 821.09
“These studies deal with that reaction from artificial and conventional poetry of the eighteenth century which began with Thomson, grew through a transition period of some fifty years (1730–1780) into the ‘naturalistic’ poetry of Burns and Cowper, reached its height with Wordsworth, and died with Shelly, Keats, and Byron. They are based on the Ms. of a course of lectures delivered by the late Stopford Brooke at University college, London, in 1902. The later chapters of the book are also printed from Mss., except two, which appeared after the author’s death in the Hibbert Journal.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“There was, perhaps, no great originality in Stopford Brooke’s criticism; and in reading his particular book one sighs occasionally for a page or two of precise discussion of the keyword in the title. On the other hand it has the redeeming salt of a genuine humanity, an enthusiasm which, if it attaches sometimes to what seems to us only diluted poetry, is in the main convincing—a book, in short, which can be read with pleasure rather than exhilaration, and which, considered as lectures delivered to a university audience, is admirable.”
“Mr Brooke’s book is one that should be widely read, for it gives new life to these men [Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron].” H. S. Gorman
“While Stopford Brooke has written good criticism, he has not written great criticism; for a criticism which, while dealing with human values, does not really seek for the larger reconciling ideas, and which always in a pinch leans toward a theological standard cannot be called great.”
“Though the present work penetrates deeply into the spirit that animated the naturalistic poets, it is marred by the use of many outworn phrases, examples of tautology, and an irritating loquacity that might be forgiven in a lecturer, but cannot be condoned in the printed page.”
BROOKS, ALFRED MANSFIELD. From Holbein to Whistler; notes on drawing and engraving. il *$7.50 Yale univ. press 767
“Starting with the ‘Beginnings of line engraving in Italy,’ Mr Brooks comments on the line engraving and wood in the North, talks upon the work of such men as Mantegna, Marcantonio, Raimondi, Lucas of Leyden, Durer and Holbein; gives an account of the theory and progress of etching through Rembrandt, Van Dyck to Claude Lorraine; mezzotint engraving as exemplified by Claude Lorraine and Richard Earlom, and concludes on the famous collection of engravings and designs by Turner known as ‘The liber studiorum.’ The volume is illustrated in both line and shadow, with reproductions of the famous drawings of the artists dealt with.”—Boston Transcript
“Ease and dignity mark the style.”
“If the reader may occasionally prefer a different path from the one taken by Mr Brooks, that is in measure a matter of personal predilection. The same may be said of the choice of prints for discussion. However, in the end the book stimulates, and exhibits good common sense.”
“On the whole, it is an interesting and instructive book, a little verbose, but full of shrewd observations and sound though unoriginal generalities. It is neither sufficiently concise nor sufficiently ample for very general use; however, the patient reader will be amply repaid for the reading.” R: Bassett
BROOKS, CHARLES STEPHEN. Luca Sarto. il *$1.75 (2c) Century
Fourteen hundred and seventy-one is the time of this story of adventure and romance, as told by the hero, Luca Sarto, in the first person. Here is his own outline of the events: “We shall see, when all is done, how a man fled wisely from his enemies, the Orsini; how he came to France; how later, in good time, he wooed and kissed a lady; how, after a night that was candled by stars and danger, the morning sun was witness to their betrothal. I end with priest and blessing. No need of candle then.”
“Remarkable for the fidelity with which the author preserves the atmosphere of the middle ages.”
“From the confinement and necessary limitations of the essay-form, Mr Brooks has emerged with much credit, to give us a glorious adventure bubbling with spirits, and plausible withal.” R. D. W.
“Full of intrigue and action, and related in a quaint phraseology full of color and metaphor.”
“It has the sparkle of brightly burnished armour and a pulse-quickening pace. The manner of the telling is not without a touch of swagger, spiced with the salt flavour of the modern point-of-view, humorous and whimsical.”
“The book, a first novel, is an entertaining historical romance cleverly written and contains plenty of intrigue and adventure combined with a pretty love story.”
“His adventures in France are told with dash, and the style smacks truly of the manner of the fifteenth century.”
“A spirited and amusing if not inspired narrative of adventure-cum-politics.” H. W. Boynton.
“The story is well written, in a fresh and stimulating romantic spirit, and should appeal to those with a weakness for historical novels that do not contain too much history.”
BROOKS, JOHN GRAHAM. Labor’s challenge to the social order; democracy its own critic and educator. *$2.75 (2c) Macmillan 331
“The problem here submitted is a study of power rapidly and in part accidentally acquired by labor. More especially it is a study of what labor is to do with its new mastership, what fitness it possesses for the work it would take in hand and how, meantime, other classes are to play their part.” (Chapter 1) The author holds that the war has precipitated this new power of labor, which in normal times would have developed more slowly and carried with it its own discipline, and that now its education will be more costly both for itself and the public. He also holds that for capital the day of “the lone hand” has closed and that the lesson for both capital and labor to learn is to unite their forces in cooperative effort. A partial list of the contents is: “A new society”; World lessons; The struggle at its worst; The Inner revolution; Lessons from the communists; Socialism; Government ownership; Industrial democracy at its best; The employers’ case against the union; The new “profit-sharing”; Syndicalism; The new guild; Index.
“It is a stimulating and penetrating appreciation of the latest developments in the labor field on the background of Mr Brooks’s forty years’ study of the upward movement of wage-earners throughout the world. Like his other books, it is a human document rather than a dogmatic treatise.” H: R. Seager
“The volume is fully up to the author’s standard of writing, which means that it is accurate, good-tempered and interesting.”
“The very interesting illustrations cited throughout make this book not only earnest but really attractive reading on labor organization questions.”
“A clear account and discriminating criticism of the labor movement.”
Reviewed by G: Soule
“His book is unquestionably the most mature, balanced and far-seeing analysis of recent months.” Ordway Tead
“With some blemishes here and there of involved or slipshod phrase, the book is to be warmly welcomed. No other man in America who deals with this subject draws from so ample a store of learning and experience. No other has at once the exactness and the scope of his information. No other writes with such uniform tolerance and breadth of view.” W. J. Ghent
“His tolerance and his desire to understand and to interpret the world of labor fairly and humanly give distinction to his work.” W. L. C.
BROOKS, VAN WYCK. Ordeal of Mark Twain. *$3 Dutton
“This book is primarily a psychological study and yet it is full of biographical detail related to the career of Mark Twain, and supplements the biography written by Mr Paine. It should be stated, however, that Mr Brooks did not undertake this task in the spirit of a chronicler. He started, rather, with the aim of offering a logical explanation of Mark Twain’s well-known tendency to pessimism.” (R of Rs) “The main idea in the book is that Mark Twain’s career was a tragedy—a tragedy for himself and a tragedy for mankind. Everyman who does not live up to his highest possibilities is living in a state of sin. Mark Twain was, therefore, one of the chief of sinners, because his possibilities were so great and he fell so short. There were two villains in Mark Twain’s tragedy—his mother and his wife. His mother was more eager to have him good than to have him great; his wife wanted him to be a gentleman. Between them they tamed the lion and made him perform parlor tricks. This hypothesis is worked out by Mr Brooks.” (N Y Times)
“Having set up his theory, everything in the humorist’s career is made to contribute to it in the most plausible, ingenious, and stimulating way; the book is so able and interesting that to read it is a delight. Yet, for me, as I strive to realize Mark Twain, remembering the man and reading the author to find the man, the result is not satisfactory, nor do I think Mr Brooks has penetrated to the heart of the secret. He has succumbed to the danger which always confronts the thesis-maker who has to subdue data so that they may buttress his belief.” R: Burton
“Not only a subtle psychological study of one of the most prominent figures in the life of the past century, but also a valuable acquisition to the essay realm of American history.”
Reviewed by R. M. Lovett
“This ‘Ordeal’ is so brilliant a book and comes so near the truth in its general outlines that it seems almost an excess of seriousness to point out certain excesses of seriousness into which Mr Brooks has been carried by his ardor for the dignity of the literary profession. But it should be pointed out that his criticism is very far from being disinterested. He means to bring an adequate indictment against the sort of society which discourages and represses a man of genius.” C. V. D.
“Unfortunately Van Wyck Brooks took Mark Twain’s humorously megalomaniac utterances for serious expressions of a megalomaniac soul, and, as it seems to me, utterly missed the most promising lead in his mountain of ore. But there were riches enough for his purpose, nevertheless.” Alvin Johnson
“Many books have been written about Mark Twain; but with the exception of Paine’s biography this work by Mr Van Wyck Brooks is the most important and the most essential. Whether one agrees with Mr Brooks’s thesis or not—and I do not—one must admire and one ought to profit by the noble and splendid purpose animating it. It is a call to every writer and to every man and woman not to sin against their own talents.” W: L. Phelps
“While Mr Brooks is in no sense an artist in words, he is a dramatic expositor, and he owns a thesis which attracts to its defense an inspiritingly large number of crisp facts and observations. His book will interest and serve even the unbeliever.”
“Mr Brooks seems to have adopted a thesis which he feels bound to support by ingenious and plausible argument. As a clever and brilliant application of critical methods to a literary career, the book has few equals in American literature.”
“Although it is easy to dissent from Mr Brooks’s interpretation of Clemens’s biography, the book aims to provide something of the serious criticism which is so essential not only to American letters but to American culture. It is somewhat overtheorized and finespun. The ideas would be clearer if the book were more condensed in expression and data.”
BROWER, HARRIETTE MOORE.[2] Self-help in piano study. il *$1.50 Stokes 786
The book is in two parts: Practical lessons in piano technic and Plain talks with piano teachers and students. It consists of reprinted matter from the Musical Observer and Musical America in the form of brief essays, many of them written in response to requests from teachers and students. Among the chapters of Part 1 are: The principles of piano playing; The beginner; Use of wrist and arms; Scale playing. Part 2 has talks on: On teaching; Laying the foundation; Points on technical training; Touch and tone, etc.
BROWER, HARRIETTE MOORE. Vocal mastery. il *$3 Stokes 784.9
This book is composed of a number of talks with famous singers with a view to obtaining “their personal ideas concerning their art and its mastery, and, when possible, some inkling as to the methods by which they themselves have arrived at the goal.” Among those interviewed are Enrico Caruso, Geraldine Farrar, Amelita Galli-Curci, Giuseppe de Luca, Luisa Tetrazzini, Antonio Scotti, Reinald Werrenrath, and Sophie Braslau. A group entitled, With the master teachers, includes David Bispham, Oscar Saenger, Herbert Witherspoon, Yeatman Griffith, and J. H. Duval. Twenty photographs illustrate the book. Miss Brower is author also of “Piano mastery,” a book of similar purpose for pianists, and other books for musicians.
BROWN, ABBIE FARWELL. Heart of New England. *$1.50 Houghton 811
This collection of poems is a tribute in verse to the Pilgrim tercentenary, taking the reader from the Pilgrim’s separation from old England, to the present generation’s reunion thru the war. The first group of poems deals entirely with New England and some of the poems are: Pilgrim mothers; Pirate treasure; Grandmother’s house; Grandmother’s garden; Pine music; The blazed trail. The second group contains war songs, among them: Peace—with a sword; From the canteen; Prayer for America. The book ends with The rock of liberty: a Pilgrim ode, 1620–1920.
“Many who cannot find pleasure in more daring modern poets should find contentment in the work of Miss Brown. When much of today’s poetry is forgotten her verse will wait for him who wishes to know the true New England.” N. J. O’Conor
BROWN, ALICE. Homespun and gold. *$2 Macmillan
“‘Homespun and gold’ is an appropriate title for Miss Alice Brown’s new collection of stories, considering the homely material she has used and the glint of hope that persists in an atmosphere of impending tragedy. The people and scenes are all of New England, and the situations deal with the suppressed desires, the thwarted hopes, and the hated sacrifices made lovable, of a people in whom the Puritan tradition is not entirely dead.” (Freeman) Contents: The wedding ring; Mary Felicia; A homespun wizardry; Red poppies; Ann Eliza; The return of father; The deserters; The house of the bride; A question of wills; A brush of paint; The path of stars; The widow’s third; White pebbles; Confessions; Up on the mountain.
“Because they describe life rather than interpret it they fail to move one profoundly. The reader closes the book impressed with its sustained excellence; the sure touch of an experienced craftsman is apparent on every page, but it throws no clear light upon the enigma of human destiny.” L. M. R.
“Taken together, they form an interesting picture of New England village life. It is a picture far less grim than some others we have seen.”
“They are humorous, human, and true.”
“There is very little description in any of the stories—dialog is used almost wholly and this aids in the sharp differentiation of the characters. A homely idiom, fast becoming obsolete, adds to this effect.”
BROWN, ALICE. Wind between the worlds. *$2 (2c) Macmillan
In various ways the characters of this story are interested in the life hereafter and in communication with the dead; and the reactions on the living, when the quest becomes too ardent, constitute its moral. A bereaved mother, one of whose sons has been killed in the war, pins all her faith to automatic writing, in the hope of getting a message from him. Her relations with her husband become strained, her nerves threaten to give way. Her secretary, who practices the writing, has through it so lost her grip on the higher potentialities of life, that she no longer discriminates between genuine and fraudulent practices. A scientist has taken the matter up from the scientific side and from seeking communication with his dead wife has been led deeper and deeper into his investigations, and becomes almost crazed and totally irresponsible. For love of him his daughter surrounds herself with a fabric of lies from which only the love of an unusual, divining young man and her father’s death, extricate her. For the bereaved mother and her family the situation is saved by the penetrating wisdom of an old woman.
“Written with characteristic deftness and charm.”
“In ‘The wind between the worlds’ Miss Brown has, despite the intricacy of her theme, sacrificed neither her story to her problem, nor her problem to her story. Devotees of the cult doubtless will not approve of it, for its hints at fraud will seem to them to be unjust, and it suggests little sympathy on the part of the novelist with the cause they have so near at heart. To others, however, it will appear as a sensible and skilfully imaginative exposition of a vital subject.”
“If one can forget the shoddiness of the material there are several virtues that might be pointed out. The book will undoubtedly please disciples of the formula school of fiction.” H. S. G.
“The ‘plot portion’ of the story is the weakest part of it. There are times when it seems manufactured. But the character drawing is admirable. That the novel is admirably written and the atmosphere of Boston, where the scene is laid, excellently reproduced, of course goes without saying.” L. M. Field
“The love-plot is singular, but not convincing or quite well managed.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Madame Brooke, the grandmother of the dead boy, is much the most interesting and unconventional character in the book, and in her the author depicts an exclusively American type.”
“The technique is admirable; but the breath of life is rarely present. The characters are intellectually conceived, the story is original, the psychology shows insight; there is capital description, reasonably good dialogue, situations both interesting and dramatic; the tale moves without faltering; and yet, the breath of life being absent for the most part, the story is unreal.”
BROWN, SIR ARTHUR WHITTEN, and BOTT, ALAN JOHN. Flying the Atlantic in sixteen hours. il *$1.50 (4c) Stokes 629.1
In this account of the prize-winner in the first competitive flight across the Atlantic, in a Vickers-Vimy machine. Sir Arthur Brown says: “We have realized that our flight was but a solitary fingerpost to the air-traffic—safe, comfortable and voluminous—that in a few years will pass above the Atlantic ocean.” The last three chapters of the book are devoted to a discussion of aircraft in commerce and transportation. Contents: Some preliminary events; St John’s; The start; Evening; Night; Morning; The arrival; Aftermath of arrival; The navigation of aircraft; The future of transatlantic flight; The air age; illustrations.
“One leaves the book with the sensation of having been in the midst of remarkable accomplishment.” D. L. M.
BROWN, DEMETRA (VAKA) (MRS KENNETH BROWN), and PHOUTRIDES, ARISTIDES, trs. Modern Greek stories. (Interpreters’ ser.) *$1.90 (3c) Duffield
The book has a foreword by Demetra Vaka describing the emotional and intellectual history of the Greeks from the time they lost their independence to the Turks in 1453 to the present. Modern Greece, she says, owes her independence and inspiration to her poets and other writers and Mount Olympus, by becoming the stronghold of the outlaws and insurgents against Turkish rule, became in a new sense a sacred mountain. Of the authors of the eight stories selected for the volume, all but three are still living. The stories are: Sea; The sin of my mother; The god-father; Mangalos; Forgiveness; Angelica; A man’s death; The frightened soul; She that was homesick.
“All these stories are pervaded with a fatalism, a sombreness, a prepossession unredeemed by that super-sight that we associate with the Greeks of old. If they are exact transcriptions of the instincts and beliefs of the Greek people of today they have far to go before the heights are reached.” B. D.
“Without awakening at any point intense curiosity or poignant interest they hold the attention by their sincerity, truth, simplicity, and an indefinable democratic and human tone. They are admirably translated in pure idiomatic English.”
“Charming tales. The stories are fascinating in their strange beauty.”
“These stories are beautiful as literature; they are fascinating as documents of a people’s inner life.” B. L.
BROWN, EDNA ADELAIDE. That affair at St Peter’s. il *$1.75 (4c) Lothrop
This story is told by Preston Perrin, the junior warden of St Peter’s, a church in the suburban town of Hollywood. The tale has to do with the theft of St Peter’s communion plate between two morning services on a June Sunday. Various persons had access to the safe where the silver was kept, including Sophie Dennison, whom no one, least of all, Preston, could connect with such a crime, Thompson, the organist, Anna, a Girl’s friendly girl, and of course the rector. Fred Farrell. A detective is called in, but his conventional methods prove little. Finally, the silver is returned and the affair is explained very naturally and credibly, the whole excitement lasting less than a week.
“The book is old-fashioned, but—its mystery appearing early—will be finished if started.”
“A very interesting and well written story. All characters are attractive and a spice of love-making, withal, completes the value of the work as a story of human interest.”
BROWN, EVERETT SOMERVILLE. Constitutional history of the Louisiana purchase, 1803–1812. $2.50 Univ. of Cal. 973.4 A20–742
“The purpose of this monograph is to discuss the most important of the constitutional questions which arose as a consequence of the purchase of Louisiana, and to show how the statesmen and legislators in charge of affairs at that time interpreted the constitution in answering those questions. Much has been written on the Louisiana purchase but no connected narrative of its constitutional aspects has hitherto appeared.” (Preface) The author has confined his study principally to the lower part of the province, that organized as Orleans territory and afterwards admitted as the state of Louisiana. He has utilized much hitherto unpublished material. There is a bibliography of thirteen pages, in which this material, together with published works, is cited. An appendix reproduces the Senate debate on the Breckinridge bill in 1804, and the volume is indexed. It is published as volume 10 of the University of California publications in history, of which Herbert E. Bolton is editor.
“Dr Brown has covered a wide range of manuscript and printed material, and handled it with a just sense of proportion and a keen scent for the significant. I do wish, however, that aspirants for the three magic letters would not be so oppressed by the solemnity of their quest as to neglect the light and humorous aspects of their subject.” S. E. Morison
“A careful and elaborate monograph.” H. E. E.
BROWN, GEORGE EDWARD. Book of R. L. S.; works, travels, friends, and commentators. il *$2.50 (3c) Scribner
A book of Stevenson miscellany, alphabetically arranged. “The chief aim of this book is to provide a commentary on his works as far as possible from Stevenson’s own standpoint by showing the circumstances in which they were written, their history in his hands, and his judgments on them.... The scheme of the volume also embraces references to members of his family, and to his more or less intimate friends as well as the places directly associated with his wandering life.” (Preface) The comments vary in length from brief paragraphs to several pages. Subjects covered more or less at length include the Appin murder, on which “Kidnapped” was based; “The black arrow”; Alan Breck; “Catriona”; Father Damien; Dedications; “Kidnapped”; Samoa; San Francisco; In the South seas; and “Treasure island”; and there are also notes on Barrie, Meredith, Kipling, Sidney Colvin, and others. The book has eight illustrations and is indexed.
“The arrangement is handy for reference, and the information sufficiently attractive to repay one who dips into the book for pleasure.”
“Raises the question of how long Stevenson will survive segmentation, mutilation for mottoes, and vivisection in calendars, without impairment of his literary vitality. This volume, fortunately, is a dictionary rather than a dissection.”
“Once you have braced yourself and plunged in, an encyclopedia is delightful reading and so is this ‘Book of R. L. S.’”
“Unless some one does the same thing better, the book will stand; it need fear no rivalry, so far as ready reference is concerned, from more brilliant narratives. Minor shortcomings are offset by his general accuracy and good sense.”
“‘A book of R. L. S.’ is a good compendium of everything that is worth knowing in the life of Stevenson.” B: de Casseres
“Contains a valuable index.” D. K.
“It seems a little odd to find all sorts of information about Stevenson, his friends, and critics arranged under alphabetical headings, as if he were a cookery book or a postal guide. We have at this date quite enough books about Stevenson, and we hope that this will be the last for some time to come.... While Mr Brown’s industry is remarkable, his criticism is not always of the kind we regard as useful.”
“A pleasant and informing study. The arrangement which is so convenient for reference, interferes very little with the book’s readability.”
“The reader is made to feel an intimate acquaintance with that very remarkable author and man.”
“The book serves also as a bibliography, with notes of the values of first editions.”
BROWN, IVOR JOHN CARNEGIE.[2] Meaning of democracy. *$2 McClurg 321.8
“The lecturer of Oxford tutorial classes attempts to show what democracy implies. He recognizes that the word has come to mean nothing. Having accepted the principle of equality, as the basis of a division of power, he proceeds to outline representative government. He finds in this inevitable delegation of power, three main problems; the demand for general education to make articulate public opinion, the machinery for translating this public opinion into practice and in the third place, the need of curbing those elected to office, so that they will not forget the source of their power.”—Boston Transcript
“An excellent little book.”
“Ivor Brown’s ‘The meaning of democracy’ warms the heart with the new vision of education—education where teacher and students meet as equals.” A. Yezierska
“It is more human, more readable, and more thought-provoking than nine out of ten of the treatises on the same general lines with which it has been our rather arduous privilege to grapple. This is because Mr Brown is neither very whole-hearted nor, happily, very consistent about his self-imposed task. The terrible series of definitions by which he is going to fathom the last recesses of the democratic idea loses itself, like certain eastern rivers, in the desert during the course of the first few chapters; and we can bear with the loss.”
BROWN, NELSON COURTLANDT. Forest products. il *$3.75 Wiley 674
A book by the professor of forest utilization, New York state college of forestry. “Some idea of its scope may be obtained from such chapter headings as the following: Wood pulp and paper; Tanning materials; Veneers; Slack and tight cooperage; Naval stores; Wood distillation; Charcoal; Boxes; Cross ties; Poles and piling; Mine timber; Fuel; Shingles; Maple syrup and sugar; Rubber; Dye woods; Excelsior and cork. Under each topic the character and source of the raw material, the tree species involved, the processes of manufacture, the marketing, the utilization, and values are discussed. Whenever any attempts have been made toward standard specifications and grading of the products, these are given in considerable detail. Statistics of production in the United States or of importation from other lands are arranged in convenient tables, and still more important for the scientist is the bibliography which is appended to each chapter.” (Bot Gaz)
“Attractive in appearance, well illustrated, and carefully organized.” G: D. Fuller
BROWN, ROBERT NEAL RUDMOSE. Spitsbergen. il *$5 Lippincott 919.8
“This book, from the pen of a British explorer, meets the new demand for information about the mineral resources of this Arctic archipelago, and at the same time gives a good account of the history, exploration and animal and plant life of the country. The author discusses the three ways suggested for settling the political status of Spitsbergen—partition, international control by two or more nations, and annexation by one or other nation. He rejects the first two propositions as not feasible and concludes that the islands should be annexed by either Great Britain or Norway, the choice to be submitted to the League of nations and decided by a mandate to one or other of these powers.”—R of Rs
“Dr Rudmose Brown is a geographer of repute with considerable scientific attainments, whose work in the Antarctic has won recognition, and in this volume he has given us a valuable, lively and most interesting account of the Spitsbergen archipelago. He writes with a restrained enthusiasm inspired by a genuine love of these wild regions which compels our interest.” L. C.-M.
“Since the book was finished before the government of the country was settled it is slightly out of date in this, but is chiefly valuable for the details of history and economic resources.”
“The book states the problem clearly and contains numerous helpful maps and illustrations.”
“Dr Rudmose Brown gives a map showing the principal mining estates according to nationality, but no map showing the distribution of coal, and no geological map. This last seems a curious omission and certainly is a regrettable one. His book may be recommended to the general inquirer and especially to the tourists and health seekers.”
“An interesting and useful book.”
“This is one of those commendable volumes which entertains while it informs the reader.”
BROWNE, EDWARD GRANVILLE.[2] History of Persian literature under Tartar dominion (A. D. 1265–1502). il *$14 Macmillan 891.5
“The literature of Persia has found a most able and enthusiastic interpreter in Professor Edward G. Browne, of the University of Cambridge, who has already published two exhaustive volumes entitled ‘A literary history of Persia,’ bringing the subject down to the middle of the thirteenth century. Now comes a third, covering the period from 1265 to 1502. It is practically a continuation, if not so in name and form, of the other two standard volumes.” (Nation) “The period dealt with begins immediately after the terrible Mongol invasion under Hulagu, includes the conquests of the redoubtable Tamerlane, and ends with the appearance of the great Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safawi dynasty, as the saviour of his country.” (Spec)
“It must be confessed that it is not easy reading. He could hardly expect it to be a popular piece of literature. But what a glorious feast it provides! He has indeed performed a great and needed work in interpreting this fine people to modern readers.” N. H. D.
“Takes its place by the side of the two earlier volumes as a masterpiece of sound scholarship and critical judgment.” A. V. W. Jackson
“The volume, in short, is worthy of its distinguished author, and sheds a flood of light on an epoch with which even experts are unfamiliar.”
“His treatment of the subject is so direct and so clear that the general reader would never suspect that the ground traversed is mostly new ground, and that the sources both for the history and for the literature are for the most part contained in unpublished manuscripts.”
BROWNE, ROBERT T. Mystery of space. *$4 Dutton 114
“It is Mr Browne’s belief that mankind has entered upon a new era in the development of intellect and that new powers of perception and understanding are unfolding in the most advanced members of the race. ‘The intellect’, he says, ‘has but one true divining rod, and that is mathematics,’ and he brings forward his mathematical evidence to prove his contention. He discusses also the genesis and nature of space, devotes a chapter to an exposition of the fourth dimension, another to discussion of non-Euclidian geometry and traces the growth of the notion of hyperspace.”—Springf’d Republican
“The greatest of all latter-day books on space. It is written by a mathematician, a mystic and a thinker, one who, endowed with a tremendous metaphysical imagination, never lets go any point of the threads of reality. Lucid and logical, with a pen that never falters, Mr Browne advances steadily from page to page upon the fortresses of science.” B: de Casseres
“It is excessively irritating that writers on this subject either choose or are forced to employ a vocabulary and a style which are repellent to the reader, and to mix the significant and insignificant into an almost inextricable tangle. Careful and prolonged searching brings forth the fact that Mr Browne has a definite and interesting thesis.” L: T. More
“As offering to the reader very intelligible and significant, not to say impressive intimations and conceptions of that larger universe in which we live and move and have our being, and of which we are hardly aware, ‘The mystery of space’ presents an admirable idea, in its clear and well-considered resumé of facts.” Lilian Whiting
BROWNRIGG, SIR DOUGLAS EGREMONT ROBERT. Indiscretions of the naval censor. il *$2.50 (4c) Doran 940.45
The author was chief censor at the British admiralty during the war. He writes of: The establishment of the naval censorship; How the news came of the battles of Coronel and the Falkland islands; Problems of publicity and propaganda; The battle of Jutland; The death of Lord Kitchener; Educating the public; Co-operation with other departments; Zeebrugge and the censorship; Authors, publishers and some others; Press men of allied countries; Visitors to the Grand fleet; Artists and the naval war; Censoring naval letters; Wireless and war news; Odds and ends; A censor’s “holidays”; Last days of the censorship. The illustrations are grouped at the end and there is an index.
“Admiral Brownrigg has many amusing stories to tell as well as many momentous topics to discuss.”
“Anyone who expects Sir Douglas Brownrigg’s ‘Indiscretions of the naval censor’ to be indiscreet will be disappointed. Where the Admiral does become interesting is in his intimate account of life at that ramshackle building known as the British admiralty.”
“The grave question of the proper relation to be observed in time of war between the truth, the state, the public, and the press scarcely obtrudes its chilly presence into the warm stream of anecdote which courses through these pages.”
“The book is breezily written and as entertaining as it is genuinely informative.”
“Admiral Brownrigg has command of a straightforward, telling style. His book is full of humour, good spirits, and the kind of information which only he is in a position to impart.”
BRUNNER, MRS ETHEL (HOUSTON). Celia and her friends. *$1.25 Macmillan
“Seven short sketches of London society fill 150 small pages of ‘Celia and her friends’ in which Ethel Brunner presents a bright and benevolent heiress, attended most of the time by a clever bachelor, who fain would change his state and hers, and assisted in the various chapters by a supporting cast of more or less merit.”—Springf’d Republican
“As a picture of one phase of idle London life, there may be some interest, but it has been so much better done by other writers that it fails to impress one.”
“The dialog is full of repartee not overdone. The book isn’t meant to be deep; whimsical, frivolous, entertaining, would describe it better.”
BRUNNER, MRS ETHEL (HOUSTON). Celia once again. *$1.80 Macmillan
“‘Celia once again’ is a collection of nine short stories—perhaps episodes is the better term, as there is no pretense of a fictional plot in any of them; they all relate to Celia and her interesting friends. According to Peter—Celia’s husband—she was ‘dangerously quick in making friends,’ she was anxious to make every penny she could for charity, and when she stationed herself in Piccadilly with her flag tray and a bundle of tickets for a picture to be raffled for, ‘Love’s awakening,’ it was small matter for wonder that her handsome face and becoming costume won for her a gratifying success. But her philanthropic effort was not without adventures; these the author recounts.”—N Y Times
“The dialogue is often witty and every chapter sparkles with comment and whimsical philosophizing on people and affairs.”
BRYANT, MRS ALICE ELISABETH (CRANDELL), ed. Treasury of hero tales. (Treasury ser. for children) il *$1 (3½c) Crowell 398.2
The stories retold for children in this volume are The Gorgon’s head; The apples of youth; The story of Siegfried; The coming of Sir Galahad; Rinaldo and Bayard; White-headed Zal; Beowulf and Grendel; How Cuchulain got his name; How Robin Hood met Little John.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
BRYANT, MRS SOPHIE (WILLOCK). Moral and religious education. (Modern educator’s lib.) *$1.90 (*6s) Longmans 377
“Some advocates of moral training in the schools believe that morality can best be taught through the development of religious faith and by direct appeal to self-respect, reason, sympathy, and common-sense. A book advocating this idea has just appeared. It deals with such general topics as self-liberation and self-realization, the moral ideal, the religious ideal, and the reasoned presentment of religious truth. A chapter is devoted to each of these topics.” (School R) “In the second division of the volume a large number of attractive examples are given of model lessons on moral topics. There are reviews of the lives and doings of great men and a concrete setting forth of social and personal virtues. The last part of the book attempts to furnish concrete material for religious instruction. The character of this fourth division of the book can be well illustrated by citing the general title of the section and the titles of certain of the chapters. The general title is The reasoned presentment of religious truths. Under this heading there are chapters on The young student’s need of a reasoned doctrine, God and the world, Man and his destiny, etc.” (El School J)
“The book is an interesting and typical contribution to the field of endeavor which is at the present time commanding large attention in American institutions. It will undoubtedly be made use of as a reference book by teachers in the field of moral and religious education.”
“Generally speaking, the discussion is theoretical and abstract. In but a few cases does it touch problems of everyday life. For the American teacher, it seems to have little of value.”
BRYAS, MADELEINE DE, comtesse, and BRYAS, JACQUELINE DE. Frenchwoman’s impressions of America. il *$1.75 Century 917.3
The comtesse and her sister came to America in 1918 on a lecture tour to speak in behalf of devastated France. While here their services were also enlisted to help in the third Liberty loan drive. They traveled from coast to coast in this double capacity and have here jointly recorded their experiences in characteristically vivacious French style. The book has an introduction by André Tardieu and the contents are: Paris bombarded; No submarines; New York “en guerre”; “Dry” Washington; American hospitality; Speaking for the third Liberty loan; Experiences in factories; Over the top; American generosity; Touring for devastated France; On a mission for the American government; “Proper” America; In the Middle West; St Louis; Our reception at Camp Dodge; No Indians and no cowboys; A dip in Saltair with Mormons; The Pacific coast; San Francisco; Puget Sound; Vers la France.
“Their book is vivacious, sprightly, entertaining, incisive, shrewd, full of wit and humor, especially when the authors tell us about things which struck them as being particularly American.”
BRYCE, JAMES BRYCE, viscount.[2] World history. (British academy. Annual Raleigh lecture, 1919) pa *90c Oxford 901
“Lord Acton chose the idea of liberty as the central line around which to write a world history. In the present lecture Lord Bryce suggests another and perhaps more profitable clue—the notion of the gradual unification of mankind. This process he briefly traces through the centuries of history, showing how language, conquest, trade, religion and thought have helped to draw together the scattered tribes of primitive humanity into large groups. This process of convergence has, however, been accompanied by a process of divergence, for while individuals have been drawn into groups, the groups have tended to become profoundly separated. Lord Bryce concludes his lecture by a speculative prophecy of the future.”—Ath
BRYHER, WINIFRED. Development; a novel; preface by Amy Lowell. *$2 Macmillan
“‘Development’ is an essay in autobiography, a note-book rather than a novel, the fragmentary jottings of a child’s emotions, a child entirely centred on self and in her recollections deliberately isolating herself from other minds.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The record takes its subject from early childhood, beginning at four years old, through much travel around the Mediterranean, with sensuous absorption of the ‘warm South’; into two years of bleak school life, and a succeeding period of vague seeking after an undefined something that shall be life.” (N Y Evening Post)
“This book is described as a novel; we should prefer to call it a warning.” K. M.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“There is to be another volume called ‘Adventure,’ to follow this one of ‘Development.’ At least it seems quite certain that those of us who have experienced the spell of Nancy’s early days will not be likely to neglect the later volume.” D. L. M.
“The chief complaint leveled against Miss Richardson’s sequence is that Miriam Henderson, however faithfully rendered, is not worth writing about. This cannot be said of Nancy. Inarticulate as she is, here is a personality of complicated power.” C. M. Rourke
“It is patently sincere, and the author has an unusual feeling for words, a highly developed color sense, and intensity of feeling. But even here she is hunting not for the inevitable, right word but for the bizarre, the surprising. Nevertheless, the result is often felicitous and is saved from becoming burlesque, though sometimes by a narrow margin.” H. L. Pangborn
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“It has the value that truth and sincerity always give, but as a piece of literature it has more promise than achievement. Out of her experience and toil will some day come a notable, perhaps even a memorable book, but we cannot close the present review without a warning against the danger of too close a pre-occupation with the analysis of one’s own emotions. Breadth, stability, and intellectual strength are not to be found in this book; they can be gained only by the assiduous study of the external world.”
“The evident truth of much of what Miss Bryher tells us about Nancy does not save a good deal of ‘Development’ from being simply dull. These experiences set down in this way, are no more than the raw material for art, to be turned into something coherent and beautiful when a maturer experience can use them, when egotism has been touched with a tolerant humour, and people have ceased to be ‘baffling.’ They are notes on the artistic mind before it has left the stage of the grub, and grubs are never very pleasant.”
BUCK, ALBERT HENRY. Dawn of modern medicine. il *$7 Yale univ. press 610.9
“‘The dawn of modern medicine’ gives a concise review of the progress of medical science from the early part of the eighteenth century until about 1860. Among the contents are a discussion of medicine in Germany and other European countries during the eighteenth century, brief biographical sketches of a number of physicians and surgeons who were leaders then, and a somewhat detailed description of workers in special departments of medicine and surgery. Several chapters deal with important European hospitals of that time and other organizations for the teaching of medicine.”—Springf’d Republican
“Dr Buck is to be congratulated on his study of the history of medicine in the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth centuries. As a biographical study of the leaders of medicine the book is all too sketchy; in fact, many of these histories have been culled from standard medical histories.” E. P. Boas
“A loose and disorderly arrangement greatly lessens the usefulness of this stately volume. It confuses men of the highest importance and men of no importance at all. It presents a chaotic and unintelligible picture of the progress of the medical sciences during the period under review.” H. L. Mencken
“The work is of interest as an addition to general medical literature and because of the manner of treatment it will prove interesting and profitable to the ordinary reader.”
BUCK, CHARLES NEVILLE. Tempering. il *1.75 (1c) Doubleday
A story of the Kentucky mountains spanning the years between the feud-ridden period of the late nineteenth century and the world war. One of Boone Wellver’s kinsmen is convicted for the murder of Goebel, the democratic nominee for governor, and young Boone swears vengeance to the death on the man whose false testimony convicted him. But Boone has already come under the influence of Victor McCalloway, a professional soldier, and McCalloway persuades him to wait till he is twenty-one. Boone is sent to school, falls in love with Anne Masters, learns a new code of manners and morals, but once comes dangerously near a return to his old gods and to keeping his old vow. He goes into politics and when the war comes enlists. He meets Anne, from whom he had been separated, and there is promise of happiness after the war.
“It is a compliment to Mr Buck’s literary skill that he makes mighty interesting reading of the story of his hero’s symbolical struggle. ‘The tempering’ will not suffer by comparison with any of John Fox’s novels of similar locale.”
BUCK, HOWARD SWAZEY. Tempering. *$1 Yale univ. press 811
This is the first volume in the Yale series of younger poets. This series “is designed to afford a publishing medium for the work of young men and women who have not yet secured a wide public recognition. It will include only such verse as seems to give the fairest promise for the future of American poetry.” Twelve of the war poems printed as part two were in 1918 awarded the annual prize in poetry offered at Yale university. Other poems are reprinted from the Nation, Contemporary Verse, Poetry Journal, Poetry, the Masses, and the Yale Literary Magazine.
“A first book of verse wherein jubilant youthfulness, unwearied even in the poems of war experience, marches to gay pipes with a sweeping stride and an idealism unappalled.”
“There is such real artistic restraint and such moving sincerity in most of the battle and exile pieces that it is a pity that the poem of the return should border on vulgarity. Mr Buck has obviously not yet quite found himself, but he certainly has the stuff of real poetry in him.”
BUCK, SOLON JUSTUS. Agrarian crusade: a chronicle of the farmer in politics. (Chronicles of America) il subs per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 329
“The farmer in American politics is the theme treated by Mr Solon J. Buck in ‘The agrarian crusade,’ in which are related the rise and fall of the so-called Granger movement in the West, the greenback propaganda, the Farmers’ alliance, the organization of the Populist party and its surprising success in 1892, the silver issue, and more recently the growth of the Nonpartisan party in North Dakota and other states.”—R of Rs
Reviewed by E. P. Oberholtzer
“It is obviously a hurried piece of work, well enough written, but with a tendency to triteness and wordiness.”
BUCKLE, GEORGE EARLE. Life of Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield. v 5–6 il ea *$6 Macmillan
The author of these two volumes is Monypenny’s successor. The work was extended in order to treat more fully of Disraeli’s management of the eastern question, the most outstanding feature of his administration. This was made possible, says the author, by the Russian revolution. “There can be now no reasons of international delicacy to prevent a full disclosure of Disraeli’s eastern policy.” Contents of volume 5: The Irish church, 1868; Defeat and resignation, 1868; Reserve in opposition, 1868–1871; Lothair, 1869–1870; The turn of the tide, 1872–1873; Bereavement, 1872–1873; Lady Bradford and Lady Chesterfield, 1873–1875; Power, 1874; Political success and physical failure, 1874; Social reform, 1874–1875; An imperial foreign policy, 1874–1875; Suez canal and royal title, 1875–1876; From the Commons to the Lords, 1876–1877; Appendix—an unfinished novel. Contents of volume 6: Reopening of the eastern question, 1875–1876; The Bulgarian atrocities, 1876; The Constantinople conference, 1876–1877; War and cabinet dissension, 1877; Conditional neutrality, 1877; Derby’s first resignation, 1877–1878; Final parting with Derby, 1878; Agreements with Russia and Turkey, 1878; The Congress of Berlin, 1878; The Afghan war, 1878; The Zulu war, 1879; Beaconsfield and the queen, 1874–1880; Last months of the government, 1879–1880; Dissolution and defeat, 1880; Endymion, 1880; The last year, 1880–1881; The man and his fame; Index to the six volumes.
“The record is as revealing as anything in range of British biography.”
“For, with all respect to the preceding volumes of this monumental biography, none of them, nor all of them together, compare in interest, in the present reviewer’s opinion, with these two. It may be said at the outset that Mr Buckle has done his work well. His narrative is full and free and flowing. It has a nice proportion between his own words and those of his hero, an entertaining alternation between the life and the letters—and not too much of the speeches—of his subject; an agreeable and readable style; a pleasing touch of humour; a sufficiency of anecdote and allusion. It is, in brief, an excellent piece of biographical writing.” W. C. Abbott
“If nothing is set down in malice, nothing is withheld through a mistaken sense of loyalty. Disraeli is painted in this full length portrait as he was. His faults and follies are revealed, as well as his amiable and outstanding ability.” Rollo Ogden
“This biography, too large for most American readers, will nevertheless be a necessity in every library, public or private, which aims to possess in completeness any dealing with the history of Europe during the nineteenth century.”
“Undoubtedly one of the most important compilations for the student of nineteenth century English history.”
Reviewed by R. R. Bowker
“Mr Buckle’s work will stand comparison with Lord Morley’s ‘Life of Gladstone,’ and that is the greatest possible praise.” Lindsay Rogers
“Mr Buckle has concluded his task, and produced one of the greatest political biographies in the language. For the general reader the work is, of course, too long; and even the student of history might have dispensed with some of the letters and some of the extracts from speeches, which nearly always weary.”
“Mr Buckle’s detailed narrative of Disraeli’s handling of the eastern question between 1876 and 1878, which is of course the main feature of his closing volumes, is full of interest and instruction for the present generation. Disraeli’s letters abound in good things, access to which is facilitated by an excellent index.”
“On the whole, everybody who is not an extreme partisan will recognize the honesty, the lucidity and ability with which Mr Buckle has stated his case.”
BUCKROSE, J. E., pseud. (MRS ANNIE EDITH [FOSTER] JAMESON). Young hearts. *$1.90 (1c) Doran
Mr Thompson’s moving away from Wressle came as the direct result of his being dropped from the Urban District Council. Shorn of the privileges of public life, he felt that he couldn’t carry on as of yore, and so decided to take up farming in real earnest. He therefore bought a farm in Muckleby and moved his faintly protesting wife and daughters there. Once settled in the little village, he felt that he should use his influence for good, and so undertook to destroy old superstitions and to revive old country customs which were falling into disuse. His schemes for carrying these purposes out are the foundation of the story, although the romances of his daughters Helen and Maude have a large share in it as well.
“Leisurely, will not be as well liked as some of her others.”
“As usual with this author, her quiet manner covers and sustains a warm human interest; the environment is graphically pictured; the characters are drawn with an assured, vitalizing touch. That of the father, an unconscious egoist, is somewhat unduly elaborated, introducing matter that is superfluous, almost extraneous; and there is also an unwonted paucity of what Mrs Buckrose has taught us to expect eagerly, her unique, delightful humor.”
“Mildly, almost tepidly humorous in its pictures of English country life. The lady who writes under the name of J. E. Buckrose has given us better stories.”
BUDISH, JACOB M., and SOULE, GEORGE HENRY. New unionism in the clothing industry. *$3 (4½c) Harcourt 331.87
In defining their term “new unionism” the authors give a brief account of the changes that have taken place in unionism both in England and America from as far back as the “one big union” agitation in England in 1830 and point out that the present significant distinction between unions is between those “which are unconscious that their efforts tend toward a new social order and so adapt their strategy to the immediate situation” and those “which are conscious of their desire for a new order, and so base their strategy on more fundamental considerations.” The latter type is best exemplified by the unions of the clothing workers of America which in their breadth of sympathy and vision, their new ideal and new hope throw light both on the aspirations of British labor and on the present flux and unrest in the American labor movement. The book is an account of the struggles and the rise of the unions in the clothing industry. Contents: The new unionism; The clothing industry; The human element; The unions—their beginnings and growth; Decisive victories; Collective agreements; Philosophy, structure, and strategy; Education; Labor press and cooperatives; Textiles; The future; Bibliography, appendix and index.
“Although the authors have no doubt tried to be impartial, the book is clearly the product of partisans rather than the work of unbiased observers. No mention is made of any of the short-comings of the newer unions, nor are the difficulties and perplexities of the employer in his contact with them dealt with (except in connection with seasonal idleness). The book is, however, an excellent one; the authors have a thorough knowledge of their subject and a broad outlook over the industrial problem.” A. M. Bing
“Should find a place in the public library of every city with an industrial population as it undoubtedly points the way which union developments will take in the future.”
BUELL, RAYMOND LESLIE. Contemporary French politics. *$3.50 Appleton 944.08
The author calls attention to three sterling qualities in the French people which, in the elections of November 1919, steered them, contrary to the predictions of the “storm prophets,” clear of Bolshevism and the extreme socialist left. These qualities are: their attachment to property, their respect for authority, and their civic spirit. In the light of these he interprets the present political situation. The book has an introduction by Professor Carlton J. H. Hayes and the contents are: Party philosophies; Parties and parliament; The “Bloc” and the sacred union; Party realignments; Woman suffrage and the “R. P.”; The 1919 elections; The demand for a new constitution; Syndicalism: program and tactics; The press and the censorship; The bureaucracy and state socialism; A government by interests and experts; Regionalism; What the French peace terms might have been; The French conception of a league of nations; What France thought of American “idealism”; Appendices; Index.
“Mr Buell’s book affords the beginning of sound knowledge concerning France because it treats of the larger—that is, the political—aspects of French life with some approach to completeness and without the sentiment that blurs outlines.”
BULLARD, ARTHUR (ALBERT EDWARDS, pseud.). Russian pendulum: autocracy—democracy—bolshevism. il *$2 Macmillan 947
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Though the material is not well organized and the observations not very profound, yet ‘The Russian pendulum’ is one of the very few good books in English on present day Russia.” F. A. Golder
“His suggestions for allied policy in the future are vague, but his detailed account of actual happenings in Russia makes this a very informative book.”
Reviewed by Harold Kellock
“He shows himself well disposed, sympathetic, and fair-minded in every way. But he is not remarkable for the amount of his novel information or for comprehension of the forces at work, nor is he very clear-cut in his view of the means by which the desired readjustment is to be brought about. His best chapter is a survey of the mistakes of allied diplomacy in Russia. To his statement of remedies as well as to his other judgments, Mr Bullard is led more by his wishes than the facts.”
“In his own recommendations Mr Bullard is modest; he realizes that the problem is too dynamic for any program hard and fast in its details. But, for all that, Mr Bullard is hazy.” C. M.
“Much of it is valuable first-hand material for the student, and some of it, alas, can not be considered as entirely accurate or unbiased. Quite the most valuable feature of the volume is his opening chapter devoted to Lenin. The Siberian part is unworthy of the writer and appears to have been done under pressure to pad out an otherwise admirable book, a pressure which is also indicated by the faulty transliteration of Russian names.”
“‘The Russian pendulum’ does not reveal any understanding of the forces back of the great change in Russia.” Alexander Trachtenberg
“This is unquestionably one of the ablest books yet written dealing with revolutionary Russia. Not only in his comment on events, but in his treatment of the more fundamental aspects of the situation, he has, with vigorous and imaginative word, written a highly illuminating book.” Reed Lewis
BULLARD, ARTHUR (ALBERT EDWARDS, pseud.). Stranger. *$2 (2c) Macmillan
The story takes the reader into an intellectual circle of lower New York, among social workers, literati and artists—America’s aspirations at their best. Into this circle is injected a Moslem—son of an American missionary couple in Turkey—born and brought up there, a convinced Mohammedan. This leads to comparisons between eastern and western life and religion, not always flattering to our western civilization. Some flaws are detected in the proud and secure foundations of our science and “efficiency.” The finest exponent of the latter and of feminism, Helen Cash, meets her Waterloo in the calm questioning eyes of this stranger. Frank Lockwood, the artist, sees in him the savior of his soul, and to Eunice Bender, the sick girl, he opens up heaven before she dies, through the spirituality of his love.
“We do not often happen upon so very good a story as this one, from every point of view.” D. L. M.
“In brief, one feels that Mr Bullard, in attempting to be realistic, has achieved only a faithful narrative, based on ideas about which, on the whole, no one would wish to dispute.” L. M. R.
“As a character and a sympathetic intermediary between East and West, Mr Bullard’s ‘Stranger’ is picturesque and charming; as a guide and philosopher he is amiably sentimental and futile.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“As Mr Bullard has avoided the rocks of mere Menckenesque satire, so has he steered clear of the equally dangerous shallow pools of sentimentalism. He has not achieved a great book—there are few such in the world—but he has penetrated pretty nearly to the core of some of the counterfeits that time will break. His story is interesting, thoughtful, reasoned, suggestive.” S. C. C.
“It is an idyll of a rare degree of loveliness, delicate as a flower, but without, one feels quite sure, a flower’s evanescence. Unusual and striking in conception, the book is no less unusual and striking in execution. A really worth-while novel, one which appeals both to the reader’s brains and to his emotions, is this.”
“Both in its originality as to treatment and balance between character interest and suggestion of thought the novel is of substantial value.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Altogether the special pleading of the book in favour of Morocco versus America should not be too readily believed in by the intelligent reader.”
“‘The stranger’ is a very appealing and unusual novel in the delicacy and vividness of its portraiture.”
BULLER, ARTHUR HENRY REGINALD. Essays on wheat. il *$2.50 Macmillan 633.1
“The book contains chapters on: The early history of wheat-growing in Manitoba; Wheat in western Canada; The origin of Red Bobs and Kitchener; The wild wheat of Palestine. But the most important part of the book is the chapter on The discovery and introduction of Marquis wheat, perhaps the most productive variety of wheat in North America. The style is non-technical.” (Booklist) “The author is professor of botany in the University of Manitoba.” (Brooklyn)
“The book should appeal not only to the student of economic history, and to botanists, but to the general reader who may wish to learn something of the great cereal crops of North America.” I: Lippincott.
“Prof. Buller’s ‘Essays on wheat’ are among the most interesting things we have seen for a long time. He is singularly fortunate in his subject, and he tells his story remarkably well, giving the wealth of detail, the figures, and the references needed by the man of science, without sacrificing interest or literary form.” E. J. Russell
“The volume is an excellent and timely addition to works dealing with the resources of North America.”
BULLOCK, EDNA DEAN, comp. Selected articles on the employment of women. (Debaters’ handbook ser.) *$1.25 Wilson, H. W. 331.4
A second edition of this handbook, first published in 1911, has been prepared by Julia E. Johnsen. New material has been included covering “the new outlook on the employment of women the rapidly changing phases growing out of women’s large part in war work, the larger opportunities, new and fairer standards of protective legislation,” and the bibliography has been revised and brought down to date.
“Valuable in presenting the subject from many angles.”
“Although the articles selected are interesting, well arranged and yield their significance easily to the lay student, they do not give the solid basis of fact which debaters ought to have. They dwell, however, on the most important questions for women workers.” E. K. Wells
BULMAN, HARRISON FRANCIS. Coal mining and the coal miner. il *$6 Macmillan 622.3
“A comprehensive survey of the whole industry as it existed in normal times—the figures and statistics being confined for the most part to the period before the war, ending with 1913—by an experienced colliery manager and director of colliery companies. The book was written before the Coal commission, and Mr Bulman hopes that the normal picture he draws ‘may serve as a useful corrective to some erroneous ideas which have arisen from its proceedings.’ A chapter of seventy-nine pages very fully illustrated with plans and photographs is devoted to ‘Miners’ houses.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“We cannot say that his book is attractive in form or style, but it is at any rate an honest book and not misleading propaganda.”
“For those who are interested in the why of industrial troubles, this book can serve as a means of showing the gaps in the thinking of colliery managers and how they do not comprehend the incoherency of the men who work.” Hugh Archibald
“His dispassionate, detailed, documented, and illustrated statement of facts is far more impressive and convincing than mere argument or assertion.”
BULSTRODE, BEATRIX (MRS EDWARD MANICO GULL). Tour in Mongolia. il *$5 (8½c) Stokes 915.1
What led this English lady, after an eighteen months’ stay in China, to travel in Mongolia was “the fascination of the unknown, a deep love of the picturesque and inherent desire to revert awhile to the primitive.” Also Mongolia was an opportunity of meeting with medievalism untouched. The trip took place in 1913 while Mongolia was at war with China and the author’s account is particularly instructive in her analysis of Mongol character. An introduction by David Fraser, Times correspondent in Peking, explains the political situation at the time of the tour. The book is indexed and profusely illustrated.
“She can handle a pen to excellent effect.”
BUNAU-VARILLA, PHILIPPE. Great adventure of Panama. *$1.75 Doubleday 986
The object of the book is to show how the Panama canal enterprise was hedged about by criminal conspiracies on the part of Germany, both financially and politically, linking it intimately with the great war. The author claims to expose the mysterious threads of “the always-menacing ‘occult power of Germany’” which have long been visible to himself alone. Among the contents are: The occult power of Germany; The Boche conspiracy in Mexico (1861–63) preparing the provocation of 1870; The Boche conspiracy in France, (1888–92), to wreck the Panama canal, in order to create the depressed state of mind necessary for the premeditated aggression; Various traces of Boche intrigue in Bogota for defeating in 1903 the adoption of the Panama canal by the United States, etc.
“The trouble with M. Bunau-Varilla’s method of argument in seeking to prove his contentions is that he considers a mere uncorroborated statement quite sufficient to prove anything that he wishes to prove.” T: R. Ybarra
“There is perhaps more rhetoric than evidence in certain parts of this narrative; yet it would not be surprising if evidence as yet uncovered should sometime confirm nearly all of the author’s opinions. Few fact stories, it may be said, tell so clearly as does this of M. Bunau-Varilla’s just how things were done and what motives actuated the doers.”
“It is not lightly to be dismissed because of the ebullient egotism with which it is written. The testimony of the chief actor in the drama is worth listening to.”
BUNKER, JOHN JOSEPH LEO. Shining fields and dark towers. *$1.25 Lane 811
This is the first volume of a poet from the Middle West who looks down from philosophic heights upon the din of battle, of traffic and travail with a sweet and mellow wisdom and an encompassing faith in a divine love. The contents in part are: Earth-music; The flute-player; To harsh judgment thinking itself wisdom; The splendid stranger; New York sketches; Ballade of faces fair; Love’s intendment; The great refusal; Quest and haven.
“Though the section entitled ‘New York sketches,’ and the study called ‘Complainte d’amour,’ contain some of the cleverest and most interesting vers libre that the present reviewer has ever seen, Mr Bunker is no disciple of the new school. He is essentially in the great tradition, and it is in the familiar forms, the recognized types of English verse, that he does his most ample and satisfying work.” H: A. Lappin
“Not always with the same perfection of expression does he sing, but at the same time never does he fail to give, whatever the mood or theme may be, a significance to it that comes from his spiritual manner of approach and understanding. This peculiarly individual quality is as apparent in the four poems of the ‘New York sketches’ with their realistic background and outlines, as in the ‘Quest and haven,’ the memorial poem to Francis Thompson.” W. S. B.
“Mr Bunker has enjoyed and experimented with a wide range of poetry. Not the less for this has he remained captain of his poetic soul. His is a highly personal muse, tender and chastened, yet capable of merriment, with the far vision of the pure in heart. Lyrics such as ‘Revolution,’ ‘To harsh judgment thinking itself wisdom,’ or, in more playful vein, ‘Boons,’ are distinct additions to the sum of modern poetry.”
“Mr Bunker is direct, fluent, enthusiastic, and harmless, with good impulses and ordinary vision.” M. V. D.
“The book shows much promise, and nearly all of it has the real singing quality, although now and then, as happens sometimes with even the best of poets, either the author’s ear has failed him or his command of the technique of poetical expression has not been up to the mark. But these lapses are rare.”
“Some day if this writer keeps on and has a real experience in life, he may become a poet. If all his work were as musical as the four stanzas on ‘Twilight’ criticism of his work would even now have to be modified.”
“Mr Bunker is said to be ‘a modern of the moderns,’ but we prefer him in the more old-fashioned mood which inspires ‘Twilight’ and some of the other pieces in his book.”
BURGESS, THORNTON WALDO. Burgess animal book for children. il *$3 (4½c) Little 590
A companion volume to the Burgess bird book. In the story Peter Rabbit goes to school to Mother Nature. He learns first about his own cousins, the marsh rabbit, the arctic hare, and others, and then about his friends the squirrels, and so on up through the animal kingdom to the deer, elk, bears and other large mammals. “There has been no attempt to describe or classify sub-species.... The purpose of this book is to acquaint the reader with the larger groups—orders, families, and divisions of the latter, so that typical representatives may readily be recognized and their habits understood.” The pictures are by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and there is an index.
“‘The Burgess animal book’ ought to be given to every child in America as an introduction to the animal life of our continent. And there is not one of those children who won’t like it and absorb an untold amount of information from it.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“This book affords further evidence that Mr Burgess is doing a great deal toward making the boys and girls of today a generation of naturalists.”
BURGESS, WALTER H. Pastor of the Pilgrims: a biography of John Robinson. il *$4 Harcourt
This study of the life and times of John Robinson is based on original research. “Besides the identification of the early home and the parentage of John Robinson, these pages throw a little fresh light upon the Southworths and Carvers and others connected with the Pilgrim Father movement. Gervase Neville is identified, and the anonymous opponent of Robinson in one of his earliest controversies is named. The history of the obscure church in the western part of England is unfolded, and an attempt made to settle the vexed question of the identity of John Smith.” (Foreword) A partial list of the contents is: The birthplace and parentage of John Robinson; Religion in England in the days of Elizabeth and James; Separation from the Church of England—Robinson and Bernard—Gervase Neville—William Brewster; Religious refugees at Amsterdam; The Pilgrims at Leyden; Robinson’s plea for lay preaching; The sailing—Robinson’s letter of advice—Robert Cushman’s letter—the “Mayflower’s” voyage; The influence of Robinson on the thought and life of his age. There are illustrations, appendices, a chronological table of the writings of John Robinson and an index.
“The volume shows wide study of the whole literature of contemporary separatism and of its opponents, and may be heartily commended not only as a biography of the Pilgrim pastor, but as a most readable and informing account of the separatist movement of his day not only for the specialist but for the general reader.”
“Here is brave stuff, no doubt; unhappily nothing organic or even articulate has been made of it. With a little artistic sympathy, with even a touch or two of the quality which marks a man of letters, he might have made the portrait memorable.”
“Taken as a whole, the volume is a good example of what can be accomplished, well-directed historical scholarship applied to a definite object.”
“We could wish that the biography was less interrupted by digressions on side-issues, but Mr Burgess’s enthusiasm for his subject is wholly commendable.”
“It does not treat all phases of the separatist movement with equal thoroughness. It is deficient at times in method and proportion. But it is an earnest, honest work, in which, in spite of the author’s sympathy with Robinson, and a desire to claim for him as large a personal influence as possible little is written with any other object than telling the truth. Its deductions are moderate.”
BURGESS, WARREN RANDOLPH. Trends of school costs. (Education monographs) il $1 Russell Sage foundation 379
“The study is based upon data included in the reports of the United States Commissioner of education, and covers the period from 1870 to 1918. By means of the ‘line of trends’ the writer presents a striking picture of the drift of annual expenditures for public education in the United States during the period noted, comparing this with a similar representation of the growth in pupil attendance. Noting the fact that teachers’ salaries and new buildings absorb four-fifths of all school expenditures for the year 1917–18, an analysis is made of the trends of teachers’ salaries since 1840, the salaries of rural and city teachers, both men and women, being considered separately. Interesting comparisons of these with the lines representing the trends of the cost of living and of the salaries of other workers are presented. Likewise, the tendencies with reference to costs of buildings are similarly shown. A special set of tables and graphs indicates the trends of such costs during the period from 1915–20. From the data presented the writer concludes that ‘to buy the same amount of educational service in 1920 as in 1915 it will be necessary to double the school budget.’ The closing chapter deals with the sources of income for school support.”—School R
“Aside from the content, the method employed in the study will be of interest to students of education.”
BURKE, KATHLEEN. Little heroes of France. il *$1.75 (4c) Doubleday 940.344
Twelve stories of deeds of heroism performed by French children during the war. The author was engaged in relief work and some of the children she knew personally. “Others she knew because all France loved and honored them. One of the stories, that of the Denisot children, was found in the diary of a German soldier.” (Introd.) Contents: André Lange and his wheelbarrow; Madeleine and André Daniau; Denise Cartier; Robert Felix; Louise Haumont; Louis and Marcelle Denisot; Baby Pierre; Gustave Daret; René Chautier; Etienne Chevrille; Emile Depres; Henriette Maubert. The book is illustrated by Paul Verrees and has an introduction by Alfred Holman.
“Heroic, really true and full of action these will prove stirring tales and bring home the horrors of war to all boys and most girls.”
“It is an incredibly stirring, beautiful little book, and it is one that every generous child will love. It is not alone for children, however.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
BURKE, THOMAS.[2] Song book of Quong Lee of Limehouse. *$1.25 Holt 811
A book of poems in free verse viewing life through the oriental eyes of Quong Lee, shopkeeper in Limehouse, London’s Chinatown. Humor and philosophy mingle in the poems. Titles are: Of buying and selling; A nightpiece; Of a national cash register; Under a shining window; A song of little girls; At the feast of lanterns; Of worship and conduct.
“Occasionally a banality, but light and poignant sentiment in abundance, with here and there a poem that sets vibrating the cords of sensibility.”
“Mr Burke triumphs so splendidly in these verses, as he did in his prose stories, that he deserves all the praise we can give him.” W: S. Braithwaite
“These vers libre pieces of ‘song’ present the personality of Chinatown, the quaint phrase and the cool temper with a reality which grows more and more vivid as one reads them through.”
BURROUGHS, EDGAR RICE. Tarzan the untamed. il *$1.90 McClurg
“This new story tells what happened to Tarzan and his wife and the home he had made in British East Africa when war broke out in 1914 and a small detachment of black soldiers, commanded by German officers, marched past his farm and on to German headquarters. Tarzan was hurrying home from Nairobi, where he had heard of the outbreak of war when this happened, and when he reaches his farm he finds a scene of desolation, no one left alive upon his place. In grief and rage and hate he casts off the veneer of civilization and becomes the ape-man once more, while he ranges the country to find those who have killed his mate and mete to them the justice of the jungle. He finds them, but the result makes only the beginning of the story, which goes swiftly on through many complications.”—N Y Times
“It runs on for some four hundred pages with no visible trace of style, little or no atmosphere or local color, and about as slim a foundation plot as has graced a novel for many a day.”
“The story shows the same qualities that have marked the previous Tarzan stories—ingenuity and fertility of invention, combined with those crude and garish features that make the success of a popular moving picture play.”
“Will doubtless thrill the crowd which loves the cinematograph, and cares nothing for common-sense, or coherence, compared with violent sensation and frequent killing.”
BURROUGHS, JOHN. Accepting the universe. il *$2 (2c) Houghton 210
“A series of sallies, excursions, into the world of semi-philosophical speculation,” the author calls this collection of essays, whose burden is “that this is the best possible world, and these people in it are the best possible people,” that “the universe is good,” and “the heart of nature is sound.” Among the longer essays are: Shall we accept the universe? The universal beneficence; The faith of a naturalist; The price of development; The problem of evil. Then follow two groups of short pieces under the headings: Horizon lines; and Soundings. The poet of the cosmos, in the last essay, is Walt Whitman.
“The philosophizings will please many not too radical thinkers. Most people will prefer his bits on nature.”
“He is a naturalist; his vision is as broad as terrestrial time; he leads us over much geological and biological ground to the mind of man. But once confronted with that phenomenon, he is, like many a scientist, evasive; he is reduced to the merest academic platitudes.”
“Spirited and eloquent pages.” H. W. Boynton
“There will be many who will take issue with Mr Burroughs’s philosophy of God and nature, good and evil, life and death, but this will not disturb him. He has unquestionably brought the inexorable facts of existence to bear upon theories, creeds and beliefs, and has applied their lesson with unsparing frankness. The result is not in line with so-called orthodoxy, but none the less he has coined into words the unspoken expressions of many hearts.” H: L. West
“His philosophy is a mass of contradictions. Mr Burroughs in accepting the universe drops out from it its most important phenomena.”
“Of flowers and birds and the simple life Mr Burroughs has something to say, his divagations on the universe leave us doubting. It would in fact be easy to point out a series of shocking inconsistencies into which he has been thrown by his ambitious attempt to combine a wise and wholesome life in nature with a metaphysical theory of natural evolution.”
BURT, KATHARINE (NEWLIN) (MRS MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT). Hidden Creek. il *$2 (2½c) Houghton
When Sheila Arundel’s artist father dies and leaves her penniless, she counts herself fortunate to be befriended by Sylvester Hudson, who has come into her life thru a painting of her father’s he has just bought to decorate his western hotel. He takes her back with him to Millings, but the reception his family give her makes her eager to be independent and in gratitude to Hudson she consents to become a bar maid in his saloon. The only member of his family who treats her with respect is Dickie, the despised half-drunken son, in whom she discovers a soul akin to her own poetic nature. Her success in the saloon brings her popularity of a kind, but one particularly trying day, culminating in a brutal insult from her employer, determines her to get away and she seeks refuge with Miss Blake, a recluse living on Hidden Creek alone with her dogs and her peculiarities. From the horror that this experience brings, Cosme Hilliard, a hot-blooded young half-Spaniard, rescues her, and for a time it seems that he is to be her hero, but Dickie, whose character has been developing along with hers, altho in a different way, at length comes into his own.
“‘Hidden Creek’ follows no beaten path; its plot is skillfully developed and the story is told with realism and with a sparkling wit.”
“Will be welcomed by the reader with fondness for romance staged apart from the trodden paths of every day life.”
BURT, KATHARINE (NEWLIN) (MRS MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT). Red lady. *$1.75 (3c) Houghton
A unique feature of this mystery story is that its principal characters, including both hero and villain, are women. Men play secondary parts. Three housekeepers have fled from the Pines when Janice Gale accepts the position. Her first intimation of something wrong comes with the signs of terror exhibited by her mistress’s young son at sight of her red hair. Then there are indications that the house is haunted. The child Robbie is frightened into convulsions and dies with a strand of red hair in his fingers. Janice next comes face to face with the ghost and finds her the counterpart of herself. Convinced that this is a real woman she sets herself to trace the mystery, braves great dangers, all but loses her life, escapes and wins the love of the young detective who has been regarding her as a criminal.
“An exceptionally fine specimen, American in origin, of that popular genus colloquially known as the ‘shocker.’”
“The mystery of it all is hard to penetrate but Mrs Burt at last finds a way out of the strange tangle and altogether writes a very good and very unusual story.”
“This story would be more attractive if the author were to make, say, her present ninth chapter her first. She could condense in that one chapter about all she has told us in the eight preceding and would thus spare the reader much boredom. And yet, considering how good are the final chapters, there is reason to believe that we have in Mrs Burt one of the well worth while writers of real mystery stories of the immediate future.”
BURT, MAXWELL STRUTHERS. Songs and portraits. *$1.50 Scribner 811
“A nature modestly reflective as well as emotionally alert is revealed in ‘Songs and portraits’ by Maxwell Struthers Burt. The poems reminiscent of the dead, in form and spirit not unlike those of Rupert Brooke, express the belief that ‘the dead know all.’ In ‘Fishing’ and ‘Marchen’ this Princeton poet paints gay and naive little small-boy pictures. He reasons rather bitterly against frantic fanatics and pudgy-fingered plutocrats.”—Springf’d Republican
“Mr Burt’s ear and his learning are much indebted to Rupert Brooke—but it is a sorrowful thing to see anyone assume so easily all the palpable qualities of another. There are the same studied irrelevancies, the same feminine endings, the same delight in names. Mr Burt has imitated most of the many things we would like to forget in Rupert Brooke, including his glorification of war and death.” G. T.
“When at last he shall speak thoughts all his own, it is hoped that he will not have lost his really very lovely gift of expression, his round, elegant, springtime pregnancy and shapeliness of phrase.” Mark Van Doren
“Although many of the poems seem unfinished, as if their maker had had the right poetic impulse but scant leisure, nevertheless there is a warmth and naturalness of utterance In all of them that will rejoice the hearts of those who are weary of strident or vapid artificialities.” Margaret Wilkinson
“Mr Burt’s ‘Songs and portraits’ has real delicacies of a kind neither very usual nor very extraordinary. There are phrases of drooping grace; there are straying, sinuous rhythms; there is a desultory and hovering tenderness. Mr Burt’s very picturesqueness is rather mellow than picturesque.” O. W. Firkins
BURTON, ALEXANDER. Public speaking made easy. (Made easy ser.) $1.25 (3c) Clode, E. J. 808.5
In the introduction the author calls attention to the present-day tendency in the art of oratory which distinguishes it from the oratory of the past. “This is the cultivation of simplicity in form as opposed to that ornateness of phraseology which has been so characteristic of the most esteemed public utterances in former times.” The chapters following the Introduction are: Breathing; Pronunciation; The voice; Accessories of the voice; Direct training; Preparing a speech; The deeper training; Beecher’s Liverpool address; Lincoln’s oratory; A southern orator; The American system; Conclusion.
BURTON, THEODORE ELIJAH. Modern political tendencies and the effect of the war thereon. (Stafford Little lectures for 1919) *$1.25 Princeton univ. press 320.1
“The president of the Merchants national bank of New York, former United States senator from Ohio, sees four dominant phases in the changing ideas of peoples and governments: the relation of governments to the governed; the relation of the governed each to the other; the relation of the central government to its constituent parts; and international relations.”—Booklist
“‘Modern political tendencies’ by Theodore E. Burton possibly sets the Stafford Little lectures at a higher level of open-mindedness than was reached by such earlier contributors as Grover Cleveland and Elihu Root; in fact it is marked by that tone of restrained liberalism which is coming to be a mark of our more important bank presidents, to the great amazement and confusion, no doubt, of their editorial satellites.”
BURY, GEORGE WYMAN. Pan-Islam. *$2.25 Macmillan 297
“‘“Pan-Islam” is an elementary handbook,’ explains the author, ‘not a text-book, still less an exhaustive treatise.’ It is a study of the Pan-Islamic problem on the political, social, religious, and many other sides, by one who served in the Hedjaz and Arabia during the war, but has also had a quarter of a century’s experience of Mohammedan countries and peoples. As a rule he abstains from political criticism.”—Ath
“His remarks on aggressive missionary enterprise are sensible and illustrated by plenty of facts.”
“The book is well written and full of interesting and valuable information. The long experience of the author and his manifest fairness make his opinions of more than ordinary importance.”
“The Carnegie peace commission should send the last chapter, A plea for tolerance, to every missionary organization.”
“He writes in a progressive spirit and very sympathetically toward the Moslem world. It is far better that his sentiments were expressed by an Englishman than by an American. The last chapter, a plea for toleration, is really a most admirable piece of writing.” I. C. Hannah
“Mr Bury presents a fairly impartial view of Christian missions in the Near East, with their effect on Islam. It is a problem which he has studied at first hand, and he is studiously careful to express his views courteously. He is best when he is away from religious discussion, describing the Arab and the Turk as he knows them. Altogether Mr Bury’s book contains much that is entertaining; and although he has chosen too resonant a title for what might more reasonably be called essays, his expressed opinions are sensible and his matter readable.”
BURY, JOHN BAGNELL. Idea of progress. *$5.50 Macmillan 901
“Prof. J. B. Bury’s new work is ‘The idea of progress: an inquiry into its origin and growth.’ The theme is developed under such chapter headings as: Some interpretations of universal history: Bodin and Leroy; Utility the end of knowledge: Bacon; The progress of knowledge: Fontenelle; The general progress of man: Abbe de Saint-Pierre; New conceptions of history: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Turgot; The French revolution: Condorcet; The theory of progress in England; German speculation on progress; The search for a law of progress: Saint-Simon and Comte; and Progress in the light of evolution.”—Springf’d Republican
“This is just the chief merit of Professor Bury’s book, that it discriminates with fine precision between what is essential to the modern conception of progress and what only superficially resembles it. His exposition of the significance of the idea of progress in the history of European civilization is so lucid that it leaves nothing to be desired.” Carl Becker
“It is hardly necessary to say that the author carries out the historical inquiry with great width of learning and with a scrupulous desire to make a reasonable case even for those writers whose presentation has its weak or even its ridiculous points. His remarks are eminently judicious wherever they can be tested.” P. V. M. Benecke
+ − |Eng Hist R 35:581 O ’20 1650w
“An exceedingly clear and interesting account of the origin and growth of the idea of progress.” S. B. Fay
+ |Review 3:478 N 17 ’20 520w
“Professor Bury’s work in clarity, accuracy, and fairness attains the high standard set by his previous historical volumes.”
“It is a work of profound scholarship, sedate in tone and rational in spirit. It is unfortunate that Professor Bury did not carry his study beyond his self-imposed limitation which ended it with the time when progress became a current creed.” A. J. Todd
“A sound piece of pioneer work, with its merits and limitations. Only his knowledge of the subject and its intrinsic interest have saved his book from falling into the class of those which are less often read than consulted. Professor Bury has condensed the results of his work with remarkable ease and brevity and always with fairness.”
BUSH, COLEMAN HALL. Applied business law. *$1.28 Holt 347.7
As the ordinary empirical methods of acquiring the essentials of business law and practice are “entirely too slow ... the purpose of this book is to eliminate the long term of apprenticeship, to give a wide range of experience to all who seek it, by presenting material, both law and facts, for application in constructive work.” (Statement of purpose) The book is in two parts: 1, Fundamental principles: Essentials of contracts; Agency; Service; Deposits, loans, and hiring of things; Carriage; Sales of goods; Partnership; Insurance; Negotiable paper; Real property; Business corporations. 2, How to write business papers: Simple contracts; Articles of agreement; Negotiable contracts; Contracts concerning land; Miscellaneous forms; Index.
BUTCHER, ALICE MARY (BRANDRETH) lady. Memories of George Meredith. il *$1.60 (6c) Scribner
This book of reminiscences begins delightfully, when the author was a girl of thirteen, with pebbles tossed against a bedroom window and an invitation to walk to the top of Box Hill to see the sun rise. It continues in the same vein of intimate, personal reminiscence to the day of Meredith’s death. There are pleasant glimpses of Shakespeare readings, of picnics, of Meredith’s family life, and of his friendships with young people, with quotations from letters and conversations.
“Her reminiscences have a girlish naïveté which is far from unattractive. Her anecdotes and some of the letters he wrote to her and his whimsical and witty talk help to fill out pleasantly our mental portrait of Meredith.”
“She is to be congratulated on her heroic self-restraint. We enjoy here, we are made to feel, the cream of several volumes.” J. J. Daly
“Many details of Meredith’s family life are given by Lady Butcher in a wholly informal and fragmentary manner. Her style is frequently cloudy and repetitious, and she often spoils a good story by her clumsy way of telling it.” E. F. E.
“After reading Lady Butcher one needs to draw back a little with half-closed eyes to fit the various fragments together; but in a moment or two it will be seen that they merge quite rightly into the figure of the great man.”
BUTLER, ELLIS PARKER. How it feels to be fifty. *75c (18c) Houghton 814
A genial essay reprinted from the American Magazine of December, 1919. Its substance is summed up in the concluding paragraph: “At twenty my life was a feverish adventure, at thirty it was a problem, at forty it was a labor, at fifty it is a joyful journey well begun.”
BUTLER, ELLIS PARKER. Swatty; a story of real boys. il *$1.90 (2c) Houghton
Mr Butler goes back to his own boyhood for these stories. They are stories of boy life on the banks of the Mississippi and the book opens with a tale of the mighty river on one of its spring rampages. Swatty, Bony and George are “real boys” of the Huck Finn and Plupy Shute type. Altho the episodes are loosely woven together to make a continuous narrative, many of them are in effect short stories and some have been published as such in the American Magazine. Among the titles are: The big river; Mamie’s father; Scratch-cat; The haunted house; The red avengers; The ice goes out.
“Better if read in parts, a few adventures at a time.”
“Were it not for a lamentable lapse into sentimentality out of keeping with the rest of the book, ‘Swatty’ would be a worthy successor [to Huck Finn]. A boy like George would never in this wide world possess a grandmother addressed as ‘Ladylove,’ and if he did, he would be cut into small pieces before he would use so soft an appellation.” G. M. Purcell
“Although the situations are somewhat hackneyed, the author has the knack of seeing things from a boy’s point of view and expressing them in a boy’s language.”
“The humor of the book is broad and obvious rather than whimsical, but Mr Butler’s admirers will probably enjoy it.”
“There will doubtless be a stampede for ‘Swatty’ in the children’s room of many a public library, altho Ellis Parker Butler in his subtitle does not commit himself as to whether this is a story for real boys, or merely about them. There is a choice morsel, for the girls, too, in the incident of the tailor’s fashion sheet.” R. D. Moore
BUTLER, SIR GEOFFREY GILBERT. Handbook to the league of nations; with an introd. by Robert Cecil. *$1.75 Longmans 341.1
“Sir Geoffrey has presented in skeleton outline the development of the league idea from the day of Grotius to the framing of the Paris covenant, passing over rapidly its earlier history and laying stress on the attempts at international organization represented by the Holy alliance and the Hague conferences. He has throughout emphasized the fact that on a concert and not on a balance of the Powers rested the best hope of realization of the ideals of the statesmen and thinkers who strove for the elimination of war, and he bases his faith in the efficacy of the newly formed league on its conformity to that principle. In addition to general discussion of the provisions of the covenant, Sir Geoffrey has added the text of the document with commentary upon its specific features.”—N Y Evening Post
Reviewed by J. R. Towse
“Sir Geoffrey Butler’s book is of modest scope and plan, but it provides what has until now been lacking—a sober and succinct statement of historic process which we date from Grotius, and of which the covenant is but the latest phase.”
BUTLER, NICHOLAS MURRAY. Is America worth saving? *$2 (3c) Scribner 304
These addresses on national problems and party policies have for their common theme the exposition and interpretation of the fundamental principles upon which the American government and American civil society is built. The real difficulty in solving all our present day problems by the light of these fundamental principles, the author claims, lies in their extreme simplicity. He looks upon socialism and similar movements as subversive of these principles, as the real enemies of the people, and as entirely destructive, and places his faith upon a “stalwart and patriotic Americanism.” Among the contents are: Is America worth saving? A programme of constructive progress; The real labor problem; A league of nations; Elihu Root, statesman; Problems of peace and after-peace; The making of a written constitution; Theodore Roosevelt, American; Faith and the war; Is American higher education improving? The colleges and the nation; Index.
Reviewed by Everett Kimball
“Failing entirely to understand the play of actual economic forces in the production and distribution of income, it is natural that Dr Butler should conclude that strikes and industrial wars are simply the result of an ignorance of the true and complete harmony of interests between capital and labor. Dr Butler pleads for ‘cooperative individualism into a moral purpose.’ But we cannot help feeling that he has not got any intelligible grip upon this moral purpose, and therefore shows a feeble hold upon the very principle of individual liberty whose championship he assumes.” O. O.
“There are no compromises of principles in this book, and the author makes no concessions to those demands made through the cries of the herd. To all Americans who need a mental tonic today, and to all who feel that their confidence in law and the application of law to life needs strengthening, and to all who believe that this republic is not to drift at the mercy of every wind of doctrine, this very seminal volume belongs of right.” M. F. Egan
“Read aright, the book is a masterly and no doubt timely defence of American institutions and the principles underlying them.”
BUXTON, NOEL EDWARD, and LEESE, C. LEONARD. Balkan problems and European peace. *$1.75 Scribner 949.6
“This book on Balkan political problems falls into three parts: (1) a history of pre-war European politics in the Balkans; (2) the policies pursued during the war by the Entente and Allied powers, with particular reference to Bulgaria; and (3) the probable future of the Balkans.”—Ath
Reviewed by Ferdinand Schevill
“Clear and interesting little book. It displays considerable knowledge and the matter is well arranged.”
Reviewed by B. U. Burke
“Its value depends on the light it sheds on Bulgarian aspirations rather than on any impartial discussion of new material.” H. F. Armstrong
BYNNER, WITTER (EMANUEL MORGAN, pseud.). Canticle of Pan and other poems. *$2 Knopf 811
Among the poems of this book are the Canticle of praise, written in celebration of the ending of the war and presented at the Greek theater in Berkeley, California, in December, 1918, and the Canticle of Pan, delivered as the Phi Beta Kappa poem at the University of California in June, 1917, and the Canticle of Bacchus, also presented in California. Among the shorter poems are a number of translations from the Chinese. Titles of others are: Youth sings to the sea; The wild star; Vintage; Gipsying; Pittsburgh; A song in the grass; The swimmer; The desert; On leaving California; Away from California; Rain; Night; News of a soldier.
“Witter Bynner, in his ‘A canticle of Pan,’ is more of a ventriloquist than a poet. He speaks in too many voices, and on too wide a range of topics to have achieved mastery in any manner or distinction in any style. Mr Bynner’s volume is singularly unauthentic: it is an anthology of imitations (none of them particularly effective) of most of the known manners of prosody.” R. M. Weaver
“In these canticles Mr Bynner has evolved a medium admirably suited for community expression, dealing with the large events of the world. In a sense these are experimental, and Mr Bynner, while giving them a certain poetic merit, has not made them distill his finest poetic spirit. His lyric note is, at its best, one of the purest among present-day poets.” W. S. B.
“What one has here in the end is Bynner, the man, rather than Bynner, the poet. He is a delightful man, clever and keen and kind. But he is too full of his message to be truly moving.” E. P.
“Witter Bynner forfeits our respect at the outset by writing a canticle wherein he imagines Pan and the Christ child as friends; he continues to forfeit it by a vein of breezy, Vachel Lindsay-Stephen Graham optimism that runs through his book.” J: G. Fletcher
“These canticles as well as some of the less ambitious poems are marred by an ethical idealism that is too self-conscious. Pan and Bacchus especially must not moralize. Their magic is their waywardness. The best poems in the book are the slighter ones, including the bits of translation from the Chinese, Japanese and Russian and the original poems in their spirit.” C. M. S.
“Mr Bynner’s latest volume proves, among other things, that there are limits beyond which Mr Bynner cannot be said to gain by experimentation. Not that he has a still, small voice; not that he is a little poet; but he is most himself and most happy when he is working in established, or at least in well knit, rhythms and moods. His publisher has produced him in a form that does both American poetry and American publishing handsome credit.” M. V. D.
“Witter Bynner’s new volume, ‘A canticle of Pan’ leaves one disturbed and aggrieved. He is undeniably such a really talented poet that one wonders why so much of his book leaps out of the mind much faster than it leaps in. It is apparent that the community masque idea is not a happy choice for Mr Bynner. It is in the shorter pieces in this book that Mr Bynner is at his best.” H. S. Gorman
“A rather poorly balanced miscellany of poems. The volume is by no means representative of Mr Bynner’s excellence as a lyric poet. In comparatively few pieces in the present collection does he approach his highest standard of workmanship. A number of them are trivial in conception and detract substantially from the merit of the others.”
BYRNE, DONN. Foolish matrons. *$1.90 (2c) Harper
The heroines of the story are four: one wise and three foolish. The wise one was a great actress who married the big uncouth surgeon whom she loved, gave up her career and became his guardian angel and mother of his children. Georgia, pretty and frivolous, craved the excitement of gay New York. Married she was a vampire and finally drifted to the underworld. Sheila, the college graduate and newspaper woman, clever and heartless, dreamt of a career, married a poet for the glamor of it and drove him to drink with her coldness. Sappho, the model, frankly married for money, and posed as patroness of amateur artists. She became ashamed of her plain millionaire husband and thought to do better for herself but lost in the game.
“There is enough material in ‘The foolish matrons’ for four novels; any one of the biographies which are told simultaneously would have made a book by itself—a book representing with true artistry a segment of life.”
“The tale has vivid elements: it is overdrawn, but possesses dramatic intensity.”
CABELL, JAMES BRANCH.[2] Domnei; a comedy of woman-worship. *$2 McBride
A revised edition of “The soul of Melicent,” published in 1913, with a new introduction by Joseph Hergesheimer. For note on the story see Annual for 1914.
“Cabell has won indisputably the position of being one of our few distinguished men of letters. He is not for every reader, but one can scarcely picture his desiring this doubtful honor. He writes for his own discriminating audience, and for them he cannot write enough. He creates a taste which it is difficult to satisfy with lesser delights. ‘Domnei’ carries a significance and an atmosphere of its own.” D. L. Mann
“It is a subtle story, but not a convincing story.... And ‘Domnei’ is an entertaining story—a story to be read at one sitting—with colour and marvel and high-sounding words. It has the outline of a narrative poem, and I, for one, feel that it is a pity that Mr Cabell did not turn his prose into verse.” Padraic Colum
“The thing that makes ‘Domnei’ stand out above most fables of chivalrous romance is not the clear and sympathetic character portrayal, nor the flowing, beautiful English, nor is it the great wealth of mediaeval lore, which Mr Cabell undoubtedly possesses to an exceptional degree. The greatness of ‘Domnei’ lies in the fact that every detail, historical, narrative, or constructive, falls into place with consummate art, bringing to us of these later and hurried days a spiritual interpretation of the knight’s quest for divine beauty.” H. W. M.
CABOT, WILLIAM BROOKS.[2] Labrador. il *$3 Small 971.9
“‘Labrador’ is an account of half a dozen expeditions into the interior of that country which the author has made since 1904. From it the reader obtains an impression of what life is like in that elemental land, barren and sentineled off its coast by age-old icebergs. The country is one of the oldest primal faces of the globe, and Mr Cabot believes it may have been the cradle of the human race. Its only products are fur and fish, and, as the fur is failing, Labrador will doubtless remain a little-known land. ‘Over this great territory,’ writes the author, ‘the people still wander at will, knowing no alien restraint, no law but their own. The unwritten code of the lodge and open, the ancient beliefs still prevail.”—N Y Times
“The lovers of nature study and of travel and adventure will find much of interest in this carefully written book. Mr Cabot writes with enthusiasm as well as with rare intelligence.” E. J. C.
CADMUS and HARMONIA, pseuds. Island of sheep. *$1.50 (5c) Houghton
In an English country house, on the eve of a house party, the host and hostess are much distressed about the future. The party is about equally composed of optimists and pessimists and they are all more or less liberal. It consists of the minister of the parish, a highland landowner, a labor ex-member of Parliament, the wife of a former Liberal minister, a progressive journalist and his wife, an American woman resident in England, a lady given to good works, a conservative, a liberal lawyer, a grenadier of the guards; a lieutenant of the United States army, a labor leader, an imperialist, a French general, a coalition member of parliament, an American politician and a captain of industry. They discuss the future and reconstruction from all points of view, of which the most satisfactory in the end seems to be that of the ex-labor member of Parliament. It at least moves the minister to relate the old saga of Balder, the life-giver, and his expected return to earth after the twilight of Walhalla has made an end to the old gods.
“The quickness of the argument, the mental agility of some of the talkers and the interesting character touches give a delightful lightness to this presentation of serious problems.”
“Rolls the present world unrest up into a cheerful and conservative package, with the strings tied a bit too neatly.”
“As a matter of fact, characterization is the authors’ weakest point. Their style is too fluent, too uniform. Opinions are well contrasted, but the individualities of the speakers are lost in the monotony, in the rhythm and vocabulary of their utterance.” R. F. A. H.
“It is rather hard for an American to account for the admiration which the book is said to have won in England. There is not, as a rule, anything particularly novel in the content or exceptionally striking in the form.”
“When the reader finishes it, he may be inclined to think first, that although done by a master hand, it is a rather slight contribution to the great post-war discussion. But the more he thinks about it the more the reader begins to perceive that ‘The island of sheep’ is a microcosm of the present mental and physical state of the world, certainly of the English-speaking world.”
“The reader will thank us for letting him discover for himself the rare charm of this book. Passion is excluded, though there is plenty of idealism, and an abundance of hard, shrewd wit. National characteristics are exceedingly well portrayed. There is here a fineness akin to a forgotten art.”
“Most of our readers, faced with this list [of characters] in the abstract, will be inclined to turn from the book with a ‘Lord ‘a mercy!’ or ‘Heaven save us!’ If they do they will be quite wrong, for, in spite of the soundness of the argument, the book is a light one, and full of very pleasant relief, which we must not call comic, but which has the same effect as the old stage artifice.”
CAINE, WILLIAM. Strangeness of Noel Carton. *$2 (3c) Putnam
This is not exactly a story within a story but rather two stories so interwoven and fused that in the end they are not distinguishable apart. They are both written in the first person by Noel Carton and one is his journal and the other the novel he writes because his wife has said he couldn’t do it. This wife he hates for her crudity and smallness, altho he has sold himself to her for the home and comforts she gives him. In his novel he unconsciously portrays himself and his wife Josephine as his main characters, Nigel and Jocelyn. As he becomes absorbed in his plot, and as he takes more and more powerful drugs in his fight against insomnia, it is increasingly difficult for him to distinguish between the real of his life and the unreal of his fancy. The climax comes when his hallucinations give way to madness, and the tragedy of his novel is carried out in real life.
“The fastidious reader will be inclined to put this volume aside after the first few pages, but if he can persevere he may very quickly realize that the vulgarity of the author’s manner is deliberate, and very effective and moving. It is paying a great compliment to Mr Caine to say that no one who does not read this remarkably plausible tale from cover to cover could believe it.”
“In a unique combination of diary and straight novelistic construction, Mr Caine has done something for the novel which one Reizenstein once did for the stage in ‘On trial’—he has found a new form.”
“The book is original and exceedingly well done.”
“From the moment you meet Noel Carton, his wife, and his situation you are deeply interested in all three. You don’t like him nor yet his wife, but he is a vivid, actual creature, and he makes every one, perhaps we might better say everything, he touches, vivid and compelling.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“Not every reader is likely to enjoy this grim mixture of realism and fantasy, but it is impossible to deny the power with which it is written.”
CALDWELL, WALLACE EVERETT. Hellenic conceptions of peace. pa *$1.25 Longmans 172.4
“An historical study of the subject, beginning with the epic age and coming down to the fourth century B.C. Issued as one of the Columbia university studies in history, economics and public law.” (Brooklyn) “What Mr Caldwell has done is to restate what the Greek poets, historians, orators, and political leaders have said and written about the desirability of peace. For that was their theme, that peace was desirable and war was destructive. He has also traced for us, in the tumultuous course of Greek history, the attempts to preserve the peace and the causes of their failure.” (Nation)
“This is an interesting study written by a man well grounded in Greek history. Our main criticism is that Dr Caldwell has not kept his aim steadily enough in view. In fact, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there has been a certain shifting of aim as the work proceeds. The concluding chapter is the most valuable part of the book.” W. S. Ferguson
“There is much in Dr Caldwell’s record that has special pertinency to these times.”
“Certain problems appear very modern especially the conflict of Athens and Sparta regarding the implications of ‘freedom,’ and the inability of Greece to form a permanent league of free states, in spite of religious and commercial incentives to unity.”
CALKINS, RAYMOND, and PEABODY, FRANCIS GREENWOOD. Substitutes for the saloon. *$1.75 Houghton 178
“To the study which he made for the famous Committee of fifty twenty years ago and which has been the standard volume on the subject during that entire period, Dr Calkins now adds a new introduction and a series of appendices supplementing carefully chosen points in a way to bring the whole discussion of the saloon substitute up to date and to make of the volume a handbook for those who wish to engage in this form of social service and to learn something of the body of experience which has been built up for a half century. The book is particularly illuminating in setting up the workingmen’s club or whatever one cares to call it, against the perspective of neighborhood, class, race, religion, politics, age, habits and other factors which condition its success or involve its failure. In the long run, it seems clear, the ‘substitute’ must be almost purely democratic or else commercial in management, and it must be of spontaneous growth or at any rate seem to be.”—Survey
“Interesting to leaders of men and boys of the working class.”
CALLWELL, SIR CHARLES EDWARD. Dardanelles. *$5 (3½c) Houghton 940.42
The book belongs to the Campaigns and their lessons series. The author considers the contest in the Dardanelles as a campaign by itself which was affected by events elsewhere only in so far as these diverted much needed military and naval resources. The work is designed to be a study of certain phases of the campaign rather than a formal record of its course, many of the problems discussed admitting of considerable diversity of opinion. Thus the naval attempt to force the Straits without military aid, the famous landing on the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula on the 25th of April, and the successful evacuation of the sea-girt patch of Turkish territory are discussed at length, but some of the principal combats are dismissed briefly because their story suggests no special lessons.
“The book needs an index.”
“It cannot fail to be of the utmost value, as a document of the war, which will increase in value as the years pass.” E. J. C.
“The story is told with the accuracy and straightforward impartiality that might be expected. After the accounts of each main event, whether success or failure, General Callwell adds a passage of ‘Comment,’ criticizing that action and pointing out where the causes of success or failure lay. To all military students and to all who, like myself, are intimately acquainted with the campaign, these comments will naturally be the most valuable and interesting parts of the volume.”
“General Callwell’s valuable study of the Dardanelles campaign, from a military standpoint, appears opportunely as the complement of the Dardanelles commission’s report on the conduct of the operations.”
“This is an excellent addition to the ‘Campaigns and their lessons’ series. The one criticism that we have to make of it is the inadequacy of the maps. There are certain phases of the campaign, notably the attacks at Anzac and Suvla in August, 1915, which it is impossible to follow clearly without large and clear maps.”
CALLWELL, SIR CHARLES EDWARD. Life of Sir Stanley Maude, lieutenant-general. il *$6 Houghton
“This official biography of the conqueror of Bagdad, who died during the fourth year of the war, was written by the British Director of military operations at the War office. General Maude was one of the small group of commanders brought to the front by the war who appealed to the popular imagination. Fortunately, his biographer is one of the leading military writers of our time. The book is inspiring, not merely as the life of a great soldier, but as a contribution to our knowledge of British military operations in Mesopotamia.” R of Rs
“As clear and sympathetic an account as any friend of General Maude’s could desire.” O. W.
“There is not too much Maude in the book, nor is there too much collateral history, just a happy combination of the two, an achievement which is by no means common in memoirs!”
“Sir Charles Callwell is particularly to be congratulated on the justice and candour with which he has written this book. Eulogy at points where eulogy is undeserved is an offence in biography. It is misleading; it deprives the reader of the opportunities of learning the lessons which he might have learned from the truth; and in the last analysis it is unfair to the subject of the biography himself. Sir Charles Callwell, while making clear his intense admiration of Maude, succeeds in giving point to that admiration by admitting that Maude was not without his intellectual faults as a soldier.”
“In spite of the attraction of his subject the biography is to be read once and no more. One hesitates to think that General Callwell has missed the secret of Maude’s greatness. One searches the book in vain for a generalization, a fruitful idea.”
CAMERON, CHARLOTTE.[2] Cheechako in Alaska and Yukon. il $6 Stokes 917.98
Cheechako is Eskimo for tenderfoot, but this particular tenderfoot turns out to be a hardened traveler. After many other lands the far North beckoned this adventurous Englishwoman and she set out from Seattle in June to travel 2,200 miles on the Yukon to Alaska and back all in a summer season. She sings the praises of the wondrous riches of the country—for which she bespeaks a prosperous future—and of the hospitality of its people. Nome, which had lured her from childhood, was the real objective of the trip and of it the author gives a detailed account. The book is well illustrated.
“Very wisely she is content to write as a sightseer, not as a pioneer; and the result of this renunciation is that we get from her something fresh.”
CAMP, CHARLES WADSWORTH. Gray mask. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
An episodic narrative dealing with the solution of various mysteries and taking its name from the first adventure. Garth, a member of the detective force, is asked by his chief to assume the disguise of the Gray Mask, a criminal chemist who goes with face covered to hide the effects of an explosion. The disguise takes him into the heart of a criminal gang, among whom to his horror he finds Nora, his chief’s daughter. But her presence there is satisfactorily explained and the law breakers are brought to justice. The second episode concerns a murder mystery, and there are others, ending with Garth’s engagement to Nora.
“The stories hardly measure up to the author’s previous work.”
CAMP, WALTER CHAUNCEY. Football without a coach. il *$1.25 Appleton 797
The object of the book is to supply a perfect pen-and-ink coach for a football team, telling it how to progress from week to week, warning it of the dangers that will crop up and telling it how to surmount each difficulty that arises. It is intended as a text-book for the grammar school boy, the high school student, and the young man from the shop or office. Contents: Building the foundation; Sizing up the candidates; The first scrimmage; Practice without a scrub; The line and the forward pass; The line; The backfield; Building plays; The strategy of football; Things that make or break a team.
“The book comes as near to taking the place of an expert coach as printed words can.”
CAMP, WALTER CHAUNCEY. Handbook on health and how to keep it. *$1.25 (3c) Appleton 613
In formulating a “simple, reasonable and practical system of preserving physical fitness” for all ages, the author has had in mind the “simplest, shortest, least exhausting and most exhilarating form of calisthenics” that can be devised. He has concentrated his setup exercises with four groups of three each thus: Hands, Hips, Head; Grind, Grate, Grasp; Crawl, Curl, Crouch; Wave, Weave, Wing. Portions of the book are devoted to practical suggestions as to the value of certain sports at proper periods of life and to cautions as to the general health and the follies of some habits. Contents: Problems of youth and age; Daily dozen set-up; Reviewing follies; Children, schoolboy and collegian; Industrial worker.
“Mr Camp’s latest book should be useful to the instructor of gymnastics and the Boy scout leader. The author’s insistence upon athletics will readily be forgiven on the ground of a specialist’s natural enthusiasm; but the space given to it and other general considerations in the book hardly make it a very practical ‘handbook’ for the individual in need of advice and stimulus.” B. L.
CAMPBELL, HENRY COLIN. How to use cement for concrete construction for town and farm. il $2 Stanton & Van Vliet 693.5
This comprehensive book covers such subjects as Farming with concrete; What concrete is, how to make and use it; Making forms for concrete construction; Reinforcement; Concrete foundations and concrete walls; Tanks, troughs, cisterns, and similar containers for liquids; Concrete floors, walks and similar concrete pavements; A concrete garage on the farm; Poultry houses of concrete; Concrete silos, etc. The author writes from the point of view of both engineer and farmer. There is an alphabetical table of contents, and the book is very fully illustrated.
CANBY, HENRY SEIDEL. Everyday Americans. *$1.75 (5½c) Century 917.3
The book is a “study of the typical, the everyday American mind, as it is manifested in the American of the old stock. It is a study of what that typical American product, the college and high school graduate, has become in the generation which must carry on after the war.” (Preface) This typical American the author finds to be “the conservative-liberal” in whom the inherited liberal instincts have become petrified and who suffers with a sort of a hardening of the arteries of the mind. There is also a radicalism of a sort but it is a very different thing from European revolutionary radicalism. The soul of America now in which abides the future, is the bourgeoisie and he advises all who wish to speculate in postbellum America to study the younger leaders of the labor parties on the one hand and the college undergraduates on the other. They are the future. Contents: The American mind; Conservative America; Radical America; American idealism; Religion in America; Literature in America; The bourgeois American.
“Written in a clear, rather colorless style.”
“If Mr Canby’s book had been written long ago it would have remedied in large degree the appalling ignorance existing abroad concerning American mind and thought.”
“A timely, undogmatic contribution to an exceedingly lively issue.”
“As far as it goes, Mr Canby’s book is very good and very interesting. On the whole, his analysis appears to be sound; and his candour is admirable.” R: Roberts
“Thoughtful and lucid appraisement of American values. Though the style is simple, it is closely packed; the substance is weighty, and no one will get it all in the first reading.”
“It may be argued that there is no special brillance or insight in these pages, but if one really wishes to convince the average thoughtful American, it is well to be neither too philosophical nor too paradoxical. Mr Canby at least shows us that he has an active mind, capable of searching the underlying issues of the time in which he lives.”
“This study of the American mind is altogether delightful because of its directness, sincerity and penetration.” B. L.
CANFIELD, CHAUNCEY L., ed. Diary of a forty-niner. *$3.50 Houghton 979.4
The book is based on the authentic diary of one Alfred T. Jackson, a pioneer miner who cabined and worked on Rock Creek, Nevada County, California, from 1850 to 1852. It is a “truthful, unadorned, veracious chronicle of the placer mining days of the foothills, a narrative of events as they occurred; told in simple and, at times, ungrammatical sentences, yet vivid and truth compelling in the absence of conscious literary endeavor.... It sets forth graphically the successive steps in gold mining, from the pan and rocker to the ground sluice and flume.... No less fascinating is the romance interwoven in the pages of the diary.” (Preface) The editor states that he has verified many of the incidents and happenings. An edition of the book was published in San Francisco shortly before the earthquake and fire, during which the plates and many of the copies were destroyed.
“This book is well printed in large type but the solid character of the contents, in spite of the chapter headings, will repel some readers.” H. S. K.
“One of the most fascinating features of this remarkable document is the diarist’s self-revelation of his evolution from a Puritanical New Englander, bound and shackled with the prejudices of generations, into a broad-minded man whose mental growth is miraculously stimulated by the freedom of his environment and associations.”
CANNAN, GILBERT. Release of the soul. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright 149.3
“The surface of life has been broken by the war, says Mr Cannan; there is no longer any structure in social existence: ‘For the artist there is metaphysic or nothing.’ And in this highly metaphysical, mystical essay he attempts to convey a programme for the immediate future of society and especially for the artist. We are told that the book was written during Mr Cannan’s recent visit in America, in a period of intense creative inspiration. As a record of mystical experience, as an endeavor to express the ineffable, it expects from the reader a coöperation more sympathetic than that of the intelligence. Stripped of its mysticism, the argument is a tolerably familiar one; it is a fusion of certain beliefs almost universally held now by the younger writers and artists, beliefs regarding the industrial régime, bourgeois democracy, intellectualism, the instinct of workmanship, the release of the creative impulses.”—N Y Evening Post
“Mr Cannan’s new book is, indeed, unusual. The words God, soul, life, occur with extraordinary frequency but the variety of their syntactical connections throws no light on their meanings. Since we are neither provided with, nor enabled to deduce, definitions of Mr Cannan’s chief terms, we find his book unintelligible.”
“The tone of the book is rhapsodical; its sentences are so desultory; and even the illustrations drawn here and there from history, art and literature are so loose, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide at times what he exactly does mean.”
“There is little art in his exposition and less evidence of work. And it takes more religion of a charitable nature than Mr Cannan preaches to restrain one from saying that the author of this work has released his soul so very successfully that it has disappeared.”
“Flashes of fine thought are not incompatible with loose thinking. A book may be very stimulating and suggestive in its details and yet as a whole leave behind an impression of hopeless confusion. This is just the kind of book Mr Cannan has produced.” Edwin Bjorkman
“It is not unlikely that many, perhaps most, of the people who read Mr Cannan’s new book will wonder what he is driving at. A little of this bewilderment will be due to Mr Cannan himself; for when he passes over from the dramatic to the discursive a certain elusiveness invades his speech. The book is one of those which must be read two or three times over before its whole significance becomes clear; but it is abundantly worth that trouble.” R: Roberts
“His book is a curious, largely incomprehensible and thoroughly dull rhapsody upon God and nature, life, love and the soul.” S. C. C.
“The charm of the book is to be found in some of the brief ecstatic meditations in which from time to time the pages flower.” Van Wyck Brooks
“Mr Cannan has flung a light bridge from mysticism to internationalism over which it is quite conceivable that an exposition so airy, chary, and fleeting as his own may pass in safety. But the plain man, the logician, and the investigator can not be urged to trust his weight to the inadequacies of the trembling fabric.”
“It is an embarrassing book to read. One feels like an intruder upon a privacy, for really Mr Cannan appears to have suffered considerably. Either so ‘private and confidential’ a book ought not to have been written, or we should not be reading it.”
“Obviously what Mr Cannan says is largely platonic doctrine, to many incomprehensible; but spiritual emphasis at this time is so needed that the book is justified in spite of its frequent cloudy and chaotic passages.”
“Mr Cannan, weary of criticism and all negative activities, has turned to mysticism; and this book is the result. It is sincere, passionate and interesting, but it lacks structure, and so is a little difficult to read.”
CANNAN, GILBERT. Time and eternity; a tale of three exiles. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
London is the abode of these three exiles. One of them is an Englishman, Stephen Lawrie, at odds with the world about him and with the war, living in voluntary seclusion in the London slums, trying to solve the riddle of the universe in silence and inactivity. The other, Perekatov, is a Ukrainian Jew eking out a precarious existence in London as a correspondent for a Russian paper. He obtrudes himself on Stephen with whose face, seen at a public meeting, he had been impressed. There is much spasmodic, intangible talk between them and their intercourse ripens into friendship of a sort. Valerie du Toit, the third exile, is a South African of French Huguenot extraction, who has come to England athirst for the eternal verities. With elemental force the spirits of Stephen and Valerie meet and melt into each other. This kindles insane jealousy in Howard Ducie who acts the Othello to Valerie’s Desdemona, smothers her in her sleep and has himself run over by a train. Stephen accepts the tragedy as a happening in time which can not interfere with the eternity of his love.
“Mr Gilbert Cannan’s novels are important novels, but they are not good novels. They are the illustrative material of his essays and they do not illustrate them in any creative fashion. The theories shine through too glaringly, as in ‘Time and eternity.’ Mr Cannan started out with a naive creative impulse, but the events of the past six years have aroused in him, as in many of us, so much impassioned thinking about life that the material of creation itself slips from his grasp.”
“Though the book frequently reveals creative strokes, though its general plan is majestically conceived, yet it conveys the sense of being a preliminary work. ‘Time and eternity’ suggests the need for a future work which will see the thing through. The sculptor is still groping.” J. C. L.
“‘Time and eternity’ is the result of a serious lack in its author, the lack of a sense of humor. The piece has untold burlesque possibilities, and they have been wasted. ‘Time and eternity’ may be ascribed only to a rapidly advancing senility.” Henrietta Malkiel
“We have all long known the phrase ‘a welter of words,’ but to read Gilbert Cannan’s new book ‘Time and eternity’ is to realize just exactly what it implies. The reader’s strongest feeling after he has at last toiled his weary way through this extremely dull book is a desire for plenty of soap and water and good fresh air.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Mr Cannan writes too quickly and too often. He writes with a sort of hungry rage, because he despises something, though he does not know what, and desires something equally unknown to him. His work is as restless and as inconclusive as a conversation between adolescents teased with growing pains.”
“In ‘Time and eternity’ Mr Cannan presents a piece of tedious writing and speculation about slinking individuals who are out of harmony with the ages.”
“Mr Cannan has not yet, in this method, passed the experimental stage. Moreover, he has not enough to say about the souls of his three exiles, to each of whom by name is allotted one-third of this short book, to engage unflagging attention. They are queer if not tiresome, but vaguer than people speaking uninspired lines from behind a curtain. They do nothing very much; they appear to want nothing very special; they certainly are nothing very intensely.”
CANNAN, GILBERT. Windmills; a book of fables. *$1.60 (3c) Huebsch
A volume of satires. The first two, Samways island and Ultimus, altho written before 1914 have to do with a series of wars between Fatland (England) and Fatterland (Germany) and, except in matters of mechanical detail, they indicate remarkable foresight. Of the two that follow, Gynecologia describes the women governed world that succeeded the great wars, and Out of work is a social satire involving Jah, the devil, and a certain Nicholas Bly, a labor agitator. The author writes a preface to the American edition. The book was published in England in 1915.
“Mr Cannan’s satire is not as keen and cutting when bare and exposed in these sketches as it is in some of his other books where it half hides behind a veil of romance. ‘Windmills’ is brilliant in places, but not as a whole.”
“What he says is inexpugnably true; it is only his prose which is ineffective.”
“When the time and circumstances of the book’s composition are remembered one’s admiration for Mr Cannan’s clear and trenchant perspicacity is of the highest. At that point, however, one’s admiration ends. Here, as in all his recent books, there is, on the side of art, a total lack of modulation, of warmth, of felicity.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“It makes light of high things and low and at the same time heavy reading for both. It sounds like Greenwich Village at its futilest.”
“The truth is, Mr Cannan, with all his pose of independence, is nothing if not a partisan. He belongs to his time and his school; and neither his paradox nor his satiric whimsy nor his flashes of sentiment could have been what they are without the example or let us say the inspiration of a Chesterton, a Shaw, and a Wells. The book has, above all, the assertiveness, the bumptiousness, the determined brilliancy, and unease which will, we may fear, be the hallmark of the passing literary generation to the eye of posterity.” H. W. B.
CANTACUZÈNE, PRINCESS (COUNTESS SPÉRANSKY, née JULIA DENT GRANT). Russian people. il *$3 Scribner 947
“Many who have followed the Russian articles in the Saturday Evening Post of Princess Cantacuzène will no doubt greet with pleasure their appearance in book form under the title ‘Russian people: revolutionary recollections.’ Similar to Princess Cantacuzène’s earlier book, ‘Revolutionary days,’ these pictures of Russian life are seen through the eyes of a member of the upper classes, residents for years in the country. It is the simple folk outside the city, exemplified by the peasant of the Cantacuzène estate, Bouromka, about whom the stories center. In addition to the pictures of Bouromka before and after the ‘red’ outbreaks, there are chapters dealing with the efforts in various parts of the old empire to re-establish a stable government. Crimea, where the Cantacuzène villa is situated, was one such center. ‘Daughters of Russia’ is the title of the final chapter, these ranging from Catherine the Great to Catherine Breshkovsky and Maria Botshkarova.”—Springf’d Republican
“The author knows the peasants and tenantry outside of the large cities and writes of them intimately and interestingly. Her account of the revolution and of political affairs is, however, second hand and lacks clarifying detail.”
“They present readable and accurate impressions of events on which full information is still hard to get.”
“It would be a mistake to regard her story as seriously contributing to our understanding of the revolution, if for no other reason than that her materials are obtained at secondhand and to a great extent from rumor. Painting in simple black-and-white is not her only limitation.”
“Princess Cantacuzène’s book is certainly a striking case of a good opportunity missed. If only she had stuck more to what she saw herself during those days when her adopted country was going to pieces before her eyes!”
CAPABLANCA, JOSÉ RAÚL. My chess career. il *$2.50 Macmillan 794
The author, born in Havana, Cuba, in 1888, began to play chess at the age of five. At eleven he was matched against the Cuban champion, J. Corzo. In his introductory chapter he says: “The object of this little book is to give to the reader some idea of the many stages through which I have passed before reaching my present strength.... As I go along narrating my chess career, I will stop at those points which I consider most important, giving examples of my games with my own notes written at the time the games were played, or when not, expressing the ideas I had while the game was in progress.” This plan is followed thruout the book, beginning with the match with Corzo and continuing to the Hastings victory congress in 1919. The conclusion gives points for beginners.
“There is not a trace of boastfulness in the book. Capablanca’s passion is for exact scientific truth. The general spirit is one of detached and critical self-observation. Altogether, a book of great psychological interest.” R. O. M.
“This refreshing little book probably contains more real information on the science of chess than a dozen of the more weighty tomes put together. Capablanca’s comments on his own and his adversary’s play throughout the book are of a most original and illuminating sort.” Moreby Adlom
“It is in many ways the most egotistical, and incidentally subjective book we have ever come across; the note of satisfaction sounds like a loud gong throughout, nor does the voice of self-praise die away. The book, in fact, has been written in a mood of positively aboriginal conceit. All this, however, should not obscure the fact that Senor Capablanca’s chess-games are very brilliant, and his notes full of interest.”
“His notes on his games are lucid and vivacious.”
“The interest is immensely enhanced by being annotated by Capablanca himself.”
CAPEK, THOMAS. Cechs (Bohemians) in America. il *$3 (5½c) Houghton 325.7
The author, after a residence of thirty-nine years in Cech America, is thoroughly conversant with the history and the status of his countrymen here. The volume aims “to throw light, not only on the economic condition of the Cech immigrant, but on his national, historic, religious, cultural, and social state as well.” (Introd.) It describes the American Cech as being not an adventurer but a bona-fide settler, an idealist and an upholder of modern democracy. Biographical sketches are given of all the prominent and intellectual Cechs who have exerted an influence on their countrymen in America and the book is abundantly illustrated. Successive chapters are devoted to the immigration in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and to the Cech’s economic status. Other chapters are: New Bohemia in America; Rationalism: a transition from the old to the new; Socialism and radicalism; Journalism and literature; Musicians, artists, visitors from abroad; The churches; The part the American Cechs took in the war of liberation. There is an appendix and an index.
“‘The Cechs in America’ is a comprehensive, carefully arranged manual of all information about this section of our immigration. To anyone wishing, or needing, to be authoritatively and thoroughly informed on this subject, his book is indispensable.”
“Interesting and informing.”
“His picture leaves no detail obscure so long as he writes without religious or political preconceptions. The copious bibliography in this volume deserves special complimentary mention.”
“His own sturdy love of America, mixed with his identification with the Czech in America makes the book a delightful though unintentioned combination of the subjective and the objective. None of the other national groups have produced anything quite like it.” H. A. Miller
CAPES, BERNARD EDWARD JOSEPH. Skeleton key. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
This detective story is prefaced by an introduction by G. K. Chesterton. The action takes place at Wildshott, the country home of the Kennetts, where Vivian Bickerdike, who tells part of the story in his own words, and Baron Le Sage are guests. Shortly after their arrival, a pretty housemaid is murdered in a secluded path not far from the house. The usual steps are taken, an inquest is held and a detective called in. Several arrests are made but finally guilt seems to fasten itself pretty conclusively upon Hugo Kennett, the young son of the family, whose choice seemed to be marry or murder. But Baron Le Sage is not satisfied that he is guilty, and uncovers a deep laid and unsuspected plot of which Hugo was to have been the victim, and the perpetrator was to go scot free. Fortunately the scheme was foiled in time.
“Will please the more critical reader.”
“Above the average detective story.”
“‘The skeleton key’ is a detective story of singular ingenuity and power. Yet it is much more than that, in that the air of delicate romance dispels much of the sordidity that, in the very nature of the work, is always striving to rear its head and dominate the narrative.”
“The late Bernard Capes was one of the few writers of mystery and detective stories who make an honorable effort to combine plot with literary workmanship. This posthumous tale is one of his best. It has a decidedly original dénouement which will puzzle even practical mystery solvers.”
CAREY, AGNES. Empress Eugénie in exile. il *$4 Century
These reminiscences from Empress Eugénie’s own lips are culled from letters and diaries kept by the author while a member of the Empress’s household at Farnborough. The book contains many illustrations from photographs and the contents are: Farnborough Hill, an empress’s home; Daily events: further extracts from diary and letters; The Empress visits Queen Victoria; Later events at Farnborough Hill; Reminiscences of Empress Eugénie: her characteristics and idiosyncracies.
“Mrs Carey incorporates, especially in the last half of the book, a great deal about the daily life at Farnborough which can be of interest only to persons who make a hobby of Eugénie, if any such there be. But this fault must be overlooked, for the book has the extraordinary merit of telling Eugénie’s own story or stories told by Eugénie, within an hour or so after they had dropped from her lips.”
CAREY, WILLIAM, and others. Garo jungle book; or, The mission to the Garos of Assam. il *$2 (2½c) Am. Bapt. 266
After describing the Garos topographically, the author calls their mountain abode “a den of wild beasts and of still wilder men.” “Within, the fiercest passions held sway, and gruesome superstitions, such as made the blood of the Bengalis run cold to think of, wrapped them in an atmosphere of ghostly fear.” It was when the British government was faced by the only remaining alternative “extermination of the Garos” that the missionaries began to demonstrate the possibility of another way. The book is the history of the struggle and an account of what has been accomplished. It contains abundant illustrations, two maps, and appendices consisting of a glossary, a list of Garo books, of churches and schools and a service chart.
CARLETON, WILLIAM. Stories of Irish life; with an introd. by Darnell Figgis. *$1.75 Stokes
“Himself a peasant, William Carleton writes of the Irish people, the Irish scene and the Irish life out of the book of his own experience. He was the youngest of the fourteen children of a small farmer in Tyrone, and was brought up in a household that knew the ancient Irish tongue as well as the English language. His real literary career began in 1828, when, at the age of thirtyfour, he settled permanently in Dublin and became a contributor to the Christian Examiner. For this paper, Carleton during the following six years wrote his ‘Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry’ upon which is based his reputation as a delineator of Irish life and character. As one of the recently issued volumes in a new Library of Irish literature, eight stories and sketches are selected to represent Carleton’s contribution, among them being: Neal Malone; Phelim O’Toole’s courtship; The party fight and funeral; The midnight mass; and Denis O’Shaughnessy going to Maynooth.”—Boston Transcript
“Carleton belongs by right to the Irish classics. His tales are vigorous and brimful of humour. His character-drawing was extremely vivid, and some of his heroes are like creations of flesh and blood. He had also a gift of impressive description.”
“His temperament and his experience combined to produce a picture of the peasantry which is unrivalled as an historical document, and fascinating as a work of art. Protestant though he became, Carleton writes always as one oppressed, of those suffering from similar oppression, and for that very reason appeals with undying power to the generous ethic of fair play which has always characterized the Anglo-Saxon elsewhere. What he wrote for his own generation has lost nothing of its force today.” R. B. J.
“No matter what varying amount of interest they may have found in Carleton’s tales, readers and critics have vied with each other in emphasizing their appealing and truthful Irish quality.... In many ways, however, Carleton followed stereotyped formulas both in his plots and his character portrayals.” E. F. E.
CARLTON, FRANK TRACY. Elementary economics. *$1.10 (2c) Macmillan 330
The author of this “introduction to the study of economics and sociology” realizes that economics is not a science in which the problems discussed can be proved mathematically; that it fairly bristles with controverted points; that the student is apt to approach it with preconceptions and class or interest bias. The object of the book is to help the student to look upon both sides of a question and to come to independent conclusions on such problems of everyday life as prices and markets, taxation, banking, tariff, wages, rent, transportation, and ownership of property. The book falls into three parts: Outline of industrial and social evolution; Fundamental economic concepts; Economic problems. Some of the more specific subjects discussed are: Getting a living under various conditions; Wants and value; Direction of the world’s workers; Wealth and income; Competition and monopoly; Money and banking; Railway transportation; Labor organizations; Labor legislation; Agricultural economics; Taxation; Industrial unrest; Social and industrial betterment. There is an index.
“The simplicity and clarity of treatment together with thought-stimulating topics for discussion make this a good textbook for the beginner in economics in junior or senior high school.”
“The style of the book is simple enough to justify its introduction into the upper years of the elementary school. The material is of so vital a type that it deserves recognition in all schools. Where the special problem is that of preparing children for trades this book will serve to give a broader view of the individual’s place in industry.”
“The author of this book has done more than simply produce another book on elementary economics for use in high schools. He has in reality broken away from the traditional discussion of consumption, production, exchange, and distribution, and organized his discussion in quite a different manner from that followed by traditional texts in the field. There are no lists of reference books. This seems unfortunate since the book itself does not contain enough material for even a half-year course in the subject.”
“A text that is sure to find ready reception for courses in economics, especially in secondary schools. As a basis for fruitful class discussion it should prove very effective in the hands of a competent instructor.” E. R. Burton
CARLTON, FRANK TRACY. Organized labor in American history. *$2.50 (4c) Appleton 331.87
In tracing the influence of the wage earner in American history the writer points out the intimate relations between industrial evolution and social progress. So long as there were still open frontiers towards the west, the economic life of America can be said to have been abnormal. Now that the frontier is a thing of the past the wage earner’s influence may be expected to increase in importance as the years go by. To examine the cause and effect of organized labor as a social phenomenon and a social institution is the object of the book. Contents: Introduction; Epochs in the history of organized labor; Adoption and interpretation of the constitution; The free school and the wage earner; Land reform and the wage earner; Labor legislation and the wage earner; Other reform movements and the wage earner; Labor parties, socialism, direct action, and the progressive movement; The ideals of the wage earner; Recent pre-war tendencies; The war and after; Index.
“One of its chief merits is that it is based on an accurate knowledge of the ideals and policies of organized labor.” G: M. Janes
“The author has accomplished his modest purpose of helping to bring American history into a truer perspective by showing the influence of the wage-earner on the course of events.” Mary Beard
Reviewed by G: Soule
“His interpretation of this history shows keen insight into the play of economic forces that have made for the development of classes, the rise of the labor movement and the evolution of industrial society. On the interpretive side we think that it is more informative than the more laborious work of Professor Commons and associates.” James Oneal
“I do not see why a book designed to give understanding of the present should deal with Shay’s rebellion and fail to do more than mention either the interesting development among the garment workers of the equally significant changes in the organizations of railroad workers. I have no desire to quarrel with Professor Carlton’s selection, for his temper is tolerant and his mood understanding, qualities to be prized highly among men whose minds are directed to the description of events in the field of labor.”
“Will serve as a useful introduction to a close study of modern American labour problems.”
“It is only the second half that deals with controversial matters. Here also Professor Carlton’s work is effective in that he carries the reader into the heart of the subject by bringing up all the live and crucial issues. But his frank policy of taking a decided stand upon most of them himself makes it highly desirable that his standpoint should be grasped by the reader, in advance if practicable.” W: E. Walling
CARNEGIE, ANDREW. Autobiography. il *$5 (4c) Houghton
The volume is edited by John C. Van Dyke and has a preface by Mrs Carnegie. Besides the facts of the author’s life and career the book contains much matter of general interest and reminiscences of notable personages. There are chapters on: Civil war period; The age of steel; Mills and the men; The homestead strike; Problems of labor; The “gospel of wealth”; Educational and pension funds; Washington diplomacy. The book is well illustrated and has a bibliography and an index.
“The historian will regret that it confines itself more to portraiture than to documentation, that it throws little new light upon partly known facts, and that it has none of the elaborate accuracy likely to be found in the biography of a man who seeks to justify himself. The reader of the book retains a friendly feeling towards a simple yet astute personality.” F: L. Paxson
“Although scrappy and gossipy in parts the interest is sustained.”
“The result, for those who knew Mr Carnegie intimately, is most satisfactory and charming. The style is simple and unaffected. The joyous enthusiasm, which filled him from youth to old age, shines forth in these pages.” W: J. Holland
Reviewed by R. M. Lovett
“The volume is as entertaining as it is inspiring. It will undoubtedly rank high among the world’s lasting autobiographies.”
“Carnegie unfolds himself, and nowhere does he attempt to make it appear that he has virtues which he has not—modesty, for instance. Sometimes he talked with real eloquence and sometimes with bathos, but he sets both down with unfailing fidelity.”
Reviewed by R. R. Bowker
“The general reader will find this the best American autobiography since 1885, when General Grant’s ‘Memoirs’ were published.”
CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE. DIVISION OF INTERCOURSE AND EDUCATION. American foreign policy; with an introd. by Nicholas Murray Butler. Carnegie endowment for international peace 327
“This collection of documents is intended by the editor to comprise ‘those official statements by successive presidents and secretaries of state which, having been formally or tacitly accepted by the American people, do in effect constitute the foundation of American foreign policy.... They are the classic declarations of policy which, taken together, present a record of which the American people may well be proud.’ Naturally the selection begins with Washington’s farewell address and includes Jefferson’s statement as to entangling alliances. Then follow the various messages relating to the Monroe doctrine: Monroe’s, Polk’s, Buchanan’s, Grant’s, Cleveland’s, and Roosevelt’s. Blaine, Hay, and Root contribute their ideas as to the Monroe doctrine, that of the last named being in no sense official, as it is the well-known address as president of the American Society of international law for 1914. The instructions to and reports from the American delegates to the Hague conferences are properly included.”—Am Hist R
“Readers who do not wish their history predigested for them, but on the other hand do not resent a prescribed diet, will find this little volume much to their liking.” E. S. Corwin
CARPENTER, EDWARD. Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning. *$3 (3c) Harcourt, Brace & Howe 290
The author holds that the process of the evolution of religious rites and ceremonies has in its main outlines been the same all over the world and that it has proceeded in orderly phases of spontaneous growth. The object of the book is to trace the instigating cause of this great phenomenon along psychological lines. In its first inception, he claims, it was stimulated by fear and has run along three main lines: the movements of the sun and planets; the changes of the seasons; and the procreative forces. Contents: Solar myths and Christian festivals; The symbolism of the Zodiac; Totem-sacraments and eucharists; Food and vegetation magic; Magicians, kings and gods; Rites of expiation and redemption; Pagan initiations and the second birth; Myth of the golden age; The saviour-god and the virgin-mother; Ritual dancing; The sex-taboo; The genesis of Christianity; The meaning of it all; The ancient mysteries; The exodus of Christianity; Conclusion. The appendix on the teachings of the Upanishads contains two essays: Rest and The nature of the self. There is an index.
“Mr Edward Carpenter has wide reading and as far as one can judge, no lack of the critical faculty; so that, presumably, he could play the man of science if he chose. But his interest is less in theory than in practice. He looks forward to a new age, and, preoccupied with his vision of the future, searches the present and the past for such promise as they may hold of the fulfilment of his hope.” R. R. M.
“To everyone acquainted with ... any of Mr Carpenter’s books, the present volume on religious origins and developments will come as a warrant of profound thought and beautiful illumination of expression.” W. S. B.
“His treatment is throughout as sympathetic and as fair as his purpose to demonstrate his thesis allows him to be; and it is only right to admit that he makes a very good case for the vast generalization that he lays down. But he is greater as prophet than as critic; and that is why this book does not measure up to ‘Towards democracy.’” R: Roberts
“Some of the researches of Frazer and Lang and Tylor and other scholars are vulgarized by him, and conclusions drawn from their premises from which any of them would recoil.” Preserved Smith
“Mr Carpenter’s book is written for those who have not read much of anthropological research, and such readers will find in it an exceedingly clear and lucid summary of a vast body of specialist work. And the book is filled with that humane and glowing hope for humanity which has made Mr Carpenter’s writings an inspiration to countless readers. It can be confidently recommended to all who are not specialists in the subjects with which it deals.” B. R.
“Mr Carpenter is never clear, although he writes clearly. He disappears in a vacuum at the end of all his books and poems. He lacks the thunder and the sureness, the passion and the vision of the real prophet. He possesses clarity without light. He expounds, but does not see.” B: de Casseres
CARPENTER, RHYS.[2] Plainsman, and other poems. *$2 Oxford 821
“Rhys Carpenter is a poet enamored of classic themes. Thus in his new book, ‘The plainsman,’ we find such titles as For Zeus’ grove at Dodona, The charioteer of Elis, Birds of Stymphalus, Heracles sails westward and Pegasos at Hippokrene. He also loves nature and swinging lilting songs. His method of singing is that of former days, but to it he brings his own active personality.”—N Y Times
“There is not one of Rhys Carpenter’s verses that does not possess in its degree magic and power. The poet’s thought is beautifully instinctive and confident: his expression is beautifully artistic and considered.”
“There is many a gracefully turned poem in this book, the kind of poetry that almost runs into music. Mr Carpenter is a master of the shades of sound, he is dexterous in his meters and the delicate finish and completeness of his efforts set them in a distinctive place among contemporary efforts.” H. S. Gorman
CARRINGTON, HEREWARD (HUBERT LAVINGTON, pseud.). Boy’s book of magic. il *$2 Dodd 793
“The object of this book is twofold: (1) To explain, not only how a trick is done, but also how to do it ... and (2) to describe and explain those tricks which the average boy can make or procure, with relative ease and with but little expense.” (Preface) It falls into two parts: part 1: Introductory remarks; Card tricks; Coin tricks; Tricks with handkerchiefs; Tricks with eggs; Pieces of apparatus of general utility; Feats of divination; Miscellaneous tricks; Concluding instructions. Part II: Hindu magic; Handcuffs and escapes therefrom; Sideshow and animal tricks. There are numerous illustrations.
“The directions are clear and practicable, and there are many helpful illustrations.”
CARRINGTON, HEREWARD (HUBERT LAVINGTON, pseud.). Higher psychical development. il *$3 Dodd 133
The book contains an outline of the secret Hindu teachings as embodied in the Yoga philosophy and is the substance of a series of twelve lectures delivered by the author before the Psychological research society of New York in 1918. It supplements a previous book by the same author, “Your psychic powers and how to develop them,” and is recommended for more advanced reading as it contains information and “secrets,” never before published and hitherto carefully guarded by the Hindu Yogis, and shows the connection between the Yoga practices and our western science, philosophy and psychic investigations. Contents: An outline of Yoga philosophy; Asana; Pranayama; Mantrayoga and Pratyahara; Dharana; Dhyana and Samadhi; The Kundalini and how it is aroused; “The fourth dimension,” etc.; “The guardians of the threshold”; The relation of Yoga to occultism; The relation of Yoga to “psychics”; The projection of the astral body; Glossary and Index.
CARRINGTON, HEREWARD (HUBERT LAVINGTON, pseud.). Your psychic powers and how to develop them. *$3 (3c) Dodd 134
The author warns the reader that the views presented in the present volume are not necessarily his own but constitute the body of traditional and accepted theories on spiritualism and psychic phenomena. He has tentatively and for the sake of argument adopted the “spiritistic hypothesis” to set forth the possibilities that it contains. This course has been warranted, he claims, by the newer researches and conclusions in the field of psychical research. He also believes that the bulk of the material contained in the book is sound and helpful and that in following the practical instructions the reader cannot go far wrong. A partial list of the contents is: How to develop; Fear and how to banish it; The subconscious; The spirit world; The cultivation of spiritual gifts; The human aura; Symbolism; Telepathy; Clairvoyance; Dreams; Automatic writing; Crystal gazing and shell-hearing; Spiritual healing; Trance; Obsession and insanity; Prayer, concentration and silence; Hypnotism and mesmerism; Reincarnation and eastern philosophy; The ethics of spiritualism; Physical phenomena; Materialization; Advanced studies.
“Perhaps gives insufficient warning to the amateur, who nevertheless will usually find results not as readily forthcoming as the recipes might imply.”
“It is without question the best and most complete, the clearest and the most sensibly compiled compendium of ‘dippy’ lore that we have read.” B: de Casseres
“As a statement of the spiritistic position the volume is accurate, careful, thorough, if never once for a single moment illuminating or inspiring.”
CARROLL, ROBERT SPROUL. Our nervous friends; illustrating the mastery of nervousness. *$2 Macmillan 616
“In a series of short stories Dr Carroll, who is medical director of the Highland hospital in Asheville, describes typical cases of nervous pathology—chiefly among the well-to-do—indicating clearly in each case the causes of the condition and how it might have been avoided or overcome.”—Survey
“Another of the encouraging but by no means coddling books which the nervous patient and his friends may read with profit.”
CARSWELL, CATHERINE. Open the door. *$2 (1c) Harcourt
This novel adds one more to the list of recent books about women by women of which “Mary Olivier” is perhaps the most noted example. It is the story of Joanna Bannerman, altho it is some little time before Joanna’s story emerges from that of the Bannerman family. Indeed it is never entirely distinct from it. The Bannerman children grow up in an atmosphere of narrow religiosity, bordering on mysticism and ecstasy. Joanna’s after life is a reaction from her early environment. As a girl she dreams of love, which to her means adventure, escape, possession of the world. She seeks realization of her dreams, first in marriage with Mario Rasponi, who takes her to Italy, then in illicit union with Louis Pender, an artist, and finally, in her second marriage with Lawrence Urquhart, finds fulfillment of life.
“It is head and shoulders above the class of books which are commonly called ‘best-sellers,’ it makes a genuine appeal to the intelligence as well as the emotions, and we do not doubt for an instant that it was inspired by the author’s love of writing for writing’s sake.” K. M.
“The novel can stand without difficulty upon its own merits. This does not mean that it lacks entirely certain earmarks of the beginner. It has on the other hand much that more than makes up for a stiffness of movement which betokens the amateur. Miss Carswell will undoubtedly handle her material more easily in the future but it is questionable whether she will be able at that time to bring to a book the freshness of interest and unconventionality of phrase which attracts us strongly here.” D. L. M.
“She does not succeed, perhaps, in drawing merely a normal woman normally, but with great competence she portrays a slightly neurotic heroine of somewhat unusually varied experience, understandingly and with conviction. It is in the conventional happy ending alone that the story fails. In its penetration to the secret springs of character and conduct, in its visualization of persons and interrelated groups, in its mastery of line and its sureness of phrase, this is no amateur effort but a first novel of some moment, provocative of thought and expectation.” H. S. H.
“Joanna and her story remain vivid and delightful and have a touch of epic breadth and richness.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Sex interests without haunting or obsessing or torturing her. Miss Carswell is in the happy position of one who is naturally frank and naturally decent. Her decency and her frankness are not at war. ‘Open the door’ is quite sure to fasten many readers’ eyes upon Miss Carswell. She can do love and landscape and character. It is more than a remarkable first novel. It is a remarkable novel.” Silas
“Her work has many striking qualities: energy, a rich profusion of characters clearly seen and relentlessly portrayed, and a thoroughly modern treatment of that all-absorbing theme of today—the duel of the generations. One is inclined to think that she has put too much into her book. She leaves too little to the imagination, with the result that very few of her characters engage the affection of the reader.”
“Few have gone further in the successful analysis of motives than the authoress of this interesting novel.”
CARTER, ARTHUR HAZELTON, and ARNOLD, ARCHIBALD VINCENT. Field artillery instruction. il *$6.50 Putnam 358
“A complete manual of instruction for prospective field artillery officers.” (Sub-title) Contents: Physical instruction; Dismounted drill and military courtesies; Matériel; Drill of the gun squad; Fire discipline; Field gunnery; Conduct of fire; Communication; Orientation and topography: Reconnaissance; Horses and their care; Riding and driving; Cleaning and care of equipment; Entraining and detraining. There are 272 illustrations, two appendices and an index. The work is based on the authors’ experience at the Field artillery central officers training school, Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky.
CARTHAGE, PHILIP I. Retail organization and accounting control. *$3 (4c) Appleton 658
This book covers the subject of accounting as applied to the department store, specialty shop and retail store of any description. The author says: “I have long felt the need of a text book on department store procedure, and have endeavored to render my book useful by its treatment of accounting, management and systems. Theory is entirely eliminated. Practical application and experience are its governing features.” (Introd.) Contents: Books in use and procedure; Books in use; Sales checks and return checks; Auditing; Balance sheet (three chapters); Turnover; Merchandising (two chapters); Profit and loss; Burden; Profit and loss; Alteration department. The book is illustrated with fifty-eight forms (tables, charts, etc.) and is indexed.
CARVER, THOMAS NIXON.[2] Elementary economics. il $1.72 Ginn 330
“It is the purpose of this book to examine the economic foundations of our national welfare and to point out some of the simpler and more direct methods of strengthening these foundations.” (Introd.) There is a topical treatment of the chapters, after the manner of textbooks, under which each topic is briefly explained and a list of exercise questions at the end of each chapter. The divisions of the book are: What makes a nation prosperous; Economizing labor; The productive activities; Exchange; Dividing the product of industry; The consumption of wealth; Reform. The book is indexed and illustrated.
CASTIER, JULES. Rather like.... *$2.25 (3c) Lippincott 847
“Rather like” is a book of parodies on English authors, written by a Frenchman while interned in a German prison camp. Before bringing out the work the English publisher submitted a proof of each parody to the author parodied and the comments received in reply are printed in an introductory note. The sketches are genuine parodies, not burlesques. Among them are G. K. Chesterton: What’s maddening about man; A. Conan Doyle: The footprints on the ceiling; John Galsworthy: Punishment; Charles Garvice: The power of love; W. W. Jacobs: The yellow pipe; Rudyard Kipling: The song of the penny whistle; G. Bernard Shaw: The exploiters.
“These parodies are highly creditable as the work of a foreigner, but they are not really effective. One can recognize the subjects of the parodies, but the author adopts the long-nose method in exaggerating none but the obvious features.”
CASTLE, AGNES (SWEETMAN) (MRS EGERTON CASTLE), and CASTLE, EGERTON. John Seneschal’s Margaret. *$2 (2½c) Appleton
John Tempest and John Seneschal, comrades and strangely alike, suffer untold agonies imprisoned together in Turkey. Seneschal finally breaks under the strain and is buried in the wilderness by Tempest. So much the prologue tells. The story proper begins with a hospital in London. Tempest is a patient here and as a result of a head wound is suffering from loss of memory. He is identified by the Seneschal family as their son and heir and taken to their home. He is horribly aware that this is all wrong but cannot recall his own identity and his fixed belief that John Seneschal is dead is considered one of the delusions of his mental condition. The one other certainty that he clings to is the face and name of Margaret—and Margaret was Seneschal’s childhood sweetheart. In all the confusion of his clouded mind she seems the one thing that is true and real. After rest and care and love have been given him, his mind suddenly clears and he knows that he is John Tempest usurping the place of John Seneschal. Complete recollection brings problems whose solution taxes all the love and honor of John Tempest’s manhood, but from which he emerges true blue.
“We may be glad of this—that the book with which Egerton Castle has bidden us farewell is not only artistically worthy of one who loved and respected his art, but contains a depth and richness of feeling far beyond that of any of the blithe tales preceding it, while in all the long line of his heroines there is not one finer or more lovable than she who was ‘John Seneschal’s Margaret.’” L. M. Field
“Entertaining and vigorous narrative.”
“The story is indeed one of the best productions of Mr and Mrs Egerton Castle.”
CASTLE, AGNES (SWEETMAN) (MRS EGERTON CASTLE), and CASTLE, EGERTON.[2] Little hours in great days. *$2 Dutton
“The latest volume by Agnes and Egerton Castle, ‘Little hours in great days,’ is one of domestic thrills such as the Castles know how to evoke so well. It is a continuation in spirit and in form of their ‘Little house in war time,’ with the difference explained. ‘The little house, after many vicissitudes, stands, even as the world stands today, upon a return to order and new kindly hopes.’ The Castles have a gardener, now that such men are luxuriously possible, and ensuing chapters reveal in a quiet way the joys of gardening and a gardener. Some chapters are by one writer and some by the other; from long association their style is uniform, and in these garden chapters difficult to attribute—if we had not been told. As with other English writers who cannot quickly forget the war, better chapters follow, ‘Tommy at war’ and ‘The soul of the soldier,’ for example, which take up and also look back upon the man in khaki after November, 1918.”—Boston Transcript
“The best of the volume is in the character sketches it contains, agreeable rather than sharp-cut, of people they have known intimately. The authors’ delicacy is real, their feelings just, and their desire to please obvious.”
“Mr and Mrs Castle will find it difficult entirely to acquit themselves of the charge of having written a ‘pretty-pretty’ book. In writing about the maimed soldiers Mr and Mrs Castle show a fine quality of mind and a sympathy that increases with spending.”
CASWELL, JOHN. Sporting rifles and rifle shooting. il *$4 Appleton 799
“The notes and suggestions contained in this book are the result of experience in many lands and against practically all kinds of game, as well as on the target range and in actual military service. Its purpose is to supply data for the hunter against game and to give both hunter and target shooter more simple solutions of the rather intricate methods in use for the calculation of elevation, windage, and atmospheric conditions.” (Preface) Chapters are devoted to: Rifle types; Game rifles; Target rifles; Actions; Stocks; Sights; Cleaning; Bullets; Lubrication of bullets; Cartridges; Elevations; Windage and atmosphere; Judgment of distance; Position; Aiming and trigger squeeze; Stalking and cover; Aims for vital points on game. In addition there are eight appendices, devoted to various matters including Historical sketch of the evolution of the rifle, glossary, and a select bibliography of the rifle. There are eighty-one illustrations and an index.
“With certain limitations, much to be regretted, he has written a very good book. It is to be regretted that Col. Caswell has failed to recognize a wider range of choice in rifles, that he has neglected to discuss the human facter as the principle element in the killing of game.” C: Sheldon
“Although the book makes no pretenses to literary style, it contains passages that many novelists might well envy.”
CATHER, WILLA SIBERT. Youth and the bright Medusa. *$2.25 (3c) Knopf
This collection of stories presents four of Miss Cather’s recent short stories: Coming, Aphrodite!; The diamond mine; A gold slipper; and Scandal. To these are added four of the earlier stories with which she first won critical appreciation: Paul’s case; A Wagner matinée; The sculptor’s funeral; and “A death in the desert.” In the early as in the later stories the theme is youth and art.
“The first four are longer and more ambitious, but not so strong. Her real shortcoming is that she is at present quite without a ‘style’; placed beside any European model of imaginative prose she is dowdy and rough, wanting rhythm and distinction.” O. W.
“Honest, skillfully wrought stories. Their ruthless, almost cynical, unmasking of sometimes ugly truths will repel some readers.”
“The author perceives life from many angles, all subsidiary to her comprehensive outlook; she has the faculty of getting under the skin of each character, or of speaking from his mouth: she is economical, therefore powerful, in her management of action, interaction and contrast; she succeeds remarkably in conveying the sense of detachment which the ‘different’ from their kind experience.” B. C. Williams
“As studies of success, of the successful, of the victims of ‘big careers,’ as simply of ambition, above all of the quality of ambition in women, they probably are not surpassed.”
“The thing is told with the utmost skill, and the deftest effects of descriptive incident. The two contrasted personalities are projected as firmly in a few strokes as if a whole novel had been filled with the details of their careers.” E. A. B.
“The stories have the radiance of perfect cleanliness, like the radiance of burnished glass. Miss Cather’s book is more than a random collection of excellent tales. It constitutes as a whole one of the truest as well as, in a sober and earnest sense, one of the most poetical interpretations of American life that we possess.”
“Feeling she has, and romantic glamour, but at no time does she seem easily irradiant. For this reason her very effectiveness, her shrewd impersonal security in the arrangement and despatch of her story, has a formality that takes away from the flowing line of real self-expression. Better than the familiar vast ineptitude, this formality. But Miss Cather is perhaps still withholding from her fiction something that is intimate, essential and ultimate.” F. H.
“‘Youth and the bright Medusa’ is decidedly a literary event which no lover of the best fiction will want to miss.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“Miss Cather is one of a small group of American authors who are producing literature of a high type and adding to the literary laurels of America in Europe. She is an artist with a sure touch in moulding a plot and depicting a motive. The longer stories here—Coming, Aphrodite and The diamond mine—are consummate in both respects.”
CAUSE of world unrest. *$2.50 Putnam 296
The American publishers of this English book decline to accept any responsibility for the soundness of the conclusions presented. H. A. Gwynne, editor of the London Morning Post, in a long introduction of approval of the contents, also points out that its editors do not assume the authenticity of the documents upon which it is based—the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The contention of the book is “that there has been for centuries a hidden conspiracy, chiefly Jewish, whose objects have been and are to produce revolution, communism, and anarchy, by means of which they hope to arrive at the hegemony of the world by establishing some sort of despotic rule.” (Introd.)
“Unfortunately, truth is a matter of proportion. We do not doubt that the industrious authors of this volume have amassed material that might become a valuable footnote to history—in the hands of a historian. Alas that there should lie so great a difference between induction and deduction; and that in the discharge of even the sternest ‘public duty’ a sense of humor should be so essential!”
“The book is one which parlor Bolshevists ought to read, yes, every one ought to read it who is interested in the development of free government, and especially those simple-minded optimists who think that the key to progress has been found and that government is a well understood thing.” J: J. Chapman
“The authors are conspicuously honest, but their honesty inclines to credulity, and they are disposed to confuse ‘post hoc’ with ‘propter hoc.’ While admitting that ebullient Israel requires to be carefully watched, we really cannot, in these days of unstinted publicity, swallow mysterious stories about a ‘formidable sect.’”
“The book which appears under the pretentious title, ‘The cause of world unrest’ contains nothing to make good its pretenses.” Harry Schneiderman
CENTER, STELLA STEWART, comp. Worker and his work. (Lippincott’s school text ser.) il *$2 Lippincott 820.8
“‘The worker and his work,’ by Stella S. Center, is a text for high schools designed ‘to meet the needs of boys and girls who feel the urgent necessity of selecting the right vocation.’ It is a book of prose selections from present-day writers, ranging from H. G. Wells to Harold Bell Wright, interspersed with a few bits of verse.” (Nation) “It is not concerned with processes nor practical problems. The illustrations are from artists who use some form of labor for their subjects; they include Meunier, Pennell and Rodin.” (Booklist)
“The selections themselves leave a confusing and contradictory impression.”
“It is rather a romantic statement of modern industry than a true one. The book, however, should find a real place and should give to many students a preliminary picture of the variety of industry.” Alexander Fleisher
CHAFEE, ZECHARIAH, jr. Freedom of speech. *$3.50 Harcourt 323.4
The object of the book is to inquire into the proper limitations upon freedom of speech by way of ascertaining the nature and scope of the policy which finds expression in the First amendment to the United States constitution and then to determine the place of that policy in the conduct of war. With a wide and learned acquaintance with the law, the author’s endeavor is to get behind the rules of law to human facts, and although not in personal sympathy with the views of most of the men who have been imprisoned since the war began for speaking out, he declares with certitude “that the First amendment forbids the punishment of words merely for their injurious tendencies. The history of the amendment and the political function of free speech corroborate each other and make this conclusion plain.” Contents: Freedom of speech in war time; Opposition to the war with Germany; A contemporary state trial—the United States v. Jacob Abrams et al; Legislation against sedition and anarchy; The deportations; John Wilkes, Victor Berger, and the five members; Freedom and initiative in the schools; Appendices (including Bibliography); Index of cases; General index.
“This is a book very much ‘up to the minute,’ with which every judge and every lawyer should be familiar as a matter of professional routine; every newspaper editor should know it by heart. Every liberty-loving American will find it profoundly disturbing reading. To those who have despaired of freedom of speech in America this calm, scholarly, sane exposition of very recent history will sound like a clear bell in a moral fog.” J: P. Gavit
“His book is courageous and sound, simple and scholarly.” Albert De Silver
CHAFFEE, ALLEN. Lost river. il $1.60 (3c) Bradley, M.
A story of two boys lost in the Maine woods. Ralph Merritt, a city boy on his vacation, and Tim Crawford, the guide’s son, wander away from their companions in search of raspberries. They lose themselves in the thicket and are unable to regain the trail. Reaching a river which they mistakenly think to be the stream their party is following, they start in the wrong direction and go further and further away. The story tells of their adventures with animals, of their means of finding food and shelter from cold and storm. They touch civilization again on reaching the cabin of a forest ranger, and so enamored are they of life in the open that they decide to prepare for the forest service.
“In addition to its first purpose, that of being an entertaining story, ‘Lost river’ abounds in practical information about wood-life that will make a summer vacation more enjoyable.” H. L. Reed
CHALMERS, STEPHEN. Greater punishment. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday
Following five years of vagabondage, the hero of this story returns to his home in Glasgow. He has not made his fortune and is not ready to pay back the five hundred pounds his father had given him on his twenty-first birthday, but he returns with a clean record and a good name. He is about to announce his return to his family when fate throws him in the way of an old ship mate, Joe Byrnes, alias “Shylock” Smith. He knows this man to have a criminal record but he is tolerant of his faults and the two make a night of it. He is later a witness to the murder of Byrnes and when arrested cannot clear himself, for to do so would involve the girl he loves. The deep mystery surrounding Daniel Bunthorne, Jess’s father, finally clears away; by a miscarriage of justice the hero’s life is saved. His parents are spared knowledge of his near approach to death and with Jess, he sails away to Canada and a new life.
CHALMERS, THOMAS WIGHTMAN. Paper making and its machinery. il *$8 Van Nostrand 676
A work on paper making “including chapters on the tub sizing of paper, the coating and finishing of art paper and the coating of photographic paper.” (Sub-title) The author is on the editorial staff of the Engineer and the book is based on two series of articles, on Paper making and its machinery and on The art of coating paper that appeared in that journal in 1915 and 1916. The volume is very fully illustrated, having six folding plates and 144 illustrations in the text. It is also indexed.
“A valuable contribution that will be appreciated by all who are interested in the operations.”
“Mr Chalmers’ effort, admirable as it is, regarded in its proper aspect as a pioneer to some such technical treatise, falls far short of our expectations in this direction. It is doubtful whether a really practical and useful textbook on the engineering problems of the paper industry will ever be written. The two most interesting chapters in the book are those dealing with The coating of art paper and The coating of photographic paper. Taking the book as a whole, we are glad to recommend it to those associated with the paper industry.” R. W. Sindall
CHAMBERLAIN, GEORGE AGNEW. Taxi. il *$1.60 Bobbs
“This is a whimsically humorous account of the adventures of Robert Hervey Randolph, ‘six feet straight up and down, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, sandy haired, blue eyed, nose slightly up-ended and wearing a saddle of faint freckles, clean shaved, well groomed, very correctly dressed, and twenty-six years old,’ who swaps places with a New York taxicab driver, clothes and all, and gathers some big ideas while studying the under side of the upper world through a hole in the front glass of his car. His experiment convinced him that a chaperoned cab company was badly needed in New York.”—N Y Times
“Viewed seriously, ‘Taxi’ is a piece of sheer absurdity: but it is not written for the serious view. Still, merely as a piece of deliberate nonsense, I don’t find it remarkably successful. Its gaiety is not quite spontaneous.” H. W. Boynton
“The most sanguine admirer of Mr Chamberlain would be obliged to admit that ‘Taxi’ is a pot-boiler. It is not, moreover, a very choice specimen of pot-boiling. The product is of a watery character, in which a few bits of nourishment float pathetically.”
“An agreeable romance runs through this original tale and all ends well.”
Reviewed by Marguerite Fellows
CHAMBERS, ROBERT WILLIAM. Crimson tide. il *$1.75 Appleton
“Mr Chambers shrewdly gives us glimpses of two scenes which take place before the beginning of the story, but which are vitally important to our understanding of it. One is a foreword and contains the first meeting of Palla Dumont, Ilse Westgard and John Estridge. Estridge is an ambulance driver in Russia, detailed to take Palla Dumont to the Grand Duchess Marie who has obtained permission to have her American companion and dear friend with her in the convent where the imperial family are confined. In the preface we have an equally important scene taking place in the convent when the Bolsheviki arrive to put to death the empress and her children. With such exciting events behind her it is little wonder that Palla Dumont has no real desire to settle down to the ordinary life of the United States after the signing of the armistice. The story is largely concerned with Palla’s revolt from the conventional and her endeavor to fight the rising tide of bolshevism in New York by preaching her gospel of love and service.”—Boston Transcript
“One pictures Mr Chambers awakened by the alarm clock of destiny to realization that the hour is striking in which he must begin to write a new novel and saying to himself with infinite boredom: ‘What in thunder is there left in the world that I haven’t written about? Bolshevism? Is Bolshevism among my titles?”
“It is all fairly interesting, but rather shallow.”
“‘The crimson tide’ promises, in its inception, to be a lively story of adventuring with a strain of characteristic Chambers romance.”
CHAMBERS, ROBERT WILLIAM. Slayer of souls. *$1.75 (2½c) Doran
When the story opens the heroine, Tressa Norne, is on shipboard leaving behind her China and the memories of her four years as a captive temple girl. When next met she is in a hotel room in San Francisco, expelling an intruder by the simple expedient of opening a bolted door with the power of her eye, and causing a yellow snake to appear out of the atmosphere. Next she is on the stage in New York giving an exhibition of black magic, with secret service men watching her. Victor Cleves obtains an interview and enlists her in a crusade against the “red spectre,” anarchy, otherwise bolshevism. For the secret of the bolshevist advance is really magic, “brewed in the hell pit of Asia.” It has conquered Russia, is spreading over Europe and threatening the United States, where already the I. W. W., the parlor socialists and some two million other deluded mortals are in the power of the dread Yezidees of China. Indeed, we have the author’s own word for it that all that stood between “a trembling civilization and threat of hell’s own chaos” was this little band of secret service men and one lone girl. Civilization totters but is saved.
“‘The slayer of souls’ is as good a story as ‘In secret,’ and that is no mean praise. We embark upon strange and perilous adventures, and it is not long that we bother to count whether or not the episodes of his tale are practicable. They are exciting and they are full of wonder, which suffices.” D. L. M.
“It is a well told story, but Mr Chambers, our most shining example of a debased talent, can write better than he does here.”
“The reader sympathizes wholly with one of the characters who at the end of the book ‘whispers hoarsely, “For God’s sake, let us get out of this!”’”
“The stories provide diverse entertainment but are in nowise above mediocrity.”
“The book serves only to show that an author, reputed of great skill in casting the storyteller’s spell over his readers while leaving thought and emotion unstirred, can on occasion forget that skill, and write as clumsily as any novice.”
CHAMBRUN, JACQUES ALDEBERT DE PINETON, comte de, and MARENCHES, CHARLES, comte de. American army in the European conflict. *$3 Macmillan 940.373
“An account of the American military activities from a French source. The two French officers who were the authors of this work were attached to General Pershing’s staff.” (R of Rs) “The work is remarkably comprehensive, and in its 400 pages embraces a rapid but complete survey of American preparation for war, the transport of men and supplies across the ocean, the training of the troops in France, the organization and work of the services of supply, construction work in France, the part taken by different units of the A. E. F. with the allied armies, the organization of the American forces into their own armies and the part they thus played in battle.” (N Y Times)
“The facts which they present are beyond dispute, and the presentation is singularly free of any discussion of the friction which arose between us and our allies over the methods in which the necessary cooperation between us was effected. The narrative is unbalanced in treating so much in detail minor actions of the first few divisions arriving in France.”
“Written without sentimentality, in a clear, logical, analytical manner.”
“The book is of special value in that it gives perhaps the best account of the organization of the American troops in France.”
“Some of the distinctive qualities of the French genius for expression are evident in the clarity, the logical arrangement, the precision with which the narrative is presented. Noteworthy throughout the book are the understanding of American character and the appreciation of how it has been formed and colored by the history and conditions of the country.”
CHAMPION, JESSIE. Sunshine in Underwood. *$1.75 (2½c) Lane
A trifling comedy of errors involving a young English parson on his holiday. Bob Truesdale had meant to spend his month’s leave with Colonel Massey but at the station he is hailed with joy by Uncle Joseph and Aunt Emily who mistake him for their nephew, Bob Upton. What he learns in the next half hour about the feud between the colonel and the vicar and the part he had been destined to play in it, also about the colonel’s plans for himself and Nora Massey, decides him and he keeps up the deception. Later a friend appears who is willing to play the part of Bob Truesdale and still later the real Bob Upton, who all the time has been engaged to Nora, comes on the scene and Truesdale is glad enough by then to be relieved of his disguise for he is already deeply in love with Hilda, the vicar’s daughter, and wants to do his courting in his own proper person.
“A light and cheerful story.”
“Light, irresponsible, amusing fare. It is the sort of thing that one may read or fall asleep over, as it may happen, with no harm done either way.”
“This is one of the funniest books of the season.”
CHANCELLOR, WILLIAM ESTABROOK. Educational sociology. *$2.25 Century 301
“Although the author, who is the head of the Department of political and social science at the College of Wooster, states in his preface that the work is written as an introductory textbook in sociology from the educational point of view, it is hardly that, but rather a work on social psychology, in which field it is very successful. Part one, on Social movement, treats public opinion, citizenship, social solidarity, custom, tradition, habit, rules of the game, revivals, panics, crazes, strikes, political campaigns, and similar topics. Part two, on Social institutions, does not take up the evolution of social institutions, but is a study of the organization and control of society through its institutions, taking up the state, property, the family, the church, the school, occupation and under minor institutions, charity, amusement, art, science, business, and war. Part three, on Social measurements, consists of seven chapters. The one on institutional workers treats the value placed upon different groups of institutional workers, as lawyers, doctors, teachers, business men, artists, and entertainers.”—Survey
“In the field of sociology he is in his usual style: always original and often brilliant.” F. R. Clow
“Well indexed.”
“The breezy style, the vigorous language, the wealth of information, the multitude of applicable suggestions, compensate for the frequently dogmatic tone and for what will be for too many teachers and normal students new topics and new thoughts and new attitudes.”
“It is a misnomer to call the volume ‘Educational sociology.’ The treatment is not focused upon education, whether curriculum, methods, or administration. There is no treatment of sociological phenomena, relations, or principles in such a way as to show how types of education have been produced, how schools and society in general are interrelated, or what kind of education is dictated by present-day social conditions. No coherent educational program is indicated.”
“It has no thoughts running through the work. Instead, its arrangement is haphazard, being a collection of valuable and interesting social facts. The book is a valuable work, for it is a mine of facts and illustrations of social psychology and ought to be extremely useful to the teacher of sociology as such.” G. S. Dow
CHANDLER, ANNA CURTIS. More magic pictures of the long ago; stories of the people of many lands. il *$1.40 Holt 372.6
This book follows the plan of “Magic pictures of the long ago,” published last year. It is made up of stories told to children during the story hour in the Metropolitan museum of art, New York city. Among them are: A great Egyptian queen, Hatshepsut; In the land of the minotaur; A story from colored glass, or, Justinian and Theodora; A tale of a great crusade; At the court of Philip IV; In the time of Paul Revere. The illustrations are from pictures and art objects in the museum, and there is a bibliography at the beginning and an epilogue, “About story hours,” that will be helpful to teachers.
CHANDLER, FRANK WADLEIGH. Contemporary drama of France. *$1.50 (1½c) Little 842
The volume comes under the Contemporary drama series edited by Richard Burton. The author claims it to be the most inclusive of all the English books on the subject published in the present century. It “offers a survey and an interpretation of the French drama for three decades, from the opening of the Theâtre-Libre of Antoine to the conclusion of the world war. It attempts the classification, analysis, and criticism of a thousand plays by two hundred and thirty authors.” (Preface) Contents: Precursors of the moderns; Masters of stagecraft; Naturalism and the free theatre; Laureates of love; Ironic realists; Makers of mirth; Moralists; Reformers; Minor poets and romancers; Major poets and romancers; Importers and war exploiters; Bibliographical appendix; Index.
“The combination of enthusiasm and judgment is excellent.” Gilbert Seldes
“It would be an odious thing to make light of this book, a book that represents so patent and prodigious an outlay of intelligent labour. And yet! Is this, after all, the contemporary drama of France? There are so many trees and so many leaves on each tree in this kind of criticism that one doesn’t see the forest at all. There is no proportion, no light and shade, no judgment, in short, no taste essentially, in all these laborious, lucid, skilfully prepared pages.”
“Mr Chandler, in a word, exhibits that blank awe which strikes so many admirable academic minds among us at the mere sight of a hollow technical dexterity.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“So close an analysis is of undoubted value to the playwright who can see in the most barren plot the ultimate beauty of its development, but even a public devoted to drama will not wax enthusiastic over an anatomical study of the subject.”
“Mr Chandler has produced an excellent handbook, but not a critical interpretation.”
CHAPIN, ANNA ALICE. Jane. *$1.75 (2½c) Putnam
Jane, small, red-haired, Irish, selfless, loving, innocent, is queer. She has both temperament and a temper and it is owing to both of these that she runs away from home, from her lethargic, fat and flabby mother and her ponderous, soulless stepfather to join a one-night-stand theatrical troupe. She travels across the continent with them, adopts and mothers each member in turn as the need arises, while all the temptations and dangers of such a life glance off from her guileless innocence as from an armor. Tom Brainerd, the sub-manager, is a mixture of brutality and tenderness. He loves her, bullies and frightens her, but at last when she fully realizes the strength, tenderness and sincerity underneath the roughness he conquers her.
“Jane is a likeable girl, in spite of sunshine girl tradition, and her courage and struggles must appeal to readers, in spite of an inevitable sense of unreality surrounding the story.”
“The author tells her story in a cheerful vein, but does not neglect to picture the hectic environment in which the heroine lives.”
CHAPIN, CHARLES. Charles Chapin’s story. *$2.50 (3½c) Putnam
This autobiography of a man now serving a life sentence at Sing Sing for the murder of his wife, has an introduction by Basil King, who suggested the writing of the story to the prisoner as a means of escaping from his own morbid thoughts. The book contains the experiences of a newspaper man of forty years’ standing. The author was city editor of the New York Evening World at the time of the tragedy. Contents: From the bottom; Barnstorming; Chicago “Tribune” days; My first big “scoop”; A murder mystery; “Star” reporting; A city editor at twenty-five; Breaking into Park Row; On the “World’s” city desk; Newspapering today; The Pulitzers; Newspaper ethics; Gathering clouds; Tragedy; A “lifer” in Sing Sing.
“The recital of the morbid psychological conditions that led to the author’s crime does not make wholesome reading. Nevertheless the book is one of the most remarkable that ever came from within prison walls.”
“The author tells his story in direct and simple English, wasting no words, and stopping when the tale is completed. In comparison with some literary products, the work may seem ‘choppy’ at times, but the human story is there and written in a style easily understood and followed.”
CHAPMAN, ERNEST HALL. Study of the weather. il *$1.10 Putnam 551.5
“The present volume of the Cambridge nature study series has been written chiefly to provide a series of practical exercises on weather study.... In addition to serving its primary purpose as a school-book it is hoped that the book will be acceptable as an introduction to the study of modern meteorology.” (Introd.) It is an English work and its problems and illustrations are based on climatic conditions in the British Isles. Contents: The weather day by day, observations of wind; What to look for in watching the weather; Clouds, the colours of the sky; Fog and mist, dew and frost; Rain, snow and hail, thunderstorms; Temperature and humidity; The pressure of the atmosphere; Weather charts; Cyclones and anticyclones; Anticipation of weather. Appendixes contain exercises, a syllabus of weather study for elementary schools and a bibliography. There are illustrations, maps and charts and an index.
“It is a type of book which will undoubtedly be of very great interest to pupils and will stimulate in them an attitude toward scientific method which will carry on into other fields. The book ought to be imitated by an American edition which will give an account of the conditions on this continent similar to that which is given for the neighborhood of England.”
“It is elementary but it is lucid. Nothing could be better as an introduction to an important subject.”
CHAPMAN, FRANK MICHLER. What bird is that? il *$1.25 Appleton 598.2
“A pocket museum of the land birds of the eastern United States arranged according to season.” (Sub-title) The author is curator of birds in the American museum of natural history, and in this book he has reproduced one of the museum features, the seasonal collection of birds. The plates, eight in number, are arranged to show Permanent resident land birds of the northern United States, Winter visitant land birds of the northern United States, Winter land birds of the southern United States, etc. The bird figures in these plates are small but they have been drawn with particular care to accuracy in color and form. They have also been drawn as nearly as possible to the same scale so that comparative sizes are indicated. A bird “map” as frontispiece also makes identification and the reading of descriptions easier. The plates, which are the work of Edmund J. Sawyer, are arranged at the beginning, followed by the text. There is an index.
“This compact little guide may well become the vade mecum of the birdlover.”
“For the amateur this book is the simplest, as well as the most authoritative, bird guide.”
CHASE, JOSEPH CUMMINGS. Soldiers all. il *$7.50 Doran 940.373
The author was sent overseas by the War department to paint the portraits of the officers and distinguished soldiers at the American front. As a result he offers this book with 133 portraits and biographical sketches of the subjects. The other contents are the foreword by the author; a list of the army corps and division assignments; the thirteen major operations; and a description of the American military decorations.
“The portraits are spirited, varied, and alive with the characteristic traits of the American soldier. They constitute a fine and enduring achievement.”
“A glance through the book shows that, though there are many types among the picked manhood of America, a distinctively American type is evolving. It might be possible for an anatomist to define the special points in a characteristically American face with the help of such a collection of clever portraits as this.”
CHASE, JOSEPH SMEATON. Penance of Magdalena, and other tales of the California missions. il *$1 (3½c) Houghton
Magdalena was half-Spanish and half-Indian, in the early days of the mission of San Juan Capistrano. She and Teófilo, the padre’s favorite Indian neophyte, loved each other dearly. But Magdalena, being part Spanish, was not sufficiently humble and obedient to suit the padre and he would not give his consent to the marriage before Magdalena had done a penance, i.e. appeared at mass carrying a penitent’s candle. Love conquered pride at last, but in the midst of the service an earthquake shook the church and the falling walls killed the lovers. The other missions represented in the cycle are: San Diego de Alcalá, in Padre Urbano’s umbrella; San Gabriel Arcángel, in The bells of San Gabriel; San Fernando, in The buried treasure of Simí; and Santa Bárbara, in Love in the padres’ garden. There are illustrations.
“All are charming and some of them are humorous.”
CHATHAM, DENNIS, and CHATHAM, MARION, pseuds. Cape Coddities. il *$1.35 (7c) Houghton 917.4 20–10073
This collection of essays, the authors say, is not to be taken as a serious attempt to describe the Cape or to delineate its people, but merely to express their perennial enthusiasm for this summer holiday land. They prefer “to think of the Cape as a playground for the initiate, a wonderland for children, and a haven of rest for the tired of all ages, a land where lines and wrinkles quickly disappear under the soothing softness of the tempered climate.” Contents: A message from the past; The casual dwelling-place; The ubiquitous clam; A by-product of conservation; Motor tyrannicus; “Change and rest”—summer bargaining; A blue streak; A fresh-water cape; Al Fresco; Models; “A wet sheet and a flowing sea”; My cape farm; Scallops; Aftermath. The book is illustrated.
“Pleasant little essays.”
“‘Cape Coddities’ is a gem of a book, for its text, illustrations, and general appearance.” E. L. Pearson
CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH. Chorus girl, and other stories. *$1.75 Macmillan
This is volume eight in Mrs Garnett’s translation of Chekhov’s stories. Contents: The chorus girl; Verotchka; My life; At a country house; A father; On the road; Rothschild’s fiddle; Ivan Matveyitch; Zinotchka; Bad weather; A gentleman friend; A trivial incident.
“Fairly representative of the author’s relentless realism and his keen though not unsympathetic insight into human nature.”
“The tales have each its special sharpness, but how little are they a moralizing and how much a sophistication, an enrichment of experience!”
“The Chekhov of these stories is the typical naturalist. He is a naturalist, that is to say, not merely on some artistic theory, but by instinct and need. He is the man whose vision of life has caused him suffering, whose contacts have brought him pain. He has little of the Russian’s compassion; he has the artist’s cruelty toward those who have pierced and jangled his delicate nerves. The novelette My life has a note of relenting. The two stories that have a touch of gentleness and of the sadder poetry of life—Verotchka and Zinotchka—read like memories of moments that were painful enough to be recalled but not bitter enough to be resented in after years.”
“Chekhov applies the knife, which is his eye, to everyone alike. And in this critical insight is one of his distinguishing characteristics. To read Chekhov is to come in contact with a man of great sensitiveness and witty subtleties yet a man of wide sanity and plain humane feeling.” F. H.
“There is no trickery about Chekhov’s story telling; he is given neither to happy endings nor to ironical twists of narration. His tales are simply unadorned cross-sections of life, studied and described with passionless accuracy. Chekhov’s reaction to life is revealed in his treatment of his characters—a reaction neither bitter nor sentimental, but grave and just and charitable.” A. C. Freeman
“His stories are replete with interest, with vivid glimpses of the baffling Russia of yesterday. It is a picture of hopelessness painted by a master without hope.”
CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH. Letters of Anton Tchekhov to his family and friends; tr. from the Russian by Constance Garnett. *$3 Macmillan
“The family of Anton Chekhov, the Russian novelist, has published 1890 of his letters. From this great mass of correspondence Mrs Garnett has selected for translation those passages which seem to her to throw most light on the novelist’s life, character and opinions. A biographical sketch, taken from the memoirs written by Chekhov’s brother, introduces the volume.”—R of Rs
“The publication of this volume of his letters affords an opportunity for the examination of some of the chief constituents of his perfect art. These touch us nearly because the supreme interest of Tchekhov is that he is the only great modern artist in prose. As we read these letters of his, we feel gradually from within ourselves the conviction that he was a hero—more than that, the hero of our time.” J. M. M.
“A secondary interest is the continuous passage of scenes of Russian life in all their fascinating variety.”
“It may be said that the letters of Chekhov are at first sight disappointing. They corroborate only faintly and unemphatically the life so vivid in outline. Either they have been subjected to a drastic process of selection and expurgation, or they represent the reduction of experience to an even, neutral tone of objective observation, of detachment, almost of indifference. Both explanations are doubtless in a measure true. Among letter-writers he belongs to the school of Prosper Merimée rather than Stevenson.” R. M. Lovett
“His letters are the letters of a man without calculativeness or envy—untrammelled, unpremeditative, unspoiled. To read him, when he is favorable or the reverse ... is to feel the same pleasure that he himself had in sea-bathing: ‘Sea-bathing is so nice that when I got into the water I began to laugh for no reason at all.’ His personality, so unforced, is like that; and when his letters stop, it is as if a heart stops, he is so palpable.” F. H.
“They are colorful, vigorous, entertaining, but the Chekhov who wrote them is that faithful, talented reporter who chronicles fact without opinion, and who rarely allows the reader an intimate association with himself. Of course, the letters are just as they should be; one could not expect the writer of the ‘Tales’ to be a correspondent after the fashion of the author of ‘Treasure Island.’”
“In spite of the early and full maturity of Tchehov’s mind and intellect we seem to retrieve in his letters the consciousness and sensibility of childhood with all its vividness and absorption.”
CHELEY, FRANK HOBART.[2] Overland for gold. *$1.50 Abingdon press
“Its scene laid in the early ’60s, Frank H. Cheley’s new story for boys tells of the adventures of a party of gold seekers who made their way to Colorado in the days when Denver was a town of shacks to which the law had as yet scarcely penetrated. Clayton Trout, one of the two boys in the party, is the narrator and tells how his uncle Herman, who had been in the gold rush to California, equipped a small company with tools, food, etc., and several wagons drawn by oxen, and set forth to meet the dangers and difficulties of the trail. The book describes first the journey, on which they encountered Indians, herds of buffalo, wolves, etc., and then the arrival at Mountain City and the adventures which befell them in their search for gold.”—N Y Times
“This is a ‘corking’ good story.”
“Though the occurrences are not related in a very spirited manner, ‘Overland for gold’ will probably please the boy readers for whom it is intended.”
“The valuable part of the book is the description of gold mining in the Rockies.”
CHELEY, FRANK HOBART. Stories for talks to boys. *$2 Assn. press 808.8
A collection of brief stories, “brought together here for the convenience of Sunday school teachers, boys’ club leaders, Young men’s Christian association secretaries, Boy scoutmasters, and any others who are called upon to talk to boys informally or even formally to address them.... They have been selected from the four winds, ... clipped from books, magazines, and even dally papers, ... gathered from sermons, personal conversations, and other sources.... They have been arranged under abstract headings for convenience in finding what is wanted.” (Preface) Some of these headings are as follows: Appreciation; Cigarettes; Convictions; Diligence; Health; Ideals; Influence; Mother; Procrastination; Use of time; Vision, etc. The author is connected with the boys’ work department, International committee of Young men’s Christian associations, and is author also of “Told by the camp fire,” “Camping with Henry,” etc.
“Just the kind of anecdotes which preachers, Sunday school teachers and other speakers like to use to adorn the tale which points a moral.”
CHELLEW, HENRY. Human and industrial efficiency; preface by Lord Sydenham. *$2 (9c) Putnam 658.7
The book aims to map out the broad outlines of the problem of human efficiency and lays no claim to academic or scientific treatment. “Today as never before we are called upon to mobilize all our thoughts, acts and emotions in the name of efficiency” but “efficiency is not a mechanical thing; it is the science of life itself” and scientific management and welfare work have only taken the first steps towards humanizing the life of the worker. Contents: Introductory; Human efficiency; What is fatigue? Applied psychology; Selecting employees; Scientific management and the welfare of the worker; Appendix: Handling the human factor; Training executives for efficiency; How to establish an efficiency club.
“There is nothing very new in the matter or treatment; there are the usual generalities and assumptions, but the book is clearly written.”
“The volume fortunately is short, for it contains little particularly worth reading that has not been much better said by others.” E. R. Burton
CHENG, SIH-GUNG. Modern China, a political study. (Histories of the nations) *$3.25 Oxford 951
“Mr Cheng’s book is the work of a serious student of the troubles of his native land, who has taken great pains to equip himself by an academic training in this country [England]. He gives us a useful analysis of the differences between north and south, which is the crux of the situation at the moment; and the conclusion one comes to is that there is a number of military gentlemen concerned who have a profound suspicion of each other, and who for that reason maintain semi-private armies somehow to maintain themselves in their rickety positions. The struggle is said not to be territorial, and both sides pay little attention to the rights or sufferings of the patient people. Naturally the Far eastern policy of Japan fills a large space in the book.... Mr Cheng would call upon the European powers to discard the balance of power theory and stop extra-territorialism, and he would like to see America, Great Britain, and France combine to set China on her legs.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Cheng’s survey is admirable as an introduction to the study of a great subject. As a plain statement of political conditions by one who speaks for China his little volume is the most satisfactory contribution to our understanding of her problem that has appeared since the revolution.” F: W. Williams
“In part 1 which deals with constitutional developments in China, he has presented a new and valuable account of recent political events in his country.” W. W. Willoughby
“There is a moderation in his description of existing conditions which is not too common amongst Chinese politicians, and it is plain throughout that he has tried to submit the welter to a detached and impartial examination.”
CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH. Irish impressions. *$1.50 (3½c) Lane 914.15
In this collection of papers the author, in his characteristically discursive fashion, gives his impressions of the Irish character as an almost paradoxical combination of visionary dreamer and practical peasant. He emphasizes the fundamental differences between the English and the Irish out of which arise many if not all the tragic mistakes made on both sides. The contents are: Two stones in a square; The root of reality; The family and the feud; The paradox of labour; The Englishman in Ireland; The mistake of England; The mistake of Ireland; An example and a question; Belfast and the religious problem.
“Neither his book nor his visit indicates any real appreciation of the almost agonizing seriousness of the issue between his country and Ireland.” E. A. Boyd
“The title of Mr Chesterton’s book, ‘Irish impressions,’ is apt; the author gives the temper of Ireland rather than direct information, yet his conclusions agree closely with those reached by historians, such as, for example, Professor Ernest Barker and Edward R. Turner. Mr Chesterton has caught the spirit of the Irish. His entertaining volume should be read not by itself but in connection with others.” N. J. O’C.
“The Chesterton of ‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘Heretics’ has indeed suffered a war-change. His recent ‘Short history of England,’ however, gave us a glimmer of hope for him which this latest book confirms. There is, however, little that is new or valuable said here about the eternal Irish question, little that has not been said as well or almost as well by others before.”
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
“He proves in this book that even the most patriotic of Englishmen can treat another patriotism with magnanimity.” F. H.
“The defect in Mr Chesterton’s consideration of the Irish problem is not that he is superficial, but that he is in a certain sense too profound. He sees certain simple, but profound, truths so clearly and so exclusively that he ignores other truths that may possibly be as deeply rooted, and pays too little attention to superficial facts lying outside the categories that he thinks in.”
“Mr Chesterton does not write for the man in the street; his style is full of brilliant paradox, subtle allusion, and pages in which one must read between the lines for their meaning. But the game is worth the candle.”
“We know what to expect from Mr Chesterton: vividness, color, wit, epigrams often a little strained but not seldom such as make one catch one’s breath and wonder; clear-cut antitheses—sometimes cut too clear to correspond accurately with situations that are complex and confused, but always a stimulant to thought, and not least arousing when they are most provoking. And it is the true Chestertonian humor that greets us in these ‘Irish impressions.’” H. L. Stewart
“This volume is a most notable contribution to the whole subject and one of the most important achievements of Mr Chesterton’s long and brilliant career.”
“No work of Mr Chesterton’s could be altogether dull, for even the monotonous uniformity of his style is insufficient to conceal his genuine humour and alertness of mind; indeed, his latest volume takes rank amongst his most brilliant works of fiction; but as a contribution towards the solution of the Irish problem, it is a fond thing vainly invented.”
“Throughout Mr Chesterton writes as an Englishman, but as an extremely liberal Englishman.”
“His observations have, of course, value, and they are presented in the form which has made Mr Chesterton a very popular writer; but the reader of his ‘Irish impressions’ is left to wonder whether a less facile pen and less nimble brain might not, if impelled by a humbler spirit, have produced a still more valuable work.”
“The volume has both the virtues and the defects to be expected from one whose writing is almost entirely a succession of figures. ‘Irish impressions’ contains an amazing amount of true comment.” N. J. O’Conor
CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH. Superstition of divorce. *$1.50 (6c) Lane 173
The book is a collection of five articles first printed in the New Witness, apropos of a press controversy on divorce, with an added conclusion. Throughout the characteristically epigrammatic and brilliantly sketchy discourses the biological implications of marriage stand out as the incontrovertible facts and the “common sense” that has “age after age sought refuge in the high sanity of a sacrament.” The much ado about divorce, the writer concludes, is due to the fact that men expect the impossible from life and do not realize their natural limitations. Contents: The superstition of divorce; The story of the family; The story of the vow; The tragedies of marriage; The vista of divorce; Conclusion.
“Though Mr Chesterton hardly adds anything new to the controversy, his book is an interesting study in style.”
“Mr Chesterton’s position is not very easy to grasp because he has, to an unusual degree, indulged his propensity to break his argument in order to comment on anything that occurs to him, and we are not yet clear on some fundamental points. So far as we can see, Mr Chesterton does not deal with the real case for divorce, and his book leaves the question exactly where it was before.” J. W. N. S.
“One can agree perfectly with Mr Chesterton in his plea for greater care in marriage partnerships and in hoping that the sanctity of the family may be preserved. But his arguments seem often rather strained, especially when coupled with his zeal in pumping up the wildest and most extravagant and often frivolous fireworks of style.” N. H. D.
“It is at no point a serious or searching analysis of the present situation in England as regards divorce.” R. D.
“Mr Chesterton seems to imagine that divorce is now being advocated for its own sake. To forbid divorce and remarriage altogether, as a desperate remedy for extreme cases, is no more rational or humane than it would be to forbid surgery to all because most do not stand in present need of it.” Preserved Smith
“Mr Chesterton’s book is, like most of his work, delightfully amusing, and incidentally contains much good sense. But it is a far better treatise on marriage than on divorce. I object to divorce in the same sense as I object to surgery. But if we are to have surgery let us have it up to date and not as it was in 1800.” E. S. P. Haynes
“Save in a sort of dreadful desert which the reader enters about the middle of the book when he is taken through dreary tracts of guild socialism and over a waste marked ‘Superior attractions of the middle ages,’ the book is extraordinarily lively reading.”
“Mr Chesterton is cheerfully disinclined to subject his arguments to empirical tests. He starts with a number of definitions and then, having proved all the ramifications of his thought to be in accord with those definitions, regards the case as closed. Satisfied with his own logic Mr Chesterton conceivably may be; the reader’s satisfaction comes from the skill and surprise of the dialectic, from the ever-recurring paradox, from the humanity and good nature and good sense that often glint through the subtile fabric of wit.”
“As is often the case with his writings, it hits mainly into the air and does not meet the arguments of his opponents where they are strongest. Also, one gets tired of the perpetual punning which once gave this writer the reputation of being a great wit but which really is quite easy to imitate.”
CHEVREUIL, L. Proofs of the spirit world; tr. by Agnes Kendrick Gray. il *$3 Dutton 134
“M. Chevreuil, whose ‘On ne meurt pas,’ here translated as ‘Proofs of the spirit world,’ was awarded the prize for 1919 by the French Academy of sciences, has brought together and discussed with judicial penetration the evidence presented for the continued existence of discarnate spirits by telepathy, abnormal psychology, apparitions, materializations and similar phenomena. The book is written in the scientific spirit and the author carefully examines the evidence and the arguments presented by other investigators, sometimes rejecting it altogether and sometimes coming to different conclusions. One of the chapters makes an interesting discussion of reincarnation.”—N Y Times
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
“It is no exaggeration to say that out of the multitude of the psychical books which have appeared within these last few months, ‘thick as leaves in Vallambrosa,’ this one volume stands out in its luminous clearness, its scholarly selection of scientific data, its penetration into the realms beyond the senses, its sane exaltation of feeling, and its remarkable comprehensiveness of the relation between phenomena and spiritual philosophy.” Lilian Whiting
CHILD, RICHARD WASHBURN. Vanishing men. *$2 Dutton
“The psychology of terror is the outstanding theme of ‘The vanishing men.’ Indeed, the sense of terror communicates itself to the reader, for the disappearance of two men and the portentous fate hanging over the heroine are apparently insoluble mysteries. One man plans an elopement with her but fails to appear and is not heard from again. Afterwards she marries a wealthy man some years her senior. He is attacked by a mania of fear, and eventually vanishes, too. Then a wealthy young man falls in love with her, and she warns him of the fate visited upon her previous lovers. But he is courageous and optimistic and refuses to be deterred by such fantasies of the imagination. He starts an investigation, and eventually presents a simple solution of what happens previously.”—Springf’d Republican
“So ingenious a mystery that devotees will forgive the loose plot structure and the improbable characterization.”
“The whole problem is put and solved in an original way, and some readers will be grateful for a mystery story without the old properties and machinery.” H. W. Boynton
“The story would greatly profit by a general tightening up. Its charm lies entirely in the formulation of the mystery, and with its solution the charm vanishes into incredibly thin air.” D. L. M.
“In ‘The vanishing men’ it is easy enough to pick flaws, but over and above them all remains the great fact that the story interests the reader from the beginning, holds his attention and brings up with a smashing climax at the end.”
“Ingenious but over-melodramatic in its grisly conclusion.”
“The reader is thoroughly thrilled, Mr Child is able to hold the atmosphere of mystery and terror.”
CHILDREN’S story garden. il *$1.50 (2c) Lippincott
A collection of stories illustrating Quaker principles. The book is compiled by a committee of the Philadelphia yearly meeting of Friends, Anna Pettit Broomell, chairman. The introduction says, “‘The children’s story garden’ announces its purpose at once. Its stories have the direct aim of teaching ethics and religious truth to children.... It is not the intention of the compilers to make this a sectarian book. There are of course stories which show the reason behind some Friendly customs, but as a whole it is hoped that there is a fair representation of the simple virtues which lie behind human progress and Christian living.” The stories have been selected and adapted from many sources. Several, including the opening story, show the relation between the Friends and the American Indians. A few have been written especially for this book. There are historical notes and an outline of the principles illustrated which will be useful to teachers. Further readings are also suggested.
“If used with discrimination, the book will furnish some very good reading material.”
CHISHOLM, LOUEY, and STEEDMAN, AMY, comps. Staircase of stories. 11 *$4.50 (1½c) Putnam
“Any originality of Intention or treatment must be disclaimed for ‘A staircase of stories.’ Its title, plan, appeal, and aim have been alike suggested by ‘The golden staircase,’ a volume of ‘Poems and verses for children between the ages of four and fourteen.’ The title indicates ... a gradual ascent in difficulty as the pages are turned.... In the choice of content, the aim, as before, has been to concentrate solely on what it is believed children will most enjoy.” (Preface) The series opens with The old woman and her pig, Lazy John, Henny-Penny and other simple tales and with its graduated ascent works up to an adaptation of Daudet’s “Last class.” Other stories are The golden touch; The madonna of the goldfinch; The storks; The queen of the seven golden mountains; The twelve huntsmen; The porcelain stove; Gareth and Lynette; and Balder the beautiful. There are illustrations in color and in black and white.
“There is a goodly array of reading matter that should appeal to the youngster. The many color illustrations and pen and ink sketches add to the attractiveness of a book that any child may well covet.”
“The illustrations are by a number of artists, whose names deserve to be known, so charmingly is their work done. In fanciful conception and delicacy of colors the plates are almost always a delight: moreover, there is no approach to the unduly fantastic or the bizarre. The black and white pictures have the breadth and surety of good draughtsmanship. Altogether ‘A staircase of stories’ is a successful production.”
CHRISMAN, OSCAR.[2] Historical child. *$4 Badger, R: G. 392
“Dr Chrisman, professor in the Ohio university, offers this book as the first of a projected series in paidology, the science of the child—a term originating, says the author, with himself. In this volume there is gathered an imposing array of folkways of many ancient peoples. Mexico, Peru, Egypt, India, China, Japan, Persia, Judea, Greece, Rome, earlier and medieval Europe are all included, and there is also a long chapter on earlier United States. Quotations from many sources are used in abundance. Dr Chrisman explains that one must know the setting of child life, to understand children. It is really, therefore, the social background that one finds here—miscellaneous customs of home, dress, food, marriage, infant ceremonies, industry, religion, amusements, education (briefly), and the like, which constitute the environmental stimulus to growth.”—Survey
“The reader gains the impression that the value of the book for students will depend upon the degree to which the teacher can help them to an intelligent use of the facts here portrayed. Unguided, one is likely to finish the book with a somewhat confused impression of a wide variety of interesting practices, but without any clear-cut addition to his knowledge of children.” Hugh Hartshorne
CHRISTY, BAYARD H. Going afoot. *$1.35 Assn. press 796
In this enthusiastic little book on walking instruction is given on the how, when and where of walking—the clothes to wear, the equipment to carry, the hours of the day, the seasons of the year, and the localities to choose. Detailed description is given of walking clubs and their organization and activities. Contents: How to walk; When to walk; Where to walk; Walking clubs in America; Organization and conduct of walking clubs; Bibliography.
Reviewed by F: O’Brien
“It may seem impossible to write an altogether dull and uninspiring book on walking in the country; but Mr Christy has accomplished it. This is not to say that this little handbook of practical advice has not its uses. The chapter on organization is valuable for anyone contemplating the formation of a club.”
CITY CLUB OF CHICAGO. Ideals of America. *$1.75 McClurg 304
“This volume consists of thirteen essays by different authors who have endeavored to analyze the ‘guiding motives of contemporary American life’ in various fields. The essays were first presented as lectures before the City club of Chicago during the years from 1916 to 1919. Government, the law, labor, science, education, business, ‘society,’ music, religion, philosophy, literature, and human progress are treated. Robert Morss Lovett, Elsie Clews Parsons, John P. Frey, John Bradley Winslow and George Ellsworth Hooker are among the notable contributors to the volume.”—Survey
“The essays vary in value, but for example, to cite only two, those of Dean Lovett and Justice Winslow, are exceedingly able statements of realities and tendencies in their respective fields of literature and the law. As a whole the book is a useful picture of the intellectual life of the American which existed until 1914.”
CLANCY, MRS LOUISE BREITENBACH. Christine of the young heart. *$1.75 (2c) Small
Christine Trevor is a butterfly debutante, pretty and selfish, with the notion that the world revolves around her. Then she loses her father and her wealth in one blow. She has a crippled younger brother and there are Dilly and Daffy, the six-year-old twins, so she has a wonderful opportunity to retrieve her character if she chooses to do so, but at first she rebels against mothering the twins and being a comrade to Laurie. She gradually awakes to the fact that nobody can love a “crosspatch,” as Daffy frankly calls her, and that to have a friend, one must be one. She decides to act on this principle, and her progress in friendship and happiness is speedy. Winning over cranky old Joshua Barton, her next door neighbor, is perhaps her greatest achievement, and thru it an ancient wrong is righted which brings happiness to many people. And Dr Denton, who has loved her always, surely loves her no less now that she has outgrown her earlier selfishness.
“It is cloying upon the intellect and opiate to the senses. ‘Christine of the young heart’ is sweet; it is doubly dangerous because it is well constructed and well written, even though it be a typical novel of sentimentality.”
CLAPHAM, RICHARD. Foxhunting on the Lakeland fells; with an introd. by J. W. Lowther. il *$4.25 (*12s 6d) Longmans 799
“Foxhunting on the Lakeland fells is pure foxhunting. It is the fox and the work of the hounds alone that matter. On the Lakeland fells the fox looks after himself, and is there to be killed. He is no friend of the fell sheep. You will ask—why then is he not shot or trapped? And the answer is a simple one—because the men of that country enjoy hunting him. Of the joys and dangers of this sport on the fells Mr Clapham writes.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“He knows his subject thoroughly: he argues about it, theorizes about it, gossips about it, and all in a charmingly informal fashion. His volume is profusely illustrated with photographs that convey the interest of his subject even better than the text.”
“A volume that will attract only a limited audience, but it is pleasingly written and the author’s intimate knowledge of his subject is indubitable. Written, undoubtedly, for the English public, its appeal to American readers will not be very great.” B. R. Redman
“Of the five chapters, we liked best that on ‘The fell hounds.’”
CLAPP, JOHN MANTLE. Talking business. (Language for men of affairs) $4 Ronald 808
The first of the two volumes on Language for men of affairs considers spoken language on the ground that not one in ten business men has the ready and sure mastery of the language forms required in business operations. The book is in five parts. Part I, The real problem: Putting your mind on the other man, treats of the psychology of speech. Part II, The machinery, explains the physiological basis under such headings as: Your appearance; The vocal organs; Pronunciation; A good voice. Part III, Language, considers the vocabulary and construction of sentences. Part IV, Conversation, Business interviews, discusses the various business situations involving speech and Part V, Public speaking, Business addresses, the more elaborate uses of language. There are illustrations and an index. The second volume, on Business writing, is edited by James Melvin Lee.
CLARK, ALFRED. Margaret book. *$1.50 Lane 828
A book of verses strung together on a thread of prose. It is by the author of “My erratic pal” and follows the same manner. The prose narrative tells of a New Zealand soldier on sick leave in England, of his happy days in Margaret’s garden, of their love and marriage. Among the poems there is a series describing the dreams experienced in illness.
“It is all very sweet and nice and gentle—rather too ostentatiously so; every one plays up to the demand for sweetness too zealously and continuously, and the lusciousness of the love-making begins to pall. Nor do we think that the combination of prose and verse justifies itself.”
CLARK, ALICE. Working life of women in the seventeenth century. (Studies in economics and political science) *$3.25 (3c) Harcourt. Brace & Howe 331.4
The writing of the book was prompted by the conviction that “the conditions under which the obscure mass of women live and fulfill their duties as human beings, have a vital influence upon the destinies of the human race, and that a little knowledge of what these conditions have actually been in the past will be of more value to the sociologist than many volumes of carefully elaborated theory based on abstract ideas.” (Preface) The seventeenth century was chosen as a field of research because, as a sort of watershed between the Elizabethan era and the restoration period and partaking of the characteristics of both, it forms an important crisis in the historic development of Englishwomen. The author indicates in her conclusions that with the advent of machinery and capitalism, restricting the economic life of women, a marked decadence is revealed. Contents: Introductory; Capitalists; Agriculture; Textiles; Crafts and trades; Professions; Conclusion; List of authorities; List of wages assessments; Index.
“In spite of the fact that the author’s powers of induction are not at all points comparable with her industry, the painstaking work is a monument to her effort, and is of unquestioned value in its presentation of contemporary evidence.” Amy Hewes
“Whether Miss Clark has proved her thesis or no, she has made available to the general reader and the student of economics a mass of material not easily accessible otherwise. She has faced the difficult task of presenting a fair sample of her evidence, and has come well out of that searching trial, though reflection would no doubt cause her to admit that on occasion she has read more into her authorities than is quite admissible.” E. M. G.
“Clearly and interestingly written.”
“Though Miss Clark’s book is technical in character, being based on a rigid plan, we may build up from it an enlightening picture of life in seventeenth century England.”
Reviewed by Dorothy Brewster
“The exhaustive bibliography and the rigidly technical character of the investigation are the book’s outstanding virtues.”
“Her distinction is that she has been able to render an inquiry so similar in method to that followed by many American students in graduate work, a genuine contribution in an important field. The record is in fact a corrective to much loose thinking concerning the place of women in a productive society. Not least of all, moreover, it is an extraordinarily interesting book.”
“The narrative is somewhat overloaded by detail, much of which could have been relegated to foot notes; but neither this nor the defects to which we have drawn attention should prevent due praise being given to Miss Clark for a laborious and successful attempt to break new ground in the history of the economic position of women.”
CLARK, CHAMP. My quarter century of American politics. 2v il *$6 (2c) Harper
“I started out to accomplish certain things. I kept pounding away at them and have achieved most of them.... Endowed by nature with a strong constitution, I have been able to do more work than most men.... My long public career is due largely to the fact that I have been blessed with as faithful a constituency as man ever had.... As my wife, children, and many friends want to know some of the facts, experiences, and recollections of my busy life, I will give them as briefly, modestly, and as accurately as possible—writing about the persons, books, circumstances, and things which most influenced my life.” (Chapter 1) The books are illustrated and have an index.
“Throughout these gossipy and voluble pages, we find much of repetition and more of exaggeration. In spite of its faults, which are easily forgiven to the genial author, the work is one of some value to our political literature. It is decidedly interesting and engaging reading.” J. A. Woodburn
“Mr Clark wanders in and about his subject in a chatty reminiscent fashion, illuminating many little known corners of party politics, bringing before the reader a brilliant procession of public personalities and always indulging in sparkling anecdotes. The serious reader will be troubled by the lack of sequence of political events.”
“The unity of the narrative is badly jumbled; a literary hack, hired to revise the manuscript, would have cut it down from a third to a half and with ease have straightened out the illogical arrangements, the crudities of the paragraphs, the vain repetitions, and tiresome platitudes.” C. W. Alvord
Reviewed by M. F. Egan
“No student of political history will be able to omit this voluminous account from his list.”
“Genial humanity and wisdom, shrewd and kindly observation of men and affairs—these are the outstanding qualities of Champ Clark’s reminiscences. The wisdom varies in comprehensiveness and in degree of illumination; the humanity is constant. It is remarkable how little of the bitterness of controversy or the roughness of saw-edged sarcasm there is in any part of Mr Clark’s book.”
CLARK, ELLERY HARDING. Track athletics up to date. il *$1.50 Duffield 796
A new manual of track athletics by an author who has had wide experience as a physical director. His purpose is stated in the preface: “First, I have endeavored to trace, with brevity, the history of track athletics; next, I have noted some of the best of the many books, pamphlets and special articles which have been written on this subject; and lastly, I have tried to summarize, in the year 1919, our present knowledge of proper methods of training and of performing the various events on track and field.” The work is illustrated with forty-three plates.
“He combines clear statement with the highest ideal of sport.”
CLARK, EVANS. Facts and fabrications about soviet Russia. pa 50c Rand school of social science 914.7
“The volume is divided into two parts. Part 1 deals with the astounding falsehoods told about soviet Russia by the American press, publicists and state and federal officials during the past few years. In this portion the Sisson documents, the presidential fabrications, the reports of alleged military defeats, and the rumors concerning ‘the nationalization of women,’ etc., are set forth in documentary form. Part 2 consists of a comprehensive bibliography of periodical, book and pamphlet literature dealing sympathetically with all phases of the Russian problem—foreign policy, education, drama, industry, labor, propaganda, religion, the woman question, etc.”—Socialist R
“The method is simple and admirably adapted to the purpose. Possibly his classification is a little biased, as when he maintains that all the conservatives have been unreliable and all the liberal and labor organs truthful. But in general his criterion will stand and his list will prove sound.” Preserved Smith
CLARK, FRANCIS EDWARD. Gospel of out of doors. *$1.25 Assn. press 570.4
One of the author’s purposes in publishing this collection of papers is “that other men and women, encouraged by my own experience of the joy, the comfort, and the health that come from an old farm, may feel its lure, learn its joy, and experience its health-giving comforts.” (Preface) Contents: The gospel of out of doors; The joy of the seed catalogue; The lure of the old farm; A sermon to my brother weeds; Farming as a moral equivalent for war; Under the willow in the spring; My doorstep visitors; Birds in the bush and birds in the book; Out of doors in the autumn; A rainy day at the farm; The underground alchemist; Fun on the old farm; Always something new on the old farm; Next best to a farm; Can a horse laugh? Ever-bearers and ever-bloomers.
“There is nothing about the old farm, however prosaic it may be, that fails to suggest to Mr Clark material for a delightful essay; and he is always ready with a pungent poetical quotation.”
“The charm of the book ... is simply irresistible.”
CLARK, THOMAS ARKLE. High school boy and his problems. *$1.20 Macmillan 170
“Dean Clark of the University of Illinois for many years has made boys and their ways the chief concern of his official life. Mr Clark is what the students would call a ‘regular’ dean. He knows the temptations that beset the young man and is not astonished that they are sometimes too much for him. He is inclined to overlook the minor shortcomings, but conceives it his duty to warn the boy of the risk he runs in yielding to evil suggestions. For the rest the book has much in it that is of interest, and the dean is particularly happy in his chapters on the value of systematic study and on choosing a career or a college.”—Boston Transcript
“Sensible little talks with a happy freedom from ‘preachiness.’”
“It is concrete in every paragraph, reminiscent, replete with glimpses of real boys facing actual situations. Almost as important as is its content is the fact that it promises to win a reading from the high-school boy to whom it is addressed.”
CLARKE, ISABEL CONSTANCE. Lady Trent’s daughter. *$1.75 (1½c) Benziger
Lady Trent had been married at a very early age and, widowed before twenty, had left her infant daughter to the care of her elder sister, who had brought the girl up in seclusion from the world. Olave is sixteen when the story opens. A distinguished novelist meets the girl in the woods, and charmed with her youth and innocence, persuades her into a series of clandestine meetings. He finally tells her that he is engaged to another woman, and later it comes to light that this woman is Olave’s mother. The engagement is at once broken and Lady Trent tries to win her daughter’s confidence and love. But the mischief is already done and the girl continues to meet Quinn. A runaway marriage is planned, but is abandoned when Quinn’s long neglected Catholic principles reassert themselves. Olave also accepts Catholicism, toward which she has had strong leanings, feeling that under its influence she would have been saved from the course of deception she has followed.
“Guy Quinn not only fails to live for us, but is quite devoid of any heroic qualities. As to his charm, which subjugated in turn the widow Felicity Trent and her young daughter Olave, that has to be taken altogether on trust.”
CLARKE, ISABEL CONSTANCE.[2] Ursula Finch. *$2.25 (2c) Benziger
The story of two sisters, one a spoiled beauty and one a drudge, The scene is Cornwall but later when Ursula, the drudge, seems likely to interfere with her sister’s matrimonial schemes, she is packed off to Rome as a nursery governess. Here she comes under the influence of Catholicism and joins the church. The lover who had been the cause of her exile follows her and as he also has leanings toward the Catholic faith the story ends happily.
“Miss Clarke has again produced a book which is both interesting and entertaining; yet appreciation is mingled with constant regret over the vehemence of her characterizations.”
CLARKSON, RALPH PRESTON.[2] Elementary electrical engineering. il *$2 Van Nostrand 621.3
“A textbook of theory and practice, particularly adapted for the instruction of mechanical, civil, and chemical engineers and others desiring a short course.” (Sub-title) Contents: Introduction; Units and terms; The solution of circuits; The generation of electricity; Electrical measuring instruments; Illumination and power, electrical transmission, theory of lighting devices. There are 141 diagrams and an index.
CLEMENCEAU, GEORGES EUGÈNE BENJAMIN. Surprises of life. *$1.90 (4c) Doubleday
This collection of tales, translated from the French by Grace Hall, tells the stories of curious characters in all walks of life. The initial tale, Mokoubamba’s fetish, is of an old negro from Central Africa, reseater of chairs, weaver of mats and mender of all things breakable, wise beyond other men and with a philosophy of his own with regard to fetishes. Some of the other titles are: A descendant of Timon; Aunt Rosalie’s inheritance; A mad thinker; Better than stealing; A domestic drama; The treasure of St Bartholomew; Lovers in Florence.
“To face facts, though not always a pleasure, is a duty. To face the French novelist’s interpretation of them seems to us in many cases neither the one nor the other.”
“Distinguished by technical dexterity.”
“The stories, if not put to the test of inner veracity, are thoroughly readable.”
“The stories and things are well worth telling and are well told. The book is the work of a keen and accurate reader of human nature and of a master of satire.” A. W. Welch
“As literature, the tales in the present volume stand far above ‘The strongest,’ the novel which he published in America last year. If they have a single fault it is that the author’s lifelong habit of speaking and writing to convince people of something shows itself in the parable-like character of some of his stories. His powers of characterization are admirable.”
“In an age like ours when literature is afraid of its name, its pedigree, and its uniform, M. Clemenceau will be helped rather than hurt by the association of no small measure of literary force with the brusque frankness and imperious, half insolent, unconcern of the man who is not answerable to reviewers.”
“The book is marked by its clarity, that absence of adjectives which makes every idea understood at once. M. Clemenceau is shrewd, yet generous, a quality that Mark Twain attained in some of his short stories. He paints portraits not merely in two dimensions, but in three.”
“There is always the impression that the things related are things seen, not things invented, and that they are symbols of things not seen. Some of the equipment of a complete master of the genre indeed, he seems to lack.”
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE (MARK TWAIN, pseud.). Moments with Mark Twain; selected by Albert Bigelow Paine. *$1.50 Harper 817
One of the compiler’s excuses for offering this selection from the writings of Mark Twain to the public is to show that the latter was something more than a fun-maker. “The examples have been arranged chronologically, so that the reader, following them in order, may note the author’s evolution—the development of his humor, his observation, his philosophy and his literary style. They have been selected with some care, in the hope that those who know the author best may consider him fairly represented.” (Foreword)
“Well-chosen selections from his works chronologically arranged to show evolution of style and thought as well as characteristic humor. Useful for quotation hunters.”
CLEVELAND, FREDERICK ALBERT, and BUCK, ARTHUR EUGENE. Budget and responsible government. (American social progress ser.) *$3 (2½c) Macmillan 353
“A description and interpretation of the struggle for responsible government in the United States, with special reference to recent changes in state constitutions and statute laws providing for administrative reorganization and budget reform.” (Sub-title) The preface by Mr Cleveland states that the work was begun as a report to the National budget committee. Later its scope was expanded and Mr Buck of the New York Bureau of municipal research, who had been preparing a report dealing with administrative reorganization in the several states, was asked to collaborate. In addition to the editor’s note by Samuel McCune Lindsay, there is an introduction by ex-President Taft, who during his term of office urged the adoption of the budget system. The book is in five parts: Historic background and interpretation of the recent movement for administrative reorganization and budget procedure; Detailed accounts of proposed plans and recent legal enactments for administrative reorganization in state governments; Detailed accounts of the characteristics and operation of recent state enactments providing for a budget procedure; Proposed national budget legislation; Conclusion. There is no index, a want partly supplied by the analytical table of contents.
Reviewed by A. C. Hanford
“Sound, careful work for students and those interested in problems of government.”
“Mr Cleveland states very plainly the facts regarding the necessity of a national segregated budget and no one reading his book can fail to realize that if the government of this country is to be administered in an efficient and responsible manner some form of segregated budget must be adopted.” G. B.
“For the student of budget legislation and administration in the technical sense, the chapters by Mr Buck will be especially welcome.” C: A. Beard
“The book is an eloquent plea for more effective democracy, a powerful argument against political bossism, and a valuable contribution to the cause of the ‘independent’ voter. It should prove of informative value to women.” C. E. Rightor
CLOSE, EVELYNE. Cherry Isle. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
Anthea Argent is just a young struggling singer when the famous tenor, Charles Garston, meets and falls in love with her in cherry-blossom time. Altho she realizes she cares more for her art than she does for him, she consents to marry him. Her voice develops until her fame matches her husband’s, but with the coming of their baby she loses it entirely. Her coldness to her husband increases to bitter hatred and they finally separate, but not before she has realized that her child was born dumb. The other passion of her life beside her voice is for revenge on the man who had wrecked her mother’s life—her own unacknowledged father. She sets herself to ruin him and accomplishes it in a dramatic way. But, having done so, she realizes that the fulfilment of this ambition, as of her earlier one, turns to ashes in her grasp. She sees herself as the selfish, hard woman that she is, and the close of the story finds her pride breaking as she tries to pick up the pieces of her life and patch them together again.
“The novel, though readable, has elements of artificiality.”
“For a piece of sensational fiction this novel is decidedly readable. The opening chapters in the cherry orchard are charming bits of description.”
CLOW, FREDERICK REDMAN. Principles of sociology with educational applications. (Brief course ser. in education) $1.80 Macmillan 301
“Mr Clow, who teaches in the State normal school at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, believes that sociological theory can be made, to a far greater extent than has hitherto been done, an instrument for the solution of practical and technical problems. The present text-book, which is divided into three parts, ‘The factors of society,’ ‘Social organization,’ and ‘Social progress,’ is intended to provide students with a basis upon which they can apply sociological principles to groups and institutions of which they form part or with which they are familiar. Each chapter of the exposition is followed by a list of ‘Topics’ to be assigned to individual students for special study, a series of ‘Problems’ for discussion and an elaborate table of bibliographical references. This careful work contains in addition a select list of books generally useful for further reading in the subject and indices of authors, books, periodicals and subjects.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The book is encyclopedic rather than systematic. It treats in succession a great variety of topics, but one is left at the end of the book with a confused idea and without any view of a general systematic theory of society or of school organization. It would be very difficult to put this book into the hands of elementary students unless the author himself were so thoroughly inspired by the importance of sociology that he could carry the student far beyond the compass of the text itself.”
CLUTTON-BROCK, ARTHUR. Essays on art. *$1.75 Scribner 704
“In the preface of this volume, Mr Clutton-Brock asks, ‘How are we to improve the art of our own time? After years of criticism I am more interested in this question than in any other that concerns the arts.’ He believes that art, like other human activities, is subject to the will of man, and that the quality of art in any age depends chiefly upon the attitude of the public towards it. His insistence on good workmanship and sound construction in the things we see and handle every day is a continuance of the gospel of William Morris, and it was never more needed than it is now. He pours irony and ridicule on the idea of art as a luxury; on the craze for cheap machine-made reproductions of expensive ornaments; on professors of art who live in hideous drawing-rooms; on the exalting of processes above persons; and on the professionalism of artists, in whom an arrogant skill and accomplishment take the place of genuine expression. One of the best of the essays is a ‘Defence of criticism,’ occasioned by an outburst of Sir Thomas Jackson lamenting that art criticism could not be made penal for ten years, so that people might think for themselves.”—Sat R
“Mr Clutton-Brock is safer as a thinker on conscience and duty than on æsthetics, though he portrays the artist—Leonardo, Mozart, or Poussin—with admirable insight.”
“It is so pregnant with genial wisdom, and without being unduly dogmatic, so sincerely genuine in its viewpoints, that it is bound to give real pleasure.”
“These essays are vigorous, informative, and often very well written.”
“His is a book worth thinking about, very straight and sober and sincere, discussing one of the most serious of all subjects in a manner worthy of the subject.” F. H.
“With the strong ethical perceptions, Mr Brock combines sensitiveness.”
“He writes with a refreshing absence of superiority, as one of the public with a natural and human interest in art.”
“A better little book of ‘aesthetics for beginners’ could hardly be imagined than Mr Clutton-Brock’s ‘Essays on art.’”
“Possessed of a finely perceptive and reflective nature, he sets forth truths that might be called spiritual were not the word spiritual in some minds held to denote a lack of common sense. Perhaps it is Mr Clutton-Brock’s distinction that he makes spiritual truths appear to be common sense.”
CLUTTON-BROCK, ARTHUR. What is the kingdom of Heaven? *$1.75 Scribner 230
“‘Is the universe a fraud?’ is the question which Mr Clutton-Brock asks and tries to answer in this book. Is life as we know it a welter of pain and evil, a vast and stupid joke; or is there some sense, some moral principle, behind this seeming chaos? We all desire to believe that our private virtues rhyme with something in the universe. We can be convinced that they do, and we can make the conviction come true in fact, says Mr Brock, by believing in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a relation of man to the universe analogous to the relation of man to art—a relation at once passionately intimate and disinterested. The Kingdom of Heaven in politics means the disappearance of struggle and competition, in the individual the beginning of happiness.”—Ath
“Mr Brock writes in such a way that it is often possible to wonder whether his words have any very exact meaning, or whether they are merely symbols fluttering in the void, searching vainly for some solid reality on which to repose themselves.”
Reviewed by Bertrand Russell
“It is a passionate and beautiful treatment of Jesus and his chief doctrine, bearing the mark of the artist and the prophet. This book must be read slowly, reflected upon earnestly; it is a significant discussion of a supreme subject.”
“Mr Clutton-Brock’s book has a fresh, arresting quality; it detains the reader. It is worthy of attention as representing the highminded and persuasive modernism that is working in the church.”
COAKLEY, THOMAS FRANCIS. Spiritism; the modern satanism. *$1.25 Extension press 134
“Dr Coakley finds what he calls ‘the present craze for spiritism’ to be in substance much the same as those waves of hysteria and necromancy that have occasionally swept the earth since the most ancient times. He opposes it especially in its claim to be, as Sir Conan Doyle calls it, ‘a new revelation,’ and finds spiritistic practices to be full of danger of many sorts, while he thinks that a future life filled with the sort of spirits that are chiefly in evidence at séances would offer few attractions. He sets forth the attitude of the Catholic church upon the subject and makes clear the reasons why it prohibits its members from taking any part in spiritistic or psychical research inquiries.”—N Y Times
COBB, IRVIN SHREWSBURY. Abandoned farmers. *$3 (6½c) Doran 817
In this “humorous account of a retreat from the city to the farm” the reader accompanies the author on a long search for an abandoned farm, and, when it is found at last, assists in every detail of taking possession, of digging a well, planning, building and furnishing the house and, at last, takes leaves of him with the impression that, although the feat was not accomplished without membership in the Westchester county despair association, it was all worth while. Contents: Which is really a preface in disguise; The start of a dream; Three years elapse; Happy days for Major Gloom; In which we bore for water; Two more years elapse; “And sold to—”; The adventure of Lady Maude; Us landed proprietors.
“Written with the usual Cobb humor. Described by one reader as ‘a bit thin with an occasional raisin.’”
“‘The abandoned farmers’ represent Mr Cobb at his happiest.”
“It is a tale all of which lies in the telling, and with Cobb in the role of Tusitala no one can go wrong in expecting that every phase of humor in the subject will be brought forth.”
COBB, IRVIN SHREWSBURY. From place to place. *$2 (1½c) Doran
“Stories about ourselves” is the sub-title of this collection of character sketches. The choice of subjects is unusual. In “The gallowsmith” we have a sympathetically drawn picture of a self-appointed hangman who plied his trade with the pride of a good craftsman till suddenly one day his dormant imagination awoke and—killed him. The other sketches are: The thunders of silence; Boys will be boys; The luck piece; Quality folks; John J. Coincidence; When August the second was April the first; Hoodwinked; The bull called Emily.
“These stories make interesting reading, though they are remote from any trace of realism.” Alvin Winston
“Here we have Mr Cobb in all his varying moods of farce and pathos, reminiscence, stern logic, and ironical tragedy. The tale which opens the book, ‘The gallowsmith,’ manifestly belongs to him who wrote ‘The escape of Mr Trimm’ and the wonderful narrative of ‘The bell buzzard.’”
COBB, IRVIN SHREWSBURY, and RINEHART, MARY (ROBERTS) (MRS STANLEY MARSHALL RINEHART). Oh, well, you know how women are! and Isn’t that just like a man! *$1 (8c) Doran 817
Mr Cobb, at one end of the book, enlarges on the foibles of women—their narrow skirts, their high heels, their habits of impeding the traffic and getting off street cars backward, and then ends with a tribute to their work for the war. Mrs Rinehart, at the other end, reciprocates with comments on the inherent conservatism of men, and their sex clannishness, and then pats them gently on the head for their eternal boyishness and confesses that “we do like them, dreadfully.”
“While some of the jokes will seem trite, there are enough good laughs to compensate.”
“The tone of both little essays is delightfully urbane.” Joseph Mosher
“It is all good fun, and neither writer could be dull if he (or she) tried.”
“That clever novelist [Mrs Rinehart] gives us very much better reading. She is full of shrewd remarks, and shows much more sympathetic insight into man than Mr Cobb does into woman.”
COBB, THOMAS. Mr Preston’s daughter. *$1.75 (2½c) Lane
Monica Dasent, in love with Godfrey Raymond, becomes jealous when Essa Maynard, a girl of doubtful past, begins to pay him marked attention. Godfrey’s sole interest in Essa is because his uncle Hugh has confessed a “certain responsibility” for the girl. After the uncle’s death, it is discovered that he left Essa a large legacy, and Godfrey tries to prove exactly what “responsibility” Uncle Hugh had felt. This involves him in a family quarrel of long standing between his uncle and his cousin Anthony, the cause of which he finds to be the paternity of Essa. Anthony, the real father, is anxious to conceal the fact from his wife, but it all turns out to be a tempest in a teapot since his wife had known the circumstances even before their marriage.
“Here are the ingredients of excitement. But somehow or other the creator of these elements lacks the proper recipe for the most effective mixing. His atmosphere sags; his stride is feeble: he never swings into the long and winning pace that comes so easily to the authors of American best sellers.”
“The author has a fluent pleasing style, and he knows his London thoroughly. Can be commended to that large class which buys a novel because the purchaser wants ‘something to read.’”
“Mr Cobb builds up a very good story with his accustomed skill.”
“The book is written with Mr Thomas Cobb’s usual lightness of touch.”
COBB, THOMAS. Silver bag. *$1.75 (2c) Lane
During an absence from London Valentine Brook turns his flat over to his friend Derrick Chalmers. On the morning after his return a pretty girl calls to ask for a silver bag left there during his absence. It is made clear that it is not her bag, that she is calling for it for another woman. The mystery of the story revolves about the owner of the bag. Lionel Windermere suspects his wife, Valentine reluctantly suspects Evelyn Stainer. Mrs Tempest calmly states that it is hers, but there is reason to believe she is shielding one of the others. But which one? The tangle is straightened out finally with no reputations lost and no hearts broken.
“The mystery takes so long to clear up that the reader gets a bit tired of it all, and begins to grew impatient at a point where he should, by the rules of the mystery game, be so absorbed as to take no account of time.”
“The style is sometimes crude, but the plot is ingeniously constructed, and certainly has an unexpected solution. Yet our interest is not always maintained at a high level, possibly because none of the persons concerned makes any strong appeal to our sympathy.”
“Mr Cobb writes his new drawing-room comedy with his usual detachment and accomplishment.”
“While not melodramatic or sensational, ‘The silver bag’ contains mystery and amusing situations. The book will please those with a weakness for delving into society scandals and near scandals.”
COCKERELL, THEODORE DRU ALISON. Zoology, il *$3 World bk. 590
A work by the professor of zoology in the University of Colorado, published as one of the New-World science series of which John W. Ritchie is general editor. It is designed as a text book for colleges and universities but has several elements of popular appeal. One of its unusual features is the interposition of biographical chapters, the author believing that it is well for the students to know more of the men who have contributed to scientific knowledge. Consequently he has provided sketches of Darwin, Linnæus. Henri Fabre, Pasteur and others. The book has good illustrations including a series of animal photographs taken under the author’s direction in the New York zoological park. References follow the chapters and there is an index.
CODY, HIRAM ALFRED. Glen of the high north. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
Tom Reynolds finds himself at odds with life after his four years at the front. The vision of a beautiful face in a crowded street remains his grip on reality. On top of this comes the suggestion of a friend that he go in search of a Henry Redmond who, with his little girl, had mysteriously disappeared fifteen years previous. Ostensibly Tom goes in search of Redmond, but in reality his quest is for the face. More casual glimpses of it intensify his zeal. It takes him into the mining camps of the far north, plunges him into adventures in which figure the girl, an old philosophic prospector, a villainous miner, and a mysterious landed proprietor lording it in his stronghold behind the Golden Crest. In the end the girl proves to be the daughter of the landlord and the latter, the old prospector and the lost Henry Redmond to be one and the same person. The girl is won, gold is found in the bargain, the villainous miner is made harmless and life is once more real to Tom.
“A commonplace, crudely written melodrama of the most obvious motion-picture type.”
CODY, LOUISA (FREDERICI) (MRS WILLIAM FREDERICK CODY). Memories of Buffalo Bill; in collaboration with Courtney Ryley Cooper. il *$2.50 (3½c) Appleton
From the time he first courted her, to his death, Mrs Cody records the career of her husband, one of the most picturesque and adventuresome of human careers. Adventure was thrust upon him when a mere child it became a part of his environment and was later sought with the keen relish of the actor in him. “One thing had been borne to him, through the never failing worship of youthful America, that he was an idol who never could be replaced, that as long as there were boys, and as long as those boys had red blood in their veins, they would thrill at the sight of him they loved, and cheer the sounding reverberation of his great booming voice as he whirled into the arena on his great, white horse, came to a swinging stop before the grandstand, and raised his hand for the famous salute from the saddle.” (Chapter 15)
“The book under review may not be a literary masterpiece, but it has a merit which many so-called literary masterpieces lack—the merit of presenting a real man and an admirable character. It is written in a lively and entertaining style, with restraint, and in good taste.” J: Bunker
“Her tale is rambling at times, and at times inclined to the sentimental; however, it is not entirely out of character to know that the Indian-killing scout was a lively lover, as well as a dead shot with the rifle. This story becomes more human on that account. It is evident that the real biography of Colonel William F. Cody, ‘Buffalo Bill,’ is yet to be written, and Mrs Cody has contributed her part in good season.” J. S. B.
“It may be that the closeness of the author to the scenes of which she writes has marred the perspective. In any case, the present volume very largely fails both in color and adequacy.... By way of compensation, the concluding chapters exhibit a good deal of dramatic power. Indeed, we have seldom read a story more pitifully fascinating than that of the massacre at Wounded Knee, as told by the aged Short Bull in his tepee on the blizzard-swept prairie near Pine Ridge. It is worth knowing, for it is history.”
“In addition to its personal interest the book gives a stirring picture of early western life.”
CODY, WILLIAM FREDERICK (BUFFALO BILL, pseud.). Autobiography of Buffalo Bill. il *$3 (3c) Cosmopolitan bk. corporation
In this story of his life Colonel Cody touches upon his life as a showman only as the final rounding out of his career after the great wild west, of which he had been so integral a part, had become a thing of the past. But in its pages live again and go down to history the thrilling last days of Indian warfare, buffalo hunting and stage-coaching. The book is illustrated by N. C. Wyeth.
“The volume is a brisk, vivid and authentic picture of a departed era, so rich in detail and so bold in outline that it leaves most of our purely fictional wild West stories in total eclipse.” L. B.
“Buffalo Bill’s own story does not rank with ‘Treasure Island,’ but it is the boys’ own book, for it holds all that can live of the life its hero led on the plains and afterwards preserved under canvas; and it was written by a boy who actually did the thing every boy resolves to do, stayed a boy in defiance of time and fate for more than seventy years.”
“His autobiography well deserves a place on the library shelf devoted to western history.”
“It is well to have a life of such varied adventures written at length, the more so since the setting of so much of that life has passed beyond duplication.”
“Interesting to everyone, for it is an important phase of our history graphically told by the one who knew it best.”
COFFIN, HENRY SLOANE. More Christian industrial order. *$1 (4c) Macmillan 330
The author does not hold that the fragmentary sayings of Jesus can be pieced together to form a basis for a new industrial order. What he believes is that the spirit of Jesus furnishes a guide for conduct in any given situation and his purpose here is to ask “what the spirit of Jesus would create out of the existing social system in order that we may be led into a more Christian industrial order.” Contents: The Christian as producer; The Christian as consumer; The Christian as owner; The Christian as investor; The Christian as employer and employee; Conclusion—democracy and faith. The author is minister in the Madison avenue Presbyterian church, New York city, and associate professor in Union theological seminary.
“It is a very quiet book, a book whose tread is muffled, as if it fell upon a thickly carpeted church aisle. Mr Coffin’s book on the social order seems to take us far away from the industrial struggle.”
COHEN, OCTAVUS ROY. Come seven. il *$1.75 (1½c) Dodd
A volume of negro stories by the author of “Polished ebony.” Contents: Without benefit of Virgie; The fight that failed; The quicker the dead; Alley money; Twinkle, twinkle, movie star; The light bombastic toe; Cock-a-doodle-doo!
“They approach the burlesque in their fun, but they never fail to amuse.”
COHEN, OCTAVUS ROY. Gray dusk. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
A detective story with scenes laid in South Carolina. Stanford Forrest and his bride had gone there for their honeymoon. Four days later David Carroll receives a telegram stating that Mary Forrest has been murdered, and that Stanford is held for the crime. With his assistant, Jim Sullivan, Carroll hastens to the scene of the tragedy. From the first he is prejudiced in favor of his friend, but Sullivan maintains his professional calm and stands ready to suspect everybody. There seems however to be no one to suspect but Stanford himself, against whom the circumstantial evidence is strong. But gradually others become implicated, Bennet Hemingway, who had written a slanderous letter, Conrad Heston, the man who had so mysteriously occupied Furness Lodge before the arrival of the Forrests, Esther Devarney who loves Heston, and Mart Farnam, the “swamp angel” with a weakness for “licker.” One of these is guilty and Carroll succeeds in finding the evidence that singles out this one.
“There are some good descriptions of the South Carolina ‘back country’ and a lack of objectionable thrills and horrors. The keen reader will be able to guess the solution.”
“‘Gray dusk’ has two qualities that lift it out of the ruck into which books of its class usually fall. The first of these is a denouement that will catch five out of every six sophisticated readers off guard, and the second is the literary skill the author displays in the successful creation of an atmosphere that enhances his plot.”
“The plot is ingenious and the solution of the mystery unexpected.”
“The story is conventional, but is not without lively episodes and suspense.”
“He writes in an easy, natural manner, with an agreeable absence of that laboured smartness which so often mars American stories.”
COLE, GEORGE DOUGLAS HOWARD. Chaos and order in industry. *$2.75 (3½c) Stokes 335
The average man, says the author, becomes conscious of our industrial and economic system only when something has gone wrong. He goes through three stages: apathy, prejudice, knowledge. The object of the book is to serve the third stage and to find out what is really wrong. After reviewing the status of the various industries he arrives at the conclusion that the cleavage in society today is between the workers by hand and by brain on the one side and the rentiers and financiers on the other and that the function of industrial reconstruction consists in devising a policy by which the former can exercise their functions not on behalf of the latter but on behalf of the whole community. Contents: The cause of strikes; Motives in industry; The reconstruction of profiteering; The guild solution; Coal; Railways; “Encroaching control” versus “industrial peace”; Engineering and shipbuilding; Cotton and building; Distribution and the consumer; The finance of industry; The real class struggle; Appendices and index.
“Mr Cole’s system may not inspire confident belief in those whose approach to economic study has been through the classical formulae. But no one can afford to dismiss it as a tissue of fallacies, an impossible Utopia.” Alvin Johnson
“The degeneracy of its tone hangs like a miasma over every page. The whole book is a gospel of greed, a hymn of hate.”
COLE, GEORGE DOUGLAS HOWARD. Introduction to trade unionism. (Fabian soc., London. Research dept. Trade union ser.) $1.65 For sale by the Survey 331.87
“In ‘An introduction to trade unionism’ the most prominent of the younger students of the British labor problem presents to the reader an admirable survey of English trade unionism of the present day. The book estimates the strength of organized labor, analyzes trade union structure and government, discusses the unions’ attitude toward amalgamation, toward political action, cooperation, the state, the shop steward’s movement, etc., and gives the reader a forecast of the future.”—Survey
“What Mr Cole has set out to do he has done remarkably well. No student of British trade unionism—or of American trade unionism, for that matter—should pass this little book by.” D. A. McCabe
“Mr Cole is to be thanked for explaining to the outside world the growth and goal of the shop stewards’ movement. Those who will take the trouble to follow Mr Cole’s treatment of the subject and to consult the works indicated in his bibliography will realize the futility of attempting to deflect trade unionism from its course by a flood of goodwill.”
“Gives a lucid and commendably dispassionate account of the British trade union movement.”
Reviewed by H. W. Laidler
COLE, GEORGE DOUGLAS HOWARD. Labour in the commonwealth. (New commonwealth books) *$1.50 Huebsch 331
“Mr Cole’s book is a restatement of the humanity of labour; a rescue of labour from the dismal penumbra of abstractions which have prevailed in industrial theory since the industrial revolution of the last century. ‘Labour,’ which the economists have loved to contrast with ‘capital,’ is an abstraction, he believes which has vitiated thinking and perverted economic science from its proper function. Mr Cole, therefore, who is one of the few members of the English intelligenzia who have gained the full confidence of the labour party, writes not of abstract labour as a ‘thing’ but of individual men and women forming the majority of the people in any commonwealth; and gives us his personal theory of labour’s place in the commonwealth and what labour and the labour movement are like. This theory is that labour should have control in the industrial sphere.”—Int J Ethics
“Of particular interest is Professor Cole’s analysis of the state. He avoids very carefully the mistake which is so often made of confusing the state and the commonwealth as a single entity.” G. S. Watkins
“A notably interesting book.”
“Mr Cole’s new volumes may be heartily recommended to all who search for an understanding of the mainsprings of labour policy and of the groundwork of labour organization.”
“A pungent review of the whole range of present industrial and social life in the spirit of a revolutionary critic.”
“We could wish that Mr Cole would confine himself more rigorously to plain and straightforward explanation. His excursions into satire and humor are unfortunate. The book includes a chapter upon Labour and education which is of real importance. Mr Cole’s discussion of the state in this volume is on the whole better than anything he has previously written on this subject; and a chapter on The organization of freedom, in which there is an exposition of the guild idea from the angle of personal liberty, is an exceedingly fresh and suggestive piece of work.”
“Against theories he regards as outworn Mr Cole’s attack, through all his book, is spirited and resourceful. At times Mr Cole’s imaginative style seems less telling than the steady hammering with facts which such a writer as Sidney Webb uses. But there are times enough when Mr Cole drives his sword’s point through a dogma and out its farther side.” C. M.
“There is no attempt in this book to equivocate or to win a decision by finesse. In following Mr Cole’s argument many queries cannot fail to occur to the reader, no matter how unprejudiced he may try to keep his mind. In the first place, has Mr Cole been absolutely fair in depicting present industrial conditions?”
“Adds nothing further to the philosophy of the national guildsmen, its object being merely to give a birdseye view of the social relationships to the outsider who wants to know the A B C’s, not of guild socialism but of the industrial problem as a whole. This purpose it fulfills admirably.” H. W. Laidler
“By the test of fact Professor Cole is in places inadequate. But his book is spirited, and the drift of his argument is sound. It is, furthermore, entertaining—which alone would justify it. It is finally a key to the state of mind of many of that younger generation to whom it is principally addressed.” W: L. Chenery
COLE, GEORGE DOUGLAS HOWARD. Social theory. (Library of social studies) *$1.50 (2½c) Stokes 301
The book is a study of the actions of men in association, in supplement and complement to their actions as isolated or private individuals, and its object is to ascertain the essential principles of social organizations and the moral and psychological problems upon which their structure and functioning must be based if they are to be in real harmony with the wills of the men and women of whom they are composed. It is the author’s conviction that our existing structure of society is not responsive to human needs, does not allow of the full self-expression of all its members and is doomed to a radical reconstruction. One of the social theories placed on the superannuated list is that of state sovereignty. Contents: The forms of social theory; Some names and their meaning; The principle of function; The forms and motives of association; The state; Democracy and representation; Government and legislation; Coercion and co-ordination; The economic structure of society; Regionalism and local government; Churches; Liberty; The atrophy of institutions; Conclusion; Bibliographical notes and index.
“On the whole candor compels the report that the author has brewed a few familiar concepts and some scattered observation into a turgidity against which adequate familiarity with the sociological analyses of the past two decades and a consistently observed purpose might have been a protection.” A. W. Small
“Very able and pregnant little book. His book must be taken very seriously, not only by teachers, but by politicians and reformers. It will rouse keen discussion and hot dissent. Mr Cole will welcome both. For though his manner is dogmatic, his method is tentative and moulds itself on facts. His French logic has been grafted on an English mind.” G. L. Dickinson
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
“For my own part I take little exception to Mr Cole’s general conclusion as based on the ideas of self-government and function. It is only Mr Cole’s methods of reaching his conclusion which seem to me inadequate. Human association is based not on will but upon necessity.... Mr Cole’s book is exceedingly valuable nevertheless.” Ordway Tead
“The book is compact and closely reasoned, detached, and even academic in manner and revealing, as do Mr Cole’s other works, an acute and masterly handling of his material.” M. J.
“Mr Cole has intellectual power of high order. He knows well what he is aiming at and where he wants to stand. One of the most commendable traits of his book is its candor in confessing that it is prompted by a preference.” T: R. Powell
“A brilliant piece of relentless reasoning. Not often is sociology made so easy, even enticing, as in this book.”
“Guild socialism has hitherto lacked a reasoned theory of social organization. In this book Mr Cole makes a brave and wonderfully successful effort to grapple with its difficulties.” H. J. L.
“The entire book is abstract to a degree. It cannot be recommended for easy reading, but it should be read with care, if half the world is to know what the other half is thinking about. As a flight of fancy and project of reform Mr Cole’s idea has some attractive features, but we would rather see it tried in some other country.”
“‘Social theory’ is a book worth while. It is reasoned and temperate; despite a too frequent reliance upon abstract terms where concrete example is most needed, it is clearly expressed; and it presents a coherent set of principles. One may disagree with all of it and yet acknowledge that the author has ably stated his argument.” W. J. Ghent
“This is a most irritating little book. No text-book has a right to be quite so dull as this; particularly from Mr Cole one had looked for something more original.”
“Mr Cole’s book is worthy of and will receive study. While it will not pass unchallenged upon its constructive side, its criticism of old conceptions is surely trenchant and significant.”
“It is an illuminating book. For one I confess to have wished that Mr Cole could have avoided his rather lengthy definition of the terms he used.” W: L. Chenery
“He is so anxious to convey an attitude of philosophic detachment that he sometimes writes in what is for him a rather stilted and commonplace style. Still, Mr Cole has after all an extremely acute and very well trained mind. His analysis of social theory is nothing if it is not acute.”
“As far as he goes, the author is an independent thinker, and neither his knowledge of the labor movement nor his grasp of current social theories can be questioned. The critical and destructive part of his work is therefore fresh and highly suggestive. But both his admirers and his opponents will expect something more, some revolutionary and creative thought.” W: E. Walling
COLE, GRENVILLE ARTHUR JAMES. Ireland the outpost. il *$2.50 Oxford 941.5
“Mr Cole believes that ‘a realization of the physical structure of Ireland, and of her position as an outpost of Eurasia, may lead to a wider comprehension, not only of the land, but of its complex population.... If the presentation is a true one,’ he adds, ‘the nine sections should lead to one conclusion.’ This conclusion is anticipated in the first sentence of the book: ‘Nature allows no “self-determination” to any point on the surface of the globe.’ If the geology, flora, fauna, and ethnology of Ireland show that it is closely united to the British island, it should not seek to go off on its own politically.”—Nation
“Professor Cole’s ‘Ireland the outpost,’ has a beauty of style rare even among those who make belles-lettres their profession. With the knowledge of a scientist the author combines the feeling of a poet, and an acquaintance with the contemporary poetry of his country.” N. J. O’C.
“As an argument, ably presented, this one is peculiarly liable to be reduced to the absurd.” Preserved Smith
COLERIDGE, ERNEST HARTLEY. Life of Thomas Coutts, banker. 2v il *$10 Lane
The subject of this biography, one of the founders of the banking house of Coutts & Co., was born in 1735 and died in 1822. Business, financial, political and social events of his time enter into his life story. He was one of those who opposed the war with America and the subject is referred to frequently in his correspondence during that period. The biography is based on a large collection of mss which came to light in 1907 and it tells for the first time in full the story of Thomas Coutts’s romantic attachment for Harriet Mellon, whom he married in his eightieth year. The volumes are very fully illustrated and volume 2 has an index.
“Mr Coleridge’s two volumes are skilfully written and able documents.” E. F. E.
“The biography before us is indebted for its attraction more to the author than the subject. The personality of Tom Coutts does not strike us as original or impressive: his letters are pompous, prosy, and frequently ungrammatical. On the other hand, the prefatory chapters of Mr Hartley Coleridge, the ‘callidæ juncturæ’ with which he stitches together his bundles of letters, are quite delightful; and his historical vignettes are perfect in their lightness of touch and fairness of judgment.”
“The author has had the good fortune to use for the first time the family papers, including the banker’s correspondence, which relates to affairs of the heart as well as to Mammon and to politics. Thus the book gives an intimate portrait of a successful man of business and throws new light on the history of his times.”
“Lord Latymer is to be congratulated on having chosen Mr Coleridge to edit these papers and Mr Coleridge on the scholarly way in which he has carried out his task.... We must mention, in conclusion, an extremely characteristic series of letters from Lady Hester Stanhope, expressed with all her vivacious spirit. In spite of all the other riches in this book these should on no account be missed.”
COLERIDGE, STEPHEN.[2] Idolatry of science. *$1.25 Lane 501
“Mr Coleridge’s book is really not so much a protest against the idolatry of science as a general onslaught on the influence and on the achievements of science. His theme is that the vital things of life are feeling, thought, conduct, and that with them science has nothing to do. It cannot therefore raise the human mind or play the chief part in education. But he goes much further than that, and avows that science deprives man of beauty and magnanimity; that few of its ‘trumpeted triumphs’ have really brought benefits to mankind; and that it was in an evil hour that ‘James Watt and George Stephenson between them gave railways and factories to mankind.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is an amusing performance, even the scientists will admit that if they have sense and humour enough not to take the book too seriously.”
“The book is sharp in wit and often delicious in its humor, but its mistakes are so obvious that they scarcely need to be pointed out.” R. E. B.
“Mr Coleridge’s effusions make us agree with him to the extent of wishing that science had never invented the art of printing or even the alphabet.”
“A little more of the spirit of impartial investigation which is the method of science would have saved him from much foolish exaggeration about the exaltation of ugliness in ‘poetry, painting, sculpture, and all forms of human expression.’ There is much half-truth in the book, much restatement of the obvious. But it makes good reading, and the very narrowness of its survey adds to its piquancy.”
COLLINS, ARCHIE FREDERICK. Farm and garden tractors. il *$2.25 Stokes 631.37
The author claims that the tractor is by all odds the most important factor in solving the farming problem of today, viz: reducing the number of men and lowering the cost of production. The book proposes to tell all about how to buy, run, repair and take care of one. Every kind of tractor and every part and detail is shown in the illustrations and diagrams, there is an appendix and an index, and the contents are: About tractors in general; The parts of a tractor; The mechanism of a tractor; Garden and truck farm tractors; Tractors for small farms; Tractors for average farms; Tractors for big farms; Draw-bar and belt power applications; How to take care of your tractor; Tractor troubles and how to fix them; Tractor repairs and how to make them; The kind of tractor you want.
COLLINS, ARCHIE FREDERICK. Motor car starting and lighting. il *$1.50 Appleton 629.2
In a note on “How to use this book” the author says, “This books tells you (1) how to keep out of starting, lighting and ignition troubles, in so far as this is possible, and, what’s more to the point, (2) how to find and fix troubles when they crop out, which they are bound to do even in the best of systems.” The book is composed of four parts: The electric power plant; The electric starting system; The electric lighting system; The electric ignition system. There are eighty-one illustrations and an index.
COLLINS, ARCHIE FREDERICK, and COLLINS, VIRGIL DEWEY. Putnam’s handbook of buying and selling. il *$1.90 Putnam 658
This book “telling in a simple and practical way how to succeed in business” (Sub-title) is the result of long years of experience in the merchandising field. “It is so simple that however little you know about business you can understand it, and it is so practical you can use it at once and with telling effect.” (Preface) It falls into four parts: Successful selling: Expert buying; Commercial confidence; and Business wisdom. Some of the chapters are: First principles of selling; How to pick live wire salesmen; Selling over the counter; Selling to the retail trade; Selling to the wholesale trade; Making your sales through the mails; The essentials of shrewd buying; Inside credit information; Raising and investing money. There are thirty-two illustrative charts and diagrams and an index.
COLLINS, ARCHIE FREDERICK, and COLLINS, VIRGIL DEWEY. Wonders of natural history. il *$2.25 Stokes 590
It is the purpose of this “comprehensive account of man in the making and of prehistoric and present day animals” (Sub-title) “to put into simple language an authoritative account of the chief branches of natural history, namely, zoology, geology, palæontology and mineralogy. Finally it explains the accepted idea of evolution from the lowest protoplasmic matter, through unthinkably long ages, into the highest living forms as we know them today.” (Foreword) The book is indexed, has numerous illustrations and the contents are: Prehistoric animals; Man in the making; About the aborigines; Contemporary mammals; Birds of today; Present-day reptiles; Modern fishes; Living insects, millipedes, crustaceans and spiders; Lower forms of animal life; Minerals and gems; Some other wonders; How the exhibits are prepared.
COLLINS, JOSEPH. Idling in Italy; studies of literature and of life. *$3 Scribner 850
“Literary Italy of today is presented by Joseph Collins in his recent book, to which is given the misleading title, ‘Idling in Italy.’ Of particular importance and interest is the long array here presented of Italian writers of prose and verse who are almost entirely unknown in this country, but who in their native land are the apostles of a new movement in Italian literature. An entire chapter is devoted to the futurist movement. His criticism of Giovanni Papini, chief exponent of the futurist movement, is comprehensive. Dr Collins spares neither praise nor scathing criticism of Gabriele D’Annunzio, Italy’s most romantic figure. A number of essays in the book have no relation to Italy. The author dissects W. Somerset Maugham’s ‘The moon and sixpence’; he gives an interesting chapter on Samuel Butler; there is a chapter on feminism and a good pen picture of Wilson.”—Springf’d Republican
“The pages are filled with all those qualities which make the perfect essayist.” W. S. B.
“The study of President Wilson, as it is published in this book, proves to be an appreciation, perhaps the broadest Wilson has called forth. I find this study the best piece of writing about Wilson I have seen, with the one exception of that chapter of Maynard Keynes’s, and what superiority the Keynes essay has in brilliance Dr Collins makes up for in conviction and depth.” J. H. Dounce
“There are far too many names, followed in each case by brief critical notes, for the reader to gain a clear impression of any one author to whom he has been introduced. When, however, Dr Collins pauses in his swift flight to linger for a while in contemplation of a single author he reveals an appreciative understanding and an acute critical faculty.”
“The reader gets from the volume ideas, not suggestions: stimulus, not charm. He who picks up the book to be lulled, may lay it down sleepless or enraged. It is a real book, not a piece of literary exquisiteness or a series of agreeable conversational discourses.”
“Dr Collins’s chapters are entertaining as well as keen and illuminative. Some of his themes are in lighter vein, but scarcely any would suggest ‘idling’ except to a gormand for work.”
“Perhaps Dr Collins comments too briefly on the many names which he considers. The book is not organic. It seems that Dr Collins had a number of essays on hand and decided to give them to the public under a pleasing but irrelevant title.”
COLMAN, SAMUEL, and COAN, CLARENCE ARTHUR. Proportional form. il *$3 Putnam 740
“Further studies in the science of beauty, being supplemental to those set forth in ‘Nature’s harmonic unity.’” (Sub-title) “Nature’s harmonic unity,” published in 1912, was based on the thesis that in nature “a few fundamental and major rules work in concert for the government of the whole scheme,” and on the relation between this universal harmony and art. The present work represents a continuation of studies in the same field presented in a simpler form. Certain fundamental principles have been repeated in order to obviate constant reference to the first book. The volume has 156 drawings and designs and is indexed. A note on the title page states “The drawings and correlating descriptions are by Mr Colman. The text and mathematics are by Capt. Coan.”
COLUM, PADRAIC. Boy apprenticed to an enchanter. il *$2.50 (8½c) Macmillan
Mr Colum has written a new fairy story for children, the story of Eean the fisherman’s son who was caught stealing the horses of King Manus. He was brought bound into the king’s hall doomed to die at sunrise. But first the king asked him to tell how it came about that he had risked his life in attempting so dangerous a thing. “And I declare,” said the king, “if he shows us that he was ever in greater danger than he is in this night I shall give him his life.” So Eean the fisherman’s son tells the story of his apprenticeship to Zabulun the enchanter.
“With the Celt’s instinct for magician’s tricks Colum has taken Greek, Egyptian, Biblical, and Arthurian tales, and made a simply-constructed patch-work of enchantment.”
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
COLUM, PADRAIC. Children of Odin. il *$4 Macmillan 293
“In ‘The children of Odin’ Padraic Colum has given a free rendering of the myths of the poetic and the prose Eddas. Mr Colum tells us that he has done his work directly from the Eddas and in consultation with Norwegian scholars. Mr Colum had boys and girls above twelve years in mind when preparing his text.”—Bookm.
“Told in a connected narrative that flows in a simple, rhythmic prose sometimes poetic. Expensive for many libraries.”
Reviewed by A. C. Moore
“Not the least part of the beauty of this telling of them is that, for all his Norse subject, Mr Colum is as usual invincibly Irish.”
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
COMERFORD, FRANK. New world. *$2 Appleton 335
The author has made a tour of Europe to study our present day world problems. He claims to have made a thorough study from every conceivable point of view. He blames bolshevism and socialism for all the chaos. He sympathizes with labor but fears its methods of redress and is absolutely opposed to everything that threatens law and order. Among the contents are: Problems facing a stricken world; The problem of Europe’s poverty; A tragedy of politics; Russia out of balance; The soviet machine; Clash of fact and theory; The failure of the socialization of industry; The third international; Intermeddling in Russia; Bolshevism in the United States. There are appendices consisting of various documents.
“Frank Comerford’s ‘The new world’ combines a sane and temperate judgment with a firm, intellectual grasp of his subject.”
COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON, and DOST, ZAMIN KI (WILLIMINA LEONORA ARMSTRONG). Son of power. *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
His name was Sanford Hantee, but the boys of the Chicago streets called him “Skag.” It was at the Lincoln Park zoo that he first began to know animals, and their fascination for him was so keen that he ran away from home and became a circus trainer. His power over animals seemed to come from his absolute control of himself and from the fact that he knew no fear. It was old Alec Binz of the circus who gave Skag his desire to go to India and know for himself the animals of the jungle. In India he very soon achieved the title Rana Jai—Son of power. The book is really a series of short stories telling of Skag’s exploits with various jungle beasts. Among the titles are: The good grey nerve: The monkey glen; Jungle laughter; The hunting cheetah; Elephant concerns; Blue beast, and Fever birds. Skag made some human friends, too, in India, among them Carlin Deal, a girl half-Indian and half-English who becomes almost as important as Skag himself in the narrative.
“Men and boys especially will like it.”
“Interesting and colorful, these stories, though written with a collaborator, are thoroughly characteristic of Mr Comfort. Though parts of the volume make rather too great demands upon the reader’s credulity, it is, on the whole, a fascinating piece of work, vivid, picturesque, full of color and the glamour and mysticism of India.”
COMMITTEE ON THE WAR AND THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK. Church and industrial reconstruction. *$2 Assn. press 261
This volume is the third in a series of reports that is being issued by the Committee on the war and the religious outlook. In these times of industrial unrest and uncertainty following the world war, says the introduction, the spirit of God “moves on the face of the waters” challenging the church “to reconsider its own gospel, to redefine its attitude toward the present social order, and to interpret for our time the way of life involved in Christian discipleship.” After defining the Christian interest in and approach to the industrial problems the volume takes up: The Christian ideal of society; Unchristian aspects of the present industrial order; The Christian attitude toward the system as a whole; The Christian method of social betterment; Present practicable steps toward a more Christian industrial order: The question of the longer future; What individual Christians can do to Christianize the industrial order; What the church can do to Christianize the industrial order. The appendices are: I, The historic attitude of the church to economic questions; II, Selected bibliography on the church and industrial reconstruction; III, The Committee on the war and the religious outlook. There is an index.
Reviewed by G: Soule
“Within the compass of no other single volume can be found such a summary of the churches’ experiences in the present industrial age, backed by a valuable historical study of the successive attitudes of the church to economic questions.” Graham Taylor
COMMITTEE ON THE WAR AND THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK. Missionary outlook in the light of the war. *$2 Assn. press 266
This volume is one in a series of studies that is being brought out by the Committee on the war and the religious outlook. It is the report prepared by a special sub-committee with Dr Robert E. Speer as its chairman and Rev. Samuel McCrea Cavert as its secretary and contains the evidences collected and the conclusions arrived at, on the religious outlook, by a great number of competent men. The contents fall into three parts: Part 1—The enhanced significance and urgency of foreign missions in the light of the war; Part 2—The effect of the war on the religious outlook in various lands; Part 3—Missionary principles and policies in the light of the war. The appendices contain a synopsis of the contents and a selected bibliography.
“The papers are uniformly by men who possess first-hand knowledge of the subjects on which they write.”
“This volume is not simply for so-called church people but has much suggestion for all who are facing the problems of our time. Such readers may have to do some skipping, for there are pages here reminiscent of the missionary tract of our childhood, and they will have to do a good deal of translating.”
COMMITTEE ON THE WAR AND THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK. Religion among American men, as revealed by a study of conditions in the army. *$1.50 Assn. press 261
“This volume is one of a series of studies that is being brought out by the Committee on the war and the religious outlook. The committee was constituted, while the war was still in progress, by the joint action of the Federal council of the churches of Christ in America and the General war-time commission of the churches and was an expression of the conviction that the war had laid upon the churches the duty of the most thorough self-examination.” (Editorial preface) The book, which corresponds in aim and method to the British work “The army and religion,” is based on answers to questionnaires, personal interviews, letters, articles in the religious press, etc. It is in three parts: The state of religion as revealed in the army; The effect of the war on religion in the army; Lessons for the church.
“These pages ought to be before every church or convention that is planning to serve the nation through the organized church.”
Reviewed by H. A. Jump
Reviewed by Hugh Page
CONE, HELEN GRAY. Coat without a seam, and other poems. *$1.25 Dutton 811
“‘The coat without a seam, and other poems,’ by Helen Gray Cone, though not an unusual book of verse, is significant for its strong, impressive faith and its whole-hearted optimism. More than half of the poems concern the war, and are brimming with war’s idealism. The remainder, collected under the title ‘The quiet days,’ are lyrics on various themes. Miss Cone has been best known in the past few years as the author of a ‘A chant of love for England,’ the answer to the German ‘Hymn of hate.’”—Springf’d Republican
“Time was, and not long since, these counters had a brave ring; now, without the mixture and fusion of noble metals, the poor alloy predominates. Even the shrill notes sound flat.” L: Untermeyer
“Among the poetesses in the larger mood, Helen Gray Cone, though palpably not the least ambitious, is destined least to survive the present hour for the reason that her ardors have been lighted at unsubstantial altars, those of the late war and the late peace. A poetess of the flag, she seems stale now as well as strident.” M. V. D.
“It is well conceived and the rhetoric is of a high quality, but the pulse of authentic poetry is too often missing.”
“Miss Helen Gray Cone has a substantially perfect technique. The highest originalities are not open to her, but her feeling is delicate and true, and, in all the agitations of the late war, there is no tremor in the mounting flame.” O. W. Firkins
“Miss Cone’s diction is simple, unaffected, and tinted rather than colored. Her style is good.”
CONKLING, MRS GRACE WALCOTT (HAZARD). Wilderness songs. *$1.50 Holt 811
This collection of poems, reprinted from various magazines, show nature and life reflected in the poetic soul of a woman. The poems are grouped under the headings: Songs of New England roads; Songs of war; Seven interludes; Songs of places—old Mexico; Nocturnes; and a concluding poem: The wilderness.
“It is conspicuous that ‘Wilderness songs’ should follow ‘Afternoons of April.’ The fragile, tremulous art of the earlier book has taken on a firm, ripe quality of mood and expression.” W. S. B.
“Mrs Conkling feels platitudes snugly and sweetly. Her cadences, like her attachments, are the generally accepted. Her mood and meter seem all too neat, with seldom a sign that their creation brought thrusts of pleasurable pain.” M. V. D.
“Few indeed are the books of lyrics as well made as these. The melodies are light, but lovely; the diction shows an exquisite discretion; and there is always a sense of proportion in design.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“Delicate perception expressed with quiet charm is characteristic of the poems. The volume in general satisfies the craving for nature in her gentler moods.”
CONKLING, HILDA. Poems by a little girl. *$1.50 Stokes 811
The author of these poems is now nine years old. Amy Lowell writes a long preface to the book in which she says: “It is poetry, the stuff and essence of poetry.... I know of no other instance in which such really beautiful poetry has been written by a child.... What this book chiefly shows is high promise; but it also has its pages of real achievement, and that of so high an order it may well set us pondering.” With some biographical data on the child Miss Lowell describes her manner of working, which she considers to be largely subconscious and perfectly instinctive. The poems are grouped according to the child’s age into: Four to five years old; Five to six years old; Six to seven years old; and Seven to nine years old.
“The book as a whole is convincing, and a number of the poems are beautiful.”
“Charming and unusual. Here is a book of poems instinct with the spirit of childhood and so childlike in much of its phrasing as to make a direct and permanent appeal to children and grown people.” A. C. Moore
“Her thought has not the incoherence that might be expected of a child; she paints in each poem a complete picture, step by step, usually leading up to the last line with a fine feeling for climax. In economy of words and in power of connotation these poems resemble the translations from the Chinese and the Japanese which have lately attracted the attention of occidental poets, but there is a richness of detail that we are accustomed to associate with the tradition of English literature.” N. J. O’Conor
“Many a mature poet might be proud of some of these little gems. All of them sparkle with that faery light that enables its possessor to see things quaintly and daintily.”
“The quality which shines behind practically all of these facets of loveliness is a directness of perception, an almost mystic divination. It is its own stamp of unaffected originality, a genuine ingenuousness. It is ridiculous to talk of the ‘stages’ in the work of a ten-year-old child and yet the verses conceived between four and seven are more vivid, seem more spontaneous and less—absurd as it may seem—sophisticated than those written between seven and nine.” L: Untermeyer
“Readers will be glad of the book, not only because it was written by a child, but because it contains beautiful poetry. Not a false image is to be found in it, not a single artificial symbol, not a line of dull, stereotyped diction!”
“The gift is given us gravely and unconsciously, with none of the reticences that fears ridicule, and yet with none of the exaggeration that tries to ‘show off.’” Marguerite Wilkinson
“The present volume deserves a high place among the expressions of youthful imagination. It is vivid, fresh, and creative in no small degree.”
“The handling of the verse-form is skillful, though not masterly.” O. W. Firkins
“The ‘Poems by a little girl’ do not smack of the exotic and consciously clever; they are robust as well as delicate, with the characteristic deliberation and spontaneity of childhood seizing life with keen eyes and quick imagination.”
CONNOLLY, JAMES BRENDAN. Hiker Joy. il *$1.75 (2½c) Scribner
Hiker, the young hero of Mr Connolly’s series of adventures, is a little gamin from the New York water front, who ships to sea with his friend Bill Green on a lumber schooner bound for somewhere across the Atlantic in wartime. The ship is wrecked in a storm and Bill gets possession of the valuable papers the captain had been carrying and turns them over to the secret service, according to orders. Other adventures follow, with German spies, U-boats, and Zeppelins, and the whole tale is related by Hiker in his own vernacular.
“Sea stories which will have their usual appeal because the author knows how to write them.”
“The whole book is sufficient to provide an evening’s entertainment of no mean quality.”
“Every page vibrates with action and glows with unforced drama. Happily, both his matter and manner are excellent.”
CONNOR, HENRY GROVES. John Archibald Campbell. *$2.25 (3c) Houghton
The subject of this biography was a southern jurist, appointed a justice of the Supreme court in 1853. In 1861 he resigned to become assistant secretary of war for the Confederacy. He was one of the three Confederate peace commissioners who met Lincoln and Seward in 1865. The table of contents indicates the outstanding points in his career and shows the biographer’s plan of treatment; Ancestry and early career at the bar; Associate justice of the Supreme court of the United States; The slavery question before the court; On the circuit: filibustering and the slave trade; Efforts to avert civil war; Services to the confederacy and peace negotiations: The problem of restoration; The slaughter-house cases and the fourteenth amendment; Last years at the bar; Personal characteristics, intellectual and social traits; Conclusion. A table of cases follows and an index.
“The biographer’s judicial experience gives him an advantage in the treatment of legal points, while his sense of restraint eliminates bias in the discussion of matters that ordinarily arouse the keenest controversy. The method of inserting quoted portions is at times confusing, and there are numerous inaccuracies of quotation.” J. G. Randall
“Will interest students of history.”
Reviewed by J: C. Rose
CONRAD, JOSEPH. Rescue: a romance of the shallows. *$2 (1c) Doubleday
Mr Conrad’s new tale of the South Seas is the story of a man torn between loyalty to friend and love of woman, forced to choose between faith to his plighted word and her safety. It is a story of a generation ago with civil war rife among the native tribes of the Malay straits. Captain Tom Lingard has pledged his all to the service of Rajah Hassim and has plotted and contrived to restore him to his kingdom. The enterprise has reached its climax when an English yacht blunders into the scene of activity and runs aground. Captain Lingard goes aboard her with offers of assistance, his one thought to get the intruders out of the way. His offer is met with insolence on the part of the owner and he would gladly have left them to their fate, but he had seen the woman, Mrs Travers, and her spell is on him. Thereafter these two are but puppets in the hands of fate and the outcome is the wreck of all Lingard’s hopes and the failure of the cause he had served.
“This fascinating book revives in use the youthful feeling that we are not so much reading a story of adventure as living in and through it, absorbing it, making it our own. This feeling is not wholly the result of the method, the style which the author has chosen; it arises more truly from the quality of the emotion in which the book is steeped.” K. M.
“A characteristic story, one of his best.”
“While the charm of its style is undeniable, while it is filled with glowing word-pictures of tropical scenes, we shall doubtless be held to be intellectually blind and artistically obtuse by many Conrad admirers when we say that it has none of the flowing narrative qualities which should be the chief characteristic of a story of its sort.” E. F. E.
“‘The rescue’ is characterized by that extraordinary grasp of reality and breadth of outlook for which Mr Conrad is famous.”
“It is not easy to find another name for genius. The effort to describe it is ungrateful enough. When it penetrates so deep to the roots of life one can pay it the tribute of becoming silent at the earliest possible moment.” Gilbert Seldes
“If Mr Joseph Conrad’s ‘The rescue’ is an earlier novel, as has been said, it is difficult to see why he did not leave its style intact or re-write it wholly in his later, sparer manner. Yet with all the disappointments of detail, in completion ‘The rescue’ produces a massiveness of effect which belongs only to Conrad.” C. M. R.
“Mr Conrad remains a writer who approaches greatness. In ‘The rescue’ there are prose harmonies as rich and plangent as in ‘Youth’ itself. There are glimpses of men—Shaw, Travers, Jörgenson—that are sharp as etchings. His senses are marvellously active and acute and his ability to render their perceptions into language is superb. He fails, contrary to a common opinion, when he seeks to explain the operations of the mind or the character of the passions or when he reflects.”
“The book is absorbingly interesting; dramatic, subtle, fascinating with that allurement, that sheer power and sweep of romance which is Joseph Conrad’s to command.” L. M. Field
“Begun some twenty years ago, finished last year, it combines the lucidity of his earlier work with the subtlety of his later manner.”
“We who have had a sense of groping for the old magic amongst the later tales of Joseph Conrad may find it in this book.” H. W. Boynton
“His command of what was originally an alien tongue, probably unequalled in the whole course of English letters, has gained in mastery and subtlety, and the gifts that he brings us are still rich and strange and new.”
“It matters not how often Mr Conrad tells the story of the man and the brig. Out of the million stories that life offers the novelist, this one is founded upon truth. And it is only Mr Conrad who is able to tell it us. But if the statement of the theme is extremely fine, we have to admit that the working out of the theme is puzzling: we cannot deny that we are left with a feeling of disappointment.”
CONSTABLE, FRANK CHALLICE. Myself and dreams. *$2.50 (2½c) Dodd 150
The book is a contribution to the literature on psychical matters in which the soul is treated as a psychical subject whose physiological state is but transitory, merely an “occasion” for conduct. Part 1, Myself, includes such subjects as the relativity of knowledge, insight, self-consciousness, the intelligible universe and the sensible universe, ideas, free-will and the categorical imperative. Part 2, Dreams, includes chapters on: Sleep; Physiological and psychological theories; Multiplex personality; Hallucination and illusion in dreams; Romance and fairie; Phantasy; Ecstasy; The eternal.
CONTEMPORARY verse anthology; with an introd. by C: W. Stork.[2] *$3 Dutton 811.08
“The editor of Contemporary Verse has selected from the pages of that magazine devoted exclusively to poetry the representative contributions printed during the past four years as examples of a style and quality of poetic expression ‘broadly devoted to the needs and interests of the general reading public.’ Among the contributors are found such well-known names as Louis Untermeyer, Witter Bynner, Clement Wood, John Hall Wheelock, William Rose Benet, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Sara Teasdale, Mary Carolyn Davies, Margaret Widdemer and Ruth Comfort Mitchell. Among the lesser known contributors are Amory Hare, Stephen Moylan Bird, Gertrude Cornwell Hopkins, Elinor Wylie, Winifred Welles, Phoebe Hoffman, Dorothy Anderson, Amanda B. Hall, William Baird, Berenice K. Van Slyke, Leonora Speyer and many another.”—Boston Transcript
“It has a little that is very good, more that is very bad, and very much that is mediocre.”
“The selections which appear in this volume, are, in the main, chosen with discrimination and taste.”
“Throughout there is an undercurrent of sane vitality, that spirit of healthy restlessness and inquisitiveness that more than anything else distinguishes the work of so many of the present American poets from that of their quieter, more smoothly flowing British brothers.”
CONYNGTON, THOMAS. Business law; a working manual of every-day law. 2d ed 2v $8 Ronald 347.7
A two-volume edition of the work published in 1918. Volume 1 covers: The law of the land; Contracts; Sales; Agency; Negotiable instruments; Insurance; Employment; Partnership; Corporations. Volume 2: Real and personal property; Wills and inheritance; Personal relations; Suretyship; Debts and interest; Bankruptcy; Bailments and common carriers; Patents, trademarks, and copyrights; Taxation; Arbitration; Law and lawyers; Forms. Appendixes to volume 2 contain: Chart showing jurisdiction of state courts; A professional law library; Glossary, and there is an index.
“It is a valuable handbook; it can be referred to by the ordinary citizen because nontechnical terms are used and the statements of law are plain and concise.”
“It is well arranged and clearly written for the business man.”
COOK, CARROLL BLAINE (DIXIE CARROLL, pseud.). Goin’ fishin’; with an introd. by Leonard Wood, and a foreword by Wright A. Patterson. il *$2.75 (1½c) Stewart & Kidd 799
“Weather and feed facts; the fresh-water game fish: the natural and artificial baits and their use.” (Sub-title) Besides this information the book contains the infectious exuberance of spirit which comes from the love of out-o’-doors and which, says the author, has burned like an unquenchable volcano within him from the earliest moments of his life. The motor boat in fishing, footwear and the camp commissary also receive attention and a list of recommended fishing waters—in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pacific Northwest and Canada—concludes the book.
COOK, SIR EDWARD TYAS. More literary recreations. *$2.75 Macmillan 824
“About half the book is devoted to three charming papers on Pliny’s letters, the classics in daily life, and the Greek anthology. Other essays are on travelling companions, the art of editing, the changes and corruptions of words, and on ‘single poem poets.’”—Brooklyn
“The essays in this second volume of literary recreations, composed in the intervals of leisure snatched from his official duties during the war, are now published for the first time, and only serve to heighten the regret caused by the premature death of their author. Reserved and restrained with strangers, he here reveals a geniality and sympathy of which only the few who knew him intimately were aware.”
“There will be a good many readers of this book who, after listening to Sir Edward Cook, will take down the Greek anthology or the half-forgotten Virgil or Homer from its shelf, and so thank him in the way he would have best liked to be thanked.”
COOK, W. VICTOR. Grey fish. *$2 Stokes
“In the Shetland Islands they have a toast which they drink on New Year’s day, ‘Health to man and death to the grey fish.’ In this novel both name and toast are applied to a grim sort of hunting and of prey, the German submarines off the coast of Spain during the war. The story consists of twelve connected episodes in which two of the characters are always in the centre of interest, a few others come and go, and still more appear only in single tales. The two chief actors are a young Scot ostensibly in the employ of a British firm of wine merchants with offices at various Spanish ports. The other is a middle-aged Spaniard, a stevedore, once a peasant and an ex-smuggler. A double motive urges him into the grey fish hunting, a love of dangerous adventure for its own sake and a passionate hatred of the Germans because his brother’s boat had been sunk and his brother drowned by a German submarine.”—N Y Times
“The author of ‘Grey fish’ has provided a series of fascinating, well spiced tales so closely connected that they deserve to be called a novel, into which he has put not a little of the atmosphere and color of the Spanish coast.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
COOKE, GEORGE WILLIS. Social evolution of religion. *$3.50 Stratford co. 201
“The author is dominated by one thought throughout his work, and that is ‘all religion is essentially communal or social.’ Primitive man, like the child, he asserts, does not know himself apart from the group; and he adds: ‘It must be recognized that all the evidence is in favor of the conclusion that the earliest manifestations of religion were those of a group, and not those of individuals.’ And the conclusion is drawn that man has been religious from the beginning. After a few chapters in which are described the social transmission of human experience, the creative genius of social man, and communal and tribal religion; feudal, national, international and universal religion are described; and the closing chapter is on religion as cosmic and human motive. Two fundamental points underlie and color this entire work, namely, that religion is a natural phenomenon and that it is primarily social.”—Boston Transcript
“He has collected a great mass of facts, and his interpretation of those facts, while evidencing a vigorous mind, is but the judgment of a human being; and there will be no lack of dissent on the part of readers.” F. W. C.
“The author has drawn heavily upon writers of his own way of thinking. Nowhere is there evidence of any scientific discernment.”
“The author tells us that this book contains fifty years’ study of religion but there is not the slightest suspicion in it of an old man’s conservatism. Few books about religion are more radical, more fearless, more resolutely faced toward the future than this one.” A. W. Vernon
COOKE, RICHARD JOSEPH, bp.[2] Church and world peace. *$1 Abingdon press 261
“After discussing the demand for a League of nations and answering the question whether or not such a league is possible, and after stating the political difficulties in the way of such a league, the author concludes that the league will need all the spiritual power of the church to make it effective. He says that ‘while the League of nations may do much to prevent war, it cannot eradicate the desire for war. It would seem, therefore, absolutely essential that the physical power of the League shall be supplemented by a spiritual power, some mighty generating influence which, by its appeal to the souls of man, shall be able to cool super-heated passions, and for treasured wrong substitute desire for justice and not revenge, for peace and not war.’ There must then be a Christian league, a league of Christendom supplementing the political League of nations.”—Boston Transcript
“The book is a strong one, well argued, clearly written, and exceedingly timely. It closes with an inspiring note of optimism.”
COOLEY, ANNA MARIA, and SPOHR, WILHELMINA. Household arts for home and school. 2v il v 1 *$1.50; v 2 *$1.60 Macmillan 640.7
These volumes are intended for the use of household arts classes in school and as a help in home work. Volume 1 describes how the girls of the Ellen H. Richards school chose the furniture and all accessories for the Sunnyside apartment of five rooms, to be occupied by two of the teachers, and to be used as a practice house for the school. The girls made all the curtains, couch covers, dresser scarfs, table doilies, towels, etc., and while doing so learned all about the decorations and furnishing of a home, its management and up-keep, the use of the sewing machine, the making, mending and cost of clothing and the care of the baby. Volume 2 is more especially devoted to the daily work in the home. The storing and canning of fruits and vegetables, cooking, cleaning and laundering, the preparation of breakfasts and dinners, keeping well and happy are discussed. Each volume has an appendix and an index and many illustrations.
“The lessons are selected with discrimination, and suitable balance is maintained between the various topics. The book does not make adequate provision for the development of thought and initiative on the part of the pupil and fails to give opportunity for the understanding of principles through experiments.”
COOLEY, ANNA MARIA, and others. Teaching home economics. *$1.80 Macmillan 640.7
“The authors took upon themselves a large task as indicated in the statement of their aim, namely, to ‘offer suggestions for the organization, administration, and teaching of home economics subjects.’ The authors say, ‘It is taken for granted that the students who will use it will be familiar with the scope of the field,’ and that ‘the book is intended for use primarily in normal schools and colleges’ though they ‘hope that the social workers, vocational advisors, and lay readers will find in this book suggestions of value.’ They specially stress the fact that they wish to ‘attack the subject in the light of the new vision of education as a factor in social evolution.’ The attempt to cover in outline the whole field is treated under four different divisions: (1) Home economics as an organized study in the school program; (2) Organization of courses in home economics; (3) Planning of lessons; (4) Personnel, materials, and opportunities; (5) Addenda.”—J Home Econ
“One of the good features of the book is the list of questions after each chapter and the suggested references for collateral reading. While the authors have succeeded in bringing together in one volume material which will be very helpful to the discriminating teacher of home economics, the undertaking was so great as almost to prevent adequate treatment of the various parts.” Isabel Bevier
“One finishes the reading of the book with the realization that innumerable statements as to existing conditions have been given, but a feeling akin to bewilderment is not cleared away by any definite conclusion as to wise selection of material, clear emphasis on abilities to be developed, or teaching methods to be used.”
COOLIDGE, DANE. Wunpost. *$2 Dutton
“‘Wunpost’ was the nickname bestowed on John C. Calhoun, who, though he came from a good old southern family and had ‘the profile of a bronze Greek god,’ was nevertheless so illiterate that, when he found a gold mine and decided to call it the ‘One post,’ he spelled the name ‘Wunpost.’ He had a habit of finding gold mines. During the course of the narrative he discovers no less than three, but he is cheated out of two of them by the wickedness and ingenuity of old Judson Eells and his ‘yaller dog,’ Lapham, the lawyer who thoroughly understood how to draw up a contract of the most deceptive kind. ‘Wunpost’ went to work to get even with Eells, with Lapham, and with ‘Pisenface’ Lynch, who was Eells’s ‘hired mankiller and professional claim-jumper.’ Of course he succeeded. But meanwhile he learned something about the dangers of boasting, had any number of adventures, including one with an Indian scout whom he outwitted and made a trip across the famous Death valley, besides falling in love.”—N Y Times
“The best of this book is the descriptions.”
“The work is an excellent specimen of the better class of western fiction, glowing with local color, featured by continuous and well sustained action and containing an abundance of its own variety of love and adventure.”
COOPER, HENRY ST JOHN. Sunny Ducrow. *$1.90 (1½c) Putnam
The story of a little girl of the London slums who leaves a pickle factory to go on the stage. Her name is Elizabeth Ann but everybody calls her Sunny and it is as Sunny Ducrow that she rises to fame. Later she buys an interest in the pickle factory and moves it to the suburbs where she establishes a model village called Sunnyville. A noble lord falls in love with her and for a time Sunny thinks she is in love with him, but she finds out that she is not and gives her hand to a less distinguished suitor in her own profession.
“The book is brightly and vivaciously written, and many people will be glad to become acquainted with Mr Cooper’s heroine.”
“Sunny Ducrow is an amusing impossibility.”
“In ‘Sunny Ducrow’ Henry St John Cooper barely escapes unwittingly surpassing the ‘novels’ that first established Stephen Leacock’s reputation. His heroine outglads Pollyanna and outbunks Bunker Bean.”
“There is much that is good in the book and much that is interesting. Good types in all classes of society are here, and the writing is sincere and simple in style. Sunny is almost too perfect, too infallible, too easily successful, and all the various humans who come into her life are almost too regenerated.” G. I. Colbron
COOPER, JAMES A. Tobias o’ the light. il *$1.75 (2c) Sully
Tobias is the light-keeper in one of the Cape Cod lighthouses. In addition, he is a born matchmaker, and when Ralph and Lorna declare they will not marry each other, although—or perhaps because—their families urge it so strongly, he tries to patch up their difficulties by telling each that the other is in financial difficulties. Their pity and chivalry aroused, all might have gone well, had it not been for the bank robbery, of which Ralph is suspected. When Lorna believes Ralph to be the thief because of his need of money, Tobias feels that perhaps he may have overreached himself in his stories. But fortunately the discovery of the part Conny Degger, Ralph’s enemy, has played in the whole affair, puts the matter to rights, and the prospect is bright for Ralph and Lorna, financially and sentimentally.
COPE, HENRY FREDERICK. Education for democracy. *$2 (2c) Macmillan 370
“Democracy is more than a form of government: it is a social ideal, a mode of life and a quality of the human spirit; therefore it cannot be imposed on a people; it must be acquired.” How it can be acquired and how our educational plans and ideals can be made to express personal-social values and a common good will in all phases of life is the subject of these essays. A partial list of the contents is: Education in a democracy; Democracy as a religious ideal; The spiritual nature of education in a democracy; Beginning at home; the public schools and democracy’s program; Spiritual values in school studies; Organizing the community; Democracy in the crucial hour.
“This little volume contains many excellent suggestions on the subject of education for democracy, and is worth reading both by teachers and by parents. But it is not always self-consistent, nor does it seem to us well grounded in fundamental principles.”
Reviewed by J. K. Hart
COPPLESTONE, BENNET. Last of the Grenvilles. *$2.50 Dutton
“Another story of naval adventure by the author of the widely read tale entitled ‘The lost naval papers.’ Plot and war romance abound. The area of activity covered is, as before, purely naval, and, like the former book, this not only includes stories of spies and their detection but also furnishes a true and amusing picture of the British sailor in wartime.” (Outlook) “The hero is a descendant of Grenville of the ‘Revenge,’ and his life is related from boyhood till he enters the naval service and goes through the great war.” (Ath)
“The experienced author makes ‘history repeat itself’ in excellent fashion for the youthful reader.”
Reviewed by M. E. Bailey
“Mr Copplestone knows the sea and ships as few writers know it, and ‘The last of the Grenvilles’ is a stirring example of his storytelling power.”
“No one who has read one of Mr Copplestone’s books will allow another of them to pass him unread.”
“In the sentimental episode entitled ‘The warm haven’ the author challenges comparisons with ‘Bartimeus’ and without success; a lighter touch is needed. But with this deduction the book is a spirited and enjoyable performance.”
CORBETT, ELIZABETH F. Puritan and pagan. *$1.75 (1c) Holt
Nancy Desmond is the puritan, Mary Allen the pagan. Nancy is a painter with a studio on Washington Square. Mary Allen is a distinguished actress. Max Meredith, who has married one of Nancy’s college friends, comes to New York on business and looks her up. They see much of one another during his stay and find to their dismay that they have fallen in love. True to her instincts and her ideals Nancy sends Max away from her. In the meantime, Roger Greene, Nancy’s friend and teacher, has become infatuated with Mary and between these two there is no question of renunciation. They accept their love as a fact altho Mary refuses marriage. When Nancy learns of the affair she is crushed and finds how much Roger has meant to her. Later after a long separation, after she has seen Max again and after the other love has run its course, Nancy and Roger come together.
“Her picture will prove fascinating to those who do not know that it is not faithful.”
“There is a palpable unevenness in ‘Puritan and pagan.’ It is so surprisingly good in spots that we should not expect that an author could maintain that high level everywhere. The novel very frankly contrasts the puritan and the pagan, but it is a contrast, fortunately, which possesses no element of didacticism, no hint of moral purpose.” D. L. M.
“The author has vividly portrayed several phases of New York life and analyzed skilfully several original characters, without forgetting that her main purpose was to tell a very old and very human story.”
“The plot is sound, the dramatis personae consistently interesting, and the action logical and generally swift.”
“All the plans, hopes, fears, regrets and dreams of three young lives find their expression between the covers, and while there is much that is bitter-sweet in the reading, the sympathetic reader will follow with unflagging interest to the end.”
CORBETT, SIR JULIAN STAFFORD. Naval operations. *$6.50 Longmans 940.45
“In the official history of the great war prepared by direction of the historical section of the British committee of imperial defense, this is the first volume devoted to naval operation, and concludes with the battle of the Falklands in December, 1914. It gives a detailed account of all the activities of the British navy during the first five months of the war, and this account is entirely based on official reports and other documents. Besides the maps, plans and diagrams inserted in this volume, there is a separate case containing eighteen maps and charts.”—R of Rs
“The pictures presented are consecutive and clear. The efforts of the author to produce a plain and interesting narrative are ably seconded by the publishers; for the make-up of the book is admirable in the highest degree, and presents a model that makes the work of most American publishers seem crude. In comparison with this book, any other book, even though it deal with mighty armies, seems modelled on microscopic lines.” B. A. Fiske
“Sir Julian Corbett had a moving tale to tell, and he has told it well. It is not altogether impossible to imagine it better written. But the story is at least clear and objective. His judgments err in being a little over-kind.”
“Scrupulous care in the presentation of facts and reticence in criticizing them characterize this very detailed, well documented history.”
Reviewed by Reginald Custance
“Sir Julian Corbett is a master of naval lore; he is deeply versed in the strategy and the tactics of the great captains of the old days. The maps are of the highest value and importance.”
“Sir Julian’s style is clear and concise, his treatment of the subject admirable in every way. A more thrillingly interesting book would be hard to find, or one more valuable.”
“The chief merit of Sir Julian Corbett’s volume consists in its exposition of the interplay of naval and military considerations.”
“The author’s lucid and dispassionate works on the past history of our navy had shown that he was specially qualified to record its greatest undertaking, and his new book is all that we had expected it to be as a narrative, even if some of his occasional remarks and deductions may provoke dissent.”
“Sir Julian S. Corbett reveals himself a student of detail, a scholarly narrator, and a man who is not impatient of research. These virtues, together with an ability to retain throughout a comprehensive view of the worldwide field of operations and the political or military necessity governing many moves that were unavailing, give this history an uncommon value.”
“In our judgment Sir Julian has accomplished his extremely difficult task with very great skill. The difficulty of the task is, indeed, in large measure concealed by the skill of its accomplishment. No naval historian has ever had to paint on so large a canvas. None has ever had such intricate and far-reaching operations to describe.”
CORIAT, ISADORE HENRY.[2] Repressed emotions. *$2 Brentano’s 130
“Defining emotional repression as ‘the defense of conscious thinking from mental processes which are painful’ the author goes on to explain the nature of repression, its relation to the unconscious, the part it plays in mental disorders and the manner in which it may be treated through psychoanalysis. He gives a description of the unconscious, emphasizing its importance in the light of the new psychology, and states that it ‘originated not only in the childhood of man but in the childhood of the world,’ and that in it ‘is condensed and capitulated the cultural history of mankind.’ The process of psychoanalysis is outlined, and its value, not only in the treatment of neuroses, but also for the insight it furnishes into certain character defects, is pointed out. The author lays special stress on the fact that psychoanalysis is largely educational since it serves to further the development of character.”—Survey
“Dr Coriat has made good his promise of adding to the knowledge of the race. A simpler vocabulary would sublimate the complexities of his thought.”
“On the whole the book is very well written, avoiding terminology which might confuse the lay reader, and while it contains nothing especially new, it does help to clarify one’s ideas on the subject and is well worth reading.” J. J. Joslyn
CORNELL, FRED C.[2] Glamour of prospecting. il *$6 (6c) Stokes 916
The volume is a record of the “wanderings of a South African prospector in search of copper, gold, emeralds, and diamonds.” (Sub-title) The book was written before the outbreak of the war, and the country has since undergone many changes and many of the waste places, difficult of travel, can now be reached by rail. But this still leaves vast untapped spaces for the lover of adventure. It was the love of adventure more than the mineral riches that tempted the author and his book is, therefore, no handbook for the would-be prospector, neither is it intended to discourage him with discomforts and hardships, for these “were richly compensated for by the glorious freedom and adventure of the finest of outdoor lives, spent in one of the finest countries and climates of the world.” (Preface) The book is well illustrated from photographs and contains an insert map.
“The author has a keen sense of humor and an equally marked facility in description. And his experiences furnish him ample opportunity to give full play to both of these powers.”
“His story may be taken as a treasure hunt; but it is something more permanently satisfying than fiction, for it treats of real things.”
CORWIN, EDWARD SAMUEL. Constitution and what it means today. $1.50 Princeton univ. press 342.7
“Within the compass of only one hundred fourteen pages, Professor Corwin has combined with the full text of the Constitution of the United States a series of concise explanations elucidating as far as necessary every paragraph of this document. In a brief introduction he states his purpose to be, not merely to explain the original intentions of the founders of our government, but to show what in the course of time the constitution has come to mean and does actually mean today.”—Review
“The task set for this volume has been performed skillfully, concisely, and unostentatiously. There is in this book no citation of cases or decisions, which would deflect its purpose, and no intrusion of private opinion.” D: J. Hill
“The idea of the book is excellent. A greater proportion of quotations from decisions of the supreme court would be welcome. And the comment on the question whether the president should pay an income tax savors of personal opinion.”
CORY, GEORGE EDWARD. Rise of South Africa. 4v v 3 il *$9 (*25s) Longmans 968
“Professor Cory in the new volume of his excellent history of South Africa, deals fully with the critical era that followed the abolition of slavery and that saw the great trek. The author states with much force the case of the colonists, and especially the Dutch farmers, against a most unsympathetic and tactless government.” (Spec) “What was said and written and done at this particular critical time shaped and coloured the whole subsequent history of South Africa; and the mischief then wrought never has been, and possibly never will be, wholly eliminated. As Professor Cory shows, the great trek did not take place because the Dutch did not like their British neighbors, but because they wanted to be quit of the British government, as that government was directed from England.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) Descriptive note for volume 1 will be found in the Book Review Digest for 1910; for volume 2 in 1914.
“Allowing for the restricted scope of the treatment, both in time and area, the author has made a valuable contribution of far more general interest than the particular incidents he actually describes.” A. L. Cross
“The conclusions reached by Mr Cory are those already familiar; but, assuredly, they have never before been based on such a background of well-digested and well-marshalled authority. In more than one instance the author has been able to interview survivors of the events narrated; whilst, throughout, the best evidence available is dispassionately put forward. Undoubtedly the author’s extreme moderation renders more impressive the judgment at which he arrives.” H. E. Egerton
“It is a book of high merit, clearly written, attractively illustrated, bearing evidence of tireless research and of information derived from first-hand sources, so far as such sources still exist. For South African readers it provides a reasoned and whole-hearted defence of a past generation of colonists, both British and Dutch. From the point of view of a wider public it lends itself to some criticism, on the double ground that the author, as is natural from his surroundings, is over much an advocate, and that his book, from its minuteness and wealth of detail, is too much of a chronicle and too little of a history.”
CORY, HERBERT ELLSWORTH. Intellectuals and the wage workers. $2 Sunwise turn 304
“Mr Herbert Ellsworth Cory’s ‘The Intellectuals and the wage workers’ is an attempt to present the terms upon which intellectuals and wage workers should unite in the task of social reconstruction. But Mr Cory sees modern society, the labor movement, and the purpose of revolution in psychoanalytic terms. He states his purpose thus: ‘I have been trying to make some forecast of the processes by which intellectuals and wage workers will unite to break down rationally those institutions which are but hysterical symptoms, compromises, bad habit-formations from competitive random activities, morbid complexes and inertia.’”—Nation
“His apparently easy references to the most diverse contributors in half a dozen fields of human knowledge, philosophy, psychology, education, the labor movement, economics, the physical sciences, are amazing. Yet a full integration seems to be lacking. The members of the proletariat, to whom, it is evident, he dedicates his volume, will be least likely to grasp Mr Cory’s message because it is so heavily weighted with scientific terms.”
“He has revealed the tragedy of modern thought, but has lacked the force to bring it into touch with the tragedy of modern life, and has produced half a book instead of a whole one. The half book that he has written could hardly be done better.” Gilbert Cannan
“I hope that it will be widely read; for there is need for all to know what fantastic speculation is constantly issuing from the revolutionary fold. Among thinking persons the book will prove its own best antidote.” W. J. Ghent
“It is to be hoped that Professor Cory will work out his theory in more detail in its relation to the labor union movement. He sometimes gives the impression of a man seeing it through a golden haze. In avoiding the cocksure pedantry of the typical college professor he has now and then fallen into an uncritical acceptance of unprofessional things.” W: E. Bohn
COSTER, CHARLES THEODORE HENRI DE. Flemish legends. il *$3 Stokes 398.2
These legends, translated from the French by Harold Taylor and supplied with eight woodcuts by Albert Delstanche, are taken from the folk-lore current in the middle ages in Brabant and Flanders. The translator’s note contains a brief survey of De Coster’s career as a writer. The first tale of “The brotherhood of the cheerful countenance,” tells how the inn-keeper Pieter Gans, of Uccle, was tempted by the devil to set up the image of Bacchus in his hall and form the above brotherhood, whereupon there were nightly carousings by the male population of Uccle; and how, therefore, it fell to the lot of the women of Uccle, to form themselves into an archery club, under the protection of the Virgin Mary, and save the city from brigands. The other tales are: The three sisters; Sir Halewyn; Smetse Smee.
“They are Rabelaisian in form but without the coarseness and rollicking humor of the great French satirist. There is much of somber beauty in the stories, but also much of the blood-lust of the period.”
“If, like Rabelais, and Balzac after Rabelais, he uses his mastery in that old French the richness and breadth of which were not yet shorn by the correct and academical, he is wholly Belgian, and comparable at most and best with Jordaens, or rather with Rubens, who to robust sensuousness could add the heroic, lavish the while of colour and exuberance.”
COTTER, WINIFRED. Sheila and others. *$2 Dutton
“Subtitled ‘The simple annals of an unromantic household,’ this unpretentious little volume relates some of the experiences of a Canadian family, experiences principally concerned with dogs and servants. There are some fourteen sketches in the volume, several of them being concerned with the parrot and the dog who were the pets of the household. The succession of ‘wash ladies,’ the peculiar behavior of the seamstress, the ‘Suppression of a cuckoo clock,’ the point of view maintained by the vacuum cleaner agent ... these and others of the kind provide the author with themes.”—N Y Times
“Most of the papers are very mildly humorous, and all of them are pleasantly written.”
“Sketches of merit, but menaced as a collection by a certain excess of ‘brightness.’ On the whole the whimsies of housekeeping are relatively wearisome to the male; I suspect this volume will fare best as read aloud in purely feminine circles.” H. W. Boynton
COTTERILL, HENRY BERNARD. Italy from Dante to Tasso (1300–1600). il *$5 Stokes 945
This volume follows “Medieval Italy during a thousand years,” published in 1915. It is a review of the political history of Italy from 1300–1600 “as viewed from the standpoint of the chief cities, with descriptions of important episodes and personalities and of the art and literature of the three centuries.” (Subtitle)
“We should be inclined to trust Mr Cotterill further in art than in literature. His style improves noticeably as he proceeds, and he lays aside to some extent his irritating habit of breaking into the historic present on the slightest provocation. As a whole the book is thoroughly sound and useful. The photographs are suitably chosen, and there are good chronological tables, lists of artists and genealogies of the chief reigning houses.” L. C.-M.
“The great mass of materials relating to a disorganized country and to the achievements in art are so interwoven as to form a scholarly, clear whole.”
“The author has adopted an excellent and satisfactory plan for compassing his enormous field and clarifying the immense detail that goes to make up the history of these perhaps most significant centuries in the world’s history. The book was evidently written during the war and the author is frequently rather amusingly, pleased to find German authorities in error.” B. B. Amram
“The author’s bias in favour of republicanism is unfortunate in its results upon his work.... It is useless, however, to discuss differences of opinion in a book the subject of which is so immense; we can only repeat our conviction that a reader who expects to find a general book on the art, literature and history of all the Italian states during their most important period will find Mr Cotterill’s book useful, though he will be well advised to supplement its judgments with other and more detailed works, and to make free use of the historical lists and tables provided at the end of the book, and of the useful index.”
COUPERUS, LOUIS MARIE ANNE. Inevitable; tr. by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. *$2 (2c) Dodd
The title of the story indicates its fatalism. At the age of twenty-three Cornélie de Retz van Loo was a divorced woman. She had passionately loved the handsome Baron Brox when she married him, but their temperaments had clashed from the beginning. He had gone so far in his masterful, brutal way, as to beat her and she had run away. She went to Italy to be alone and to reconstruct her life. She became a feminist and achieved some fame in the woman movement by her pamphlet on “The social position of divorced women.” Also she met Duco van der Staal, the painter and dreamer and formed a free union. They were a most harmonious couple, complementing and stimulating each other; helping each other to find their “line of life.” But Cornélie will not hear of marriage. She is through with marriage. Impecuniosity enjoins a temporary separation. Cornélie takes a position as companion. There she meets her former husband who at once exerts hypnotic power over her and commands her to return to him. Cornélie flees and returns to Duco, but even in his arms and knowing that she loves only him, her inexorable fate is upon her. She follows the call of him whom she does not love, but whose property and chattel she is because she was once his wife.
“Of the four other Couperus novels which have now been published in this country, ‘The inevitable’ is decidedly the best from the mere standpoint of novel writing.” D. L. M.
“Taken as a whole, it is rich in beauty, rich in passion, has much of gentle dreaming and superb awakening; yet it contains a certain sadness which oftimes borders close to melancholy—a splendid woof woven together with a warp of morbidity.” M. D. Walker
“There are many chapters in ‘The inevitable,’ aside from the concluding one, which mark the book as an exquisite example of the fictionist’s art. The author’s touch is always delicate and sure in handling the lights and shades of thought and emotion. The author’s powers of characterization are excellent.”
“‘Inevitable’ is decidedly well written and translated; it is extremely attractive in its pictures of Rome, of Italian society, and of the foreign colonists.” R. D. Townsend
“As in ‘The tour,’ the author’s interest in antiquity and in art finds very full expression in these pages, as well as his sense of racial contrasts and interplay among those who chance to meet on alien soil.” H. W. Boynton
COUPERUS, LOUIS MARIE ANNE. Tour; tr. by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. *$2 (2c) Dodd
In this book Louis Couperus, the Dutch novelist, tells a story of ancient Egypt. Publius Lucius Sabinus, a young Roman lord, is touring the Nile seeking diversion and forgetfulness of his lost love, whom he believes drowned. This is the outward reason. Actually he has come to visit all the various oracles to learn what he can of her whereabouts. One after the other they reveal to him the thoughts that are in his own mind and bring him to admit what others have all the time known, that the girl has shamelessly deserted him and run off with a common sailor. At the end of the tour news meets him that the Emperor Tiberius has confiscated all his property, but Lucius, who has now found solace with the Greek slave Cora, is impervious to the stings of fortune and faces a life of poverty with gaiety. The story is told lightly and with humor.
“‘The tour’ adds much to the Dutch novelist’s laurels, for it achieves the unusual success of being totally unstrained by ‘melodrama,’ ‘conflict,’ ‘passion,’ ‘revenge,’ or any other of the common characteristics of a modern novel, and yet it is enthrallingly interesting.” G. M. H.
“Although passages of fictional interest reward the more frivolous-minded reader occasionally, and although there is a love scene toward the end, there is much Baedeker between. The work is unmistakably Couperus, delicate and suggestive, yet precise.” F. E. H.
“His style is exquisite, delicate, unusual, and beautifully translated.”
“This book, even more perhaps than the stories that deal with his Dutch contemporaries, exhibits his frugal ease and grace, the strength and delicacy of his execution, the conscious but always finely restrained melodic structure of his prose.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“A certain degree of relief is given to the otherwise sombre picture by the two figures of Uncle Catullus and of the Sabaean guide Caleb, the latter being a convincing presentment of a type which has changed but little with the passing of time. Those who are interested in the lives of the rich as they were some couple of thousands of years ago, and in the decay of the oldest and at one time the most powerful civilization upon earth, will find ‘The tour’ a fascinating book.”
“It is, at all events, a gay little affair. It is a romantic comedy in the vein of ‘Twelfth night’—which, with its disconsolate young lord and the manner of his comforting, it vaguely resembles.”
“Told with light, ironic humor and exquisite artistry.”
COURNOS, JOHN. Mask. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
“This is the story of the making of a human mask.” (Overture) It is the story of John Gombarov’s childhood and youth, as he told it years afterward to a friend in London. Born in Russia, into a family of “emancipated Jews,” he spends his early childhood there and tells of the quaint customs and the kind of people he remembers. Then, the family fortune being hopelessly ruined by his stepfather, a man with the soul of a child and the mind of an inventor, they come to America, the land of promise. The process of Americanization that Vanya, now John, goes through in ‘The city of brotherly love’ is not a pretty picture to contemplate. There the “wretched little foreigner” is run “through a mangle” to “wring Europe out of his flesh and bones like dirt out of a garment.” Only a heroic soul of the type of John Gombarov’s could survive uncrushed. But it put the mask on his face.
“The charm and power of the book lie in its welding of substance and form,—its ‘style,’ in the only sense that matters. Its pictures are conveyed as if by indirection. Yet they are as clear-cut as the work of a lapidary.” H. W. Boynton
“The embarrassing predicament of ‘The mask’ is that it is a reasonably good book. Now a reasonably good book is peculiarly elusive. One cannot tumble all over himself with praise of it, nor can he object to it without a futile qualification of every statement. Mr Cournos, like so many of our present-day writers, goes about his work with intelligence, an impeccable keenness of vision, and some thoroughly arrived attitudes. Consequently, one cannot get at him. He is impregnably aware. Such people are skilled in the art of giving just as much as can be endured, and no more.” Kenneth Burke
“If ‘The mask’ does no more than picture the struggle of an immigrant family in ‘The city of brotherly love’ it is a rich contribution to American literature. But it certainly does much more than that.” Alvin Winston
“It is the poetry in this novel that makes its starkness endurable. Behind the welter of life that it presents is an irresistible impulse to live with mastery, with beauty, with meaning.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“‘The mask’ is a great book, curiously Elizabethan in spirit, a cry of joy and life that existence cannot quench.”
“There is a vein of poetry in the telling.”
“A book like this cannot be read lightly as an amusement. It is closely written, with an intensity of feeling (usually hatred, particularly of America) which will be a little startling to Englishmen. John Gombarov is a fine character; the book is created for him; he is the central interest which holds this discursive narrative together. If he is not precisely a lovable character, he is a real and living one.”
COURSAULT, JESSE HARLIAMAN. Principles of education. (Beverley educational ser.) *$2.50 Silver 370
“The purpose of this book is to make simple, definite, and clear, a body of principles which should guide in educational thought and practice. Every student of education has certain fundamental beliefs, or principles, which he uses as standards in judging the truth or falsity of educational ideas and practices, upon which, as an explanatory basis, he organizes his knowledge of educational matters, and in the light of which he sees new difficulties to be overcome and new problems to be solved.... To deal intelligently with these educational problems, to deal intelligently with any educational problems, even where scientific measurement is made use of, one must have some fundamental ideas as to the nature of education and the part which education plays in the drama of life.” (Chapter I) The contents fall into three parts: The individual process; The social process; The educational process. There is a bibliography and an index.
“A preliminary statement of suggestions for using the book as a text, together with a graphic outline of the book itself, found in one chapter, add to the usefulness of the volume.”
“The book is excellently organized for teaching purposes. The reinterpretation of the contributions of the great educational philosophers is clear and concise, and is interwoven most appropriately with the unfolding of the theme.”
COURTNEY, MRS JANET ELIZABETH (HOGARTH). Freethinkers of the nineteenth century. il *$6 Dutton 274.2
“A cross section of English intellectual life as it reflected the new tendencies is presented in a biographical study of seven outstanding personages of the period by Janet E. Courtney in ‘Freethinkers of the nineteenth century.’ The seven are Frederick Denison Maurice, Matthew Arnold, Charles Bradlaw, Thomas Henry Huxley, Leslie Stephen, Harriet Martineau and Charles Kingsley, the last included rather as an associate of free thinkers and a sympathizer with them than as one actually of their number. The author in a preface explains the selection as promoted by recollection of youthful impressions of the controversies in many fields of intellectual activity.”—Springf’d Republican
“Her book reads a little as if Matthew Arnold, Leslie Stephen and the others were files of old newspapers, from which she has been diligently and judiciously clipping. But the clippings, it is only fair to add, are connected by a well-informed and easy narrative, and each whole is a story told with tolerance and humor and a pleasant contagious gratitude.”
“Miss Courtney has done her work well; her brief biographies are intelligent, sympathetic, and discriminating, and are interesting reading.”
“Mrs Courtney’s book is well worth reading. We regret its omissions, and it does not go very deep; but as a record of facts and of sympathetic interpretation it is interesting.”
“Their stories are intelligently and interestingly told.”
COUSINS, FRANK, and RILEY, PHIL MADISON. Colonial architecture of Salem. *$8 Little 728
“The chapter headings [of this book are:] The gable and peaked-roof house; The lean-to house; The gambrel-roof house; The square three-story wood house; The square three-story brick house; Doorways and porches; Windows and window frames; Interior wood finish; Halls and stairways; Mantels and chimney places; Public buildings; Salem architecture of today. The first five chapters trace a definite development in Salem architecture by periods in a more thorough manner than has before been attempted. The last chapter deals with modern houses designed and built with rare good taste along historic lines since the disastrous Salem fire of 1914.”—Bookm
“It is not a chatty book like Miss Henderson’s; it is rather a serious, analytical, descriptive, and semi-technical study.” W. A. Dyer
“The most valuable as well as the most complete study of the subject.”
COUTTS, FRANCIS BURDETT THOMAS MONEY-. Spacious times and others. *$1.25 Lane 821
A book of poems by an English writer, author of a number of volumes of essays and verse. Part 1 consists of war poems with such titles as: The new Pisgah; To the Belgians; To America aloof; To America at war; To an anticompulsion demagogue; To the strikers; The conscientious shirker; To Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. The second part contains poems of other days. Notes on some of the war poems come at the close.
“For all their fourteen lines and their Petrarchan rhyme-system, they have the quality of newspaper articles.”
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
“Much better than most of the lyrics of the war is a quiet poem about a woman, called ‘Her character.’” Marguerite Williams
“They have eloquence; but it is rather the stilted eloquence of a sententious publicist than poetry; and it is lost when the writer drops to political abuse. On the whole the inspiration runs thinly throughout.”
COX, HAROLD. Economic liberty. *$2.75 Longmans 330
“Mr Harold Cox has collected and reprinted from the quarterlies a number of his recent articles on economic and political questions. Mr Cox rightly lays stress on the importance of economic liberty which is obtainable only under our existing system. There is much truth in Mr Cox’s chapter on socialist ethics. He devotes a chapter to the special fallacy of ‘Nationalisation,’ involving the state control under which enterprise withers and individual initiative ceases. There are some essays, too, on the question of free trade or protection, and an eloquent paper on ‘The two paths of empire’—the old protectionist methods which we abandoned deliberately last century, and the modern creed of freedom under which the dominions and the crown colonies and protectorates have developed very rapidly and successfully.”—Spec
“Will be appreciated by those who distrust state control and by radical thinkers who wish seriously to consider opposing points of view.”
“One would, in fact, like to see these essays expanded into a general political philosophy, and we believe there would be a welcome for such a book, and that it would have considerable influence.”
“Mr Cox’s general line of reasoning is sound.”
“In dealing with present day problems, Cox is academic and aloof from realities. Nevertheless, this is a good book for reformers of all schools who sincerely desire to consider their cause in the light of every genuine opposing argument.” B. L.
COXON, MURIEL (HINE) (MRS SYDNEY COXON). Breathless moment. *$2 (2½c) Lane
Sabine Fane, brought up in luxury, was left destitute after her father’s death. Nothing daunted, she accepts a position as housekeeper and eventually falls in love with her mistress’ nephew. But Mark is already married to a worthless woman and just before he leaves for the front, Sabine decides on a desperate step. She will have her breathless moment before it is too late. During the war Mark’s wife dies and he is not only crippled but becomes a victim of shell shock. He has completely forgotten the episode with Sabine, but such is her charm that he falls in love anew on seeing her. The illegitimate child arouses his moral indignation and once more he turns from her. An operation on an old scalp wound restores his mental balance and all difficulties are cleared up except a lurking regret on both sides for what has happened before the war.
“In ‘The breathless moment’ Miss Muriel Hine is perhaps at her best.”
“A sound piece of work, interesting, well balanced, with characters whose deeds and personalities are alike plausible, and a story which develops clearly and logically, it is a better book than any one of hers which we have previously read.”
“The story is readable but unconventional.”
“Muriel Hine shows herself, as always, a capable story-teller. If only she were something more than capable, and did not show her capability quite so unblushingly! If only her chapter openings and endings were not quite so pat; her little nature paragraphs not so obviously put in for atmosphere.”
CRABB, ARTHUR, pseud. Samuel Lyle, criminologist. il *$1.90 (2c) Century
Samuel Lyle was the ablest criminal lawyer that Alden boasted. He seemed to have an almost uncanny insight into human psychology that enabled him to put his finger on the weak spot of any criminal intent. In this book of eleven short stories his methods are revealed and illustrated. The titles are: A pleasant evening; Among gentlemen; The greatest day; A story apropos; Perception; The alibi; Number 14 Mole street; The raconteur; Juror no. 5; “Compromise, Henry?”; Beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Entertaining detective stories, neither bloody nor complicated.”
“Unlike so many mystery stories, the author does not emphasize the sordid and brutal, but relies, rather, for his thrills upon clean-cut and ingenious plot-weavings.”
“They are scarcely less ingenious than Sherlock Holmes, but they are much more probable. There is, indeed, not one of the mysterious incidents which might not quite naturally have occurred, and the explanation is as natural as it is surprising when it is furnished.”
CRADDOCK, ERNEST A. Class-room republic. *$1 Macmillan 371.3
“Modern civics teaching is demanding much participation on the part of the pupil. One way to get this desirable activity is through the introduction of student self-government into a class or a school. Some English experiments with this sort of thing have been published quite recently. Besides narrating his experience in introducing classroom republics into his school the author of this little book discusses in some detail the advantages of the system and some objections to it. Some attention is also given in the last two chapters to the subject, ‘The school republic.’”—School R
“The book is well written and presents with fairness both the merits and defects of the scheme proposed.”
“The book is, besides being a genuine contribution to the science of pedagogics, extremely amusing even to the non-professional reader. It is indeed delightful to read such a book as Mr Craddock’s, well written, conceived with gusto and treating of a subject so interesting.”
CRAM, MILDRED. Lotus salad. il *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
A story of love and adventure in a South American state. Pug Fairchild, son of his father, after exhausting the pleasures of New York, goes down to South America to look after the Fairchild interests in Magella. Before leaving, he asks a girl to put on her hat, marry him and go too, but as a practical minded young miss, she refuses the tempting proposal. A few hours after arrival he meets the real girl, daughter of Diego, Magella’s president for the moment, and the real romance begins. He also runs into a full-sized revolution and his adventures begin almost immediately. The author adopts a movie technique in telling her story.
“Anyone who wants to be really beguiled from tedium, without the faintest intellectual struggle, who wants to feel just a little warmer and younger and chirpier than he has felt lately, may risk a reading.”
“It is a Richard-Harding-Davis sort of story, set in a Richard-Harding-Davis kind of scene. ‘Lotus salad’ is meant only to serve as an hour’s merry entertainment and it is cleverly worked out for that purpose, even if its colors are high and glaring.”
“Here is romance and adventure with a swing and a sparkle that will entertain the reader admirably.”
CRAM, RALPH ADAMS. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. *$1.25 Jones, Marshall 252
“The title of the three addresses, explained in the preface, sums up their substance: ‘Gold is the pure, imperishable quality of the monastic ideal, Frankincense the supreme act of worship through the Blessed Sacrament, Myrrh the saving quality of a right philosophy of life ... the three gifts that must again be offered by a world once more led ... to worship and fall down before the Incarnate God so long and so lightly denied.’ They have been published in The American Church Monthly.”—Booklist
“The lectures are original and suggestive. Their scope is far wider than the small groups for which they were written.”
CRANE, AARON MARTIN.[2] Ask and receive. *$2 Lothrop 248
A collection of the unpublished papers of the author, who died in 1914. The subject is prayer, with particular reference to the teachings of Jesus. Among the chapter titles are: How to pray, The prayers of Jesus, The rule for all praying, The need of forgiving, Prayer and healing.
CRAWFORD, MARY CAROLINE. In the days of the Pilgrim fathers. il *$3 (4c) Little 974.4
The author points out in the foreword that the name Pilgrim was not applied to the Plymouth pioneers until late in the eighteenth century and that it was first used by Thomas Paine. The name of Puritan was repudiated by the settlers themselves, who were not really Puritans but Separatists. In view of the many books already written on the Pilgrim fathers, the author says: “Yet I hold it to be true that however well the history of any epoch may have been written, it is desirable that it should be rewritten from time to time by those who look at the subject under discussion from the point of view of their own era.” Contents: The college that cradled the Puritan idea; In which certain Puritans become “Pilgrims”; The first migration: The formative years in Leyden; The England from which they fled; How they sailed into the unknown; How they set up a home in the new world: How they met and overcame the Indians: How they made their laws and tried to live up to them; How they established “freedom to worship God”; Some early books about Plymouth; Social life in the Pilgrim colony; Appendix, index and illustrations.
“Gives as vivid and complete a picture of the life of the Pilgrim fathers as any I have seen.” W. A. Dyer
Reviewed by Margaret Ashmun
“If the reader is looking for historical accuracy he can but feel a sentiment of disappointment. But nevertheless there is very much of deep interest. But for some evidences of haste in its preparation, causing many minor but annoying errors, this book about the Pilgrims must be regarded as one of the most readable which have yet appeared.”
“Will have a lasting value as an admirable account of the personalities and the times that were pregnant with the New England of today.”
“A book that is not merely authoritative but interesting.”
CREEL, GEORGE. How we advertised America. il *$5 (3½c) Harper 940.373
“The first telling of the amazing story of the Committee on public information that carried the gospel of Americanism to every corner of the globe.” (Sub-title) Mr Creel charges Congress with intent to keep any final statement of achievements from the public, and says “It was to defeat this purpose that this book has been written. It is not a compilation of incident and opinion, but a record and a chronicle.” The book is in three parts: The domestic section; The foreign section; Demobilization. Newton D. Baker’s address delivered at a dinner in honor of Mr Creel is printed as a foreword and various letters and other documents, including a list of the publications of the committee, are given in an appendix. The book is fully illustrated with portraits and is indexed.
“Of course he writes in journalese; he would not be Creel if he did not; but his story of the committee’s work has the rush of a bullet, the direct and convincing quality of journalese when it is written by a man who knows the art.”
Reviewed by F: Moore
CREEL, GEORGE. War, the world, and Wilson. *$2 (2c) Harper 940.373
A book written as a defense of President Wilson and as a plea for the ratification of the peace treaty and the acceptance of the league of nations. It was our pledges that won the war, the author states, and our repudiation of those pledges that is losing the peace. Among the chapters are: The man and the president; Neutrality; “Strong men”; “The Roosevelt divisions”; The case of Leonard Wood; America’s moral offensives; Why the president went to Paris; “The big four”; What Germany must pay; Shantung and hypocrisy; The Adriatic tangle; Were the fourteen points ignored? How the treaty was killed; The great American tradition.
“Often makes a good case, but weakens its effect by trying to prove all the reason on one side.”
“It is a much less effective campaign document than Ray Stannard Baker’s account of the peace conference or Professor Dodd’s biography of Wilson because it is too obviously prejudiced and recklessly overstated.”
“The book as a whole is a brilliant political tour de force.”
“Mr Creel is too much inclined to produce a campaign document and to hold that the democratic departments could not make mistakes. The most effective part of the book is that which shows how a republican clique in the Senate aided the imperialists of Europe by undermining the president’s influence while he was at the conference. Mr Creel is less satisfactory in his reply to Mr Keynes. Here his temper is violent and rhetorical.”
“Here at last is a straightforward statement of the fundamental facts over which some controversies of the past four years have raged.”
CREEVEY, CAROLINE ALATHEA (STICKNEY) (MRS JOHN KENNEDY CREEVEY). At random. *$1.50 (2½c) Putnam 814
The present volume is the result of the author’s long illness, and is a collection of opinions in the form of short essays, nature essays, impressions of writers, stories and moods. Some of the titles are: Literary commercialism; Prejudices; Useful lies; Heredity; Discipline; Christian science; My vision; Traveling seeds; The beautiful orchids; The search for truth; The hermit of Walden; Trees and their blossoms; The sixth sense of humor; Caddis flies; An October afternoon.
“The various literary activities to which Mrs Creevey set her hand, in the field of nature, won her a host of admirers, who will be entertained with these random papers.”
CRESSON, WILLIAM PENN. Cossacks; their history and country. il *$2.50 Brentano’s 947
“An American writer’s account of that Russian people who have declared their intention to establish ‘a federal republic like that of the United States.’ This is the first history in English of the Cossacks or ‘Free people’ of Russia (to most Americans the term Cossack refers only to a branch of the old Russian cavalry service). Captain Cresson was formerly secretary of the American embassy at Petrograd, and much travel in the Cossack country and intimate knowledge of the sources of Cossack history have equipped him for the task of interpreting this interesting people to his own countrymen.”—R of Rs
“Students of Russia will appreciate Captain Cresson’s volume, because it is, so far, our most reliable account of the Cossacks in English. He has brought within its pages information that hitherto was scattered and difficult to collate, and he has shown, in its presentation, a scholarly viewpoint and a ready pen.”
“The book is not to be taken too seriously as a contribution to historical literature, but vivacity of style and the wild-western colour of the subject-matter make the pages interesting enough.”
“Captain Cresson’s work rests on the standard researches of French historians and the general reader can peruse it with confidence as well as with interest.”
“The most valuable part of his book is that in which, from personal observation, he describes the organization and government of the Cossacks. This otherwise excellent book has one shortcoming, and that is faulty transliteration of Russian names.”
Reviewed by Reed Lewis
CROCKETT, ALBERT STEVENS. Revelations of Louise. il *$2.75 (6½c) Stokes 134
The book records the circumstances of the loss of a beloved daughter and of the parents’ communications with her from the spirit world. Previous to the occurrences described, the author avows, he had been a decided skeptic on the subject of spirits. The communications came by way of the ouija board, table tippings, levitations and materializations, all through non-professional means. Long conversations with Louise are recorded. Among the contents are: Through the board; Spirit dogs, and another: The festival of spirits—writing; The table that talked; On guides and “power”; Manifestations; Good spirits and bad—the chart; How levitation is done; Spirit audiences and performers; Spirits and human nature; The seven spirit planes—and some ancient American history; Levitation extraordinary.
“The chief interest of the book lies in the detail and accuracy of Mr Crockett’s observations, and what new evidence he can bring to the case.”
“The book has an interest wholly apart from the question of possible dealings with the world beyond, in that it presents a vivid picture of a charming and lovable girl, who is sweet and natural and unchanged on either side of the veil.”
Reviewed by Booth Tarkington
“Quite aside from the personal matters there are descriptions of the life in the ethereal realm that, to say the least, must commend themselves to those who have already acquired some conceptions of the next phase of life.”
CROCKETT, SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. Light out of the east. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
This is not a story of the return of Christ to earth, but it is the story of a Christ-like figure who remakes the world on the basis of Jesus’ teachings. He is known as the White Pope, for altho only a poor monk, Brother Christopher had been elevated to the Vatican. To the horror of all, however, he had forsaken the papal throne to wander about the earth teaching that God is to be found only in men’s hearts. So Lucas Cargill of Cargillfield, Scotland, meets him and becomes his first disciple and recorder of the events that follow. In several respects the narrative parallels the life of Jesus.
“Nothing in ‘The light out of the east’ is probable or even possible, and in addition to its manifest exaggeration, the religious element is lugged in. This hardly makes an artistic book; in fact, it does not even make a moderately good story.”
“Beyond the statement that this book has an effective style, there is little to be said about it. The book is a thinly-veiled attack upon the Catholic church.”
“It is a message of idealism beautifully conceived and filled with optimism for the world’s future.”
“This book will stir wonder and regret in those who remember and still admire Mr Crockett’s earlier novels.”
CROMWELL, GLADYS. Poems. *$1.50 Macmillan 811
“Another book that is in the nature of a memorial volume, since it is posthumous, is ‘Poems,’ by Gladys Cromwell. In a preface Padraic Colum gives a just and accurate account of Miss Cromwell’s achievement as a poet and defines her talent admirably. In a biographical note at the end of the book Anne Dunn accounts for the tragic death that shocked the world a year ago.... Miss Cromwell, as Mr Colum wisely suggests, was not a poet of facile and sensational emotions. Her gift is pensive. Her songs have a quiet music. Here is light that glows clearly, not fire to heat us.”—N Y Times
“Miss Cromwell was not one of those young poets who accept without question the traditionally ‘poetic’ themes and prattle, without a sign of conviction, of love and springtime and the picturesque beauties of nature. She wrote of real spiritual experiences, of what she had herself thought and felt.”
“In the group here entitled ‘Later poems’—the closing record of two very noble and fervid lives brought to a tragic end—there is nearly always a stark and shining strength in which a certain calm sweetness is not utterly without its part.” H: A. Lappin
“The poems of the unfortunate Gladys Cromwell betray the hidden thing that wrecked her career. One sees, in practically all of her poems, a fear of this life that is a kaleidoscope of beauty, belligerence, and bestiality. The inability to adjust herself to an insecure and chaotic world is manifested even in her earlier poems which contain some of her finest lyrics. In poems like The mould, Definition, Dominion, and Choice she seems a tentative and somewhat frailer Emily Dickinson, with a less incisive and more indirect idiom.” L: Untermeyer
“The work of a finely thoughtful woman whom the spectacle of sheer, naked cleverness and successfulness hurt, it represents feminine introspection almost at its best.” M. V. D.
“It is the cumulative effect of the collection that is most remarkable. As one reads on, the book develops a unity that is more than a unity of texture or of inspiration. It achieves an eloquence,—superseding the poet’s earlier constraint—that seems almost to deepen the lyric sequence to the additional significance of a monodrama.” O. R.
“The poems are sincere, but sometimes stumbling. The winds of time will blow from the tree of poetry some of the leaves as heavy as these and as slightly affixed.”
“If Miss Cromwell had lived she would never have been a popular poet, but it is quite likely that she would have written rare lyrics for the pleasure of poets and others to whom poetry is no amusement, but, in a deep and real sense, the sharing of life.”
“Her poetical work throughout is the self-revelation, made with a blunt direct sincerity, of a fine spirit and a thoughtful mind.”
CROSLEY, MRS PAULINE S.[2] Intimate letters from Petrograd. *$3 Dutton 947
“Pauline S. Crosley’s book is a collection of letters written to members of her family, principally from Petrograd, where her husband was American naval attaché from the spring of 1917 until the flight of the foreign legations and embassies through Finland in the following February.”—N Y Times
“The book is remarkable for its unbiased opinions and its clear estimate of the political situations, as well as for its realistic account of the chaotic conditions of Russia in the first days of its downfall.”
CROTHERS, SAMUEL MCCHORD. Dame school of experience, and other papers. *$2 (3½c) Houghton 814
In the opening paper the author reports an interview he had with the “withered dame” who teaches the school of experience. He found the schoolhouse an ancient building and the equipment primitive. The dame treated his inquiry into her methods as a prehistoric joke and made it plain that she did not go in for the fancy branches of ethics. Her parting advice was to treat experience not as a noun but as a verb and to mind the adverbs. The other papers are: The teacher’s dilemma; Every man’s natural desire to be somebody else; The perils of the literate; Natural enemies and how to make the best of them; The spiritual adviser of efficiency experts; The Pilgrims and their contemporaries; Education in pursuit of Henry Adams; The hibernation of genius; The unpreparedness of liberalism; On the evening of the new day.
“This volume of a dozen essays is bound to be one of the most popular books of the season throughout the country, and while it appeals primarily to the man and woman of literary culture, its wisdom as well as its wit will draw many others to whom common sense clothed in humor appeals particularly.”
CROWDER, ENOCH HERBERT. Spirit of selective service. *$2 (2c) Century 353
In part one of this book the author tells how the draft act was put into operation. Its success was made possible, he says, thru the cooperation of the men and women, nearly two hundred thousand strong, who made up the backbone of the selective service system. This body, composing the draft boards, “espoused the administration of an unpopular law, and not only achieved success in its execution, but popularized it as well.” In part two the author considers plans for bringing the same spirit of cooperation to bear on the present confusion. The chapters of part one are: America elects; Feeding the god of war; The volunteer system in America; Pride of tradition versus common-sense patriotism; Universal service in America; Selective service in America; How England achieved selective service; The spirit of the draft; Part two: The tasks that lie ahead; The permanency of the selective service idea; The preservation of Americanism; A plan of action; The old guard. An appendix gives General Crowder’s report as provost marshal general to the secretary of war on the demobilization of his department.
“Clearly written and very interesting historically.”
“While ‘The spirit of selective service’ contains more detail, description, and theory of the draft and its aftermath than it does ‘spirit,’ it is none the less a well written and valuable contribution to the already large collection of semi-technical post-war literature.” C. K. M.
“It may be that some of its propositions are more ingenious than practicable, though it would not be easy to point them out. It may be that the writer is over-hopeful of the success of some of his plans, though he maintains generally an admirable tone of moderation. It is certain that he has, in a broad and patriotic spirit, presented most lucidly what he esteems to be the lesson of one of the greatest administrative achievements in the history of our government.”
CROWELL, JOSHUA FREEMAN. Outdoors and in. *$1.50 Four seas co. 811
Nature themes predominate in this volume of poems and not the least attractive of them are those inspired by the cultivated garden flowers. There are a few poems of social interest, including those which touch on the war. An occasional vein of satire is also disclosed. The verses are grouped under the following heads: Through the year; Along the way; Above the clouds; From sea and shore; By wood and stream; Of field and town; To tone and tune; Garden wise; An interlude; Dream wise.
“Skilled though he be in verse forms, Mr Crowell is nevertheless far from being a poet, and no discriminating reader will ever suspect him of it.”
“The verses are pleasant and often graceful. The book is enjoyable reading, though hardly belonging to the heights of poetry.”
CROWTHER, SAMUEL. Common sense and labour. *$2 (3½c) Doubleday 331
In attempting to put his finger on the something wrong in the industrial world of today, in the relations between employer and employee, the writer does not find any intrinsic antagonism between capital and labor. On the contrary he believes that “there is a growing conception that capital and labor are complementary, that it is perfectly possible to effect a bargain and sale with a reasonable profit to both sides and without more than a natural amount of bickering.” He has little use for any of the revolutionary changes involved in “profit-sharing,” the “democratization of industry” and the like, but thinks that constructive results can be achieved when “capital and labor meet not as partners but as persons anxious to make all that they can out of the same general opportunity.” Contents: The fundamental causes of labour unrest; The relation between the employer and the employed; The worker and his wage; Wages and profit-sharing delusions; The fetish of industrial democracy; When they get together; The economic truths of work; The man and the machine; The methods and policies of British labour.
“The many cases cited give it a lively interest for the average, concerned business man or worker.”
Reviewed by J. E. Le Rossignol
“His book makes for sanity on both sides.”
“Distinguished by rare good sense and lack of partisanship.”
“He is not always judicious in his strictures and his indulgence in cutting epigram is sometimes rather annoying, but there is much of stimulating information and suggestion in his essay.”
“His initial chapter Mr Crowther entitles The fundamental causes of labor unrest and in it he indicates clearly his own lack of understanding of those causes.”
CROWTHER, SAMUEL. Why men strike. *$1.75 (3c) Doubleday 331.1
The author’s contention is that men are now no longer striking for higher wages or shorter hours, as formerly, but are striking against work, i.e. against what they think is an unjust system of society. He has no fault to find with capital, as such, but thinks its present mode of distribution could be improved upon. To that end he advocates a new kind of thrift, that is not based primarily on self-denial but rather on wise spending. By affording opportunities for investment of savings, thus returning them to production, he would give the workers a stake in society, create a nation of capitalists and appease social unrest.
“It is a genial and smoothly written but ill-informed piece of work.” G: Soule
“He is involved in assumptions which are hardly tenable, and in conclusions which are of negligible social value.” Ordway Tead
CROY, HOMER. Turkey Bowman. il *$1.75 (2½c) Harper
Like the author’s novel “Boone Stop” this is a story of boy life in the West. But it pictures a somewhat earlier period when the Indians were not yet subdued and when Indian uprisings were to be feared. The young hero, Turkey Bowman, jilted by the girl he has fallen in love with, runs away from home in company with a somewhat older vagabond who shares his opinion of the sex. Slim too has a broken heart and the two are drawn together in misery. They have various wandering adventures and settle down for a time on a cattle ranch. Slim eventually changes his attitude toward women and Turkey carries news of a proposed Indian raid to the army post and returns home a hero.
“Turkey is always amusing, and he is a very human boy.”
“There is real humor crammed into the pages, the juvenile principals are real boys and described true to nature, while there is no taint of artificial coloring in description or action.”
CROZIER, WILLIAM. Ordnance and the world war. *$2.50 (3c) Scribner 940.373
A book subtitled “a contribution to the history of American preparedness.” The author’s purpose is to describe the ordnance department and to trace the various steps in equipping the army for France, leaving the reader to judge to what extent the department met its responsibilities. Contents: Ordnance department; Embarrassments; Overhead organization; Criticisms; Rifles; Machine guns; Field artillery; Smokeless powder; Responsibility; Conclusion. The author states that since he is no longer a member of the war department he speaks “without official authority, and with something of the freedom of any other citizen.”
“So far as the book is an apology for the Ordnance department, it is well done and is successful. So far as it is an apology for the writer himself, it had better have been left undone. It doth protest too much; it leaves the reader not quite convinced; worse, far worse, it leaves him bored.” H: W. Bunn
“Altogether the book has a larger field than its mere name implies. It may be said to be an authoritative and comprehensive history of an achievement characteristically American in dealing with new and extraordinary problems.” F. B. C. Bradlee
CRUICKSHANK, ALFRED HAMILTON. Philip Massinger. il *$4.50 Stokes 822
Of the many dramatists of the century of Shakespeare, says the author of this volume, none seem more worthy of affectionate consideration than Philip Massinger. Comparing his writings with the masterpieces of his contemporaries, which, though displaying rich gifts of pathos, poetry and humor, are often marred by waywardness, unnaturalness, want of proportion and grossness, Massinger’s work is sober, well-balanced, dignified and lucid. While he shares with them the atmosphere of romance and adventure, he is the most Greek of his generation. The book contains, besides the text, appendices and index, a frontispiece portrait, a facsimile of the Henslow document at Dulwich, and of the “Believe as you list” Ms. in the British museum.
“It is a conscientious work, which contains, we suppose, all the information and nearly all the serious speculations possible, about its subject. In expression of judgment and comparison, it is useful; for if any opinion is to be expressed of Mr Cruickshank’s criticism, it is deficient rather than aberrant.” T. S. E.
“In every detail, Dr Cruickshank’s book is carefully documented.” E. F. E.
“He has thoroughly mastered the large amount of material collected in dissertations and technical journals during the last half-century, and within certain definite limits has made an adequate study of which the chief merit is the warm and well-reasoned admiration of Massinger which glows through every page. The scope of the book is unfortunately strangely limited.” S: C. Chew
“Professor Cruickshank’s scholarly and illuminating and, to us, provocative book will, we hope, do something to revive interest in Massinger’s work.”
CUBBERLEY, ELLWOOD PATTERSON. History of education. (Riverside textbooks in education) il *$3.75 Houghton 370.9
As the sub-title, “Educational practice and progress considered as a phase of the development and spread of western civilization,” indicates, the book does not go back to the early civilizations of primitive and oriental people but, beginning with ancient Greece, traces the development of education throughout the western world for the purpose of showing that human civilization represents a more or less orderly evolution and that the education of man stands as one of the highest expressions of a belief in the improvability of the race. The contents are in four parts: The ancient world; The mediæval world; The transition from mediæval to modern attitudes; Modern times. The book is indexed and illustrated with full page pictures, figures and maps. Questions and references follow the chapters.
CUBBERLEY, ELLWOOD PATTERSON.[2] Readings in the history of education. (Riverside textbooks in education) il *$3.75 Houghton 370.9
“A collection of sources and readings to illustrate the development of educational practice, theory, and organization.” (Sub-title) The original purpose of the collection was to furnish supplemental reading to a lecture course by the author and is now offered as a supplement to his textbook, “The history of education” and as a reference volume. It is liberally illustrated with reprints from old cuts and the subject-matter ranges from the old Greek and Roman education, the rise of Christianity with its contributions through to the middle ages, the revival of learning and the rise of the universities. With the new scientific method and after the transition phases of the eighteenth century come the beginnings of national education which gradually bring the selections down to contemporary educational history.
CULLUM, RIDGWELL. Heart of Unaga. *$2 (1½c) Putnam
Steve Allenwood, as a police officer of the north land, is sent on a mission which will take two years to fulfil, leaving behind him his pleasure loving wife and baby daughter. When he returns, bringing with him a boy whom he has salvaged from the bitter rigors of the north, he finds his wife has gone away with another man, taking their daughter with her. His one desire is for revenge, but when he has almost accomplished it, he realizes its futility, and determines to devote all his remaining life to the little lad of the north. He knows there is a fortune in the drug—adresol—with which the hibernating Indians lull themselves to their long winter sleep, and thereafter the passion of his life is to discover where these Indians obtain it. After years of search, the heart of Unaga gives up its secret to him. In the meantime, his adopted son and his real daughter have grown up, and in their love for one another and for him, he realizes at last some of the contentment that has been denied him in all the intervening years, and finally he has his revenge too, on the man who has wronged him years before.
“The story has an unusual plot, which is masterfully developed, and the descriptions of the northwest primitive life and the hibernating Indians are extremely vivid. All the characters are intensely real and well portrayed. The book is at all times interesting, and in spots even inspired.”
“It would be the better for compression and it is rather too somber in its treatment.”
“As in all his stories, Ridgwell Cullum has an excellent plot for his latest book. But with equal ease he mars the telling with a cumbersome, prolix style.”
CUMMING, CAROLINE KING, and PETTIT, WALTER WILLIAM, comps. and eds. Russian-American relations, March 1917–March 1920. *$3.50 Harcourt 327
The documents and papers have been compiled under the direction of John A. Ryan, J. Henry Scattergood, and William Allen White at the request of the League of free nations association. They cover three years beginning with the first declaration issued by the Provisional government of Russia after the revolution, March 16, 1917, and ending with the statement made by the supreme council at Paris, February 24, 1920. Their object is to facilitate an inquiry into the relations between the United States and Russia since the revolution of March 1917, the general purport of which is indicated by an extract from a letter by the chairman of the association: “It is not intended that this study should go into the question of the relative merits of Bolshevism or of the forces fighting Bolshevism in Russia, but that it should be merely an attempt to make clear to the American people what the actual facts have been in our governmental dealings with the various groups in what was the Russian empire.” The documents fall into three main categories: (1) Documents already published in English in Senate reports, State department publications, the New York Times, Current History Magazine, the Nation, etc.; (2) Original translations from various Russian official and unofficial newspapers; (3) Materials hitherto unpublished, contributed by Colonel Raymond Robins and others. There is an index.
“Gratitude for the publication should not impose silence as to its faults, which are of such a character as to impair greatly its usefulness. First of all, the selection of documents, besides being very slight for the period of the provisional and Kerensky governments, has also somewhat of an ex parte character. The reader will not fail to be struck with the entire absence of papers derived directly from the State department, except for five that are taken from one of its publications.”
“It is made up entirely of authentic documents. This moderation in aim is an excellence, for not the most vindictive interventionist could deny the impartial, objective nature of the information now made conveniently accessible, and much of it made for the first time available.” Norman Hapgood
CUMMINGS, BRUCE FREDERICK (W. N. P. BARBELLION, pseud.). Enjoying life, and other literary remains. il *$2 Doran 824
The present volume shows the versatility of the author’s genius in that it is equally divided between his love of nature and his love for literature. The first four essays are a hitherto unpublished part of the “Journal of a disappointed man” and breathe the joy of life and passion for life in rare exuberance. The rest of the contents are five essays on literary and speculative subjects, two short stories: A fool and a maid on Lundy Island; and How Tom snored on his bridal night;—and essays in natural history.
“The essays are interesting enough, although they show less power and originality than the journal. An occasional remark, for its quaintness or its insight, will remind the reader that they are the literary exercises of an unusually able man.”
“It has not the interest of the earlier book, though the individual sketches are very readable.”
“One essay here, ‘On journal writers,’ is as authoritative as any upon the subject; for Barbellion’s soul was first and last the soul of a keeper of journals.”
“Turn the pages where you will and beauty escapes them, and always this sense of the infinite volume of life.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“To many readers it is ingratiating. For ourselves, a kind of cheapness and gush in Barbellion’s titanism makes us wonder that his friends, after exploiting the vein most liberally in ‘The journal of a disappointed man,’ should feel constrained to make a second demonstration. Only the present indiscriminating appetite for human documents, however insignificant, can explain the matter.”
“Everywhere the thought has at its command a smoothly-flowing, cadenced, withal sinewy style, with the rhythms of Stevenson.”
CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, ROBERT BONTINE. Brazilian mystic: being the life and miracles of Antonio Conselheiro. *$4 (6½c) Dodd
The events related in this book took place in the eighteen nineties but about them there is the flavor of past centuries. Mr Cunninghame Graham has told the story of Antonio Maciel, known as Antonio Conselheiro (the councillor) who was known as a prophet and saint and who with his followers became involved in civil war. A long introduction describes the scene of action, that region of Pernambuco and Bahia, known as the Sertão, a term translatable only as “wooded, back-lying highlands.” It is an arid country, devoted to cattle raising and it has developed a people described as “a race apart—a race of centaurs, deeply imbued with fanaticism, strong, honest, revengeful, primitive, and refractory to modern ideas and life to an extraordinary degree.” Their religious faith is likened to that of some of the Gnostic sects of Asia Minor in the second century.
“Mr Cunninghame Graham gives us the story with a certain graphic effect and some picturesque detail. Unfortunately, the picturesque detail is not chosen so as to throw light on the points that are most obscure and of deepest interest. It is a pity that the value of a book containing so notable a record should be impaired by grave defects of style and taste.” F. W. S.
“The volume belongs in the hands of all who enjoy stirring fiction as well as illuminating history and the charm of a personal style.” I. G.
“His story Mr Cunninghame Graham tells vividly, with rather too many nagging philosophical comments, but with a richly colored background of strange, wild customs.”
“One can read in every page the ‘peculiar pleasure’ of the author, in his writing of such an extraordinary nineteenth century tale. It gives him everything in narration which delights him.”
“‘A Brazilian mystic’ possesses an exotic charm that sets it apart from volumes of the commonplace.”
“All is told with an artistry of penmanship that is a revelation to those who were, perhaps, too near events at that time to see them in their romantic aspect.”
“His narrative of the successive sieges of Canudos is an admirable piece of writing.”
“Fascinating and exciting story.”
“If the result looks to be unworthy of the trouble the author has taken, the responsibility for the failure to make a really interesting book rests with Antonio Maciel and his followers.”
CURLE, JAMES HERBERT. Shadow-show. new ed il *$2.50 (6c) Doran 910
The world, to the author, is the shadow-show. Men are the puppets doomed to play their part by inexorable law with but an illusory show of free-will. The author’s part was that of traveler. Before he was forty he had seen the world from end to end and in writing this, his life’s history, he looked back on a “great and splendid phantasmagoria,” of which the book unrolls picture after picture. The pictures are: A showman in the making; In South Africa; The tortoise’s head; “Life’s liquor”; Women; Glimpses of the East; The dream city of Samarkand; Wanderings in South America; “By the waters of Babylon”; A grave in Samoa; Mine own people; “Through the seventh gate.”
“It is all very fascinating, with none of the dreariness of the traveler who talks and says little.”
“One feels that it all might have been much better done than it is, and that it probably would be much better indeed, if one might forget the book and sit down for a chat with the author.”
“The showman is always interesting, though not always to be believed implicity, especially when he forgets the pictures and goes to moralizing.”
CURLE, RICHARD. Wanderings; a book of travel and reminiscences. *$5 Dutton
“The ground-plan of Mr Curle’s travel-book is autobiographical, like that of a picaresque romance; the twenty-five chapters, each complete in itself, are placed intentionally in a seemingly haphazard order, thus evoking different atmospheres, and allowing the author opportune moments for uttering occasional opinions. Asia, Africa, America, and Europe are the fields of travel.”—Ath
“His descriptions, if rather impressionistic, are capitally done, and there is no taint of monotonous sameness in the record of his adventures on land and sea. As a whole, ‘Wanderings’ is a very good book; better than that, it is a very interesting book, and one which loses no interest by many readings.” G. M. H.
“Is it Mr Curle’s weakness that his Europe is rather threadbare, that he has so little to tell us that is interesting about France and Spain, that he achieves his effects best when the strong colours are, as it were, given to him by those ‘more outlandish places’ that yield, among more sensual trophies, the rich anodyne of sadness and disillusion which is so assuaging to the neurotic of our day?”
“Mr Curle has a fine sense of the beautiful and the rare, but, except in a few pages, leaves humor out of the graces with which he adorns the book he dedicates to Joseph Conrad.” F: O’Brien
“Of local color and atmosphere there is a satisfying amount, and the autobiography which is the basis of the book but not its motive is no more obtrusive than the hooks on which one hangs his garments.”
CURTISS, PHILIP EVERETT. Wanted: a fool. *$1.75 (3½c) Harper
Robert O’Mara, a young actor, who is out of a job and down on his luck, answers an advertisement which begins: “Wanted: a fool, a man who is mad enough to desire a quiet, clean, comfortable home with chance to save money rather than high wages with dirt, noise, and uncertain employment.” He accepts the position thus offered by a Mr Pickering and becomes caretaker to a lonely but luxurious cabin in the hills of Massachusetts. From his first night there, when, unseen by her, he watches a young girl in evening dress go thru his master’s books, an air of mystery surrounds the place. His confusion is deepened by the fact that the few people he comes in contact with seem to know him, while to his knowledge they are all strangers. The key to the mystery is held by “Mr Pickering,” who has been leading a double life, and things are further cleared up when O’Mara learns that since his retirement to the country he has been picked by a leading theatrical manager for a star part, with his picture prominently displayed in the newspapers. The girl of the midnight visit has played quite a part in Mr Pickering’s life, but comes to be even more important in O’Mara’s.
“One has to admit that Mr Curtiss has spun his tale from very fragile threads and that his denouement proves sometimes a trifle strained. Nevertheless he tangles the threads with a high handed delight.”
“There are so many bypaths in the story that a careless and cursory reader might easily lose himself in a tangle of entrances and exits and ‘aside’ speeches. But the author keeps a firm hand on his work, as is proved by his coming out triumphantly ‘fit’ and lucid in the last chapter, even if his readers may be somewhat dazed and breathless.”
“A slight, but in its own way, engaging tale.”
CURWOOD, JAMES OLIVER. Valley of silent men; a story of the Three River country. il $2 (2½c) Cosmopolitan bk. corporation
James Kent was a member of the Royal mounted police in the far northwest of Canada. When he believes himself dying he confesses to a murder for which another man is condemned to die setting the latter free. But Kent does not die and now it is his turn to hang. A mystery girl appears in the nick of time and helps him to escape. Their scow is wrecked in the rapids of the Athabasca river and Marette is apparently drowned. To reach her home in the “Valley of silent men” is now the only worthwhile goal left to Kent. With his last strength he finds it and also Marette. It is a story of self-sacrifices prompted by gratitude, of friendships and heroic love and of dark deeds—all of which come to light in the Valley of silent men.
“This is by no means a remarkable western adventure tale, but for undiluted romance, tinged with the flavor of adventure that always accompanies mention of the R. N. W. P., ‘The valley of silent men’ cannot be surpassed.”
“Well written, but is almost too tense, too somber, and sometimes too trying in its horror to be a pleasant book.”
CUSHING, CHARLES PHELPS. If you don’t write fiction. *$1 (5c) McBride 029
This little book is intended for those who write other things, chiefly newspaper “stories” and magazine articles. It is partly autobiographical, for the author draws on his own experience. The first chapter. About noses and jaws, points out that what is known as a “nose for news” plus grit are the factors in success. Other chapters are: How to prepare a manuscript; How to take photographs; Finding a market; A beginner’s first adventures; In New York’s “Fleet street”; Something to sell; What the editor wants.
“A rollicking but practical account of how one free-lancer succeeded.”
“It is extremely enjoyable and rather helpful ‘how-to’ book.”
“It will pay any beginner—and perhaps some writers of experience—to run through this book for suggestions.”
“It’s quite a readable little book even if one feels no need of the professional advice which is its raison d’etre.”
CUSHMAN, HERBERT ERNEST. Beginners history of philosophy. v 2. Modern philosophy. il *$2 (2c) Houghton 109
In this second and revised edition “much new material has been incorporated into the text, and this has necessitated, of course, the re-writing of the major portion of the book. The final chapter on the ‘Philosophy of the nineteenth century’ has been developed at some length.” (Preface) Contents: The causes of the decay of the civilization of the middle ages; The renaissance (1453–1690); The humanistic period of the renaissance (1453–1600); The natural science period of the renaissance (1600–1630); The rationalism of the natural science period of the renaissance; The enlightenment (1690–1781); John Locke; Berkeley and Hume; The enlightenment in France and Germany; Kant; The German idealists; The philosophy of the thing-in-itself; The philosophy of the nineteenth century; illustrations, diagrams and index.
CUTTING, MRS MARY STEWART (DOUBLE-DAY). Some of us are married. *$1.75 Doubleday
“In this new volume Mary Stewart Cutting relates a number of those pleasant, semi-humorous little stories of married life with which her name is associated, as well as two others which she calls ‘Autobiographical stories.’ The first, The man who went under, is the tale of an embezzler, told by himself. The second, The song of courage, is a story of a woman who might have been a great singer, had not life thwarted her-life, and her own affections.”—N Y Times
“While as a whole not equal to Mrs Cutting’s best work, will no doubt give pleasure to many people.”
“None are dramatic or tragic in the accepted sense. Indeed, some of the little plots seem almost trivial in their beginnings and consequences. But married folk will quickly appreciate their truth and the deft skill of the author in presenting them severely on their merits.”
CYNN, HUGH HEUNG-WO. Rebirth of Korea; the reawakening of the people, its causes and the outlook. il *$1.50 Abingdon press 951.9
“This story is of the Korean rebellion of March, 1919, and the establishment of the republic. The author who was educated in an American university, and is principal of the Pai Chai school in Seoul, is temperate but shows clearly the wrongs of his country under Japanese rule. Appendixes contain material on the relation of missionaries to the revolution and also Japanese-Korean treaties since 1876. No index.”—Booklist
CZERNIN VON UND ZU CHUDENITZ, OTTOKAR THEOBALD OTTO MARIA, graf. In the world war. *$4 (4c) Harper 940.48
The author disclaims any intention of writing a history of the war but says of the book: “Rather than to deal with generalities, its purpose is to describe separate events of which I had intimate knowledge, and individuals with whom I came into close contact and could, therefore, observe closely; in fact, to furnish a series of snapshots of the great drama.” (Preface) The result, with his introductory reflections, is a conception of the war as a whole. One of the features of the book is an intimate characterization of the Archduke Ferdinand. Contents: Introductory reflections; Konopischt; William II; Rumania; The U-boat warfare; Attempts at peace; Wilson; Impressions and reflections; Poland; Brest-Litovsk; The peace of Bukharest; Final reflections: Appendix; Index.
“Among the swarm of revelations that are appearing in connection with the diplomatic history of the war. Count Czernin’s book is one of the really notable ones. It is true he is disappointing, for he continually makes us feel that he might have told us much more if he had chosen to, but, as far as he goes, he is well worth attention.”
“It is greatly to be regretted that this translation of an interesting and important book should have been entrusted to someone with a half knowledge of German, and a complete ignorance of the elementary facts about Austria.”
“The title of the book should really be ‘Czernin in the world war,’ but this does not say that the story is lacking in universal significance. The hasty-pudding character of the text, the very lack of scholarly caution, brings us so much nearer to the personality of Czernin himself; and it is this opportunity to see an important elder statesman in mental action that gives the work more interest than the technical narratives of the military leaders. The sidelights that Czernin’s analysis throws upon colleagues and adversaries in the same official station as himself, are an important contribution to the psychology of statesmen.” L: Mumford
“Count Czernin has two advantages over the other statesmen and commanders who have published their personal records of the war. He writes remarkably well, and he has no motive to distort the truth. His fault is diffuseness and repetition, but it cannot spoil an eminently readable book.”
“Czernin treats the war in a very fair and objective spirit. He reveals his limitations most clearly in the chapter on the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations.” A. C. Freeman
DANA, ETHÉL NATHALIE, comp. and ed. Story of Jesus. il $16.50 Jones, Marshall 755
The text has been taken entirely from the New Testament and it is arranged to alternate with the pictures, which are full-page reproductions in color from the paintings of Giotto, Fra Angelico, Duccio, Ghirlandaio and Barnja da Siena. The introduction touches on the place of the church in medieval times and gives a brief sketch of each painter. There are forty pictures, so arranged as to give the complete story of the life of Jesus.
“An important book for any art collection.”
“The most beautiful American book of 1920 and the most noteworthy of books for children since the ‘Joan of Arc’ of Boutet de Monvel, is ‘The story of Jesus.’ Regarded as a substitute for any one of a number of sets of books, costing from ten to twenty dollars more, I am confident that Mrs Dana’s book will fill a larger and more permanent place in any home or library.” A. C. Moore
“The book would be of much educational value to children, from both the artistic and the religious standpoint; and it is also a treasure to art lovers, since its color reproductions are excellent, and copies of many of these paintings cannot be obtained elsewhere.”
“Such a book as ‘The story of Jesus’ is one of the few that seem capable of fertilizing minds indifferent to or skeptical of the greatness of much Christian art. There are forty reproductions all in full color, and their quality is exquisite—even to the gold, which appears as gold, not as spotted yellow. A finer gallery of color reproductions of the primitive masters would be very hard to find.” Glen Mullin
“The book is a pleasure to the connoisseur even when he criticizes. Any one who loves Italian painting will enjoy it, and the child who opens it, to learn for the first time the story of the Passion, will find himself in a dramatic wonderland.” G. H. Edgell
DANE, CLEMENCE. Legend. *$1.60 (4c) Macmillan
A short novel, occupied wholly with a two hour’s conversation. A woman of genius has died, and her friends, members of the literary circle of which she had made one, are discussing her and her life story, piecing it together and puzzling out the motives that had led her to abandon her art at its height, to marry a humdrum country doctor, and retire into domesticity. Bit by bit they piece together the legend—the legend that is to live for the public in Anita Serle’s “Life.” And bit by bit the reader of the book tears it apart and comes to see the real Madala Grey, as she is known to the two present who had loved her, and to the young country girl who had never seen her, and who tells the story.
“To our thinking the real problem of ‘Legend’ is why Miss Clemence Dane, turning aside from life, should have concentrated her remarkable powers upon reviving, redressing, touching up, bringing up-to-date these puppets of a bygone fashion.” K. M.
“Very well done, but will never find many readers.”
“The book has its faults. Clemence Dane, as in her earlier novel, writes with an almost personal vindictiveness against one of her sex. In her dissection she is as merciless as Anita herself. Her pen drops venom and as the result Anita becomes too cruel in her mental indecencies and just fails to convince.” M. E. Bailey
“Less well done we know that we should find such a story tedious, but Clemence Dane has accomplished it with an art far surpassing that which she brought to her earlier novels.” D. L. M.
“It is easy for so passionately earnest a writer to overemphasize, and just here a flaw is apparent in ‘Legend.’ The malice that rises like a poisonous vapour from that group around the fire is overdone. The people never lose reality but they do forfeit the right to great consideration. The effect is clear but a little too harshly handled.” H. I. Gilchrist
“It is a very short book, but one of very extraordinary richness and intricacy. Roads lead from it into all the regions of literature and life. One might follow any one of them and reach the uplands of high speculation. Technically it stands alone in English fiction. In other literatures its structural method is not unknown.”
“The new story is much shorter, hardly more than a long novelette, and it gains much in strength, dramatic quality and impressiveness by the compression. It is told more simply, with the effect of concealing the very remarkable art with which it is written, of making it seem artless in its basic simplicity.”
“Some novels we enjoy; others we admire. If we consider Miss Clemence Dane’s ‘Legend’ under this rough division, it would certainly come in the second category. It is as subtle in its method as Miss Sinclair’s ‘Mary Olivier,’ but simpler in its plan and marked by greater clarity.”
“Whether the whole performance is more than a brilliant tour de force may only be determined or estimated, after later readings; it is certainly well worth a first.” H. W. Boynton
“Miss Dane has already won for herself, by two able stories, a place among the serious writers of the day; in ‘Legend,’ she has written one of the most remarkable novels we have seen for a long time. A strain of morbid excitement runs through the narrative, emphasized, perhaps by the endless pursuit of the conversation without a break of any kind. This trick seems hardly necessary, and Miss Dane would have made her book easier to read, and equally effective, if she had broken it up into chapters at the clear pauses or breaks in the emotional current.”
“The book is subtly and skilfully written; it is an engaging literary achievement, particularly on the technical side.”
“In imagination and power of concentration ‘Legend’ surpasses Miss Dane’s other novels, and there is in it in a greater degree shrewdness of insight and literary judgment. But this shrewdness has its evident limits in the understanding of men.”
DANE, EDMUND. British campaigns in Africa and the Pacific, 1914–1918. il *$3 Doran 940.42
“This volume deals with the operations in five theatres of war—Southwest Africa, East Africa, Togoland, Cameroon, and Kiao-chau. Mr Dane has endeavored, with the help of nine sketch maps, to compress the account of them into 205 pages.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“On the whole, he has given us, as he claims, a truthful and lucid narrative, sufficient for the general reader, and a useful primer for the student. Mr Dane quotes no authorities and gives no bibliography. He goes out of his way to avoid and paraphrase ordinary military expressions.”
DANIELS, GEORGE WILLIAM. Early English cotton industry; introductory chapter by George Unwin. (Manchester university publications) il *$3.25 (*8s 6d) Longmans 338.4
“Mr Daniels, who is senior lecturer in economics in the University of Manchester, was greatly helped in writing this historical sketch of the cotton industry from the sixteenth century to the death of Samuel Crompton by the discovery in the upper storey of one of the mills owned by Messrs O’Connel and Co., Limited, at Ancoats, of a number of ledgers, correspondence files, etc., dealing with their business for the period 1795–1835. Mr Daniels further discovered among the business correspondence of the firm a series of original letters by Crompton, written in 1812 and describing his invention of the ‘mule’ thirty years earlier, which are here reproduced.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Daniels’ researches make a valuable addition to social and industrial history.”
“Apart from these technical details, however, the book is of special value because it shows that the present relations between capital and labour were not the outcome of the factory system, but must be traced much further back.”
DANIELS, JOHN. America via the neighborhood. il *$2 (2c) Harper 325.7
The volume is one of a series of eleven books on Americanization studies of which Allen T. Burns is general director. Its point of departure is that the essential objective in any program of Americanization is constructive participation in the life of America and that this cannot be attained either by enforced conformity or the equally enforced injection of the English language and a smattering of civics. The general conclusion of the study is that Americanization does not restrict itself to the immigrant alone but to all activities that have to do with neighborhood and community problems and that it is the labor unions, cooperatives and political organizations that bring the immigrant into democratic partnership with the native American. The book is illustrated and the contents are: Americanization and the neighborhood; Inherent forces; Union through racial coherence; Colony pioneering (two chapters); The social settlement approach; The settlement’s larger opportunities; Church, school, and library; Other agencies and the neighborhood principle; Labor unions; Co-operatives; Political organization and government; The outcome.
DARGON, JEAN. Future of aviation, with a preface by M. Etienne Lamy. il *$3 Appleton 629.1
“A volume entitled ‘The future of aviation’ contains a translation by Philip Nutt of a work written in French by Jean Dargon. There are nine full-page illustrations in the book, two maps, and numerous diagrams.” (N Y Times) “It is a discussion of the civil as opposed to the military use of the airplane, showing how it depends first of all on structure which aims at endurance and carrying power rather than agility and lightness. The author then considers practical problems; postal service, tourism, international air lines and traffic regulations.”—Booklist
DARK, RICHARD. Quest of the Indies. il *$2.25 Stokes 910 9
The title of the book is used as the symbol for the medieval spirit of adventure and desire for expansion and knowledge of the earth’s surface. Beginning with the Mohammedan invasion of eastern and southern Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries, the book contains brief sketches of the various voyages of exploration and conquest with their leading personalities—which ended in the complete European invasion of the Americas. With illustrations and several early maps of the world the contents are: The mediæval world; The farther East; The heel of Africa; Round the Cape to India; The Portuguese eastern empire; The first voyage of Columbus; Later voyages of Columbus; Central America: discovery of the Pacific; Magellan’s voyage; The conquest of Mexico; The conquest of Peru; Chronological summary, Index.
DARLING, ELTON R. Inorganic chemical synonyms and other useful chemical data. *$1 Van Nostrand 546
A work based on a series of articles written for the Chemical Engineer in 1918. It is designed for the student, but the author expresses the belief that it will prove useful to the experienced chemist. Contents: Introduction; The elements; Specific gravity and temperature comparison; Standards of weights and measures; Chemical synonyms (comprising the main body of the book); Cross index of chemical terms. The author is in charge of the industrial chemistry department in the Newark technical school, Newark, N.J.
“An excellent alphabetically-arranged cross-index enables one to identify quickly names which do not indicate the true chemical nature of the compound. As a time-saver, the book deserves the attention of every chemist in contact with the field of industrial chemistry.” A. G. Wikoff
“A good library reference.”
DARLINGTON, W. A. Alf’s button. *$1.75 Stokes
By the fortunes of war, it happened that Aladdin’s famous lamp was among a group of curios which were melted up during the late war, and appeared subsequently as buttons for soldiers’ tunics. So it was that Private Alf ‘Iggins, hard at work with his toothbrush on his second button, in preparation for inspection, was amazed and terrified at the sight of a djinn appearing before him, bowing low and asking for orders. He eventually recovered from his terror enough to take advantage of the genie’s powers, aided and abetted by Bill Grant, whose imagination was more riotous than Alf’s. Their adventures with “Eustace,” as they christened the djinn, make up the book. The fact that Eustace often brought an oriental flavor into the carrying out of their wishes proves rather disconcerting to Alf and Bill, and brings them some undesired notoriety.
“The most amusing book I have read this summer is ‘Alf’s button.’” E. L. Pearson
DASENT, ARTHUR IRWIN.[2] Piccadilly in three centuries, with some account of Berkeley Square, and the Haymarket. il *$7 Macmillan 942.1
“Mr Dasent has examined minutely the ratebooks of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, St James’s, Westminster, and St George’s, Hanover-square, in which he has followed every house in Piccadilly-place through all its vicissitudes of ownership. Mr Dasent begins his history, so full of noble and historic names, from a humble tailor, one Robert Baker, who in 1612 erected the first buildings upon land covered by the present site of Piccadilly.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “Clarendon was the real maker of Piccadilly. The great Clarendon House, which he had barely finished before he went into exile in 1667, was the first of the Piccadilly mansions. Moreover, Clarendon sold to Lord Berkeley the site of the present Devonshire House, to Sir William Pulteney the site of Bath House, and to Sir John Denham, poet and architect, the site of Burlington House and the Albany. But Clarendon had made Piccadilly a fashionable place of residence. Mr Dasent has illustrated his book with some highly interesting old prints.” (Spec)
“His style is slipshod, he has no sense of literary values, and the result is merely a collection of odds and ends about the people and places associated with Piccadilly and its surroundings. His book is, therefore, without form, but it is by no means void, since its intrinsic interest and its scenes of ancient days reproduced in its illustrations have a permanent value as records, the entire volume bringing together a large amount of information not easily accessible elsewhere.” E. F. Edgett
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“A pleasant and discursive book.”
“If this book, considered from a literary point of view, is not so attractive as Mr Street’s well-known ‘Ghosts of Piccadilly,’ it is an excellent piece of that anecdotic antiquarianism which keeps one sitting in an armchair turning over just one more page long after one ought to be in bed.”
DAVID, CHARLES WENDELL.[2] Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy. *$3 Harvard univ. press
“The eldest son of William the Conqueror, cheated of a kingdom by his more aggressive brothers, defeated in battle, deprived of his duchy, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, would hardly be selected as one of the heroic figures of French history. The reason for this monograph is not so much the personality of its subject as the fact that he was associated in his lifetime with great names and great events. Dr David has attempted in this study of Duke Robert’s career to set him in his true relation to the history of Normandy and England and of the First crusade.”—R of Rs
“An admirable index completes a remarkable study of a period of early English history seldom discussed.” E. J. C.
DAVIES, ELLEN CHIVERS. Boy in Serbia. il *$1.50 (5c) Crowell 914.97
The author of “Tales of Serbian life” has written this story to set forth some of the everyday manners and customs of Serbia. It is told in the first person by Milosav, who describes Simple village life, Playtime, First days at school, How St Sava’s day is kept, etc. There is a colored frontispiece with other illustrations from photographs.
“Charmingly simple, dignified and instructive and filled with a joyous appreciation of home and country.”
“Rarely well told.” M. H. B. Mussey
DAVIES, ELLEN CHIVERS. Ward tales. (On active service ser.) *$1.25 (3c) Lane
These tales from a military hospital by a V. A. D. show chiefly the humorous side and the comic happenings in surroundings so gruesome. There is just enough sadness in these pictures to give a background to the brighter moments in a nurse’s life. The tales are: In the ward kitchen; “Eye-wash”; A conference of the powers; Visiting day; After hours; The tale of a shirt; The night round; Going to the pictures.
“There is nothing of the grim or the harrowing, though there is an occasional touch of finely restrained pathos.”
DAVIES, GEORGE REGINALD. National evolution. (National social science ser.) *75c McClurg 301
“This book traces the development of human societies through the stages of primitive culture, Christian civilization and modern capitalism; ends with a consideration of the best basis for national progress. The book is a condensation of social theories, the only original point being ‘an attempt to harmonize the cultural theory of history with the concrete workings of economic law.’ Chapter bibliographies.”—Booklist
“This brief, concise work is on the whole sound and constructive and will be of special value to the reader whose time is limited.” G. S. Dow
“‘National evolution’ is a distinct contribution to the National social science series.”
“The forecasts of the author are reasonable and, on the whole, convincing.”
DAVIESS, MARIA THOMPSON. Matrix. il *$1.75 (5c) Century
The story is the romance of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, father and mother of Abraham Lincoln, put together by the author from legends and documentary evidence and woven into a work of fiction portraying pioneer life in the bluegrass valley of Kentucky, illumined by faith, love and courage. It throws a halo around the head of Lincoln’s mother and shows us his father as the first martyr to the cause of abolition.
“It is quite fitting that the story of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks should be written by an author who comes from the ‘blue grass country’ herself. She is able to bring to it that inherited tradition which is so difficult for an outsider to achieve.”
“The author occasionally lapses into primer-technique. A maturer style could have given form to a more enduring romance.”
“It has a certain stiffness, as if the task of weaving history and legend and surmise into a consistent and interesting story were a somewhat hampering business to the author. She has, however, succeeded in presenting a clear and evidently carefully drawn sketch of this particular period of American history.”
“It seems to us that the author has made the life of their community focus on these two young people almost too persistently, for whatever their foreordained place in history, they must have been to their neighbors ‘just folks.’ City dwellers who love the simple life will find a breathing space in this pioneer tale.” E. C. Webb
“It is not the author’s fault if she has produced a pious memorial rather than a living portrait.” H. W. Boynton
DAVIS, FRANKLYN PIERRE, ed.[2] Anthology of newspaper verse for 1919, and year book of newspaper poetry. $2.50 The author. Enid, Okla. 811.08
“Franklyn Pierre Davis of Enid, Okla. carries the anthologizing tendency a step further by editing an ‘Anthology of newspaper verse for 1919 and year book of newspaper poetry.’ Selections are made from a list of papers nationwide in range, and include topical poems, light verse and serious poetry. The editor says: ‘I hope to be able to present annually the best of the verse published in the newspapers in a volume which may preserve for the future the real sentiment of the American people and the true ideals of American life.’”—Springf’d Republican
“If the fact be excepted that Mr Davis has done his job rather badly, one can have nothing but admiration for his endeavor. The idea is mentally invigorating and susceptible of many admirable procedures. It is the editor’s own fault that he has not carried it out in a sufficiently comprehensive manner.” H. S. Gorman
DAVIS, JAMES FRANCIS. Chinese label. il *$1.75 (2c) Little
San Antonio is the scene of this smuggling story and Julian Napier is the special secret service agent sent down from Washington to catch the smugglers. Besides opium, he is on the lookout for two diamonds of great value. A Mexican, a Turk, several Chinese, a beautiful Armenian woman, a lovely American girl and her father, all are implicated in the plot. Clever team work between Napier and the Texas rangers results in the taking of one diamond, and the other is captured in a spectacular raid on the headquarters of the Chinese society which was also doing a big opium business. In this raid the poor dope fiend which the American girl’s father had become met his death like a man, leaving Ruth to be comforted by Julian.
“The whole affair is treated lightly, without pretense that it is anything more than an amusing yarn; and this is refreshing.” H. W. Boynton
“It all runs logically and with a degree of reserve for which the reader is grateful. There would be opportunities for the writer to run amuck, as it were, if he would, but he is artist enough to understand that the best dramatic effect often can be attained by piquing the imagination rather than by laying on the crimson paint with a whitewash brush.”
DAVIS, MALCOLM W. Open gates to Russia. il *$2 (2½c) Harper 914.7
The author pleads for fair dealing and friendliness and co-operation with Russia in the accomplishment of her great task of reconstruction, and the object of the book is to point out the practical ways and means by which mutually satisfactory relationship can be achieved between Russia and America. The book falls into four parts: The new importance of Russia; Russia’s immediate necessities; Russia’s enduring needs; The interest of Russia. “The first part is a consideration of the question of recent relationships and the attitudes which they have created. The second ... of the important opportunities in trade and industry. The third points out social opportunities, in which considerable opportunities for commercial enterprise are also involved. Finally, the last part is an answer to some American misconceptions of Russia and a description of the real Russia for Americans who wish to know her.” (Chapter 1: America’s attitude toward awakened Russia)
“It is intensely practical, and for that very reason has value at the moment beyond the larger number of books upon Russia.”
“Business men who plan to expand their export trade will find these pages a mine of information. The conditions and needs are presented in detail, and valuable suggestions for the conduct of trade with Russia are given.”
Reviewed by Jacob Zeitlin
“It is gratifying to come across a book that is so clear in its recital of facts as the one Davis has given us. It is in all a volume worth reading.” Alvin Winston
“The five chapters under the general title, Russia’s enduring needs, are of great value, and of special interest is the one relating to The liberated influence of woman.”
“It will be perhaps especially suggestive to the American who contemplates opening business relations with Russia, but it is a valuable addition to the library of any layman interested in social, economic, and intellectual conditions in Russia today.”
“The volume is one that challenges our present individual indifference to the Russia of today and of the future.”
“It should not be neglected by anyone interested in commercial or other relationships with Russia.” Reed Lewis
DAVIS, NORAH. Other woman. *$1.75 (1c) Century
In this story of dual personality a man, Langdom Kirven, after excessive fatigue and brain-fag, loses himself and consciousness, and wakes up in a hospital another man. In the morning he had said good-bye to his wife and little son and taken a train to New York. The new man is a crook and a criminal, albeit a genius. After seven years his one-time bosom friend and business partner, Spencer Ellis, finds him on a bench in the park, a down and out tramp. Ellis recognizes Kirven and implores him to return to his old life. But there is no memory in Kirven, now John Gorham, and Ellis is at last forced to believe that the external resemblance hides a strange personality. But he gives Gorham a chance to retrieve his fall in fortunes, which the latter does with bold and doubtful business methods. He also falls passionately in love with Naomi, Ellis’ cousin. One morning after another crisis, John Gorham has fled with all memory of himself and a bewildered Kirven awakens in the latter’s office. After this a succession of alternations follows, each one leaving the subject and his friends more bewildered and perplexed than ever. At last an eminent physician finds the way out. The split personality can be unified by a complete realization of the situation and henceforth Langdom Kirven can go through the remainder of his life whole, although cursed with a continuous memory.
“Somewhat melodramatic and rather long drawn out, but cleverly managed. Will appeal to those who read for plot interest.”
“It is a difficult piece of work which is admirably well done.” D. L. M.
“Miss Davis has handled her material very well indeed, with much ingenuity of invention and with commendable care in the working out of her great amount of detail and complication. The novel is a good piece of literary workmanship in construction and development.”
DAVIS, PHILIP, and SCHWARTZ, BERTHA, comps. Immigration and Americanization. $4 (1½c) Ginn 325.7
The book is a compilation of selected readings, on the title subject. It “aims to cover the field of immigration and Americanization from every possible point of view, subject to the limits of a single volume. It is particularly designed to meet the needs of high schools, colleges universities, and chautauquas, which have been frequently at a loss in recommending to the student, investigator, official, or general public a handbook on these twin topics.” (Preface) The selections have been arranged chronologically and include some of the most recent contributions on the subject from writers including Jane Addams, Edward Everett, Henry Cabot Lodge, Emily Greene Balch, Edward A. Steiner, E. A. Goldenweiser, Paul U. Kellogg, John Mitchell, Edward Alsworth Ross, Edward T. Devine, Lillian D. Wald, J. E. Milholland, Samuel Gompers, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin K. Lane, Louis D. Brandeis, Theodore Roosevelt. The contents are in two parts. In book 1 the selections are classified under: History; Causes; Characteristics; The new immigration; Effects; Immigration legislation. Book 2 contains: Americanization: policies and programs; Distribution; Education; Naturalization and citizenship; Americanism. There is an appendix, a bibliography and an index.
“The book should be of value to both the general reader and the special student.”
“The compilers have exercised diligence and judgment, but with a few exceptions the selections lack the ‘human touch.’ It would appear that an undue proportion of space is allotted to the new immigration, even admitting that from the standpoint of the present time and the Americanization worker greater emphasis is justifiable.” G: M. Stephenson
DAVIS, WILLIAM. Hosiery manufacture. (Pitman’s textile industries ser.) il *$3.50 Pitman 677
A British work designed to meet the rapid development of the knitted fabrics industry and to supply the demand of new firms for information. Contents: Development of the knitted fabric; Knitting and weaving compared; Latch needle knitting; Types of knitting yarns; Systems of numbering hosiery yarns; Calculations for folded knitting yarns; Bearded needle knitting; Setting of knitted fabrics; Various knitting yarns; Winding of hosiery yarns; Circular knitting; Colour in knitted goods; Colour harmony and contrast; Defects in fabrics. There are sixty-one illustrations and an index.
DAVIS, WILLIAM STEARNS. History of France; from the earliest times to the treaty of Versailles. il *$3.50 (2c) Houghton 944
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Professor Davis has the knack of vivid and fluent narrative. The tale reads well and is interesting. The author makes the great figures of French history appear living.” C. H. C. Wright
“An interesting feature of the story is that which tells of the relation of France to the crusades. There is an extremely interesting account of life in France in the feudal ages. The story of the revolution is told rapidly, but with great brilliancy. As a single volume history of France this must take its place in the foremost rank.” E. J. C.
“Though one can clearly discern the author’s purpose of presenting his facts fairly and with due justice to all, he has not perfectly understood the spirit and ideals that have made France. Early and mediæval France cannot be judged by the ideals of modern American Protestantism.”
“His limited space excludes detailed interpretation of separate events, and the author is also compelled to give only the most perfunctory notice to the economic phenomena which are associated with various stages of French history. On the political side, however, the work is reasonably complete, and Professor Davis shows an excellent sense of proportion in laying special stress upon what may be called the revolutionary era of French history.” W: H: Chamberlin
“The book is much more than a mere history; it is a colorful romance, with a splendid nation as a background, and most of the characters cast in a heroic mold.”
“The present volume is, so far as we know, the only truly comprehensive history of France. Aside from its comprehensiveness, the text has been clearly and compactly written by one who has an enviable knowledge of sources.”
“Though very sympathetic to his subject, and though he often animadverts to the ravages of the Hun in the present when telling of the past, his tone is scholarly and his attitude sufficiently impartial. Mr Davis has added an excellent select bibliography. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing of French literature and art.”
“This book becomes at once the standard single-volume history of France in the English language.”
“Not the least attractive feature of the book is the excellent diction. Many of the illustrations are reproductions of rare prints and paintings, and they greatly enhance the value of the work, which is, indeed, a modern and trustworthy textbook.”
DAW, ALBERT W., and DAW, ZACHARIAS W: Compressed air power. il *$7.50 Pitman 621.5
“A treatise on the development and transmission of power by compressed air for engineers and draughtsmen, and for students of applied science.” (Sub-title) “The compression, expansion, exhaust, and flow of air and gases are very fully dealt with, formulae deduced for making the necessary computations, and practical examples solved to assist those concerned in the design and use of compressed air plant and machines.” (Preface) The book has seventy-five illustrations, forty tables and numerous worked out examples, and is indexed. The authors are members of the Institution of mining and metallurgy [of Great Britain].
DAWSON, CONINGSBY WILLIAM. Little house. il *$1.50 (9c) Lane
The little house tells its own story. It is a very old and empty little house, as it stands in “Dolls’ House Square” in London, and on the nights of air-raids and bombing, it is a very frightened little house. But it is not too frightened to give shelter to others who are afraid, too, and so one night when “the little lady who needed to be loved, but did not know it,” crept in, with her two little children, they are amply protected. And presently, “the wounded officer who wanted rest,” looking for a haven from the raid sought it too in the little house. Then the officer goes off to war, and the little lady comes to live in the house. After the armistice, the officer returns, and, again in the shelter of the little house, finds the rest he craves more than ever, and “the little lady” receives the love she needs. And the little house feels that its part in the romance has not been inconsiderable.
“By making the house in question narrate the scenes its walls have witnessed. Mr Coningsby Dawson has aimed, not too successfully, at imparting a Hans Andersen atmosphere to occurrences which have not much in common with the traditional material of fairy-tale.”
“A story which has a real Christmas flavor and which would warm the heart of anybody whatever is ‘The little house.’” Margaret Ashmun
“The story has a charm as elusive as the appealing quality that won so many followers for Maude Adams. It is as endearing as ‘Roaming in the gloaming’ or ‘Comin’ through the rye.’ In it sentiment keeps clear of sentimentality.”
“‘The little house’ is really a Christmas story—and a very delightful and charming one. The fanciful manner in which the story is told by the old house in which the scenes take place is beautifully conceived and finely carried out.”
“Mr Dawson has chosen a rather childish allegory as his method, although, after having read the book, one may look at a house with a slightly more human feeling of childish fancy. The redeeming feature of the book is the atmosphere of old London. Aside from these glimpses of old London, ‘The little house’ is hardly more than a sweet book for sweet people.”
“For all its pretty sentiment (or, rather, because of it), the whole thing is a pure ‘machine,’ the working of which Mr Dawson has mastered under western influences.”
DAWSON, EDGAR. Organized self-government. il *$1.40 Holt 353
The object of this volume is to serve as a school text-book in teaching government, organized and political cooperation, the functions of government and the problems to be met by those who perform those functions. It is to arouse the child’s interest in government as a practical subject and to open his eyes to noticing its effects in the street, in the home, in the school. This latter purpose, more especially, is to be accomplished by the suggestions and questions at the end of each chapter. The contents are in five parts. Part I, Elements of self-government, shows how voluntary cooperation depends on parliamentary law, rules and legislation, rulers and officers, and a constitution. Part II, Self-government in cities, applies these elements to all the details of city government; Parts III and IV do the same for the states and the United States. Part V, Some general ideas about self-government, has chapters on: Socialism and capitalism; Parties and leaders; Organized government; and Real international law. In the appendix some of the accepted principles of political cooperation are discussed, i.e. the short ballot principle; civil service reform; the executive budget; the principle of responsible leadership; etc.
“The book is sure to take its place among the few best ones in its field.”
DAWSON, RICHARD. Red terror and green: the Sinn-Fein-bolshevist movement. *$2.50 Dutton 941.5
“Mr Dawson builds his thesis that Sinn Fein is Bolshevism by quoting Sinn Fein leaders, and refers the reader to name, page, date of his authority. He goes back to the earliest attempts of Ireland to free herself from England, and traces the whole movement, the influences behind it and the work of the leaders who led, up to today, when the new (Irish) nationalism ‘starting with lofty ideals of national regeneration on the old lines of the ancient culture, begins to seek its inspirations from modern sources of unspeakable corruption.’”—Boston Transcript
“Will not please those who take the opposite stand, but worth while as a well done presentation of the objections to Ireland’s attitude.”
“As a polemical writer Mr Dawson is a comfort because his proofs are not of the unidentified sort so common in the mouths of platform orators. He does not employ vituperation as argument nor blackguarding as punctuation. ‘Red terror and green’ is a timely, excellent guide book to the present meaning and purpose of Sinn Fein.” W. R. B.
“So evidently prepared from the standpoint of reactionery British interests as to become propaganda in its most palpable and, therefore, most useless form.”
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
“The intrigues of Casement with the Germans make excellent material for building up a theory that Sinn Fein was part of a German plot, and in a world torn by Bolshevism it is plausible to suggest that Sinn Fein emissaries have been seeking to combine the forces of disorder at home with the agencies of disorder in other countries. But Mr Dawson will not easily convince those who know rural Ireland that its peasantry—now bitterly Sinn Fein—are now or were ever bolshevistic.” H. L. Stewart
“The reader will be impressed rather by the care with which the author has followed Irish events than by his insight into the psychic and temperamental change which has affected the Irish people during the period which he reviews.”
DAWSON, WILLIAM JAMES.[2] Borrowdale tragedy. *$2 (2½c) Lane
The tragedy of the title, altho the central incident of the book, is by no means its central theme. The tragedy is the death of old James Borrowdale, and the subsequent trial of his young wife Flora and her friend Cecil Twyfold for his murder, of which they are acquitted. The major part of the book, however, is taken up with the love of Cecil and Flora, its development while Flora was still bound and the reaction of the tragedy upon them. The expansion of their characters is along lines contrary to convention, as Cecil expresses it, they have taken the “downward path to salvation,” downward, that is, from the standards of material success that the world sets up. A plea for individual freedom, as opposed to the usages of conventional society, is really the keynote of the book.
“There is an undeniable simplicity in the writer’s style, a genial mellowness that in a tale like this is really extraordinary. There is hardly a writer today that could take the structure of this novel and its strong plea for individualism as opposed to social conventions, with its technically unhappy ending, and not make it despite brilliancy, a hard and cynical book. On the contrary Dr Dawson has written with deep humanness and charm. We have had the fortune to read few novels of the present season with such genuine delight.” S. L. C.
DAY, CLARENCE SHEPARD, jr. This simian world. il *$1.50 Knopf 817.
Ours is a simian civilization. If we had not descended from the monkey what would our world be like from the point of view of extraterrestrial beings? If the ant and the bee, or the big cats, or the elephant or any of the other beasts had achieved the hegemony? Such whimsical questions with their conjectures were suggested by a Sunday afternoon Broadway crowd to the author and his friend Potter. The author’s illustrations are as amusing as his fancies.
“It was a good idea, and Mr Day has a real though immature gift of lightness in treating a solid subject. But his theme is really too big for his ninety pages, and although his thinking is honest and courageous it tends to become unsubstantial.”
“Aside from the amusing quality there is a basis of shrewd comment.”
“No less complete and varied than his estimate of man is Mr Day’s expression of it: a natural blend of wisdom with lightness, humour with profundity, hope with art, economy with abundance, kindliness with malice. The quality that makes possible such alliances is the one most infrequently granted to mortals: Mr Day sees things as they are beneath accumulated centuries of appearances; he cannot, he will not be fooled.” Robert Littell
“Mr Clarence Day’s whimsicality is quite virile; it is the expression of a naturally ingenuous mind; ‘innocent’ in the Nietzschean sense and not incapable of a certain gentle philosophic malice.”
“The most amusing little essay of the year.”
“It ought to interest any lively spirit because of its grace and reasonableness. And it ought to entrap and enlighten any slack soul who may pick it up in search for amusement. Amusing it unquestionably is, but a great deal more than amusing, to follow this grim parallel between the ways of apes and men.” R. T.
“While his treatment of the subject is amusingly interesting, it is none the less a serious one. The whole essay is, in fact, a bitter arraignment of our present order of civilization.” Alvin Winston
DAY, HOLMAN FRANCIS. All-wool Morrison. *$1.90 (2c) Harper
Stewart Morrison has inherited St Ronan’s mill from his Scotch ancestors and is himself a canny Scotchman. In his absence and against his will he is elected mayor of the city of Marion and then things become lively. Within twenty-four hours and by sheer intimidation he beats the governor, the politicians and vested interests at their game of falsifying election returns and barring duly elected members from the legislature. He prevents the forming of a syndicate for stealing the state’s water-power. He teaches some bloody anarchists, athirst for martyrdom, what’s what by taking one of them across his knee and spanking him lustily before an admiring mob. He diverts a howling mob from the state house thus protecting the conspirators within while teaching them a wholesome lesson. And he wins his bride in the bargain. All within twenty-four hours.
“The fun of the book lies for the most part in this unity of time. A quality of the book is that its characters and happenings possess that delightfully feverish and slightly unreal aspect that things often acquire after dark.”
“Mr Day’s homely, racy humor goes some distance toward minimizing the glaring artificialities to which he resorts in stimulating the action of the narrative.”
+ − |Springf’d Republican p11a S 5 ’20 380w |Wis Lib Bul 16:193 N ’20 60w
DAY, JAMES ROSCOE.[2] My neighbor the workingman. *$2.50 Abingdon press 331.8
20–8266
“This book is an outspoken word for the capitalistic system and against the methods of organized labor. Chancellor Day has been speaking with strong conviction on the somewhat unpopular side of this controversy. He displays the abuses in the trades union. He calls the labor union ‘an artificial and unnaturally and illogically attached institution in our country, working not for the common good but to create conditions altogether possible and profitable to its own members without regard to how its act may bear upon business of construction and manufacture.’ Chancellor Day calls collective bargaining ‘meddling’ and says: ‘It is high time that the country pronounced with unmistakable law against strikes of all kinds. There should be no doubt left that strikes are crimes.’”—Bib World
“Full of ‘ginger’ and worthy of attention by everyone who is ready to consider both sides of the burning question of the day. He does not represent the honorable attitude in the contest that will finally make for peace. He is violent and bitter. He is absolutely unjust to the majority of the immigrants who land on our shores.”
“The readers of this book will find in it much repetition and too much vehemence. It provides in places quite as much heat as light, and is not without a touch here and there of a rather narrow type of politics. There is not great use made in it of the mantle of sweet charity, and small allowance appears for those with whom the author disagrees. Yet with his attacks upon radicalism in its Red form we must sympathize.” W: C. Redfield
“It would be difficult to find a volume more filled with hatred and misunderstanding than this product of the chancellor of Syracuse university.” W. L. C.
DEALEY, JAMES QUAYLE.[2] Sociology: its development and applications. *$3 Appleton 301
The book is an enlarged and revised edition of the author’s “Sociology” issued in 1909. It gives a survey of sociological development so that the student may have in fairly brief compass a general view of its rise and its relations to other sciences, a sketch of the development of social institutions, and a short discussion of social problems and of the factors to be considered in social progress. Its contents fall into three parts: Sociology and its kindred sciences; Society and its institutions; and Social progress. Some of the chapters are: The beginnings of social science; Sociology and biology; Sociology and psychology: Social behaviorism; Achievement and civilization; Civilization static and dynamic; Social gradations and genius; Society and the individual; The elimination of social evils; Racial factors in social progress; Economic factors in social progress; Educational factors in social progress. There is a bibliography and an index.
DEAN, BASHFORD. Helmets and body armor in modern warfare. il *$6 Yale univ. press 399
“This book is one of the publications of the Committee on education of the Metropolitan museum of art, in which Dr Dean is curator of armour. It is an account of the various types of body protection used or experimented with by the nations engaged in the great war, with a brief historical survey of the development of armour in earlier times. As chairman of the Committee on helmets and body armour of the United States National research council the author had special opportunity for the study of his subject, not only in America but in the allied countries in Europe.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Within his field of special knowledge he has touched and illuminated almost every phase of the art and craft of the armorer ancient or modern. Rarely indeed has such historical erudition as Mr Dean’s been applied to a theme so recent and in most respects so businesslike.”
“This volume is definitive in its field.” C. O. Kilnbusch
“The practical treatment of the question makes the book a valuable contribution to military literature, apart from its historical and antiquarian interest.”
DEARMER, NANCY (KNOWLES) (MRS PERCY DEARMER). Fellowship of the picture. *$1.25 Dutton 134
“Professor Dearmer states in an introduction that on July 31, 1919, at their country cottage, his wife felt impelled to sit down, and allow her hand to write automatically; after that she wrote regularly, being quite unaware of what she was writing. On September 10 Professor Dearmer, reading the script aloud to her, found that the book had reached its end. It came as from a man of high academic distinction who was killed in France in 1918, and who had already written contributions to religion and philosophy. ‘The fellowship of the picture’ claims to be a book which he had been anxious to write after the war. It is composed of thirty-six short chapters setting forth a religious philosophy of life and fellowship.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“There is no particular exhilaration in reading automatically penned platitudes than there is in the reading of the platitudes penned by ordinary beings.”
DECKER, WILBUR F. Story of the engine; from lever to Liberty motor. il *$2 Scribner 621
“This book tells about the first prime movers and traces the early history of the steam-engine. A chapter is devoted to each of the following subjects: Steam-boilers, furnaces and connections; reciprocating engines; the locomotive; the steam-turbine; measurements of power; gas-engines; gasoline engines; and oil-engines. ‘It is the aim of this book to show how man first learned to apply mechanical principles; to trace the gradual development of heat engines; to furnish accurate and reliable information regarding present-day types, and to prepare the way for possible later scientific studies.’ (Preface)”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
“Unusually readable, more accurate than the ordinary book of this type, and well supplied with diagrams.”
DE HAAS, J. ANTON. Business organization and administration. il $1.60 Gregg 658
The book is intended for a high school textbook and is limited to a statement of the most essential facts of business practice, including the problems of labor management and payment of wages. At the end of each chapter are references to standard works, a list of study questions, and of test questions. Contents: The elements of business success; Business organization; The proprietorship of a business; Financing an enterprise; Financial institutions; Management; The wage question; The service department; Selecting the site; Planning the building; Purchasing; Marketing; Selling and advertising; Foreign trade; The technic of foreign trade.
“While the volume has some drawbacks in its function, it has nevertheless a broader appeal. Many a professional man or woman ought to have a deeper knowledge of this subject. Professor De Haas’s work is admirably suited for his or her use.”
“The book is written in a pleasing style and is well arranged. Its aim is to aid the teacher in awakening proper attitudes in the minds of the students. Teachers will find it helpful in this respect.”
DE KOVEN, ANNA (FARWELL) (MRS REGINALD DE KOVEN). Cloud of witnesses. *$2.50 Dutton 134
“‘A cloud of witnesses’ is the title of a new book by Mrs Anna De Koven (the widow of the musical composer, Reginald De Koven). The messages, which largely constitute the book, are believed by Mrs De Koven to be from her sister, Mrs Chatfield Taylor, whose death occurred some two years since. Between the two sisters there was an unusually intense affection, and this ‘rapport’ is one of the most potent factors in any communication between the seen and the unseen. There is in New York a woman with abounding mediumistic gifts; a woman of society and culture, whose intelligent interest in the work is such that she gives much time to accredited sitters who seek her. She is known as ‘Mrs Vernon,’ which is not her real name. Mrs De Koven went to Mrs Vernon, an entire stranger, and with no possible clew to her identity. Messages from her sister came of such genuineness as to be unmistakable. Dr Hyslop contributes the introduction to this book.”—Springf’d Republican
“Deeply sincere, intimate, and instinct with refinement.”
“Certainly, except to the most determined skeptic, there is much in the book to convince one of the action of supernormal intelligence.”
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
“Unfortunately for the sympathy every one must feel with this beautiful record of a sister’s affection, it is impossible to accept Mrs De Koven’s views of what is ‘evidential.’ As propaganda the book is only one more tale of credulity; but it has unusual value in being entirely free from the sordid crime of ghosts for revenue. Mrs Vernon receives no remuneration when she summons Mrs De Koven to hear a message from the dead.”
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
DE LA MARE, WALTER JOHN. Collected poems, 1901–1918. 2v *$4 Holt 821
Volume 1 contains Poems: 1906; The listeners: 1914; and Motley: 1919. Volume 2 is in two parts: Songs of childhood: 1901, and Peacock pie.
Reviewed by J. M. Murray
“Enough has been said to show Mr de la Mare’s attitude towards poetry and towards life. The question now arises whether this attitude is not somewhat too severely limited to make of him anything more than a delicate craftsman, a painter of miniatures, a carver of cherry-stones.” J: G. Fletcher
“His artistic presence in our modern world is so surprising that we are tempted to doubt the certainty of it when his books are not in our hands. He is a delightful anachronism. Out of our tangle of violent and discordant colors he makes his white magic. Of Mr de la Mare’s poems for children it is difficult to speak moderately.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“The poems are like silk threads which are individually fragile, but which, woven together, make a fabric of unmatched fineness and strength, and are capable of taking on the softest, clearest colours. Some of the poems for children are exceedingly successful.”
“Few of our poets have availed themselves of their privilege of prosodic freedom more delicately than Mr de la Mare. He has a musician’s ear; his rhythms have the clear articulation and unpredictable life-lines of the phrases in a musical theme. The course of his verse reminds us frequently of the fall of a feather launched upon still air and fluttering earthwards, tremulously in dips and eddies.”
DE LA MARE, WALTER JOHN. Rupert Brooke and the intellectual imagination. pa 75c Harcourt
“It is the brilliant quality of Rupert Brooke’s passionate interest in life, his restless, exploring, examining intellect, that chiefly concerns Walter de la Mare in a lecture on Brooke first given before Rugby school a year ago, and now issued in booklet form. He suggests that poets are of two kinds: those who are similar to children in dreamy self-communion and absorption; and those who are similar to boys in their curious, restless, analytical interest in the world. Poets of the boyish or matter-of-fact imagination are intellectual, he says: they enjoy experience for itself. Poets of the childish or matter-of-fancy heart are visionary, mystical; they feed on dreams and enjoy experience as a symbol. He thinks that Brooke’s imagination was distinctly of the boyish kind.”—Bookm
“Those many who admire the peculiar mysticism and subtlety of Mr de la Mare’s reaction to the terms of experience will not be surprised that this essay of his seems the most valuable comment that has been made on the poet of the ‘flaming brains,’ the most romantic and appealing figure of youth and song that has crossed the horizon of these riddled years.” Christopher Morley
“An interesting and valuable contribution to poetic interpretation. It is a beautifully written piece of prose woven with subtle analysis and keen perceptions, the kind of spoken meditation which takes one back to the days of Pater and Symonds.” W. S. B.
“Mr de la Mare does him a service by silencing the hysterical plaudits, and presenting with cool and exquisite certainty the more enduring aspects of Brooke’s spirit. Of this little book both Mr de la Mare and Brooke may well be proud.”
DELAND, MARGARET WADE (CAMPBELL) (MRS LORIN FULLER DELAND). Old Chester secret. il *$1.50 (6c) Harper
When Miss Lydia Sampson promises to take Mary Smith’s child and keep the truth about his birth secret, she means to keep her word and does so in the face of Old Chester gossip. Later the proud grandfather, whose heart has been won by the boy, wants to adopt him but meek little Miss Lydia agrees only on the ground that he acknowledge the relationship. Still later when the weak parents also wish to go thru the formality of adoption she makes the same condition. When the mother is finally moved to make her confession the son casts her off as once she had cast him, but Dr Lavendar intervenes in her behalf, telling the boy that her soul has just been born.
“An exquisite bit of character work.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“With what truth and delicate artistry Mrs Deland handles the narrative of what happened to Johnny, his foster mother, and his parents, no one who is at all familiar with the other Old Chester tales will need to be told. Simple as is its plot, the story has the quality of suspense, never permitting the reader’s interest to flag.”
“The story is not entirely convincing, but the reader remains under the spell of the writer’s dramatic skill.”
“It lacks the vitality of the earlier Old Chester stories and suggests that this vein is wearing thin.”
DE LA PASTURE, EDMÉE ELIZABETH MONICA (E. M. DELAFIELD, pseud.). Tension. *$2.25 (3c) Macmillan
The story revolves about the faculty and directors of a provincial commercial college. Lady Rossiter, wife of one of the directors, is an officious person who dispenses sweetness and light in theory and in practice spreads malicious gossip. An incident in the early life of Pauline Marchrose, who come to the college as superintendent, is so magnified that the girl is forced to resign her position. She has been greatly attracted to Mark Easter, a man of charming personality without force of character, and her leaving the college has all the elements of defeat with a shattered ideal added, but an unexpected turn is given to the story by Fairfax Fuller, principal of the college, and in Lady Rossiter’s opinion, a misogynist.
“A convincing personality but not a satisfying plot.”
“The interplay between two temperaments is one of the most searching things in recent fiction. But, indeed, Miss Delafield is very rich in creative vigor.”
“The end is abrupt, and may be unsatisfactory to those who read ‘Tension’ for any other reason than to watch Miss Delafield pillory objectionable characters. This she does most competently to Lady Rossiter, to a simpering young authoress, and to two dreadful children, but the nice people, it must be admitted, leave very little impression.” S. T.
“‘Tension’ has got scarcely anything to recommend it. The story may be life, but it is altogether too drab and uninteresting for fiction.”
“Miss Delafield presents her characters through their own words, and their speech is sustained self-revelation. Almost all of them are eccentric, and their eccentricities are expressed with something of Dickens’s inventiveness and humorous exaggeration. We have to smile or laugh whenever they open their mouths.”
DELL, ETHEL MAY. Tidal wave, and other stories. *$1.75 (2c) Putnam
The first of this collection of short stories tells of the love of a big red-headed young giant of a fisherman for a lovely vision of a girl whose awakening to womanhood came to her in an overpowering passion for an artist. The latter’s love was for his art to which he would have unscrupulously sacrificed the girl. A catastrophe which would have cost them both their lives but for the timely intervention of the red giant, taught the girl through much sorrow the difference between the love that stands like a rock and the passion that sweeps by like a tidal wave. The stories of the collection are: The tidal wave; The magic circle; The looker-on; The second fiddle; The woman of his dream; The return game.
“Six tales with well drawn characters which rather compensate for the melodramatic features of the book.”
“Of the six short stories contained in this volume, ‘The looker-on’ is perhaps the least stereotyped.”
Reviewed by Christine McAllister
DELL, ETHEL MAY. Top of the world. *$2 (1½c) Putnam
Sylvia Ingleton is a very miserable girl when her father brings home a stepmother, who proves so domineering and hard that Sylvia realizes her happiness is ruined unless she gets away. So she goes out to her fiancé in South Africa, a fiancé whom she has known only by correspondence for the last five years. Upon her arrival there, Guy fails her, but his cousin Burke steps into his place, and when Sylvia realizes she cannot count on Guy, she consents to marry Burke. The remainder of the story is taken up with the struggle between her old dying love for Guy, and the new love which springs up in her heart for Burke, which at first she fights against and denies. In the end it conquers her, however, but not before she and Guy and Burke have gone through many bitter waters.
“The amazing thing about the Dell fiction is that it is so good of its kind. There is almost no sensual appeal in it, and very little of anything that is revolting. As full of sob stuff as Florence Barclay’s immortal works, it has still a virile fibre. The South African descriptions are excellent. Much of the subsidiary character work is distinctly good.”
“That’s the kind of a story it is—lingering madness long drawn out—562 pages of mawkishness.”
“Almost alone in a tired world, Miss Dell continues to sound the clarion note of melodrama. Taken by themselves Miss Dell’s heroes are rather tedious.”
DELL, FLOYD. Moon-calf. *$2.25 Knopf
A biographical novel relating the childhood, adolescence and young manhood of Felix Fay. He was the youngest of a somewhat misfit family—his father’s early turbulence ending in failure and his brothers’ artistic proclivities in resigned adaptations to the necessities of life. Only in the dreamer Felix, because life was so unreal to him and his dreams so real, was there enough persistence to make some of the dreams materialize—after a fashion. The reader accompanies him through school life with its unquenchable thirst for reading, his religious development, his loneliness and poetic aspirations, his economic struggles and his acquaintance with socialism, his adolescent longings with their culmination in a love episode and his early career as a journalist.
“A subtle character study accomplished by narrated episodes rather than detailed analyses. Some readers will object to this on moral grounds. Probably not for the small library.”
Reviewed by R. C. Benchley
“We realize how very close Floyd Dell has got to the heart and ideals of America in this portrayal of the family glorifying of Felix’s education.” D. L. M.
“‘Moon-calf,’ as it stands, has the importance of showing how serious and how well-composed an American novel can be without losing caste. It is an effective compromise, in manner between the school of observation and the school of technique.” E. P.
“Mr Dell’s first novel, in short, shows us that a well-equipped intelligence and a new perception have been brought to bear on the particular instance of the sensitive soul, the particular instance that lies at the heart of all our questioning, and that the endless circle of sensitive souls and terrifying American towns is broken at last.” Lucian Cary
“Any lover of fine fiction must rejoice in the surfaces of Floyd Dell’s first novel much as a cabinet-maker does when he rubs his fingers along a planed board or an old gardener when he turns a cool, firm, ruddy apple over and over in his hand. The style of ‘Moon-calf’ will arouse despair in the discerning. Colloquial and flexible, it is also dignified as only a natural simplicity can make it.” C. V. D.
“One must have a good deal of fluid romanticism to be able to revel in Felix Fay. In his struggle toward reality there is a good deal of vivid and sympathetic narrative, and one feels that his plight as an imaginative youth is honestly understood. But is it generous or engaging imagination? And is it associated with intelligence? The subsequent development of Felix Fay may say yes, but so far he is mainly an exactingly hungry and under-fed literary ego.” F. H.
“His words develop a dull and unpenetrative edge while his form is not at all illuminative. One is lost in a meandering of incident which has been given no significance by any concerted impulse, any synthetic grasp of the subject, any consistent overtone or generality.” Kenneth Burke
“So skillfully has the author drawn his poignant portrait of a sensitive idealist in conflict with a hostile, workaday world that the reader will soon cease to think of Felix as a character in a novel. Rather, he will think that he is the novelist himself dressed in the incognito of a few imaginary experiences.”
“It is written by a man who thinks for readers who think. It is addressed to those persons who want to know what makes us what we are.” M. A. Hopkins
“A story told with ease and restraint. There is no animated showman in the foreground to divert us with his witticisms. The action, quiet and leisurely though it is, steadily unfolds itself by means of certain persons who are and mean something to us, without our effort.” H. W. Boynton
DELL, ROBERT EDWARD. My second country (France). *$2 Lane 914.4
The author’s qualifications for talking about France and the French people rest on the facts that France has been the home of his choice for over twelve years, that he has lived intimately with the people in their own homes, and that his friends are of various classes and opinions, including the proletariat and the rural folk, and that the more he saw of them the more he loved them. The object of the book is to draw attention to certain defects in French institutions and methods, to show that the political situation gives signs of nearing the end of a régime and is full of glaring fundamental inconsistencies; and that in other than political respects, also, France is behind the times and in need of drastic changes. Contents: The French character; Problems of reconstruction; The administrative and political systems; The discredit of parliament and its causes; Results of the revolution; Small property and its results; Socialism, syndicalism and state capitalism; Back to Voltaire; Index.
“When we leave actual people, and come to institutions, the political system, banking, railways, religion, etc., Mr Dell displays all the peculiar excellences of his type. His analysis is acute, modern and thoroughly interesting.” J, W. N. S.
“His book is a bitter attack upon France, her people and her institutions. Where are the ‘fondness’ and the ‘sympathy’ that the author claims in his introduction?”
“A book of real illumination, one wonders whether any one will really like it.”
“I know of no recent book which gives a better picture of the French people as they really are, both of their lovable and unpleasant qualities, nor of the economic and political and intellectual life of present day France than that by Mr Robert Dell, ‘My second country.’” Harold Stearns
“Mr Dell writes of the French people with sympathy and affection, but does not allow those feelings to color his judgment or subdue his criticism.” B. U. Burke
“The book contains a great amount of concrete information, such as we require when trying to understand a foreign country. In fact, the whole book is valuable if the reader allows for the author’s bias. The account of radical political movements is particularly good.”
DENNETT, TYLER.[2] Better world. *$1.50 Doran
“In brief the contention of this book is that we must have a better world; that the proposed League of nations is far from the effective agency to produce it, although it is a long step in the direction indicated; that the Christian religion has in it the power to create the convictions and popular demands which alone will guarantee any organization of a better world or bring into being more just and democratic programs than the one now under such discussion.”—Bib World
“Mr Dennett is always worth reading because of the wealth of his personal experience and the freshness with which he presents his facts. In the present case, unfortunately, his endeavor to make out a good case for American mission work has led him to exaggerate certain tendencies and to argue at times illogically.” B. L.
DENSMORE, HIRAM DELOS. General botany for universities and colleges. il *$2.96 Ginn 580
The book is intended for use in universities and colleges and is an outgrowth of the author’s long experience in giving introductory courses in botany to students. “The author’s aim in writing the book has been to furnish the student with clear statements, properly related, of the essential biological facts and principles which should be included in a first course in college botany or plant biology.” (Preface) Emphasis is placed throughout the book on the plant as a “living, active organism, comparable to animals and with similar general physiological life functions.” The contents fall into three parts of which the first is subdivided into the sections: Plants and the environment; Cell structure and anatomy; Physiology; Reproduction. Part 2, dealing with the morphology, life histories, and evolution of the main plant groups, contains: The algæ; The fungi; Bryophytes (Liverworts and mosses); Pteridophytes (ferns, equiseta, and club mosses); Gymnosperms; Angiosperms (dicotyledons). Part 3, Representative families and species of the spring flora, is intended to serve as an introduction to field work and contains: Descriptive terms; Trees, shrubs, and forests; Herbaceous and woody dicotyledons; Monocotyledons; Plant associations. There is an index.
DESCHANEL, PAUL EUGENE LOUIS. Gambetta. *$4.50 (3½c) Dodd
It was Gambetta, says the author, president of the French republic, “who launched me on the life of politics” and it is from a certain sense of gratitude that the book was written. “I disregarded all panegyrics, all pamphlets, all legends, whether flattering or not: I sought the truth alone—and no homage could be greater.... In this book, only one passion is to be found: the passion for France.” (Foreword) The contents are in four parts: Before the war (1838–1870); The war (1870–1871); The national assembly and the establishment of the republic (1871–1875); The early stages of the parliamentary republic (1876–1882). There is a bibliography and an index.
“This volume is full-blooded and vital in every chapter and in every paragraph. It is no fulsome panegyric, no noisy advertisement, but a balanced and critical, a knowing and a sympathetic portrait. There is here no hushing-up of mistakes and contradictions but also no over-emphasis of them.” C: D. Hazen
“Ex-President Deschanel writes with the blend of lucidity and enthusiasm characteristic of the best French political literature.”
“Apart from a few questionable statements apropos of Germany and Alsace-Lorraine, the book is substantially what it would have been if written before 1914—that is to say, an admirably well-informed, well-constructed, and convincing account of the public life of Gambetta and of the political history of the times in which he played his part.” Carl Becker
“There was plenty of room for such a full, intimate, and appreciative biography as this by M. Deschanel, who is well qualified, temperamentally, to interpret his great leader. He does so with a Gallic exuberance, a gesticulatory eloquence that is not suited to the theme, but also he preserves a balance of judgment that saves the book from being mere laudation, and he has painstakingly examined his documents.” H. L. Pangborn
“The anonymous translator has evidently a bilingual gift of great precision and scope, but his rendering should be carefully reviewed with the original in order to correct several mistakes, all of which, however, appear to be careless omissions or verbal distractions due to hasty writing.” Walter Littlefield
“On all this human personal side of his subject M. Deschanel’s book is as rich as on the political.”
“The work of the anonymous translator is extremely well done.”
DESMOND, SHAW. Passion. *$2 Scribner
“The title may be a little misleading. Mr Desmond’s story deals with ‘the nervous, combative passion of the end of the nineteenth century,’ and particularly with the conflict between big business, the passion to get, and art, the passion to create. A good deal of effort is spent on the depiction of big business in London at the turn of the century, and particularly of one Mandrill, the embodiment of its spirit.”—N Y Times
“‘Passion’ fails for the reason that so many of these novels of confession fail. Our curiosity about human beings, our longing to know the story of their lives springs from the desire to ‘place’ them, to see them in their relation to life as we know it. But Mr Shaw Desmond and his fellows are under the illusion that they must isolate the subject and play perpetual showman.” K. M.
“It is a novel without even novelty to redeem it. Its bravery is bombastic, its stupidity heroic, its mediocrity passionate, its passion impotent.”
“Mr Desmond tries to crowd all the modern forces into his conflict, and frequently neutralizes his effects by the nicety with which one violence is banged against another. His picture of London life, in its meannesses and poverty, has touches of Dickens, and touches, also, of the Dickens sentimentality. His purposes grow weak through sheer over-analysis.” L. B.
“We know of no exacter study of childhood and adolescence nor of any less steeped in traditional idealisms. Young Tempest at home and at school is immensely genuine and instructive. After that the fine veracity of the book breaks down.”
“The hero’s revolt against finance of the most frenzied character is plausible enough, but somehow the entire latter half of the book fails to carry very much conviction. One feels that Mr Desmond is not devoid of the divine fire, but he needs a better boiler under which to build it.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The most accurate description that can be applied to the work is that it is a vivid and startling piece of impressionism, despite its grotesqueness.”
“A remarkable novel, notwithstanding the author’s habit of parodying his own literary peculiarities. Primal and melodramatic Mr Shaw Desmond’s prose certainly is, but it sweeps us along so rapidly as to make a pause for criticism difficult. The book, in spite of its grotesqueness, is a vivid and startling piece of impressionism.”
DEWEY, JOHN. Reconstruction in philosophy. *$1.60 (3c) Holt 191
In these lectures delivered at the Imperial university of Japan in Tokyo, the author attempts “an interpretation of the reconstruction of ideas and ways of thought now going on in philosophy.” (Prefatory note) He shows that the task of future philosophy is to clarify men’s ideas as to the social and moral strifes of their own day and, instead of dealing with “ultimate and absolute reality,” will consider the moral forces which move mankind towards a more ordered and intelligent happiness. Contents: Changing conceptions of philosophy; Some historical factors in philosophical reconstruction; The scientific factor in reconstruction of philosophy; Changed conceptions of experience and reason; Changed conceptions of the ideal and the real; The significance of logical reconstruction; Reconstruction in moral conceptions; Reconstruction as affecting social philosophy. Index.
“Concrete, clearly written and unusually free from abstruse reasoning and technical diction.”
“The simplicity and penetration of the statement gives to this little book an importance considerably out of proportion to its size. Although the name pragmatism scarcely occurs on its pages, the book is the most comprehensive and enlightening pragmatic document that has yet appeared.” B. H. Bode
“One may agree heartily with Professor Dewey’s polemic against fixed and final aims and yet believe that the most urgent need of ethics now is to work out a science of values. The lack of some such criticism of values makes itself felt in Professor Dewey’s book.” A. S. McDowall
“The book is written with the accustomed fluency and piquancy of the pragmatic school, and it forms a piece of the most interesting reading.”
DEWEY, JOHN, and DEWEY, HATTIE ALICE (CHIPMAN) (MRS JOHN DEWEY). Letters from China and Japan; ed. by Evelyn Dewey. *$2.50 Dutton 915
“The Deweys, man and wife, are ‘professorial’ people. Mr Dewey is professor of philosophy in Columbia university and Mrs Dewey is a woman of great cultivation and deep interest in the things of the mind. The letters included in this book are written under the spur of first impressions. They have not either been revised or touched up in any way. You are never expected to remember that Mr Dewey is really a Ph.D. or that his wife reads ‘deep books.’ They make you see the cherry trees in bloom, the Mikado passing with his symbols, the chrysanthemums on the panels of his carriage; the Chinese women of the middle classes at home and the panorama of Chinese villages and streets. At the same time you feel that there is a serious purpose in the minds and the hearts of the two persons who write these letters.”—N Y Times
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
“It is quite evident that Professor Dewey has enjoyed visiting countries ‘where the scholar is looked up to and not down upon.’ He writes with all the zest of a boy on his first trip abroad. Most striking is their revelation of Professor Dewey’s responsiveness to the æsthetic aspects of China and Japan.”
“It is not difficult to guess the authorship of most of the letters, and Mrs Dewey’s interest in the more pictorial aspects of the countries, in the women, and in their educational and domestic problems, admirably supplements Professor Dewey’s more historical and speculative observations.” Irita Van Doren
“They are full of delightful descriptions of small events not usually described so sympathetically by travelers in the East.” M. F. Egan
DICKSON, HARRIS. Old Reliable in Africa. *$1.90 (2c) Stokes
Zack Foster, otherwise known as “Old Reliable,” is the colored valet of Colonel Beverly Spottiswoode, and when the colonel makes a trip to the Sudan, to see if the climate there is suitable for cotton culture, he takes Zack along with him. Zack’s presence guarantees him against ennui, for where Zack is, there is excitement. At one spot in Africa, he is hailed as “The Expected One,” by an Arab tribe, at another he rescues the most important donkey of the Sultan of Bong from crocodiles, and is suitably rewarded. But perhaps his most worthy exploit is the establishment of a “Hot cat eating house.” He reasons the labor problem out and comes to the conclusion that the natives refuse to work on the cotton plantation because they don’t need anything. He proposes to put within their reach some thing that they will be willing to work for, in the shape of hot fried catfish. This application of the law of supply and demand proves eminently satisfactory. But on the whole neither Zack nor the colonel are reluctant to return to Vicksburg in time for Christmas.
“Like most sequels, a falling off from the original.”
“An amusing book for an idle hour.”
“A series of adventures, many of which are of a startling dramatic character but always informed with the dry humor which is the very essence of Old Reliable’s irresistible personality.”
“His adventures are as queer as they are funny.”
DILLISTONE, GEORGE. Planning and planting of little gardens: with notes and criticisms by Lawrence Weaver. il *$2.25 Scribner 712
“Competitive schemes for planting for different kinds of lots are criticized from the architectural point of view. Incidentally, there are discussions on sundials, rock gardens, water-lily ponds, rose gardens, garden steps and pathways, climbers for the little garden, etc. Altho written for England, will be useful in this country where climate permits like vegetation.”—Booklist
“The author [is] as sound on the architectural aspect of garden-making as upon matters of pure horticulture.”
DILLON, EMILE JOSEPH. Inside story of the peace conference. *$2.25 (1½c) Harper 940.314
“This is only a sketch—a sketch of the problems which the war created or rendered pressing—of the conditions under which they cropped up; of the simplicist ways in which they were conceived by the distinguished politicians who volunteered to solve them; of the delegates’ natural limitations and electioneering commitments and of the secret influences by which they were swayed, of the peoples’ needs and expectations; of the unwonted procedure adopted by the conference and of the fateful consequences of its decisions to the world.” (Foreword) These fateful consequences, in the author’s final summing up, are that future war is now universally looked upon as an unavoidable outcome of the Versailles peace. “Prussianism, instead of being destroyed, has been openly adopted by its ostensible enemies, and the huge sacrifices offered up by the heroic armies of the foremost nations are being misused to give one-half of the world just cause to rise up against the other half.” Contents: The city of the conference; Signs of the times; The delegates; Censorship and secrecy; Aims and methods; The lesser states; Poland’s outlook in the future; Italy; Japan; Attitude toward Russia; Bolshevism: How Bolshevism was fostered; Sidelights treaty with Bulgaria; The covenant and on the treaty; The treaty with Germany; The minorities.
“The title of this book is singularly non-descriptive. It has none of the qualities of narrative and every page betrays the fact that the author remained entirely outside the real workings of the conference. With all respect to Mr Dillon’s experience, he has written a misleading book.” C: Seymour
“Dr Dillon’s main intimacies in Paris seem to have been with those delegates [of small states]. That fact, which is not unconnected with his own nationality, has enabled him, thanks to his really wide knowledge of international problems, to get inside the skin of the Paris tragedy in a way which would be impossible to the ordinary advanced radical writer. There are faults of proportion. Not enough is made of the economic aspects of the failure, and many judgments are questionable.”
“Interesting but not easy to read, perhaps too detailed. No index.”
Reviewed by Sganarelle
“From ‘The inside story of the peace conference’ the reader takes away the impression of a stubborn and somewhat sour honesty, and also of a vacillating bias that the author intended as little as he suspected. A ripe scholarship, a keen observation, an adequate sweep, but—it is impossible to avoid its conclusion—a decidedly jaundiced personality.”
“Dr Dillon does not write without bias. On the other hand, his scathing indictment of the ignorance and inefficiency, the cynicism, the bad faith, and the remorseless pride of power of the big five and four and three is only equaled, but not excelled, by the now well-known criticism of Professor Keynes. The two books, indeed, supplement one another admirably.” W: MacDonald
“By virtue of his inside knowledge, his ruthless uncovering of weaknesses, his keenness in criticism, he well deserves to be called the Junius of the peace conference.”
“It is not a history of the conference: it is an account of the way things were done at Paris, written by a man of wide outlook, who knows his way about the diplomatic world. Doubtless there will be many volumes written on the peace conference, but few are likely to be so valuable to the historian as this.”
“This book does not add to Dr Dillon’s reputation. The allied statesmen, being only human and fallible, made mistakes, notably in regard to Italy and Rumania. But the wonder is that they did so well as they have done. Dr Dillon emphasizes and exaggerates all their blunders. He has taken the scandalous gossip of embassies, clubs, and newspapers a little too seriously.”
“The whole volume is a bold and dashing and highly fascinating presentation.” A. J. Lien
“Our criticisms of this book are severe, but we believe they are just. Dr Dillon has had a great opportunity and he has failed to use it. He has failed because there is no evidence in the book of any consecutive thought, of any firm ideas, of any help for reconstruction in the future. Dr Dillon’s analysis of what happened at the conference is always biassed and often incorrect; he has chosen to make himself merely the mouthpiece of the complaints of the smaller states without helping his readers in the least to discriminate as to their justice.”
DILLON, MRS MARY C. (JOHNSON). Farmer of Roaring Run. il *$1.75 (1c) Century
John McClure, a wealthy Philadelphian of Scottish birth, has created a large farm in West Virginia, more or less as a rich man’s toy, which is not even self-supporting. After five years his managing farmer dies, and McClure is astounded when the farmer’s pretty, girlish-looking widow asks to be allowed to run the farm. Reluctantly he consents. He soon finds that Mrs Sinclair is not only quite a capable farmer but also a very lovable woman; quite incidentally too he discovers that it is necessary to spend more time on his farm and—its manager. All sorts of improvements are put into immediate action: forest conservation, careful selection of the best cattle only, clubs for the isolated young people, a church, and other things that spring from Mrs Sinclair’s energetic, fertile brain. Being very young and beautiful, and of gentle birth, she attracts several potential lovers, but McClure, after many heated misunderstandings, and several romantic adventures, eventually wins her. Other minor love stories run through the book, also a mystery.
“Good descriptions of the country. Women will like it.”
“A pleasant, thoroughly conventional and rather sugary little story, the conclusion of which is perfectly obvious by the time one has finished the first chapter, is Mary Dillon’s new novel.”
DILNOT, FRANK. England after the war. *$3 Doubleday 914.2
England, says the author, is in a stage of transition and is entering upon a new epoch. What this new epoch is likely to be does not enter into the speculations of the writer who confines himself to sketching the main features of England in their present state of transformation. Among the contents are: The mood of the people; The governance of England; The women; Business the keystone; Labour battling for enthronement; Ireland; Britain overseas; From Lord Northcliffe to Bernard Shaw; Where England leads; New programmes of life.
“The American reader will find much to instruct him in the chapters dealing with the new leaders in politics and economics who have arisen in England since the war.” J. C. Grey
“If he is not profound nor subtle nor concise, he is never dull and seldom altogether commonplace.” C. R. H.
“Mr Dilnot has produced a book entertaining and, in the main, thoughtful.”
DIMMOCK, F. HAYDN, ed.[2] Scouts’ book of heroes; with foreword by Sir Robert Baden Powell. il *$2.50 Stokes 940.3
“A record of scouts’ work in the great war.” (Sub-title) Contents: 1914; Famous scouts in the war; Scout heroes of the army; Scout heroes of the navy; Heroes of the air service; The heroes at home; Just—a scout; Called to higher service. In addition sixty pages are devoted to records of those who received medals, etc.
DINGLE, A. E. Gold out of Celebes. il *$1.75 (2½c) Little
Jack Barry, an American seaman out of a job, is loafing about Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies, when Tom Little, a traveling salesman tired of the typewriter business, puts him on the track of adventure. Little has undertaken to go into the interior in the interests of Cornelius Houten, a Dutch trader, who has reason to suspect one of his agents. Houten is looking for a skipper and Barry meets his needs. The two Americans scent mystery from the outset. In the first place there is the strange lady, Mrs Goring, who claims acquaintance with them and asks passage on their ship. In the second place there is something puzzling about the big soft-voiced Dutch mate. There is also the relation between Leyden, the man they are after, and Natalie Sheldon, the charming young missionary. And the last is the point that matters most to Barry. On some of these points the two are in doubt to the end, working often in the dark, but fully deserving the rewards that finally come to them.
“The plot of ‘Gold out of Celebes’ reveals nothing particularly new. The love interest is slight, but pleasing. It is the breezy way in which this novel is written that carries it. The plot is a secondary matter entirely, while the ‘red blood’ element, vivid enough at times, is always kept discreetly within bounds.”
DINNING, HECTOR W. Nile to Aleppo. il *$7.50 Macmillan 940.42
“The author of this book is a captain in the Australian forces which fought in the great war. Mr McBey was the official artist which followed the army of the Egyptian expeditionary force and the two together, the soldier and the painter, collaborated to produce a volume which is not a book of the war, nor yet a book of travel, but a combination of the two. The story begins at Taranto, away down in far southern Italy. Here the force was simply in camp near the town, and presumably a transport appeared in the harbor, her nose pointing eastward and business opened up. Thence through Palestine and Syria. The trail leads around the hills of Judea, through its ravines and past its straggling orchards, and, at length, to the Holy City. He takes us through the valley of the Jordan to Ludd; and from Ludd to Damascus and thence to Homs; and from Homs to Aleppo, where the train traversed the burning sands to Beyrouth.”—Boston Transcript
“Captain Dinning is a born observer. He always contrives to see what is worth seeing and to record it vividly, sometimes in the slangy style of his diary, sometimes in the finished manner of his later chapters. Occasionally his judgments are open to criticism.”
“The whole is an intensely breezy narrative, written by a man who understands well the use of his eyes and of the English language to interpret what he sees.” E. J. C.
“Mr McBey’s pen sketches deserve more than passing mention, for he is no mere illustrator. His economy of line and his ability to convey an indelible impression of these arid stretches of Palestinian landscape, their undeniable color and beauty, are more than fortuitous.”
DIXON, THOMAS. Man of the people. *$1.75 Appleton 812
This drama of Abraham Lincoln has one purpose: to show Lincoln’s fight to save the Union. We see Lincoln on the one hand as the friend of the oppressed and dispensing pardons according to a deeper sense of justice than is apparent on the surface. On the other hand we see him deal with implacable firmness to carry through his great conviction that the Union must be saved. The whole is divided into a prologue, three acts, and an epilogue.
“Melodramatic and inferior to Drinkwater’s play.”
DOBIE, CHARLES CALDWELL. Blood red dawn. *$1.75 (2c) Harper
A story of San Francisco following the fortunes of a girl who has her own living and her own way to make in the world. She is in turn a stenographer in a business office, accompanist for a singer at fashionable at-homes and Red cross concerts, and entertainer in a Greek restaurant. The latter occupation takes her “south of Market” and into a new social world where she meets the foreign born and has a glimpse of the alien point of view on American life. Two men have a part in her story, Ned Stillman, descendant of native stock, and Dr Danilo, a Serbian doctor. The war is in progress at the time.
“Although it has merit, it is a rather tepid performance. Mr Dobie’s faults, the faults of the novice, grow less noticeable as he warms to his theme. But he fails to warm sufficiently. He handles all his situations and incidents with the indifferent care of a man following a recipe. In spite of its riotous title, ‘The blood red dawn’ is distressingly smug.” M. A.
“Well constructed romance. The author knows his San Francisco. This story—his first full length book—gives a graphic and colorful picture of intrigue in the foreign quarter of that city of lights.”
“The characters fail to transcend or to sublimate the type; are all, by a shade, a little second-rate or common; and the result is a disappointing effect, in a book containing so much veracious detail of confused mediocrity. The opening chapters give us hope of creative realism, and we seem to have received, when all is done, a disconcerting blend of naturalism and romance.” H. W. Boynton
DODD, MRS ANNA BOWMAN (BLAKE). Up the Seine to the battlefields. il *$3 (3c) Harper 914.4
“Why is it that not one traveler in a thousand, no, nor in tens of thousands has known the Seine shores as the shores of the Hudson are known—as the Rhine, for so many years, has been known and sung? Few Frenchmen even are fully aware of the wonders and beauties which a trip up the Seine will yield.” (Introd.) As one of the effects of the war has been the discovery of the Seine’s commercial possibilities the author fears that in a few short years the Seine will no longer be “the lovely river of beauty.” She therefore proposes to immortalize its many surprises in scenic and architectural splendors in a book which is profusely illustrated from engravings and paintings.
“The book is intensely interesting both for its geography and its history.”
“The book is an amiable introduction to modern French history; and if Mrs Dodd’s manner is a trifle too intense for her subjects, there is at least not a tiresome page in the whole volume.” M. F. Egan
“Such a volume as the present will be grateful reading to all those who love France and who feel the force of the old days, no matter how modern some parts of new France have become.”
“Unfortunately Mrs Dodd’s style is too hasty—at points it is positively slipshod—to carry the finer effects that would make for complete success in such work as this.”
DODD, LEE WILSON. Book of Susan. *$2 Dutton
“Susan is frankly a phenomenal child. After her stupid, bestial father murders the woman with whom he is living, Susan is adopted by a wealthy and cultured bachelor, and grows up to be a brilliant woman who holds her own in his circle of scholarly and fashionable friends.” (Outlook) “She is now old enough to be in love with [her] guardian, who is, of course, in love with her. But Ambo’s two special friends, a Yale professor and a New York radical, also love Susan. Finally it takes a bomb from a Gotha in the streets of Paris to bring Susan to the point of letting Ambo know that she loves him alone.” (Bookman)
“The reason why one reader is unimpressed by this plot, and even finds it absurd, is because he is unimpressed by Susan. She is over-clever, over-sprightly. So, for that matter, is the whole book.” H. W. Boynton
“For all its Stevensonesque touches, for all the moments when one glimpses a mind like Pater’s, or a glimmer of Ibsen, through the palings of the back fence, as it were, one has nothing, except a couple of characters—say five—to take away with one. The first part of the story is delightful.”
“The book is much above the average novel, and the author’s insight into feminine psychology quite remarkable. Moreover, it has the great quality of interest.”
“Mr Dodd’s style is in another world from the gritty slovenliness of the average story; the earlier part of his book is filled with ripe and intense characterizations; the interpolated passages of criticism and verse are mellow and delightful. But the fable of the book is the fable of ‘Daddy Longlegs,’ not only in fact but, beneath all appearances of intellectual subtlety and integrity, in tendency and spirit. We can only hope that Mr Dodd will soon give us another novel in which his grace of style and temper shall serve to express an austerer strain of thought and imagination—austerer because it is truer and truer because it does not compromise.”
“The people in this narrative are the genuine variety. The character of Susan is a well rounded one. There is nothing commonplace about ‘The book of Susan.’ Mr Dodd writes in a fresh, entertaining style and has shaped his materials with no little skill.”
“In character depiction, in the give and take of dialogue, and in the incidents, the novel is more arresting than the majority of the American novels of the season.”
DODD, WILLIAM EDWARD. Woodrow Wilson and his work. *$3 (4c) Doubleday
“This portrait of Woodrow Wilson is designed to be a brief history of recent times as well as a chronicle of a great career. It aims to set the man in his historical background and to explain the trend of American life during a momentous period of world history.” (Introd.) “It is surely a record unsurpassed; and the fame of the man ... can never be forgotten, the ideals he has set and the movement he has pressed so long and so ably can not fail.” Contents: Youth and early environment; The new road to leadership; New wine in old bottles; The great stage; From Princeton to the presidency; The problem; The great reforms; Wars and rumours of wars; The election of 1916; The United States enters the war: “We are provincials no longer”; Roosevelt or Wilson; The great adventure; The day of reckoning; The treaty and the League; Index.
“It is fair to admit that Mr Dodd does his work with knowledge, skill, and an independent judgment in details.” J. A. Hobson
“Although I am seldom in complete agreement with Professor Dodd, and often a horizon’s distance away from him, I find myself forced to the conviction that this book offers the fullest and fairest amount of Wilson and his work that I have seen, or am likely to see in many a day.” Alvin Johnson
“Quite the most discriminating, comprehensive and just appraisement of Woodrow Wilson that has yet been made.”
“As fairly as seems humanly possible, Prof. Dodd has maintained the historical point of view, endeavoring to weigh all evidence impartially, and taking counsel from friends and foes alike, and from the president himself on various occasions.”
Reviewed by W: L. Chenery
DODGE, HENRY IRVING. Skinner makes it fashionable. il *$1 (5c) Harper
“Meadeville was a suburban town of the highest class. It was made up of plutocrats, prigs, good people, snobs, mean people, new-rich, new-poor.” Perhaps William Manning Skinner was one of the “mean people,” for he set the whole town by the ears in a sensational way. He knew how human they all were, how they dreaded, most of all, not to be in the height of fashion and not to do what the “best people” did. So he set the ball a-rolling that was to change the riot of extravagance in vogue among the newly-rich to a veritable riot of simple living. And how he and his good wife, Honey, chuckled over it all!
“Not as amusing as the earlier ‘Skinner’ stories.”
“The little book is a reservoir of bubbling humor, carrying with it a lesson well worth heeding in these days.”
“A genuinely funny story.”
DODGE, LOUIS. Whispers. *$1.75 Scribner
“Louis Dodge’s new hero is named Robert Estabrook, and it is Beakman, the very unpleasant city editor of The News, who gives him the nickname of ‘Whispers’ because of his defective speech. Estabrook—or Whispers—arrives in Missouri City shortly after the murder of old Pheneas Drumm, a dealer in masks and costumes, reputed to be very rich, and goes first to the office of the highly successful News. But not liking the looks either of Beakman or of The News office—whereby he shows his good sense—he decides to try to get a position on the rival paper, The Vidette. This he does. Also, Whispers promises to solve the mystery of the Drumm murder within two days. Of course he makes good.”—N Y Times
“Mr Dodge has written a uniquely interesting book. The plot itself is simple enough, the dénouement not surprising; but from the very beginning a subtler interest is aroused by the genuine appeal of the characters revealed and the picturesque quality of the city newspaper life.”
“Once the main thread begins to unwind, ‘Whispers’ plunges into an exciting series of dangers. Either through his own, or the author’s clumsiness, Estabrook does not display much craft in his sleuthing.”
“The long arm of coincidence is applied to its limit, but the story is entertaining.”
DODWELL, C. E. W. Righteousness versus religion. $2 Stratford co. 201
In opposing righteousness to religion the author does not direct his criticism against Christianity in the sense of the “righteousness, simplicity and beauty” of the teachings of Christ, but against dogmatic religion which he makes responsible for everything that has gone wrong with the world. He charges it with promulgating “mischievous errors, falsities and debasing superstitions, ignorance, hypocrisy and narrow-minded bigotry and intolerance.” The contents are: Religion; Many religions; The Christian religion; The works of religion; The Bible; Righteousness. The postscript has paragraphs on the future of the “Church” and “Religion”; on the effects of Catholicism on Spain and Ireland; on the war; and a recommended list of books for further reading.
“Of his tremendous sincerity there can be no doubt. It might fairly be urged that the book fails to accord to its object of attack the usual privilege of being judged by its best rather than by its worst. Yet his assaults are put forward in such a whole-hearted and self-convinced manner that what he says is not calculated to wound or affront.” L. S.
DOLE, CHARLES FLETCHER.[2] Religion for the new day. *$2 (2½c) Huebsch 204
We are facing a momentous crisis in history of which some of the profound facts are: insincerity in religion, and the parting of the roads to which all churches alike have come. The object of the book is to set forth a mode of religion that will now and henceforth serve, not only for Christendom but for all mankind, as the spiritual gospel and working force for a humane and democratic world and that, wherever it is applied, can transform life. It neither antagonizes nor favors any existing institution but insists on the need of some form of social expression of the best that is in man. The contents fall into sections: Signs of the times: how the facts point; The course of spiritual evolution; The victorious goodness; The new civilization; The religion within.
DOMBROWSKI, ERIC. German leaders of yesterday and today. *$2 (2½c) Appleton 920
These pictures of “uncensored celebrities of Germany” are painted with much spirit, a satirical brush and much intimate knowledge of the personalities and historical facts. Among the subjects are: Friedrich Ebert; Erich Ludendorff; Theodor Wolff; Mathias Erzberger; Georg Ledebour; Alfred von Tirpitz; Wilhelm II; Philip Scheidemann; Von Bethmann-Hollweg; Ernst Graf zu Reventlow; Hugo Haase; Richard von Kühlmann; Georg Graf von Hertling; Rosa Luxemburg; Maximilian von Baden; Kurt Eisner; Karl Liebknecht; Gustav Noske.
“Dombrowski’s power is nothing short of Carlylean.”
“As often happens in the case of sidelights, Dombrowski illuminates only spots. He shows only this or that feature of his men and women, leaving in the shadows many other features which in fairness should be revealed. ‘German leaders of yesterday and today’ is highly entertaining, but its value is certainly not higher than that of many books of the hour.”
“Some of the sketches are satirical and frankly inimical. Almost all are enlightening and amusing.”
“Eric Dombrowski’s ‘German leaders of yesterday and today’ has the requisite impartiality and shows also an abundance of keen insight. But these sketches were evidently written with some subtlety as well as vivacity, and while the translator has contrived to preserve the author’s spirit, the English is often confused or incorrect.”
“Dombrowski tries to be clever and rarely succeeds, but he paints vivid pictures of forty-five political leaders, publicists, and agitators, which to the average American will prove illuminating.” C: Seymour
DOMVILLE-FIFE, CHARLES WILLIAM.[2] States of South America, the land of opportunity; a complete geographical, descriptive, economic and commercial survey. il *$5 Macmillan 918
“This work, which has been greatly enlarged and re-written since its first appearance, now forms a comprehensive volume of illustrated reference to the whole of the states of South America, and not only as before, a few of the most important Latin-American states.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) Notice of the first edition appears in the 1911 Digest Annual.
“The proportion of bare facts to textual comment is well studied from beginning to end.”
“Aside from its mass of statistics and general information, the chief value of this volume to the American business man lies in the fact that it introduces him, with admirable candor, to the methods of his chief competitor.” B. R. Redman
DOMVILLE-FIFE, CHARLES WILLIAM. Submarine warfare of today. il *$2.25 Lippincott 940.45
The book contains “records of many romantic events on England’s sea frontier, 1914–1918. There are descriptions of the organization and preparation of the new navy to meet the submarine menace, and of the new weapons devised. Much attention is given to details and explanation of how things were done; there is an examination of the effect of the submarine on naval strategy.”—Booklist
“His book is full of romance as well as of facts. The only criticism which is permissible is that the book is somewhat lacking in detailed description of the instruments used.”
“‘Submarine warfare of today’ is a disappointing book. Based on inadequate information, and characterised by annoying repetition, it falls a long way short of the claims which are made by the publishers’ note on the wrapper. If the author is ill-informed as to his facts, not less displeasing is his English.”
“Mr Domville-Fife’s is a book to be carefully read by all those who look forward to the promised formal histories of the navy’s share in the war.”
DOMVILLE-FIFE, CHARLES WILLIAM. Submarines and sea power. *$2.50 Macmillan 359
“In this treatise the author examines the effect of the submarine on naval strategy, not as a mere matter of history, but as a guide to preparation for the next naval war.” (Ath) “He says that, though we hope that the League of nations will make war impossible in future, we have no right whatever to rely on this blessed consummation. Until we are entitled to dismiss war as an exhausted evil, which can never return, we must either keep our place on the sea or sink to live at the mercy of other nations. Will the submarine make it more difficult for us to retain our position or not? That is the question which he endeavours to answer.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“Most instructive volume.”
DONNELLY, ANTOINETTE. How to reduce: new waistlines for old. il *$1 Appleton 613
This is a jolly little book which makes the trip from Fatland into Slimville an interesting adventure rather than a dismal undertaking. The author writes from a wide experience and her “simple and commonsensible rules for reduction” are emphasized by wit, humor and jingles which seem to defy her own rules by never losing weight. The menus given “require no additional expense to the household budget nor do they need to upset the meal planning to any unreasonable degree.” The exercises given are illustrated and the contents are: A little physical geography; Some Slimville arguments; Hard facts on a soft subject; The dangerous age; Get the weighing habit; Reduce while you eat; What is an average helping; Reduced thirty-six pounds in six weeks; Exercise; Recipes without butter, flour and sugar. The author is “beauty editor” of the Chicago Tribune.
DONNELLY, FRANCIS PATRICK. Art of interesting; its theory and practice for speakers and writers. *$1.75 Kenedy 808
The author regards the imagination as the source of interest in written and oral speech, and says that “The place of imagination in prose” might serve as a substitute title for his book. “In the earlier chapters various specific manifestations of the imagination are described and exemplified; then follow several chapters on particular authors, whose methods of interesting are examined in detail. The final chapters go into the theory of imagination.” (Preface) Among the titles are: The tiresome speaker; Interest from directness; The art of eloquence and the science of theology; Newman and the academic style; Macaulay and “journalese”; Tabb and fancy; Poetry and interest; Developing the imagination; Exercises for the imagination. Parts of the book have appeared in the Ecclesiastical Review, Catholic World and America.
“He has a delicate appreciation of the best in literature and a genius for penetrating beneath the polished work of art to discover the artistry.”
DOOLEY, WILLIAM HENRY. Applied science for metal workers. il $2 Ronald 671
“The suggestion of the title that the content is of value only to the metal-worker is misleading, for this book is in fact an elementary treatise in the field of technology in general. It deals with fundamental principles of chemistry and physics in their relation to our daily life. One-eighth of the material handled, perhaps, applies specifically to metal-working trades; the remainder is of general informational value to the average layman as well as to the metal-worker.”—School R
“Mr Dooley has been very successful in many of the chapters in showing that the sciences of physics and chemistry, which in general are too abstract for students in the elementary school, can be put in such a way as to arouse a good deal of interest and promise full understanding on the part of immature students.”
“The book is well within the range of evening- and continuation-school attendants, particularly those engaged in the distributive and productive industries. It should prove of value as a text in vocational high schools and in those regular high schools that are able to differentiate their courses for the benefit of that portion of their school population which graduates into industry.” H. T. F.
DOOLEY, WILLIAM HENRY. Applied science for wood-workers. il $2 Ronald 684
The first chapters on the general principles of science underlying all industry are identical with those in “Applied science for metal workers.” These are followed by seven chapters specifically relating to woodworking trades.
DORRANCE, MRS ETHEL ARNOLD (SMITH), and DORRANCE, JAMES FRENCH. Glory rides the range. il *$1.75 Macaulay co.
“Gloriana’s father was Blaze Frazer, owner of a horse ranch near the ‘Solemncholy desert.’ Frazer’s delicate and refined wife had mysteriously disappeared some years before the story opens. Frazer receives a penciled letter post-marked Nogales, Mexico, telling him that there is a woman there who ‘sometime cry for Blaze and Glory and says her name is Frazer.’ The writer further requests Frazer to come for the woman and bring with him $5,000 gold for ‘expenses.’ Frazer raises the money and starts for Mexico in the hope of finding his wife; before leaving he leases the ranch to one Timothy Rudd and arranges for the girl to live with a friend during his absence. Gloriana, however, decides otherwise; Rudd was a bad character and, refusing to recognize the validity of the lease, she assumes charge of the ranch herself. The exciting incidents which followed her decision furnish the theme of this story. In the end Gloriana is in her mother’s arms and a prospective husband is hovering near by.”—N Y Times
“When you read ‘Glory rides the range’ you feel that Ethel and James Dorrance must have had a ‘bully good time’ writing it, so enthusiastically and blithely does it gallop from one thrilling situation to another.” E. M. Brown
DOSTOEVSKII, FEDOR MIKHAILOVICH. Honest thief and other stories. *$2 (1c) Macmillan
This is the eleventh volume in Mrs Garnett’s translation of the works of Dostoevsky. It contains ten stories: An honest thief; Uncle’s dream; A novel in nine letters; An unpleasant predicament; Another man’s wife; The heavenly Christmas tree; The peasant Marev; The crocodile; Bobok; The dream of a ridiculous man.
“Perhaps Dostoevsky more than any other writer sets up this mysterious relationship with the reader, this sense of sharing. While we read, we are like children to whom one tells a tale: we seem in some strange way to half-know what is coming and yet we do not know; to have heard it all before, and yet our amazement is none the less, and when it is over, it has become ours. This is especially true of the Dostoevsky who passes so unremarked—the child-like, candid, simple Dostoevsky who wrote ‘An honest thief’ and ‘The peasant Marey’ and ‘The dream of a ridiculous man.’” K. M.
“Fortunately for the reader, Dostoevski’s desperation of human nature drove him to ridicule rather than to melancholy, and for ridicule he was admirably equipped with a lively and stinging wit. Of the ten stories which make up the volume, ‘Uncle’s dream’ is probably the most entertaining.” G. H. C.
“Insouciance, self-possession of the absolute much prized French variety, the all containing nonchalance, the iron-nerved sense of form, Dostoevsky apparently cannot claim. His close realism quite lacks easiness and is impersonal in a rough and elemental, not an accomplished way; he has no suggestion of the considered faint irony of Chekhov. His eminence is the eminence of endowment, not of training or consideration; he is the great artist of few accomplishments.” C: K. Trueblood
“The stories and sketches in this volume of Dostoevsky are not among his best. His humor is not happy; his compassion is less exercised when he deals with the higher ranks of society. But always there is the incomparable steadfastness of vision and innocence of the imagination that follows life, that does not seek to distort it, and that finds man in his humanity alone.” L. L.
“The restraint and aloofness of the great comic writers are impossible to him. It is probable, for one reason, that he could not allow himself the time. ‘Uncle’s dream,’ ‘The crocodile,’ and ‘An unpleasant predicament’ read as if they were the improvisations of a gigantic talent reeling off its wild imagination at breathless speed. Yet we are perpetually conscious that, if Dostoevsky fails to keep within the proper limits, it is because the fervour of his genius goads him across the boundary.”
DOUDNA, EDGAR GEORGE. Our Wisconsin; a school history of the Badger state. 72c Eau Claire bk. & stationery co., Eau Claire, Wis. 977.5
The book is intended for use in the upper grades of the schools of the state, it being a law of Wisconsin that its history and government be taught in the common schools. It is as definite and as concrete as brevity permits. Beginning with Jean Nicolet, the first white man to set foot on Wisconsin soil in 1634, the book describes the Indians, the first settlers, the various nationalities that have made Wisconsin their home, its attitudes in national crises, its laws and industries, etc.
DOUGLAS, CLIFFORD HUGH. Economic democracy. *$1.60 (6c) Harcourt 330.1
“This book is an attempt to disentangle from a mass of superficial features such as profiteering, and alleged scarcity of commodities, a sufficient portion of the skeleton of the structure we call society as will serve to suggest sound reasons for the decay with which it is now attacked: and afterwards to indicate the probable direction of sound and vital reconstruction.” (Preface) The author sees in the centralizing power of capital one of the chief reasons for this decay and in a decentralized cooperation of individuals a direction that a sound and vital reconstruction will take. After analysing our present decaying economic and political structure and considering the imminence of a general rearrangement, he rejects collectivism “in any of the forms made familiar to us by the Fabians and others” and insists on “the maximum expansion in the personal control of initiative and the minimizing, and final elimination, of economic domination, either personal or through the agency of the state.”
“It is extremely difficult to find a flaw in this doctrine on the basis of ethics or equity, as for the practical workings of any system which attempts to put this poetic Justice into action we must await the event.” J. L.
“Those who agree with the premises will find the logic irresistible. Others will be stimulated by the original though unorthodox thinking and the fertile suggestions of the author’s scheme.”
“Mr Douglas is by no means clear as to the details of his case, although his general contention has substantial force.” Ordway Tead
“The orthodox economists are in such a helpless muddle in regard to soaring prices that it is a relief to find a thinker who does not scatter explanations with a shot gun all over the barn door but goes straight to his mark. Unfortunately the book is too brief. Excessive concentration has left it obscure in vital portions.”
“Major Douglas knows his difficult subject from end to end. If the fates had blessed him with the gift of clear exposition we might have had here a volume of note. When he determines to keep clear from terms which demand explanations, and concentrates on clarifying his message of social regeneration, those who pay lip service to formal political democracy will find in him a telling recruit to the growing band of thinkers who deny the name of democracy to any system not based upon economic freedom.”
“This small book offers much room for controversy both as to its technical analysis of the effects of current accounting and credit practices and as to the feasibility of remedies advocated. The ground for controversy is widened by the author’s unfortunately vague and sometimes bombastic style.” E. R. Burton
DOUGLAS, OLIVE ELEANOR (CONSTANCE) (LADY ALFRED DOUGLAS). Penny plain. *$1.90 Doran
A story of a quiet little Scottish town. Priorsford is the home of a number of quaint and interesting people. Here Jean Jardine lives with her two brothers and “the Mhor,” Gaelic for “the great one,” the pretentious name given to a little boy of seven. Into this placid atmosphere comes the Honourable Miss Pamela Reston, who is tired of London life. The story tells of how she fits into Priorsford society and how she and Jean become fast friends, and there is much description of tea-parties and country social life. Then comes an unexpected legacy for kind-hearted little Jean and romance, too, appears in the person of Pam’s younger brother. Pam herself finds the fulfilment of a hope of twenty years’ standing which has kept her single all this long time. The title comes from the dialogue of the shopman and the small boy: the shopman saying “You may have your choice—penny plain or twopence coloured.” the small boy choosing the penny plain, as “better value for the money.”
“A pleasant book to read. But we cannot help thinking it would be pleasanter still without the perfunctory introduction of a loveinterest, and of other irrelevances considered more or less indispensable in fiction.”
“The children make the book, especially Gervase and his dog. It is worth reading for them alone.” I. W. L.
“Miss Douglas’s new book in two ways partakes of a quality little short of the miraculous. It is a post-war story without a trace of war-weariness or bitterness; and it is full of people who are nice with the added charm of being entertaining. As a story ‘Penny plain’ leaves something to be desired. Let us add that if an author is to be judged by her literary preferences and illusions and quotations, Miss Douglas deserves a very high mark.”
“A very able and delightful book, but it is not the kind of book that the Marxian kind of person would like. The author has a good style and a subtle sense of humour, together with the skill necessary for the gradual unfolding of the characters.”
DOWST, HENRY PAYSON.[2] Bostwick’s budget. il *$1 Bobbs 331.84
“An inspiring bit of a book for all those in debt; being the Odyssey of Sam and Lucy, who owed $4,016.69 and through the advice of a sagacious old lawyer and the use of grit, in a comparatively short time found themselves out of debt and with money in the bank.”—Cleveland
“The story, as a story, is closely interesting, and as a sermon on thrift it ought to be read by 100 per cent of the newlyweds in America and by an equal ratio of people above and below that date line in their careers.”
DOWST, HENRY PAYSON.[2] Man from Ashaluna. *$1.75 (2c) Small
Judson Dunlap comes home from France with the desire to paint pictures. As a doughboy in Paris he had seen real pictures and a latent interest in art had awakened. He buys a painting kit and starts in by himself alone in the Ashaluna hills, his home. But the results are queer and he knows it. So he takes the patents on the churn he has invented to New York, hoping to sell them and get money to learn painting. He also hopes to meet Mary Beverly, the girl he had rescued from the snowdrifts the winter before. He is immediately plunged into a game of high finance, for two rival concerns are after him for his water rights on the Ashaluna and are willing to juggle with his churn patents as part of the price. Jud plays them off one against the other, meets Mary again, learns to wear the right clothes and use the right forks and, altogether, doesn’t find time to learn painting.
“A cleverly conceived, well told novel. While there is nothing particularly striking in this book in any one place, it is a well made piece of fiction.”
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN. Guards came through, and other poems. *$1.25 Doran 821
No vers libre for Sir Arthur. It is the old style meter with the old style rhyme and the old style powerful lilt to the old style ballad most suitable for recitations. They are all war poems and are: Victrix; Those others; The guards came through; Haig is moving; The guns in Sussex; Ypres; Grousing; The volunteer; The night patrol; The wreck on Loch McGarry; The bigot; The Athabasca trail; Ragtime! Christmas in wartime; Lindisfaire; A parable; Fate.
“The title-piece and others show Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a master of evening-paper balladry.”
“It is good British song one finds in this slim little volume of Sir Arthur’s. And it is British all the way through, this little book; British militarily, British presumptuously satisfied with her destiny.” W. S. B.
“Nothing so good for Friday afternoon readings in public schools has been written since ‘The charge of the light brigade.’”
“While the military expert may pass over many episodes as being non-essential, it is these very episodes which lure the general reader on from page to page.” Walter Littlefield
“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a real benefactor to the organizers of town or village entertainments who want pieces of good quality for recitation. His poems, mainly patriotic, are irreproachable in sentiment, simple in expression, and always have a brave lilt. One longish piece, ‘The wreck on Loch McGarry,’ is in a vein of Gilbertian humour.”
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN. History of the great war. v 5–6 il ea *$3 (3c) Doran 940.3
v 5–6 The British campaign in France and Flanders, 1918.
Volume 5, covering the first half of the year 1918, “carries the story of the German attack to its close.” The battle of the Somme is given seven chapters, with the battle of the Lys and the battles of the Chemin des Dames and of the Ardres treated in the concluding chapters. Volume 6 “describes the enormous counter attack of the Allies leading up to their final victory.” Both volumes are indexed and are illustrated with maps and plans.
“It is written in the author’s usual clear style, and sticks, for the most part, to the business in hand, although the occasional ill-informed references to the Russian revolution are hardly in keeping with the rest of the narrative.”
“While the military expert may pass over many episodes as being non-essential, it is these very episodes which lure the general reader on from page to page.” Walter Littlefield
“Within certain limits, Sir Arthur’s account will be found useful; his maps, so-called, are execrable.”
“Perhaps the only possible criticism of Sir Arthur’s work is its official tinge. Considering his difficulties, Sir Arthur is to be congratulated upon his work.”
“Sir Arthur Doyle lacks the knowledge, for which he cannot be blamed, since official material is denied to him; and it is quite impossible that such a history as his should not be more or less hastily produced, so that he lacks also time. We fear that we must add, lastly that he fails in literary skill. One bright spot, indeed, there is in the shape of a few pages of actual experience which Sir Arthur has modestly relegated to the appendix of his final volume.”
D’OYLY, SIR WARREN HASTINGS, bart. Tales retailed of celebrities and others. il *$2 (4½c) Lane
“They are simple tales mostly such as are told in ordinary after dinner chit-chats round the fire, over a good cigar and a glass of good wine, when young men tell tales of presentday happenings to be capped by older men’s tales of the ‘good old times.’” (Preface) With a few exceptions they all relate to incidents which have come under the author’s own observation during a lifetime of over fourscore years. The contents are in two parts. Book I contains: A hundred years ago: Dorsetshire, Haileybury and Scotland; India; Tirhut, Bhaugulpore, and Arrah; Indian celebrities and others. Book II, Legends, contains: Family legends and tales taken from “The house of D’Oyly” by William D’Oyly Bayley. F. S. A.
“His jottings may entertain readers who know something of the circle in which he moved, or who may like a few anecdotes about the hunting of Indian big game. But the book as a whole can hardly claim to have much general interest.”
DOZIER, HOWARD DOUGLAS. History of the Atlantic coast line railroad. *$2 Houghton 385
The book is one of the Hart, Schaffner and Marx series of prize essays in economics. It is the history of the consolidation of a number of short railroads along the South Atlantic seaboard into the Atlantic coast line system and illustrates the growth of the holding company period and its decline. It includes much of the economic history and the economic conditions of the section involved and shows what a marked influence the consolidation had on the latter. Contents: Early trade and transportation conditions of the Atlantic seaboard states: Economic background of the north and south railroads of Virginia; The Petersburg and the Richmond and Petersburg railroads before 1860: North Carolina and the Wilmington and Weldon railroad before 1860; The South Carolina-Georgia territory and its railroads before the Civil war; Summary of railroad conditions along the Atlantic seaboard to 1860; Growth from the Civil war to 1902; Integrations and consolidations; Summary and conclusion; Appendix; Bibliographical note; Index; and insert maps and table.
“The student will find in this volume an important contribution to the economic literature of the country, not only because it adds to our knowledge of railway history but because it contains as a background a good discussion of the industrial development of the country through which the lines were built.” I: Lippincott
“The later chapters, in fact, are notably lacking in the mention of personnel. Other faults lie in the construction of sentences and paragraphs, in the omission of dates of publication from the bibliography, and in occasional errors of statement. The book, nevertheless, is in general a substantial and well-considered contribution.” U. B. Phillips
DRACHSLER, JULIUS.[2] Democracy and assimilation; the blending of immigrant heritages in America. *$3 Macmillan 325.7
“Prof. Drachsler gives us an interpretation of a careful statistical study of the facts of intermarriage in New York city among immigrant groups. In view of our heterogeneous population, he states, the national ideal must be redefined and our life consciously directed toward it. Approaching the problem merely from an economic or cultural point of view is not enough. The fusion of races in America, in short, must be cultural as well as biological, and it must take place under an adequate economic environment if an American ideal is to be achieved. The most specific proposal which Prof. Drachsler makes to accomplish this is to develop in our schools a conscious attempt to study the comparative literature, politics and history of the races represented therein in order that their heritages may continue to be an inspiration and force.”—Springf’d Republican
“Prof. Drachsler’s approach is a stimulating and suggestive appeal to facts.” J: M. Gaus
“Each reader will interpret these facts in accordance with his own point of view. It is a merit of the book that the facts have been divided from interpretation of the facts. The book will no doubt be recognized as one of the few valuable discussions on the problem of assimilation.” J. B. Berkson
DREIER, KATHERINE SOPHIE.[2] Five months in the Argentine from a woman’s point of view, 1918 to 1919. *$3.50 Sherman, F. F. 918.2
“Miss Katherine S. Dreier, author of ‘Five months in the Argentine: from a woman’s point of view,’ faced the discomforts of her journey from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires and her sojourn there with an invincible sense of humor. She visited a great estancia (ranch) at Gualeguay and the Museum of natural history at La Plata, and writes about the general strike of January, 1919, but her principal concern was to study the status and training of women, the care of children, the organization of charity, and the control of prostitution.”—Nation
“If one would have a faithful picture of Buenos Aires, going into considerable detail as to living conditions, charities, business and pleasure, Miss Dreier’s book is to be recommended.”
DREISER, THEODORE. Hey-rub-a-dub-dub. *$1.90 Boni & Liveright 814
“These essays concern Change, Some aspects of our national character, The American financier, Personality, The toil of the laborer, The reformer, Marriage and divorce, Life, art, and America, Neurotic America and the sex impulse—there are twenty of them, written in the authentic Dreiserian manner. Phantasmagoria splits the book in twain. It is a little cosmic drama in three scenes—The house of birth, The house of life, The house of death. It is the via dolorosa of the ‘Lord of the universe,’ his agglomeration, effulgence in life, and his ingression. The court of progress purports to be the record of the doings of the Federated chairman of the post federated period of world republics (2,760–3,923). This phantasmagoria is a celebration of the triumph of humanity over poets, cigarette fiends, saloon keepers, madams, socialists, Holy rollers, artists, and the like.”—N Y Times
“They are interesting in showing the philosophy which has been back of the vigorous, often shocking fiction of the author.”
“He states so many things that are not so, and he states them so arrogantly and cocksuredly, that the intelligent reader asks himself in amazement: ‘How can such an inane book—poorly written, full of repetitions, blatant in its irreligion, shameless in its immorality—find enough readers to warrant publication?’ Mr Dreiser has no saving sense of humor—hence this awful book.”
“Dreiser sets down his findings with all a greengrocer’s assiduity, and not a little of a greengrocer’s unimaginative painstaking. Here is a surprising absence of the creative instinct in a creative writer.”
“In his novels Mr Dreiser seems very much the thinker. One is astonished, consequently, to find how unsublimated a product he is of the benighted environment he describes in his last essay when he has no characters through whom to express himself. Very simple and almost purely emotional is the reaction upon life cloaked in the scientific verbiage of this book. One asks oneself whether the soul of Jennie Gerhardt is not really the soul of Mr Dreiser himself. One thing is certain; he is far more interesting as the painter of Jennie’s life than as the recorder of Jennie’s views.” Van Wyck Brooks
“Heavy and turgid and monotonous and sensuously obtuse as he seems to be, he makes his discussion interesting. He is himself sincerely interested, and he is writing because he has something to communicate. The truth seems to be that Theodore Dreiser’s mind is formless, chaotic, bewildered. In short, our leading novelist is intellectually in serious confusion, and needs a deeper philosophy than—hey rub-a-dub-dub.” F. H.
“Mr Dreiser’s style always reminds us of a college professor who has been ‘fired’ for trying to make his pupils think. He emits endless common-places with the air of having discovered something new. He is pedantic before the threadbare. In ‘The court of progress’ Mr Dreiser has written one of the most drastic satires ever written in this country. This ought to be printed separately and distributed by the million.”
DRESSER, HORATIO WILLIS. Open vision; a study of psychic phenomena. *$2 (2½c) Crowell 130
The author asserts that he is not a spiritualist, that he has never received any communications through a medium, and that he has never investigated spiritism after the manner of psychical researchers. He classes all these investigations with those of other sciences that arrive at conclusions through external sources. What the book emphasizes is the psychical experience by direct impression, the inner vision and certainty that is independent of outward signs. That the spiritual world is, that we are of it and in it now, in life as well as in death, and that we can develop our awareness of it and our participation in it through the cultivation of an open vision seems to be the teaching of the book. A partial list of the contents is: The new awakening; Psychical experience; The awakening of psychical power; Principles of interpretation; The human spirit; Direct impressions; Inner perception; The future life; The book of life; The inward light; Positive values.
“Dr Dresser’s reasoning is systematic, but not powerful, his piety refined but not robust; his style expands discreetly in the calm of a featureless level.”
DREW, MRS MARY (GLADSTONE). Mrs Gladstone. il *$4 (6c) Putnam
This loving tribute by her daughter reveals Mrs Gladstone as a personality of distinction in her own right, her happy family life, her sympathy for and her influence on her husband’s work. It has been the author’s privilege to share intimately her parents’ life from her birth to their death. Contents: Childhood and youth; Girlhood and marriage; Diaries in early married life; Letters from her; Letters to her; Characteristics; Good works; Reminiscences; “Via crucis—via lucis”; Genealogical table; Index and numerous illustrations.
“Her book is more a series of impressions and reminiscences than a biography. It is none the less interesting and authoritative on that account, however, and will serve very well in the place of a more extended and formal biographical record.” E. F. E.
“It is a little difficult for the outsider to know why three hundred pages were necessary to paint what must at best be a purely negative picture.” H. J. L.
“This volume should be heralded equally as a new chapter in the social and political history of the Victorian period and as a rare and beautifully filial tribute to a devoted mother, a highly accomplished and perennially charming woman.” F: T. Cooper
“It is trivial and unutterably dull.”
“So far as we can discover from this and other contemporary records, Mrs Gladstone was a good but stupid woman. There are a number of letters to Mrs Gladstone which show what exceedingly dull and commonplace letters are written by very distinguished people.”
DRINKWATER, JOHN. Lincoln: the world emancipator. *$1.50 (10c) Houghton
The object of this book, written by an Englishman, is not to retell the life-story of Lincoln to Americans, but to use him as a symbol of the community of spirit and of the differences of national character between the two peoples and to show how he can serve as a reconciler in bringing about an intellectual and spiritual alliance between them. Contents: ‘Liberty’; ‘E pluribus unum’; Anglo-American union; Lincoln as symbol; Anglo-American differences; Lincoln as reconciler; History and art; Lincoln and the artists; An epilogue.
“The whole essay is a work of art. In form it is not in the least polemical, and if it is polemical in intent, then Drinkwater has brought polemics into the region of the fine arts.”
DRINKWATER, JOHN. Pawns; four poetic plays. *$1.50 Houghton 822
The book is a collection of four one-act plays and has an introduction by Jack R. Crawford who says the plays are characteristic of the author’s point of view, namely, that peace and quiet are the natural concomitants of a mind loving beauty. “They are dramas expressed in poetry—the utterance of simple truths which we know beforehand, for of such are the materials of poetry and drama.” The plays are: The storm; The god of quiet; X = O; a night of the Trojan war; Cophetua.
“There is justice in the title. But the true figures of the stage—Falstaff or Iago or Œdipus—are not pawns. They are living beings.” J: G. Fletcher
“One quality in these ‘Pawns’ is clear: their artistic sincerity. The best play of the three, the largest in conception, the richest and simplest in emotion, and the soundest in workmanship, is the last in the book. [“X = O” in English edition]”
DRUMMOND, HAMILTON. Maker of saints. *$2.50 Dutton
“In this tale of Italy in the days of Dante (who appears in person on the stage) the maker of saints is the sculptor Fieravanti, a peasant risen to fame and power by his wonderful statues of saints which to the simple countrymen are the real persons they represent. It is the visit of Fieravanti at the Court of Arzano to the proud old Count Ascanio of the house of Faldora, who has no son, but a beautiful, proud and unawakened granddaughter, that introduces a romance of the changing fortunes of noble houses amid the turbulence of medieval Italy.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is by no means easy to infuse much vitality into an imaginative tale of so long ago, but the author has undoubtedly achieved a measure of success in his undertaking.”
“The story is well told, with abundance of incident.”
“A capital romance but at the end the curtain drops too abruptly on the tragic climax of the story and leaves us a little doubtful as to the real issue.”
DU BOIS, JOHN HAROLD. Christian task. (New generation ser.) *90c (4c) Assn. press 261
“A discussion of the supreme need of the age: how Christianity can satisfy it.” (Subtitle) In the author’s opinion the supreme need of the age “is the need of something to do, the need of some gigantic undertaking—in a word, the need of a task, or in still simpler Anglo-Saxon, the need of a job.” Contents: The need stated: the need of a task; The need analyzed: the need and the age; The need emphasized: the need and the war; The need satisfied: the need and the Christian task of establishing the kingdom of God on earth; The need summarized: Christianity and other related needs.
DUBOIS, WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT. Darkwater: voices from within the veil. *$2 (3c) Harcourt 326
“I have been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even illuminating ways.” (Postscript) And it is an unusual collection of essays, stories and parables alternating with “little alightings of what may be poetry.” Beginning with a “credo” and an autobiographical sketch, The shadow of years, the contents are: The souls of white folk; The hands of Ethiopia; Of work and wealth; “The servant in the house”; Of the ruling of men; The damnation of women; The immortal child; Of beauty and death; The comet. The interposed poetry is: A litany at Atlanta; The riddle of the sphinx; The princess of the Hither isles; The second coming; Jesus Christ in Texas; The call; Children of the moon; Almighty death; The prayers of God; A hymn to the peoples. Mr DuBois is author of “The souls of black folk,” “The negro,” etc., and is editor of the Crisis.
“We can admit the whole of Dr DuBois’ plea for the negro, although we cannot admit his argument, and we can do so because his argument is irrelevant. His picture of the majority of mankind, the ‘coloured’ races, being kept in subjugation by the, on the whole, inferior white races is, we feel, rather more poetic than scientific.”
“Written with tense feeling and a clean bitterness.”
“It is a stern indictment and one to which we cannot close our ears. It is a lesson, however, that cannot be driven home by storming, no matter how righteous be the anger. The significance of ‘Darkwater’ thus lies in the spiritual history of the author and in the passages of lyrical poetic beauty where he has expressed the extremity of racial pride.” M. E. Bailey
“Dr DuBois is undoubtedly the foremost spokesman of today for the negro, and as such his utterances command attention. It is doubtful whether Dr DuBois is as powerful or as convincing in his latest work as in its predecessor, ‘The souls of black folk.’” W. E. W.
“Whether in prose or verse, DuBois is always master of the instrument of expression. At times, as in the Litany at Atlanta, reprinted from the Independent, he rises to supreme eloquence. But his thought is not always on the same high level as his style.”
“It is a fact that his own ability to suffer and to feel the wrongs of his race so deeply is at once his strength, the reason for his leadership, and also his chief weakness. For it carries with it a note of bitterness, tinctured with hate, and the teaching of violence which often defeats his own purpose. Doubtless, few of us with sympathies so keen, with nerves so rasped, with wounds as raw, would do better. But still, some suppression of the ego, a lesser self-consciousness, and the omission of personal bitterness at all times would carry Mr DuBois and his cause much further.” O. G. V.
“It is sometimes said that Dr DuBois is bitter. If this new book of his is bitter, I do not know what bitter means. It is to me one of the sweetest books I have ever read. Dr DuBois is an artist, and his book must be reckoned among those that add not only to the wisdom but to the exaltation and glory of man. Because he is an artist, because he tells this story of his own people so simply and so charmingly, he establishes that kinship which is the essence of everything human.” F. H.
“There is a certain weakness in Professor DuBois’s reasoning, which is that his intense concentration on one subject leads him to turn general, universal wrongs into special negro wrongs. The error runs all through his book and disfigures it. If we disagree with much in this beautiful book, it is not possible to withhold the heartiest praise for the power of its statement, the force and passion that inspire it, and the entrancing style in which it is written.”
“Dr DuBois is too close to the struggle to see clearly the problems involved. His work is a creation of passion rather than intelligence. It is, on the whole, a volume which will convince only those already convinced of the justice and soundness of his position.”
“‘Darkwater’ is not merely the story of the negro. The success of Dr DuBois’ writing lies in the fact that it describes something universal. Every other persecuted race quickens with tragic memories at his words. Here is the story of the circumscribed Jew, of the Hindu, of the dark peoples whom imperialism holds in subjection. It is the old story of the undeserved human suffering, doled out by the world’s victors who enjoy the cruel display of their power.” M. W. Ovington
“Very able and pathetic book.”
“I believe that Dr DuBois has overstressed in his book the point of identity, not only of the colored races as such, but of the white and black races especially; yet I am equally sure that white men have overstressed the points of divergence. The signal service of this book is that it quite magnificently points out the white man’s error and makes clear as day the fact that the ‘race question’ is, at least to a great extent, a question of social environment.” R. F. Foerster
“His book affords a remarkable example of that elemental race-hatred which he himself so fiercely denounces. He ignores altogether the paramount importance of the economic basis of the problem, the fact that, given equal opportunity, the negro and the Asiatic would inevitably eat up the white man.”
“If one lays down the book with a sense of disappointment that in spite of its excellence it somehow misses greatness, at least he cannot easily silence in his ears ‘the voices from within the veil’ who speak through its pages. And if bitterness seems to be the quality which mars the power of Dr DuBois’ appeal, the white man has lost his right to complain.” N. T.
DUCLAUX, EMILE. Pasteur: the history of a mind; tr. and ed. by Erwin F. Smith and Florence Hedges. il *$5 Saunders
“This is an American translation of a French book published in 1896. The pupil, friend and successor of Pasteur describes the successful quest of knowledge and the growth of the ardent mind which pursued it. He follows the same method in describing the successive triumphs of Pasteur from the studies in crystallography to the final attainment of the conception of immunity. He gives a brief account of the state of knowledge preceding the work of Pasteur, and is thus able to describe the problems in the form in which they presented themselves when the great investigator turned his attention to them.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The translators, who are pathologists in the United States Department of agriculture, have appended an annotated list of persons mentioned in the book.” (R of Rs)
“Invaluable for the light it sheds on the dynamics of scientific research, this volume is not less suggestive for its portraiture of what Ostwald has called the classicist mind in science.” R. H. Lowie
“The book must always remain a classic in the history of science. The translation has been faithfully done.” A. S. M.
“The book has a permanent value independent of the progress that has been made since it was written.”
DUCLAUX, MARY. Twentieth century French writers (reviews and reminiscences). il *$2.50 Scribner 840.9
“This volume was in the printer’s hands in August, 1914. For its publication today Madame Duclaux has added a post-war preface and interpolated a passage here and there.” (Nation) “She writes chiefly of the last fourteen years, and in studies all too brief characterizes the personalities and the work of Maurice Barrès, Romain Rolland, Edmond Rostand, Claudel, Jammes, René Boylesve. André Gide, Péguy, Barbusse, Duhamel, the Comtesse de Noailles and others.” (Ath)
“For readers unacquainted with contemporary French literature this volume should be a useful literary guide-book.”
“Many thanks should be given her by the English-speaking world for her brilliant and scholarly volume, arriving as it does when we need the stimulus and example of these French modernists.” C. K. H.
“The book has its insufficiencies of judgment, of course, apart from those created by an encroaching patriotism. But her defects are obvious; they spring readily from her qualities. She is interested in her chosen writers as complex individuals. As highly differentiated individuals she presents them; and in reaching for the core of personality she accomplishes something which is vital to criticism.” C. M. Rourke
“Substantially it is now what it was then, [August, 1914,] and therein lies its extraordinary value. The war turned everything into legend and made of every face an angel’s or an ogre’s mask. Now that the world is mildly and tentatively beginning to use its mind again, a book like this serves to mend the broken continuity of truth and to restore the normal temper of one’s studies.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Mme Duclaux not only possesses the comprehensive vision that makes possible a synoptic view of surface phenomena, but she is gifted with that rarer sight which pierces, embraces and understands.” B. R. Redman
+ |N Y Times p15 Ag 22 ’20 2500w
“Gives a better account of the most modern French literature than has yet been published in English.”
+ |Spec 124:587 My 1 ’20 530w
“One’s first impulse, on reading Mme Duclaux’s book, is to cry, Here is a book by some one who knows what she is talking about! The impulse is too strong to be restrained, because the event is so rare in this field of literary criticism.”
DUGANNE, PHYLLIS. Prologue. *$2 (2c) Harcourt
This is the story of Rita Moreland’s life during her teens, when she is developing from little girlhood to womanhood. The only child of a rather unsatisfactory marriage, she has some difficulty in adjusting herself to life. The story tells of her family life, her schooling, her home in New York, where she vibrates between Fifth avenue and Greenwich Village, her friends, and more especially her relations with the masculine sex. She alternates between perfect happiness and periods of bored discontentment with everything and can’t seem to “find herself.” The war finds her at work in an office, but the end of the war brings back to her Donald, with whom, at the story’s close, she stands at “the beginnings of things.”
“Two merits by no means discoverable in all first novels may be conceded to ‘Prologue’ at the outset. It commands to a marked degree technical dexterity and ease in expression, and—within the scope of its peacock-alley comprehension of life—it is decidedly entertaining. The book might be described as a study of flapper-psychosis—if there is such a thing. Anything tending to reveal character, or in any way interfere with inconsequent amours, is summarily dismissed by the author.” L. B.
“Miss Duganne writes with a clear, staccato, bird-like note; she visualizes men and things with cool precision.”
DUGUIT, LEÓN. Law in the modern state; tr. by Frida and Harold Laski. *$2.50 Huebsch 321
“Professor Duguit’s introductory chapter closes with the following significant words, which summarize his book. ‘The idea of public service,’ he declares, ‘replaces the idea of sovereignty. The state is no longer a sovereign power in issuing commands. It is a group of individuals who must use the force they possess to supply the public need. The idea of public service lies at the very base of the theory of the modern state.’ The demonstration as to how this has come about occupies the body of the book. Through illustrations drawn primarily from French legal history, Duguit shows the growth away from state absolutism and from the idea of governments as sacrosanct bodies.”—Socialist R
“Of the acuteness of Duguit’s analytical powers there can, in general, be no doubt, and it therefore became a matter almost beyond understanding that he should fail to continue to appreciate the real nature of the doctrines which he attacks.” W. W. Willoughby
“The author makes out a strong case and the facts seem to be on his side. He answers his opponents with candor and courtesy and treats fairly and comprehensively all sides of the problem.”
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
“The translation by Frida and Harold Laski is very satisfactory, and the introduction by Professor Laski furnishes an invaluable background for an understanding of the volume.” A. J. Lien
DUMBELL, KATE ETHEL MARY. Seeing the West, il new ed *$1.75 (5c) Doubleday 917.8
A book designed as a convenient handbook for the westbound traveler. It is composed of five parts: The southern Rockies; The northern Rockies; The northwest; California; The southwest. There are two end maps, one showing national parks and railroads, the other showing motor highways. A four-page list of references comes at the end, followed by the index.
“To one who does not know the country ‘Seeing the west’ offers many valuable suggestions.”
“It is doubtful whether anyone has brought the same amount and quality of tourist information into so compact space before.”
DUNLAP, KNIGHT. Personal beauty and racial betterment. *$1 Mosby 575.6
“The first part of the book, ‘The significance of beauty,’ seeks to explain in detail the characters of personal beauty—an explanation found exclusively in the reproductive needs of the race. The second part, ‘The conservation of beauty,’ points to its importance as an element in race improvement which, the author maintains, can according to all present evidence be brought about only by selection of the more fit. It also discusses briefly some of the more disputable means of eliminating the entirely unfit. Above all, however, the author directs his argument against economic interest as the decisive factor in selection and effectively presents the case for the cultivation of beauty and love marriage as indispensable to race preservation.”—Survey
Reviewed by E. S. Bogardus
“In the recent literature of sexual selection and of eugenics there have been few more stimulating contributions than this one by Professor Dunlap. It is worth a place in the social hygienist’s library.” P. P.
“Professor Dunlap’s study of personal beauty as an element in race betterment is original and suggestive; it is, however, little more than a string of ex cathedra propositions presented without evidence or citation of authority other than his own observations.”
DUNN, ARTHUR WALLACE. How presidents are made. *75c (2½c) Funk 329
The book is a historical survey of the conditions and circumstances that surrounded the campaigns of the various presidents. The author takes no stock in the general impression that presidents are elected on “issues,” but thinks that personality and opportunity play a greater part and that often the result depends on accident or incident. Contents: Caste and political parties; Federalism and states’ rights—Adams and Jefferson; The Virginia succession—Madison and Monroe; Developing issues—slavery and the tariff; Passing of congressional caucus—Adams; Personal popularity a factor—Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison; Slavery and the northern boundary as factors—Polk; The Mexican war—Taylor; Slavery issue looming; Slavery compromise—Pierce; Anti-slavery republicans defeated—Buchanan; Extension vs. restriction of slavery—Lincoln; The soldier vote and war issues—Lincoln and Grant; Liberal republican movement—Grant vs. Greeley; The electoral commission—Hayes vs. Tilden; Third term issue—Garfield; Mugwump independency—Cleveland; Protectionist tariff—Harrison; The tariff and free silver—Cleveland; Gold standard vs. free silver—McKinley; “Imperialism,” silver, the tariff—McKinley; Personal popularity—Roosevelt; Tariff and personal influence—Taft; Republican disharmony—Wilson; Anti-war sentiment and tactical mistakes—Wilson; The negro as a political factor; Prohibition, suffrage, socialism.
“One takes up this little volume expecting a dry-as-dust account of the operations of the primaries, the electoral college, etc. Instead he finds a narrative alive with human interest.”
“It is a meager and sketchy book, without distinction in research or judgment, but it does ‘hit the high spots’ in such a way as to bring the records of past campaigns briefly to mind, and it is written in a fair spirit, with a practical understanding of events and with intelligent discrimination.”
DUNN, COURTENAY FREDERIC WILLIAM. Natural history of the child. *$2 (2½c) Lane 392
Although the author of this volume is a physician the book is not written from a medical or scientific point of view. It is rather the traditions, prejudices and customs which have surrounded childhood from time immemorial dressed in an entertaining, humorous garb, “a history of childhood which for the greater part has been grubbed up from ancient and scarce books, obscure pamphlets and papers.” (Foreword) Contents: Him before he was; His ancestry; His early life—legal infancy; His name; His environment; His language; His schooldays; His schooling; His development; His play; His religion; His mental condition; His naughtiness; His afflictions.
“Those portions which come from browsing in old books are particularly interesting and amusing.”
“He has selected a very diverting lot of quotations, which are strung together on his own agreeable reflections in a book that will be read with interest by every child-lover.”
“On every sort of aspect of child life, from christening ceremonies or the custom of infant marriages to the evils of thumb-sucking and the use of indiarubber ‘soothers,’ there is the same entertaining jumble of the results of disjointed research. Unfortunately Dr Courtenay Dunn cannot resist the lure of being ‘bright.’”
“Its contents, far from being prosy or dull to any but the mother or nurse, are, on the other hand, most interesting to any reader who has in him a trace of the antiquary.”
“Dr Dunn has burrowed with great industry and good results among old and sometimes scarce books and pamphlets; and the light and airy style in which he starts writing must not prejudice us against his work.”
DUNN, JOHN DUNCAN, and JESSUP, ELON H. Intimate golf talks. il *$3 Putnam 796
The genesis of the book is: an indoor golf school conducted by John Duncan Dunn, a reportorial visit by the editor of Outing, the latter’s interest in the instructor’s methods and desire to profit by them for his own game, repeated interviews and—the book. The talks, interpolated with copious illustrations, are: Picking the right clubs; Learning the golf scale; The golf grip; The golf stance; The gold address; Some golf faults; Getting the knack of the swing; Stick to the minor shots; From three-quarters to fullswing; The importance of balance; Take care of your hands; Topping the ball; Overcoming faults; Keeping the muscles in harmony; Slicing and hooking; Methods of curing faults; This brings us to putting.
“Mr Dunn’s golf wisdom and Mr Jessup’s editorial skill combine in the production of an unusually happy result.” B. R. Redman
DUNN, JOSEPH ALLAN ELPHINSTONE. Dead man’s gold. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday
When Wat Lyman died, he left behind him the secret of a gold lode. But he was canny enough to divide his secret among three, Healy, an ex-gambler, “Lefty” Larkin, an adventurer, and Stone, an American temporarily down on his luck. Each of these three knew one-third only of the directions necessary to locate the gold, which, when found, was to be divided equally with Lyman’s daughter, who also had to be found. By their common sharing of the secret, the three prospectors were kept together all through the first part of their hunt. Exciting experiences in the Arizona desert, and with the Apache Indians almost lead to failure. But eventually they find their lode, only to have Healy turn traitor and try to cheat the other two out of their share. How the girl comes into it and saves their lives and the gold is the close of the story.
DUNN, JOSEPH ALLAN ELPHINSTONE. Turquoise Cañon. il *$1.50 (2½c) Doubleday
A story that follows one of the standard formulas for western fiction. The rich and debonair young easterner comes west, falls foul of a gang of crooks, loses his heart to the beautiful daughter, rescues her from her unpleasant environment, breaks up the band and is rewarded with the love of the girl, who after all, it turns out, is not the daughter of the chief villain. In this story Jimmie Hollister’s goat ranching experiences add an original touch.
DUNSANY, EDWARD JOHN MORETON DRAX PLUNKETT, 18th baron. Tales of three hemispheres. *$1.75 Luce. J. W.
“In the two hemispheres we know more or less about, Lord Dunsany pretends now and then to set his story. But his heart is in the third hemisphere—the hemisphere at the back of the map, which lies beyond the fields we know. And, indeed, even when we think for a moment that we are in the high wolds beyond Wiltshire, or looking out on the Tuileries gardens, or checked short for a peep at the cloud-capped tower of the Woolworth building, we are pretty sure to be in, before long, for a meeting with the old gods, the gods whom time has put to sleep.” (Review) “The book is divided into two sections, the first made up of miscellaneous, far wandering tales and sketches, while the second, which is entitled ‘Beyond the fields we know,’ leads us into the lands of dream, where flows the great central river of Yann.” (N Y Times)
“A certain abundance of even commonplace detail, combined with a subtle deviation from the usual in emphasis and sequence, conveys successfully a sense of other-reality; but this quality, the true dream-quality, is constantly impaired by a kind of arbitrary fastidiousness of language. Nothing is less akin to the dreamlike than the precious, which is the outcome of an extreme self-consciousness, and we consider that Lord Dunsany’s use of the precious constitutes a serious defect of style.” F. W. S.
“The stories in divers veins are all characteristic of Dunsany, but present no tricks not already familiar to his readers.”
“They are essentially prose poems, these tales, whether they express in some half dozen vivid, poignant pages the very heart of a dying man’s desire, as in ‘The last dream of Bwona Khubla,’ or tell of a girl’s longing, as in ‘An archive of the older mysteries,’ or of such fear as that which rent the soul of the wayfarer who bore with him ‘The sack of emeralds.’”
“Through the exotic atmosphere of many of these stories stand out sudden pictures of rare perfection. This power of calling up associations to supplement concrete images is indeed his perilous virtue, and entices him sometimes into tortuous bypaths. Yet his perfect etching of New York at night in ‘A city of wonder’ proves that he can look at the world with the disinterested and objective gaze of the pure artist.”
DURKIN, DOUGLAS. Heart of Cherry McBain. *$1.75 (2c) Harper
Because he had once struck his brother with murder in his heart, King Howden had determined never to fight again, and because of that resolution he was held to be something of a coward in the frontier country where he lived a rather solitary life. And then one day he met Cherry McBain, a girl worth fighting for. She was the daughter of old Keith McBain, the construction boss of a new railway. And she had an enemy in the person of Big Bill McCartney, her father’s foreman, who was determined to win her by fair means or foul and regardless of her wishes in the matter. The situation certainly offered grounds for the fight that eventually came, leaving King with his reputation vindicated, and Cherry free to bestow her heart where she chose.
DURSTINE, ROY SARLES. Making advertisements and making them pay. il *$3.50 Scribner 659
“‘Making advertisements’ treats of everything in any way connected with advertising, even the weight of type. It is well illustrated with reproduced advertisements. Starting with the genesis of advertising, it ends asking, ‘Where is advertising going?’”—N Y Evening Post
“Crisp, entertaining, suggestive chapters.”
“Somewhat sketchy but enlightening book.”
“Common sense and an agreeable style are blended in a manner that makes this book delightful as well as informative reading.”
“This book seems to the present reviewer more significant and more helpful than any of the other manuals which the reviewer has chanced to see.” Brander Matthews
DURUY, VICTOR. History of France. $3.50 Crowell 944
A new edition brought down to date to 1920. “The original text was translated by Mr Cary, and edited and continued down to the year 1890 by Dr J. Franklin Jameson. It has now been continued up to the present year by Mabell S. C. Smith, author of ‘Twenty centuries of Paris,’ and other historical studies. The original plan and arrangement have been maintained in this appendix, which begins in point of time with the Dreyfus case, includes the famous separation of church and state, the Fashoda incident, the Agadir incident, and other events leading up to and including the world war.” (Publisher’s announcement)
DWIGHT, HARRY GRISWOLD. Emperor of Elam, and other stories. *$2 (2c) Doubleday
The range of the stories comprises most of the earth and their flavor, too, is outlandish and full of whimsical humor. The title story takes the reader to Persia where a young Englishman in a motor-boat encounters a pompous native barge on a river in Luristan, upon which an alleged Brazilian is disporting himself as the Emperor of Elam. At Dizful the Englishman inadvertently discovers that the Brazilian is a German secret agent of his government. The war breaks out and in the course of events the would-be Emperor of Elam finds himself alone on board of the motor-boat with its French chauffeur, whom he has pressed into his services. With their countries at war, they recognize themselves as enemies and after a tense encounter of words and deeds the Frenchman sees but one weapon left to him with which to serve his country: he blows up the boat. The stories have appeared in the Century, Scribner’s, Smart Set, Short Stories and other magazines.
“Mr Dwight brings to the writing of these tales the triple qualifications of satirist, keen observer and stylist.” L. B.
“The stories are extremely uneven in quality. It is in the eastern tales that the author’s musical diction and his appreciation of the suggestive limitations of words are most happily apparent.”
DYER, WALTER ALDEN. Sons of liberty. il *$1.50 (2c) Holt
Mr Dyer has made Paul Revere the hero of this story for boys. He has introduced a few fictitious characters and incidents, but in the main has held to the facts of history. The story begins in 1847 when Paul was a boy of twelve and it follows the course of events that led up to the revolution, introducing Sam Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren and others. The author looks on Paul Revere as “one of the most picturesque and lovable characters of his time,” and regrets that little is known of him aside from the one incident celebrated in Longfellow’s poem. He shows him to have been a many-sided man, of broad interests and sympathies and artistic ability, and a man of the people.
“The plot is conventional and Samuel Adams rather too heroic a figure to be true, but the history behind the record is unusually sound.”
“The book spiritedly sketches the history of the period and makes one feel the impulses then animating the people of Boston.”
EAST, EDWARD MURRAY, and JONES, DONALD FORSHA. Inbreeding and outbreeding: their genetic and sociological significance. (Monographs on experimental biology) il *$2.50 Lippincott 575
“Whether close inbreeding causes deterioration of the race and cross-breeding re-invigorates it, is a question that has long been disputed. It was not until the development of the Mendelian theory that a sufficiently powerful method of analyzing the problem was discovered. The book by Professor East and Dr Jones gives an account of the solution of the problem by means of this theory. The data which East and Jones have here brought together have a wide applicability to practical animal and plant breeding. The authors also attempt to apply them to the field of human heredity.”—J Philos
Reviewed by L. L. Bernard
“One of the most valuable features of the book is the admirable bibliography of 225 titles.” M. C. Coulter
Reviewed by Alexander Weinstein
“The book is marked at once by independence and by scholarship. Of great interest to many will be the application of the biological results to the particular case of man. There is a carefully selected bibliography.”
“From a popular standpoint, ‘Inbreeding and outbreeding’ is by far the most interesting and suggestive book on heredity that has appeared in recent years.” O. E. White
“Two biologists of note, both experimental plant breeders, have done a useful work in laying the results of their experiments and their reflections upon the experiments before a semi-popular audience. They are wise in doing so, for no question comes more frequently to the eugenicist than this: Is the marriage of cousins prejudicial to offspring? Or this: What are the biological consequences of race admixture?” C: B. Davenport
EASTON, DOROTHY. Golden bird, and other sketches. *$2 (3c) Knopf
These sketches are introduced by a foreword by John Galsworthy and “catch the flying values of life” as he says a good sketch does. They contain pictures from the southern countryside of England with some French sketches. “The golden bird” is an old inn where a paralyzed youth with a poet’s soul has for ten years made the walls of his room transparent and who beguiles the time, when he is not seeing visions of the shifting seasons outside, with his violin. Some of the other titles are: Laughing down; The steam mill; Heart-breaker; Twilight; September in the fields; Causerie; Smoke in the grass; Adversity; It is forbidden to touch the flowers; A Parisian evening; Life.
“The writer gives us the impression of being extremely young—not in the sense of a child taking notes, but in the sense that she seems to be seeing, smelling, drinking, picking hops and blackberries for the first time. For such sketches as ‘An old Indian’ and ‘From an old malt-house’ we have nothing but praise. But while we welcome her warmly, we would beg her, in these uncritical days, to treat herself with the utmost severity.” K. M.
“They have color, dramatic vivacity and interesting characterization. Somewhat depressing.”
“Miss Easton writes with a certain graceful precision, an unerring touch for the right word, for the exact effect, and a deeply sympathetic attitude toward nature and toward humanity in its varied aspects.” L. B.
“They are simple, vivid and effective in their simplicity. There is real insight and real skill in putting down what the author has seen.”
“With a remarkable economy of means she renders the rather drowsy sweetness of her south of England scenes. And occasionally, as in the sketches called Laughing down, her tenderness for her landscape makes her sentimental and callous—the two are never far apart—about people. But her best sketches, of which there are many, have their brief moments of irony and tragedy and so combine beauty and wisdom in uncommon measure.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Miss Easton holds almost constantly to this objectivity, except that she relieves, or perhaps one should say illuminates, it sometimes with the suggestion of spiritual significance by means of a delicate, elusive touch that seems less her own than the inescapable implication of that which she is describing.”
“An ardent fancy and a delicate yet firm hand have gone to its making; and, thank heaven, it reminds us of nobody! I am not sure, in thinking it over, but the main charm of the book, apart from its beauty of workmanship, lies in its total lack of that ‘humor’ which is the god of the current literary machine.” H. W. Boynton
“A book very well worth writing and, what is more, worth reading afterwards.”
“The author has a deep and comprehensive feeling for the transitory values of life which she succeeds in communicating to the emotions of her audience. She writes with a delicacy which would beautify the most sordid subjects.”
“The quality of the volume suggests that stronger work may follow. More experience should confirm that individual quality already described, and may help to put a curb on an exuberance of sentiment which is at present Miss Easton’s chief weakness.”
EATON, WALTER PRICHARD. In Berkshire fields. il *$3.50 Harper 917.44
Not as a scientist but merely as a lover of nature and the wilds, does the author record his wanderings through fields and woods. As a permanent resident in the hills he knows them in every season of the year and in every elemental mood and loves them “less for their softness than their wildness.” Their wildness, he tells us, is still considerable for in their miles of forest the moose and wildcat still roam and there is even recent evidence of a timberwolf. Seventy-eight illustrations, chiefly of winter scenes, by Walter King Stone, grace the pages and the contents are: Landlord to the birds; Jim Crow; The cheerful chickadee; The menace from above; By inland waters; Poking around for birds’ nests; The queen of the swamp; Forgotten roads; From a Berkshire cabin; Little folks that gnaw; The ways of the woodchuck; Foxes and other neighbors; In praise of trees; Enjoying the influenza; Adventures with an ax; Weeds above the snow.
“He has written of the birds and animals of the Berkshires with an accuracy perfected by long observation and with a sympathy arising from sincere affection.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“Sympathetic nature study and observation, not burdened with scientific detail, is charmingly set forth.”
EATON, WALTER PRICHARD. On the edge of the wilderness, il *$1.75 (3c) Wilde 591.5
The first of these “tales of our wild animal neighbors” is the story of a lone timber wolf who strayed into western Massachusetts where his species is supposed to be extinct. The scene of the other stories is also the Berkshire hills, where, on the authority of the author and others, wolves, foxes, deer, moose and other animals still survive, The titles are: “The return of the native”; Big Reddy, strategist; The Odyssey of old Bill; The life and death of Lucy; General Jim; The mating of Brownie; The taming of ol’ Buck; Red slayer and the terror; Rastus earns his sleep; “The last American.” The illustrations are by Charles Livingston Bull.
“Mr Eaton’s art is finished and flowing, a joy to read. Books like this are not only an education in natural history, but in beautiful English, in clarity of description and harmony of phrase.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“‘On the edge of the wilderness’ is almost ideal in fulfilling the many demands of the average intelligent boy for an entertaining book of adventure. In the first place it rings true. It has a literary value such as boys unconsciously appreciate.” H. L. Reed
ECKEL, EDWIN CLARENCE. Coal, iron and war; a study in industrialism, past and future. *$3 (2½c) Holt 330
Ours is a “machine civilization” and the story of industrial growth and competition since 1775, the author holds, “is chiefly though not entirely the story of coal and iron.” The book attempts to keep the discussion free from any and every preconceived bias, theory or assumption and to arrive at conclusions entirely through the historical study of the industrial developments of different countries. Industrial growth is a matter of natural evolution based on physical environment and inheritance and hardly at all on human and personal control. The form of government is a negligible fact—a strong nationalism still desirable, and war still the simplest solution of many of our industrial problems. The contents are in four parts: The growth of modern industrialism; The material bases of industrial growth: The causes and effects of industrial growth; The future of industrialism. There is an index.
“The thesis is carefully developed and well maintained. The striking feature of the book is the openness of mind with which the future is examined. Although the historical portions of the book are sound in the main there are some statements with reference to the eighteenth century that can scarcely be accepted.” A. P. Usher
“Mr Eckel has long been prominent as a geologist and engineer. In this volume he certainly qualifies also as an economist. His views on labor organization, the corporation, and the influence of legislation are especially significant.” G. P. W.
“The present work is written for the general reader, and through elimination of the less important and by judicious distribution of emphasis he has produced a book which is likely to be widely read with both interest and profit. Though written in a language intelligible to the business man quite as much as the student, it is perhaps most of all important through its judicious criticism of the traditional and orthodox viewpoint of the economist.” W: H. Hobbs
“It is a worth while book and one has difficulty in telling in a few words why; probably it is because it is written with sincerity and because the author is not writing as other engineers have written, to promote a cause but to examine facts critically.” Hugh Archbald
EDDY, SHERWOOD. Everybody’s world. *$1.60 Doran 327
“A discussion, from the standpoint of world Christianity, of post-war conditions in the Near East, Russia, Japan, China, and India, with a chapter on the relations between Great Britain and America and Anglo-Saxon responsibility to the world. The book is the result of a tour around the world in 1919.”—R of Rs
“The author has given an interesting and valuable survey of world conditions.”
“The charm of style lies in the author’s intense human interest which results in much picturesque and personal narrative. Mr Eddy is singularly free of bias.” L. R. Robinson
EDEN, EMILY. Miss Eden’s letters; ed. by her great niece, Violet Dickenson with introd. *$6.50 Macmillan
“To the present generation the name of Miss Eden conveys little or nothing. As the sister of Lord Auckland, who held office in the reform ministries of the early years of last century, and who became governor-general of India in 1835, she was well known in London society under William IV; and during her later life she published some novels and books of travel which were not without merit, but had not sufficient distinction to preserve them from oblivion. But her abiding claim to the notice of posterity was her talent for friendly letterwriting. Her most intimate friend, Pamela, daughter of Lord and Lady Edward FitzGerald, had an equally marked gift for talking with the pen, and perhaps greater vivacity and humour; and the correspondence between these two brilliant women is preserved in the present volume.”—Spec
“If she has no ideas about things in general, she has a perpetually renewed interest in the immediate; it is this, with the firm, easy texture of her style, and a delicate oddity of perception, which makes her letters so eminently readable. It is this, but something more; for of all the qualities named she is perhaps fully conscious; but she appears admirably unconscious of the qualities of heart and character she has.” F. W. S.
“We think that Miss Dickenson might have suppressed some of the letters as deficient in interest. But we are grateful to her for presenting us with some of the best specimens of the lost art of correspondence.”
“She had the true note of colloquial ease which few people ever achieve in their letters, and still fewer retain. She gossips charmingly; her observations on her friends and acquaintances are not the mere threadbare inanities which can interest only those who know the persons concerned, but real characteristic illuminative things which are nearly as pleasant to read now as they were when they were written eighty or ninety years ago.”
“The judgment of Miss Dickenson’s selections and the unusual excellence of her materials give the book what we so seldom find in biographies—construction and artistic purpose.”
EDGINTON, HELEN MARION (MAY EDGINTON). Married life; or, The true romance. *$1.75 Small
“May Edginton’s novel begins with the marriage of a pretty, bright, charming girl who has been earning her own living and a fine, handsome young man whose salary in an automobile house has been ample to allow him to spend upon himself with some freedom. The action carries them rapidly through the rose-colored days of the first year of married life. By the end of that year they are both beginning to feel the financial pinch resulting from the necessity of making the salary that had been enough for one serve the needs of two. Then the babies begin to arrive and at the end of six years they have three. The salary that had been little more than enough for one has not been much increased and it has to be stretched to cover the needs of five. The husband, under this strain, has grown morose, fault-finding, resentful, and the wife, with her strength taxed far beyond its powers, is weary, irritable and hopeless. The author’s solution she has found solely in the very material one of furnishing them with enough money to enable the husband to spend as he likes and the wife to hire a maid, get her hands manicured and buy some new clothes.”—N Y Times
“Why force an obviously false ending to a tale that rings true up to a certain point?”
“The author tells the first part of her story with much realistic detail and with color and vivacity.... The story is the expression of a purely material and selfish ideal of life.”
EDIE, LIONEL D., ed. Current social and industrial forces; introd. by James Harvey Robinson. *$2.50 Boni & Liveright 330
“Essays from a number of radical and liberal English and American writers, which reveal the fundamental causes of unrest and propose some plans of action. Some of the authors represented are: Veblen, Sidney Webb, Meyer Bloomfield, J. A. Hobson, J. Laurence Laughlin, Bertrand Russell, Helen Marot, Emil Vandervelde, Walter Lippmann, Norman Angell, H. G. Wells and John Dewey. There are also numerous reports from various commissions of both the British and American governments and of organizations of employers and workers.” (Booklist) “The book grew out of the compiler’s need for a textbook in his courses on current historical forces at Colgate university. The selections are grouped under the headings: Forces of disturbance, Potentialities of production, The price system, The direction of industry, The funds of reorganization, The power and policy of organized labor, Proposed plans of action, Industrial doctrines in defense of the status quo, and The possibilities of social service.” (Survey)
Reviewed by R. F. Clark
“Should be very valuable to the student and to the more thoughtful reader.”
“The excerpts and reprints are skilfully grouped, so that the reader—for the book can be read as well as consulted—can grasp the material handily. The selections are made without prejudice.”
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
“Prof. Edie has rendered a real service by gathering into well-related chapters some of the most illuminating discussions of a large number of modern writers on social topics.” H: P. Fairchild
“It is every citizen’s duty to be informed on these subjects, and Professor Edie puts the information within the reach of any who wish it.”
“In this symposium one gets many and variously colored and confusing glimpses of industrial and social movements, but no comprehensive view of any single subject and no consistent coördination or interpretation.” J. E. Le Rossignol
“The book gives a useful conspectus of radical thought—but it scarcely deals at all with ‘current social and industrial forces.’” W: E. Walling
EDMAN, IRWIN. Human traits and their social significance. *$3 Houghton 301
Throughout the long process of civilization two factors have remained constant, says the author: nature and human nature. The only change with regard to the one has been in our increasing power of control of nature through increasing knowledge. And the only difference between the man of today and the primitive savage is in the control of the native biological impulses that the civilized man has achieved through education, religion and morals. It is the aim of the book to indicate man’s simple inborn impulses and outstanding human traits and the factors which must be taken into account if they are to be controlled in the interest of human welfare. Accordingly the book falls into two parts: Social psychology; and The career of reason. Types of human behavior and their social significance, basic human activities and crucial traits in social life, and the racial and cultural continuity are among the subjects considered in part one. Part two contains: Religion and the religious experience; Art and æsthetic experience; Science and scientific method; Morals and moral valuation. There is an index.
“There are but few books of only 467 pages that contain so much information as this one. Written as an introduction to contemporary civilization and intended for freshmen, it clarifies questions at whose profundity Plato would have been disheartened. If the freshman of today can digest even a small portion of this book colleges are progressing, while for a man comparatively advanced in years, and with interests as universal as those of Leonardo da Vinci, it would be a handy manual.”
EDWARDS, A. HERBAGE. Paris through an attic. *$3 Dutton 914.4
“Paris, ever fascinating and ever fresh, was seen in the days before the war from a new angle, by a delightful young couple, with a thin family purse. An income of 350 dollars a year sufficed their needs. Where they lived, and how they lived is told by the feminine half of this pair of adventurers. The young couple attended the Sorbonne. Sundays and holidays are treated in an account of how Paris amuses itself. All these happenings, and many others, fill the space of two years, and the pages of the book, up to the eventful day when Richard receives his title, ‘Docteur de l’Universite de Paris.’”—Boston Transcript
“The section on the students and the university reveals aspects of French life not ordinarily found in books of travel.”
“Charming narrative.” C. K. H.
“This book contains a hundred delightful and delicate reflections, an equal number of personal touches, and some quaint views of life which cannot fail to charm the reader who likes to saunter in the little lanes of the great world.” M. F. Egan
EDWARDS, AUSTIN SOUTHWICK.[2] Fundamental principles of learning and study. $1.80 Warwick & York 370.1
“The present volume is a rewriting of manuscript which the writer has used for some time as part of his lectures to students in educational psychology. The aim is especially to show how the results of general psychology and experimental psychology and of allied sciences can be put into use by the teacher and the student in the problems of learning and of study.” (Preface) The author takes the point of view that “the forming, modifying and remaking of habits, habitudes, dispositions, tendencies, etc., under the guidance of ideals set up by society, seems to be the fundamental work of education.” Among the chapters are: Fundamental principles of education; Neurology and the basis of education; The fundamental work of education; Learning and habit formation; Acquisition which involves study; Attention and sustained effort; Feeling habits and moral education; Supervised study and the school curriculum. The book is provided with questions, chapter references, select bibliography and index.
“The range of topics treated and the definite nature of the discussions make the book suitable for wide use in courses dealing with a survey of the psychology of the learning process.”
“In this comparatively brief and quite readable treatise, one finds less space taken up with academic discussion of pedagogic bugaboos than in most books on similar themes.” C. L. Clarke
EDWARDS, CLAYTON. Treasury of heroes and heroines. il *$3 (2½c) Stokes 920
“A record of high endeavour and strange adventure; from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D.” In the book so described in the sub-title the life stories of many famous men and women are given. The “Heroes of reality” include: Buddha; Julius Cæsar; Saint Patrick; King Arthur of Britain; Mohammed; Alfred the Great; Robin Hood; Saint Elizabeth of Hungary; Dante; Robert Bruce; Jeanne d’Arc; Christopher Columbus; William the Silent; Queen Elizabeth of England; Sir Francis Drake; Henry Hudson; Peter the Great; George Washington; John Paul Jones; Molly Pitcher; Napoleon Bonaparte; Giuseppe Garibaldi; Abraham Lincoln; Grace Darling; Florence Nightingale; Father Damien; Catherine Breshkovsky; Theodore Roosevelt; Edith Cavell; King Albert of Belgium; Maria Botchkareva. Four heroes of fiction are included: William Tell; Don Quixote; Robinson Crusoe; and Rip Van Winkle. There are illustrations in color by Florence Choate and Elizabeth Curtis.
“The stories are brief, but they are by no means mere sketches; nor are they ‘written down’ in a way that children dislike. It is a good book and a useful one.”
“The big book is interesting and well done, full of information that reads like wild romance.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
EDWARDS, GEORGE WHARTON.[2] Belgium old and new. il *$10 Penn 914.93
“The illustrations, numbering forty-one, are full-page and are mostly in color. These reproduce ancient or famous buildings, towers, sections of historic structures and open spaces in Antwerp, Brussels and other cities and towns of the several provinces in the kingdom. Much of the text is historical in character. In the first chapter, Mr Edwards touches upon the natural resources of the little country and its condition at the close of the war, concluding with an optimistic forecast of its quick recovery and future well-being. He then proceeds, in separate chapters, with historical sketches of Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, Tournai, Couillet, Liège and Mons. This done, the author returns to the present and discusses Belgium’s colonies, characteristics of the country and people and the constitution. The work concludes with chapters devoted to Cardinal Mercier and the king and queen.”—Springf’d Republican
“The text of the book is eminently satisfactory, but chiefly so because it puts us in precisely the right attitude of mind and spirit for enjoying to the full the charm of the book’s generous wealth of illustration.” F: T. Cooper
EELLS, ELSIE SPICER (MRS B. G. EELLS). Tales of enchantment from Spain. il *$2 (6c) Harcourt
The author has brought out two earlier collections of South American tales and her studies in this field have led her to an examination of the folk lore of Spain, from which many of the Spanish-American tales are derived. Among the titles of the fifteen stories are: The white parrot; The carnation youth; The wood cutter’s son and the two turtles; The luck fairies; The bird which laid diamonds; The enchanted castle in the sea; The princess who was dumb. The pictures are by Maud and Miska Petersham.
EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS, and KENNEDY, JOHN JAMES BRIGHT. Knights of Columbus in peace and war. 2v il *$5.25 Encyclopedia press 267
“The first of these two handsome illustrated volumes is devoted to the origin, growth, and constitution of this celebrated Anglican Roman Catholic friendly society, founded by the Rev. M. J. McGivney in Connecticut in 1882; its work in peace time of protecting homes, promoting higher education, allaying religious prejudice, opposing bolshevism, etc.; and its war work during the fighting in France, with the navy, and after the armistice. The Canadian Knights’ war work has a special chapter. The second volume is chiefly taken up with the roll of honour of the Knights.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
EGGLESTON, MRS MARGARET W. Use of the story in religious education. *$1.50 Doran 268
“In this book the author has brought together some of the recommendations on story-telling that have been current in secular education for some time and has applied these to problems directly connected with the Sunday school.”—El School J
“Will interest all storytellers.”
“The book will be suggestive to Sunday school teachers and will lead to an improvement in the story-telling which is an important part of the Sunday school’s work.”
EINSTEIN, ALBERT. Relativity: the special and general theory. il *$3 Holt 530.1
“The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.” (Preface) The translation is by Professor Robert W. Lawson who has added a biographical note of the author. The contents are in three parts: The special theory of relativity; The general theory of relativity; Considerations on the universe as a whole. There are appendices, a bibliography and an index.
“Although Professor Einstein’s own exposition is as clear and simple as could be expected, the book is of exceptional interest, not as a popular exposition, but as an indication of the mental processes of its author.”
“An excellent translation of Einstein’s book.”
“Written in an unpretentious, straightforward style. The trend of his exposition can be followed in the main by any attentive reader who is not scared by algebraic formulae.” E. E. Slosson
“The book is ‘intended to give an exact insight into the theory to those who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.’ In the opinion of the reviewer, in this attempt he has been eminently successful, that is, if an essentially mathematical notion can be made intelligible without algebraic symbols.” A. G. Webster
ELIAS, MRS EDITH L. Abraham Lincoln. (Heroes of all time) il *$1.50 Stokes
This story of Lincoln for young people is in seven sections: Years of inexperience; Years of development; Years of self-expression and experience; Years of public recognition; Years of leadership; Years of supremacy; Triumph and death. Each section is prefaced by an extract from Lincoln’s speeches. There are nine illustrations, a list of presidents of the United States up to Abraham Lincoln and a chart showing method of government in the United States.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
ELIAS, MRS EDITH L. Periwinkle’s island. il *$1.50 (4c) Lippincott
An English story for children, all about the surprising adventures of Meg, Peg and Topkins, who go to the country with their mother, the queen, Fuzzy Wuzz, their nurse, and Tut-Tut, their tutor. Only good children are allowed to land on Periwinkle’s island and at first attempt Meg, Peg and Topkins can not pass the test, but they improve and after the second trial go ashore to take part in the great chase after the Creepingo, aided by the Top Twins, the Elastic Dog and other queer folk. The pictures in color are by Molly Benatar.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
ELIOT, CHARLES WILLIAM. Road to unity among the Christian churches. *$1 (8½c) Am. Unitar. 280
This little volume contains the first lecture delivered under the Arthur Emmons Pearson foundation, established in 1918 with the object of promoting “the advancement of mutual understanding and helpfulness between the people of all denominations and creeds.” Dr Eliot points out the factors that have promoted division in the past and then enumerates the present forces that are encouraging unification. He says, “To the United States the world is indebted for the demonstration that on the principle of federation a strong, stable, and just government can be constructed.... The same principle applied to the divided Christian churches will produce analogous good results; but as in a group of federated states federation will not be fusion.”
ELIOT, SAMUEL ATKINS, ed. Little theater classics, v 2 il *$1.50 Little 808.2
This is volume two of “Little theater classics” adapted and edited by Samuel Atkins Eliot, jr. Each one of the four plays has an introduction giving its origin and history, and staging suggestions. The plays are: Patelin, from “Maître Pierre Pathelin” by Guillaume Alécis; Abraham and Isaac, from the Book of Brome and the Chester cycle of miracles; The loathed lover, from “The changeling” of Middleton and Rowley; Sganarelle, or, Imaginary horns, from Molière. Three of the plays have already been produced by little theaters and are illustrated with photographs from the production.
“Sganarelle is a charming little antique. Abraham and Isaac is a beautiful piece of work.”
“There are some intrepidities in Mr Eliot which rather stagger me, though whether the protest comes from real disapprobation or simply from that unusedness which whimpers at the approach of novelty it is hard for me to say. For instance, I stand agape, if not aghast, at Mr Eliot’s consolidation of the Chester play and the Brome play on Abraham and Isaac into one drama.” O. W. Firkins
“On the whole, this second volume measures up to the high standard set by the first. The work has been done with fine taste and intelligence and forms a valuable contribution to the dramatic literature available to little theatres.”
ELIOT, THOMAS STEARNS. Poems. *$1.25 Knopf 811
Mr Eliot is a poet of American birth who lives in London. “He published ‘Prufrock’ in 1917 and ‘Poems’ in 1919—this volume assembles the contents of the two, together with a number of other poems, and is the first volume to be published in America, where heretofore it has been exceedingly difficult to obtain his poems.” (Publisher’s announcement) Some of the poems have appeared in Poetry, Others, the Little Review, and other periodicals.
“Mr Eliot is always quite consciously ‘trying for’ something, and something which has grown out of and developed beyond all the poems of all the dead poets. Poetry to him seems to be not so much an art as a science.”
“The ‘Poems’—ironically so-called—of T. S. Eliot, if not heavy and pedantic parodies of the ‘new poetry,’ are documents that would find sympathetic readers in the waiting-room of a private sanatorium. As a parodist, Mr Eliot is lacking in good taste, invention, and wit.” R. M. Weaver
“Reading these poems (?) is like being in a closed room full of foul air; not a room in an empty house that is sanctified with mould and dust, but a room in which the stale perfume of exotics is poisoned with the memory of lusts.” W. S. B.
Reviewed by E. E. Cummings
“At least two-thirds of Eliot’s sixty-three pages attain no higher eminence than extraordinarily clever—and eminently uncomfortable—verse. The exaltation which is the very breath of poetry—that combination of tenderness and toughness—is scarcely ever present in Eliot’s lines. Scarcely ever, I reiterate, for a certain perverse exultation takes its place; an unearthly light without warmth which has the sparkle if not the strength of fire. It flickers mockingly through certain of the unrhymed pictures and shines with a bright pallor out of the two major poems.” L: Untermeyer
“He is the most proficient satirist now writing in verse, the uncanniest clown, the devoutest monkey, the most picturesque ironist; and aesthetically considered, he is one of the profoundest symbolists.” M. V. D.
“In such poems as ‘Gerontion,’ the ‘Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ ‘Portrait of a lady,’ ‘Cooking egg,’ we get a glimpse of the visions and tragedies that are in the soul—it does not matter that the soul in these situations has to look out on restaurants instead of on temples.” Padraic Colum
“His is a book to gaze upon worshipfully and humbly. We shall always cherish it, for its shrieking modernity—though we are one of the Philistines who still ask for poetry and sanity in lines presented as poetry.” Clement Wood
“Mr Eliot, like Browning, likes to display out-of-the-way learning, he likes to surprise you by every trick he can think of. He has forgotten his emotions, his values, his sense of beauty, even his common-sense, in that one desire to surprise, to get farther away from the obvious than any writer on record.”
ELLIOT, HUGH SAMUEL ROGER. Modern science and materialism. *$3 (*7s 6d) Longmans 146
“The philosophy expounded by Hugh Elliot in ‘Modern science and materialism’ is the complete materialism which not only makes mind dependent upon matter but identifies mind with matter. The world is thus conceived as consisting of one substance. Not all of those who agree with the materialistic hypothesis will accept this extreme simplification of it. To many Mr Elliot’s view will seem as metaphysical as the opposite view which regards matter as a form of mind. Mr Elliot’s book, however, is not merely an argument against the commonly accepted dualism in the conception of matter and mind. It is also a survey of the creation of man and the universe, as interpreted by a method which reduces all processes to the working of blind, but immutable, laws. In all respects, Mr Elliot’s view of the universe is rigidly mechanistic.”—Springf’d Republican
“It is difficult not to be unjust to ‘Modern science and materialism.’ Its science is above reproach and occupies the center of the author’s interest and the bulk of the book. But it is impossible to say more of the author’s ‘materialism’ than that it is what physical science always is when it attempts to substitute itself for life.” C. E. Ayres
“A good bird’s-eye view, not unduly technical, for the interested layman or student.”
“Mr Elliot is one of the most intolerant of materialists, but those who read his book are likely to see that he frequently falls into the sin he castigates, that of accepting ideas as true which are merely speculative. Mr Elliot also falls into the familiar error of claiming to be an agnostic and, from this negative doctrine, he immediately and cheerfully builds up a most positive philosophy.”
“Mr Elliot writes with refreshing clearness and vigour; he is always entertaining, and he never leaves his readers in doubt about his meaning. But while admiring Mr Elliot’s gifts of exposition and assertion, we would urge upon him, with some diffidence, the advantages of a larger share in his own writing of that agnosticism whose value he so strenuously upholds.”
“Unquestionably able book. Mr Elliot states his stern ideas with the utmost simplicity and clarity.”
ELLIOTT, LILIAN ELWYN.[2] Black gold. *$2.25 Macmillan
“The ‘black gold’ which gives its title to L. E. Elliott’s novel is rubber. Though it opens in England, the greater part of the scene is laid in Brazil. The heroine is an English girl, Margarita Channing, whose elder sister, Francina, is the wife of a musician, Salvatore. Both Margarita and her sister sing nicely, and with the help of some rich Brazilians Salvatore organizes an opera company and takes it up the Amazon as far as Manaos. The voyage and the people they meet on board the steamer afford opportunities for the discussion of Brazilian affairs, of which the author makes full use. Presently they reach Manaos, are taken to see all its sights and especially the operations of the rubber industry, and have some experiences with South American politics. Of course there is a love story for Margarita, with a young Englishman, an inventor and the owner of a rubber plantation, as its hero.”—N Y Times
“I have felt nowhere else so keenly the spell of South America, the power of the golden blood of the ‘rio das Amazonas,’ and the power of the forest.” D. L. M.
“The novel is neither good nor bad; merely mediocre. Those who enjoy swift moving tales will find it slow. Those who like style, characterization, will find it uninteresting. As it is, it exemplifies the immortal (and overworked) ‘words, words, words.’”
“It is in this descriptive portion of the volume that the author has done her best work, for, though her style is usually good, she lacks dramatic and character sense, and is essentially an article rather than a fiction writer.”
“Not only the physical beauty of Brazilian scenes, but the industries, social conditions and political upheavals are set forth interestingly.”
ELLIS, JULIAN. Fame and failure. il *$3.75 Lippincott 920
“Short biographies of a number of famous people who ended as failures. Amongst the characters discussed are Edwin James the lawyer, Wainewright the murderer, Lady Hamilton, King Ludwig of Bavaria and Beau Brummel. In all there are eighteen biographies.”—Ath
“A better selection to illustrate his thesis that fame and success are not alway marriageable ideas could not have been made.” B: de Casseres
“Notwithstanding his rather absurd classification, Mr Julian Ellis has written a very amusing book. His style is clear and lively; and he doesn’t bore us with footnotes or authorities, which so often spoil the pleasure of reading biographies.”
“If we must decline to take Mr Ellis too seriously as a biographer, this need not prevent us from wiling away some pleasant time in his company. If he has the faults of the journalist, he has also no small measure of his virtues.”
ELLIS, STEWART MARSH. George Meredith. il $6 Dodd
“This book follows the lines of articles which Mr Ellis contributed to the Fortnightly Review and the Saturday Review. His primary object was to use his information about the early life of Meredith, who was his father’s first cousin, and to reconsider in connexion with it the inner history of some of the novels, particularly ‘Evan Harrington,’ ‘Beauchamp’s career,’ ‘Vittoria,’ and ‘Diana of the crossways.’ There are numerous portraits and other illustrations.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Ellis makes an absorbingly interesting volume out of his revelations.”
“All the details in this volume are of surpassing interest, and it contains not a little acute criticism of Meredith’s novels. The work as a whole is an exceptional pen portraiture of a literary personality who was as great and influential as he was interesting.” E. F. E.
“Written without any distinction of style, Mr Ellis’s contribution belongs to that class of biographical work which owes its existence to the fact that some one or other has known, or been connected with, a famous man and is able to satisfy, by the composition of a book of this kind, the promptings of his own personal egotism.” Llewelyn Powys
“That Meredith, in Evan Harrington, misinterpreted and, as the biographer holds, maligned the character of Mr Ellis’s grandparents may, or may not, have been a contributing cause of the publication of this rather shallow and rather malicious book. Certain it is that George Meredith was on no very friendly terms with his Ellis cousins, and the reader must be warned of the evident animus on the part of the biographer.” S. C. C.
“Mr Ellis’s book on Meredith is to be welcomed, though it appears to be in no sense an ‘official’ biography and though it is not written in a manner which could have pleased Meredith himself. It is neither an ‘inspired’ exposition of his career nor a book which could be counted excellent on its own independent merits. But it is the only biography in existence.”
“What should have been a great portrait is only a rather ordinary photograph. He is painstaking and accurate enough. Any one who is interested in Meredith can gather from this book much which he will be glad to know. But he will seek in vain and with growing exasperation for the things which are really needful.” W. H. Durham
“Extremely interesting and well-written book.” R: Le Gallienne
ELWELL, AMBROSE. At the sign of the Red swan, il *$1.75 Small
“A rollicking old-fashioned story of the sea with romance, murder and suicide generously interwoven is told by Ambrose Elwell in ‘At the sign of the Red swan.’ From a quiet, simple fisherman’s home on the rockbound Maine coast, Elwell, who tells the story in the first person, sails forth over the horizon to seek a living and money with which to support his widowed mother and younger brother. His quest, teeming with adventure, leads him into strange paths and foreign waters—Liverpool, the south seas, and, finally, back to the old home. At the Red swan inn, sailors’ dive on a South Sea island, he becomes entangled in the law, charged with deserting his ship and murder of a wealthy Jewish trader. All looks black for him with a gibbet as the closing chapter of his adventurous career. But the devotion of a settlement physician and a chaplain aids him to escape in the nick of time. Later, the sensational suicide of the guilty one, while at sea on the same ship, clears the name of our hero.”—Springf’d Republican
“The fact that this story is ‘different’ from most of the large grist of fiction turned out so steadily and voluminously since the armistice will probably cause it to attract more than ordinary attention.”
EMERSON, GUY. New frontier. *$2 (3c) Holt 304
A series of papers on Americanism. The new frontier is the present social and industrial situation and the author’s plea is that it be faced with the spirit that conquered the old geographical frontier of the expanding west. This spirit is for him typified by Theodore Roosevelt. The introduction says, “In this book two main points are emphasized; first, that the spirit of that portion of our people which has actually shaped the destinies of America has been liberal, rather than radical or conservative.... Second, it is claimed that our national spirit has taken its essential liberal flavor from the frontier, from the generations of tireless, self-reliant effort which won this continent for the men and women of our own day and which stamped them with its indelible character.” Contents: The frontier of American character; The leadership that made America; What is a liberal? The politics of the middle of the road; Public opinion and the industrial problem; The need for fifty million capitalists; An American federation of brains; Human resources; The weapons of truth; The American spirit in world affairs; The new frontier. There is a bibliographical appendix, also an index.
“Written by a layman for laymen, with a limited and somewhat uneven bibliography appended for the use of readers not especially familiar with the development of the United States, the book is interesting and valuable as an illustration of one type of thought which has to be taken into consideration by the student of forces making American history today.” L. B. Shippee
“Excellent book. He sees clearly and writes as clearly, giving no handy panaceas as such, on a topic where the temptation is great.” R. D. W.
“Mr Emerson knows his American history thoroughly. He is also a student of American psychology, as is shown by his success in directing the publicity of the Liberty loan drives. These two characteristics probably account for much of his ability to strike out a new path in the already overcrowded field of ‘Americanization.’ For that there is novelty and freshness in his attack on an old problem, no one can deny. Nor should it be held against him that he has achieved this novelty through a distinctly original and forceful use of another man’s idea. He has developed Professor Turner’s profound conception of the influence of the frontier in a new field; for the purpose of his argument he has made it his own.” Lincoln MacVeagh
“The best chapter, we think, is the one on ‘The industrial problem,’ but the whole book is vital and invigorating.” C. F. L.
Reviewed by G: Soule
“A book of timely consequence, whose pages deserve wide and careful reading.”
“An interpretation of America which is thoughtful and scholarly, which is simply and forcibly written, and which is well worth anybody’s reading.”
ENGLAND, GEORGE ALLAN. Flying legion. *$1.90 McClurg
“In a lofty tower at the summit of the palisades of the Hudson is the eyrie of the master where he dwells with his Arabian servants. Mysteriously he summons a company of thirty veterans of the war, all longing for excitement, a battalion is formed and a new, giant aeroplane, just ready for service on the Jersey shore is seized and the party take to flight for the Arabian desert. Mysteriously they went away, mysteriously they returned after scores of adventures.” (Boston Transcript) “One of the thirty with the master had been an uninvited member—a ‘Captain Alden,’ who is a mysterious personage altogether and whose identity, ultimately discovered, furnishes the story’s principal romantic interest.” (N Y Times)
“A tale of romance and adventure in which improbability is obscured by thrills. The style is awkward.”
“Well-told tale.”
“The story is told in a casual, rather than an inspired, way. But when the action once really starts, the reader forgets the critical attitude in a breathless absorption in the vigor of the narrative.”
ENOCK, C. REGINALD. Spanish America: its romance, reality and future. 2v il *$8 Scribner 918
“The scheme of Mr Enock’s book is what Stowe would have called a perambulation. Beginning with Central America and Mexico, he takes us right along the Pacific coast through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, with an excursion into Bolivia: the remaining two chapters of the first volume are devoted to the Cordillera of the Andes. In the second volume we are taken down the Atlantic coast, with its rich and still imperfectly explored hinterlands, from the ‘lands of the Spanish Main’—Colombia, Venezuela and Guiana—through the Amazon valley and Brazil to the River Plate and the pampas, the go-ahead countries of Argentina and Uruguay and the secluded pastures of Paraguay. The historical associations, natural resources, and present industrial life of each district are uniformly described in passing.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“He has prepared what might quite accurately be called a primer of Latin America. It contains much valuable information, of course, but so does an ordinary primer. He expects practically nothing of his readers.” D. J. M.
“Such comprehensive, birdseye-view books as Mr Enock’s are of value as a starting point for more detailed study.”
“In spite of an occasional tendency to slipshod writing Mr Enock has given us a readable and informing work.”
EQUIPMENT of the workers. $4 Sunwise turn (*10s 6d Allen & Unwin) 331.8
“There have already been exhaustive surveys of the physical and economic condition of the workers; and the findings of Booth and Rowntree have almost become classical. It was plainly necessary, however, to have these surveys supplemented by an inquiry far more inward and intimate into the mind and the outlook of the workers. What are they thinking? What are they living for? Do they read? If so, what? ‘The equipment of the workers’ gives us the answer to these and the like questions. The inquiry was planned and carried out by a group of workers at a Y. M. C. A. settlement in Sheffield; and it deals exclusively with Sheffield conditions. The finding of the group is that 25 per cent of the workers are well equipped, 60 per cent inadequately equipped, and 15 per cent ill equipped. The body of the book consists of a detailed record of the results of the inquiry in 408 typical cases.”—Nation
“An extraordinarily interesting inquiry. The results are very illuminating and important.”
“In the main the tests applied and the judgment passed upon the reaction of the investigated persons to the tests seem sound. We have in this volume an important datum for our thought upon reconstruction and the problems of the new world.”
“This book combines the exactness of scientific inquiry with the vivid appeal of art. A picture such as this of American life would be one of the most revealing documents in our time.” H. J. L.
“It is an exceedingly interesting and valuable study of certain elements in the standard of living about which there is too little trustworthy information.” L. B.
“A close and systematic investigation, with abundant particulars of individual cases.”
ERSKINE, JOHN. Democracy and ideals: a definition. *$1.50 (3c) Doran 304
The author’s preface states: “These chapters, with the exception of the first and the last, were written while I was serving as chairman of the Army education commission with the American forces in France in 1918 and 1919, and as educational director of the American expeditionary force university at Beaune, 1919.... I have tried to express here from several angles a central conviction that we in the United States are detached from the past, and that this detachment is the striking fact in all our problems; that if in the future we are to become and to remain a nation, we must collaborate for common ends.” The six essays are: Democracy and ideals; American character; French ideals and American; Society as a university; Universal training for national service; University leadership. The author is professor of English in Columbia university.
“A pleasing clarification of ideas not particularly new or startling.”
“Among the best of the recent books dealing with the problems of citizenship and Americanization. It is written in a style so simple that anyone with but an elementary knowledge of English can enjoy it.” A. Yezierska
“Scattered here and there through the volume are observations showing a thoughtful understanding of American problems, but the generalizations suitable to public addresses seem somewhat commonplace in their published form, when the inspiration of the occasion is past.”
“The author has looked about him with sympathy and understanding; and he has pondered in his heart over the things he has seen. Curious intolerances stand out the more abruptly by reason of the general temper of liberality and discrimination which marks the book as a whole. The book has it in it to do for its readers the most fruitful service possible in these bewildering times. It might and should start them thinking.” R: Roberts
“One may share his vision without subscribing to his specific educational program.”
“He seems to assume, as is usual nowadays, that democracy, as distinguished from aristocracy and monarchy, can somehow be made immortal, and that education can of course succeed where religion has failed. Granting these assumptions, the only fault to find with his work is that it appears, here and there, sometimes hasty and again fatigued. To wake it into literary life would have required an interval of repose. For that very reason, it is the more valuable as a document.”
“By an accurate understanding of the French character as well as of our own, Prof. Erskine is able to make this study of Americanism very illuminating.”
“They are happily written and are frequently stimulating, but their neglect of social undercurrents—economic and psychological, which determine the application of intelligence, and are not deflected by it—mars their value.” N. W. Wilensky
ERSKINE, JOHN. Kinds of poetry, and other essays. *$1.50 Duffield 808.1
Poetry, the author holds, is not subject to evolution in its essence but is an unchanging function of an unchanging life and its three genres, the lyrical, the dramatic and the epic, are comparable to the three eternal ways of meeting experience: “as simply a present moment, or as a present moment in which the past is reaped, or as a present moment in which the future is promised.” The other essays of the volume are: The teaching of poetry; The new poetry; Scholarship and poetry.
“Of great value to all lovers of poetry is Mr Erskine’s book. His criticism is keen and trenchant and happily expressed in a style peculiarly his own.” C. K. H.
“When his moral prejudices are not in the way, Mr Erskine is a sound writer.” Llewellyn Jones
Reviewed by W: McFee
“One will find great pleasure in his book, but it will hardly take its place as an important document.”
“They are characterized by a fine mingling of discrimination and common sense. His breadth of view, his refusal to rest content with mere special scholarship, gives value to his advice about the teaching of poetry.”
Reviewed by L. R. Morris
“An uneven book in which the critical elements are decidedly superior to the constructive ones.”
“There is somewhat too much of that intellectual writing around a subject which is common with persons who are afraid of the obvious, but, on the whole, the book will awaken thought; it will not do this the less because some of its reasoning will arouse criticism.”
ERVINE, ST JOHN GREER. Foolish lovers. *$2 (1c) Macmillan
Mr Ervine’s new book is dedicated to his mother, who asked him to write a story without any “bad words” in it, and to Mrs J. O. Hanny, who asked him to write a story without any “sex” in it. It is the story of a charmingly conceited young Irishman who goes to London to write novels and plays and comes home again to be a grocer. John’s boyhood is spent in the home over the shop where three generations of MacDermotts had preceded him. He grows up under the care of his mother, his Uncle Matthew, the dreamer whose dreams come to nothing, and his Uncle William, who supports the family. He goes to London where he meets Eleanor. He asks her to marry him almost at first meeting, dogs her steps and finally persuades her to marry him, only to find that she has leagued herself with his mother to persuade him back to Ballyards and the shop.
“‘The foolish lovers’ has nothing to commend it but a good beginning. Why did he write it? Or, rather, why did he give up writing it? Perhaps he would reply that what is not worth doing is not worth doing well. It is a possible explanation.” K. M.
“It is regrettable that so good a story as this bears so poor a title. ‘The foolish lovers’ is neither an exact nor an appealing designation for a novel that is so full of the commonsense of life.” E. F. E.
“Mr Ervine, in spite of his obvious determination to fix securely the ‘local coloring,’ has failed to evoke the fine, harsh, sincere reality of the Black Northerners with whom his story deals. Prose drama is, after all, this author’s true medium.”
“John McDermott himself is not altogether credible. His exploits, especially his wooing of Eleanor—the central thing in the book—have none of the homely vigor and quiet truth of the Irish scenes and incidents. Here and there Mr Ervine gives us glimpses of a more searching novel he might write about the people of Ulster. But he deliberately cut himself off from that possibility here by the kindly promises to be harmless which he records in his dedication.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“To put it all as briefly as possible, ‘The foolish lovers,’ while not so remarkable a book as ‘Changing winds,’ is worthy of its author—and to say that a book is worthy of St John Ervine is to give it high praise.”
“Modern taste hardly asks for anything really better than such a suave and frank, sympathetically critical and wisely humorous treatment of life as is found in this book. Its tone just suits the mood of the cultivated man or woman of today who has outgrown youthful tastes but has retained a certain independence of view-point. In charm and in acuteness—the two qualities generally most worth commending in the fiction of the day, in which hysteria is so apt to take the place of power—‘The foolish lovers’ is preeminent.”
“‘The foolish lovers’ exemplifies to a very high degree the special gifts which have made its author’s novels notable among recent fiction. Mr Ervine has something of Dickens’s love for people. No more delightfully tender description of a courtship is contained in recent fiction, nor any which so finely sets forth as that in ‘The foolish lovers’ the unconscious humor of young love.” L. R. Morris
“Mr Ervine’s tale is in the new-British mode, the post-Wellsian, somewhat diffuse, somewhat overburdened with scenes and ‘characters,’ if not, in this instance, with ‘ideas.’” H. W. Boynton
“The portraits of his family are excellent, and the way he imposes himself on Eleanor is ably studied.”
“Mr St John Ervine has chosen an old theme, but he has invested it with the freshness and vigour which we have come to expect from his work.”
“The story is rich in whimsical observations on personal characteristics and political trends, and engages the reader’s close interest in all its phases.”
“By far the most attractive part of his story takes place in Ballyards. The characters of Uncle William and Uncle Matthew are delightful. The success with which Mr Ervine brings out their simplicity and nobility of character is a convincing proof of his gifts as a novelist.”
ESCOUFLAIRE, RODOLPHE C. Ireland an enemy of the allies? tr. from the French. *$2.50 Dutton 941.5
“M. Escouflaire’s thesis in this volume is that the Irish question so-called is ‘an international imposture.’ In years past this French writer had accepted anti-British propaganda from Ireland at its face value, but his contact with British statesmen during the war led him to question his earlier conclusions, and in the present volume after an independent study of Ireland’s relations with England he declares categorically that the whole Irish claim of oppression by England, so far as the present generation is concerned, is a myth.”—R of Rs
“The egotism of his attitude is bewildering, but it is the key to a treatment of Irish affairs which would otherwise be merely stupidly unfair and ungenerous.”
“The book is a grotesque perversion of all Irish history, ancient and modern. The author’s gross ignorance is never corrected by the translator.” E. A. Boyd
“Lovers of England must trust that she will not listen to such counsels as these.” Preserved Smith
“His book is well written, but without the wise judgment that comes through the sympathetic understanding that such men as Lloyd George bring to the problem.”
“M. Escouflaire’s book must be laid down with a sigh of disappointment. It is the sort of work which can help no one, a perfect specimen of how Irish matters should not be discussed, and those most anxious for the object he sets before himself should be the first to repudiate the methods by which he is seeking it. The present critic hates Sinn Fein and all its works as much as M. Escouflaire can hate them, but he would wish to see it attacked with artillery not so far out of range.” H. L. Stewart
“Accurate and spirited little book.”
ESSEN, LÉON VAN DER. Short history of Belgium. il *$1.50 (3c) Univ. of Chicago press 949.3
This second and enlarged edition of the original book contains a special chapter on Belgium during the war. The book is illustrated and has a bibliography and an index. The first edition was published in 1916.
“Dr Van der Essen has succeeded admirably in confining a record of monumental size within the compass of a small volume. Yet, in doing so, he has not sacrificed clearness for brevity nor interest for compactness.”
“Professor van der Essen has treated this difficult and often intricate subject with admirable skill; though writing with a scholar’s intimate knowledge of his country’s history, he has succeeded in steering clear from the shoal of ponderosity and dulness. Here and there the Roman Catholic has led the historian astray.”
“It is a fascinating story told by a master of the facts who writes with a fine sense of proportion.”
EVANS, CARADOC. My neighbors. *$1.75 (5c) Harcourt
More stories of a Welsh rural neighborhood by the author of “My people” and “Capel Sion.” In a prologue entitled “The Welsh people” the author offers some explanation of the ugly and distorted aspects of human nature that he presents. The stories are: Love and hate; According to the pattern; The two apostles; Earthbred; For better; Treasure and trouble; Saint David and the prophets; Joseph’s house; Like brothers; A widow woman; Unanswered prayers; Lost treasure; Profit and glory.
“I happen to know something of Welsh religion, and I have written not a little in criticism of it. But the religion which Mr Evans describes I have never met with. We Welsh have many grievous faults, and we have not been as faithful in self-criticism as we should have been. But Mr Caradoc Evans’s book does not describe us. It describes only Mr Caradoc Evans’s own soul; and it is not a pretty sight.”
“Mr Evans’s artistic gift is very genuine but hard and narrow. In its present trend one can see little chance for its development. The stories are like rocks—impressive but barren. The preface is written in a more flexible vein and a more ironic mood. In it the language of the English Bible, from which Mr Evans draws, is transmuted for the uses of his artistic intention. In the stories themselves it is employed merely as a weapon. But his work has fierce honesty, concentration, power. It is sanative and, within its definite limits, completely achieved.”
“But does he really traverse the whole stage? We cannot think so. Where there are Goneril and Regan we cry out for a Cordelia, and Mr Evans would, we think, have made his terrible portraits more effective even than they are already if he had introduced more contrast and relief into them.”
“Mr Evans knows the Welsh intimately and searchingly, and his portrayal of their daily lives, their bickerings, prayings and aspirations is altogether ruthless and incisive.” Pierre Loving
“The hardy reader who will persist beyond the almost impenetrable idiom of Caradoc Evans will be richly rewarded. Especially do we recommend the book to reformers, utopists, spinners of millennial dreams.”
“He is sometimes difficult to follow, partly because the dialogue is in English literally translated from the Welsh, and partly because the stories are almost excessively condensed; but the subdued irony and false simplicity are delightful, and he knows the sovereign power of the restraint which leaves events to explain themselves without heavy exegesis.”
EVANS, EDWARD RADCLIFFE GARTH RUSSELL. Keeping the seas. il *$3 Warne 940.45
“Captain Evans saw a great deal of the Dover patrol and of all it included. He tells his experiences, so to speak, right on end and in a kind of chronological order. He is a witness who was there and records what has remained in his mind of what he saw. And he had notable things to remember; for he commanded the Broke in the action of March, 1917, in the Straits. The war produced few such passages of conflict as the action in the Straits. Captain Evans’ services, like those of other officers, consisted in the main of cruising and watching. At the end he was afforded a change in the direction of Gibraltar and the Portuguese coast.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His ‘simple sailor volume,’ as he calls it, is full of miscellaneous stories which would have been the better if they had been more carefully digested; but if the whole is rather confusing, not a little good matter is to be found in the heap.”
EVANS, MRS ELIDA. Problem of the nervous child. *$2.50 (3c) Dodd 136.7
This volume comes with an introduction by Dr C. G. Jung of Zurich who says of the author: “Mrs Evans’ knowledge of her subject matter is based on the solid foundation of practical experience, an experience gained in the difficult and toilsome treatment and education of nervous children.... This book, as the reader can see on almost every page, is the fruit of an extended work in the field of neuroses and abnormal characters.” Its purpose is to aid parents in the training and education of their children, not to add another “to the already long list of textbooks explaining psychoanalytical treatment for nervous troubles.” It does not presuppose scientific training in the laws of human development on the part of those for whom the book is intended and therefore avoids technical terms and abstruse discussions as far as possible, giving only end results of present day research and observation on the subject, with examples of cases. Contents: Statement of the problem; The development of repression; Symbolic thought; The child and the adult; Mental behaviour of the child; Defence reactions; The parent complex; Buried emotions; Child training; Muscle erotism; The tyrant child; Teaching of right and wrong; Self and character; Index.
“There are spots in the book where the all-absorbing panacea of psycho-analytic therapy is too powerful, and she over-stresses the environment, losing sight of the medico-psychological fact that many defects are organically directed. The book needs a broader sensing and interpreting of the ever present interplay between the hereditary and environmental forces.” H. F. Coffin, M.D.
EVANS, LAWTON BRYAN. America first. il *$2.50 Bradley, M. 973
“Instead of being what the title might imply, the volume contains one hundred stories from the history of America in condensed form and written in a style that will prove interesting to the juvenile reader. The author goes on the supposition that the nearer a story is to the life of the child, the more eagerly it is absorbed. True stories, he says, about our own people, about our neighbors and friends and about our own country at large, are more interesting than true stories of remote people and places. The stories grouped in the volume open with ‘Leif, the lucky,’ and continue down through history to the time when Americans made history over-seas.”—Springf’d Republican
“An excellent piece of work. The book will be a valuable supplement to school study of our national history and it will stimulate a healthy national pride.”
EVARTS, HAL GEORGE. Cross pull. *$1.90 (3½c) Knopf
The hero of this story is Flash, a cross between wolf, coyote and dog. Clark Moran took him as a puppy and tamed him and the dog in him responded to kindness. To one other Flash gives his allegiance, to Betty, the girl from the East who comes into the mountains. To most other humans he is indifferent, but there is one he hates. The story tells how he served his two loved ones in a crisis, and how in so doing he took his own revenge on his enemy. In the end he settles down as a safe and trusted house dog, but there were times when the wild strain awakened and at those times, on still nights during the mating moon, certain civilized suburbanites would experience a primitive shudder at hearing the lone wolf’s call.
“Not over humanized or sentimentalized; one of the best dog stories.”
“A better novel it might have been, but a better animal study it could scarcely have been.”
“A story of more than ordinary interest either as an ‘animal story’ or a ‘live’ western romance.”
EVARTS, WILLIAM MAXWELL. Arguments and speeches: ed., with an introd., by his son Sherman Evarts. 3v *$15 Macmillan 815
“Mr Evarts (1818–1901) as leader of the American bar, orator, and statesman, was one of the most conspicuous of American citizens in the nineteenth century. This substantial collection of his public utterances not only provides a record of his career, but an important document for the social and political events of his day and for the history of American oratory. He was the leading counsel for the defendant in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Jackson in 1868; and in 1872 was counsel for the United States in the Alabama arbitration at Geneva. He was secretary of state during President Hayes’s administration (1877–1881) and one of the senators for New York 1885–1891.”—The Times [London]. Lit Sup
“The editor’s introductions and comments are brief and well chosen throughout. Taken as a whole, the volumes are a worthy memorial to one of the influential leaders of the American bar, and of the Republican party during a difficult period of our history.” W: A. Robinson
“The ‘Springbok’ argument is said by our leading authority on international law to be as good an argument in a prize case as he has ever read. The defense of Andrew Johnson was equally worth reprinting. As to the rest of the three volumes there is much room for doubt.” Zechariah Chafee, jr.
“These volumes should find a place in all public libraries, especially those of the higher institutions of learning, and in many private libraries. especially those of persons interested in the political history of the United States.”
“We are glad to find, in sampling these volumes, that Evarts’s high reputation for eloquence is fully justified.”
Reviewed by Moorfield Storey
EVISON, MILLICENT. Rainbow gold. il *$1.75 Lothrop
While their father is serving a term of imprisonment on a charge of embezzlement three young people, Toni, Basil and Cecily, go to live with their grandfather in a lonely old house in Maine. The grandfather is crabbed and cold and the two aunts have become as dull and drab as the old house. The story tells how the children bring new life into it and how Toni wins her grandfather’s heart and moves him to take steps toward a new hearing of their father’s case which proves his innocence.
FABRE, JEAN HENRI CASIMIR. Secret of everyday things; informal talks with the children: tr. from the French by Florence Constable Bicknell. il *$2.50 Century 504
This book for young readers contains another selection of Uncle Paul’s talks, following “The story-book of science,” “Our humble helpers” and “Field, forest and farm.” Among the everyday things discussed are Thread; Pins; Needles; Silk; Wool; Flax and hemp; Weaving; Woolen cloth; Moths; Calico; Dyeing and printing; Human habitations; Soap; Fire; Matches; Glass; Iron; Rust; Pottery; Coffee; Sugar; Tea; Bread; Air; Evaporation; Rain; Snow; The force of steam; Sound and light. There are occasional illustrations in the text.
“Would be useful in junior high schools.”
“Didacticism flies before Fabre’s freshness of style like dust before a broom.”
“The insect world has been recreated for lay readers by the patience and the genius of Fabre. Here his themes are homelier but his gift for accurate information, made fascinating in the telling, is the same.”
“The heart and mind of a scientist, the style of an artist, and the sympathy of a man whose child spirit never died live in the book.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
FAIRBANKS, HAROLD WELLMAN. Conservation reader. il *$1.20 World bk. 338
This book is one of the Conservation series and is especially designed for the education of children in right ways of looking at nature. It is the author’s opinion that much of the enthusiasm for conservation will expend itself uselessly unless it can be made to reach the children and the purpose of the book is to present its principles to pupils in a simple and interesting manner. Among the contents are: How our first ancestors lived; The earth as it was before the coming of civilized men; How far will nature restore her wasted gifts? Things of which soil is made; The use and care of water; How the forests are wasted; Our forest playgrounds; What is happening to the wild flowers; What shall we do when the coal, oil, and gas are gone? What is happening to the animals and birds; How to bring the wild creatures back again. Among the many illustrations are two color prints and there is an index.
“Well adapted for use in the intermediate grades.”
FALKENHAYN, ERICH GEORG ANTON SEBASTIAN VON. German general staff and its decisions, 1914–1916. *$5 Dodd 940.343
“The book will attempt to set forth in an intelligible form, according to my knowledge at the time of their occurrence, those operative ideas by which the best of us were guided in battle and victory during the two years of the war when I was at the head of the general staff. My statements do not afford any history of the war in the ordinary sense of the word. They touch upon the events of the war, and other occurrences connected with the latter, only in so far as is necessary to justify the decisions of the general staff.” (Preface) Contents: The change of chief of the general staff; The general military situation in the middle of September, 1914: The battles of the Yser and around Lodz; The period from the beginning of trench warfare in November-December, 1914, until the recommencement of the war of movement in 1915; The break-through at Gorlice-Tarnow and its consequences; Operations against Russia in the summer and autumn of 1915; Beginning of the unrestricted submarine campaign; Attempts to break through in the west in the autumn of 1915, and the campaign against Serbia; The situation at the end of 1915; The campaign of 1916; Comparative review of the relative strength of forces (Appendix); Maps.
“The work itself is a memoir, rather than a history. It makes no references to authorities, and furnishes little in the form of documents, but it bears evidence of more careful preparation than is usual with memoirs and of being based on authentic records or accurate first-hand knowledge.” J: Bigelow
Reviewed by W. C. Abbott
“Both as a personal apologia and as a revealing of inside German military history this volume is a worthy companion to Ludendorff’s book—indeed, it is better; it is less clumsy and tart, its language is clearer and terser.”
“With one exception, his book is a candid and apparently straightforward statement of the problems he was called upon to solve, and as such it will always be valuable to the special student, but not to the general public: it proves nothing.”
“General von Falkenhayn’s book on the war is, from the military standpoint, a much more serious production than General Ludendorff’s memoirs, though it does not appeal in the same way to the natural man’s desire for revelations of the enemy’s domestic controversies. The attentive reader of his book will be impressed with General von Falkenhayn’s personality. He writes like a soldier, not like a politician.”
“Von Falkenhayn’s book is a worthy companion to Ludendorff’s. It has the merit of being shorter; it contains a much smaller admixture of politics; and its handling of personal controversies, though sufficiently tart, is less clumsy and disagreeable than Ludendorff’s.”
FARIS, JOHN THOMSON. On the trail of the pioneers; romance, tragedy, and triumph of the path of empire. il *$3.50 Doran 978
The present volume does not give in full detail the historical background of the successive great movements of population from the East to the West but rather actual typical cases of emigrants on the move. “It ... gives glimpses of many of these great movements, the routes the emigrants took, and the sections to which they went. The endeavor is made to answer the questions, Who were the emigrants? How and where did they travel? What adventures did they have by the way? What were their impressions of the country through which they passed? What did they do when they reached their destinations?” (Preface) For this purpose full use has been made of the records of early travellers and pioneers. Contents: Through the Cumberland gap to Kentucky and Tennessee; Through the Pittsburgh and Wheeling gateways; Floating down the Ohio and the Mississippi; From northern New York and New England to the West; The Santa Fe trail; The Oregon trail; Across the plains to California; Toiling up the Missouri; Bibliography; Index; Maps and illustrations.
“An excellent, condensed history.”
“While sketchy and disjointed, Mr Faris’s book presents enough that is piquant or solidly interesting to lure the reader to search further for himself.”
“The author has accomplished a scholarly piece of work without pedantry or tedious generalization. The writing of the book is so fresh and entertaining that the general reader will find it a real pleasure to peruse it.”
“There are evidences of haste in the compilation of the book and in the explanatory matter which introduces the excerpts from diaries, resulting in too general statements of specific historical events, and some minor errors. The charm of this book lies in the abundant passages from old journals which happily escaped the improving pencils of ‘literary’ friends.” C. L. Skinner
FARIS, JOHN THOMSON. Seeing the Far West. il *$6 Lippincott 917.8
“John T. Faris’s ‘Seeing the Far West’ has chapters upon the scenery of Colorado, Arizona, the Yellowstone, the Sierras, Oregon, and Washington.” (Review) “He regales his readers with bits of gossip and local history that enliven and endow with a human interest the scenes to which he leads them.” (N Y Times)
“The writing of the book is simple and direct, gaining thereby in clearness and force. Its sincerity cannot be questioned and its personal touches and humanness stir alive one’s jaded interest in travel volumes.” J. W. D. S.
“‘Seeing the far West’ is a desirable addition to any home library.”
“Occasionally the reader finds flashes of description that are characterized by originality, but, on the whole, the writer is content with conventional utterance.” B. R. Redman
“The book will take its place as one of the best of the ‘boosters’ for seeing the great West.”
“Mr Faris has the enviable trick of making one see. He sets one dreaming golden, fantastic, rainbow dreams, and leaves one,—as only the most vivid dreams can leave one,—half convinced that one has actually been there in the flesh.” Calvin Winter
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“It is well illustrated with photographs which show that Mr Faris is not too enthusiastic in his descriptions.”
“Mr Faris’s main difficulty is that he has so many things to write about. In fact, he would have given a clearer idea of the country if of its natural features he had been content to describe fully one of each kind instead of—in perhaps a spirit of democratic equality—giving a shorter account of several.”
FARNELL, IDA.[2] Spanish prose and poetry old and new. *$5.25 Oxford 860.8
“‘Spanish prose and poetry, old and new.’ by Ida Farnell is a collection made in the belief that one of the consequences of the war will be an increased interest in the literature of the Latin races. Miss Farnell has endeavored to show something of the spirit of Spanish literature by translated extracts from authors ranging from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century (omitting the eighteenth as an age of decadence), to which she has prefixed short biographies of the writers.”—Springf’d Republican
“Her versification is unusually successful in coping with the peculiar difficulties of Spanish verse. Her biographical sketches, her comments and her notes are lively and entertaining. It is a delightful book.” N. H. D.
“Her prefaces, though enfeebled as criticism by moral and patriotic bias, are enthusiastic, and arouse keener expectations than her translations satisfy.”
FARNOL, JEFFERY. Black Bartlemy’s treasure. *$2.15 Little
This is a veritable treasure island and piracy story. Martin Conisby, Lord Wendover, is sold as a slave to a Spanish galleon by Sir Richard Brandon, the slayer of his father. After making his escape and returning to England, swearing vengeance, he unwittingly becomes the rescuer of Brandon’s daughter. He does not find Sir Richard, who has since been lost at sea. But he falls in with a man about to set forth in quest of a treasure and joins him. Lady Joan Brandon embarks on the same ship and presently the two are set adrift in a boat and reach the island. Here they live for some time, a la Robinson Crusoe and love grows to such an extent that the hero is ready to abjure his vow of vengeance. The treasure is also found. When rescuers come events develop in such a way that he renounces love and all and remains a solitary hermit on the island as the ship sails away. Much rough fighting and slaughter punctuate the various phases of the story.
“Some reminiscences of Stevenson and Charles Reade may have gone towards shaping ‘Black Bartlemy’s treasure,’ but Mr Farnol gives a good account of himself as regards both these models.”
“The story would be much more effective were it narrated in forthright English.” E. F. Edgett
“The author has written a thrilling and convincing sea story with so many quaint characters and so much cut-and-thrust action that it is hard to find anything which may be offered as a parallel in very recent fiction.”
“The action is as rapid as ever. The ingenuity with which Mr Farnol creates fresh situations of romance is tireless.”
FARNOL, JEFFERY. Geste of Duke Jocelyn. il *$2.50 Little
In this merry jest is romance and knight errantry of old. The tale tells of one Duke Jocelyn of Brocelaunde, a puissant knight, but marred of face so that he despairs of winning the love of the beautiful lady Yolande. He dons his fool’s motley garb with cap and bells and sets out with one lonely, poorly garbed knight to act the part of the Duke’s envoy and press his suit. They meet with many adventures in the forest, fall in with Robin Hood, make friends and fight many a brave fight with and for him. Even the Lady Yolande is intrigued by the fool’s merry songs and after he has rescued her from a hated suitor, she yields to his love and openly declares it before the assembled knights of the Duke of Brocelaunde. Songs and rhymes, blank verse and prose mingle in the telling of the tale.
“He tells it for his young daughter’s edification, and has hit on a medium—his own swaggering prose and a sound, swinging, rough-and-ready metre—that suits both the matter and his now familiar manner.”
“This is a good Christmas book for the incorrigibly romantic, young or old.” Margaret Ashmun
“A pretty manner Mr Farnol has adopted for the telling of his latest story. Accepting the artifice for what it is one cannot deny that it makes good entertainment.” W. S. B.
“One of the most charming and delightfully whimsical fictional products that have come from the presses this year.”
“The choice of the genre is a very happy one for Mr Farnol; it admits of his wearing his heart on his sleeve and carrying his tongue in his cheek at one and the same time. In fact, this is such a tale as any father—did he but dispose of Mr Farnol’s vocabulary, humour and invention—would tell his daughter, providing her liberally with marvels to her taste and amusing himself with Shakespearian allusions that would escape her.”
FARNSWORTH, CHARLES HUBERT. How to study music. *$2.10 (3½c) Macmillan 780.7
Professor Frank M. McMurry in his introduction to the volume points out that the teacher’s method of teaching may unduly overshadow in importance the child’s method of study. This little book places the emphasis on the child’s method of study and takes the form of home conversations between the children and the adults of the family. It shows how a child’s appreciation of music requires a fertile home soil for its growth and how Jack’s initial “I hate music” can be changed into his final “I love music.” Contents: Difficulties in the study of music; How listen to music; How learn notation without awakening a dislike for music; How a child should learn to sing; How learn to play the piano; How learn to enjoy classical as well as modern music; How to select music; How make use of music in the family; Library of piano compositions.
“The unusual characteristic about the book is the fact that the problems are presented from the viewpoint of both pupil and teacher. In this respect it is better than a formal text would probably be. Indeed, the author evidently sought to exemplify his philosophy of teaching by the book itself.”
FARRAR, JOHN CHIPMAN. Forgotten shrines. (Yale ser. of younger poets) *75c Yale univ. press 811
“Mr Farrar has earned a reputation which foreruns this book of his with a war poem called ‘Brest left behind.’ He divides his poems in groups called Portraits, Songs for children and others, Miscellaneous and Sonnets. The first group of Portraits won the eighteenth award of the prize offered by Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook at Yale for the best unpublished verse by an undergraduate.”—Boston Transcript
“Beautiful in thought and expression.”
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
“He gives us a fine sense of diversity of interests and a balance of form that is admirable.” W. S. B.
“Mr Farrar has achieved clear and tender outlines in the section called Portraits, and should be encouraged to proceed further.”
FARRISS, CHARLES SHERWOOD.[2] American soul. $1 Stratford co. 920
“An appreciation of the four greatest Americans and their lesson for present Americans.” (Sub-title) The four Americans are: George Washington; Abraham Lincoln; Robert E. Lee; and Theodore Roosevelt.
“On the whole, the author is quite happy in his attempt to draw the moral without overpainting the tale.”
FAY, CHARLES RYLE. Life and labour in the nineteenth century. *$8 Macmillan 331.8
“Though the title sounds as if ‘Life and labor in the nineteenth century’ were solely on economics, and though economics gets plenty of treatment, Captain Fay’s lectures cover the political history of England and its international adventures. It is only the fact that wars are not described that prevents it from being a history of England in the nineteenth century.” (N Y Times) “The volume contains the substance of the author’s lectures, delivered at Cambridge in 1919, to students of economics among whom were officers of the Royal navy and students from the United States army.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
Reviewed by G: Soule
“It is marred by a certain ignorance of American events, or at least American points of view.... But these evidences of careless historical reading and insufficient information about a foreign country, although they impair the value of Mr Fay’s book, do not prevent it from being a careful study of the economic life and free-handed study of its politics, written in a vivacious style.”
“Mr Fay attempts to develop no clear-cut definite theories. He does not indulge in the harmless but futile pastime of prophecy. One of the freshest and most original portions of the book is in the chapters in which Mr Fay traces the prevalence and disastrous consequences of ‘semi-capitalism,’ the stage of transition from domestic industries to manufacture.”
FAYLE, CHARLES ERNEST.[2] Seaborne trade. il *$7.50 (*12s 6d) Longmans 940.45
v 1 The cruiser period.
“From the outbreak of the war and the mobilization of the British fleet to the beginning of the submarine warfare, Mr Fayle covers every incident, every move of the Allied and the German fleets. He takes up in turn the flight of the Goeben and the Breslau to the shelter of the Dardanelles, the protection of the Atlantic terminals, the precautions taken to cover trade in the Far East, the situation in the South Atlantic, and the depredations of the Karlsruhe.”—Boston Transcript
“Altogether, ‘The cruiser period’ is a notable addition to the history of the war.”
FELD, ROSE CAROLINE. Humanizing industry. *$2.50 Dutton 331.1
“Miss Feld has written a story concerning one Struthers who, inheriting an industrial plant run on old-fashioned lines of benevolent despotism, tries to introduce modern ideas and overcomes one by one the obstacles created by a bad tradition. It is not fiction, but the method of telling enhances the impression of the author’s belief in good personal relationships and common sense as the most promising approaches to a humanization of industry. Incidentally, the book discusses in detail and with reference to successful experiments the merits of welfare, educational, insurance, pension, profit sharing and industrial representation schemes.”—Survey
Reviewed by G: Soule
“There seems to be one thing overlooked. In speaking of human relations, the author seems to have in mind kindliness, friendliness, charitableness—of which we have none too much. She does not mean anything as fundamental as the economic relationship of classes to one another, to the soil and natural resources, to the powers of government. She reminds me pathetically of the reformers who hoped to save the institution of slavery by inducing slave holders to treat their slaves and mules in a more kindly way.” B. C. G.
“It is a book that all employers of labor ought to read, because whether or not they have sensed that new era, or even entered upon it, they will find in it eye-opening ideas, helpful suggestions. It is a book that all laboring men who have begun to think ought to read, because it will set them on the right track in their thinking.”
FELLOWES, EDMUND HORACE, ed. English madrigal verse, 1588–1632. (Oxford English texts) *$6.25 Oxford 821:04
“This is a reprint of the known words of Elizabethan songs, arranged under their composers and, among these, under the particular type of song, with the names of the poets in the few cases where they are known. In all of these songs both words and voice part were paramount. For if, as in the first half of the book, they were madrigals (for from three to six voices), each voice was sovran in turn, and each vied with the other in the amount of meaning it could impress on the words. If, as in the second half, they were solos or duets, then they had the sketchy accompaniment of the lute, or the support of veiled and velvety-toned viols. The first are necessarily short, for the madrigal form required much repetition of words; pithy, for if a voice is only to be heard at intervals it should have something terse to say; and conventional, for you cannot put intimate sentiments into the mouths of half a dozen different people in succession. The second are more elaborate. They are all true lyrics in that they take one point and press it home.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“To all who love the lyric, English madrigal verse will be a genuine delight. Its careful editing makes the musical construction quite clear, and the material is indeed a treasury of quaint verse.” C. K. H.
“A learned and careful work which only a scholar both in literature and in music could have brought to a conclusion.”
“Interesting and scholarly book.”
FELSTEAD, SIDNEY THEODORE. German spies at bay; comp, from official sources. il *$2 Brentano’s 940.485
“This is a record of interest, exactly recording the actual work of our Secret service and the particulars of the chief German spies whom it traced and dealt with, and exposing the error of much of the panic about spies in England which at one time prevailed.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Felstead is not dull, nor truthfully can one think, brilliant. Those who are interested in spies will be reading for information (possibly thrills), and herein the author is enthusiastically cyclopedic.”
“Mr Felstead has written an amusing as well as an instructive book, and he seems to have steered cleverly between the rocks of reticence and indiscretion.”
FENWICK, CHARLES GHEQUIER. Political systems in transition; war-time and after. *$3 Century 342
The book is one of the Century New world series of which W. F. Willoughby is general editor. Since the war, the author holds, the question of the organization of the state and the scope of the functions it is to perform has become once more an open one, for the war has made it clear that there are some serious defects in the machinery of government that call for radical amendments to our constitutional system. The relative strength and weakness of the several political systems and the probable line of future reconstruction, form the subject of the present study. Contents: Part 1, Political ideals and demands of war; War a test of democratic government; The constitutions of the great nations on the eve of the great war; Part 2, Changes brought about by the war in the political institutions of European countries; Countries with autocratic governments; Countries with democratic governments; Part 3, Changes in the political institutions of the United States; The war and the constitution; War powers of the president; Emergency legislation adopted by Congress; Changes in the organization of the government; The separate state governments: new legislation and new administrative activities; Part 4, Problems of reconstruction in the United States raised by the war; New ideals of democracy; The program of political reconstruction; The program of international reconstruction; Index.
“An excellent account of the shake-up in governments produced by the war, full of material which must be included in any adequate history of it.” E. N.
“The volume is a valuable compendium of war measures in the belligerent nations and of the political problems which the war has left.”
“He writes with eminent fairness, and writes only to inform. He achieves his aim strikingly. Sometimes he falls into the error of taking a phrase at its face value. Since even small things are important in a work of this kind. Professor Fenwick should be more careful about his dates.”
FERBER, EDNA. Half portions. *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
The nine short stories of this collection are: The maternal feminine; April 25th, as usual; Old lady Mandle; You’ve got to be selfish; Long distance; Un morso doo pang; One hundred per cent; Farmer in the dell; The dancing girls. They are stories of life as it is lived in Chippewa or Winnebago, Wisconsin, or on South Park avenue, Chicago. Some are stories of war time. One is an Emma McChesney story. They are reprinted from the Ladies’ Home Journal, Metropolitan, Colliers, and other magazines.
“All these stories and all these pages are thronged with real men and women, and in them Miss Ferber continues to display not merely her skill at story telling, but also her greater skill at breathing into them the breath of life. Reality and imagination combine equally in their making.”
“Miss Ferber’s talents go to polishing the bright pebbles of life, rather than to touching the bedrock of reality, but there’s no denying the world would be duller without an occasional pretty pebble.”
“The highest praise you can give an author in these days is to say that his or her book is ‘thoroly American,’ from which, alas, it does not necessarily follow that it is an excellent piece of workmanship. Edna Ferber’s ‘Half portions,’ however, wins on both counts.”
“Miss Edna Ferber is not thoughtful about the affairs of the world. She simply does not let herself think. If some one would endow Miss Ferber, and make it no longer too expensive for her to think or bring a story to an honest conclusion, she might become a sort of American Arnold Bennett.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“It is a book that is thoroughly enjoyable and laughable from beginning to end.”
FERBER, EDNA, and LEVY, NEWMAN. $1200 a year. il *$1.50 Doubleday 812
A three-act play in which a university professor gives up his $1200 a year position in the university to earn $30 a day in a mill. He immediately becomes popular as a labor leader and lecturer and is in demand all over the United States, but it is only when he is offered a salary of $5000 a week in the movies that the magnate who owns the university as well as the mill is moved to consider the question of an adequate salary for a professor.
“Interesting to read. One would like to see it acted.”
“The complications hold the kernel of genuine comedy, but instead of cracking their nut, Miss Ferber and Mr Levy have contented themselves with merely painting funny faces on the shell.” L. B.
“The authors have challenged serious criticism by calling the play a ‘comedy’ and by permitting the publishers to proclaim it a ‘timely satire.’ It is an amusing and clever farce, containing many touches of skilful character depiction.” Jack Crawford
“As a vehicle for amusement ‘$1200 a year’ is both ingenious and satisfying. Its characters are human, its situations vivid. It portrays with little exaggeration the wretched circumstances of our little world of scholars with sympathetic and understanding treatment. But what of that other world? Have not the authors exaggerated the affluence of mill labor to crown their dramatic purpose?”
Reviewed by A. E. Morey
“Rather a good story, though highly illogical and incredible.”
FIELDING, WILLIAM JOHN. Sanity in sex. *$1.75 (3c) Dodd 176
The past few years have seen a remarkable change in the public attitude toward sex. The ban of secrecy has been largely removed and the need for rational sex education is generally recognized. The author’s purpose in this book has been “to subject the social processes responsible for these changes to a thorough analysis, classifying all the important factors and tendencies involved, and to give as concise and accurate an account as possible of this historic period of the sex-educational movement.” (Introd.) Subjects covered include: the government’s campaign of sex-education, sex-education in the army, venereal disease, sex hygiene in industry, sex education in the public schools, the relation of sex knowledge to marriage, sex ignorance and divorce, birth control, and psycho-analysis, and the final chapter discusses economic sufficiency as a basis of sex hygiene. There is a classified bibliography of seventeen pages, followed by an index.
“Mr Fielding is not an alarmist; he strikes more than a note of hope in his account of the work which the United States government did with the army during the war.”
“The book for the most part quotes authorities worth considering, and is modern in its attitude, but overestimates the theories of psycho-analysis, and is weakened by rather easy generalizations.”
FIFE, GEORGE BUCHANAN. Passing legions. il *$2 (2c) Macmillan 940.477
“How the American Red cross met the American army in Great Britain, the gateway to France.” (Sub-title) The work of the Red cross commission in Great Britain was almost wholly with passing troops, on the way to the front or returning, and the aim of the author has been to bring out those features of the service which distinguished it from that of other commissions. Among the chapters are: A call through the storm; When the commission was born; Where a million men went by; The incoming legions at Liverpool; Here and there in Britain; The bluejackets of Cardiff and Plymouth; With the army to Archangel; The unbreakable link with “home.”
“Even now, books of the war continue to be written, and Mr Fife’s is among the distinctly lesser lights of the contest. He writes in a business-like but boresome monotone.”
“The opening story of the book is a story of heroism almost unbelievable, yet intense in its realism, pathos and altruism. Great as is the Otranto story, it but serves to fix the attention on what is to come and so onward to the ‘valedictory’ is read a succession of just such tales.” E. J. C.
FILENE, CATHERINE, ed. Careers for women. *$4 Houghton 396.5
The object of the book is to give vocational information to high school and college women, to supplement the work of vocational advisors in schools, and to help decrease the number of “square pegs for round holes.” It is composed of articles written expressly for the book by a number of specially qualified contributors and its compiler, Miss Filene, is the director of the Intercollegiate vocational guidance association. The vocations considered are grouped under the headings: Accounting; Advertising; Agriculture, etc.; Architecture; Arts and crafts; Business; Dramatics; Education; Finance; Government service; Health services; Home economics services; Industrial work; Institutional work; Insurance; Law; Library work; Literary work; Motion-picture work; Museum work; Music; Newspaper work; Personnel work; Physical education; Politics; Religious work; Scientific work; Secretarial work; Social work; Specialists; Statistical work; Vocational training. Suggested readings accompany most of the chapters and there is an index.
“By far the most practical and complete book in its field. Will be useful in any library.”
“It should be of great value to high-school and college students and the new graduate. The suggestions are, on the whole, sound.”
“Differently as the various authors write, there is uniformity in one respect—in the brisk, snappy, pungent way in which they push their points at you and make you see the picture.”
“Both for its merit as a model of the way in which occupational information should be presented, and for what it signifies in the modern outlook of thoughtful college women and, it may be added, of college men as well, this book is noteworthy. The publishers deserve mention for the most attractively printed book in the field of vocational guidance.” Meyer Bloomfield
FILLMORE, PARKER HOYSTED. Shoemaker’s apron. il *$2.50 (5½c) Harcourt
This is the author’s second book of Czechoslovak fairy tales and folk tales with illustrations and decorations by Jan Matulka. It is a companion volume to the earlier collection and contains besides the fairy tales five nursery tales and a group of devil tales. They are not so much translations as a retelling of other versions to suit the English-speaking child. The fairy tales are: The twelve months; Zlatovlaska the golden-haired; The shepherd’s nosegay; Vitazko the victorious. The shoemaker’s apron is one of the devil tales.
“An interesting collection of twenty stories drawn from original sources and retold with simple charm.”
Reviewed by A. C. Moore
FINCH, WILLIAM COLES-, and HAWKS, ELLISON. Water in nature, il *$2.50 Stokes 551
“W. Coles Finch and Ellison Hawks, two English scientists, have contributed to the Romance of reality series a volume entitled ‘Water in nature.’ In it they deal scientifically, and at the same time entertainingly, with practically all of water’s manifestations in the natural world, including its relations to cloud, atmosphere, ocean, rain, hail, snow, ice, glaciers, springs, rivers, lake, waterfalls, mountains, caves, rocks, reefs, and corals.”—N Y Times
“Any one who is interested in natural phenomena will find fascinating reading in this résumé of popular science.”
FINDLAY, HUGH, ed. Handbook for practical farmers. il *$5 Appleton 630
A comprehensive handbook “dealing with the more important aspects of farming in the United States.” (Sub-title) Special chapters have been contributed by practical experts in different parts of the United States. Subjects covered include the various farm and garden crops, farm animals, the care of milk and the curing of meat on the farm, farm buildings, running water, the use of explosives, the care of tools, fence posts, roads, the farm loan system, farm records, pets, weeds, etc. There are 258 illustrations and an index. The editor is lecturer on horticulture in Columbia university.
FINDLAY, JOSEPH JOHN. Introduction to sociology, for social workers and general readers. (Publications of the University of Manchester) il *$2 Longmans 301
“The central theme of sociology, as conceived by Professor Findlay and lucidly expounded in this excellent introduction to a comparatively new, extremely comprehensive, but somewhat elusive science, is ‘the definition of social groups, their classification and their relations to each other.’ The treatment is systematic, though some problems of considerable importance, such as the institution of land tenure, have had to be omitted. The first five chapters are devoted to principles. The second part relates to types of social grouping, such as family, state, religion, and occupation. In the third part, which is concerned with organization, the positions of the leader, the official, and the representative, are discussed: and there is an analysis of the instinct of loyalty.”—Ath
“A valuable part of his book is the admirable list of references to contemporary and other authorities.”
“The author, while primarily an educational administrator and not a professional sociologist, nevertheless has attained a definite grasp of certain fundamental principles in the science of society. His book is a very thoughtful piece of work, but the reviewer confesses to losing his way frequently in the course of the argument.” A. J. Todd
FINNEY, ROSS LEE, and SCHAFER, ALFRED L. Administration of village and consolidated schools. *$1.60 Macmillan 371
“This book has been written especially to meet the needs of principals of small schools and to serve as a textbook in those institutions where young men and women are in training for the administration of village schools. Its five parts discuss, respectively, Governmental administration, The principal’s personal-official relations, Adapting the school to the needs of the child, The business side, and Miscellaneous.”—Boston Transcript
“It gives valuable and practical charts and tables and is fraught with helpful suggestions. It will be very useful to those who know how to discriminate and are not too slavishly bound to the letter.”
“The book is written in a style that ought to appeal to teachers and school officers who have not enjoyed the opportunities of an elaborate training.”
FIRKINS, OSCAR W. Jane Austen. *$1.75 (3c) Holt 823
A critical and biographical study of Jane Austen, falling into three parts: The novelist; The realist; The woman. Part 1 is a searching and unsparing analysis of the six novels, with particular reference to plot. Part 2 is a more brief and general treatment of the characters. Part 3, the biographical section, is a study of Miss Austen’s personality as revealed in her letters and reflected in the novels. Notes and an index come at the end and the whole is prefaced by verses, “To Jane Austen,” from the author’s pen, reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly.
“He is often clever and always readable.”
“The advantage of this microscopic, literal measurement is that it prepares the way for an exact delineation of Jane Austen’s production and character. If the final picture lacks an inconsequent sureness, it is full of fine perspectives and fresh values.” C. M. Rourke
“He paints a sort of cubist portrait of Jane Austen, which would pass unrecognized were it not labeled with her name. He has succeeded in imagining a Miss Austen who is ‘one vile antithesis’. In ‘creative criticism’ does the critic create the author in his own image?” H. E. Woodbridge
“A book both new and worth reading. He has looked at Miss Austen more through his own eyes, and less through the eyes of her many illustrious eulogists, than any other writer I know of. Even when he is in harmony with the opinions of Miss Austen’s posterity one feels his first-handedness. Not one of his more heretical opinions exists for the sake of saying something new.”
“Although his book is written in so flowing and altogether charming a style that it is a pleasure to read it, I could not help wondering why he thought it worth doing at all. Certainly, no one that reads it will be tempted to fly to Jane Austen. Quite the contrary!” Gertrude Atherton
“Minute analysis of individual characters, their consistency and temperaments, is carried a little too far for any but the devoted admirers who have every one of Miss Austen’s novels firmly in remembrance.”
FISCHER, HERBERT ALBERT LAURENS. Studies in history and politics. *$5.65 Oxford 904
“When the Right Honorable Herbert Fisher took up the onerous duties of a Minister of the crown on the British Educational board ... the heavy labors in the service of the English youth left him little time for writing and research. The studies collected in his latest volume are, therefore, not new, but are reprints of various magazine articles written, for the most part, between five and ten years ago, though here and there retouched and supplemented. Three of the eleven essays deal with French politics; three with the history of history; two with Napoleon; one with British imperial administration; one with the value of small states; and one with the resurgence of Prussia.”—Nation
“The studies are all amply worth reading.” Preserved Smith
“Interesting and thoughtful essays.”
“Mr Fisher’s essays will interest everybody who cares either for history or for politics, and, most of all, those who care for both.”
FISHER, IRVING. Stabilizing the dollar. *$3.50 Macmillan 338.5
“[In this book] first there is a twenty-five page summary. Then there is the main body of the text, 125 pages, in which the same arguments that appear in the summary are amplified. Finally there is an appendix of 171 pages in which practically the same points are gone over again, only this time with a strong emphasis upon ‘technical details.’ Thus we have a boiled down encyclopedia addressed to three separate levels of attention, or perhaps of intellect, all within the modest confines of one small volume. Professor Fisher believes that the high cost of living is caused by a shrunken dollar, just as the low cost of living from 1873 to 1896 followed an enlarged dollar. The purchasing power of the dollar is at all times, so he easily proves, uncertain and variable. His remedy is to make the dollar more or less valuable, according as prices are rising or falling by adding or substracting from its weight in gold.”—Unpartizan Review
“The close association between economic and political problems at the present day warrants for this book the attention of political scientists.”
“This book is well arranged for summary or detailed reading.”
“Many prominent economists indorse the plan. The question of its practical application is a distinct and different affair. Be that as it may, the book is provocative of thought and deserves a wide reading.” G. M. J.
“The plan is presented with elaborate simplicity and persuasiveness, and an exhaustive discussion of technical details, alternative plans, and precedents.”
Reviewed by C. C. Plehn
“It is a duty to direct attention to Professor Fisher’s plan, and it is agreeable to add that he makes its study easy.”
“For the advanced student of currency and price movements the six appendices will prove of special interest.” E. R. Burton
+ |Survey 44:541 Jl 17 ’20 420w |The Times [London] Lit Sup p369 Je 10 ’20 120w
“In ‘Stabilizing the dollar’ we have not necessarily the final word, but the most complete exposition as yet of a great, fundamental reform whose inevitableness the reviewer cannot doubt.” A. W. Atwood
FISHER, JOHN ARBUTHNOT FISHER, 1st baron. Memories and records. 2v il *$8 (6½c) Doran
Lord Fisher devotes the first of these volumes to Memories, reserving such biographical details as he chooses to give for the volume of Records. Of the work as a whole, he says, it is “not an autobiography but a collection of memories of a life-long war against limpets, parasites, sycophants and jellyfish.” Aside from its pungent style, the book is of interest for its memories of King Edward, whom the author loved, for his estimates of Lord Nelson, whom he worshipped, and for his outspoken criticisms of Great Britain’s war policy. There are a number of illustrations and each of the volumes has its index. The appendixes to volume 2 give a summary of Lord Fisher’s great naval reforms, by W. T. Stead, and a synopsis of his career.
“This remarkable book is full of good things. The rush of the author’s forcible prose recalls the headlong progress of a motorcycle emitting explosive noises.”
“We get an impression of more than force; we feel that we are dealing with a perfectly honest man who has an unfailing eye for humbug.”
“It is a rambling autobiography without form or plan, frank to the verge of indiscretion or beyond, crammed with the enthusiasm and energy of youth (he was born in 1851 but was of the tribe of Peter Pan), exuberant beyond the bounds of the English language, and altogether delightful and incredible.”
“Many delightful anecdotes testify to the more irresistible side of Lord Fisher’s personality, and his staunch praise of his friends, his inimitable descriptions of many sea captains, and his warm appreciation of the British merchant navy also show fine traits of discernment and character.” B. U. Burke
“His directness and brevity never fail him, every paragraph is charged with interest, and the reader’s mind easily gathers up and puts in place the material. The originalities in printing are devices of this fertile inventor to make truths go home and lodge.” D. S. M.
“There is no connected narrative or any orderly sequence of events; and yet it is continuously interesting, often amusing, and sometimes exciting in a supreme degree. The language is occasionally deplorable, from the standpoint of most drawing rooms and all grammar schools; and yet there are passages of rare and original beauty from even a rhetorical point of view. One feels in the presence of a psychic force.” B. A. Fiske
“A peculiar book, this—gossipy, and good, nervous comment, with technical explanation shoved in like coal into a furnace. Navy men will enjoy it, but so will the man on the street.”
Reviewed by Doris Webb
“Admiral Fisher’s gift for comradeship makes him an admirable portraitist. There is no dull moment in the two volumes.”
“Sturdy fighter as he is, he hits no foul blow. He is not sparing of his epithets on his opponents en masse ... but of no individual living man or woman does he speak otherwise than in terms of kindliness and honour. If his blame is hearty, so is his praise; and while his blame is anonymous, his praise is defined. He who has applauded others so lavishly and willingly may perhaps be excused when he exhibits considerable affection for his own good deeds also.”
“The books are a vivid photograph of picturesque and historic personality.”
“Inaccuracy is the inevitable result of hasty talk. Those of us who are not over and above solemn, and who are quite prepared to give Lord Fisher all the licence of, say, Admiral Coffin, whose free talk once amused the House of commons, often at his own expense, may still regret that he does not endeavour to deserve a share of ‘the heavenly gift of proportion and perspective’ which he admired in King Edward.”
“There are some things in these memories and records which few critics, now or hereafter, will commend except in so far as they exhibit some of the less attractive features of Lord Fisher’s personality with a candour which goes far to redeem them from censure. But these are really superficial traits.”
FISKE, BRADLEY ALLEN. Art of fighting; its evolution and progress. il *$3 (2c) Century 355
Paying a passing tribute to the universal desire for peace, the author says: “Until it is certain that war has actually been banished from the earth, armies and navies must be maintained. In order to give their country the protection needed, each army and navy must be correctly designed, prepared, and operated. To know whether this is being done, the people need a general knowledge of the principles of the art of fighting, especially of strategy. To impart this knowledge in simple language is the object of this book.” (Preface) The book is in three parts: Fighting and war in general; Historical illustrations; Strategy. This third section is composed of three chapters: Strategy in peace; Strategy in war; and Strategy as related to statesmanship. There is no index.
“It may be objected to this book, particularly by the pacifist mind, that it lacks a true perspective, a proper sense of proportion, an adequate conception of relative values. But the ready answer is that it is the book of an inventor, a specialist, an enthusiast. Admiral Fiske has made a notable contribution, worthy of the most careful study.”
FISKE, CHARLES. Perils of respectability, and other studies in Christian life and service for reconstruction days. *$1.50 Revell 252
“The subjects [of the fourteen sermons] are striking without being sensational. Among them are ‘Alone in the wilderness,’ ‘The peril of an empty soul,’ ‘The manliness of Christ,’ and ‘The gospel for an age of luxury.’ The author has found his way into the heart of things and speaks out of a deep experience. He understands the meaning of Christianity in all its phases, individual, social and corporate.”—Boston Transcript
“Bishop Fiske is a plain and convincing preacher: these are sermons worth reading as well as hearing. We miss the personality of the preacher but that is inevitable in the case of printed discourses.”
“No man, minister or layman, can read them without becoming strengthened.”
FITCH, ALBERT PARKER.[2] Can the church survive in the changing order? *80c Macmillan 230
“Prof. Fitch likens the present day to other great periods of transition; the time of Jesus’s advent, of the Mohammedan invasion, of Luther’s protest. The church today stands for the old order. It has attempted to keep abreast of the times merely by tacking new social programs on to an outworn philosophy. This method is doomed to failure from the beginning. If the church is to survive it must mold progressively its fundamental conceptions. And its most fundamental conception, its attitude to the Jesus of history, must be based on an appreciation of his moral grandeur. A quickened conscience, resulting from a clearer apprehension of the moral value of Jesus’s teaching, is far more important for the church than any new Christological formulation. This moral awakening will itself have religious content in its devotion to eternal and transcendent values.”—Springf’d Republican
“We looked to the last sections of the book for something to guide and inspire the church so unsparingly criticized. There is no program offered. This is a fatal weakness. What is needed now is not a negative criticism but a constructive program.”
“Anything from the pen of Dr Albert Parker Fitch is certain to be clear, colorful and aggressive. His latest little book is no exception.”
FITCH, ALBERT PARKER.[2] Preaching and paganism. *$2 Yale univ. press 204
“The Amherst professor describes the permanent element in religion—the sense of God—in contrast with two forces that are in control of our present day thinking and acting, humanism and naturalism. He shows how these alien factors have entered and subtly taken possession of worship and even preaching, and he pleads for the religious view which, while acknowledging God in nature and in man, refuses to set up either man or nature as its norm and guide.” (N Y Evening Post) “The book is the forty-sixth of the series of the Lyman Beecher lectureship on preaching in Yale university and is the fourth work published on the James Wesley Cooper memorial publication fund.” (Boston Transcript)
“Prof. Fitch may not altogether give the philosophical background to the desired restatement of transcendence, but he at least gives evidence of earnest and well-pondered affirmation. The book is meant both to instruct young clergymen and to inspire them, and it should succeed in its double object.”
FITZGERALD, FRANCIS SCOTT KEY. Flappers and philosophers. *$1.75 Scribner
A book of short stories by the author of “This side of paradise.” Contents: The offshore pirate; The ice palace; Head and shoulders; The cut-glass bowl; Bernice bobs her hair; Benediction; Dalyrimple goes wrong; The four fists.
“The author proves himself a master of the mechanism of short-story technique, a neat hand with dialogue, and exactly as bungling with character work as one would expect from an author as young as the cynicism of his endings proclaims this author to be. For he cannot let well enough alone.... In fact that is the chief trouble with all Mr Fitzgerald’s tales. They are too consciously clever.” I. W. L.
“Here are to be found originality and variety, with imaginativeness of the exceptional order that needs not to seek remote, untrodden paths, but plays upon scenes and people within the radius of ordinary life.”
“The substance of the eight stories in his volume is in harmony with his new manner. They have a rather ghastly rattle of movement that apes energy and a hectic straining after emotion that apes intensity. The surface is unnaturally taut; the substance beneath is slack and withered as by a premature old age. In ‘This side of paradise’ there was both gold and dross. Instead of wringing his art, in Mr Hergesheimer’s fine expression, free of all dross, Mr Fitzgerald proceeded to cultivate it and to sell it to the Saturday Evening Post. Why write good books? You have to sell something like five thousand copies to earn the price of one story.”
“Not the most superficial reader can fail to recognize Mr Fitzgerald’s talent and genius.”
“‘Head and shoulders’ has a twist at the end that is truly O. Henryish. So does ‘Bernice bobs her hair.’ We pick these two as the best.”
Reviewed by Sibyl Vane
FITZGERALD, FRANCIS SCOTT KEY. This side of paradise. *$1.75 Scribner
“It isn’t a story in the regular sense: There’s no beginning, except the beginning of Amory Blaine, born healthy, wealthy and extraordinarily good-looking, and by way of being spoiled by a restless mother whom he quaintly calls by her first name, Beatrice. There’s no middle to the story, except the eager fumbling at life of this same handsome boy, proud, cleanminded, born to conquer yet fumbling, at college and in love with Isabelle, then Clara, then Rosalind, then Eleanor. No end to the story except the closing picture of this same boy in his early twenties, a bit less confident about life, with ‘no God in his heart ... his ideas still in riot ... with the pain of memory ... he could not tell why the struggle was worth while,’ and yet ‘determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the personality he had passed.’”—Pub W
“In all its affectations, its cleverness, its occasional beauty, even its sometimes intentioned vulgarity and ensuing timidity, it so unites with the matter as to make the book a convincing chronicle of youth by youth.” M. E. Bailey
“It is merely his way of doing things that makes his story different from multitudes of its kind. To say that in ‘This side of paradise’ Mr Fitzgerald has written a novel that will cause us to use a modern and expressive phrase, to sit up and take notice, is a mild expression of the feeling he arouses in us. He is a story teller with a courage of his own. Many will not like his novel, some will abhor it, but none can question the fact that he is a novelist with a message if not with a mission.”
“Part of the story is thoroly amusing; part of it goes deep into the serious thoughts and desires and ambitions of its hero-author; in the last third he dives so deep that he gets well over his head.”
“Mr Fitzgerald is on the path of those who strive. His gifts have an unmistakable amplitude and much in his book is brave and beautiful.”
“An astonishing and refreshing book. The book is fundamentally honest and if the intellectual and spiritual analyses are, sometimes tortuous and the nomenclature bewildering to those not intimate with collegiate invention, it is nevertheless delightful and encouraging to find a novel which gives us in the accurate terms of intellectual honesty a reflection of American undergraduate life.” R. V. A. S.
“The whole story is disconnected, more or less, but loses none of its charm on that account. It could have been written only by an artist who knows how to balance his values, plus a delightful literary style.”
“There are, as I see it, two secrets to the all-round satisfactoriness of Mr Fitzgerald’s book; he can write—that simply sticks out all over the book; and he has the rather rare good sense of ‘crowding his work instead of spreading it thin.’” R. S. L.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The story’s construction occasionally gives an impression of jerkiness; but the author’s obvious familiarity with his ground and his uncanny ability to see life through the eyes of his characters reduces this defect almost to the vanishing point.”
FLEMING, WILLIAM HENRY. Treaty-making power; Slavery and the race problem in the South. $1.50 Stratford co. 341.2
The book contains two speeches by the author as a member of Congress from the tenth Georgia district. The practical issue underlying the speech of the Treaty-making power was given by the crisis threatening legislation in California to discriminate against Japanese children in the public schools. The second speech, Slavery and the race problem in the South, is a courageous plea for justice on behalf of the negro.
FLETCHER, CHARLES BRUNSDON. Stevenson’s Germany. *$3.50 Scribner 996
“This book, which groups about Stevenson’s ‘Footnote to history’ evidence of German misbehaviour in the Pacific, and particularly in Samoa, is, we are informed by the preface, the conclusion of an ‘argument against Germany, begun in “The new Pacific,” and continued through “The problem of the Pacific”’; it is essentially an attempt to show that Germany is unfit to govern in the islands of the South sea, and a plea that in no circumstances whatever should she be allowed to regain an inch of those profitable lands.”—Ath
“The present volume has little to commend it. The organization is very faulty, the materials used are slight and even they have not been presented as well as they deserved, and there are certain obvious errors.” P. J. T.
“There may be good and just reasons for excluding Germany from the Pacific, but they do not appear conclusively in this book. What appears too clearly is the desire to profit to the utmost by her downfall.” F. W. S.
“Well written and well-documented book.”
“The difficulty in being satisfied with Mr Fletcher’s case is not, however, that it is unfairly put or in any way exaggerated. On the contrary, it has been carefully prepared, and the evidence put forward is trustworthy. The trouble is that, from circumstances over which the Germans had no control, it is all pre-war evidence and must be judged by pre-war standards.”
FLETCHER, CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE. Historical portraits, 1700–1850; with an introd. by C. F. Bell. il 2v ea *$5.65 Oxford 757
“The Clarendon press has published, after a long interval, the third volume of Messrs Fletcher and Walker’s collection of historical portraits. It contains a hundred and fourteen portraits, selected by Mr Walker, of men and women of eighteenth-century Britain, with short and racy memoirs by Mr Fletcher. The portrait gallery includes the famous admirals; generals like Wolfe, Cumberland, Wade, and Ligonier; Wesley, Berkeley, and other great divines; men of letters, lawyers, men of science like Newton and Halley, Dodsley the publisher, Arkwright, Wedgwood, and Brindley, the maker of canals, whose talents would have rusted in obscurity had he not been employed by the Duke of Bridgewater.” (Spec) The previous volumes appeared in 1909 and 1912.
“It is fair to say that the collaborators of this volume are to be congratulated in general on their selection. Yet the principle on which they worked remains a mystery. One needs only to consider the biographies which have accompanied the portraits of other such collections to perceive that Mr Fletcher is as much a genius in his way as Mr Walker is in his; and that between them they have produced an extraordinarily entertaining and instructive book.” W. C. Abbott
“Mr Fletcher’s potted ‘lives’ are excellent: they are a pattern of what such brief biographies should be. Scholarly, of course, informative and readable, they are completely at ease in their handling of men in every walk of life. The book has its limitations.” M. H. Spielmann
“The value of this publication is so great for educational purposes that one hesitates before offering any criticism. Mr Fletcher’s biographical notices are in their turn models of conciseness and economy of space, and give just the information which should excite the student to a better acquaintance with each subject in turn. These notices, however, convey some idea that they have been written entirely apart from the portraits themselves.” Lionel Cust
“We have seen better photographic reproductions. But the volume is none the less of the greatest interest and value.”
“His biographies bring under fire virtually the whole of English history between 1700 and 1850, and few of them are not lit with new interest. We can imagine that in questions of aesthetic criticism his personal view will not be unchallenged.”
FLETCHER, JOSEPH SMITH. Dead men’s money (Eng title, Droonin’ watter). (Borzoi mystery stories) *$2 (2½c) Knopf
This story is told by Hugh Moneylaws, a young law student in Berwick-upon-Tweed. While going on an errand which kept him out very late one night, Hugh comes upon a dead man lying in the woods. In the investigation that follows, Hugh conceals one piece of information, a bit of caution he has reason to regret later. He does not mention publicly having seen Sir Gilbert Carstairs, 7th baronet of Hathercleugh House, at the scene of the murder. When the one person with whom he shares this knowledge meets a violent death, he begins to realize the seriousness of it, and when Sir Gilbert makes a dastardly but unsuccessful attempt to put Hugh himself out of the way, he is convinced of Sir Gilbert’s guilt, and his disappearance makes assurance doubly sure. The remainder of the story tells of the efforts to locate him, and the facts that come to the light about him in the search. On several occasions Hugh’s life hangs by a hair, but he eventually comes out of it with only a crippled knee, and nothing more to fear from “Sir Gilbert,” who has met his punishment at the hands of another enemy.
“Take one typewriterful of Stevenson, add several murders for luck and one mystery that isn’t mysterious, mix well with a sensational jacket and an afterthought of a plot and the answer is ‘Dead men’s money.’”
“The author’s grasp on the various threads of his story is always firm, and he brings them all together at the end, leaving them tied up in a neat bow, with no loose ends, with a skill that compels deep admiration of his craftsmanship.”
“Mr Fletcher is one of the most skilful writers of this type of fiction. The narrative abounds in thrills and tense situations and will be highly diverting to devotees of this school of fiction.”
FLETCHER, JOSEPH SMITH. Paradise mystery. (Borzoi mystery stories) *$1.90 (2c) Knopf
A stranger in the town of Wrychester is killed by a fall from the upper gallery of the cathedral. But this fact naturally is not so simple as stated, and leads to the question, was the fall suicide, accident or murder, and if murder, who was the murderer, and what was the motive. In the answering of these questions many people are involved: Dr Ransford, whom the dead man had been asking for; Dr Bryce, his assistant, who had been forcing unwelcome attentions upon Ransford’s ward, Mary Bewery; Collishaw, the laborer, who later met his death because he knew too much; Simpson Harker, an ex-detective; Stephen Folliot, whose step-son is also a suitor for Mary Bewery’s hand. These, and others, are all bound up in a network of mystery which is not unraveled until the surprising denouement of the story.
“A good English mystery story.”
“Besides the mystery there is a tender little love story and several interesting characters.”
“The excellent reputation earned by J. S. Fletcher as a teller of engaging mystery tales is preserved in his latest story, ‘The Paradise mystery.’”
FLETCHER, JOSEPH SMITH. Talleyrand maxim. il *$1.75 (2c) Knopf
Linford Pratt, a young lawyer, is inspired by Talleyrand’s maxim: “With time and patience the mulberry leaf is turned into satin.” He knew that wit and skill were his, and that time and patience, coupled with opportunity, would bring him the fortune he craved. He was not over nice about the opportunity. It came to him in the shape of a will whose existence no one suspected. It was to have been the first rung of the ladder by which he was to rise. Complications set in in the shape of an unknown witness of his theft, and wits as sharp as his. He must rid himself of the first by murder; he must extricate himself from the latter by blackmail, by fraud and intrigue and still another murder. But the net closes in about him till a bullet from his own weapon is his only means of escape. Side by side with this tale of horror goes a perfectly good romance between a good young man and a virtuous young woman.
“A very ingenious and well told mystery story.”
“In the invention and use of the complications, little and big, with which the author weaves and embroiders his plot, advances and delays its movement, and intrigues the reader’s attention, Mr Fletcher works with ingenuity, resource and skill. And he writes with a freshness of touch and an individual quality of style not always possessed by writers of detective fiction.”
“The story is written with the easy facility of a practised hand, and, if we once accept without demur certain conventional improbabilities, it shows plenty of movement.”
“Mr Fletcher shows much inventive skill, and is resourceful in advancing and delaying the movement of the plot, and in handling the maze of complications which arise. He employs a fresh touch that gives a new zest to the much over-worked detective-story type of light fiction.”
FLEURY, MAURICE, comte. Memoirs of the Empress Eugénie. 2v il *$7.50 Appleton 996
“The publishers have had the manuscript for the last ten years, but because of the personal revelations contained in the book, Eugénie requested that it be withheld from the public until her death. It is written by Comte Fleury, who was for more than twenty years an intimate member of the empress’s entourage.” (Springf’d Republican) The memoirs end with the peace negotiations of 1870 and do not touch on the empress’s later years. There is no index.
“The memoirs contain no surprises. There is nothing in them that will compel any very considerable re-writing of the history of the second empire. Probably the most distinctive feature is the portrait they draw of the empress. It is, I think, much too favorable, inaccurate because incomplete. But it is done with sincerity, modesty, and good taste. It is a revelation of the empress as she would like to be seen.” F. M. Anderson
“A misleading title, for there is proportionately little from the pen of the empress herself and her personality is often lost in the flood of details of diplomacy and court life, but the author has been able to add some fresh information to the history of the second empire.”
“He who hopes to find romance in the two volumes of the ‘Memoirs of the Empress Eugénie’ will be disappointed. What are we to say of a writer who omits both the drama of her rise and the pathos of her closing years, who robs the history of all its picturesque character and concentrates his attention upon her official routine? What are we to say of him? We are to say, of course, that he is an ‘official’ biographer and that, as such, is so anxious to present nothing which will detract from an impression of perfect propriety and dull royal respectability, that he has deprived her of all character.” J. W. Krutch
“The most valuable and important things are the reports of intimate conversations and sayings of the Emperor and Empress and others, which picture forth their characters and, without description or character analysis, place them in a different light than they have been placed by other memoir writers and historians.”
“Being a great admirer of Napoleon and Eugénie, Comte Fleury naturally gives a picture which is highly favorable to them. But he has also attempted to take into consideration the work which has been done by historical scholars on this period. The point at which the reader must be on his guard is in accepting without question Napoleon’s views as given in the conversations which the author quotes.” S. B. Fay
“Memoirs are often disappointments, either containing nothing worth saying, or running to the Margot Asquith type. These memoirs have something to say, and it was not, in the saying, found necessary to surround them with bits of scandal or incidents better left untold.”
“Comte Fleury had access to large quantities of letters and papers. They are thrown into the book pell-mell, with only the loosest arrangement; the source, and therefore the value, of many of them is left uncertain; it is not always easy to see in a particular place whose narrative is being read. None the less they make an interesting assortment, though nothing is brought to light in them to modify the judgment which reasonable people have for some time been accustomed to pass on the empire.”
FLEXNER, HORTENSE. Clouds and cobblestones. *$1.50 Houghton 811
As the title indicates this collection of poems includes in its subjects everything contained in life between the clouds and the cobblestones: wide sympathies and interests and knowledge of men and their ways. The author employs both rhyme and meter and free verse. Among the titles are: If God had known; Children’s ward; Hunger; Masks; Longing; A sky-scraper; To a grasshopper; All souls’ night, 1917; Mammon redeemed; The sons of Icarus; Folk-dance class; Munitions; To Peter Pan; Blown leaves; A child; The masseuse.
“There is not a single poem in this collection that is not purely creative by reason of its presentation of a fresh, vivid idea, emotionalized and expressed poetically.” W: S. Braithwaite
“Quite possibly there is nothing in these pages that will long endure, but the verses touch human values with sincerity and poetic feeling.” L. B.
“She writes with a great deal of technical proficiency; her verse is simple, direct, and readable. This is at the same time its greatest virtue and its greatest defect, for having been apprehended easily, the lines fade from the memory, leaving no trace.”
FLINT, LEON NELSON. Editorial: a study in effectiveness of writing. *$2.50 Appleton 070
The author holds that, for all the truth that there may be in the saying: “the good editor is born not made,” the editor who has not thought out and applied a technique of his craft is “going it blind.” The book deals with methods of finding, gathering and handling editorial materials and with notions as to editorial responsibilities and opportunities. Contents: Development of the editorial column; Weakness and strength of the editorial; The editor and his readers; Materials for editorials; Editorial purposes; Building the editorial; The manner of saying it; Paragraphs and paragraphers; Typographical appearance; The editorial page; Editorial responsibility; The editor’s routine and reading; Analyzing editorials. The numerous illustrations consist of copies of specimen editorial pages and there is an index.
FLYNN, JOHN STEPHEN.[2] Influence of Puritanism on the political and religious thought of the English. *$4 Dutton 285.9
“A broad survey of the results of the English Puritan movement in both hemispheres. The author has sought to distinguish the permanent from the merely transitory elements of Puritanism, and to relate it to the present age.”—R of Rs
“His reading, wide as it is, is in excess of his powers to use it profitably. He sets out with vague ideas on the varied content of Puritanism, with the natural result that he leaves us in a state of vagueness.”
“We are given an amiable piece of dilettantism, praiseworthy in object, careless in execution, and distinguished neither by clearness of intention nor by profundity of thought. We fail to see anything fresh in Mr Flynn’s book, and the ignorance which it would dispel is ignorance of the fundamental kind which a knowledge of English history would make impossible.”
FOCH, FERDINAND. Precepts and judgments. *$4 Holt 355
This book, translated from the French by Hilaire Belloc, contains a sketch of the military career of Marshal Foch by Major A. Grasset. The Precepts give the marshal’s military teachings in condensed form and the Judgments contain short opinions on the European wars of the last century.
“A volume of great interest to the student of war.”
Reviewed by J: P. Wisser
“The little book will, we think, make its readers anxious to read the originals from which it is compiled.”
FOCH, FERDINAND. Principles of war. *$7.50 Holt 355
These pages were written for young officers, says the author in his preface. “The reader must not look to find in them a complete, a methodical, still less an academic account of the art of war, but rather a mere discussion of certain fundamental points in the conduct of troops, and above all the direction which the mind must be given so that it may in every circumstance conceive a manœuvre at least rational.” (Preface) The translation is by Hilaire Belloc and the contents are: On the teaching of war; Primal characteristics of modern war; Economy of forces; Intellectual discipline—freedom of action as a function of obedience; The service of security; The advance guard; The advance guard at Nachod; Strategical surprise; Strategical security; The battle: decisive attack; Battle: an historical instance; Modern battle. There are twenty-three maps and diagrams.
“The entire work is convincing in its reasoning and its deductions, the language is clear (the translation is remarkably true to the original and expressed in excellent English), and the maps are adequate.” J: P. Wisser
FOERSTER, ROBERT FRANZ. Italian emigration of our times. (Harvard economic studies) *$2.50 Harvard univ. press 325
“A most thorough survey of the greatest migratory movement of our time. The causes of emigration are analyzed by a consideration of conditions in Italy, and the emigrants are followed into the countries of their settlement in Europe, Africa, South America and the United States, the last of which is treated in detail. Their fortunes, economic and cultural contributions in their new homes are weighed carefully.—Booklist
“It may be said that Dr Foerster’s work is the most authoritative as it is the most comprehensive volume dealing with the subject of Italian immigration yet published in the United States, and is indispensable to all who care to know intimately its characteristic features and main purport.” W. E. Davenport
“The study is in all ways a very acceptable one, and may well serve as a model for similar studies of other nationalistic groups.” A. E. Jenks
“Especially valuable are the four chapters (97 pages) dealing with the Italian immigrants in the Argentine and Brazil. But the especial importance of Professor Foerster’s work is the careful analysis of the causes of emigration, of the effect of this movement on the Italian nation, and of its probable future.” Edith Abbott
“Very readable.”
“The main text holds its interest for the general reader from beginning to end, while the footnotes and bibliographical citations will rejoice the heart of scholars who may wish to follow the argument to the very source.” J. E. Le Rossignol
“It is a scholarly and timely book. It is a prophetic book, for it tells us our faults, fully, faithfully and fearlessly, and points to a better way. It is a scientific book, for it promotes a better understanding and, consequently, a better feeling. It is a lonely book, for no one has ever before done for the Italian or any other foreign language group what this book does.” F. O. Beck
FOLKS, HOMER. Human costs of the war. il *$2.25 (2c) Harper 940.318
While in charge of the American Red cross relief work in France, the author was impressed with the infinitesimal fraction of reality which found its way into print in the American papers. Towards the end of the war he was requested to make a survey of the needs of southern and southeastern Europe and to ascertain the net results of the war on human welfare. The book records his findings. It is not a constructive program he says, “simply a contribution toward a diagnosis which might make it possible to outline a well-considered course of treatment.” “Chapter I tells the origin of the survey ... and gives an account of the itinerary of the trips. Chapters II to VII, inclusive, deal respectively with Serbia, Belgium, France, Italy, and Greece. Chapters VIII to X endeavor to sum up the war’s results in all these countries, in the three vital aspects of childhood, home, and health. Chapter XI tries to fit the whole into a picture of war vs. welfare.” (Preface) There are an appendix and numerous illustrations.
“Although mostly estimates, the data are perhaps as accurate as any we shall ever get. The survey is somewhat defective, however, because confined chiefly to the five lands named, and would have been more valuable had all the belligerent countries been included.” N. L. Sims
“It scarcely seems too much to say that this is the most human book that has been written on the effects of the war upon the populations of the countries that suffered most from the great conflict.”
“His volume is one of the highest import. No more terrible exhibit of the nature of war has been written, not even by Philip Gibbs, Barbusse, Latzko, or Duhamel. The sacrifice of human values is portrayed in a plain, straightforward style, without any effort at a dramatic effect or an emotional appeal not inherent in the facts themselves.” D: S. Jordan
“Mr Folks speaks in a calm, temperate, judicial tone, piling up his facts, statistics, descriptions with cool judgment and restrained temper.”
“Mr Folks knows how to humanize statistics and make them yield up their hidden story of misery or hope.”
“Dr Folks is well fitted for the task he has undertaken.”
“Like Gibbs’ ‘Now it can be told’ and Keynes’s ‘Economic consequences of the peace,’ this is a book to be owned and read—and like them it is readable. Mr Folks’ subject is as important as theirs, and his competence is unquestionable. This is not to say that it is the last word on the subject. Quite the contrary. One might wish, for instance, that there were more frequent indications that the Allies have not had all of the human costs to bear. Another obvious defect is the omission of maps.” E. T. D.
FOOTNER, HULBERT. Fur bringers. $1.90 McCann
“A tale of the Northwest. The trading posts, Indians, half-breeds, adventurers and beautiful heroines of the ordinary story are here anew in a plot in which the young trader afflicted with ‘June fever’ is obliged to take an open stand against the heroine’s father, known to all but the daughter as a slave-driver and profiteer.”—Booklist
“Very well written.”
“The story has plenty of incident, it moves quickly, and is told with a good deal of spirit.”
FORBES, GEORGE. Adventures in southern seas: a tale of the sixteenth century. il *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
A romance of the days of discovery based on the voyages of Dirk Hartog, Dutch navigator. The story is told by Peter Ecoores Van Bu who sailed on his first voyage with Hartog in 1616. They were bound for the South seas in search of treasure for the Amsterdam merchants who were sending them out. But the islands they reach are poor in treasure, if rich in adventure, and it is only after the lucky discovery of pearls that Hartog is willing to return. Several other voyages follow, on which the hero experiences ship wreck, capture by savages and numerous other adventures. At the end of his second voyage he marries his Dutch sweetheart and gives up the sea, but following her death he again listens to its call.
“The very spirit of high adventure—the manifold dangers and hardships of ancient seekers after treasure—blows through the pages of the book.”
FORBES, JAMES. Famous Mrs Fair, and other plays. *$2 Doran 812
The other two plays in this collection are: The chorus lady; and The show shop. Of these plays, Walter Prichard Eaton, in his introduction to the book, comparing their literary qualities, says, that “The chorus lady” can least endure the scrutiny print affords although enormously successful on the stage, while “The show shop” “stands up four square under the test of print” and is a most pungent and amusing satire of American stage life. “The famous Mrs Fair” is a more serious production with reasoned reflections on life and human motives. Its heroine, the wife of a wealthy business man, has become famous as a war worker in France. Coming home she is lionized, can no longer adjust herself to her domesticity and dreams of a career. Not until the family is nearly disrupted with tragic results does she, in the nick of time, wake up to her former responsibilities.
“What first strikes the attentive reader of Mr Forbes’s handsome volume is the poverty of observation. Two of the three plays deal with the little theatrical world in which he has been busy for twenty years. Yet he has not seen that world directly at all. The superficial bits of verisimilitude are pure veneer. Nature is hard to reach even for those who see her. To Mr Forbes her face, like that of the idol of Sais, is veiled.” Ludwig Lewisohn
FORBUSH, WILLIAM BYRON. Character-training of children. 2v il per ser of 7v *$15 Funk 173
These books by Dr Forbush, author of “Child study and child training” and “The boy problem in the home,” are issued in the Literary Digest parents’ league series. Volume one is devoted to: Problems of government, with the subject matter divided as follows: Problems to be solved by means of the child’s own responsiveness; Problems to be solved largely through suggestion; Problems to be solved largely by substitution; Problems to be solved largely through cooperation. Volume 2 continues the discussion along these lines and takes up Problems of self-government and Problems of living with others. The series as a whole comprises three other volumes by Dr Forbush and two by Dr Louis Fisher on the health-care of children which are reprints of earlier works.
“These volumes, written in the clearest language of technical terms, well illustrated and interestingly arranged, should be a helpful and invaluable guide for those who have children to bring up or children’s problems to consider.”
FORBUSH, WILLIAM BYRON. Home-education of children. (Literary Digest parents’ league ser.) 2v il per ser of 7v *$15 Funk 372
The first of these two volumes is devoted to the first six years of a child’s life and consists of two parts: Teaching a baby, and Teaching a little child. Volume 2 is devoted to: Teaching a school child (from six to twelve or fourteen); and The teaching of youth (from fourteen upward). Volume 1 has a list of story-and-picture books to use with the littlest children, also a list of books to help the mother in telling stories, and in volume 2 there is a chapter on Books in the home, with suggestions for reading.
FORBUSH, WILLIAM BYRON. Sex-education of children. (Literary Digest parents’ league ser.) il per ser of 7v *$15 Funk 612.6
“This book differs from others in the abundant literature that is being produced upon this topic, chiefly in the fact that it endeavors to present, with the least possible waste of space, all the material that parents of a growing family of children of both sexes need for their use at every stage of other children’s development. The unique feature, perhaps, is a section devoted to concrete answers to the embarrassing questions that children are likely to ask.” (Introd.) Contents: Why we have to do this; How to educate the little child; How to educate the schoolboy; How to educate the schoolgirl; How to educate the coming man; How to educate our coming women; List of books for further reading; Index.
FORD, HENRY JONES. Alexander Hamilton. (Figures from American history) *$2 Scribner
“This book is a biography which aims to present the life of Hamilton as completely as possible from the evidence obtainable. It gives most attention to his political ideals and career and it also describes his character and personal life.”—Booklist
“One lays down the book with a clear grasp of Hamilton’s important contributions to American nationality, and a fair idea of the manner of man he was. Uniform fairness, fascinating style and illumination of American political history are the outstanding characteristics of the book.” M. L. Bonham, jr.
“A straightforward, unbiased recital. The book is unwarmed by any glow of imagination, however.” L. B.
“The volume is noteworthy for the temperate and just manner in which it is written. The author did not approach his task in that spirit of undue enthusiasm which much study of his subject too frequently inspires in the writer of biography.”
Reviewed by J: C. Rose
FORD, LILLIAN CUMMINGS, and FORD, THOMAS FRANCIS. Foreign trade of the United States; its character, organization and methods; with an introd. by W. L. Saunders. *$2.50 Scribner 382
“The ground work of the discussion is laid in a chapter on the ‘Nature, purpose and growth of international trade.’ This is followed by treatment of the subjects of the development of American foreign commerce; our war trade; our exports and imports; our methods; our exportation and importation of war materials and foodstuffs; the transportation problems and methods; insurance; credit; foreign exchange; balance of trade; our government aid to foreign trade. A final chapter concerns the foreign trade of other nations.”—Boston Transcript
FORKEL, JOHANN NIKOLAUS. Johann Sebastian Bach; his life, art, and work. il *$4.50 Harcourt
Although Forkel was not the first to assemble the known facts of Bach’s career he was the first in appreciation of the preeminence of his genius. His monograph is not a “life” in the biographic sense but a “critical appreciation of Bach as player, teacher, and composer, based upon the organ and clavier works, with which alone Forkel was familiar.” (Introd.) The present volume is a revision of the first English version published in 1820 and is edited with copious annotations by Charles Sanford Terry. The appendices occupy nearly half of the volume and contain: Chronological catalogue of Bach’s compositions; The church cantatas arranged chronologically; The Bachgesellschaft editions of Bach’s works; Bibliography of Bach literature; A collation of the Novello and Peters editions of the organ works; Genealogy of the family of Bach; Index.
“Forkel’s text takes up only about a quarter of Dr Terry’s book; the rest is an extremely valuable collection of learned information. It is a pity that Dr Terry’s mental attitude appears to be—shall I say?—that of a creeper on a ruin. We badly need in English a book on Bach somewhat after the lines of the French monographs on composers.” E: J. Dent
“Dr Sanford Terry, whose services to church music are too well known to need commendation, has made a valuable addition to the Bach literature by his new translation of Forkel’s biography, hitherto only available in the imperfect version published in 1820. He has added an excellent supplementary chapter on Bach at Leipzig. The portraits and illustrations are well chosen and reproduced.”
FORMAN, HENRY JAMES. Fire of youth. il *$1.75 (1½c) Little
This is the story of the country boy who comes to the city, goes wrong, but eventually finds the right path again. Anthony West is the son of a Nebraska editor, a man whose humble country paper, the Beacon, is known from one end of the land to the other. Anthony goes to Harvard, and following the death, first of father, and then mother, enters New York Journalism. But quicker means of making money appeal to him and he goes into a broker’s office, falls into the toils of an adventuress, is disillusioned and tastes the dregs of life. Then the girl from home comes to New York and hope picks up again. The war breaks out and when his service in the army is finished he is ready to go back to Little Rapids to the position Jim Howard has kept waiting for him on the Beacon.
“The crudeness of the story lies in the fact that Anthony does not as the publishers assert, ‘win through to a fine manhood.’ He wins through to nothing at all. His whole moral life is negative. He repudiates the fire of youth and through satiety and disgust regains his will to obedience under the social law. But his mind and character are what they were.”
“The plot is firm and logical, even if not strikingly original, but the merit of the book is in the rapidity and variety of its action—the scenes in London being as well done as those in New York—and in the sharply drawn characterization.”
“In spite of occasional jarring crudities, the book is worth while. The author seems to understand his characters.” D. Carr
“The best character drawing is lavished on the minor roles.”
FORMAN, SAMUEL EAGLE.[2] American democracy. il $1.75 Century 353
“A text in government for high schools, academies and normal schools has been prepared by S. E. Forman. It is a text-book in general civics, covering the principles and theory of government, the machinery of government and its accomplishments. The author, who is well versed in civics and American history, has based this text on a former one, ‘Advanced civics,’ published in 1905, but has made this more comprehensive. New phases of democracy have been included, such as Americanization, and urban and rural problems. Questions on each chapter, and a short selective bibliography and an index make it more useful to the teacher.”—N Y P L Munic Ref Lib Notes
“We know of no work that presents the subject so clearly and comprehensively as does this book.” F. W. C.
FORRESTER, IZOLA LOUISE (MRS REUBEN ROBERT MERRIFIELD). Dangerous Inheritance; or, The mystery of the Tittani rubies. *$2 (3c) Houghton
Carlota has inherited from her Italian grandmother great beauty, a marvelous voice and a fortune in jewels. But her New York teacher, after giving her all the technique he can, admits that her voice lacks the emotional quality that moves and stirs the hearer. Her soul still slumbers. Ward, her wealthy patron, tries to awaken it, but only succeeds in arousing her animosity. Then she meets Griffeth Ames, and her teacher at once catches the new note of power in her voice. Griffeth persuades her to sing in a society presentation of his opera, and to grace the occasion she wears her grandmother’s rubies. Instantly the international spies who have been on the lookout for the jewels are “on the job.” They try to rob her, but the various agents doublecross one another, and Carlota’s inheritance is finally returned to her. But the jewels have lost all charm for her, and she gladly turns over their value to the starving children of the old world, feeling herself rich enough in Griffeth’s love.
“The story has a slow, graceful, feminine movement that carries one eagerly to ‘the end.’ More life might have been bestowed upon the characters by having kept them in action while off-scene.”
“There is an exuberance, a delight in the contrasts and the juxtapositions of life, a quick reaction to beauty wherever glimpsed that make the reading of this book a pleasant thing even though it is crude and obvious in many spots.”
FORSEY, MAUDE S. Jack and me. il *$1.50 (5c) Lippincott
A story for children about a little boy and girl who live in London and spend their summer holidays in Dorset. It tells in a simple way of home and school, of Christmas celebrations, of an older sister’s wedding, etc., and reads like a book of reminiscences of a real childhood.
FORSTER, EDWARD MORGAN. Where angels fear to tread. *$2 (3½c) Knopf
An English widow outrages her late husband’s family by falling in love with and marrying an Italian peasant. They cut her off entirely and assume the care of her young daughter. The marriage turns out as unfortunately as might be expected. Lilia dies in giving birth to a son and the English Herritons make up their minds to get possession of this child also. Philip, the romantic brother-in-law who had once idealized everything Italian, and Harriet, the harsh, Puritanical sister-in-law go to Italy for that purpose. Miss Abbott, the English girl who had had a hand in the marriage, is there also. Their efforts end tragically. Philip falls in love with Miss Abbott, but learns that she, like Lilia, had been captivated by the handsome and indolent Gino.
“An odd and delightful piece of work.”
“Gino is irresistible as the embodiment of the Italian character and tradition, just as Philip the defeated is irrefutable as a Britton.” H. W. Boynton
“If but one word were allowed to be said of this book and its people, it is ‘human.’”
“The author knows his provincial Italy and the Italian character as well. The reader’s attention will be held to the end of this charming book.”
“Here is the best of material for a comedy. And it is as comedy that Mr Forster presents his material up to a certain point. Some may think that he would have done better had he decided to preserve that vein to the end.”
FORT, CHARLES. Book of the damned. *$1.90 (1½c) Boni & Liveright 504
The author explains: “By the damned, I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that science has excluded.... I have gone into the outer darkness of scientific and philosophical transactions and proceedings, ultra-respectable, but covered with the dust of disregard. I have descended into journalism. I have come back with the quasi-souls of lost data.” He has brought together a curious assemblage of physical phenomena for which science has never found any explanation. That other planets are trying to communicate with us is one of the hypotheses suggested.
“To read of them is to be inspired with an interest which has no need of the book’s sensational title; nor is it increased by the author’s quasi-scientific speculations which he presents in a staccato style that soon produces the wearying effect of a series of explosions.”
“‘The book of the damned’ reminds one of Harnack’s characterization of the gnostic work ‘Pistis Sophia’ as ‘dedicated to the propaganda of systematic idiocy.’” Preserved Smith
Reviewed by Eugene Wood
“Whether he reaches any conclusion or what that conclusion is if he does reach it, is so obscured in the mass of words—a quagmire of pseudo-science and queer speculation—that the average reader will find himself either buried alive or insane before he reaches the end.”
FORTESCUE, SIR SEYMOUR JOHN. Looking back. il *$7.50 (*21s) Longmans
“It must fall to the lot of few naval men to have a career so varied in incident and so full of contrast as has been that of Sir Seymour Fortescue. During his twenty-one years of duty afloat, he not only served on the Mediterranean and China stations, and took part in the Egyptian war of 1882 and the Sudan campaign of 1885, but had his first experience of attendance on royalty in the Surprise and the Victoria and Albert. During the succeeding seventeen years, he was on the staff of King Edward VII, as equerry, and took his regular turn in waiting, but even then he managed to put in some sea time during the manœuvres of 1895 as commander of the Theseus, to spend six months as A.D.C. to Lord Roberts on the Headquarters staff in South Africa, and to pay a visit to the nitrate fields in Chile in 1907. Dovetailed between these diversified engagements, yacht sailing and horseracing, shooting and fishing, the opera and the theatre, with other forms of sport and pastime, made interludes, so that as a spectator of events from many viewpoints the present Serjeant-at-arms in the House of lords had exceptional opportunities, and it is not surprising that he should publish reminiscences so kaleidoscopic in colour and change.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Sir Seymour Fortescue writes so well that one wishes he could have steered a more venturesome course. A little more latitude, and a good deal less longitude, would have made a more entertaining volume.”
“A fine crop of picturesque stories told with great spirit, good humour and frankness.”
47 WORKSHOP. Plays of the 47 workshop; second ser. (Harvard plays) il *$1.25 Brentano’s 812.08
“Prof. Baker’s course in playwriting at Harvard has published two volumes of one-act plays written by students and performed at the university during the year. Of the four plays of this series, ‘Torches,’ by Kenneth Raisbeck, is a colorful tragedy of the Italian renaissance with a special musical prelude by R. T. Serp; ‘Cooks and cardinals,’ by Norman C. Lindau is a distinctly workable comedy for amateur production; ‘A flitch of bacon’ by Eleanor Holmes Hinkley is a farce comedy with an Elizabethan setting; and ‘The playroom,’ by Doris F. Halman is a modern fantasy wistful in its appeal and containing an echo of the late war.”—Springf’d Republican
“The book is one not to be overlooked by any organization searching for one-act plays which are simple enough to present under amateur conditions, and yet worth spending the time upon.” W. P. Eaton
“‘Forty-seven workshop plays,’ though containing nothing of great power, shows considerable technical skill in handling widely differing types of dramatic work.”
“All are neatly and expertly constructed, show a sense for legitimate stage effects, and, while perhaps not masterpieces, are of a literary quality decidedly above that of most contemporary one-act plays in English.”
FOSDICK, RAYMOND BLAINE. American police systems. (Publications of the Bureau of social hygiene) *$2 Century 352.2
This volume has been written at the instigation of the Bureau of social hygiene and is a companion to the author’s “European police systems.” It is based upon personal study of the police in practically every city of the United States, with a population exceeding 100,000, and the comparisons between European and American conditions occurring in the book are made from the latest information available. As a last word the author says: “We have, indeed, little to be proud of. It cannot be denied that our achievement in respect to policing is sordid and unworthy. Contrasted with other countries in this regard we stand ashamed. With all allowances for the peculiar conditions which make our task so difficult, we have made a poor job of it.” The book is indexed and contains insert charts of the organization of the police departments of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, St Louis and Washington. Contents: The American problem; The development of American police control; The present state of police control; Special problems of police control; The organization of the department; The commissioner or director; The chief of police; The rank and file; The detective force; The prevention of crime; Conclusion.
“Notwithstanding the surprise with which his closing statements will he received, no doubt their truth will be recognized and those of us who have so loudly acclaimed our entire system of government as the best in the world may possibly find it to their advantage to read a few statements, which although bitter, are doubtless true.”
“Mr Fosdick has done a great public service in the making of this volume. A book of primary importance to the student of government.”
“The whole book is a constructive criticism which will appeal to all citizens and city officials interested in the improvement of municipal government.”
Reviewed by Calvin Coolidge
“The author has done well to emphasize the almost insuperable difficulties confronting our police. The book should be read not only by police administrators but by the general public upon whose intelligent understanding of the problems set forth depends their solution.” E. D. Graper
FOSTER, JOHN. Searchers. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
Two halves of a secret join Italy and Scotland in a determined search for a casket of jewels lost three hundred and fifty years ago. The quest is made by the Searchers, an ancient organization, consisting at the time of the story of desperados, with one exception, Italian. The hiding place of the jewels is recorded in a document which for greater safety has been torn in two and one-half placed in the keeping of a Scottish family, the other with Roman Jesuits. In the story the two halves are gravitating towards each other throughout a series of thrilling and dangerous adventures, plots and counterplots till the grave of the priest, with whom the casket was buried, is discovered on a high and wild summit of the Scottish crags and the canny Scotchman carries off the day and the jewels as against the Italian plotters.
“Exciting and cleverly constructed.”
“The story stimulates a feverish interest throughout its course.”
FOSTER, MAXIMILIAN. Trap. *$2 (3c) Appleton
Henry Lester was very wealthy, in fact uncomfortably so, for when he fell in love, he couldn’t be sure that Sally Raeburn, the object of his affections, wouldn’t marry him for his money rather than for love of him. So he didn’t ask her to marry him at all, but instead laid a neat little trap for her. At his country estate on the Hudson he assembled a house party, and among those present were Mrs Dewitt, a former sweetheart of his, and Mr Hastings, a young man of reputed wealth, and of course Sallie. How the trap, when it was sprung, caught not only Sallie, but Henry himself, is told in the story.
“A very good story it is.”
“The heavily padded story moves slowly, and its improbabilities are not made to seem plausible by clever development.”
FOSTER, WILLIAM ZEBULON. Great steel strike and its lessons. il *$1.75 Huebsch 331.89
John A. Fitch in his introduction to the book speaks of the overwhelming power of the steel trust and says: “The story of the most extensive and most courageous fight yet made to break this power and to set free the half million men of the steel mills is told within the pages of this book by one who was himself a leader in the fight. It is a story that is worth the telling, for it has been told before only in fragmentary bits and without the authority that comes from the pen of one of the chief actors in the struggle.” Contents: The present situation; A generation of defeat; The giant labor awakes; Flank attacks; Breaking into Pittsburgh; Storm clouds gather; The storm breaks; Garyism rampant; Efforts at settlement; The course of the strike; National and racial elements; The commissariat—the strike cost; Past mistakes and future problems; In conclusion.
“This book, in spite of its lurid rhetoric, extreme statements, and partisan viewpoint, throws a good deal of light on labor conditions in the steel industry.” G: M. Janes
“Too frankly partisan to be history, and with too few facts to give it the weight of a scientific survey, this authentic picture of the labor machine in operation has the force of valuable evidence from the inside.”
“It is seldom that the public is afforded such a frank statement from official sources so soon after the event and in this case it is especially useful since most of the news furnished during the course of the strike came from the representatives of the employers.” G. P. W.
“His book is worth a dozen abstract discussions of the labor movement, for it is an example, one of the best examples that has ever arisen, of labor doing its own thinking, making its own detailed and disinterested analysis. For its clarity, cogency, and significance, it is better worth reading than nine-tenths of the volumes written about public affairs.” G: Soule
“Mr Foster’s book is an exceedingly valuable contribution to our scant body of authentic documents on the labor movement.” R. W. B.
“Mr Foster draws a vivid picture of events, all of which he saw and a large part of which he was. His judgment is cool and dispassionate; he sees the faults in the labor movement, but he imparts to his readers a tremendous admiration for the men who could conduct so long a campaign against such terrific obstacles.”
FOWLER, WILLIAM WARDE. Roman essays and interpretations. *$5.65 Oxford 937
“The contents fall into four parts: Roman religion; Roman history; parallels from the life of other races; and finally a group of literary studies devoted to Virgil and Horace, appreciations of Niebuhr and Mommsen, and a discussion of the tragic element in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar.’ About half the material is reprinted from articles which had appeared in periodicals, chiefly the Classical Review and the Journal of Roman Studies; these, however, bear everywhere the traces of careful revision and are to be taken as embodying Dr Warde Fowler’s reconsidered judgments of today.”—Class J
“In these pages we are conscious not only of having laid before us the fruits of the highest quality of scholarship but of enjoying the guidance and companionship of a rare personality.” A. W. Van Buren
“There are a number of interesting suggestions scattered through the shorter papers, not all, of course, equally convincing.” H. S. J.
“When Dr Warde Fowler speaks of Roman religion the rest of us have nothing to do but to listen and learn.”
“A volume without a dull page in it, and ranging over a very wide and varied field. It contains the gleanings of long studies, pursued into the ripeness of age with the ardency of youth.”
FOX, DAVID. Man who convicted himself. *$1.90 (2c) McBride
“The Shadowers, Inc.” is a unique detective society composed of six ex-criminals who have decided to use their exceptional talents in an honest way rather than decidedly otherwise as heretofore. There is a handwriting expert, a jewel and art connoisseur, a toxicologist, “the greatest safe-cracker of the age,” and a smooth villain who has dealt in various forms of fraud, from oil stock to psychical phenomena. At the head of this band is Rex Powell, whose brain conceived the scheme. Their aim is restitution, not prosecution, and they work privately and discreetly. Their first case is one of robbery in an exclusive Riverside Drive home, but as it progresses it provides scope for the activities of each one of The Shadowers. That they are successful in apprehending the robber almost goes without saying but their greatest success lies in the fact that they actually force the man to convict himself.
“‘The man who convicted himself,’ despite its novelty, strikes the reader as plausible.”
“The story has the appeal of the popular melodrama and ‘dime novel’ without descending to crude and amateurish methods of telling.”
FOX, DIXON RYAN. Decline of aristocracy in the politics of New York. (Columbia university studies in history, economics and public law) il *$4 Longmans 329
“Under this title, Dr Fox, assistant professor of history in Columbia university, has given us an account of the decline of federalism in the state of New York and its eventual transformation into the whiggism of the forties. His narrative is a continuous panorama of party activities and beliefs and of the careers and influence of party leaders during forty years of New York’s history. It runs from the days of John Jay, Elisha Williams, Stephen Van Rensselaer, and others of those who represented the property rights and aristocratic privileges of the eighteenth century, to Thurlow Weed, the anti-renters of 1837, and the Tippecanoe clubs, log cabins, and hard cider of the Harrison and Tyler campaign. Thus, as far as it goes, it illustrates the influence of industrial development and geographical expansion upon party standards and standard bearers during a very important period of American history.”—Nation
“The book is a noteworthy contribution to all the social sciences.” A. C. Ford
“Dr Fox employs usually a lucid and vivacious style which engages the attention. There are, however, a few lapses into discomforting awkwardness and ambiguity of expression. There are discernible in places, likewise, certain failures in nicety of historical discrimination. These minor deficiencies, however, detract little from the general high excellence of the work.” W: Trimble
“The work has great merits, principally those resulting from diligence in collecting materials and skill in arranging them.” H: J. Ford
“As an analysis of the conditions under which the centre of political gravity was shifted from the old party of lawyers, bank presidents, merchants, and land-holding aristocrats to the ‘people,’ vested by the revised constitution of 1821 with the right to vote, this essay is both suggestive and informing.”
“An interesting and illuminating history.”
FOX, EARLY LEE. American colonization society, 1817–1840. (Johns Hopkins university studies in historical and political science) $2.25 Johns Hopkins 326
“In this volume the author represents the colonization movement as essentially a moderate, conservative, border-state movement which had an appeal to men in every walk of life, from every political and religious creed, and from every section of the union. He divides the history of the American colonization society into two distinct divisions: the first, to which this volume is devoted, begins with the organization of the society in 1817 and extends to 1840; the second covers the period since 1840. This volume ends with the reorganization of the society in 1839, after which date the society, under the influence of the North and the East, was more aggressively anti-slavery in its programme and activities. In the first chapter, the author discusses at considerable length the status of the free negro and his relation to the slave and to the white population; in the second, the organization, purpose, and early history of the society; in the third, fourth, and last chapters, the relation of colonization to Garrisonian abolition, to emancipation and to the African slave-trade respectively.”—Am Hist R
“While the book contains much that is new and interesting the material is very poorly arranged and there is much repetition in the numerous quotations.” A. E. Martin
“While he does justice to the South, he does rather less than justice to the abolitionists. But he has made a very useful contribution to the history of the question of slavery, for one of the best ways of understanding its difficulties and complexities is to study it from the middle point of view of the ‘colonizationist.’” E. A. B.
FOX, JOHN, Jr. Erskine Dale, pioneer. il *$2 Scribner
“For the scene and period of his last romance, Mr Fox goes far back through nearly a hundred and fifty years. His hero, at the opening of the story a boy and at the close a young man, has been captured by the Indians, is brought up among them, and is as skilled in their ways of life and knowledge of woodcraft as if he had their blood in his veins. He is, however, the heir to a great Virginian estate, and the reader follows his exploits as he goes back and forth between the primitive scenes of the forests and the sophisticated life of the Virginian towns. At one moment he is with the pioneers resisting an attack from the Indians, at another in the very camps of the Indians themselves, and at a third gazing into the eyes of his beautiful cousin in the midst of the social entertainment of his prosperous relatives. More than once he faces death, but he emerges unscathed both from the attempts of the Indians to take his life and from the enmity of a jealous rival in love.”—Boston Transcript
“In ‘Erskine Dale—pioneer,’ Mr Fox has portrayed with exceptional skill the spirit of those days when the national spirit of the British colonists was beginning to make itself felt. It is not merely the story of one boy’s adventures. It is a tale of the birth of the American power and influence as expressed in more than one picturesque region.” E. F. E.
“It is a good book to give to the American boy, for it abounds in stirring adventures, and at the same time gives a good insight into the everyday life of the pioneers.”
“The dialog is full of ‘go’ and the book will appeal immensely to intermediates.”
“The book has plenty of color and of movement, and gives an interesting picture of the period with which it deals.”
“Perhaps the very best of his many romances. The flow of the story is clear and strong; it has atmosphere, movement, and distinction.”
“It is full of color and charm and thrill.” Joseph Mosher
“Mr Fox vividly recreates the atmosphere and social environment of the time.”
FOXWELL, HERBERT SOMERTON. Papers on current finance. *$3.50 Macmillan 336.42
“This volume brings together with little alteration seven articles and addresses spread over the period 1909–1917, but relating either to problems raised directly by the war or to questions to which the war has brought a new and urgent interest. An appendix reproduces a paper of 1888, ‘The growth of monopoly, and its bearing on the functions of the state’; also a letter dated February, 1918 advocating ‘fixed exchange within the empire.’ The first paper, ‘British war finance,’ deals critically with the crisis of 1914 and the financial emergency measures that it evoked. The next two papers are concerned with the problem of financing trade and industry, particularly after the war. ‘The financing of industry and trade’ (4) stresses the desirability of a closer touch between the financial, as distinguished from the banking institutions and British industries. ‘The banking reserve’ (5) deals with the inadequacy of the English position and proposes the establishment of a system of triple reserve. The burden of ‘Inflation: in what sense it exists: how far it can be controlled’ (7) an address delivered in 1917, is that the foreign exchanges do not prove currency depreciation, that gold depreciation was scarcely more marked in England than in the United States, that high prices resulted from the enormous expenditure of the government and could be checked only by cutting away from the gold standard.”—Am Econ R
Reviewed by C. A. Phillips
“It is the papers on finance and banking which show Professor Foxwell at his best, and make his volumes a valuable handbook for students.”
“Professor Foxwell’s book suffers from the defect inherent in its form, which is that of lectures delivered at different times during the past ten years, of not co-ordinating the treatment of these problems. The contents are valuable and the author’s grasp of his subjects complete enough to make us regret that he did not recast the lectures into book form and develop his logical sequence.”
FRANCE, ANATOLE, pseud. (JACQUES-ANATOLE THIBAULT).[2] Bride of Corinth, and other poems and plays; a translation by Wilfrid Jackson and Emilie Jackson. *$2.50 Lane 842
A volume of poems and plays. Contents: The bride of Corinth; Verses; Crainquebille; The comedy of a man who married a dumb wife; Come what may.
FRANCE, ANATOLE, pseud. (JACQUES-ANATOLE THIBAULT).[2] Little Pierre; tr. by J. Lewis May. *$2.50 (3½c) Lane
“Little Pierre” is the story of a boy from his birth to his tenth year. It is told in the first person and the actual memories of childhood begin with his second year. He is the son of a Paris physician and is born “in the days when the reign of King Louis Philippe was drawing to a close.”
‘Mr May and his colleague have done well, uncommonly well with their work, have indeed lost very little in the transition from French to English, and kept all the charm of ‘Little Pierre.’” G. M. H.
FRANCE, ANATOLE, pseud. (JACQUES-ANATOLE THIBAULT).[2] Seven wives of Bluebeard, and other marvellous tales; a tr. by D. B. Stewart. *$2.50 (5c) Lane
Four fairy tales, not written for children. In the first Bluebeard is pictured as a shy, modest man, the victim of the extravagance and unfaithfulness of his seven successive wives. The other stories are: The miracle of the great St Nicholas, a satiric treatment of an old legend; The story of the Duchess of Cicogne and of Monsieur de Boulingrin, a version of The sleeping Beauty; and The shirt, the story of the king who was told to find the shirt of a happy man.
“This pleasant and apparently accurate rendering gives us one of the most delightful works of an author who loses relatively little through the process of translation, partly because of the Doric simplicity of his style and partly because of the importance which he attaches to the plot and the intellectual gist.”
FRANCK, HARRY ALVERSON. Roaming through the West Indies. il *$5 (2c) Century 917.29
The author says: “The following pages do not pretend to ‘cover’ the West Indies. They are made up of the random pickings of an eight-months’ tour of the Antilles, during which every island of importance was visited, but they are put together rather for the entertainment of the armchair traveler than for the information of the traveler in the flesh.” He also states that he wishes it distinctly understood that this is not the record of a walking trip. As a protest to those friends who ever since his vagabond journey around the world have expected him to travel always on foot he planned a trip on which walking would be difficult if not impossible. The book is in three parts: The American West Indies; The British West Indies; and The French West Indies and others. There are many illustrations and a map.
“Altogether this latest volume is another witness to its author’s talent for description, his sense for the dramatic, and his eye for the picturesque, which combine to make his accumulating works a boon to the travel-thirsty reader.” L. M. R.
“If the average American wants to know just what he would see and how he would feel in the West Indies, let him read Mr Franck’s book. On occasion Mr Franck reminds one of Herodotus, in the marked distinction between the credibility of what he reports as of his own experiences and the dubious quality of what he has got through hearsay.” A. J.
“What all other writers aim at, Mr Franck accomplishes with consummate ease. The easy flowing style of ‘Zone policeman 88’ and ‘Vagabonding down the Andes’ is here manifested in its highest perfection.” W: McFee
“His pages are thickly sprinkled with character sketches of bizarre personalities, rarely poetic descriptive passages, and narratives as tense as their back-grounds are colorful. As in Mr Franck’s earlier books, the distinguishing characteristic of his writing is his ability to make his readers ‘see the sights’ through his eyes, which are so alert to catch any happening of human interest.”
“‘Roaming through the West Indies’ is easily the best ‘regular’ travel book on the islands south and east of Florida we have seen.” R. S. Lynd
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
FRANCK, HARRY ALVERSON. Vagabonding through changing Germany. il *$4 (4c) Harper 914.3
The author went into Germany with the American army of occupation, and later, released from duty, he traveled throughout the country. He followed his usual custom of mixing with the people, talking with them and living their life as far as possible and his book sets down in detail his observations. Among the chapters are: On to the Rhine; Germany under the American heel; Thou shalt not ... fraternize; Knocking about the occupied area; Getting neutralized; The heart of the hungry empire; “Give us food!” Family life in Mechlenburg; On the road in Bavaria; Music still has charms. There are many illustrations from the author’s photographs.
“The ‘vagabond’ tells his experiences in a rapid, brilliant manner, as if he were never for a moment tired, and had no difficulty at all in telling his story. The pictures tell the story of the Germany of today fully as well as does the author in his brilliant chat: and both together form a book well worth reading.”
“A thoroughly entertaining and at times instructive volume. The reader is grateful for the care with which Mr Franck has handled his facts. At no point does he attempt to be picturesque, sentimental or theatrically effective.” L. M. R.
“Franck’s book is eminently readable, his possession of comparisons from other visits to Germany, his keen knowledge of German and his great fund of information upon all the countries of the world going to make it unique in character and filled with worthwhile incident. It lacks sympathy even with the wretched populace of the fatherland.” F: O’Brien
“He gives no statistics, but the evident desire to avoid exaggeration and the studied fairness with which he reproduces opinions compel confidence in the accuracy of his report on economic and political conditions.” C: Seymour
FRANCK, TENNEY.[2] Economic history of Rome to the end of the republic. $2.50 Johns Hopkins 937
“In contrast to the practices of certain contemporary historians who have analyzed Roman economic conditions, Professor Frank has wisely laid down the principal that ‘a priori methods of interpreting historical development by means of generally accepted economic and psychological maxims must be applied to Roman history only with great reserve.’ He therefore follows closely the evidence furnished by the inscriptions, by archaeology, and by literature. Under Etruscan domination industry and commerce developed in Latium to some extent. The treaties with Carthage and the history of Roman coinage show that trade declined after the explusion of the Etruscans, and that the Romans turned again to their farms. The deforestation of the Volscian mountains and the gradual exhaustion of the soil made it impossible for the dense population of Latium to win a livelihood from their own land, and the pressure was relieved by territorial expansion. If relief had not come in this way manufacturing, commerce and the arts might have gained a better foot in Rome. The two chapters on industry constitute one of the most valuable contributions which the author has made to our knowledge of Roman economic conditions.”—Am Hist R
“Among the best features of Professor Frank’s[sp?] book, which is characterized throughout by knowledge, precision of statement, and acuteness of observation, as well as by vigor of style and vitality of thought, is the skill with which he has utilized the archaeological sources of information.” W. S. Ferguson
“As a study of the economic development of the city of Rome, the governing centre of the civilized world, it stands alone in its completeness, in the thorough use which the author has made of available evidence, in the sound judgment which he has shown, and in the clear, convincing way in which he has set forth his conclusions.” F. F. Abbott
FRANK, WALDO DAVID. Dark mother. *$2.50 Boni & Liveright
“Mr Frank’s is one of those long novels of the type which Theodore Dreiser has popularized, with a minute description of the adventures of one or two young men, coming to New York from the West, giving especial emphasis to their amatory experiences, and reflecting sarcastically upon the evils of capitalism. In this book it is the Spanish war which enters incidentally into the story.”—Review
Reviewed by Paul Rosenfeld
“He has chosen a highly impressionistic method of conveying his perceptions and observations. There are few or no connectives. Sentences and paragraphs stand alone and unfriended. Individually they are pitched in an extremely high key. The result is both nerve-racking and, in the end, without true effectiveness.”
− + |Nation 111:480 O 27 ’20 320w
“The quality of this novel seems courageous in a small way but chiefly wilful; sincere but not important. He seems to have intensity without much perception. But one thing Mr Frank does do: he brings home to us anew in this book the very valuable reminder that there are vast areas of life that our literature has not yet known how to include. In that sense this novel in places may be called a creditable experiment in material.” Stark Young
“‘The dark mother’ is a lost cause, so far as the medium goes. For it is transitional, it is neither the novel, nor something distinct from the novel. Judged as a novel, it does not satisfy; and there is nothing else to judge it by. In any case, Waldo Frank is en route for something or other.” Kenneth Burke
“Of all kinds of sophistry the most insidious is that coming from an eloquent writer who is the unconscious victim of unsound thinking. Mr Frank is perhaps unduly preoccupied with the world and the flesh, but it would take a psycho-analyst to gauge his intention in dwelling upon them. To give the author his due, it must be said that he impresses the reader rather as a man groping for ethical convictions. Mr Frank’s powers of characterization deserve high praise.”
“Short sentences, in the manner of the late Horace Traubel, make ‘The dark mother’ rather jerky and monotonous. How is it that so many young writers do not understand that just at present books about sex have become a little tiresome?” E. L. Pearson
FRANK, WALDO DAVID. Our America. *$2 (3c) Boni & Liveright 917.3
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“To say that it is without interest would be to say what is not true; to say that it is thoughtlessly written would be a hasty comment on an author whose work everywhere evidences the pale cast of thought. It is, indeed, an interesting, thoughtful book, written in an easy, somewhat emotional style. But it is nothing if not pessimistic in its historical backward glancing and in its view of the present. And it is often lacking in a sense of perspective and proportion.”
“Mr Frank does not write with the sustained and rolling cadence of Hebrew poetry. His sentences are swift and staccato like the flash of a whip, sudden and shrill like newspaper headlines. And yet Mr Frank is of the school of the prophets of his race. Other witnesses have arisen against us, W. T. Stead, M. Paul Bourget, Mr H. G. Wells, Mr Arnold Bennett. These, however, have spoken in their separation from us, and, excepting the first, with the tolerant cynicism of detachment. What gives force to Mr Frank’s prophecy is that he is of us, as Jeremiah was of Jerusalem.” R. M. Lovett
“We should like to be appreciative toward a great deal in this book if its author were less rasping, less intent upon antagonizing and irritating at every turn. His tribute to the wistful beauty of the perished culture of our red men and his analysis of the industrial and spiritual genius of the Jew in America would evoke a readier response if the motivation were more disinterested.” Jacob Zeitlin
Reviewed by W. J. Ghent
“A striking interpretation of the American spirit.”
“Hostile and shallow critics will be tempted to run the gamut of the alphabet in search of verbal missiles to hurl at the author from anarchist and bolshevist down to zealot. Mr Frank is none of these, the more careful reader will decide, but merely an insurgent in letters, feeling the pulsing of a new age that sooner or later will be able to declare itself and dominate public opinion as Puritanism has dictated in the past.”
“While most people will take exception to some of Mr Frank’s statements, his reversal of the usual points of view cannot fail to stimulate thought.”
“The book has a genuinely interesting chapter on the Jew and much that is just and sympathetic in regard to the ‘buried culture’ of the Indian. But the unburied issues that cluster about the negro it notably fails to mention. And with the exception of an elaborate eulogy of Miss Amy Lowell, there is no intimation that the American population is not exclusively masculine.”
FRANKAU, GILBERT. Peter Jameson. *$2 (1½c) Knopf
A story of the war—of the “great cleansing.” Peter Jameson at the outset of the story is a business man, of somewhat the American type. He is married to an admirable wife, father of two little daughters, and in every way successful and satisfied. At its beginning he is not greatly stirred by the war, but the end of three months finds him in it. The story thereafter follows his fortunes and scenes at the front alternate with homecomings to Patricia. He is twice wounded and is finally invalided home with shell shock, from which he is saved by Patricia’s care. A real love awakens between husband and wife and the story comes to a triumphant end on Armistice day, 1918.
“We find ourselves wishing that he had kept his talent in a napkin rather than put it to such uses.”
“The scenes of English country life in the last part are a pleasant offset to the earlier war pictures.”
“‘Peter Jameson’ is in keeping with the newest invention in novel-writing the thesis that four years of slaughter in France purifies all Englishmen.”
“Personally we were more interested in the tobacco business than in the shell shock, which is the real cause of the book, but that may have been because we knew less about it beforehand. Anyway Peter is very well worth knowing, as are a number of the lesser lights.”
“The vivid battle descriptions that are the best part of the book cannot atone for its essential narrowness and shallowness, for its manifold defects of thought and style, for its systematic glorification of hates and follies and prejudices that were scarcely excusable even in the heat of the conflict. ‘Peter Jameson’ is the product of a mind still inflamed by the fever of war.” W. H. C.
“‘Peter Jameson’ is a fine story. Though Mr Frankau’s style is unpleasantly spasmodic and though so many characters confuse the reader’s mind the book reads easily, and one feels that a certain phase of English life has been definitely interpreted.”
“There are splendid descriptions of fighting, descriptions that reveal the hand of a writer who knows well what he is writing about. Mr Frankau had a high goal in view when he conceived ‘Peter Jameson.’ It was no ordinary war book that he set out to write. The result has justified his courage. ‘Peter Jameson’ is not unworthy of the high purpose which its author set himself.”
“A fine story, with its wealth of well-drawn persons,—a record of England in war-time to be classed with ‘Mr Britling’ and ‘The tree of heaven,’ and more hopeful than these.” Katharine Perry
“The book is clever, veracious in spots; oh, so anxious to get at the truth about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and quite without creative vitality as a whole.” H. W. Boynton
“We admire the way in which the author has ripped up a pre-war story and transformed it into a lively criticism of our military authorities, and added a vivid impression of the Battle of Loos.”
“Romance, in the conventional sense, is not Mr Frankau’s strong point, and the real strength of the book is in the chapters on the war and its ‘realities’—a very useful antidote to the work of Sir Philip Gibbs. We confess to finding the earlier chapters wearisome, and even repellent.”
“The book has the essential quality that the author enjoys his own story and believes it to be true. ‘Peter Jameson’ is not a great novel, but it is certainly a good one.”
FRANKEL, LEE KAUFER, and FLEISHER, ALEXANDER. Human factor in industry; with the cooperation of Laura S. Seymour. *$3 Macmillan 658.7
The object of the book is to show the relation of service measures in industry to increased production and aims to give in a single volume the material available in part in other books, pamphlets and monographs. It deals with the problems of labor administration which have to do with “obtaining and holding the employes,—technical training, education, and promotion,—methods of remuneration, and of providing savings and loan facilities with insurance against accident, sickness, old age, and death,—the length of the working hours,—the work environment,—medical supervision,—opportunities for recreation and self-development on the factory premises,—and housing and living conditions.” (Introd.) Contents: Hiring and holding; Education; Working hours; Working conditions; Medical care; Method of remuneration; Refreshment and recreation; The employer and the community; Insurance, savings, and loans; Organization of the department of labor administration; List of references; Index.
“An up-to-date summary of current practice.”
“Although there is little in this book to interest the more sophisticated students of labor administration, it is a valuable survey for the general reader and for those industrial managers who have not had time to keep abreast of the developments to date.” R. W. Stone
“It is only in recent days that employers have realized how greatly production depends upon the spirit of the laborer. For this reason this book with its careful, authoritative studies of varied aspects of the service work should be most welcome.”
“To the already acquainted with the material and able to supply for himself the connecting links, it gives many leads. To the uninitiated it gives a solid back-ground for further study.” M. J. Janovsky
Reviewed by G: Soule
“A scientific and well-considered treatment of vital problems in the relations of employer and employee.”
“It is a kind of industrial Baedeker, practical and informing. The spirit is judicial, and difficulties as well as successes are impartially suggested with enough information to make further inquiry possible.” Mary Van Kleeck
FRASER, CHELSEA CURTIS. Boys’ book of sea fights; famous naval engagements from Drake to Beatty. il *$1.75 Crowell 359.09
A companion volume to “Boys’ book of battles” by the same author. Contents: Sir Francis Drake; Marshal Anne-Hilarion de Tourville; Commodore John Paul Jones; Lord Horatio Nelson; The burning of the “Philadelphia”; Perry’s victory on Lake Erie; The “Constitution” and the “Guerriere”; The ship that strangely disappeared; The “Monitor” and the “Merrimac”; Admiral David Farragut; Dewey at Manila bay; The battle of Santiago harbor; The running fight off the Falklands; The battle off Jutland bank. There are portraits, maps and other illustrations.
“An excellent collection.”
“It is a book of real value, that should be included in every boy’s library.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
FRASER, CHELSEA CURTIS. Young citizen’s own book, il *$1.75 (2½c) Crowell 353
“‘The young citizen’s own book’ is offered to boys and girls as a friendly guide. It is a little text-book on national, state, city, and county affairs in which we have tried to tell as directly as possible both the how and the why of things.” (Preface) The book opens with a chapter describing a visit to the national capital. This is followed by discussions of: The government of the United States; Territories and dependencies of the United States; The rights of citizenship; Young citizens; Political parties and their platforms; Political party organization; The business of voting; The real meaning of schools. Other chapters are devoted to the various departments of government, state and national, to taxation, commerce, and international relations. A series of charts illustrating phases of government comes at the close.
“Differs from other books on this subject in that it is not a textbook, but is meant to be read for pleasure as well as information. Has some helpful charts on elective systems.”
“Gives a descriptive account of the workings of our government in a style which will be of interest to elementary school children. The material follows the traditional type of civics treatment and will be of value only as a supplementary reader.”
“It is a good book for young people who are sometime going to vote.”
FRAZER, SIR JAMES GEORGE. Sir Roger de Coverley, and other literary pieces. *$3.40 Macmillan 824 (Eng ed 20–7456)
A volume of essays by the author of “The golden bough.” “There are five papers on Sir Roger; an essay on ‘The quest of the gorgon’s head’; three biographical articles (Cowper—W. Robertson Smith—Fison and Howitt); and several shorter essays on other byways of letters.” (Springf’d Republican)
Reviewed by G: Saintsbury
“‘Sir Roger de Coverley and other literary pieces’ possesses that mellowness that bespeaks the true literary artist. It is such a book as only a great master of English letters could write.” H. S. Gorman
“There is nothing in the volume which is unworthy of the author, and the de Coverley papers alone will cause it to be cherished dearly by many of its readers.”
“His dream fantasies of Sir Roger de Coverley are light and charming. But though the reader cannot help being pleased at the ability which a man so learned shows in the rôle of a general writer, he will realize when he finds him touching but ever so lightly on his own subject, as in some passages on William Robertson Smith, that the other was after all only journalism of moderate merit and that what he admired in it was extrinsic.”
FREDERICK, JUSTUS GEORGE. Business research and statistics. *$2.50 Appleton 658
“This book is intended for all those who shape policies, make markets, direct affairs or study investments in business, and also for those analytical executives, statisticians and researchers who assist such men to arrive at correct solutions to their problems. It is further intended to give a more practical and creative outlook to those who aim to make a profession of business research and statistics.” (Introd.) The contents in part are: Types and kind of data; The law of averages as a guide to business; Per capita consumption study; The possible market analysis and saturation point; Prognostications and tendency curves; The technique of field investigations; The dollar and the budget idea in business finance research; Inquiries into management problems; Graphic charts and maps and their part in research; International trade statistics and researches; Imagination and vision in relation to research; Index.
Reviewed by R. J. Walsh
“An interesting and lucid general presentation of the subject.”
FREDERICK, JUSTUS GEORGE.[2] Great game of business; its rules, its fascinations, its services and rewards. *$1.50 Appleton 658
The author makes no apologies for calling business “a game.” Properly played it is “perhaps the greatest game left to man to play, because it engages more faculties, renders greater constructive, practical service to the world and offers more discipline and stimulation and variety to the individual than almost any other interest which could be followed. Indeed, it is the game that most of us must follow!” (Preface) But—it must be played well—with more sportsmanship—with more harmony and esprit de corps. A partial list of the contents is: Warming up for the great game; Amateur or professional; The standard personal code; Technique—the science of the game; Organization and teamwork; The humbling of money to its true place in the great game; The new business ethical code; “Fair play” and unfair competition.
Reviewed by R. J. Walsh
FREEMAN, LEWIS R. In the tracks of the trades. il *$5 (4½c) Dodd 919
“The account of a fourteen thousand mile yachting cruise to the Hawaiis, Marquesas, Societies, Samoas and Fijis,” (sub-title) on the pleasure yacht Lurline. The account includes descriptions of the islands visited and of the natives and their mode of life with illustrations from photographs by the author. The contents in part are: San Pedro to Hilo and Honolulu; Honolulu to Taio-Haie; The Marquesas today; The passion play at Uahuka; Society in the Societies; The song and dance in Tahiti; By the absinthe route; Samoan cricket: Fauga-Sa v. Pago Pago; A visit to Apia; In Suva and Mbau; Honolulu to San Pedro.
“A very charmingly written story of a most delightful voyage.” E. J. C.
“He has made a very readable book about his adventures; his photographs deserve better printing.”
“Attractively told, with here and there many striking passages of description.”
FRENCH, JOSEPH LEWIS, ed. Best psychic stories; introd. by Dorothy Scarborough. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright
“These tales belong to a class that does not quite include the out-and-out ghost story, but does reach out to the supernatural in the indefinable fashion that we nowadays call psychic without bothering to define what psychic means. This is a perfectly fitting field for fiction of the non-realistic kind, for it does not demand belief but imagination. Algernon Blackwood and ‘Fiona McLeod’ were adepts at this form of story, and are here well represented, together with Jack London, W. T. Stead and others.”—Outlook
“Mr French has selected his material with a fine judgment and a discriminating taste, and Dorothy Scarborough has contributed an introduction which adds much to the reader’s enjoyment of the volume.”
FRENCH, THOMAS EWING, and SVENSEN, CARL LARS. Mechanical drawing for high schools. il *$1.25 McGraw 744
“A two years’ high school course unusually rich in drawings (of which there are 244). Authors are teachers in the department of engineering, Ohio state university. ‘The first seven chapters comprise a complete textbook which may be used with any problems. The paragraphs are numbered for easy reference. The eighth chapter is a complete problem book, in which the number of problems in each division is such that a selection may be made for students of varying ability, and that a variation from year to year may be had. The problems have references to articles in the text, and the order may be varied to suit the particular needs of a school. Definite specifications and layouts are given for most of the problems, thus making it possible for the instructor to use his time efficiently in teaching rather than in the drudgery of detail, while the time ordinarily wasted by the pupil in getting started can be used in actual drawing.’ (Preface)”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
“An excellent textbook.”
FREUD, SIGMUND. General introduction to psychoanalysis; authorized translation by G. Stanley Hall. il *$4.50 (3c) Boni & Liveright 130
This volume consists of a translation of twenty-eight lectures given to laymen. They are conversational in tone and follow the inductive method, the author building up his evidence from case after case. He deals little in general statements and in the course of one of the early lectures speaks as follows: “I have not invited you here to delude you or to conceal anything from you. I did, indeed, announce a ‘general introduction to psychoanalysis,’ but I did not intend the title to convey that I was an oracle, who would show you a finished product with all the difficulties carefully concealed.... No, precisely because you are beginners, I wanted to show you our science as it is, with all its hills and pitfalls, demands and considerations.” There are four lectures on the psychology of errors, eleven on the dream, and thirteen on general theory of the neuroses. G. Stanley Hall writes an introduction for the American edition.
“A more satisfying survey for the serious lay reader than the author’s earlier books on special topics.”
“It makes ponderous reading, and suffers from a lack of tolerance toward the author’s pupils who have departed from or enlarged upon the innovator’s technique. At the same time, it is a well-developed, exhaustive, and informative treatise upon the various vistas of the subject.”
“Without stopping to inquire into the reasons for the attitude of the reactionaries, Freud has taken up their objections one by one and met them fairly. Following the rule of Darwin, he has not attempted to brush them aside with a few blustering remarks; he has keenly analyzed the obstacles they have presented. The present work offers, in an extremely attractive form, the material for a fundamental conception of psychoanalysis.” Gregory Stragnell
“Undoubtedly it is the finest exposition of the subject yet written. Those who have looked upon psychoanalysis as a plaything, as a philosophy for the parlor radical, or as a means of imparting thrills and color to studio life, will find this book greatly disappointing and little to their taste.” H. W. Frink
“You can go through a first course with the simpler books of Andre Tridon or Barbara Low; then turn to an exhaustive treatise like this one, with an initial understanding that will be of great help in understanding the immensity of this new arm of science.” Clement Wood
“Freud believes that his subject merits the utmost care of presentation and the courteous condescension of the discoverer offering something new and all-important. One has only to follow these pages carefully, as questioningly as one will, to feel that the condescension is one of a genuine humility and yet the firm assurance of a man who has sincerely and conscientiously won his convictions by unremitting toil in the face of calumnious opposition.” S. E. Jelliffe
“Prof. Freud’s theories represent a degree of fantasy to which science cannot follow him. It might be said that, although he has been the principal explorer of psychoanalysis, he is its least promising exponent.”
FREUNDLICH, ERWIN.[2] Foundations of Einstein’s theory of gravitation; authorized English tr. by H. L. Brose. *$1.50 Putnam 530.1
“Dr Einstein, who writes the preface, states that the author ‘has succeeded in rendering the fundamental ideas of the theory accessible to all who are to some extent conversant with the methods of reasoning of the exact sciences.’ Formulae and equations are by no means lacking and the vocabulary is hardly suited to the capacity of the general reader—to whom the simply written introduction by Dr Turner should prove more acceptable.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
Reviewed by E. Cunningham
FREY, ABRAHAM B. American business law. *$5 Macmillan 347.7
“The object of this book is to set forth clearly and concisely those fundamental principles upon which is built the superstructure of business law. In order to make clear such principles ... concrete illustrations have been used, some of which are synopses of, and excerpts from, the leading cases decided in Great Britain and the United States.” (Preface) At the end of each chapter are a number of carefully prepared questions referring to the subject matter of the text and a number of legal forms are given in connection with various subjects which, on occasion, can be adapted to individual use. All technical terms are carefully explained. The chapter headings are: Law in general; Torts; Definition and classification of contracts; Essentials of a valid contract; Competent parties; An agreement; Reality of consent; Consideration; Legality; The form; Proof of a contract; Interpretation of contracts; Operation of contracts; The discharge of contracts; Forms; Agency; Sales; Bailments and carriers; Partnerships and corporations; Suretyship and guaranty; Insurance; Negotiable instruments; Property; Bankruptcy; Patents, copyrights and trade-marks; Master and servant; Damages; Evidence. There is an index.
“Even if published anonymously we should know it was the work of a scholar and a lawyer. It is comprehensive in its scope and is practically a textbook in little. Its rules are sound. Its exposition is clear. Its examples, taken from leading cases, are of the best.”
“So far as it goes, it is clear. But it is complete only in the sense that something is said about all of the apposite judicial attitudes that have become crystallized into formulated rules. Perhaps such books have their place, notwithstanding their offense against the maxim that a little learning is a dangerous thing. But they must be handled with care.”
“This book is admirably arranged and thorough in treatment, citing clear examples for most of its statements. The indexing is excellent, the text clear, the examples concise, and the forms ready to hand for daily practical use.”
FRIDAY, DAVID. Profits, wages, and prices. *$2 Harcourt 338.5
The object of the book is to assemble the available facts and statistics concerning profits, wages, taxes, and prices in such a way as to set them in orderly relation one to another and to disclose their causal interdependence. Contents: The curse of peace; The growth of profits; Normal profits and profiteering; The uses to which profits are put; The rate of interest; The course of wages; The division of the product; How Europe raised American prices; Prices since the armistice; General prices and public utility rates; The theory of the new taxes: Has the excess profits tax raised prices? The part played by the banks; How can real wages be raised? Index.
“The author marshals his facts with skill. His style is interesting and all that he has to say important.”
“Mr Friday’s book is a striking demonstration of the primitive state of economic science, and of its trifling influence upon the conduct of the nation’s business. Mr Friday, merely by collecting the information made available by a few war agencies, incomplete as it is, and basing his conclusions on observed facts, has been able to throw doubt upon some of the most respectable conclusions of economists, to say nothing of the assumptions to be found in current popular discussion.” G: Soule
“The general reader will find in Professor Friday’s book a striking instance of the newer tendencies. It is economic theory which retains all the logical vigor of the works of the old school, yet faces the new facts and breathes a new spirit. The book is uncommonly readable and interesting, besides, and offers a hope that the new theory will be couched in terms that everybody can understand.” Alvin Johnson
“In general it may be said that Professor Friday’s book is the most original and important volume dealing with economic and industrial America which has appeared since the war.” W: L. Chenery
FRIEDLANDER, GERALD, tr. Jewish fairy book. il *$2.25 (4½c) Stokes
Twenty-three stories from various sources have been translated and adapted by Mr Friedlander. The preface says: “All the stories have been collected from various Jewish writings. No attempt has been made to give a literal translation. The tales have been retold in a modern setting. Some of these quaint old tales and stories brought comfort to the children of Israel in the days of long ago. Perhaps some pleasure may be derived by their perusal in our days.” Among the tales are: The magic apples (from the Jewish Chap book); The wise merchant (from the Midrash Rabbah); Heavenly treasures (from the Talmud); King Solomon’s carpet (from Beth Hammidrash); The demon’s marriage (from the Jewish Chap book); The princess and the beggar (from Tanchuma); The citizen of the world (from Rabbi Eliezer). The colored illustrations are by George W. Hood.
“Less extravagant than the Arabian nights entertainments, these stories are more genial in tone than many of the witch tales with which our children are quieted. Some of them seem to have a moral to teach, but it is in no case enough of a moral to prove really troublesome.”
“The stories are full of imagination and miraculous deeds, and children will revel in them.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“Will be found particularly entertaining to young readers.”
FRIEDMAN, ELISHA MICHAEL, ed. America and the new era; a symposium on social reconstruction; with a foreword by Herbert Hoover. *$6 Dutton 330.973
“Instead of proposing reconstruction, most of the contributors to the symposium content themselves with pointing out ways and means by which our present social system may be improved. Professor J. H. Hollander shows that war is the very negation of economic progress. Professor R. T. Ely outlines a land policy with widespread ownership and limitation of holdings as its chief feature. Dr Frederic C. Howe favors selective immigration. Dr Edward A. Fitzpatrick calls for improvements in public administration. Professor Victor J. West shows the need of further amendments to the Constitution, especially for the purpose of establishing a congressional cabinet, or other forms of responsible government. Professor Chas. B. Davenport indicates the possibility of racial improvement by sex control among superior stocks, by sterilization of criminals, segregation of the feebleminded, and better marriage laws. Professor Warner Fite makes a plea for individualism. There are also contributions on education, vocational guidance, delinquency and crime, control of venereal diseases, recreation, nervous strain, mental hygiene, and other important subjects.”—Review
“It is a very ambitious volume and is worth having, not only for its good points but also to learn about a certain common attitude in much of the present discussion on religion and the family.”
“If this book held nothing but the foreword by Herbert Hoover it would be still invaluable.” M. F. Egan
Reviewed by J. E. Le Rossignol
“Taken not as a symposium, but as a chance collection of essays on urgent present-day problems, the volume is to be commended for its wealth of suggestion. The different authors speak with authority and offer programs of the highest interest. Each of the contributions printed separately as a pamphlet would have considerable influence; in this volume it is somewhat lost.” B. L.
FRIEDMAN, ELISHA MICHAEL. International commerce and reconstruction; with a foreword by Joseph French Johnson. *$5 Dutton 382
“In the spring of 1919, when this book was prepared. American business looked forward to a tremendous foreign trade with devastated Europe and the countries previously supplied by European belligerents. As a preparation for this anticipated trade, Mr Friedman has reviewed the literature and statistics bearing upon the commercial policies and foreign trade of the world and has attempted to outline the changes which the war has brought, or will bring, in international trade and the opportunities for American business enterprise.”—Pub W
“It will be seen that here is material of much value. Of necessity it is largely provisional material. The world is far from having settled down. Much that is contained in this volume will fast become obsolete, and indeed some is already obsolete. None the less the student will turn with interest to this helpful collection, and will find in it much that would otherwise be difficult of access.” F. W. Taussig
“The book easily contains as much important information as almost any other half-dozen books together, covering the whole or part of the same field. There are no conspicuous lacunae, and the matter is well presented, is supported by adequate statistical data, and is largely free from unnecessary verbiage or conspicuous national bias. Where the author attempts economic analysis of the facts he presents, he attains only a mediocre degree of success.” Jacob Viner
“The book is distinctly of the solid variety and represents a deal of work, tho mostly of compilation.” L. K. Frank
FROST, HELEN, and WARDLAW, CHARLES DIGBY. Basket ball and indoor baseball for women; with an introd. by T: D. Wood. il *$1.50 Scribner 797
“Basket ball and indoor baseball for women are two games that are rapidly growing in popularity. The book under review fills a long-felt need in that it sets forth the principles of successfully playing these games. Experts have here given the gleanings of their long experiences. They have included sixteen illustrations and thirty-seven diagrams, making clear the different points in the game of basket ball. Twelve illustrations and thirteen diagrams are used in making plain the crucial principles of indoor baseball. Such topics as passing, catching, guarding, shooting, team play, and signals are taken up in connection with basket ball. Fielding, throwing, catching, batting, base running, team play, practice, and signals are discussed in that portion dealing with indoor baseball.”—School R
“Helpful illustrations and diagrams. No index.”
“Coaches, instructors, and players will find this a very helpful handbook in teaching or taking part in these delightful indoor games.”
FROTHINGHAM, ROBERT, comp. Songs of dogs. *$1.65 Houghton 821.08
This book consists of a compilation of the best poems written about dogs, arranged in three groups. The first, The friend of man, is headed by a prose eulogy on the dog—“the one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world”—by George Graham Vest. Group two, In lighter vein, is introduced by “Good dogs” by Baudelaire and group three, The happy hunting grounds, by “Memories” by John Galsworthy. The book has an index of titles and an index of authors.
“A treat to dog lovers.”
FROTHINGHAM, ROBERT, comp. Songs of horses. *$1.65 Houghton 821.08
“Since the dawn of civilization,” says the compiler of this anthology, “the horse and the Muses have been boon companions in all the heroics of mythology and history,” and, “the advance of the horse has been coincidental with that of man himself.” The grouping of the poems is indicative of the type of horses described. The groups are: The wild West; Orient and Occident; Track and field; “Horseplay”; The horse in war. There is an index of titles and an index of authors.
“Not all have great literary value, but none detract from the quality of the whole.”
“‘Songs of horses’ stands out as one of the most colorful of anthologies. As a book from which to read aloud it could scarcely be matched.”
FROTHINGHAM, THOMAS GODDARD. Guide to the military history of the world war, 1914–1918. *$2.75 Little 940.4
The object of the book is to give a general perspective of the war from a military and strategic point of view. “At the present time a detailed history is out of the question, but it is now possible to write a narrative that is complete, in the sense of giving a reliable synopsis of the strategy and grand tactics of the whole war.” (Introd.) To accomplish this purpose the author has confined himself to comparing and checking up the official statements and bulletins given out by the different governments during the war and has not measured military results merely by victories and conquest of territory but by their costliness in life and material as well. Among the contents are: The great German offensive of 1914; Military events on the Russian front; New military situation after the defeat of the great German defensive of 1914; Offensives of Entente allies, 1915; Italy in the war; The war on the sea, 1915; German offensive of 1916 against Verdun; The war in the air; The United States in the war; The final campaigns. The book contains twenty-three maps, an appendix, a table of dates, a bibliography and an index.
“Interesting, clear and readable, and also well organized for quick reference.”
“Twenty-three excellent maps add to the great value of this work which will doubtless be much used by students in military schools and in advanced courses in colleges in military history and science.” E. J. C.
“The book is free from bias and boasting, studiously written and decidedly well worth while.” F. L. Minnigerode
“Captain Frothingham’s narrative is well-knit, his style clear and simple.”
FRYER, EUGÉNIE MARY. Book of boyhoods: Chaucer to MacDowell. *$3 Dutton 920
“Eugénie M. Fryer in ‘A book of boyhoods’ traces from Chaucer the poet to MacDowell the composer the formation periods in the lives of great men of every variety of genius. There are twenty-eight of them all, and they include Leonardo da Vinci, the painter and all-round man of sciences and the arts; Balboa, Drake, Raleigh and La Salle, the voyagers and discoverers; Washington, Hamilton, Lincoln, builders of the American republic; Burns, Wordsworth and Keats among poets, Stevenson, the romancer; and Kitchener, Foch, Joffre and Brusiloff, as great soldiers and leading figures in the struggle with Germany and the Germans.”—Boston Transcript
“To have written a book which will offend no healthy boy and make no boy feel priggish for reading it, is a good thing.”
“The average boy probably will balk at some of these biographies. ‘Bookish’ children, however, will find enjoyment in the carefully wrought characterizations and ingeniously varied presentations.”
FULLER, HENRY BLAKE. Bertram Cope’s year. $1.75 Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Chicago
“Bertram is a post-graduate in a western college community. Socially he attracts friendly advances from men and women. But he is flabby of purpose, and has no fixed ambition except to get an honorary degree and a paying position in an eastern college. He gives nothing in return for the friendships he inspires, and escapes all love entanglements.”—Outlook
“Live enough people and a sense of humor hovering near the surface.”
“The kind of novel which must be enjoyed not for its matter so much as for its quality, its richness of texture and subtlety of atmosphere.”
“The study of this weak but agreeable man is subtle but far from exciting.”
“Mr Fuller’s realism is the real thing; in seeming to register it interprets and portrays.” H. W. Boynton
“The story is less interesting than the author’s last previous book ‘On the stairs,’ because of its speculative tendencies. But Mr Fuller is a keen observer and anything that he writes is worthy the serious consideration of the reading public.”
FURNESS, HORACE HOWARD. Gloss of youth. *$1 Lippincott 812
“‘The gloss of youth’ is an eminent scholar’s brief diversion in which Shakespeare discusses with John Fletcher his relations to the public and his art and is consoled by the appreciation of two children who are no other than little ‘Jack’ Milton and ‘Noll’ Cromwell.”—Nation
“It is all a little over-intentional. But the little play is, no doubt well suited for such academic occasions as the one which caused it to be written.”
“It is not surprising that Horace Howard Furness, jr., the son and literary successor of his noted father, should cast in dramatic form one of the most intimate and pleasing interpretations of a living Shakespeare. The interweaving of Elizabethan diction and contemporary thought is never strained.”
FURNISS, EDGAR STEVENSON. Position of the laborer in a system of nationalism. *$2 Houghton 331
The book is one of the Hart, Schaffner and Marx prize essays in economics and is a study of the labor theories of the later English mercantilists, 1660–1775. The author holds that the dominant nationalism existing in England between the years 1660–1775 bears a fundamental likeness to the revival of nationalism caused by the war. The former period, known by the term “mercantilism,” has come to stand for a relationship of economic rivalry between nations and the theories and policies that governed it. The reverse side of this mercantilism is the domestic economy of the nation and it is with this side, illustrating the reaction of nationalism upon the life conditions of the people and upon labor, that the book deals. Contents: The doctrine of the national importance of the laborer; The doctrine of employment; The doctrine of the right to employment and the duty to labor; The enforcement of the duty to labor; The doctrine of the utility of poverty; Theories of wages; Conclusions. The appendix contains chapters on the economic, social and moral life conditions of the English laborer, 1660–1775, and the book has a bibliography, a subject index and an index to authors.
“Like others in this series, a scholarly piece of work.”
“Scholarly study.” G: Soule
FYLEMAN, ROSE. Fairies and chimneys. il *$1.25 Doran 821
A book of verses for children by an English poet. Among the titles are: Fairies; Yesterday in Oxford street; A fairy went a-marketing; The best game the fairies play; Differences; Mother; Grown-ups; Cat’s cradle; Visitors; I don’t like beetles; Summer morning; White magic. Following these come seven poems under the heading Bird lore: Peacocks; The cuckoo; The rooks; The robin; The cock; The grouse; The skylark.
Reviewed by A. C. Moore
“Its contents would do for lyrics in an operatic version of ‘Peter Pan.’” E. L. Pearson
GAINES, RUTH LOUISE. Ladies of Grécourt. il *$2.50 Dutton 940.476
“In this volume Miss Gaines continues the story of the relief work at the front of the Smith college unit, the first part of which she told in her previous volume, ‘Helping France.’ So fully was the work of this unit appreciated by the French people, that the workers were given the title of ‘Dames de Grécourt,’ from the name of one of the sixteen French villages covered by their work. Of these sixteen villages, few inhabitants were left, save the old and feeble and the children. From a population of nearly 5600, but 1740 were left in August, 1917. Six hundred of these were under fifteen years of age. It was among these helpless people that the Smith college women worked.”—Boston Transcript
“Pleasing illustrations.”
“The story which Miss Gaines relates is not only of the deepest interest, but is one of the important documents which the war has brought forth.”
“Both the manner and the matter of ‘Ladies of Grécourt’ do credit to the spirit and the culture of American college girls.”
“Miss Anna M. Upjohn’s pencil sketches of French peasants and rural life add greatly to the attractiveness of the book.”
Reviewed by E: E. Hunt
GALBRAITH, ANNA MARY. Family and the new democracy; a study in social hygiene. *$2.25 (3c) Saunders 392
[Publisher has withdrawn book from circulation.]
The book completes the author’s trilogy on the phases of woman’s life; the other two books being: “The four epochs of woman’s life” and “Personal hygiene and physical training for women.” In the present volume she briefly sketches the vital epochs of the history of our social institutions and points out that today the institution of the family is threatened by three fatal excrescences: prostitution, free love, and divorce. She lays bare the causes of these evils and suggests remedies which will insure the greatest amount of social happiness and the best possible progeny. Among the contents are: Rally to save the American family; Primitive man’s problems of marriage and the family; Marriage and divorce laws in primitive society and ancient civilizations; Various aspects of the modern divorce problem; Prostitution, social disease, and marriage; Alcohol and race degeneracy; Sex education as a solvent for the double standard of morals and celibacy; Problems of betrothal; The problems of marriage; The rights of the child, eugenic marriages, the limitation of offspring; Woman’s economic independence and the disintegration of the family; References; Index.
“The chapters on the need for uniform marriage and divorce laws, and for sex education to combat the spread of venereal disease, are much to the point.”
“Novices in the literature of sex (to which in spite of its self-conscious title, the book belongs), will find in it a larger amount of historical information than is customary in popular treatises, an occasional sensible sociological opinion, and useful hygienic advice. It is only the critical who will realize what a hodge-podge Dr Galbraith’s volume is.”
“There are no essential facts omitted in this book that pertain to man, to woman, to the family. Many of the subjects are of absorbing interest and the manner in which the author treats them makes them the more so. For instance, her views on prohibition as a modifying factor on the family of the future are not only unique but they are sound as well.” B. P. Thom
GALE, ZONA. Miss Lulu Bett. *$1.75 (3½c) Appleton
This is the story of a family drudge awakened to a sense of independence thru a marriage which turns out to be no marriage at all. Miss Lulu Bett “makes her home” with her sister, and when her brother-in-law’s brother comes to visit after nineteen years wandering, she startles her self, no less than the family, by marrying him. She goes away with him but at the end of one month comes back. She had found out that Ninian already had a wife living, and as Miss Lulu Bett she again takes up her position in her sister’s house. But there is a difference, as Dwight Deacon finds out when he tries to bully her into keeping his brother’s falsity a secret. Then comes another lover and the story ends happily.
“One is conscious that the materials of the story have undergone a considerable warping in order to fit them into the tragic mould; there is less of the hopeless, inevitable sweep of things than we have found in other of the author’s recent studies.”
“It will be interesting to see whether the people who like the somewhat over-sentimental ‘Friendship Village’ stories continue to like Zona Gale as the far from sentimental and exceedingly skilful author of ‘Miss Lulu Bett.’”
“Miss Zona Gale has written a thoroughly admirable and thoroughly unpopular book and vindicated at last the promise of her literary beginnings. The work is clear, direct, dry, and full of haunting little implications.”
“The book stands as a signal accomplishment in American letters.” C. M. Rourke
“Nothing could well be more astonishing or claim a more ungrudging tribute than Miss Gale’s recent achievement in ‘Miss Lulu Bett.’ This short novel is the result of the most courageous imaginable revision of her entire fictional method. [This] revision of her method has lost her nothing that she ever had, and it has gained her a great deal that one has constantly deplored her lack of.”
“Lulu Bett herself is an exquisite piece of portrayal. Her development during the course of the events that befall her is logical and natural. To us it seems the best thing Miss Gale has yet done, and more than this, it is a promise of a new type of work from her.”
“A fine example of close, careful character study on a small scale.”
“To say that here also [in the conclusion] the author rises to the occasion is simply to credit her once again with that fine and finished art that make all her writing an abiding joy to the discriminating.” F: T. Cooper
“In ‘Birth,’ its immediate predecessor, Miss Gale showed a surprising growth not only as ‘localist’ but as ironic interpreter of character. This story is firmer in tone as well as more compact in form.” H. W. Boynton
“The artist in her has guided her pen in careful work, and the characters are as clearly and completely delineated as if seen on the stage.”
GALLAGHER, PATRICK. America’s aims and Asia’s aspirations. il *$3.50 Century 940.314
The book consists chiefly of reminiscences of the peace conference, by one who was there, with the author’s individual opinions on the events as they transpired and on the personages that took part in them, the whole permeated by a spirit of benevolent imperialism and unshakeable faith in America. Of the six books that make up the volume, Pagans and prophets deals especially with the peace conference personalities; Isles and islanders with Australia, Ireland and the Philippines; High lights and history with the Asiatic side of the war. The remaining three books are; Amateurs and experts; The cause célebrè, in re Kiaochau, China v. Japan, ex parte, W. Wilson; Unfinished business. There are illustrations, appendices and an index.
“The Asiatic chapters, the bulk of the book, are complete enough; they are a little too full. There is too much that is documentary, and the vivacity of the author’s high-gaited style suffers a little, though there is always a story or a joke to take the curse off. There is, too, a little confusion in a treatment that takes us unawares from one period back to an earlier without sufficient warning.”
Reviewed by W. R. Wheeler
GALLICHAN, CATHERINE GASQUOINE (HARTLEY) (MRS WALTER M. GALLICHAN). Women’s wild oats. *$1.50 (3c) Stokes 396
“Essays on the re-fixing of moral standards.” (Sub-title) Of the “hideous abuses” created by three generations of industrialism and brought to a climax by the war, the author is considering those affecting the position and moral standards of women. The book is an attempt to distinguish between a “too ready acceptance of the fashions of the day,” and a “too loyal obedience to the prejudices of yesterday.” Accordingly she would curb the too frantic present day rebelliousness of women by a return to the Jewish ideal of marriage as a religious duty, and praising the perfect feminist ideal inherited by the Jewish women. On the other hand she would facilitate divorce, would lift the burden of illegitimacy from the shoulders of innocent children, and would procure some sort of honorable recognition for sexual partnerships outside of marriage. The essays are: Introductory; The prosperity of fools; The covenant of God; That which is wanting; “Give, give!” If a child could choose? Foreseeing evil; Conclusion, and appendices.
“The book is well worth reading.”
“In justice to Mrs Hartley I must admit that in the earlier part of ‘Women’s wild oats’ she argues for the home as against the factory. But the second half of her book is a defense of all the things which tend to break up the home. Even in Mrs Hartley’s early chapters the hysterical note in her ‘womanly womanliness’ led me to expect that it would not last.” T: Maynard
“There are those, however, who will be inclined to think that her comparisons of English with American conditions are rather too flattering to American life of the present day. Either that or we must read into the English situation even darker colors than those with which she paints it. Nevertheless hers has been a healthful effort and should do good in clearing away some of the illusions of the situation.” D. L. M.
“In spite of her fervid indignation at the unnecessary burdens of woman-kind, she usually fails to understand the real difficulties and she altogether ignores more radical cures. Her own favoured remedies are too vaguely indicated to be a matter for demonstration or refutation; they are rather the passionate assertions of a personal faith.” V. G.
“The most satisfactory chapter is that describing the position of the illegitimate child. The book is marked by the tension of the long war and the superficial disillusions of peace, and her summary of present tendencies seems too incoherent and egotistic to have much value.” N. C.
“It is with some hesitation that one sets to work to criticise a book such as ‘Women’s wild oats,’ for one wants to recognize its courage and its sincerity, and at the same time one disagrees with certain points of view, as one necessarily must when one is dealing with the work which touches so many sides of a great question. One thing we can say is that Mrs Hartley is always honest and always wise.” W. L. George
Reviewed by K. F. Gerould
“‘Women’s wild oats’ is less sensational than its title, though it contains much that will provoke dissent. It is a sober and earnest book, at once incisive and felicitous in style, but it must be believed that in her diagnosis of social tendencies in England there is some exaggeration. A certain captiousness—one might almost say, querulousness—in Mrs Hartley leads her very close to inconsistency.”
“The book is an irritating mixture of good sense, violent prejudice, and a most trying method of using the English language.”
GALLICHAN, WALTER M. Letters to a young man on love and health. *$1 (4c) Stokes 612.6
These letters are from an uncle to his nephew, beginning when the boy is sixteen and extending over a period of five years. They are on puberty, with its accompanying unrest and longings, and on sex and marital hygiene and treat these subjects with large insight, sanity and sympathy.
“There is much common sense in these letters.”
“While this book is undoubtedly more desirable than those products of an earlier day that endeavored to enforce a moral code through fear, still there are many reasonable objections to be raised against it that render its great usefulness doubtful. The modern serious youth desiring sex knowledge does not want a sugar-coated pill but simple facts. This author is not always accurate or up-to-date in his statements or teaching.” H. W. Brown
GALSWORTHY, JOHN. Awakening. il *$2 Scribner
This child idyll concerns the first eight years of the latest of the Jolyon Forsytes, whose birth was announced toward the close of the author’s novel “In chancery.” Little Jon is a healthy and, in the words of his mother, “loving, lovable, imaginative, sanguinary” little savage, and, so successful in the choice of his parents that he is enabled to live the life prompted by his dramatic instinct. The illustrations by R. H. Sauter are a feature of the book. The story appeared in Scribner’s magazine, November, 1920.
“Illustrations and text fit together with unusual charm.”
“The story is slight and the note of tenderness is perhaps too long drawn out. But it throws an agreeable sidelight on the ‘Forsyte saga’ and on Mr Galsworthy’s affection for some of his creatures.” L. L.
“Since little Jon was born in 1901 it seems a safe presumption that Mr Galsworthy’s forthcoming volume will take him up to the threshhold of manhood. But Jon’s childhood, as here set forth, is so charming and perfect a thing in itself that, however interesting Mr Galsworthy may make his future career, one is almost tempted to wish that he might remain in memory as we know him in this little volume.”
“A few episodes in the life of a little boy of eight years old, vividly realized and described with great charm.”
GALSWORTHY, JOHN. In chancery. *$2 (2c) Scribner
The story is a sequel to the author’s earlier novel, “The man of property,” and relates the further fortunes of the Forsyte family. With one exception the possessive instinct is still strong in the male generation, who include their wives and progeny in their property. Soames Forsyte, after his wife, Irene, had run away with another man lives on into middle life nursing his injuries until he poignantly realizes that he is still without a son to inherit his fortune and his name. Meeting Irene again, after a separation of fifteen years, awakens the old desire to possess her, and failing of her consent, nothing in law is too sordid for him for the attainment of a divorce. Even the family tradition for respectability must go by the board as he forces his cousin Jolyon—the one Forsyte that has not run true to type—into the rôle of correspondent. At the end he marries the pretty French girl, whom he does not love, and smothers his disappointment at having a girl child, and no hope of another, in his sense of proprietorship. At least—“that thing was his.”
“When we have said that ‘In chancery’ is not a great novel, we would assure our readers that it is a fascinating, brilliant book.” K. M.
“As a story of human persons, ‘In chancery’ should rank among his best.” H. W. Boynton
“As we have already said, these Forsytes are extremely boresome, and we fear Mr Galsworthy exaggerates not only their importance and the extent of the world’s interest in them, but also the value of his own contribution to modern imaginative literature.” E. F. Edgett
“With grace and clearness and with a skill that holds the reader’s attention unfailingly, the tale is told. Its accomplishment is fine and delicate, though its convincingness is not complete.”
“Here we have again in careful acrimony mingled with a warm consciousness of physical beauty which is so characteristic of Mr Galsworthy.” E. W. N.
“Mr Galsworthy never lets his utmost penetration make him ruthless. He knows that ruthlessness is simply a failure to perceive the dark and pathetic humanity that lies just beyond the immediate horizon of one’s vision.” L. L.
“The book is in many ways one of the biggest Mr Galsworthy has ever written; perhaps the very biggest. A better balanced, more logical and saner novel than ‘The saint’s progress,’ one accepts its reasonings and analyses, which satisfy at once one’s brain and one’s instinct. It is notable among the notable, a novel to read—and to read again.”
“It is a serious drawback that the first dozen pages or so of this book are a regular barbedwire obstruction because of their intricate tangle of genealogy and relationships. The reader who perseveres, however, will be rewarded by as fine and penetrating a study of temperament and heredity as is often written—not ‘highbrow’ or philosophical, but dramatic, tense and vivid.” R. D. Townsend
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Most of the characters of ‘In chancery’ are the brooding victims of Mr Galsworthy’s remote wrath—Soames’s father, James, is the most free from literary victimisation. Here is an old man drawn with skill, without prejudice, and with that untiring care which is this author’s chief asset as a craftsman. It seems to us that for him our little world is a sick man tossing feverishly upon his bed; Mr Galsworthy, finger on pulse and clinical thermometer in hand, sits patiently by his side, recording the slow sinking towards dissolution.”
“One may add that here, as always, Mr Galsworthy is remarkably just to the characters with whom he is not in perfect sympathy. He writes of the old régime with respect and even regret.”
“It is a most absorbing story viewed merely as a personal narrative. But apart from that it is a section from the history of English society. The book must be classed with Mr Galsworthy’s most characteristic and finest work.”
“Once more Mr Galsworthy shows his quiet mastery, now and then a little pontifical perhaps, but always suggesting the good rider on the spirited horse. And once more he lights up his sober fabric with the golden thread of beauty.”
GALSWORTHY, JOHN. Plays; 4th ser. *$2.50 Scribner 822
The book contains three plays: A bit o’ love; The foundations; The skin game. In the first play a young clergyman, Michael Strangway, is deserted by his wife, who returns during the first act to plead with her husband not to divorce her out of consideration for the career of her lover. He consents and thereby makes himself impossible with his narrow-minded parishioners. His struggle is between his love as a cosmic manifestation and the essence of Christianity, and his love for the woman, his wrongs and his worldly prospects. When, at the moment of the most hopeless desolation, he has prepared a suicide’s noose for himself, the cry of a little child for “a bit o’ love,” and the brave fight with his sorrow of a brother in affliction, recall him to the world and his stronger self.
“This fourth volume of Mr Galsworthy’s plays is hardly up to the best of his earlier dramatic work. Of the three plays which it contains, ‘The skin game’ is the most skilfully and convincingly written; but even ‘The skin game’ leaves us comparatively cold.”
“Written with the usual sincerity and dramatic intensity.”
“It is sufficient of the first two, ‘A bit o’ love’ and ‘The foundations,’ to say that they are ‘good Galsworthy,’ which means that they are more than readable and that they are beautifully constructed and phrased. More must be said of ‘The skin game,’ the third play. It is Galsworthy at his best.”
“Mr Galsworthy has written better plays than these, but if you care for his plays at all you will find them worth reading.”
“Of the new plays the first, A bit of love, is undeniably the weakest.... The skin-game has a more timeless touch. It takes the tragicomedy of all human conflict, localizes it narrowly, embodies it with the utmost concreteness, and yet exhausts its whole significance. Galsworthy has never derived a dramatic action from deeper sources in the nature of man; he has never put forth a more far-reaching idea nor shown it more adequately in terms of flesh and blood.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“To the reader who revolts against the rather sickly sentiment of the first of them and who has smiled half-heartedly at the forced comedy, in which the same sentiment still appears, in the second, the virility and grasp of the third comes as a tonic.” S. C. C.
“These three plays will hardly add much to the fame of John Galsworthy, although, on the other hand, enough skill and command of character is evidenced to render them interesting additions to his work.”
“‘A bit o’ love,’ ‘The foundations,’ and ‘The skin game’ display ability of a high order. That fact is presumed in their authorship and is verified in their perusal. But all three have an effect of interlude or byplay; they are corollaries to earlier and weightier dicta.” O. W. Firkins
“He has many gifts, many qualities—technical ability, imaginativeness, sympathy, experience of life, ideas, ideals; but the one supreme, essential gift—the ability to create living men and women working out their destinies in the grip of fate—is not his. Mr Galsworthy, in fact, remains the second-rate artist he always was.”
“‘A bit o’ love’ is in Mr Galsworthy’s weaker vein. ‘The skin game’ possesses a greater number of powerful scenes of dramatic conflict than Mr Galsworthy has ever put into a single play. ‘The foundations’ is an utter departure for Mr Galsworthy or any other English playwright. Our stage is almost unfitted at present to handle such a play, but the existence of the manuscript ought to do something towards stimulating the development of a new producing method.”
GALSWORTHY, JOHN. Tatterdemalion. *$1.90 (3c) Scribner
A collection of stories and sketches, some of them reprinted from Scribner’s Magazine, the New Republic and the Atlantic Monthly. Among the sketches that compose Part 1, Of war-time, are a number presenting unfamiliar aspects of the war period. Two of these, The bright side and “The dog it was that died,” are stories of Germans interned in England. The other titles are: The grey angel; Defeat; Flotsam and jetsam; “Cafard”; Recorded; The recruit; The peace meeting; In heaven and earth; The mother stone; Poirot and Bidan; The muffled ship; Heritage; ‘A green hill far away.’ Part 2, Of peace-time, contains eight stories: Spindleberries; Expectations; Manna; A strange thing; Two looks; Fairyland; The nightmare child; Buttercup-night.
“On the side of art ‘Tatterdemalion’ illustrates the Galsworthian qualities which are quite familiar by this time: a mellowness that never degenerates into softness; a virile tenderness of tone; an unobtrusive ease in the progression of the narrative; a diction which is always adequate, often beautiful, but which will not or cannot exploit all its own full resources of either beauty or strength through some inflexibility of inner modulation. Some of the short stories here are, with these definite qualities and their defects, among the best of our time.”
“In his earlier novels and tales there was a marked predominance of the emotional quality over the intellectual. The two are here more nearly in accord. With possibly one exception none of the impressions is overwrought, or marred by sentimentality, or blurred by loud-voiced passion. Mr Galsworthy’s restrained, softly modulated style, as of an instrument with few overtones, wins its effect without recourse to obvious eloquence or special pleading.” S. C. C.
“Unalike as these tales and sketches are in many ways, they resemble one another in this—that always there is the intense feeling for beauty. Among the artists in literature of the present day—and they are not so few as some would like to imagine—those are rare who can safely challenge comparison with the John Galsworthy of ‘Tatterdemalion.’” L. M. Field
“The contents of the volume are diverse in the extreme; yet the keynote of the whole can be expressed in one word—beauty.”
“The volume is an interesting and notable example of Mr Galsworthy’s workmanship, typical of his clearness of vision and of his fearlessness in telling the truth, notwithstanding the fact that the winds of popular passion and taste blow in the opposite direction.”
“There are pieces in this book which will probably drop out of his collected works some decades hence. Yet we would willingly miss none of them from the book before us. If circumstance has deprived some of these tales and studies of the finest touch of craftsmanship which Mr Galsworthy can give, the book as a whole is clear revelation of one of the best and bravest minds of our time.”
GALWAY, CONOR. Towards the dawn. *$2.50 Stokes
“The novel is, quite simply and frankly, propaganda for the cause of Sinn Fein. Its heroine is a vigorous, eager, impulsive, large-hearted young woman whom the reader first sees as a gawky, somewhat impish slip of a girl in her first teens. She gets caught in a street fight between Orangemen and Hibernians, brought on because some drummers of the former refuse to give way to the band heading a procession of the others; she is knocked down, trampled and has a narrow escape from being killed. The first thing she says when she comes back to consciousness is to declare solemnly that she hates both factions and thereafter will be a Fenian. To this determination she holds with enthusiasm, becoming a Sinn Feiner when that organization comes into activity. At one time, moved by the desire to make a sacrifice, she enters a convent with the intention of becoming a nun, but her desire to take part in the active measures Sinn Fein is planning brings her out again and into the ranks of that organization’s most ardent protagonists.”—N Y Times
“Pleasantly written and containing some excellent character drawings, ‘Towards the dawn’ is likely to prove a distinct success.”
“Would be interesting if the author’s viewpoint could be trusted to be accurate and impartial. But it is quite evident that it is never impartial and therefore only actual knowledge of conditions can say whether or not it is accurate.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
GAMBIER, KENYON. Girl on the hilltop. *$1.75 (2½c) Doran
When Roger Lingard comes to England in 1914, it is to look up his ancestry, for he is the descendant of the Lingard of St Dyfrigs’ Park, who years before had eloped with Charity Turle, his cowman’s daughter, and emigrated to America. The modern Roger finds Dorothy Lingard and another Charity Turle interesting representatives of the family in the present generation. Before he has revealed himself to them, the war breaks out and he enlists. At the end of four years, he returns to his ancestral acres, to find himself, by the death of the male line, their owner. Then follows the interesting question, what shall become of the female line. Roger offers himself to Dorothy, that thus she may not be deprived of her birthright. But he finds himself superseded in her affections by another and when he turns to the humbler Charity, he finds a similar situation to exist. But the telegram which he sends to the mysterious “girl on the hilltop” reads “The third time’s lucky!” and so it proves to be.
“Mr Gambier has built up a very alluring story.”
“An interesting picture of rural England in wartime and unusually entertaining.”
“‘The girl on the hilltop’ has the virtue of being uncommon, but it is not very satisfactory. The author’s method of story-telling may be described as spasmodic; there is no ease in the course of his recital. He jumps along in a fashion quite disconcerting to the reader and insists on creating about certain of his characters an air of mystery that is annoying rather than interesting.”
“Incidentally the novel gives a realistic picture of the war privations and provocations in remote English villages. The story is built on unusual lines and its originality makes it decidedly readable.”
GAMBLE, WILLIAM. Photography and its applications. il $1 Pitman 770
The book is one of the Pitman’s common commodities and industries series. It is not intended as a guide or text-book for those desiring to practice the art of photography, but as a popular outline of the subject for general information on “How it’s done.” Contents: The discovery of photography; The camera and lens; Dark room and its equipment; The sensitive plates: wet collodion process, and collodion emulsion and dry plates; Making the exposure; Development and after-treatment of the plate; Printing processes: carbon and other methods; Enlarging, copying, and lantern-slide making; Colour processes; Scientific applications of photography; Cinema-photography; Photomechanical processes; Industrial applications of photography; Photography in warfare; Illustrations and index.
GANACHILLY, ALFRED. Whispering dead. (Borzoi mystery stories) *$1.90 (3c) Knopf
Some years before the war, according to this story, there was a fire at the German embassy at Santiago, Chile, which completely destroyed the building. In the ruins were found the charred remains of a human body, and the mystery of the story is the identity of the man who so perished. Beckert, the German chancellor, was thought to be the unfortunate victim, but Rojas, the Chilean detective, has another theory which takes him on a wild chase in the Andes, resulting in the capture of the man who was responsible for the fire, and the murderer of the unknown person who perished in it. Stress is laid on the ruthlessness characteristic of the German nature even before the war.
“A well-told and well-constructed story.”
GANZ, MARIE, and FERBER, NAT. JOSEPH. Rebels; into anarchy—and out again. il *$2 (3c) Dodd
Marie Ganz, daughter of a Hester street pushcart peddler, came from Galicia to America in 1896, when she was five years old. After her father’s death in 1899, she never knew what it was to have time to play, tho she did not work the regular twelve-hour day in a sweatshop until she was thirteen. She made friends among Russian socialists and anarchists, joining the latter group, and preached war upon the capitalists. She organized strikes, led mobs, got into prison and out again, and finally broke her connection with the anarchist group. She tells us: “I had learned much and changed much since that day when I led the mob into the capitalist stronghold, and the old rancours were gone forever.... My work is not over ... but, in the effort to help the poor and downtrodden, it is to run in other lines hereafter.”
“Although the apostasy of Marie Ganz furnished the occasion for her book, it is the period of her rebellion that engages one’s interest and gives the book its attraction.”
“A vigorous and straightforward narrative.” H. W. Boynton
“Quite as authentic and interesting as other autobiographies of women who have risen from the Ghetto of the New York East side, the book by Miss Ganz, nevertheless, does not range with them; It is too much concerned with only one aspect of life to paint either accurately or convincingly the throbbing vitality and beauty of that most colorful of American neighborhoods.” B. L.
GARBORG, ARNE. Lost father. $1.25 Stratford co.
This is a prose poem interspersed with verse in the form of prayers by a lost soul seeking an unknown god. Gunnar Haave had left his native land in search of life. He has squandered it and at the end returns home in search of the Father. His brother Paul has also thrown away his life to become the servant of his Master, Christ. It is Paul who finally succeeds in bringing the peace of the Father to Gunnar. An autobiographical sketch precedes the story and the translation from the Norse is by Mabel Johnson Leland.
GARDNER, AUGUSTUS PEABODY. Some letters of Augustus Peabody Gardner. *$2 (8½c) Houghton
The letters are preceded by a short sketch of Major Gardner’s career by Mrs Gardner who has edited the collection. They are grouped under the headings: The Spanish war; Congress and politics; War-time activities; The army again. The volume contains four fine portraits of Major Gardner at various stages of life.
“These letters are glowing with American idealism.”
GARDNER, GILSON. New Robinson Crusoe. *$1.25 (6c) Harcourt 330
“A new version of his life and adventures with an explanatory note.” (Sub-title) In this new version all of Robinson Crusoe’s reflections are along economic lines. His first musings on “Why does man work?” are answered by his own efforts to supply himself with shelter, food and clothing. He soon discovers of how little avail his labors are without the cooperation of his fellow-men. This is later supplied by a colony of refugees on a neighboring island and with cooperation come the needs of specialization and organization. As the story proceeds all the features of a capitalistic society develop. Robinson becomes a power, the chief exploiter and ruler of the realm in which there now are rich and poor, exploiters and exploited. Then some of the younger blood become wise to the fact that “a man may own what he produces,” and no more. They lay in wait for him one dark night on the beach and instead of drowning him outright mercifully ship him off to England.
“The ‘New Robinson Crusoe’ is interesting as an economic tract.”
“Mr Gardner has made a distinctly novel contribution to the literature of economics, but it will be an unhappy day for children when they are given this primer of economics disguised as a story to read in place of the good old fashioned tale of Robinson Crusoe.”
GAREY, ENOCH BARTON, and others. American guide book to France and its battlefields. il *$3.50 Macmillan 914.4
Part I of this guide book is devoted to general considerations with chapters on: Things to consider and to do before you sail; A special chapter on passports; A few important points that should be understood before arrival in France; Conditions that will confront you upon landing; Paris and its life; Amusements, shopping, side trips, etc. Part II is composed of chapters on: Paris—a brief sketch for tourists; History of the world war; Château-Thierry, Soissons, and Rheims; British battle fronts and Belgium; Verdun, St Mihiel, and the Argonne-Meuse; Coblence, Switzerland, Provence, the Riviera, and Italy; The château country of France; England and London. Part III is devoted to Divisional histories of American divisions in France, and an Appendix presents statistics. There are numerous maps, illustrations and an index.
“This guidebook has several valuable features.”
“The ‘American guidebook’ is not compact. It is badly organized and repetitious. Of the 20–odd maps in the book, not one is of practical value to the tourist. The only worth-while section of the book is the part devoted to brief tabular histories of A. E. F. divisions. The information given in this department is compact, well-presented and satisfying.” J: T. Winterich
GARIS, HOWARD ROGER. Rick and Ruddy. il $1.50 (2½c) Bradley, M.
The story of a boy and his dog. Rick wants a dog but his mother is obdurate. She does not like dogs and is afraid that even the best of them might be tempted to bite Mazie, Rick’s little sister. Then Ruddy, the red setter, is washed up out of the sea and since he seems to have come in direct answer to Rick’s prayer, she cannot turn him away. Boy and dog have happy adventures together. Ruddy guides Rick home when the two are lost and he rescues the little sister from drowning. The tramp sailor who had been his former owner returns and tries to gain possession of him but Ruddy is recovered and returned to his true master Rick.
GASS, SHERLOCK BRONSON. Lover of the chair. *$2.50 Jones, Marshall 814
“Mr Gass turns over from many angles the leading problems of education in a democracy, and the wider problem of democracy itself. The matter is generally cast in dialogues, with the disillusioned scholar described in the title as arbitrator. On the side of education the author has no difficulty in showing that the present lurch towards vocational training in the public schools is really not democratic at all. It assumes that a child is to be fitted for a place in which he shall stay—an aristocratic assumption. The book closes with an autobiographical fragment which is its best literary feature and has the advantage of bringing the various problems involved to a moral focus.”—Review
Reviewed by Mary Terrill
“Despite the friendly humor and gentleness of the essayist there is the iron of sharp experience and the steel of strong convictions to give point and edge to his critical depictions of men and manners.” H. A.
“Despite a certain crabbedness and inflexibility of literary form, the book is a notable one. It is thought through, and has flights of grave eloquence. As a survey and estimate of modern society, as offering a tenacious criticism which is ever tinged with human sympathy, the book is a true landmark.”
GASTON, HERBERT E. Nonpartisan league. *$1.75 (2c) Harcourt, Brace & Howe 329
The author of the present volume is thoroughly acquainted with the history of the Nonpartisan league from the inside, and tells the story of its foundation and growth sympathetically but dispassionately, leaving the reader to make his own estimate of its importance as a political and social movement. In his final survey the author says: “Any cult or propaganda becomes dangerous if it comes close to the truth. ‘Menaces’ to the existing order of society are born of the evils of existing society in conflict with human needs and natural human desires. To brand a group, a cult, a society, a religion, as disloyal or disreputable is one way of fighting it, but it need not forever damn it.” Contents: The Nonpartisan league—what it is; North Dakota; Seeds of rebellion; Breaking ground; Terminal elevators; The leader for the occasion; Applied psychology; “Six-dollar suckers”; Publicity; The enemy opens fire; Choosing the candidates; The first campaign; Leaguers in power; The League becomes “national”; War issues; Producers and consumers; “Patrioteering”; Growth and power; The second big battle; League democracy at work; “The new day in North Dakota”; Another crisis passed; Organization changes; Survey and forecast.
“Three years’ employment on the publication controlled by the league has given Mr Gaston an intimate knowledge of the organization, and, although the reader is assured of a ‘conscientious effort to make a faithful report of facts of essential interest,’ favorable conclusions are the rule. This point should be kept in view in judging the matter presented.” G: M. Janes
“A very readable history of North Dakota’s recent interesting contribution to politics.”
“This book is an authoritative and to a certain extent an unbiased statement of the genesis and growth of the movement.” G. M. J.
“An extremely lucid, vigorous, well-written account of one of the most extraordinary movements in our political history. The league is fortunate in having an apologist as clear-minded and as fair-minded as Mr Gaston: his book has the character not of propaganda but of history.”
“An indispensable book for the study of middle western politics.”
“A severe critic will find in it much to praise, little to blame. Of course certain transactions are glossed over. All important events are given ‘with bright protective coloration.’ While the book has historical sequence, it lacks philosophical unity.” J. E. Boyle
“The Nonpartisan league has been the victim of an unconscionable amount of lying. The more notable, therefore, is the service performed by Mr Gaston in writing a book that gives not only the facts, but the truth, concerning this remarkable political organization. Mr Gaston writes with sympathy for the league, yet with scrupulous fairness to its opponents. The story is told simply, directly, and with an absence of partisanship and bitterness remarkable in view of the fierce struggle of the past five years.” H: R. Mussey
“Admirable account.” James Oneal
“Although the author warns the readers of his possible bias, he has nevertheless written dispassionately and in good spirit and, on the whole, accurately.”
“His book is as readable as it is earnest. In his own language, he ‘puts it across.’ It is a great pity that one must lay the book aside with the thought that though it is interesting it is little more than an excellent piece of campaign apologetics.”
“His narrative throws much light on agrarian conditions in the Middle West and Northwest.”
“No doubt the impartial and critical historian of the future will discover that the narrative is colored in favor of the movement the author traces. Nevertheless, the work is a worthy one and gives a fairly reliable account of a most interesting experiment.” J: M. Gillette
“It is so simply and directly written, with such an evident desire to be frank and honest, with so little rhetoric and apology, that we must accept it as being about as fair an account as we could hope for from an insider adequately informed for his task.” W: E. Walling
GATLIN, DANA. Missy. il *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
Missy, short for Melissa Merriam, is ten when we first make her acquaintance in this book. Some of her adventures and experiences in the years between ten and seventeen are told in chapters entitled: The flame divine; “Your true friend, Melissa M.”; Like a singing bird; Missy tackles romance; In the manner of the Duchess; Influencing Arthur; Business of blushing; A happy downfall; Dobson saves the day, and Missy cans the cosmos. Missy is the kind of girl who had “been endowed with eyes that could shine and a voice that could quaver; yes, and with an instinct for just the right argument to play upon the heart-strings.” From the day when, in childish religious fervor, she prays publicly “O Lord, please forgive me for being a spy-eye when Cousin Pete kissed Polly Currier, and guide me to lead a blameless life,” her mental processes are original. Some of the chapters have appeared in short story form in various popular magazines.
“What Booth Tarkington did for the growing boy with ‘Penrod,’ Dana Gatlin has written for the girl, with the difference that ‘Penrod’ is done with broad effects for humor, while ‘Missy’ is a more delicate piece of workmanship.” I. W. L.
“This book is an almost perfect example of the department store romance. There is not a glimmer of anything that might disturb the picture. The book is fairly well written and many will like it.”
GAY, ROBERT MALCOLM. Writing through reading. 90c Atlantic monthly press 808
This “suggestive method of writing English with directions and exercises” (Sub-title) has for its object the acquisition of a command of language and discipline and drill in clearness, vigor and conciseness. The author believes that the problem of teaching writing as an art and a tool of expression can be greatly simplified by retelling the thoughts of others and the methods considered in the book are: translating; paraphrasing; condensing; imitating prose, and imitating verse. Contents: Introduction: reading and writing; Transcribing and writing from dictation; Translating; Paraphrasing; The abstract; Imitation and emulation.
“Suggestive to anyone interested in effective writing.”
“Beyond all question ‘Writing through reading’ is the type of textbook which eleventh and twelfth-grade classes in composition ought to be able to follow with great profit.”
GAYLEY, CHARLES MILLS, and FLAHERTY, MARTIN CHARLES, comps. Poetry of the people. 88c Ginn 821.08
This volume has now been enlarged by the addition of a section devoted to Poems of the world war: historical and patriotic. There are also added four pages of notes on Popular songs of the world war.
GAYLEY, CHARLES MILLS, and KURTZ, BENJAMIN PUTNAM. Methods and materials of literary criticism. $3 Ginn 808.1
“This book is the second of a series entitled ‘Methods and materials of literary criticism’, the volumes of which, though contributory to a common aim, are severally independent.’ The first volume (Gayley and Scott, 1899) was an introduction to the bases in aesthetics and poetics, theoretical and historical. The present volume applies the methods there developed to the comparative study of the lyric, the epic, and some allied forms of poetry. A third volume, approaching completion, will present tragedy, comedy, and cognate forms.” (Preface) The book is made up of two parts: The lyric and some of its special forms; The epic and minor forms of narrative poetry. Each of these subjects is considered under two aspects: Theory and technique, and Historical development, and a list of general references is provided for each, in addition to frequent references in the text. An appendix contains a brief bibliography of the history of poetry (60 pages) and there is an index.
“The work here accomplished is an honor to American literary scholarship and is of great and enduring value.”
“The helpfulness of such a compilation can hardly be overestimated. Testing the book from the standpoint of a student of the classical types of literature one is impressed by the completeness of the bibliographical material and by the discrimination of the editors when selection is necessary.” H: W. Prescott
“Nothing could be more comprehensive; and it is difficult to see how the scheme could be improved. To say this is not to assert that absolute perfection has been attained. That is beyond human power; and, as Professor Gayley frankly confesses, ‘the citation of references is nowhere as complete as the compilers could wish.’ The index, it may be well to note, is ample and excellent.” Brander Matthews
GENUNG, JOHN FRANKLIN. Guidebook to the Biblical literature. $2.50 Ginn 220
“The Bible as a literature, as a library, and as a book—that is how the point of view is stated at the beginning of this treatise, which offers systematic guidance to the study of the growth of the Bible, the historical development of the Hebrew mind, the particular tendencies and needs of the successive eras represented in Biblical literature and the particular genius of the writers, and the spiritual nature of their message.”—Ath
“The point of view of the treatment is rather confusing. The method is in a broad way historical, but in detailed application it contents itself with acceptance of traditional views to such an extent as almost to vitiate the usefulness of the book for historically minded students.” J. M. P. S.
“Those who are not discouraged by the preface and the abstract style of the whole work will find the matter instructive.”
GEORGE, WALTER LIONEL. Caliban. *$2 (2c) Harper
Richard Bulmer’s career in many respects parallels that of Alfred Harmsworth but frequent reference to Lord Northcliffe as a contemporary shows that it is not intended as a portrait. The story begins with Richard’s boyhood and covers his early amateur attempts at journalism, his first daring venture into the publishing world with “Zip,” a sensational monthly that gives the public what it wants, and his subsequent rise to the peerage and ownership of a chain of newspapers. He marries early and after seven years separates from his wife. Women mean little to him for he is too deeply absorbed in his career, but late in life he meets Janet Willoughby and at her hands suffers his first defeat. The story begins in the eighties of the nineteenth century and runs thru the world war.
“We know no more or less about Bulmer on page four hundred than on page forty. He is a type brilliantly projected as a George or a Wells or a Walpole or a Mackenzie knows how to project him,—and there is no more to say.” H. W. Boynton
“In ‘Caliban’ Mr George cannot convince us for a moment that his Richard Bulmer is doing anything more than to obey the commands of his creator. A puppet in a marionette show has as much initiative of his own as is possessed by this Richard Bulmer.” E. F. E.
“It is superior in many ways to Courlander’s ‘Mightier than the sword’ and has nothing whatever to do with Gibbs’ ‘Street of adventure.’ But it is a falling off from Mr George’s superb ‘Blind alley.’”
“As a portrayal of Bulmer, ‘Caliban’ is convincingly done; as a novel, it is disappointing. For the book, despite Bulmer’s portrait, is perfunctory.” R. S.
“Mr George has grasped in its concrete terms one of the fundamental things in our civilization—the press. His report may not be faultlessly accurate; there may be depths he has not reached, complications he has not disentangled. But his account has great fulness of matter, dogged closeness of observation, fine solidity, and burning candor.”
“Mr George has neglected the difficult and more interesting half of his subject. He has not tried to answer the most puzzling of the questions that yellow journalism raises. Not everybody, however, cares to investigate the differences which separate the successful wooers of ‘Caliban’ from the unsuccessful, and in Mr George’s novel there is cleverness enough to reward all readers who do not care.” P. L.
“They who happen to enjoy Mr George’s essays as much as I do will ‘get’ with particular satisfaction certain qualities of ‘Caliban’ that give it freshness, energy and a peculiarly British tang.” Alexander Black
“Bulmer is not developed as a character, he springs full-grown from Mr George’s top compartment; and after a time his dutiful gyrations become a sad bore. A thousand irresponsible brilliancies about nothing make for me a dull book. ‘Caliban’ is not a story or an interpretation, but a commonplace theme with endless more or less clever variations.” H. W. Boynton
“The story of Richard Bulmer’s boyhood is quite as good as, perhaps better than, anything Mr George himself has yet written. But the whole business of newspaper founding and managing has been done before too often and better, and the crude introduction of real names into the narrative does nothing to heighten illusion.”
“He only succeeds in producing a masquerade—a disconcerting muddle of truth and fiction. Unfortunately there is no lightness of touch to redeem it. The story is over-written, and Mr George’s cleverness runs away with him into a tireless and feverish elaboration of detail which would be exhausting even if he kept to the facts of history.”
GEORGIAN poetry, 1918–1919. *$2.50 Putnam 821.08
The writers represented in this fourth volume of Georgian poetry are: Lascelles Abercrombie, Gordon Bottomley, Francis Brett Young, William H. Davies, Walter de la Mare, John Drinkwater, John Freeman, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Robert Graves, D. H. Lawrence, Harold Monro, Thomas Moult, Robert Nichols, J. D. C. Pellow, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Shanks, Fredegond Shove, J. C. Squire, and W. J. Turner.
“The corporate flavour of the volume is a false simplicity. Of the nineteen poets who compose it there are certain individuals whom we except absolutely from this condemnation, Mr de la Mare, Mr Davies and Mr Lawrence; there are others who are more or less exempt from it, Mr Abercrombie, Mr Sassoon, Mrs Shove, Mr Nichols and Mr Moult; and among the rest there are varying degrees of saturation.” J. M. M.
“It is a profound labour to read this book. Not because, let me hastily say, there is nothing good in it, but because it is all so dreadfully tired. Here are nineteen poets, in the heyday of their creating years, and scarcely one of them seems to have energy enough to see personally or forge a manner out of his own natural speech.” Amy Lowell
“It would, we think, be just to assume that there are three themes which belong to poetry above all others—God, man, and nature. But after reading the fourth book of ‘Georgian poetry’ from first page to last, one would never have guessed it. We feel especially drawn towards Mr Robert Graves. He is obviously at odds with the Georgian complacency and conventionalism, particularly in the matter of language. Mr Brett Young, again, a long way the best of the five newcomers, reacts against the tenuity of the others and their careful avoidance of reality.”
“Among the others, it is good to see the name of D. H. Lawrence, although he contributes but one poem, ‘Seven seals,’ a magnificent thing, worthy of his wild unhappy genius.” Siegfried Sassoon
“These poets have unquestionable merits. Their temper is calm, measured, resolute—almost an eighteenth century temper. Their ideal is the vivid, the striking, the extreme—almost an Elizabethan ideal. Naturally enough, their eighteenth century temper is not quite at home in the handling of this Elizabethan ideal. Hence the vividness, which is by no means altogether wanting, comes to reside less in the ideas than in the language, less possibly in the language than in the vocabulary.” O. W. Firkins
“In ‘The sprig of lime’ and ‘Seventeen,’ which are his two long poems this year, Mr Robert Nichols reaches a far higher platform in his ascent of Parnassus. ‘The sprig of lime’ is an exceedingly beautiful reflective poem.... Mr Shank’s ‘Fête galante, or The triumph of love,’ is a longish poem of quite extraordinary and peculiar attractiveness.... Alas that Mr Squire’s ‘You are my sky’ has not been included! His beautiful poem ‘Rivers’ is, as ever, most delightful reading. Mr Harold Monro’s ‘Dog’ is a cunning piece of realism.”
“The character of the collection has altered slowly till this last volume is least like the first: in fact, quite different. Long poems are fewer and shorter, and the bulk of the contents has acquired a strong family likeness. The original group of authors was more varied in aim and achievement.”
Reviewed by E: B. Reed
GERMAN days. *$3 Dutton 914.3
“The author, a Polish Jewess born at Posen, describes her experiences at various Prussian schools, ending with a finishing school in Berlin.” (Spec) “The latter half of the book gives the reader a clear picture of commonplace life in Germany today—the homes, the food, the amusements. The author is continually contrasting them, greatly to the disadvantage of Germany, with what she has found in England.” (Springf’d Republican)
“She writes temperately, and her indictment of the relentless Prussian school system is all the more effective on that account.”
“Among the books which aim to give enlightenment regarding prewar Germany one volume stands out for the seemingly naive impression of unpleasantness that it gives. This is ‘German days.’”
GEROULD, GORDON HALL. Youth in Harley. *$2 (1½c) Scribner
After Stephen Quaid graduated from college he became principal of Harley academy and for a year was a part of the New England village life that soon will be but a tradition. In the picture unfolded by the story many types of New England character are seen and old customs, time-honored sports and celebrations and a town meeting are described, and in the romance of Stephen and Cynthia Darrell, with the ups and downs of their courtship, glimpses are given of the New England conscience in both its feminine and masculine aspects.
“Interesting and wholesome but not a plot novel.”
“Though too abstract for great art, Mr Gerould’s novel represents an intellectual honesty which fiction lacks in America, and which for great art is requisite.”
“The action is slow at times, and readers who desire plot above all and breathlessness while reading will hardly feel themselves wholly in sympathy with the book. It is, first of all, an effort in characterization, and in this field Mr Gerould is always successful. For readers who desire to taste the quality of excellent writing at their leisure ‘Youth in Harley’ is to be recommended.”
“Certainly the narrative is not exciting, nor is it rapid in movement, but it is sincere in its mild realism and finished carefully in its detail workmanship.”
GEROULD, KATHARINE (FULLERTON) (MRS GORDON HALL GEROULD). Modes and morals. *$1.75 (2½c) Scribner 814
Instead of the above title the author has been tempted to call her collection of essays “Democracy, plumbing, and the war” because democracy, always having a materialistic connotation, and plumbing, symbolizing physical comforts, as well as war, “make the problem of our immediate future a rather special one.” In the first essay, The new simplicity, the cultural élite are exhorted to practice a severe simplicity of living in order to hold their own against overpaid labor whose tastes run to luxuries. In The extirpation of culture four causes are named for this gradual extirpation among us: The increased hold of the democratic fallacy on the public mind; The influx of a racially and socially inferior population; Materialism in all classes; and The idolatry of science. The other essays are: Dress and the woman; Caviare on principle; Fashions in men; The newest woman; Tabu and temperament; The boundaries of truth; Miss Alcott’s New England; The sensual ear; British novelists, ltd.; The remarkable rightness of Rudyard Kipling.
“Stimulating and provocative essays.”
“Sparkling little essays full of originality and common sense.”
“Mrs Gerould is infinitely more agreeable as an essayist than as a short story writer and her discussions of current problems, social, spiritual and literary, are not only clever but stimulating.”
Reviewed by Dorothy Brewster
“The book is as charming as it is clever, as wise as it is witty. ‘British novelists, ltd.,’ is the most individual of the essays in this volume, as it is also the most amusing. It is full of humor and of good humor. It has the light touch so much desired nowadays; none the less is it a searching criticism.” Brander Matthews
“One salutes the Mrs Gerould of the short stories as a fictional artist of subtle power and distinguished skill. One views her secondary personality, the social philosopher, the student of manners and morals, as an example of the perturbing truth that a mind which creates with brilliancy and force may be feeble and unrewarding in ratiocination. Mrs Gerould is trite and trivial not only whenever her subject gives her an opportunity to be, but at moments when she might easily be something else.” Lawrence Gilman
“A little superior, supercilious Mrs Gerould doubtless is, and not a little paradoxical. But in her speculation, she uncovers a good many meaty ideas. One may not always agree with her or think her correct in her statement of facts; but one has at least got some return for the energy expended in reading.”
“When we say that Mrs Gerould is sometimes rather flippant, we have indicated all the defects that a truly impartial critic may find in this attractive and satisfying volume.” M. F. Egan
GIBBON, JOHN MURRAY. Conquering hero. *$2 (3½c) Lane
A fishing party of city men is interrupted by the startling appearance of a beautiful woman. She introduces herself as the Princess Stephanie Sobieska, and is then recognized as a moving picture star. One of the guides of the fishing party, Donald Macdonald, Scotch Canadian and veteran of the world war, becomes a prime favorite with her, and after the fishing season is over, they still remain friends. He goes out to a farm in British Columbia and there meets a little girl whom he shortly becomes engaged to. But here the Princess Sobieska unwittingly makes trouble for him, for she appears on the scene again, and Kate thinks there is or has been something more than friendship, between Donald and her, and breaks the engagement. The Princess, in her wisdom, takes just the right course to straighten matters out, and all ends happily.
“The book suggests an attractive open-air atmosphere, and the freedom of great spaces.”
“Frankly, Mr Gibbon has contrived to secure a host of ill-assorted ingredients that, so far from assimilating each other, make known their utter unsimilarity in no uncertain fashion.”
“If it is possible, Mr Gibbon has too much real life in his book. Now and again the realization comes quite consciously that he is using his carpetbag of a romance as a receptacle for chunks of his own life. On the whole his story is a crude, vigorous, simple and attractive sketch of the Canada of today.”
“It is an amusing tale, but carries no serious conviction.”
GIBBON, M. MORGAN. Jan. *$1.90 (3c) Doubleday
John and Jan are both Owens, John, son of the quiet, staid Henry, and Jan, daughter of the wild, wilful John. The younger John and Jan alike crave freedom and liberty from the time they play together as children. Even then John’s love for Jan is strong and protecting and it never wavers all thru their school life until she promises to marry him. But she finds the engagement irksome and after a quarrel, John sets her free. She experiments with her freedom, trying one excursion into liberty after another. But nothing satisfies, she and John are both miserable and both too proud to give in. Eventually she realizes that she would rather have love than freedom.
“The young lady who gives a name to ‘Jan’ labours obviously under the disadvantage—very usual with novel heroines—of meaning something to her creator, which has not been conveyed to the reader. The descriptions of Welsh middle-class life are vivid and sympathetic, and impress us as drawn from actual fact.”
“It is a thoroughly wholesome story, set forth by a writer who has the gift of frank, effective, convincing narrative. The value of this novel, which most readers will appreciate, lies in the fact that it is entertaining in itself, page after page.”
“This is a first novel which may fairly be described as promising. Praise must be given to the careful delineation of the characters of Jan and John.”
GIBBONS, HERBERT ADAMS. France and ourselves. *$1.50 (2½c) Century 940.344
This collection of “Interpretative studies, 1917–1919,” is from the author’s war contributions to various American magazines, mainly to the Century. The burden of the book throughout is “We must see problems as France sees them, and we must help to solve them in the French way and not in the American.” Even when the author contrasts America’s “fourteen points” with what he is pleased to call France’s “fourteen points,” he does not consider the task hopeless. Contents: How we can help France; The tiger of France; World justice for France; The industrial effort of France during the war; Human currents of the war; The attitude of France toward peace; The reconstruction of northern France; The case against Caillaux; What confronts France.
“Much of the book must be classed less as history than as propaganda, though propaganda of a very high-minded type. But the inevitable shortcomings of the book add in another way to its value. It vibrates with the spirit of the war and with the generous enthusiasm that inspired those Americans to whom the true character of France had been revealed.” A. D. Hill
“Much of this book is now badly out of date. Aside from this, there is much that is valuable and even timely in the book. Dr Gibbons writes with vigor and clarity of vision.”
“The chapter on the attitude of France toward peace, written about a year ago, is full of matter for thought today.” T. M. Parrott
“The average American can be benefited by reading this collection of essays.”
GIBBONS, HERBERT ADAMS. Riviera towns. il *$6 McBride 914.4
“The Mediterranean is more blue than elsewhere because firs and cedars and pines are not too green. The cliffs are more red than elsewhere because there is no prevailing tone of bare, baked earth to modify them into brown and gray. On the Riviera one does not have to give up the rich green of northern landscapes to enjoy the alternative of brilliant sunshine.” With this characterization of the Riviera before him the reader is taken along the coast and up thoroughfares “built for legs and nothing else” to browse through the picturesque and medieval towns, more or less familiar to every one but made more real to him by the thirty-two full-page illustrations of Lester George Hornby. The towns described are Grasse; Cagnes; Saint-Paul-duVar; Villeneuve-Loubet; Vence; Menton; Monte Carlo; Villefranche; Nice; Antibes; Cannes; Mougins; Fréjus; Saint-Raphaël; Théoule.
“As it must be an open question as to which is the most interesting town, so it is an unanswerable question as to which of the chapters is the best, and Mr Hornby has added much to the book by his clever illustrations.” G. M. H.
“It represents the best type of its class of literature, written, as it is, in a delightfully informal and intimate mood, with description and anecdote blended with a rare felicity.” B. R. Redman
GIBBONS, HERBERT ADAMS. Venizelos. (Modern statesmen ser.) il *$3.50 Houghton
Much of this biography is based on the author’s personal acquaintance with his subject. As a college teacher in the Near East he has, moreover, an intimate knowledge of the entire political situation that precipitated the second Balkan war, that kept Greece neutral in 1915 and 1916, and that dictated the policy of Venizelos at the peace conference. Venizelos, although a native of Crete, inherited his Hellenism and became active in its cause from the time he entered the University of Athens as a law student. Contents: The boyhood and early manhood of an unredeemed Greek; A revolutionary by profession; Venizelos solves the Cretan question; Venizelos intervenes in Greece; The Balkan alliance surprises Europe; Turkey is crushed by her former Balkan subjects; The second Balkan war and the treaty of Bukarest; Venizelos reorganizes Greece internally; Venizelos offers to join the entente against Germany; Constantine tries to keep Greece neutral; Venizelos goes to Saloniki; Greece in the world war; Venizelos at the peace conference; Greece against the integrity of the Ottoman empire. The book has a number of maps and is illustrated and indexed.
“This study is not that of an academic student, nor a detached investigator. As the author himself states in his introduction, he is more a reporter than a historian. His narrative gains thereby measurably in freshness and interest.” O. McK., jr.
“The book was written before the downfall of Premier Venizelos, but it will be none the less useful.”
“What he is writing is not dignified biography, but propaganda.” Elenore Kellogg
“The book is one of great value, notwithstanding its lack of some of the qualities artistic and interesting biography ought to have.”
“Mr Gibbons’ book is the most successful attempt to give a complete and proportioned account of Venizelos’ life.” A. E. Phoutrides
“Aside from its strictly biographical features, this volume is a contribution to the recent history of the Balkans, as well as to that of the peace conference at Paris.”
“Mr Gibbons has contributed a notable addition to modern biography.” E. B. Moses
GIBBS, GEORGE FORT. Splendid outcast. il *$2 (2c) Appleton
In the midst of a battle Jim Horton finds his twin brother Harry, an officer with responsibility, crouching behind the lines in a “blue funk,” desperately afraid to obey his major’s orders, Jim compels Harry to change uniforms with him, takes Harry’s place, and so splendidly performs his brother’s duty that he gains for him the croix de guerre. Incidentally, Jim is seriously wounded. Recovering in the hospital he finds himself in a strange dilemma. No one believes his story. At last he grimly resolves to see the game through. This is difficult, as Harry is a dissolute crook engaged in some shady undertakings, and Jim is all that a true gentleman ought to be. Furthermore there is Harry’s beautiful bride to add more perplexing complications. Around this situation evolves a tense story, running through the underworld of Paris. In the end Jim, upon the death of his worthless brother, marries the beautiful Moira, whose marriage to Harry had been forced upon her, and who loves Jim beyond question.
“It is undeniably a dramatic story that Mr Gibbs tells. In spite of the transparent confusion of identities, he manages to keep us genuinely guessing at least part of the time.”
“If the characters were any of them real people the probabilities of the plot would not matter so much, but they are merely the stereotyped figures who have appeared in dozens of tales of this order, and they rather detract than add to the book’s credibility.”
“The book would make a tremendous movie. The moves of the detective-like story are too intricate, the action too violent, the scenes too realistic to be overlooked in this field. It is a book for tired brains and jaded moments.” Katharine Oliver
“The story moves with the rapid characteristic of Gibbs’s tales, but many of the incidents are more obviously manufactured for effect than in some of the author’s preceding books.”
GIBBS, SIR PHILIP HAMILTON. Now it can be told (Eng title, Realities of war). *$3 (1c) Harper 940.3
“In this book I have written in a blunt way some episodes of the war as I observed them, and gained firsthand knowledge of them in their daily traffic. I have not painted the picture blacker than it was, nor selected gruesome morsels and joined them together to make a jig-saw puzzle for ghoulish delight.... I have tried to set down as many aspects of the war’s psychology as I could find in my remembrance of these years, without exaggeration or false emphasis, so that out of their confusion, even out of their contradiction, the real truth of the adventure might be seen as it touched the souls of men. Yet when one strives to sum up the evidence ... are we really poor beasts in the jungle, striving by tooth and claw, high velocity and poison-gas, for the survival of the fittest in an endless conflict? If that is so, then God mocks at us. Or, rather, if that is so, there is no God such as we men may love with love for men.” (Part 8) Contents: Observers and commanders; The school of courage; The nature of a battle; A winter of discontent; The heart of a city; Psychology on the Somme; The fields of Armageddon; For what men died.
“The war writing of Mr Gibbs presents an interesting problem. He appears to be a reasonably sensitive observer, he has had exceptional opportunities for observing, and he writes with considerable fluency. Why, then, does his writing affect us so little?... Mr Gibbs’ style has no definite and unique outline; it is, as it were, a composite style, his voice has the indistinctness of the voice of a crowd. The style is adequate to his purpose because his sentiments have something of the same quality. They furnish, as it were, the greatest common measure of the more intelligent opinion and the more decent feeling about the war.” J. W. N. S.
“His book is a bit querulous about the obvious indignities; but it is calm and terrible about the great wrongs.”
“The indictment of war is written in the same spirit as Barbusse’s famous novel ‘Le feu’ or Sassoon’s war poetry, and with as much literary skill as either. Mr Gibbs’ emotional reaction to the horrors of war fuses the miscellaneous details of the book into a powerful picture of the whole. His intellectual reaction is not so clear.”
“It is a great triumph for him to have written this book, to say the things he does say and reveal the facts he reveals.” F. H.
“This volume marks the close of that great work done by Mr Philip Gibbs as a chronicler of war. It is a wonderful close, and a public tired of war books must not make the mistake of neglecting this, which has a frankness, a truth and a stern reality never before shown in all the literature of the war.” Cecil Robert
“Different from his other books in that it shows no particular design, is painfully fragmentary and reveals Mr Gibbs as an unsatisfactory psychologist.”
“A book which, however unpleasant it may be, is to all appearances both truthful and sincere. Its truthfulness is its greatest virtue. In several ways, however, the book is somewhat unsatisfactory. Its tone, one may say, is not that of well-balanced thinking or of altogether unbiassed criticism; it does not wholly convince. Furthermore, one cannot rid oneself of the feeling that Sir Philip leans somewhat toward the pacifist fallacy.”
“Mr Gibbs says things well: his fault is that he says them too often. Some of the repetition is clever emphasis that drives home the point while the speed saves the effect of boredom. If the book lasts it will be as a record of matters which properly belong to history, but with which history does not always deal.”
“We cannot honestly recommend anyone to read this book just now, valuable and interesting though it may be to the next and succeeding generations. Power of graphic description Sir Philip Gibbs undoubtedly has; but his bitterness of spirit and his emotional worship of youth are not moods to be prolonged at the present hour.”
“He has a keen eye for the telling detail that impresses a picture indelibly on the mind, and his quick sympathy with all who suffer helps him to keep the human side of the great tragedy foremost in our thoughts. His style is sufficient without being distinguished. He has, however, the defects of his qualities. He sees what is to be seen so intensely that he is inclined to forget the existence of what he does not see.”
“From the beginning to the end he resolutely refused (and it is a great thing to say of him) to become familiar with war. He took no intellectual pleasure, as it was so easy to do, in all the human ingenuity that was concentrated on it. So too Mr Gibbs kept himself remote from everything that concerned war as a profession, with its inevitable indifference to suffering. He is single-minded in his desire to be the spokesman of youth that went to the war.”
“If ‘The judgment of peace’ is a flame, ‘Now it can be told’ is a slow and smoldering fire. These books, accepted by mankind, would be sufficient in themselves to end war forever.” G. H.
GIBBS, SIR PHILIP HAMILTON. People of destiny; Americans as I saw them at home and abroad. il *$2 (5c) Harper 917.3
In describing the life in New York and the people he met in America the author records impressions that are much the same as those of other Europeans, vid., that there is too much vastness, bustle and hubbub, too little “art, beauty, leisure, the quiet pools of thought.” In summing up the characteristics of the people he finds them “filled with vital energy, kind in heart, sincere and simple in their ways of thought and speech, idealistic in emotion, practical in conduct and democratic by faith and upbringing”; and he expresses the hope that these characteristics will help them to steer free of the dangers that threaten our liberties since the war. In telling America what England thinks of it he is holding up a warning mirror to us. Contents: The adventure of life in New York; Some people I met in America; Things I like in the United States; America’s new place in the world; What England thinks of America; Americans in Europe.
“He expresses a number of opinions about America, but they are not all consistent with one another, they belong to different emotional registers, and we feel it would be a purely arbitrary proceeding to select any consistent set of them as representative.”
“His first few chapters are so insistently laudatory that one feels his praise issues more from his will than from his judgment, that he is simply determined to see good, and one longs—perversely, no doubt—for more shading in the picture. In the closing chapters, however, he comes to grips with his subject and gives a more balanced verdict.”
“Sir Philip Gibbs met so many of the right people during his stay among us that it is curious he should have learned anything whatever about America. Sir Philip’s book is occupied largely with the conventional admirations of the casual European for the physical conveniences of our civilization, with the regulation amazements about wonder cities and their subways and skylines and palaces and bejewelled parasites.” Harold Kellock
“In the main his studies of the American man, woman, and child at home are not only correct, but animated by a cordial pleasure in having seen people he likes, doing the things he likes.”
GIBBS, SIR PHILIP HAMILTON. Wounded souls. *$2 (2c) Doran
The story is not so much a novel as it is an account of the war’s effect on human souls. We see it first in Lille with its inhuman savage hatred and lust for revenge on the part of the French and a revulsion of feeling in the English soldiers from patriotism to an abomination of the war. Then the author shows us the effect of the armistice on the German people and their reviving hope kindled by the fourteen points. Again in England the same irreconcilable spirit of hatred as in France and the ruthless, morbid, neurotic sullenness of the returned soldier. Between all these forces the crushing out of love and life in the young couple—the English officer and his German wife—whose humanity had carried them beyond nationality. The whole is a drastic picture of post-war Europe.
“In this book Philip Gibbs, with powerful, vital strokes, brings home to us that the war is not yet over, although fought and won.”
“Only a man who has been there could introduce so much background. Mr Gibbs was either too close to his material or too much the journalist to succeed in giving the atmosphere of an invaded country as well as Sir Harry Johnston has done in ‘Mrs Warren’s daughter.’ But his chronicle of public sentiment in England equals that of H. G. Wells’s stories of the war.”
“All of the descriptive part, where the author confines himself principally to an admirable reporting of what he himself saw and heard, is extremely interesting and worth while. The fictional portion of the book is less successful.” L. M. Field
“The junkers of all nations, the militarists, the advocates of universal military training, will not thank Philip Gibbs for ‘Wounded souls,’ which must at least be credited with eloquence and disquieting vision.”
“It is excellently done, and often moving, but it is just the feeling that everything is being made so skilfully to tell which prevents one accepting it in the spirit of real æsthetic enjoyment. Sir Philip Gibbs, like many another of us, is disillusioned, which is not surprising, but he overdraws the picture of disillusionment and spiritual decay. His shadows are all pitch dark and his lights too high.”
GIBRAN, KAHLIL. Forerunner; his parables and poems. il *$1.50 Knopf 892.7
This book is similar in form and thought to “The madman,” published in 1918. “You are your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the foundation of your giant-self. And that self too shall be a foundation,” are the opening words. The five illustrations are from drawings by the author.
“There is a great deal of beauty and imaginative power in Mr Gibran’s pages which sink into the consciousness with a kind of Oriental hush that is captivating.” W. S. B.
GIBRAN, KAHLIL. Twenty drawings. *$3.50 Knopf 741
“The drawings in this book are by a Syrian who the publishers tell us ‘has brought the mysticism of the Near East to America and has chosen to throw in his lot with the artists of the Occident in an endeavor to fuse new bonds of interest between the old world and the new.’ This theme of the publishers is further elaborated in an interpretative essay by Miss Alice Raphael which prefaces the volume.”—Nation
“His drawings call up instantaneously to the memory the tinted pencil sketches of Rodin; they strive for the massiveness of Rodin but attain instead a feminine sweetness of touch and conception. They hint strongly too of the methods and mannerisms of Leonardo da Vinci.” Glen Mullin
GIBSON, CHARLES R. Chemistry and its mysteries; the story of what things are made of told in simple language. il *$1.50 Lippincott 540
“The preface of ‘Chemistry and its mysteries,’ is addressed to the adult and sets forth the advantages of disabusing the mind of any child below high school age of the idea that chemistry is a dry and merely technical study. The author bases the book on the belief that children will become genuinely interested in science, if the subject is put before them in a manner in which they can easily grasp it. The volume is the fifth in the Science for children series, the text showing in a simple manner the inner meaning of everyday happenings and the composition of materials met in everyday life.”—Springf’d Republican
“Of interest to the adult as well as child.”
“He certainly has achieved considerable success in a difficult task. It is unfortunate that Mr Gibson makes a few statements to which exception can be taken in themselves.”
GIBSON, WILFRID WILSON.[2] Neighbours. *$2 Macmillan 821
“There is restraint and beauty in these poems which always keep close touch with men and women. Neighbours speak in the quiet of their homes a few intimate lines which open whole life stories; pretty love poems, poems of travel and picture verses are gathered with ‘In khaki’ and ‘Casualties.’”—Booklist
“Mr Gibson for us has something of the power and the achievement of his fellow-Northumbrian, Bewick. Granted that he possesses not a tithe of Bewick’s nature-knowledge, he approaches him more nearly in his reading of human nature; and when he leaves this province for the dash and splendour of Turner or even the woodland reverie of Birket Foster, he drops for a shadow the substance which he had before.” E. B.
“The only definitely interesting section of Mr Gibson’s new book is the first, called ‘Neighbours,’ containing a series of grim rural monologues and dialogues. The other sections are filled with turgid sonnets and monotonous quatrains about the war.” Mark Van Doren
“Admiring Mr Gibson’s careful workmanship and truth to nature, we cannot escape the feeling that at least half the time he is to the real poet as the photographer, however fine, is to the artist.”
Reviewed by K. L. Bates
“Mr Gibson’s skill is most admirable when we consider that it is allied to poetic feeling of the utmost simplicity and depth.”
“Mr Gibson’s latest book will not lessen his reputation as a poet, but it can scarcely add to it. For while the virtues of style and sincerity which his earlier poetry has taught us to expect, are in equal evidence here, the vices which we trusted were only incidents of his growth remain in an exaggerated condition.”
GILBRETH, FRANK BUNKER, and GILBRETH, LILLIAN EVELYN (MOLLER) (MRS FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH). Motion study for the handicapped. (Efficiency books) il *$4 Dutton 658.7
“The authors maintain that there is ‘one best way’ in every industrial process, and that way can best be determined by a study of the methods of experts as revealed by motion pictures so taken as to show the path of the motion and the time required. The best way of performing an operation having been determined, the authors maintain that the cripple should be taught that method. Their enthusiastic claim is, ‘We have worked out in the laboratory the methods by which suitable occupations for cripples of any type may be determined and also methods by which training in these occupations may be transferred to the crippled learner.’ Much is said about the problem of the crippled soldier, for most of the chapters of the book were papers read before meetings of engineers in 1917 and 1918 when that subject was receiving much attention.”—Survey
Reviewed by J. C. Faris
GILL, CHARLES OTIS, and PINCHOT, GIFFORD. Six thousand country churches. il *$2 Macmillan 261
“The authors whose work ‘The country church’ described rural church conditions in a county each of New York and Vermont, have thoroughly surveyed Ohio, its churches, ministers, education, crime, social life, denominationalism, and other features. They find too great a division into sects, and in some of the counties most needing religious instruction, a great number of ill-attended churches, with non-resident or poorly educated pastors. Community churches are recommended. Many maps make this book more graphic than the former volume.”—Booklist
“Perhaps the chief value of the work ... lies in its impartial exhibit of the zeal and stupidity of denominationalism gone to seed.” Allan Hoben
“This book is indispensable to all who would attempt to shape the program for the living church in America during the next generation.”
“Some very practical and informing light on the subject of church federation is thrown by Charles Otis Gill and Gifford Pinchot, in ‘Six thousand country churches.’”
“Certainly everybody who is at all concerned for the cause of morals and religion, every student of sociology, and every believer in the laboratory method, must feel under deep obligation to the painstaking authors of ’6,000 country churches’ for the statesmanlike survey which they have given to us.” C: E. Beals
GILLESPIE, JAMES EDWARD.[2] Influence of oversea expansion on England to 1700. (Columbia university studies in history, economics, and public law) pa *$3 Longmans 942
“In this treatise British colonial development is approached from a new angle. The author has made a serious attempt to analyze and present the effects of early British expansion on England herself. He discusses these effects in the concrete, under the heads of social customs, commerce, industry, finance, morals and religion, thought, literature, art and politics.”—R of Rs
“He handles large quantities of fascinating material with dexterity and good sense.”
“Mr Gillespie’s book, though sometimes inconclusive and sometimes unconvincing, particularly in what it says of political development, is illuminating and suggestive, and opens up a new field of observation and research to the historical student.”
“Such a discussion is useful in that it brings together for the first time a variety of materials that have heretofore been widely scattered. It serves to crystallize and clarify our views of a most important period in English history.”
GITTINS, HARRY NEVILLE. Short and sweet. *$1.75 Lane
A collection of short light stories and sketches. The author died on active service in France in 1917, aged twenty-four years. The stories originally appeared in Punch, the Liverpool Daily Post and London Opinion, and have been collected in book form by Mr Gittins’ family as a tribute to his memory. The point of most of the stories, which average about seven pages, is in the light repartee of love making rather than in action. Among the titles are: The golfing husband; Marjorie on the turf; A golfing musical comedy; By the left; A difficult handicap; A lucky escape; The married man’s advantage; The difficulty of the dance; Short and sweet, etc. At the close there is a group of verses in the same strain.
“Of gossamer texture, and seemingly dashed off without much thought, they yet give an instantly recognizable reflection of the typical British young man of good family and sufficient means. Some of the chapters suggest the daintiness of the ‘Dolly dialogues,’ while all are up to a respectable standard of literary merit.”
“They are very good examples of the light humorous vein in which the youth of this generation delight and excel. Many of them remind us of the early work of Barrie.”
“The little stories have a touch of original humor and are agreeable.”
GLAENZER, RICHARD BUTLER. Literary snapshots, impressions of contemporary authors. *$1.25 Brentano’s 811
“In these snapshots, Mr Glaenzer has brought out the literary features of his subjects. The first three groups are devoted to English, American and foreign authors, among the twenty-two of the first being Hardy, Galsworthy, Wells, Kipling, Barrie, Shaw, to Dunsany, Doyle, Hudson and Blackwood; among the fourteen American authors are Howells, Dreiser, Wharton, Tarkington, Hergesheimer, Churchill and Wister; among the ten foreign authors are France, Loti, Rolland, to Schnitzler, d’Annunzio and Boyer. Another group of prose-writers are labelled ‘Lollypops,’ among which are Harold Bell Wright, Florence L. Barclay, Robert W. Chambers, Elinor Glyn, Owen Johnson, Marie Corelli, Upton Sinclair and Frances Hodgson Burnett. In the four groups under the ‘Flicks at Pegasus,’ the poets, English and American are limned.”—Boston Transcript
“The likeness is in the impression rather than in the contours, and for that reason is much more strikingly interesting.” W. S. B.
“The literary photographer has been clever in catching his victims in what the public would call ‘a characteristic and distinctive pose.’ In the case of his vers libre subjects Mr Glaenzer is successful in reflecting their styles in his own.” L. M. R.
“You may not like some of the snapshots, you may violently disagree with the implied judgments—but they are all stimulating, some of them are humorous, a few bitter, and more are acutely critical.” W. P. Eaton
GLASIER, JOHN BRUCE. Meaning of socialism. *$2 (4c) Seltzer 335
The book is one of the “New library of social science” series, edited by J. Ramsay Macdonald. It has an introduction by J. A Hobson, who says of socialism that its most profitable labor is in the field of “humanism”—meaning that economics, politics, art and morals are but necessary factors in the realization of higher human relationships—and that the author of the book has more successfully than any other writer of our time the humanist interpretation and outlook. The four parts of the book are: After long ages; The epoch of freedom; Socialism in existing society; Beyond all frontiers.
“Mr Glasier is badly equipped as an economist and is too impatient for rhetorical flights.” H. S.
“While the book contains no new departure in socialist thought, the author’s fine literary gift, his intimate knowledge of the socialist movement and his inspiring idealism make the volume an excellent first aid to the student of socialism.”
“Presents the fundamental idea of socialism with a large amount of ethical and humane idealism and praiseworthy grace and sweetness of temper. It is, in short, socialism suffused with the spirit of William Morris and purged of its economic one-sidedness that Mr Glasier presents.”
GLASPELL, SUSAN (MRS GEORGE CRAM COOK). Plays. *$2 Small 812
All of Susan Glaspell’s plays have been produced by the Provincetown players and by other little theater groups and some of them have been published separately. This is the first collected edition. The collection opens with Trifles, which has been called “the best play that has been written by an American.” The other one-act plays are The people, Close the book, The outside and Woman’s honor. These are followed by the three-act play, Bernice, a play of subtle theme, one of the few attempts to write serious American drama. The collection closes with two comedies written in collaboration with George Cram Cook, Suppressed desires and Tickless time.
“Miss Glaspell has command of crisp and forceful dialogue, but this volume, indeed, indicates clearly that her gifts are literary rather than dramatic.”
“These eight plays have a literary quality and a somewhat philosophical viewpoint that make them as readable as stories. Miss Glaspell writes in a crisp, descriptive style and she shows keen insight into the underlying human motives. ‘Trifles’ is a really great play.”
“The publication of Miss Glaspell’s collected plays at last lifts them out of the tawdriness of their original production and lets them live by their own inherent life. That life is strong, though it is never rich. In truth, it is thin. Only it is thin not like a wisp of straw, but like a tongue of flame.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Miss Glaspell’s style, while not especially distinguished, is entertaining and easy to read.” H. S. Gorman
“The well-rounded laughter of ‘Suppressed desires’ becomes a trifle more angular in the comedies from a single pen, ‘Woman’s honor,’ and ‘Close the book.’ In all the plays there is a deeper meaning, the presence of an interesting idea or ideal, yet, as in ‘Woman’s honor’ and ‘The outside,’ the idea often remains veiled. ‘Bernice’ may be read with an intensity of thought. Yet, as a play, acted upon a stage, what was intense might easily become monotonous.”
“For readers who can achieve an artistic perspective in relation to these plays there is satisfaction in finding, after reading and rereading them all, that the big things are the good ones, and that the biggest is the best. It is as if Miss Glaspell hit a far target more easily than one close by.”
GLEASON, ARTHUR HUNTINGTON. What the workers want: a study of British labor. *$4 Harcourt, Brace & Howe 331
As a result of five years’ study of the British, the author predicts that England will make an early and sane adjustment to the new impulses of the human spirit now striving for expression throughout the world and that she will be the first country to enter the new age equipped and unembittered. His summary of the wants of the workers today is: “The workers wish to be the public servants of community enterprise, not the hired hands of private enterprise. They refuse to work longer for a system of private profits divided in part among non-producers. They demand a share in the control and responsibilities of the work they do (not only welfare and workshop conditions, but discipline and management and commercial administration). They demand a good life, which means a standard of living (in terms of wages and hours) that provides leisure, recreation, education, health, comfort, and security.” (Chapter 1) The contents report all the important events and tendencies in the industrial world since the war under the sections: Chaos and aspirations; The year; The way they do it; What the workers want; Problems; The summing up. The appendix gives in full the important documents of the social revolution and is divided into the sections: The employers; Masters and men; The workers; The judgment; The public. There is an index.
“A thoroughgoing and interesting summary of movements, forces and men in the British labor situation.”
“The feature that gives the book its greatest value, is its profound understanding of the British people, whose industrial and political problems it describes and illumines with such keen comment.” T. M. Ave-Lallemant
“There is little attempt to give the historic background of the various groups, but the reader who has been awakened at all to the new authority with which labor is speaking in Britain and, to its influence upon world politics, as well as upon labor problems in the narrower sense, will find here the best material yet available for understanding the situation.”
“The account of the Coal commission, with its shrewd and playful pictures of the chief actors, is an illustration of what is, to the general reader, both the book’s greatest charm and its greatest danger—its emphasis on the personalities of the labor movement. The danger is that of a heroistic reading of current tendencies. The book nowhere gets put together, and Mr Gleason’s generalizations are likely to come as shrewd asides.” C. L. Goodrich
“Mr Gleason reports contemporary history as a dramatist might compose a pageant. He sets the stage, describes the dramatis personae, and juxtaposes their significant utterances. The result gives an effect of authentic composition. As is usual with Mr Gleason’s books, not the least valuable part of ‘What the workers want’ is the bulky appendix.” G: Soule
“This book is the ablest piece of reporting I have seen in several years. It is vivid, singularly intimate in its knowledge, and with a frank recognition of the problems involved that gives it an objectivity rare in books of the kind. Mr Gleason has had a preparation unparalleled among American students for this work.” H. J. L.
“There is so much that is excellent and of timely consequence in Mr Gleason’s 500–page volume that it is difficult to feel either patient or charitable toward the author when, occasionally, he seems to lose his head.”
GLINSKI, ANTONI JÓZEF.[2] Polish fairy tales; tr. by Maude Ashurst Biggs. il *$5 Lane
These tales representing the folk lore of the eastern provinces of Poland and White Russia are of extreme age, some of them dating back to primitive Aryan times. There is an obvious likeness between them and the folk lore of other European nations and they are taken from a larger collection made by A. J. Glinski. They are beautifully illustrated in color by Cecile Walton, and an explanatory appendix is added by the translator. The tales are: The frog princess; Princess Miranda and Prince Hero; The eagles; The whirlwind; The good ferryman and the water nymphs; The princess of the Brazen Mountain; The bear in the forest hut.
“The vivacious illustrations by Cecile Walton show a conscientious striving to interpret these unfamiliar themes.”
“An exceptionally attractive book.”
“What especially distinguishes this book is the illustrations.”
GODDARD, HENRY HERBERT. Human efficiency and levels of intelligence. il *$1.50 Princeton univ. press 150
“Series of lectures delivered last year under the Louis Clark Vanuxem foundation at Princeton university by Henry Herbert Goddard, director of the bureau of juvenile research of Ohio, have just been published under the title, ‘Human efficiency and levels of intelligence.’” (Springf’d Republican) “The lectures explain how the recognition of different degrees of intelligence among children and adults can effect greater social efficiency by aiding each person to train for the work and responsibility which his mental equipment warrants. Tests are used as a conscious control of delinquency and the feeble-minded are protected and directed to aid in their own support. The author’s work with soldiers has shown an astonishing degree of variation in intelligence among normal people.” (Booklist)
“His theory of an intellectual aristocracy is intensely interesting and appealing.”
GOIZET, LOUIS HENRI. Never grow old. *$2 (6c) Putnam 612.68
The author claims to have discovered a method by which man can live in beauty and health for more than a hundred years. It is based on the theory that perfect health requires absolute rectitude of form without which static equilibrium and harmony of the organic functions are impossible. The method consists of a system of “superficial tractile rubbings” by which the free circulation of “the rotary molecular current” is reestablished throughout the cells of the organized being. The book falls into two parts, of which the first develops the law on which the theory is based and the second treats of the method. Some of the chapters in part two are: Causes of alteration in form; The rectitude of forms; Rectification of form.
“The book contains much suggestive argument and speculation.”
“It can be said, however, that the first half of the book leads the way to its climax with a relentless logic—providing always that the author’s premises are correct—that is truly delightful and admirably lucid.” Van Buren Thorne
GOLDBERG, ISAAC. Studies in Spanish-American literature. *$2.50 Brentano’s 860
“‘It is high time we arouse ourselves to an appreciation of the ideals and merits of Spanish-American literature’ writes Prof. J. D. M. Ford in his introduction to ‘Studies in Spanish-American literature.’ Dr Goldberg discusses the modernist spirit and five of its prophets, Dario of Nicaragua, Rodo of Uruguay, Chocano and Eguren of Peru, Blanco-Fombona of Venezuela. Many poems and philosophical and political points of view are quoted in both the original and translation. Several rhymed translations are by Alice Stone Blackwell.”—Springf’d Republican
“The puzzling thing about Dr Goldberg is that while in Spanish verse he is sensitive to delicate shades of rhythm and cadence, for an English equivalent he seems ready to accept anything which comes to hand.” J. B. T.
“Though a scholarly work, its swift, lucid style and novelty of subject give it an appeal for the general reader.”
“His study of Dario’s poetry is enthusiastic and appreciative; it is marked with the fairest critical spirit. This may also be declared of his entire treatment of the ‘Modernistas.’” T: Walsh
“As a work of scholarship, Dr Goldberg’s book is of tremendous value. It is written to appeal to the general reader, and appeal it will, if swift, lucid style and novelty of subject matter count for anything.” G. H. C.
“Novelty, fairness and lucidity mark these studies.”
“A book of permanent value, really necessary in any collection of world literature.” T: Walsh
“It is a book of pleasant reading, for Dr Goldberg’s style is florid and, were it not for a trifle too much effort, would be brilliant. The chief significance of these studies is, however, as the first effort to provide a sound literary criticism of the work of South American writers.” H. K.
“Dr Goldberg’s scholarship is good in essentials. Unfortunately, however, he can not be complimented for carefulness in little things. In spite of the general clarity of his style, there are now and then pages far from clear.” F: B. Luquiens
“Dr Goldberg has written in great detail, with diction lucid and at times sparkling.”
GOLDRING, DOUGLAS. Fight for freedom. (Plays for a people’s theatre) *$1.25 Seltzer 822
In this four act play a war-maddened young soldier assaults the girl who had asked to be relieved from her engagement to him on the ground that she has learned to love another. The development of the play brings out the attitudes of the various characters toward the man himself, his act, and the girl concerned. These vary from the sentimental attitude of those who would forgive “our boys” anything to that of the two radicals to whom personal considerations are nothing in the face of the coming revolution. Henri Barbusse has written a preface and there is an introduction by the author.
“It is a clever pamphlet play, but there is more speechifying than dialogue.”
“Mr Goldring’s best is in the sudden reversal from the expected toward the end of his play, when his theoretical revolutionary becomes human—and a bit detestable for once.” Gilbert Seldes
“If it were not for Mr Goldring’s introduction, it would be very hard to believe that anyone could seriously contribute this muscle-bound thesis-play as anything the people or anybody else but a theatrical antiquarian would be interested in.” Kenneth Macgowan
Reviewed by Dorothy Grafly
“‘The fight for freedom’ is a good play quite apart from any pretensions to be different in character from the social plays of the pre-war theater. It is, in fact, in direct line with the best work of Shaw, Galsworthy and Barker.” B. L.
GOLDRING, DOUGLAS. Margot’s progress. *$1.90 (1½c) Seltzer
The story of a social climber. Maggie Carter, a grocer’s daughter from Montreal, goes to Paris with three thousand dollars capital and there becomes Margot Cartier. Her small capital is to tide her over the brief period until her beauty, which is her real asset, has won her an advantageous marriage. And it all works out as she planned. Thru the Falkenheims, rich Jews whom she meets on the boat, she is introduced to London society. Renewal of acquaintance with an old Canadian connection gives the right suggestion of social background, and she becomes Lady Stokes. But the marriage does not turn out well. An elderly admirer dies and leaves her a legacy, which provides both the means to freedom and the excuse for a quarrel with her husband. She is divorced and goes to Paris, where the outbreak of the war finds her. At the close there is promise of a second marriage with a man she loves.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Vigorous, varied, and colourful.”
“The story is interesting, vigorously told, with an unusual power of vivid, direct presentation, fired too with a nervous intentness. But after all, it is not a book that gives one much comfort. One concedes its merits, but without enthusiasm. One feels, on finishing it, like turning to Ali Baba or Cinderella or Lord Dunsany as an antidote.” C. F. L.
“It is the kind of story which might easily be preposterous but is convincingly inevitable.”
“Beneath the superficial reaction of enjoyment derived from an entertaining story there ran a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction and resentment at the author for toying with a genuine and precious talent. In ‘Margot’s progress,’ Goldring has written a ‘best-seller’—superior in many points to the American product, but nevertheless a best-seller, with all its tawdry virtues and triple-plated vices.” Max Endicoff
“It is highly enjoyable reading and without a dull moment from cover to cover.”
“One may find some of Margot’s sophisticated conversation a little grating; but, for that matter, one will find a good deal about Margot and her acquaintances a little grating. Still there is a driving force to her ambition that wins toleration, if not admiration. The story gains in emotional force and dramatic intensity as it progresses.”
GOLDRING, DOUGLAS. Reputations; essays in criticism. *$2.50 Seltzer 824
These criticisms and appreciations of some of the younger English novelists, poets and contemporary writers with some literary reflections in general are: James Elroy Flecker—an appreciation and some personal memories; Three Georgian novelists—Compton Mackenzie—Hugh Walpole—Gilbert Cannan; The later work of D. H. Lawrence; Mr Wells and the war; The war and the poets; An outburst on Gissing; The author of “Tarr”; The Gordon Selfridge of English letters; Redding “on wines”; Clever novels; 1855; Low tastes; Looking back. There is an index.
“We have bitter need at the present time for a reconsideration of critical principles; for a non-partisan criticism to disperse the miasma of name-worship and of chaotic emotionalism, which are the part-legacy of war; and, in view of this need, it is refreshing to read Mr Goldring’s brilliant, and rather contemptuous, onslaught upon public idols.”
Reviewed by R. E. Roberts
“Possibly Mr Goldring is a little too fluent; his judgments roll off somewhat like first thoughts, and he is a little amusing in his consciousness of maturity. But he has an unmistakable knack of hitting precisely the strength and weakness of those whom he discusses.” C. M. R.
“His comments on the intellectual life of England are exceedingly worth while and his marginal notes, those paragraphs that embroider his critical articles, are extremely valuable. The reader knows definitely where he stands. Beside his critical acumen is a deal of genuine, worth-while information.”
“In this book the author once more gives proof of his remarkable receptivity, his power of seizing and reproducing the surface impressions of the circle in which he moves. That there is nothing either well-thought-out or valuable in these essays is hardly so much his fault as his misfortune. The lighter sketches are incomparably the better, and should prove to him his true vocation.”
“It is a long while since anything more delightful in the way of a literary study has appeared than Mr Goldring’s ‘James Elron Flecker.’ The study seems to the present writer to be the best essay in the book, clever as is most of the rest—that and a piece entitled ‘Low tastes,’ for these are almost the only two in which Mr Goldring does not obtrude his political opinions.”
“The best paper in the volume—because the most thoroughly studied—is that on James Elroy Flecker. On the whole, there is nothing distinguished in these criticisms, though Mr Goldring is to be credited with flashes of illumination and a pungent style.”
“As he has a gift for seeing beneath the genius to the man, and can attend a tea-party for the pleasure of saying afterwards how trivial he found it, his book is not devoid of spice, though its prose is undistinguished and sometimes slack.”
GOLDSMITH, MILTON (ASTRA CIELO, pseud.). I wonder why. il *$1.75 (2½c) Sully 504
A book designed to provide answers to children’s many questions, giving information on “the how, when, and wherefore of many things.” The first chapter tells how the Palmer family came to organize the I-wonder-why club, with half-hour sessions daily. The remaining chapters, devoted to the club’s discussions, take up such subjects as Light, Sun, moon and planets, The stars, Comets and meteors, Air, Water, Fire, Heat, Sound, Rocks, Coal, Metals, Electricity, Photography, Moving pictures, Clocks, Butterflies and moths, etc.
GOMPERS, SAMUEL. Labor and the common welfare. *$3 Dutton 331
“A compilation of the writings and addresses of Samuel Gompers, edited by Hayes Robbins. To be followed by ‘Labor and the employer,’ the two volumes together forming a comprehensive work on labor movements and labor problems in America.” (Brooklyn) “It is a compilation from official reports to A. F. of L. conventions, articles in American Federationist, testimony before congressional committees, public addresses of President Gompers, and other documents. The selections include data from the earliest reports of the federation. The material is presented under classified headings according to the subject and is generally presented in chronological order.” (N Y Call)
“In it are adequately set forth the solid, conservative policies of the long-time president of the American federation of labor. But the thoughts are the thoughts of history rather than of the present; the reader who would know what labor is thinking now must supplement the Gompers philosophy with many creations of a new régime of ideas.” E. D. Strong
“We had occasion a few weeks ago to notice a book of the Civic federation, one chapter being written by James W. Sullivan of the A. F. of L. Our judgment was that the national officials of the organization had become trade union chauvinists. This latest volume confirms our impression. Nevertheless, we are glad to have this book. The selections by Robbins are excellent and no matter whether the reader agrees or does not agree with Mr Gompers, this compilation is valuable for his partisans and all others interested in the history of the American federation of labor.” James Oneal
Reviewed by J. E. Le Rossignol
“Fortunately Mr Gompers is unusually gifted in expression due in part, no doubt, to unusual clarity of thought.”
GOMPERS, SAMUEL. Labor and the employer; comp. and ed. by Hayes Robbins. (Labor movements and labor problems in America) *$3.50 Dutton 331.8
“With its companion volume, ‘Labor and the common welfare,’ this book gives a complete review of American social problems as Mr Gompers has known them during the past thirty-five years.” (R of Rs) “The book is made up of excerpts from reports, speeches, testimony, writings and editorials classified under such major headings as Employers and employers’ organizations, Wages, Hours of work, The ‘open’ shop, Women in industry, Unemployment, Insurance and compensation, Limitation of output, Strikes, Arbitration and collective bargaining, Profit sharing and Industrial democracy. Within each group are arranged chronologically the various minor topics which naturally come under the major headings.” (Survey)
“A valuable, authoritative statement of the attitude of official unionism on important labor issues.”
“To those who seek to grasp some of the inwardness of the unfolding labor movements of the day, and particularly to the employer who would like to know what the trade unionist’s views are upon the subjects of employers and employers’ organizations, ... and a host of related subjects touching the relationship of employer and employee, this book will prove especially useful.” W. E. Atkins
“It is pathetic to drive through these 311 pages by Mr Gompers and realize how his enemies waste his time in dispute on ancient matters. In this time of change he has nothing to offer but the values and standards of an age that is dead. He ought to be freed for thinking out the problems of his day in the setting of his vast experience. When he does let himself go, he has a fine rebel stroke.” Arthur Gleason
“Such a book as this is as necessary for the employer who desires authoritative information as to what official trade unions think, as it is for the union man who wants to keep himself informed on the various phases of the movement. It bristles with controversial possibilities, demonstrates the profound conservatism of Mr Gompers and is remarkably free from such inconsistencies as one might expect in the recorded pronouncements covering a period of nearly thirty years.” J. D. Hackett
GOOCH, GEORGE PEABODY.[2] Germany and the French revolution. *$5.50 (*14s) Longmans 830.9
“The object of this book is to measure the repercussion of the French revolution on the mind of Germany. It is a study of the intellectual ferment in Germany following the fall of the Bastille, of the effect produced by the revolution on the minds of thinkers and men of letters such as Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder, Klopstock, Humboldt, Fichte and Hegel, and of statesmen such as Hardenberg and Stein. Secondarily it outlines the influence of French revolutionary ideas on German institutions.”—Sat R
“The book will enormously enhance the already high esteem in which Mr Gooch is held among historians. Ability in synthetic treatment is allied to entire impartiality and exact knowledge, so that the generalisation necessary to the making of a coherent story neither outweighs nor is sacrificed to completeness and accuracy of detail.”
“He has produced a work of erudition, which because of the wealth of materials investigated and summarized, as well as the objectivity and clarity of his presentation, becomes the standard book of reference on the subject. No one should lightly undertake the task of reading it, for it is closely packed and assumes much information on political and cultural conditions of the day. Nor has the author succeeded beyond cavil in his synthesis.” C: Seymour
GOOCH, GEORGE PEABODY. Life of Lord Courtney. il *$7 Macmillan
“With Lord Courtney there passed away, in the spring of 1918, almost the last survivor of a great tradition. It was the tradition of John Stuart Mill, of Fawcett, of Leslie Stephen, of Henry Sidgwick, the tradition of reason, conscience and liberty.... From this service to reason and conscience it followed that Lord Courtney was a liberal, in that proper sense of the term which is independent of political party. Of imperialism of every kind, economic or other, Lord Courtney was an uncompromising opponent. When the war broke out, Lord Courtney was eighty-one years old. He might well have thought, as others, younger than he, did, that he was exempt from taking part in the battle of opinion at home. But he was driven by his sleepless conscience, even at the height of the storm of violence and hate, to put in his plea for reason and reconciliation.” (Ath) “Mr Gooch allows Courtney to do most of the presentation for himself, by extracts from his correspondence or his speeches or, what comes to very much the same thing, by numerous quotations from the journal kept by Lady Courtney throughout their married life. The book opens with one of its most attractive features, a memoir of his own early days in Cornwall dictated by Courtney in 1901.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“In Mr Gooch Lord Courtney has found an admirable biographer. His wide and exact knowledge of contemporary politics is always felt in the background and never obtruded. He lets his hero speak for himself, and, what cannot have been easy, suppresses his own judgment and opinions.” G. L. D.
“Mr G. P. Gooch has written an interesting life of a not very attractive minor personality in politics. The keynote of Courtney’s character was an unbending independence of thought, speech, and conduct, and this quality is so rare in modern politics that the record of his career is thereby invested with a charm that does not attach to the man.”
“Mr Gooch’s biography, though marred by several bad misprints like ‘the great Llama,’ is a competent and judicious portrait and an instructive contribution to contemporary history.”
“His was in fact a personality that could not be ignored, one that needs accounting for even to such as believed all his views to be wrong. Mr Gooch’s book will help towards this understanding. It is fortunate that Lady Courtney found a biographer so much in sympathy with her husband’s views and yet so self-effacing.”
GOODE, WILLIAM THOMAS. Bolshevism at work. *$1.60 (4½c) Harcourt, Brace & Howe 335
The author of the present volume, special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian in Eastern Europe, went to Moscow to study the actual working of the government in Soviet Russia on the spot. Since this reputedly so “destructive” government had lasted two years he meant to discover its possible constructive side. Among his findings are: a strong government with strong and sincere men, capable administrators at its head; laws enforced with equality and justice; a marked orderliness instead of anarchy, and the peacefulness of the daily occupations and business of life astonishing. He found that “the Russian revolution is at bottom a moral, even a puritanical revolution, making for simplicity and purity of life and government” and that “no amount of pressure can fit the Russian people with a government framed and forged in the West.” Contents: Interview with Lenin; Interview with Tchitcherin; Bolshevism and industry; Bolshevism and the land; Bolshevism and labor; Trades’ unions in Soviet Russia; Bolshevik food control; Transport in Soviet Russia; Bolshevism and education; Bolshevik judicial system; Bolshevism and national hygiene; Bolshevik state control; School of soviet workers; A Bolshevik home of rest; Conclusions.
“His Russian version is at least consistent and coherent, though it leaves many things unanswered.” Harold Kellock
“It is clear that the writer approaches the Bolsheviki with unfavorable preconceptions and, finding their character and their conduct unlike what he had been led to expect, allowed himself to be carried too far in appreciation. We miss the guarded reserve which is discernible in an avowed sympathizer like Mr Ransome.”
“As evidence of the real situation the book has little value. Mr Goode was clearly disposed before he went to admire all that the Bolsheviks had done or proposed to do.”
“He has no conception of the real range of his subject, and that makes his book of very little value.”
GOODHART, ARTHUR LEHMANN. Poland and the minority races. *$2.50 Brentano’s 914.38
“Mr Goodhart was attached to the mission sent in the summer of last year into Poland by the American government to inquire into the Jewish question. He accompanied the mission on their journey, and has now published his diary made at the time. So it comes, therefore, that we have much of the raw material on which Mr Morgenthau’s and General Jadwin’s reports, which have been published by the American government, were based. In addition to the light which it throws upon the Jewish problem, the book is interesting as giving pictures of the more general conditions of life and society in Poland.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Captain Goodhart’s diary holds the reader’s attention from the first page to the last. Occasional humorous anecdotes enliven an otherwise rather sordid recital.”
“The most sensitive Pole cannot object to the book, neither can the Jews, and the American can by reading it get a splendid idea of the Poland of today. Reading the book will increase one’s knowledge but not one’s faith in the human race.” E. A. S.
“Captain Goodhart recorded incidents he saw and heard, without prejudice, as a keen observer, with a fine sense of humor and of fairness. His diary is a very readable little book, containing much information that is quite valuable and entertaining. He holds no brief for either side.” Herman Bernstein
“Full of local touches and descriptions of life in Poland which make it very vivid. One cannot help wondering a little that in the publication of a diary of experiences by a representative of a government commission no reference is made to the final report of the commission.” M. A. Chickering
“Mr Goodhart has written a very interesting book on Poland which, though unassuming in form, will be of more help to the ordinary reader in understanding Polish conditions and Polish problems than many more elaborate works.”
GOODRICH, CARTER LYMAN. Frontier of control: a study of British workshop politics. *$2 (4c) Harcourt 331.1
Industrial unrest today is less a matter of wages than of control of industry. It is a “straining of the spirit of man to be free.” The author went to England to study the present extent of workers’ control in British industry and the book states the facts of his findings without generalizations. R. H. Tawney writes a foreword to the book in which he states the task the author has set himself to do as: “the analysis of industrial relationships, of the rules enforced by trade unions and employers’ associations, of the varying conditions which together constitute ‘the custom of the trade’ in each particular industry, and of the changes in all these which took place during the war.” The book falls into two parts: Introduction: The demand for control; and The extent of control. Some of the chapters under the latter are: The frontier of control; Employment; Unemployment; “The right to a trade”; “The right to sack”; The choice of foremen; Special managerial functions. There is a note on sources and an index.
“The study forms an excellent basis for generalizations concerning complete self-government in industry.”
GOODWIN, JOHN.[2] Without mercy. *$2 (2c) Putnam
The story of a mother’s fight for her daughter’s happiness. Margaret Garth is the only child of Mrs Enid Garth, head of Garth’s, London’s most powerful bank. When Margaret promises to become the wife of John Orme, she arouses the enmity of Sir Melmoth Craven, an unsuccessful suitor, and he determines to seek revenge. So the story resolves itself into the conflict of wits and wills between Mrs Garth and Sir Melmoth. Both are strong and clever characters and both have powerful interests behind them. Sir Melmoth is entirely unscrupulous and hesitates at nothing, whether it be abducting the girl, or convicting her fiance of wilful murder. On the other hand, Mrs Garth, where Margaret’s happiness is concerned, is absolutely without mercy, and as she has right on her side, she finally wins out, after a series of shrewd moves on both sides.
“Even for a ‘first book’ this novel is quite bad. It is so full of melodramatic clap-trap, one fails to see the trees for the wood. In style it is a frothing brook; in sentiment it is strained and banal; its wooden motivation reflects its still more wooden characterizations.”
“Notwithstanding its crudity of style and the lack of any really powerful passages anywhere, the novel holds the interest to the end.”
GORDON, ALEXANDER REID. Faith of Isaiah, statesman and evangelist. (Humanism of the Bible ser.) *$2.25 Pilgrim press 224
“This series, in which Mr Gordon’s book makes the eighth volume, has been marked by its judicious selection of subject; and by its success in presenting to modern minds a fresh significance in studies of Job, Proverbs, the Psalms, St Paul, etc. Isaiah lends itself specially to this ‘humanistic’ treatment in the hands of a well-known exponent of the Old Testament literature who is a professor at McGill university and at Presbyterian college, Montreal. It is not his rôle to enter into critical discussion of text and authorship, but he necessarily accepts and embodies in his historical setting of the parts of the Book of Isaiah the conclusions of modern criticism as to the Deutero-Isaiah. Many of the numerous poetical translations (and parts of the text) are reproduced from Dr Gordon’s ‘Prophets of the Old Testament.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“From the point of view of homiletics it may be acclaimed unhesitatingly as high-grade work. While the book is an example of stimulating preaching, yet one feels that the reader will come away from it with a very unsatisfactory and hazy idea of the real Isaiah.”
GORDON, GEORGE ANGIER. Humanism in New England theology. *$1.25 (18c) Houghton 285
This little book commemorates the tercentennial year of the landing of the Pilgrims. The author holds that every form of theism is founded upon a humanistic interpretation of the universe; that the New England divinity is at heart a variety of humanism which will endure as a type although as a system of opinion it has passed away. He moreover holds that there are two great types of theism, the Unitarian and the Trinitarian; the New England theology belonging to the latter. Coming in a direct line of descent from this faith the author confesses himself as an “out-and-out Trinitarian” whose conception of man is that of an essentially social being. The essay appeared in the Harvard Theological Review for April, 1907.
“We wish that he had avoided the treacherous word ‘humanism.’ We have dwelt on this linguistic point because it really corresponds to a loose way of thinking, now too general, and, in particular, points to a vice in Dr Gordon’s treatment of theology which goes far, in our opinion, to negate the value of an otherwise interesting book. To us the best of the book, which withal has much to commend, is its more personal characterization of some of the earlier divines.”
GORDON, MARY DANIEL. Crystal ball. il *$2 (5½c) Little
A fairy story. The dearest wish of the King of Moondom is to possess the crystal ball from the garden of the sun. His two children, Prince Jock and Princess Joan make up their minds to get it for him for a birthday gift, and equipped with a tin of biscuits, toy pistol, drinking cups and compass, they set forth. A tinker joins their expedition and a gypsy fortune teller helps them on their way and they are successful in the object of their quest.
“A story which the young people will read with eagerness.”
“Her tale is lively, if undistinguished.”
GORDON-SMITH, GORDON. From Serbia to Jugoslavia; Serbia’s victories, reverses and final triumph, 1914–1918. *$2.50 (3c) Putnam 949.7
To this “story of Serbia’s crucifixion,” S. Y. Grouitch, minister of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, contributes a foreword and says of the author that he has followed the Serbian campaign personally and closely, as war correspondent attached to the Serbian headquarters. The introduction contains a brief history of the political and military constellation of the Balkan states at the beginning of the war and the book is not only a record of the heroic struggles and sufferings of “one of the bravest peoples in the world” but of a series of Allied mistakes committed along the eastern front, which, the author claims, were responsible for much of the defeat and suffering and for a prolongation of the war. The book falls into two parts: 1, From the Danube to Durazzo—the Germano-Austro-Bulgarian attack on Serbia; and 2, The campaign on the Salonica front. There is an insert general map of the Balkan war area.
“We are impressed first of all with the clarity which distinguishes Mr Gordon-Smith’s exposition of the Serbian war story.” D. L. M.
“The book is of absorbing interest.”
“As a history of the heroic and tragic part played by Serbia in the great war Gordon-Smith’s book ‘From Serbia to Jugoslavia’ fills a useful place. There is perhaps too much special pleading.”
GORELL, RONALD GORELL BARNES, 3d baron. Pilgrimage. *$2.40 Longmans 821
“After the poem called Pilgrimage from which the volume is named, and in which the author gives the key of his spiritual aspiration, there is a group of Shorter poems, four tales of fairly good narrative measure, Youth in idleness, On the Ponte Vecchio, Florence, The coward, and Autumn in Flanders, a suspended commentary on the war, and group of dramatic episodes called Closing scenes, which chronicle the last moments of Hannibal, Mary Stuart, a district commissioner dying of fever in Africa, and the garrulous retrospection of an aged London clerk on a dull, sultry August day.”—Boston Transcript
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
“Lord Gorell has two distinct manners. The shorter pieces are sensitive and wistful, but he can also manipulate the grand style, and in the finely imagined recitative of ‘The district commissioner’ he has given us the best thing of the kind that has been written since Lyall’s ‘Theology in extremis.’”
GORICAR, JOSEF, and STOWE, LYMAN BEECHER. Inside story of Austro-German intrigue; or, How the world war was brought about. *$3 (3½c) Doubleday 940.311
Dr Gori[)c]ar, who supplied the facts for this volume is a Slovene who was for fourteen years in the Austro-Hungarian foreign service where he received first-hand knowledge of the rivalries and intrigues which preceded the war. Albert Bushnell Hart, in his introduction to the volume, points out its object as being an examination into three fundamental questions: (1) the criminal policy which it (the empire) pursued in foreign affairs, including the partnership with Germany in a far-reaching plan of conquest and spoliation; (2) the enmity alike of Germans and Magyars to the Slavs, whether within or without their empire; and (3) the deliberate bringing on of the great war to serve the arrogance and ambition of the ruling classes. Successive chapters are devoted to the various attempts of the Austro-German war parties to precipitate a war against Serbia and Russia, between 1906–1914 till at last a casus belli was constructed out of the archduke’s murder. Among the closing chapters are: Russian mobilization as the cause of the war—a glimpse behind the scenes in Berlin during the first three months of the war; Mobilizing half a million men in America—how the Austro-Hungarian consulates secretly raised an army behind America’s back. There is an appendix.
“His wide contacts with diplomatic affairs make this a contribution of new views based on materials hitherto inaccessible.”
“Although the greater part of the historical material introduced by Dr Goricar is not new, he manages to throw a number of fresh sidelights on the general program of the German-Austrian-Magyar war parties. Reliance on newspaper opinion is notoriously dangerous but Dr Goricar quotes so profusely and intelligently that his case is materially strengthened.” H. F. Armstrong
“As Mr Lyman Beecher Stowe is responsible for the English, it is unnecessary to say the style is lucid and simple. One can never miss the author’s meaning, and this makes a book which otherwise might be difficult very easy reading. The revelations made in this volume are by no means new to any diplomatist stationed in Europe during the years immediately preceding 1914; but for the public at large they are admirably stated here.” M. F. Egan
GORKI, MAXIM, pseud. (ALEXEI MAXIMOVICH PYESHKOFF). Night’s lodging; scenes from Russian life in four acts. (Contemporary dramatists ser.) *$1 Four seas co. 891.7
This drama of the underworld is translated from the Russian by Edwin Hopkins and is here printed with an introduction by Henry T. Schnittkind. The latter contains a short summary of Gorki’s life with an equally short characterization of his dramas.
“Mr Hopkins’s translation is frequently uncouth and difficult to read. Undoubtedly that is true of the original—but in a different way, since it represents the staccato utterance of Russian speech. One could hardly imagine it possible that in its present form it would be intelligible on the stage. But who would desire to see it on the stage?”
GORKI, MAXIM, pseud. (ALEXEI MAXIMOVICH PYESHKOFF).[2] Reminiscences of Leo Tolstoy. *$1.50 Huebsch
The reminiscences are pieced together from notes jotted down after various meetings between the author and Tolstoy. Gorki knew Tolstoy intimately and reveals him in many new lights and from many different angles. Sometimes he is very human, sometimes the impression is that of a pilgrim “terribly homeless and alien to all men and things”; always he is infinitely wise. Gorki did not love him but felt: “I am not an orphan on the earth so long as this man lives on it.” At his death he did indeed feel orphaned and cried inconsolably and in bitter despair. He leaves this predominant impression of Tolstoy: “This man is godlike.” The translators of the book from the Russian are S. S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf.
Reviewed by S. Koteliansky
“In his attempt to ‘understand’ Tolstoy. Gorky enjoyed the considerable advantage of being himself a Russian. We do not know the precise value of this qualification, but we may suppose it to be considerable. On the other hand, we think that Gorky was at a considerable disadvantage in being a romantic.” J. W. N. S.
“To convey so much in so short a book is a nice illustration of Gorky’s own courageous expressiveness. Because he respected his emotions regarding this old Titan of Russia, we have now one of the most real of biographical contributions. And yet most editors and publishers would have felt that these were mere fragments and would have howled for the circumstantiality of ‘fact.’” F. H.
“Withal, the greatness of Tolstoy’s remarkable personality is enhanced rather than diminished by this snapshot of the old ‘earth-man,’ to use Merejkovsky’s term, which here takes on a special significance.”
“Gorky’s book is particularly valuable because it reveals not only Tolstoy as he saw him, but unconsciously Gorky reveals himself also.” Herman Bernstein
“It will be seen how penetrating a study Gorky has made and how the man who emerges from his powerful charcoal lines differs from the smug ‘child of nature’ of the official portraits.”
“Tolstoy was too great for official biography; Gorky saw him only in fragments, but he has drawn him as Tolstoy drew his own characters, or rather, perhaps, as Dostoevsky drew his. There is no effort at an unreal synthesis, none even at judgment; what might seem to be judgment is only a record of feelings which are strong and excessive as their subject was strong and excessive.”
GOSSE, EDMUND WILLIAM. Some diversions of a man of letters. *$2.50 Scribner 824
“To his latest collection of literary essays Mr Gosse gives the cumbersome title ‘Some diversions of a man of letters.’ It combines in its pages seventeen excursions into the highways and byways of literature, its figures being of every grade of prominence from Shakespeare to Caroline Trotter, the precursor of the bluestockings. Here we shall find discussed not merely such obvious subjects as: The charm of Sterne; The challenge of the Brontes; The centenary of Edgar Allan Poe; and The lyric poetry of Thomas Hardy; but also the less conspicuous but equally interesting material offered by the lives and the literary work of Joseph and Thomas Warton, of Bulwer, of Disraeli, and of Lady Dorothy Nevill. In addition Mr Gosse also discourses on: Fluctuations of taste; The future of English poetry; and The agony of the Victorian age.”—Boston Transcript
“Mr Gosse’s diversions are also our diversions; for to anyone with a literary tincture of mind these miscellaneous studies in criticism and biography are the best and most entertaining of reading. Perhaps the best thing in the book is Mr Gosse’s account of two literary revolutionaries of an earlier age, Joseph and Thomas Warton.” A. L. H.
“It is altogether likely that these essays will fail to please the modern school of literary pencillers who scorn scholarship, and who fancy that verbal smartness and triviality is the only method of criticism. Mr Gosse writes with a light and pleasant touch. He is by no means a dry-as-dust because he is serious, and here he has written a series of papers that are a distinct contribution to the literature of criticism.” E. F. E.
“As a literary man-of-the-world, unbewildered and unprejudiced, Mr Gosse goes forth to pay his calls here and there down the centuries, and returns to his club in Victoria street to chat with his intimates. He is correct in dress and manner, discreet in speech; he says the right thing to every one, and nearly always of every one. A Major Pendennis of literature, one might say, he plays an important part in the world which he has so long cultivated.” R. M. Lovett
“Mr Gosse is bravely determined not to be a mere praiser of time past. His poise is beautiful; he is immensely urbane to the younger critic and grants the latter’s contentions right and left. But he cannot hide the sadness in his heart at the thought of the cold young men with something inscrutable in their faces who despise so much that is venerable and beautiful to him.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Suggestive and entertaining.” R: Le Gallienne
“He gives us a delightful collection of essays, distinguished in that it is handsome in tone and written like a fine old English gentleman.”
“Mr Gosse’s essays on Sterne and the two Wartons are pure belles lettres, but of the best brand.”
“The charm of his infectious admiration pervades nearly all the essays that make up the volume now before us. The best and most characteristic pages are those devoted to ‘Three experiments in portraiture’; and of these the sketch of Lady Dorothy Nevill is easily the most striking.”
GOULDING, ERNEST. Cotton and other vegetable fibres; their production and utilisation. ii *$3 Van Nostrand 677
This is a British work based on studies made for the Imperial institute. It is issued as one of the Imperial institute series of handbooks to the commercial resources of the tropics, with a preface by Wyndham R. Dunstan, director of the institute. Contents: Introductory; Cotton; Cotton production in the principal countries and the chief commercial varieties; Cotton growing in British West Africa and other parts of the British empire; Flax, hemp, and ramie; Jute and similar fibres; Cordage fibres; Miscellaneous fibres. A list of principal publications on fibres occupies nine pages and there is an index.
GOWAR, EDWARD. Adventures in Mother Goose land. il *$2.25 Little
Noel was a little boy who wished to be put into a book and because he made his wish in the time of the blue moon it came true. And the book was all about Mother Goose, and his adventures in her country, where he met the little man all dressed in leather, the old woman who lived in a shoe and all the rest of them, are told in this story. There is humor both in the telling of the story and in the illustrations, which are by Alice Bolam Preston.
“His tale is cleverly contrived and attractively illustrated.”
“It is entertainingly told and charmingly printed.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
GOWIN, ENOCH BURTON. Developing executive ability. il $3 Ronald 658
“A very simply written book for the young or prospective executive. It deals mainly in developing attention to general matters of routine, good working habits, office equipment and devices, rules for mental and physical economy which will establish a spirit and habit of order. Developed from lectures before commercial associations and business classes. Bibliography. Index.”—Booklist
“Designed primarily for the young executive, the book brings a wealth of ideas before him, which only await application that they may yield him a goodly return in economies of time, energy, and money.”
GRAÇA ARANHA, JOSÉ PEREIRA DA. Canaan. *$2 (3c) Four seas co.
Graça Aranha is a cultured Brazilian, prominent in the affairs of his country, and a writer of many books, of which, says Guglielmo Ferrero in his appreciative introduction: “‘Canaan’ is the most beautiful.” The hero of the story is Milkau, a German colonist who, disillusioned by the hypocrisies, hidden immoralities, and social and legal injustices of the civilizations of Europe, imagines that here, in a new country where the soil is virgin, unbroken, and the natives of childlike simplicity, exists a golden state of human happiness, of joy and work ideally blended, and little evil. For months his illusion remains intact. Then, a wronged and persecuted young woman’s misfortunes unveil for him the malicious injustices, cruelty, and cupidity lurking here in the ideal country of his dreams. The close of the story is vague—we do not know just what happens to Milkau and Mary, but the scenes evoked in the last chapter are especially powerful, ending in Milkau’s fervent dream and hope of a promised land of justice and beauty yet to come through toil and faith. The novel is translated from the Portuguese by Mariano J. Lorente.
“There is a distinctly noble flavor to the work, and certainly a large humanity that marks it as something more than exclusively Brazilian in significance. Indeed, for the thinking American of the north, between Canada and the Rio Grande, the theme is of primary importance. Millions have sought their ‘Canaan’ here and have been no more successful than Milkau. And for similar reasons.” I: Goldberg
“‘The great American novel,’ Anatole France is said to have called this book, which comes to us from Brazil. Whoever reads the first hundred pages will be inclined to agree with him. Thereafter, it must be confessed, the spell relaxes. Nevertheless, ‘Canaan’ leaves behind it a powerful, memorable, beautiful impression. It is a book for both the Americas.”
“As a piece of writing, due allowance being made for a wretched translation, the book is amorphous in a curiously old-fashioned way. In spirit and structure it goes back to the first generation of the romantic writers. What gives its value to the book is the picture which, largely by means of discussion, Aranha presents of the Brazilian civilization of today.”
“As pure literature the book must take a lower rank than it commands as a work of philosophy. It requires too attentive reading for Simon-pure fiction. The author’s canvas is overcrowded with ideas. His book is notable for the purity of its psychological analysis, for its powers of characterization, for the vivid beauty of its descriptive passages and for its scenes of tremendous dramatic power as much as it is for the light it throws into the depths of an unusually reflective mind.”
“Aside from the compelling interest of so vast a theme, and the fascinating portrayal of Brazilian life, either of which place the book in the first rank of modern novels, the intrinsic fineness of the book lies in the exquisite poetry of its style.”
GRAHAM, ALAN. Follow the little pictures! *$1.75 (2½c) Little
Two branches of an old English family are involved in this exciting treasure hunt and the treasure itself could be located by deciphering the puzzle picture left by the American ancestor to the only remaining survivor of his family. The English representation of the family is an irascible Scotch laird, the ingredients of whose character are cunning and venom and a passion for recovering the treasure. He outwits all the others that have gradually been let into the secret, but had not reckoned on his son’s Belgian wife, a descendant of a Belgian servant of the original Lord Tanish, who also has come into possession of a document revealing the spot, and has married Roy Tanish on the strength of it without loving him. She gets away with the loot, the laird and Roy are killed in the wild pursuit, while the other persons involved take the loss of the gold lightly, having found more precious treasures.
“A good mystery story.”
“The developments of the plot are ingenious.”
“Readers fond of mystery will find the tale to their liking.”
“The author has chosen to set his scene in nowadays, and, to be sure, a motor chase figures in it. But the story would have been as well served by galloping horses. The dominant figure—the villain—would have been so much more at home in a heavy wig and jackboots.”
GRAHAM, JAMES CHANDLER. It happened at Andover; well, most of it did, anyway. il *$1.90 (3½c) Houghton
A series of stories and sketches of life at Phillips academy, Andover, written by one of the teachers. Among the titles are: The unappreciated; The transformation; The ringer; A new boy; The infirmary; The foreign-born; A Napoleon of finance; Parents; The spy; The landlady; An affaire du cœur; Taking a chance; The vamp.
“Boys, and girls too, will like these tales, but so will older readers. A charming strain of humor enriches the sketches.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“One quite believes of the sketches and tales that ‘boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen will find them absorbing and diverting’; but largely as an illuminating and slightly scandalous glimpse into a teacher’s mind. It is a book for adult non-combatants, retired teachers or superannuated parents or ‘old boys’ who recall their school days as a delightful lark.” H. W. Boynton
GRAHAM, JOHN WILLIAM. Faith of a Quaker. *$8 Macmillan 289.6
“The author is principal of Dalton Hall, the hall of residence for Quaker students attending the University of Manchester, England, the author of an excellent ‘Life of William Penn,’ and other works, and is also a Quaker minister. The first four chapters, ‘The foundations,’ set forth the ideas of the author concerning God and man and the relation they bear to each other. Dissertations on the ‘Son,’ the ‘Living Christ,’ and the ‘Personality of man’ follow, all based on what precedes. The essay on war, which has been previously published, is a presentation of the incompatibility of war with the spirit of Christianity.”—N Y Evening Post
“The essentially mystical basis of Quakerism is well pointed out, and some useful distinctions are drawn between the somewhat vehement assertions of the early pioneers and the results of modern thinking. The community of Quakers is not likely to object to the reverent, but discriminating, analysis which is here given of many current practices.”
“The book is written in a spirit of fair-mindedness and not of partisanship.”
“The book, as a whole, is badly arranged and loses thereby in force. But the chief error of the author is that he has set forth as an exposition of the Quaker faith that which the vast majority of the Friends of England, as well as in America, would unhesitatingly disown, and thus he gives a wrong impression of the teachings of the body. Had the work been published as the faith of an individual seeker after truth it would merit commendation as an earnest, strong, thoughtful presentation.” A. C. Thomas
“It is when we come to intellectualize their position that the problems arise. This is the point which Mr Graham does not seem sufficiently to have apprehended, and yet it is surely the key to the whole position. His explanations and argumentations are in consequence too often extraneous, too often weakened by irrelevancies.”
GRAHAM, STEPHEN. Soul of John Brown (Eng title. Children of the slaves). *$3 Macmillan 326.1
This is an English observer’s report on the condition of the negro in America today. He came to America to study the problem. He traveled south by way of Baltimore and Washington to Virginia, passed on to Georgia where he followed the track of Sherman’s march, went thru Alabama and Mississippi and to New Orleans and then followed the river north. He talked with negro workmen, preachers, teachers and doctors, visited their schools, churches and theaters, and he reports on lynching, the southern point of view, the effects of the war on the negro, etc., and writes of the world aspect of the problem. He finds that slavery left its taint on the white man as well as on the negro and says it is a mistake to view this American problem as exclusively a negro problem.
“The fact that in this book, as elsewhere, Mr Graham’s observations are more valuable than his reflections, does not detract from its simple, unescapable effect.”
“Mr Graham has, with remarkable clearness of vision, analyzed our problem of race relations. He has fallen into error in a few instances, but the great bulk of his book is filled with a correct interpretation of the innermost thoughts and aspirations of twelve million Americans who seek to be free.” W. F. W.
“He saw nothing, of course, that informed Americans do not know already, but as an Englishman he saw from a new point of view, and ‘The soul of John Brown’ has the interest of a genuine freshness which Mr Graham’s mystical habits of thought and expression do not obscure.”
“Mr Graham is an Englishman and may be forgiven for his mistakes in American history, except in the case of his opening chapter, which is lurid and dangerously misleading. It is entirely inconsistent with subsequent chapters.”
“We are more impressed by what he saw and heard than by his arguments. Sometimes, indeed, the latter are based on lack of knowledge.” E. C. Willcox
“His report of what he saw and heard is of unusual interest because it gives the observations of a man who began his study of the race question in the South without prepossessions and with the simple desire to learn the truth.”
“The mischief of this sort of book is the fact that it cannot possibly help forward the cause which the author has earnestly at heart. Like most people who think with their hearts rather than with their heads, Mr Graham seems to have taken very little trouble to learn more than his own side of the question.”
“Written with that easy yet glowing eloquence of which he is a master. But the picture that he gives is more notable for generous sympathy than for exact knowledge. It is, in important respects, one-sided and misleading. The book is written in the spirit of the DuBois propaganda, and again and again Mr Graham has taken the propagandist’s view of certain matters which sociological investigators interpret differently.”
GRANDGENT, CHARLES HALL. Old and new. *$1.50 Harvard univ. press 814
“‘Old and new, sundry papers,’ is the title of a volume containing eight essays and addresses by Professor C. H. Grandgent, of Harvard university. Though covering a rather wide range of subjects, the papers included ‘have this in common, that they treat, in general, of changes in fashion, especially in matters of speech and of school.’ (Preface)” (Mod Philol) “‘Nor yet the new,’ is an address to the Smith college chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa on May 17, 1919. The other chapters are Fashion and the broad A, The dog’s letter, Numeric reform in Nescioubia, Is modern language teaching a failure? The dark ages, New England pronunciation and School.” (Springf’d Republican)
“Against everything contemporary he easily generates animosity so intense that it strikes one as bizarre. On the pronunciation of English as she is spoke in America, Professor Grandgent is popular and amusing.”
“‘Fashion and the broad A,’ ‘The dog’s letter,’ and ‘New England pronunciation’ are scholarly yet delightful essays on subjects which should interest every student of language. If there were more philologists like Professor Grandgent, Mr H. L. Mencken would have less occasion to complain that American college professors investigate forgotten dialects to the neglect of living English.” T. P. Cross
“Miscellaneous essays and addresses which, often thin as to argument, are at times rich in illustration.”
“Most readers will agree that what these essays and addresses have in common is their author’s wealth of reading and of reflection and his brilliant wit, rather than any unity of theme.” J: Erskine
Reviewed by Brander Matthews
“Prof. Grandgent’s witty impatience at new poetry extends to so many departments of life that one need not fear challenge in fastening upon him the epithet ‘conservative.’ The lighter papers of Prof. Grandgent’s combining wit and scholarship, are meant to give pleasure and will do so.”
GRANTHAM, MRS A. E. Wisdom of Akhnaton. *$1.25 Lane 822
A poetic drama based on incidents drawn from the life and reign of Pharaoh Akhnaton, son of Amenhotep III, as read in the sculptures and inscriptions brought to light by modern excavations. These evidences reveal in the young ruler a new attitude toward life, a reversal of all inherited values. “There was no room for greed and hate and war in his conception of man’s destiny.... The episode chosen for dramatization is the conflict between the claims of peace and war and Akhnaton’s successful struggle to make his people acquiesce in his policy of peace.” (Preface)
“His portrayal of the ruler who acts in defiance of his military chiefs is managed with a good deal of skill and entire sympathy. The verse is adequate throughout, and the climax might easily be made by stage presentation into an impressive spectacle.”
“A poetic drama of some merit. If certain passages with too modern a ring, which make his Pharaoh seem almost a President Wilson in Egyptian robes, were brought into harmony with the tone of the period, the play might have a success in representation.”
GRATTAN-SMITH, T. E. True blue. il *$1.50 (2½c) Holt
An Australian story for young people. Mel is a fourteen year old girl, Ned is her brother, and Jim Stanley is their chum. The three are expert in all outdoor sports, including surf riding, and Mel holds her own with the boys. The story opens on Ned’s birthday, with a hydroplane for a birthday gift. A few days later war is declared and the new hydroplane plays an important part. Altho the war-time plot is the now familiar one, involving the capture of German spies, the story has an added interest in its descriptions of Australian sports.
“Up-to-date boys and girls will revel in this wholesome book, and, unless we are mistaken, grown-ups will not wholly pass it by.”
GRAVES, CLOTILDE INEZ MARY (RICHARD DEHAN, pseud.). Eve of Pascua, and other stories. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
With some exceptions the stories are comic and the title story tragic. A typical Englishman, whose boast it was that he never had been in a scrape with a woman, left England to escape the charms of one and betook himself to Spain. Immediately on his arrival he finds himself defending a woman against an infuriated mob. She is a famous dancer who has incurred the hatred of her native town. As he is conducting her to her home where she is seeking her mother’s reconciliation, they are run down by a stampede of bulls. The girl is killed, he almost. Later, when sufficiently recovered from his injuries he finds that it was the sister who was killed and that the vilified girl has slipped into the former’s place with the blind mother.
“On the whole, the book well sustains her reputation.”
“These narratives are unmistakably the work not only of a ‘born story-teller,’ but of a careful artist. There is a quality in the title-story which, with whatever apologies and misgivings, we can only suggest by the word ‘style.’” H. W. Boynton
“The medium of the short story is not very favorable to the work of ‘Richard Dehan.’”
GRAVES, FRANK PIERREPONT. What did Jesus teach? an examination of the educational material and method of the Master. *$1.75 Macmillan 232
“The Christian association of the University of Pennsylvania started a campaign a year ago to enroll 2000 students in Lenten Bible study. The leaders were faculty men, secretaries, older students and outsiders, and these were all taught in a normal class by Frank Pierrepont Graves, dean of the school of education. Prof. Graves has yielded to a strong demand for the publication of the study material, and it appears as ‘What did Jesus teach?’ The book is based on the gospel of Mark, and is arranged in such form as to be available for other classes in college or out. Beginning with a study of the historical sources for the teachings of Jesus, the book goes on with eight chapters on Jesus as a teacher, his method of teaching, his ideas of God and man, the ideals and reconstruction of life, the future, the kingdom and the church, and modern society. A bibliography adds to the value of the book.”—Springf’d Republican
“This book is an experiment in pedagogy rather than a contribution to theological science. As an introductory book upon the subject, it should prove useful for many readers.” S. J. C.
“The book is noteworthy on two accounts. The first is the arrangement of the material. The running margin makes it possible to grasp the content of pages and paragraphs clearly and quickly. Also the paragraphs bear interesting headings; there are suggestive chapter summaries; the references to literature are excellent. The second feature is the substance of the studies. The prevailing accent is upon the ethical content of the teaching.”
GRAVES, ROBERT. Country sentiment. *$1.25 Knopf 821
To quote from one of the poems, “Love, fear and hate and childish toys are here descreetly blent.” It is the first and the last that predominate. The other elements are to be found in the small group of war poems called “Retrospect” that come at the end. Titles are: A frosty night; A song for two children; The boy out of church; True Johnny; Advice to lovers. Among the war poems are: Haunted; Here they lie; Country at war; Hate not, fear not. This is Mr Graves’s second book of verse. “Fairies and fusiliers” was published in 1918.
“At the worst Mr Graves is schoolboyish and impertinent. He, we think, suffers at present from not having realized that the province he has deliberately chosen for himself, though small, is very hard to subdue. It is not enough to be simple yourself in order to achieve simplicity.”
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
“The verse of Robert Graves charms you with a whimsical tenderness that is appealing but you feel all the time a hidden sense of something for which the whimsey is protection. That something is the stern reality of life.” W. S. B.
“Lacks the full richness of ‘Fairies and fusiliers,’ but remains a delicious collection of ballads and lyrics.”
“In ‘Country sentiment’ Robert Graves discloses a vein of poetry as fine as a line of mercury. But there is no singing heart in him to go with his singing throat. The music of his verse falters and falls into little echoes of other poets or quarrels line by line with its meaning.”
Reviewed by Mark Van Doren
“No better title could have been selected for the book; it is country sentiment at its sweetest and most auspicious. Mr Graves is indubitably a poet, and animating his verse is a fiery sense of right and wrong. He is always musical, his lines flowing with that unaffected charm that is so hard to capture.” H. S. Gorman
“Mr Graves plays upon a short keyboard, but he contrives some perfectly new melodies within his self-ordained limits. Perhaps it is in the love poetry that Mr Graves is at his most original, though many of the poems in the other categories are just as charming.”
“He writes his poems like songs—very good songs, too—and their supreme merit is that they are always absolutely genuine in feeling. His new volume shows him to be acquiring the technique which he used not to possess. Mr Graves should certainly be taken seriously as a poet with a future before him.”
GRAY, A. HERBERT. Christian adventure. *$1.25 (3c) Assn. press 230
“There are no arguments about the truth of Christianity in this book. It is wholly concerned with the preliminary question, ‘What is Christianity?’... I have confined myself to an effort to present the message of Jesus as He gave it to the world.” (Preface) The author considers churches, creeds and theologies to be secondary affairs, never more than partially successful attempts at stating truths. Christianity stands or falls by mankind’s judgment of Jesus as the embodiment of the essential secret of life. Contents: Jesus; What was Jesus doing? Further features of the kingdom; Methods in the kingdom; Was that all?—the King; What does he want you to do? What about human nature? The resources of the disciple.
“This book is one of the freshest, clearest, and most stimulating statements of the Christian faith and program that we have seen in a long time.”
GRAY, JOSLYN. Rosemary Greenaway. il *$1.50 Scribner
“The heroine is the daughter of a poet, who is also a bank clerk—and not very successful in either calling, though some of his verse is delicate and graceful. Rosemary adores her father, and is with him as much as possible, to the neglect not only of her schoolmates but also of her mother, and his sudden death is a great grief to her. But worse is to come, for only a year after her father’s death her mother marries again, marries Mr Anstruther, the homely, shrewd, and kindly schoolmaster, who makes her far more happy than the poet ever did. Rosemary bitterly resents this marriage as a slight to the memory of her father, and it is this resentment of hers and the way in which it is gradually and completely overcome which forms the theme of the story. She has many trials and many tribulations before she learns to love the stepfather, who at last gives her the thing she most wants and has almost despaired of obtaining.”—N Y Times
“A simple, pleasant little story for girls just entering upon their teens.”
“It is the sort of story to be read with enjoyment by girls in their teens.” R. D. Moore
GREENBERG, DAVID SOLON. Cockpit of Santiago Key. (Open road ser.) *$1.50 (3c) Boni & Liveright
A Porto Rican story for boys and girls. Young Felipe lives with an uncle on Santiago Key, a rocky island off the coast. His uncle’s sole duty is to keep the light burning and the island is seldom visited. From the point of view of Don Enrique and Don Alejandro it is an ideal place for a cockpit, since the Americanos, who had forbidden cockfighting in Porto Rico, would be little likely to find it. Felipe enters into the sport and it is only after he goes to the American school and comes under American influence that he begins to see what his old grandfather had meant by the “curse of the cockpit.” A hurricane sweeps over the island, and leaves Felipe homeless, but his American teacher adopts him and takes him away to the United States.
“Much information about customs and country.”
“Morals and local color are not, however, the only requisites for a good juvenile story. Plot is the first essential, and it is in this particular that ‘The cockpit of Santiago’ is somewhat weak.” G. H. C.
GREENBIE, SIDNEY. Japan real and imaginary. il *$4 (2½c) Harper 915.2
It is the author’s claim for his book that he has given due regard to both the pleasant and the unpleasant sides of Japan, to the fine sights and the bad odors. Japan is in a state of transition, with resultant discords everywhere between the old and the new Japan, and the impression the reader takes away from the book is that in its present state it is an unhappy country. “To save Japan from itself we must stop exalting it; to save ourselves from Japan we must stop condemning it.” The contents are in four parts: 1, Impressionistic; 2. The communal phase; 3. The spokes of modern Japan; 4, Critical. There are many illustrations and an index.
“His book is of conspicuous value for the shrewdly observed wealth of detail it gives of the everyday life of contemporary Japan. The faults of the book are patent enough. With so much matter, it is to be regretted there is not more perfect art.” R. M. Weaver
“It is the best book on actual Japan, by an American, in some time; best from the viewpoint of fact, not poesy nor romantic charm. No one interested in the far East as related to America should miss it.”
“His writing is worth while because he writes as he really sees and thinks. His descriptions are like untouched photographs and his judgments square and fair. He is the calm and unafraid commentator, the patient and constant observer and recorder, and the caustic critic. The book weighs more than ten ordinary American books on Japan. It is vital.” F: O’Brien
“Mr Greenbie’s frank, lively, imaginative account of Japan may properly be called ‘a real book.’ It is entitled to this popular but expressive characterization because, by reason of its intimate realism, its sensitive perception, and, above all, its common sense, it stands out conspicuously from the great mass of variously interesting literature upon the subject with which it deals.”
“A very readable and beautiful book.” G. D.
“The people whom he met he actually studied and classified and he has endeavored to interpret what he has seen for the benefit of other Americans, the result being a book which inspires confidence.”
“He writes from experience gained from close contact with the people; and it is evident throughout that he is concerned to tell the truth without partiality or prejudice, and that he is by temperament qualified to recognize it in matters of every-day intercourse. But with the best will in the world he would have difficulty in appreciating the point of view of the Japanese, for it is a point of view that he—an American of the Americans—cannot conceive a sensible person adopting. It should be made clear that Mr Greenbie writes without malice.”
GREENWOOD, HAROLD CECIL. Industrial gases. il *$5 Van Nostrand 655.8
This volume belongs to the series on Industrial chemistry of which Samuel Rideal is general editor. The aims of the book as stated in the author’s preface are “to give a general account of the manufacture and technical manipulation of gases, to describe briefly the development and general principles of industrial gas technology and to present a collection of data likely to be useful in connection with such technology.” The first part of the book is devoted to The gases of the atmosphere; Part 2 to Hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide, asphyxiating gases; Part 3 to Gaseous fuels. There are indexes to subjects and to authors’ names. The foreword by Dr J. A. Harker is a brief tribute to the author, who died shortly before the publication of his book.
“Notably thorough and authoritative account.”
GREGG, FRANK MOODY. Founding of a nation. *$2.25 (1c) Doran
This is “the story of the Pilgrim fathers, their voyage on the Mayflower, their early struggles, hardships and dangers, and the beginnings of American democracy.” (Sub-title) It is the narrative and romance of Francis Beaumont, which, the author states, is fact where it concerns the colony, and fiction where it concerns himself. In the foreword the author distinguishes sharply between the Pilgrims and the Puritans and points out in what the difference consists. As to the romance: Beaumont, a young English nobleman, was forced to leave England on account of a duel; joined the Pilgrims at Leyden, accompanies them to America on the Mayflower and describes all their trials and hardships along with his own personal experiences.
“Mr Gregg has woven a story which faithfully follows authentic history, enables the reader to visualize the life as only fiction can, and at the same time holds the interest through sheer excellence as a tale of love and adventure. It deserves a wide audience.” W. A. Dyer
“At fifteen, especially if feminine, one is apt to be partial to history in this form.”
“‘The founding of a nation,’ with its romance of early American days set in precise historical background, is particularly well adapted for adolescent study.”
“To the readers of this book, the first two winters at Plymouth will remain as vividly in memory as Crusoe’s stay on the island.”
GREGORY, ISABELLA AUGUSTA (PERSSE) lady. Dragon; a wonder play in three acts. *$1.75 Putnam 822
An obese king of Ireland and his second wife are in a quandary about the Princess Nuala who, according to a prophecy, is to be devoured by a dragon. The princess is a wild and wilful child who will not submit to a speedy marriage as her only safety from the dragon, and the king in a rage finally vows that he will wed her to the first man that enters the castle. The Prince of the Marshes had already come to woo, accompanied by two of his seven aunts anxious for his safety, but is sent away by the scorn of the princess. After the vow, the King of Sorcha comes, disguised as a cook, and claims her. The approach of the dragon concentrates attention upon himself. The would-be cook subdues the dragon and wins the princess. The play is a rollicking comedy from start to finish.
“It is highly entertaining and actable, readable too.”
“Neither the literary nor the dramatic reputation of Lady Gregory will be greatly enhanced by the publication of this somewhat childish little piece. The piece might not be ineffective in the theatre if given as burlesque or pantomime, for it is not deficient in the robust humor which has won popularity for some of Lady Gregory’s farces.”
“Lady Gregory’s ‘The dragon’ can not be classed with her best plays.”
“A pleasant enough entertainment for children; it is amusing, imaginative, and exciting. The queen is undoubtedly an anachronism.”
“The play abounds with humor, and yet the plot is strong enough to carry the interest from beginning to end.”
“What real Irish fun there is in it, reminding one a bit of James Stephens’s ‘Pot of gold,’ with a good deal of human character for all that; why it might ‘act’ well if well acted—all this you can best find out for yourself by just reading this bit of excellent fooling. it opens a pleasant escape into the realm of fantasy in these super-serious times.”
GREGORY, ISABELLA AUGUSTA (PERSSE) lady, comp. and ed. Visions and beliefs in the west of Ireland. 1st and 2d ser. 2v il *$4.50 Putnam 398.2
These various superstitions, beliefs, fancies and fairy lore of the Irish peasants are given in the versions of the people, as they told them to Lady Gregory. She has classified them into groups under appropriate titles, introducing each group with an explanatory note or quotation. In the preface of volume 1 she tells about the “Sidhe,” the invisible host, some sort of fallen angels, who still swarm about the country side, in turn helping, teasing and interfering with the country folk. The contents of volume 1 are: Sea-stories; Seers and healers; The evil eye—the touch—the penalty; Away; and an essay and notes by W. B. Yeats. The essay is: Witches and wizards and Irish folklore. Volume 2 contains: Herbs, charms, and wise women; Astray, and treasure; Banshees and warnings; In the way; The fighting of the friends; The unquiet dead; Appearances; Butter; The fool of the forth; Forths and sheoguey places; Blacksmiths; Monsters and sheoguey beasts; Friars and priest cures; Essay on Swedenborg, mediums, and the desolate places, and notes by W. B. Yeats.
“Almost every kind of reader will find these volumes deeply interesting. Taken down with patience and extraordinary skill from the lips of living men and women, they make audible the very voice of the Irish people. They form a valuable contribution to the literature of folk-lore, while Mr Yeats’ highly characteristic essays and notes add greatly to their curious charm.” F. R.
“Bacon said that some books are to be tasted, others to be chewed and digested: Visions and beliefs’ belongs to the former class; folk-lorists will use it as a work of reference (although scholars would find it more valuable were it supplied with a good index), while those seeking only entertainment will enjoy chiefly Lady Gregory’s interpretative passages.” N. J. O’C.
“It is well to read the essays for they are learned and enlightening, but it is well, too, to read them without reference to the visions and beliefs that make up this collection. One should read these for their atmosphere, their picture, their phrase.” Padraic Colum
“All those who pursue the great Celtic legend and all those who are interested in the curious imaginative adventures of the human race must have this book.” B: de Casseres
“The first and most striking impression derived from the book is a renewed conviction of the faithfulness and the essential realism with which Lady Gregory, in her creative writing, has rendered the spirit and the atmosphere of life in the western counties. ‘Visions and beliefs in the west of Ireland’ is a notable contribution to folk poetry and a valuable revelation of the mood of the Irish mind.”
“One must welcome such a book as of immense interest to the general psychologist.” H. L. Stewart
“A large number of these tales, we imagine, have their origin in ignorance and an almost incredible superstitiousness; others obviously are barefaced lies—the sort of lies that ‘come true’ when told three times; others, again, are merely impudent fabrications told on the spur of the moment for the particular person, the particular person in this case being Lady Gregory with her pencil and copybook. As literature, these pages are worthless. But there will be few to tell that cruel truth to Lady Gregory.”
GREGORY, JACKSON. Ladyfingers. il *$1.75 (1½c) Scribner
Robert Ashe, alias Ladyfingers, expert “on life, lyric poetry and ... burglar proof safes,” had been left a pennyless orphan at the age of six, had grown up without guidance—except the memory of the fairy tales his mother used to tell him—and without morals; had become a newsboy, a pickpocket, a thief, and lastly a safe-cracker, and through it all remained a poet and an innocent boy at heart. His career is thrilling and romantic, for one day he finds himself the grandson of a multi-millionairess, a crabbed old witch of a woman, and in love with a sweet country girl. Then the awakening comes. His past has been hushed up, smothered in his grandmother’s millions. But the girl will have none of him for all her love. She fears a criminal inheritance for her children-to-be. Then Robert realizes that he has not yet paid for his misdeeds and that to pay is a law of nature. He gives himself up voluntarily to the police and serves a two-years sentence in the penitentiary. In the meanwhile Enid repents and prepares a home for him on his return. In due time the grandmother also repents and all ends happily.
“All the world loves a crook if he is also an artist and a gentleman and Ladyfingers is a very charming specimen, but, alas, he begins to reform far too near the beginning of the story and becomes so noble that he is a little hard to bear.”
“Although there is a good deal too much description, the story is agreeably told. At first it moves quickly, then seems steadily to lose momentum, very much as though it had been started with a vigorous shove and then been allowed to slow down as it would.”
“Mr Gregory has a fresh and vigorous way of writing.”
“While he tells a very entertaining and often amusing tale, it lacks much of the probability in his previous stories.”
GREGORY, JACKSON. Man to man. il *$2 (2½c) Scribner
When Steve Packard comes home after twelve years of roaming, his father is dead and the ranch that should have been his is heavily mortgaged to his fiery old grandfather, “Hell-Fire Packard.” The old man gives him no odds on account of relationship, and Steve soon finds he’ll have to fight for his rights and his property. His first act is to discharge the ranch foreman Blenham, who has been running the place in his grandfather’s interests and his own. Blenham tries to annoy him in every possible way, and by deceit and treachery sets grandfather against grandson in more bitter hatred than ever. But Steve is capable and handles the ranch problems skilfully. In the meantime he has been falling in love with a little spitfire neighbor, Terry Temple. His suit does not go well, and finally Terry goes away and Steve does not care what happens. It even looks as if he might forfeit his ranch to his grandfather after all, and it doesn’t seem to matter much. Then—she comes back! He takes up the game with zest again, and in the last round of their battle, Blenham is defeated. Steve and his grandfather are reconciled, and he wins his girl.
“If one can hazard criticism of such a breakneck story, it is simply to say that Mr Gregory writes with both his eyes fixed on the film royalties. His prose style, left unsupervised, moves ahead with a sort of blind, blundering vigor.”
“A sufficiently lively if entirely commonplace story.”
GREGORY, ODIN. Caius Gracchus, a tragedy; with an introd. by Theodore Dreiser. *$2 Boni & Liveright 812
“A five-act historical tragedy in blank verse.” (Freeman) “Caius Gracchus, idealist and statesman, had stirred the Roman plebs to a consciousness of their own existence, not as servile beasts, but as human beings. His success had disturbed the patricians, who, forthwith, plotted his downfall in true Roman fashion, couching their scheme in religion, and thus outwitting a less guileful populace.... In the end, when the plebs find themselves disbursed and outwitted, when, in the slow process of reasoning, they discover in the dead Gracchus a martyr to their cause, the few among them rally their mental energies and press forward toward the ideal.” (Springf’d Republican)
“Ambitious as this work is, however, and interesting in detail it is hardly likely to kindle beacons on Olympus. As a play, ‘Caius Gracchus’ sticks too close to polemics ever to achieve the heights of tragedy. Occasionally, one encounters felicitous phrases, but these have to be sought for, like bright pebbles scattered along a dry, sandy beach.” L. B.
“A drama of the excellence of ‘Caius Gracchus’ is a solid achievement of which any modern writer might well be proud. The constant declaration of their lofty sentiments by the chief characters is an accepted convention of the English and French classical tradition which Odin Gregory follows, but modern realistic drama has made it difficult to accept this convention unmodified, even under the shelter of the old forms.” C. M. S.
“Mr Gregory produces blank verse of vigor and suppleness, but hardly comparable to Shakespeare’s in poetic content.”
“‘Caius Gracchus’ is a tremendously ambitious work in the most difficult and aspiring genre of literature, and perhaps it is better to try and fail than not to try at all. One finds fault not so much with the author, who at least lets his work speak for itself, as with the critics who profess to find in it qualities that so obviously are not there.”
GRENFELL, ANNE ELIZABETH (MACCLANAHAN) (MRS WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL), and SPALDING, KATIE. Le petit Nord; or, Annals of a Labrador harbour. il *$1.50 (4½c) Houghton 917.19
In the form of letters this amusing volume by the wife or Dr Grenfell, and the nurse who accompanied them to their northern abode, makes a good accompaniment to the autobiography of “A Labrador doctor.” It relates the experiences and hardships of their mission home in the far north in a humorous vein and with the feminine touch. The unique illustrations tell a story of their own.
“These bright brave little letters have the power of transporting one into the heart of the Labrador country by their charm of description and humor. Crude little sketches by the doctor make just the right illustrations.”
“The book is delightful reading and adds interesting sidelights to her husband’s accounts.”
“They present a very vivid, unpretending picture of things as they really are in this work, viewed by a capable, energetic, and humorous temperament.” Archibald MacMechan
“The present work is of special interest in that it gives the feminine viewpoint.”
“About the letters there is a marked and pleasing individuality.”
GRESHAM, MATILDA (MCGRAIN) (MRS WALTER QUINTIN GRESHAM). Life of Walter Quintin Gresham, 1832–1895. 2v *$7.50 Rand
“An unusual career, even for America, known as the land of eccentricities in public life, is summed up in these two sizable volumes. Soldier, lawyer, judge, statesman, Walter Q. Gresham seems never to have known an idle moment in the sixty-three years of his life. He had a distinguished record in the Civil war, enlisting as a private, and, after successive promotions for gallantry, receiving his discharge as a Major-General of volunteers in 1865. After fifteen years of service at the bar and on the bench he was made a member of President Arthur’s cabinet, and ten years later, because of disagreement with the Republican party on the tariff question, became a Democrat and was appointed secretary of state in President Cleveland’s second administration. He died in 1895. This biography [is] written by his widow.”—R of Rs
“A veritable source book of American history.” F. B. N.
“Mrs Gresham’s life of her husband is of value as far as political and economic information is concerned.” C. W. Alvord
“This biography throws much light on the politics of the entire period from the middle of the nineteenth century to its closing years.”
GREY, EDWARD GREY, 1st viscount. Recreation. *$1.25 (17c) Houghton 824
The booklet contains an address delivered by Viscount Grey at the Harvard union, December 8, 1919. He enumerates a number of things that make for happiness of which one is a degree of leisure and knowing what to do with it. He speaks of the forms of recreation most enjoyed by himself, certain games and sport and gardening but most of all books read for pleasure. Enjoyment of nature also finds a place and calls up a memorable walk he took with Colonel Roosevelt for the purpose of observing birds.
“His address, indeed, contains nothing that is original or profound. We read it for its personal note and for the light that it throws on the personality of the late Colonel Roosevelt. The lessons that may be learned from this charming and gracious little pamphlet are not quite the lessons that it professes to convey.” E. M. F.
“In depicting the incident [of Roosevelt’s visit] Lord Grey allows the Baconian clarity of his earlier pronouncements to take on poetic warmth and color.”
“The one who has attained such an appreciation of the real place of recreation in life deserves to be called by a word which is very frequently abused—‘cultured.’”
“Of artifice, literary, or any other, in the plan or style, there is not a trace. The diction is plain and simple, almost to the point of baldness. There are no flights and no flowers.” Archibald MacMechan
“The address is not only a most attractive piece of literature but also an interesting pendant to Mr Roosevelt’s biography.”
“It strikes a sane and healthful note.”
GREY, ZANE. Man of the forest. il *$1.90 (1½c) Harper
Milt Dale loves the silence and the romance of the mountains. There he lives in solitude, hunting animals for his food, and finding thorough happiness and contentment, until accidentally he overhears an unscrupulous plot against the property and safety of a young girl, newly arrived from the East. To save her and her sister he hides them in his woodland camp, entertaining them with hunting trips and riding expeditions to keep their minds from brooding. When, however, Helen Rayner and her pretty sister Bo leave the camp, Dale finds it an empty, unsatisfying place. And Helen, mistress of a great ranch, which a conscienceless “greaser” is trying to take from her, keeps longing for the lonely man from the mountains. Her troubles reach their climax just after the long winter, and Dale, coming out of the forests, helps her in the most terrible moment. “Bo’s cowboy” is instrumental in completing the collapse of the “greaser”; and afterward, Dale’s camp witnesses an unusual honeymoon.
“A story full of the thrills and charms familiar to readers of Zane Grey.”
“The tale has plenty of incident, and though it contains too numerous and too long passages of description not a few of them are well done, while the lover of horses will be sure to envy Helen her possession of the splendid Ranger.”
“A western story conventional in plot and incident, but well written and with a certain nobility in its feeling for the freedom of the wide spaces.”
“Action is always rapid and there is an abundance of local color. On occasions Mr Grey gives play to his liking for descriptive paragraphs, which sometimes bulk too large. But these are seldom formal. The book is among the author’s best stories.”
“Few romances make better business out of the wilds of the West than Mr Zane Grey: and he is well up to his mark in this stirring tale.”
GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT. Swiss fairy tales. il *$1.75 (2½c) Crowell
The first two chapters of the book are devoted to the author’s Swiss ancestors, their home in Switzerland in the shadow of the mountains, where it was finally burled by an avalanche, and later their American home in Pennsylvania whence they had brought their customs and traditions and, above all, the fairy tales of their native country. Some of these tales are: The wonderful alpine horn; The mountain giants; Two good natured dragons; The frost giants and the sunbeam fairies; The yodel carillon of the cows; The fairy of the edelweiss; The alpine hunter and his fairy guardian; The white chamois; The siren of the Rhine.
GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT. Young people’s history of the Pilgrims, il *$3 (4½c) Houghton 974.4
“In writing for, but not down to, young people, I have dwelt rather upon what was visible to, or interested, the Pilgrim boys and girls. Yet I have endeavored, also, to make clear the formative principles and impelling motives, as well as conditions and events; and this without any special interest in genealogy.” (Preface) One of the objects of the book is to show that the Puritans were “bona-fide everyday Englishmen” and to further a deeper unity and closer co-operation between all English-speaking people. The religious motive prompting the Pilgrims is also emphasized. A partial list of the contents is: How the world looked long ago; A mirror of English history; Fun and play in the old home; A girl’s life in merrie England; Puritan, Independent, Separatist, and Pilgrim; Brewster: the boy traveler; Bradford: boy hero and typical Pilgrim; The decision to emigrate and why; The new world: America; The first winter and the great sickness; The Pilgrim republic; The Pilgrim inheritance; Chronological framework of the story of a free church in a free state; Index; Illustrations.
“It is a scholarly history; shall we say a bit too scholarly for youthful tastes? At least it has the merit of being accurate, thoroughgoing, and informing” W. A. Dyer
“Dr Griffis writes with enthusiasm, his writing discloses the most careful study of his subject in its every phase, and especially does his familiarity with the places trodden by the Pilgrims appeal to the reader.” E. J. C.
“‘Young people’s history of the Pilgrims’ is packed with interesting information. The author has, however, an annoyingly priggish manner and he tends to paint the Pilgrims as rather unpleasantly noble.”
“In the closing pages of Dr Griffis’ book is a valuable chronology.”
GRIFFITH, IRA SAMUEL. Teaching manual and industrial arts, il $2 Manual arts press 371.42
This work by a professor of industrial education in the University of Illinois “is intended as a text for use in normal schools and colleges. Its primary aim is to assist in the making of necessary connections between the more general courses in educational psychology and theory of teaching and the special work of practice teaching in manual and industrial arts.” (Preface) Contents: Introduction; Classification and differentiation of the manual arts; Industrial arts; Instincts and capacities; Application of the principle of apperception to manual and industrial arts teaching; Interest and attention: Individual differences: the group system; Correlation and association; The doctrine of discipline: Types of thinking inherent in the manual arts: Teaching methods in manual and industrial arts; The lesson; its component parts; Class management: discipline; Standards and tests; Conditions which make for progress. There are two appendices devoted to Special method procedure and Type outlines.
“Very useful to any teachers of hand work.”
“Although one feels the need for a more extended discussion of many of the points, there is left in the mind of the reader the conviction, nevertheless, that Mr Griffith has sought to present the facts in as simple and untangled a form as possible, with the specific purpose in mind of establishing a workable pedagogy on the psychological principles developed. One feels that he has succeeded in his purpose in an admirable degree.”
“Written in a concise and convincing manner. It is the kind of a book that teachers of drawing, design and applied arts should read and absorb. It will connect them with the technique of teaching.”
GRIFFITHS, GERTRUDE (MRS PERCIVAL GRIFFITHS). Lure of the manor. *$1.75 (1½c) Duffield
The story opens in England but soon shifts to America, there to be played out in a quaint old-time South Carolina setting. At the close of the Civil war, General Sutledge of the Confederate army had retired from the world, and his three daughters had continued to follow his example, living and dressing in the style of the sixties. To them comes the Honorable Patricia Denham, daughter of an adored and much younger sister who had married a British peer. This sister, Millicent, is a cold, heartless woman, engaged in her own love affairs and indifferent to her children. It is partly to escape her that Patricia comes to America. Peter d’Eresby, who has been in love with Millicent, also comes to America. Patricia marries a rich northerner, who has been looked down upon by the three impoverished old southern aristocrats. Peter marries Sophia, a young Sutledge cousin and to the end the three elderly sisters are kept in ignorance of Millicent’s real character.
“A romance written with amusing naïveté and some freshness.”
“A very uneven story, amateurish at times and very much too long but by no means devoid of merit. It suffers from the fact that it has two heroines, the story of one of them being fairly interesting, while that of the other is dull, and the connection between them seeming forced and artificial.”
“‘The lure of the manor’ reads unevenly and strikes the reader as being considerably too long. Strengthening of the story could be obtained through elimination of that which gives an impression of being artificial and exaggerated.”
GRIMSHAW, BEATRICE ETHEL. Terrible island. *$1.75 (3c) Macmillan
This adventure story of the South seas has two mysteries, the mystery of “Lady Mary” who walks up out of the sea and the mystery of Ku-Ku’s island. Lady Mary is suffering from amnesia. She doesn’t know who she is or how she came to her present plight. All that she can remember is a meaningless string of words, which her listeners rightly interpret as the directions for finding the half-legendary Ku-Ku’s island, reputed to be rich in the valuable red shell that passes as currency in the islands. The three men, with Sapphira Gregg and the girl from the sea, set out in search of it and then begin their adventures on the terrible island. In the end they conquer all obstacles, including the mysterious blindness that inflicts those who land on the island. Lady Mary’s memory is restored, and two romances come to a satisfactory conclusion.
“The scheme of the story is very good, but it is so tangled up in verbiage and moralizing that one loses interest, and wishes the author had made another of the group her mouthpiece.”
“It is a capital tale, quite novel in its plot and incident, and with amusing character depiction as well as the thrill of adventure.”
“The narrative is set forth interestingly and with some humor.”
“She shows her tact in the touches of individuality that she gives to characters who have to be drawn broadly. So much is she in sympathy with them, and so clearly does she see the situations in which they find themselves, that they come to respond by creating their own difficulties for her to write about. This seems to be the secret of her fertility of invention. For a lady not in her first book she is most prodigal of her good things.”
GROGAN, GERALD. William Pollok, and other tales. *$1.50 (2c) Lane
This volume of short stories opens with a memoir of the author, who was killed in 1918. As the son of a soldier he led a wandering life in childhood, and later his work as a mining engineer took him to Mexico, where the scenes of most of these stories are laid. Only one is a story of the war. The collection opens with a series of eight tales, The trials and triumphs of William Pollok, mine superintendent. The other titles are: Encinillas; The faith of Henderson; A warm corner in Mexico; The casting vote; The subjugation of the Skettering; The failure; The cat; The weregeld; A moral victory.
“He wrote well because he lived well and fully, he depicted character in an entertaining fashion because he knew men. He has produced a group of stories worth reading more than once.” G. H. C.
“When his feet are off the romantic soil of Mexico, Mr Grogan seems less at home. One story, however—his latest—is distinguished by a quality only a little short of genius. It is a vision of the wars of the future. The story is a prophecy that may be fulfilled in a happier day; it is Gerald Grogan’s chief contribution to literature.”
“They have the excessive cleverness of the young writer, who will not tell a plain tale. Nevertheless the book is full of vitality; and readers to whom this quality, even if it goes with some immaturity, is the all-important one will enjoy the book.”
GROSSMANN, LOUIS. Aims of teaching in Jewish schools; a handbook for teachers. (Isaac M. Wise centenary publication) *$1.50 Bloch 377
“Dr G. Stanley Hall, who contributes the introduction, pronounces this ‘by far the best treatise on religious pedagogy that has anywhere yet appeared. It places religious education on its proper scientific and constructive basis.’ Something over half of the volume is devoted to the successive stages in the child’s advancement from the kindergarten to the eighth grade. The latter part is devoted to special phases such as the use of stories, the textbook, the Hebrew language, music, etc.”—Am J Soc
“The discussions are rather general to constitute a ‘handbook,’ but they make good reading for anyone who is interested in recent pedagogy and modernist religion.” F. R. Clow
“Designed as a teacher’s handbook, but it has a broader interest.”
“A very complete outline for the teacher in the religious school.”
GROVE, SIR GEORGE.[2] Grove’s dictionary of music and musicians; Waldo Selden Pratt, editor, Charles N. Boyd, associate editor. il *$6 Macmillan 780.3
This American supplement adds a sixth volume to Grove’s dictionary of music. It is made up of two parts, the first consisting of an historical introduction with chronological register of names; the second of Personal and descriptive articles and alphabetical index. The register in Part I gives brief reference to about 1700 persons. In the descriptive articles of the second part there is more extended treatment of some 700 of these, with cross references from one section to the other, Canadian musicians are included under the term American and to a limited extent Latin American names have been included. The preface states further: “Inasmuch as the latest edition of Grove’s dictionary was issued ten to fifteen years ago, the publishers desired that this volume should include continuations of those articles that relate to the more conspicuous foreign musicians.... Accordingly, in the dictionary proper will be found statements regarding more than a hundred musicians who are entirely outside the American field.”
GROZIER, EDWIN ATKINS, ed. One hundred best novels condensed. 4v il *$5; ea *$1.50 Harper 808.3
A series of books giving synopses of one hundred works of fiction. They have been prepared under the direction of the literary editor of the Boston Post, assisted by Charles E. L. Wingate and Charles H. Lincoln, various writers contributing to the contents, among them John Kendrick Bangs, George S. Barton, Sara Ware Bassett, Alfred S. Clark and James B. Connolly. There is no ordered plan of arrangement and the word novel is given a broad interpretation to embrace the “Iliad,” “Pilgrim’s progress” and “Alice in Wonderland.” Famous translations are included in addition to all the well-known English novels. A biographical sketch and portrait of each author is provided.
“Perhaps the best condensation of all is that of ‘Far from the madding crowd.’ Many of the synopses approach this, but some fall far behind it in quality.” A. A. W.
“As for giving any real idea of the originals, these condensations are about as satisfying as the description of a banquet would be to a starving man.”
GUILD, ROY BERGEN, ed. Community programs for cooperating churches; a manual of principles and methods. *$1.90 Assn. press 261
The book contains the reports of the Church and community convention held in Cleveland, June 1–3, 1920, under the joint auspices of the Commission on councils of churches of the Federal council of churches of Christ in America, and the Association of executive secretaries of church federations, and contains: Principles and methods of organization; Survey, program, and comity; Evangelism; Social service; Religious education; Missions; International justice and good-will; Religious publicity; Securing and training executive secretaries; “The church and its new cooperative power,” by Dr Robert E. Speer; “The spiritual basis for the unity of the churches,” by Rev. M. Ashby Jones, D.D.; Appendix.
“The book is a practical manual for those interested in interchurch work.”
GUILD, THACHER HOWLAND. Power of a god, and other one-act plays. il $1.25 Univ. of Ill. 812
The volume is a memorial to the author, an account of his short career as a dramatist and his early death in 1914, and contains, besides the plays, a tribute from Prof. George P. Baker of Harvard university; Preparation days at Brown, by Prof. Thomas Crosby, jr., Brown university; The fullness of his life, by Prof. Stuart P. Sherman, University of Illinois; Dramatic reminiscenses, by F. K. W. Drury, University of Illinois library; and a bibliography. The title play shows a scene in the office of a celebrated surgeon who has taken up mental therapy and in his practice of it, finds himself before the alternative, for the love of a woman, to use his power as a “god” or as a “devil.” After much soul anguish he chooses the better way. The other plays are: The class of ’56; The higher good; and The portrait.
“At least the first two plays are distinctly above the average in their realistic dialogue. The eloquent and sympathetic introduction by Professor Baker, of Harvard, adds to the value of the book.”
“Each [play] is interesting and each has distinct merits, while as a whole they display a steady growth in literary power and technical expertness.”
GUILLAUMIN, EMILE.[2] Life of a simple man; tr. by Margaret Holden. *$2 Stokes
“The good brown earth, the sheep and the swine; stretches of sparkling, bedewed meadows with perfumed masses of golden broom, white daisies and honeysuckle.... From such a background Emile Guillaumin has drawn ‘La vie d’un simple.’ Small wonder that a simple man speaks from its pages. The book is called a novel. In reality it is a biography and, as it happens, one with only a slight vista into the realm of Eros. The author tells us that Tiennon is his neighbor, but it is suggested in a foreword by Mr Garnett that Guillaumin has attempted a portraiture of his own father. At any rate it is interesting to observe that the book received an award from l’Académie Française in 1904, and that the author is a peasant, unschooled, in our modern sense of the word, whose life has been spent in a town of some 1,800 inhabitants, and who has ‘remained faithful to the soil’ in spite of literary laurels.”—N Y Times
“For those who evaluate standards of living in terms of their simplicity, reality and intensity, the farmer Tiennon, as he stands revealed in ‘The life of a simple man,’ will find a place with friendly philosophers of the highways and byways.”
“Invaluable to us as a standard of comparison, quite apart from its charm as a human document.”
GUITERMAN, ARTHUR. Ballads of old New York. il *$1.50 Harper 811
In this collection of ballads, the author tells us, he has been “martialing the varied traditions of New York and its neighborhood, piecing together colorful stories of the past for those who are to inherit the future.” And in the prologue he bids us “Hear! for I carol in lilting rhymes rollicking lays of the good old times!” The contents are grouped under the headings: Dutch period; English colonial period; Revolutionary period; and Miscellaneous, and the verses are interspersed by descriptive prose paragraphs by way of interludes. The illustrations are pen and ink sketches by J. Scott Williams.
“A delightfully whimsical book.”
“The book is a happy book, done by a genuine lover and historian of the greatest city in the new world. Washington Irving would have liked it.” W. A. Barrett
“Mr Guiterman has a virtue beyond the virtue of the average humorist in verse whose quips and laughter after a little grow tiresome; that virtue is his unfailing humanism. The humanist in him has made him sing on occasions with all the fine fervor of a truly inspired poet. These ballads help very largely and convincingly to show us this very little-thought-of side of Mr Guiterman.” W. S. B.
“Displays pleasing variety in the matter of subject and form.”
“In ‘Ballads of old New York’ a delightful idea is somewhat disappointingly worked out.”
“Arthur Guiterman is a perfect master of his trade. He has a genius for mirth, for seeing the funny side of life, for throwing a fantastic light on everything that happens. ‘Ballads of old New York’ is worth its price twice over.” B: de Casseres
“The versatility of the author’s pen is evident in the variety both subjective and metrical, of the different ballads and interludes. The book ought to be among the most popular metrical offerings of the season.”
GUITERMAN, ARTHUR.[2] Chips of Jade. il *$2 Dutton 895
“This is a volume of alleged folk-sayings of China and Hindustan, clothed in homely English verse, and there is a chuckle in every quatrain. There is sharp social comment in many of the lines—and it is often anti-Socialist.”—N Y Call
“The amount of exhilaration which may be obtained from a book of mottoes is rather less than half of one per cent, and even the knowledge that the present compilation has an oriental origin is not in itself calculated to intoxicate the reader. After all, a jingle is only a jingle, and ‘Chips of jade’ is but the small change of philosophy.” L. B.
“A thoroughly delectable addition to the already rich proverb-literature which exists in English.”
“Perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that this volume is the most crystalline, the most brilliant, the most uniform yet issued by this twanger of the harp of Momus. There are a thousand universal words here, which read as if they were spoken for your ear only.” Clement Wood
“Attractive in appearance and contents.” E. L. Pearson
GUITRY, SACHA.[2] Deburau; a comedy; in an English version by Harley Granville Barker. $2 Putnam 842
This English version of a French play is a free rendering, which preserves the original meaning detail by detail but uses a paraphrase where a literal rendering would appear labored. The play is in four acts. The first shows the auditorium of a theatre after a successful evening. Gaspard Deburau, the Pierrot, has just made a great hit in “The old clo’ man.” In the second act Deburau is seen in the room of Marie Duplessis, the famous “Camellia lady,” to whose charms he has succumbed and who, immediately after his departure, accepts another lover. Act three is in Deburau’s own garret, seven years later, with Deburau ill and retired. His young son is pleading with him for permission to become his successor on the stage. In the fourth act Deburau once more after a long intermission essays to act his old rôle. He is a complete failure and while the management is deliberating in despair what course to pursue, Deburau brings on his son, has him dressed in his old Pierrot costume and puts him thru his paces as his successor. The scene abounds in good stage advice.
GULICK, LUTHER HALSEY. Evolution of the budget in Massachusetts. *$2.50 Macmillan 336
This volume is the second in a series of Special studies in administration in course of preparation by the Bureau of municipal research and the training school for the public service. Its object is to record in orderly fashion the long series of events that have led up to the present budget system of Massachusetts and to counteract some of the superficial views that prevail on budget-making. Among the contents, following the early financial history of Massachusetts, are: The governor and the budget, 1910–1918; The joint special committee on finance and budget procedure; Establishing the budget system; Experience with the budget in 1919; Constitutional conflict over the budget in 1920; Classification of the Massachusetts budget system; Outstanding facts in the evolution of the Massachusetts budget. The appendices contain The budget amendment of the Massachusetts constitution, and The Massachusetts budget act.
“The book is one which should appeal to the practical administrator as well as to the student of political science.” A. C. Hanford
“The study of the budget system is usually supposed to be dull and uninteresting, but Dr Gulick has succeeded in writing an interesting book.”
“It will prove exceedingly helpful to those political adolescents who imagine that a piece of legislation imposing on the governor the duty of preparing a financial plan will produce any important changes in our way of doing business.” C: A. Beard
“The author has prepared an interesting and well written history. The illustrative excerpts from political speeches and journals add decided readability to what might be otherwise tedious history.” L. D. Upson
GULICK, LUTHER HALSEY. Philosophy of play. *$1.60 (3c) Scribner 790
Joseph Lee, in his foreword to this posthumous volume, calls it Dr Gulick’s legacy to his fellow citizens. In making the study of play his life work the author has come to the conclusion that it affords the best and most profitable way of studying humankind itself; that the individual reveals himself more completely in play than in any other way; that play has a greater shaping power over the character and nature of man than any other activity; and that a people also most truly reveals itself in the character of its pleasures. Contents: The extent of the play interest: Separation vs. concentration; Hunting and fighting plays; Playing house; Fire play; Toys—construction and ownership; Masculine and feminine differences; The play of animals; The play of adults; The play of subnormal children; Play progression; Play and physical growth; Play and education; Play and moral growth; Instinct and tradition in play; Play and our changing civilization; Play and the modern city; Direction and control in play—playgrounds; Play and democracy; Play, the pursuit of the ideal; Index.
“Dr Gulick’s last book is suggestive especially to parents.”
“He has built up an attractive guide to the understanding of children’s ways. There is not a hint of superficiality in his treatment.”
“With this book Dr Gulick has made a real contribution which will enrich all who read it. It should be in the hands not only of all who are interested in recreational activities, but of fathers, mothers and educators as well.” S. L. Jean
GULL, CYRIL ARTHUR EDWARD RANGER (GUY THORNE, pseud.). Air pirate. *$1.75 (3c) Harcourt
The time setting of this story is about ten years in the future, when travel and commerce by air have become thoroughly established, and cross-Atlantic air trips are an everyday occurrence. The story is told by Sir John Custance, young and popular commissioner of air police for the British government. On one of its regular trips, one of the aerial liners is held up by a pirate airship, and even while this affair is being investigated, a second holdup is made. And it so happens that on this ship, Connie Shepherd, Sir John’s fiancée, is a passenger, and is captured and carried away by the pirates. His motive is therefore doubly strong for discovering the criminals. He has the help of Mr Danjuro, a unique Japanese personality with apparently infinite resources and capabilities. Altho they are in the end successful in capturing the whole pirate band and releasing Connie, it is by no means an easy task, and Sir John finds himself in close proximity to death more than once.
“By all the rules of the game, ‘The air pirate’ should be a badly written attempt at a thriller, and its jacket goes far to confirm that suspicion. But with the jacket the resemblance to a dime novel abruptly ceases. Mr Gull has a facility for turning melodrama into plausibility.”
GUNION, PHILIP CYRUS (GEORGE CONOVER PEARSON, pseud.). Selling your services. $2 (1½c) Jordan-Goodwin corporation, Jefferson bank bldg., N.Y. 658
Getting a job, says the author, is a problem in salesmanship. A man’s services are a product that can be sold and how to go about to sell it has been so successfully and methodically worked out by John Caldwell, that he was asked to teach a class in re-employment for the graduates of the Metropolitan university. His lectures as given to the class are here edited and collected into book form by the author. John Caldwell’s method is to apply modern salesmanship, marketing methods and advertising to the selling of a man’s individual product, his services. Among the contents are: Make a job of getting a job; Know your product—yourself; Determine your appeal; Make good use of your experience; Develop a group of prospects; Situation wanted advertisements; The circular letter; The personal call; The employment agency; The interview; The eternal question—the salary; Keep your case alive; Index.
GUTHRIE, ANNA LORRAINE, comp. Index to St Nicholas, service basis Wilson, H. W. 051
The forty-five volumes of St Nicholas, from 1873 to 1918, have been indexed for this volume. “The index is dictionary in form, giving author, subject and title entries, the latter as a rule made for fiction and poetry only. Selection of subject headings most easily usable by children has been the aim striven for.” (Preface) The work is compiled and edited by Anna Lorraine Guthrie, formerly editor of the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature.
“Indispensable aid.”
GUTTERSEN, GRANVILLE. Granville. *$1.25 Abingdon press 940.44
“The experience of a young chap in the army air service—a fellow who embodied all that was fine and noble in young manhood, who suffered continual disappointment in not being able to get his overseas orders and in being held on this side as an instructor in bombing, and who yet retained his humor and philosophy of life—are pictured in ‘Granville,’ the subtitle of which is ‘Tales and tail spins from a flyer’s diary.’ The book, which is published anonymously in deference to the wishes of the author’s family, contains a series of letters from ‘Granny’ to his folks at home. These tell of his hopes and desires, his setbacks, his friends in the service and the girls he met, and the experiences that he went through from the time he entered ground school until he received his last orders.”—Springf’d Republican
“The writer is so frank and outspoken in what he says and thinks and does that anyone reading the book cannot help feeling unbounded admiration for him. From cover to cover the book is filled with a buoyancy and a joy of living that leave one refreshed with even a few short pages.”
GWYNN, STEPHEN LUCIUS. Irish books and Irish people. *$1.75 Stokes 891.6
“These essays are for the most part revived from the years 1897–1907, representing the views, during the changing moods of the decade, of this capable and cultured Irish essayist, who, it will be remembered, severed his connexion with the Gaelic league when it decided to make the learning of Irish compulsory and who believes that, as Yeats and Synge have shown, it is possible to be completely Irish while using the English language. His subjects are Nineteenth century novels of Irish life; A century of Irish humour (written 1901); Literature among the illiterates, from a volume called ‘To-day and to-morrow in Ireland’ (1902), now out of print (in two parts, The Shanachy, and The life of a song, a traditional song which Mr Gwynn took down from the lips of an Irish peasant); Irish education and Irish character. There are two later essays on Irish gentry (1913), and Yesterday in Ireland (1918).”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
GWYNN, STEPHEN LUCIUS. John Redmond’s last years. *$5 (*16s) Longmans
“A personal and political study of very great interest, written by one who was a friend of Mr Redmond and had access to his papers for the period beginning with the war. Mr Gwynn makes no attempt to represent Mr Redmond as a hero, but lays emphasis upon the patriotism, modesty, and nobility of purpose of the Irish leader, who died heartbroken because he had not ‘won through.’ ‘His action upon the war was his life’s supreme action; he felt this, and knew that it had failed to achieve its end.’ But, says the author, ‘tangled as are the threads of all this policy, he leaves the task far nearer to accomplishment than he found it; and if in the end freedom and prosperity come to a united Ireland, they will be found to proceed ... from the action which John Redmond took in August, 1914, and upon which his brother ... set the seal of his blood.’”—Ath
“Mr Gwynn displays some of the qualities which a biographer ought to possess. He knew Redmond intimately and admired him greatly, yet he makes no attempts to represent him as unerring in judgment and supreme in every quality of leadership. Yet his book has serious defects from the point of view of both the serious student of Irish affairs and the general reader.”
“Written with a sympathy and ease that will make interesting reading for those informed on Irish politics.”
“Mr Gwynn’s book has not a little of the somber splendor of a Greek tragedy. Certainly a reading of it is indispensable to an understanding of Irish history in the last ten years. The record is set down with a fairness which even Redmond’s most bitter opponents can hardly fail to praise.” H. J. Laski
“Mr Gwynn has given far the clearest account of the procession of events, and especially a fascinating narrative of the labors and personalities of the convention. His book is almost indispensable to anyone who would wish to understand the relation of opinion to the controversy which is about to open concerning the new Home rule bill.”
“Amid the abundant and increasing literature on Irish affairs it is seldom indeed that there comes into a reviewer’s hand a literary treasure such as this. Mr Gwynn writes as one having knowledge and authority. Perhaps what strikes one first in the book is the judicial balance by which it is everywhere marked.” H. L. Stewart
“Captain Gwynn’s memoir of his late leader, though in no sense a dispassionate or unbiassed narrative of events, displays a breadth of view that is wholly lacking in most modern Irish books, and puts the nationalist case with courtesy and discretion. We cannot agree either with his estimate of Mr Redmond or with his presentation of certain notorious episodes in recent Irish controversy. Nevertheless we feel that he is an honourable political opponent.”
“Mr Gwynn writes in a sanely liberal vein and can take a detached view of all sides of the struggle of Ireland for home rule.... Nevertheless, the summing-up is an indictment of a government that had an excellent chance to show, by firmness and justice, that it was determined to give Ireland the promised measure of home rule.”
“Nowhere throughout a book which vividly illumines the recent history of Irish politics, is Captain Gwynn more intimately informed or more profoundly interesting than in the story of the Irish convention. His work is one which every student of modern politics should read and read at once. There has been no more important publication on the Irish question during recent years.”
Reviewed by N. J. O’Conor
HAGEDORN, HERMANN. That human being, Leonard Wood. *$1 (7c) Harcourt, Brace & Howe
A eulogistic sketch of General Wood by one who regards him as the legitimate successor of the late Colonel Roosevelt. It is also an arraignment of the Wilson administration and a campaign document. “Gradually, as month has succeeded month and the presidential election has drawn near, Wood has become the focus of the hopes of an increasing number of men and women scattered over the country who have found in him a symbol of that blunt belief in facts, that respect for training and experience, that love of open dealing, which the administration has offended.... It is not strange that countless Americans, angered at the lack of these qualities in the administration, should seek to make the man who most patently possesses them, the instrument of their indignation.”
“The little book will have no political influence at this time, but it should have a personal influence to inspire better citizenship and continual preparedness.” J. S. B.
“The briefest and most readable of the various current biographies of General Wood.”
HAGGARD, SIR HENRY RIDER. Ancient Allan. *$1.75 Longmans
“‘The ancient Allan’, by Sir H. Rider Haggard, reintroduces some of the characters of ‘The ivory child.’ Lady Ragnall, Allan Quartermain, and his faithful Hottentot Hans, are shown us in a previous incarnation by means of the mysterious Taduki, as ancient Egyptians, warring for the independence of their country against the Lords of the East.” (Sat R) “The new chronicle is chockful of excitement. There are fights with lions and a crocodile, duels to the death, the clash of mighty hosts in battle. There is a signet ring whose bearer commands unquestioning obedience from those who behold it, an attribute which the Allan of bygone centuries finds most useful when his faithful dwarf purloins it from its possessor, the villainous king of kings. There is a white-bearded soothsayer, who keeps dropping in and making solemn prophecies of a brilliant future for the great Captain Shabaka. There are hunters and soldiers, cringing courtiers and solemn priests, warriors and slaves, and the waters of the ancient Nile murmuring through the breathless narrative.” (N Y Times)
“The tale is told swiftly and simply, as all good Rider Haggard tales are told. It moves so naturally that one overlooks the unreality. ‘The ancient Allan’ is by no means to be named in the same breath with ‘King Solomon’s mines’ and other earlier creations of its indefatigable author. But it will not disappoint the reader who wants thrills without analyzing too closely the methods employed to provide them for him.”
“It is a very good example of the author at his second best—we can never hope to recover the first thrill of ‘She.’”
“The story is told in Sir Rider’s customary colorful style and with his gift for creating illusion. Ancient Egypt becomes a vivid reality.”
HAIG, DOUGLAS HAIG, 1st earl. Sir Douglas Haig’s despatches. il *$15 Dutton 940.342
“From the time Field Marshal (now Earl) Haig assumed the chief command of the British armies in France on December 19, 1915, until the close of fighting at the end of 1918, he forwarded to the war office at London in May and December of each year a summary of the operations for the six months preceding. These were intended frankly for the information of the people at home and were quite apart from the detailed, confidential information sent daily from great headquarters in France to the general staff at home. These statements have been collected and edited by Lieut.-Col. J. H. Boraston, private secretary to Earl Haig and published under the title ‘Sir Douglas Haig’s despatches.’ The despatches, which number eight and fill 357 pages of the heavy volume, are preceded by an introduction written by Marshal Foch, and a preface by the field marshal himself. The volume is accompanied by a number of carefully prepared, highly detailed maps in large scale.”—Springf’d Republican
“For those desirous of studying the war as a military event, these despatches furnish information of remarkable clearness and precision. The splendid series of very large and detailed maps which accompanies the volume, not only enables one to follow each detail of every struggle, but appeals to the imagination.”
“Altogether the volume is an invaluable aid to the student of the campaigns that it describes.”
“The civilian and the soldier alike may profit by reading and re-reading the masterly despatches of Lord Haig.”
HALDANE, RICHARD BURDON HALDANE, 1st viscount of Cloan. Before the war. il *$2.50 (5½c) Funk 327.42
The attitude of the author throughout is that of an impartial investigator rather than an accuser. “Few wars are really inevitable,” he says. “If we knew better how we should be careful to comport ourselves it may be that none are so.... How some of those who were deeply responsible for the conduct of affairs tried to think in the anxious years before the war, and how they endeavored to apply their conclusions, is what I have endeavored to state in the course of what follows.” (Introd.) The book is based on personal, official experience and contains several interviews of the author with the kaiser. In the epilog, deprecating the harshness of the treaty, he says: “It is at all events possible that the wider view of a generation later than this may be one in which Germany will be judged more gently than the Allies can judge her today. We do not now look on the French revolution as our forefathers looked on it.... And here some enlargement of the spirit seems to be desirable in our own interest.” Contents: Introduction: Diplomacy before the war; The German attitude before the war; The military preparations; Epilog; Index.
“As a defence of those in power it is sincere and in the blame for the war attributed to Germany, temperate and generously sympathetic. The style is admirable. Interesting for general readers and as a first hand account.”
Reviewed by Sganarelle
“It goes without saying that Viscount Haldane makes out a good case for Great Britain: but he does so in anything but a blindly chauvinistic temper. Without anger or irritation, imputing sinister motives to none, he deals honestly with the facts as he sees them and presents his case with a patient and persuasive reasonableness that lends an air of finality to his conclusions. Nevertheless, what strikes one on reflection is that the discussion never goes below the surface of things.” Carl Becker
“Great injustice has been done by the press and the public to Mr Haldane’s work before the war as secretary of state.... The war being over, Lord Haldane publishes his defence, which we hope everybody will read, and having read, will admit to be a refutation of charges hatched in the fever of fear.”
“Lord Haldane’s defence of the policy adopted by the liberal government towards Germany between 1906 and 1914 deserves attentive reading. His little volume, mainly composed from the articles which he has published recently in various periodicals, has been hastily put together and contains a certain amount of repetition, but it is an obviously sincere attempt to explain and justify a policy that has brought much unmerited odium on the author.”
HALE, FREDERICK. From Persian uplands. *$5 Dutton 915.5
“Mr Hale was stationed from 1913 to 1917 at Birjand, in eastern Persia, and from 1917 onwards at Kermanshah, near the western frontier. This book contains his letters to a friend at home, describing the ordinary course of life in sleepy Persia, and touching lightly on the German and Turkish intrigues and the measures taken to counteract them. Mr Hale declares that the Persians are far more intelligent than their neighbors, and that they only need good schools and a tolerable administration. Mr Hale was engaged at Kermanshah in the preparations for General Dunsterville’s romantic little expedition to Baku.”—Spec
“Here is a vivid picture of Persia during the war made by one who can describe his own times in delicate phrasing and neat speech.” R. C. T.
“His comment on current topics ... is extremely diverting, always in good taste, and enlivened with a dash of humor reminiscent of Howells. It is the charming style and manner which make the book worth while.”
“Mr Hale is a charming writer, and he evidently knows and likes the Persian people. Thus his unpretentious book gives perhaps a truer picture of modern Persia than some more ambitious works.”
HALE, LOUISE (CLOSSER) (MRS WALTER HALE). American’s London. il *$2 (1½c) Harper 914.21
An American actress goes to London for a season and talks wittily and ramblingly about her experiences on and off the stage. She gives many a glimpse of the aftermath of the war in London streets, in London houses, and in London heads in the form of opinions and judgments. The book is illustrated.
“Pleasing, spontaneously humorous, keen often, and clever, though the author’s self-consciousness will seem to some to be intrusive.”
“From her first page to her last, Mrs Hale is distinctly entertaining. Her philosophy of life is a genial one and her style of presenting it agreeably light and pleasantly tinged with humor.” F. A. G.
“Mrs Hale has a very pleasant style, a nice discrimination in the incidents she relates, and a gently humorous way of recording her experiences that makes her book delightful reading.”
“‘An American’s London’ is no solemn study of social economics, but it is fully as illuminating as a dozen scholarly tomes and far more likely to make an impression on the lay reader’s memory. Its pages are lightened by a sprightly sense of humor, and the enjoyment of reading is further heightened by the author’s generous sharing of her most intimate confidences.”
“The book is more Hale than London, but under the circumstances who would have it otherwise?”
HALE, WILLIAM BAYARD. Story of a style. *$2 Huebsch
An analysis of President Wilson’s literary style by the author of “Woodrow Wilson; the story of his life.” “Mr Woodrow Wilson,” says the author, “is a man of words.... What he has accomplished—and his has been a wonderful record of accomplishment—has been accomplished through statement, argument, appeal. His scepter is his—pen; his sword is his—tongue; his realm is that of—words. Therefore it ought to be, it infallibly will be, in his language that Mr Wilson’s real self will be revealed.” Beginning with the essay on “Cabinet government in the United States,” written at the age of twenty-two, Mr Hale examines Mr Wilson’s writings and speeches, pointing out his excessive use of adjectives, his habits of repetition and interrogation, etc., and drawing his inferences therefrom. The book was written before the President fell sick, and was completed on Sept. 26, 1919. Contents: Prophetic symptoms; Aristocratic affectations; Learned addictions; Symbolism; Phonetic phenomena; Doubt and the flight from the fact; A typical manuscript; Concerning popular repute; The story of the League of nations speeches.
HALL, AMANDA BENJAMIN.[2] Blind wisdom. *$1.90 (1½c) Jacobs
Joan Wister was and remained a character of incorruptible sincerity and spontaneity. Because she was clear as crystal and trusted her own impulses she was a puzzle. Expelled from boarding school on account of her inconvenient questionings of the things that were taught her, she found a friend in Jerry Callendar, her brother-in-law’s law partner. For years he was her friend, adviser and father confessor and when one day Joan found herself precipitantly in love with Bret Ballou and her course beset with obstacles and temptations more than she could bear, she fled to Jerry for protection and demanded that he should marry her, the better to secure this end. Although Jerry truly loved her he took upon himself the rôle of protector only and for a year even gave her every chance to try out her infatuation for Bret. Before the end of the year the make believe marriage had gone through various stages, finally arriving at the real thing.
“The entire book has many delightful descriptions, and some bits of whimsy humor. The ending of the story with its subduing veil of pathos, is a flash of pure inspiration, worthy of the poet as well as the novelist.” W. T. R.
“In Joan Miss Hall shows to great advantage not only as a teller of tales but as an acute and dramatic delineator of character.”
Reviewed by Marguerite Fellows
HALL, ARNOLD BENNETT. Monroe doctrine and the great war. (National social science ser.) *75c McClurg 327
“The author has aimed ‘to present in simple form an accurate but brief account of the origin and development of the doctrine and some of its relations to the present problems of peace.’ He concludes that the League of nations is the logical method of extending the principles of the Monroe doctrine to the larger diplomatic problems of the present.”—Booklist
“The narrative is generally clear and in most respects quite conventional.” J. S. R.
“A convenient summary.”
“Professor Hall furnishes us with a compendious account of the Monroe doctrine, which not only skillfully skims the cream from more extensive compilations, but churns it, salts it, and serves it up ready for the table. When, however, it comes to making bread and butter of the doctrine and the covenant, Mr Hall’s success is not conspicuous.” E. S. Corwin
HALL, GRACE. Stories of the saints. *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday 922
“For children, young and old” these stories of the saints are retold in the form of legends. The contents fall into two parts. Some of the saints whose story is told in part 1 are St Thomas, in The palace of Gondoforus; St Patrick; St Bridgit of Kildare; St Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins; St Edward’s smile, and the seven sleepers; St Louis of France; St Margaret of Scotland; St Anthony of Padua; St Elizabeth of Hungary. Part 2 under the caption “The saints and their humble friends” contains in part: St Francis, the birds and the beasts; St Roch and his dog; St Deicolus and the wild boar; St Felix and the spider. The chronological order of the saints gives a list of the saints according to their century and one according to their days.
HALL, GRANVILLE STANLEY. Morale, the supreme standard of life and conduct. *$3 Appleton 170
The background of this book, as the war-term “morale” suggests, is the war. The author holds that the war itself revealed the bankruptcy of the old criteria and that our human standards and values must now be subjected to a redefinition. This the book sets out to do, using morale with a psychophysic connotation in its individual, industrial and social applications. “It implies the maximum of vitality, life abounding, getting and keeping in the very center of the current of creative evolution; and minimizing, destroying, or avoiding all checks, arrests, and inhibitions to it.” (Chapter I) The long list of contents is in part: Morale as a supreme standard; Morale, patriotism and health; The morale of placards, slogans, decorations, and war museums; Conscientious objectors and diversities of patriotic ideals; The soldier ideal and its conservation in peace; The labor problem; Morale and feminism; Morale and education; Morale and “The Reds”; Morale and religion; Bibliography.
“Of course, Dr Hall has many valuable things to say in his book. He colors up his quasi-physical norm of morality with a good dash now and again of Christian sentiment. Still it is a pity that he, like so many of our ‘advanced’ collegiate thinkers, can find so little room for Christ.”
“The book is keenly analytic, a little coloured by the Freudian trend of what philosophy people will read nowadays, but helpful in its breadth and application, to any one concerned with studying or directing the rest of the race.” E. P.
“The style of the book under review is symbolic of its weakness. It appears to be the product of what he calls ‘exuberant, euphorious, and eureka moments.’” Preserved Smith
“Some of the psychologic explanations in this volume are undoubtedly ingenious. But as to the reality of the facts which he explains it is not so easy to be certain. But considerations of fact are, after all, not primary in the author’s regard. He believes that facts ‘cannot and must not’ change certain treasured beliefs.”
“No writer of modern times has so completely freed himself from every vestige of scholastic methods, nor dared so freely to apply to religion, ethics, education and social reconstruction, every last and newest product of psychogenetic, psychoanalytic, experimental and differential psychology. The result is that Dr Hall’s style is peculiarly stimulating, refreshing and invigorating.” G. T. W. Patrick
“To speak seriously, these vivacious lectures are the readable improvisations of a clever ready writer who possesses a facility of association that Emerson would have envied, but who persistently overworks and overloads his faculty or facility with undigested reminiscences of his German studies and his subsequent dabblings in all the sciences and all the philosophies.” Paul Shorey
“Dr Hall’s views will often be found ‘stimulating’ for their independence, whether one agrees with them or not. But there is no groundwork of a new ethics or new sociology here. As with some other books of Dr Hall’s, better organization of the material and more careful writing would improve this one.”
“On the whole the work will hardly enhance the reputation of the author of ‘Adolescence.’ First presented as a series of lectures during the war, it reveals in many places the highly colored effects induced by war-time emotions. Besides it views the psychologic features in life out of all due proportion.” H: Neumann
HALL, GRANVILLE STANLEY. Recreations of a psychologist. *$2.50 Appleton
“Vacation skits” the author calls this collection of short stories, whose merit he claims to be their illustration of psychological principles. The first of these stories, “The fall of Atlantis,” is a new version of the Platonic myth, and records what happened to the world after the year 2000—the record purporting to have been made by the writer’s subliminal self while his conscious mind was in a state of amnesia. The other stories are: How Johnnie’s vision came true; A conversion; Preëstablished harmony—a midsummer revery of a psychologist; Getting married in Germany; A man’s adventure in domestic industries; A leap year romance; Note on early memories.
“Dr Hall is in error when he styles his work in these fields ‘crude and amateurish if judged from the standpoint of literature’; he is right when he claims a distinct merit for it as a means to the enunciation of scientific principles. The literary touch and the psychological implication characterize the book throughout.” E. N.
HALL, HERSCHEL SALMON. Steel preferred. *$2 Dutton
“‘Steel preferred’ is a punning title, the point being that Wellington Gay, born and brought up in the steel industry, can not be tempted away from it. There his personal success or failure must be made, and which it may be is a matter of secondary importance. Steel is his lode-star and his love. All he asks is to be permitted to take a hand somehow, somewhere, in the great game of steel-making. Chance takes him away from Steelburg, as chance has brought him there—in the same boxcar, to round out the coincidence. He has an uncommon knack for clerical work, and is presently offered a promising position in a city office. But chance once more sets him down at Steelburg, and the old spell takes him. Once more he becomes a cheerful drudge, overworked, unrecognized, and happy in the service of his mistress Steel. He is discovered after a while by a new manager, and given his first step upwards on the climb from roustabout to master of Steelburg. The point is that, whether as roustabout or ‘old man,’ the main thing with him is love of work and not love of personal reward or ‘success.’”—Review
“Boys and men will like this.”
“A good story well told and a vivid picture of the life of a big steel plant are combined in this very readable novel.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“An entertaining and inspiring story.”
HALL, JAMES NORMAN, and NORDHOFF, CHARLES BERNARD, eds. Lafayette flying corps; associate editor, Edgar G. Hamilton. 2v il *$15 Houghton 940.44
“In offering this record of the Lafayette flying corps to the families and friends of the men who served in it, and to the public at large, the editors feel that a few words of explanation are necessary. Their purpose has been twofold: to furnish a record as complete and authentic as possible, and to reconstruct an atmosphere.” (Preface) The contents of the first volume comprise: The origin of the Escadrille Américaine; The Escadrille Lafayette at the front; The Lafayette flying corps and Biographical sketches. Volume 2 is devoted wholly to letters and personal reminiscences, arranged under the headings: Enlistment and early training; Adventures in action; Life on the front; Combats; Prisoners of war. Lists of dead, wounded, prisoners of war, etc. are given in an appendix. The volumes are very fully illustrated.
“One hoped, upon learning that such a history was to appear, that at least a fair proportion of the possibilities might be compassed, and it is a great satisfaction to find in the finished book these hopes more than realized and expectations generally surpassed. The editors are to be congratulated and heartily thanked for their achievement.” J. W. D. Seymour
“The brief biographies are touched off, not always quite happily, with the jocularity of a college class book. Everything is written from the point of view of the insider. Thus the outsider will have to pick and choose. The picking, however, is excellent.” F. J. Mather
HALLIBURTON, WILLIAM DOBINSON, ed. Physiology and national needs. *$4 Dutton 613
“The physiologists in this country and in England were called upon during the war to give expert advice in food rationing, food conservation, health preservation, etc., and a series of public lectures on these topics given at King’s college by men of eminence in their profession have now been edited by Mr Halliburton. Some of them are worthy of special notice owing to the amount of new scientific knowledge they contain, knowledge that as yet has hardly penetrated beyond well-informed medical circles. Such, for example is the lecture by Professor Hopkins on vitamines. In the lecture by Professor Harden on scurvy a great deal of new and important information is collected and presented. In the article by Professor Dendy on ‘The conservation of our cereal reserves’ the difficulties connected with the storage of grain are described, and evidence is given for the great saving that might be effected by the adoption of a system of air-tight storage.”—Review
“The book as a whole is extraordinarily interesting from many different aspects, as much perhaps for the questions it asks as for those it answers.” A. E. B.
“The addresses selected for publication are well written in popular style, free from scientific terminology, and may be read with profit by any intelligent person interested in such topics.”
“In all probability the reader will find the first three lectures dealing with foods and vitamines the most interesting of the series, but each one is well worth studying.”
HAMBIDGE, JAY. Dynamic symmetry: the Greek vase, il *$6 Yale univ. press 738
“The life-suggesting quality of Greek art by which generation after generation of art-lovers have been impressed is the true theme of the book. To get back of appearances to the source of this quality has been a task occupying more than twenty years of the author’s concentrated mental labor. Why should the Greek masterpieces suggest the life and growth of nature in their design while inferior designs suggest inertia and fail to stimulate the mind? The secret was simple enough, although it has called for an elaborate and extended process of proving by mathematical tests. It consists in the fact that the Greeks did all their measuring for works of art in areas, and that by finding the proportions of these areas in growing organisms such as plants, and especially the human figure, they provided themselves with a guide to the arrangement of areas in design that enabled them to capture vitality in all their works.”—N Y Times
“The make-up of the book is beautiful and the illustrations and general idea are interesting to the lay student, though the study of the text is for the artist.”
“What seems to distinguish this study is the effort, apparently quite subconsciously made, to cover the whole matter with an air of mystery. This has been done by the familiar device, prehistoric in origin and perennial in its growth, of creating a new vocabulary. Stripped of its mystery and set forth in simple language it would have been an interesting work.” D: E. Smith
“A contribution to the literature of art more searching and revealing than anything published within this field during the last century.”
“On the side of aesthetic appreciation ‘Dynamic symmetry’ affords, at least to one critic, very little help.... Mr Hambidge’s patient and modestly presented researches should cause a restudy of the whole problem, which can only be beneficial.” F. J. Mather, Jr.
“In this book through his re-discovery of the principles used by the Greek artists of the classic age, Mr Hambidge has opened up a new field in modern art.”
“At first sight his results appear little short of marvellous, and yet it may be doubted whether they are so convincing as appears to their author.”
HAMILTON, CICELY MARY. William—an Englishman. *$1.25 (2c) Stokes
Mild-mannered, pale-faced, undersized, painstaking and obedient—thus is William Tully characterized in this biographical novel. At his desk in a London insurance office he is vaguely conscious that his too well regulated life has been ordered by his masterful mother. Her sudden death leaves him adrift and chance lands him among the reformers. Like a new garment he puts on their cult and convictions, finds him a wife among them—and is surprised by the war while on his honeymoon in Belgium. Inwardly and outwardly his world collapses about him and his wife is crushed in the ruins. Stunned he returns to England, his pacifism changed into patriotism. After several rejections he is accepted in the army and eventually finds himself caught in the rat-trap of a military clerkship from whence he is rescued from growing bitterness by an aerial bomb.
“The book is earnest, realistic and very well written, the emotional and dramatic portions of it getting a real hold on the reader’s imagination. It is an unpretentious volume, and a very moving, very interesting one.”
“Vividness of characters and a keen study of human emotions under abnormal strain, are the more noticeable traits of ‘William—an Englishman.’”
HAMILTON, CLAYTON MEEKER. Seen on the stage. *$1.75 (3c) Holt 792
The author wishes this informal collection of essays to be considered as a suffix to his other books on the theatre. In the first paper, “Life and the theatre,” he quotes the Athenians who regarded our world as “the valley of soulmaking” and states that the aim of art should be to provide a sense of life for men who, in themselves, are not sufficiently alive to create art by their very living. Some of the other papers are: Personal greatness on the stage; Hero-worship in the drama; Acting and impersonation; The laziness of Bernard Shaw; Satire on the American stage; Le Théâtre du Vieux Colombier; In praise of puppet-theatres; Understanding the Russians; Ibsen once again; The Jewish art-theatre; Booth Tarkington as a playwright; The Athenian drama and the American audience; A reminiscence of the Middle Ages—Guibour; Edmond Rostand. The book is indexed.
“One of his most thorough criticisms is that of Eugene O’Neill, whom he thinks the greatest dramatist of the present day. Other essays in the volume are of less importance; they are correct but commonplace, and interesting chiefly for the gossip they contain.”
“He has studied the drama of the past as thoroughly as he has mastered the drama of the present. In other words, his preparation for dramatic criticism is far more than adequate; it is exceptionally ample. To this substantial equipment for his task he adds also the other three qualifications which a critic ought to possess—insight and sympathy and disinterestedness.” Brander Matthews
HAMILTON, COSMO. Blue room. il *$1.90 (2c) Little
Bill Mortimer comes back from the war with an intense desire to settle down and be happy with a wife and family. His past has been lurid, and he has memories locked in his “Blue room” which he wishes he could forget. His pal, Teddy Jedburgh, on the other hand, having walked the paths of rectitude in his youth, is inclined to kick over the traces and go the pace now. Both men fall in love with the same girl, a “Miss Respectable,” a “flower of a girl, with the dew on her and a morning hymn in her eyes.” Bill is the successful suitor and plans for the wedding are quickly made. Then just on the eve of the ceremony, Martha discovers Bill’s blue room, and, disillusioned and bitter, knows not which way to turn. It is Teddy who decides for her whether she shall, at the last moment, run away and refuse to marry Bill, or, letting the dead past bury its dead, carry on and marry him.
“The tale is told in a style of consistent and complacent banality, the very style of the movie commentator.” H. W. Boynton
“The plot, which is rather simple, at times dovetails in too smoothly to convince the reader. But once it gets fairly under way it carries the reader along without a hitch, to the very end.”
Reviewed by Caroline Singer
HAMILTON, COSMO. His friend and his wife. il *$1.75 (3c) Little
A story of the Quaker Hill colony, an exclusive residential community within commuting distance of New York. Julian Osborn has been unfaithful to his wife and Margaret Meredith to her husband, but in the divorce proceedings a false alibi is provided for Margaret and she returns to her husband, resolved to be a model wife and mother henceforward. Julian and Daisy Osborn are also reconciled, and altho Daisy knows the truth, as do several other people, she joins in the conspiracy to shield Bob Meredith. Their plans are upset however. Mary Miller, the girl who out of gratitude to Margaret had sworn herself to be the guilty party, becomes engaged to one of the colony’s popular young men and the wife of the lawyer who arranged this false testimony, herself a malicious gossip, tells the truth. Tragedy is averted and affairs are settled to everyone’s satisfaction.
“Readable as Mr Hamilton’s style is, it must be admitted that he is not without his difficulties. It must be confessed that there is tedium in the triteness of some of his ideas and situations.” D. L. M.
“The background, cleverly and entertainingly sketched, is very much better than the overdrawn story.”
“Utterly unconvincing story.”
“Mr Hamilton’s story moves swiftly and keeps the reader intent on the disentangling of the threads. Two characters stand out clearly—the self-made inventor and the worldly-wise, kindly woman who dominates her little circle.” H. Dick
HAMILTON, ERNEST WILLIAM, lord. Elizabethan Ulster. *$6 Dutton 941.5
“‘Elizabethan Ulster’ is an account of the stormy days of that Irish province during the reign of Elizabeth of England. Ulster then was in continuous strife with one or another—and occasionally practically all—of the great Irish chieftains, who resisted the English attempt to overrun and colonize their lands. The greater part of the book is given over to the rebellion of the three Hughs—O’Neil, O’Donnell and Macguire—in which most of the chiefs participated. The movement is traced in detail from its earliest stages until after the battle of Kinsale. The closing chapters deal with a few later and weaker revolts and the flight of the Ulster Earls, Tyrone and Tyrconnell, to the continent in the reign of King James.”—Springf’d Republican
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
“It is a dull thing that he has given us, but not without its value. The chief fault of his work is his obvious inability to think himself back into an environment and a mode of life quite different from that of the year 1920.” H. L. Stewart
“Every student of the history of Ulster must obtain this most valuable handbook. The publishers have, however, been so remiss as to send it out without either an index or even a table of contents.”
“Lord Ernest Hamilton’s handling of the subject is throughout wonderfully impartial; there are one or two generalizations which betray the side to which his feelings incline him, but he allows no personal prepossessions to interfere with an unbiassed presentation of the facts. The defects of his book are only incidental.”
“The atmosphere of war-time journalism has penetrated Lord Ernest’s historical study, and even his phraseology has occasionally suffered.”
“‘Elizabethan Ulster’ fails, and partially for lack of the qualities of imagination and felicity of phrase.”
HAMILTON, FREDERICK SPENCER, lord. Vanished pomps of yesterday. *$4 (4c) Doran
This is the second and revised edition of “some random reminiscences of a British diplomat.” His official duties took the author to Rome, Austria, Russia, Germany, Portugal, Brazil and Paraguay and he chats pleasantly of the life he saw. On the pomp and circumstance, the glitter and glamour of the three great courts of eastern Europe the curtain has now been rung down definitely, is his final verdict. There is an index.
“Seldom does one find a book more completely enjoyable than this collection of the random memories of a British diplomat. It is an ideal companion for an idle hour—an excellent article for suitcase or bedside table—a mine of precious anecdotes.”
“His volume really deserves the reviewer’s conventional praise of being impossible to lay down, if once begun. It is as fascinating as it is informing.” Archibald MacMechan
“The Russian chapters are the best in this engaging chronicle.”
“There is nothing either indiscreet or malicious in his narrative; for all his lightness of touch, it is concerned with essentials, not with accidents; with conditions that were the growth of centuries, not with moods that are ephemeral; and its interest is permanent rather than startling.”
HAMILTON, SIR IAN STANDISH MONTEITH. Gallipoli diary. 2v il *$10 Doran 940.42
The author gives as his reason for keeping a diary during the Gallipoli campaign, his experiences with the Royal commission after the South African war. Never again would he trust his military memory without the black and white of his diary. It was a help to him in his work at the time, and he expects it to be his justification before the verdict of his comrades. Volume one dates from March 1915 to July 1915 and volume two from July to October 1915. There are illustrations, maps and an index.
“It is not so much for its literary qualities—for these have been a little exaggerated—that the book is one to read, but for the insight which it gives into a mind extremely sensitive to impressions not only of actual experience, but of the imagination. What he calls ‘the detachment of the writer’ enabled him to look at his force, his superiors, his subordinates, and, above all, himself, as elements in a stirring picture.” O. W.
“It is a tragical story Sir Ian tells, but tells with all the art of a poet and the precision of a soldier.” W. S. B.
“Sir Ian exposes the system he represents in its horrible imbecility. His ‘Diary’ has changed the barrenness of disaster into a world service. As a member of the tribunal he selects, I vote for his acquittal.” W: J. M. A. Maloney
“It is the personal narrative of the failure of a great man in a great adventure. It is history more enthralling than any fiction.” F. L. Minnigen
“As the reader turns page after page of these volumes he may be surprised to find that he is getting not only a valuable narration of a particularly interesting campaign; he will find that the military man who writes the account is frequently capable of brilliantly atmospheric and poetic text.”
“For the general public the greatest charm of his diary lies in its characterizations of great leaders like Kitchener and Churchill, and its sketches of the principal officers of the expedition. At the same time military experts will find in its pages much new and valuable material by way of criticism of war policy.”
“We confess that, while the matter of the narrative absorbs our interest, we are repelled by the slangy style in which it is written.”
HAMMOND, ARTHUR. Pictorial composition in photography. il *$3.50 (7c) Am. photographic pub. co. 770
This work by the associate editor of American Photography takes up such subjects as spacing, mass, linear perspective, line composition applied to figure studies, tones in portraiture, etc. A knowledge of elementary principles is taken for granted and for the technical and scientific aspects of photography the reader is referred to other volumes in the series. The author’s purpose here is “to try to point out to the artist in photography some of the universally recognized rules of composition, and to give as much practical help as is possible in dealing with a phase of artistic work in which the personal equation is so important a factor.” (Chapter 1) The book is beautifully illustrated with forty-nine pictures from photographs.
“The simple, common-sense suggestions about picture-making in this book, backed as they are by thorough technical knowledge and wide experience, will make the volume of real, practical use to ambitious amateur photographers. The ‘soft-focus’ illustrations hardly do justice to the text.”
“Nothing that the most ambitious worker may need is omitted by the author, whose equipment for the self-imposed task is remarkably complete. Modesty and self-repression, rather than egotism and presumption, characterize the mental attitude of the author throughout his engrossing volume.”
HAMMOND, DARYN. Golf swing, the Ernest Jones method. il *$3 Brentano’s 796
“Mr Hammond sets forth the views of Ernest Jones, the Chislehurst professional, on the golf swing, and they certainly deserve a sympathetic and attentive hearing, because Jones’s swing has stood the severest possible test. In March, 1916, he lost his right leg just below the knee, in France.... His new gospel, very briefly put, is that the golfer should first get a clear ‘mental picture’ of the shot he wants to play, then concentrate his mind entirely on the right action of hands and fingers, and let everything else take care of itself.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The book is an interesting contribution to the theory of golf, but, in our opinion at least, it is too narrow in its range, and too exhaustive in that range, for a satisfactory volume of instruction.” B. R. Redman
“Despite its reiterations the book contains much that is interesting as well as original.”
HAMMOND, JOHN LAWRENCE LE BRETON and HAMMOND, BARBARA (BRADBY) (MRS JOHN LAWRENCE LE BRETON HAMMOND). Skilled labourer, 1760–1832. *$4.50 (*12s 6d) Longmans 330.942
“A companion volume to the valuable works by the same writers on ‘The village labourer’ and ‘The town labourer.’ In the latter they described the new life of town and factory introduced by the industrial revolution; they now give the history during the same period of particular bodies of skilled workers:—Miners of the Tyne; The cotton workers; The woollen and worsted workers; The Spitalfields silk weavers; The frame work knitters; The Nottingham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire Luddites.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“This story is not new: but the full and authoritative account of it is, and the historian may here find source-material for which he might otherwise search many weary months. The authors have done their work well. One wishes that they might have been a little less liberal, in the more technical sense of that word, in their attitude toward the ruling classes of the early nineteenth century.” W. P. Hall
“Despite the singularly felicitous style which is the endowment of the Hammonds, and despite the human interest of the book, it will not, probably, prove as charming to the general reader as ‘The village labourer.’” W. F. Woodring
“Unfortunately there is not much information concerning the relation of labor to the development of English politics during the period prior to the great reform statute, although this aspect of things is not wholly neglected.”
“There can be no question as to the very great merits of Mr and Mrs Hammond’s achievement. They have deservedly taken their place in the front rank of social or industrial historians. Their work is conscientious, scholarly, well written, of the greatest interest and the highest importance, and they have the instinct of the born ‘researcher.’ The authors are, however, content to let the facts speak for themselves.” L. W.
“In view of the present industrial disturbances this intensive study of an earlier upheaval, written with interesting fact upon interesting fact, is illuminating.”
“The whole work is a splendid example of enlightened industry and painstaking care, and takes its place immediately among the great classics of English sociological literature.”
“The book is more impartial in its discussion of social questions than the two earlier volumes of the series; though the introduction, which describes the England of the period in terms of ‘civil war,’ is surely an exaggeration.”
“Brilliant volume. It is in no way inferior to its predecessors, than which there is hardly greater praise.” H. J. Laski
“Readers who bear in mind the course of politics and of the Napoleonic wars will have in this book a really instructive commentary, from the workman’s standpoint, on the revolution then proceeding in British industry.”
“Its timeliness quite apart, this history is one of the most fascinating ever written—perhaps because it renders articulate the masses of toiling people by fitting into a large, animated picture the thoughts, actions and sufferings of obscure individuals; perhaps also because it explains these chronicles with skilful and sympathetic psychological search for motives and current beliefs. It cannot be recommended too warmly.” B. L.
HAMMOND, MATTHEW BROWN. British labor conditions and legislation during the war. *$1 Oxford; pa gratis Carnegie endowment for international peace 331
One of the Preliminary economic studies of the war issued by the Carnegie endowment for international peace. Contents: The social background: English industry and labor at the outbreak of the war; Industrial panic and readjustment; The government and the trade unions; The munitions of war acts; The supply and distribution of labor; The dilution of labor; Wages, cost of living, hours of labor, welfare work and unemployment; Industrial unrest; Industrial reconstruction; Index. The author is professor of economics, Ohio state university, and was a member of the United States food administration.
Reviewed by Edith Abbott
“This is a useful compilation but not altogether a mature treatment of the subject. The garnering has been conscientiously done, and the presentation is full, informing, and lucid.” H. L. Gray
Reviewed by E. H. Sutherland
“We cannot help feeling that Professor Hammond could have added a great deal to the value of his book without unduly enlarging its bulk if he had relied less complacently on the material which he found ready to his hand. His work gives no indication of far-reaching research or first-hand acquaintance with British conditions. Yet it has considerable merit. It is clear and easy in style and remarkably unbiased.” G. S.
“An interesting preliminary survey written in an uncritical historical way.”
Reviewed by C. C. Plehn
“The volume gives a documentary history of the reactions of the war on labor in England which future students will find invaluable.” H. W. L.
“Within its limits the present study is of the highest value. The present reviewer has found it accurate on the matters he happens to know about, and sufficiently detailed to make clear the intentions of the legislature even on comparatively small points.” B. L.
HAMSUN, KNUT. Hunger. *$2.50 (3½c) Knopf
The book has been translated from the Norwegian by George Egerton and has an introduction by Edwin Björkman. It is an epic of hunger. A young writer has fallen on evil days and is condemned to long spells of hunger between the acceptances of articles now and then by some paper. The physical privations he undergoes are only casually described but the psychology of hunger is enlarged upon with distressing detail. There is black despair suddenly replaced by fantastic mirth, clear mental vision by hallucinations and delirium, complete lassitude by sudden spurts of energy, morbid sensitiveness about his condition by brazen affrontery and mendacity.
“The work belongs to the naturalist movement of thirty years ago. Its belated appearance in America may be excused on the ground that no public could have been found for it earlier.” E. P.
“Its artistic quality is indisputable. The book is very real, very frank—distressingly and shockingly frank, some persons will no doubt consider it. But none can deny that it is life, genuine, if appalling.”
“There are occasional gleams of light, hints of humor, which relieve the tense and depressing atmosphere of a book at once repellent and compelling, highly imaginative and profoundly true.” R. F. Eliot
“‘Hunger’ is an extraordinary book, to be read with one’s faculties alert, quickened to a difficult understanding of a supernormal human soul.”
HANIFAN, LYDA JUDSON. Community center. (Teacher training ser.) $1.52 Silver 374.28
In 1913 the author prepared “A handbook for community meetings at rural schoolhouses” for the use of West Virginia school teachers. The wide and continued demand for this work has led her to treat the subject more comprehensively in the present book. “The aim has been to emphasize strongly two things which the author believes to be fundamental in any plan that may be followed in the improvement of rural life conditions: (1) The redirection of rural forces must be effected by the rural people themselves; (2) for the present, and probably for a good many years to come, the active work of such redirection must be carried on mainly by means of community activities centering around the school.” (Author’s preface) Contents: The community center and the world war; Leadership and the community center; The community center idea; The enjoyment of leisure; Recreation; Social capital—its development and use; The community center as an aid to teaching; First steps in the community center; Special school programs; Miscellaneous activities within the community center; Entertainment programs for community meetings; Country life programs. Each chapter is followed by exercises. There is a general bibliography, in addition to occasional references in the text, and the book is indexed.
“Altogether, a most helpful little book, suggestive and with good references for further study.”
HANKEY, DONALD WILLIAM ALERS (STUDENT IN ARMS, pseud.). Letters of Donald Hankey. il *$2.50 Revell
These human documents, as letters by the author of “A student in arms” can be called, are published as a tribute of love to one who sleeps in France. The introduction and notes are by Edward Miller, whose glowing picture of a loving personality adds an interest to the letters which, although written for the most part to his family and intimate friends, “run up and down the whole gamut of life.” Here and there are pen and ink sketches reproduced from the letters and charming features of the book are several facsimile letters to nephew and niece. Contents: The subaltern, 1904–1906; The undergraduate, 1907–1910; The traveller, July 1910–July 1912; The emigrant 1912–13; One of the immortal hundred thousand, 1914–1916.
“Let us say at once that the first impression on the reader is that Hankey in his letters falls below the high literary inspiration which he displays in a ‘Student in arms.’ Yet the letters if they do not on the surface display the same quality as the essays, reveal when carefully studied a nature free, noble, and humane, combined with a truthfulness deeply impressive from its singular intensity.”
“The author’s religion was very rational and wholesome and very advanced in thought for so young a man. Here and there he drops a comment on religion that would be worthy of the profoundest philosopher.”
“These letters reveal the zest of life in a man of deep religious experience, especially quick to respond to the challenge of those on whom the burdens of life bore more heavily than on himself.”
HANNAY, JAMES OWEN (GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM, pseud.). Irishman looks at his world. *$2 (3½c) Doran 914.15
In this volume an Irishman tells us simply and dispassionately what he knows about his country, its politics, its religion, its social and economic structure and at the end disavows any knowledge of a solution of the Irish problem. He seems strongly to suspect that “we Irishmen, all of us, are spending most energy on what matters least, the form of the state; and far too little energy on what matters most, the making of men.” Contents: Irish politics—the old parties; Irish politics—the new parties; The island of saints—Ireland’s religion;—and scholars—Ireland’s culture; Education—primary, intermediate, university; Education—the Gaelic league and the Irish agricultural organisation society; The Irish aristocracy; The farmers; The middle classes—Dublin—Belfast—the country town; Conclusion.
“Mr Birmingham takes apparently a rather Laodicean attitude. He is not aflame with that determined patriotism which burns in the souls of so many other Irish writers of today. He has applied, on the contrary, his own rather detached, yet pleasantly sympathetic spirit, and the wit and knowledge of human nature that have gone to the making of his novels, to a study of his fellow-Irishmen, and with laudable results.”
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
“Mr Birmingham’s book covers a very broad field, and does it with an ease, a lack of hurry and an ever-present sense of humor, which, when the highly controversial nature of the subjects is considered, render it a most unusual volume.”
“We can cordially commend Canon Hannay’s book to all who want to know what sort of men inhabit Ireland, what they think about, and in what way they will bear themselves in the hour of trial; we commend it to all who think some working compromise can be devised to inveigle Ulster under a Dublin parliament, and who imagine that because a policy is useful and desirable it must therefore also be practicable.”
“This book will be much more helpful than ‘Irish impressions.’ Mr Chesterton found in Ireland the stronghold of the religion of which he is such an able propagandist. George Birmingham, although adherent to the church of Ireland, deals more even justice and displays in his treatment of the religious question that Irish fairness which is as real as Irish bigotry, though far less generally recognized.”
HANNAY, JAMES OWEN (GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM, pseud.). Up, the rebels! *$1.75 (2½c) Doran
Sir Ulick Conolly was a high government official in Ireland whose phlegmatic temperament and easy-going worldly wisdom refused to take the unrest of the Irish Nationals seriously. His policy was not to suppress the rebels but to avert an explosion by letting them blow off steam freely. He did not even suppress his daughter Mona, one of the rebels, who talked in Gaelic and dressed like a Celtic queen; who engaged in conspiracies and led uprisings. But he managed to send her off into the country to her aunt’s, for safe keeping, as he thought. There she organizes the natives and proclaims the Irish republic in the village of Dunally. Her father’s timely interference saves the situation from becoming serious for the rebels and turns the fracas into something of a farce. In the end the girl is put to bed for recuperation under the watchful eye of her aunt.
“The humorous possibilities of the situation are used with delicacy and ingenuity. George A. Birmingham is at his best in this book.”
“Never was irony so playful, so kindly an instrument as in Birmingham’s ‘Up, the rebels.’” M. E. Bailey
“To read ‘Up, the rebels!’ is to see new light upon the Irish question. Both as a story and as a study of political and social conditions it is a tribute to the knowledge and skill of a leader among present-day clerical humorists.” E. F. E.
“Of course it is possible that some persons will not find this tale amusing; there are people who do not find the Gilbert and Sullivan operas amusing. But those who can enjoy wit and a shrewd, ironic treatment of certain human vanities and foibles will undoubtedly chuckle long and deeply over Mr G. A. Birmingham’s new tale.”
“A thoroughly delightful story of Ireland, over which the reader chuckles long if not loud, appreciating and enjoying the whimsical wit and good-natured satire he has some time ago learned to expect from this most entertaining of writers.”
“Canon Hannay has never written a more satisfying story.”
“Another of those disconcerting criticisms of Irish life and English government which illuminate the difficulties of affairs in the distressful country. The fact that the book is as amusing as any of its predecessors, even ‘Spanish gold’ or ‘The search party,’ seems merely incidental, but it must be mentioned.”
“We have already had several serious novels inspired by the events of Easter, 1916, but George Birmingham is the only writer who has turned the sequel to humorous purpose, and he is probably the only writer living who could be trusted to do so without offence. The worst that can be said of the book is that, as in ‘The seething pot,’ his first novel, the author sees no way out.”
“The relation between his amusing chronicles and actual life may be remote: no matter, for they were always considered to be descriptive of the kind of events that might occur if people and Ireland had happened to be like the people and the Ireland of George Birmingham’s books.”
HANSHEW, MARY E., and HANSHEW, THOMAS W. (CHARLOTTE MAY KINGSLEY, pseud.). Riddle of the frozen flame. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
“Mr Maverick Narkom, superintendent of Scotland Yard, sat before the litter of papers upon his desk.... ‘Dash it, Cleek!’ he said for the thirty-third time, ‘I don’t know what to make of it, I don’t, indeed!’” So opens the new Cleek story. The mystery referred to is a series of daring bank robberies. But more unusual matters are to follow, involving the riddle of the frozen flames. Sir Nigel Merriton sees them on the first night spent in Merriton Towers and his impulse is to go out onto the fens to investigate, but his horrified servants restrain him with tales of those who have dared this never to return. Sir Nigel, who is very much in love and has just become engaged, has no wish to risk his life and his interest in the supposed supernatural phenomenon lapses. It is only when Dacre Wynne, his unsuccessful rival, disappears, that he is moved to action and carries the strange tale to Scotland Yard, arousing the interest of Cleek, who pursues the mystery to its solution.
“The dénouement is obvious from the first, while the love interest is of the usual stereotyped kind. Even so, ‘The riddle of the frozen flame’ is an infinitely better mystery tale than many others appearing this season.”
“‘The riddle of the frozen flame’ is a cleverly conceived tale that will idle away an hour most pleasantly.”
HANSON, DANIEL LOUIS. Business philosophy of Moses Irons. il *$2.50 (1c) Shaw, A. W. 658
A series of chapters, in fiction form, on the methods of conducting a big business today. Moses Irons is the typical self-made business man, shrewd, kindly, humorous and masterful. His ideals, his methods, his relations with his subordinates are set forth in the book, some of the chapters of which are: A romance of business; Live wires and dead ones; Getting a job with Moses Irons; The ironmaster talks advertising; Business diplomacy and trade anarchists; Wives and sweethearts; The ironmaster gets pointers on handling salesmen; The ironmaster invests in junk.
HANSON, OLE. Americanism versus bolshevism. il *$1.75 (2½c) Doubleday 331.87
The author speaks of bolshevism and everything he conceives of as coming under the head—communism, syndicalism, I. W. W.’ism—in no uncertain terms. They all, he says, thrive on “murder, rape, pillage, arson, free love, poverty, want, starvation, filth, slavery, autocracy, suppression, sorrow and hell on earth.” (Preface) After giving the above ‘isms more than their due he also mentions the red employers as likewise culpable, but “we should be thankful that every day they become less and soon will be an inconsequential minority in the land.” Among the contents are: The labour situation in Seattle; Something of the rise, trial and failure of bolshevism in Europe; Some of history’s verdicts on reformers, utopias, trade unions, and bolshevism; The causes of Bolshevism in Russia; The origin and development of bolshevism in the United States; Bolshevism in America: its causes and some remedies; Bolshevism contrasted with Americanism.
“The book contains pages of shallow generalizations.”
“The value of this book, and the interest of it, is the clearness with which it points out the menace.” I. W. L.
“The best part of the book is that in which Mr Hanson tells the story of his own fight. The reader is forced to decide whether or not Mr Hanson has attempted too much. For one thing he has endeavored to generalize from his own experiences. His arguments are weak when he delves into the past. Ole Hanson on the subject of remedies is worth reading.”
HANUS, PAUL HENRY. School administration and school reports. *$1.75 Houghton 379.15
The object of the book is to help principals and teachers as well as superintendents and boards of education to acquire a clearly defined educational and administrative policy and to formulate and justify their opinions and procedure. Contents: The meaning of education; Some principles of school administration; Town and city school reports, more particularly superintendents’ reports; Testing the efficiency of public schools; Courtis arithmetic tests applied to employees in business houses; Measuring progress in learning Latin; How far shall the state go? The German example; German schools and American education; Germany’s kultur; The Harvard graduate school of education.
“One might raise a question as to why such an excellent monograph as the first three chapters would make should be made to carry an equal amount of loosely associated material. The last eight chapters are interesting and have individual value, but are not more closely related to the theme of the book than many other articles which might have been included. The busy school administrator would doubtless appreciate the book more if there were fewer ‘riders’ attached.”
“The clear-cut statement of principles of school administration and of the bases of determining the efficiency of the administration of a system of schools, and the analysis of typical school reports and the suggestions for their improvement contained in the first four of the essays have in themselves much more than enough of value to justify the volume.”
HAPGOOD, NORMAN. Advancing hour. *$2 Boni & Liveright 940.5
Mr Hapgood accepts the fact that we are now in the midst of revolution, and accepting that fact, he says “the only question is in what manner it will be conducted, and by whom.” He states his own position, and defines his liberalism: “If a radical is one who by nature prefers sudden change and violent remedies then I am not a radical.... A liberal differs from a radical in humility. He concentrates on certain changes, good in themselves and also carrying the seeds of further change, but he leaves later steps to later times. His faith is that if the next step taken by us is important and of right direction we shall have done all that belongs to our moment.” Contents: In time of revolution; The storm cellar; The blockade of thought; What the issues are; Without a party; Facing bolshevism: our follies in Russia; Facing bolshevism: the future in Russia; Is socialism needed? The answer of cooperation; The answer of liberalism; From Wilsonism to the future; What is our faith?
“A hopeful book which does not attempt to solve all problems at a stroke.”
“Mr Hapgood always writes interestingly even though his words may not be based upon the soundest philosophy.”
“Outside of an excellent chapter on the cooperative movement, the volume is chiefly pious platitude, amiable advice to business men not to make fools of themselves in a time of rapid social change like the present.” Harold Stearns
Reviewed by W: MacDonald
“It is a book worth everyone’s reading, for its notable contribution of facts and ideas, and more especially for its candor of spirit, rare indeed in a day when a great part of our political writers are still more or less disabled morally by their late services to national morale in disseminating lies and misrepresentations for the glory of God and the cause of right.” A. J.
“Mr Hapgood shows the defects of his good qualities and one of these is at present a lack of knowledge in what these good qualities consist. The volume is stimulating, patriotic without being nationalistic, unselfish and idealistic; but it shows some of the defects of an education which seems to have been entirely American.” M. F. Egan
“The best chapter in the book is chapter eight on the advantages of co-operation, over both socialism and government regulation of great combinations, as a remedy for industrial injustice. Mr Norman Hapgood is an effective pamphleteer; but excellences in a pamphleteer are fatal defects in a historian.”
“To one reviewer at least—and one who is not insensible to the part Mr Hapgood has taken in past times in the advocacy of certain social measures—there is provocation on almost every page of this book. But in the two chapters on the Russian problem, as well as in other incidental treatment of this problem, the provocation concentrates in every line.” W. J. Ghent
“To see things steadily and clearly is a gift of few. Mr Hapgood possesses fewer blind spots than most, but it may be that he is mistaken in parts of his analysis. However, he stimulates the reader to formulate his own beliefs. The style is a trifle labored, but there is no mistaking the book’s earnestness.”
“Special mention should be made of Mr Hapgood’s intimate study of President Wilson. It is a helpful antidote to Mr Keynes’ sketch.” L. R. Robinson
HARA, KATSURO.[2] Introduction to the history of Japan. *$2.50 (2½c) Putnam
The book is the first of a projected series of publications by the Yamato society, whose aim is to make clear the meaning and extent of Japanese culture to other nations, and to introduce the best literature and art of foreign nations to Japan for a promotion of a common understanding. The present volume is intended for those Europeans and Americans who would like to know Japan “not as a land of quaint curios and picturesque paradoxes only worthy to be preserved intact for a show, but as a land inhabited by a nation striving hard to improve itself, and to take its share, however humble, in the common progress of the civilisation of the world.” (Preface) Contents: The races and climate of Japan; Japan before the introduction of Buddhism and Chinese civilisation; Growth of the imperial power; gradual centralisation; Remodeling of the state; Culmination of the new régime; stagnation; rise of the military régime; The military régime; the Taira and the Minamoto; the shogunate of Kamakura; The welding of the nation; the political disintegration of the country; End of medieval Japan; The transition from medieval to modern Japan; The Tokugawa shogunate—its political régime; culture and society (two chapters); The restoration of the Meidji; Epilogue. The objects of and the rules of the Yamato society are given in full and there is an index.
“A carefully evolved and well written synopsis of the many centuries of Japanese national life. There is one especially creditable circumstance about the publication of this book. It is honest Japanese propaganda, and it makes no pretensions of being anything else.” S. L. C.
HARBEN, WILLIAM NATHANIEL. Divine event. *$1.75 (2c) Harper
A story of psychical phenomena. Hillery Gramling, unhappy over the death of his brother, in consultation with a medium is sent to New York’s East side to live among the poor. There he comes in contact with Lucia Lingle, a beautiful young girl who seems to be under the shadow of some awful, mysterious tragedy. He falls in love with her and is anxious to help her. He is aided by Professor Trimble, psychologist, alienist, mental scientist, who becomes deeply interested in Lucia’s case. Thru the mediumship of Madame DuFresne, they discover the exact nature of her trouble, that her half-brother is trying to prove her insane that he may take over her inheritance. Together they fight the thing out, encouraged always by the supernatural aid they receive, thru Madame DuFresne, from those on the other side of death. In the end thru their combined efforts, Lucia is freed from the awful curse that has hung over her, and has the promise of happiness.
“The plot is slight and unconvincing but is evidently meant to be taken seriously and will interest readers inclined to believe in spirit control and guardian angels.”
HARCOURT, ROBERT HENRY. Elementary forge practice. 2d ed, enl il $1.50 Manual arts press 672
A second edition of a work originally published by the author, instructor in forge practice in Leland Stanford Junior university, where it has been used as a text. It is designed for use in technical and vocational schools. Contents: Materials and equipment; Drawing-out, bending and twisting; Common welds; Special welds; Hammer work; Annealing, hardening and tempering steel; Tool forging. There are forty-four plates illustrating as many projects.
“The volume should prove a valuable addition to any shop library as a supplementary text. For the teacher of large classes of beginners it should lift the burden of much class work and explanation if placed in the hands of the pupils as a text.”
HARD, WILLIAM. Raymond Robins’ own story. il *$2 (4c) Harper 947
Colonel Robins was the unofficial representative of the American ambassador to Russia for eighteen months and a close observer of the powers that conducted Russian affairs, and he has had a more intimate acquaintance than any other American or allied representative with the government of Lenin. He is not a socialist and not a bolshevist, but he sees that the danger from the latter, if such there be, lies not in riots and robberies, mobs and massacres, not in its disorder but in its order, in that “the Soviet system is genuinely a system on its own account.... It can be extinguished only in the free air of fair controversy and of fair, practical proof.” There is but one choice left to America, according to Colonel Robins, in dealing with Russia, and that is not intervention but intercourse. The story of the book is told by the author as it was narrated to him by Colonel Robins. The contents are: The arrival of the Soviet; Trotzky’s plans for soviet Russia; The all-Russian congress and the Brest-Litovsk peace; The personality and power of Nikolai Lenin; The bolshevik “bomb”; and many illustrations.
“It stands out in this consecutive form as the most vigorous, the most picturesque, as well as the most truthful record in English of the birth of Bolshevism through the Soviet.” O. M. Sayler
“Mr Hard is so carried away with dramatic fervor that he feels it necessary to interrupt himself every now and then to assure us that Mr Robins is a good anti-Bolshevist. But these interludes need not divert the reader from the important parts of the book. Mr Robins’ admirable suggestions as to future American policy toward Russia deserve to be widely read.” Reed Lewis
HARDY, THOMAS. Collected poems, lyrical, narratory and reflective. *$3.40 Macmillan 821
“This book contains all of Thomas Hardy’s poetry except ‘The dynasts,’ including poems which have appeared in his prose works.”—Booklist
“There have been many poets among us in the last fifty years, poets of sure talent, and it may be even of genius, but no other of them has this compulsive power of Hardy. The secret is not hard to find. Not one of them is adequate to what we know and have suffered.... Therefore we deliberately set Mr Hardy among the greatest.” J. M. M.
“Let it be said straight out that in our opinion, whatever else Mr Hardy’s writing, susceptible to scansion, is, it is not poetry. It is not poetry, because, in the end, poetry is in a sort illusion.... He has been guilty of the last, the unforgivable sin in poetry—* *he has sinned against love, for which there is and should be no forgiveness.”
“Mr Hardy, once and for all, set up as poet, then, at an age when Shakespeare left our mortal stage. This book, for that reason alone, is an unprecedented achievement. Apart from that, to read steadily through it—and what severer test of lyrical poetry could be devised?—is to win to the consciousness not of any superficial consistency, but assuredly of a ‘harmony of colouring’; not, however keen the joy manifest ‘in the making,’ of an art become habitual, but of a shadowy unity and design.”
HARKER, MRS LIZZIE ALLEN. Allegra. *$1.75 (2c) Scribner
Allegra is a charming but decidedly self-centered young actress who sees every person and every incident in the light of her career. She is playing in a provincial repertory theater at the opening of the story and it is thru a chance meeting with Paul Staniland that her ambition to appear in London is gratified. Paul is delighted with Allegra and works up a part for her in the play he is dramatizing from one of Matthew Maythorne’s novels. Maythorne is one of those popular novelists whose books sell into the thousands and he fatuously accepts the success of the play as a tribute to himself, giving Paul none of the credit. Allegra’s admiration for the novelist is killed by a reading of his book and she comes to appreciate Paul, but a visit at the country home of Paul’s people, delightful tho they are, convinces her that she belongs to the theater and she returns to the stage.
“The plot is not credible in parts, but this does not mar the interest of the story.”
Reviewed by M. E. Bailey
“If Paul seems a special creation made to fit Allegra’s need, why quarrel with him? Are we not left with the conviction that here is a really happy ending to a story?”
“A number of minor characters are very well drawn.”
“All the minor characters, in fact, are skillfully portrayed, with any number of quaint and understanding little touches which make ‘Allegra’ very agreeable reading—the more agreeable because the author has had the good taste and good sense to avoid the conventional ‘happy ending.’”
“Altogether it is a slight but pleasing little story without any probing into psychology or any tremendous conflict of forces.”
“Allegra, a little hard and egotistical, and passionately devoted to her art, is well studied. And the whole tale (which moves among well-bred people throughout) is on a good level, though we think a little below that attained in other books by the author.”
HARPER, GEORGE MCLEAN.[2] John Morley, and other essays. *$1.60 Princeton univ. press 814
“Professor Harper, of Princeton university, author of various books of literary criticism (including the substantial and able work on Wordsworth), here puts together eight essays—on John Morley; Victor Hugo (these from the Atlantic Monthly); Michael Angelo’s sonnets; Balzac; W. C. Brownell (an American critic); Wordsworth at Blois; Wordsworth’s love poetry; and ‘David Brainerd: a Puritan saint.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His generalizations are just, and he is not ridden by them; he knows when to generalize and when to forget his generalizations.”
HARRIS, CORRA MAY (WHITE) (MRS LUNDY HOWARD HARRIS). Happily married. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
The scene is an exclusive southern town, the time that summer of intense war activity, 1918, and the characters several married pairs. Two of these are Mary and Pelham Madden, and two others Ellen and Barrie Skipwith. Mary is one of those calm, maternal and beautifully placid women, a perfect housekeeper and mother of four children. Ellen is a childless woman with red hair and baby blue eyes. Mary has just found a note in her husband’s pocket addressed to Dear Pep. Ellen has just turned in a Red cross subscription list with an anonymous contribution of $1000. How Mary wakes up and learns to practice the old womanly wiles is the theme of a story that is told amusingly with touches of satire.
“Entertaining in spite of its hackneyed plot.”
“Mrs Harris makes no attempt to inject novelty into the situation. She relies on her knowledge of men and women and her happy faculty in phrasing her reflections thereon for the pleasure of her readers. And these easily suffice.” F. A. G.
“The entertaining and shrewd comment upon married life, adds ginger to a somewhat conventional vamp story.”
“An immense quantity of mildly entertaining and occasionally shrewd comment strung on a very slight, very much worn thread of plot, constitutes Corra Harris’s new novel.”
“Mrs Harris’s thesis does not command unfaltering acquiescence. For those, however, who collect novels as others collect butterflies, the book will have a great deal of interest.”
HARRIS, CREDO FITCH. Wings of the wind. *$1.75 (1½c) Small
Jack Bronx, returning from the war, is packed off by his fond parents on their private yacht, with one of his army pals. On the way to Havana they pick up a stranger who turns out to be a secret envoy from the Kingdom of Azuria, in search of a lost princess. Chance favoring they trace the princess as one of the passengers on another yacht. Great is the chase, thrilling the adventures which eventually take the party to the Florida swamps into the ancient haunts of the Seminoles. The princess is rescued, Jack falls violently in love with her, and the old emissary hard put to it to save her, under the circumstances, for the throne of Azuria. Jack’s resourceful friend settles the matter by demonstrating to everybody’s satisfaction that the emissary’s orders to deliver the princess did not contain the provision that she must be single when found.
“The story teems with thrilling incidents. The plot, however, is trite.”
HARRIS, H. WILSON. Peace in the making. il *$2 Dutton 940.314
“‘What I have endeavored to produce is an account, checked by such official documents as are available, which will convey to the general reader some not wholly inadequate impression both of what the conference did and how it did it.’ (Preface) The author was for three months the special correspondent of the London Daily News to the conference.”—Wis Lib Bul
“Mr Harris is well-informed and his pen-pictures of the personality and policy of the leading diplomats, tho less lively than those of Mr Keynes, are far closer to the facts.”
“His plan is less ambitious than that of Dr Dillon, for he leaves out most of the historical summaries which are a valuable feature of Dr Dillon’s volume, and also tells fewer incidents. His account of the Prinkipo episode, and of the apparently deliberate intermeddling of France to insure that the proposed conference should come to naught, should be read by anyone who still cherishes confidence in the good faith of the Paris negotiators.” W: MacDonald
“Those readers who are interested in finding an account of the peace conference to supplement the somewhat opinionated statements of Keynes and Dillon would do well to provide themselves with a copy of ‘The peace in the making.’ The book as a whole, while not itself history in the fullest sense, may well be regarded as a contribution to history.”
“His summary of the deliberations of the conference is just a little too summary, and the chapter on Lenin and Bela Kun is vague and unsatisfactory. On the other hand, Mr Harris’s judgments of the personalities of the conference are generally temperate and just.”
HARRIS, JAMES RENDEL. Last of the Mayflower. (Manchester univ. publications) *$2 (*5s) Longmans 974.4
“In this publication of the John Rylands library Dr Rendel Harris tries to find an answer to the question, ‘What became of the “Mayflower“?’ The name was a common one for ships in late Tudor and early Stuart times; hence the tracing of the authentic ‘Mayflower’ has entailed much research. Some ten years after the landing of the Pilgrims (1620), she was employed on a similar service, that of transporting the remainder of the Leyden colony to New Plymouth. Then she is traced in the whale-fishery, and to her last owner and master, Mr Thomas Webber of Boston. Not long after 1654, the author says, ‘one is tempted to conjecture that she died (in a nautical sense). Most likely she was broken up in Boston, or perhaps in the Thames on her last voyage to London.’ ”—Ath
Reviewed by W. A. Dyer
HARRISON, AUSTIN. Before and now. *$1.75 (2½c) Lane 304
This collection of papers, reprinted in a revised form from the English Review, are critical and partly satirical and humorous impressions of conditions in England previous to and during the war. They were “journalism then, today they are prophetic,” says the author. It is the disintegration of old conceptions and the birth-pangs of new that form the subject-matter of the papers, which are: Jingoism; The coming of Smith; “Surrey in danger”; Peace, perfect peace; St George’s stirrup; The duke’s buffalo; A “Christian” Europe and afterwards; Our gentlemen’s schools; Authority and privilege; The new “Sesame and lilies”; The Christian drum; What is ours is not ours; The country of the blind; “Leave them ‘orses alone!”; Foreign politics; “Minny”; The awakening; Musings at Fort Vaux; Foundations of reconstruction.
“Some of these reprinted articles from the English Review are worth reading again, as the contemporary views of a very independent critic.”
“Although the intimate knowledge of men and events which the author demands of his readers will be a drawback to many, the interest of his criticisms will hold the attention of the more thoughtful and well informed.”
“The papers are stimulating and thoughtful.” W. S. B.
“Mr Austin Harrison is unfortunate enough to live in a between-age. Actually he belongs to the Victorian era, but his generation and his intelligence will not leave him at peace, and push him into a rather uncomfortable ultra-modern attitude. Of all his essays the musings at Fort Vaux are the most illuminating, because they are at once the most sincere, the least preconceived.”
“What he has given us is very suggestive, and one is grateful to any man who can stir up general interest in our social problems by the use of such a facile pen. He has the same sort of literary gift as Mr H. G. Wells, though in a slighter degree. But he has not so far shown anything like the rich literary nutritiousness that belongs to the work of his distinguished father [Frederick Harrison].” H. L. Stewart
“Mr Harrison has a vigorous and effective pen, which often runs away with him and never quite knows when to stop; but his chief fault, as this book reveals it, is a love for exaggeration which detracts considerably from the value of his words.”
HARRISON, MARY ST LEGER (KINGSLEY) (MRS WILLIAM HARRISON) (LUCAS MALET, pseud.). Tall villa. *$1.75 (4c) Doran
The outstanding characteristic of this novel is that it is a ghost story. After her husband’s financial failure, Frances Copley betakes herself away from Grosvenor square and London high society and buries herself in Tall villa, a maternal inheritance and a preposterous piece of architecture, while her husband goes to seek a new fortune in South America. There the ghost of an ancient relative, a suicide from disappointed love, makes itself known to her and moved by pity she resolves to consecrate her life to his redemption. They hold daily concourse and by the time his earth-bound spirit has been released through her martyrdom, the latter for her had turned into rapture. Her spirit too, now longs for release and when the ghost makes its final appearance it is to free her too from earthly thralldom.
“The story is kept sane by means of the other people, the Bulparcs, Lady Lucia and her baby, and Charlie Montagu. Therefore it is cleverly done. But no one who has not been drawn by a spirit lover to the fairer clime can tell if the rest of it is really correct. To review the volume rightly one needs a ouija board.”
“The story, a modern fairy tale, is handled with much restraint and artistry.”
“Those who are desirous of finding something to laugh at and to ridicule in any tale of the supernatural will readily discover all that they desire in ‘The Tall villa’; even those who are ready and willing to take the novel with the same high and intense seriousness with which it is written will find it difficult to refrain from smiling over some of the high-flown speeches addressed by Frances Copley to the ghost of Alexis Lord Oxley. Yet there is much of charm in the book.”
“The character of Frances Copley is exquisitely etched. The rare distinction of Mrs Harrison’s carven style is at its best in this unusual and dexterously handled romance, which is finely free from the over-frank emphasis of the senses found in ‘Sir Richard Calmady.’” Katharine Perry
“The book will rank with the best of the author’s.”
“It is a sad confession to make, but we are Philistine enough to prefer those portions of the story in which normal events and personages predominate.”
“The dialog is invariably stilted, and the generally formal tone robs the situation of reality and those startling qualities inherent in it. The heroine herself is delicately portrayed. The story is not long and stirs only a mild interest.”
“This novel is excellently written; but a ghost story should make the flesh creep, and that is the one function which, in spite of its excellences, it certainly does not perform.”
HARROW, BENJAMIN.[2] Eminent chemists of our time. il *$2.50 Van Nostrand 540.9
The author has chosen eleven scientists “whose work is indissolubly bound up with the progress of chemistry during the last generation or so.” His aim has been “to write a history of chemistry of our times by centering it around some of its leading figures.” Contents: Introduction; Perkin and coal-tar dyes; Mendeléeff and the periodic law; Ramsay and the gases of the atmosphere; Richards and atomic weights; Van’t Hoff and physical chemistry; Arrhenius and the theory of electrolytic dissociation; Moissan and the electric furnace; Madame Curie and radium; Victor Meyer and the rise of organic chemistry; Remsen and the rise of chemistry in America; Fischer and the chemistry of foods. Reading references follow the chapters and there is an index.
HARROW, BENJAMIN. From Newton to Einstein; changing conceptions of the universe. il *$1 (6½c) Van Nostrand 530
The booklet gives in simple popular language an outline of Newton’s great discovery and of the various steps in scientific achievements which led up to Einstein’s conception of the universe and theory of relativity. It shows how Einstein’s conception of time and space led to a new view of gravitation and explains some facts which Newton’s law was incapable of explaining. The three essays of the book are: Newton; The ether and its consequences; Einstein.
“Dr Harrow’s account is altogether too inadequate. The chapter on ‘Einstein’ utterly fails to bring out the central conceptions of the ‘Relativity theory’; it is not that the treatment is obscure; it is that very important points are slurred over, misstated, or ignored.”
“It contains egregious mistakes, minor errors, misplaced emphasis, wrong interpretation, and a modicum of information.” R: F. Deimel
“A lucid little book.”
HARTLEY, OLGA. Anne. *$1.90 (2c) Lippincott
Anne is an orphan and still a child at seventeen when young Gilbert Trevor, one of her self-appointed guardians, falls in love with and marries her, while her other self-appointed guardian, John Halliday, continues to hover over her with a more selfless devotion. Anne never grows up but remains an ardent, wilful, fascinating child with a child’s sincerity and purity of heart. It leads her into dangerous situations and causes complications during which, at a crucial moment, Gilbert fails her. She forces the estrangement and after some mad escapades follows the dying John to Scotland, resolved to give him all the love that he deserved and of which Gilbert has proved himself unworthy. But the latter’s love and manhood stand the final test and his protecting arms once more hold Anne safe.
“Anne’s future sister-in-law, Francesca, is a likeable character; but the heroine herself is difficult to understand, almost to the end of the book.”
“The author’s handling of the heights and depths of the story towards its climax deserves high praise for restraint, for absence of sensationalism while it yet holds and thrills.”
“Whether one has patience with the violent-tempered, erratic heroine or not, it cannot be denied that here is a soundly-constructed, well-written novel.”
Reviewed by Caroline Singer
“The development and gradual ripening of the heroine’s character (she needed it) are very well done, and we commend the book to our readers.”
HARTMAN, HARLEIGH HOLROYD. Fair value. *$2.50 Houghton 338
The book is one of the series of Hart, Schaffner, and Marx prize essays in economics and the thesis is concerned with the meaning and application of the term “Fair valuation” as used by utility commissions. The usage of the term is a loose one and open to much confusion on the part of the public as well as of the courts. The author’s inquiry rests on the points: “that the public utility is essentially different from other industry; that private property devoted to the public use is not the same as other private property, and does not enjoy the same legal protection; that the service rendered is governmental in its nature, and; that the purpose of regulation is curtailment of ‘private rights’ and the encumbrance of ‘private property.’” The book falls into two parts: 1, The meaning of the term “fair value” contains: The basis of regulation; The purpose of regulation; Valuation and regulation; The theory of valuation; Valuation methods. 2, The application of the theory of fair value, contains: The valuation of tangible property; Valuation of intangible property; Depreciation; The return on the investment; Conclusion. There is also a selected bibliography, a table of cases, and an index.
“The first is far the more significant part. A valid criticism of the book is that it overstrains legal definitions and logical legal relationships.” J: Bauer
“A useful and opportune classifying of a large mass of scattered material.”
“‘Fair value’ is, withal, a most exhaustive and illuminative work on current economics, with principles, laws, court decisions and commission opinions all set forth in such a fashion that even the uninitiate in such matters are able to grasp Mr Hartman’s theories of valuation.” G. M. H.
Review 3:448 N 10 ’20 1100w
Reviewed by E. R. Burton
HARVARD UNIVERSITY. DRAMATIC CLUB. Plays of the Harvard dramatic club. *$1.25 Brentano’s 812.08
“The little volume of one-act plays, edited by Professor George Pierce Baker, contains only four pieces, all of them dealing with American themes and all of them the result of their several authors’ studies in the dramaturgic laboratory which the editor has successfully conducted at Harvard. In his brief prefatory note he explains the activities of the Harvard dramatic club and tells us that the four plays he has chosen for inclusion have been selected ‘as a group which perhaps gives the volume best variety and balance.’” (N Y Times) The titles are “The harbor of lost ships, by Louise Whitefield Bray; Garafelia’s husband, by Esther Willard Bates; The scales and the sword, by Farnham Bishop; and The four-flushers, by Cleves Kinkead.” (Brooklyn)
“Professor Baker has worked earnestly, unostentatiously, and with only one failing, a somewhat lively fear of being academic.” K. M.
Reviewed by Brander Matthews
HARVEY, LUCILE STIMSON. Food facts for the home-maker. il *$2.50 Houghton 613.2
The book is intended to help the young housekeeper without either knowledge of science or technical skill, and to give the experienced cook a scientific foundation, but primarily to show mothers how to feed their children. “Few women realize the great importance of the proper feeding of the family. Undernourishment among our children in the United States is far more prevalent than is generally supposed, and is found quite as often in the homes of the well-to-do as in those of the poor.” (Preface) Although the book contains recipes it is not intended to compete with cook-books, but rather to supplement them. Among the contents are: The importance of food; The composition of foods; Milk and eggs; Meat; Cheese and legumes; Cereals; Fruits and vegetables; Fats; Sugar; The use of food in the body; The measurement of food values; Food for infants and young children; Food for school-children; Food for invalids. There is a bibliography and an index.
“A highly important and serviceable book.”
“Throughout the volume is an excellent manual that is well arranged, written in an informal and untechnical vein and well fitted to meet the demands of the ordinary household.”
Reviewed by E. A. Winslow
HASBROUCK, LOUISE SEYMOUR. Hall with doors. il *$1.75 (4c) Womans press
A story for girls with a vocation moral. In their junior year in high school a group of friends form the V. V. club (the initials standing for vacation-vocation), and in the chapters of the book their various experiences in the world of work are followed. After college one group goes to New York to attack business, advertising, interior decorating and tearoom management. One girl stays at home and finds her vocation in a recreation center. One country girl leaves the farm to go to college and then comes back to teach a country school and make over a rural community. One girl, who is a misfit in business, succeeds as athletic director and organizer of a summer camp. The girls are bright and natural, the stories are interestingly told and the romance that has a part in all real-life stories is not omitted.
HASKINS, CHARLES HOMER, and LORD, ROBERT HOWARD. Some problems of the Peace conference. *$3 Harvard univ. press 914.314
“It will be remembered that Professor Haskins and Professor Lord were two of the experts who accompanied President Wilson to the peace conference. Prof. Haskins served as chief of the division of western Europe and he was American member of the special committee of three which drafted the treaty clauses on Alsace-Lorraine and the Sarre valley. Professor Lord served as American adviser on Poland and related problems, both at Paris and in Poland itself. The lectures published in this volume were delivered last winter at the Lowell institute and are now given with only incidental changes. The effort of the two men has been to present each of these problems in its historical setting, revealing at the same time, the reason of its importance to the conference.”—Boston Transcript
“In respect both to extent and to content, the book leaves much to be contributed to the subject in the future, by the present authors or by other scholars. It does provide what is most needed at this time, a well-informed and fairminded sketch of the background and of the probable issue of the territorial settlement. One noteworthy contribution of the book is the first chapter on Task and methods of the conference.” Clive Day
“May be regarded, without question, as the most important work on the conference that has yet appeared. It should do much to counteract the overdrawn and splenetic sketches of Keynes, Dillon, or Creel.” C: Seymour
“It is improbable that this particular book, with the accurate knowledge it displays and the authoritative position which its authors held in the actual negotiations, will ever be replaced as an historical record.”
“By far the best account of the Paris conference which has yet appeared.”
Reviewed by W: MacDonald
“Their book will meet the needs of the many now looking for just such a graphic account of the methods of the peace conference in dealing with important questions.”
“The book is to be welcomed warmly just because the Peace conference did not accomplish (whether it could have done so we need not here discuss) the enormous task it set itself, and Americans will be forced again and again to take a stand on new disputes arising from the settlements made.” B. L.
“Within its limits the book, which is admirably written, is of great value. It contains a scholarly, open-minded, impartial account of such matters as the problem of Slesvig, and the questions concerning the status, and territorial extension of Belgium. It will do much good, for it serves as a useful antidote to the criticisms, often so ignorant and so partisan, of the territorial settlement.”
HASLETT, ELMER. Luck on the wing; thirteen stories of a sky spy. il *$3 Dutton 940.44
The personal narrative of a young American aviator in France. “The author records at the very outset how he preferred the clean air to the rat-haunted trenches, and it was that human desire to escape from the muddy, disagreeable ground that made him become a flying man. The book reads more like a novel than the record of a warrior.” (Bookm)
“Hardships and adventures are told with a youthful verve, without overstraining and with an ever ready appreciation when the joke is on himself.”
“Major Elmer Haslett has written, in ‘Luck on the wing,’ just the kind of book we need, now that we all have some perspective—though little, I admit—on the war. It is full of the fire and fervor of youth, good-natured, natural—a splendid picture of the fighting airman.” C: H. Towne
“For those who have shared our ignorance of the aerial observer, this book should be of value.”
HASLUCK, EUGENE LEWIS.[2] Teaching of history. (Cambridge handbooks for teachers) *$3.20 Macmillan 907
“After defining certain legitimate reasons for teaching history in schools, and distinguishing these from ‘false and shallow justification,’ a statement is presented of the basis of selection of materials for pupils of different age groups and a detailed plan is outlined for organizing courses in English history for upper-grade pupils in either a one, two, three, or four years’ sequence. Further discussion concerns the nature and use of the history textbook and the effective use of supplementary historical and literary source material, with specific reference to a number of especially valuable ones; types of historical exercises which may be employed as aids to the stimulation of interest and the retention of historical facts; and different ways of utilizing general, local, and recent history. Three specimen lesson-units are given in outline form—one illustrating a unit of pure narrative, one which describes a particular social situation, and one which centers about a national character. A final chapter points out some of the most common pitfalls which beset the teacher of history, and suggests means of avoiding them.”—School R
“This slender volume is of interest to American teachers for two reasons: first, for the information it gives directly or by implication upon the state of history-teaching in England, and, secondly, for the practical quality of its criticisms and suggestions, so wholly unaffected by the airs and attitudes of the professional pedagogue.” H. E. B.
“On the study of history, and the study of teaching as applied thereto, Mr Hasluck writes as an expert. Where there is life, there is hope. And even the formal categories of this handbook bear witness to a vitality, widespread and abounding in promise.”
“Suggestive and helpful.”
HASTINGS, MILO MILTON. City of endless night. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
Great changes had taken place on the earth’s surface in 2150. The German empire had been wiped out and all that was left of it was the roof of Berlin looming up to the height of three hundred metres out of a bomb-torn desert that had once been Germany. The German people themselves now lived underground, three hundred million of them. It was an American chemical engineer who, during one of his experiments, was by accident exploded into their domain and by a cunning strategy managed to live and work among them; to escape by submarine and by means of his knowledge to be instrumental in the overthrow of that stronghold and in the liberation of those millions. All the qualities that the Germans have been credited with before, during and since the war, are utilized in the story with satiric exaggeration.
“Mr Hastings has succeeded in interweaving into this book a love story that always escapes being bizarre, no mean accomplishment in a tale depicting a society ‘that never was on land or sea’ outside of an author’s imagination.”
HAWES, CHARLES BOARDMAN. Mutineers. il $2 (2c) Atlantic monthly press
“A tale of old days at sea and of adventures in the Far East as Benjamin Lathrop set it down some sixty years ago.” (Sub-title) It was young Ben’s first voyage and although only a ship’s boy he was in the midst of all the adventures that happened. He was the first to detect treason aboard, to suspect that it was not the pirates they encountered who killed the captain and first mate, and to join the mutineers against the crafty usurpers of power. He was set adrift with the mutineers in a boat, had an exciting encounter with Malay savages who helped them regain control of the ship and, after more thrilling experiences, in the course of which the culprits met their doom, the ship and its precious cargo was saved, and when the “Island Princess” returned to its home port there was indeed a story to tell.
“Told with skill and an evident knowledge of the sea and seamen. Older boys will find it absorbing. Good make-up.”
“This is a story that has the sort of appeal carried by ‘Treasure island.’ It is a book written with swing and go, windy of the high seas, full of the wild doings of those early days.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“There’s not one element of the ideal sea story lacking.” L. H. Seaman
“It is a tale with the true flavor of the time it professes to portray, and will have the genuine attraction for boys of all ages that similar stories by Stevenson and other lovers of the South sea and its shores possess.”
HAWKES, CLARENCE. Master Frisky. new ed il *$1.50 (6c) Crowell
The author is a well-known naturalist, author of “Wood and water friends,” and other books. Master Frisky is a collie puppy and in telling his story many other animal friends of barnyard and field are introduced. There are interesting chapters on the training of dogs, on dog signs and language and dog friendships.
“A worthy addition to our delightful literature of dogdom.”
HAWKES, CLARENCE. Trails to woods and waters; foreword by W: T. Hornaday. il *$1.60 (3c) Jacobs 590.4
In driving the cows to and from pasture as a barefoot boy, the author tells us, he learned to love nature, he learned to “see” things, he learned to endow the growing, running, flying things in the woods with personality. He makes his young readers feel that they are coming in touch with sentient things, with personalities, when they read about the trees, brooks and animals of the stories. Contents: The trail to woods and waters; A tale from the skidway; The story of willow brook; A little dapple fool; The family of Bob-White; The busy bee; Downstream in a canoe; Jacking and moose-calling; In Beaver-land; One’s own back door-yard; A wary mother; A lively bee hunt; The speckled heifer’s calf; Camping with old Ben; Forest footfalls; In the hunter’s moon; A winter walk; Camp fire legends of the wood folks. Some of the material of the book has appeared in two earlier works now out of print.
HAWKINS, SIR ANTHONY HOPE (ANTHONY HOPE, pseud.). Lucinda. *$2 (2c) Appleton
The scene is all set for a fashionable London wedding, but at the last moment something goes wrong. The wedding is “unavoidably postponed.” As a matter of fact the bride has disappeared. Waldo Rillington, the bridegroom, is about to start in pursuit of the pair, for he rightly assumes that she has gone with Arsenio Valdez, but the war intervenes and for years Lucinda is lost to her English friends. Julius Rillington, Waldo’s cousin, meets her once in the interval, comes upon her unexpectedly in the year 1916 in a town in southern France. She tells him her story but he refrains from telling it to the others and keeps the meeting secret. Julius is thereafter much involved in Lucinda’s affairs, and when she is set free, he marries her. Lucinda is a heroine who serenely refuses to be downed by fortune. She takes good or ill with the same imperturbability and so always has the better of her rival, Nina, later Lady Dundrannan.
“The canvas is small and the theme has no great originality, but it is treated with the delicately humorous grace which has always distinguished this author.”
“There is some very clever characterization of the group of people involved in the delinquency.” S. M. R.
“Light, whimsical, ironic, sophisticated, the history of ‘Lucinda’ is pleasantly diverting.”
“One feels that Mr Hope is now writing to please his own ideals of the art of fiction rather than to amuse the crowd. The novel is on original lines and has underlying humor.”
HAWORTH, PAUL LELAND. United States in our own times, 1865–1920. *$2.25 Scribner 973.8
“This book is designed to meet the needs of students who desire to know our country in our own times. In it I have devoted a large share of space to social and industrial questions, but I have been on my guard against swinging too far in this direction. After all, the business of government is still of prime importance to the welfare of the nation, and it is essential that our citizens should understand our past political history.” (Preface) The contents are in part: The aftermath of war; President Johnson’s plan of reconstruction; Mexico, Alaska, and the election of 1868; The fruits of reconstruction; Foreign relations and the liberal Republican movement; The passing of the “Wild West”; Hard times and free silver; The war with Spain; “Imperialism”; “Big business” and the Panama canal; The Progressive revolt; America enters the great war; The peace conference. The book contains eight maps, some suggestions for further reading and an index.
“Not only has the author failed to show the interaction between the social and industrial problems of the country and the evolution of our law, but also he has failed to indicate the relation of these problems to our political life. Two attributes, however, of this work stand out so strikingly as to make its reading well worth the while of the student of recent American history. In the first place the ‘Suggestions for further readings,’ giving as they do page references to selected portions of various works, are excellent; secondly, and more important, Mr Haworth has produced a work which is so readable as to justify the claim of the publishers that it is as ‘fascinating as a story.’” B. B. Kendrick
“The author uses no little self-restraint in his endeavor to be impartial. The style is attractive, and the author has hit upon a happy medium between a mere outline and excessive details. This work is the best of its kind that has been published.” F. W. C.
“His book deserves no serious consideration, save in so far as it may be used to befuddle the minds of our children.” Harold Kellock
Reviewed by C: A. Beard
“It is possible to detect errors, for, though Dr Haworth’s method has apparently been to study thoroughly each standard authority on each particular phase of his subject, standard authorities on very recent events sometimes need a good deal of overhauling.... When it comes to the war itself, Dr Haworth gives about as lucid and understandable an account of it as we have met with anywhere. In his treatment of the social question no extremist on either side will find much comfort, but it will be applauded by all who want a sane and intelligent account.”
“The text is notably readable with a delightfully simple style. The judgments passed on the actors in the difficult times of reconstruction and on such characters as Arthur, McKinley and Taft follow closely the estimates by Rhodes and the authors in the American nation series, which is to say they are eminently fair. The last chapters, dealing with the war and the peace conference, do not represent such mature or impartial judgments.” R. D. Leigh
HAWTREY, R. G.[2] Currency and credit. *$5 (*15s) Longmans 332
“Mr R. G. Hawtrey’s ‘Currency and credit’ is a series of essays on subjects connected with money, which the writer has put together with the intention of presenting ‘a systematic analysis of currency and credit movements.’ His ‘analysis’ takes the form of a description of the mechanism of exchange and of the way it works in practice, in the course of which he supplies an exposition of the nature of financial crises. Two chapters are devoted to the discussion of the financial problems which have to be faced in time of war, and two more to ‘The assignats’ and ‘The bank restriction, 1797.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The book as a whole is in danger of falling between two stools: it is not easy or simple enough for beginners, and it does not take enough for granted to appeal to those who are already familiar with the theory of money. It could have been improved a good deal by rearrangement and a redistribution of emphasis. It is, however, the product of an acute intellect which reasons closely and threads its way through what are sometimes rather tortuous paths of abstraction.” G. S.
“The last two sections of the book are, on the whole, the best portions of it. Mr Hawtrey’s history of the assignats is so well done that it could hardly be improved upon; it is clear, concise, and covers all the points which require bringing out. In selecting these few chapters for special praise we do not deny merit to the rest of the book.”
HAY, JAMES. Melwood mystery. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
Washington is the scene of this mystery story. Zimony Newman, suspected of being a German spy, is murdered in her apartment in the Melwood. Suspicion rests chiefly upon John Thayer, a young senator, and Knowles, an inventor who had once employed Miss Newman as his secretary. Other characters are Felix Conrad, a retired German-American manufacturer, and his secretary, David Gower, and Rosalie, Conrad’s daughter, who is engaged to John. Two detectives are occupied with the case, one the typical secret service man, working with conventional methods, the other Hastings, who whittles away with his jack knife and thinks.
“A well worked out detective story. Although conventional, the characters are interesting and the climax unexpected.”
“The author’s style, simple, terse and gripping makes it easy to follow the dramatic happenings that finally lead to the dénouement.”
HAY, JAMES. “No clue!” *$1.75 (2½c) Dodd
Like most mystery stories, this one begins with a murder. The victim is a young girl, Mildred Brace, the scene the lawn in front of “Sloanehurst,” the time, around midnight on a rainy night in summer. With so much known, it is left to Jefferson Hastings, an elderly detective who happened to be staying at Sloanehurst at the time, to discover the murderer and the motive. Also at Sloanehurst as week-end guests were Berne Webster, Lucille Sloane’s fiancé, and Judge Wilton, Mr Sloane’s close friend. From circumstantial evidence, Webster seemed guilty, as he had recently discharged Mildred from his office and she had since annoyed him with threats of a breach of promise suit. But Hastings mulled over the case and was not satisfied with circumstantial evidence. He got in touch with Mrs Brace, the girl’s mother, and upon discovering what manner of woman she was, became convinced that she held the key to the mystery in her hands. He played on her weakness, love of money, and eventually brought to light the facts that he had been sure existed—which completely cleared Webster and brought the criminal to justice.
“The story holds interest throughout, though it is of rather commonplace people, and devoid of dramatic circumstances, until the moment of fastening the guilt on the unexpected person.”
“It is no better and no worse than the general run of detective stories that will stand beside it on the booksellers’ shelves. Its author’s faults are typical of contemporary detective fiction. Of these faults, the most glaring is Mr Hay’s failure to arouse interest in his automaton-like characters.”
“A cleverly constructed detective story, but one with very little genuine human interest.”
HAYDEN, ARTHUR. Bye-paths in curio collecting. il *$6.50 Stokes 749
“This is another of Mr Hayden’s useful books. He classifies a heterogeneous collection of objects in a practical, if slightly unscientific way under such headings as ‘Boxes,’ ‘Man and fire,’ ‘The land,’ ‘The boudoir,’ etc.” (Ath) “Among the less usual antiquities to be collected, which Mr Hayden describes, are tobacco-stoppers, early examples of which embody portraits of King Charles I.; keys, many of them beautifully decorated, playing-cards, children’s toys, and tea-table accessories.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“There is a fairly good index. Mr Hayden’s advice is sound, and his insistence that the function of the curio collector is to rescue works of art is welcome in these days of indiscriminate high prices. The half-tone illustrations are clear.”
“Always delightful is Mr Hayden, and in this latest book of his, he is just as charming and even more discursive. Like most English writers, too, he has the advantage of a very firm historical basis.”
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
“An introductory note to the book, written with the grace and charm of a delightful essay, is full of lively comments on collecting in general. Fascinating information on a wide miscellany of subjects peeps at us from every paragraph of ‘Bye-paths in curio collecting.’”
“Mr Hayden belongs, quite frankly, to the sentimental school, finding, if not beauty, at least a genuine charm in the chattels of our forefathers; and his book, without being exactly ‘popular,’ is of human rather than technical interest.”
HAYES, CARLETON JOSEPH HUNTLEY. Brief history of the great war. *$3.50 Macmillan 940.3
The author states that he has essayed to sketch tentatively what seem to him to be the broad outlines of the war, the “domestic politics of the several belligerents no less than army campaigns and naval battles,—and in presenting his synthesis to be guided so far as in him lay by an honest desire to put heat and passion aside and to write candidly and objectively for the instruction of the succeeding generation.” (Preface) After giving in due order the various events and phases of the war the last chapter—A new era begins—is devoted to the settlement, the losses and the landmarks of the new era. The three appendices contain: The covenant of the league of nations; American reservations to the treaty of Versailles; and Proposed agreement between the United States and France. The book contains a select bibliography, an index, ten maps in color and numerous sketch maps.
“This is the best single-volume history of the great war which has so far appeared, and it is one of the very few which deserve serious consideration by professional students of history. It is written with a high degree of scientific responsibility, and not for mere purposes of journalism or propaganda. At present it holds practically a unique place for fullness of information, fairness, balance, and accuracy.” W: S. Davis
“Useful as a school text or reference.”
“In mastery of detail, in perspective, in proportion, in perspicuity, in philosophic grasp of his subject as a whole, he outclasses all rivals, whether they have written in English, in French, or in German. Even his faults, such little ones as may be picked out here and there, are but the excesses of his virtues. Thus, in his desire to make everything perfectly clear, he verges on the pedagogical. Certainly, by his lucidity and his impartiality he has attained a result unsurpassed by the poets and thinkers who have written on the war, by Sassoon or Barbusse, by Keynes or Bertrand Russell.” Preserved Smith
Reviewed by C: A. Beard
“Considering the time and the circumstances under which it was composed, Professor Hayes has written a good brief history of the war.”
“As a book of reference it will be highly useful, for it has an admirable index, abundance of maps and sketches, a good bibliography, and its table of contents, with the titles of chapters and sub-chapters at once suggests the true proportion of the different events of the war. But the breath of life is lacking which would convert these cold recitals into a vivid picture of the war as a whole.” F. V. Greene
“The author’s acquaintance with European politics enabled him to supply the appropriate background for his pictures.”
“Well adapted for use in the schools. While it does not attain at all times to scientific objectivity of view, it shows a broad and judicial comprehension of events, and is as strong on the military side as the political. The bibliography is very faulty.”
“It is written with a commendable absence of subjective theory or tendency and will be of value as a textbook when, owing to changes in popular sentiment, other war ‘histories’ written so soon after the events will have proved little more than political treatises. In short, a book worthy of a permanent place in any library.” B. L.
“Will be found useful for general readers and students.”
HAYES, ELLEN. Wild turkeys and tallow candles. *$2.50 Four seas co. 977.1
A book in which the author, formerly professor of astronomy in Wellesley college, recreates something of the atmosphere of pioneer days in Ohio, drawing on printed records and her own memories. In explanation of her title she says, “The turkey and the candle serve fairly well to indicate the early and the late colonial times. With the passing of the candle and the coming of the kerosene lamp modern life was fairly introduced. As my own memory runs back to a prekerosene time I am able to describe at first hand some phases of Granville township life that were essentially pioneer.” Part 1, Wild turkey period, has chapters on Early Ohio; The pioneer journey; The wilderness home, etc., and among the chapters of Part 2, Tallow candle period, are An octagon of education; The Wolcott homestead; The year around; The county fair; A child of the Ohio eighteen-fifties.
“The effect achieved is a brilliant painting of sturdy scenes that linger in the imagination after the book is laid down.”
“This book should have three classes of readers, those who are interested in the early settlement of Ohio, those who like small history personally written, and those who are quite justifiedly interested in the early life and background of Ellen Hayes.” M. C. C.
HAYNES, EDMOND SIDNEY POLLOCK. Case for liberty. *$2.50 Dutton 323.4
“Mr Haynes here develops the argument which he outlined three years ago in ‘The decline of liberty in England.’ He associates himself, subject to some reservations, with Mr Belloc in restating the case for personal liberty in the old radical sense. ‘The vitally important aspect of liberty today,’ he says, ‘is its function in combating the sort of anarchy which threatens civilization all over the world; for this anarchy is the inevitable result of war lords and their imitators despising the normal aspirations of the individual human being to a brief period of normal happiness.’ The book is in the main a review of the more recent tendencies of politics in England with the object of showing that the individual human being is marked for destruction as such by the plutocrat on one side and the collectivist on the other. The political remedies he proposes are the referendum and the revival of the process of impeachment.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His little book is replete with rare and robust commonsense; his reasoning is consequent; and his illustrations are occasionally witty.”
“Mr Haynes’s book will not command universal agreement, but it is a real contribution to current political discussion.”
HEAD, JOSEPH. Everyday mouth hygiene. il *$1 Saunders 613.4
The author, dentist to the Jefferson hospital, Philadelphia, sounds a serious note of warning against imperfectly cleaned teeth, which, through infection, cause “directly or indirectly one-half of the fatal diseases.” Rheumatism, heart disease, ulcer of the stomach and many other fatal diseases can be reduced fifty per cent if decay of the teeth and gum infection are stayed. How this can be done the book tells minutely in word and picture. It contains besides some closing remarks on the irregularity of children’s teeth and has an index.
“Considering the appalling prevalence of digestive and nerve diseases due to bad teeth, the detailed instruction here given for tooth preservation deserves wide circulation.”
HEADLAM, ARTHUR CAYLEY. Doctrine of the church and Christian reunion; being the Bampton lectures for the year 1920. *$4 Longmans 280
“Dr Headlam is Regius professor of divinity in the University of Oxford. He traces the doctrine of the church from the four gospels down to the Lambeth conference. He says that Christ ‘created the church as a visible society. He instituted ministry and sacraments. He gave authority for legislation and discipline.’ ‘But he gave no directions as to the form or organization of the new community, and the actual organization which was ultimately developed was different from anything which he personally established.’ Episcopacy ‘was the creation of the church.... It had its origin in the apostolic church; it represents a continuous development from apostolic times; but we cannot claim that it has apostolic authority.’ Dr Headlam defends the historic episcopacy and the Nicene creed as a basis for organic church union, not on the ground that they have the direct authority of Jesus Christ, but because their value has been recognized by an overwhelming majority in the Christian church from a very early age.”—Outlook
“The writer, condemning himself, well says; ‘Only too often the professed adoption of the historical method appears to be but a device for concealing one’s bias’; for on page after page he misrepresents and misinterprets the evidence that lies plainly before him.”
Reviewed by Lyman Abbott
“It should not only be read, but studied; and, in particular, it should be in the hands of every member of the Lambeth conference.”
“No other recent book on the church and its ministry matches this volume in importance. It brings out the essential elements of the problems with which it deals clearly and dispassionately. Students of this subject will appreciate the fact that there is apparently not a single ambiguous sentence in the book.”
HEAGLE, DAVID. Do the dead still live? or, The testimony of science respecting a future life; new foundations for man’s great hope. *$1.50 Am. Bapt. 218
The purpose of the book is to present in popular form all the arguments in support of a belief in human immortality. The sources drawn from are science, philosophy and religion, but the scientific proofs are especially enlarged upon. The book has an introduction by Bishop Samuel Fallows who calls it a whole library of condensed information on the subject. The discussion is outlined in the first chapter—Preliminaries. The rest of the contents are: The older arguments, from philosophy and religion; The argument from biology—from physics—from physiology—from psychology (normal and abnormal)—from spiritism scientifically examined; Conclusions, and possibilities of further discovery; Supplement—related matters and objections, with opinions of eminent philosophers and scholars; Notes and a bibliography.
“An earnest and well-meaning intention will not atone for the lack of critical discrimination. The book is an unfortunate example of juggling with incommensurables.” Joseph Jastrow
“The work is, perhaps, unique in its comprehensive and succinct survey of the argument for personal survival after death.”
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
HEARN, LAFCADIO. Talks to writers. *$2 Dodd 814
These chapters are reprinted from the author’s “Interpretations of literature” and “Life and literature”—lectures delivered at the University of Tokyo. Hearn writes as a craftsman and looks upon literature as an emotional art, a moral art and one requiring unceasing discipline. He insists on clearness of vision, on exactness in the use of words and holds that literature must grow out of the vernacular. He advises translating as a literary practice and preliminary discipline. The book is edited with an introduction by John Erskine and is indexed. Contents: On the relation of life and character to literature; On composition; Studies of extraordinary prose; The value of the supernatural in fiction; The question of the highest art; Tolstoi’s theory of art; Note upon the abuse and the use of literary societies; On reading; Literature and public opinion; Farewell address.
“The content, not the style, is here of first importance; these lectures, as they stand, not only furnish light on an interesting side of Hearn’s personality, but represent adequately his point of view as it had been ripened by study and thought.” F. N. A.
“Addressed to alien students, they are necessarily often elementary in subject matter and always simple in style. Out of the latter necessity Hearn made a virtue and achieved a naive charm, so that, as writing, the lectures are, like everything else he wrote, beautiful.”
“No one who is beginning to write, or who is a student of composition, can afford to miss these lectures.” W. P. Eaton
“There is real suggestiveness and stimulation in these dissertations.”
“The first three chapters, which deal more directly with the workmanship of good writing and good books, contain more common sense on the subject than all the books on ‘how to become a writer in 30 lessons’ on the market.”
HEATLEY, DAVID PLAYFAIR. Diplomacy and the study of international relations. *$3.75 Oxford 327
“The purpose of this book, as stated by its author, is ‘to portray diplomacy and the conduct of foreign policy from the stand-point of history, to show how they have been analyzed and appraised by representative writers, and to indicate sources from which the knowledge thus acquired may be supplemented.’ The first third of the volume consists of an essay of a general character on Diplomacy and the conduct of foreign policy, written from a British point of view. The remaining two-thirds of the book consist of a general discussion of the literature of international relations.”—Am Hist R
“The bibliography on treaties, maps, and supplementary reading is rather scanty. It should be added that, whatever may be the estimate of this volume in other respects, its tone is scholarly and gives evidence of much painstaking in its preparation.” D: J. Hill
“A valuable and scholarly work.”
“This is a very valuable source book for students of international law. This is a book for the student, not for the general reader—a record of careful, conscientious scholarship, containing new material, but somewhat dry in style.” M. R. F. G.
“The arrangement of ‘Diplomacy and the study of international relations’ is so far from orderly that its usefulness is very much impaired, and one has even some doubt as to what the author really aimed at doing. Much of the matter thus put together is of great interest, but as the book stands at present, it is rather a note-book than a finished work.”
“A repertory of historical information that is not easily found elsewhere.”
HEATON, ELIZA OSBORN (PUTNAM) (MRS JOHN LANGDON HEATON). By-paths in Sicily. il *$3.50 Dutton 914.58
“The late Mrs Heaton was a clever New York journalist who for reasons of health had to spend seven years in Sicily. She devoted herself to the study of the Sicilian peasantry, their customs and their dialects. We are told that after the Messina earthquake this American lady was called in as an interpreter between Italian officers from the North and the peasants. Her book shows that she made many close friends among the poor and gained an unusual knowledge of their ways. Six of the chapters are given to descriptions of fairs and festivals.”—Spec
“The author was a gifted writer whose perceptions struck far below the surface and who could see her material in historical perspective as well as with rare human understanding.”
“A book which possesses both charm and real value. The high quality of the vivid and sympathetic realism with which the scenes and characters are described recalls the best regional writers of Italy.”
HEIDENSTAM, KARL GUSTAF VERNER VON. Birth of God. *$1.25 Four seas co. 839.7
This one act play, translated from the Swedish by Karoline M. Knudsen, is a symbolic presentation of the human soul’s eternal search after God. It is a moonlit scene in the street of the Sphinxes at Karnak, where a modern and an ancient man meet on the same quest with the old animal idols dancing about. The quest comes to an end when they both realize that it is in their faith in the unknown God and their search for him that they possess him and build him altars and sacrificial fires.
“The dialogue is not ineffective and von Heidenstam punctuates it adequately with stage effects. Yet its rather oratorical progress is not entirely convincing.” F. E. H.
Reviewed by Ludwig Lewisohn
Reviewed by O. W. Firkins
“‘The birth of God’ is possibly less direct than its predecessor, ‘The soothsayer.’ The movement is slow. Nor is the treatment as striking in originality.”
HEILNER, VAN CAMPEN, and STICK, FRANK. Call of the surf. il *$3 (4½c) Doubleday 799
This is the first book on surf fishing and its authors are enthusiasts for the sport. The purpose of the book is threefold: “to afford some small entertainment to brother fishermen on those long evenings when the north wind howls and winter’s sleet drives against the window pane; to attract the stranger to a sport in which the authors have found a vast measure of happiness, and to make somewhat smoother his trail to the Big-Sea Water.” (Authors’ note) The illustrations are from photographs and from paintings by Frank Stick. Contents: Surf fishing; In quest of the channel bass; Gold medal fish and others; Down Barnegat way; The tiger of the sea; With the tide runners of the inlets; On the offshore banks; The channel bass of Gray Gull Shoals; The smaller brethren; By western seas; Beach camping; Equipment.
“The delights of surf fishing are shown forth after the manner of an accomplished essayist, in the opening chapter. Others than fishermen will find much pleasure in reading this book.” E. J. C.
“It is written with a threefold purpose, which it triumphantly achieves. Both Mr Heilner and Mr Stick are surfmen whose enthusiasm for the sport about which they write is most contagious. They won one convert in the reviewer; he’s going a-fishing with them next spring ‘when the red gods call.’”
“With three good sports collaborating in this friendly fashion the book ought to be pretty good—and it is.”
HENDERSON, ARCHIBALD. Conquest of the old Southwest. il *$3 (5c) Century 976
It is “the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740–1790,” (Sub-title) now known as the old Southwest, that is told in this volume. The author points out two determinative principles in the progressive American civilization of the eighteenth century as: the passion for the acquisition of land; and wanderlust—the inquisitive instinct of the hunter, the traveler, and the explorer. They gave rise to a restless nomadic temperament which in its turn formed the sub-soil of a buoyant national character. What it did for democracy in the second half of the eighteenth century is the theme of the book. The contents in part are: The migration of the peoples; The cradle of westward expansion; The back country and the border; The Indian war; The land companies; Daniel Boone and wilderness exploration; The regulators; Transylvania—a wilderness commonwealth; The repulse of the red men; The lure of Spain—the haven of statehood; List of notes, bibliographical notes, index and illustrations.
“One expects from Mr Henderson a well-told story, and this volume realizes this expectation. The narrative will interest the scientific historian as well as the lay reader. It is evident that there are grave limitations to Mr Henderson’s interpretation of old Southwest history.” C. W. Alvord
“An interesting economic and social story to all who know the Mississippi valley settlements mainly as exploits of Boone and George Rogers Clark”
“This volume is a very condensed history, with a great number of witness-references showing the care with which Mr Henderson has done his work. He has added a valuable and convenient treatise concerning a somewhat overlooked section to the group of histories of the states, and to the history of the formation of the United States of America.” J. S. B.
“All in all, this is a book to be strongly recommended.” G. I. Colbron
“An important contribution to history.” C. L. Skinner
HENDRYX, JAMES BEARDSLEY. Gold girl. il *$1.75 (3c) Putnam
Following her father’s death, Patty Sinclair goes West to locate his claim. She has only his map with the directions she is too unskilled to read to guide her, but she follows his example in playing a lone hand and will not ask advice. She soon learns that her movements are watched and that in her absence her cabin is being searched. Suspicion might fall on two men and she picks the wrong one. Vil Holland knows that she distrusts him but that makes no difference in his attitude toward her. He knows too her opinion of the brown jug she has seen attached to his saddle, but out of perversity he continues to carry it. In the end the true villain is unmasked and the race for the registry office that follows her finding of the claim has a different meaning and a different outcome from the one she had anticipated.
“Bright and interesting story.”
“The book is colorful and well written.”
“We should like to believe that the book gives a picture of life anywhere or at any time, but somehow the author fails to convince us.”
“The plot of the story is one to intrigue the interest from the outset.”
HENRY, AUGUSTINE. Forests, woods and trees in relation to hygiene. (Chadwick library) il *$7.50 (*18s) Dutton 634.9
“The book is an amplification of the Chadwick lectures delivered by Prof. Henry at the Royal society of arts in 1917, and the author no doubt looks upon it in large measure as propaganda in the cause of tree-planting on a national scale. The first three chapters, however, deal with matters of profound scientific importance—the influence of forests on climate, the sanitary influence of forests, and forests as sites for sanatoria. The greater part of the volume is devoted to a question of national importance—the afforestation of water-catchment areas, with particulars of the extent to which the work has already proceeded.”—Nature
“Prof. Henry has read up the subject widely, but the nature of his book makes it impossible for him to focus the results sharply enough. He does, indeed, direct the attention of his readers to many recent investigations which it is most useful to have brought together, and for this guidance the student who wishes to go farther should be sincerely grateful.” H. R. Mill
HENRY, ROBERT MITCHELL. Evolution of Sinn Fein. *$2 (3c) Huebsch 941.5
The book is a complete survey of the historical struggle of the Irish for independence. The author asserts that at no time did the English government aim at anything less than the complete moral, material and political subjugation of Ireland—nor did the Irish at any time yield in their assertion of their national independence. How this spirit of independence finally culminated in the birth of the Sinn Fein movement and in the course of the war developed into open rebellion is the subject of the book. The introductory deals with Irish nationalism before the nineteenth century and the chapters following are: Irish nationalism in the nineteenth century; Sinn Fein; The early years of Sinn Fein; Sinn Fein and the republicans; The volunteer movement; Ulster and nationalist Ireland; Sinn Fein, 1914–1916; After the rising; Conclusion.
“It displays generally the gift of patient research into the details of the newest development of revolutionary Ireland, and in this respect supplies much information from the writings and ideals of the present leaders which must be of considerable value to future historians. From the historic point of view the weak point is that the case of England—politically and strategically—is hardly considered at all.” P. B.
“As a history of the party, it makes very good reading, but unfortunately the author is partisan, almost blindly so, and Sinn Fein is the only matter in Ireland that he finds for praise.”
HENRY, STUART. Villa Elsa. *$2 Dutton
“‘Villa Elsa’ is the actual, everyday family life of the middle-class German before the war—nothing glossed over, nothing exaggerated or fanciful. It is Mr Henry’s personal experience expressed in the form of a novel. The Bucher family lived in Loschwitz, a suburb of Dresden. Herr Bucher, the father, is a stolid, unwashed, collarless, healthy and obese German ‘Vater’; his wife, Frau Bucher, is coarse, red-faced, heavy-handed, snarling and shouting, at the top of her lungs, her fierce hatred of England. Elsa, the only daughter, has the usual tow hair, is stupidly healthy, reads Heine, tries to be sentimental, but is essentially matter of fact. Rudolph, the eldest son, is in secret a government spy, reporting upon their visitor, Gard Kirtley, from America. He is a spruce young engineer, militaristic, dissolute, despising all decent women, and continually hinting of Der Tag. Ernst, a pale boy of fifteen, studies eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, quotes falsified history, and particularly discredits all American institutions. Gard Kirtley believes he has fallen in love with Elsa, but her stolid indifference and phlegmatic stupidity finally overpower him.”—Bookm
“The chief merit of the book is that the reader is bound to feel its truth. There is no attempt at fine writing or that easy familiarity with aristocratic court life, so often affected by English novelists, which, while it adds a gloss to the story, never wears the features of actual experience.” J: S. Wood
“While the story is not uninteresting in itself, it loses both in vividness and in artistic value by being constantly kept subservient to the author’s determination to inform and to teach.”
“For English readers this book has probably come to birth too late by some six years. His picture is unconvincing too, because it is the outcome of a mood which, in this country at least, has exhausted itself.”
HENSLOW, GEORGE. Proofs of the truths of spiritualism. 2d ed, rev il *$2.50 Dodd 134
An inquiry into, and exposition of the nature of spiritualism, with its abundant material for evidence discussed and described in detail, such as automatic handwriting, apports, poltergeists, levitation, spirit lights, spirit clouds, “spirit-controlled” painting and drawing, psychographs, etc. Some of the chapter titles are as follows: Practical methods of substantiating the truths of spiritualism; Testing the spirits’ sight; Babies, children and adult spirits, reappearing as children; The gradual development of spirit photography; Psychographs across ordinary photographs of sitters; Materialisations. A religious atmosphere pervades the book. The text is supplemented by fifty-one illustrations, some of them reproductions of spirit-photographs.
“From a scientific point of view Professor Henslow’s book is utterly valueless, as it is evident from the opening of his first chapter that he himself is a spiritualist of the most pronounced type. But as an extraordinarily definite account of experiments and results with all the various phenomena of the reputable private seance room, the book is as marvelous as an Arabian nights’ story and much more satisfactory because such things actually happened.” C. H. O.
“His book, slovenly as it often is in statement, is another moment in the accumulating mass of evidence which can not be laughed or sneered or denounced away.”
HENSLOW, GEORGE. Religion of the spirit world; written by the spirits themselves. *$2 Dodd 134
The book is a compilation of famous communications from the spirit world for the purpose of proving their religious significance. The author’s object is to show that the life beyond is but a continuation of life on earth, that we reap what we have sown, that every character development here on earth counts beyond and that, in a certain sense, there is a judgment day awaiting us. The contents are in part: The necessary pre-acquired mental conditions for securing happiness in the next world; The laws of eternal life; The gospel of character, preached and practised in the next life; The acquisition of the Christ-like character and conduct is everything hereafter, and must be striven for on earth; The true spiritual meaning of “heaven” and “hell”; The fate of the suicide—a terrible warning; The nature of man, here and hereafter.
“He gives out matters of opinion constantly as matters of faith. If such a world as the contributors to this volume depict really existed, the fact ought to be concealed, in the interests of the preachers of immortality.” M. F. Egan
HENSON, HERBERT HENSLEY, bp. of Hereford, and others. Church of England; its nature and its future. *$1.75 Macmillan 283
“Those who arranged this series of lectures took care to secure a thoroughly representative group of English clergymen. Their live lectures taken together set out with considerable force the views of high, low, and broad churchmen, with two academic pronouncements from a couple of Oxford professors. The Rev. W. R. Matthews, dean of King’s college, London, where the lectures were delivered, in a short preface, states that their purpose was to bring together exponents of the different tendencies within the church and to secure from them full and frank statements of their views on the great problem which gives its title to the book.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
HERBERT, ALAN PATRICK. Bomber gipsy, and other poems. *$1.50 Knopf 821
With a few exceptions these poems are reprinted from Punch. They are spirited and humorous pictures of life at the front. Besides the title poem some of the pieces are: Ballade of incipient lunacy; The rest-rumour; At the dump; The atrocity; The ballad of Jones’s Blighty; The trench code; The mischief-makers; The deserters; Free meals; The cookers: a song of the transport; A song of plenty.
“Because he has a sense of humor, a great deal of common sense and the good sense to make what is merely good verse and in no way pretends to be serious poetry, Mr Herbert has given us a very likable book about the Tommy.” Marguerite Williams
HERBERT, ALAN PATRICK. Secret battle. *$2 (4c) Knopf
He was a sensitive, romantic and imaginative lad, lacking confidence in himself but pathetically eager and conscientious about doing the right thing, not to make a mess of it, to measure up and more than measure up to what was required of him. He always exacted a bit more of himself than could reasonably be expected. He distinguished himself at Gallipoli in the most trying part of the war until he was carried down to the ship in a high fever. Later in France, his record was the same, always doing the over and above his power of endurance that was bound in the end to undermine his power of existence. When the strain had become too great and petty jealousies of fellow officers and the bullying arrogance of the commander had done their deadly work, the fatal move was made and one of the bravest men the war knew was shot for cowardice.
“Mr Herbert’s is one of the most interesting and moving English war books.”
“The story is told with a quiet restraint, with no attempt to pile up horrors, but with a relentless insistence on the central tragedy. Very fine work with a limited appeal.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“It is simply and vividly told. It reads not like fiction but like fact, which perhaps it is.”
“He evidently and perhaps rightly considered that to draw any ultimate consequences from his story in the world of conduct would have diminished its inherent force. That force is very great.”
“Very simply, very quietly and naturally, the author builds up the structure of events, some of them apparently trivial at the time, but destined later to become of dreadful portent, which at the last crushes and breaks Harry’s nerve. The logic of it all is unassailable and perfectly convincing.”
“Vivid, convincing, written in a style at once strong and flexible and revealing an unusual gift for character portrayal. ‘The secret battle’ is one of the few really big novels of the world war.”
“Being the work of a cultivated Englishman, it has the restraint of the famous public-school tradition. It wishes to betray too little rather than too much feeling. Its manner is tense with sympathy, but its matter approaches dryness.” H. W. Boynton
“The indictment against the verdict is stated quietly and without passion. The issue it raises is of interest to all ex-service men; how far must the army treat men as things, how far can and should it treat them as persons?”
“Needless to say, it is a painful book. Comfortable people who do not like their feelings harrowed will no more find it to their taste than they found ‘Justice’ or ‘Jude the obscure’, to their taste. To the former, indeed, the last part of ‘The secret battle’ offers a striking parallel. Not in detail, for it is pitched in a quieter key, and its author expressly states that he is not attempting to indict a system.”
HERGESHEIMER, JOSEPH. San Cristóbal de la Habana. *$3 (4c) Knopf 917.29
In a passively receptive mood the author went to Havana and drifted thru his days taking in impressions of the city, of the people, of the social atmosphere, of its all-pervading romance. “There was never a more complex spirit than Havana’s, no stranger mingling of chance and climate and race had ever occurred; but, remarkably, a unity of effect had been the result, such a singleness as that possessed by an opera.... It was its special charm to be charged with sensations rather than facts; a place where facts ... could be safely ignored.”
“Mr Hergesheimer, translating the spell of Havana into words of great imagery and color, has visualized its wonderful charm.”
“Half the time we see the city through his meticulously observant eyes, and the other half he plays Boswell to his own personality and ideas. The result is an engaging series of vignettes, a most understanding interpretation, and a remarkably honest human document.” J. S. N.
“A production at once original and excellent. Mr Hergesheimer possesses to an extraordinary degree the power of subjectifying the objective, which is another way of saying that he can make external realities his very own. In consequence of this happy ability his book is about one-tenth Havana and nine-tenths Hergesheimer.”
“Not the least interesting of Mr Hergesheimer’s remarks refer to the creation of literature, his own and others.’”
HERRICK, CHEESMAN ABIAH. Outstanding days. *$1.25 Am. S. S. union 394
A book of selections for readings and recitations for day school and Sunday school. Each section is prefaced by a discussion of the origin and meaning of the special day under consideration. “A collection of nearly a hundred literary selections is presented in connection with the several studies. Some of these are old favorites which can never be out of date. Others are relatively recent, furnishing an expression of the thought and feeling of the present on the subjects discussed.” Contents: Place of special days; New Year’s day; Lincoln’s birthday; Washington’s birthday; Good Friday; Easter Sunday; Mother’s day; Memorial day; Children’s day; Flag day; Commencement day; Independence day; Labor day; Beginning school; Thanksgiving day; Christmas day.
HERRICK, GLENN WASHINGTON. Insects of economic importance. *$2 Macmillan 632.7
These “outlines of lectures in economic entomology” are a revised edition of a previous volume. Space considerations prevent the inclusion of all insects of economic importance. “However, the principal pests of our important fruits, vegetables, cereals, farm animals, shade trees, and of the household are discussed. A brief summary of the life habits of each, so far as they are known, is made, and the latest methods of control are outlined. In addition, a concise discussion of insecticides is given together with formulæ and directions for making and applying them.” (Preface) The first twelve chapters are: Losses caused by insects; Useful insects; Entomological literature; Natural methods of insect control; Artificial methods of insect control; Poison insecticides; Poison baits; Contact insecticides; Fumigating substances; Miscellaneous means of insect control; Dusting; Quarantine and insecticide laws. The remainder of the book is devoted to the special insect pests and their victims and an index.
HERRINGHAM, SIR WILMOT PARKER. Physician in France. (Liverpool diocesan board of divinity publications) *$5 (*15s) Longmans 940.475
“Preliminary to this narrative the author discusses the surprise of the English at the sudden outbreak of the war. After this preliminary discussion he, in his fifth chapter, begins his personal narrative and relates the early operations of the medical corps in England at the beginning of the war, showing us how the thing was done and the sanitary precautions that were made against sickness among the forces. Continuing, he tells of the organization and work of the Field ambulance corps; of the clearing stations; of the work of transporting the wounded and of the base hospitals and nurses. He then discusses some phases of medical work, especially the management of cases of enteric and other fevers, and of shell shock. He talks of the advance of medicine in the war, of the operations on the plains of Flanders: of the medical headquarters at Hesdin. Diverging, the author, drawing from his experiences abroad, tells of education and the religious question in France and of some interesting contrasts between French and English people, in domestic manners and management and in human characteristics.”—Boston Transcript
“The reasons for his popularity will be apparent to anyone who reads his book, for it exhibits in an attractive form the qualities of his mind and general outlook.”
“It is written in ordinary, straightforward language, free from those amateur attempts at the literary manner which make most books written by doctors so tedious. Much of the book is political, and this, except as throwing light on the character of the author, is the least important part. The most entertaining part of the book consists in the record of the author’s observations of French life and its contrasts with our own.” H. R.
“Entertaining and instructive. The purely medical chapters of the book have their value as a lucid exposition calculated to enlighten the layman and to enlist his sympathy.”
“In the opening chapters, devoted to a consideration of the causes which led up to the outbreak of the great war, the author exhibits a fine patriotism tempered by broad-mindedness. The book will enhance the author’s reputation, and prove most welcome reading after the publication of so many self-centred memoirs.”
“Unfortunately, the opening chapters are platitudinous and have nothing to do with the author’s real theme; but the book improves as he gets into his stride, and is best of all in the later chapters, devoted to the differences between the customs and viewpoints of the French and ourselves, which are handled at once frankly and with comprehension and discretion.”
HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY. Light heart. *$2 (5c) Holt
This tale is a story of men’s friendships. Thormod, of the light heart, is a poet who easily wins the love of women, but his real devotion is given to men, first to his friend Thorgar, whose death he avenges, then to King Olaf. In his preface the author says, “Of this heroic, naked story, three fragments survive in ‘Origines Islandicæ,’ that learned repository; but to compound one plain tale of them it has been necessary to go for the catastrophe to the Saga of King Olaf. As a result of my hunting and piecing I am able to give an orderly account of the life of a young man which, I think, justifies the title I have given it.”
“While ‘The light heart’ is far less interesting and far less stirring than either ‘Gudrid the fair’ or ‘The outlaw,’ it has one truly splendid moment—that in which Thormod swears his allegiance for life and death to King Olaf.”
“I confess that for me the starkness, the frugality, the astringency of this tale render it a tougher morsel than some of the Norse fables Mr Hewlett has previously wrought from similar materials. For his sources he shows a reverence almost excessive.” H. W. Boynton
“The story is good and unusual. But above all we would commend Mr Hewlett’s short introduction on the nature of the Sagas.”
“The story has retained the legendary atmosphere of the twelfth century Iceland and Norway. The book is written with Hewlett’s usual romantic touch. It is interesting mainly on account of the unusual setting and the strangeness of the characters treated. The author sacrifices plot to faithfulness to his sources.”
“Colloquial and prosaic though the telling is—prosaic even in describing dreams and visions—there shines through it a spirit which is high and beautiful.”
HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY. Mainwaring. *$2 (4c) Dodd
The story portrays two extremely opposed types, a man and a woman. Mainwaring is a genius of a sort, grasping everything to himself, ambitious, a demagogue, reckless and unmoral. From obscurity he rises to political power and is only stayed from achieving the highest rung by disease and death. He burns himself out prematurely. While still quite young and out of his mastering passion of grasping everything he wants, he forces a beautiful young working girl to marry him. Lizzy in her selflessness, her poise and sincerity, her obedience to duty, is his opposite. She endures starvation with him but when he asks her to follow him into high life she refuses. She has seen through it at a glance and hates it, and prefers the duties of a housemaid to those of hostess at his banquets. He subjects her to every indignity but willingly accepts her services as a nurse during his last days.
“Mainwaring stands before a dull gray background, which is rather bad for the story, but serves the purpose of the novelist in making Mainwaring a crimson figure against this same gray. As usual, Mr Hewlett is fascinatingly facile with his pen, but this same smooth style cannot wholly atone for a very flimsy plot and a succession of avowed characters that are of no more use than a Greek chorus.”
“Lizzy is a human being, strongly conventional in her sense of duty, yet as freshly natural in emotional values as Eve strayed from the garden. On the whole, however, ‘Mainwaring’ is a disappointment as a novel. The author too apparently is doing over again with unconvincing dexterity things once well accomplished in ‘Rest Harrow’.”
“The sharp contrasts between these well-drawn figures, whose souls are silhouetted by the tragic circumstances in which the author places them, afforded Mr Hewlett equal opportunity to display his powers of creating and analyzing character. The artistry and dignity of the story he has written around them make ‘Mainwaring’ a worthy addition to the novels bearing his name.”
“The political part of the story is not excessively interesting, although it has capital pen sketches of Disraeli and Gladstone under slight disguises. Like all Mr Hewlett’s writing, the literary execution of the book is admirable in its finish and quiet effectiveness.”
“A brilliant study in its kind; but some of us will feel as we have often felt with Mr Hewlett, that the childlike creature woman rather than the childish creature man gives the story its charm. Mainwaring’s Lizzy is a girl to be remembered.” H. W. Boynton
“The two characters are analyzed in vigorous fashion and will stand as examples of Mr Hewlett’s most finished work.”
HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY. Outlaw. *$1.75 (3½c) Dodd
This is the fifth of Maurice Hewlett’s saga tales retold. It is the story of Gisli and of Grayflanks, the sword on which a curse was laid when it was turned against its owner. Young Gisli is a craftsman and man of peace, who nevertheless is fated to be the slayer of men, to flee from Norway to Iceland, to become an outlaw, and to die fighting with his back against the wall, his wife, Aud, beside him.
“We cannot help wishing that he had been a great deal more lenient with himself. For the tale, as it stands, is so exceedingly plain, and the fights, murders, escapes and pursuits described upon so even a breath, that it is hard to believe the great, more than life-size dolls minded whether they were hit over the head or not. There is no doubt that the very large number of words of one syllable help to keep the tone low. They have a curious effect upon the reader. He finds himself, as it were, reading aloud, spelling out the tale.” K. M.
“None of his stories out of the Icelandic sagas is as spirited as ‘The outlaw.’ The vein of romance discovered in them by Mr Hewlett seems to be inexhaustible.” E. F. E
“‘The outlaw’ is a noble tale fully and in the main nobly told.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“A grim tale, full of strong passions and desperate fighting, is this of ‘The outlaw.’”
“Needless to say, it is masterly in its art and vividness; yet many of the author’s admirers would welcome his return to that type of writing that gave us ‘Half-way house’ and ‘Richard yea-and-nay.’”
“Mr Hewlett tells a tense dramatic story, reveals studious research of ancient lore and a singular gift for vitalizing the remote scenes of a vanished civilization. This is no mere approximation of what the Vikings were and what they did. It is a lifelike recreation.”
“In reproducing the old story Mr Hewlett mediates with his usual skill between the Scylla of excessive modernity and the Charybdis of an obsolete idiom. It is, however, questionable whether he might not without harm have ventured even closer to Scylla.”
HEYDRICK, BENJAMIN ALEXANDER, ed. Americans all; stories of American life of today. *$1.50 (1½c) Harcourt
The editor of this volume of short stories states in his preface that he believes that the short story is the form which can best stand as the adequate expression in fiction of American life. He says “If it were possible to bring together in a single volume a group of these, each one reflecting faithfully one facet of our many-sided life, would not such a book be a truer picture of America than any single novel could present? The present volume is an attempt to do this.” Contents: The right Promethean fire, by George Madden Martin; The land of heart’s desire, by Myra Kelly; The tenor, by H. C. Bunner; The passing of Priscilla Winthrop, by William Allen White; The gift of the Magi, by O. Henry; The gold brick, by Brand Whitlock; His mother’s son, by Edna Ferber; Bitter-sweet, by Fannie Hurst; The riverman, by Stewart Edward White; Flint and fire, by Dorothy Canfield; The ordeal at Mt Hope, by Paul Laurence Dunbar; Israel Drake, by Katherine Mayo; The struggles and triumph of Isidro de los Maestros, by James M. Hopper; The citizen, by James F. Dwyer. There is a sketch of the author following each story, and at the end a List of American short stories classified by locality, and Notes and questions for study.
“An interesting group of stories.”
“Only two stories in the volume, Myra Kelly’s ‘Just kids’ and William Allen White’s ‘Society in our town,’ have grown instead of being made after a model.”
“Literary merit aside, however, the authors all have a place in a book which seeks not to present the best short stories but rather different phases of American life. ‘American life of today,’ however, is a misnomer. In their steadfast sometimes sentimental idealism, in their passionate belief in democracy, the stories are obviously and pathetically stories of life before the war.” Marian O’Connor
“An unusually excellent anthology of American short tales.”
“Considered merely as a vehicle of recreational reading ‘Americans all’ answers its purpose well; for the one who desires to combine recreation with study of the successful short story the text is well selected.”
HIBBEN, PAXTON. Constantine I and the Greek people. il *$3.50 (3½c) Century 949.5
The book was written in the spring of 1917 after the author had been in Greece, Macedonia and Serbia and constitutes another postwar revelation. It is stated that “during the war and after our entry into it as an ally of France and Great Britain, without our knowledge and consent the constitution of a little, but a brave and fine people was nullified by the joint action of two of our allies: the neutrality of a small country was violated, the will of its people set at naught, its laws broken, its citizens persecuted, its press muzzled. By force a government was imposed on this free people, and by force that government has been and is today maintained in absolute power.” (Foreword) The contents is in three parts: Intrigue; Coercion; Starvation; and there are an epilogue and appendices.
“Interesting to read as a sequel to Mrs Brown’s ‘In the heart of German intrigue.’”
“This fascinating story of political and military intrigue makes poor reading for those who blindly felt the Allies did no wrong. It constitutes a bitter arraignment of Venizelos.”
“The book, as a whole, is well done. It is written in a clear, readable style, is carefully documented, and is unusually free from errors. Particularly good are the analysis of diplomatic situations, the different attitudes of parties and foreign powers being excellently portrayed. The book’s only noticeable defects arise from the reflexes of the author’s own temperament. Obviously a man of strong feelings, Mr Hibben seems occasionally to be slightly carried away by them.” Lothrop Stoddard
“Mr Hibben’s book has the defect, on the surface, of being too much of an apologia.... Mr Hibben has given us one of the torches; it does not always burn clearly; he waves it in the air too violently at times: but it is a torch, and its light may help to show how little we understand the temperament and the good qualities of the Grecian people.” M. F. Egan
“The writer of this book had a full opportunity to study the Balkan situation and above all the Greek question. Unfortunately, all this unusual opportunity has been wasted on a book so full of inaccuracies that it is difficult to determine whether it is the mere result of journalistic carelessness or a calculated attempt to palliate truth.” A. E. Phoutrides
“The story is told with great skill and lucidity, and the volume is one of the most readable that has come out of any of the so-called side-shows of the war.”
HICHENS, ROBERT SMYTHE. Snake-bite, and other stories. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
“‘Snake-bite’ is a collection of six stories, three in the approved Robert Hichens style, one an excellent little mystery, one a story of a faith healer, and one a dainty little war-time sketch. You have your choice of the familiar East or the unfamiliar West, with or without a touch of colour.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) The titles are: Snake-bite; The lost faith; The Hindu; The lighted candles; The nomad; The two fears.
“As a teller of short stories, Mr Hichens reveals in this collection another phase of his skill. In each he shows his mastery of place and people, and his command of the illusory effects of atmosphere.” E. F. E.
“In the matter of atmosphere and sustained mood, comparable with his best work.”
“Of the six short stories two are dominated by the desert, while one might almost be called a plain ghost story, and these three are so markedly superior to the others that they are quite in a different class.”
“We doubt if Mr Hichens has ever done better work than in ‘The snake bite’; the African color and atmosphere are admirably rendered.”
“These stories are well told, with a brisk, practised pen. The dialogue is interesting, and the touches of light and shade well done.”
HICKS BEACH, SUSAN EMILY (CHRISTIAN) (MRS WILLIAM FREDERICK HICKS BEACH). Shuttered doors. *$1.75 (2½c) Lane
A story that covers several generations in the life of an English family. The figure of outstanding interest is Aletta Hulse, who is strongly influenced by association in childhood with her aunt, Ann Duller of Duller Place. Aletta inherits a fortune from an old Boer uncle, marries and brings up a family of three children, who in their turn marry. Interest in the latter part of the story centers in Andrew, one of the grandsons, to whom his grandmother bequeaths Duller Place. Andrew is killed in the war leaving an infant daughter to carry on the family tradition.
“‘Shuttered doors’ presents one of those pictures of English life before which Americans can only stand and wonder. Perfection of detail in living has not yet been attained by us to such a degree that an entire novel can be built about it with little attention paid to plot, and not even much to characterization.”
“This long, slow story of ‘upper middle-class’ life in England never rises above the deadly commonplace. Andy Duller is the most human character in the novel.”
“Most people will not have very much sympathy with Aletta Hulse, later Aletta Picard, but at any rate her character is consistent to the smallest detail, and the author succeeds in creating a living figure.”
HICKS, FREDERICK CHARLES. New world order. *$3 Doubleday 341
The book is the outcome of a course of lectures on International organization and cooperation, delivered at the summer session of 1919, in the department of public law, Columbia university. “The general purpose was to examine the League covenant analytically in its relation to (1) international organization, (2) international law, and (3) international cooperation, using the comparative method whenever precedents could be found.” (Preface) The author’s personal conviction is “that the League of nations should be supported not merely because it provides means for putting war a few steps farther in the background, but because it emphasizes the necessity for cooperation between sovereign states.” (Preface) In strict accordance with the general purpose the contents are in three parts and the appendices contain, besides a complete draft of the treaty of peace with Germany: The Triple alliance; Russo-French alliance; The Holy alliance act; Central American treaties, December 20, 1907; Hague conventions and drafts, 1907; Treaty for the advancement of peace between the United States of America and Guatemala, September 20, 1913; Bibliography and index.
“A useful reference manual.”
“For college classes studying the legal aspects of international organization Mr Hicks’s book will doubtless be very useful. The pedagogical apparatus and Mr Hick’s treatment of the problems he discusses are unexceptionable. ‘The new world order’ is an excessively pretentious title for a volume dealing with the League of nations. Such a utopian nomenclature would have prejudiced the case for international organization even if idealism has been triumphant; under existing circumstances it is little short of absurd.” Lindsay Rogers
“From the legal and historical points of view, an important exposition of the Versailles treaty has been gathered, coordinated, and written by Columbia’s law librarian.” Walter Littlefield
“The scope of Mr Hicks’s plan is so impressive and his workmanship is so excellent that it is greatly to be hoped that his volume will not be allowed to fall into oblivion, whatever the outcome of the struggle over the League in this country.” E: S. Corwin
HILL, CONSTANCE. Mary Russell Mitford and her surroundings. il *$6 (*21s) (7c) Lane
“The name of Mary Russell Mitford—the author of ‘Our village’—is dear to thousands of readers, both English and American, for she has enabled them to see nature with her eyes and to enter into the very spirit of rural life.” (Chapter 1) She was born December 16, 1787, and was a versatile writer not only of stories, but of poems and successful dramas, performed in London with John Kemble and Macready in the leading parts. Many quotations and extracts from her writings acquaint the reader with her style. The book is illustrated with drawings by Ellen G. Hill and has an index.
“Speaking truthfully, ‘Mary Russell Mitford and her surroundings’ is not a good book. It neither enlarges the mind nor purifies the heart. There is nothing in it about prime ministers and not very much about Miss Mitford. Yet, as one is setting out to speak the truth, one must own that there are certain books which can be read without the mind and without the heart, but still with considerable enjoyment. To come to the point, the great merit of these scrapbooks, for they can scarcely be called biographies, is that they license mendacity.” V. W.
“Miss Hill has compiled an entertaining volume of literary personalia, and its attractiveness is increased by numerous drawings from her sister’s pencil.” E. F. E.
“As an introduction to Miss Mitford’s work and personality Miss Hill’s book is an admirable achievement. It presents the women perfectly and brings before the reader again the age wherein she lived.” H. S. Gorman
“Our feeling on laying it down is that we had better have spent our time in reading Miss Mitford’s own account of herself in ‘Recollections of a literary life.’ Nevertheless, the book is a nice book, a very nice book (if it is largely paste and scissors).”
HILL, DAVID JAYNE. American world policies. *3.50 (7c) Doran 341.1
As the author points out in his preface, the idea of a league of nations is so generally acceptable that many persons overlook the fact that the covenant prepared at Paris is not a “general association of nations,” but rather “a limited defensive alliance for the protection of existing possessions, regardless of the manner in which they were acquired.” The purpose of this book is to show that the proposed league “not only repudiates the ideas underlying our traditional foreign policy as a nation but presents a contradiction of the fundamental principles upon which our government is based.” The book is composed of eight chapters and as many documents. The chapters, which are reprinted from the North American Review are: Disillusionment regarding the League; The un-American character of the League; The president’s hostility to the Senate; The struggle of the Senate for its prerogatives; The eclipse of peace through the League; The covenant or the constitution? The nations and the law; The solemn referendum; and Epilogue. Among the documents are President Wilson’s “points”; The covenant of the League of nations; The Senate’s reservations of November 19, 1919, and of March 19, 1920. The book is indexed.
“Dr Hill’s argument is presented with all the skill of an experienced political writer but the impression is conveyed that he is putting a microscope upon the covenant of the League and is looking for trouble in every line, without offering anything more constructive than the old order in return.”
“His negative part is well done and thoroughly worth consideration. His discussion, while at times heated and failing in logic, is thoughtful and provokes thought.” C. R. Fish
“It is the familiar Republican argument, but it is stated with a force, clearness, and plausibility which do not always characterize that argument. In short, if Senator Lodge could talk as clearly and convincingly as Dr Hill writes, this would make an ideal speech by him.”
“To say that the book is clarifying, enlightening, high-minded, and therefore of a value far transcending that of most political discussions, is only to make a legitimate critical pronouncement.”
“We do not know of any book so valuable as this for the information of editors, legislators, or other students of the league problem who wish to get in clear and authoritative form the objections to the Wilson or Paris league.”
“The termination of the campaign against the League of nations as proposed will take from Dr Hill’s book much of its current value; yet when the history of the struggle over the Wilson league comes to be written, the discerning historian will accord to Dr Hill’s labors an important place among the efforts of those who fought to assert the belief that American independence and true internationalism are not incompatible things.” E: S. Corwin
HILL, FREDERICK TREVOR. High school farces. *$1 Stokes 812
A foreword says: “The scarcity of short farces, suitable for junior amateurs seems to justify the publication of this little volume.... The three simple little farces included herein were written for a boys’ club and a boy scout troop.... As they require very little study and a minimum of ‘properties and effects,’ it is thought they may prove useful to those in search of such material.” The first play, “Dinner’s served,” represents a southern scene near a camp during the Spanish American war and introduces two negro characters. The second, “A heathen Chinee,” is set in California, with cowboys, miners and a Chinese cook among the characters. The third, “A knotty problem,” is a boy scout play.
“It is with deep regret that one lays down this book from the pen of the gifted writer of those fine stories, ‘On the trail of Washington’ and ‘On the trail of Grant and Lee,’ for something better had been anticipated.”
HILL, FREDERICK TREVOR. Tales out of court. *$1.60 (3c) Stokes
The book is a collection of lawyers’ stories of legal cases and court-room scenes and of unusual incidents and characters. The stories are: Exhibit No. 2; The shield of privilege; The woman in the case; Two fishers of men; The unearned increment; The judgment of his peers; Of disposing memory; Submitted on the facts; The personal equation; In the presence of the enemy; A debt of honor; The weapons of a gentleman; Pewee—gladiator; Peregrine Pickle; Charity suffereth long; War.
“His touch is sure, his pen facile, his plots unusual and fascinating.”
“The plots are so cleverly manipulated that the reader is sure to get a number of surprises, about at the denouement of each story.”
HILL, HIBBERT WINSLOW.[2] Sanitation for public health nurses. *$1.35 Macmillan 614
“The development of public health nursing in the United States has naturally created a demand for books on the subject. The book written by Dr Hill endeavors to give in a brief and concise manner the elements of sanitation and public health, with which a nurse must be acquainted in her work.” (Survey F 14 ’20) “It is devoted chiefly to the problems of isolation and immunology and touches but lightly upon such great modern movements as the infant welfare campaign and the campaign for better nutrition among school children.” (Survey S 15 ’20)
“A survey of hygiene and immediately related medical procedures which can be heartily recommended.”
“Too much space seems to be given to infectious diseases of which the nurse must necessarily learn from a study of other sources, while too little space is devoted to the important questions of food, water, milk, etc., and no space at all to dietetics.” G: M. Price
“His chapters on the general course of an infectious disease, on the diagnosis and etiology of the commoner specific communicable diseases, on immunity and on epidemiology are sound in substance and brilliant in form.” C. E. A. Winslow
HILL, JAMES LANGDON. Worst boys in town, and other addresses to young men and women, boys and girls. $2.50 (2½c) Stratford co. 252
A collection of addresses, given in all parts of the United States, on righteous moral living for young people, each address based on an appropriate scriptural text. Partial list of contents: The clean sporting spirit; The morals of money; The stick girls of Venice; The sound and robust have no monopoly; Becoming a lady; A difference in cradles; Doing the handsome thing; Modern methods of Christian nurture. Dr Hill is author also of “Favorites of history”; “Memory comforting sorrow”; “The scholar’s larger life,” etc.
HILL, JOHN ARTHUR. Psychical miscellanea. *$1.35 (3c) Harcourt 130
“Being papers on psychical research, telepathy, hypnotism, Christian science, etc.” (Subtitle) They are a collection of articles, each dealing with some aspect of psychical research, which have appeared in various periodicals. As a psychical investigator his treatment of every subject is sympathetic even where he suspends judgment. This is the case in his attitude towards Christian science to which he is not an adherent, but towards which he keeps “an open mind” for, he says, “I do believe that the power of the mind over the body is so great that almost anything is possible; and I think that the medical advance of the next half-century will be chiefly in this hitherto neglected direction.” Contents: Death; If a man die, shall he live again? Psychical research—its method, evidence, and tendency; The evolution of a psychical researcher; Do miracles happen? The truth about telepathy; The truth about hypnotism; Christian Science; Joan of Arc; Is the earth alive? Religious belief after the war.
“Interesting, but not a representative work to be required by most small or medium sized libraries, although coming from an authoritative source.”
“Mr Hill knows the temper of science and presents a brief which the advocate of the opposite view can respect, while he is convinced that it is penetrated with fallacy and shot through and through with an unwarranted personalism.” Joseph Jastrow
“The papers are all of a popular quality, skimming lightly and gracefully over the surface of their subjects and carrying what frequently passes as a literary atmosphere derived from numerous quotations of both prose and verse.”
HILL, JOHN WESLEY. Abraham Lincoln, man of God. *$3.50 Putnam
The object of the book is not to be a biography of Lincoln, but to reveal his deeply religious soul. “A candid examination of the evidence will show that the religious element in Lincoln’s life was its dominant factor; that his character as a politician and as a statesman was determined by his character as a Christian; and that he drew from the story of the ‘Man of sorrows’ the conclusion that God rules the world in a personal way.” (Preface) The book contains a tribute by Lloyd George, a foreword by Leonard Wood and an introduction by Warren G. Harding. There are appendices, a bibliography and an index.
“If the book had been written solely to prove that Lincoln was an orthodox Christian it would not have been worth the writing or the reading, and the few chapters that Dr Hill devotes to that unprofitable subject are the least worthwhile in the whole work. But the bulk of Dr Hill’s book is of much value.”
“Abraham Lincoln has been written about in so many books that the average American would know Lincoln if he met him on the street. Dr Hill in this book has gone a step further and has given an insight into his real character which is worth while. The chapter on ‘The education of a president’ is of especial interest to Americans today. ‘A Christian view of labor’ also is timely.” J: E: Oster
HILL, OWEN ALOYSIUS.[2] Ethics, general and special. *$3.50 Macmillan 170
“From the point of view of Catholic doctrine the author of this work discusses what’s wrong with man and the world as they are determined by modern philosophy and ethics. ‘The whole trouble with modern philosophy,’ he says, ‘is rank subjectivism, and subjectivism is, perhaps, most destructive in the domain of ethics.’” The first half of the work dealing with ‘General ethics,’ discusses the general nature of humanity in its attitude towards morality and in relation to final destiny; the second half discusses ‘Special ethics’ as applied to individual responsibility consequent upon his belief in an acceptance of religious duties.”—Boston Transcript
“The question of Woman suffrage might have been treated more sympathetically and Dr Bouquillon’s treatise on the school question discussed more fairly.”
“The style is bright and easy and the English is clear and vigorous. The spirit of Catholicity of course, pervades the whole book. It is the teaching of such men as St Augustine, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Liguori crystallized in twentieth century English.” C: A. Dougherty
“The whole book is well written, fresh and lucid, and in its way thoroughly scholarly, but its main appeal must be to Catholics.”
“The book affords interesting light on the workings of a trained, devout mind. There are Roman Catholic writers on social problems whose views offer in the main much more salutary guidance than Father Hill’s.” H: Neumann
HILLIS, NEWELL DWIGHT. Rebuilding Europe in the face of world-wide bolshevism. *$1.50 (3c) Revell 940.314
The author calls his book “a study of repopulation.” His motives are hatred for Germany and fear of bolshevism. Contents: Germany: her human losses and the reflex influence of the war upon her people; France: the rebuilding of her people; Great Britain: her losses upon land and sea, and her new position among the nations of the earth; Russia, and the fruits of bolshevism; Rebuilding the little nations of the East; The crime of Bolshevists in alienating Americans from America; The United States; and reasons why our citizens should love their country; Notes, and references to authorities.
“Making all allowance for rhetorical effect, and discounting errors due to haste and careless work, the fact remains that America needs several persons of this type to serve as prophets of the greatness of this country and the sanity and sanctity of its fundamental principles.”
HILLYER, ROBERT SILLIMAN. Five books of youth. *$1.50 Brentano’s 811
“Mr Hillyer’s five books are headed, A miscellany, Days and seasons, Eros, The garden of Epicurus, and Sonnets. The range is remarkable, from the brilliant alliterative imagery of Esther dancing and the glowing medieval quaintness of Hunters to crisp snatches of epigram and passionate love sonnets. Some of the best work is descriptive of French scenes.”—Springf’d Republican
“His imagination is foot-feathered, and lifts his utterances, perhaps with more dignity than swiftness, on oracular journeys. It is an imagination that is singularly passionate about the business of beauty; a messenger that carries on an intercourse between the earth of man’s experience and the gods of his dreams.”
“Mr Hillyer has written a beautiful poem that is streaked with a golden message. Upon it is the dewy freshness of youth’s passion for the ideal, sparkling with the fire and energy of an inspired visionary.” W: S. Braithwaite
“In this, his second book, there is fine performance and no little promise of greater things. He stands, as craftsman, upon the ancient ways, and reminds one at times of the cool lucidity of Matthew Arnold (and, at times, of the jeweled intensity of Rossetti). He is especially successful in the sonnet.”
“‘The five books of youth’ is marked by a beauty of phraseology and an authentic valuing of poetic qualities that give it a distinct place among the books of the season.”
“Mr Hillyer has skill and conscience, is metrist, artist, atmospherist, and the thoughtful, or at least pensive, melancholy of his lyrics rises on occasion to undoubted charm.” O. W. Firkins
“There is poetry of great promise as well as actual achievement in ‘The five books of youth.’ Mr Hillyer writes with fluency of phrase and cadence and with dignity; he has technical mastery of verse forms and an adequate vocabulary to express his rich sensuous perception.”
HINDUS, MAURICE GERSCHON. Russian peasant and the revolution. *$2 (2c) Holt 914.7
In order fully to understand the Russian revolution and its ultimate destiny, says the author, we must understand the Russian peasant who constitutes by far the most important element, and the mightiest force in Russian life. He maintains that the current opinions of him are utterly and thoroughly false. Although ignorant and oppressed by centuries of despotism, he is highly intelligent and has a will and a goal of his own, which has played a part in the revolutionary movement and is destined to play a part in the future of Russia. Contents: The peasant at home; Under serfdom; Education in the Russian village; The legal and social position of the peasant; The peasant as a farmer; Taxation; Home-industries and wage-labor; The other alternatives; The ideology of the peasant (1) political, (2) social; Battling for land; The cadets and the peasants; The social-revolutionaries and the peasant; The bolsheviki and the peasant; The gist of the peasant problem; The co-operative movement and the peasant; Bolshevism, the American democracy and the peasant; Bibliography.
“The best chapters are the first eight, which depict the economic and the social life of the peasants.” M. Rostovtsev
“Considering the general demand for information, it must be said that, excellently and sympathetically written as it is, Mr Hindus’s book, ‘The Russian peasant and the revolution,’ is a failure. It is a failure because it contains hardly a word that helps us to understand what is now going on in Russia.” M. L. L.
“We need this book to get the full significance of the numerous and contradictory reports about Russia that are published in our daily press. For only when we know what the status of the Russian people was before the war can we judge whether conditions in Russia are improved or made worse by the Soviet government. Another signal service that Mr Hindus has performed is the dissipation of the illusions about the soul or the character of the Russian peasant.” J. J. S.
“Such bias as he has is valuable, being the result of his own peasant origin and early associations. There are lucid and concrete chapters, without sentimentality, as remote as possible from the moonshine with which Stephen Graham for some years saturated English readers.” Jacob Zeitlin
“The reviewer has not been able to detect a trace of propaganda in it, and can find nobody but the observer and historian. Not that Mr Hindus is colorless. Without becoming a mere annalist, it is hard to see how a writer could be fairer or more impartial.”
HINE, REGINALD L.[2] Cream of curiosity: being an account of certain historical and literary manuscripts of the XVIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. il *$6 Dutton 040
“‘The cream of curiosity,’ by Reginald L. Hine is an account by the author of several manuscript collections in his possession. The most interesting of them appears to be the Heath papers, extracts from which throw a true ‘Sidelight on the Civil war.’ The extracts from Harpsfield’s life of Sir Thomas More are familiar. Two of these papers have already appeared in Blackwood; those dealing with Monmouth and Sir Justinian Pagitt. A collection of epitaphs is exceptionally good.”—Sat R
“For the most part the manuscripts which he prints are heavy work. Nor is he always over-happy in the presentation of his documents: the humour drags. Yet he deserves well of readers in general: he sets a liberal example for other owners of mss.; and his book is in its externals one of the best for many months.”
“Possessing a sense of humor, an ability to appraise human nature, and a profound respect for truth, he has given enough of these old manuscripts to reproduce for us a picture of the times in which their writers lived. These papers are not without value to the historian.” G. H. S.
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“The book is very well illustrated and printed and will be found an excellent thing to dip into and dally with in the spirit in which it was written. It is a book for the country house table.”
“His book demands not so much to be read from cover to cover as to be kept within easy reach of one’s most comfortable chair, to be opened at random, and browsed upon in the leisurely, epicurean way in which we can picture the author himself perusing his manuscripts. Nor are they altogether without their value for the historian.”
HINKSON, KATHARINE (TYNAN) (MRS HENRY ALBERT HINKSON). Love of brothers. *$1.75 (2c) Benziger
Sir Shawn O’Gara had upbraided his dearest friend, his brother in affection, for having ruined—as he thought—a young girl of the people; and enraged beyond control at Terence Comerford’s careless laugh had lashed the spirited horse, Spitfire, Terence was riding, thus sending him to his death. The shadow of his remorse haunted Sir Shawn throughout his subsequent, unusually blest married life. Retribution overtook him when his own son fell in love with Terence Comerford’s supposedly illegitimate daughter, Stella, and when his horse Mustapha, grandson of Spitfire and as spirited as his ancestor threw and apparently killed him. But he lived and Stella was proven legitimate and of exceedingly fine metal for standing up for and openly loving her mother while still in disgrace.
“Her mastery of her material is complete; she shapes it into fresh form, leaving no suggestion of the hackneyed or the improbable.”
“After the production of some sixty-four novels, it is something yet to be able to achieve a story which shows no signs of a worn-out imagination, but a decided quickening of spirit. Katharine Tynan tells her tale simply and with economy of words; yet there is real originality of plot and individuality of outlook, the whole showing a definite form, finely moulded.”
HISTORY of the American field service in France; Friends of France, 1914–1917; told by its members. 3v il *$12.50 Houghton 940.373
“Four years ago, while yet our armies were in the field, was published a volume entitled ‘Friends of France,’ which contained numerous accounts of the work done by American soldiers in France who wore the blue of the poilu. The war was still in progress and some of our regiments were still on the way overseas in danger of submarines and anticipating the serious work which was to follow. The volume, ‘Friends of France,’ was therefore more or less provisional and incomplete. This publication then is designed to supersede the former work; its aim, as expressed by the publishers, is to fill in the gaps and finish the story, to give the final record of all the sections, new as well as old, and of the work of the many hundreds of younger volunteers as well as of the pioneers of 1915 and 1916.”—Boston Transcript
“Very carefully have the selections been made and they are edited with rare skill and discrimination.” E. T. C.
HOBBS, WILLIAM HERBERT. Leonard Wood, administrator, soldier, and citizen. il *$2 (4½c) Putnam
The emphasis of this account of General Wood’s career is put on his advocacy of military preparedness. The author of the book sees as much danger in pacifism and internationalism as opposed to national preparedness, now as before and during the war. Henry A. Wise Wood writes a foreword to the book in the same spirit. The contents under the two divisions of: The soldier and administrator; and Prophet and organizer of preparedness, are: An American soldier; The builder of republics; Roosevelt’s estimate of Wood; Organizing the American army for defence; The fight against pacifism; The darkening of counsel; “Broomstick preparedness”; At war; A soldier’s reward; Addendum; Partial list of writings of General Leonard Wood; Books and articles concerning General Leonard Wood.
“The book is obviously a campaign document and not a very good one. It is so fulsome in its eulogy of its hero and so bitter in its denunciation of all who disagree with him, but above all of President Wilson, that it overshoots its mark in both directions.” L. B. Evans
“Serviceable and readable volume.”
HOBHOUSE, STEPHEN. Joseph Sturge. *1.50 Dutton
“A short biography (198 pages) of this earnest-minded Quaker, social reformer, and Chartist, who died in 1859, a year after he had been appointed President of the Peace society (British).” (Brooklyn) “Among the big things which he looked after were temperance, anti-slavery, Chartism and reform, free trade, education, international arbitration and peace.” (Ath)
“Mr Hobhouse has performed his task adequately, with a conscientious enthusiasm for his subject. But it must be confessed that his book is a little heavy, a little leaden.” L. W.
HOBSON, JOHN ATKINSON. Morals of economic internationalism. (Barbara Weinstock lectures on the morals of trade) *$1 (2½c) Houghton 172.4
“It ought not to be the case that there is one standard of morality for individuals in their relations with one another, a different and a slighter standard for corporations, and a third and still slighter standard for nations.” That this, however, actually is the case is the book’s contention. The author makes a plea for an emergency commerce and finance agreement between nations by way of preventing economic ruin and starvation in the war-stricken countries of Europe. “For morality among nations, as among individuals, implies faith and risk-taking.”
HOBSON, JOHN ATKINSON. Taxation in the new state. *$1.75 (3c) Harcourt 336.42
The author holds that the war’s legacies of indebtedness and its large sudden demands of state expenditure for reconstruction, calling for an enormous increase in tax-income, necessitates a re-examination of the principles of tax policy. “Recognizing that the normal annual tax-income can only be derived from the incomes of the several members of the nation ... we are confronted first with the necessity of distinguishing the portions of personal incomes that have ability to bear taxation from those that have not such ability.” (Preface) The object of the book then is to arrive at a clear definition of ‘ability to bear’ and to ascertain the reforms needed to conform the demands of taxation to this principle. The book falls into two parts. Part 1: Principles of tax reform, contains: Ability to pay; The taxable surplus; The shifting of taxes; The taxation of income; Reforms of income-tax: Death duties; Supplementary taxes; Tariffs for revenue. Contents of part 2, Emergency finance, are: Our financial emergency; A levy on war-made wealth; A general levy upon capital; Relations of imperial to local taxation; Index.
“We no doubt adopt philosophies to justify what we want to do or have decided to do, not as a means of ascertaining what we ought to do. By working out the philosophy to justify the tax system which England is apparently heading toward, this book by Professor Hobson will be of outstanding influence.” C. L. King
“Worth the attention of all students of economics, legislators and taxpayers in the United States as well as in Great Britain.”
“Of the ways and means of ascertaining the taxable capital and of collecting the levy, Mr Hobson does not say as much as one would like. But he is dealing primarily with principle rather than with practice.” R. R.
“That Hobson has few illusions regarding the nature of the present regime, is clearly evident in the second, more interesting half of this volume.” L: Jacobs
Reviewed by H. P. Fairchild
“That his discussion slips into a discussion of British taxes in particular lessens the value of his conclusions little, if any, so nearly alike is the condition of nations in general as a result of war burdens.”
Reviewed by Lawson Purdy
“The book is full of assumptions that propositions have been proved when they have only been asserted, and of insinuations regarding facts and inferences from them which it is impossible to make good. The case is, indeed, put before us with an ingenuity which might almost be called Jesuitical, if Mr Hobson were not so audaciously open, and even truculent, in his demand for the increase of the ‘public’ income at the expense of the ‘private surplus,’ in order to supply the assumed ‘needs’ of the state.”
HOBSON, S. G. National guilds and the state. *$4 (*12s 6d) Macmillan 338.6
“The first part of this book is devoted to a theoretical discussion of the relations between producer and consumer, and their joint relations with the state. It is presupposed that readers are acquainted with the principles and purposes of the national guild movement. The argument is largely the outcome of controversy between the author and Mr G. D. H. Cole, in which different stresses were laid upon the status of the consumer, ‘and, in consequence, upon the structure of the state.’ At the end of the second part, which deals with ‘transition,’ Mr Hobson avers his belief that national guilds are inevitable. ‘There is no student of industry,’ he declares, ‘who ... would deny the possibility of a revolution’; and the author expresses his belief that wage-abolition, with its logical sequel of an infinitely more humane structure of society, will mark a great epoch in the history of western civilization.”—Ath
“This study marks a distinct advance in our knowledge of guild proposals.” J: G. Brooks
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
“Mr Hobson in the first chapter of this book is guilty of substituting dialectic for honest examination. Few better analyses of the shop-steward movement and the tendencies of the unions have been written. They are full of rich thinking and are highly suggestive.” G: Soule
“Continentals and Americans born west of New England will hardly be able to grasp Mr Hobson’s analysis. The present reviewer, not being a theologian, confesses hopelessness in the presence of it. The trouble with Mr Hobson and his brethren is that they are looking for exactness where none can exist, for the separation of that which never can be separated. They are modern utopians. They seek finality.” C: A. Beard
“The idea of receiving wages for work done seems to give him positive pain, but his attempt to formulate a practical alternative is a sad failure, though it is veiled in obscure terms.”
“Admirably argumentative book.” W: L. Chenery
“It is long, controversial, ill-knit; lacking in clarity of thought and expression, and in consecutive argument. It gives the impression of being made up largely of fragments written at different times and strung together, not worked out in logical sequence. The writer seems to be striving all the time to get his own thoughts clear as he goes along, and to find the right words for them.”
HOCKING, JOSEPH. Passion for life. il *$1.90 (1c) Revell
Francis Erskine was given a year to live by his doctor and chooses the Cornwall coast to pass this year in quiet rural seclusion and in finding out, if possible, if there is any hope for a life beyond. He is an unbeliever and has no faith whatever in immortality. His secluded hut on the cliffs turns out to be almost directly over a cave used by the Germans for their secret operations and he soon begins to sense the presence of German spies. He spends his time between cultivating the village folk and clergy, in his quest for a life after death, and in trying to discover what the Germans are doing at the cave. To this last he consecrates himself in patriotic fervor, and succeeds, but apparently dies in a struggle with a spy. During his death trance he has a vision of the two worlds and becomes conscious of the presence of God. He awakes to find that an operation has been performed on him and that a new life and even love is waiting for him.
“There is material for a really worth while book in this novel of Mr Hocking’s and the tale begins well. If the author had only been able to restrain his fondness for sugar and sentimentality he might have been able to maintain the whole at the level of the beginning.”
HODGE, ALBERT CLAIRE, and MCKINSEY, JAMES OSCAR. Principles of accounting. *$3 Univ. of Chicago press 657
Three classes of students of accounting are considered in this volume: those who aim at understanding its use as a means of social control over business activities—consisting mostly of students of economics; those who expect to qualify as certified public accountants; and those who expect to become business executives of one kind or another. Contents: The meaning and function of accounting; The relationship of accounting to proprietorship; The balance sheet; The statement of profit and loss; The account as a means of classifying information; The construction and interpretation of particular accounts; The construction and interpretation of accounts; The trial balance; The adjusting entries; The closing entries; The source of the ledger entries; Some special forms of the journal; The use of the general journal; Business vouchers and forms; The accounting process; Business practice and procedure; Books of original entry; Controlling accounts; The construction and interpretation of accounts; Accruals and deferred items; The adjusting and closing entries; The classification of accounts; Financial reports; The graphical method of presenting accounting facts; Appendix.
HODGES, FRANK. Nationalisation of the mines; with foreword by J: R. Clynes. (New era ser.) $1.75 Seltzer 338.2
“Mr Hodges’s case is, briefly, that there is inevitably waste in the production, in the consumption, and in the distribution of coal under the present system of private ownership. He insists that the coal industry should be regarded as a whole; that the accidental frontiers of private ownership are not geological frontiers: that the prime consideration of an industry developed by shareholders’ capital, namely, that a certain monetary return should be obtained within a certain time, is not compatible with the most efficient and scientific development of that industry; and that different and competitive systems of distribution involve needless expenses for superfluous labour. His conclusions are based on figures, and the figures are taken from government reports. His argument is, in fact, the old argument that one great trust controlling a whole industry can work more efficiently and economically than a number of small and overlapping concerns. Here he develops his second argument. We have to consider the psychology of the miners. Rightly or wrongly, they are now reluctant to work for the purpose of creating private profit. No system of profit-sharing will content them; they insist on the dignity of being regarded directly as servants of the community; they have lost all faith in the divine right of employers. That is why the country, and not a trust, must own and develop the coal-mines.”—Ath
“He has arranged his matter in a logical sequence, he confines himself to essentials, and he writes throughout with, at least, an appearance of scientific detachment.”
“The little book is worth reading if only because it shows the extremely vague and unpractical nature of the scheme which Mr Hodges and his colleagues propose to force upon the government and the nation whether they like it or not.”
“Mr Hodges is studiously moderate in tone and not unmindful of the rules of logic.”
HOERNLÉ, REINHOLD FRIEDRICH ALFRED. Studies in contemporary metaphysics. *$3 (3½c) Harcourt 104
The author calls his studies “chips from a metaphysician’s workshop” and in the opening chapter explains what this workshop implies, at the same time justifying its existence in the midst of the vital problems and perplexities of our age. He asserts that there are evidences in plenty of a vigorous philosophic life; that speculative interest and activity have been of recent years increasingly varied and enterprising; and that there has been no lack of originality. What is needed is to understand its spirit, which the author defines as the spirit of wholeness, the attempt to view the universe as a whole in the midst of shifting appearances and accumulative experiences. The contents are: Prologue—the philosopher’s quest; The idol of scientific method in philosophy; Philosophy of nature at the cross-roads; On “doubting the reality of the world of sense”; “Saving the appearances” in the physical world (note on John Locke’s distinction of primary and secondary qualities); Mechanism and vitalism; Theories of mind; The self in self-consciousness; Epilogue—religion and philosophy of religion; Index.
“Good reading for those interested in modern thought movements.”
Reviewed by H. B. Alexander
“A book like the present one should go far to supply the real need of a clear and convincing statement of what is admitted to be the most difficult of all philosophical systems. Mr Hoernlé is to be congratulated on a work of permanent value.”
HOFFMAN, CONRAD. In the prison camps of Germany. il *$4 Assn. press 940.472
Mr Hoffman, of the University of Kansas, went abroad in 1915 to do relief work. He reached Berlin in August of that year and remained in Germany as Secretary of the War prisoners’ aid of the Y. M. C. A. thruout the war. He then staid on for eight months after the armistice to continue the work in behalf of the Russian prisoners still held in Germany. Among the chapters are: First impressions of Berlin; The Britishers at Ruhleben; Christmas in a prison hospital; Prisoners at work and hungry; Help in both worship and study; Working under surveillance; The day of food substitutes; Visiting the first American prisoners; Real Americanism in evidence; First days of the German revolution; Russian prisoners and their guards; A concluding judgment. In one of the appendixes Mrs Hoffman writes of the experiences of an American woman in Berlin.
HOFFMAN, MARIE E. Lindy Loyd; a tale of the mountains. *$1.75 Jones, Marshall
“The southern mountains of the Blue ridge, presumably, where the moonshiners find inaccessible places to hide their illicit stills from the ever-vigilant ‘revenoors,’ are the scene of ‘Lindy Loyd.’ Against their background with alluring descriptions of their wild scenery, their birds and animals, the rushing of the mountain torrent, and the tinkling of the hidden stream, Mrs Hoffman places the love story of Lindy Loyd, the course of which, perfect in its beginning, encounters the traditional rough places over which true love is doomed to pass.”—Boston Transcript
“The author knows well the mountains, knows, too, the mountain people, and pictures with fidelity the characteristics, manners and customs engendered by the ruggedness, almost inaccessibility of their environment.” F. M. W.
“Less melodramatic than many of its kind and notable for its true local color.”
HOFMANNSTHAL, HUGO HOFMANN, edler von. Death of Titian. (Contemporary ser.) *75c Four seas co. 832
This dramatic fragment, written in 1892, was translated from the German by John Heard, Jr. The prologue was added in 1901 when it was acted in Munich as a memorial to Arnold Böcklin. It depicts a scene on the terrace of Titian’s villa, in 1576, at the time of Titian’s death.
“After all, what interest one may have in the play lies in the excellence of the translation, for, as a play, there is no blood in it.”
“The dramatic form, unfortunately for the translator, is only skin-deep. Essential drama, apart from its verbal expression, loses nothing in a new language: poetry, and ‘The death of Titian’ in particular, lose most everything.”
“This group of monologues of the old master’s pupils gathered about his death-bed possessed the ecstatic phrasing and the comparative aimlessness of youthful genius. Over all there is a blue-bronze atmosphere which John Heard has not completely lost in his English.” E. E. H.
“Hofmannsthal fashioned those incomparable verses (which Mr Heard has sensitively read but quite failed to render) because the very pang of beauty wrung them from him. No wonder that such verses are not written today either in Vienna or elsewhere.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“The slow movement and sluggish dialog give to this little fragment a funereal as well as a memorial aspect. There is too little of the pageant, too much of the orator. Words cloud illusions and crowd out the sympathetic play of the individual imagination.”
HOLDEN, GEORGE PARKER. Idyl of the split bamboo. il *$3 Stewart & Kidd 799
While the author’s previous book, “Streamcraft,” deals mainly with the open season and actual streamside technic, this one is more a book for winter evenings and the fireside and for the workshop. Building a split-bamboo rod is an operation, the author avows. He describes this operation in every detail but he prepares the reader’s mind for this more tedious process by a long chapter on “The joys of angling.” Nine chapters of the book are devoted to the rod-making. Edwin T. Whiffen contributes a chapter on “Cultivating silkworm-gut at home,” and the two remaining chapters are on Landing-nets and other equipment and The angler’s camp. Besides many full-page illustrations there are diagrams showing the different stages of rod building and details of camp outfit.
“Both the expert and the tyro will find good fishing in these attractive pages.”
HOLDING, ELISABETH SANXAY. Invincible Minnie. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
As her central figure the author presents one type of the eternal feminine, the ruthlessly domestic and womanly woman who takes what she wants for herself regardless of the results to others. Minnie hasn’t even beauty or charm, but she takes away her sister’s lover, marries him and wrecks his life, marries a second man while the first still lives, bears him a child and accepts his support for the child of the first man, justifies herself when her guilt is discovered and forever after lives on the bounty of the man she has wronged. She is an incompetent housekeeper and a criminally bad mother but she succeeds in creating the impression that she is the true woman, and perhaps she is, writes the author, “perhaps those others, with hearts, with brains, with souls, are ... only the freaks of nature.”
Reviewed by R. M. Underhill
“Only a degree less arresting than her character building, however, is the author’s method of telling the story.” C. M. Greene
“Minnie is real, in life, but she has not been made real in the American fiction of our day until Elisabeth Sanxay Holding created her for us in these pages. Minnie Defoe takes her place as the true American cousin, also the only American cousin, of Ann Veronica, Hilda Lessways, Sonia O’Rane.” W. S. B.
“‘Invincible Minnie’ is an astounding person. It is no use to say that she is impossible; that is one of the most terrifying things about her, she isn’t.”
“Mrs Holding writes coldly, warily, ruthlessly. She is beyond any passionate concern in the matter. She has moments of a cosmic tolerance for Minnie. But how Minnie must have made her suffer! It is only when we get to the other shore of suffering that we can see with eyes so penetrating and so passionless.”
“It has various minor faults. The scourge of revision has not been ruthlessly enough applied, and the style is marred here and there by a loose carelessness. What makes one indifferent to these defects is the author’s marvellous ability to record and analyze Minnie. Minnie may not be the artistic equal of Becky Sharp, but she is far nearer our common experience.” Signe Toksvig
“It is all done with an art-concealing simplicity and frankness the study of which will repay the best of our modern English ‘realists,’ though they will find it hard to analyze and still harder to imitate.” Oliver Herford
“We can recall no piece of fiction, with the exception of Sudermann’s masterful short story, ‘The purpose,’ which portrays the unmoral woman more unflinchingly than Elisabeth Sanxay Holding has done in her vivid novel.”
Reviewed by F: T. Cooper
“A bitter book, remorselessly written, and quite against the current stream of tolerance for all human creatures. Perhaps it is wholesome for us to turn now and then from the genial process of admiring the best of us in the worst of us, and to behold how a Minnie looks, pinned fairly on the slide and set under a ruthless lens.” H. W. Boynton
HOLDSWORTH, ETHEL. Taming of Nan. *$1.90 (2c) Dutton
Here’s another tale of the taming of a shrew. She is a Lancashire working woman full of primitive savagery which she lets out in explosions of fiery temper towards her good-natured giant of a husband and her pretty pleasure-loving daughter. When both of the giant’s legs have been cut off by a train, she hammers away at him still, to break him still more, and not until he has found a new strength and a new independence do the fates discover her vulnerable spot and begin the breaking and taming process on her. And not until she has almost lost her soul and her daughter does she find the only outlet for the fierce life-force within her to be love and the ministrations of love.
“This is the old story of the reclaiming of a virago retold with considerable power.”
“For those readers who like character studies as well as plots.”
“‘The taming of Nan’ is a very different kind of story from ‘Helen of four gates.’ It is with less concentration but it is constructed upon a broader basis and the whole atmosphere of it is more human, more genial, less tense and stormy.”
“While Ethel Holdsworth’s second book, ‘The taming of Nan,’ is less striking and peculiar than her first [‘Helen of Four Gates’], it is more genial and shows growth and a broader knowledge of life.”
“It is as a study of Polly’s emergence from the blurred prettiness and apparently unprotected amativeness of girlhood to real achievements in character and happiness that the book may especially commend itself to the confirmed yet still hopeful novel reader.” H. W. Boynton
“The characterisation is admirable, if slightly idealised, and the book is, as a whole, quite admirable.”
“The story is wanting in the continuous strength found in the preceding novel. As usual, Mrs Holdsworth reveals keen insight into human nature and does not shrink from picturing the truth however brutal or sordid. But she leans less towards crude realism than heretofore.”
“A study of Lancashire working folk by one who evidently knows them intimately enough to give a genuine picture of them. The whole is by no means lengthy, but it is not less complete on that account. It is the result not only of intimacy on the part of the writer, but of an ordered perception which is not afraid either of cruelty or kindness, but sees in both the movement of life.”
HOLLAND, FRANCIS CALDWELL. Seneca. il *$4 (*10s) Longmans
“Mr Holland’s biographical essay, originally designed to preface a translation of Seneca’s letters to Lucilius, is now allowed to appear ‘on the chance that here or there some readers may be found to share my interest in the subject.’ Into the long and interesting story of Seneca’s literary fortunes it is no part of Mr Holland’s task to enter. He is placing the story of his life against the background of Julio-Claudian Rome. His tone is that of a discriminating apologist.”—Review
“The historical narrative is well written. With regard to the estimate given of Seneca’s character and the view taken of the literary and philosophic value of his works, Mr Holland presents what will seem to many too favourable a picture.” H. E. B.
“The grave dignity of Mr Holland’s style has somehow the fine sound of the best translations from the Latin, the spirit of his enterprise is ripely philosophical.”
“His full and agreeably written narrative of the life of the philosopher-statesman should win readers for Seneca.” H. M. Ayers
“If we had more such books, the classics would stand on a firmer footing of human interest, instead of appearing to exist chiefly for the purpose of adding to the incomes of publishers, dons, and schoolmasters.”
“Mr Francis Holland retells his story in a volume of lively and picturesque narrative. If it adds nothing to the knowledge of the subject for the specialist student, the story is one of interest to any man of liberal education, and a book which tells it over again so agreeably and judiciously may be just the book which many people want.”
HOLLAND, RUPERT SARGENT. Refugee rock. il *$1.75 (3c) Jacobs
Three American boys cruising along the coast of Maine land on what is supposed to be a deserted island and find it inhabited by a charming mannered young foreigner, his two servants and his dog. The stranger, Pierre Romaine, is practicing fencing strokes when the boys first come upon him and he at once arouses their curiosity and admiration. They find that two other groups of men are interested in the island, the first, the crew of a fishing smack, the second, a party of three foreigners, apparently Russians. The secret of their interest is solved, Romaine’s enemies are driven off, the treasure he is guarding is saved, and he consents to join his new friends on their cruise.
HOLLIDAY, CARL. Wedding customs then and now. *75c (7c) Stratford co. 392.5
This entertaining little volume harkens back to old customs and usages, quoting the opinions of pessimist and optimist alike and has nothing to do with scientific sociological research. Contents: Marriage by force; Buying wives; Marriage taxes; Ancient ceremonies; The wedding feast and wedding cake; Wedding presents; Wedding festivities; Her trousseau; Gretna Green; The best time; The wedding ring; The old shoe; Proverbs.
“There is little that is unfamiliar in Mr Holliday’s recital, but there is much that is interesting in his somewhat flippant narrative.”
HOLLIDAY, ROBERT CORTES. Men and books and cities. *$2.50 (5½c) Doran 917.3
Papers that appeared in the Bookman under the pseudonym Murray Hill, Indianapolis, St Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles are the cities, and among the men met on these desultory journeyings were Booth Tarkington, Meredith Nicholson, E. V. Lucas, William Marion Reedy and Carl Sandburg, and various literary editors and book sellers and others.
“No one else has quite Mr Holliday’s faculty for his own particular type of essay. He has captured the art of saying the forever unexpected. He rambles as freely through his pages as one might see him wandering about a city, with his stick upon his arm.” D. L. M.
“It resembles a certain coat of many colors in its diversity of interests, and is to be recommended to him of human interests, rather than to the zealous seeker after exact and correlated knowledge.”
“Seeking to be spirited, informal and impressionistic, Mr Holliday has fallen into the error of self-consciousness. He keeps himself so assiduously in the limelight, that one only catches such gleams of other personalities as may filter through his bulk.” Lisle Bell
“All in all, this is quite an amusing book that manages to cover a surprisingly wide area with a limited stock of vital ideas. And that is where Elia and Murray Hill part company.” Pierre Loving
“Although Mr Holliday displays a humane temper and gives some pleasure by telling of his travels from city to city and from one barber to another, yet his style, his imagination and his humor are hardly sufficient to justify bringing these random pages between book covers.”
HOLLINGWORTH, HARRY LEVI. Psychology of functional neuroses. *$2 Appleton 616.8
The book deals with those psychoneurotic manifestations that are susceptible to the modifying influences of suggestion, motivation, analysis and reeducation and to the numerous techniques of psychotherapy which the study of these manifestations has developed. As director of the psychoneurotic army hospital at Plattsburg, the author had cognisance of 1200 cases that were examined and treated there. Among the contents are: The mechanism of redintegration; Redintegration in the psychoneuroses: The intelligence of psychoneurotics; The rôle of motivation in the psychoneuroses; Irregularity of profile (scattering) in the psychoneurotic; A statistical study of psychoneurotic soldiers; Reliability of a group survey in the determination of mental age; Mental measurement, methods, and standards; Psychological service in a neuropsychiatric hospital; Index.
HOLME, JOHN GUNNLAUGUR. Life of Leonard Wood. il *$1.50 Doubleday
A biography written frankly in the interests of General Wood as a presidential candidate. Contents: Early boyhood and school days; Soldier and surgeon; With Cleveland and McKinley; Commander of the Rough riders; The rescuer of Santiago; Governor and business manager of Cuba; Pacifier of the Philippines; Chief-of-staff of the U.S. army; The awakener of the nation; The champion of law and order. There are four illustrations from photographs.
“The author is a newspaper man, well known in Washington, and he has had access to many sources which makes his work authoritative.”
HOLMES, CHARLES JOHN.[2] Leonardo da Vinci. (British academy. Fourth annual lecture on a master-mind. Henriette Hertz trust) *90c Oxford 759.5
“In this lecture, delivered on the four hundredth anniversary of Leonardo’s death, Mr Holmes sets out to show that Vasari’s judgment of the master—‘an artist of marvellous gifts who frittered them away on toys and trifles’—is wrong. Today we know more of Leonardo’s mind than did Vasari, so that we may ‘reverse the traditional formula and regard him as a very great man of science, who made a living by his talent as an artist and an engineer.’ Mr Holmes supports his contention by numerous and interesting quotations from Leonardo’s note-books.”—Ath
“A brilliant, though concise, study.”
HOLMES, JOHN HAYNES. Is violence the way out of our industrial disputes? *$1.25 (5c) Dodd 331
Is violence the way out of our industrial disputes, which the war, far from curing as it was hoped, has aggravated into a condition of chaos comparable only to the military chaos that went before? In the three addresses in the book, originally prepared for the Community church of New York, the author outlines a doctrine of non-resistance which alone can solve the problem satisfactorily. Between the struggle of capital and labor there can be no compromise. Labor must win but neither can win through violence. The presence of certain psychological elements, not impossible of achievement, are necessary to solve the problem: co-operative good-will on the part of labor, renunciation and confidence on the part of capital, and on both a viewpoint of human relationships taught by the prophet of Nazareth. Contents: The answer for capital; The answer for labour; The better way; Conclusion.
“Mr Holmes is nothing if not forthright. His mind works through his topic from start to finish with a steady momentum; there is no beating about the bush, no dallying finesse of language, no straining after mere rhetorical or stylistic effect. Even if you are not convinced, you instinctively recognize that you have been listening to the passionate and able pleading of an incorruptible mind.” R. R.
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
Reviewed by Alexander Fleisher
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL. Collected legal papers. *$4 Harcourt 340
These papers are of general interest and consist of speeches and articles collected from various publications between 1885 to 1918. They are: Early English equity; The law; The profession of the law; On receiving the degree of LL.D; The use of law schools; Agency; Privilege, malice and intent; Learning and science; Executors; The bar as a profession; Speech at Brown university; The path of the law; Legal interpretation; Law in science and science in law; Speech at Bar association dinner; Montesquieu; John Marshall; Address at Northwestern University law school; Economic elements; Maitland; Holdsworth’s English law; Law and the court; Introduction to continental legal historical series; Ideals and doubts; Bracton; Natural law.
“Every paper has its own virtues, but there is one which they all share, a rare and delicate charm. These papers bring the touch of romance to philosophy but this must not detract from our realization that the philosophy itself is fine and deep.” S. L. Cook
Reviewed by T: R. Powell
“The forbiddingly colorless title does grave injustice to an extraordinary book of thoroughly matured human wisdom.” M. R. Cohen
HOLT, HENRY. Cosmic relations and immortality. 2d ed 2v *$10 Houghton 134
“Mr Holt’s two volumes on ‘The cosmic relations and immortality’ are a new and enlarged edition of the two-volume work he published just before the breaking out of the war under the title ‘On the cosmic relations.’ He has added a new preface and several new chapters and has modified and brought to date the final summary of the subject in his last section. In the new chapters he takes up what he considers the three most important developments during the years since the work first appeared, which, in his opinion, ‘have added force to the spiritistic hypothesis.’ These are, first, the investigations and conclusions of Dr William J. Crawford, the well-known physicist of Queen’s university, Belfast; second, the appearance of many new sensitives, whose manifestations differ much from one another and from their predecessors; third, the agreement of these sensitives in depicting virtually the same future state.”—N Y Times
“He guesses frequently and variably; he admits uncertainty; he has a vigorous prejudice against dogmatism. But this philosophy takes its form as rigidly from these bantering guesses, as though other guesses did not exist.... The consequences are lamentable. Standards of credibility are abandoned; subjectivism replaces criticism; and miracles are rampant.” Joseph Jastrow
“The notable thing about this book, now as in the earlier edition, is the nobility of spirit which informs it.”
HOLT, LEE. Paris in shadow. *$2 Lane
The author’s novel “Green and gay” was published in 1918. The present book is written in the form of a diary, but it is not possible to determine whether it is an authentic record or a fictional device. A “portrait of the author,” printed as a foreword, says: “In the diary which follows he has noted down the trifling happenings of every day, those little events which more than all show the true spirit of the time. He writes from the standpoint of an American who has lived in France most of his life, but still retains a deep love of his own country. The book was not written in a spirit of criticism, merely to describe the everyday Paris as it was in 1916–1917.”
“It is written with a good deal of literary charm and may fittingly be described by that much abused expression, a ‘human document.’”
“The book is written in an agreeable style, but contains little matter of first-rate interest.”
HOLT, LUTHER EMMETT. Care and feeding of children. *$2 (4½c) Appleton 649.1
The preface to the tenth edition of this well-known work says, “The constant use of the catechism as a manual for nursery maids has shown the need of fuller treatment of several subjects than was given in the earlier editions.... In this edition a considerable amount of new material has been introduced relative to the growth, nutrition, diet and supervision of older children, thus attempting to fill a need often expressed by mothers who have relied upon the manual as a guide for the period of infancy.”
HOME—then what? the mind of the doughboy, A. E. F. *$1.50 Doran 940.373
The Comrades in service company club was started at Gievres, France by Dr O. D. Foster. In May, 1919, a movement was started in the club by Capt. Leon Schwartz to offer three prizes for the three best essays on the topic “Home—then what?” The three prize essays, a number of selected essays, and selected extracts constitute this volume. They have been collected and arranged by James Louis Small, and John Kendrick Bangs has written an illuminating foreword. The prize essayists are: Marcelle H. Wallenstein; Joshua B. Lee; and George F. Hudson.
HOOKER, FORRESTINE COOPER. Long dim trail. (Borzoi western stories) *$2 (2c) Knopf
The story is a vivid picture of the life in the Arizona cattle country with its teeming beauty during prosperous seasons, its forlorn hope in times of drought, and the colorful variety of its human element. There is the sprinkling of college-bred easterners, the rough cow punchers with the warm loyal hearts, the Mexican, the Chinaman and the desperado. Between them all there is romance and thrilling adventure.
“The suggestion of artificiality is pleasingly absent in ‘The long dim trail.’ The book’s greatest charm lies in the fact that its pictures of life on the cattle ranges of Arizona compel the conviction that they are as accurate as they are vivid.”
“Lovers of stories of adventure, love, villainy and virile men and true women will find the ingredients mixed here in a manner above the average.”
HOPKINS, NEVIL MONROE. Outlook for research and invention. il *$2 Van Nostrand 609
The purpose of this book is to stimulate interest “not so much perhaps in what has been known as Yankee invention, but in the broader and more comprehensive American research.” There are eight chapters: The spirit of research; Men of research and their development; Some indifference of the past; American war research; The education for research; Some borderline limits; Research in the factory; The making and protecting of inventions. An appendix lists problems awaiting solution. The book is finely illustrated with a frontispiece and six portraits.
“The book shows the author to be thoroughly familiar with the national and industrial need for research, for he tells in an immensely illuminating manner of what research accomplished during the war and how the need for industrial research still is a pressing one. The book is fascinatingly written and should appeal to anyone with the instinct for solving things.”
“Research workers, inventors, educators, manufacturers and certain government officials and legislators of the higher type will find stimulus and suggestion in this readable volume. Most of the book is written from the viewpoint of the chemist and physicist rather than of the engineer and nearly all the research problems listed are in the two fields named, but the author writes with knowledge and appreciation of engineering.”
“Mr Hopkins’s book will be of special interest to young men and women who are interested in research and invention as careers, particularly if they happen to be without the advantages of higher technical education.” B: C. Gruenberg
“The volume belongs to a class of books which suffer somewhat in the appeal that they are capable of making to the humanistically trained intellectuals, because of a certain rawness of cultural outlook as tested by the conventional standards of the literary and humanistic critic. On the other hand, it is replete with indications of wide and substantial scholarship in various scientific branches, it is composed with a somewhat infectious enthusiasm for the beauties of science.”
HORNE, HERMAN HARRELL. Jesus, the master teacher. *$2 Assn. press 232
The book has to do with the pedagogy of Jesus, which, the author says, is a discovered and staked-out but unworked mine. The aim of the book is two-fold: “to see how Jesus taught, or is presented to us as having taught,” and “ultimately, to influence our own methods of teaching morals and religion,” and is primarily to be used as a guide to be followed in study classes. A partial list of the contents is: How did Jesus secure attention? His use of problems; His conversations; His questions; His discourses; His parables; His use of symbols; His imagery; Education by personal association; Did Jesus appeal to the native reactions? His attitude toward children; His qualities as teacher; The significance of Jesus in educational history. The appendix consists of topics for further study, and there are illustrations and a bibliography.
HORTON, CHARLES MARCUS. Opportunities in engineering. (Opportunity books) *$1 (5c) Harper 620
This little treatise on engineering might well be called an epic, for it sings the praises of the engineer and his work in all its aspects. It is a wonderful profession, perhaps “the topmost of all professions” in its possibilities of world service, and the engineer is both a thinker and a doer and as such has more of the world under his control than falls to the lot of most men. Contents: Engineering and the engineer; Engineering opportunities; The engineering type; The four major branches; Making a choice; Qualifying for promotion; The consulting engineer; The engineer in civic affairs; Code of ethics; Future of the engineer; What constitutes engineering success; The personal side.
HOWARD, ALEXANDER L. Manual of the timbers of the world, their characteristics and uses. il *$9 Macmillan 691.1
“The book is intended to supplement the standard works on timber and aims at giving an account of the important timbers either on the market or likely to be of use to us in the future. The properties and characters of 500 of these woods are considered and suggestions made as to their practical utilization. Quite a large amount of information is given on the cultural conditions necessary for many of the best timber trees and on the possibility of growing them in this country. This special part of the work is followed by a more general one, dealing with the conversion and preservation of timber, specifications and conditions of contract; then comes a very important section dealing with the artificial seasoning of timber.”—Spec
“On the subject of timbers he is a fanatic. His passion leads him into mistakes, but it leads him also into real appreciation of the beauty of woods, and into a prose style that conveys unexpectedly through the technicalities the charm of his subject.” Malcolm Cowley
“The book is fully illustrated and well arranged; it will be of more use than its author modestly imagines.”
HOWE, EDGAR WATSON. Anthology of another town. *$2 (5c) Knopf
A series of sketches, varying in length from a paragraph to several pages, describing characters from a middle western small town. The title suggests “Spoon River,” but Mr Howe writes in simple, direct prose and without irony. Many of the sketches go back to his boyhood and his own experience as a printer’s apprentice.
“Consists of backyard gossip about the inhabitants of Atchison, Kansas; as such it is unexpurgated and entirely delightful. Mr Howe is not so cosmic as Mr Masters and he is a great deal easier to read.”
HOWE, J. ALLEN. Stones and quarries. (Pitman’s common commodities and industries) il $1 Pitman 691.2
“In this small volume an attempt has been made to place before the reader a broad general view of the stone industry, to show what part it plays in the life of the community and to give an outline of the methods and machinery employed in its development.” (Preface) Chapters on The stone industry. Rocks, stones and minerals and Classification of stones are followed by six chapters devoted to the various types of stones and their modes of occurrence. Then come four chapters on the employment of stone, in building and engineering, roads, etc., and two concluding chapters on Quarrying and The preparation of stone for the market. There is a one-page bibliography and an index.
HOWE, MARK ANTONY DE WOLFE. George von Lengerke Meyer; his life and public services. il *$5 (3c) Dodd
The book is based on a large collection of papers, in manuscript and in print, among them Mr Meyer’s diary. The contents are: Beginnings; Affairs and politics in Boston and Massachusetts; Ambassador to Italy; Ambassador to Russia; Postmaster general; Secretary of the navy; The final years. Illustrations and an index.
“In the preparation of this work. Mr Howe has followed the golden rule for biographers, by allowing his subject, so far as possible, to tell his own story. Letters and diary entries constitute the record of an interesting, useful and busy life.” G: W. Wickersham
“The conversations with the Czar and with the Kaiser will be especially interesting.”
Reviewed by Lindsay Swift
“The volume, while full, is not graphic, and does not reveal Mr Meyer as a deep or vivid reader of social reactions. It is even disappointing in the inside light it might throw on the official ‘family life’ of two presidents of the United States.”
“Every chapter of this well-written biography is worth reading.”
Reviewed by E: G. Lowry
“Because of its accurate and intimate picture of life behind the scenes in the great countries of the world for a period of approximately fifteen years, the work must certainly prove of value to historians in search of material upon which to base comprehensive studies of the world war.”
HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN, ed. Great modern American stories. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright
“Twenty-four short stories, ranging from Edward Everett Hale’s ‘My double’ and Harriet Prescott Spofford’s ‘Circumstance’ of other days, to George Ade’s ‘Effie Whittlesy’ and Theodore Dreiser’s ‘The lost Phoebe’ of the present, make up the contents of an anthology of ‘The great modern American stories.’ The selection is made by none other than William Dean Howells, and to it he contributes an introduction which is by no means the least interesting feature of the volume. It is compressed within eight pages, and it forms a compact summary of the course of American short story writing during the past half-century and more.”—Boston Transcript
“A fascinating collection. One finds old favorites almost forgotten such as ‘The little room,’ while the stories one looks for are here too.”
“Some of the stories which are given a place cause one to wonder on what possible basis Mr Howells made his choice. Their inclusion might be comprehensible were it not for the brilliant tales which they displace. Mr Howells’ omissions are indeed decidedly more striking than his selections.”
“A nice adjustment of personal preferences to inevitable inclusions is here revealed.”
“Short story writers may very well take a look at this book, with its soundly native material and integrity of approach. Only two or three of the collection can by any stretch be called great, but they cleave a way and accomplish a measurable result.” C. M. Rourke
“No anthology, of course, is final: a dozen other candidates for this volume will occur to any reader at all expert; but if editing can be as nearly classical as writing, this collection may have to be called a classic.”
“The two dozen stories all repay reading and reward re-reading; but none of them is more readable than the preface of the editor himself.” Brander Matthews
“The volume is undoubtedly interesting, though the kind of interest it begets does not leave one particularly impressed by the merits and dignities of the short story as a kind.”
HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN. Hither and thither in Germany. (Harper’s travel companions) il *$2 (4½c) Harper 914.3
Basil March, of silver wedding journey fame, has taken the cure at Carlsbad, and for an after-cure he and his wife do a bit of traveling about Germany. Their trip is described in the book, the chapters of which have been selected from the original volume.
“The deftest hand which ever drove an American pen has here cut away the meandering narrative of the original and has kept the descriptive parts. But what description this of Mr Howells’s—as easy as an eagle, as flexible as a serpent, as natural and clear as a brook going about its business!”
“In true Howells’ style the narrative rambles along, sometimes with full detail as if photographed, and again with an impressionistic summary of a whole experience in a few words. It may be that in the future, with the smoothing of asperities, the tide of the tourist travel will flow to Germany again. Then if not before, this book of Mr Howells’ should score a large popularity.”
HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN. Vacation of the Kelwyns; an idyl of the middle eighteen-seventies. *$2 (2c) Harper
Kelwyn, post-graduate lecturer on historical sociology, was rather theoretical than practical. Mrs Kelwyn was conventionally practical, always eager, theoretically, to be fair and generous, but rather fussy, withal; and both were typically New England. They rented an abandoned farm, with one of their “family” houses, of the Shakers for a year, had a farmer and his wife put in charge, and arranged to spend their vacation there. The farmers were shiftless and ignorant. In their world and the Kelwyn’s there was no common meeting ground and the latter’s summer turned out a tragicomedy. The situation was somewhat saved by their cousin, Parthenope Brook, and a stray teacher, a poetic dreamer and idealist and experimenter with life. His experiments even included the kitchen and the cooking of meals in which Parthenope joined him with the inevitable result.
“Nowhere has Mr Howells shown more clearly his possession of the dual powers of the observer and the chronicler. Many novelists have either the one power or the other. Few possess them both equally, and Mr Howells is one of the few.” E. F. E.
“It must be admitted that ‘The vacation of the Kelwyns’ represents Mr Howells in his most uninteresting phase.” F. E. H.
“About this trivial theme play all the warmth and grace and gentleness which marked the later Howells.” C. V. D.
“The trouble with ‘The vacation of the Kelwyns’ is that it makes too little out of the situation presented. The implications of the story hang at loose ends. Worse, the movements of the characters thus tangled in a web of intangible difficulties are not only too often trivial in themselves but they lack the symbolical significance which might have carried the observer into larger regions of reflection.” Carl Van Doren
“‘The vacation of the Kelwyns’ is a delightful example of Mr Howell’s method and (every creation being a form of confession) a vivid revelation of the man himself. It takes a simple situation, simple people; but this very simplicity makes us feel anew that the drama of human emotions is never simple.” Alexander Black
“It is a finely wrought out presentation of American life and character, with interesting sketches of the Shakers and of the reaction of their tenets and practices on the minds of ordinary Americans. It is quiet and restrained, but by no means boresome.”
“The whole affair has the effect, at least, of something altogether casual and artless. Its range and theme are slight; but only one person could have told it, and we who loved that demure and faultless voice may well be grateful that fate has somehow saved one more hearing of it for us, as a surprise.” H. W. Boynton
“The ambling graces of the narrative are not a great matter, but it is really interesting to see that a novelist of this true and distinguished talent, at the end of the long span of his career, had still the freshness and the good faith to tell a simple story with simplicity.”
HOWLAND, LOUIS. Stephen A. Douglas. (Figures from American history) *$2 Scribner
“A study of Douglas as a public character which is necessarily also a picture of his times. The author stresses the fundamental patriotism which the heated party controversies of the day often obscured. Sources are not cited.”—Booklist
“Mr Howland leaves upon his readers a clear-cut impression of Douglas—of what he did and of what he failed to do. He knows his man and the times in which he lived. Slips are few.” J: C. Rose
HRBKOVA, SÁRKA B., tr. and ed. Czechoslovak stories. (Interpreters’ ser.) *$1.90 (2c) Duffield
The author of these translations in a long introductory essay on the people and literature of Czechoslovakia, divides the literature into three periods: the early, the middle and the modern—the last dating from the close of the eighteenth century to the present day. The writers of the stories belong to the most modern group, from 1848 to the present day and consist of Svatopluk Cech; Jan Neruda; Franti[)s]ek Xavier Svoboda; Joseph Svatopluk Machar; Bo[)z]ena Víková-Kunĕtická; Bo[)z]ena Nĕmcová; Alois Jirásek; Ignát Herrman; Jan Klecanda; Caroline Svĕtlá. A short biography of the writer precedes each translation and there are appendices.
“Several in their simplicity and beauty are as fine and true as some of Selma Lagerlöf’s best peasant tales.”
HUBBARD, GILBERT ERNEST.[2] Day of the crescent; glimpses of old Turkey. il *$6 Macmillan 949.6
“In the library of the British Foreign office the author of this book stumbled upon a collection of sixteenth and seventeenth century books of Turkish travel, which had been bequeathed to the library by some noble diplomat of the last century who had been attached to the Constantinople embassy. ‘The authors were a cosmopolitan and heterogeneous lot, including among others such diverse characters as a Flemish diplomat, a French artist, a Polish soldier, a Venetian dragoman, and an English man of science. Their stories of how they travelled, painted, plotted, or fought according to their several capacities are full of color and romance, and worthy products of the age of adventure in which the actors lived.’ All these books pictured the ‘golden age’ of Turkey—an age that is almost unknown to us today—and Mr Hubbard decided that it would be a pleasant and profitable task to arrange and compress in one volume the most interesting portions from this collection of old narratives.”—N Y Evening Post
“He has certainly made no wide search for material, nor approached his subject in any critical way, nor attempted to give close unity to his scheme. Under these conditions Mr Hubbard has succeeded in presenting a vivacious, interesting, and thoroughly readable book.” A. H. Lybyer
“This is certainly the most picturesque of the scores of volumes of which the great war and its surroundings have been the occasion.” E. J. C.
HUDSON, HENRY, 2d., pseud. Spendthrift town. *$2.25 (1c) Houghton
New York city is the Spendthrift town of the title. Claire Nicholson is the central character, a young girl brought up in a conservative and aristocratic family who have never moved from their Ninth street house, and whose creed is “Work hard, take care of your property, increase it if you possibly can, and let all idealists and spouters and impractical people alone.” At twenty a series of misfortunes come upon the family, bringing death, dishonor and poverty into Claire’s experience of life, and when wealthy Dudley Orville asks her to marry him, she consents. It doesn’t take many years for her to discover that Dudley values material things too highly and his marriage vows not at all. But she has by now realized, too, that she loves Felix Malette, a young Englishman whom she had previously scoffed at for regarding material things too lightly. She realizes that she has wronged both Dudley and herself by marrying him and they separate, but she refuses to get a divorce as Dudley wishes. She is finally driven to doing so to obtain the allowance that she needs, but feels herself degraded in so doing, and feels that it would be impossible ever to make use of a freedom secured as she had secured hers. Nevertheless the closing page sees her sailing for Europe where Felix is.
“‘Spendthrift town’ is one of the finest bits of realistic American literature which has come to my attention this year.” S. M. R.
“The book, as a whole, has solid merit and abundant promise and should not be overlooked by readers who care for good work of native origin.”
“The caste, the manners of these people, suggest Scott Fitzgerald’s more earnest moments, but the story is altogether without that young gentleman’s vigor, ardor and wit.”
“The real strength of the story is in the vivid picture it presents of certain phases of metropolitan life, which will be appreciated by New Yorkers as well as by those who know little of the great city.”
“In fact all of the characters in the story appear weak, selfish and bored, and one following their apparently aimless existences has no difficulty in falling into the last-named condition, especially as the book is full of descriptions of a rather exhaustive nature.”
HUDSON, JAY WILLIAM. College and new America. *$2 (5c) Appleton 378
Social reconstruction, the author holds, requires the aid of the colleges and looks to them for skilled intelligence of a special sort. This requires reform and the first reform needed is that of the college professor himself. He outlines the nature of the college professor’s obligation to the social order, hardly recognized heretofore but upon which lies the ultimate hope of the college. Dr Henry Suzzallo contributes a foreword, and the contents are: The call of the new order; The academic mind; The defense of the academic mind; The obligation to the social order; The failure of the academic mind; How college professors educate; America as an educational motive; The truth worth teaching; Some next things in college education; The meaning of America; The college and American life; The largest terms of culture; How may these things be? Index.
“Although written from the professor’s point of view, all who are interested will find profit in this clarifying consideration of aims.”
“We somehow feel that Dr Hudson’s ‘New America’ started about 1865, right after the Civil war; that he draws no distinction between what the conscious America of today is trying to be, and what it was permitting itself to be before the late unpleasantness in Europe. Also, though he points out with some acumen the faults of our present system of college education, he does not convince the reader that he has anything very substantial with which to remedy these faults.” J. W. G.
“In formulating the educational problem of the colleges, Dr Hudson has performed a real service such as one could scarcely expect from any one but a practical-minded philosopher, at home alike with realities and with abstractions. Dr Hudson’s remedies are not so convincing as his criticism.”
“All in all, if Prof. Hudson’s book had been written before the war it would have come as a startling prophecy, but now it is in the position of the oracle which tells, in faltering accents, that which has come to pass.”
“The book is likely to be subjected to the criticism that it does not tell us what to do. But as a definite challenge to university and college men who are not completely academic to undertake seriously the task of reconstructing the aims and instruments of higher education in America, this book must have wide and serious consideration.” J. K. Hart
HUDSON, STEPHEN. Richard Kurt. *$2.25 Knopf
A long novel concerned with the emotions and reactions of a young Englishman, particularly in his relations with his father, his wife, and a young Italian girl called Virginia. Between himself and his father there is a long standing antagonism. His wife, Elinor, is a woman of social aspirations with one set of values only. She is beautiful and he still apparently loves her, altho there is little sympathy between them. In Italy he meets Virginia, a girl of puzzling character, who alternately intrigues and repulses him. He is ready to leave his wife for her and cannot determine whether her pose of reluctance is the result of genuine naïveté or of deep-seated design. In the end repugnance overcomes him. He leaves her and accompanies his now aged father to London. Midway in the story there is a brief interlude of friendship with an intelligent American woman who exhorts Richard to “be a man,” advice he seems temperamentally incapable of following.
“Mr Hudson combines aloofness of attitude and a complete saturation with his subject. Rarely has a riper first novel appeared. It is solidly founded in its observation, built with a serene sureness of touch, careless of vain graces, disdainful of all appeals save that of its inner veracity.”
“The very long book is much of it well done. Many of the numerous descriptions are good, and, in short, the author shows himself to be possessed of talent which it seems rather a pity that he should expend on relating the detailed history of a man who was not only a drinker and a gambler, but a sponge, a spineless parasite and cad, too feeble and too monotonous in character to hold the reader’s attention.”
“Three-quarters of the book is weak, trivial, negligible, and but for Virginia the rest would be the same. She alone is something more than an unpleasant hotel acquaintance. There is Virginia and one thing more, the last meeting between Richard and his father. This also, slight though it is, is touched with beauty.”
HUDSON, W. H. Birds in town and village. il *$4 Dutton 598.2
“Sketches of birds done with an intimate understanding of their habits and temperaments; chatty anecdotes and quaint legends, and the out-of-doors make this one of the author’s characteristically charming books. The first part is a revision of his earlier work, ‘Birds in a village,’ now out of print. Eight colored plates by E. J. Detmold.”—Booklist
“Vivid and fascinating descriptions of bird life.”
“Mr Hudson is not an ordinary writer nor his book an ordinary book about birds. One is at loss to decide which is the greater charm of the books, the author’s mastery of style or his knowledge of the birds which he describes and makes real.” J. C.
“This book is not so whimsical as Mr Hudson’s ‘The book of a naturalist.’ On the other hand, it is a closer and more charming study of natural history.”
“The essays are delightful, even in tone, but with only occasional bits that are Hudson at his best.”
“It is literary, of course: but the writing is based on solid fact, and though Mr Hudson is sensitive, he is not sentimental.”
“The book is well worth reading.”
“Though some of Mr Hudson’s contentions appear disputable, this book is full of his unsurpassed perception and unique charm.”
HUDSON, W. H.[2] Birds of La Plata. il 2v *$15 Dutton 598.2
“The matter contained in this volume (which forms a companion to Mr Hudson’s famous ‘The naturalist in La Plata’) is taken from his ‘Argentine ornithology’ (1888–9), the matter contributed by the late P. L. Sclater, in order to make a complete list, being omitted along with the synonymy of the species described by Mr Hudson. Fresh species being continually added to the list, the work became out of date, the only thing of permanent interest being Mr Hudson’s account of the birds’ habits. There seems to have been no subsequent volume from any other source about Argentine birds.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The two volumes are packed full of the little delightful personal touches which make Hudson’s descriptions always a delight. In this book are traces of the carelessness which sometimes appears in Hudson’s writings. The color-plates by Gronvold add much to the beauty of the book, and although not so spirited as those of our own Fuertes they are beautifully done.” S: Scoville, jr.
“Though the book thus forms no inadequate guide to the birds of at least a large portion of the Argentine territories, it makes a direct appeal to many bird-lovers who may never hope to see any of the species here described in their natural haunts.”
HUDSON, W. H.[2] Dead Man’s Plack, and An old thorn. *$2.50 Dutton
“‘Dead Man’s Plack’ is a story of a thousand years ago. The story is of Edgar the Peaceful, of Earl Athelwold, and of the beautiful Elfrida who so dreadfully became queen and again so dreadfully became queen mother, and is a simple, savage story of a simple, savage time. It is a happy fortune that has brought ‘An old thorn’ within book covers with ‘Dead Man’s Plack.’ This shorter story, which was originally published in The English Review a number of years ago, is probably the only narrative we have (the only one to Mr Hudson’s knowledge) which deals with ‘that rare and curious subject, the survival of tree worship’ in England. But it will live in the readers’ mind as a piteous and haunting human tragedy—the story of a young countryman who was hanged (and this was only a century ago) for stealing a sheep.”—N Y Times
“In ‘An old thorn’ Hudson is at his best. He moves to his conclusion with that sense of inevitability that is the core of tragedy.”
“And just as ‘Green mansions’ glows forever with the brilliance of the tropical forest, so here in ‘Dead Man’s Plack’ a Saxon England is recreated for us, and can never die. This new book of Hudson’s must have a permanent place in our libraries.”
“There is a simple and plaintive charm in the narrative.”
“Here are two short stories by Mr Hudson, good enough for most writers, but not his best. We could praise them for many things; if they were by an unknown writer we should be content to praise; we should even enjoy them more than we do now, knowing the other works of their author; but, as it is, we are perhaps a little ungrateful for their many beauties because we cannot refrain from asking why the short story, even in ‘El ombu,’ does not quite suit Mr Hudson’s genius.”
HUEBNER, GROVER GERHARDT. Ocean steamship traffic management. *$3 Appleton 387
The book is one of a series of manuals for instruction in the various phases of steamship business. Its object is to give in systematic order all the facts and activities that come within the range of the ocean shipping business, for the guidance of individual students studying by themselves and for use as a class text-book. The contents are divided into three parts: Part I: The traffic organization of ocean shipping; Part II: Ocean shipping documents; Part III: Ocean rates and regulation. There is an index.
“The material is exceptionally well arranged.”
“Well organized; written with clearness and precision.”
HUEBNER, SOLOMON S. Marine insurance. *$3 Appleton 368.2
The volume is the first of a series of manuals designed to assist students training for the marine insurance, shipping and exporting business. It is adapted to the needs of beginners and does not aim to discuss highly technical or isolated aspects of the business, such as the specialist of long training may desire. Contents: Nature and functions of marine insurance; Types of underwriters; Types of policies; Analysis of the policy contract; Analysis of the perils covered; Total loss; General average; Particular average; Cargo insurance; Hull insurance; Freight insurance; Builders’ risk insurance; Reinsurance agreements; Marine underwriters’ associations; Rate making in marine insurance; Appendices (including specimens of the various types of policies); Index
“His book is comprehensive and well written and should prove helpful to large numbers of the young generation in the country’s marine insurance offices.”
HUGHES, ADELAIDE MANOLA. Diantha goes the primrose way, and other verses. *$1.35 Harper 811
The title poem depicts in free verse the drama of a woman who, turning away from her husband-friend to passionate love, sees that love die and leave her desolate. She seeks comfort in work and in an hour of mortal agony grasps the protecting hand of that husband-friend. The other poems are grouped under the headings: Ceremonials, and Beloved objects.
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
HUGHES, EDWARD ARTHUR. Britain and greater Britain in the nineteenth century. *$1.60 (1½c) Putnam 942.08
A book written “for the general public, as well as for the upper forms of schools.” The author is assistant master at the Royal naval college, Dartmouth. Part 1, devoted to Great Britain and Ireland, consists of the following chapters: Introductory; England from Waterloo to the great reform bill (1815–1832); English politics from the great reform bill to the outbreak of the Crimean war (1832–1853); The condition of England 1815–1853; Foreign relations to the end of the Crimean war; Palmerstonian England; Ireland 1800–1866; England and Ireland 1868–1885; England and Ireland 1886–1906; Social movements (two chapters). Part 2 devotes a chapter each to Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India and Egypt, with a concluding chapter on The British empire. There is an index.
“On the whole it is the best short history of modern Britain that has appeared. But there is one serious defect that greatly impairs its usefulness. Not only is there no bibliography but there are no references whatever. Good as it is, it is not particularly dynamic or illuminating.” C. F. Lavell
“Despite the absence of personal bias, rigorously to be suppressed in a book like this, and the compression of a large subject into 300 pages, we read ‘Britain and greater Britain’ through from start to finish with unabated interest.”
HUGHES, GLENN. Broken lights. *$1.50 Univ. of Washington 811
From the preface contributed to this collection of poems by Frederick Morgan Padelford, it is to be inferred that the poems were accepted by the English department of the University of Washington in lieu of a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts, on the ground that “the creation of art is at least as severe a test of culture and of refined and disciplined thinking as the ability to reason sagely upon the art created by others.” The poems are grouped under the headings; A garland for Euterpe; Remembrances: Eccentricities: Pro patria.
“Our ‘strong’ young poets will doubtless see too much of softly falling rain or gently moving cloud to please them in the volume, too much of Mother Nature and too little of human nature.”
HUGHES, RUPERT. Momma, and other unimportant people. *$2 (2c) Harper
Thirteen short stories with the titles: “Momma”; The stick-in-the-muds; Read it again; The father of waters; Innocence; The college Lorelei; Yellow cords; The split; A story I can’t write; The butcher’s daughter; The quick-silver window; The dauntless bookkeeper; You hadn’t ought to. The stories have appeared in Collier’s and other magazines.
“If the people all belong to about the same class, the stories themselves are of very uneven merit, several of them being very good, while others are distinctly poor. The book gives, take it all in all, an accurate picture of certain phases of American life.”
HUGHES, RUPERT. What’s the world coming to? il *$1.90 (1c) Harper
Bob Taxter, coming home from the war, learns that he has inherited ten thousand dollars. His first thought is that now he will be free to marry April, the girl he has loved and quarrelled with since childhood. But he finds that April too has inherited money, a much larger sum than his own. He straightway sets about making more and turns his attention to oil. And quite opportunely Joe Yarmy and his sister Kate appear on the scene. The old homestead in Texas is all ready to gush oil. They need only capital. Bob bites, but April is sceptical. They quarrel and she returns his ring. Bewildered, Bob finds himself engaged to marry Kate. But there has been another sceptic, old Uncle Zeb, family retainer of the Taxters, now a “professor of vacuum cleaning.” It is he who thwarts the wedding plans, redeems the ten thousand dollars and the Taxter diamonds. This is the story, but the book abounds in an astounding array of other matters, doggerel verses current at the time, statistics, price lists, quotations from the Brewers’ board of trade, and the author’s opinions on prohibition and social conditions generally.
“The plot is fairly complicated, and interspersed with a very great deal of comment and of moralizing, some of which is worth reading, though most of it is exceedingly trite. The novel is inordinately long, but no doubt it will please Mr Hughes’s admirers.”
“The story is a potpourri of post-war conditions and incidents loosely put together.”
HUGHES, TALBOT. Dress design, il $4 Pitman 391
The book is one of the Artistic crafts series of technical handbooks edited by W. R. Lethaby, and is “an account of costume for artists and dressmakers.” (Sub-title) The object of the series is to encourage greater consideration for design and workmanship and the object of this particular volume is to emphasize the craftsman and artistic side of costume making and to “separate in some degree the more constant elements of dress from those which are more variable.” (Preface) Although cast into the form of history it is also a book of suggestions to modern dressmakers. The book is profusely illustrated with figures and full-page plates and a special feature has been made of supplying the maker or designer of dress with actual proportions and patterns, gleaned from antique dresses. Beginning with prehistoric dress, both male and female, successive chapters are given to the development of costume in the different centuries including the nineteenth. There is an index and a detailed list of patterns.
HULBERT, ARCHER BUTLER. Paths of inland commerce. (Chronicles of America ser.) il per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 380
“Professor Hulbert is well equipped for writing the story of the early development of the transportation routes of the United States, for he has already published sixteen volumes on the pioneer roads and canals, based upon personal observation and firsthand study. In the monograph under review the author has brought together the best results of his earlier labors and woven them into a connected narrative of the part which trails, roads, canals, and natural waterways have played in our commercial development.”—Am Hist R
“The interest of the author in his subject has at times betrayed him into extreme forms of statement, but on the whole he has maintained a fair balance.” E. L. Bogart
“The progress both in historical scholarship and in the author’s knowledge is shown by a comparison of this mature and carefully wrought volume with the earlier ‘Historic highways of America’ published some fifteen to eighteen years ago by the same author. The enthusiasm has remained, and has deepened and broadened with the author’s enlarging acquaintance with the subject, until it has evoked a notable epic of transportation.” L. P. Kellogg
“An extremely readable volume.”
HUMPHREY, ZEPHINE (MRS WALLACE WEIR FAHNESTOCK).[2] Sword of the spirit. *$2.50 Dutton
“The novel begins with the marriage of a young couple well endowed with this world’s goods, who are ardently infatuated with each other. Every one looks upon it as a most desirable match in every way, and at first the young husband and wife are superlatively happy. Then the little rifts begin to appear. The girl is of a very spiritual nature. The husband lives upon a distinctly lower level, is frankly material in his enjoyment of life. The climax comes with some riotous living on his part, which includes too much toying with the wine cup. The barrier that has grown between them seems impassable, and wreckage threatens their marriage. The situations and developments by which the author chastens and humbles both of them and finally brings them together again are plausible and emotional.”—N Y Times
“Miss Humphrey has shown no lack of temerity and assurance in handling the things of the spirit; but in so doing she has merely revolved around her subject without ever really grappling it. The novel, as a whole, is neither pleasing nor convincing.”
“It is, perhaps, in construction and development and emotional tensity the best work she has yet done. There is, indeed, much fine and keen perception of spiritual beauty throughout the book.”
HUMPHREYS, ELIZA M. J. (GOLLAN) (MRS DESMOND HUMPHREYS) (RITA, pseud.). Diana of the Ephesians. *$1.75 (1c) Stokes
The hero of this story is the incarnation of egotism, self-conceit and arrogant, heartless megalomania. She is a Greek girl of doubtful parentage, her father an Englishman. Claiming the guardianship of an English professor she comes to England at the age of seventeen, consumed with ambition to become a great writer and under the delusion of being the daughter of some great personage. Rough-shod she walks over everybody in the home that has received her; wheedles herself into the good graces of an old lord; has a brief but dazzling and artificial career and sinks into oblivion as the bubble of her genius bursts and the true secret of her humble origin is revealed.
“The story is well written and entertaining, but endows the girl with improbable power.”
“The leading character, though exaggerated and decidedly bizarre, is interesting and keeps the reader wondering what she will find to do next. The novel is interesting, and its plot is more than a little out of the ordinary.”
“The story’s rapid action, its multitude of interesting detail, and the singular character of the heroine engage the reader’s attention throughout 500 closely printed pages.”
HUMPHREYS, ELIZA M. J. (GOLLAN) MRS DESMOND HUMPHREYS) (RITA, pseud.). Truth of spiritualism. *$1.25 Lippincott 134
“‘Rita’ has closely examined the different phenomena of spiritualism, with the result that she believes it does reveal more than the church has told us as to the condition of the departed; and that, though not ‘an orthodox religion,’ it is ‘the root and source of all religions.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Rita’s denunciations will hardly make much difference, especially as they are often more eloquent than intelligible.”
“A maze of vague, incoherent, unproven assertions, a jumble of rambling nonsense, of stuffy, sickly sentimental Raymondiana, interspersed with impassioned tirades against Christianity as seen through the spectacles of ignorance, prejudice, and calumny, and hovering above all this the arrogant, self-canonized opinion of Mrs Humphreys, run amuck among truths beyond its grasp and appreciation, ignorant, irrational, defiant, indecent and sacrilegious.”
“The converted will no doubt read her disquisition with pleasure; but it cannot be said to add anything of importance to the controversy.”
HUNEKER, JAMES GIBBONS. Bedouins. il *$2 (5½c) Scribner 780.4
Some of Mr Huneker’s bedouins, in this collection of essays, are real and some are fictitious. A number of the essays are devoted to Mary Garden, whom the author admires as a “wonderful artiste” and an “extraordinary woman,” others to Debussy, Mirbeau, George Luks, Chopin, Caruso, Anatole France. All partake of the nature of extravaganzas, particularly the fiction. The book falls into two parts: Mary Garden, and Idols and ambergris. Under part 1 some of the titles are: Superwoman; The baby, the critic, and the guitar; The artistic temperament; The passing of Octave Mirbeau; Anarchs and ecstasy; Caruso on wheels; A masque of music. Among the contents of part 2 are: The supreme sin; Venus or Valkyr? The cardinal’s fiddle; The vision malefic.
“We find Mr Huneker unreadable. It is not only the rush and freshness of his style, which has all the marvellous energy of a woman in hysterics, that we find unendurable, but we can attach no meaning to what he says.”
“He has a marvellous power of suggesting, of stimulating, of suddenly burbanking widely separated notions and as suddenly dissociating them. As some one said about him, his brilliancy and versatility hide his profundity. ‘Bedouins’ is a book without a desert.” B: de Casseres
“James Huneker’s writing is full of sound and fury but it signifies a good deal. His criticism is backed by a real knowledge of most of the arts in most of the centuries.”
“Maeterlinck wrote: ‘I have marvelled at the vigilance and clarity with which you follow and judge the new literary and artistic movements in all countries.’ ‘Bedouins’ is a new illustration of this vigilance and clarity. His pages on Anatole France, though different in style, are worthy of being included in Henry James’s little read but wonderful book on ‘French poets and novelists.’” H: T. Finck
“Mr Huneker is, to me, the greatest master of English prose living today, and ‘Bedouins’ shows no weakening of his hand.” B: de Casseres
“Mr Huneker’s enthusiasm and good nature win acceptance for his literary caprices; he is always to be distinguished from his imitators of the Mencken-Nathan order.”
Reviewed by M. F. Egan
HUNEKER, JAMES GIBBONS. Steeplejack. 2v il *$7.50 Scribner
“Mr Huneker has been for many years one of the best known of the music and dramatic critics in New York. These volumes give an entertaining running account of his relations with musicians, artists, men and women of the stage, and authors, both here and in Europe.”—R of Rs
“Whatever the talk, the brilliant style, the startling paradoxes, and the individuality of the writer’s reactions make it interesting.”
“His book is the romance of the year.” B: de Casseres
“Mr Huneker is seen in his confessions as a very human being, rich in experience and mellow in philosophy. His narrative becomes by turns merry, stinging, meditative, instructive; but never dull, hypocritical, or self-laudatory. He has performed a difficult task with the utmost skill, albeit with no dainty hand.” Margaret Ashmun
“Through all the disjointed mass of youthful recollection Mr Huneker has never been dull. Only when he gets onto the current era, in volume two, does his blast of steam become inconsequential. He pounds his fists, strikes his favorite pose, gesticulates and roars; but when he discusses his contemporaries—puff; his charm is gone. His autobiography as well as his career is for the most part distinctive, versatile, individual.” J. B. A.
“It is easily the non-fiction book of the year in this country, where there are so many persons and so few individuals. It is the challenge of a cultured superman to his generation. And withal a profoundly human book.” B. D.
“In a less ebullient individuality the cultivation of the ego would make for boredom; in the case of Mr Huneker a conscious and concentrated development of personality has enriched our insight into contemporary peregrinations of the spirit.” L. R. Morris
“The first impression left by this stimulating and quite unconventional autobiography is that of a personally conducted tour thru the literary and artistic ‘Who’s who?’ of the past fifty years. One’s second thought is an involuntary wish, not that Mr Huneker’s life had been less rich in varied scenes and privileged friendships, but that he had given us a narrower and more selective perspective. Yet it would be the sheerest ingratitude to imply that other methods and proportions would have made a better book.” F: T. Cooper
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“‘Steeplejack’ should appeal to anyone who cares to recall the artistic, musical, literary, and journalistic history of America in the past thirty years.” E. L. Pearson
“Both volumes well repay perusal.”
“It is a gay, happy, animated recital, not of high importance as intellectual biography, but preserving a good many recollections worth preserving and giving a full-length picture of a temperament which the reader will agree with possessor in calling more continental than American. ‘Steeplejack’ takes us to three cities—Philadelphia, Paris and New York. Will one’s taste be indictable for dulness if it selects Philadelphia as the most interesting?”
HUNGERFORD, EDWARD.[2] With the doughboy in France. il *$2 (2c) Macmillan 940.477
“A few chapters of an American effort” the author calls this book, meaning the work of the Red cross, which seemed to him such an outpouring of affection, of patriotism, of a sincere desire to serve, as he had never before seen. It is not a consecutive narrative but a series of descriptions, well illustrated, under the headings: America awakens; Our Red cross goes to war; Organizing for work; The problem of transport; The American Red cross as a department store; The doughboy moves toward the front; The Red cross on the field of honor; Our Red cross performs its supreme mission; The Red cross in the hospitals of the A. F. F.; “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag”; When Johnny came marching home; The girl who went to war.
“If one desires to know what our Red cross men and women did for their country, he will find the story here.” E. J. C.
“The method of the book is to recount in a chatty, journalistic way the general experiences of the Red cross, and, incidentally, of the armies. The total effect, unfortunately, is of triviality.”
HUNT, H. ERNEST. Self-training. *$1.25 (3c) McKay 131
In laying down the lines of mental progress it is the object of the book to teach men how to become master workmen in the art of living by building up correct dominant ideas into the subconscious. He describes the important part played by the subconscious mind, how our health and our activities are constantly under the control of an accumulated stock of ideas and how this stock of ideas can in turn be controlled by a conscious effort of the will. Contents: The nature of mind; Mind at work; Thought and health; Suggestion; Training the senses; Memory; The feelings; Will and imagination; The machinery of nerves; Extensions of faculty; Self-building; The spiritual basis.
“Good for the discouraged person who is capable of taking himself in hand.”
HUNTER, GEORGE MCPHERSON. When I was a boy in Scotland. (Children of other lands books) il *$1 (4c) Lothrop 914.1
The author, who is now a clergyman in the United States, writes of: The place where I was born; My schools and school-teachers; Our games and play; Tales of my grandfathers; High days and holidays in Scotland; Days on the beach and among the heather; Tramps in and around Glasgow, etc. The last chapter tells how he went to sea, returned to Glasgow university, and then came to America.
“To read this book is not only to know a real Scotch lad but to learn many things in a pleasing way.”
HURLEY, EDWARD NASH. New merchant marine. il *$3 (3½c) Century 387
This is the second volume in the Century foreign trade series. The author was formerly chairman of the United States shipping board and has written “The awakening of business” and other books. In the present work he sketches the history of American shipping but devotes most of his space to future problems of foreign trade. Among the chapters are: Our past glories on the sea; Organization of the United States shipping board; Preparing for ship construction under war conditions; Methods by which tonnage was acquired; The new merchant marine; American commerce in the western hemisphere; American commerce in Australia and the Far East; The economical operation of ships; Reaction of ships upon national industries; Americanization and re-orientation. The book is illustrated, has two appendices and an index.
“The book contains a wealth of timely suggestions and detailed instruction in practice and methods.”
HUSBAND, JOSEPH. Americans by adoption. il $1.50 (4c) Atlantic monthly press 920
The volume contains biographical sketches of nine prominent, foreign-born “Americans by choice” with an introduction by William Allan Neilson, himself a foreigner, and president of Smith college. He holds that what men want most is “to count among their fellows for what they are worth.” That America is giving its citizens of foreign birth this opportunity is the underlying reason for the book. Each sketch is accompanied by a portrait and the subjects of the sketches are: Stephen Girard; John Ericsson; Louis Agassiz; Carl Schurz; Theodore Thomas; Andrew Carnegie; James J. Hill; Augustus Saint-Gaudens; Jacob A. Riis.
“An interesting addition to any public or high school library.”
“Mr Husband’s book, however flowery some of its phraseology may be, is yet a trumpet call.” E. F. E.
“Now, I am convinced that these interesting records will ‘inspire,’ in the matter of Americanism, only those who are inspired already. Mr Husband does not seem to realize, in the first place, that it is quite impossible for people nowadays to admire very greatly such heroes as Stephen Girard, James J. Hill and Andrew Carnegie. It is an old fallacy of ours to suppose that we alone have produced men of this kind. But Mr Husband makes a virtue of every accident.”
“This little volume, beautifully introduced by W. A. Neilson, should have its worthy place in any bibliography of Americanization.”
“The book is highly appropriate as a high-school reader or reference book.”
“The book is based on pure fiction, so far as America is concerned. In the first place, since the constitution does not provide for conferring the freedom of the nation on foreigners, there are no ‘Americans by adoption.’ Mr Husband’s portraiture is rather in keeping with the ideas propounded by Mr Neilson in the preface; his heroes are made to look like ‘Efficiency Edgar.’” B. L.
HUTCHINSON, EMILIE JOSEPHINE. Women’s wages. (Columbia univ. studies in history, economics, and public law) pa *$1.50 Longmans 331.4
“This book, submitted as a doctor’s thesis to Columbia university, is a painstaking, clearly written analysis of the wages of women and the factors affecting them. Nearly half the space is given to a discussion of minimum-wage legislation and its possibilities. Trade unionism and vocational training are included with minimum-wage laws as the chief methods of raising the present low standards. The facts presented are drawn almost exclusively from reports prepared before the war, and although occasional references are made to the work of women during the war, and their position after it, the discussion seems not to have been influenced by the changes in the aspects of labor problems since 1914.”—Am J Soc
“The postponement of the publication of this useful laboriously prepared study makes the data seem curiously obsolete.” Edith Abbott
“It is unfortunate that certain old opinions, which have never had satisfactory statistical proof, such as ‘from five to seven years is the average length of the girl’s wage-earning life,’ are repeated without supporting evidence. As a history of data and opinions before the war the book is useful, and with the persistence of many of the same tendencies in women’s work, it will have continued value.” Mary Van Kleeck
“‘Women’s wages’ is encouraging in its wholesome lack of optimism.”
“A unique and much needed piece of work.” Signe Toksvig
“This admirable study digests with fairness and with intelligence the available data concerning women’s wages in this country. The book she has produced excellently covers its field.” W. L. C.
HUTCHINSON, HORATIO GORDON. Portraits of the eighties, il *$4 Scribner 920
“Since the Right Hon. George W. E. Russell has himself written about so many of his contemporaries, it is fitting that he should hold the place of honor, with a frontispiece portrait, in Mr Hutchinson’s ‘Portraits of the eighties.’ After this introductory chapter dealing with Mr Russell we are given a graphic series of pen portraits of men of such diverse interests as Gladstone, John Bright, Parnell, General Gordon, Archbishop Temple, Professor Huxley, William Morris Swinburne, George Frederick Watts, Sir W. S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde and W. G. Grace, Mr Hutchinson’s survey of English personalities extending thereby from statesmanship to cricket-playing.”—Boston Transcript
“There are too many (over 30) portraits and groups attempted in these 300 pages; comparatively few lines can be given to each, and Mr Hutchinson is not master of the economy of telling and characteristic strokes. The fortuitous medley of the scrap-book may, however, afford entertainment, and even a degree of instruction.” F. W. S.
“The book is full of important facts brought together in an accessible form. But Mr Hutchinson has little penetration and suffers in any comparison that is drawn between his work, which may be admitted to be good, and the work which is entitled to be called excellent of some recent writers.” Theodore Maynard
“As an abstract and brief chronicle of its decade, Mr Hutchinson’s book fulfils the promise of its title.” E. F. E.
“The book does not possess the brilliant style or keen analysis of Mr Strachey’s ‘Eminent Victorians,’ but is discriminating and, if not characterized by any remarkable insight is generally fair in its judgment.”
“Mr Hutchinson is an impressionist, working with a broad and sometimes rather careless brush, yet seldom failing to make his portrait live. A gentle judge of the private characters of his subjects, he is a circumspect critic of their public activities.”
HUTTEN ZUM STOLZENBERG, BETTINA (RIDDLE) freifrau von. Happy house. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
Happy house the young bride called her new home, but it soon became a euphemism. Violet Walbridge slaved with her pen to give without stint to a worthless husband and a large thoughtlessly exacting family. As the quality of her novels is falling off into mere rubbish, and with it the quantity of her income, a young journalist discovers her rare character as a woman. He also falls in love with her youngest daughter but the course of his true love does not run smoothly. During his devious courtship of Grisel, his friendship for his would-be-mother-in-law becomes a rejuvenating elixir for the latter and enables her to write a real true-to-life modern story, that reinstates her in the good graces of her publishers.
“A pleasant character study of an interesting group.”
“The plot itself might well have been composed by its heroine.” M. E. Bailey
“In ‘Happy house,’ Baroness von Hutten has written a story which should not by rights be readable, but into which she has managed to infuse a certain amount of vitality. It is a ghost but there are moments when its gestures are sufficiently life-like, and despite its rattling bones we follow its motions.” D. L. M.
“As a whole, the book is decidedly pleasing and out of the ordinary.”
“‘Happy house’ is a quiet little story of the domestic type, but Oliver Wick and Violet Walbridge make it worth while.”
“The novel is entertaining rather than deep.”
“Towards the end of the book a few incredible things happen, but one forgives these in gratitude for the careful and convincing character drawing.”
“In the tragedy of a once popular novelist, who has become something of a fallen star, and in the very casual way in which, even when her star was at its zenith, she has always been regarded by her own family, there are great possibilities. But the Baroness von Hutten scarcely makes the most of it, and dares so little to rely on it that she introduces two sub-plots which, though mechanically linked with this main theme, have no artistic bearing upon it.”
HUTTEN ZUM STOLZENBERG, BETTINA (RIDDLE) freifrau von. Helping Hersey. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
A book of collected short stories from the pen of this author of many popular novels. The title story is a study of two women, mother and daughter, in their relation to one man, an American, who at first misjudges both and is later led to reverse his opinions. First place in the collection is given to Peterl in the Black forest, a sketch written in 1913 with all the marks of a study from life. The other titles are: In loving memory; Ker Kel; Mrs Hornbeam’s headdress; The common man’s story; The iron shutter; Two Apaches; The principino; Three times; A Berlin adventure.
“Slight but entertaining.”
“It is decidedly agreeable to find such a variety of stories bound in one volume by one author.”
“The Baroness von Hutten’s latest collection of tales displays, as it were, her familiar super-mediocre versatility. And yet to me the most distinguished pieces of writing in the volume are the plotless sketches, ‘Ker Kel,’ a little picture of Brittany, and ‘Peterl in the Black Forest.’” H. W. Boynton
HUXLEY, ALDOUS LEONARD. Leda. *$1.50 Doran 821
In this collection of poems the title poem describes the Olympian love episode with singular beauty of diction as well as mundane realism. The other poems, some of which are poetic prose, all betray more or less of sardonic humor, as when the poet suddenly finds himself sobered from the “intoxicating speed” of the merry-go-round when he perceives “a slobbering cretin grinding at a wheel and sweating as he ground, and grinding eternally.” Some of the other titles are: The birth of God; Male and female created He them; Life and art; First—Second—Fifth—and Ninth philosopher’s song; The merry-go-round; Last things; Evening party; Soles occidere et redire possunt.
“We cannot accept it. The elements that Mr Huxley has desired to combine, the precious esoteric beauty and the ugliness which were to be blended into a new comprehensive beauty in whose light nothing should appear common or unclean, are still as unmixed as oil and vinegar. If Mr Huxley wishes to be judged, he should elect to be judged, not by ‘Leda,’ nor by any of the shorter poems in this book, but by ‘Soles occidere et redire possunt.’ As for two-thirds of the shorter pieces, we think he would have been well advised never to print them.” J. M. M.
“Aldous Huxley exposes the fallacy that the imagination needs any special material in which to exercise the creative spirit of poetry. His book opens with a successful and beautiful poem on a mythical legend. The book closes with an elegy for a friend lost in the war, and here the elements are, one might say, sardonically modern, the very naked realities of life gathered up and fused with a temper that makes the spirit of poetry no less golden than the substance in the more remote Hellenic rumor of the seduction of Leda by Zeus in the form of a swan.” W: S. Braithwaite
“When he is complaining or mocking Mr Huxley can rise to real heights of bombast; at such times he writes good mouth-filling stuff with a little of the Elizabethan spirit, but with more acidity. It is for his satires, then, that he is to be valued, rather than for any gropings toward a philosophy; for his prose poems as long as they are satires; for ‘Soles occidere et redire possunt’ as long as it remains a criticism and a complaint. Most of his other work must be disregarded.” Malcolm Cowley
“Mr Huxley has neither the courage to love his themes for their own sakes nor the imagination to get the better of them; therefore, he is not a poet, although every line of his book displays a determination to write something better than the conventional prettifications which people usually call poetry.” J: G. Fletcher
“In ‘Leda’ he offers a volume that will, with all probability, be quite the most unique and interesting addition to the sum total of English poetry for the year. Indeed, it is a book that is unapproached in certain of its manifestations.” H. S. Gorman
HUXLEY, ALDOUS LEONARD. Limbo. *$1.75 Doran
A book that introduces a new English satirist. It opens with Farcical history of Richard Greenow, a curious tale of dual personality. The shorter pieces that follow are: Happily ever after; Eupompus gave splendour to art by numbers; Happy families; Cynthia; The bookshop; The death of Lully.
“‘Limbo’ is startling because it is young and sophisticated, ironic and malicious, delicately and forcefully written—qualities rare enough in the work of old masters, but apparently upsetting to critical standards when found in a first book. ‘Happily ever after’ is the masterpiece of the collection.” E. P.
“The one story that must be taken seriously in Aldous Huxley’s collection ‘Limbo’ is ‘The farcical history of Richard Greenow.’ Always the reader should bear in mind that the tragedy of Richard Greenow is as poignant as its humor is pungent, and that below the surface mockery lies a seriousness indicative of that most tragical of all causes of tragedy—social ignorance.”
“Mr Huxley has fulfilled the promise that he intimated in his earlier books to the few who knew him, and demonstrated that he is one of the finest writers of prose in England today. He is finished and fastidious, sophisticated and diverting, an authentic figure of some actual importance and with many potentialities. That he must take a decided place among the younger contemporary writers in England is without doubt.” H. S. G.
“In lines, sometimes in paragraphs, and in general atmospheric suggestion, there appears to this reviewer a likeness between Mr Huxley and Max Beerbohm. The mental attitude of the two men is dissimilar in many ways. But through them both runs that great streak of urbanity, of sophistication, of what might almost be termed jadedness at times. ‘Limbo’ is a book of definite promise and of a certain achievement.”
“Mr Huxley has a very readable and diverting narrative style, a style with journalism in the first story and literature in the second, and with full permission, but no obligation, to the reader to climb the stairs. Mr Huxley’s low estimate of human nature does not tame the effervescence of his spirits.”
“The death of Lully is the only story in which it may occur to the reader that after all Mr Aldous Huxley is sometimes actuated by the ideals and sympathies which move ordinary human beings.”
“The most remarkable story in the book is ‘The farcical history of Richard Greenow.’ There is a blunt boyish ring to this which oddly enough induces the uncanny effect that many writers wallow in melodrama to obtain. But Mr Huxley’s product is uneven. ‘Happily ever after’ is as humdrum as the preceding story is distinguished.”
“Instead of saying that there are seven short stories in ‘Limbo’ which are all clever, amusing, and well written, and recommending the public to read them, as we can conscientiously do, we are tempted to state, what it is so seldom necessary to state, that short stories can be a great deal more than clever, amusing, and well written. There is another adjective—‘interesting’; that is the adjective we should like to bestow upon Mr Huxley’s short stories, for it is the best worth having.”
IGLEHART, FERDINAND COWLE. Theodore Roosevelt: the man as I knew him. il $1.50 Christian herald pub.
“This life by Dr Iglehart is written from one predetermined viewpoint. He recognizes the strong religious convictions of Roosevelt and working from this fact he has interpreted his entire life as the life of a man all of whose actions are dominated by his religious life.”—Boston Transcript
“The book is very unevenly written. It is exceedingly entertaining in parts, while elsewhere the author has allowed his easy rhetorical English to run away with him. It is equally true there are parts of the book which will not fit in very easily with the general idea of Roosevelt’s personality.”
“A badly arranged mixture of eulogy, biography, and anecdote; but, for him who will dig for it, it contains much that is interesting, notably in regard to Roosevelt’s religious views.”
ILCHESTER, GILES STEPHEN HOLLAND FOX-STRANGWAYS, 6th earl of. Henry Fox, first lord Holland, his family and relations. 2v il *$12 Scribner
“The title of Lord Ilchester’s book is a misnomer. It will suggest to most people a book of private life and family gossip. But not one twentieth part of what he has written is occupied with these things. What he has given us is far nearer being a political history of England from 1739, when Henry Fox obtained his first office, that of surveyor of the works, till his death in 1774. Of course, the history is primarily a biography. But during at least the first five-and-twenty of these thirty-five years Henry Fox played an important part, either as one of the principal actors or as a spectator on whom the principal actors were obliged to keep watchful eyes, in nearly all the changing scenes of ministerial tragedy and comedy. Lord Ilchester has had access to a great deal of material which has never been used before. Letters and papers at Holland House, at Melbury, at Bowood, and elsewhere have provided a mass of evidence, much of it in Henry Fox’s own hand, as to his motives and opinions at various points in his career. Occasionally they enable Lord Ilchester to correct the statements or judgments of previous historians. But on the whole they only fill out the old picture, without altering its main lines.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Lord Ilchester’s volumes are strictly a biography. One might feel at times that Fox’s associates are little more than shadows in the background of the hero’s portrait; but the character and activities of the statesman himself are interestingly unfolded on almost every page. The subject is also presented with studied impartiality.” T. W. Riker
“Amongst historians, Macaulay, Lord Fitzmaurice, and Lord Roseberry, have written these thirty years down to the bone. Even his exceptional sources of information have not enabled Lord Ilchester to tell us anything new about Henry Fox or his contemporaries of sufficient importance to justify this biography; and we must be forgiven for saying that Lord Ilchester’s skill and style as a narrator only suffer by comparison with the great writers we have mentioned.”
“The memoir is most interesting and valuable. It not only throws new light on Fox himself and on the early days of his unlucky son, Charles James Fox, but it also illustrates from another standpoint the difficulties—admirably described by Lord Roseberry in his ‘Chatham’—which Pitt had to surmount before he could become minister in the crisis of the Seven years’ war.”
“The book is well written and well arranged. The writer knows his subject and his period and can use his knowledge effectively.”
In the mountains. *$1.90 (3c) Doubleday
The scene of the story is a little house in the Swiss Alps, to which an English woman, in some more than ordinarily tragic sense, bereaved by the war, comes to forget her sorrow. It had been her home in happier days and is to her a house of memories, but the story, which starts out with every indication of tragedy, turns out after all to be a very pleasant little comedy. The change comes with the appearance of the two uninvited guests, Mrs Barnes and Mrs ‘Jewks.’ They bring diversion. provocation and eventually healing. The story of the mistress of the house is only suggested but that of Dolly. Mrs ‘Jewks,’ which Mrs Barnes strives so faithfully to hide, is fully revealed and it is Dolly, whose name should be spelled Juchs, who is the book’s real heroine. The story is interspersed with comments on life and books.
“She has a delicate pen that lovingly shapes her phrase, and an instinct that keeps it true to experience. Perhaps the most interesting thing about her equipment, her composition, her make-up, is the slight instability in the mixture of her elements. She is profoundly a sentimentalist, and her sentimentality keeps jumping out in spite of all the ironical detachment she can muster against it.” K. M.
“There is distinction, delicacy, and deft handling throughout. ‘In the mountains’ may not command a large number of readers, it will have value, however, in selective readers’ eyes.” R. D. W.
“Remarkable for its sweet and gay philosophy of life, keen sense of humor, novel turns of thought and great facility of expression. Thought to be by the author of ‘Elizabeth and her German garden.’”
“It is the author’s wayside observations and the unexpected utterances of the other characters that count so mightily. The story is simple enough; it is the way it is told that is so engrossing.” W. A. Dyer
“Whoever she may be, the author of ‘In the mountains’ writes in a finished style that almost precludes the possibility that her present book is her first.”
“Both widows are, in their different ways, triumphs of characterisation, but the preeminence must certainly be assigned to Mrs Barnes. The devastating influence which genuine unselfishness, not qualified by intelligence, can exercise on the happiness of others is illustrated by her example with unsurpassable delicacy and sureness of touch.”
“Told with an unaffected simplicity which is apparently artless, its charm and sweetness steal upon the mind as with the spell of a delicate September day that suddenly surprises by its summery heat and power.”
“Dolly, the younger of the two (she is forty), is something delightfully new in heroines and the study of Mrs Barnes, as an example of the tyranny of unselfishness, is a skillful piece of analysis.”
INCHBOLD, A. CUNNICK (MRS STANLEY INCHBOLD). Love and the crescent; a tale of the Near East. *$1.25 (1c) Stokes
The scene of the story is laid in an Armenian village during the war. It relates the trials of a beautiful girl, daughter of a distinguished Armenian physician, and her family and tells of horrors, flights, deportations, miraculous rescues, heroic defences and Veronica’s final reunion with her French lover and their safe arrival in France. The deep-dyed villainy of a German consul is dressed up in suitable romantic garb in contrast to which the Turk appears as a humanitarian.
“In the portrayal of some of the characters, sometimes in the description of a scene, or again in the narrative which carries the story on, the author frequently drops into conventional, mechanical methods, and so lowers the grade of what would otherwise be a very excellent novel. But even so its construction is good, its movement rapid, its story interest well maintained, and its varied scenes are full of life and color that seem true and are certainly very interesting.”
“There are incidents in abundance. But Mrs Inchbold has not been entirely successful in blending them into a clear-cut story. The characters seem to walk mechanically across the pages, and there is scarcely one of them that at the end the reader feels he knows as a real live human being.”
INGALESE, RICHARD. History and power of mind, new and rev ed *$2.50 (3c) Dodd 131
The book is the second printing of a collection of lectures on occultism and the power of the mind. The author asks the reader to hold himself agnostically until the course is finished holding in mind always that if occultism is true it can be demonstrated, for truth is always demonstrable. The book commends itself to the investigator of psychic phenomena and of mental therapeutics and the ground covered is well indicated in its table of contents, viz: Occultism: its past, present and future; Divine mind: its nature and manifestation; Dual mind and its origin; The art of self-control; The law of re-embodiment; Colors of thought vibration; Meditation, creation and concentration; Lesser occult or psychic forces and their dangers; Hypnotism, and how to guard against it; Higher occult or spiritual forces and their uses; The cause and cure of disease; The law of opulence. There is an index.
INGE, WILLIAM RALPH. Outspoken essays. *$2.25 (*6s) Longmans 204
“The dean of St Paul’s has reprinted in this volume ten articles from the reviews, three dealing with patriotism, the birth-rate, and the future of the English race, and seven with ecclesiastical questions. To these he has prefixed an essay on ‘Our present discontent.’”—Spec
“He writes as powerfully and learnedly almost as Swift. He is also as skilful and as unfair a controversialist as Swift. In ‘The future of the English race’ he handles the results of modern ethnological research with easy mastery, and it is only the most careful of readers who will observe what a hiatus lies between the well-marshalled facts and the conclusions that insidiously follow.”
“Among Dr Inge’s many virtues, which include critical acuteness, epigrammatic power and a remarkable ability to be fair to persons as distinct from causes that offend him, must be reckoned his fearlessness.”
“What, however, makes his writing so intolerable is his patronizing way and his spirit of hauteur, as he stands aloof and with the unction of superiority passes judgment on men and things in the dogmatic spirit which he censures in others. Whatever may be said about his interpretations, we must recognize in him a prophet of candor, who utters the burden of truth with sublime disregard to personal consequences.” O. L. Joseph
“This book is replete with worth-while observations by a man of the world, able to see weak points, yet genially willing to accept conditions as in a large measure inevitable.”
“There is so much excellent modern rationalism in Dean Inge’s commerce with facts and tendencies that one cannot well forgive him for living emotionally in the dingy atmosphere of the century-old Malthus.”
“The chief paradox of all is that a scholar whose culture is as broad as the world should have sympathies even narrower than his native island. The masterpiece of the whole volume is the attack on the ‘Anglican Catholic’ party in the Established church. In all the controversy that has raged since the Tracts for the Times, there has never been so witty and so merciless a diatribe as that in which the author exposes the pretensions of the Anglican Catholics.” Preserved Smith
“Here, as a free-lance, as a critic of life, men, morals, institutions, dress, foods, the labor party, political economy and literature, Dean Inge is his true and powerful self. The scholar, the citizen and the preacher blend, and the acute observer joins them.” D. S. M.
“Whatever may be thought of his scepticism and of his own attempt to rise through doubt to a position of inexpugnable faith, his destructive analysis of the various other attempts of the sort is the work of a master hand. The religious papers in this volume display what is rare in contemporary English literature, a highly trained philosopher in the pulpit. Dean Inge has written a remarkable book.”
“It is a work of rare excellence and importance. We have failed if we have not made clear that it contains a mature and comprehensive Christian philosophy. It shirks no difficulties, concedes nothing to popular sentiment, has the sternness of Jewish prophecy.”
INGERSOLL, ERNEST. Wit of the wild. il *$2 Dodd 591.5
“This collection of sketches deals for the most part with familiar birds, animals, fish, and insects—the weasel, wasp, copperhead, whip-poor-will, and a score of others. It ranges widely from menhaden and muskrats to tree toads and the Portuguese man-of-war.” (N Y Evening Post) “There are chapters on animals that advertise, animals that wear disguises, animals that form partnerships with other animals, animals that set traps and animals that bluff.” (N Y Times)
“It is popular natural history at its best. The book is abundantly and excellently illustrated.”
INGPEN, ROGER, ed.[2] One thousand poems for children. *$2.50 Jacobs 821.08
This is a revised and enlarged edition of a former volume of “a choice of the best verse old and new” (Sub-title) which aims to provide poetry that is both pleasant to read and profitable to remember. The selection is graded according to the ages of children, ranging from the very little tot to the average child of fifteen and the poems are grouped under the headings: Rhymes for little ones; Cradle songs; Nursery rhymes; Fairy land; Fables and riddles; The seasons; Fields and woods; Home; Insects, birds and beasts; Humorous verse; Poems of patriotism and history; Ballads; Girlhood; Poems of praise; Miscellaneous. There are indexes of authors, first lines and titles.
INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT. COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. Report on the steel strike of 1919; with the technical assistance of the Bureau of industrial research, N.Y. *$2.50 Harcourt 331.89
In this report by the Commission of inquiry of the Interchurch world movement, the basic facts of normal steel employment conditions are presented with the commission’s findings from a Christian viewpoint. These findings justify the strike in its central phase and substantiate the claim that conditions after the strike have remained the same—a situation characterized as a state of war that threatens the industrial peace of the nation. The first two chapters dwell on the inauguration of the inquiry, its scope and method, its conclusions and recommendations and on the general ignorance of the real conditions. The rest of the contents are: The twelve-hour day in a no-conference industry; Wages in a no-conference industry; Grievances and control in a no-conference industry; Organizing for conference; Social consequences of arbitrary control; Concluding (Christian findings); Appendices and index.
“The report is a challenging document and raises fundamental questions concerning industrial relationships which need to be raised.” G: M. Janes
“One of the most important documents in the history of American industry. The report is crowded with revealing statistics and other important information, but its supreme value proceeds from the fact that its conclusions have been reached by investigators appointed by organizations that are ordinarily anything but friendly to labour.” W: Z. Foster
“This report is a splendid example of scientific investigation in a field where prejudice and hysteria make rational judgments difficult. This work is invaluable.” James Oneal
Reviewed by L. K. Frank
“If we had greater faith in the efficacy of education by coercion we should like to make two books compulsory reading for every clergyman, newspaper editor, politician, and employer in the United States. These two books are ‘The great steel strike’ by W. J. Foster and ‘The steel strike of 1919,’ the report of the Interchurch world movement’s commission.”
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF WOMEN PHYSICIANS. Proceedings of the international conference of women physicians. 6v $3; ea 75c Womans press 613
The proceedings of a conference held under the auspices of the National board of the Y. M. C. A. in New York city, Sept. 17–Oct. 25, 1919. “The conference met in response to a conscious need on the part of the women physicians in America for free discussion of those problems that relate to the maintaining and improving of health by education and other constructive means.... The word ‘health,’ was to be taken in its fullest sense as meaning the well-being of the entire personality.” (Preface) The proceedings, issued in six volumes, contain the addresses of distinguished physicians and specialists, men as well as women, bearing on all aspects of the subjects of health of women and children, sex and marriage, social morality, etc. The six volumes are devoted to: General problems of health; Industrial health; The health of the child; Moral codes and personality; Adaptation of the individual to life; Conservation of the health of women in marriage.
“Both the physician and the layman can profitably read these discussions.”
IRWIN, FLORENCE. Poor dear Theodora! *$1.75 (2c) Putnam
Theodora has race but no money. Her genteel family has all the pride of their poverty and Theodora shocks them by breaking away to earn her own living. She goes through a variety of experiences from companion to an invalid old lady and mother’s helper in a feminist’s household to war-worker. She has been dismissed from her first position because the old lady suspects her favorite nephew of being in love with her. She becomes engaged to a “newly rich” philanderer and breaks it off before it is too late. At last true love “will out” like murder and the old lady receives her with open arms. Incidentally the book abounds in reflections on current opinions, tendencies and fads.
“Theodora appeals to us, because of the sturdy independence of her mind and her conduct. Her natural individuality is developing. The novel excels in the delineation of character types.” D. L. M.
“The story is well written and will be enjoyed by those who care for this sort of fiction. Its chief fault is its length, which exceeds 400 pages.”
IRWIN, WALLACE ADMAH (GINGER, pseud.). Suffering husbands. *$1.75 (1½c) Doran
A collection of short stories, first copyrighted by the Curtis Publishing Company. Contents: All front and no back; Monkey on a stick; Peaches and cream; Thunder; The goat; The light that paled; Free; Gasless Sunday; Mother’s milk.
IRWIN, WALLACE ADMAH (GINGER, pseud.). Trimmed with red. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
A farcical story involving parlor Socialists and society Bolshevists. Rosamonde Vallant, the young and beautiful wife of a middle-aged and choleric husband, has just gone thru a course in esoteric eastern philosophy and wearying of it, has turned to revolution. Her cousin, Emily Ray, who is in love with Oliver Browning, uses Rosamonde’s house as a convenient meeting place. Oliver is a soldier who has been wounded in the service of his country, but alas the wound had come from the kick of an army mule and Aunt Carmen refuses to see him in a romantic light. Emily becomes deeply involved in bolshevist plots and a revolutionary professor falls in love with her, but she returns in the end to Oliver and his mules.
Reviewed by R. M. Underhill
“Pure farce, but most of it is really funny.”
“He had a ‘grand and glorious’ opportunity to create another droll classic out of the materials used in this book. He did make an attempt in this direction—an attempt that is well worth reading. Measured by what it might have been, however, the book is a failure.” Ralph Cheyney
“Though the book is much too long and its humor of the most obvious kind, it is amusing, and no more absurd than the idiotic antics it is intended to caricature.”
“Mr Irwin injects a lot of fun into his tale.”
ISE, JOHN. United States forest policy. *$5 Yale univ. press 634.9
“After an interesting historical account of forestry in the United States, the author discusses the development of an interest in forest conservation, the legislation dealing with the forests and the many unwise laws under which the forest lands have been stolen or the forests destroyed.” (Springf’d Republican) “Dr Ise shows how intricately the utilization of this great branch of natural resources has been bound up with the nation’s commercial development.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“Thoroughly documented. Better for reference than for reading.”
“Books like this by Mr Ise will contribute to the growth of public sentiment. Perhaps it is not too much to expect that professional historians may sometimes hear about it and include instruction in this phase of our economic history.” C: A. Beard
“A well written and nontechnical book.”
IVES, HERBERT EUGENE. Airplane photography. il *$4 (3½c) Lippincott 778
Although airplane photography is of military origin, it has been the writer’s endeavor to treat the subject as a problem of scientific photography applicable to mapping and other peace-time pursuits. “It is assumed that the reader is already fairly conversant with ordinary photography. Considerable space has indeed been devoted to a discussion of the fundamentals of photography, and to scientific methods of study, test, and specification. This has been done because aerial photography strains to the utmost the capacity of the photographic process, and it is necessary that the most advanced methods be understood.” (Preface) 208 illustrations help to elucidate the text and there is an index.
“While not pretending to be exhaustive, it offers much interesting and useful information.”
“This thorough technical treatise may be used as a practical manual for class or self instruction.”
IVEY, PAUL WESLEY. Elements of retail salesmanship. *$2.25 Macmillan 658
“Professor Ivey explains to the student first that he should know the goods that he intends to sell, and gives many useful hints as to the character of this knowledge. Next he expatiates on the necessity of his knowing and studying his customers. He picks out the elements of personality which make a successful salesman; these include enthusiasm, honesty, tact, courtesy, promptness and cheerfulness. He describes in detail the selling processes as well as store systems and methods, warning the student against many common errors and slips.”—N Y Evening Post
“An interesting and practical book for department store classes. Addressed to more mature minds than Norton [‘Text book on retail selling’] and more concerned with psychological principles.”
“The information is put clearly and intelligently and the book is a good one of its kind.”
JACKSON, ABRAHAM VALENTINE WILLIAMS. Early Persian poetry. il *$2.25 Macmillan 891.5
“From the beginnings down to the time of Firdausi” (Sub-title) is the ground covered by this book, which aims “to give succinctly the main outlines of the several early periods, ... and to illustrate, by translations made from the original Persian, the characteristics of the various authors.... Many of the citations are only small fragments of verse from Persian poets so long dead that they have been evoked almost as shades from the far-distant past.... Some of the reliques of their works, however, are longer and have a fuller metrical tale to tell. The episode of Suhrab and Rustam, moreover, is a well-known classic in literature.” (Preface) Contents: Persian poetry of ancient days; The new awakening of Persian song after the Muhammadan conquest; the Tahirid and Saffarid periods; Rays from lost minor stars: earlier Samanid period; Rudagi, a herald of the dawn; Snatches of minstrel song; from the later Samanid period to the era of Mahmud of Ghaznah; Dakiki; The round table of Mahmud of Ghaznah: court poetry; Firdausi, and the great Persian epic; The Shah-namah; some selections translated; Epilogue. There are illustrations, a list of works of reference, a list of abbreviations, an alphabetical list of poets, a note on Persian pronunciation and an index.
“Much as we must admire Professor Jackson’s zeal and fervor ... yet one can not but feel a sense of disappointment at the amateurishness of some of his versions, with their often clumsy use of ‘did’ and their woodeny structure.” N. H. D.
“Professor Jackson has added immeasurable value to his book by a large number of original translations that are skillfully done and still retain poetry in their phraseology. The author’s hope of carrying on his work is commendable, and it is to be desired that circumstances make it possible.”
JACKSON, BENNETT BARRON, and others, comps. Thrift and success. il *$1.25 Century 331.84
A compilation arranged by the superintendent and two teachers of the Minneapolis public schools. “Several selections are devoted to the general aspects of thrift, but the editors have wisely included a considerable number of selections describing such thrift agencies as savings banks, farm mortgages, postal savings banks, life insurance, and government bonds. The opportunities for wise investment, as well as the necessity for saving, are thus brought clearly to the reader’s attention. The book includes several little plays which teach a thrift lesson. There are, too, inspiring talks intended to stimulate children to make a success of themselves. A number of biographical sketches of prominent Americans of the past and present are included.” (Survey)
“A valuable occasional reader or teacher’s manual.”
“All the selections teach definite, crisp lessons, and teachers interested in thrift instruction will find the book extremely suggestive.” G: F. Zook
JACOBS, EDWIN ELMORE.[2] Study of the physical vigor of American women; pref. by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. $1.50 Jones, Marshall 612
The author presents the results of some statistical studies made among college women. The outcome of the study is to show “that there is no real evidence of the decline in the physical vigor of the women of America.” And arguing that “the male half of the population of a country can neither be very far ahead or behind the female part in its general health,” he holds that his conclusions may apply to the population as a whole. The investigation was carried out along four lines: fertility, longevity, anthropological measurements and women’s athletics. There is a five-page list of references.
JACOBSEN, JENS PETER. Niels Lyhne; tr. from the Danish by Hanna Astrup Larsen. (Scandinavian classics) $2 (2½c) Am.-Scandinavian foundation
A novel by the author of “Marie Grubbe.” It has been called a spiritual autobiography and in her introduction the translator sketches the relation of the novel to Jacobsen’s own life. It is the story of a dreamer who always falls short in his contacts with reality. Niels Lyhne’s mother spends her life in one long day dream, broken by disillusionments from which she hastens to take refuge in still further dreams. The infusion of this temperament in her son, though mixed with his father’s sterner stuff, renders all his efforts futile. The story opens with a beautiful account of Niels’s childhood with its friendship for two boy companions, and is carried through two love episodes, and a short period of happy marriage to his death in the war of 1864.
“The novel has the quality of a late autumn afternoon, a windless, tranquil hour of waiting, when both strong desire and strong regret are absent, and when in a mood of reverie and forgiveness we let the world glide from us. A sense of something honey-sweet, faded, and delicate pervades it. How deeply Jacobsen was the literary artist the Larsen translation unfortunately little reveals. Though it is more faithful to the original than the general run of translations to which we here in America have become accustomed, its prosiness and stiffness, its air of being all too patently the translation, prevent it from representing Jacobsen quite fairly.” Paul Rosenfeld
“The account of Niels Lyhne’s boyhood has a depth of insight even in matters of sex that is rare in the romance writers. Later the narrative seems a little hurried and huddled as though vitality to exhaust his subject had gradually failed the author. But this uncommonly sensitive translation of a memorable book is cordially to be welcomed.” L. L.
JAMES, GEORGE WHARTON. New Mexico; the land of the delight makers. (See America first ser.) il *$5 Page 917.89
This is the third book about the southwest, a land he knows intimately, that Mr James has contributed to this series. California and Arizona were the subjects of the first books and he has found in New Mexico a theme of equal interest. As set forth in the long subtitle the aspects of New Mexico covered include “the history of its ancient cliff dwellings and pueblos, conquest by the Spaniards, Franciscan missions; personal accounts of the ceremonies, games, social life, and industries of its Indians; a description of its climate, geology, flora and birds, its rivers and forests; a review of its rapid development, land reclamation projects and educational system; with full and accurate accounts of its progressive counties, cities and towns.” Two interesting chapters deal with literature and art and among the illustrations are a number from paintings by artists of the Taos colony. There is a bibliography and the book is indexed.
“Like others of the series, a beautiful picture book.”
JAMES, HENRY. Letters of Henry James. 2v il *$10 Scribner
In editing these volumes of letters, Mr Percy Lubbock has had a wide field for selection. For, as he says of Henry James, “He was at all times a copious letter-writer, overflowing into swift and easy improvisation to his family and to the many friends with whom he corresponded regularly. His letters have been widely preserved, and several thousands of them have passed through my hands, ranging from his twenty-fifth year until within a few days of his last illness.” (Introd.) In addition to the introduction which opens volume 1, the editor has contributed brief illuminating prefaces to the sections into which the volumes are divided. These divisions, for volume 1, are: First European years: 1869–1874; Paris and London: 1875–1881; The middle years: 1882–1888; Later London years: 1889–1897; and Rye, 1898–1903. Volume 2 comprises: Rye: 1904–1909; Rye and Chelsea: 1910–1914; and The war: 1914–1916. Notes are often provided for individual letters and an index adds to the value of the admirably edited work.
Reviewed by Sydney Waterlow
“The portrait they paint of the novelist and his surroundings is so clear that the editor has needed merely to add here and there a prefatory note. These and the introduction are finely appreciative and adequate.”
“The editor, Mr Lubbock, has compassed a dangerous undertaking in his selection and, while he offers many letters which illustrate the social side of his hero, he justly lays stress on the inclusion of literary themes. These letters bid fair to become a classic in English literature.” J. G. Huneker
“Throughout them we find an abundance of literary comment upon his fellow writers which is pungent and vigorous, even if not always convincing.” E. F. E.
Reviewed by Gilbert Seldes
“Mr Lubbock tells us that James left behind him scarcely a document that revealed any trace of the origins of his work. Of the origins of his spirit, his point of view, he yields us scarcely more in the way of documentary evidence. One apprehends him here indeed in certain aspects of intimacy as the son, as the brother, as, if not the friend, at least the fellow-artist, as, perhaps most warmly, the uncle. It is only—only—as the man that he foils our question.” V. W. B.
“All the more, however, finding him thus restricted as to race and sympathies and images, do we find ourselves admiring the magnificent passion with which he worked at his art. His famous prefaces to his novels and tales are accepted as an indispensable handbook to the art of fiction. No less may his letters be considered indispensable to those serious students and fellow-artists who wish to observe a genius massively revolving and tirelessly experimenting.” C. V. D.
“I am brash enough to venture the prediction that the best book of Henry James’s, the one with the widest appeal, the one with the most permanent interest, the one most easily read, is not to be found among those which he wrote for publication, but is this collection of his correspondence. What these letters bring before us vividly is a warm-hearted James, devoted to his family and dowered with the gift of friendship.” Brander Matthews
“Whatever has been deleted does not harm that which gives pleasure and delight, surprising us by the clarity and directness of its style and by the warm sentiment of its friendship.”
“For half a century Henry James poured himself out to his friends in letters that are matchless for their prodigal and eager flow of sympathy, their inexhaustible kindliness, their ample and exquisite tenderness, their beautiful generosity. These letters are priceless.” Lawrence Gilman
“We have joked so long about the obscurity of his style as a novelist that this conception of him has become a habit with us. But now that his letters are published, we must alter our portrait.” M. J. Moses
“He has been fortunate in an editor who understands and relishes the peculiarities of the case. There is one general criticism to be made of the exhibition. The letters seem to have been edited, perhaps unconsciously, to emphasize the completeness of James’s English adoption.” S. P. Sherman
“We can only warn the reader who takes up these remarkable volumes that he will not find in them pretty anecdotes or gossip about notabilities: but he will find much excellent criticism and psychology, and he will find copiously and minutely displayed an intellect massive and yet subtle, and a character as nobly dignified as it was humanly attractive.”
“One of the many rich interests of these volumes is to discern the reflection of the person written to, in the letter written.”
JAMES, HENRY. Master Eustace. *$2 (3½c) Seltzer
“The five stories in this volume, together with the four included in ‘A landscape painter,’ appeared originally in American periodicals, but for some unknown reason were never issued by Henry James in book form in this country. The present volume, along with ‘A landscape painter,’ makes accessible to the American public the nine short stories of Henry James which hitherto have been accessible only in English editions of his works.” (Preface) The five stories, all written later than “A landscape painter” are: Master Eustace; Longstaff’s marriage; Théodolinde; A light man; and Benvolio.
“It is not to be imagined that because the stories in this collection are primarily concerned with the interplay of character they are slow-moving narratives, with a tendency to be diffuse. On the contrary, they are well-knit and direct in conception, and executed with richness, deftness in phrase and mood, and a quiet but keen wit.” Lisle Bell
“No one need look for masterpieces among tales that Henry James declined to put between covers. The poorest inclusion in the book, and one of James’s very poorest bits of writing, is ‘Theodolinde.’ The book is valuable but not invaluable.”
“They are written in a style transparently clear and straightforward, and are decidedly romantic in substance and form. Nothing in this book is equal to the stories in the preceding volume.” W: L. Phelps
JAMES, HENRY DUVALL. Controllers for electric motors. il *$3 Van Nostrand 621.317
“A treatise on the modern industrial controller, together with typical applications to the industries.” (Sub-title) The volume consists of articles originally published in the Electric Journal, with the addition of some new material. Partial list of contents: Introduction; Historical; Design details: How to read controller diagrams; Methods of accelerating motors; Starting characteristics of motors with different methods of control; Methods of speed control and dynamic braking; Direct current magnetic contactor controllers; Alternating current controllers; Resistors; Protective devices. There are 259 illustrations and an index.
JAMES, WILLIAM. Letters. 2v il *$10 Atlantic monthly press
“It is, naturally enough, less the scientist and thinker than the man which is revealed in ‘The letters of William James,’ now edited, with all the necessary explanatory material by his son Henry James. This is as everybody should wish. For he was one of the greatest Americans in personal qualities as well as in powers of mind and these letters reveal him as he was. The energy and range of his mind and the prodigious richness of his personality are truly revealed in these two volumes. There are not a few valuable critical comments—such as his estimate of Santayana’s ‘Life of reason’—which are not otherwise accessible to the public, and there are no end of vivid impressions brilliantly or tenderly phrased.”—Springf’d Republican
“These letters—arranged in two comely volumes by the sure and skilful hand of William James’s son—are full of wise and occasionally profound little annotations upon contemporary American life and manners. They will be treasured for the simple and delightful bits of self-revelation that they afford.” H: H. Lappin
“Letters rarely disclose so much of a man in his entirety as do these. They are eloquent in manner and equally eloquent in their self-revelation. They are not merely ‘The letters of William James’; they are the record of an epoch in the history of philosophy and the chronicle of a notable family.”
“Although the correspondence with his colleagues all over the world will be perhaps most eagerly read, the family letters are the most beautiful. But there are some letters which should never have been printed. In moments of heat and irritation James said things about persons he met and even about his colleagues at Harvard, which should not have been preserved in cold type.” W: L. Phelps
“Whether we are seeking enjoyment or mental and spiritual uplift, we may approach these letters with assurance.” Joseph Mosher
“As there has been no other American, and indeed, no other man, like William James, so there can never be another collection of letters like his, full of a unique and precious personality. All who care for genius in its most human and most winning manifestations will find the book a treasure-house.”
JASTROW, MORRIS, jr. Book of Job; its origin, growth and interpretation. *$4 Lippincott 223
The author regards the Book of Job as the most celebrated of the books of the Bible and the literary masterpiece of the Old Testament, and the object of the present volume is to aid in the better understanding and appreciation of the original, which has hitherto been blocked by defective translations and insufficient consideration of its composite authorship. The contents of Part 1, The origin, growth and interpretation of the Book of Job, are: The folktale of Job and the Book of Job; The three strata in the Book of Job; Changes and additions within the original Book of Job; How a skeptical book was transformed into a bulwark of orthodoxy; The Book of Job as philosophy and literature. Part 2 is then devoted to a new translation of the Book of Job, with plentiful annotations.
“The work shows wide scholarship and in many passages the new version is impressive and beautiful. Yet, after all is said, in spite of the incorrectness of the King James version, in which, according to Dr Jastrow, one line in ten is wrong, one cannot help liking its style better than that of the new version.” N. H. D.
“Professor Jastrow’s view will have to overcome not only traditional prejudice but also strong emotional attachment to the older view. But his volume is one which students of the Bible cannot ignore.”
“This is a vastly interesting and important book, and it isn’t a book for preachers only, but for everybody who makes any pretence at all to an interest in good literature.” R. S. Lynd
JASTROW, MORRIS, jr. Eastern question and its solution. *$1.50 (6c) Lippincott 327
The author holds that the problems of the Near East will continue to be a menace to the peace of the world until they are properly settled; that they cannot be properly settled without the cooperation of America, that America can only help by avoiding two contingencies—political complications and the dispatching of a large army across the sea—that mandatories involve both these contingencies and that the only satisfactory solution lies in the creation of international commissions. The last chapter is devoted entirely to a discussion of this solution. Contents: The failure of European diplomacy in the Near East; The present situation; Mandates not a solution of the eastern question; Internationalism as a solution of the eastern question; Insert map of Europe after the great war.
“The fact that Professor Jastrow’s scheme has not been adopted does not in the least detract from its merits, in these days of flux and change; and a book like his is well worth while, if it helps to educate public opinion in this country on a question that involves us all, whether we like it or not.” C. R. H.
“Optimism breeds optimism. Idealism is contagious. Such noble faith as Dr Jastrow’s is a real world asset.”
Reviewed by M. H. Anderson
JAY, WILLIAM. War and peace. *$1 Oxford 341.6
As one of its publications the Carnegie endowment for international peace has issued a reprint of “War and peace,” published in 1842, with an introduction by James Brown Scott. William Jay, the author, was the son of John Jay, who helped frame the first peace treaty with Great Britain. Of his plan for maintaining peace, Mr Scott says, “Starting from the premise that we are free agents, that war is an evil, William Jay maintains that the extinction of other evils shows that war itself may be eliminated by the gradual growth of a public opinion against it and by the creation of agencies which nations can create and use just as individuals have created and used them.” The plan he outlines involves the creation of an international tribunal with power to arbitrate.
“The book still has its importance, and the plan proposed has in fact made its way into many treaties.”
JEAN-AUBRY, G. French music of today; tr. by Edwin Evans. (Lib. of music and musicians) *$2 Dutton 780.9
“The first two sections deal with French music and German music and The French foundations of present-day keyboard music. Among the composers touched on in two sections called Studies and physiognomies and Sketches for portraits are Massenet, Debussy, Roussel, Chabrier, D’Indy, Chausson, Duparc, Dukas, Ravel, and de Sévérac. A section on Music and poetry contains essays on Baudelaire and music and Verlaine and the musicians; the concluding section is on French music in England; and to this little volume M. Gabriel Fauré adds a preface.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “Only the first chapter of the book is new, the others ranging over various periods, and in some cases dating as far back as 1906 and 1907, when the modern French achievement was virtually an unknown quantity in England.” (Ath)
“Makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks in clarity.”
“M. Jean-Aubry is one of those enthusiastic apologists who almost disarm criticism by their sheer ingenuousness. Were it a volume of recent production, and a serious attempt at criticism, one would indeed be compelled to call his judgments in question on almost every page. A pamphlet which was opportune in 1909 may be rather tiresome ten years later.” R. O. M.
“The critical judgments of some of the older chapters and the propagandist tendency make the book somewhat untimely.”
“M. Jean-Aubry has given us the point of view of the modern French composer toward his art. The value of this contribution alone more than offsets any charge of propagandism that the book may bring forth, a charge that is partially refuted by the very fact that much of its contents was written long before the war.” Henrietta Straus
Reviewed by C: H: Meltzer
“This is eminently a book for the layman, for M. Jean-Aubry avoids technicalities.”
“Mr Jean-Aubry is necessarily but not unfairly prejudiced in favor of his native music. Delightful and refreshing are the studies and sketches—for preserving whose charm, by the way, the reader is indebted to the translator, Edwin Evans—of contemporary modern French composers, which occupy the greater portion of the book.”
“The merit of this book is that it is not afraid of pressing into the service of music everything that can be a symbol; its weakness is that positive statements about the music swim rather sparsely in a whirlpool of words.”
JEFFERY, GEORGE H. EVERETT. Brief description of the Holy sepulchre. il *$3.50 Putnam 726
The complete title of this work, a reprint from the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects for 1910, is “a brief description of the Holy sepulchre, Jerusalem, and other Christian churches in the Holy city, with some account of the mediæval copies of the Holy sepulchre surviving in Europe.” Part 1 is devoted to the history, part 2 to the description of the monument, part 3 to the lesser shrines, and part 4 to the reproductions in various parts of Europe. There are numerous illustrations and diagrams and the work closes with chronological tables and index.
“Mr Jeffery writes two particularly interesting chapters on the reproductions of the Holy sepulchre as a pilgrim shrine. The illustrations might have been improved, especially in the way of enlargement.”
“We must be content to say that the book is of great interest and value, and that it should be read by intelligent tourists before they go to Jerusalem and after they return.”
“It is careful and learned and very fully and well illustrated.”
JEFFERY, JEFFERY E. Side issues. *$1.90 (3c) Seltzer
A volume of short stories dealing with side issues of the war. With the exception of two which are reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine, they appear here for the first time. The titles are: Angèle, goddess of kindliness; A quiet evening; Services rendered; A lost soul; Noblesse oblige; The altar of drums; My lady of Hoxton; Equality of sacrifice; The heirloom; In token of gratitude; Generalities; The revellers; Dam’ good fellers; A tap at the door; Confessional—by way of epilogue.
“The best sketch from a literary point of view, is ‘Angèle, goddess of kindliness.’”
“Beneath all the wounds of circumstance a deep sobriety of spirit curbs the author’s temptation to sacrifice truth to effectiveness and persuades him to set down only the permanent and permanently human.”
“The book is quietly and earnestly written, and has an authentic ring of sincerity. It is, I fancy, a genuine human document, and like all such genuine documents, well worth attention.” W. P. Eaton
“In these sketchily constructed stories, by an officer of the old army, the ugliness of war and the injustices that accompany demobilization are set out with considerable effect and an evident attempt at fairness, though with a tendency towards rhetoric.”
JENKIN, A. M. N. End of a dream. *$1.75 (3c) Lane
Shell shock and its terrible possibilities are the theme of this story. Before he went to war Arnold Cheyne had been deeply in love with Nadina, a beautiful dancing girl. When the latter, not yet ready to abandon her career, refused him, he entered into a loveless marriage with Sheila Maclaren. Under the influence of shell shock he no longer recognizes Sheila and thinks of Nadina as his wife. The doctor of the hospital, having been told Arnold’s history and his want of love for his real wife, advises Nadina to humor him in his hallucination. With a nervous patient’s cunning Arnold escapes from the hospital and flees with Nadina into Cornwall. There the end is a double murder, the first of the man who has followed the couple, intent on making trouble, and the second, under the influence of a dream taking him back into the horrors of trench warfare, of Nadina herself.
“The symptoms of the hero are well described; but Mr Jenkin lacks literary skill and seems to find it very difficult to cope with his plot.”
“For a book with a live theme, the effect of shell shock and the social and legal problems arising from that effect. ‘The end of a dream’ is amazingly dull.” R. D. W.
“In this vividly written story of the possible effects of shell shock the author has unfolded a dramatic story of intense interest and downright awful power.”
“The last scene is terrible in its realism. The book should certainly be kept out of the hands of sufferers from the milder forms of this affection.”
“Disappointing in effect. The author saddles a plot of undoubted interest and merit with principals of a featureless type.”
JENKINS, J. T.[2] Sea fisheries. il *$10 Dutton 639.2
“A copiously-illustrated volume, the author of which is professionally associated with the Lancashire and Western sea fisheries joint committee. Dr Jenkins describes from personal knowledge the mystery of the fishers’ craft. An account is given of the methods of fishing adopted in the North sea, and the narrative deals with the rise of the herring fisheries, as well as with the development of steam trawling. Public fisheries for shellfish are described: and an important chapter deals with individual fish, such as the sole, plaice, haddock, and herring. Foreign and colonial fisheries are considered in the last chapter.”—Ath
“This is rather a Gradgrindian book for a compatriot of Charles Dickens to have written. It is full of useful statistics and little else. His photographs carry more of the romance of the sea than his text.”
“We strongly commend Dr Jenkins’s scientific and instructive book to the consideration of all who wish to understand the urgent problem of utilizing the harvest of the sea to the best advantage, though its more controversial parts are no doubt open to discussion.”
JENNINGS, ARTHUR SEYMOUR. Paints and varnishes. il $1 Pitman 667
The book comes under the Pitman’s common commodities and industries series and deals with the properties and uses of paints and varnishes from a purely commercial and professional point of view. Their quality, the quantity required to cover given surfaces and the determination of probable durability are dealt with at some length. The process of manufacture is only described when it becomes necessary to differentiate between grades or qualities of the same material. Contents: The characteristics of a good paint; The principal pigments used in paint making; The thinners used in paint; Paint-mixing—the application of paints, etc.: Whitewashes and distempers; Service tests of paints and varnishes; Machinery used in paint-making; Varnishes and enamels; Tables, etc.; Index and illustrations.
JENSEN, ALBRECHT. Massage and exercises combined. il $4 The author, box 73 G. P.O., N.Y. 613.7
“A new system of the characteristic essentials of gymnastic and Indian Yogis concentration exercises combined with scientific massage movements.” (Sub-title) The author lays stress upon the therapeutic effectiveness of the combination of massage and exercises. The system is intended chiefly for home use and requires no gymnastic equipment and no expenditure. The contents in part are: Resultant bad effects from the use of heavy apparatus, weights and too strenuous exercises; Special benefit to women from the use of these exercises; The construction and characteristics of the combined massage exercises; General and detailed description of the combined massage exercises with their analyses and effects; Proper breathing: How the number of exercises for one performance can best be decreased; How the exercises may be utilized in some diseased and disordered conditions of the body. There are eighty-six illustrations.
JEPSON, EDGAR. Loudwater mystery. *$2 (3c) Knopf
When Lord Loudwater is stabbed to death and investigations are begun, it is discovered that there is a quite disconcerting wealth of possible suspects. Lord Loudwater was of such a nature that his actions might supply the motive for murder to any one of his family or household or even remoter connections. For instance, on the day of his murder, he had threatened to divorce his wife, he had quarreled violently with Colonel Grey, who had been seen paying attentions to Lady Loudwater, he had discharged his butler in a fit of anger, and he had halved the allowance of a mysterious woman who had sued him for breach of promise. So the doings of these various people at the time of the murder are thoroughly combed over. When these clues lead to nothing but a blank wall, with the story almost at an end, the suspense is finally ended by the discovery of one forged check which gives the actual murderer away.
“We close the book with a genuine regret that a gift so real as Mr Jepson’s cannot be more economically used.”
“The action never lags, and the ending is rather out of the ordinary.”
“Mr Jepson has not been entirely successful in keeping up the tension of the mystery. There are lapses of several months each in the narrative, which break the emotional flow. But the large number of readers who seek to qualify as amateur Holmeses, Craig Kennedies, and Dupins, by vicarious solutions of murder mysteries, will find plenty of opportunities here.”
“If some of the devices are familiar, most of the characters have—what is rare in novels of the kind—an unmistakable touch of life, and much of the dialogue has—what is still more uncommon—a sprightly turn.”
“A detective story of exceptional merit.”
JEPSON, EDGAR. Pollyooly dances. *$1.25 (2c) Duffield
Mr Jepson’s young heroine has grown up and in this novel appears as a successful dancer. She is on her way to New York when the story opens and her guardian, the Honourable John Ruffin, is traveling by the same boat on business of his own. He has successfully evaded military service and is an object of scorn to all patriotic Britons on board. But of course, as the reader well knows, he is in government service and his business has to do with German spies. Indeed, throughout, the story is more concerned with German spy plots than with Pollyooly’s dancing.
“It has always been our opinion that Mr Edgar Jepson’s best period was that of ‘No. 19’ and ‘The mystery of the myrtles,’ and we regret that he should have bartered his heritage of fantasy touched with horror for machine-made private detectives and angel children who blossom into popular ballerinas.”
“A more than ordinarily entertaining detective story.”
JESSE, FRYNIWYD TENNYSON. Happy bride. *$2 Doran 821
The first poem of this collection is based on an old Cornish custom: “In Cornwall, when an unmarried girl dies, she is borne through the streets followed by her girl friends dressed in white and singing a hymn of which the refrain is ‘O happy bride.’” Cornish legend also furnishes the motive for St Ludgvan’s well, The forbidden vision, The droll-teller, and Jennifer, Jennifer. Other titles are: Towers of healing; A little dirge for any soul; Youth renascent; Where beauty stays her foot; Lover’s cry.
“Of contemporaries, Miss Tennyson Jesse is closely related to Mr Bridges. She approaches him in the purity of her verse, the felicity of her phrase, in her rhythm and her descriptive quality. At no point, perhaps, does she attempt or achieve sublimity, but for evenness of accomplishment few living poets surpass her work.”
JESSUP, ALEXANDER, ed. Best American humorous short stories. (Modern lib. of the world’s best books.) *85c Boni & Liveright
“To the Modern library has been added ‘Best American humorous short stories,’ a selection from the writings of Poe, Curtis, Hale, O. W. Holmes, Mark Twain, Bunner, Stockton, Bret Harte, O. Henry and others, including several whose names are still familiar in the magazines. The editor is Alexander Jessup.”—Springf’d Republican
“The compiler steers a safe, somewhat academic course, and there are inevitably some inclusions of historical rather than hilarious interest.”
“The book is both valuable and interesting. The tired business man will revel in it.” H. S. Gorman
“The editor shows that mingled understanding of past and present which alone gives value to critical pronouncements or editorial work involving critical selection.”
JOAD, CYRIL EDWIN MITCHINSON. Essays in common sense philosophy. *$2 Harcourt 192
“In ‘Essays in common sense philosophy’ C. E. M. Joad of Balliol college, Oxford, gives us a rethinking of contemporary metaphysics, in which his titular claim rests on the views that we do actually perceive things as they are, that apparent differences and discontinuities in experience are real and that the Hegelian theory of the state is essentially wrong, inasmuch as the state is only a subordinate institution within the larger whole of human society. The first point is made out on the basis of Meinong’s Gegendstandstheorie, which, even if it be accepted, is not obviously the reasoning of common sense. Similarly, the defense of pluralism, based on Russell’s treatment of relations, comes indeed to the plain man’s conclusion, but by a tortuous path. Two other important essays in this book are those on truth, and on universals.”—Springf’d Republican
“As with all books of this kind, the author’s treatment can be considered adequate only by those who agree with him. To others it will appear that the points neglected by the author are more important than those noticed by him.”
“Mr Joad’s book is readable, interesting, and quite remarkably intelligible. There is an avoidance of technical jargon, and an admirable lucidity. It is a book which can be read with much profit by all who are interested in philosophy without being professional philosophers.” B. R.
“His book, though unsatisfactory to any student of philosophy who possesses a philological conscience and a critical historic sense, does in some sort canvass a number of the problems that we can escape only by refusing to speculate at all. It will serve as well as another to satisfy the commonplace metaphysical instinct. And the student who takes it up for this purpose will receive from it a fair measure of initiation into the study of philosophy, and of orientation and stimulus of his own reflections.”— Paul Shorey
“This book should be widely read. It deserves close and careful study as an indication of the best lines of the metaphysical thought of today.”
“His book is a real stimulus to thought.”
JOHNSEN, JULIA E.,[2] comp. Selected articles on national defense. v 3 (Debaters’ handbook ser.) $1.80 Wilson, H. W. 355.7
This volume, consisting of brief, bibliography and reprints, covers the subjects. The army, The navy, Military training, Military service, Disarmament and peace. Volume 1, by Corinne Bacon, was published in 1916; volume 2, by Agnes Van Valkenburgh, in 1917.
JOHNSON, ARTHUR. Under the rose. *$1.75 (2½c) Harper
The titles of these stories are: The princess of Tork; Riders in the dark; The one hundred eightieth meridian; Mr Eberdeen’s house; The two lovers; The visit of the master; The little family; His new mortal coil; How the ship came in. The stories are reprinted from Harper’s and other magazines. The visit of the master appeared in the 1918 volume of Mr O’Brien’s “Best short stories.”
“‘Under the rose’ contains some charming tales. The happy whimsicality of expression in a number brings to mind similar happy whimsicalities of Henry James.” C. K. H.
“This is a bewildering collection of stories, effective and yet at the same time not wholly satisfying. The themes treated are many, the transition from story to story sometimes marking a leap of mood difficult to achieve. Almost every story is successful by itself; and this, after all, is a great deal to demand of fiction.”
JOHNSON, CLIFTON. What to see in America. (American highways and byways ser.) il *$3 Macmillan 917.3
“The book is concerned with the human interest of our country in nature, history, industry, literature, legend, and biography. It is intended for travelers who visit the places of interest in person, and also for those other travelers whom chance or necessity keeps at home, but who travel far and wide on the wings of fancy.... Under each state is included such things as the first settlement, the capital, the largest city, the highest point, and facts of general interest concerning its past and present that add to the traveler’s zest in visiting it.” (Introductory note) Each state in the Union has a chapter and there are 500 illustrations including several maps.
“Rather too brief for the intensive sightseer. No index, but full contents by states with mention of attractions.”
“Mr Johnson has an observant eye, and he knows what he wants to say, but he is frequently unable to express himself in straightforward English.”
“Somewhere between a guide book and travel essays. Useful for reference.”
“The pictures are better than the history, and the history is better than the opinions, but there are few opinions and only enough history to add the right tincture of romance.”
“His 500 illustrations are well chosen, well engraved and well printed; and they are frequently alluring. Probably there are few of those who read Mr Johnson’s book who will not feel a desire to let their own eyes gaze upon the wonderful spots which are here photographed.” Brander Matthews
“The numerous pictures are well selected. The traveled reader is sure to find new things as well as old in the volume, and the ‘stay-at-home’ will find here new zest for fireside travels.”
“Travelers may make good use of this volume, and it may be commended to public-school geography classes.”
JOHNSON, ROBERT UNDERWOOD. Collected poems, 1881–1919. *$4 Yale univ. press 811
The collection comprises the poet’s former volumes together with some new material. The contents are: The winter hour, and other poems; Songs of liberty, and other poems; Italian rhapsody, and other poems; Moments of Italy, and other poems; Saint-Gaudens: an ode; Later poems of occasion; Poems of war and peace; Poems of the great war; Poems chiefly of friendship or admiration; Later poems of the great war; Miscellaneous poems; Poems of Italy in war-time; Latest war-time poems.
“Many of his poems are occasional in character, and in these he displays his happiest inspiration. He has the professional after-dinner speaker’s talent for saying the right, the tactful thing about any person or event. Mr Johnson would make an excellent laureate.”
“There is much sweetness—which never descends to mere prettiness—much grace and a good deal of fine thought finely expressed in melodious verse. Mr Johnson has long and deservedly enjoyed a special place of distinction in modern American poetry of the conservative tradition.” H: A. Lappin
“To enjoy this volume you do not need to belong to any ‘school,’ nor to hold any poetic theory. All you need is to love poetry as the interpreter of the best things in nature and life.” H: Van Dyke
“All the poems are not of equal value. But the omnipresent dignity of Dr Johnson’s muse, his understanding love for Italy, and his unfailing respect both for his medium and his reader, bespeak alike the scholar and the citizen of the world.”
JOHNSON, STANLEY CURRIE. Medal collector. (Collector’s ser.) il *$2.50 Dodd 737
The book furnishes a guide to naval, military, air-force and civil medals and ribbons in the following order: The pioneer medals of England; Early medals of the Hon. East India Co.; Peninsular awards; Waterloo awards; The naval general service medal; Campaign medals; British orders and their insignia; The Victoria cross; Service medals for bravery, etc.; Commemorative medals; Medals for long service, good conduct, etc.; Regimental medals; Civil medals; Medals of the United States; Foreign awards. The book contains eight plates in color and numerous other illustrations and has appendices, a bibliography and index.
JOHNSON, STANLEY CURRIE. Stamp collector; a guide to the world’s postage stamps. (Collector’s ser.) il *$2.50 (3½c) Dodd 383
The author rates the hobby of stamp collecting highly from an intellectual, an economic and a commercial point of view, but first and foremost as a pastime full of charm and fascination. Since there is so much that can be collected and so much that ought not to be collected he offers this guide which equally satisfies the beginner and the more advanced collector. The first few chapters deal with philately on general terms. They are: Planning and arranging the collection; Specialised collections; Technical matters; Stamps, desirable and otherwise; Forged and faked stamps; Sir Rowland Hill and other pioneers. Then a number of chapters are devoted to a description of stamps of definite areas and the last four are: The stamps of war; Rare stamps; Philately for the young; A glossary of philatelic terms with a bibliography and an index.
“If the author’s line of demarcation between stamps desirable and otherwise is rather arbitrary, his advice as to the best method of forming and continuing a stamp collection is at least accurate.”
JOHNSON, THOMAS COSTELLO. Irish tangle and a way out. *$1.50 Gorham 941.5
“Mr Johnson is an American clergyman (Church of the Holy Spirit, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, N.Y.) who went to Ireland in 1918 to give lectures about America’s part in the great war. The larger part of the book is historical—from early times to recent developments. Mr Johnson’s own solution is—with educational reform and the development of resources—federal government with parliaments for England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and a central parliament at Westminster.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
JOHNSON, WILLIS FLETCHER. History of Cuba. 5v il $45 B. F. Buck & co., inc., 156 5th av., N.Y. 972.91
“Taking San Salvador as his point of departure, the writer follows the narrative of the discoverer, in which he traces his course from one island to another, and by this means identifies the place of landing of Columbus on the shores of Cuba. Thus is begun the history of the island. With the fourth chapter, Dr Johnson abandons travel for science, and enters upon geological and topographical history of the great island. Dr Johnson traces the history of the early years of Spanish settlement in Cuba, with great particularity down to the close of the sixteenth century.... Subsequent passages relate the military operations of an expedition under Admiral Vernon and the British plans for the conquest of Spanish America, the attack upon Havana and its capture; and finally, the negotiations which resulted in the return of the island to Spain. The story follows of the American war for independence and the rise of the Republic of the United States and its influence upon Cuban affairs.... The fifth and final volume of the series is concerned with the natural resources of Cuba today. This volume has been compiled under the auspices of the Cuban department of agriculture, commerce and labor.”—Boston Transcript
“There seems to be no feature in Cuban history and character left untouched in this scholarly and comprehensive presentation of a subject until now neglected.” E. J. C.
“It is on the whole well proportioned. If this history were condensed into a single volume it might serve a useful purpose. Its faults would appear less glaring. But for the general reader it is too long and costly, and as an accurately conceived and scholarly account of Cuba it is simply a waste of good paper such as the trade at this moment can ill afford.” C. H. Haring
“Dr Johnson has looked at the facts, it may be said, from a Cuban point of view, and at the same time with a sense of proportion that is continental and international. He has produced not merely a manifesto of Cuban patriotism, nor on the other hand, a coldly detached compilation of facts, but a true national record. His work is not only a valuable archive or work of reference, but also a treatise of vital interest and importance to the people of this country.”
“A well-written history.”
JOHNSTON, SIR HARRY HAMILTON. Mrs Warren’s daughter; a story of the woman’s movement. *$2 Macmillan
“In his first novel, ‘The Gay-Dombeys,’ Sir Harry Johnston undertook to show us the second generation, the descendants of Walter Gay and Florence Dombey. Now he comes forward with ‘Mrs Warren’s daughter,’ taking up the history of Vivie Warren and of her mother at the point where George Bernard Shaw left it. When the novel begins, Vivie and her friend Honoria Fraser compose the firm of ‘Fraser & Warren, consultant actuaries and accountants.’ They are doing very well, but find themselves perpetually hampered by the regulations and laws forbidding women admission to various professions. In a spirit of revolt against these man-made restrictions, Vivie decides to cut her hair, don masculine apparel and become David Vavasour Williams.... In 1910 she finally drops Mr David Vavasour Williams and begins to take an extremely active part in the militant suffragist movement.... Mrs Warren had taken up her residence in Brussels, and that was how it came about that when Vivie was released from prison during the first days of the world war she went straight to Belgium to join her mother. The description of the experiences of these two women especially during the months of von Bissing’s ‘terror’ is very interesting and well done.”—N Y Times
“Whimsical, entertaining and clever. Readers who liked ‘The Gay Dombeys’ will like this.”
“The incidents of the masculine masquerade partake more or less of the nature of a fairy tale, but even though they are not credible, they are delightful in their humor and their vigorous views of passing phases of this world of English art, science and society. Nothing human is alien to Sir Harry Johnston.” E. F. E.
“The single compelling section of the book is the middle one, in which the effects of the Pankhurst leadership are given with circumstantiality; but this is brief, and the rest falls away from it both in matter and tone. It seems curious that Sir Harry could have found so rich a pocket of ore and not have tried to mine it to the rock. ‘Mrs Warren’s daughter’ is a too-simple sketch of a notable subject, and it is nothing more.” C. M. R.
“In ‘The Gay-Dombeys’ there was the high gusto and boyish delight of a gifted man’s successful experiment in a new form of activity. His second book is notably less fresh and engaging.”
“Those who knew the zoological, geographical, anthropological, and other learned London societies some thirty or forty years ago will read these books with a double interest, for they will find that Sir Harry’s characters resuscitate past chapters in the history of scientific life in London. The author, it is needless to say, uses a light and nimble pen to draw word-pictures seen from a highly individualistic Harry Johnstonian angle.”
“Judged as a work of art the book fails. The structure is stumbling and plodding: the style second-rate journalism. The characterization, with the admirable exception of the redoubtable Mrs Warren herself (she shows Sir Harry’s loving study of Dickens), is singularly superficial and conventional.” S. C. C.
“Unfortunately, it puts not its best but its worst foot foremost, the poorest part of it being the first, in which occurs Vivie’s preposterous masquerade. It is not until the last third of the book and its sixteenth chapter are reached that the novel really begins to be distinctly interesting. This sixteenth chapter is headed ‘Brussels and the war: 1914.’”
“The interest is of a queer nature, but it certainly exists.”
“‘Mrs Warren’s daughter’ by contrast [with ‘The Gay-Dombeys’] is a laborious invention.” H. W. Boynton
“We move in an atmosphere of sentimental romance, by no means disagreeable, but miles apart from everything which we associate with the initials G. B. S.”
“On many matters of social interest he is fluent and furious, and those who like this style of thing will doubtless be thrilled. We, unfortunately, were unable to find anything like so many nice and amusing people here as there were in ‘The Gay-Dombeys,’ and must absolutely refuse to swallow Miss Warren.”
JOHNSTON, MARY. Sweet Rocket. *$1.65 (4c) Harper
The strain of mysticism revealed in Miss Johnston’s previous novel is very evident in this book. Of story in the conventional sense there is none. Richard Linden has returned to Sweet Rocket, the home of his family before the war. Richard is blind, and Marget Land, who had been born on the place as the overseer’s daughter, acts as his secretary. There is a curious bond of unity between the two which has no relation to earthly love and both are bound to Sweet Rocket by deep spiritual ties. The spirit of the place is such that all who come to it, friends or strangers, fall under its spell. There are beautiful descriptions of the country alternating with discussions of a psychic and spiritual nature.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Miss Johnston has revealed with keen perception the idea of individual growth and expansion toward Godhood, and the setting of her book is of idyllic beauty.” F. M. W.
“Though some of Miss Johnston’s readers may be pleased that ‘Sweet Rocket’ is written in the same mystical vein and in furtherance of the same spiritual quest as ‘Foes’ and ‘Michael Forth,’ the majority will, at this third blow, relinquish with regrets the hope that she may ever again give us a novel in the manner of ‘To have and to hold.’”
“It is not enough to be sensitive to the beautiful—one must have a sense of relativity, of proportion. Miss Johnston here makes a too conscious effort at poetic expression.”
JOHNSTON, ROBERT MATTESON. First reflections on the campaign of 1918. *$1.50 (11c) Holt 940.373
The author, who was attached to the general staff at General Pershing’s headquarters in France for twelve months, where he had every opportunity of observing the working of our war machine, offers his reflections as a “constructive criticism of our combat army.” He points out the flaws, due to our neglect of national preparedness, and how they can be avoided in the future. As he foresees that the competition of highly organized industrial communities, for markets and for raw material, is about to produce a series of wars over the whole surface of the globe, he pleads for the highest possible efficiency and combination of naval and military power. Contents: The U.S. army before the war; Leavenworth; The conduct of war; The rank and file; The regular officers; The national army officer; The National guard officer; The general staff; General Pershing; Tactics; The replacement system; Our army of the future.
JOHNSTON, WILLIAM ANDREW. Mystery in the Ritsmore. il *$1.75 (3c) Little
The murder of a beautiful girl in the hotel apartment of a newly married couple takes place on the third day of their honeymoon. A young guest at the hotel, Anne Blair, is drawn into the case by her love of excitement. The mystery is apparently quickly solved by the police, and they let the matter drop. But Anne is not convinced it is so simple and, aided by John Rush, secretary to the millionaire, Harrison Hardy, keeps up independent investigations of her own. Her quest leads her into a maze of clues, which broaden out into a plot of international significance, in which great sums of money are involved. Although the plotters are clever, Anne Blair proves cleverer in the end, when she foils their schemes.
“It is an excellent mystery tale. As is often true of detective stories, the finale is something of a disappointment.”
“‘The mystery in the Ritsmore’ is an entertaining, ingenious and well-told yarn, which holds its secret up to the very end.”
“The story is episodical, but is well enough knit to interest.”
JONES, ELIAS HENRY. Road to En-Dor. il $2 (2c) Lane 940.47
This book, “being an account of how two prisoners of war at Yozgad in Turkey won their way to freedom,” (Sub-title), is incidentally an exposé of spiritualism. The author, in conjunction with a brother officer and prisoner, Lieutenant Hill, began his experiments in spiritualism in good faith, but soon saw a possibility of escape through skillful manipulations. They came to the conclusion that spiritualism has a most deplorable effect even on people whose mental powers one admires, causing them to lose hold of the criteria of sane conclusions. “The messages we received from ‘the world beyond’ and ‘from other minds in this sphere’ were in every case, and from beginning to end, of our own invention.” Yet through them it was possible “to convert intelligent, scientific, and otherwise highly educated men to spiritualism, by means of the arts and methods employed by ‘mediums’ in general.” Although the incidents described in the book may seem preposterous, the author vows for their truthfulness. The book is illustrated by Lieutenant Hill and has a postscript and appendices.
“To have made such an exposure at the present time is to have done a real and lasting service.”
“Interesting as a war narrative, though told somewhat too much in detail. Also interesting propaganda for anti-spiritualists.”
“The book abounds in excellent and vigorous writing.”
“The reader who begins ‘The road to En-Dor’ after dinner will probably be found at one o’clock in the morning still reading.”
JONES, SIR HENRY. Principles of citizenship. *$1.25 Macmillan 320
“This little book is intended for the use of such men as attended the Y. M. C. A. lectures in the British army abroad. The purpose is to give a general view of the duties and rights of citizens; and the language is, therefore, simple and expressive. An initial distinction is drawn between two conceptions of the state. The non-moral idea is said to be German. Suggestions are then made as to the problem of individuality which are held to refute the pacifist.”—Int J Ethics
“The author of this book is amiable and high-minded, but seems out of place in the stern modern world, a belated Victorian.” B. R.
“Must irritate any reader who really looks for some kind of serious thought in Great Britain. Sir Henry Jones might quite decently have left Hegel in his grave instead of serving him up to the Y. M. C. A. by way of education for the British army. He ingeniously combines several fallacies in one. In the first place, what he calls the state is really the nation. In the second place, the ‘good life’ is no more the object of one nation than another, and when a league of nations is in being the ‘good life’ might be supposed to have an international flavour about it. In the third place, no nation is worth its salt if the forces of improvement do not originate with individuals but derive their origin and impulse from politicians and bureaucrats.”
“Sir Henry Jones has a firm grasp of moral principles, sadly neglected or defied by many people nowadays, and his exposition of his argument is singularly clear.”
JONES, HENRY ARTHUR. Patriotism and popular education. *$4 Dutton 370
“‘Patriotism and popular education; with some thoughts upon English work and English play, our evening amusements, Shakespeare and the condition of our theatres, slang, children of the stage, the training of actors, English politics before the war, national training for national defence, war and design in nature, the league of nations, the future world policy of America, capital and labour, religion, reconstruction, the great commandments, social prophets and social prophecy, competition and co-operation, the biologist and the social reformer, hand labour and brain labour, school teachers and rag-pickers, internationalism, and many other interesting matters, in a letter to the Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, president of the board of education.’ (Sub-title) The eminent playwright fully describes his book on the title-page, and it remains only to add that he pleads for practical education which would turn out good carpenters and good citizens, and has no patience with modern ideas that, as he considers, have put the majority of working-men ‘in open rebellion against the plainest economic laws.’”—Ath
“Seems rather an outburst of annoyance than a constructively thought out criticism.”
“As an experienced writer he can express himself vigorously in from two to a dozen ways, can produce many interesting, many wise, many suggestive, many amusing, and many provoking paragraphs. But if one is looking for help in dealing with either educational problems or the problems of state, he will find many smaller books much more helpful.”
“Suggestive as are Mr Jones’s opinions and arguments, stimulating as they are and thought-provoking, they are calculated for the meridian of Greenwich and not for that of Washington—which may make them a little less useful to us, although none the less entertaining.”
“Throughout the book there are passages that deserve a praise that cannot be accorded to the whole as a statement of first principles or as a treatise upon education.”
“He can not write either lifelessly or tediously. He can not write foolishly, either; and, although you may now and again disagree with him, you will hardly find him repellently unsympathetic. On the other hand, you may be apt to feel, he does not leave you much of anywhere.”
“Mr Jones is in the mood of a man who has had a bad piece of work palmed off on him and writes an indignant letter to the Times about it. His book is a whole collection of indignant letters. The truth is that Mr Jones has not thought out his arraignment.”
JONES, HERBERT. Well of being. *$1.50 Lane 821
A book of poems composed of two parts, the first a series of love sonnets, the second, “O mistress mine!” a long narrative poem telling a story of youth and love in Vienna in the old light-hearted days of that city.
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
“Mr Jones writes love sonnets with ease and skill; sometimes with a truly graceful aptness. Sometimes he drops to what is merely trifling, or strikes a false note. The same may be said of the long poem which fills the rest of the book.”
JONES, JOSHUA HENRY, jr. Heart of the world. *$1.25 Stratford co. 811
The title poem was inspired by the speech of President Wilson in Boston on his first return from Europe in 1919. Among the other titles are: The pine tree; The parting; With you away; In summer twilight; Easter chimes; They’ve lynched a man in Dixie; Gone west; The universe; A southern love song; The potter and his ware.
“Fortunately we are not compelled to judge Mr Jones poetically by such a piece [the title poem]. With many another subject he is happier in both conception and execution. He has a broad range of interest and sympathies; has a discerning eye for nature and a warm emotion for simple experiences and personal associations.” W. S. B.
JONES, RUFUS MATTHEW. Service of love in war time. *$2.50 Macmillan 940.47
“Rufus Jones’s ‘A service of love in war time’ is, as he says, ‘something more than the story of an impressive piece of relief work; it is the interpretation of a way of life.’ It is the story of the Quakers who found opportunity to express their pacifist convictions in reconstruction service in France. Incidentally it is a record of our War department’s methods in dealing with the conscientious objectors. Indeed it is this record of the religious objectors in the draft camps which is the most vivid part of Rufus Jones’s book—for he was the chief representative of the Quakers in long and painful negotiations with the military authorities. His account is a necessary corollary to Captain Kellogg’s book on the conscientious objector.”—Nation
“We commend this book to anyone who desires to read a story of singular and effective devotion and courage.”
“Can be recommended as an earnest, straightforward, well-detailed account of a great work.”
“It is easier to sigh for the book which this might have been than to criticize Mr Jones’s book for what it is. I could wish less emphasis on the inner experience and more details as to the outward work; less emphasis on individual conscience and more on the general lessons to be drawn from great experiences corporately shared. I could wish, too, for a less sentimental title.” E: E. Hunt
“The account [of the conscientious objectors] is instructive in many ways; it is free from any disposition to exaggerate such abuses of authority as occurred, and shows on the author’s part an admirable perception of the intricacy of the various interests and principles at stake. Yet we cannot but regret that he did not treat his part of his story more summarily.”
JONES, RUFUS MATTHEW. Story of George Fox. *$1.50 Macmillan
“A volume in the series of ‘Great leaders’ lives.’ It is the story of a hero who for more than two hundred years has figured in histories and religious works, but whose personality has never been clearly outlined in popular literature. In this instance, at least, his biographer has succeeded in giving his subject a fair degree of definition.”—R of Rs
“Good concrete example of the ideals of the Friends, well written.”
“Narrow as is its scope and unpretentious the style of this short biography written for young people, it portrays the founder of the Society of Friends with masterly art.”
“A compact and well-written volume.”
JONES, SUSAN CARLETON (S. CARLETON, pseud.). La Chance mine mystery. il *$1.75 (2c) Little
Nicky Stretton, in the midst of his rough life as a miner, holds the vision of the wonderful “dream girl” who will some day come into his life. At the end of a day of discouragement, he comes home to find her, as beautiful as he had pictured her, seated by his fireplace. But it must not be supposed that they at once settle down to a life of sweet domesticity. On the contrary there are grave obstacles in the way. In the first place it appears that she is engaged to Nicky’s partner, and secondly, there is some mystery about her identity and her past which project an enemy into her present. Nicky is a bit slow about grasping the situation, but when he and the enemy finally come to grips, there is plenty of excitement and a startling number of hairbreadth escapes before his “dream girl” becomes his in reality.
“The tale is well told, skilfully setting forth a highly improbable action without letting us acknowledge to ourselves, while it is going on, that it is absurd.” H. W. Boynton
“This is a novel of excitement in which neither characters nor setting are neglected for the sake of mere plot.”
“Full of tender, whimsical sentiment that will make its appeal to men and women alike.”
“For plot and swift action ‘The La Chance mine mystery,’ with its charming love romance, in the setting of frozen forests, with their howling wolf packs, is a story of the great out-of-doors that will satisfy the most blasé reader.”
Reviewed by Joseph Mosher
JONESCU, TAKE. Some personal impressions. il *$3 (6¼c) Stokes 923
The author of this volume was former prime minister of Roumania. Of this English version Viscount Bryce writes in the introduction: “the descriptions it contains are for the most part vigorous sketches rather than portraits. Some, however, may be called vignettes, more or less finished drawings, each consisting of few lines, but those lines sharply and firmly drawn. Intermingled with this score of personal sketches there are also a few brief essays or articles which set before us particular scenes, little fragments of history in which the author bore a part, all relating to the persons who either figured in the war, or were concerned with the intrigues from which it sprang.” Contents: Monsieur Poincaré; Prince Lichnowsky; Count Berchtold; The marquis Pallavicini; Count Goluchowsky; August 2, 1914; Kiderlen-Waechter; Count Aehrenthal; Count Czernin; Count Mensdorff; England’s antipathy to war; The responsibility for the war; King Charles of Roumania; Herr Riedl; Count Szeczen; Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace; Baron Banffy; Roumanian policy; Tragedy; Count Tisza; Talaat Pasha; Prince von Bülow; Taticheff; France and the Teuton; A cousin of Tisza; New Italy; Why four last Germans; Eleutherios Venizelos; The kaiser.
“Some light is thrown on the events immediately preceding the war, and although the book is almost diplomatically polite, we see once more of what poor quality these official great men usually are.”
“Through all the back-stage chat which a diplomat loves we catch sharp flashes which throw into new relief many of the great events connected with the war.” H. F. Armstrong
“The book, being what it is, naturally does not contain or profess to contain the matured contribution to the history of the last decades which we hope some day to have from his pen; but none the less it will be useful to many and can be read with pleasure by all.”
JOSEPH, MRS HELEN (HAIMAN). Book of marionettes. il *$5 Huebsch 792
“The puppet show has flourished among many races and in different ages; it is primarily an outgrowth of the taste of the common people, though it has also entranced courts and kings. The range of interest that it has evoked is well set forth in this book, which also goes into the methods of constructing the puppets and the manner of operating them.”—Outlook
“The author is evidently so in love with her subject that her style assumes something of the charm and lightness of the puppets themselves.”
Reviewed by Margaret Ashmun
“Helen Haiman Joseph and B. W. Huebsch have made their ‘Book of marionettes’ a treasure and a keepsake for children of all ages.” Maurice Browne
“The history and aspect of the puppets are both charmingly recorded by Mrs Joseph in her ‘Book of marionettes.’ She writes with a fantastic, airy touch that suits her subject, and her illustrations are chosen with admirable erudition and taste.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Her book is a labor of love by an amateur who has the necessary affection for her subject, but who does not pretend to the indispensable erudition.”
“Amusing and whimsical book.”
“As the first book in English on an important and neglected subject, it is surprisingly good and doubly welcome.”
JUDSON, CLARA (INGRAM) (MRS JAMES MCINTOSH JUDSON). Junior cook book. $1.25 Barse & Hopkins 641.5
The book teaches children of twelve, or under, to cook good, plain, nourishing food without any other help than the directions given. Special attention is given to vegetables and inexpensive dishes that have meat value. It is the author’s opinion that the boy as well as the girl ought to learn how to cook as a part of good citizenship. Every other page of the book is left blank for additional recipes and the last pages are devoted to suggested menus for breakfast, luncheon and dinner. The contents are divided into: Meats and dishes that have food value of meat; Vegetables; Breads, muffins, wafers and cookies; Salads and salad dressings; Desserts; Sandwiches; Jams and conserves; Good things to drink; Breakfast food; Confections.
“The selection of recipes is a sensible one for a general cook book.”
JUDSON, JEANNE. Stars incline. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
Upon the death of her mother Ruth Mayfield is sent to New York city to live with an aunt whom she has never seen, who is a celebrated, emotional actress, and who has the unique distinction of having divorced three husbands. Ruth in her early teens, dabbled below the surface of mysterious, occult things; to her amazement she discovers an actively evil hypnotic influence among her aunt’s servants. George, the powerfully built, red-eyed Hindu, not only very nearly kills Gloria Mayfield’s first husband by his mystic power of thought and faith, but also comes close to wrecking Gloria’s future. Ruth, however, quietly intervenes, and after much anxiety, has the happiness of seeing Percy Pendragon, Gloria’s first husband, miraculously restored to health; Gloria restored to Percy, and George’s sinister power utterly broken. Ruth’s own love affair together with her frustrated ambition to be a great artist, offset the mystic atmosphere that hangs over Gloria and her household.
“An amusing improbable tale, with a quasi-psychic twist that should create for it a furor among the many followers of the various cults now in vogue.”
JUTA, RÉNÉ. Cape Currey (Eng title, Tavern). *$1.75 (3c) Holt
The story transpires in Cape Town, around 1820, and involves much political history in the telling. It contains the mysterious figure of Surgeon-Major James Barry, and a mysterious garden to whose secret gate Barry has a key. A beautiful Dutch girl of the colony, Aletta, discovers the garden and its captive, an extraordinarily beautiful young man. To break through the wall is now the one desire of both. At the moment of success, when they are about to rush into each other’s arms, a pistol shot from the ever watchful slave, Majuba, kills the young man, and Barry, arriving opportunely upon the scene, tells Aletta that his son (rather her son, for Barry turns out to be a woman) was a leper.
“To offer criticism of such a clever and at the same time, such an original book, is difficult, yet one wishes that Réné Juta’s narrative was a trifle more coherent, in its first chapters at least. Nevertheless, ‘Cape Currey’ is an extraordinarily well written book.” G. M. H.
“It is evident that she knows its history so well that she can write of life there a hundred years ago with as sure a touch and as vivid a pen as if she were writing about her own garden. There are still greater skill and knowledge and noteworthy insight in the portraying of the characters.”
“The style of the performance is a little overelaborate, somewhat early Hewlettian in manner, but with a flavor of its own.” H. W. Boynton
“This story of Cape Town a hundred years ago has sufficient merit to make us wish that it had still more. The language and spirit of a bygone day are sometimes effectively suggested. But we are repelled by the general crudeness of style, and deficiencies in construction.”
KAHN, OTTO HERMANN. Our economic and other problems. *$4 (3½c) Doran 304
A series of papers embodying a financier’s point of view on business and economics, war and foreign relations, and art. The book opens with an address on Edward Henry Harriman, characterized as the last figure of an epoch, delivered before the Finance Forum in New York, January 25, 1911. Among the papers on business and economics are: Strangling the railroads; Government ownership of railroads; High finance; The menace of paternalism; France; When the tide turned; Great Britain, and America and the League of nations are among the subjects considered under war and foreign relations, and there are three papers on art: Some observations on art in America; An experiment in popular priced opera; Art and the people.
“The chapter on the railroads will be of less interest, though of great importance in itself, than that on labour and capital.”
“The book will prove interesting and profitable to all seeking instruction from a source at once modest and authoritative. Mr Kahn is an actor in international finance as well as a writer upon it, and his book has the quality which results from doing things rather than thinking about doing them.”
“In general spirit and point-of-view, Mr Kahn’s book may be characterized as soundly optimistic. It is the expression of a mind neither ‘stand-pat’ nor ‘radical.’ Upon Mr Kahn’s mastery of the special topics with which he deals there is no need to enlarge.”
“On matters of business and finance Mr Kahn speaks with knowledge that is both practical and complete. The chapters on taxation are particularly good.”
KALPASCHNIKOFF, ANDREW. Prisoner of Trotsky’s. *$2.50 (3c) Doubleday 947
The book has a foreword by David R. Francis, formerly American ambassador to Russia, in which he describes the author as a member of the American Red cross mission to Rumania with the incidents leading to his arrest and his five-months’ imprisonment in the fortress of St Peter and St Paul. The author declines going into the causes that led to the general breakdown of Russia, and claims to confine himself strictly to what he himself has undergone as a prisoner of the bolshevist régime. Many of his accounts, however, are not based on personal experience but on the stories of “eye-witnesses.” He feels nothing but horror for bolshevism which he describes as a revolutionary sickness through which Russia is passing and happily already approaching the convalescent stage. He pins his faith on Russian patriotism and religion and heralds the orthodox church as the deliverer.
Reviewed by W: Hard
“The value of this volume, however, lies ... in the analysis—as a rule without self-consciousness or effort—of the Russian character as affected by the revolution and of the effect of the Russian character and temperament on the revolution.” M. F. Egan
“One’s general notion that Russia is the home of real-life melodrama appears to be justified by most that one reads about that country. It is, in fact, somewhat difficult at times to realize that Mr Kalpaschnikoff’s narrative is not simply lurid fiction. But the manifest sincerity and truthfulness of the author rapidly dispel any such illusion.”
“Colonel Kalpaschnikoff’s book strikes an entirely new note. In the first place, it is a narrative of the sort of personal experience from which few men have come out alive, and, in the second, it is as exciting as a sensational novel.” F. H. Potter
KANE, ROBERT. Worth. *$2.25 Longmans 170
“In these thoughtful addresses, some of which were delivered in the Church of Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, Strand, the author at first deals with general principles, and discusses true and false standards of worth. He then treats of personality, intellectual excellence, the evolution of the soul, the worth of patriotism, and other topics.”—Ath
“The book is replete with sound logic, sterling ideals and old-fashioned common sense; there are so many passages worth remembering and referring to, that it is to be regretted that an index has been omitted.”
KARSNER, DAVID. Debs: his authorized life and letters from Woodstock prison to Atlanta. il *$1.50 (2c) Boni & Liveright
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Journalistic and based chiefly on interviews, but interesting as giving glimpses of the appealing personality of the man.”
“While the book is entirely socialistic propaganda, it serves a useful purpose in giving a full delineation, from the Socialist point of view, of the make-up of this man, his ideas and the things for which he stands. For this reason, it is a useful contribution to the literature of the day.”
“Karsner’s memorabilia may some day prove ironically to be a contribution to the literature of American patriotism.”
“With a modesty becoming the true biographer, Mr Karsner has permitted Debs to speak for himself and to show us, through his letters and addresses, that a man may grow to maturity without permitting the cowardices and compromises of life to corrupt him.” Harry Salpeter
“David Karsner, a true hero worshipper, has made a loving portrait, which, although idealized in many respects, is far from imaginary and is almost a work of art.” J. E. Le Rossignol
“Mr Karsner tells a good story, apparently based on conversations he has had with Debs. His work is not critical, nor does he use the historical sources to the extent that he might under different circumstances. Of its own kind,—the quickly written journalistic biography founded chiefly on the interview—this life of Debs is excellent.” W. L. C.
“Not needed by all small libraries.”
KARTINI, raden adjeng. Letters of a Javanese princess. *$4 Knopf
The letters are translated from the original Dutch by Agnes Louise Symmers and supplied with a foreword by Louis Couperus. The Javanese women are still condemned by tradition and custom to a secluded prison-life, against which Kartini fought from early childhood. She was the first Javanese feminist and her letters voice her ardent longing for freedom for herself and countrywomen, and testify to her achievements in that direction.
“The book is astonishingly fresh and fascinating. It should be given to the woman who rejoices in every sign of the liberation of the woman-soul from the bondage of tradition and masculine domination.” Margaret Ashmun
“The first of these letters, written in the Dutch language to friends in Holland, breathe the modern spirit. They unfold the story of the writer and show forth the Javanese life and manners in a vivid manner.” E. J. C.
“Perhaps the greatest thing in her favour is that, as much as the worship of the shibboleth was in her blood, she did not blindly supplant the shibboleth of native practices with the shibboleth of European practices. On account of her excessive handicaps, however, her grasp of expression is by no means unusual; and as a result, the book is more valuable historically than as a piece of literature.”
“As a picture of life in a remote corner of the world, the letters have real value, apart from their undoubted human appeal. It is sometimes difficult however to escape the feeling that the writer of them had an eye to their ultimate public appearance, when she grasped the pen, which may account for occasional lapses into a somewhat didactic and self-conscious style.” L. B.
“Kartini is thoroughly Javanese in shielding all that is beautiful in native culture, but her spirit is no more alien or fantastic than Susan B. Anthony’s. Sometimes she even seems to have too much of distinctly familiar sentiment and rhetoric. But one forgets this shortcoming in admiring her as one of humanity’s vanguard.” S. K. T.
KAY, BARBARA. Elizabeth, her folks. (Elizabeth, her books) il *$1.75 Doubleday
Elizabeth Swift spends her fourteenth summer with her grandparents on Cape Cod. She is not used to country life and at first feels herself a trifle superior to it. But she makes friends with Peggy Farraday, who is also summering there, and gradually realizes she is having a splendid time, until at its end she thinks it is the finest summer she has ever spent. It is saddened a little by her beloved brother’s illness, but that comes out all right, too, as his romance with Ruth, Peggy’s sister, promises to do, thanks to Elizabeth’s manipulation.
“Excellent style and vigorous characterization place these books rather above the level of the average ‘juvenile.’ They are proof of the fact that a book for children need not seem to have been written by one.”
“There is plenty to keep a girl interested in these volumes, which are excellent portrayals of present-day girlhood and its interests.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
KAY, BARBARA. Elizabeth, her friends. (Elizabeth, her books) il *$1.75 Doubleday
After her summer on Cape Cod, described in “Elizabeth, her folks,” Elizabeth comes back to New York to live in a brand new apartment. She and her chum Jean decide to keep a diary, and many of her hopes and aspirations are poured into it. She has a busy winter, for Buddy, her big brother, gets married to Ruth Farraday, her friend Peggy’s sister, and of course the wedding keeps her busy and excited. Then there is the mystery in Jean’s household in which she plays an important part. And she has good times with other friends, boys as well as girls, and learns many valuable lessons about friendliness and comradeship.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
KAYE-SMITH, SHEILA. Tamarisk town. *$2.50 Dutton
“Tamarisk town, vulgarly known as Marlingate, was a small Sussex fishing village in 1857 when the story opens. Monypenny determined to make of it a rival to Brighton. And as the years go by, passing the milestones of a new novel by Dickens or another masterpiece from the pen of Mrs Henry Wood, Marlingate gradually turns into Monypenny’s dream—a watering-place of marvellous beauty and refinement. Enter now a woman, Morgan Beckett. They are rivals, Morgan and Marlingate, for Monypenny’s love; there is a contest; Monypenny cannot bring himself to desert the town that he has created. Morgan, in a fit of despair, puts an end to her life, and he, all his love for the town now turned to bitterness, sets himself deliberately to destroy Marlingate.”—Ath
“Miss Kaye-Smith has written an interesting novel in ‘Tamarisk town,’ creating a world that is not exactly realistic, but consistent with itself—an invention rather than a copy.”
“Were Miss Kaye-Smith a painter, we should be inclined to say that we do not feel she has yet made up her mind which it is that she wishes most to paint—whether landscape or portraits. Why should she not be equally at home with both? What is her new novel ‘Tamarisk town’ but an attempt to see them in relation to each other? And yet, in retrospect, there is her town severely and even powerfully painted, and there are her portraits, on the same canvas, and yet so out of it, so separate that the onlooker’s attention is persistently divided—it flies between the two, and is captured by neither.” K. M.
“Will be appreciated by those who like good character analysis and atmosphere conveyed by careful detail.”
“Her novel is characteristic of her, but it is thoroughly original and a strongly emotional presentation of the human spirit which seems to be governed wholly by fate. When we have read its last page we feel that Edward Monypenny’s life could have varied at no moment and in no detail from the novelist’s presentation of it.”
“‘Tamarisk town’ deteriorates slowly like the town it describes; the author seems a little uncertain when she dips into sociology instead of confining herself to the natural processes of the soil.”
“Sheila Kay-Smith’s place in English letters since ‘Sussex gorse’ and ‘The four roads’ has been peculiar. She has been visualized as a sort of female Thomas Hardy, an ironist dealing with elementals, making no compromises with the romanticism of the day. Yet her new book ‘Tamarisk town’ merely deepens the impression that she is a romanticist at heart.... The book is a compact, well-rounded piece of work. It intimates a vastness that is never definitely asserted.” H. S. G.
“It is a book surcharged with a great emotion, a worthy successor to ‘Sussex gorse’ and ‘The four roads.’ ‘Tamarisk town’ is a genuine work of strength, a novel with a Hardian touch, a work that will vastly move the reader.”
“The tale has something of the magic of style and of mood which belonged to Stevenson’s fragmentary ‘Weir of Hermiston.’ For me it has the glamour of true story-telling, the creative reality which is so dismally absent from most studies of fact.” H. W. Boynton
“‘Tamarisk town’ is an original and striking story, in which observation and local knowledge are happily united to very considerable imaginative power. Moreover, though the action is spread over nearly forty years, the sense of continuity is well maintained.”
KEABLE, ROBERT. Drift of pinions. *$2 Dutton
“There are sixteen of the stories, their scenes laid in various parts of the earth, and in each of them the author invokes a fluttering of unseen pinions at the threshold of the spirit of some one of his characters. Some of the scenes are laid in a remote region of East Africa where the author has spent a number of years as a missionary. When the British government brought a great number of the natives of this region to France as laborers during the war Mr Keable accompanied them as chaplain and in ‘Standing by,’ published last summer, he described his work among them and their reactions to their new surroundings. Some of the stories in this book deal with strange spiritual experience among these simple people, or with those of missionaries among them, and the scenes of others are laid in England, in France before the war, or in other parts of the globe.”—N Y Times
“It is a book which cannot fail to interest Catholic readers, and which, if studied carefully, will give a better insight to the peculiar psychology of the ‘extremely High church’ Anglican than anything that has hitherto appeared in this country. The chapters, ‘In no strange land,’ ‘Our lady’s pain,’ and ‘The acts of the Holy apostles’ are not only the best stories in the book, but they are the only ones which carry with them a sense of actuality.”
“The stories vary greatly in quality, the theme being sometimes handled with subtlety and impressiveness, and in others with a simplicity that touches upon crudeness and leaves the reader cold.”
KEELER, HARRIET LOUISE. Our northern autumn. (Handbook ser. on wild flowers) il *$1.75 Scribner 580
Both from an aesthetic and a botanical point of view the little book describes the autumnal flora which, says the author, “is interesting in that it holds to the poles of life; it bears in its bosom the dying and the dead, at the same time that it welcomes youth, insistent, omnipresent youth, roystering up and down the highways and byways in the persons of the sunflowers, the goldenrods, and above all the asters.” Among the contents are: Descriptions of autumn flowers; Autumnal foliage; October days; The kindly fruits of the earth; Herbaceous plants with conspicuous fruits; Nuts; November; Wild flower sanctuaries. There is a list of genera and species; six color and numerous half-tone plates and an index of Latin and one of English names.
KEITH, ARTHUR BERRIEDALE. Belgian Congo and the Berlin act. *$6.75 Oxford 967
“This work is concerned chiefly with the political history of the Congo and with an analysis of the international compact which regulates the government of the Free state. The work is elaborately annotated, and the Berlin act and other state papers of importance are reprinted in the appendix.”—Dial
“Professor Keith’s history of the Belgian Congo is judicious, exhaustive, authoritative. Completed in September 1918, it necessarily wants sureness of touch in dealing with the present outlook, but a later edition will be able to supply an air of greater finality. An appendix comprises all relevant state documents. It would be an advantage if a map were added. The book is a carefully written and well-balanced history.” G. B. Hurst
Reviewed by W. E. B. DuBois
“We need hardly say that Professor Keith’s history of the Congo state is exact and scholarly.”
“It must be said, however, for Dr Keith that, although his preface is dated September, 1918, he has written about the future of Central Africa from a point of view that is already obsolete.... Dr Keith, in his strong condemnation of the abuses of King Leopold’s autocratic rule, has not failed to do full justice to that monarch’s extraordinary energy and strength of will, versatile capacity for affairs, and financial skill.”
KEITH, ERIC A. My escape from Germany. *$1.76 (2c) Century 940.47
Mr Keith was an English business man living at Neuss, a town on the left bank of the Rhine, when the war broke out, and was promptly interned in the prison camp at Ruhleben. The book is an account of his three attempts to escape, once alone and twice with companions, of which the third was successful. This American edition of the book contains much matter which had to be omitted from the earlier English edition, printed while the war was still on. It contains a map of the route taken in the last successful attempt and the narrative is a plain statement of facts without any attempt at sensational trimmings.
“Vigorously written.”
“The book contains much fascinating information about the technique of escaping from prison camps. That truth is stranger than fiction is again demonstrated by Mr Keith’s adventures.”
“In what one is now justified in calling the literature of escape this takes a good place. It is told with a good deal of literary skill, and is full of close detail which is never allowed to be boring.”
KELLAND, CLARENCE BUDINGTON. Catty Atkins. il *$1.60 (2½c) Harper
Catty Atkins and his father were shiftless folk, tramps, to be exact. But Catty was levelheaded and did a lot of thinking and when he fell in with “Wee-wee” Moore and his dad he did some more. All that Mr Moore did was to treat Catty with respect and all that Mrs Gage did was to treat him like scum. The effect of the combination was to arouse Catty from his lethargy and fill him with a fierce determination to be respectable and make his shiftless dad respectable. How he did it is the story, and although Catty’s bossing soon makes Mr Atkins the richest and handsomest man in town, he never loses his wistful look towards his fishing rod and the road.
“A capital story for boys.” R. D. Moore
“The story is improbable and the characters overdrawn, but the work is written in an entertaining vein.”
KELLAND, CLARENCE BUDINGTON. Efficiency Edgar. il *$1.25 (6½c) Harper
They called him Efficiency Edgar in the office in a derisive way, but then—had he not more than doubled his salary in two years? He was determined to order his life with efficiency. He decided that it was an efficiency measure to get married. He conducted his courtship as a sales campaign employing the “follow-up system” and the “intensive cultivation of prospects.” Mary thought it was lovely and signed the contract. Next came housekeeping by strict schedule which worked to perfection including Mary’s feigned sprained ankle—result a cook and exit schedule. It was reserved to Edgar Junior to prove to his efficient parent that “a baby isn’t a machine with gears and cranks and pulleys. A baby is a kid.”
“One is inclined to wonder if, apart from Mr Kelland’s reputation as a short story writer, this particular tale would have had such wide appeal. There have been so many similar stories and, even possessed of willing mind, much of the material seems dull and hackneyed. Only in the courtship chapter have we a ghost of freshness.”
“Clarence Budington Kelland has very cleverly ridiculed the overdoing of the efficiency idea.”
KELLAND, CLARENCE BUDINGTON. Youth challenges. *$1.75 (1½c) Harper
“Bonbright Foote, Incorporated” had gone through six generations without balking and with family tradition and business tradition fossilizing side by side. But Bonbright Foote VII balked. The result of the former was a family fortune of five millions, of the latter a disowned son cast off penniless. But as a further result Bonbright Foote, without the VII, applied to his father’s friend, the automobile king, for a job, donned overalls, began at the bottom of the ladder as a mechanic, climbed rung after rung and incidentally learned how an up-to-date business was conducted. After his father’s sudden death he takes hold of the fossilized concern of six generations, and makes it over on the five dollars a day minimum wage basis. On the day that the announcement of the plan averts a disastrous strike, Bonbright’s unhappy love affair also takes a turn. He not only finds his lost girl-wife, but finds that it is he and not another whom she loves.
“Not deep, not searching, the book because of its restraint and sincerity deserves respectful reading.”
KELLEY, ETHEL MAY. Outside inn. il *$1.75 Bobbs
“Though it has the usual love story—three of them, in fact—and ends with the heroine clasped in the hero’s arms in the most orthodox manner, the real theme of the tale, that one upon which the interest of the novel depends, is not love but—food. We cannot at the moment recall any recent book in which there was so much and such good eating as there is in this tale of a tea room. The greatest desire of Nancy Martin’s life was to feed her fellow-mortals, men and women, on the proper kinds of nourishing foods containing the proper number of calories. Wherefore she opened the charming tea room which she called ‘Outside inn,’ engaged a French chef who was at once a genius and a true artist, secured several highly competent waitresses, and served excellent meals of the most abundant, varied and tempting food at a moderate, a very moderate price. Incidentally, Nancy Martin adopted a little girl and had an unhappy love affair before she found her real mate.’—N Y Times
“Altogether it is entertaining in its way, but it is to be hoped that American taste will sometime outgrow the romantic immaturity which can accept such a work as having any relation to life and character.”
KELLOGG, CHARLOTTE (HOFFMAN) (MRS VERNON LYMAN KELLOGG). Bobbins of Belgium. il *$2 (6c) Funk 746
“A book of Belgian lace, lace-workers, lace-schools and lace-villages.” (Sub-title) In the preface the author gives an account of the heroic efforts made during the war to continue the campaign, begun before the war, of restoring and developing the threatened lace industry. A brief survey of the history of lace-making is given in the introduction with a description of its peculiar milieu as a home industry and the more modern development into a craft through normal schools of lace-making. A separate chapter is devoted to each of the notable lace-villages. The differences between the various kinds of laces, needle laces and bobbin laces, are more fully described and their stitches illustrated, in the appendix. The contents are: Introduction; Turnhout; Courtrai; Thourout-Thielt-Wynghene; Grammont; Bruges; Kerxken; Erembodeghem; Opbrakel; Liedekerke; Herzele; Ghent; Zele. The book is profusely illustrated and there is an index.
“Author is as much interested in the lace makers us in methods and designs, and writes a humanly interesting rather than technical book.”
“So far as the study of lace itself goes, the book is not too technical, and it furnishes a convenient handbook for those who would possess a passable knowledge of the principles of lace making.”
Reviewed by Ruth Van Deman
“The book contains much valuable technical detail, including many illustrations of lace patterns, but also gives vivid pictures of convent life and the sturdy Franciscan sisters as they pass on the secrets of their exquisite craft to their young charges.”
“The illustrations will delight the lover of lace.” J. G.
KELLOGG, CHARLOTTE (HOFFMAN) (MRS VERNON LYMAN KELLOGG). Mercier; the fighting cardinal of Belgium. *$2 (4½c) Appleton
The author is well known for her work with the Commission for relief in Belgium. Brand Whitlock has written a brief foreword for her book, parts of which have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Outlook and Delineator. There are ten chapters: The fighting cardinal; From boy to cardinal; Pastoral letters to an imprisoned people; The cardinal and Rome in war-time; The good shepherd; The cardinal versus the governor general; The cardinal at home; After the armistice—the visit to America; Trenchant sayings of the cardinal; Text of the Christmas pastoral, patriotism and endurance. A short bibliography of Cardinal Mercier’s works concludes the book.
“The book is brilliantly written and is of the deepest interest.”
“Much of it is fresh, vivid material; and all of it is presented in a delightful manner. The author has a literary gift that enables her to express herself gracefully and concisely; with taste and discrimination, she has also grasp of spiritual values.”
“Mrs Kellogg’s little book, with its personal touches, forms a useful pendant to the Cardinal’s letters.” Muriel Harris
“An authentic and illuminating biography.”
“The book is brief. The material seems to have been hastily thrown together, with obvious paddings. To Catholic readers the book should especially appeal, for it is written with a spirit of devout reverence.” M. K. Reely
KELLOGG, VERNON LYMAN. Herbert Hoover; the man and his work. *$2 (2c) Appleton
A biographical sketch written by a man who was closely associated with the relief of Belgium. A preliminary chapter, headed “Children,” describes Mr Hoover’s arrival in Warsaw. This is followed by the sketch of early years, with chapters on: The child and boy; The university; The young mining engineer; In China; London and the rest of the world; The war: The man and his first service. The remaining chapters are devoted to the relief of Belgium, the American food administration, and the American relief administration. Four appendices give extracts from Mr Hoover’s reports, writings and speeches.
“It is a magnificent picture of the most truly American figure of our time.”
KELLOGG, VERNON LYMAN. Nuova; or, The new bee; with songs by Charlotte Kellogg. il *$2.25 (9c) Houghton
A note to this “story for children of five to fifty” says: “Most of this that I have written about bees is true: what is not, does not pretend to be. Some of the true part sounds almost like a description of what human life might in some respects be, if certain social movements of today were followed out to their logical extreme. I suppose that in this likeness lies the moral of the book.” The part of the story that isn’t true and doesn’t pretend to be has to do with the revolt of Nuova against bee traditions. Nuova is a new bee, she grows tired of working and begins to ask the meaning of things in bee society. She takes an interest in the drones and even falls in love with one of them. She meets the fate of all nonconformists and is about to be driven from the hive to her death when a fortunate turn of chance spares her and brings a happy ending.
“Children will not get the satire, but they will find much useful information as well as much fancy in the text.”
“There are no danger signs to warn the child reader when he is following fancy away from the true path. Nor will its failure as a child’s book insure its success with the grown-ups.” M. H. B. Mussey
“Those who know Mr Kellogg’s other books and like them, will like this. It will lure many to thinking about the bees who never cared for nature lore before.” Robert Hunting
“Younger readers—indeed the very youngest—who read this book will be less concerned with the fact that the author’s bee-lore is absolutely authentic than with the realization that he knows how to make a true story more entertaining than the average fairy tale.”
KELLY, FRED CHARTERS. Human nature in business; how to capitalize your everyday habits and characteristics. il *$1.90 Putnam 658
“This book contains articles which excited a good deal of interest when first they appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and other periodicals. In them the author tells ‘how to capitalize your every-day habits and characteristics.”—Survey
“Interesting but rather obvious.”
“This book which at least is diverting and suggestive, is replete with incidents of one kind or another illustrating the unconscious elements of conduct.”
“Apart from their original purpose, the studies are interesting as sidelights upon crowd psychology.” B. L.
KELLY, HOWARD ATWOOD, and BURRAGE, WALTER LINCOLN. American medical biographies. $15 Norman, Remington co. 926
To a certain extent this work is a revision of Dr Kelly’s “Cyclopedia of American medical biography,” published in 1912. He says in the preface: “Dr Walter L. Burrage and I have worked for several years to produce the present volume, deleting from the former book fifty-one biographies not coming up to our standard, replacing with new biographies sixty-two others, revising and correcting from original sources nearly all, and adding 815 new ones, besides those that have replaced the old ones. Thus our book contains 1948 biographies and is carried through the year 1918. In addition there are about eighty references to individuals mentioned biographically in the main biographies.” The principle of selection has been “to include every man who has in any way contributed to the advancement of medicine in the United States or in Canada, or who, being a physician, has become illustrious in some other field of general science or in literature.” Living men are entirely excluded. A list of works consulted occupies nine pages and there is a local index, by states, in addition to the general index.
“The catholicity of judgment shown in their preparation and the discrimination in the selection of names chosen for reference place ‘American medical biographies’ on a very high plane indeed.” Van Buren Thorne
KELLY, THOMAS HOWARD. What outfit, Buddy? il *$1.50 (3c) Harper
As this narrative stands it is Jimmy McGee’s story—“Jimmy McGee, a real, regular fighting Yank who has seen his share of la guerre”—and his story, says the author “is merely the universal version of the great adventure as held by legions of his comrades.” Inseparable from Jimmy is his pal the O. D., who never went back after “la guerre finee” to his mother and Mary but left Jimmy to break them the news of the grave in France.
“The whole volume is rather an interesting experimentation in values which, helped by the delightful illustrations, is, on the whole a success.” I. W. L.
KEMP, HARRY HIBBARD. Chanteys and ballads. *$1.50 Brentano’s 811
“The book contains rough out-door poems of land and sea, songs of sailors at sea driving to strange lands, and impressions of tramps by campfire and their visions of the Christ, and many others.” (St Louis) “Most of the sea poems were written long after Mr Kemp had ceased to sail before the mast, but the impressions that those early years made upon him have hardly faded.” (N Y Times)
“For those who know that splendid play Mr Kemp wrote on Judas when he gave his version of Judas’s purpose in the betrayal will find his poems of New Testament life full of power and a strange loveliness. If one had a doubt as to whether Mr Kemp would finally reach a development of his gifts where he would no longer be accepted with qualifications, that doubt, it seems to me, vanished with this volume.” W: S. Braithwaite
“One can not share Mr Kemp’s expressed conviction that he has found ‘the immortal meaning of it all.’ At least, if he has found it, he has not succeeded in transferring it to the assorted verses which are gathered here.” L. B.
“Mr Kemp’s new volume is a disappointment. He was fastidious before, though generous enough in thought and gesture; now he finds room for commonplace and cant, complacency and swagger.” Mark Van Doren
“Full of buoyancy and swinging rhythms.”
KENDALL, RALPH SELWOOD.[2] Luck of the mounted. *$2 Lane
“The scene of this story is the great Canadian Northwest, the principal part of it being laid in the vicinity of Calgary, where the author was for a time stationed as a member of the Royal Northwest mounted police. A particularly baffling murder case is the theme of the tale and the culprit is a man with a strange and adventurous past. A second killing, with a curious chain of circumstances connecting it with the first one, is, in the end, solved and the murderer brought to justice.”—N Y Times
“The story is devoid of romance, but it is told in such a gripping, straightforward manner as to give it the earmarks of truth.”
“Sergeant Kendall writes about the Royal Canadian mounted police with inside knowledge. That makes his story more convincing than most narratives of this type. The background of snowy Canadian scenery, admirably painted in, lends a touch of poetry to the tale.”
KENEALY, ARABELLA. Feminism and sex-extinction. *$5 Dutton 396
“Dr Kenealy has elaborated the truth that men and women inherit the characteristics of both sexes into an extreme doctrine which she uses as a weapon to attack feminism and the ‘unwomanly woman.’ She heads a chapter, ‘One side of the body is male, the other side is female’; and the next, ‘Masculine mothers produce emasculate sons by misappropriating the life-potential of male offspring.’ Feminist doctrine and practice are disastrous to human faculty and progress. She is in dread of ‘the impending subjection of man,’ because it will be a calamity for woman as well as for man.”—Ath
“It is a sad spectacle to see a helpless fact writhing under the disapproval of Dr Kenealy.” C. P. Gilman
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“The problem of physical and psychic duality is discussed at length, and it is here that Miss Kenealy’s assumptions are seen to rest on dubious foundations. Her hypothesis of the necessity of ‘two modes of vital energy,’ for instance, is not fortified by facts. The common sense view of female capabilities tallies, however, in many instances with Miss Kenealy’s quasi-scientific postulates.”
“Dr Arabella Kenealy states the case against ‘suffragetism’ and against the masculinization of women with considerable vigour and unquestionably with considerable truth, but it is so fatally easy to pick holes both in her logic and in her facts that the reader will probably find it difficult to do justice to the truth of her ideas.”
KENNARD, JOSEPH SPENCER. Goldoni and the Venice of his time. il *$6 Macmillan 852
Goldoni, the famous Italian playwright, 1707–1793, is an impersonation of the Italian modern character, says the author of the present volume. “In him, Italians are pleased to see ... an idealised image of themselves ... humanized by touches that endear it both to those who trace out of it a resemblance to their own soul, and to those who, across his charming personality, are desirous to comprehend the soul of modern Italy.” Much of the material of the book is taken from Goldoni’s Memoirs. Beginning with a chronological summary of his life, a bibliography and a list of his plays, the first chapter is devoted to the historical and literary background of Goldoni’s life and work, the five following chapters to the life itself, six chapters to the plays and the conclusion to a general appreciation. The book has an index and three illustrations.
“He has succeeded in presenting a human and sympathetic person, not obscuring his faults or exaggerating his virtues.... Mr Kennard’s book is entertaining, but it abounds in misprints, especially in the French and Italian citations.” N. H. D.
“It is a painstaking, if somewhat loosely discursive production.”
“It will win a place as an excellent biography, constructed in a workmanlike manner and written in an easy, enjoyable style.”
KENNARD, JOSEPH SPENCER. Memmo. *$2 (2c) Doran
The story is one of love and crime in modern Italy, but true to old traditions. Daniele Sparnieri, an upstart Jew, steeped in all iniquity, from illicit amours with women to criminal grasping in finance, murders an already dying relative and steals his will. Thus enabled to disinherit and make an outcast of the old man’s grandson, Memmo, he makes himself the head of the Sparnieri banking firm and Clara, the old man’s granddaughter, and in reality Daniele’s illicit daughter, the greatest heiress in Venice. He separates Clara from her cousin, Memmo, whom she loves and forces her to marry a profligate and impoverished member of the oldest aristocracy of Venice. Later he causes Memmo’s imprisonment on a criminal charge of bomb throwing, but when nemesis overtakes him in the vengeance of his numerous victims, and the dying Count D’Abbie, Clara’s husband, confesses Memmo’s innocence, true love comes to its own.
“The style is adequate—that is, it maintains a sense of suspense, an essential in a story of this nature—and with its fair proportion of properly used adjectives brings to the reader the atmosphere of modern Italy.”
“Not the least interesting feature of the narration is the intimate presentation of various picturesque Jewish customs maintained by the orthodox from the days of Moses. The book will appeal to lovers of well-written sensational fiction. And certainly the author does know his Venice.”
KENNEDY, CHARLES RANN. Army with banners; a divine comedy of this very day, in five acts, scene individable, setting forth the story of a morning in the early millennium. *$1.50 Huebsch 822
An allegorical play of continuous action, altho arrangement is made for division into the usual five acts. The theme is Christianity, and among the characters are Mary Bliss, a woman of simple faith who grows steadily younger as the play progresses until she passes from age to radiant girlhood, and Tommy Trail, a revivalist of the Billy Sunday type, determined to save her soul. The others, with the exception of Dafty, also a symbolic figure, represent various types of worldliness.
“Its spirit is beautiful and profoundly right. But its method is that of allegory gone mad, jumbling touches of realism with the maddest fantasy, so it is perplexing and ineffective even to read, and, in the theater, quite hopeless.” W. P. Eaton
“There are greater achievements doubtless in the world of drama than Mr Charles Rann Kennedy’s ‘Army with banners’ but one doubts if there are greater exploits. It blends incongruities and actualizes fantasies in a manner that allows no rest and sets no bound to admiration. As a play it is far from exemplary. It is long and its action is naught, and the culmination has the effect of being prostrated by the fatigues of its journey.”
“In ‘The army with banners’ one finds an art so completely intellectual that one’s interest, trained to emotion and sentiment, falters at times: the high finish, brilliant and sustained as it is, is brittle almost to the cracking-point. Of plot—well, Mr Kennedy would never be passed by Professor Baker, and this reviewer has a suspicion that a bit of concession to story-interest would have helped over the two or three undeniably dull spots in the book.”
KENNEDY, HARRY ANGUS ALEXANDER.[2] Theology of the Epistles. (Studies in theology) *$1.35 Scribner 230
“One of a new series of aids to interpretation and Biblical criticism for students, the clergy, and laymen. Dr Kennedy’s book is divided into three parts, the first of which relates to Paulinism. The second part deals with phases of early Christian thought in the main independent of Paulinism. In the third part the author discusses the theology of the developing church.”—Ath
“There is a useful bibliography and the indexing is thorough. The treatment of the theology of Paul is excellent.”
KENT, CHARLES FOSTER, and JENKS, JEREMIAH WHIPPLE. Jesus’ principles of living. (Bible’s message to modern life) *$1.25 Scribner 232
“In the words of the authors, ‘the aim in this volume has been to interpret the teachings of Jesus frankly, simply, and constructively in the light of modern conditions, and to make clear the trail that Jesus blazed by which each man may find the larger life in union and coöperation with the eternal source of all life.’ The two distinguished university professors, one in Biblical study and the other in political science, have worked together to expound the teachings of Jesus to our modern world. They have seen that ‘a yearning for social justice, for brotherhood, and for spiritual satisfaction filled the hearts of men’ in the first century, and that the present century manifests the same yearning.”—Boston Transcript
“Any teacher looking for a textbook for a Bible class should see this volume.”
“The authors are singularly free from those obsessions of so many theologians and political scientists, the fallacies of the universal and of the abstract.” F. W. C.
“The book abounds in beautiful platitudes.”
“Certain aspects of the subject are treated in many cases without sufficient recognition of such real conflicts of responsibility as are involved in modern social relationships. Nevertheless, the book is thoroughly wholesome in essentials and promotes thought in the reader.” B. L.
KENT, ROCKWELL. Wilderness; a journal of quiet adventure in Alaska. il *$5 Putnam
Rockwell Kent is an artist who spent one autumn and winter on an island in Resurrection bay, Kenai peninsula, Alaska, in company with his nine year old son. Since his return he has exhibited the paintings that are the fruit of those months. This book, published with an introduction by Dorothy Canfield and illustrations from the author’s drawings, is a record of “quiet adventure,” telling of the daily life of the two, father and son, with their one companion Olson,—a perfect companion for great solitudes. Of what the experience meant to both man and boy, the artist writes, “It seems that we have both together by chance turned out of the beaten, crowded way and come to stand face to face with that infinite and unfathomable thing which is the wilderness; and here we have found ourselves—for the wilderness is nothing else. It is a kind of living mirror that gives back as its own all and only all that the imagination of a man brings to it. It is that which we believe it to be.”
“Mr Kent’s journal makes pleasant and easy reading; but it is obvious enough that the letterpress in this rich volume is little more than an excuse for the drawings. It is as a pictorial artist that Mr Kent asks for criticism and admiration, not as a writer. If Blake had never lived, the art of Rockwell Kent would not have been what it is. All of Blake that can be made into a convention he has conventionalized. But when we look for the force that can turn a convention into living art, we look almost in vain.” A. L. H.
Reviewed by H: McBride
“The result of their year at Fox Island is the startlingly beautiful series of drawings reproduced in the text and the ‘Journal of quiet adventure’ itself, an important event for many reasons but perhaps chiefly for its unparalleled record of a year of perfect happiness and freedom in the life of a child.” Martha Gruening
“To what can we compare this very beautiful and poignant record of one of the most unusual adventures ever chronicled? It is not like ‘Walden,’ it is not like any other diary of experiences in the wilderness.” M. F. Egan
“The present reviewer has no intention of suggesting that ‘Wilderness’ is preeminently a book for boys, but that it may be popular with boys is not a mere surmise.”
“Rather an unusual book in both appearance and contents is ‘Wilderness.’”
“The writing is well enough, but Mr Kent is not a born writer; he is a born, though very unequal draughtsman.”
KEON, GRACE. Just Happy. *$1.65 Devin-Adair
“Happy is the name of the canine hero, a huge and hideous black bulldog and an invincible fighter. Happy’s nature was of the best; in fact, his temper could not truthfully be called anything less than saintly, but he was a ferocious looking animal, so amazingly and abnormally hideous that Mother was shocked at the sight of him and felt that she really could not take him into her household of six small boys and Father—Father being in truth the veriest boy of them all. Of course, Mother yielded at last to the importunities of Father, Grandmother and the boys. Happy became a member of the family, and quickly proved himself a most valuable one. Happy routs a thievish tramp, comforts a dying old soldier’s last hours, has a fight with another dog, which encounter narrowly escapes being an expensive one for Father, and saves the house from burglars.”—N Y Times
“Delightful is the one adjective that best describes the book.”
“Told agreeably, with humor as well as sentiment.”
“Nice little story which will probably please dog lovers.”
KEPPEL, FREDERICK PAUL. Some war-time lessons. *$1.50 (7½c) Columbia univ. press 940.373
Three lectures by the third assistant secretary of war, the first delivered at the General theological seminary, the second at Columbia, and the third at Michigan university. Contents: The American soldier and his standards of conduct; The war as a practical test of American scholarship; What have we learned?
KERLIN, ROBERT THOMAS. Voice of the nero, 1919. il *$2.50 Dutton 326.1
“What the negroes are now thinking, saying, and doing, as reflected in their press, is shown in this volume, ‘The voice of the negro,’ by Professor Robert T. Kerlin, of the Virginia Military institute. Nearly the whole of the book consists of clippings, with just enough explanatory matter to give them a proper setting. It is a digest of negro opinion on the aftermath of the war, labor unionism and radicalism, riots, lynchings, exploitation and exclusion from the franchise, along with a brief summary of the race’s recent progress in education and industry. Notable, as might be expected, is the volume of protest against the treatment the negro soldier has received following a war to make the world safe for democracy—a war in which he bore so wholly creditable a part.”—Review
“Readers will find this book to be a great clarifier of ideas.”
“It is not pleasant reading, but useful, in that it shows the negro’s growth in self respect, and that it is a frightful and unanswerable indictment of the American people who suffer these wrongs to exist, not only without effective protest but largely with their acquiescence.” E. A. S.
“Few white Americans but will be astonished, perhaps, at the volume and the eloquence of that voice as here reported with praiseworthy fairness; still fewer, doubtless, but will wonder at the shrewdness with which these negro editors survey the problems of their race.”
“The book should be read by every one interested in the welfare of the country and in the cause of justice.” Clement Wood
“Whoever thinks that the negro is not foully abused will find Professor Kerlin’s book wholesome, though unpleasant, reading.”
“A valuable volume for the study of the negro question in America. Typographically the book is not attractive.”
“A most interesting and worth-while volume.”
“The excerpts presented do not all rank equally in weight of thought or of rhetoric. But they are symptomatic and in that respect the compilation is invaluable since it points the finger of warning. If instead of appointing a committee of a hundred and more to investigate the wrongs of Ireland we should establish a commission to investigate honestly and diligently the causes underlying this composite of fire and bitterness, a great and overshadowing disaster might be peacably turned aside.” Jessie Fauset
KERNAHAN, COULSON. Spiritualism; a personal experience and a warning. *60c (7½c) Revell 134
Spiritualism is an obsession, says the author, by which a person relinquishes his will-power into other and unknown hands—always a very dangerous thing to do. He believes that any attempt to unlock the door which separates this life from the next is “an unseemly intrusion upon the sanctity, the august majesty, of which we are conscious in the presence of our dead. Spiritualism vulgarizes that which is holy, while adding to our knowledge no single word of real help or worth.” Contents: Spiritual housebreaking; A personal experience; Some comments on my first séance; Telepathy; The barrenness of spiritualism; Sin begins in want of faith; A will o’ the wisp.
“The description of his own experience at a séance is certainly interesting, but as usual in such narratives, too vague in its details.”
KERNAHAN, COULSON. Swinburne as I knew him. *$1.25 (4½c) Lane
This second installment of the author’s recollections of Swinburne—the first appeared in “In good company”—contains some hitherto unpublished letters from the poet to his cousin, the Hon. Lady Henniker Heaton. After Mr Gosse’s “Life and letters of Swinburne,” the author of the present volume considers reserve no longer necessary and has therefore written more freely than in his first volume. Contents: Letters from A. C. Swinburne to his cousin; The story of a dear deceit; “Oh, those poets!”; George Borrow in a frock-coat; “In the days of our youth”; Philip Marston’s “Hush!” story; A. C. S. and R. L. S.; The laureateship—a cartoon in the Pall Mall Gazette—and some woman poets whose work Swinburne admired; A sonnet in the Athenæum and more “dear deceit”; “Puck of Putney hill”; A paragraph in the Westminster Gazette; “All my memories of him are glad and gracious memories.”
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
“This little book is of considerable value as a supplement to Gosse’s ‘Life’ of the poet and the collection of ‘Letters’ edited by his biographer in collaboration with T. J. Wise.”
“The fact is that his reminiscences are meager in the extreme. There is much good humor and kindliness in the book and a certain ability to exhibit the weaknesses of famous men without destroying the impression of their real greatness.”
“Mr Kernahan’s book is a witty and spirited trifle, by no means destitute of revealing touches.”
“The interest of Mr Kernahan’s little book lies in the fact not that he knew Swinburne but that he knew Swinburne’s friend [Watts-Dunton].”
KERR, R. WATSON. War daubs. *$1 Lane 821
This collection of war poems reveals the agonized soul of a poet amid the horrors of war for which he has nothing but a curse. He does not see in it “a glorious, cleansing thing” and scorns to speak with easy eloquence of “war and its necessity” or “war’s magnificent nobility.” Some of the titles are: From the line; To a sorrowing mother; The gravedigger; A dead man; Home; Faith; In bitterness; Escape; Prayer.
“Imperfect assimilation might be diagnosed as the chief malady of these sketches from dugout and camp. The author has completely digested neither his war experiences nor the aesthetic of the new poetry. Despite his force and sincerity, he is treading a little too closely in the footsteps of a more famous contemporary.”
“Mr Kerr sees the war somewhat as does Siegfried Sassoon, but without the same power of satirical observation, without the detachment of an intellectualism that gives Sassoon’s verse its especial vigor. But there is a power in the very literalness of his depiction, a certain honesty in visualization that gives them a graphic interest.”
“A genuine vital sincerity beats through them and helps to fashion the verse into a real and true medium of expression.”
KERR, SOPHIE (MRS SOPHIE [KERR] UNDERWOOD). Painted meadows. *$1.90 (1½c) Doran
Seth Markwood, the shy, sober, inarticulate young lawyer, had loved Anah Blades since childhood, but when Gilbert White, tall, handsome and gay, returned to his home town after a ten year’s absence, he took Anah’s heart by storm and they were married. Seth stood by with a hungry pain in his heart and watched over Anah. Gil was weak and ungrown and his passionate love for Anah did not prevent him from straying on forbidden paths. A fall from his horse killed him and Seth became Anah’s mainstay. In due time he urged his love, urged it vehemently almost forcing her to become his wife before disillusionment had broken through her sentimental, almost morbid loyalty to Gil. So strong was her dream life that the son she bore to Seth resembled Gil and the imminence of a tragedy to both is only averted by the accidental discovery, on the part of Anah, of Gil’s unfaithfulness.
“It is simply told, effectively, poignantly. The three chief characters are very real.”
“It is unfortunate that the authoress should have marred her otherwise graceful and unsensational story by a digression into the subject of prenatal influences. However, it gets into the book too late and gets out too promptly to make any real difference. The fact remains that ‘Painted meadows’ is a story full of genuine feeling and excellent craftsmanship.”
“The only jarring note in ‘Painted meadows’ is an excursion into the subject of pre-natal influences. While this adds a degree of suspense and uncertainty to the situation, it is undeniably an artificiality. Perhaps the best work comes in the early stages of narrative, which embodies excellently described local scenes and characters.”
“The notion of a wife clinging to the memory of her first (unworthy) husband until she finds the true value of the lover who had been faithful to her throughout is worked out with all the quiet conscientiousness and studious portrayal of character which is so attractive a feature in some American novels.”
KERSHAW, JOHN BAKER CANNINGTON. Fuel, water and gas analysis for steam users. 2d ed. rev and enl il *$3.50 Van Nostrand 543
The preface states that with the increasing necessity for economy in the use of fuel, the subject with which this book deals, efficiency in the working of steam boilers, becomes of more urgent importance. The new edition has been prepared to meet this situation. “The author has made use of the opportunity to add chapters upon ‘Fuel-sampling’ and upon the ‘Calorific valuation of liquid and gaseous fuels.’... The chapter dealing with continuous and recording gas-testing apparatus has been brought up to date by the addition of much new matter.” (Preface to the second edition)
“The present work meets a well-defined want in that it gives trustworthy and up-to-date technical methods. It can be recommended to every industrial chemist.”
KEYNES, JOHN MAYNARD. Economic consequences of the peace. *$2.50 (3½c) Harcourt 330.94
As chief representative of the British treasury at the peace conference and member of the Supreme economic council of the allied and associated powers, the author can be considered an authority on his chosen subject. In effect the book is a severe stricture on the peace conference’s failure in its task to “satisfy justice” and to “re-establish life and to heal wounds.” It points out both the injustice and the impracticability of the terms of the peace treaty and how wide-spread economic ruin in all countries will be the result of any attempt to carry them out. “The treaty includes no provisions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe,—nothing to make the defeated central empires into good neighbors, nothing to stabilize the new states of Europe, nothing to reclaim Russia; nor does it provide in any way a compact of economic solidarity amongst the Allies themselves. On the contrary ... men have devised ways to impoverish themselves and one another; and prefer collective animosities to individual happiness.” The contents are: Europe before the war; The conference; The treaty; Reparation; Europe after the treaty; Remedies.
“The prime importance of the work consists in its vivid sense of the growing moral and economic solidarity of the world, and particularly of Europe and its detailed search for a sound economic basis on which a peace settlement can really be made, in view of that solidarity.” C. J. Bushnell
“This is a brilliant, penetrating, stimulating, book; but it is also unbalanced, inconclusive, and unconvincing.” F: A. Ogg
“The book over-emphasizes the relative power and importance of individuals.” C. L. King
“This book comes like a douche of bracing cold water after years of hysterical talk about making democracy safe, the war to end war, and the vindication of the principles of freedom and self-determination. In the emotional pitch of his argument Mr Keynes has wisely chosen a middle course. He has resisted, if he ever felt it, the temptation to boom which usually besets the expression of righteous indignation; he knows that severe judgments are all the severer for being rapped out with tight lips, not thundered.... In the ardour of his desire to bring the world back to hard facts, he speaks as if the tragedy had been prepared by the play of economic factors alone. Yet surely it is not so. It is at least equally a question of the blind movements of generations building up passionate illusions of nationality and domination.”
“Written with unsparing and convincing frankness and a beautiful clearness, it is arousing a great deal of comment and controversy because of its intrinsic value and also because of its appeal to widely differing political factions.”
“The book compels attention. The reading of it can hardly be avoided by anyone deeply interested either in the economic chaos of Europe or in the nature of the treaty of peace. There will be many who will disagree with the remedies that Keynes proposes, but none of these critics can deny that the book is an example of most brilliant economic exposition.” F. A. Vanderlip
“If men and women exist who do not wish to see the entire structure fall, carrying with it every hope of humanity, they will read this book with a little more attention to its thesis and a little less suspicion of its motives. In spite of his felicity of style Mr Keynes expresses himself badly.” Sganarelle
“Mr Keynes is one of the half-dozen men who know not only what happened in the meetings of the council of four but also what the multitudinous provisions of the treaty actually mean. The subtle sophistries and complex circumlocutions of the Paris draughtsmen have been reduced by Mr Keynes to plain, lucid statements which any man may understand.” W: C. Bullitt
“This is a very great book. If any answer can be made to the overwhelming indictment of the treaty that it contains, that answer has yet to be published. Mr Keynes writes with a fullness of knowledge, an incisiveness of judgment, and a penetration into the ultimate causes of economic events that perhaps only half-a-dozen living economists might hope to rival. The style is like finely hammered steel. It is full of unforgettable phrases and of vivid portraits etched in the biting acid of a passionate moral indignation.” H. J. Laski
“I cannot leave the topic of reparation without expressing sharp dissent from Mr Keynes’s attitude toward the Belgian claims.... As against Mr Keynes’s brilliancy, insight, and courage, there must be put certain elements of strain, of exaggeration, of effort for dramatic consistency. But for all that his book is like nothing so much as a fresh breeze coming into a plain where poisonous gases are yet hanging.” A. A. Young
“In his last chapter, which is on remedies, Keynes is less convincing than in his earlier chapters. Here for the first time one feels the limitations of the academic mind. His remedies may be theoretically sound, but they do not seem to take into account the infirmities of human institutions.... The discussion of remedies is the least important part of Keynes’s book. Its importance lies in its demonstration of the unsoundness of the economic and financial provisions of the treaty and of the financial and economic chaos brought on by the war, which the treaty has failed to relieve. Keynes’s book will provide arguments both against and for the league of nations.” P. D. Cravath
“If only Mr Keynes had occasionally shown an interest in the economic future of France, Italy, Poland and other countries equal to his interest in that of Germany, if, when he approached political questions as he constantly has done, he had shown more appreciation of their significance and more knowledge of facts, he might have given us a judicial and trustworthy survey of the existing situation. Instead he has written what is in large measure an acrimonious party pamphlet, and the party represented is, in terms of European usage, that of the ‘Extreme left.’” C: W. Hazen
“In estimating the value of the present sensational arraignment of the work of the peace council, it must be borne in mind that Mr Keynes is a leftwing Liberal, and by nature has a little of that slant of mind which we are accustomed in America to associate with the theoretical humanitarianism and internationalism of the New Republic school.... It is on the subject of the amount of the reparations that there is grave reason to doubt the soundness of Mr Keynes’s view.”
“We have not read a more acute and witty (in the old sense of the term) exposition of the economic equilibrium of Europe and the relation between capital and labour in England than the opening pages of this book.”
Reviewed by Arthur Gleason
“Mr Keynes is at liberty to say what he likes, and to denounce his former chiefs and colleagues to his heart’s content. Still, the effect of his book is weakened by the circumstances in which it came to be written. Mr Keynes says that he resigned his post on June 7th last, ‘when it became evident that hope could no longer be entertained of substantial modification in the draft terms of peace.’ The implication is that he could have made a better peace than that which the Allies proposed and the enemy accepted. We are bound to say that this seems to us improbable. Mr Keynes’s economic criticisms are in a different category. When he comes down to facts or estimates he deserves attention.”
“It is emotionally written, in passages where feeling broke bounds and Europe presented herself to Mr Keynes’s mind as a vision of all but consummated ruin. But in the main it is a model of careful and penetrating analysis. It is enough to add that Mr Keynes has said outright what other authorities like Gen. Smuts, Mr Hoover, and Lord Robert Cecil have half said, and wholly thought.”
“It seems to us that the ultimate criticism of Mr Keynes’s book will be this, that it is the criticism of a man who is occupied with and interested only in one part of the work. For the political side he appears to have little interest or understanding.”
“This is far and away the most significant analysis of present conditions in Europe that has appeared. There is one omission from Mr Keynes’ analysis which seems somewhat remarkable. He nowhere speaks of the effect upon economic conditions now or in the future of the enormous expansion of the British and French colonial empires. Moreover, it seems to us that the situation Mr Keynes so vividly pictures requires more radical social, economic and spiritual treatment than he himself proposes.”
“He writes in the style of a propagandist, albeit one more amusing than the average, and he displays the bitter propagandist’s predilection for the intermingling of true and false. Mr Keynes’s book is pernicious, for it spreads the impression that the entire work of the conference was rotten to the core, and it excites complete mistrust of the treaty.” C: Seymour
KILMER, MRS ANNIE KILBURN. Memories of my son, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer; with numerous unpublished poems and letters. il $2 Brentano’s
“The ‘Memories’ consist of a faithful transcription of a mother’s diary to reveal her son’s ‘baby mind,’ a small budget of verse not given for their ‘worth as poems, but rather to show the throbbing of a mother’s heart’; and the letters of the son to the mother covering the years from 1906 up to within two days of his death in action on July 30, 1918. These form fully three fourths of the book.”—Boston Transcript
“We hope not to violate the respect which the public is bound to pay, and is glad to pay, to maternal grief in suggesting that grief has a self-respect which is not always kept inviolable by the compiler of these memories.”
KIMBALL, EVERETT. National government of the United States. *$3.60 (1½c) Ginn 342.7
The book partakes of the twofold character of a textbook in which institutions are described and analyzed and of a source book in which appear the actual words used by the court in expounding or limiting the powers of government. As a textbook it shows the historical origins and the development of our national political institutions and the actual workings of government. As a source book it is mindful of the fact that the constitution is the supreme law of the land and that the interpretations of the Supreme court are, until altered, authoritative. For this latter purpose the opinions of the Supreme court are freely quoted, showing the process of arriving at conclusions or the reasons for dissent. A partial list of the contents is: Constitutional background; The evolution of the constitution; Political issues and party history; Party organizations; The election of the president; The powers of the president; The organization and functions of the executive departments; Congress at work; The judicial system of the United States; The war powers of Congress; Finance; Foreign affairs. The appendix contains the constitution of the United States and there is an index.
“A book which has not been surpassed in the presentation of the fundamental facts concerning the government of the United States. The student who masters its contents will have acquired a grip upon the essential principles of our national political system which will give him a firm foundation for subsequent political thought and action.” Ralston Hayden
“Limiting himself strictly to the national government, Dr Kimball has been able to maintain a better balance, to exercise a keener discrimination between important and unimportant matters, than would perhaps have been possible had he tried to cover more ground. There is no new interpretation of our national system, but there is compensation for this lack in the scientific tone and the uniformly high level of the treatment.” W: Anderson
“He displays a due sense of proportion, states his views soberly, discusses concrete problems, not theories, and writes with a reasonable degree of readability.”
“This book is not as technical as many texts on political science. Professor Kimball comes right down to earth with illustrations that even a layman without any training in political science can understand.” J: E: Oster
KING, BASIL. Thread of flame. il *$2 (2c) Harper
A story of lost identity through shell shock. The only memory left was of former personal habits which pointed to easy circumstances and a snobbish attitude towards the common people. Hiding his plight from those about him, and driven by want, he learns to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and gradually achieves the workingman’s point of view. When memory returns in a flash he knows himself as a member of Boston’s moneyed élite and the husband of a brilliant woman. Returning to the old life he realizes its shallowness and unreality and sees our whole social structure as a house tottering into ruin. Even love is gone. He can no longer live the life and willingly renounces it, returning to his lowly occupation and associates in New York. Here too his new status has now changed everything and he is in danger of going shipwreck between two worlds when some of the friends found in adversity make it clear to him that not by struggling against the current, but by wishing and waiting in serenity the right way will open up to him.
“Though not profound, a well-managed, interesting story.”
“Mr King’s style is a delight and his narrative related with spirit; only his dénouement of a reconciliation with a colorless wife seems to be an error.”
“The first part of the story many an experienced novelist might have written, but the second part is especially characteristic of Mr King, and it is in the second part that most of us will find our deeper pleasure. It is here also that he unfolds that philosophy of life which we feel is so important a part of his work.” D. L. M.
“This psychological problem of lost memory the author treats with much skill, bringing out its ever-present pathos and throwing on it now and then the high light of some spiritually dramatic situation, but dealing with it always with admirable reserve and with a distinction of manner that will make the novel doubly welcome to the mentally fastidious reader.”
“The early stages of the story are deeply absorbing, but the fact should not be overlooked that Mr King is all the while working up to the development of his idea that service to the unfortunate should be the highest mission of the fortunate. If this is accepted by readers, the high merits of the narrative will be best appreciated.”
KINGZETT, CHARLES THOMAS. Popular chemical dictionary. *$4 Van Nostrand 540.3
A work in which the author has attempted “to give in one volume, in compendious form, and in simple language, descriptions of the subjects of chemistry—its laws and processes, the chemical elements, the more important inorganic and organic compounds and their preparation or manufacture and applications, together with illustrated descriptions of chemical apparatus.” (Preface) The author has written “Chemistry for beginners and school use,” “Animal chemistry,” and other works.
“The work, so far as it goes, is very complete. For purposes of strict reference this volume is far too ‘popular.’” G. M.
“In spite of its limitations, a handy reference book.”
KIP, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Poems. *$1.50 Putnam 811
Although religion and philosophy and life in its various moods and aspects inspire many of these poems such as The higher life, Eternity, Swedenborg, Sadness, A love lyric, Joy, Life’s triumph, most of them are out-of-door and nature pieces and offer a long list of flowers and birds in sonnet and short lyric form.
“Mr Kip treads a little heavier in the fields and woodlands after the fancies of birds and flowers than does Mr John Russel McCarthy, but his haunts are more extended and his intimacies are more numerous.” W. S. B.
KIPLING, RUDYARD. Letters of travel. *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday 910
In this volume are brought together sketches of travel written between 1892 and 1913. They follow the letters written between 1887 and 1889 published in “From sea to sea.” The new volume is composed of three sections. The first, “From tideway to tideway,” opens with a New England sketch, In sight of Monadnock, and contains other papers written in the United States, in Canada and the East. Letters to the family, dated 1907, is a series of letters from Canada. Egypt of the magicians, the third section, is a series of seven sketches written in 1913.
“All notebook literature produces the same effect of fatigue and obstacle, as if there dropped across the path of the mind some block of alien matter which must be removed or assimilated before one can go on with the true process of reading. The more vivid the note the greater the obstruction.” V. W.
“For a writer who has been in so many far-separated parts of the world, and who is himself more or less of a cosmopolite, Kipling develops a curious air of foreign complacency and self-satisfaction in his description of places and people strange to his eyes and mind.”
“Those written in 1913 reveal the same brisk and cocky adolescence as the group clattered off on the typewriter twenty-five years ago in America. These American records are precisely in the vein of ‘From sea to sea’; they suggest, in their peculiar preoccupation with the outsides of things, a somewhat rudimentary intellect and a highly over-stimulated nervous system.”
“The pictures of Japan are full of color; the pictures of Egypt are full of age and mystery; the pictures of Canada are full of strength and freshness, but the very best of all is the winter scene ‘In sight of Monadnock.’”
“What is not a little curious is that the letters of 1892 are as brisk and as brilliant, as firmly planned and as effectively phrased as the letters of 1913, written more than a score of years later. In all these letters there is the same keen appreciation of nature and the same contagious interest in human nature. If he lacks understanding anywhere in his voyaging, if he is to a certain extent unsympathetic, not to go so far as to hint that he is intolerant, it is in the United States and more particularly in New York.” Brander Matthews
“Mr Kipling is here, as always, the courier of empire.... He never filches a quarter-hour from his responsibilities. To nurse a pleasant thought, to dally with it, to make it a companion and a playfellow, these are levities for the uncommitted or uncommissioned man. He is humorous with despatch, he is even pathetic with expedition.”
“In his description readers will find that beauty of language and those inimitable touches of humor that are Kipling’s own.” G. C.
“As always in work of this kind by Mr Kipling, what holds us most is his power of interpretation. He is essentially the man who makes us see things and understand things.”
“Where Mr Kipling allows his vigorous mind to absorb the surface aspects of a scene, he is at his best, for then the artist in him is congenially employed. In interpretation he is often amiss, as well as inevitably out of date.”
“His patriotism, which in other works has enriched the language with poems and sketches of character, tender and valiant, is apt in this book to take, not a positive, but a negative form. It is his patriotism, his love for England—a love intensified and made jealous by a recognition of all she lost when her American colonies seceded—that leads him to denounce New York as ‘the shiftless outcome of squalid barbarism and reckless extravagance.’... But how persuasive he can be when he is not—if we may say it without offence—cross!”
KIRBY, ELIZABETH. Adorable dreamer. *$1.90 (3c) Doran
Penelope Grey’s ardent young soul went out in quest of happiness. First she tried fame and wrote a naughty book which brought her ephemeral prominence and surrounded her with other literary aspirants and poseurs. She soon tired of the show and knew that in reality she wanted to be loved. Her lover however, fearful of chaining her genius, held her at arms length whilst he encouraged her to further production. Then she tried causes and found them all empty. She dallied with other loves up to the danger mark but finds her fairy prince at last.
“The little tale has some pathetic and some whimsical bits, and Penelope herself, though a trifle absurd at times, is a quaint and appealing heroine, while the author’s style is agreeable.”
“Often lately we have had ‘the new woman’ with her affectations and extravagances presented caustically and with insight; Miss Kirby presents her with no less insight, but with a sympathy which she compels the reader to share.”
KIRKALDY, ADAM WILLIS.[2] Wealth: its production and distribution. *$2.25 Dutton 330
“A large part of the volume is taken up with discussions of land, labor and capital as factors in production. In his general editor’s preface, G. Armitage Smith says: ‘This book is designed to explain in a lucid and popular manner the fundamental facts in the production of wealth and the causes which regulate its distribution. It gives an analysis of the functions of nature, of man and of capital in the production of wealth; and it traces the conditions upon which the economic progress of mankind depends.’”—Springf’d Republican
KIRKLAND, WINIFRED MARGARETTA. View vertical, and other essays. *$2 (3½c) Houghton 814
Life and books form the background of these essays. In the initial essay the author compares our prevailing post-war frame of mind to a universal neurasthenia and insomnia, and discourses amusingly on the mental obscurity of the insomniac and the worthlessness of his conclusions. She pleads for the vertical position with “feet to the sturdy green earth, head to the jocund sun,” as the best antidote for the still lingering nightmares of the war. Whimsical humor is the keynote to all the essays whether treating of facts of everyday life or literary subjects. Some of the titles are: The friends of our friends; On being and letting alone; The perils of telepathy; In defense of worry; Family phrases; The story in the making: Faces in fiction; Robinson Crusoe re-read; Americanization and Walt Whitman; Gift-books and book-gifts.
“Piquant essays happily turned and worded.”
“I have noted with pleasure the rightness of ‘Faces in fiction’: the particular thing has never, so far as I know, been said so clearly and directly. But my delight is in ‘Hold Izzy,’ which suits me as catnip suits a cat.”
“Given ‘a shady nook’ and Miss Kirkland’s book of charmingly written essays one is sure of being delightfully entertained and at the same time given a good-humored push into the realm of thought.”
“Miss Kirkland displays grace and facility, together with a keen perception of just what her own position ought to be.”
“She writes with greater ease than authority. She would be more impressive if she were more eclectic. Miss Kirkland writes with humor and common sense, and has the knack of every once in a while throwing off a happy epigram that challenges the attention.”
KIRKPATRICK, EDWIN ASBURY. Imagination and its place in education. $1.48 Ginn 370.15
“In keeping with the most recent aim and interest of educational psychology, this new book seeks both to describe the part the imaginative processes play in the common experiences and the normal development of the child and to show the peculiar relation of this intellectual process to his interest and achievement in the different school subjects. The book is divided into three parts. In Part 1, ‘Imagination and related activities,’ the author defines the imagination and explains its relation to the other mental processes. Part 2, ‘The imaginative life of children,’ includes six chapters describing the content and conduct of the imagination at different stages in the child’s development, variations in the vividness, quality and tendencies of the imaginative processes in different individuals, its stimulating influence to good or evil habits of thought and action. Part 3, under the heading ‘School subjects and the imagination,’ begins with a consideration of the possibilities of training the imagination from the point of view of disciplining, stimulating, and directing the imaginative processes, including a brief description of the mental conditions facilitating such training. Then follow chapters explaining the imaginative processes involved in learning to read, spell, and draw, in the study of arithmetic, geography, history, and literature, nature-study, and science.”—School R
“The treatment is characterized by a clearness of presentation which is quite at variance with the confused manner in which the subject of imagination is frequently discussed. The book should be of interest to all students of educational psychology.”
“The book is readable and straightforward, and is one that a student ought to grasp without much supplementary explanation. Some of the exercises at the end of the chapters, however, seem too large to be handled by the type of student for whom the text is designed.” K. Gordon
KLAPPER, PAUL, ed. College teaching; studies in methods of teaching in the college. *$4.50 World bk. 371.3
A volume to which various specialists contribute. As Dr Klapper points out in his preface, the field is almost virgin. “The literature on college education in general and college pedagogy in particular is surprisingly undeveloped.” Dr Nicholas Murray Butler writes an introduction. The book is in six parts. Part 1 consists of three papers: History and present tendencies of the American college, by S. P. Duggan; Professional training for college teaching, by Sidney E. Mezes; General principles of college teaching, by Paul Klapper. Part 2 covers the sciences, with contributions by T. W. Galloway, Louis Kahlenberg, Harvey B. Lemon, and others. Part 3 is devoted to the social sciences, including economics, sociology, history, political science, philosophy, ethics, psychology and education. Part 4 is devoted to languages and literature; part 5 to the arts; and part 6 to Vocational subjects, the latter embracing engineering, mechanical drawing, journalism, and business education. Bibliographies accompany a number of the papers and there is an index.
“Inasmuch as all of the contributors were selected because of their scholarship, their interest in the teaching phase of the subject, and their reputation in the academic world, what they have to say on the teaching of their special subjects should be of great value to actual and prospective college teachers.”
KLEIN, DARYL. With the Chinks. (On active service ser.) il *$1.50 (3c) Lane 940.48
The book contains the diary of a second lieutenant in the Chinese labor corps, while engaged in training a company of 490 coolies in China and taking them on a long journey by way of Canada and Panama to France to be used as laborers behind the lines. In describing the journey the author gives his observations of the mental shock and change of life and vision that the coolie is subjected to in changing from the East to the West. He also describes the coolie as a simple, jolly fellow, worthy of trust and of an affectionate character. The book is illustrated.
“The book is competently written, and is agreeably unusual amongst the crop of war books.”
“He understands things Chinese. He has sympathy in telling of these ‘Shantung farmers.’ It is an attitude such as Mr Klein’s, penetrating, free from either sentimentalism or maudlin chatter, about the yellow peril, which ought to enable Americans to adjust their commercial relations to China with a higher sense of business integrity. The title of the book is distinctly unworthy of its subject matter.”
“What we like about this little book is its genuine and genial humanity.”
“Mr Klein’s daily life with his coolies and with his colleagues is given with an intimate vivacity which makes it very real.”
KLEIN, HERMAN. Reign of Patti. il *$5 Century
Mme Patti never realized her intention of writing an autobiography for which she had designated the author of the present volume as her collaborator. The request however gives authority to this biography for which the author has collected material from the zenith of Patti’s career to the close. The book contains numerous portraits of the singer taken at various ages and in many rôles; appendices and an index.
Reviewed by H: T. Finck
“Very suggestive, at times somewhat irritating, but always full of interest. Mr Klein is not a literary man, he is a chronicler; his book will remain as the one accurate record of the career of a diva who, in her special line, has as yet no rival.” M. F. Egan
KLEISER, GRENVILLE. Pocket guides to public speaking. 10v ea *$1 Funk 808.5
Mr Kleiser, formerly instructor in public speaking at Yale divinity school and author of a number of works bearing on the subject, has prepared the ten small volumes that compose this series. The titles are: How to speak without notes (20–7372); Something to say: how to say it (20–7370); Successful methods of public speaking (20–7371); Model speeches for practise (20–7369); The training of a public speaker (20–7373); How to sell through speech (20–7300); Impromptu speeches: how to make them (20–7375); Word-power: how to develop it (20–7374); Christ: the master speaker (20–7277); Vital English for speakers and writers (20–7283).
“In these days when the tendency is so strong towards degeneracy in the use of the English language it would be difficult to exaggerate the value of such a contribution as Professor Kleiser has made in these volumes towards the use of proper forms and pure language in ordinary speaking as well as writing. They are of almost equal value to the clergyman, lawyer, publicist, salesman and letter-writer.” H. H. F.
“In this case the whole is actually less than one of the parts, for in volume 1 Mr Kleiser gives a chapter of Quintilian that is worth appreciably more than all of Mr Kleiser. His additions to it subtract from it by hiding it from the casual gaze.”
“The suggestions are sensible, sound, comprehensive, and written in terse and understandable language. Many practiced speakers could improve their style by following them.”
KLICKMANN, FLORA (MRS E. HENDERSON-SMITH). Lure of the pen. *$2.50 (4c) Putnam 808
In her preface to the American edition of this “Book for would-be authors” the author says, “No one can teach authors how or what to write; but sometimes it is possible to help the beginners to an understanding of what it is better not to write.” She tells these beginners why they fail, emphasizes the need of training, tells them three essentials in training and how to acquire them. She also tells them how to give themselves a course in observation and how to assess spiritual values. The contents are in five parts: The mss. that fail; On keeping your eyes open; The help that books can give; Points a writer ought to note; Author, publisher, and public.
“The author gives much good advice (a great deal of it very elementary) to literary aspirants.”
“Practical in many respects, the book is of little use in teaching the ‘would-be author’ how to become an artist. Miss Klickmann’s instruction is from an editorial standpoint, not from the artist’s, and as such her volume has its value for the novice who knows no better than to believe that literary greatness and fame come with a successful appearance in the magazines.”
“Her book is remarkably well done, and may very well help some real talent on its way; and, apart from that, it is written in so lively a style, so full of piquant anecdote and illustration, that it is a pity that the more sophisticated reader, who would really much more enjoy it than the ‘would-be’ author for whom it is written, is not likely to encounter it.” R: Le Gallienne
“Miss Klickmann’s work is adapted not only to people without knowledge but to people without brains. There is an iteration of the familiar, an elaboration of the simple, an elucidation of the clear.”
“It might be said that if a young writer fails to profit by this inspirational book he had better leave off his attempts to write.”
“The substance of the teaching is helpful, and the manner encouraging without being effusive.”
“On the professional side, her suggestions are of great practical value. If any adverse criticism can be made, it is that she does not classify thoroughly her comment on the various types of material discussed. Miss Klickmann’s advice is not effusively or obscurely pedantic. It is all breezy and to the point.”
“She wields herself a very bright and ready pen, and out of the abundance of her experience she gives in a flow of headed paragraphs helpful advice on every side of the subject.”
KLUCK, ALEXANDER VON. March on Paris and the battle of the Marne, 1914. il *$3.50 Longmans 940.4
“Alexander von Kluck, generaloberst, has written a book about his Belgian and French adventure. It was completed in February, 1918, on the eve of the great German offensive in Picardy. It is the personal observations, impressions and opinions of a commanding general who reviews his own actions in the quietude of his study and illustrates them with the orders issued to him and by him, but with very little information beyond the manoeuvres of his own army in the field and almost none of the enemy. Evidently the sub-title to the book, ‘The battle of the Marne,’ is a characterization of the British editors, for the author calls it ‘The battle on the Ourcq’ and devotes the last third of the book to it. Still, if the British editors have given the book a title which shall more pointedly appeal to readers of English, they have also furnished the book with something far more important: Footnotes by the experts of the Committee of imperial defense. These notes check up von Kluck’s data, correct his errors, and often qualify his conclusions.”—N Y Times
“His book lacks the attractive personality and humor of Ludendorff’s, the intimate observations of von Hindenburg’s. There is nothing picturesque about it. All the same, as has been said, the military historian will find therein a mine of academic information which he cannot afford to leave unexplored.” Walter Littlefield
“A valuable contribution to military history.”
KNAPPEN, THEODORE MACFARLANE. Wings of war; with an introd. by D. W. Taylor. il *$2.50 Putnam 940.44
“This book describes in detail the contribution made by the United States to aircraft invention, engineering and production during the world war. Five of the most important chapters are devoted to the origin, development and production of the famous Liberty engine. Mr Knappen is among those who believe that in spite of all the revelation of Congressional investigations made during the past two years the aircraft achievements of our government, considering our unpreparedness at the outset, were highly creditable.”—R of Rs
KNIBBS, HENRY HERBERT. Songs of the trail. il *$1.50 Houghton 811
Poems of the far West and the cattle trails. Among the titles are: I have builded me a home; The pack train; The hour beyond the hour; The sun-worshipers; Gods of the red men; Arizona; Trail song; Waring of Sonora-Town; The long road West; Old San Antone.
“This is the West, seen first hand but seen through the perspective of Mr Knibbs’ Harvard training. One may suspect that these westerners are a bit more intellectual than the average cowpuncher, but the poems perhaps are the more readable for it.” C. F. G.
“Good, honest work of its kind, with occasional beauty and much narrative interest. ‘The wind’ is a strong and individual poem, especially fine in atmosphere and imagery. Mr Knibbs is far more of a poet than the much advertised Robert W. Service.”
KNIPE, EMILIE (BENSON) (MRS ALDEN ARTHUR KNIPE), and KNIPE, ALDEN ARTHUR. Mayflower maid. il *$1.90 (3c) Century
A story of the coming of the Pilgrims. Barbara Gorges is a timid motherless girl who starts out with her father from Leyden in the Speedwell. When the Speedwell and the Mayflower are obliged to run in to Plymouth, Barbara’s father becomes the victim of a fatal accident and she is left an orphan. Fortunately for her, she is taken under the protection of Myles Standish and his wife Rose. The story then follows closely the historical narrative, and describes the trip across the Atlantic, the landing at Plymouth, the first hard winter, the death of Rose Standish, the relations with the Indians, the love story of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens, and finally that of Myles Standish and Barbara herself.
“More interesting than Taggart’s ‘Pilgrim maid,’ gives a good picture of life in the colony.”
KNOWLES, MORRIS. Industrial housing. *$5 McGraw 331.83
“Morris Knowles, an engineer of vast experience and the chief engineer of the housing division of the United States Shipping board, understanding the need of the interdependence of engineer, architect, town planner, landscape gardener, sanitarian, utility designer, contractor, real estate agent and the public spirited business man and city official in the development of a successful city plan and in the solution of the housing problem, has written the book, ‘Industrial housing.’ Housing is taken in its broadest meaning, with all its relations to other problems. The town plan, streets and pavements, water supply, sewerage, waste disposal and public utilities are some of the specifically municipal problems treated in this work. Illustrations and charts, a good bibliography and an analytical index complete its usefulness.”—N Y P L Munic Ref Lib Notes
“Comprehensive and readable presentation of the subject of industrial housing.”
“The book is a store of invaluable information.”
KOBRIN, LEON. Lithuanian village; auth. tr. from the Yiddish by I: Goldberg. *$1.75 Brentano’s
“In a series of sharp vignettes the book presents to us an environment almost extinct today—the environment of a drab little village in the pale. In restrained and simple language a restrained and simple folk is depicted dragging its weary body and soul through the whole cycle of the monotonous year. You read how those Jews half strangle each other in their efforts to earn a kopeck or two; you hear those bitter wives curse at their stalls, and see those stunted husbands pore over their holy books; you feel the grimy superstition that clogs the daily life of those villagers, know the smallness of their horizon and the narrowness of their vision—and you love them nevertheless. And somehow you are impressed that the hegira of their offspring to the land where ‘Jews can be policemen,’ was a far from woeful event in the history of the soul of the new world.”—New Repub
“The whole work is frankly realistic, softening no oaths and tempering no vices. Yet withal, it is a refreshing bit of reading, for despite the bitterness and ugliness floating like scum on the waters of that ghetto life, one never quite loses consciousness of the great deep cleanness beneath it all. In that Kobrin proves himself a master: his realism is suggestive and translucent, not blunt and opaque.” L: Brown
“Leon Kobrin has lived the life he writes about. His bitter realism is no creation of fancy; the atmospherical color is without blemish.” Alvin Winston
“Once in a while, a race produces an author capable of presenting its message in language of so great simplicity and force that his writings can be appreciated anywhere in an adequate translation. The Jewish race possesses such a writer in Leon Kobrin.”
KOEBEL, WILLIAM HENRY. Great south land. *$4.50 (5c) Dodd 918
The book treats of the republics of Rio de la Plata, and southern Brazil of today. These countries the author, in his introduction compares to the ugly duckling which turned out a swan. Already before the war they had steadily risen in importance and “there is no doubt that the shifting sands of international politics and the racing centres of power have left these South American states in an economic position stronger than any which they have previously enjoyed.” Part 1 contains: Buenos Aires of yesterday and today; The Argentine capital in war time; Cosmopolitan influences; Some topical episodes; The work of the British in Argentina; Argentina’s political prospects; Internal and external affairs; Rio and its surroundings; British and Americans in South America; The press of the eastern republics. Part 2 is devoted to the industrial points of the various states and there is an index.
“A map would have been helpful to the reader.”
“Mr Koebel is essentially a writer sympathetic to the lands of which he writes. What his book loses in depth it gains by virtue of this sympathy, by its author’s earnest desire to see things from the South American angle, without in the least abandoning the attitude of a man alive to the defects of those whom he is describing. It is a stimulating work by a sane and just writer.”
“Mr W. H. Koebel’s last addition to the, by now, rather lengthy series of books which he has written on Spanish-America, is disappointing.... He obviously knows as well as anybody that the problems are there and call for answer. But he does little more than indicate their presence, and then wander in generalities and descriptions, not without occasional repetitions.”
KOONS, FRANK THOMAS. Outdoor sleeper. *$1 (6c) Norman, Remington co. 613.79
A little book inspired by the sleeping porch. The author writes of outdoor sleeping as a source of health and pleasure. There are chapters on: The first night; Outdoor toggery; The birds; The romping children of the night; The chastened hours of the morn; The trees; Summer; Winter; The stars; Health and happiness. A star map serves as frontispiece. The book was first copyrighted by the Journal of the Outdoor Life.
KOOS, LEONARD VINCENT. Junior high school. *$1.36 Harcourt 373
The author calls attention to the great dissimilarity that still prevails in the junior high school movement in every aspect of organization and function. He holds that the experimental stages of the movement should now be reviewed and stock be taken of the current opinions and practices, with a view towards clarifying thought as to its peculiar educational purposes. With an introduction by Henry Suzzallo the contents are: The movement for reorganization; The peculiar functions of the junior high school; The test of the organization; The program of studies; Other features of reorganization; The standard junior high school; Tables and graphs.
“In six chapters Professor Koos has presented an analysis which goes to the heart of the junior high school movement. The book is a striking example of what can be done by way of giving information without becoming drearily encyclopedic.”
KOSSOVO; heroic songs of the Serbs. *$1.25 Houghton 891.8
These ballads, translated by Miss Helen Rootham and printed with the original on alternate pages, come with an introduction by Maurice Baring and an historical preface by Janko Lavrin. Mr Baring says of them that their colors are primitive like those of the primitive painters, their similes are taken from a first-hand communion with the sights and facts of nature and their emotions are the primitive emotions of man. But their soul is saturated with the Christian faith of the Crusaders and they sing the sorrow of Serbia, the unspeakable anguish of a people who are victorious in defeat. In the historical preface Janko Lavrin divides the Serbian folk-songs into four groups of which this, the Kossovo-cycle, deals with the heroic battles fought on the Kossovo plain against the Turks. The songs are: The fall of the Serbian empire; Tsar Lazar and Tsaritsa Militsa; The banquet on the eve of the battle: a fragment; Kossanchitch and Milosh: a fragment; Musitch Stefan; Tsaritsa Militsa and the Voyvoda Vladeta; The maiden of Kossovo; The death of the mother of the Jugovitch; The miracle of Tsar Lazar.
“Miss Rootham’s simple and dignified translation makes it possible for English readers to appreciate the heroic quality of the originals.”
“The primitive naturalness and high Christian idealism of the songs make them very readable.”
“English is not very well fitted to cope with it and, just as Longfellow often failed in Hiawatha, so Miss Rootham often fails to get the swing of the trochaic measure. The original is so rich in alliteration, often rhyming with vivid flashes of poetic figure, that it is impossible to reproduce its magic effect. It requires a poet to translate poetry; mere knowledge of a foreign tongue does not communicate the magic of words, and Miss Rootham’s version, while useful, will hardly satisfy the exacting lover of Serbian poetry.” N. H. D.
“The poems are vigorous and give a pleasing view of what really fine work has been done in Serbia.” H. S. Gorman
“They are good poems even for us; their sheer probity is a joy. They have that rudeness touched with elegance—so different from mere rudeness—which is the spell of ancient song for modern taste.” O. W. Firkins
KOUYOUMDJIAN, DIKRAN (MICHAEL ARLEN, pseud.). London venture. *$1.50 Dodd 824
The author is an Armenian who has dropped his real name for a more pronounceable signature. The book consists of a series of “self-conscious” essays wherein the author under the guise of reminiscences discourses on men and writers, women and love, on death, friendship and modes of living. It is a book of moods also and the writer fits in the subject or person to fit the mood. The chapter vignettes are from drawings by Michel Sevier.
“The chief merit of the book is that the author has taken great pains with his style, which is considerably more attractive than the substance of the book.”
“Set forth with a cynical humor which narrowly escapes brilliance, much of the narration is downright fascinating.”
“A curious introspective fragment of a story told in a succession of spasms of introspection. It suffers from its form, but as it was evidently written for occasional serial publication, that could not be avoided. The book and its illustrations have a certain charm.”
“It is difficult exactly to understand the ‘challenge’ of this book or what the writer meant to do with it. There is undoubtedly a fascination hard to analyse about the book and the personality revealed in it.”
KRAFFT, HERMAN FREDERIC, and NORRIS, WALTER BLAKE.[2] Sea power in American history; with an introd. by William S. Benson. il *$4 Century 973
The object of the book is to make clear the importance of sea power in both its military and commercial aspects. For this purpose it traces out and connects up into one continuous story the rise, development, and present condition of both branches, showing their mutual dependence upon each other. Biographical sketches are given of such outstanding figures in our naval development as Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur, David Porter, John Ericsson, David G. Farragut and Alfred T. Mahan. Among the contents are: The defeat of British sea power gives America independence; The rise of commercial sea power in America during the Napoleonic wars; Sea power dominates the War of 1812; Sea power aids national expansion; The blockade a decisive instrument of sea power in the Civil war; Sea power splits the confederacy in two; Sea power in the Pacific; American sea power in the world war. The book is indexed and illustrated, with maps and diagrams of naval actions.
KREYMBORG, ALFRED.[2] Blood of things. *$2 Brown, N. L. 811
Mr Kreymborg’s second book of “free forms” contains verses grouped under such titles as: A five and ten cent store; Zoology; Arias and ariettes; Crowns and cronies, etc.
“Nine-tenths of ‘Blood of things’ is unintelligible, or if intelligible is irrelevant to any human concern. The one-tenth which is intelligible and relevant is diffuse to the point of evaporation.”
“Mr Alfred Kreymborg’s new book is decidedly interesting to read, but it is more often merely interesting than lifting and compact with genuine poetry. Mr Kreymborg is inconclusive; his gestures are tentative; he does not strike fire with sufficient frequency to establish him firmly as an authentic poet.” H. S. Gorman
“A critic who is unprejudiced and willing to be convinced by the free versifiers will acknowledge that there are one or two poems that are pretty poor. He would probably set aside the book with the comment that Mr Kreymborg has done some things well, but that anybody could do what Mr Kreymborg has done if he would consent to go just a little bit crazy.”
KREYMBORG, ALFRED.[2] Plays for merry Andrews. $2 Sunwise turn 812
The five plays are: Vote the new moon; Uneasy street; The silent waiter; At the sign of the thumb and the nose; and Monday.
“Their unreality and irony are invigorating and real, and Gordon Craig was quite right in considering them as a test for actors. The title should warn the professionals off and attract the amateur.” E. P.
“There is no doubt that Mr Alfred Kreymborg has both talent and intelligence. But he has not reached the stage of any clear communication. The lilt of these playlets haunts the ear but teases the mind. There is a vertigo in the oddly rhythmed prose. But the intentions are dark, and where the darkness lifts they seem perilously commonplace.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Almost all of his plays possess that direct appeal to children, although they are often too abstruse or fantastical for older audiences. To enjoy them completely one must have an open mind, unprejudiced by stage conventions. The whole volume, with its delightful caricatures, with its humors, with its tongue-in-the-cheek bombast, is very reminiscent of Dickens.” Malcolm Cowley
KUNOU, CHARLES A. American school toys and useful novelties in wood. il *$1.25 Bruce pub. co. 680
The author is supervisor of manual training in Los Angeles, where toy making has for some years made up part of the course of study in this department. During the war interest in the subject was greatly stimulated by the sale of the children’s products for the benefit of the Red cross. A general preliminary discussion of toy making, its educative value, the materials used, etc., is followed by a series of fifty-two plates with designs for toys.
“This book gives excellent toy working drawings.”
KYNE, PETER BERNARD. Kindred of the dust. il *$1.75 (1½c) Cosmopolitan bk. corporation
For the scene of his story the author creates a feudal fief in the Pacific northwest. Hector McKaye, head of the Tyee Lumber Company, is known as “the laird,” his son Donald as “the young laird.” Donald comes home from college and a trip around the world to find his old chum Nan Brent the mother of a nameless child. Nan had believed herself married and to protect the real wife of the man who had deceived her is keeping his identity secret and bearing her shame. Donald finds that he loves Nan and is willing to marry her. Interference on the part of his mother and sisters drives her away. Donald is stricken with typhoid and to save his life his mother telephones to Nan to return. Following his recovery steps are again taken to prevent the marriage but Donald is obdurate. A break with his father results. The war comes, Donald enlists, goes to France, comes home again and there is a happy reunion, with a copy of Nan’s marriage license turning up to prove her innocent intentions.
“The story is powerful and holds the attention of the reader in an unusual manner.”
“For sustained interest and constructive workmanship Mr Kyne seems, in ‘Kindred of the dust,’ to have outdone his previous efforts. Wholesome, entertaining story.”
“The hero is almost too noble to be true.”
“A strong, straightforward, unaffected story, seasoned, and not overseasoned, with sentiment.”
LABOULAYE, EDOUARD RENÉ-LEFEBRE DE. Laboulaye’s fairy book; tr. by Mary L. Booth. il *$2.50 (5c) Harper
This book of fairy tales, translated from the French, was copyrighted in America in 1886. Kate Douglas Wiggin has written an introduction for the new edition. The titles are: Yvon and Finette; The castle of life; Destiny; The twelve months; Swanda, the piper; The gold bread; The story of the noses; The three citrons; The story of Coquerico; King Bizarre and Prince Charming. The pictures are by Edward G. McCandlish.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
“Delightful collection of tales.”
LADD, GEORGE TRUMBULL. Intimate glimpses of life in India; a narrative of observations in the winter of 1899–1900. il *$3 Badger, R. G. 915.4
“In his observations of Indian life Professor Ladd was chiefly concerned with educational, social and religious conditions. For the study of these he had unusual opportunities. This book gives a summary of what he learned from personal interviews with the viceroy and secretary of education in Calcutta, with natives and missionaries, and with Hindu philosophers. Professor Ladd also describes the social customs of the people and outlines some of the political reforms that are demanded by the native leaders.”—R of Rs
“Although the book makes no contribution to the literature regarding India, it is interesting as reflecting the impressions of an American professor concerning the practices and cults of the Indian peoples.”
“Whether the generalizations he makes, based upon conditions as he observed them two decades ago, still hold true in full or not, they are interesting as reflecting the reaction of a foreigner, well equipped by his training in educational and philosophical work, to an alien and intricate civilization.”
LAIDLER, HARRY WELLINGTON. Socialism in thought and action. *$2.50 (2c) Macmillan 335
The author is secretary of the Intercollegiate socialist society and editor of the Socialist Review. The important service of his book is that it gives an up-to-date treatment of the new developments in socialism and relates them to the movements of the past. It covers “the socialist criticism of present day society, the socialist theory of economic development, the socialist conception of a future social state and the activities, achievements, and present status of the organized socialist movement in various countries of the world.” (Preface) It is divided into two almost equal parts: Socialist thought, and The socialist movement. The work is intended to serve as a textbook for college classes and study groups, and “as a ready reference book for the thinkers and doers who have come to realize that an intelligent understanding of this greatest mass movement of the twentieth century is absolutely essential to enlighten citizenship.” There is a select bibliography on socialism and allied subjects, and an index.
“Of especial interest is the discussion of the Russian revolution, and recent developments in European and American socialism, concerning which the data are the latest available.” G. S. Watkins
“Throughout the entire work differences of opinion are given; arguments are sound and the proof offered scientific. In fact it is a splendid presentation of this movement. Not only does the book deserve serious attention but it would make an excellent text.” G. S. Dow
Reviewed by L. M. Bristol
“Dr Laidler has that discreet receptivity for conflicting opinion and dogma which gives his work, within the limits of socialism, the stamp of a firm, intelligent neutrality.”
“As a text book, Mr Laidler’s volume is invaluable. It reveals a ceaseless and remorseless study and reading of the socialist movement in all its manifestations and in all the questions that have aroused controversy. Impartial as a text book, it is yet vivid as a chronicle of events caught almost on the wing.” H. S.
“On its interpretive side, Comrade Laidler has used his material judiciously and his presentation is such that no charge of bias will be made by the reader, whatever may be the latter’s own view. His attitude is an objective one. A very good index rounds out one of the best contributions that has come from the pen of any American socialist author.” James Oneal
“Probably as full and clear a statement of modern socialistic concepts as can be had in the English language.”
“As a book it suffers from two distinct faults. In the first place it tries to cover too much ground. No one can write a competent survey of every aspect of socialism in a moderate-sized volume. The book attempts, in the second place, a treatment of the most recent events in the socialistic movement at a time when the evidence for anything more than a bare and jejune statement of congressional resolutions is simply not available. Yet the book transcends these deficiencies. It shows, even to an outsider, what immense justification there is for a faith in the prospects of socialism.” H. J. Laski
“Any one interested in the labor movement will use his book several times a week. Its mass of facts is not a mess, but an orderly mobilized compilation.” Arthur Gleason
LAING, MARY ELIZABETH.[2] Hero of the longhouse. (Indian life and Indian lore) il *$1.60 (2½c) World bk.
The “hero of the longhouse” is the historical Hiawatha, an entirely different person from the legendary figure in Longfellow’s poem. The real Hiawatha lived in the fifteenth century, was a member of the Onondaga tribe and was one of the founders of the League of the Iroquois and the author has drawn her story from the most authentic sources, chiefly from Horatio Hale’s Iroquois book of rites and manuscripts in the New York state archaeological department. Arthur C. Parker, state archæologist, writes an introduction, and there is a bibliography and glossary. The story has been told primarily for school children.
LAKE, KIRSOPP. Landmarks in the history of early Christianity. *$3 Macmillan 270.1
“The purpose of the book, briefly stated, is to trace the Greek and oriental ideas in Christian thought and practice by reference to six early centers—Galilee, Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome and Ephesus. The work aims to illuminate critical points rather than to provide a complete survey, and it may be said to focus sharply the searchlight of thought upon salient aspects of the large subject. Prof. Lake first presented the substance of these chapters in a series of lectures at Oberlin college.”—Springf’d Republican
“There is no mistaking the keenness of Prof. Lake’s thought or the brilliant cogency of his style.”
“On many matters we must strongly dissent from him; but his work will be useful to every student of early Christianity, if only because it compels its readers to re-examine the presuppositions of their religious thought and to test their theories of the church’s development. If we say that the author of this work raises far more questions than he answers, he might be expected to reply that this precisely was his purpose.”
LAMB, HAROLD. Marching sands. *$1.75 (2½c) Appleton
The American exploration society sends Captain Gray to the Desert of Gobi to find the lost tribe of the Wusun, supposed to be the remnant of an Aryan race, the original inhabitants of China. At the same time an English rival expedition starts on the same quest. The expeditions are facing the dangers not only of the desert but of the hostile Chinese Buddhist priests and of the leper colony with which Wusun is surrounded. By the time the desert is reached the American expedition consists of only one member, Captain Gray, and a Kirghiz guide. He comes upon the English expedition under Sir Lionel Hastings and his niece Mary. Being rivals they part company, each bent on reaching Wusun first. Sir Lionel is killed after he had set foot on its environs. Mary is taken captive by the Chinese and placed in charge of the Wusun. By sheer pluck Gray penetrates into the stronghold and puts up a gallant fight for Mary and the reader takes leave of them free but alone in the “infinity of Asia.”
“Mr Lamb has written a gripping tale abounding in thrills and mystery, adventure and danger, bravery and love; and the narrative of this search for a hidden city presents a unique and exciting plot.”
“While rather slow in getting into action, this tale is thrilling in the extreme after it once gets its American explorer into the Gobi desert.”
LAMBUTH, WALTER RUSSELL.[2] Medical missions: the twofold task. il $1 S. V. M. 266
“The growth of medical work in Christian missions is a romantic chapter in the record of the extension of the kingdom of God on earth. The writer draws from a wide range of material and experience and presents the great work of medical missions in a most attractive form. The book furnishes a mighty appeal to the young man or woman who is looking forward to the practice of medicine and surgery as a life-work. One is forced to face the need of the world and to decide whether it is right to remain in one’s own land struggling for a practice, or whether it is far better to go where the need is desperate and invest life there.”—Bib World
“The pictures are well chosen; the specific examples of effective missionary service are stimulating; the field of study is wide and is surveyed with discrimination. An excellent book for private reading or class study.”
“Unfortunately the book is propaganda and the references to the adventures of the medical missionary are drowned in a misrepresentation of heathendom. Although he, Bishop Lambuth, does voice the cry for service in an antiquated religious idiom, he is really bigger than his creed and values humanity more than proselyting.”
LAMOTTE, ELLEN N. Opium monopoly. *$1 Macmillan 178.8
“‘The opium monopoly,’ by Ellen N. LaMotte, the author of ‘The backwash of war,’ ‘Peking dust,’ ‘Civilization,’ etc., is a remarkable monograph on the ‘opium question,’ based upon government blue book reports, statistical extracts and official data. In this work, the author discusses the problems of opium monopoly and consumption in India, the Malaya peninsula, Siam, Hongkong, Srawak, Turkey, Persia, Mauretius, British Borneo and British Guiana, and gives a brief outline of the history of the opium trade in China and of Great Britain’s opium monopoly.”—N Y Call
“National pharisaism and a strong anti-English feeling are a conspicuous part of the writer’s equipment, but the facts which she adduces must give us to think.”
“Well documented.”
“One of the best arguments yet advanced against the mandatory system pieced together at Paris.”
Reviewed by C: R. Hargrove
“Miss LaMotte, in spite of her rather obvious desire to have her fling at Britain, is at the same time evidently actuated by a desire to reveal a grievous state of affairs. Having exposed the outstanding features of the cultivation and sale of opium by the British, it is obviously Miss LaMotte’s duty to continue her interesting investigations in this country.”
“Miss LaMotte’s little book might be taken more seriously if she were not at such pains to paint Great Britain black. It is idle to draw fine moral distinctions between the British government which sells opium to the Japanese and the Japanese who smuggle it into China. The whole trade is bad enough in all conscience, however, and to have attacked it is to have done something useful.”
“Miss LaMotte did a great service to the cause of human justice when she wrote her admirable work. It will prove a valuable asset in rousing the conscience of the civilized people of the world against this gigantic international crime of drugging nations. Let us hope that the book will soon be translated into various languages of the civilized nations and the truth spread broadcast to remedy the wrongs of the helpless millions.” Taraknath Das
“Miss LaMotte’s book is intended as a severe indictment of Great Britain’s policy with regard to opium. Her account would, however, be a fairer one if consideration were given to the British side of the case as presented, for example, by Sir John Strachey in his ‘India: its administration and progress.’”
“It is a delight to read one of Miss LaMotte’s books, and even in this which is little more than a pamphlet, one finds the unflinching courage and the keen insight which made her ‘Peking dust’ and the stories which make up ‘Civilization’ so different from the productions of most tourists in the Far East.” E. W. Hughan
“No one who has in the last ten years studied the hydra-headed problems of narcotism could be anything but grateful to Ellen LaMotte for her book.... Does the American public realize to what extent opium is coming in over the Canadian boundary? It might for that reason alone pay that American public to open its eyes a little wider to the facts of British opium sold at public monthly sales in Calcutta as recorded in Ellen LaMotte’s ‘Opium monopoly.’” Jeannette Marks
“For two reasons the opium monopoly is worthy of our attention: first, the world interest, the salvation of the eastern peoples, the Chinese especially; second, the danger that the United States will take China’s place as the great market for these products. Either is enough to interest Survey readers in this small book, the author of which has the gift of making official reports and statistics tell an interesting and fascinating story.” J. P. Chamberlain
LAMPREY, LOUISE. Masters of the guild. il *$2.25 (3½c) Stokes
Like the stories in the author’s previous book “In the days of the guild” these new tales do honor to the ideals of fine craftsmanship of the middle ages. The titles are: Peirol of the pigeons; A tournament in the clouds; The puppet players; Padraig of the scriptorium; The tapestry chamber; The fairies’ well; The wolves of Ossory; The road of the wild swan; The sword of Damascus; Fool’s gold; Archiater’s daughter; Cold Harbor; The wisdom of the galleys; Solomon’s seal; Black magic in the temple; The end of a pilgrimage. Poems alternate with the stories. There are illustrations by Florence Choate and Elizabeth Curtis, and notes on the stories come at the end.
LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE. Day-book of Walter Savage Landor, chosen by John Bailey. *$1.25 Oxford 828
“Men of taste, men with an ear for the classic note in prose, must always read Landor. That some have failed in this elementary duty is the burden of a delightful essay by Mr John Bailey prefixed to a little collection of Landor’s prose and verse,—a fine quotation for every day in the year, beginning with the famous epitaph on himself, and proceeding with symphonic development to the Latin epitaph on a young scholar. Mr Bailey—himself, as we know from other publications, an agreeable compound of the man of letters and the man of affairs—offers his little book, not as the last word in Landor, but as the first—as the preliminary encouragement to that larger reading it should do much to stimulate.”—Sat R
“We recommend a course of Landor. In days when the rabble has to be wooed with flattery, it is bracing to the spirit to find one, who, liberal as he called himself, inhabited the mountain tops of life, and, never descending among the wrangling crowds, beckons us continually aloft.”
“Charming little book.”
“To glance through an admirable volume of selections from Landor, such as that edited by John Bailey is to be filled with delight and regret. What writer of the second rank has more to yield to the discoverer than he? What prose more squarely can support the weight of the exactest scrutiny than his?”
“As, however, Mr Bailey implies by making a day-book of his selections, Landor not only constantly said beautiful things beautifully, but as constantly things that stand the wear and tear of daily life. No doubt the blank page at the end of this charming little book is provided to hold a good resolution—namely, whatever else may happen in nineteen twenty-one, to read Landor through.”
LANE, MRS ANNE (WINTERMUTE), and BEALE, MRS HARRIET STANWOOD (BLAINE).[2] Life in the circles. (Deeper issues ser.) *$1.25 Dodd 134
This book is a continuation of the volume entitled “To walk with God,” and contains “further lessons received through automatic writing.” (Sub-title) There are lessons on will, knowledge, joy, truth, understanding, sympathy, and love.
“The level of intelligence of the sending spirits is not very high—a grade or two above the kindergarten.”
LANE, MRS ANNE (WINTERMUTE), and BEALE, MRS HARRIET STANWOOD (BLAINE).[2] To walk with God. (Deeper issues ser.) *$1.25 Dodd 134
A series of “lessons” which the authors received in the form of automatic writings. An introduction gives the circumstances under which the messages were received and the lessons have to do with the power of love, helpfulness, kindness and the need for spiritual guidance. The authors say: “We realise that it will be said that there is nothing new in the teaching, and we admit that there is repetition to what seems an unnecessary degree, but we pledge our word that we have put nothing of our own into the text.” (Introd.)
“The fact that the wife of the Secretary of the interior and the daughter of James G. Blaine are the recipients of these messages will make a certain demand for the book.”
LANE, MRS ROSE (WILDER). Making of Herbert Hoover. *$3.50 (4½c) Century
Herbert Hoover represents America, says the author, and his is the spirit of five generations of American pioneers. His life began at the end of one pioneer age and the beginning of the other. His ancestors had been sturdy pioneers of Quaker stock—his father a blacksmith. They had conquered the soil, he conquered the world of finance. Much of the material of the book has been collected by Charles Kellogg Field, classmate and friend of Hoover.
“Written with the interest in really delightful settings and small circumstances of life such as a novelist employs to characterize a hero. Children will like this book.”
“It is a story of a wonderful career, written with a brightness and a dash that captivates and enthralls.”
“The book is readable for its vivid presentation of an active and adventurous career.”
LANG, EDITH, and WEST, GEORGE. Musical accompaniment of moving pictures. il pa *$1.25 Boston music co.; Schirmer 780
“A practical manual for pianists and organists and an exposition of the principles underlying the musical interpretation of moving pictures.” (Sub-title) There are three parts: Equipment; Musical interpretation; The theatrical organ. Musical scores are given and there is an index.
“Not exhaustive but very suggestive to the player and illuminating to the listener.”
“It is a book we can warmly commend.”
LANGDON-DAVIES, JOHN. Militarism in education; a contribution to educational reconstruction. 80c Headley bros., London; for sale by Survey 371.43
“The author contrasts the German and English systems of education, gives an account of the scholastic methods adopted in Norway, deals at considerable length with the aims of real physical training, devotes a chapter to boy scouts, and brings many arguments against compulsory national service, to which he is strongly opposed.”—Ath
“The faults of anti-militarist literature are usually rancour, sentimentality, and exaggeration. Mr Langdon-Davies has escaped all three. The merit of this book consists in its clearness and its shortness, in the fact that the author knows what he wants to prove, and proceeds to prove it without fuss or sentiment and with considerable moderation.”
“From the point of view of physical health, Mr Langdon-Davies gives many proofs from experienced educationists of the deleterious effects on children of military training. In a valuable chapter on the psychological aims of physical education, he points out that character must be built on the basis of instinct and that ‘the cornerstone of the superstructure is the acquirement of habit and self-control.’” B. U. Burke
LANGFELD, HERBERT SIDNEY.[2] Aesthetic attitude. *$3.50 Harcourt 701
The author holds that a sense of beauty is as vital to the complete existence of the individual and of the race as is the sense of justice and that a nascent appreciation of what is beautiful can be developed into a strong, useful and satisfying reaction to the world of colors, sounds and shapes. The emphasis of the book, therefore, is put upon a description of the nature of appreciation and of the mental processes involved therein, ... its wider applications to the problems of human happiness. He concludes that “whenever we are able to adjust ourselves successfully to a situation, so that our responses are unified into a well-integrated or organized form of action, we call that situation beautiful, and the accompanying feeling one of æsthetic pleasure.” The contents are: Introduction; The science of beauty and ugliness; The æsthetic attitude (two chapters); Empathy; Illustrations of empathy from the fine arts; Unity and imagination; Illustrations of unity from the fine arts; Balance and proportion; Illustrations of balance from the fine arts; The art impulse; Conclusion; Index.
LANGFORD, GEORGE. Pic, the weapon-maker. il *$1.75 Boni & Liveright
“Like Kipling’s ‘Jungle stories,’ but laid in western Europe perhaps 40,000 years ago, the story of ‘Pic, the weapon-maker,’ is George Langford’s popularization as fiction of such facts as science has revealed about the cave men of the Mousterian era. Pic, the ape-boy, with the hairy mammoth and the wobbly rhinoceros, formed a triple alliance of friendship and adventure. Pic was in search of the secret of cutting flints in such a way as to put a fine edge on them without spoiling them in the attempt, and before the story closes he has found it and made it the key to renewed fellowship with the tribe that had cast him out. As to the scientific quality of the story no less an authority than Henry Fairfield Osborn, director of the American museum of natural history, writes a brief approving introductory note.”—Springf’d Republican
“Anthropology and adventure are jumbled—naively, at times—in this story which, for all its prehistoric licence, still clings to the technique of Stratemeyer and other weavers of juvenile romance.” L. B.
“A troublesome fault is the author’s imaginative cocksureness. A higher degree of vagueness would actually have yielded an impression of greater exactness here. But where all is dark and chaotic, much must be forgiven to the first imaginative explorers. It is certain that Mr Langford’s book will fruitfully awaken the interest of the young in the remote past of the race, nor will maturer minds read it without some fresh light on dim places.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“The characterization of the Mammoth and the Rhinoceros is not the least clever part of this whimsical, fanciful and yet true story of this little, prehistoric man, and it is with real regret that the book is laid aside as the story closes.”
“An unusual and a powerful juvenile. The spirit and narrative of the book will be enjoyed even by children too young to attempt the reading for themselves.” R. D. Moore
LANIER, HENRY WYSHAM. Book of bravery; third series. il *$2.50 Scribner 920
“This is a book of courage, wherein people in their daily pursuits meet with obstacles which they surmount through excellences of character. The man who is paid for his brave work, like the life-saver, the policeman, the fireman, is none the less brave and his deed is none the less fraught with the tingling quality of bravery. In the missionary field and on the battlefield Mr Lanier finds material for this volume.”—Lit D
“It is a collection worth making.”
“For the inspiration of these volumes, children and parents alike may well be grateful to Mr Lanier.” M. H. B. Mussey
“The stories are vividly presented, and the book is one to stir the heart of youth.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
LANKESTER, SIR EDWIN RAY. Secrets of earth and sea. il *$3.50 Macmillan 504
“These popularly written chapters on a wide variety of scientific and anthropological topics, such as What is meant by a species? Species in the making; The biggest beast; The earliest picture in the world; The art of pre-historic men; The swastika; etc., form a sequel to the same author’s ‘Science from an easy chair’ and ‘Diversions of a naturalist,’ and like them is mainly a reprint, with considerable additions, of articles published in daily or weekly papers.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup S 23 ’20
“The essays are entertaining but have no high literary qualities. Men like Shaler, Burroughs, Muir, Mills, and Slosson have done this sort of book far better in America.”
“Let it be said at once that ‘Secrets of earth and sea,’ though extremely interesting, is not in the best sense as diverting as was ‘Science from an easy-chair.’ The subjects treated are delightfully interesting to the layman but the style is unfortunately rather redundant and heavy.”
“The book is indicative of what will be common in that happy day when science will be written about as fully and as charmingly as purely literary subjects are today.”
“Parents and guardians who are desirous of introducing their boys to the study of natural science and who, in pursuance of that praiseworthy aim, are looking for a book which, while sound and exact in statement, is yet light and easy to read and, above all, has no tincture of the school classroom, would do well to think of Sir Ray Lankester’s ‘Secrets of earth and sea.’”
LANSBURY, GEORGE. These things shall be. $1 (5½c) Huebsch 261
In these six essays the author proclaims himself a revolutionist and downright hater of the existing order but he does not see salvation in a terrific cataclysm with hopes of a new order arising from the ruins of the old. He pins his faith upon a change of heart in individual men and women and in the message “Ye must be born again.” The spirit of the essays is faith in a God of love and in the teachings of Christ of human brotherhood and love and cooperation. Mr Lansbury is editor of the London Daily Herald.
“He has nothing startlingly new to say, but the serenity and steadfastness of his faith in humanity and in a society of individuals living the gospel of Christian love, will afford comfort and reassurance to minds tired for the moment of their searching.”
LANSBURY, GEORGE. What I saw in Russia. *$1.50 (3c) Boni & Liveright 914.7
In his introduction to the American edition of this book, Matthew F. Boyd, after reviewing the attitude towards Russia of the European powers, of which France is now the only one still openly hostile, finds that the United States has once more become the arbiter of world destiny and that her policy towards Russia will decide the future of the world. George Lansbury went to Russia to discover what was the spirit moving the men and women responsible for the revolution. He found it to be that of a band of people striving to build the New Jerusalem, that they are actuated by purely moral and religious motives and are doing what Christians would call the Lord’s work. Contents: Finland to Moscow; Lenin and other leaders; Lenin, bolshevism and religion; Co-operation, trade and business; Trade unions and labour organization; Children and education; Law and order; Prisoners and captives; About people; Public health; Moscow to London; Appendix.
“The chapter on religion will interest churchmen.”
“Any one who wishes to gain a vivid picture of life in Soviet Russia, drawn with entire honesty and animated by sympathy and good will should, by all means, read Mr Lansbury’s book.” A. C. Freeman
LANSING, MARION FLORENCE, and GULICK, LUTHER HALSEY. Food and life. il 68c Ginn 613.2
The book has been suggested by the new importance that the war has placed on food as a universal human need and on the desirability of a full knowledge of its potentialities even for children. “From its pages the child will learn the facts he should know concerning the great food business into which he is born and in which he is a partner.... There is hardly a virtue or an ideal of family, community, and world life which does not take a natural place in a study of the fundamental human problem of food.” (Preface) Every aspect of the food problem, the personal, the social, the economic and the scientific is entertainingly put before the child in detached stories. The contents are: A life business; The food tether; In business for yourself; Food as fuel; Our dally bread; The magic touch; Likes and dislikes; A world appetite; The first step; The moment of eating; In the world’s food market; The pitcher and the loaf; The gift of a garden; Kitchen service; Food and money; For future use; Food and health; Food and the government; At a world table. In Facts and figures are given tables, charts and lists of a scientific nature. The book has an index and illustrations.
LASKI, HAROLD JOSEPH. Political thought in England from Locke to Bentham. (Home univ. lib.) *75c (1c) Holt 320.9
The author holds that the eighteenth century began with the revolution of 1688, that it was a period of quiet after a storm and can make little pretence to discovery, but that its stagnation was mainly on the surface and that the period was fruitful of much thought resulting in future activity. The significance of Locke—who alone in this period confronted the general problems of the modern state—of Burke, Hume, Adam Smith and their contemporaries, forms the subject matter of the book. Contents: Introduction; The principles of the revolution; Church and state; The era of stagnation; Signs of change; Burke; The foundation of economic liberalism; Bibliography and index.
“The method of treatment is not coldly analytical but genial and speculative. Care is taken to relate political theory to ethics; there are flashes of penetration into matters psychological; but economics receives scant consideration. To the present reviewer neglect of economics seems fatal. The truth seems to be that Mr Laski has written a conventional story, bolstered up English political mythology, and left the great muddle of so-called ‘political thought’ just about where he found it.” C: A. Beard
“A really admirable little book.” F: Pollock
“There are a few obscurities of phrase throughout the book, and a few far-fetched judgments. But, on the whole, Mr Laski writes brilliantly and suggestively, evincing a clear comprehension of essentials, against a background of necessary learning. It is his most broadly considered and best-balanced work.”
LATANÉ, JOHN HOLLADAY. United States and Latin America. *$2.50 Doubleday 327
“This book is based on a smaller volume ... ‘The diplomatic relations of the United States and Spanish America,’ which contained the first series of Albert Shaw lectures on diplomatic history. That volume has been out of print for several years, but calls for it are still coming in.... I have revised and enlarged the original volume, omitting much that was of special interest at the time it was written, and adding a large amount of new matter relating to the events of the past twenty years.” (Preface) Contents: The revolt of the Spanish colonies; The recognition of the Spanish-American republics; The diplomacy of the United States in regard to Cuba; The diplomatic history of the Panama canal; French intervention in Mexico; The two Venezuelan episodes; The advance of the United States in the Caribbean; Pan Americanism; The Monroe doctrine; Index and maps of South America and the Caribbean.
“The American people are thoughtless, careless, heedless concerning the questions that affect them as regards Latin America, because they are ignorant of those questions. But should they be fed with misstatements like this?” S. de la Selva
LATHAM, HAROLD STRONG. Jimmy Quigg, office boy. il *$2 (5c) Macmillan
A new story for boys by the author of “Under orders” and “Marty lends a hand.” At fourteen Jimmy goes to work as office boy in a big publishing house and the story shows the opportunities for advancement open to the boy who is industrious and willing to learn. One of Jimmy’s fellow workers, Fred Garson, has different ideals. He introduces Jimmy to the Office boys’ league and attempts to organize a strike. Fred disappears and with him some of the company’s funds. Jimmy, who refuses to believe his friend guilty, does some amateur detective work, clears Fred’s name and circumvents a group of bomb plotters in the bargain.
“There is a pronounced moral flavor, but it is quite wholesome.”
“Mr Latham improves in his narrative style and cumulative interest of plot.”
“The author understands the types he has drawn, and he understands also the universal boy.”
“The theme of Americanization inspires the book, but first of all it is a good story, a delightful bit of character study, and it is written by a man who knows his job.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
LATHAM, HAROLD STRONG. Marty lends a hand. il *$1.60 (3½c) Macmillan
Marty, the young hero of this story for boys and girls, is in his sophomore year in high school. He has won first honors in the sophomore oratorical contest and is to play “Tony Lumpkin” in the class production of “She stoops to conquer.” And then just at that happy moment an accident to his father takes him out of school to shoulder the responsibilities of a bread winner. He finds an original way of earning a living—growing mushrooms in an abandoned mine. The mine proves to be the secret hiding place of German plotters and Marty sees that they are brought to justice. But the chief interest of the story is in the mushroom experiment, and thru cooperation of his loyal friends, it succeeds beyond Marty’s fondest hopes. His father recovers and takes charge of the new business and Marty looks forward to a return to school.
“A distinct advance over his book of last year.” A. C. Moore
“Mr Latham knows his boys and girls, and he makes them not mere automatons but living figures on the stage he has set so skilfully.”
“‘Marty lends a hand’ is a good story for young readers for the same reason that ‘Under orders’ was a good story for them, because it is what they are themselves when they are what they should be—simple, wholesome, natural and unconsciously democratic.”
LATZKO, ANDREAS. Judgment of peace. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright
“The author of that bitter polemic against warfare, ‘Men in war,’ repeats his denunciation in ‘The judgment of peace.’ Lt. Latzko has written an argument rather than a novel. The thesis is that war is a diplomats’ game and wholly evil for the ‘impotent pieces.’ The hero of the book is George Gadsky, a pianist, who volunteered, submitted to arbitrary discipline, and ‘felt crushed, torn out of his real self, degraded to the level of a shabby, beaten sneak.’ The overbearing, stupid sergeant, the stay-at-home enthusiast and the families rivaling each other in iron crosses and deaths are scored. One ringing declaration in this novel is contained in the words of the Frenchman, Merlier: ‘Have not these four years taught every nation that you cannot seek to enslave others without robbing yourself of all freedom?’”—Springf’d Republican
“Were it not for the devout prayer for human brotherhood which is made throughout the book, it would, not merely by its grimness and gloom, but by its lightning flashes of revelation, leave the night more black.” M. E. Bailey
“The ‘Judgment of peace’ appears to be the work of one who has gone through intense suffering by reason of the war, and whose life has become permanently embittered. Few writers equal his descriptions of the bloody agonies of the battlefield and his pictures of soldiers, but his outlook on life is morbid and gloomy.”
“His story fails as art because it is forever running into bald propaganda, as propaganda because its grounds are emotions instead of thoughts.”
“Like ‘Men in war,’ ‘The judgment of peace’ is swift and strong, lucid and incandescent, appalling and irresistible. Latzko’s fierce arraignment and mighty tract should be welcomed by lovers of peace and should be kept alive in order that an epic memory all plumes and purple may not go down from our generation.” C. V. D.
“‘The judgment of peace’ is a book of hate—hate not for ‘enemy’ countries, but for selfish rulers and militarists everywhere. So far, so good—but the author goes too far; his condemnation of ruthless militarism, of selfish uncontrolled power, is good and true; his apparent assumption that all rulers, all governments, all holders of power everywhere, are thus actuated by utter selfishness, is neither. And one is left, at the end of this absorbing, brilliant, thoughtful and passionate book, with the sense that after all the author has not got us very far on the road toward the brotherhood of man.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Patience is somewhat strained by the manner of this book; the protest is not new, and the tale is rather hastily and crudely constructed. The most effective part comes near the end, where Gadsky as a prisoner of war gets to know a French soldier.”
“A significant book, comparable with Barbusse’s ‘Under fire.’ Not for the smaller libraries.”
LAUDER, SIR HARRY (MACLENNAN). Between you and me. $2.50 McCann
“‘I’m no writin’ a book so much as I’m sittin’ doon wi’ ye all for a chat,’ Harry Lauder says in his first chapter; and he carries the plan through to the last. The book is a biography, a Scot’s philosophy of life, and a shrewd discourse on current social problems, combined.”—Outlook
“A book which will be liked only by the enthusiastic Lauder-ites. It is written in Scotch dialect which often runs unevenly into pure English. Not as good as ‘A minstrel in France.’”
“Sir Harry mentions the possibility of two more books. We shall welcome them eagerly, as we always welcome him, but we cannot help hoping that, despite the charm of his gossipy style, the next ones will have to some degree the skeleton of an outline.” I. W. L.
“Readers who are not frightened at a glimpse of Scotch dialect will love the book for its genuine human note, its humor, and its underlying pathos.”
“This book gives Lauder and his message in a unique and inimitable way. It is well worth reading as Lauder himself is worth hearing.”
LAWRENCE, C. E. God in the thicket. *$2 Dutton
“It is a delicately worked narrative of a glittering world peopled by pantomime folk, whose names have been familiar to us all from childhood—Harlequin and Columbine, Pierrot, Punchinello, Aimée and Daphne, and many others. They live in the Forest of Argovie; and their life is the pantomime life, with its queer, sudden approaches to the greyer conditions of human existence and irresponsible withdrawals to the spangled regions of fantasy.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The god of the title is none other than he of the pipes and the goat-thighs, Pan himself.” (N Y Times)
“In many passages here there is a surplus of adjectives, a lack of precision and reality. There are times when the author writes with a pleasing irony that would be even more enjoyable if the vein were not overdone.”
“Very delicately, very gracefully written, a little too long perhaps, but full of quaint conceits, poetically fanciful and therefore a good deal out of the ordinary.”
“A little masterpiece.”
“It is perhaps refreshing in these prosaic days to exist for an hour in the world of fantasy.”
“It is a pretty story, which fails rather disappointingly to be something more.”
LAWRENCE, DAVID HERBERT. New poems. *$1.60 Huebsch 821
Mr Lawrence prefaces his collection of new poems with a discussion of the nature of poetry, saying in part, “Poetry is, as a rule, either the voice of the far future, exquisite and ethereal, or it is the voice of the past, rich, magnificent.... The poetry of the beginning and the poetry of the end must have that exquisite quality, perfection which belongs to all that is far off.... But there is another kind of poetry: ... the unrestful, ungraspable poetry of the sheer present.” And it is for this third type of poetry, he continues, that new poetic forms must be forged. Among the poems of the book are: Apprehension; Coming awake; Suburbs on a hazy day; Piccadilly Circus at night; Parliament Hill in the evening; Bitterness of death; Seven seals; Two wives; Autumn sunshine.
“The more stringent their form the better these poems are; and when, as in Phantasmagoria, Mr Lawrence finds a subject suited to his strained and ‘pent-up’ manner, he ‘gets his effect’ very wonderfully.”
“Mr Lawrence’s ‘New poems’—like the overwhelming bulk of ‘the rare new poetry’—seems inspired less by any remote touch of divine madness, than by a labored and sophisticated anxiety to exemplify a theory. Mr Lawrence has none of the brilliancy of Miss Lowell, none of the power of Mr Lindsay. His slim new book offers the pathetic spectacle of a shabby manikin pirouetting in caricature of the muse.” R. M. Weaver
Reviewed by Babette Deutsch
“Apart from a brilliant preface, there is scarcely anything in this book which is pitched at the same level of intensity as the best poems in ‘Look, we have come through.’ The touch is somewhat slacker and vaguer, the feeling less fused with the words. ‘New poems’ contains as least one poem which I am almost inclined to set higher than anything Lawrence has ever done. This is the poem called ‘Seven seals.’” J: G. Fletcher
“Mr Lawrence’s preface poses spontaneity as an ideal, promising poetry that ‘just takes place.’ That is interesting, but it does not explain Mr Lawrence’s poetry, which here as always betrays elaborate trouble in its preparation.”
“His ‘New poems’ reasserts his place among the most gifted, the most arresting of the English poets.” H. S. Gorman
“As you read the whole volume through it seems to you more and more that he feels too intensely about a great many things. There is this difference between him and older sentimentalists, that they were at the mercy of pleasant feelings, while he is often at the mercy of unpleasant; but it is still the same poet’s disease, and in both cases the feelings seem too intense for their cause.”
LAWRENCE, DAVID HERBERT. Touch and go. (Plays for a people’s theatre) $1.25 Seltzer 822
Altho the background of this drama is a strike in a British colliery it is not intended as a propaganda play. The author is concerned with the tragic element in the struggle between capital and labor. He has defined tragedy as “the working out of some immediate passional problem within the soul of man.” The play also represents his idea that a “people’s” theater should deal with people, with men and women, not with stage types.
“Mr Lawrence, of course, cannot escape his genius. The secondary qualities of ‘Touch and go’ are superior to the big things in the work of many other dramatists.” Gilbert Seldes
“Mr Lawrence’s new play, ‘Touch and go,’ seems to indicate that, while the author may have gained compensations in other ways, he has lost, temporarily, it is to be hoped, under the blighting strains and trials of the last few years, some of the vital energy that is essential to a dramatist.” Elva de Pue
“This is a play serious in purpose, of vital contemporaneous interest, unexceptionable motive and written with knowledge and ability, which is nevertheless ineffective, because while it exhibits a comprehensive sense of existing conditions and states its problem very clearly, it has nothing to offer or suggest in the way of a possible solution except a series of benevolent platitudes.” J. R. Towse
“The preface is so excellent, so much in the manner of the great English tradition that it holds, and urges, and ends by being, I think, even better than the play, a fine little masterpiece of eight pages.” Amy Lowell
“The only thing amusing in the little volume is the preface, which is entertaining enough. Mr Lawrence does not make this mistake of open didacticism when he writes poetry. Why, oh! why, does he write drama like this?”
“The preface has been most stimulating and formative. Preface and play, however, are widely separated. Never once are we led to feel the promised reality of the characters. The story moves in a confusion of the fundamental details.” Dorothy Grafly
“His characters are overdrawn, and his action has to do with struggles of temperament rather than of contrasting philosophies.”
“The strength of the play lies in its picture of colliery life.”
LAWRENCE, DOROTHY. Sapper Dorothy Lawrence; the only English woman soldier. (On active service ser.) *$1.25 (4c) Lane 940.48
Miss Lawrence gives this account of her exploits in France as a soldier of the Royal engineers, 51st division. 179th tunnelling company. It was as a last desperate effort to get to the war that she plotted and struggled her way into the ranks. Twelve times she had applied for various forms of war work and had been turned down. Her efforts to go as newspaper correspondent met the same fate. The Tommies were more accommodating and helped her to accomplish her purpose. Contents: At Creil; Sleeping in Senlis forests; In soldier’s clothes; On the march for the trenches; Arrest; Tried at Third army headquarters; In a convent; On board.
“A brightly written tale of pluck, energy, and determination.”
LAY, WILFRID.[2] Man’s unconscious passion. *$2 Dodd 157
Dr Lay, author of “Man’s unconscious conflict” and “The child’s unconscious mind,” writes here of the part which the unconscious plays in love and marriage. Contents: The total situation; Conscious and unconscious passion; Affection is not passion; Insight; The transfer of passion; The emotion age.
“Dr Lay’s book is written in a most readable and interesting style and should make a great appeal to all those interested, professionally or otherwise, in this dominant and important phase of individual human life and its relation to the tissue of the whole social organism.” S. W. Swift
LEACH, ALBERT ERNEST. Food inspection and analysis. 4th ed il *$8.50 Wiley 543.1
“This manual, designed for the use of analysts, health officers, chemists and food economists, has been revised and enlarged to the extent of ninety pages; new material having been added or substituted for material in earlier editions. The former arrangement of chapters has been retained but the list of references at the end of chapters has been left out and, instead, more attention has been given to footnote references. A special feature is the final chapter by G. L. Wendt, ‘Determination of acidity by means of the hydrogen electrode.’ The book includes such subjects as food, its functions, proximate components, and nutritive value; general methods of food analysis including microscope and refractometer; milk and milk products; flesh foods; eggs; cereal grains; tea, coffee, and cocoa; edible oils and fats; sugar; as well as artificial food colors, food preservatives, artificial sweeteners, flavoring extracts, and substitutes.”—J Home Econ
“As a whole, however, the new edition well maintains the reputation of the work. It contains so much trustworthy information that chemists concerned with foodstuffs will find it invaluable.” C. S.
LEACOCK, STEPHEN BUTLER. Unsolved riddle of social justice. *$1.25 (4½c) Lane 330
The author sees in the present state of human society an extraordinary discrepancy between human power and resulting human happiness and analyzes the reasons for the present-day social unrest. He points to the complete breakdown of the Adam Smith school of political economists with their doctrine of “natural liberty” and laissez-faire. In asking “What of the future?” the author finds himself confronted with the phenomenon of modern socialism. This he relegates to the realm of beautiful but impracticable dreams and suggests as a mid-way course that the government should supply work for the unemployed, maintenance for the infirm and aged, and education and opportunity for children, and should enforce a minimum wage and shorter working hours. Contents: The troubled outlook of the present hour; Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; The failures and fallacies of natural liberty; Work and wages; The land of dreams: the utopia of the socialist; How Mr Bellamy looked backward; What is possible and what is not.
“Dr Leacock writes with great clarity and force. While the limits of the volume do not permit detailed treatment of any of the topics taken up, the reader will find every page suggestive and will be thankful for a chance to see the woods instead of the trees.” O. D. Skelton
“Written in a vigorous, easy, though not humorous, style, that will make it popular with those who seek a middle track.”
“The author of ‘Literary lapses,’ and all the rest of them, could not be dull if he tried. His new volume on the problems of modern life is fully as live as any of his humorous sketches, and nearly as readable.” I. W. L.
“A readable and frequently keen analysis of industrial society. Professor Leacock’s delicately manipulated scalpel cuts perilously close to the heart of the price system, in his perception of the paradox of value.... While the honest sunlight of criticism declares the insufficiency of individualist economics, the light that Professor Leacock throws upon socialism—taking Bellamy’s bleak vision of bureaucracy as sample—is almost a moonbeam from the larger lunacy.”
“The riddle is not only unsolved when Professor Leacock tackles it, but it remains so when he has finished with it. The author has merely re-stated the problem in a lucid and concise manner and fused it with a sort of primer of economics, and comes out in the end with a middle-of-the-road vagueness as his major contribution to the subject.” L. B.
Reviewed by C. E. Ayres
“Stephen Leacock is far from happy in his study of ‘The unsolved riddle of social justice.’ He reveals himself as a clever man, of course, but not as a serious economic thinker. He, surely, cannot be so ignorant as this book would lead one to infer.”
“As a book for the general reader this little treatise can scarcely be too much commended. It is eminently humane in spirit, sensible, serious without being ‘dead serious,’ and thorough on the essential points. The author seems to know how average, educated people think and feel about the present state of society, and to have an unusually good idea of how to write for persons who do not know much about political economy.”
Reviewed by Lyman Abbott
“It is sound common sense doctrine that he preaches, and for that reason it will be popular with but few people in these days of emotional ‘thinking.’”
“Professor Leacock’s book is an appeal to pure reason; it is argumentative, but not quarrelsome; it is progressive in its aims, but it is not revolutionary. His picture may be overdrawn and too highly coloured, but it substantially represents what many thoughtful and clear-sighted men see today when gazing upon the eastern and western worlds.”
“There is much good sense in this attractive book.”
“His solution may seem to be inadequate; but without doubt Mr Leacock has written a valuable popular analysis and has stated sane and forward-looking remedies.”
“Mr Leacock’s treatment of the problem is not intentionally humorous or flippant, but it is surprisingly superficial. As soon as he comes to a discussion of the social thought that governs the demands of large masses at the present time, he becomes positively absurd. Mr Leacock is most successful where he pricks current misconceptions.” B. L.
“He does not overload his subject with the useless ballast of philosophic jargon, or obscure a poverty of thought by abundance of words. His book is short, lucid, always to the point, and sometimes witty.”
LEACOCK, STEPHEN BUTLER. Winsome Winnie, and other new nonsense novels. *$1.50 Lane 817
This is a sequel to “Nonsense novels,” published in 1911. Again the author parodies the style of various popular types of fiction. Among the numbers in this second series are Winsome Winnie: or, Trial and temptation, narrated after the best models of 1875; The split in the cabinet: or, The fate of England, a political novel of the days that were; Who do you think did it? or, The mixed-up murder mystery; Broken barriers, or Red love on a blue island; and Buggam Grange, a good old ghost story. The stories have appeared in Harper’s Magazine.
“While this later volume lacks to a slight degree the fresh spontaneity of Mr Leacock’s older books, there are plenty of sincere laughs left.” S. M. R.
“The great majority of readers will find ‘Winsome Winnie’ almost as good as the author’s best books. In other words: the work of a man who, in the silence of Mr Dooley, is the most amusing writer in North America.” E. L. P.
“Despite his delicious drolleries, Mr Leacock’s book of verbal cartoons contains an amazing amount of truthful criticism—doubly effective because its form and oblique method of delivery rob it of all malice.”
“A book of parodies which is as amusing as the first series. ‘Winsome Winnie’ and ‘Who do you think did it?’ are as good as any of the sketches which Professor Leacock has ever written.” E. L. Pearson
“It will be a very superior person who does not laugh the first time he reads Mr Leacock’s version of these jocular subjects. But as the laugh comes from the verbal surprise or from the technical improvement in an established joke, it is not likely to be repeated.”
LEADBITTER, ERIC. Rain before seven. *$2 (2c) Jacobs
Michael Lawson was an awkward, shy and colorless youth, the fourth and youngest in a family of waning fortunes. As a gawky boy of fifteen he falls in love with the daughter of his tutor, Vicar Hargrieves. Some years later, Isobel’s heartless flirtations give him his first deep emotional experience. At school he discovers his love and talent for music and finds a patron who finances his musical education. But funds fail before he has launched upon a career, and he is reduced to playing in a picture-drome. He meets with a succession of failures and becomes a tramp. As such he is discovered by his sister Rosie—his family having been ignorant of his whereabouts for years. His brother, a successful scientist and inventor, takes him on in business. Michael makes good, drops music altogether, achieves tranquillity of heart and wins the love of a dear quiet girl, who had adored him even as a child.
“The first novel of a very grave and very garrulous young Englishman who has not yet discovered how many things have been said before. The trail of his story is lost under an underbrush of truisms, though through the brambles one catches glimpses of landscape not unlike some of Mr Mackenzie’s milder panoramas.”
“It is rather more than a good example of the usual thing.” H. W. Boynton
LEARY, JOHN J., Jr. Talks with T. R. il *$3.50 (4c) Houghton
Extracts from the diaries of a veteran newspaper man who had been for many years in the habit of recording carefully his conversations with Theodore Roosevelt. These are now arranged under appropriate headings, some few of which are: Roosevelt and 1920; Dewey and Fighting Bob; The break with Taft; The attempt on his life; Clashes with the Kaiser; On election eve, 1916; Senator Lodge’s fist fight; Roosevelt’s one talk with Mr Wilson; Roosevelt on labor; Loyalty; Germans in America; Colonel Roosevelt on boys; Pershing and Wood. There are a number of illustrations.
“The picture is less attractive than that of the writer of the letters to his children, or of the state papers that have been included in Mr Bishop’s selection, but it seems to present with fidelity one of the poses of the most versatile statesmen of our day. The absence of an index makes the book more difficult to use than it need have been.” F: L. Paxson
“A wonderful readable book about a wonderful personality.” E. J. C.
“The volume is a racy, authentic, well-considered work, but instead of revealing the inner springs of motive, instead of a transvaluation of strenuous values, it merely adds to the sum total of current impressions.” L. B.
“Better than any photograph or any biography I know, they give you the feeling of having talked with the man in the flesh.”
“It is in all respects one of the best Roosevelt books we have ever seen, and in some respects the best.”
“It is all vastly entertaining, though one wonders whether the obligation of discretion which private conversation implies has not in certain cases been prematurely sacrificed in the interest of impartial history.”
“‘Talks with T. R.’ is an unusually interesting book. It is a really valuable book. It is certain to be read; it deserves to be read. The author of the book had done well to omit certain virulent assaults on living Americans, notably President Wilson.”
“It is a readable and informing book. The principal criticism that may be made concerns the typography and make-up of the volume. It could be condensed nearly fifty per cent without detracting from its readableness.”
LEBLANC, MAURICE. Secret of Sarek. il *$1.75 Macaulay co.
“To put into his narrative the right degree of thrill, the correct dose of horror, M. Leblanc takes us to the gloomy island of Sarek, off the coast of Brittany, which has the cheerful nickname of ‘Island of the coffins,’ and there plunges his characters into a welter of murder, mystery and terror that has few parallels in this kind of fiction. Strange figures robed in white, flitting in and out of the woods on the island, make one suspect that the ghosts of the druids of ancient times, or else descendants of theirs dwelling in caves beneath the island, have got on the rampage in the modern world. Arsène Lupin, the peerless solver of mysteries, arrives on the island in his little private submarine. He takes the situation in hand with his usual combination of ability, bravery and luck. Things move fast from the moment that he sets foot on the old stamping ground of the druids. It would be unfair to tell the series of strokes of genius, combined with strokes of the incredible luck, whereby Arsène Lupin circumvents the atrocious Vorski and makes it possible for ‘The secret of Sarek’ to have a happy ending.”—N Y Times
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Suffice it to say that it is an enthralling story, carried forward breathlessly amid a whirl of shooting, stabbing, crucifying and general bloodshed, cleverly raised above most of its kind by a really baffling atmosphere of mystery, a genuine thriller among thrillers.”
Reviewed by E. C. Webb
“The book is full of eerie mysteries and disasters violent enough to merit honourable mention in a competition with Greek tragedies and tinged with a suggestion of archaic survivals and black magic which will pleasantly thrill even a jaded reader.”
LEDWIDGE, FRANCIS. Complete poems of Francis Ledwidge. *$2.50 Brentano’s 821
Francis Ledwidge, the young Irish poet, lost his life in the war. His poems are brought together in this volume, with an introduction by Lord Dunsany. “Readers familiar with his work will find all of the favorites in this volume—June, To my best friend, Desire in spring, and others. They will find also his poems written during the great war. It is interesting to note that he did not write much of battle and all that went with it, but made his songs out of memories or out of new glimpses of beauty.” (N Y Times)
“His scope was limited. Trees, flowers and the recurring seasons were his theme. But he evidently believed in these things, and did not write of nature because since Wordsworth’s day, it is the correct thing to do. Ledwidge was a countryman and loved the country; the desire to express himself came, and he moulded into what are often exquisite forms, the simple country thoughts which were natural in him.”
“A book which many lovers of modern Irish poetry will rejoice to possess. In many of the poems there is evidence of a delicate and fragrant talent, but one refuses to speak, as the editor so confidently does, of Ledwidge’s genius.” H: A. Lappin
“It is difficult to predict what his future development might have been, but at least there is nothing in this collection to justify the editor in speaking so confidently of his protégé as a genius. Although there is here a great deal of fragrant and delicate imagination, and much keen and intimate observation of sky and tree and field and bird, there is nothing quite so full of Irish reality as any one of a dozen lyrics one might mention by Joseph Campbell or Padraic Colum, for example.”
“There is little in the slight evidence before us to indicate that he would have made his place by sheer power; his success, had he lived, and had he obtained it, would have been of the idiosyncratic sort. And success of this sort he would, I think, no doubt have obtained. For through all his work runs a strain of lyric magic.” Conrad Aiken
“Francis Ledwidge was an honest songster, a poet of the blackbird in a time of hawks and vultures. He was in no sense an important poet, it must be said.” Mark Van Doren
“When it is said that he is somewhat unvarying and that he is sometimes immature it remains to be said that in everything Francis Ledwidge wrote there is the shapely and the imaginative phrase.” Padraic Colum
“He knew the simplicities and austerities of wild life in fields and woods so well that he could borrow from them a little sternness to go with the sweetness of his song.”
“It is simple, sincere, beautiful. Yet it is always quiet and restful. It is not emotional, it soothes. The pictures are gems.”
“It is true that he is ‘the poet of the blackbird,’ that his ‘small circle of readers’ will turn to his work for its mildness, sweetness, and serenity, ‘as to a very still lake ... on a very cloudless evening.’ But that small circle must not be disappointed to discover that his limpidity and naturalness are often blurred with the derivative, that his taste is uncertain, ... that his imagination is less active than his fancy. Complete poems, unflawed by inequalities of tone and workmanship are therefore rare.”
“It is impossible to read these again without realizing that Ledwidge is Ireland’s foremost poet of landscape, a poet who will undoubtedly win lasting recognition.” N. J. O’Conor
LEE, GERALD STANLEY. Ghost in the White House. *$2 Dutton 342.7
“‘The White House is haunted by a vague helpless abstraction,—by a kind of ghost of the nation, called the People.’ Gerald Stanley Lee gives expression to what he regards as the common aspiration of the people—a yearning to emerge from the ghost stage and to take on tangible shape and substance through which to give expression and to render service. This transformation must be wrought through the organization of the people—the consumers—into a large club or league with branches and chapters. Thus organized, the individual would have a channel for the expression and application of their constructive thought. On the individual is the responsibility of arming himself with knowledge adequate for good judgment, with perspective for sound progress, with vision for comprehensive planning. Then shall the President be simply the chief of a practical religion.”—Survey.
“Mr Lee writes for the most part in words of one syllable, a style admirably suited to reflect his own mental processes.” H. K.
“The author has thought, or mused, a lot, but he has hardly studied the problems at all. He fancies that economics is a very simple science—and so it is, his economics. He has not the faintest conception of the real forces that are now reshaping the industrial world.”
“Mr Lee’s book is thought provoking, stimulating, and much of it is true. It will provoke thought in persons who do not habitually think. One is not quite sure whether a good book like this helps or hinders one.” M. F. Egan
“It is a remarkably successful attempt to formulate the definite, practical desires of the plain people.”
“It deserves to be widely read. It deals in a fascinating way with a common experience and a serious problem. While it does not solve this old problem, it serves a good purpose by stimulating new interest and new thought.” A. J. Lien
LEE, HARRY SHERIDAN. High company. *$1.50 Stokes 811
A collection of war poems under the subtitle “sketches of courage and comradeship,” mostly hospital scenes full of pathos and touches of humor. Contents: The upper room; The pipe and the fire; Angeline; April hearts; The hidden wound; Trees; Baldur the bright god; Winged heels; Ninette and Rintintin; Deferred payment; “Soldiers three”; Biddle’s kid; The good brown earth; The roll of honour; Pudgyfist visits the hospital; Lights out; The pie lady; “Every dog has his day”; “All in the blue unclouded weather”; Buddies; The shadow of the cloud; “Men of good will.”
“The wounded doughboys are depicted with humor, sympathy, and originality, but the free verse form often degenerates into literal and banal prose.”
“The tribute is beautiful in spirit, beautiful in expression.”
LEE, JAMES MELVIN, ed. Business writing. (Language for men of affairs) il $4 Ronald 808
This volume has been prepared by a number of writers connected with the business department of colleges, and with business periodicals and is intended to help business men to write reports, articles for trade papers, make effective speeches at dinners, conventions or clubs, and to instruct advertising writers. The seven divisions of the book are headed: Essentials of writing; The reinforcement of reading; Letter for men of affairs; Report-writing; Advertising copy; The journalism of business; Mechanical and incidental. The appendices consist of bibliographies for both volumes and there is an index. The companion volume on “Talking business” is by John Mantle Clapp.
LEE, JENNETTE BARBOUR (PERRY) (MRS GERALD STANLEY LEE). Chinese coat. *$1.75 (6c) Scribner
To Eleanor More and her husband, Richard, a blue Chinese coat that she could not afford to buy became a kind of a symbol. The desire to give it to her stayed with her husband all thru their early married life—while their family was growing up and even after the children were men and women. Their pilgrimage to a far country to at last gain possession of the coat is the climax of a story which is part allegory and part romance.
“A quiet tale of married life told with a charming simplicity and a touch of symbolism.”
“Companionable, sweet and comfortable, filling the mind with dreams of times when, unwillingly and under pressure, we were forced to let the great desire go.”
“A sweet little story, charmingly told, and illustrating the lovable qualities of husband and wife.”
“A story that is remarkably compact and sustained in interest throughout. Throughout it is woven the glimmering web of poetry, and this is due partly to the theme itself and partly to the simplicity of the prose. One feels upon reading the story that Mrs Lee possesses unsuspected talents. The idealism and symbolic qualities of ‘The Chinese coat’ are never in doubt. It is a book to be read.”
“A charmingly simple story that has just enough of a plot to hold it together.”
LEE, VERNON, pseud. (VIOLET PAGET). Satan the waster. *$2.50 Lane 822
Vernon Lee’s satirical allegory, “The ballet of the nations,” was published in 1915 and was reviewed in the Book Review Digest at that time. It is now reprinted here, with prologue and epilogue which take account of the deeper causes leading to the war and of the chaos that has followed it. In the trilogy thus completed Satan appears as “the waster of human virtues.” And since the greater and more useless the waste, the greater his delight, he finds his chief joy in self-sacrifice which is vain, and the author, who in the furnace of the war has come to doubt and question all accepted values, suggests that what the world needs in place of self-sacrifice is that altruism “which is respect for the other rather than renunciation of the self.” This and other philosophical aspects of the war are discussed in the Introduction and in the notes which follow the play.
“We are casting about for a reason why a book so honest, intelligent, well-written, clever, should not stimulate but depress, should be a tiresome book. We may mention that the masque, ‘Satan the waster,’ occupies 110 pages out of about 340; the remainder consists of introduction and notes. That is a damning—or at least a damnable—fact.” F. W. S.
“It is an interesting discussion of our international imbecilities and sets forth with pomp those precise opinions whose less elegant expression recently sent several hundred Americans to jail.”
“Enormously stimulating and quickening book. It ought to be one of the real factors in that spiritual re-adjustment which is now a major democratic necessity.” F. H.
“Her satire fails because never from beginning to end can the reader believe in it. It is merely an expression of her opinions in a very artificial form; and, whether or no we agree with them, we would rather have them expressed in the natural form of argument.”
“It embodies the reaction to the world war of one of the sanest minds and most finished stylists of her day. One who compares Romain Rolland’s dramatic satire ‘Liluli’ with this work, is struck with the similarity in purpose, in point of view, in fundamental concept, and even in their common form of cosmic burlesque. Neither the great Frenchman nor the great Englishwoman has written a ‘play’ in the ordinary sense, but each has made an uncommon contribution to literature.”
LEES, GEORGE ROBINSON. Life of Christ. il *$5 Dodd 232
Considering it of supreme importance to be able to visualize the scenery amid which the life of Christ was laid, the writer of this volume spent six years in Palestine during which he learned “how real was the life of Christ in the scenes depicted in the records of the Evangelist.” Thus with much local and historic coloring the life of Jesus is reinterpreted from the accounts of the apostles which are closely followed. The book is indexed and has one hundred and twenty-five full page illustrations.
“Inevitably it provokes comparison with Renan in point of literary style, if not in actual treatment, for Mr Lees is a convinced believer. His style fails badly by the test. Though a book of this kind is not greatly to our taste, we cannot but acknowledge the author’s devotion.”
“His narrative is plain, simple, understandable, but not marked by either remarkable scholarship or remarkable insight.”
LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD. Junk-man, and other poems. *$1.75 Doubleday 811
With a wealth of imagery and a poet’s wisdom all life is mirrored in these poems in the time-honored garb of rhyme and metre. The first line of the poem “On re-reading Le morte d’Arthur,” “Here learn who will the art of noble words” can be applied to this collection, the author’s first since the war.
“If his extreme youth was a little hectic with the heady wine of passion his maturity has grown beautifully sane with the philosophic mind. He was never more youthful than now, when he has recaptured the song of the lark, regained the lightness of foot that measures the pace of any gypsy up hill and down dale, and with an eye for illusions that any lover might envy.” W: S. Braithwaite
“It is a sad day for poetry when an authentic craftsman attains such facility that he writes from sheer momentum. This, we suspect, is what has happened in the case of Mr Richard Le Gallienne, whose new book, ‘The junkman’ is the mere shell of poetry—the forms without the feeling.” L. B.
“It is compact with beauty, filled with all those things that we instinctively know to be the real marks of authentic poetry. The flare, the passion, the abiding sense of things that may not readily be put into words, are all here. It is the sort of poetry that endures, that becomes memorable and takes place in the memories and hearts of its readers.” H. S. Gorman
“A collection of verse that equals anything this prolific author has done.”
LEIGHTON, JOHN LANGDON. Simsadus: London; the American navy in Europe. il *$4 (11c) Holt 940.45
“Sims—Admiral—U.S.” explains the title of the book. It was the cable address of Admiral Sims’ headquarters in London. The author was connected with the Intelligence section of Admiral Sims’ staff and as such is conversant with the inside facts and history of our naval operations. The book gives his personal impressions and disclaims official sanction. A partial list of the contents: The situation in April, 1917; Admiral Sims in London; The establishment of bases; Submarines off the American coast; A discussion of submarines and their methods; The distraction of submarines; Why American troopships were not sunk; The end of the submarine campaign; The man on the bridge (in homage); Appendix, charts and illustrations.
“After the host of war books which have kept our heads buzzing with anecdotes and statistics incoherently packed into a jumbled whole it is not only refreshing but instructive to read a clear, sane, and comprehensive exposition of our naval activities in Europe as set forth by Mr Leighton.” P. E. Stevenson
“It is something of a relief to find a war-book that does not strain one’s nerves, or overwhelm one with facts, and that has hardly any note in it of propaganda, or eulogy, or criticism. Mr Leighton has given a clear-cut, well-ordered account of what our navy did in connection with the British navy.”
“Pervading his book is a whole-hearted devotion to his chief, which goes beyond mere professional loyalty and suggests kinship with the spirit that surrounded Nelson. Readers of Admiral Sims’s own book can hardly fail to discern the secret of this spirit and it is pleasant to find it reflected from the pages of his subordinate.”
LE QUEUX, WILLIAM TUFNELL. Doctor of Pimlico; being the disclosure of a great crime. *$1.75 Macaulay co.
“Weirmarsh is a criminal who operates all over the continent of Europe, as well as in England, and, possessing certain hypnotic powers, he finds it easy to bend other wills to his for his own profit. So not only is Sir Hugh Elcombe—with his splendid record as a British officer in several hard campaigns, including the great war just ended—made a pitiful object by his fear of an ‘exposure’ by Weirmarsh, but Sir Hugh’s beautiful stepdaughter, Enid Orlebar, who seems to be a perfect example of the high-class modern English girl is also under his baleful shadow. She is loved by the middle-aged cosmopolite who is intended to be the hero of the book. He is a talented author of mystery romances which bring him an income of several thousand pounds sterling a year. His real name, under which he writes, is Walter Fetherston. But he has a penchant for amateur detective work—he avers that he always ‘lives’ his romances—and when he is engaged in trying to get to the bottom of some criminal mystery he calls himself John Maltwood.”—N Y Times
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The story rambles on—always fluent and in well-chosen terms, with colorful pictures of various localities in Europe obviously made by one who knows them personally, but singularly deficient in suspense, dramatic action, humor, or any other of the qualities which make for real interest in an up-to-date work of fiction.”
LESCOHIER, DON DIVANCE. Labor market. (Social science text-books) *$2.25 Macmillan 331
“The purpose of this volume is to show the necessity for a national organization to control the problem of employment. In the course of his discussion the author presents much information concerning conditions of the labor market in this country and offers many suggestions to officials of employment offices, university students and teachers, legislators and the general public.”—R of Rs
“The book is an authoritative and constructive study of an important question; and its essential merit lies in the fact that it is based on experience. The general aspects of the question, however, are not neglected and the bibliography and references show that the subject has been studied as a whole.” G: M. Janes
“The subject is covered very fully and is presented in a popular style. Will be valuable to labor managers, students of economics, and progressive business executives.”
“Of interest to all students of practical economic questions.”
“A workmanlike book ... that fills a gap in economic literature.”
“It is neither novel nor exciting. It is a sober and well-balanced study of the way in which the sale of labor in the employment market is organized. If Mr Lescohier’s book has a fault, it is his inclination to regard the general background of the present industrial system as permanent. But as a survey of machinery Mr Lescohier’s book is of real value.” H. J. Laski
“In this volume Professor Lescohier has rendered a singularly opportune public service. It is enormously important to have available at this time such a clear discussion of the nature of the labor market and of the significance for the country of the sundry labor and immigration policies proposed.”
LESLIE, NOEL. Three plays: Waste; The war fly; For king and country. *$1.50 Four seas co. 822
There is tragedy in all of these realistic one-act plays. In Waste we have a dying consumptive girl whose last hours see a grief and poverty-stricken mother, a drunken father, and her lover turning from her to her younger sister. In the War-fly two strangers meet in a hotel restaurant and the one entertains the other with a gruesome fancy about flies as the devil’s emmisaries. In For King and country an aged village couple have one son returned from the war blind and while they are discussing the future of the other son and his war bride this other is brought home mad.
“Each and all of his three plays reveal him as a playwright with ideas, and as one whose own acting has enabled him to see dramatic values and to cause them to live in plays of his own. There is the reality of life in them as well as a feeling for the theatre that makes them actable. They hit the centre of the target.” A. A. W.
“Of Mr Noel’s three one-act plays the second, The war-fly, is quite dark in drift and meaning and so one suspects that neither matters greatly. His first and third plays, on the contrary, Waste and For king and country, are drenched with significance because they strain after no symbolism and are philosophical because they are true.”
“The three plays contained in Noel Leslie’s book are rather exasperating. In each one of them the author handles an excellent theme, makes fair headway with it and then does not quite realize the possibilities of his plots.”
“The plays are set with an actor’s solicitude, and each begins with a promise which is overcast by partial disappointment.”
“They really are workmanlike in structure, are well written, and display some grasp of character and ability to devise dramatic situations. In ‘The war fly,’ the author shows that he can devise a tragic fantasy of some original power.”
LEVEL, MAURICE. Tales of mystery and horror. il *$2 (3½c) McBride
These stories are translated from the French by Alys Eyre Macklin. Henry B. Irving provides an introduction in which he says: “Reminding one of Edgar Allan Poe more than any other, M. Level employs the method of O. Henry in the service of the horrible.” The stories, which are all brief—have the titles: The debt collector; The kennel; Who? Illusion; In the light of the red lamp; A mistake; Extenuating circumstances; The confession; The test; Poussette; The father; For nothing; In the wheat; The beggar; Under chloroform; The man who lay asleep; Fascination; The bastard; That scoundrel Miron; The taint; The kiss; A maniac; The 10.50 express; Blue eyes; The empty house; The last kiss.
“He has Poe’s predilection for supernatural and gruesome themes, something of de Maupassant’s technique of compression, a flair for the ‘irony of fate’ formula, which was so characteristic of O. Henry’s plot, and a kinship with Burke’s nostalgie de la boue. But there the likeness ends, he has none of the qualities mentioned in a degree sufficient to raise him to the level of the men he suggests.”
“In spite of their subject-matter, the stories neither shock me morally, chill my blood with their horror, nor affect me with their pathos. A skillful machinist, not an artist, seems to have been at work.” E. L. Pearson
LEVERAGE, HENRY. Shepherd of the sea. il *$1.75 (2½c) Doubleday
This is a story of the icy North, of ice-floes, of shipwreck, of starvation and mutiny at a whaling station, of an overland trip in a dog-sled, deprivation and hunger and narrow escape from freezing. A missionary sea-captain who is out to fight the whiskey traffic with the Eskimos and to carry the word of God to them, picks up Buck Traherne when his motor-boat had capsized in the Strait. Traherne is just out of college at Seattle and a tenderfoot. The life on ship-board puts strength into him and he becomes, with the shepherd, the mainstay of the castaway crew on Herschel Island. Moona—half Eskimo and half Scotch—the shepherd’s ward, loves him and after the rescue has come, and the arctic flowers have once more lifted their heads, the charm she has knitted into Traherne’s muffler shows its potency.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Memories of ‘Captains courageous’ seem to filter through the beginnings of Mr Leverage’s tale. Nevertheless, the plot would pass very well by itself if the author had the style and strength to render it into a forcible and plausible narrative. Unfortunately, he has not.” G. M. H.
“The tale contains an abundance of adventure, and the author seems to know the country and the life whereof he writes, but the book is marred by a style so very jerky that it soon gets upon the reader’s nerves.”
LEVERAGE, HENRY. Where dead men walk. *$1.75 Moffat
“A story of the underworld, Mr Leverage’s new novel, ‘Where dead men walk,’ recounts the adventures of one Vilos Holbrook. He had lived a lazy, comfortable life until his uncle, Colonel Bishop, who had control of the modest fortune left him by his father, was swindled out of it while himself endeavoring to swindle a supposedly dying man. Only a few hours before he learned of the loss of his fortune, curiosity had induced him to attend the disreputable ‘Three students’ ball,’ where he had seen Gypsy Cragen dance, and later talked with her. When he presently discovered that she had been one of the gang of swindlers who had gotten the better of his uncle, he protected her, and later joined the little organization of thieves to which the Gypsy and her father, formerly a noted safeblower, belonged. This he preferred to earning an honest living as an electrical engineer. Also he took first to whisky, and then, under the Gypsy’s tutelage, to opium, which he found at the end of that path over the roof described as the one ‘where dead men walk.’”—N Y Times
“Stories of the underworld invariably possess a certain fascination. Mr Leverage has written a fair sample of this type of novel.”
“The story is entertaining in its way and contains one really clever situation. But the style is unpleasantly staccato, and the construction leaves a good deal to be desired.”
LEVERHULME, WILLIAM HESKETH LEVER, 1st baron. Six-hour shift and industrial efficiency. *$3.50 (4c) Holt 331
The book is the American edition of the author’s “Six-hour day,” abridged and rearranged by Frank Tannenbaum, with an introduction by Henry R. Seager. Lord Leverhulme’s remedies for the defects of modern industry are based on actual experience and are summed up in the word co-partnership. He looks upon the employer as the senior partner in an industry and the employees as the junior partners, with the confidence that under such wisely planned leadership complete cooperation will gradually result. Contents: The problem of industrial efficiency; The six-hour shift; Harmonizing capital and labor; Co-partnership; Co-partnership and business management; Co-partnership and efficiency; Co-operative aspect of business; Health and housing; Shop committees and shop efficiency; Industrial administration; The workers’ interest in productivity; Principles of reconstruction; Socialism, or equality vs. equity. There is an index.
LEVINE, ISAAC DON. Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar. $3 Stokes 327
These letters, “copied from government archives in Moscow, unpublished before 1920,” are “the private letters from the Kaiser to the Czar found in a chest after the Czar’s execution and now in possession of the Soviet government.” In his introduction the author reprints comments on the letters from various English papers and from Professor Walter Goetz. As the letters were written in English they are printed as written. Four of the letters are given in facsimile.
Reviewed by A. C. Freeman
“While not as important as the telegrams which were published in 1917, these letters from the Kaiser to the Czar are extremely interesting as historical documents completing the picture. They reveal the author far better than any biographer could reveal him.” Herman Bernstein
“They are only half satisfactory as correspondence because there are no letters of reply from the Czar to the Kaiser. Regrettably incomplete as the present volume is, no book, we think, could present a greater revelation of the Kaiser’s character. Such a book should have had an index.”
“Mr Grant’s excellent introduction explains everything that needs explanation, and ample footnotes clear up the personal and other allusions which might perplex readers who are not close students of foreign politics.”
LEVINGER, MRS ELMA EHRLICH.[2] New land. $1.25 Bloch
“This little collection of stories written for children, of ‘Jews who had a part in the making of our country,’ belongs in part to historical biography with a large fictional element and in part to pure fiction with a historical setting.”—Survey
“The particular ideal of the author of ‘The new land’ to be sure, is not Christian but patriotic virtue, but her method of approach is sadly reminiscent of the Sunday school library of old time. Nevertheless the tales are all carefully and enthusiastically told and often rise to intrinsic human interest.” C. K. S.
“The stories are well written; they have a collective ‘moral,’ of course, but this does not obtrude itself, nor is it narrowly nationalistic.” B. L.
LEVISON, ERIC.[2] Hidden eyes. *$1.75 Bobbs
“Mysterious bank robberies at Jacksonville, Fla., furnish the plot of ‘Hidden eyes.’ The most complicated locks and burglar-proof bank vaults are opened without delay by a most adroit and elusive thief. Robbery after robbery occurs and the detective force is well-nigh demoralized. The detective chief, however, has a latent suspicion of a young chemist named Thornton, who is an expert in steel and safe locks. Thornton is taken in the very act of a midnight foray. But this is far from clearing the mystery. That duty is accomplished by a local doctor who dabbles in psychoanalysis and auto-suggestion.”—Springf’d Republican
“The dénouement is quite unexpected and furnishes the biggest thrill of all.”
LEVY, S. I.[2] Modern explosives. il $1 (3½c) Pitman 662.2
The contents of this volume of Pitman’s common commodities and industries are: Modern explosives and their raw materials; The chemistry of explosives manufacture; The acids section of an explosives factory; The manufacture of propellant explosives; Preparation of the high explosives; Explosives in war and peace; Chemistry and national welfare. Index and illustrations.
“Although avoiding technical details, the author has given a reasonable and well-balanced treatment of his subject in the space at his disposal. One or two slips may be noted. The final chapter, on ‘Chemistry and national welfare,’ although not directly connected with the subject, is very apposite at the present time.”
LEWER, H. WILLIAM. China collector; a guide to the porcelain of the English factories. (Collector’s ser.) il *$2.50 (4½c) Dodd 738
“This book has been written to enable the enthusiastic collector of china, even after he has passed through his apprenticeship, and acquired a certain amount of experience, to form a correct judgment of that branch of ceramics embraced under the designation of old English porcelain.” (Foreword) The book has a prefatory note by Frank Stevens explaining the illustrations of which there are thirty-two and the marks. The distinctive features of each factory are treated under the titles of history, paste, glaze, decoration, production, characteristics, noted artists, chronology, and marks. The factories discussed are: Bow; Bristol; Caughley; Chelsea; Chelsea-Derby; Coalport; Derby; Longton Hall; Lowestoft: Nautgarw; New Hall; Pinxton; Plymouth; Rockingham; Spode; Swansea; Worcester. There is a chronograph, a bibliography, a tabular index of factories, an index of names and a general index.
LEWIS, SINCLAIR. Main street. *$2 (1c) Harcourt
In telling the story of Main street, Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, the author has tried to tell the story of all America. His Main street “is the continuation of Main streets everywhere.” It is a story of dull mediocrity, complacent and satisfied with itself. Carol Milford, one year out of college, marries Dr Will Kennicott and goes with him to his home town, Gopher Prairie, in the wheat belt. Carol hates Main street at sight and in the six or eight years of her life that are chronicled does not hate it less, altho in the end she comes to see it with larger eyes and to endure it. One after the other she attempts reform measures, including a little theater venture, but her efforts meet defeat. She has her fling of defiance, and spends one of the war years in Washington, but comes back again, still rebellious. “I may not have fought the good fight,” says Carol, “but I have kept the faith.”
“One of the few really good American novels of today.”
“The book is too long, rather tedious. But it has a humanity, a popular note which will appeal to thousands.” S. M. R.
“The total impression one derives is that neither Jane Austen nor George Eliot depicted the provincial England of the past with more vividness than that with which Mr Lewis portrays the present-day American small town.” S. A. Coblentz
“He knows the American small town for what it is, history in that respect being the supreme achievement in American fiction. But when he creates a protest against it, an attack upon its vicious existence, through the symbol of Carol Kennicott he comes nearer to the function of a treatise than the process of art. Kennicott is masterly drawn.” W: S. Braithwaite
“The atmosphere of the sordid smug little burg is well done.”
“At times, Mr Lewis makes one feel that he has treated his people as mere incidents in an environment, that he has pictured them, not without malice, like Dickensian gargoyles. But there are scenes in his book as sensitively felt as some in Mr Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Winesburg, Ohio.’ These exceptional passages of his book are an earnest of the restraint and mastery which one will have the right to expect of his later work.” H. J. Seligmann
“His dialogue, which he uses very freely, is brilliant. The exactness of this dialogue is a literary achievement of a very high order. Mr Lewis has given literary permanence to the speech of his time and section. But the dialogue in ‘Main street’ is anything but literature in the sense of Verlaine; it is living talk. ‘Main street’ would add to the power and distinction of the contemporary literature of any country.”
“‘Main street’ is pioneer work. Some formulae it does help to perpetuate. Some garishness and crudity it does unpleasantly employ in its anxiety to be effective and pat. But while the novelistic hen does not necessarily lay better if surrounded by strong artificial light, the light in ‘Main street’ is on the whole natural, honest and oh so amazingly illuminating.” F. H.
“‘Main street’ is a book to possess and treasure. What the critics have overlooked is just this: that Carol’s idealism was at least as superficial and worthless as the faults of Main street. Carol is more than a blind would-be leader of the blind; she is a butterfly aspirant for the leadership of the apsychosaurus.” Clement Wood
“Dealing with material that is rarely subtle, Mr Lewis can be subtle enough himself. Besides his gift for character and situation, he has also a knack at satire and caustic epigram, with so enormous an acquaintance with the foibles and folklore of the Middle West that he has literally set a new standard for novels dealing with the section.” Carl Van Doren
“A remarkable book. A novel, yes, but so unusual as not to fall easily into a class. There is practically no plot, yet the book is absorbing. It is so much like life itself, so extraordinarily real. These people are actual folk, and there was never better dialogue written than their revealing talk.”
“Gopher Prairie is untypical in human sympathy, in generous instincts, in kindness of heart. Its people are not merely heavy in mind, ludicrously dead to art and literature and world movements; they are selfish, grasping, slanderloving, ignoble. Carol herself is a shallow sort of reformer. This is the strongest criticism to be made on ‘Main street.’” R. D. Townsend
Reviewed by M. A. Hopkins
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“It is full of the realism of fact, colored by rather laborious and overclever satire. But it has no sustained action, whether as realism or as satire. It is a bulky collection of scenes, types, caricatures, humorous episodes, and facetious turns of phrase; a mine of comedy from which the ore has not been lifted.” H. W. Boynton
“Mr Lewis has fashioned one of the year’s most notable volumes of fiction.”
“He is particularly adept in reproducing the vernacular. Whether the picture as a whole and his judgments on it are equally true may be a matter for disagreement. But as a sincere attempt to deal honestly with middle-western life the novel is noteworthy.”
LEWISOHN, LUDWIG, ed. Modern book of criticisms; ed. with an introd. (Modern lib. of the world’s best books) *85c Boni & Liveright 801
“An anthology of passages (of about six pages or less each in length) from modern authors dealing with the principles of literature, art, and criticism, divided into four parts according to the nations represented by the authors drawn upon—for France, Anatole France, Lemaître, Remy de Gourmont; for Germany, Hebbel, Dilthey, Volkelt, R. M. Meyer, Hofmannsthal, Mueller-Freienfels, Alfred Kerr; for England, George Moore, G. B. Shaw, Arthur Symons, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, W. L. George, T. MacDonagh, J. C. Powys; for America, Huneker, Spingarn, Mencken, Lewisohn, F. Hackett, Van Wyck Brooks, and Randolph Bourne.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Lewisohn’s group of critics are restless impressionists, almost destitute of doctrine.” S. P. Sherman
“Connoisseurs of critical personality as such will miss Mr More and Mr Sherman in this volume, inasmuch as they are men of a particularly vivid and dramatic force. The critics whom Mr Lewisohn does put in his collection speak for the most part superbly.” C. and M. V. D.
“He has done his task in commendable fashion.” H. S. Gorman
“A book which begins with selections from Anatole France and Jules Lemaitre is bound to be useful, for the critical writings of these men are less accessible than one could wish. Furthermore, Mr Lewisohn has made a number of translations of his own from German writers. It is this foreign background which gives the book its chief value.”
LEYDS, WILLEM JOHANNES. Transvaal surrounded. *$8 Dutton 968
“In continuation of this author’s monumental work on the annexation of the Transvaal, this volume was completed and prepared for publication in June, 1914, just previous to the opening of the great world war. At that critical time its publication did not seem prudent and its appearance was delayed. In the preceding volume the relations of the Boers and the British government were reviewed from the first settlements in South Africa to the London convention of 1884.... With the events which followed this volume is concerned and especially with the British policy, which was systematically followed by each succeeding cabinet, of gradually surrounding this struggling republic by a barrier of British territory, which effectually deprived it of all opportunity of outward expansion. An appendix reproduces a large number of original documents of great value to the student of this period, who desires to make a close and exhaustive study of this really little understood feature in English-African history.”—Boston Transcript
“Dr Leyds is far too sweeping in his charges, due in large measure to his hatred of everything British and to his inexperience of native affairs. The book is one to be read and studied by all who desire to see both sides of a bad patch in our colonial history.”
L’HOPITAL, WINEFRIDE DE. Westminster cathedral and its architect; with an introd. by W. R. Lethaby. 2v il *$12 (5c) Dodd 726
These volumes are a memorial to a great architect by his daughter. Volume 1 is devoted to the building of the cathedral and volume 2 to the making of the architect. Together the books contain 160 illustrations and numerous architectural plans. Partial contents of volume 1: The laying of the foundation-stone; Birth of the cathedral idea; The choosing of the architect and the style, 1892–1894; The plan; The structure—building progress—materials—constructional problems; Description and details of exterior; Description and details of interior; The adaptation and development of Byzantine architecture as exemplified in the cathedral; The mosaics; Appendices. Volume 2 contains the architect’s life history and the story of his architectural training and career and an index.
“Though her literary style is frequently clumsy and never particularly good, she had the necessary facts at her disposal and upon the whole has used them well. A more skilled biographer would have given us more of Bentley.”
“On the technical and intellectual side, the work might have been composed by an architect having no relation to Bentley, and this it is which gives a special attraction to these 700 pages. There is but one trace of feeling that might perhaps be deprecated: a certain sensitiveness lest, in arranging for the interior completion of the cathedral, the present or future authorities may be lacking in loyalty to the ideals of the architect.”
“The fact that so large and so admirable a book on a modern architect has appeared in this country is a matter for congratulation to the author, the publishers, and the architectural profession. Undoubtedly it was needed. One can justifiably criticize the arrangement, for it leads to a certain amount of repetition.”
“The account of the cathedral in this book is very full and interesting, and illustrated with plans both final and preliminary.”
LINCOLN, ELLIOTT CURTIS. Rhymes of a homesteader. il *$1.50 Houghton 811
Many of these poems are in dialect, among them The varmint, Angela, An evening with Browning, The phonograph, The game of games and The old-timer remarks. Others, such as The sunflower road, Montana night, Hills, Wheel tracks, Wild geese, and A song of the wire fence, are descriptive of the wild beauty of the northwest country. Some of the poems have appeared in Contemporary Verse, Adventure, Overland and Sunset.
“Lack the poetic beauty of Piper on the same subject, but will have many readers.”
“Elliott C. Lincoln deals with two types of verse, descriptive and dialect-narrative, with rather more discrimination than Robert Service, but by no means as much vigor. The descriptive verse is melodious, if often conventional.”
“The sociologist often can learn more about America and the American people from this homespun verse without literary distinction than from the smooth rhymes that flow in and around the poetry reviews. Eugene Field was the outstanding master of the homelier craft. A successor of his, perhaps superior in wealth and charm of diction, more direct, more sensitive, is Elliott C. Lincoln.”
LINCOLN, JOSEPH CROSBY (JOE LINCOLN, pseud.). Portygee. il *$2 (2c) Appleton
Portygee is the old Cape Cod term for foreigner expressive of both contempt and suspicion. It is applied with all its hidden meaning to Albert Miguel Carlos Speranza, when he comes to live with his grandparents, old sea captain Zelotes Snow and his wife, after the death of his father, a Spanish opera singer. The latter had eloped with the captain’s only daughter, who had died unforgiven by the old man. Albert, aged seventeen, fresh from a fashionable New York school, has much to live down and to live up to in South Harniss: his inclination to write poetry and his dislike for business, in the first place; and his grandfather’s expectations of him in the second. Little by little and with struggles on both sides, that endear the two leading characters to the reader, both win out. Albert comes to occupy first place in the old man’s heart and is no longer a Portygee, while he gains his own ends, becomes an author, a war hero, and marries the best girl in town.
“The reader of ‘The Portygee’ will find within its pages a somewhat conventional story, but he will find also, as in everything Mr Lincoln has written, a sure understanding of the people of Cape Cod, and an entertaining chronicle of its life and scenes.”
“Another inimitable Cape Cod story.”
“He can tell a very good story, as he does in ‘The Portygee,’ his psychology, tho somewhat obvious, is true, but his thoroly ‘wholesome’ humor lacks the faintest alleviation of subtlety. Cape Cod deserves a better interpreter.”
“‘The Portygee’ is a pleasant, amusing little story, which Mr Lincoln’s admirers will no doubt greatly enjoy.”
“There is hearty fun in the book, and there is also sound philosophy and fine Americanism.”
“This book brings back the smell of the moors, the salt sea, and the thick encompassing fogs.” Katharine Oliver
“A pleasant tale, which will be enjoyed by all lovers of Lincoln.”
LINCOLN, NATALIE SUMNER. Red seal. il *$1.75 (3c) Appleton
A burglar forces his way into a fashionable Washington home, is caught and taken to court where the McIntyre twins, whose house he had entered, appear against him. His sudden death in the courtroom demands an inquest and an autopsy, which reveal the fact that Jimmie Turnbull, cashier of the Metropolis Trust Company, while masquerading as a burglar, was killed by poison. His engagement to Helen McIntyre complicates the situation. Harry Kent, lover of the twin sister Barbara, takes up the case. Missing securities and a mysterious envelope sealed with a red B further complicate matters. The characters all suspect one another and the reader suspects everyone in turn. Eventually Harry Kent solves the mystery, and the miserable shoulders of the clever forger take the guilt of all phases of the perplexing crime.
“There is nothing unusually clever in the structure of the story. By concealing essential facts, by raising a new question with every incident, and by answering none, the author puzzles rather than creates suspense. The story is indeed so confusing as to be in danger of being tiresome.” G. H. C.
“‘The red seal’ has the great merit of being really mysterious. The author has managed very cleverly in the way she contrives to conceal all clues that might lead one to discover the true culprit, holding them back until the very end. The tale moves swiftly and holds the reader’s interest.”
“As in so many cinema plots, everyone seems to be ready to believe anything about anybody, to act in the most compromising manner for apparently inadequate motives, and to prevaricate with voluble insincerity at all times and in all places. With such allies at her disposal, Miss Lincoln makes so formidable a defence of her mystery that only the most experienced reader will penetrate it before the time appointed for unveiling.”
LIND, WALLACE LUDWIG.[2] Internal-combustion engines. il $2.20 Ginn 621.43
The author has treated of internal combustion engines, their principles and application to automobile, aircraft, and marine purposes. “The endeavor has been to arrange and present the subject matter in such a manner as to bring it well within the comprehension of the average student. For more advanced students, who have a knowledge of thermodynamics, the writer has presented in Chapter III the theoretical considerations of the various cycles which are applicable to internal-combustion engines.” (Preface) There are 120 illustrations, a trouble chart and an index.
“For its purpose the book is very well suited: the theoretical work is sufficiently elementary, and the sections describing practice, although apparently slight, are just such as young cadets can grasp and appreciate.”
LINDEN, HERMAN VANDER.[2] Belgium, the making of a nation; tr. by Sybil Jane. (Histories of the nations ser.) *$3.75 Oxford 949.3
“This volume is a translation of Professor H. vander Linden’s ‘Vue générale de l’histoire de Belgique’ with the addition of three chapters dealing with the history of the modern kingdom since 1831, written specially for this English edition. The original title tells us that the reader must not expect to find in this work more than a historical sketch. The writer makes no higher claim for it.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Monographs are valuable if their scope be limited, but any small volume covering centuries has the defects of its qualities. In this instance the reader might have gained had the author limited himself to a consideration of modern Belgium. The later chapters are richer in individuality and indicate what the author can do in character-sketches.”
“The best portions of this book are the numerous sections dealing with the social and economical conditions and progress of the Belgic provinces at various epochs of their chequered history. The strictly historical narrative does not deserve the same unqualified praise.”
LINDERMAN, FRANK BIRD. On a passing frontier. *$1.75 Scribner
“These glimpses of past or passing phases of life in Montana get a sure grip on the reader, in spite of their sombre quality. Bad men, bad language, and bad whisky figure prominently in the sketches, but most of the experiences ring true.” (Outlook) “His characters run the usual gamut of western tales, and each possesses a picturesque individuality, correctly shaded.” (Boston Transcript)
“These sketches of the Little Rockies will rank well in the front class of fiction.”
“The stuff of good literature, though not in any final form, appears in ‘On a passing frontier,’ short stories without too much art, but also without too much decoration, which bring the Little Rockies very near home.”
LINDSAY, MAUD MCKNIGHT. Bobby and the big road. il *$1.50 (9c) Lothrop
Bobby has always lived in the city but when he is five years old his father and mother take him to live in a little brown house by the side of a country road. The story tells of his little adventures while making friends with the birds and animals and flowers. He makes other friends too and goes to the circus and spends a happy Christmas. The story is suitable for children who have just learned to read.
“It is meant for little folks like Bobby, but the book has a charm for grown-up readers, too.”
LINDSAY, NICHOLAS VACHEL. Golden whales of California; and other rhymes in the American language. *$1.75 Macmillan 811
In addition to the title piece this volume contains poems on Bryan, John L. Sullivan and Roosevelt; also The Daniel jazz, Rameses II, Kalamazoo, My fathers came from Kentucky, The empire of China is crumbling down, and others.
“Mr Lindsay’s verse makes a blatantly self-conscious attempt to be primitive. His is a mannered striving to be ‘natural’—and the studio savagery of his method would doubtless alarm a genuinely primitive people, as it entertains a jaded coterie of the over-refined.” R. M. Weaver
“With this volume Mr Lindsay certainly regains all he seems to have lost in his previous collection, and he now settles permanently in the very forefront of the half a dozen contemporary poets whose fame will last beyond the generation in which they were born.” W. S. B.
“Two impulses dominate Lindsay’s latest volume; two tendencies that are almost opposed in mood and mechanics. Sometimes the Jerusalem theme is uppermost; sometimes the jazz orchestration drowns everything else. Frequently, in the more successful pieces, there is a racy, ragtime blend of both. But a half-ethical, half-aesthetic indecision, an inability to choose between what most delights Lindsay and what his hearers prefer is the outstanding effect—and defect—of his new collection.” L: Untermeyer
“There is an impression abroad that ‘The golden whales’ falls a little below ‘General William Booth,’ ‘The Congo,’ and ‘The Santa Fe trail.’ It does do that; yet it stands well up among Mr Lindsay’s better poems, which is to say, among the better poems of contemporary America.” M. V. D.
“In this volume it is poems like Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan and Kalamazoo and The golden whales and The comet of prophecy and My lady is compared to a young tree and The statue of old Andrew Jackson and the Roosevelt poems and the Alexander Campbell poems which show the increasing self-possession of a singer who really lives with wonder and abides with dreams. The fascination of Lindsay is that this wonder and these dreams are drawn from common American life.” F. H.
“‘The golden whales’ is a book thoroughly alive, thoroughly jolly and thoroughly fit for chanting in typical Vachelese. His idiom, as well as his whimsical exaggeration, roars on every page.” Clement Wood
“The book, taken by and large, might be a parody on Mr Lindsay, all the Mr Lindsays.... And yet one knows very well what has happened. The superstition has got him, the group-consciousness has sucked him down. Mr Lindsay has listened too readily to his kind public, his critical faculty, never strong, has been smoked and blurred by incense.” Amy Lowell
“In this writer there have always been two elements: the poet, and what I shall unceremoniously, but not disrespectfully, call the urchin.... The poet and the urchin lived apart: they could not find each other. They have found each other, in my judgment, in the ‘Golden whales,’ and their meeting is the signal for Mr Lindsay’s emergence into the upper air of song.” O. W. Firkins
“Many persons have become needlessly alarmed and excited over Mr Lindsay’s importance as a poet. He is original, very original, both in form and in substance, and he is exhilarating—if it be only the exhilaration induced by the jingling tambourine.... The new book shows Mr Lindsay performing at top speed—facile, self-confident, clever, sometimes brilliant, his viewpoints as healthy and entertaining as ever.”
“Mr Lindsay’s ‘The golden whales of California’ is a disappointment. In this volume, the exuberance of spirit seems artificial, a mannerism; we weary of what the poet calls the ‘jazz bird’s screech’ and ‘monkey-shines and didoes.’” E: B. Reed
LINDSEY, BENJAMIN BARR, and O’HIGGINS, HARVEY JERROLD. Doughboy’s religion, and other aspects of our day. *$1.25 (8c) Harper 940.478
In his introduction Harvey J. O’Higgins, giving an appreciation and brief survey of Judge Lindsey’s career, says that it is as an advocate of a moral alliance that he speaks in the book—“for although the actual writing of the book has been a work of collaboration, the message is his message and the spirit of its utterance is, as nearly as possible, his.” This is the message: “The Christian religion is not a religion of individual salvation and selfish virtue. It is a religion of love and self-sacrifice and humility.” It is a religion of doing rather than of church-going and the American junker will have to accept it if the lessons of the war are to be fruitful ones. The four essays of the book are: The doughboy’s religion; The junker faith; Horses’ rights for women; A league of understanding.
“There has been so much nonsense about the religion of the American soldier written and spoken by members of the Y. M. C. A. that it is refreshing to hear the subject treated intelligently by a real man. It is not strange that the famous judge of the juvenile court should be the man to understand the doughboy as others have failed to understand him.” G. H. C.
“The publication, at this date, seems to be an afterthought. However, the book will have some interest, since it presents the thoughts of a man so well-known as Judge Lindsey.”
“These essays are thought-provoking and written with Judge Lindsey’s usual fiery sincerity.”
“Judge Lindsey spares no one in his discussion and is judicious in his summary of the case.”
LIPPMANN, WALTER. Liberty and the news. *$1 (7c) Harcourt 323
Two essays, on What modern liberty means and Liberty and the news, are here reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, prefaced by a brief introductory essay on Journalism and the higher law. In the latter the author says, “Everywhere today men are conscious that somehow they must deal with questions more intricate than any that church or school had prepared them to understand. Increasingly they know that they cannot understand them if the facts are not quickly and steadily available. Increasingly they are baffled because the facts are not available; and they are wondering whether government by consent can survive in a time when the manufacture of consent is an unregulated private enterprise. For in an exact sense the present crisis of western democracy is a crisis in journalism.” The aim of the two main essays is “to describe the character of the problem, and to indicate headings under which it may be found useful to look for remedies.”
“Mr Lippmann’s contribution is neither a panegyric nor a tirade. He has approached a perplexing problem in dispassionate, sane and judicial fashion and with a beneficent purpose.” H: L. West
Reviewed by H. J. Laski
“Mr Walter Lippmann is one of the editors of the New Republic, and consequently may be presumed to know all about liberty; but he has never been a newspaper man and, while he knows a good deal about news, most of what he knows is not true.”
“The programme which the author proffers is a worthy one. Would that it could be attained! Progress toward its attainment will, however, require considerable soul-searching and inner reformation on the part of responsible persons connected with the handling of the news; and this is likely to require rather large drafts on the bank of time.” W. J. Ghent
“However much one may disagree with some of Mr Lippmann’s statements and views, there is no doubt that he renders a public service by directing his critical mind to the press and its influence. It is courageous thinking of this kind that will help the public to become more exacting in its demand on the press.”
“A calm, impersonal and general survey.” J. G. McDonald
LISLE, CLIFTON. Diamond rock. il *$1.75 (2c) Harcourt
A boys’ story of the revolutionary war. The Quaker settlement in Chester county, Pennsylvania, had been very remote from the scene of war and had taken little interest in its progress, but with the battle of the Brandywine in the summer of 1777, it is brought close to them. On that very day Joe Lockhart, fishing along the creek, encounters an attractive stranger who teaches him how to catch trout with a worm. Later Joe and his chum, Amos Rambo, pick up a paper which shows the stranger to have been a spy. Joe carries the evidence to Washington’s headquarters and reports and is sent on a mission thru the British lines. He meets the stranger again and learns that he is a spy on the right side. Thereafter the two boys see something of all the stirring events that follow, including the Paoli massacre.
LITCHFIELD, PAUL WEEKS. Industrial republic. *$1 (8c) Houghton 331.1
The booklet is a study in industrial economics by the vice-president and factory manager of the Goodyear Tire and rubber company. Government and management, says the author, are synonymous terms, the one being applied to the political, the other to the industrial world and the war has focussed attention on the faults of both. After a brief outline of the evolution of capital and the wage system and its present antagonism the author points out the necessity of giving labor the control of the management of an industry while safe-guarding the interests of capital. In illustration he describes the Goodyear representation plan. Contents: Expansion of political democracy; The labor-capital opposition—genesis and growth; Present status of the labor-capital opposition; Clues to the solution; Rights involve duties; The industrial republic; Industrial citizenship; The Goodyear representation plan.
“The book should prove of real interest to social workers and to business men. It maintains a consistent point of view throughout and develops logically to its conclusion.” Alexander Fleisher
LITERARY digest history of the world war; comp. by Francis W. Halsey. 10v il with subscription to Literary digest *$12 Funk 940.3
“This work covers the titanic struggle as it was fought on land, by sea, in the air, on all fronts in all parts of the world, by the thirty nations involved in the conflict. The first six volumes deal chiefly with the outbreak of the war and its causes, and the long and bitter struggle on the western front, including America’s entrance and participation, and carrying the story down to the signing of the armistice, the occupation of the Rhine valley, and the meeting of the peace conference in Paris. The seventh is devoted to Russia’s share in the war, the revolution, the Brest-Litovsk treaty, and the rule of the Bolsheviki. In the eighth is to be found the story of the war in the Balkans, Turkey, and Palestine, while the ninth deals with Italy’s war effort and the story of the submarine warfare. The tenth contains the history of sea battles and of commerce raiding, an adequate description of the work of the Peace conference, sketches of fifty military and political leaders, a chronology that fills forty pages, and an index to the whole work. The volumes are all copiously illustrated.”—N Y Times
“The internal political events in the various countries are nearly altogether neglected, except of course the revolutions in Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. In this method of treatment there can be only a feeble attempt to evaluate the significance of the various factors entering into the huge conflict. The account lacks, too, as is natural, the simple direct style of Usher’s ‘Story of the great war.’ Nevertheless it is a comprehensive piece of work well done and extremely well suited to the clientele to whom it is directed.” G: F. Zook
Reviewed by W. C. Abbott
“Mr Halsey approached his task with a true perspective and justly saw and accurately described the part taken by each nation involved in its due relation to the whole conflict and the final victory.”
“The present work is certainly full of fine material and will itself be constantly and permanently valuable for reference and study.”
“In common justice to the author, we must give him praise for his skill in so reducing, condensing, and digesting the immense mass of material at his command as to produce a continuous and even narrative.”
LIVERMORE, GEORGE GRISWOLD.[2] Take it from Dad. il *$2 Macmillan 817
Letters from a father to his son in preparatory school, letters full of friendly advice and good counsel with a mixture of homely anecdote from the father’s experience. There are amusing illustrations by Bert Salg.
“A new kind of boys’ book—and a good kind, too.”
“It is not difficult to imagine that fathers with boys of eighteen will find Mr Soule an altogether enjoyable companion.”
LIVERMORE, THOMAS LEONARD. Days and events, 1860–1866. il *$6 (3c) Houghton 973.7
This posthumous book, published by the author’s family and recording Colonel Livermore’s experiences in the Civil war, was begun immediately after the conclusion of the war, while its events were still fresh in his mind. Henry M. Rogers in his introduction gives a brief sketch of the author’s life.
“Colonel Livermore has been known for a long time by his work on ‘Numbers and losses in the Civil war,’ which has been one of the most valuable contributions to our military history. The work now before us is of an entirely different character and reflects the ability of the author from a new and no less interesting angle.” Eben Swift
“The volume ought to take its place as a real ‘source book’ for commentators on the history of that conflict. There is much of entertainment in the narrative, which is frank to a degree and often vigorous, fresh, and significant in its criticisms.”
LIVINGSTON, ROBERT. Land of the great out-of-doors. il *$1.75 (9c) Houghton
When they are about five and six years old, Penrose and Penelope, known as Pen and Penny, are taken to the country to live on a farm. This little story tells of their daily life, beginning in the spring time and continuing to Christmas. In some of the chapters Pen tells of his doings, in others Penny gives her view of things. The colored pictures are by Maurice Day.
“The impersonator frequently forgets, in his desire to have the valuable information imparted, that he is under contract to use the speech of childhood. However, the stories will undoubtedly find favor with the little folk, and their atmosphere is fresh and wholesome.” M. H. B. Mussey
“It will prove excellent to read aloud, or to give to children who are just beginning to read for themselves.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
LOCK, H. O.[2] Conquerors of Palestine through forty centuries. *$3 Dutton 956.9
“The history begins with the ancient Egyptians, relates the campaigns and conquests of the Jews, the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, the picturesque warriors of the Crusades, the French, and then the British. The intervening history is briefly sketched, to make a connected narrative. The book has an introduction by Field Marshal Viscount Allenby, commander-in-chief of the British forces in Palestine.”—Springf’d Republican
“Major Lock has produced a readable sketch of a large subject. The map attached to the book is ingeniously contrived to illustrate the many periods of history on which Major Lock touches.”
LOCKE, GLADYS EDSON. Ronald o’ the moors. il *$1.75 (2½c) Four seas co.
This historical novel is staged on the Dartmoor bogs in the reign of George II. Dartmoor was a hot-bed of Jacobite sympathy, and Sir Roger Hetherington had been sent down from the court of St James to guard Penraven Castle, the center of Jacobite activity, and to capture wild Ronald o’ the moors, a highwayman and night rider who made Hanoverians his particular prey. Sir Roger was far from welcome at Penraven Castle, indeed he soon realized that he was in the midst of bitter enemies. What made the success of his undertaking even more doubtful, however, was the fact that he at once lost his heart to Lady Edris Penraven, the mistress of the castle he was sent to spy upon, and that Ronald seemed to be as elusive as the will o’ the wisps that flitted over the moor. Altogether Sir Roger’s plans did not work out just as he had shaped them, but the end of the story, altho it leaves him exiled in France, yet brings him happiness as well, since he shares Lady Edris’s fate.
“The book is about on a par with the average of its class, fiction of which the authors seem to be under the impression that vital interest is imparted by a liberal supply of oaths and expletives, and the use of archaic language whether appropriate to the period or otherwise.”
LOCKE, WILLIAM JOHN. House of Baltazar. *$1.90 (2c) Lane
The hero is a man of great intellectual power, dynamic physical energy and sudden quixotic impulses. After he has spent eighteen years of voluntary exile in China—self imposed because he fears to compromise the girl he loves—and two years of hermitlike seclusion on the moor with a fascinating and erudite young Chinese student, a German bomb from a zeppelin shocks him into a dazed knowledge of the European war. Wide awake, action hungry, he scorns his former achievements as a mathematical genius and brilliant Chinese scholar, plunges into political activities, gets “hitched on to” the war, and becomes the man of the hour. The old distasteful personal ties are broken through his wife’s death and the lapse of the years. New ones are forged and he learns that he has a fine son of whom he had not even dreamed. Life in London has become sweet and full and he desires no change. But once more the quixotic impulse asserts itself—a sacrifice becomes necessary for the sake of his officer son’s career, and he is off to China again.
“A typically interesting Locke story. The book ends rather weakly.”
“Mr Locke has written many stories better than ‘The house of Baltazar,’ but there are few of them in which his neglected opportunities were greater. The truth is that he, like many other novelists, is obsessed by the necessity of making the war and its far-reaching effects a part of his fiction.” E. F. E.
“But, after all, it is Baltazar himself who is the book, and he is always a joy.”
“A captious reader might complain that Mr Locke has tried to do too many things at once, that a single novel simply has not sufficient space to include the big issues of feminism, profiteering, labour unrest and the thousand and one elements of contemporary social upheaval. But Mr Locke’s readers are not inclined to be captious.” F. T. Cooper
“The writing is pleasant and workmanlike, and the way in which the elder woman of the story is led to reknit her broken romance is exceedingly well imagined.”
“Mr Locke has given us an ingenious and amusing story, but gratitude for this gift cannot prevent even an indolent reviewer from protesting mildly against the strain he has imposed on our credulity.”
“Baltazar is very likeable in his forceful domineering strength, and Marcelle is a charming foil to his powerful personality. The lighter element is supplied by the Chinaman.”
“Mr W. J. Locke goes on his way regardless of the limits between the probable and the improbable. John Baltazar stretches the credulity of the reader to the utmost from the moment that he enters on the scene.”
LOCKEY, JOSEPH BYRNE. Pan-Americanism: its beginnings. *$5 Macmillan 327
The author’s preface points out that Pan-Americanism has passed through three periods, the first, characterized by a tendency toward solidarity, the second, by an opposite tendency toward separation and distrust, the third marked by a revival of the earlier trend. This book is devoted to the first of these periods, extending to about 1830 and embracing the years of revolution and the formation of new states. The eleven chapters are devoted to: Meaning of Pan-Americanism; Formation of new states; Failure of monarchical plots; United States and Hispanic American independence; International complications; Hispanic America and the Monroe doctrine; Early projects of continental union; The Panama congress; British influence; Attitude of the United States; Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. There is a bibliography of nineteen pages, followed by an index. The work was completed as an “academic task” at Columbia university under the direction of Professor John Bassett Moore.
“A thorough and authoritative study.”
“With the substance of the book little fault can be found. It is timely and valuable. The arrangement and style are likely, however, to elicit some adverse criticism. The style abounds in colloquialisms, redundant words, and inexact expressions. But these slight imperfections do not seriously detract from or obscure the thought of an otherwise excellent work.” W: R. Manning
“Interesting and scholarly study.”
LOCKINGTON, W. J. Soul of Ireland; with an introd. by G. K. Chesterton. *$1.75 Macmillan 941.5
“The gist of this [book is] that ‘Ireland is a proof, that the whole world may see, of the joy of life and sanity of outlook that spring from the Catholic church, the church of the tabernacle’: aliter that ‘the Irishman fearlessly stands before the whole world and unhesitatingly proclaims that his greatest pride and his greatest glory is the heritage that was given him by St Patrick—our Holy Catholic faith.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Father Lockington employs a bombastic style unfortunately characteristic of a class of books about Ireland, books against which nearly all the younger Irish writers have revolted. It is surprising to find an author of Mr Chesterton’s literary standing writing an introduction to ‘The soul of Ireland’: readers who care for literature will be wise to go no further.” N. J. O’C.
“Long, sickly, sentimental rhapsody, in the rococo style.” Preserved Smith
“It is written in a lofty, almost poetic, style, and a deep religious fervor pervades it throughout.”
“Even those who stand outside the sacred circle for which he writes and who can not share the glowing devoutness of his symbolism must be moved by the enthusiastic tenderness with which this Jesuit priest idealizes the land of his ministry.” H. L. Stewart
LODGE, RUPERT CLENDON. Introduction to modern logic. $2 (1c) Perine bk. co., 1413 University av., S. E., Minneapolis, Minn. 160
An introductory text book prepared by an assistant professor of philosophy in the University of Minnesota. “By ‘modern’ logic is understood that body of logical theories and methods which is usually associated with the names of Lotze, Sigwart, Bradley, Bosanquet, Wundt, Erdmann and Dewey.... The traditional or Aristotelian logic, which has played so great a part in the past history of thought, is entirely omitted from consideration, as are also symbolic logic and the various attempts at inventing a logical calculus. For all such omissions, as well as for what is included, the sole justification is the nature of an introductory treatise.” (Preface) The book is in three parts: Judgment; Inference; and Scientific method. Each chapter is followed by references and exercises and there is an index to authorities referred to in the text as well as a general index.
“In this purpose to develop comprehensively the constructive theory of ‘modern logic,’ the author has admirably succeeded. The presentation marches. Compactness, explicitness, the constant use of illustration, and clarity in development are its outstanding features.” C. I. Lewis
LOEB, MRS SOPHIE IRENE (SIMON). Everyman’s child. il *$2 Century 362.7
The author is the president of the New York city Board of child welfare and has personally studied the child welfare work done in various European countries and in the United States. The book describes the urgency of state laws to protect the children of the poor and what has already been done in that direction through the Widow’s pension law. Among the contents are: The cry of the children; What is being accomplished; Homes instead of institutions for the children of Uncle Sam; Importance of home life to children; How children keep out of children’s court; How the other half dies; The unwanted child; Boarded-out children. There are illustrations and an appendix.
“Miss Loeb’s book is written with care and out of her manifold experience; but it is written also in enthusiasm. The book represents the most progressive thoughts on these problems and is worthy of a careful reading.”
LOFTING, HUGH. Story of Dr Dolittle; being the history of his peculiar life at home and astonishing adventures in foreign parts. il *$2.25 Stokes
A very jolly nonsense story. Dr Dolittle loves animals and fills his house with queer pets, to the dismay of many of his patients. His sister warns him that if he keeps on none of the best people will have him for a doctor. But he loves animals better than he does the best people and the result is that his practice all falls off. So he gives up being a people’s doctor to become an animal doctor. He learns their language, Polynesia his parrot acting as his teacher. When the opportunity comes to go to Africa to cure the monkeys of a strange disease he is ready for it, and there he has most curious and interesting adventures. The illustrations are by the author.
“The most delightful nonsense story of the year.” A. C. Moore
“An invigorating, fascinating tale, its quaintness enhanced by the droll illustrations.”
“It is a pleasant surprise to open a volume whose illustrations appeal because of their inherent nonsense, and to find the author, who is as well the illustrator, maintaining a delightful sense of proportion in his imagination.”
“This is the best ‘animal’ story we remember to have come across in a long time, imbued with a real love and understanding of animals and with a humor which is fresh and quaint.”
“Is as fascinating as it is queer.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
LOMAX, JOHN AVERY, comp. Songs of the cattle trail and cow camp; with a foreword by William Lyon Phelps. *$1.75 Macmillan 811.08
“Those who enjoyed the rough but hearty lyrics in ‘Cowboy songs, and other frontier ballads’ will wish to read these later collections by the same author, now working under a Harvard fellowship. The later volume has no music scores, and many of the poems can definitely be assigned to authors, among them, Charles Badger Clark, jr. and Herbert H. Knibbs.”—Booklist
“Some of these pieces are clearly as spurious as are the seventeenth century lyrics of Strephon and Colin. Others are more true to life.”
“Whatever may be the literary poverty of the verse in Mr Lomax’s book, the poems are true to type. Many of the ‘Songs of the cattle trail’ are worth little, perhaps, in themselves. Collected, they form both a picture and a plea: a picture of a vitally individual and highly-colored life that is rapidly fading into the monotone of a mechanical civilization; a plea for a deeper, finer art-interpretation of that life.” Natalie Curtis
“It is a pleasure to read verse that is unpretentiously natural, in which something happens, and in which nature is allowed to seem as robust and hearty as she really is. Professor Lomax has done well by his country in presenting these rough songs of adventure in the West.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“The volume is essentially a book of the soil, truly interpretative of an element of our national life which has practically faded away.”
“This new collection of songs written by and for cowboys is more interpretive of the American spirit than the third-rate material from Greenwich village with which most of our literary periodicals fill their pages. Somewhat surprising, perhaps, to those whose idea of its life is taken from films and fiction, is the chastity of thought and diction in this folk-literature of the Far West. Its realism, and often its humor, is altogether delightful.” B. L.
LOMBARDI, CYNTHIA. Cry of youth. *$2 (1½c) Appleton
Margaret Randolph, an American girl alone in Rome, meets Fra Felice Estori, a young Franciscan monk. He is as beautiful as a youthful god and quite ignorant of the ways of the world, for almost all his life has been spent within monastery walls. Margaret is also a devout Catholic and she knows their meetings are unwise but the two are drawn irresistibly together until both are faced with the fact of their love and the necessity for separation. The young monk, altho he has not taken his final vows, is to be sent to South America on a mission. With breaking hearts they part. But an artist friend who takes an interest in the two tricks them into coming to his lonely mountain castle and leaves them there alone. The outcome is that they resolve never to part and Fra Felice becomes lost to the world. Then follows the strange story of their lonely life, the birth and death of their child, separation, misunderstanding and final reunion, with the ancient title of Prince Estori restored to its rightful owner.
LONDON, JACK.[2] Brown Wolf, and other Jack London stories; as chosen by Franklin K. Mathiews. il *$1.75 (2c) Macmillan
These stories have been collected into one volume by the chief scout librarian of the Boy scouts of America, in the hope that they will serve to exercise both the boy’s mind and conscience by teaching him to see and feel life and nature as Jack London saw and felt it, and thereby to develop the emotional muscles of the spirit that open up new windows to the imagination and add some line or color to life’s ideals. The stories are: Brown Wolf; That spot; Trust; All gold canyon; The story of Keesh; Nam-Bok the unveracious; Yellow handkerchief; Make westing; The heathen; The hobo and the fairy; “Just meat”; A nose for the king.
LONDON, JACK.[2] Hearts of three. *$2.50 Macmillan
“A posthumous story by Jack London, in which descendants of the famous pirate, Sir Henry Morgan, engage in a rival hunt for his treasure buried somewhere in the South Sea islands.” (Outlook) “‘Hearts of three’ is not an original work; it is the translation of a scenario by Mr Charles Goddard, who, as Jack London himself informs us was responsible for ‘The perils of Pauline,’ ‘The exploits of Elaine,’ and similar alliterative masterpieces. The result of this collaboration, as might be supposed, is a novel with a wealth of action, piled up without discrimination.” (Freeman)
“It has occasional moments of good writing when Jack London, the novelist, snatches the pen away—impatiently and not without considerable vexation, one likes to imagine—from the scenario-writer.” L. B.
“The idea of the tale is bold and its execution is spirited.”
LONES, THOMAS EAST. Zinc and its alloys. (Pitman’s common commodities and industries) il $1 Pitman 669.5
The preface points out important changes in the zinc industry due to the war. The chapters then take up: Zinc: its history, properties, and uses; Zinc ores and other sources of zinc; Dressing zinc ores; Calcining and roasting zinc ores; Zinc smelting; Hydrometallurgical processes; Alloys of zinc. The book is illustrated with twenty-three figures and is indexed.
“The book possesses the virtues of being up to date and reasonable in price.”
“An excellent example of what such books ought to be. It is a pity that the author did not keep clear altogether of chemical equations, which he might easily have done in a purely popular treatise, as he has been somewhat unfortunate in their use. In a future edition the author might with advantage devote a little space to the galvanising of iron.”
LONG, WILLIAM JOSEPH. Wood-folk comedies; the play of wild-animal life on a natural stage. il *$3 (4c) Harper 590.4
It is the author’s contention that animal life is from beginning to end a gladsome comedy; that there is absolutely no such thing as a struggle for existence in nature; that the woods when they are white with snow are quite as cheery as the woods of spring or summer; and that the wood-folk are invincibly cheerful. On this basis the tales are written and great is the fun thereof. Contents: Morning on Moosehead; The birds’ table; Fox comedy; Players in sable; Wolves and wolf tales; Ears for hearing; Health and a day; Night life of the wilderness; Stories from the trail; Two ends of a bear story; When beaver meets otter; A night bewitched; The trail of the loup-garou; From a beaver lodge; Comedians all. There are eight illustrations in color.
“Very readable.”
“Mr Long is least satisfying when he is forcing the note of sentimental optimism (‘animal life is from beginning to end a gladsome comedy’), and best worth reading when he tells a plain tale of animals’ habits or adventures in the landscapes which he describes so well.”
LONGSTRETH, THOMAS MORRIS. Mac of Placid. *$1.90 (1½c) Century
Mr Longstreth, who has written a book on the Adirondacks, as well as one on the Catskills, here makes his appearance as a novelist. His hero, Anson MacIntyre, is born in the “wolf winter” of 1869 and he tells his own story up thru the eighties. His beginnings are not promising, but two things unite to make a man of him, his deep love for his native woods and his love for Hallie Brewster. These two forces and one other, his friendship with R. L. S. For no less person than Stevenson appears as a character in the story. The two skate together on Saranac lake and become intimate companions. Mac’s romantic devotion to Hallie and his rivalry with Ed Touch appeal to the fiction writer’s imagination and he takes a hand in the wooing. Other real people, the Bakers and Dr Trudeau, are mentioned in the story.
“Lovers of Stevenson, the man, must add ‘Mac of Placid’ to the volumes of Stevensonia which have been accumulating so rapidly in the past decade.... The fundamental difficulty with Mr Longstreth’s book is that his characters, no matter how real to him, even though they may be actually alive, often fail to live.”
Reviewed by Joseph Mosher
“The portrayal of Stevenson is vivid. Not the least interesting detail of the work is the colorful description of the Adirondack country and the rigorous joys of a winter there.”
LOONEY, J. THOMAS. “Shakespeare” identified. *$5 Stokes 822.3
A book written to prove that the plays of Shakespeare were written by Edward de Vere, seventeenth earl of Oxford. The author states that his interest in the problem was awakened after years of study of “The merchant of Venice,” thru which he gained “a peculiar sense of intimacy with the mind and disposition of its author.” Convinced that this author had nothing in common with William Shakespeare of Stratford he set about finding the contemporary who best met the requirements. His search led him to Edward de Vere. The one play which does not fit into his scheme is “The tempest.” The book has a frontispiece portrait and an index.
“The effort of Mr Looney to solve this conflict is a little unfortunate in some respects, though most interesting in many others. A schoolmaster by profession, he is inclined to speak like one. Mr Looney thinks he has proved his theory. Of course, he has not. But he has opened most promising vistas, and it is to be hoped that his leads will be followed up.” Edwin Björkman
“Mr Looney’s dominant fault is that his work is wholly inferential. However much we may be convinced that De Vere, had he been a genius, might have written such plays as Shakespeare’s, there is no tangible fact to connect them with him.” Joseph Krutch
“The argument connecting Oxford with the Shakespearean plays has the abundance of strained literary and personal analogies, and the amazing absence of common sense which characterize most Baconian endeavors.” J: Corbin
“The volume appears to have all the paraphernalia of scholarship but little of its critical spirit.”
“That we cannot agree with his conclusions we attribute partly to some grave defects which seem to us to exist in his reasoning, and partly to some general considerations which he appears to have overlooked.”
“Mr Looney’s honesty enables us to see, a little more clearly than was evident from the essays of previous adventurers of the same kind, how this zeal for attributing the plays and poems of Shakespeare to some titled contemporary originates and grows.... Unencumbered by any inconvenient knowledge at first hand of what he is writing about, Mr Looney proceeds to build up his case very easily. Almost any man’s life could be illustrated from Shakespeare’s plays, and Mr Looney makes them illustrate the life of the Earl of Oxford.”
LORD, ARTHUR. Plymouth and the Pilgrims. *$1.50 Houghton 974.4
This book comprises the Colver lectures for 1920 given at Brown university. The three lectures are entitled: Plymouth before the Pilgrims; The Pilgrims before Plymouth, and Plymouth and the Pilgrims. The first discusses “some of the political, geographical, and legal conditions which determined the settlement at Plymouth”; the second considers “some of the economic, social, and religious influences which directed and shaped the Pilgrim migration from England and Holland to the New World.” The third lecture takes up those incidents of special interest in Pilgrim history which may be useful in considering present problems and may “perhaps serve to illustrate in what particulars the lives and examples of the Pilgrims have contributed in shaping the American policy.” Mr Lord is president of the Pilgrim society and chairman of the Pilgrim tercentenary commission.
“Mr Lord throughout displays the depth of his legal attainments.” E. J. C.
“Altogether, the book moves swiftly and is well documented. Perhaps, however, his sympathy with the movement inclines him to an overestimate of the Pilgrim attitude toward freedom of worship.”
“An outline of the essential facts the American citizen must know if he is to celebrate intelligently the landing of the Mayflower.”
LORD, KATHARINE. Little playbook. *$1.50 Duffield 812
The plays have frequently been produced by the author and others and are intended for the needs of schools, clubs, settlements and playgrounds. Pantomime and dancing play a large part in them and music is desirable, but they do not require elaborate staging or costumes. In the introduction the author gives advice and suggestions for their production in order to insure the greatest amount of self-expression on the part of the children. The plays are: The greatest gift (a Christmas play); Katjens’ garden; June magic (a little play for the garden); The minister’s dream (a Thanksgiving fantasy); The day Will Shakspere went to Kenilworth (a pageant play); The Yuletide rose (a Christmas miracle play). Directions for the scenery and costumes are given at the end of each play.
“All of the plays are written in an amusing and simple manner and should prove a delight for children.” H. S. Gorman
LOREBURN, ROBERT THRESHIRE REID. 1st earl. How the war came. *$3 (3c) Knopf 940.311
The book is a plea for open diplomacy under all conditions. Although the author puts the immediate responsibility for the war on the shoulders of the military power of Germany, he shows that the indirect but more fundamental cause is to be found in the clandestine transactions in the foreign affairs of all countries. He throws much light on the historical antecedents of the war in continental Europe, and exposes the unprecedented schemes of conquest all over the world undertaken by England and her allies even during the war itself. Contents: Introductory; Storm centre in the Balkans; Storm centre in Alsace-Lorraine; Great Britain is drawn into a French alliance; Attitude of Great powers in 1914; How the continent came to war; How Great Britain came into the war; Sir Edward Grey’s speech on 3rd August 1914; Belgium; Was it inevitable? Remedies; Appendix (Sir E. Grey’s speech on 3rd August 1914); Map of the Balkans.
“Whatever be one’s personal views upon this thesis, it is impossible not to admit and to admire the ability with which the book is written. And it has something more than mere ability.” L. W.
“Lord Loreburn’s pages, an analysis as dispassionate as may be of the whole miserably intricate business of the telegrams of July, 1914, destroy whatever remains of the unphilosophic hope that all the evil was compact and corruptingly on one side.” Sganarelle
“Such an application of commonsense, honesty, and plain speaking should go far towards allaying the virulence of war hatreds and deflating national conceits.”
“If the book is to be regarded merely as a historical essay, still it is one of the neatest and clearest ever written. Those who do not believe that the work of peacemaking was completed once for all at Versailles will place a far higher value on Earl Loreburn’s book.” Alvin Johnson
“Lord Loreburn has done the present and succeeding generations a real service by disentangling and rearranging, with all the skill of his profession, the capital events. Everybody should read the book, though everybody will not agree with the conclusions of its learned author.”
“One may dissent from his reading of the facts, but it is impossible not to respect the admirable forensic temper with which they are presented.”
LORENTZ, HENDRIK ANTOON. Einstein theory of relativity. *$1 Brentano’s 530.1
“‘The Einstein theory of relativity’ has an introduction of twenty-four pages reprinted from various sources, followed by a small forty-page article by Lorentz, translated from a Dutch paper. Lorentz, it may be added, is one of the greatest of living physicists and came perilously near anticipating Einstein’s work of fifteen years ago. The article is devoted almost entirely to the gravitational aspect of relativity.”—Freeman
LORIA, ACHILLE. Karl Marx; authorised tr. from the Italian. *$1.50 (6c) Seltzer 335
A sketch of Marx’s life and an exposition and criticism of his doctrines compose Professor Loria’s monograph. The long foreword by the translators, Eden and Cedar Paul, is an analysis and criticism of Loria and of Loria’s attitude toward Marx.
“A brilliant appraisal of the life and works of the ‘Father of modern socialism.’ Contains an excellent foreword by Eden and Cedar Paul.”
LORIMER, NORMA OCTAVIA. With other eyes. *$1.90 Brentano’s
“Much of this pleasant story is alluringly set in the ‘Island valley of Avalon.’ The heroine is of Acadie, and is fittingly named Evangeline. She and her widowed mother have come from Nova Scotia, and settle at Glastonbury, where the mother marries an amiable old doctor, and the daughter falls in love with his son. But while Evangeline is on a visit to a Welsh manor belonging to her friend, a young clergyman arrives on the scene. Later after losing a foot at the front, he comes to an understanding with Evangeline. The story incidentally gives some sort of answer to the problem whether women ought to be ‘saddled for life’ with men whom they no longer love or respect, merely because they have ‘given themselves to their country.’”—Ath
“The story proceeds along lines that remain unhackneyed, even when the book becomes, virtually, a war novel. It is a grave, thoughtful piece of work that does the author credit. Its principal defect rises from an error in judgment, which seeks to divide interest and space almost equally with a secondary story.”
“The novel contains some gracefully written descriptions of Glastonbury and of Wales.”
“We recommend it as much above the average of the ordinary novel.”
LOVETT, WILLIAM. Life and struggles of William Lovett in his pursuit of bread, knowledge, and freedom; with some short account of the different associations he belonged to and of the opinions he entertained. 2v ea *$1.50 (1½c) Knopf
The books belong to the series of Economic reprints and come with an introduction by R. H. Tawney who says of them that they are more than an autobiography inasmuch as Lovett “was the spokesman of the political labour movement which started with the formation of the London Working men’s association and which developed into Chartism.”
“Not a wholly reliable historical document.” R: Roberts
LOW, BARBARA. Psycho-analysis; a brief account of the Freudian theory. *$1.50 (4c) Harcourt 130
The author of this brief introduction to psycho-analysis is a member of the British psycho-analytical society, and Ernest Jones, president of the society, writes an introduction for the book. In part he says, “That the deductions made from psycho-analytical investigations are both novel and not easily acceptable, Miss Low makes plain in her book, and she has not adopted the easier way of concealing these attributes of them. She has chosen the loftier aim of attempting to present all aspects of the psycho-analytical theory fairly and straightforwardly, and yet to bring them within reach of those who have made no previous study of the subject.” The chapters take up: The scope and significance of psycho-analysis; Mental life—unconscious and conscious; Repressions; The rôle of the dream; Treatment by psycho-analysis; Probable social and educational results. A list of reference books is given in an appendix.
“The ‘popular’ style of this book defeats, to some extent, the author’s purpose. We should have liked the exposition to be more clear-cut and reserved. As it is, the reader will have some difficulty in grasping the root ideas of the Freudian theory, although, if he is patient, he will find a good deal of information in this book.”
“Worth while in defining the science, but too condensed for serious study.”
“About the first work on psycho-analysis that can be recommended for general reading is Barbara Low’s ‘Psycho-analysis.’ Of course, Miss Low exaggerates the field to which psycho-analysis is applicable, as she does its therapeutic value.”
LOW, BENJAMIN ROBBINS CURTIS.[2] Broken music. *$2 Dutton 811
“From the four volumes of poems which he had published at intervals during the last ten years or so Mr Low has selected his best work to make this collection of his art. These four volumes, ‘The sailor who sailed,’ ‘A wand and strings,’ ‘The house that was’ and ‘The pursuit of happiness,’ have been much admired and praised by the most discerning critics here and abroad, in spite of which they have had a very moderate circulation.”—Boston Transcript
“There are many of us who would not willingly suppress or forget a good deal of the work in the four volumes of Mr Low’s that he has seen fit not to include in this representative collection, but what he has gathered here makes a very fine spiritual attraction that will win him an increasingly wide circle of new admirers. I think when you get at the core of Mr Low’s art you will find above everything else beautiful thought; and beautiful thought is scarcely to be found without a very intense and passionate emotional foundation.” W: S. Braithwaite
“After a careful reading we remain of our old opinion that the leading poem, ‘The vigil-at-arms,’ is Mr Low’s best effort. Elsewhere Mr Low’s work lacks freshness and individuality.”
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL. Function of the poet; and other essays. *$5 (10c) Houghton 814
The essays and reviews in this volume have here for the first time been collected into book form and are edited with a preface by Albert Mordell. According to this preface they sustain Lowell’s reputation as one of our great American critics and are in nowise inferior in literary merit to the volumes collected by himself. The essays on poetry and belles-lettres in the volume are: The function of the poet; Humor, wit, fun, and satire; The five indispensable authors (Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, Shakespeare); The imagination: Critical fragments. Among the reviews of contemporary writers are: Henry James: James’s tales and sketches; Poetry and nationality; W. D. Howells: Venetian life; Edgar A. Poe; Thackeray; Roundabout papers; and the three last essays are: Forster’s life of Swift; Plutarch’s morals; A plea for freedom from speech and figures of speech-makers.
“Especially interesting will be his criticisms of contemporaries—Henry James, Longfellow, Whittier, Howells, Poe and Thackeray.”
“They are pleasant, scholarly, informal; they polish off literary subjects gracefully, even if not dazzlingly.”
“Mr Mordell has brought together a surprising number of uncollected essays and reviews by Lowell. What is even more surprising in a collection of this kind is that it reveals its author at his best. If Lowell has little to offer a generation which, like ours, expects from literature the very bread of life, he has virtues our contemporary criticism singularly lacks. He has the judgment we gladly dispense with and the verbal felicity we despise, for the lack of which the future will despise and dispense with most of us.”
“Throughout the book, as generally in Lowell, are paragraphs, sometimes pages, notable for their beauty, vision, wit, and eminently quotable.”
Reviewed by Brander Matthews
“Lowell’s abstract reasoning on literature is highly abstract and highly succinct, and its promises for the eye or the palate are not always redeemed in the intellectual stomach. The reviews of contemporaries are very urbane, very judicious, rather measured, rather distant, a little formal.”
“The mingled wisdom and humor of Lowell are apparent everywhere.”
LOWIE, ROBERT HARRY. Primitive society. *$3 Boni & Liveright 572
“Beginning with the custom of marriage. Dr Lowie studies it through the practice of polygamy, with its side-shoots of polygyny, polyandry, sexual communism, to the family, with its various units, to the kinship usages. The Sib organization, with its history and ramifications, is analyzed and illustrated, the first half of the study of primitive society on its individual side ending at the stage of The position of woman. Then in turn such questions are studied as Property, Associations, Theory of associations, Rank, Government, and Justice.”—Boston Transcript
“The reviewer, a teacher of sociology, is one of a large group who are grateful to Dr Lowie for his service in writing this book.”
“Useful for its expansion of data commonly found only in briefer outlines.”
“‘Primitive society’ is a worth-while book. It is interestingly written and valuable and readable, even for an amateur anthropologist or sociologist. Its factual solidity makes it of permanent worth in any library.”
“Dr Lowie’s book may be recommended as the most informative, lucid, and keenly critical introduction to the study of primitive social organizations that the reviewer is aware of. It deserves the most careful study. Fortunately for the non-professional reader, ‘Primitive society’ is an eminently readable book. The style is crisp and rapid.” E: Sapir
“It would be indeed surprising if ‘Primitive society’ did not win for itself the position of an indispensable guide in a difficult domain.”
“All in all, Mr Lowie’s book will do much to render more life-like and substantial our current conceptions of a primitive community.” E: Sapir
“Principles or viewpoints are handled with equal skill, the didactic or dogmatic is avoided, indeed, let me say, with extraordinary skill. Dr Lowie is critical of old categories, but not, like many a critic, merely to make way for new, he never handicaps himself with classification. Obviously ‘Primitive society’ will be a welcome book—at least to those who want to know how things are before asking why they are.” E. C. Parsons
“He has produced a work that will serve as a comprehensive textbook for the student, and that is written in a manner interesting enough to engage the attention of the general reader. His material has been correlated and arranged with skill, and he cites his authorities with a marked care.”
“Dr Lowie reviews the rich material of social organization with a new insight: he discards simple solutions, too much dominated by the active social ties as we know them, and by the desire to read evolutionary conclusions into historical data.” Joseph Jastrow
LOWIS, CECIL CHAMPAIN. Four blind mice. *$1.75 (1½c) Lane
The story is of two married couples in the English colony of Rangoon. Douglas Selbridge is an overworked official and Delia, consequently, a neglected and bored wife. Major Brattlethwaite and his wife are living apart and the latter is nothing but a rumor. The major seeks the company and solace of Delia until matters become strained between herself and her husband. When the absent Mrs Brattlethwaite suddenly appears upon the scene to vanish again immediately, at the same time that the body of a murdered woman is discovered in the jungle, a crisis is reached. A fortunate solution of the mystery not only saves an innocent man from the gallows, but straightens out the domestic relations of the two couples satisfactorily.
“From the point of the murder the story maintains a high level of interest, and reaches a satisfactory conclusion. The domestic and boarding-house scenes have engaging touches of novelty, which suggest a feminine hand.”
“The native scenes are more interesting than the troubles of the white folks, the descriptions of the rains, the heat, and native life being well above the average in vividness and picturesque quality.”
LOWNDES, MRS MARIE ADELAIDE (BELLOC). Lonely house. *$1.90 (1½c) Doran
Lily Fairfield is a young English girl who has been ordered a change of scene for her health, and therefore has come to visit some distant connections by marriage at their home, “La Solitude,” near Monte Carlo. She finds “La Solitude” to be a lonely isolated house, and leads a rather quiet life, altho shortly it is enlivened by the return of Beppo, the son of the Count and Countess Polda, whose paying-guest she is. As she is something of an heiress, she soon realizes that it is the hope of Beppo’s parents that he will marry her. Indeed the desire for money seems to bulk very large in their lives. But a young Scotsman, Angus Stuart, has already filled the place in her heart that Beppo hopes to occupy, altho she is rather slow to realize the fact. “La Solitude” becomes even more unbearable to her than before after two robberies resulting in murder have been committed nearby, but it is not until an attack is made on Angus Stuart that the real criminals are discovered, and Lily realizes what danger she has been in and how she has escaped it.
“A melodramatic though not unconvincing mystery story.”
“The background and atmosphere of these players is wherein Mrs Lowndes has excelled herself. It is all too unfortunate that so able a writer should seek to satisfy shallow desire for excitement rather than to gratify literary taste: of the latter Mrs Lowndes would be very capable should she wish to produce, not a best-seller, dependent upon its author’s noteworthy name, but work of real merit.”
“It is an eery tale, with plenty of atmosphere, one that will keep its readers hanging on the turn of the pages.”
“The tale is well written and cleverly developed, incident following incident in a way which keeps the reader’s interest always on the alert, and makes convincing a plot which, though highly melodramatic, is by no means improbable.”
LUCAS, EDWARD VERRALL. Adventures and enthusiasms. il *$2 Doran 824
The book contains a collection of short sketches on a variety of subjects such as episodes from life, reminiscences of people and places, reflections and whimsical thoughts. The style is leisurely and full of quiet humor. Some of the sketches are: The perfect guest; A morning call; Possessions; Drake and his game; Davy Jones; Thoughts at the ferry; Telephonics; Thackeray’s school fellow; The newness of the old; On finding things. Fourteen of the sketches bear the common heading: In and about London.
“Mr Lucas would be the first to admit that he challenges comparison with Lamb, and that the advantage is Lamb’s.” N. F. Gerould
“His work is invariably diverting, delicate, sparkling, adapted to the subtlest appreciations.” Margaret Ashmun
“The title under which Mr E. V. Lucas harnesses his latest collection of essays, ‘Adventures and enthusiasms,’ suggests an intensity which is seldom substantiated in the text. These sketches move at a jogging pace, guided by a slack rein, and rarely touched by the whip of fancy.” L. B.
“He writes of all sorts of ordinary, everyday things like aunts and telephones and punctuality, with pleasant leisureliness, with whimsicality and with deep enjoyment.”
“Both the adventures and the enthusiasms are mild. Mr Lucas’s taste is generally impeccable and sane.”
“Mr Lucas’s stories verge upon essays and his essays hover upon the edge of narrative, real or fictitious. They are not easy to classify—and that is another way of saying they make the pleasantest kind of book in the world.” E. L. Pearson
“‘Adventures and enthusiasms’ impresses you with its feeling of leisure, of the fullness of time, of the charm of idleness. Life runs full here but not in the impetuous desperate rush of spring, with the sounds of torrents and winds.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“Of all his volumes of essays none is better than his latest.”
LUCAS, EDWARD VERRALL. Verena in the midst; a kind of story. *$1.90 Doran
In this novel in letters, Verena, a maiden lady of some wealth, is the central figure. She has met with an accident to her spine and is obliged to be bed-ridden for months. All the letters are to, from and about her and they all are revealing as to the characters of the writers. The various relatives come to her for counsel and advice and make her the recipient of their confidences. The most frequent interchange of letters is between Verena and an old friend, Richard Haven, the friend that “never disappoints.” His daily message of good cheer, his ever ready counsel, and his daily contribution of poetry, for the sleepless invalid to memorize, are the best parts of the book.
“‘Verena in the midst’ is not to be taken seriously. With the exception of the nephew Roy, who is quite amazingly made known to us, there has been, on the part of the author, no serious attempt at revelation.” K. M.
“It implies no forgetfulness of Mr Lucas’s more solid achievements to say that he is perhaps the chief of those English writers who are doing the little things supremely well. And his fecundity in finding these little things to do is hardly less than his facility in treating them.” Stanley Went
“This book is full of humorous twists and surprises and odd bits and ideas and pleasant letters and anecdotes and—I am afraid I shall have to use the poor, over-worked word—whimsicalities.” E. L. Pearson
“Mr Lucas has surpassed himself. And yet, as is often the case, the idea is so simple that almost anyone might have thought of it.... Almost anyone could have thought of the idea, but is there anyone but Mr Lucas who could have carried it out with so near an approach to perfection?”
“Most of the characterization is very good. To accuse Mr Lucas of slightness of tenuity would be to invite the retort that that was the idea. It is after all a book with which from many writers we should be content.”
“Apart from the kindly humor which is their main ingredient, Mr E. V. Lucas’s little nibbles at the novel are in themselves amusing to the critic. The form of fiction appeals to him provided that he can use it on his own terms. He can think of the most delightful sets of people and give them appropriate names; he can write all their letters for them and, at a pinch, carry on their conversation; but always on the condition that they keep still and remain strictly true to type. Unfortunately, in real novels as in real life, it is difficult to keep people still.”
“In Mr Lucas’ familiar style. It is the sort of thing he does with great deftness.”
LUCKIESH, M. Artificial light: its influence upon civilization. (Century books of useful science) il *$2.50 (2½c) Century 628.9
The aim of this book is “to show that artificial light has become intricately interwoven with human activities and that it has been a powerful influence upon the progress of civilization.” (Preface) The early chapters deal with primitive forms of lighting, covering such subjects as: The art of making fire; Primitive light-sources; The ceremonial use of light; Oil-lamps of the nineteenth century, and Early gas-lighting. Among the chapters devoted to modern lighting are: The science of light-production; Lighting the streets; Lighthouses; Artificial light in warfare; Signaling; Light and safety; Light and health; Spectacular lighting; Lighting the home; Lighting—a fine art? Reading references come at the close. The author, who is director of applied science, Neia Research laboratory, has written also “Color and its applications,” “The lighting art,” etc.
“Written in a simple yet finished style it gives the general reader a comprehensive and engaging account of illumination.”
“The story is told in a surprisingly interesting way. Altogether the book may be regarded as a model for such monographs.”
“An interesting treatment of a fascinating subject.”
LUCKIESH, M. Lighting the home, il *$2 Century 644.3
The book considers the problem of artificial lighting both from a utilitarian and an aesthetic point of view. “Light,” says the author, “is the most powerful medium we have for creating or accentuating the mood of a room.... Attention to apparently insignificant details of lighting equipment does much toward converting a house into a home.” Among the contents are: Light as an expressive medium; Safeguarding vision; The functions of fixtures; Various rooms; Novelties in lighting; Colored light. There are illustrations and an index.
“Could be used in high school libraries.”
LUCY, SIR HENRY WILLIAM (TOBY, M. P., pseud.).[2] Diary of a journalist. $6 Dutton
“Politicians, statesmen, authors, actors, painters, princes, journalists, social leaders, and men and women in many other professional walks of life throng the pages of Sir Henry Lucy’s volume. It covers a long period of years from 1885 almost to the present day, and it is rich in the personality encountered by a newspaper writer and editor who has come into daily contact with the events and the people of his time. In his previous volume entitled ‘Sixty years in the wilderness,’ Sir Henry Lucy has told a consecutive story of his career, in this latest volume he supplements it with material which resulting from ‘the habit dominant through many years of daily noting interesting events coming within personal observation’ yields ‘a collection personally, politically and historically interesting.’”—Boston Transcript
“Except for a few jokes, we find very little of interest in this record. In his phrases we sometimes recognize the flavour of the official biography. In particular he has one trick very characteristic of those works. It is to make statements about his hero, with the air of suggesting an exceptional virtue, which hold good of practically everybody in the world.”
“An entertaining book of personal reminiscence.” E. F. Edgett
“‘Recollections of a journalist’ would perhaps be a more suitable title, and certainly Sir Henry Lucy’s recollections are singularly rich and varied.”
“The worst that one can say about Sir Henry Lucy’s diary is that no one would ever have suspected it of being a diary if the author had not so labelled it. It has obviously been revised in the light of subsequent events. Why has the book no index? It is just the sort of book that especially needs one.”
LUDENDORFF, ERICH VON.[2] General staff and its problems: the secret history of the relations between the High Command and the German Imperial government as revealed by official documents; tr. by F. Appleby Holt. 2v *$15 Dutton 940.343
“The statements in Ludendorff’s first volume were so bold that there arose a demand for the source on which he based many of his sensational assertions. This demand the former Quartermaster-General of the German armies now seeks to meet in a second volume.” (N Y Times) “Among the documents included are the report of the conference between Bethmann-Hollweg, Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Pless, when the unrestricted submarine campaign was finally decided upon, and the violent letters exchanged between the chancellor, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and the foreign office revealing the internal difficulties of Germany in 1916. The matter of American participation, as the German authorities viewed and discussed it, is gone into thoroughly.” (Springf’d Republican)
Reviewed by Simeon Strunsky
Reviewed by T. R. Ybarra
LUDENDORFF, ERICH VON. Ludendorff’s own story, August 1914–November 1918. il 2v *$7.50 (3c) Harper 940.343
“The great war from the siege of Liege to the signing of the armistice as viewed from the grand headquarters of the German army.” (Subtitle) What the author calls the first commandment for a German “unselfish submission and the sinking of the ego in national discipline” characterizes this grim account of one who, with an eye single, was bent on the winning of the war. Volume 1 falls into two parts: the author’s career as chief of the general staff on the eastern front; and from his appointment as first quartermaster-general. Volume 2 begins with the entente offensive in the first half of 1917, the Russian revolution and America’s entry into the war and ends with the armistice and the end of Ludendorff’s military career. The books contain many maps and each has a loose map in a cover pocket. Volume 2 has an index.
“He gives a wealth of interesting comment and ex parte statement of motives, intentions, and expectations, which he does not prove. His treatment of the administrative and political sides of the war is the best part of the work. His accounts of battles are in many cases unsatisfactory. As a whole the translation is good.” J: Bigelow
“Of interest, not only for the record of military events by one of the most prominent military leaders, but also for the light it throws on the mental attitude and processes of the author.”
“The one great military book which the war has so far produced is the strange record of General Ludendorff.”
Reviewed by W. C. Abbott
Reviewed by M. F. Egan
Reviewed by M. H. Anderson
“Ludendorff may be read with profit by those interested in the handling of troops in contact with the enemy.... He exhibits the best and the worst qualities of the old-fashioned amongst regular soldiers. He knows his work as a handler of fighting men, but outside the realms of factors he is a simple and bewildered soul. And, let it be repeated, as a strategist, he is almost infinitely naive.”
“General Ludendorff has written a very able and interesting book on the war. It is not a good military history, though the summary accounts of the earlier Russian campaigns are instructive. The numerous plans and diagrams by the author are valuable also in their way. But the book throws a flood of light on the hopes and fears of the great general staff, and on the relations between the German army leaders and the politicians in Berlin. To an English reader, of course, this typical Prussian author must be unsympathetic.”
“Ludendorff’s war memoirs are the most solid contribution to the strategical history of the war that has yet appeared. To the military student the most valuable portion is that dealing with the Russian campaign of 1914 and 1915; but in spite of the great military eminence of the writer, this is a book for the plain citizen rather than the soldier, for quite half of it is politics.”
LUEHRMANN, ADELE. Triple mystery. *$1.75 Dodd
“Here Adele Luehrmann has evolved a situation where three men of prominence of the same nationality and presumably of similar interests, all die with sudden and unexplained mystery within a few days of each other. The first effort seems to be to throw suspicion upon Olive Thrace, who has reason to be anxious to be rid of Zarady, the great concert master. The second death brings in the element of the girl with the squirrel cap. The actual solution of the triple mystery is a surprise.”—Boston Transcript
“The author has not succeeded at any point in really intriguing the reader. The characters are obviously puppets to string the story on: sheep fattened for slaughter. The dénouement is lacking in ingenuity.”
LUMHOLTZ, KARL SOFUS. Through central Borneo; an account of two years’ travel in the land of the head-hunters between the years 1913 and 1917. 2v il *$7.50 Scribner 919.11
“Reaching the island which has been the object of his journey, Mr Lumholtz first gives us a comprehensive idea of its climate and the biological conditions which there exist, its natural resources, its population, history, government and racial problems. Presently he plunges into the jungle and shows us first its wonderful vegetation, and next its strange people. He takes us up the vast rivers, noting the habits of the people by the way. To his narrative the author adds a considerable number of folklore stories drawn directly from the natives, stories doubtless handed down orally for many generations. The author embellishes his volumes with profuse illustrations, many of them from photographs taken by himself.”—Boston Transcript
“A happy combination of scientific study with journalistic ease of style and choice of interesting material.”
“Because he went into such an unknown region his book has the atmosphere of Hakluyt or Purchas. The photographs which illustrate the book are excellent.” J. F. Gould
“The author’s style is one of extreme simplicity, and his material is presented in a form that should prove attractive to scientist and layman alike.” B. R. Redman
“Mr Lumholtz knows how to write entertainingly as well as how to observe with scientific accuracy.”
LUTHER, MARK LEE. Presenting Jane McRae. il *$1.75 (1½c) Little
When Jane McRae is first presented she is acting as waitress in her step-father’s hotel in a small “up-state” New York town. Here she comes in contact with Stuart Pendleton, a young civil engineer, and with Arthur Gault, a movie singer. With Stuart she falls in love, but refuses to marry him when she learns of his previous entanglement with another woman. Leaving unbearable conditions at home, she goes to New York to support herself. At the end of her resources, she again meets Arthur Gault, who is now a moving picture director. He gets her a small part in his picture and finally persuades her to marry him. She becomes more and more successful as an actress, but is not happy. She realizes that her marriage to Arthur was a mistake, but does not see the way out. But when the war comes and frees her from him, the manner of his death leaves her still with an unanswerable question. “It did not occur to her that she was free.”
“To tell the truth all this business of Jane and the engineer, from beginning to end, is unreal and commonplace. Jane herself is least credible and desirable whenever that young man is brought on the scene. Except his good looks and his fine phrases, there is nothing or next to nothing ‘to him.’ What ‘makes’ the book is its study of Jane in relation to the movie man.” H. W. Boynton
“On the whole, it is a quick-moving and interesting tale.”
“Very long and not very interesting. Some of the motion-picture parts of the book are not unentertaining, while of the characters Arthur Gault is by all odds the best, at times becoming a real human being.”
“An agreeable little comedy of life not without serious import also.”
LUTZ, EDWIN GEORGE. Animated cartoons. il *$2.50 Scribner 778
“E. G. Lutz answers many an unspoken question about the movies by telling very explicitly how an artist gets motion into his drawings. After two chapters of history upon their origin and development he goes into a description of the successive steps in the production of various kinds of screen pictures in action. It all seems very simple after being carefully explained in both text and illustrations.”—Springf’d Republican
“The book is interesting as catering to the universal desire to see the wheels go round.”
LUTZ, GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (MRS FLAVIUS J. LUTZ). Cloudy Jewel. il *$1.90 (2c) Lippincott
Julia Cloud, at her mother’s death, is free to choose between living the life of a drudge in her selfish sister’s household, or struggling along alone on insufficient finances. She is trying to make her decision when her niece and nephew from California put in an unexpected appearance, and they have a delightful suggestion for her future. They are coming east to college and propose taking her along to make a home for them and be a real mother to them, for though well-to-do, they are orphans. This plan they carry out and she plays her part wholly to their satisfaction. She feels a keen responsibility for their welfare and at first their lack of any religious ideals grieves her deeply. But they become interested in the Christian Endeavor society in a little church and gradually come to be leaders in it as well as in college life. There they make friendships which finally grow into deeper relations, and the story ends in two romances.
“It may be safely prophesied that Mrs Lutz, if she continues to spin more novels of the type of ‘Cloudy Jewel’ will doubtless lure into her fold a large proportion of the followers of Harold Bell Wright. Within the pages of ‘Cloudy Jewel’ one may find the telling and sure-fire ingredients of an American best seller.”
“Mrs Lutz will beguile many hours for those who do not wish to be aroused or excited by what they read, and her books will have a wholesome influence wherever they are read.” K. O.
LUTZ, GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (MRS FLAVIUS J. LUTZ). Exit Betty. il *$1.75 (2c) Lippincott
When Betty Stanhope met her bridegroom in the crowded church where the ceremony was to take place, to her horror she found he was not the man she had promised to marry. A timely fainting spell permitted her to escape from the church, and it was fortunate for her that she ran across Jane Carson just outside. Jane took the excited girl to her room where Betty told enough of the story to convince Jane that she was the victim of the cupidity of her scheming stepmother. Jane sent her to her mother in the country where Betty successfully eluded pursuit, until by Jane’s keenness, aided by her friend Jimmie and Jimmie’s employer, Warren Reyburn, Betty slipped forever from the clutches of those who had tried to rob her of her inheritance. Incidentally a double romance developed for her and Jane.
“Melodrama of the crudest kind and religious sentiment equally crude are blended in a whole which, curiously enough, pleases rather than repels.”
“Of course it is a very old plot, this of the cruel step mother, but Mrs Lutz manages to centre our interest entirely in Betty and to arouse our sympathies to the point where we do not greatly care that some of her plot elements are distinctly hackneyed.”
LYNCH, FREDERICK HENRY.[2] Personal recollections of Andrew Carnegie. il $1.50 Revell
“‘Personal recollections of Andrew Carnegie’ furnishes an intimate picture of the late ironmaster and philanthropist, in which many phases of his character are depicted. In the course of much close association, Dr Lynch, as a member of the executive committee of the New York Peace society, enjoyed opportunities of learning what the canny Scotsman thought concerning many other things than iron and libraries.”—Springf’d Republican
LYND, ROBERT. Ireland a nation. *$2 (3c) Dodd 941.5
In this thorough sifting of the Irish problem, the author, an Englishman, does not spare England. Of her habit of not taking Ireland seriously he says that if it is persisted in “it will bring ruin not only on Ireland but upon England and on our European civilization generally. If Ireland is not ... given her freedom equally with every other nation in Europe, another great world-war is as certain as the rising of tomorrow’s sun.... Every nation on the earth that desires to do wrong to another takes fresh heart when it thinks of the example of England in Ireland.” Contents: Why it is important to realize that Ireland is a nation; The historical thread; Sinn Fein; The insurrection of 1916; Ulster: the facts of the case; The hesitating sort of Liberal and Irish self-determination; One man’s views on Dominion home rule; The Irish soldier; Ireland’s record in the war; The soldiers’ sacrifice; The English in Ireland: a scene; Another scene: the drums of Ulster; The witness of the poets; A note on Irish literature; Voices of the new Ireland (from various writers); Common-sense about the little nations; Epilogue.
“Interestingly written though somewhat lacking in unity.”
“It is devoid of all appearances of sentimentality, yet the very calmness with which the argument is followed gives a force to the book which passion itself could hardly sustain.”
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
“‘Ireland a nation’ stands above and apart from the vast majority of books on the subject. It owes this distinction not only to its author’s brilliant handling of a complicated theme, to his sense of selection, and to his gift of distilling the essence of long-drawn-out controversies into a witty phrase, but primarily to the fact that he lifts the issue to a new and higher plane. Where other writers take it for granted that the dispute is one between two nations. Mr Lynd confronts the rulers of Great Britain with their pledges not to Ireland but to the civilized world, and insists that an Irish settlement is to England’s allies, no less than her enemies, the ‘acid test’ of whether these pledges are more than mere empty words.”
“He is well informed and presents his views with clearness and force, as befits an editor of the London Daily News. But his book will fail through over-statement to carry conviction to his opponents.”
“If his pages have at times the intractable vehemence which belong to his nationality, they are no less lit up with the wit and sparkle that seldom desert a man of his race.” H. L. Stewart
LYNDE, FRANCIS. Girl, a horse and a dog. il *$2 (2½c) Scribner
When Jaspar Dudley’s will was read, instead of the fortune which his grandson Stanford Broughton expected, he received only a vague legacy which at first he chose to disregard entirely. For it read something as follows: “Your portion ... was worth, at its latest valuation, something like $440,000.... When you find it, you will be able to identify it by the presence of a girl with brown hair and blue eyes and small mole on her left shoulder, a piebald horse ... and a dog with a split face—half black and half white.” With just this information and certain indefinite geographical data, “Stannie” finally starts on the trail of his inheritance. He has less trouble in locating it than might be expected. But then his troubles begin, for he finds it to be a flooded mine, which is nevertheless highly desirable to a certain mining engineer. He determines to pump it out, and ascertain its value. His attempts to do this, and the efforts of his rival to thwart him, and gain possession himself, make the story, with, of course, some rivalry for the blue-eyed girl as well.
“Rather well told and interesting to readers of western stories.”
“Plenty of dash in this story, and genuinely interesting from beginning to end.”
“‘The girl, a horse and a dog’ is a book built frankly for amusement purposes, but it is more substantial than the usual run of adventure stories. Mr Lynde possesses the power to develop character in a consistent manner, to afford the reader glimpses of types which live, and to do this without halting the steady flow of a narrative that steadily rises in its interest.”
“A lively tale.”
LYNDE, FRANCIS. Wreckers. il *$1.75 Scribner
“Graham Norcross, whose private stenographer and confidential clerk, Jimmie Dodds, tells the tale of their adventures, was anything but anxious to become general manager of the much-abused Pioneer short line. That unfortunate railroad had for some time been nothing but an instrument for a little group of Wall street speculators to make money with; they juggled its stock about, stinted it in equipment and everything else, and abused it generally. Now, squeezed dry, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. And to make bad matters worse, at its headquarters in Portal City every wellpaid post was filled by some cousin or nephew or brother-in-law of the stock speculators who controlled the road. This was a part of the proposition which faced Graham Norcross when he started out to make the Pioneer short line an honest and a paying concern. By the scheme finally carried out, it was arranged that one section of ‘the country—and the employes—had a railroad of their own,’ a railroad whose stock was controlled by the people most interested in its welfare.”—N Y Times
“A railroad story which will interest men and boys.”
“The story maintains the author’s reputation as a teller of entertaining tales.”
LYNN, MARGARET. Free soil. *$2.50 (2c) Macmillan
A story of the fight for free soil in Kansas in the fifties. Among the New England recruits to the free soil population are John and Ellen Truman, who give up ease and security and take their two young children into the new and strange land. With them goes Ellen’s cousin Harvey Sayre, young and high-spirited and ripe for adventure. Later another cousin, Phoebe Murray, comes for a visit, and refusing to be sent back to safety, remains to play her part with the other women. Even before reaching Kansas the Trumans have a taste of the tense relations between North and South and they are in the heart of the struggle from the moment of their arrival. Another struggle no less interesting is revealed within the ranks of the free-soilers, between the advocates of violence and those who stand for peaceful methods. The figure of John Brown as he moves through these pages differs somewhat from popular legend. The love story of Phoebe and Lewis Hardie, the high courage of the women, and the author’s very evident love for the prairies lighten the somberness of the story.
“Miss Lynn has not only made her story interesting and her characters alive; she has pictured the country itself as few writers have pictured it. ‘Free soil’ is a noble book, a living book, a book to read and to remember. In its blending of fiction and history it is a notable achievement.”
“As fiction pure and simple the novel has no great art, but it has historical reality and wide human sympathy. As a sketch of western living conditions in early days the book is also satisfying.” E. C. Willcox
LYTLE, JOHN HORACE.[2] Story of Jack. il $1.50 Pettibone-McLean co., Dayton, O.
“The scene of the title story is laid in the Klondike land in the Klondike days. Jack is a real dog, and a great one, who will win straight to the heart of every reader.” (Cath World) “The tragic adventure of Jack is followed by other stories, each directed to a particular foible of the dog-lover—the pioneer dog who spends his life by racing with a message of an Indian uprising, the unwelcome mongrel who rescues a child from drowning and is welcome ever after, the spaniel who is taught to point golf balls and so saves his master in a desperate match, and so on.” (Review)
“These are stories of live people and live dogs told in a live way.”
“They are capital tales, all of them; and if the limits of canine intelligence are overstepped, what harm is done?”
MCAFEE, CLELAND BOYD. Christian faith and the new day. *90c (4c) Macmillan 230
The author’s subject is theology—theology as adapted to the needs of the day. He says in his preface, “Visitors to theological seminaries often tell young men they are not to preach their theology, whereas in any sound way of speaking it is the only thing they are to preach.” The book is addressed “not to technical theologians but to working ministers and thoughtful laymen.” Contents: The call to reconstruction; The Christian theology of God; The Christian theology of salvation; The church; A concluding word. The author is a professor in McCormick theological seminary, Chicago.
MCARTHUR, PETER.[2] Affable stranger. *$1.50 (4c) Houghton
The author is a Canadian farmer and journalist who visited the United States in the capacity of friendly observer. He was interested particularly in the state of public opinion as it concerns Canada and Great Britain and his method was to keep as quiet as possible and let the other person do the talking. Some of his chapters, which were contributed first to the Toronto Globe, are: Back to the primitive; Registering reform; A burden of farmers; Organized for profit; Old home week; The ward leader; The soul of Canada; A land of upper berths.
MACAULAY, ROSE. Potterism. *$2 Boni & Liveright 20–19045
“‘Potterism’ is a newspaper novel. The idea is Potterism. It is a more inclusive idea than the one which was once covered by the word ‘bromide.’ Potterism also takes in the bromide, but generally speaking it means ‘muddle and cant—second-rate sentimentalism and cheap short-cuts and mediocrity.’ It is personified in Mr Potter (afterward Lord Pinkerton) owner of the Pinkerton Press, and in his wife, ‘Leila Yorke,’ the novelist. But the Potters are such perfect symbols that even their own children, Jane and Johnny, help to form the Anti-Potter league. There are three or four other members of the league, and the book follows their fortunes, which take a slightly melodramatic turn. In the end the president of the league is killed in Russia and the Potter-Pinkerton Press goes on forever.”—New Repub
“In this new novel by Miss Macaulay it is not only her cleverness and wit which are disarming. It is her coolness, her confidence, her determination to say just exactly what she intends to say whether the reader will or no.” K. M.
“Shrewd, vigorous and interesting to many readers. Most amusing to those who can appreciate subtle humor.”
“Even to a confirmed Potterite the keen thrust of Miss Macaulay’s wit must afford a fearful delight. Here is a good antidote for the oversexed novel.”
“There is no doubt but what Miss Macaulay looks at her day and its state of mind much as Cervantes looked at his, and her result in fiction is in kind if not in degree the same. In degree it is far ahead of its kind beyond anything done by her contemporaries. For all its clever caricature and exhilarating interest the story is downright English.” W. S. B.
“As a sophisticated picture of modern life the book is exceedingly well done; as a solution of the problem it sets before us it fails, chiefly because in the author’s philosophy there is no solution—at least no workable solution.”
“It is cleverly conceived and cleverly written, but it is a little too hasty to be complete.” E. P.
“In ‘Potterism’ Miss Macaulay has sketched for us a clever, amusing, and, on the whole, convincing picture of the state of the British mind during and immediately after the war. Her book pushes as close to the current hour as it can without lapsing into mere journalism.” Edwin Björkman
“Miss Macaulay’s narrative technique shares the keenness and distinction of her intellectual outlook. Each section of the book is told by one of its characters and thus the characterization is of a rare completeness and inwardness. The section written by Lelia Yorke is masterly.” L. L.
“Miss Macaulay is so competent in reaching her aim that one is forced to wonder why she didn’t make her book a little smoother and more varied in style, and a little less awkward in form.” S. T.
“The story is taken up at different stages by the principal figures, and Miss Macaulay shows real skill in her power of representing the facts as they appear to each, colored by the style and the preoccupations of the individual.” E. A. Boyd
“Add to this penetrating observation and trenchancy of expression a finished style and good powers of characterization and it is not difficult to understand why Miss Macaulay’s fictional commentary on present day foibles was praisefully acclaimed in London, where it has already run into several editions.”
Reviewed by Caroline Singer
“What gives it distinction is the range and flexibility of its idea.” H. W. Boynton
“In these days of Potterism, trade-union tyranny, and fiscal oppression, we are not often, as they used to say in the eighteenth century, ‘merry.’ Yet Miss Macaulay’s novel amused and refreshed us. The satire is playful, delicate, and mordant.”
“The book is rightly named ‘tragi-farcical,’ and therein lies its weakness, for the abruptness of the alternations are extreme. The greatest tragedies have not excluded comedy, but the introduction of farce produces a confusion of tones.”
“The effect of abstraction is unfortunately heightened by the author’s device of telling part of the story in her own person, part in the persons of the different characters, a proceeding for which we can see no good reason. It would have been better if she had written all in the person of the unworldly Laurence Juke. In his instalment we have the Miss Macaulay whom we knew before, afraid neither of pity nor enthusiasm.”
MCAULEY, MARY ETHEL, ed. Wanderer; or, Many minds on many subjects; with an introd. by Charles Alexander Rook. *$2.50 Boni & Liveright 040
“In the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Miss Mary Ethel McAuley, calling herself the ‘Wanderer,’ showed an extraordinary ingenuity in putting nice questions in casuistry and in eliciting a wide variety of answers to them, many of which now appear in this volume.” (Review) “‘Can a radical be a Christian?’ ‘Is our present marriage system perfect?’ ‘Is it possible for the dead to materialize?’ ‘Should we have birth control?’ ‘Is the mystic a human need?’ ‘Are the ministers more muzzled than the editors?’ ‘Would George Sand be received in genteel society today?’ ‘Was Tolstoi a prophet?’—these are a very few of the many vital or bizarre questions asked by Miss McAuley and tackled by Sir Tom, Doctor Dick, and Plain Harry and Lizzie.” (N Y Call)
“Nobody could possibly accept half the opinions in this book, but some of them are enlightening, many are interesting, and the “‘Wanderer’ idea is excellent.” A. W. Welch
MCBRIDE, ISAAC. Barbarous soviet Russia. il *$2.50 Seltzer 914.7
“Favorable pictures of present-day life in Russia under the Bolshevist régime, as sketched by an American traveler. Mr McBride gave special attention to labor conditions, education, the status of women, and the character of the soviet leadership. Interesting documents, including a report on the financial situation of Russia, are included in an appendix.”—R of Rs
“What we have not yet seen is a book which combines a frank confrontation of the point of view of the Soviets with a clear-eyed estimate of its principles and a fair description of the successes or failures resulting in the operation. Mr Isaac McBride has failed to write such a book, but he has at least shown that the materials for it are not lacking.” Jacob Zeitlin
“Not the least attractive feature of the book is a number of excellent illustrations. A great deal of valuable and interesting information about the labor laws and the industrial condition of soviet Russia is contained in a long appendix.” A. C. Freeman
MCCABE, JOSEPH. Taint in politics. *$2 Dodd 172.2
“This anonymous attack on the political world of the day deserves attention as a searching and forcible exposure of many undoubted abuses. Lack of principle, lightly disguised corruption, privileged incompetence, a pampered and leisurely civil service, slavish adherence to party, the substitution of oligarchy for any true democracy—these and such like features of public life are trenchantly and often convincingly attacked; and some historical chapters at the beginning trace the evolution of political corruption back to the middle ages. Though the writer has some suggestions at the end as to shorter parliaments, saving of parliamentary time, and, more broadly, the fundamental need of popular education, he is almost solely destructive; he is ‘not so much concerned with the method of purification as the establishment of the disease,’ and it is a real merit that he is absolutely impartial in his onslaught on the two—or three—parties and on the coalition.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The value of this anonymous criticism of present-day political affairs would be greatly enhanced were the writer able to confirm the hope held out at the commencement, that in spite of his summary dismissal of politics as everywhere and always more or less tainted, his attitude might eventually be something more than negative.”
“The reader is likely to find, in this volume, additional reasons for congratulation that America has not become a partner in the international gaminghouse. The chapter on American conditions is disappointingly superficial.” C. N.
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“The thoughtful reader will not, of course, forget that there is another side to the question.”
MCCALEB, WALTER FLAVIUS. Present and past banking in Mexico. *$2 (3c) Harper 332.15
On the ground that the degree of banking development of a country measures the degree of civilization, comfort, and economic development, the book attempts “to trace the history of the credit institutions of the country from their initial stages down to the present time. Effort has been made to stress the salient facts in the extraordinary story of the rise and fall of banking in our neighboring republic.” (Preface) The book is published under the auspices of the Doheny foundation and a partial list of the contents is: Early stages of banking and finance; Through the crisis of 1884; Origin of the Banco nacional; High tide of bank concessions; General law for institutions of credit; The transition period; Adoption of the gold standard; Eve of the Madero revolution; Huerta and the banks; Regime of the Constitucionalistas. There is a bibliography and an index.
“Dr McCaleb has succeeded in furnishing the only comprehensive account of banking developments in Mexico. It is not easy for American readers to understand the statements of Mexican banks because of the differences in the terminology used, which grow largely out of differences in banking practice. Dr McCaleb has done much to make understandable the statements which he cites.” A. N. Young
MCCARTHY, JUSTIN HUNTLY. Henry Elizabeth. *$2 (1½c) Lane
Henry Elizabeth’s mother had wanted a girl and her name was to have been Elizabeth. When he was born a boy the Elizabeth stood with the addition of Henry, Young Braginton, for he was the master of the manor-house, grew up a country bumpkin much given to drinking, eating and women. He was a young giant. One day, after a drunken bout, he encounters a most beautiful woman, such as he had never seen. It changes his career. He resolves to give up his old life, go up to London, become one of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers, and make himself worthy of his beauty. He falls in with a former court jester who takes his education in hand, and little by little makes himself master of all the gallant practices, including swordsmanship. He has many adventures, serves Elizabeth and is granted favors, and has the opportunity, most coveted, to champion the cause of his lady love and rid her of her enemies. Although he had not won her at the end of the story the reader hopes that he will yet succeed. The picture of London in Elizabeth’s time is one of the quaint features of the story.
“It is characteristic of Mr McCarthy that it has all the excitement and rapidity of a good swashbuckling tale with a most polished workmanship and better style than is the case of most books of the kind.”
“The story is written in that leisurely way that enables the author to reproduce in fine detail much of the social background of the time with which it deals and also to accentuate the feeling of its unhurrying pace. But this is all done without apparent effort and as an integral part of the story, which moves swiftly enough when the time for action comes.”
“A capital tale of the days of Queen Bess. It is just historical enough and not too much so. A tale which has incident, action, humor, and character depiction.”
“Mr McCarthy is one of our most acceptable historical novelists. His people are real; and neither they nor he drop into the mannerisms of style or the pat dialogue too common among his rivals.”
MACCLINTOCK, LANDER. Contemporary drama of Italy. *$1.50 (2c) Little 852
The book is one of the Contemporary drama series edited by Richard Burton. Comparatively little is known to the English-speaking public of modern Italian dramatists. The object of the book is to fill the gap. The author holds that the Italian is realistic rather than romantic and his modern literature is characterized by fidelity to life and the intellectualization of its themes rather than by emotionalism. Even romanticism contained the germs of the modern movement and an increasingly intelligent public demands more and more discussion and solution of vital questions and urgent problems. The contents are: The foundations; Giuseppe Giacosa; The early realists; Gabriele D’Annunzio; The later realists; Roberto Bracco; Actors and acting, the popular theatre, the dialect theatre; The younger generation; Futurism and other isms; Bibliographical appendix; Index.
“Without that special charm which transforms such a book into one of popular appeal, but still interesting and useful in its suggestiveness to the drama student and general reader.”
“Mr MacClintock is very agile, very well-informed, his touch is light and his taste is catholic.”
“His book is excellent in every way, a model for the other contributors to the Contemporary drama series. It is founded upon indefatigable investigation, at once broad and deep. It is informed with a fine critical spirit. It is logically planned and proportioned. It is written in clear English. And it is as unfailingly interesting as it is unhesitatingly instructive.” Brander Matthews
“In spite of occasional infelicities of expression and errors of fact or of judgment, it is a distinctly valuable contribution to the study of modern Italian literature. Dr MacClintock’s first chapter, and his last, ‘Futurism and other isms,’ are the least satisfactory part of his book, since they involve broad generalizations based on a profound knowledge of the background. This knowledge he does not yet sufficiently possess, if one may judge from his tendency to accept and incorporate the views of previous writers.” K. McKenzie
MCCONN, MAX. Mollie’s substitute husband, il *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
“Professor” John Merriam, principal of the Riceville high school, on account of his startling likeness to the “Boy senator,” George Norman, was induced to represent that gentleman under rather amazing circumstances. The Reform league of Chicago was trying to secure better traction conditions in that city and upon Senator Norman rested the decision, and it was his intention to veto the measure. Then what was simpler than for the enterprising Reform league to kidnap the senator and substitute his double—John Merriam, who would put the thing thru for them in short order. He agreed to play the part, which involved playing husband to Mollie June, with whom he had been in love since she was a school girl. The situation naturally led to complications both public and private, and all the people concerned were led a merry chase escaping detection. A happy outcome at times seemed impossible—but at length it is achieved for all except the unfortunate Senator Norman himself—and perhaps he deserved his fate.
“The story is brisk and brilliant, if complicated in plot.”
“A certain levity of style with which he writes disarms criticism and adds to the entertainment he has provided.”
MCCORD, JAMES NEWTON. Textbook of filing. il *$2 Appleton 651
“Based on our experience in training thousands of girls and women for filing positions no matter what methods were involved, or what particular manufacturer’s system was employed, this book has been compiled.... Its purpose is to instruct in the different methods of filing, which are limited, while the different systems are numerous and must be reduced to a possible four methods.... Office routine, short cuts, cross reference and different refinements and ramifications all come in for proper consideration and the volume is equally as valuable as a reference book as a textbook.” (Preface) Contents: Filing equipment; Routing; Alphabetic methods; Numeric filing; Geographic methods; Subject and decimal methods; Automatic system; Card indexing; Transferring; Legal filing; Insurance; Real estate; Follow-up methods; Banking; Sales; Manufacturing; Stocks and bonds; Card ledgers; Appendix; Index. The author is director of the New York school of filing.
“A clear, simple presentation.”
MCCORMICK, ROBERT RUTHERFORD. Army of 1918. *$2 Harcourt 940.373
A work by a member of General Pershing’s staff, with chapters on: The background of the army; The inspired ambassador; Early days of the A.E.F.; The great division; Germany’s last offensive; A few technical points; The pursuit from the Marne; The American offensives; Some elements of national defense; New weapons and their use; The general staff; The crime of silence; The only solution. The solution offered in the concluding chapter is a strong military establishment with a trained army based on European, preferably French, models.
“It should be read by everyone who is interested in our future military policy.”
MACCRACKEN, JOHN HENRY. College and commonwealth, and other educational papers and addresses. *$3 Century 378
The collection consists largely of college addresses delivered at opening or commencement exercises, including, as the title essay of the book, the author’s inaugural address as president of Lafayette college. One of the leading ideas in this collection is the superiority of individualism to conformity, communism or state control. Even the desirability of cooperation is set forth with certain reservations. The war with its problems furnishes some of the topics. Among the titles are: The college and the individual; Liberty and cooperation; War and education; The college and the shadow of war; Federal leadership in education; Why the trust idea is not applicable to education; The college man and freedom; The education of women; Broader education of engineers; Scientific method and therapeutic impulse; Religion and education.
MCCUTCHEON, GEORGE BARR. Anderson Crow, detective. il *$2 (3½c) Dodd
Anderson Crow, besides being the detective of the title, held a number of important municipal offices in the town of Tinkletown, including those of deputy marshal, deputy superintendent of the fire department, commissioner of water-works and others. His zeal on the trail of crime was therefore keen, and he rarely was outwitted, whether he was capturing German spies, or solving the mystery of a suicide or following up the effects of hard cider in the Foreign missionary society. His understudy was Alf Reesling, the village drunkard, who had been sober for twenty-five years, but who was living on the reputation of one hilarious week of his youth. Harry Squires, the editor of the weekly Banner, was a thorn in the side of the detective, although but for him some of his successes would have been failures.
“The tales are written in a farcical, extravagant style which, when applied to characters obviously intended to represent everyday human beings, needs a strong dash of humor to make it palatable. Mr McCutcheon has not made them funny enough. The illustrations, by the author’s famous brother, are full of ‘pep’ as one would expect them to be.”
“Good fun.”
“While sketchy and episodical, the narrative is well knit. It is, perhaps, not far from the truth to say that Mr McCutcheon’s story is a satire on the detective creation of the fiction writers.”
MCCUTCHEON, GEORGE BARR. West wind drift. *$2 (2c) Dodd
The Doraine, in the treacherous days of the war, sailed one day from a South American port carrying a thousand souls. And from that day she was never seen again, and was eventually reported lost with all on board. But two German spies might have given a fuller report if they had told of their work before they dropped off onto the launch that was awaiting them in the middle of the South Atlantic. The Doraine was left to helplessly drift, at the mercy of wind and tide. So finally she was borne to the shores of an uninhabited island. And there the six hundred or so human beings who had survived the rigors and exposure of the trip, landed and made a settlement. All the elements in human nature which men are familiar with in normal circumstances made themselves felt here, capacity for leadership, love, jealousy, temptation, treachery, justice, but strongest of all, hope in the future. Algernon Adonis Percival, in spite of his name and the fact that he was a stowaway on the doomed ship, is the strongest character of all, and his career is the most interesting as he rises to the governorship in quite Admirable Crichton style.
“George Barr McCutcheon, the facile creator of mythical kingdoms, has invented a new ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ quite stupendous enough for production by Mr Griffith.”
“There is a straightaway yarn, which, if not particularly original or strikingly dramatic, at least leads one logically from the first chapter to the last with the feeling that one has been in company of a good-humored entertainer. Brightly written throughout, Mr McCutcheon’s latest novel is worthy of his reputation.”
“The book is worth reading for itself and also because it brings saliently to mind some of the things which are essential to liberty and combined effort in civilized countries, as well as in desert islands.”
“The book was not written to prove anything for which many will be thankful.” Caroline Singer
“It is an entertaining tale which holds the reader enthralled through its various stages.”
MACDONALD, GREVILLE. North door. *$2 (1½c) Houghton
This romance, whose scene is the coast of Cornwall more than a century ago, has a historic background. It shows us the dawn of modern industrialism and how a country’s prosperity may be paid for with the blood of a once prosperous peasantry. The central figure is a saintly but rather unorthodox priest who puts his faith in the good to the supreme test by himself crossing the threshold of the accursed “North door” of the church in search of the reality of sin and evil. He finds both only to see it vanish before the higher reality of a divine goodness. A two-fold romance runs through the story, that of a peasant girl’s heroic love for a giant fisherman and smuggler and the highly spiritualized romance between the priest and Lady Evangeline.
“In this attempt to reproduce the life of a Cornish parish during the first decade of the nineteenth century some faults of construction are redeemed by much charm and sincerity.”
“Something of Hawthorne’s moral sense, his superstitious awe, his sternness, his artistry, and, to a certain extent, his power of construction are more than noticeable—they are outstanding. George Brandes once declared that literature’s task is to give a ‘condensed representation of a people and an age.’ If this is true, then ‘The north door’ is surely entitled to consideration as literature.”
“The book has a marked character of its own, it is unusual and arresting.”
“The portrait of Christopher Trevenna is a real, if slightly sentimental, piece of character drawing. The author’s rather verbose and involved style places an unnecessary obstacle in the way of the reader’s enjoyment.”
MACDONALD, JAMES RAMSAY. Government of India. *$1.50 Huebsch 354
“The appearance of this informative book is stated by the author to have been delayed by the war. He reviews the origin and evolution of the links which connect India with ourselves, and reminds readers that the needs of that empire cannot be met by an adjustment here and an adjustment there: ‘they have to be viewed in their wide sweep.’ Mr Macdonald discusses with considerable fullness the Montagu-Chelmsford report, deals with the religious problems in India, and remarks that a very common opinion of both Indians and English is that the Christian missions in India thwart the nationalist movement—partly by implanting in the minds of the people thoughts which lead them away from Indian leadership and ideas. In the author’s judgment, the Legislative councils should have more authority, especially in finance, and the Viceroy’s council be made more representative.”—Ath
“This new volume has been produced in an international milieu which is characterized by at least two sets of conditions. The first are those generated by the talk of a league of nations, and the second is the fait accompli of a socialist state in bolshevik Russia. And it is because the author seeks to harmonize his theories with these novel phenomena that his book acquires an importance such as is hardly indicated by the limitations of its title.” B. K. Sarkar
“The trouble about Mr Ramsay Macdonald’s book on India is that portions of it are obsolete. He describes a form of government which is about to undergo great modifications. Little further need be said by the way of criticism. Mr Macdonald writes with a practised hand, sometimes even with charm. He has handled his theme with moderation and restraint. It is a pleasure to pick up a book about India which contains no word of bitterness, no trace of violent controversy, no exaggeration or over-statement.”
MACDONALD, JAMES RAMSAY. Parliament and revolution. (New library of social science) *$1.50 Seltzer 335
“‘Parliament and revolution’ is a careful comparison between the existing government in England and the aims and projects of the Bolshevists. While the book is antibolshevist, Mr Macdonald is quick to recognize any sound reasoning in the bolshevist theories to denounce the flaws in the rule of Parliament. He includes a description of the working of the soviet system in Russia, and a discussion of ‘direct action,’ the name under which bolshevism is discussed and advocated by the British labor party.”—Springf’d Republican
“Not in any sense an objective scientific study, but an assertion of principles that deserves attention.”
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
“As a piece of argumentation ‘Parliament and revolution’ leaves a good deal to be desired. Its logical texture is not of the finest; too often it gives us assertion where we want demonstration; and as for ‘scientific’ and ‘unbiased,’ these adjectives, by which the book is described in the publishers’ advertisement on the paper cover, have no more to do with the case than the flowers that bloom in the spring.” R. L. Schuyler
“In a measure, Mr Macdonald’s book is a salutary corrective to a good deal of loose vituperation. But there is another aspect to the matter with which he has failed to deal. Granted the ignorance and inertia of the modern electorate what, at bottom, are its causes?... The trade unions have an importance which Mr Macdonald altogether fails to give them in this study.” H. J. L.
“The book is one that, we warrant, will not fully satisfy any single Socialist. One feels himself at times tantalized between enjoyment of some excellent statement of principle or fact or analysis of some particular question, only to draw a conclusion here and there that appears to be a concession to conventional opinion. Yet the book will appeal to all but the romanticists and those of fixed opinions.” James Oneal
“The first volume of the New library of social science seems to me the most straightforward treatise on government which has come out since the beginning of the war.” M. H. Anderson
“It is to be hoped that this contribution may stimulate a further discussion on these important questions of the technique of revolution.”
“It is forceful in logic and classic in clearness.”
“The whole book is a careful study of dangerous political tendencies of the times and well worth reading by adherents and opponents of socialism alike.” B. L.
MACDONALD, ZILLAH K. Eileen’s adventures in Wordland. il *$2.25 (5c) Stokes
“This is the story of a little girl who visited the land behind the dictionary and found out for herself that words are alive.” Eileen was sitting in the schoolroom writing out the words she had misspelled and trying to remember that syntax doesn’t end in tacks, when the letter X suddenly jumped out of her inkwell and confronted her. Under his guidance she visited Dictionary Town and there met the words who live in English Wordland, “plain strong Anglo-Saxon words, French aristocrat words who came over with William the Conqueror, the old giant Greek and Latin words, foreign words from every land who have been adopted by Mother English Language, and the happy-go-lucky slang words who live in a gipsy camp outside of Dictionary Town.” The whimsical illustrations are by Stuart Hay.
“A very clever little idea, this. With all her fun, the author tries to be soundly etymological, which will please the educators, without annoying the children. The illustrator, Stuart Hay, adds much with his line-drawings to a book which is bound to give its readers a good time.”
“It will be an excellent book for supplementary reading in the elementary grades. The story moves with much briskness and variety.”
MACDONNELL, JAMES FRANCIS CARLIN (FRANCIS CARLIN, pseud.). Cairn of stars. *$1.50 Holt 821
A second volume of poems by the author of “My Ireland.” As in the previous volume lyric verse predominates and the themes are drawn from Irish landscape and custom and fairy lore. A few of the titles are: The cairn of stars; A girl’s song; The black swans; The market town; The seventh son; A Munster marriage; An Irish madonna; For a god-child; The queen of Kerry; The coming of the fairies; The herdsman’s son; The beggar’s blessing.
“There is more pure poetry to the square inch of expression on the printed page of Francis Carlin than there is on the whole leaves of printed pages by any Irish-American poet of today. ‘The cairn of stars’ is far better than the earlier book. In the nearly three years since ‘My Ireland,’ Mr Carlin has added a deliberately finished technique to the instinctive technique that was his original gift. He has learned to manage his metres in a way to bring out all the finer shades of his moods and without impairing the spontaneity of feeling. At the same time he has greatly broadened the scope of his interests.” W. S. B.
“Very tuneful and pleasurable and wholesome even if the more rare and mysterious promise of certain earlier poems is not entirely fulfilled.”
Reviewed by Mark Van Doren
“A book that is delightful to read from beginning to end. Mr Carlin will never be a great poet, but he will always be a sincere and honest poet of indubitable talent.”
MCDOUGALL, WILLIAM. Group mind. *$5 Putnam 301
“A sketch of the principles of collective psychology with some attempt to apply them to the interpretation of national life and character.” (Sub-title) The author holds that “a society, when it enjoys a long life and becomes highly organized, acquires a structure and qualities which are largely independent of the qualities of the individuals who enter into its composition and take part for a brief time in its life.” Thus a collective mental life is not merely the sum of the mental lives of its units but is a “collective mind” or, if one prefers, “a collective soul.” The book is a sequel to the author’s “Introduction to social psychology” and assumes the reader’s acquaintance with it. The contents fall into three parts: General principles of collective psychology; The national mind and character; The development of national mind and character. There is an index.
“Soundly empirical as his methods are, Mr McDougall may well fail to convince the ardent humanitarian of the error of his ways.... Nevertheless, the problem of a national eugenics must be faced and solved, not simply burked on sentimental grounds. Meanwhile, whatever moral be drawn from them, the facts must first be reviewed impartially; and Mr McDougall’s book is the model of a treatment conceived and executed in the dispassionate spirit of science.” R. R. M.
“The rule which prevents a physician from operating upon a member of his own family because his emotion would interfere with his judgment is one that no scientist can afford to ignore. Mr McDougall has ignored it. That is to say he has not searched his heart to free himself from his own group affiliations sufficiently to approach his subject with a clean and clear mind.” Walter Lippmann
“There are one or two of Mr McDougall’s statements to which we might take exception; but they are few in number and of no importance to his main argument. He is invariably impartial, lucid, and candid, making use of no theory, however plausible, unless it will bear the strictest scrutiny, and advancing no conclusions as proved so long as any reasonable doubt may be entertained of their soundness.”
“The book is well worth reading, but the student will look in vain for any considerable contribution or stimulating suggestion.” J. K. Hart
“The three chapters on ‘The race-making period’ and the following one on ‘Racial changes during the historic period’ form a singularly illuminating study of race problems.... The defence made on page 174 of the maxim ‘My country right or wrong’ suggests that his enthusiasm for the virtue of group loyalty is a little in danger of obscuring to his eyes the rights of the individual conscience. A Treitschke might with a little sophistry subscribe it.”
MCDOWALL, ARTHUR SYDNEY. Realism; a study in art and thought. *$4 Dutton 701
“Mr McDowall makes his position clear. The material world has, he believes, a real existence apart from man. At the point of consciousness its circle and our apprehension intersect, but they remain separate circles. The problem of realism is to represent this world that our senses claim for us, not, as Zola supposed, by a literary photograph, not scientifically, but by ‘truth of impression in which feeling and imagination play the essential part.’ ‘Truth for the realist artist can never consist in ... a simple correspondence with facts. He is an observer, but he is not a reporter. He does not copy, but he creates a world which refers us back to our own world and shows it to us more truly.’”—N Y Evening Post
“Often the book is murky with the philosophical abstractions, crystallizing into dogma. He has the caution of the scholar, and not the audacity of the artist. He avoids the impertinences of brilliance, but also its decision.”
“Mr McDowall’s book should be read. It has the awareness, the keen interest in living problems, of the work of William James.”
“Mr McDowall approaches his topic from many angles and cites a wealth of relevant illustration, but finally leaves the impression that he has failed to get at the heart of it. One reason of his inadequacy is the ease with which he dismisses as obsolete the older uses of the term realism.”
MCEVILLY, MARY A. Meslom’s messages from the life beyond. *$1.50 (6c) Brentano’s 134
The book is a record of automatic writing executed by the author and bearing messages from the beyond by Meslom, an ancient Hindu, and, with the aid of Meslom, by “L,” a victim of the war, to his mother. In the introduction the author relates how she developed her gift. The messages are chiefly confined to spiritual problems, to God’s creative force and love and the growth in spiritual power and peace of both “L” and his mother.
“The ‘messages’ have no evidential value whatever—there is not a single test of ‘identity.’ There are vastly more verbal expressions than thoughts expressed. Is it not safe to assume that the central element in the treatise, the love of God, is part of the author’s conception of Christianity, and that the ‘messages’ simply are subconscious elaborations of her mind? Everything points in that direction.”
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
“The messages are expressed with simplicity and clarity and reveal ardent spiritual aspiration.”
MCFADDEN, GERTRUDE VIOLET. Preventive man. *$1.75 Lane
A story of smuggling on the Dorset coast a century ago. The “preventive man,” in the vernacular of the time, is a government agent, who comes into the neighborhood to run down the law breakers. In truth however, he is less interested in the smuggling than in his own more weighty private concerns, for he has reason to believe that his loved brother has met foul play in this very community. By a trick he gains admittance into the house of Simeon Coffin, the miser, and begins to gather the evidence that confirms his suspicions. At first he associates Simeon’s niece, Horatia, with the crime and attributes her confusion—which is really due to the possession of a piece of smuggled silk—to her guilt. She is cleared in his eyes however and he is ready enough to atone for her suffering and his cruelty.
“In spite of improbabilities, the book is well worth reading.”
“Miss McFadden is quite successful in developing her atmosphere of mystery, and her characters, although all of them are severely shaped into well-known types, manage to convey a certain sense of reality. The action of the story is swift enough to sustain the interest and it rises at times to several thrilling scenes.”
“The story has everything that is necessary to make it fine, except that touch of ability which turns a credible narrative into a romantic one. The landscape writing is recognisably good.”
“The work is not without merit, but would benefit greatly by pruning the description and adding to the action.”
“A capital adventure tale of the days when smuggling was a respectable pursuit.”
MACFARLAN, ALEXANDER. Inscrutable lovers; a tragic comedy. *$1.75 (4c) Dodd
Margaret, the daughter of Count Kettle, Irish patriot and champion of lost causes, has been nourished on romance. As Count Kettle’s daughter she is pointed out as the most picturesque and romantic figure in Ireland. But she hates her position and she marries Charlie Macaig to escape it. “I could have loved a grocer,” says Margaret in extenuation, “just any grocer.” Charlie Macaig is the youngest member of a firm of shipowners. He is steady, he is practical, he is reliable, he is everything that Margaret’s familiar associates are not. But, as it turns out, his own dreams for all his practical business years have been of romance and adventure, and Margaret is the fulfillment of his dreams. There is mutual shock of discovery when the truth comes out, and then love, abetted by the Catholic church—which is practical or romantic as you happen to look at it—triumphs.
“To crispness of visualization, the author adds crispness in dialogue. Novelists cannot eschew some description; here Mr MacFarlan is little gifted.”
“‘The inscrutable lovers’ is Mr MacFarlan’s second book and he is said to be very young. It is a very modern sort of youth that is his. His perceptions are very sharp, but his nature seems wintry. The book is a study in contrasting temperaments. The contrasts are very clear. They are indeed too clear and their edges are too glittering. People are not as simply made as all that.”
“It has not only brilliancy but a delicate completeness comparable to (not like) that of Mr Hewlett’s earlier bits of romantic comedy. A delightful piece of literary comedy.” H. W. Boynton
“This charming little tale must be classified rather as an essay in pure comedy than as a reproduction of actual life.”
MCFEE, MRS INEZ NELLIE (CANFIELD). Boy heroes in fiction. il *$1.75 (2c) Crowell
The stories of seven boy heroes in fiction are here presented in condensed form. The foreword says, “Some of these boy heroes of yesterday may not be known to boys of today, partly because their stories are imbedded in extra large volumes, which do not stop with boy life, but include many other things. It has been the happy task, therefore, of the present editor to disentangle and condense these stories, presenting only the portions which pertain to the boy life of each hero.” Contents: Little Gavroche (from “Les misérables”); David Balfour (from “Kidnapped”); Oliver Twist; Jim Davis (from Masefield’s “Jim Davis”); David Copperfield; Jim Hawkins (from “Treasure island”); and John Halifax.
“Her volumes would have gained as much in effect as they would have lost in length had she limited herself to quotations instead of supplementing them with paraphrases.”
MCFEE, MRS INEZ NELLIE (CANFIELD). Girl heroines in fiction. il *$1.75 (2c) Crowell
The six girls chosen for this volume are Little Dorrit, Maggie Tulliver, Ellen (from “The wide wide world”), Little Nell, Eppie (from “Silas Marner”), and Cosette (from “Les misérables”). “Each girl is introduced in very nearly her author’s own words, and thus preserves her own individuality.” As in the book of boy heroes, the editor expresses the hope that the stories as presented here may serve as an introduction to the full-length versions.
MCFEE, WILLIAM. Captain Macedoine’s daughter. *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
The story of Captain Macedoine’s daughter is told by the “quiet and occasionally garrulous” Chief of H. M. S. Sycorax, detailed to escort convoys through the Ægean in war time. The Chief had known the Mediterranean in the days of peace and this is a peace-time story of plotting and intrigue, involving Captain Macedoine’s great international bubble, the Anglo-Hellenic development company, in which his daughter is used as a tool. From her mother the girl had a mixture of dark blood. Mr Spenlove, the chief, who had been one of those who fell under her spell, tells all that he knew of her tragic life and death, drawing from it his own conclusions on the nature of love.
“A tale of strange people, strange places, strange motifs, strange morals told with brilliant effect and satisfying completeness.” S. M. R.
“This well-written novel, broader in its scope than Mr McFee’s previous books is strong not only in its character portrayal but in the philosophy interspersed throughout its pages.”
“While ‘Captain Macedoine’s daughter’ is not so good a story as either ‘Casuals of the sea’ or ‘Aliens,’ it has in it all the original qualities of unconventional fiction that long ago established Joseph Conrad and that is placing Mr McFee in the same rank of novelists.” E. F. E.
“William McFee’s new novel has the same elusive perfume as Conrad’s ‘Arrow of gold.’” A. W. Welch
“‘Captain Macedoine’s daughter’ gladdens the heart of the serious lover of English prose, for it proves that in Mr McFee we have no mere casual of the pen, no fortunate adventurer upon ink who triumphed by chance, but a soberly devoted novelist from whom many years of fine work may confidently be expected.”
“‘Captain Macedoine’s daughter’ is, first of all, a masterful portrayal of two colorful personalities.... But it is far more than that; it is, too, a contrast between occidental and eastern civilizations and philosophies, a commentary on human nature, particularly an analysis of love, and an achievement in beautiful prose.”
“There is less sea and more siren in this novel than Mr McFee’s readers would perhaps expect. Few readers will resist the charm of the style; some will think the dénouement unsatisfying.”
“Unmistakably a big, compelling, haunting book.” F: T. Cooper
“The outstanding impression is the sense of atmosphere which the narrative imparts to the reader. The narrative has many curious ramifications, but each is an important part of the whole, and the reader will find himself enthralled from the first to the last scene.”
MCGIBENY, DONALD.[2] 32 caliber. *$1.75 Bobbs
“Although the author is unusually progressive in having his villain operate with the aid of airplane and machine gun, the general plot and the situations created are such as might be encountered in every-day life and modern crime. An attorney and his wife, on the way to keep an appointment that involves the domestic happiness and honor of both, are found at a lonely spot, the car wrecked, the man dead from a bullet wound, the wife unconscious in the tonneau. Was it another automobile accident, was the man murdered by the wife or did an outsider have a part in the tragedy? These are questions that perplexed the authorities and will perplex and mystify the reader.”—Springf’d Republican
“The basis and material used in the tale is excellent and would make a capital short story.”
“A not too lurid mystery interestingly built up and broken down, in a rapid, easy narrative style.”
“The only marked defect is the author’s attempt to force the reader’s suspicions on characters whose guilt, if ultimately proved by the story, would shock any decent sense of plausibility.”
“He has written so well, made his people so living and so pleasant, handled his subject so surely, that it is difficult to think of this book as a maiden essay.”
“Among the better of the new detective tales, ’32 calibre,’ early arouses the interest of the reader and holds it through a series of adventures, with the solution of the mystery not even indicated until the close.”
MACGILL, PATRICK. Maureen. *$2 (1½c) McBride
Mr MacGill’s new story of Donegal is a mingling of pathos and humor, hard toil and grim poverty, beauty and stark tragedy. Maureen, the daughter of Kathleen O’Malley, tastes all the sorrow and loneliness of an illegitimate child and after her mother’s death leaves the parish. She has won the love of young Cathal Cassidy and he would have her stay, but long before her mother had warned her that her only happiness would lie in marrying a man outside the parish who would not have to suffer for her shame in the eyes of his neighbors, and to spare Cathal this she leaves him. She meets experiences that are bitterly cruel, but after them finds a haven with kind people and at the end of two years returns. Cathal has been faithful and it seems that their love is to bring them happiness, but tragedy overwhelms them. The war and Sinn Fein have a place in the background of the story.
“The characters in general are well drawn, and have that tragic intensity which Synge and others have made us believe to be in the Celtic blood.”
“Unmitigated truth and sincerity produce a strong reality of characters and atmosphere though not a pleasant story.”
“Such a thing to be done at all must be done exceptionally well, and Mr MacGill, with a good style at his command, has achieved a triumph.” G. M. H.
“The minor characters are admirably drawn; the chief ones are less vivid and convincing. The weaknesses of the story are glaring: it is poor both in structure and in motivation. Keeran, in the final chapters, is drawn on the lines of Dickens at his worst, and the tragic conclusion brings the reader up with the jolt of an express train coming to a violent halt.”
“The chief and tragic emphasis falls upon youth, in spite of which the best of the story lies in the penetrating, vivid, and thoroughly human presentation of the old people.” E. P.
“Much of the power of the story lies in the intermingling of quite Russian realism, with an idealism which bursts flamelike through the recital of brutal details. ‘Decent’ is the salutation of the people of Dungarrow for the strangers they meet, and decent is the epithet uppermost in the mind of the reader, in spite of Mr MacGill’s frank exposure of the vices of his own people.” E. L.
“‘Maureen’ is the story of a peasant girl in Donegal, a terrible story in many ways and a curiously fascinating one. Mr MacGill knows how to flash a scene so vividly before your mind that it haunts your visual memory for days afterward.”
“In ‘Maureen’ there is considerable alloy, yet much good metal and some precious. But the whole thing needs fusing.” J. C. L.
“‘Maureen’ is not up to ‘Children of the dead end’ or ‘Rat pit,’ but it is well worth reading, especially to Irish folk and the legion that love the Irish.” S. C. Daljord
“There are very few figures in the story that evoke admiration; most of them, to be quite frank, suggest the opposite. But their vitality is amazing, and because of this authentic possession of the power to make his characters live and breathe, Mr MacGill takes a prominent place with those other admirable Irish fictioneers, St John Ervine, Shaw Desmond, James Joyce and James Stephens.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Mr MacGill’s story is a stern presentation not only of characters, but of racial characteristics and psychology. It is always real and alive. The book unrolls before the reader’s eyes a segment of life from rural Ireland with all the reality of a picture film.”
“Nothing farther removed from the individualist English novel could be imagined. It is not that the characters are in any way lacking in individuality. They are creatures of flesh and blood right enough, terrible in their humanity. But it is as social rather than as personal values that they count. There is little joy in Mr MacGill’s book—one feels that the sun seldom shines in Donegal—but it has creative richness and the supreme quality of truth.”
MCGILVARY, MARGARET. Dawn of a new era in Syria. il *$2.50 Revell 940.356
“Miss McGilvary during the progress of the war was the secretary of the Beirut chapter of the Red cross and hence had unusual opportunities for following the trend of events. The story which she tells, and of which she herself was a part, is of deep interest; how an American printing house was converted into a relief bureau; how American philanthrophy did its part in ameliorating the condition of the unhappy people; how difficulties were thrown in the way by the Turks; culminating presently in the arrest of the entire American mission. She tells in thrilling language of a year of horror, and toward the end, of the collapse of the Central powers, the decline of German prestige, and lastly of the end of Turkey.”—Boston Transcript
“Hers is a story very well worth the reading, for it is the story of one who was upon the spot and was a witness of all of which she writes.”
“Her book contains vivid notes on the personalities of Enver, Talaat, and Jemal.”
MCGOVERN, WILLIAM MONTGOMERY. Modern Japan; its political, military and industrial organization; with a preface by Sir E. Denison Ross. *$5 Scribner 915.2
“Dr McGovern spent ten years in the Far East, ‘six of which were devoted to school and college studies in Japan.’ He is, therefore, eminently qualified as an interpreter of Japanese thought and Japanese ideas. He begins with an ethnographical, geographical and historical introduction. Having discussed the early history of the Yamato race, he proceeds to give a summary of the evolution of the country since it was opened up by Commodore Perry’s famous visit. He tells of its constitution and political parties, of its organization and government, of its finances, of its efficient bureaucracy (as compared with the cumbrous British form), its imperial socialism (as he calls the centralization of all economic activity), of its military efficiency (based on German models), of its naval menace, of its industrial and commercial development, its banking system, its agriculture, its foreign trade. The concluding section is a very brief statement of the language and literature, the arts of sculpture, painting, the drama, poetry and religion in its three-fold phase.”—Boston Transcript
“His book is distinctly illuminating, although we may complain that too much space is devoted to the dry bones of political and military matters, and not enough to the psychology of the people and its expression in literature and the other arts.”
“A clear, forceful condensation.”
“Much of Dr McGovern’s book is the expression of a full knowledge and an open mind. It is perhaps the fairest exposition of the whole field of Japanese thought and accomplishment to be found in the vast number of books which have been written about Japan. Dr McGovern’s style is not noticeable for grace.” N. H. D.
“To those who wish to gain an insight into the potentialities of this forward pushing nation Dr McGovern’s book offers information that is well worth having.”
“We are grateful to Mr McGovern for this book, but we should have been more so if he had facilitated its use as a work of reference by the addition of an index. We should be still more grateful to him, if, instead of going over old ground that is open to anyone, he used his very peculiar qualifications in a field that is altogether unexplored.”
MACGRATH, HAROLD. Drums of jeopardy. il *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
The heroine of this story is Kitty Conover; it is hard to say whether “Cutty,” war-correspondent and secret service agent, or Johnny Two-Hawks, is the hero. They both aspire to be, but as Cutty is handicapped by an extra score or so of years, he is at some disadvantage. The theme of the story is Cutty’s attempt to capture a band of “Reds” and to get possession of the “Drums of jeopardy,” a pair of enormously valuable emeralds. Johnny Two-Hawks comes into it because he is fleeing from this band of “Reds” and at one time possesses the drums of jeopardy. Kitty tries to help them both, rather blindly at first, succeeds in getting herself kidnapped and held for ransom and is finally rescued by both heroes. The leader of the Reds is killed and the end of the story leaves Cutty in possession of the drums of jeopardy.
MACGRATH, HAROLD. Man with three names. il *$1.75 (3c) Doubleday
The man with three names was many things in one, besides his names. He was a novelist, a romantic lover of unusual daring, and a crusader for justice and right. He wrote a book, that went straight to the hearts of sentimental young girls, over a pseudonym. He loved a millionaire’s daughter under his mother’s maiden name, while he flayed her father for the wrongs he had done to the poor. He was the son of a thief who had died in prison for fraudulent business operations and whose fortune he was devoting to expiatory purposes. He achieved all he set out to do: won fame, won the girl, and helped to make over the girl’s father into a good man, expiated his own father’s sins and restored his family name to new honor.
“On the whole, however, his performances are mildly entertaining.”
“It is a pleasant, readable little story, brightly written and sufficiently rapid in movement.”
“Here is the same flowing, almost racy style, which we recall in the ‘Private wire to Washington.’ There is no lack of humour.”
MACHARD, ALFRED. When Tytie came (Popaul et Virginie); tr. by Howard Vincent O’Brien. il *$1.75 Reilly & Lee
A story of child life translated from the French. Popaul, a little boy of ten whose father is at the front, adopts Marie, a Belgian refugee and takes her home to Madame Medard. The two have many adventures, humorous and serious, and a deep devotion develops between them. A blinded soldier tells them the tale of Paul and Virginia and they see the parallel to their own story. Deeply in love they go through a marriage ceremony and regard the affair with great seriousness, accepting Tytie, the American doll, as their child. Popaul, following his father’s death, is adopted by a rich countess who, finally moved by his sorrow, sees that the children cannot be separated and takes Marie to live with her also.
MACKAIN, F. E. Buzzy; the story of a little friend of mine. il *$1.50 Jacobs
This story for little children relates the adventures of a teddy bear. In the first of them Peggy, Buzzy’s little mistress, takes him out into the snow and sets him up, back to a tree, while she makes a snow man, and then the tea bell rings and she runs away and forgets all about him. But Buzzy, left alone, enters into an interesting conversation with the snow man and makes the acquaintance of a rabbit who invites him to his home for the night. Buzzy has other adventures, meets a princess and takes an unexpected journey to London in a suit case. There are pictures in color and humorous drawings in black and white by the author.
MACKALL, LAWTON. Scrambled eggs. il *$1.25 Stewart & Kidd 817
“A diverting tale of barnyard life. Eustace the duck and his wife, who believes in a communal incubator, Martha the hen who believes that the female’s place is on the nest, and her frivolous husband Clarence, who is always finding an attractive new pullet, have various adventures that parody amusingly the complications of present-day life.”—Cleveland
“The skillfully ludicrous is not half plentiful enough in this sad world of printed pages. ‘Scrambled eggs,’ however, is just that.”
“The satire is amusingly carried out, and the illustrations by Oliver Herford help a great deal.”
“Lawton Mackall, editor of ‘Judge’ gives visible proof of his qualification to be in charge of a journal of humor by a delicious bit of barnyard satire, ‘Scrambled eggs.’”
MACKAY, HELEN GANSEVOORT (EDWARDS) (MRS ARCHIBALD K. MACKAY). Chill hours. *$1.50 (5½) Duffield
Sketches of France in war-time, of the people who were left behind, at home and in the hospitals, deep, sad, intimate things that grip the reader with their poignancy of pain. The longest of these sketches, Nostalgia, is a review of all the beautiful things that were once upon a time, long ago before the war.
“The writer’s success is very definite in capturing the pensive and romantic atmosphere. The stories are written with a tender, though never sentimental or too slight touch, that gives the suggestion of music heard in the twilight from an old harpsichord, and something of the abiding fragrance.”
“Will be liked by those who read for beauty of expression and imagination. Nostalgia is one of the most poignant and revealing sketches that has come from the war.”
“Helen Mackay has successfully performed the seemingly impossible in ‘Chill hours.’ To be able to write with the pathos and restraint used in these sketches is to possess the technique of the skilled artist, and the vision given to a chosen few.” C. K. H.
“Miss Mackay is a poet first of all, and poetical values are contained in all her bits of prose.”
“The author carries the art of selection to a fine point, and there is never a word too much in her terrible little sketches.”
MACKAY, WILLIAM MACKINTOSH.[2] Disease and remedy of sin. *$2.50 Doran 234
“The author is pastor of Sherbrooke church, Glasgow. He has been trained in medicine and theology. He approaches the subject from the standpoint of a pastor, whose work has brought him into closest touch with men. He holds that religion is of the very substance of life. He examines the matter of spiritual health with the thoroughness of the physician to the body. He describes his book as ‘an essay in the psychology of sin and salvation from a medicinal standpoint.’”—Bib World
“Preachers especially and all students of the phenomena of Christianity will find this a fresh, stimulating book. It will add a new accent to the usually dismal discussions of sin and salvation.”
“The analogy between physical and spiritual conditions enables the writer to offer counsels for spiritual treatment which are clearly the result of a keen insight into the characters of men and the conditions in which they live. Readers may not be able to accept some of the author’s theories and tabulations, but the book is an important contribution to the study of sin, its origin, its growth, and its remedies.”
MACKAYE, PERCY WALLACE. Rip Van Winkle. il *$1.50 Knopf 782
This version of the legend is in the form of a folk-opera in three acts for which Reginald DeKoven has written the music. Like Dion Boucicault’s drama, it is based on Washington Irving’s story but, the author tells us, with more differences than resemblances to both. “The differences have developed mainly from the consideration that I was writing—not a story or a play, but an opera; and this constant consideration has resulted in the two main contributions of mine which modify the old legend—the creation of a new character, Peterkee, and the introduction of a new element in the plot, the magic flask.” (Preface)
“It is fair, however, to warn the reader that he will find here some graceful verse but little poetry, many characters, but little distinct characterization, and hardly anything of either the pathos or the humor of the old story beloved of all readers of English.”
MCKENNA, STEPHEN. Lady Lilith. *$2 (2c) Doran
The sobriquet, Lady Lilith, is applied to Lady Barbara Neave, daughter of a viceroy of India. From childhood on she has been a problem to her family and has kept their nerves on edge with her surprising escapades. Early accustomed to social prominence and adulation, her craving for sensations soon seeks wider fields than through conventional channels. Her excessive vanity makes her an adroit actress, and her heartlessness enables her to walk roughshod over everybody in search of new emotions and new rôles to play. She seems vulnerable only in one spot: her superstition. Throughout the story she toys with the sensation of Jack Waring’s blunt criticism of herself and his persistent love-making. The reader is left somewhat in doubt how much of her remorse after her final refusal of him is genuine feeling, how much theatrical pose, and how much superstitious fear.
“If Mr McKenna’s novel were witty, amusing, an aspect of the human comedy, or just nonsense—or even melodrama—we should not protest. But to butcher his gifts to make a snobs’ banquet is surely a very lamentable pastime. It would be interesting to know whether he has—a dozen, say—readers of his own sex.” K. M.
“The author gives us a picture of present day social and political life in London, but we sincerely trust that his heroine is not typical of the modern English woman.”
“An engrossing picture of English society just before and during the war.”
“Two solid volumes of Sonia richly sufficed us and we rather resent having her served up to us again; even under another name. Lady Barbara Neave is just Sonia, only more so.” V. G.
“The most striking thing in this novel is the fact that though we see and know Barbara in all her shallow selfishness, we fall under her spell, even as those who make the story with her fall under it.”
“Next to ‘Sonia,’ this is the author’s most finished and interesting work. Indeed, he sometimes attains the high level set in that admirable book.”
“One cannot fail to recognize that artistically he is at home, conveying always a very fair impression of reality in general detail, writing with ease and often with wit, drawing characters which are all recognizable as types. But the significance is the question, and here, so far, he is not convincing.”
MCKENNA, STEPHEN. Sheila intervenes. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
The outstanding personages of this story are Denys Playfair, an Irishman with a family history that has made resentment towards the English governing classes a part of his inheritance; Sheila Farling, also Irish, slight, black-eyed, clever, full of the joy of life, and on occasion full of mischief, and scorn and a faculty for raillery; and Daphne Grayling, Sheila’s cousin, daughter of an old-fashioned mother who is keeping her in leading strings even to the choice of a husband for her, and who condemns her to a life of boredom and inactivity. Sheila’s exuberant spirit leads her to play providence for her friends. She engineers Denys into a political career, and noticing the blossoming out of Daphne under Denys’s friendship, does violence to her own feelings for him, while she engineers the two into a love compact. Fate intervenes in the form of a serious accident to Daphne’s ex-fiancé, which brings the latter to a realization that duty is stronger than love. It also intervenes to acquaint Denys with Sheila’s true feeling for him for when he collapses before her eyes from the effects of over-work and strain, her assumed indifference likewise collapses.
“Her delightful grandfather is one of the best characters and Sheila herself is irresistible.”
“Despite this slightness of plot, the story carries its own sentimental interest and is continually a matter of touch and go. Moreover the characters are delightful.” M. E. Bailey
“An earlier work has been resurrected from the obscurity of the novelist’s earlier career to share the success of his later books. In many cases the act is justified. But in Mr McKenna’s case it seems to us decidedly a mistake.”
“Yet in spite of its failings and its extremely weak—at times almost ludicrously weak—motivation, the novel is not without its good points. Sheila herself is attractive, and the dialogue is easy and not infrequently even bright.”
“Imagine a new ‘Dolly dialogues’ with a serious motive behind it, and you get somewhere near the aim and substance of this earlier work by the author of ‘Sonia.’” F: T. Cooper
“It is all very interesting, for Mr McKenna’s people are brilliant, and the dinner parties, social gatherings and political conferences scintillate with wit and sharp exchanges of opinions on public questions of the moment. Meanwhile, the principal romance is handled with skill by the author.”
MACKENZIE, COMPTON. Poor relations. *$1.90 (2c) Harper
A successful playwright, suddenly grown rich, is surrounded by a host of poor relations, brothers and sisters with wives, husbands and offspring, all more or less failures, all tactlessly anxious to drink at the golden fountain. They drive him from his country home, they assail him in his town house, they turn against him their slanderous tongues when their expectations are not fulfilled. He is a good sort and goes the full length of the bearable, but at last, in desperation, elopes with his long-loved secretary on a honeymoon to America after committing one revengeful act. Mindful of the internecine warfare among his relations, he makes a present of one-fifth of his country home to each family group respectively.
“The Touchwood family is one of those detestable, fascinating families that we cannot have enough of.” K. M.
“Mr Mackenzie has here the material for a short story or, let us say, a well-balanced novelette. But instead of selecting, and sorting, and packing it down, he lets it take possession of him. There is of course a lot of amusing stuff in it, no end of satirical material, no end of clever and witty touches. But the book as a book is without form and void.” H. W. Boynton
“‘Poor relations’ is a farce. Any number of children and adults pass through its pages, all acting exactly as children and adults act. A plot of quite exceptional banality and incidents of incredible age and vulgarity serve to display these life-like wares. It would be easier to think lightly of Mr Mackenzie’s failure if one did not have to remember what Henry James said of him. Remembering that, and remembering Jenny Pearl, the brief story of Mr Mackenzie’s career takes on some of the proportions of tragedy.” Gilbert Seldes
“‘Poor relations’ shows, moreover, that recognition of how strange people really are which has always been one of Mr Mackenzie’s virtues. He has resisted that persistent underwriting of character and circumstance which has been the curse of refined English literature ever since the days of Gissing, and has not been afraid to allow fantastic people to do fantastic things.” Rebecca West
“Written in a light ironic manner, with much deftness of phrasing and a thorough understanding of the follies and meannesses and hypocrisies to which his ‘poor relations’ are so exceedingly prone, it yet usually and skilfully contrives to keep the reader in sympathy with its vain, generous, sentimental and self-deceived hero.”
“Though marred toward the end by that longwindedness which is his besetting sin, it is exceptionally amusing.”
“Mr Mackenzie may object to the expression: ‘this well known author writes in an entirely new vein’ but it seems to fit the occasion. He handles his hero with affectionate jocularity bordering on farce. Yet the complete picture of John Touchwood is fine, human and lovable—perhaps just because of its convincing defects.” Doris Webb
“It was with some trepidation that we opened ‘Poor relations.’ Our delight was therefore doubly great on finding no taint of the Scarlett novels marring its pages. Quite early in the book the principal character remarks: ‘This passion for realism is everywhere.... Thank goodness, I’ve been through it and got over it and put it behind me for ever.’ Let us pray that he is speaking with the voice of his creator.”
“This is an ingenious and at times diverting recital, bordering on extravaganza, but not too remotely detached from reality to be incredible, and not too malicious in its satire to be unenjoyable.”
“‘Poor relations’ is engagingly light-hearted in all its phases, with a discernible grain of reality beneath the shell of comedy and satire.”
“The oppression which has seemed of late to brood over the work of Mr Compton Mackenzie has cleared away, we hope never to return. In ‘Poor relations’ the sun comes out brightly from the clouds, a gentle breeze of humour blows the story along, and the reader from the first page to the last enjoys himself immensely.”
MACKENZIE, COMPTON. Vanity girl. *$2 (1½c) Harper
It is the story of the clever scheming of a vain, selfish, heartless but very beautiful girl. Her first step to use her beauty as an asset was to go on the stage. As “Vanity girl,” opportunities offered to cast her net for a titled husband. She captured the fifth Earl of Clarehaven and was received by the family on equal terms. Her first disappointment came when the fates denied her a son to inherit the earldom, and her second when her foolish husband, with cards and horses, succeeded in losing the family estate. When he is killed in France, and the sixth Earl of Clarehaven at last arrives, the impoverished countess still has one trump card left. She marries the millionaire Jew, who is now owner of Clare, on the condition that he make over the entire estate to her son.
“In whatever contempt Mr Mackenzie may hold his public—how is it possible that he should dare to invite them to partake of such sickly food? We should not waste space upon so pretentious and stupid a book were it not that we have believed in his gifts and desire to protest that he should so betray them.” K. M.
“This writer does have the instinct for action and, once you accept his people as figures in a picaresque novel, you have something to tie to, as you never do with Mr George. The ‘trouble’ here, indeed, is that Mr Mackenzie, not being aware of his true job, deviates into sense, that is, into interpretation, just often enough to queer his real pitch.” H. W. Boynton
“As his art approaches its maturity, he adds to his native wit and cleverness a sure mastery of technique which puts him unmistakably in the forefront of the English novelists of the day. So clever and interesting is Mr Mackenzie’s new novel that one regrets the more to find, if anything, an increase in the smart nastiness that occasionally blemishes his writing.” Stanley Went
“Mr Mackenzie handles it all in exactly the right spirit, never mawkish and never brutal. He is satirical, but not youthfully cynical. Although I think his clock struck twelve with the novel called ‘Sylvia Scarlett,’ I wish that he may live a hundred years and go on writing novels about every one of the Vanity chorus.” E. L. Pearson
“For the reader, unless he likes flippancy and fireworks for their own sakes, the end of it all is not much better than vanity. Mr Mackenzie, at least, is a story-teller of a sort. However encumbered with facts, his narrative always has the charm of an adventure which, if it never quite gets anywhere, is at least always amusingly on its way.” H. W. Boynton
“That this plebeian girl should step into her exalted social station and so speedily absorb the new life and arouse love and veneration for the Clarehaven tradition and inheritance is little short of a miracle. But Mr Mackenzie makes it seem natural.”
“Mr Compton Mackenzie will receive praise for this new novel from those to whom it was chiefly intended to appeal; it will receive adverse criticism from those whose judgment Mr Mackenzie has by now, perhaps, ceased to take into account. It will have earned the one and thoroughly deserved the other. Deliberately he has written a story of a snob for snobs.”
MCKENZIE, FREDERICK ARTHUR. Korea’s fight for freedom. *$2 (2c) Revell 951.9
Instead of a new edition of the author’s “Tragedy of Korea,” this is a new book including some of the old matter and bringing the story of Korea up-to-date. It is the story of the injustice and the cruelty practised by Japan against Korea in its policy of imperial expansion. “In this book I describe the struggle of an ancient people towards liberty. I tell of a Mongol nation, roughly awakened from its long sleep, under conditions of tragic terror, that has seized hold of and is clinging fast to, things vital to civilization as we see it, freedom and free faith, the honor of their women, the development of their own souls.” (Preface) A partial list of the contents is: Opening the oyster; Japan makes a false move; The Independence club; The new era; The rule of Prince Ito; With the rebels; The last days of the Korean empire; The missionaries; Torture à la mode; The people speak—the tyrants answer; Girl martyrs for liberty; World reactions; What can we do?
“This book deserves a wide reading. It breathes a real humanitarian interest in the present unhappy fate of over ten million people; and on its constructive side suggests a way out of a far eastern situation full of dangers for the American people.” W. W. McLaren
“A well written account.”
Reviewed by W. W. Willoughby
“It is impossible not to feel admiration for the Koreans in reading the history of its people as written by an author who understands and sympathizes with them.”
“A few minor statements are incorrect. But none acquainted with the situation can deny the accuracy of its statements of fact, or the propriety of its positions.” A missionary
“Of Mr McKenzie’s trustworthiness as a witness there can be no question.”
Reviewed by W. R. Wheeler
MCKENZIE, FREDERICK ARTHUR. Pussyfoot Johnson. il *$1.50 Revell
“William E. Johnson, familiarly called ‘Pussyfoot,’ as special agent of the government is said to have put more saloons out of business in a given time than any other man on earth. At one time he and his assistants secured convictions for the illegal sale of intoxicating liquors at the rate of 100 a month, month after month. How he did this and other points in his career are set forth in a book entitled ‘Pussyfoot Johnson, crusader—reformer, a man among men,’ by F. A. McKenzie, with introduction by Dr Wilfred T. Grenfell.”—Springf’d Republican
“Lovers of adventure will enjoy this book.” F. W. C.
“The book sets forth the chief facts of Johnson’s life but fails to give an idea of the man’s mind and how it works.” A. P. Kellogg
MACKENZIE, SIR JAMES. Future of medicine. (Oxford medical publications) *$5 Oxford 610
“‘The future of medicine’ is a plea for the simplification of medicine, a reaction from the over-elaboration of ‘laboratoryism’—i.e., the instrumental and other laboratory aids to diagnosis. Not that Sir James denies the usefulness of these methods in research work, but he maintains that, while in some conditions it may be necessary even in ordinary clinical work to use elaborate instruments, it should be the constant aim of the medical man to learn how to discard such instrumental aids, and claims that he is now able to do so in much of his clinical work on diseases of the heart. What the author is so strongly opposed to are the laboratory ideals outlined in the syllabus for students recommended by the professor of clinical medicine at the world-famous Johns Hopkins university, Baltimore, reprinted in this book, and occupying more than four closely printed pages.”—Spec
“One lays aside the book with a feeling of great respect and admiration for this great and honest physician. All the same, one cannot help feeling that the disadvantages of the present system of teaching in the medical schools is exaggerated by the writer, and that, were the attempt made so to alter it as to meet the demands of a man of so keen an intellect as Sir James Mackenzie, a few giants might be reared, but that the work of the average man would suffer.”
“The social worker who expects to find in Dr Mackenzie’s book on ‘The future of medicine’ a discussion of the socialization of medicine and the solution of many of the medical problems of the future will be disappointed. The medical and perhaps the lay reader, however, will be amply rewarded by the brilliant and, sometimes, scathing criticism by Dr Mackenzie of the present laboratory research and specialty aspects of medical science.” G: M. Price
“Much thought has been devoted to the composition of this attempt to influence the future of medicine. A good deal of this material is highly technical, which is doubtless unavoidable, but has the disadvantages of making the weighing of the evidence exceedingly difficult for any except members of the medical profession.”
MACKENZIE, JEAN KENYON.[2] Story of a fortunate youth. $1.25 (7c) Atlantic monthly press
These “chapters from the biography of an elderly gentleman” (Sub-title) are sketchy bits from the career of a minister who began life as a little Scotch boy in the East Highlands. His first fortune was a “bawbee” found in the dust, then came real earnings—beginning with six-pence and the duties of a shepherd—to help eke out the family income—until the great country across the water beckoned him. There the usual course from farm hand and country school-teacher to college and the ministry are gone through, all told lovingly and in whimsical style by the old gentleman’s daughter. The chapters are: The boy and the bawbee; The boy and the half-crown; The boy and the dollar; The wages of youth.
MACKENZIE, JOHN STUART. Arrows of desire; essays on British characteristics. *$3.75 Macmillan 914.2
“The title, borrowed from Blake, and suggesting a romantic novel, is as misleading as Ruskin’s ‘On the construction of sheepfolds.’ Professor Mackenzie’s book consists, in fact, of essays on our [England’s] national character. He discusses ‘Henry V.’ on the assumption that Shakespeare regarded the king as a typical Englishman. He then considers the English character, taking in turn each of the reproaches hurled at us by native and foreign critics. He contrasts the sister-nations with England, and incidentally repeats what we believe to be the fallacious statement that the Scotsman is more democratic than the Englishman. In the end Professor Mackenzie seems to conclude that we are not so bad after all, and that our chief danger lies in a ‘superficial optimism.’”—Spec
“An analysis of British characteristics by a British professor is a difficult task for any fair-minded man, which is probably why Mr J. S. Mackenzie draws upon a consensus of other people’s opinions with which to support his own. This continual reference to authorities is a little wearisome to the flesh, the more so since Mr Mackenzie shows himself a really competent judge of the matter, avoiding self-gratification without the obverse fault of detraction in order to prove himself just.”
“He is too attentive to detail, too eager to back up what he has to say with chapter and verse. The professor in him is uppermost, to the detriment of the writer. Nevertheless, in spite of these handicaps, there is acute analysis in Professor Mackenzie’s book. In its parts his book is good; as a whole it lacks coherence and smoothness.”
Reviewed by Archibald MacMechan
“It is an entertaining book.”
“With such fair promise it is the more regrettable that we should be compelled, as we are, to admit that the performance is not answerable to the high intent of the author. Not once nor twice, but repeatedly throughout the book, we are confronted with a looseness of thought, a disinclination to get to the heart of his subject which is certainly surprising in an emeritus professor of logic.”
MACKENZIE, KENNETH JAMES JOSEPH. Cattle and the future of beef-production in England. *$2.50 (3c) Putnam 636.2
A British work growing out of the necessity of conserving and increasing the food supply. The author is reader in agriculture in the University of Cambridge, and late editor of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and the preface and one of the chapters are contributed by F. H. A. Marshall, lecturer in agricultural physiology, Cambridge. Contents: Introduction; Store cattle; Grass beef; Winter beef; Beeflings; Dual-purpose cattle; Pedigree breeding; Possibilities of the future; Physiological (by F. H. A. Marshall); Breeds of cattle (four chapters); Index.
“There are many signs that the line of reorganisation which Mr Mackenzie indicates is the one which British agriculture is most likely to follow, and it is sincerely to be hoped that his book will circulate widely amongst the leaders of agricultural opinion and the farming community generally.” C. C.
“Mr Mackenzie’s book is all the more stimulating because he does not profess to deliver a final opinion on any matters.”
“Mr Mackenzie is original and daring in some of his suggestions.”
MACKIE, RANSOM A. Education during adolescence. *$2 Dutton 373
“Basing his arguments very largely on Stanley Hall’s ‘Educational problems,’ the author proceeds to describe what are the essentials of a high school curriculum.” (Cleveland) “In the introduction, Dr Hall states that interest is the very Holy Ghost of education and so-called formal studies and methods of discipline are largely a delusion and a snare. They make degenerate mental tissue. In chapter I the author states that the purpose of education, based not only on the needs of society but also on the needs of the adolescent, are, according to Dr Hall, ‘to train character, to suggest, to awaken, to graft interest, to give range and loftiness of sentiment of view, to broaden knowledge, and to bring everything into touch with life.’ During this age every effort possible should be made to ‘fill and develop mind, heart, soul, and body,’ especially with a view to vocational training. Such training demands vitalized and humanized materials of education and methods of instruction.” (School R)
“A good summary written with forceful simplicity.”
Reviewed by Paul Shorey
“Taken as a whole, this book is quite suggestive and inspirational. Those persons who find the original works of G. Stanley Hall a little weighty will have their minds refreshed with some of his doctrines by reading Mr Mackie’s book, in which Dr Hall’s philosophy is presented in a very readable style, yet with less tonnage than is found in his own works.” J: B. Clark
MCKIM, WILLIAM DUNCAN. Study for the times. *$2.50 Putnam 150
The author calls his study “an inquiry into thought and motive,” and this he considers imperative in these post-war times of restlessness and impatience, of fads and crazes, of hasty formulation of rights and noisy demand for their concession. Although much in this mad onward rush may be of lasting value and help towards a rejuvenation of the race, the latter, he holds, can only be accomplished through careful patient thought and a study of the limitations and frailties of our own individual natures. The book deals largely with human psychology and the findings of psycho-pathology. Contents: Introduction; Social influences; The individual mind; The knowing function; The feeling function; Conclusion; Index.
MACKINNON, ALBERT GLENTHORN. Guid auld Jock. *$1.75 (2c) Stokes
Jock had a keen relish for other people’s affairs, especially those of Scotchmen. At the military hospital he ferreted out all such and became their father confessor, their lawyer and general confidant. The book is a collection of such confessions, of wrongs committed, of secret sins, of weighted consciences. And every story had its complement. The other man always turned up and in his turn made a confession, and, thanks to Jock’s discretion, quick wit and sense of humor, there was always a righting and a smoothing over. Some of the titles are: Jock’s neebors; How Jock healed his comrade’s worst wound; The barbed wires of misunderstanding; A prank o’ the post; A maitter o’ conscience.
MCKISHNIE, ARCHIE P. Son of courage. il *$1.75 (2c) Reilly & Lee
Billy Wilson was one of the boys in a small settlement on the north coast of Lake Erie. He was full of fun, always ready for some boyish deviltry and the leader among his chums. The other side of his character was love of nature and animals, undaunted courage and love of fair dealing. He was afraid only of ghosts and even against those he felt secure with his rabbit’s-foot charm. His exploits are many and exasperating but he wins the heart of his stepmother and of the prettiest girl in the settlement and becomes instrumental in solving several mysteries and discovering a treasure.
“A satisfying story of outdoor life.”
MCKOWAN, EVAH.[2] Graydon of the Windermere. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
Kent Graydon of the Windermere is a young Canadian engineer who has gone West and made good. Since his schoolboy days he has cherished the memory of Alleyne Milburne as his ideal of womanhood. Then one summer he meets her again in his own western country. He woos her ardently and it is not until he loses out to his rival of earlier days that he realizes that it is not she who embodies his ideals, but her cousin Claire, who is “honourable and generous, sportsmanlike and fair, sympathetic and womanly.”
MCLACHLAN, HERBERT. St Luke, the man and his work. *$3 (*7s 6d) Longmans 226
“In a dozen chapters, Mr McLachlan, lecturer in Hellenistic Greek in the University of Manchester, discusses St Luke, the man of letters, the linguist, the editor, the theologian, the humorist, the letter writer, the reporter, the diarist, etc. The work gives in brief the views of German and English Protestants and Rationalists on every phase of the Lucan problem—authenticity, language, accuracy, doctrine and the like.”—Cath World
“This is a book from which the student of the Lucan writers will learn much, whether he is among the conservatives or the revolutionaries in textual criticism.”
“This scholarly book is to be commended to the notice of New Testament students.”
MCLAUGHLIN, ANDREW CUNNINGHAM.[2] Steps in the development of American democracy. *$1.50 Abingdon press 342.7
“A small volume comprising the lectures delivered by Professor McLaughlin at Wesleyan university. This series of lectures was the first to be given on the George Slocum Bennett foundation ‘for the promotion of a better understanding of national problems and of a more perfect realization of the responsibilities of citizenship.’ The author tells us in the preface that his purpose ‘is simply to recount a few salient experiences which helped to make America what it is, ... as also to describe certain basic doctrines and beliefs, some of which may have had their day, while others have not yet reached fulfillment.’”—Am Hist R
“In a work of this character, the presentation of new historical facts is not to be expected, but rather a new and fresh treatment of them and of their significance. This latter task is what Mr McLaughlin essayed in this series of lectures and this he has most successfully achieved. Mr McLaughlin’s firm grasp upon the history of the country is apparent throughout his treatment, and his discussion is characterized by brilliant exposition and frequently enlivened by flashes of wit and even restrained sarcasm.” H. V. Ames
“Necessarily, the treatment of the subject is broad but it is marked by a sense of proportion and by genuine insight.”
MCLELLAN, ELEANOR. Voice education. *$1.75 (7½c) Harper 784.9
The author claims to have discovered a system of scientific vocal technique through many years of practical research work by beginning with correcting abnormalities of speech and voice action. “This means rectifying conditions such as hoarseness, thickness of the vocal cords and surrounding muscles, nodules, paralyzed vocal cords, loss of high or low notes, stuttering, and all allied phonation and action troubles.” (Preface) The contents are: Breath; Tone versus vowel; Attack and poise of tone; Consonants; Interpretation; Requirements of a great career; Emotions and characteristics of singers.
“Every teacher and singer—and just people—would do well to take the chapter on ‘Emotions and characteristics of the singer’ in this book to heart. But there the practical help of the book to a singer or teacher ends.”
MACMANUS, SEUMAS. Top o’ the mornin’. *$1.90 (3c) Stokes
A collection of old and new tales in the Irish dialect. Some of the copyright dates go back to 1899. Others belong to the present year. The titles are: The lord mayor o’ Buffalo; The Widow Meehan’s Cassimeer shawl; The cadger-boy’s last journey; The minister’s racehorse; The case of Kitty Kildea: Billy Baxter’s holiday; Wee Paidin; When Barney’s trunk comes home; Five minutes a millionaire; Mrs Carney’s sealskin; The capture of Nelly Carribin; The bellman of Carrick; Barney Brian’s monument; All on the brown knowe; The heartbreak of Norah O’Hara.
“Splendid for reading aloud and full of fun and good Irish wit.”
“Mr MacManus has a certain delicate whimsicality of utterance that transforms his somewhat sordid characters into beings of real interest. They provide a volume of extremely pleasant little stories, all quite indelibly branded with the mark of the shamrock.”
“Mr MacManus makes potent use of the folk-flavour: he draws his inspiration from the touchstone of common humanity; but he never hesitates to take what liberties he chooses with his material.” L. B.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
MCMASTER, JOHN BACH. United States in the world war (1918–1920). v 2 *$3 Appleton 940.373
This is the second volume of Professor McMaster’s history of the war. It deals with the work of the American troops in France and ends with the peace conference and the rejection of the peace treaty by the United States senate. Contents: Submarines off our coast; War work at home; Fighting in France; Peace offensives; The armistice; The president goes abroad; The peace conference; The treaty of peace; The treaty rejected; Appendices; Index.
“The arrangement may be registered at once as both logical and, within the scope of logic, rhetorical, even dramatic. He did not make as good use as he might have done of the reports of Pershing and March. When the chapter ‘War work at home’ is so well written it is a pity that no attention should be paid to the efforts the enemy was making to render that work futile.” Walter Littlefield
“The second volume is a distinct disappointment. Even considering the haste with which it must have been prepared, the single chapter devoted to the military phase of the war is almost absurdly inadequate and our naval participation is snubbed still more severely. The chapter headed ‘War work at home,’ however, is well done, and the one entitled ‘The treaty rejected,’ considering all the difficulties of the topic, is also handled with considerable skill.”
“We do not observe that Professor McMaster has utilized any sources of information which are not readily accessible; he seems indeed to have relied largely upon the reports in the newspapers. The book is disfigured by some careless mistakes.”
MCMASTERS, WILLIAM HENRY. Revolt. il *$1.60 Small
“William H. McMasters has produced ‘Revolt,’ a tale of the presidential election in the year 1940. The hero is Roger Morton, a young multi-millionaire of thirty-eight, son of the world’s first billionaire, John Paine Morton, president of the Universal trust company, which has controlled both political parties of the United States for many years. This marvelous young man, being urged to do so by one of the professors on his death bed, forms the revolutionist party, outwits his father at every point, and elects Dan Holman, one of his Harvard classmates as president of the United States.”—Springf’d Republican
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“His characters are rather wooden at first, and he has to jerk hard on the strings to make them do the next thing next, but as the story gathers speed and momentum, they almost run away from him.”
MCMICHAEL, CHARLES BARNSLEY, tr. Short stories from the Spanish. il *$1.50 Boni & Liveright
“The present volume is published with the intention of interesting American readers in the Spanish short story—a form in which the Spanish excel. There are three stories by Ruben Dario, three by Jacinto Octavio Picon and one by Leopoldo Alas. In addition there is a helpful introduction giving a short sketch of the life of each of these authors.”—Boston Transcript
“The translation is on the whole effective though sometimes awkwardly literal.”
“Exquisite little word pictures of a way of living full of delicate grace and beauty.”
“These seven tales are marked by charm and delicacy, rather than by strength and passion. Judge McMichael’s translation is generally effective, although it sometimes suffers from excessively conscientious literalness.” W. H. C.
“The publishers of this volume have performed a genuine service in offering to American readers in an attractive form these literary gems from a language in which public interest is constantly increasing.”
“There is a clear simplicity and naive directness to be found in the work of all three writers which marks them as of the same race.”
MACMURCHY, HELEN. Almosts: a study of the feeble-minded. *$1 50 (4c) Houghton 132
The book is a study of “the fool” in literature, the author maintaining that valuable suggestions for the treatment and care of the feeble-minded can be obtained thereby. “Sometimes the poet sees more than the scientist, even when the scientific man is playing at his own game. The novelist can give a few points to the sociologist, and the dramatist to the settlement worker.” The great writers have studied the feeble-minded from life. They have “discovered long before the modern ‘uplifter’ was born, that we must reckon with the mental defective as one of those many things in heaven and earth that are not dealt with by some philosophers, and yet that make a great difference to the community and social progress.” The writers from whom the characters are taken are: Shakespeare, Bunyan, Scott, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, Charles Reade, Victor Hugo, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hawthorne and others.
“The value of the book is perhaps the greatest in pointing out concretely to the general reader the common characteristics of defectives through these well known examples.”
“It is not only valuable, but it has as the clever author doubtless intended, the delight of recalling to one’s mind, old time favorites and old familiar friends.”
“Although slight and relatively unimportant, the book will doubtless reach many persons with its message of the need for segregation and institutional treatment who would not have been attracted by a work couched in the more prosaic terminology of science.” K. M. G.
“‘The almosts’ will surely help the recognition and adequate care of the feebleminded. It should help to form public opinion.” Alexander Johnson
MACNAMARA, BRINSLEY. Clanking of chains. *$1.90 Brentano’s
“The tale is called a story of Sinn Fein, yet it is not the history of that party or a novel that deals primarily with party matters: rather it is the study of an individual, whose finer instincts are never understood by his daily companions and whose efforts do not prove immediately fruitful. Michael Dempsey, the hero, we first meet taking the part of Robert Emmet in an amateur play given in the town of Ballycullen. The novel, then, is only incidentally a story of Sinn Fein, and chiefly the tale of Michael Dempsey’s two loves—Ireland and ‘Mirandolina.’ In the first case, he wooes and loses; in the second, his victory is, one is almost sure, partly defeat.”—Boston Transcript
“An extraordinary and tragic book.” H. W. Boynton
“On the whole, ‘The clanking of chains,’ though a very readable piece of work, does not measure up to ‘The valley of the squinting windows’; its characterization is less clear, its incident less varied, its impress less lasting.” I. G.
“The story is very vivid and very interesting. Irish village life is satirized with considerable skill. But one wonders what exactly Mr Macnamara intends us to infer.... Emigration seems to be his own counsel to the better spirits, as it was Dickens’s counsel in ‘David Copperfield’ to the disappointed English Chartist. But then, as now, this was a counsel of despair.” H. L. Stewart
“This is a strong, sombre, and disquieting book.”
“The picture is painted in drab colors, and in the narration of the slender story the author is never at pains to cater to any party’s sympathies or prejudices.”
“The story is told in a confused way, and in several places the action hangs fire. The book also contains too much rhetoric. But the analysis both of the inhabitants of Ballycullen and of the problems which these individuals personify is acute and honest. Mr Macnamara is, for a writer on Irish topics, impartial, and he makes a great effort to consider the case from every aspect.”
MACNAUGHTAN, SARAH BROOM. My war experiences in two continents; ed. by her niece, Mrs Lionel Salmon (Betty Keays-Young). *$5 Dutton 940.48
“The late Miss Macnaughtan, we think, drew upon her Belgian diary to some extent for her earlier book, ‘A woman’s diary of the war,’ but there is plenty of fresh material for the new book, and the description of her work in the hospitals and in connexion with her soup-kitchen at Furnes, is vivid and moving. After a year in Belgium and a short lecturing tour at home, Miss Macnaughtan went to give her help on the Russian and Persian fronts. But the Eastern expedition made too severe demands upon her strength. Depressed by Russian dilatoriness and the consequent waste of opportunities, with her physical strength severely impaired by the climate and the hardships she had to endure, she was forced home by illness in the following spring, and she died a few months later. If the chapters dealing with this expedition are less vivid than those about Belgium, the reader feels that it is because illness and depression had weakened her pen.”—Spec
“Though one feels that her deliberate aim was to set down faithfully what she saw—the result is infinitely more than that. It is a revelation of her inner self which would perhaps never have been revealed in times less terrible and strange.” K. M.
“The definite opinions she expresses are so often at variance with one another that the reviewer must tear up his laboured analysis and plead ignorance. But her inconsistency is only superficial; through it all she is affirming her love for what is noble and disinterested.”
MCPHERSON, LOGAN GRANT. Flow of value. *$2.50 (2c) Century 330.1
Proceeding from the premise that human energy ought to be directed to the service of human kind, it is the author’s object to ascertain how human activities can be so coordinated as to result in the general good. His problem is to assemble the findings of economists and sociologists into a body of scientific facts from which the trained investigator can draw correct conclusions. The book is a continuation of the presentation embodied in a previous volume: “How the world makes its living,” and presents the sequence of cause and effect in determining prices, wages, and profit. A partial list of the contents is: Human effort and human wants; Property in matter and property in force; Utility and utilities; The exchange of utilities and the unit of exchange; The actual development of industry and commerce in the United States; The relativity of human effort and the relativity of human wants; The interrelations of effort, prices, and profit; Value; Capital; The ultimate units of production and consumption; Money; The trend of the monetary and banking system; Sound minds in sound bodies; Index.
“The value of the present work lies in the clearness with which the fact is developed that all commodities and services are the product of human effort. The vigorous enforcement of this truth at a time when the world seems bent on a hunger strike is a real service.”
“Teachers of college courses in economics will find in Mr McPherson’s ‘The flow of value’ an admirable book for collateral reading. The clarity of exposition, the wealth of concrete illustration, and the refreshing novelty of some of the analysis deserve special commendation.” E. R. Burton
MCPHERSON, WILLIAM LENHART. Short history of the great war. *$2.50 (3c) Putnam 940.3
This volume “dealing particularly with its military and diplomatic aspects and the part played in it by the United States” (Sub-title), offers a general outline story of the war with the main object of giving a clear and accurate running account of its origin and progress. It is a complement to the author’s other book, “The strategy of the great war,” and gives in detail all the outstanding facts and principal operations of the war with appendices and an index.
“Because this book relates to military policy, it is equally interesting to the trained soldier and to the intelligent civilian.” X. Y. Z.
“The only regret of the reader in regard to Mr McPherson’s one-volume history of the war is that it has no maps; otherwise, within the limitations of space set, it leaves nothing to be desired.” Walter Littlefield
“Clear and good it is, but it leaves the impression in one’s mind of newspaper material dished up into a book. On the score of originality of presentation, freshness of statement, vigor of style, it suffers by comparison with Pollard’s, nor does it exhibit the same nicety of proportion and balance.”
MACQUARRIE, HECTOR. Tahiti days. il *$4.50 (7½c) Doran 919.6
The author was ordered to the Tahiti Islands for his health and found it there, and now invites the reader to step onto his magic carpet and follow him thither, to the fairy land of the South seas, to the “Island of tranquil delight” where the gentle Polynesians will pluck oranges for him, climb the cocoanut palms for nuts for him and regale him with their bananas and breadfruit and where he can see the natives diving for pearls. Among the contents are: Raratonga; The Moana; Tahiti; Babies; The hula-hula; Hikuero, the pearl island; Pearl diving; Breakfast on Hikuero; The Marai and Miggimiggi; Firewalking on Tahiti; The epidemic. The book is profusely illustrated.
“He writes of his stay in Tahiti in an interesting fashion, although he spoils his book by his coarseness and his contempt for the moral law. He is at his best when he describes the pearl diving near Kikuero Island, the pagan rite of the fire-walkers of Tahiti, or the customs of the natives.”
“It is a charming book, and one well calculated to disturb the contentment of any city dweller.” B. R. Redman
“It is one of the most entertaining of the recent books about adventure in the islands of the Pacific.”
“Hector MacQuarrie’s ‘Tahiti days’ is a much more creditable book than some other recent works on the same subject. Mr MacQuarrie writes with appreciation of the islands and the people, he writes with directness and humor, and best of all he writes like a man, not like a snickering little boy with naughty stories to tell.” E. L. Pearson
MCSPADDEN, JOSEPH WALKER, ed. Famous detective stories. *$1.50 (2c) Crowell
The stories selected for this collection are: The purloined letter, by Edgar Allan Poe; An interview with M. Lecoq, by Emile Gaboriau; A scandal in Bohemia, by A. Conan Doyle; The adventure of the hansom cabs, by Robert Louis Stevenson; The adventure of the toadstools, by Sax Rohmer; Gentlemen and players, by E. W. Hornung; The black hand, by Arthur B. Reeve; The grotto spectre, by Anna Katherine Green; The mystery of the steel disk, by Broughton Brandenburg; The sign of the shadow, by Maurice Le Blanc; The mystery of the steel room, by Thomas W. Hanshew.
“There is much entertainment in J. Walker McSpadden’s eleven ‘Famous detective stories.’ One thing is certain, the detective story, entertaining as it may be, is the most thoroughly standardized product in modern literature, as bright and hard and competent as a jackknife, and hardly one iota more humane.”
MCSPADDEN, JOSEPH WALKER, ed. Famous psychic stories. *$1.50 (2½c) Crowell
Mr McSpadden, who had compiled an earlier collection of ghost stories, touches on the difference between the “psychic” and the “ghost” story in his introduction. In the latter the “old fashioned spook” predominates, while the wide range possible under the term psychic is disclosed by his analysis of the twelve stories. These stories are: The white old maid, by Nathaniel Hawthorne; The facts in the case of M. Valdemar, by Edgar Allan Poe; The dream woman, by Wilkie Collins; The open door, by Margaret Oliphant; The stalls of Barchester cathedral, by Montague Rhodes James; The man who went too far, by E. F. Benson; Moxon’s master, by Ambrose Bierce; The beast with five fingers, by W. F. Harvey; From the loom of the dead, by Elia W. Peattie; The ghoul, by Evangeline W. Blashfield; The shadows on the wall, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman; The widow’s mite, by Isaac K. Funk.
MACVEAGH, EWEN CAMERON, and BROWN, LEE D. Yankee in the British zone. il *$2.50 (3c) Putnam 940.373
The object of the book which has a foreword by Major General Wood, and which gives an account of the good understanding and mutual helpfulness existing between the British and American troops is to point a lesson for preparedness so that we may not “become too well satisfied with the outstanding fact that the war was ultimately won,” but may plan during the new phase of our history upon which we are now entering what to retain of and what to add to our hastily constructed military machine. Among the contents are: Getting acquainted; Reasons for the Yankee in the British zone; Tommy Atkins’ estate in France; The Yanks explore and rehearse: Off for the battle of a hundred days; The breaking of the Hindenburg line; Hun opinions of the Yankee; Accomplishments, discoveries, and results of the Yankee in the British zone. There are many illustrations and four appendices.
“The humorous tone saves the book from the charge of propagandism.”
“The book contains a wealth of anecdotes, which throw light on the failings of both American and English soldiers towards each other.” O. McK.
“It is good-humoured, accurate, full of incident, and a bit ‘hurrah.’”
“A frank, brave, sportsmanly record.” Coningsby Dawson
“The humorous as well as the serious side of soldier life comes out in strong relief.”
“The authors are announced as ‘trained observers,’ and the reader concedes the title, adding that of trained or naturally facile writers, for they have dressed their material with real skill.”
MAGNUSSEN, JULIUS. God’s smile; tr. by Daniel Kilham Dodge. *$1.75 (4½c) Appleton 134
A work translated from the Danish. The author is a Danish dramatist whose plays have been produced at the National theater. At the age of thirty-seven and at the height of his popularity he suddenly lost interest in the comedy he was writing and found his attention turned to psychic matters by a series of curious experiences. These are described in this book. They began with table rappings, which aroused only amusement and derision, and continued with automatic writings which finally routed his scepticism. The book is said to have run thru ten editions in the first month of publication in Denmark.
“There is little imaginative power and no trace of originality in these supposed communications from the spirit world, which bear a familiar stamp of vague and grandiloquent optimism. The translation does not impress us as particularly good.”
“Deeply sincere, and well told in spite of excessive egoism and introspection.”
“The book is spiritism watered and sugared; its ‘God’ will make converts for atheism, and its ‘smile’ will beget pessimists.”
“As a matter of fact, his self-revelation is more interesting than are the psychical experiences that he narrates.” Lilian Whiting
“Mr Magnussen begins his account in a vein of naive egotism, which—at any rate when in the dress of another language—sometimes approaches the comic; but as he proceeds his story assumes a literary quality by means of its directness and simplicity.”
MAIS, STUART PETRE BRODIE. Books and their writers. *$2 Dodd 824
A series of literary essays and reviews. The author says, “All I have sought to do has been to convey some of the pleasure I have gained from desultory reading of all kinds during the last few years.” In part 1, Novelists and novels, he writes of Compton Mackenzie, Norman Douglas, Frank Swinnerton, Stephen McKenna, Jane Austen, Clemence Dane, Dorothy Richardson. Part 2, Poetry and poets, is devoted to J. C. Squire, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Nichols, Dora Sigerson, Chinese poetry. Part 3, Books in general, contains reviews of Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians,” Smith’s “Trivia,” and other recent works, also papers on Alice Meynell as critic and Lafcadio Hearn. Some of the essays are reprinted from the Fortnightly Review and To-day.
“A light and sketchy, appreciative and not over-critical, yet useful contribution to the history of current literature.”
“There is not one author treated by Mr Mais of whom the reader will get a just estimate, for frothy appreciation is not justice; but there is one author whom the reader will come to know all too well, and he is Mr Mais. Even in his interminable and ill-written summaries of other men’s work, of which the bulk of the book consists, Mr Mais obtrudes himself. He cannot create, he cannot judge, and with his own clamour he deafens judgment.” O. W.
“The most interesting part of Mr Mais’s ‘Books and their writers’ is, to my mind, that devoted to novels and novelists.” K. F. Gerould
“Although Mr Mais’s title is commonplace, his essays are not likewise dull. They are variable in quality, to be sure, and there is in them a revelation of the critical faculty their writer so explicitly denies himself.” E. F. E.
“An easily readable book, full of time beguiling extracts from the authors under review—an excellent reference book to supplement more critical and comprehensive works on contemporary literature.”
“One likes Mr Mais because he likes all sorts of things, and writes about them with a zest which compels you to like them, too, whether you agree with his judgments or not.” R: Le Gallienne
“He has undeniable talent, great industry, almost fanatical enthusiasm: such qualities might carry a man far, but his untidy and careless mind is in danger of wrecking his literary career almost at the outset.”
“Mr Mais has not much of value to say: he just flows on chatting intelligently about the books people are reading (or supposed to be reading) and the authors they are talking about.”
MAJOR, CLARE TREE. How to develop your will power. (How to develop ser.) *$1.25 (4c) Clode, E. J. 170
This volume, which follows “How to develop your personality” and “How to develop your speaking voice,” has chapters on Self-examination; Will: its power, function and development; Physical dominance (three chapters); Be courageous; Learn the value of habit; Self-control; Self-control and business power; Business success; Will in idealism; with a Review of chapters at the close.
MALDCLEWITH, RONSBY, pseud. Professor’s love-life. *$1.50 Macmillan
“The book comprises a series of genuine letters, written by a man who here appears under the name of Ronsby Maldclewith to his fiancée, Katherine, a woman of the old South now some years dead. They are published in accordance with a wish expressed by her. The young professor, devotee of literature and art, within a few months of the discovery of their mutual love, becomes the victim of incipient lung trouble. The letters to Katherine—from Denver during an apparently beneficial sojourn; from New York city, where he settles in order to be able to consult often with great specialists; from his home, to which he returns full of courage and hope of ultimate recovery, and lastly from Denver, where he loses the great fight—are intensely pathetic and from beginning to end tell a story of measureless devotion.”—Springf’d Republican
“Were it not for beauty of language, pathos, lofty sentiment and apt quotations, there is no denying that reading the book would at times be depressing.”
“It would be hard to trace the impalpable quality which stamps these letters with the seal of truth: but it is there to illustrate the law that style is the touchstone of all fine and sincere literature.”
MALINS, GEOFFREY H. How I filmed the war; ed. by Low Warren. il *$4 Stokes 940.48
“This stirring narrative describes the innumerable adventures that occurred to Mr Malins in the pursuit of cinematograph records of the fighting on the western front. Mr Malins’ devotion to his job is surpassed only by his courage.”—Ath
“Very few men have displayed such courage and devotion in winning an empire or in winning a wife as Mr Malins has shown in taking his war films. That he is alive to write a book (and an extremely good book) about them is one of the incredible things of the war.”
“A brisk interesting account of soldiering with the camera. It gives assurance that the scenes of war in the movies were taken at the front, often in positions of danger.”
“The pictures are good, and his story, told in a very conversational and natural way, is especially instructive.” J. S. B.
“No doubt Mr Malins’s volume is making a stir in cinematographic circles; but apart from them, we question if it will have a long career as a ‘library book.’ The films themselves were efficiently done, but they were all that counted; there was not enough stuff left to make a readable book.”
“Very readable account.”
“There was excellent material for a book in all these adventures, and Lieutenant Malins writes with great spirit, if without any special distinction of style.”
MALLOCK, WILLIAM HURRELL. Memoirs of life and literature. il *$2.50 Harper
“Memoirs,” says the author, “represent life as seen by the writers from a personal point of view.... Thus if any writer attempts to do what I have done myself—namely, to examine or depict in books of widely different kinds such aspects and problems of life—social, philosophical, religious, and economic—as have in turn engrossed his special attention, he may venture to hope that a memoir of his own activities will be taken as representing an age, rather than a personal story.” (Chapter I) The first three chapters are devoted to the author’s family antecedents and early life and some of the other chapters are: Winter society at Torquay; The basis of London society; Vignettes of London life; Society in country houses; From country houses to politics; Cyprus, Florence, Hungary; Two works on social politics; Religious philosophy and fiction; Politics and society in America; Literature and action. The book has an index and a number of portraits of famous writers.
“To some the philosophy will seem too self-satisfied and the ease of tone, varied only by urbane satire, indicative of a class heedlessness of much of the passion, discontent and injustice below the surface.”
Reviewed by H: L. West
“His ingenious mingling of the records of his own life and mental progress and achievement with accounts of his contact with other men and women of his time, give to Mr Mallock’s memoirs a rare quality. Its pages are all filled with an exceptional sympathy for the mental attitude of even those from whom he differed on problems of vital and lasting importance.” E. F. E.
Reviewed by R. M. Lovett
“It is with something of shock that we discover Mr Mallock’s conservatism as unyielding as when in the complacent days before the war he came to expound it from the rostrums of our universities. Events have marched, but Mr Mallock has not marched with them. And yet, disappointing though it is, Mr Mallock’s volume contains chapters that redeem it from the commonplace.”
“Too much of the memoirs are snobbery, genealogical dissertations and comments on the author’s own novels and economic studies. He possessed the opportunity for a surprisingly good book but he has not wholly availed himself of it.” H. S. Gorman
“What the author has given us in his books, with all sincerity, has been, so it seems, not ‘confessions’ by any means, but his real inner thought without compromise or unexpressed reservations. This, rather than its suavity of style, its variety of interests, its numerous personalities, explains the charm of the volume. There is an air of intellectual and moral success and good-breeding about it such as one rarely finds.”
“His comments and anecdotes are not always agreeable or calculated to give the reader high ideals.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“This constant didacticism goes far to spoil what is otherwise so good. If only Mr Mallock had expended his energies more exclusively on the descriptive and anecdotal parts of his book, he might have produced a work of rare charm; he has the insight and the literary skill to have done this.”
“Delightfully entertaining work. Not once in a blue moon do lovers of good literature fall upon anything so richly suggestive, so charmingly satisfying.” Lilian Whiting
“Mr Mallock in the lucidity of his style, in his confident logic and graceful sense of proportion, in his fastidiousness and his cynical undertones, betrays the mind of the eighteenth-century aristocrat.”
MALONE, CECIL L’ESTRANGE. Russian republic. *$1 (4½c) Harcourt 947
As the basis for an opinion as to the possibilities of peace negotiations with Soviet Russia, the author undertook an examination of the political, social and military conditions there at first hand, by a personal visit. The book records his findings in diary form interspersed with interviews, conversations and personal reflections. Throughout, the author draws a comparison with the French revolution and concludes that the only way to head off a military dictatorship in Russia is through one of two policies; the unthinkable one of making war on her on a grand scale, or “to make every effort to give the Soviet republic internal and external peace, and to establish commercial bonds with them, to the great blessing of mankind and to the prosperity of all countries.” Contents: Introductory; To Petrograd; Moscow; Social reconstruction; Trotsky and the red army; Industry; Religion and women; The peace terms; Homeward bound; Conclusions; Appendix—Prinkipo and Nansen.
“Colonel Malone’s attitude is one of a somewhat suspicious solicitude; he is aware of the danger of being taken in, and this gives to his report an air of special authenticity. Perhaps the most interesting chapter is that dealing with the Red army.”
“Colonel Malone’s book will be popular among sympathizers with Soviet Russia, especially those of a more or less conservative stripe. It explodes the grosser fabrications about Russia without implying too much violence against what cautious folk conceive to be a properly centered world. Its superficiality from this point of view may prove an asset: for no one can deny that it is essentially a superficial study.” Evans Clark
MANDER, JANE. Story of a New Zealand river. *$1.75 (1c) Lane
A story by an author apparently familiar with the country of which she writes. For its beginnings it goes back a full generation to a pioneer age in a new country. Alice Roland is as unfitted for this life as her husband is fitted for it. An English woman, adrift with a young child, she accepts Tom Roland’s offer of marriage and goes with him up the river to the wild country where he is to carve out his fortune. She has never loved him, and finds her life, with its hardships and recurrent child bearing, dreary enough. Then love for her husband’s partner, David Bruce, comes to complicate the situation. Alice’s scruples and David’s loyalty to his partner keep them from transgression. In the meantime Alice’s daughter, Asia, grows up, with ideals very different from her mother’s, with a sure knowledge of what she wants, and she doesn’t let the fact that the man she loves is already married stand in her way. There are good pictures of the New Zealand landscape and of its developing civilization.
“She lacks confidence and the courage of her opinions: like the wavering, fearful heroine, she leans too hard on England. There are moments when we catch a bewilderingly vivid glimpse of what she really felt and knew about the small settlement of people in the lumbercamp, but we suspect that these are moments when she is off her guard. These serve nothing but to increase our impatience with Miss Mander. Why is her book not half as long, twice as honest?” K. M.
Reviewed by R. M. Underhill
“The author not only knows her country, but those who live in it, and she describes both with strong feeling and yet with artistic restraint.”
“The theme of this book is good but it is not good enough for 430 pages of closely printed matter. Of the characters that create ‘The story of a New Zealand river,’ which, by the way, is an extremely bad title, nothing but praise may be given.” H. S. G.
“The novel presents an interesting picture of pioneer life on the unnamed river and some of Alice’s struggles are well portrayed, but there is so much reiteration and so much of what can only be called padding that the effect of the novel is greatly weakened and it loses its hold on the reader long before the climax is reached.”
“The author handles this tale of an isolated New Zealand lumber camp with considerable romantic effect.”
“The authoress has a real ability to describe character and differences of outlook; but she does not allow the plot to become lost in disquisitions. The book would have been more emphatic if it could have been shortened, but in its present form it is a patient study of one example of the immemorial clash between impulse and convention. The authoress never exactly hits the bull’s-eye, but she is always on the target.”
MANNERS, JOHN HARTLEY. All clear, God of my faith, and God’s outcast. *$1.25 Doran 812
These three plays: All clear; God of my faith; and God’s outcast, “written during the horrors of the unjust and cruel war forced by Germany upon civilisation ... founded on actual incidents, may serve to keep alive remembrance of some of the barbarous outrages perpetrated by the Hun on innocent and wretched peoples.” (Foreword) They are songs of hate and the Germans, in the author’s opinion, are “a race apart, unfit to associate with and to be shunned forevermore.”
MANSBRIDGE, ALBERT. Adventure in working-class education. *$2 (*6s) Longmans 374.2
“This book chronicles the genesis and growth of the Workers’ educational association which was founded to promote the higher education of working men and women by means of an alliance between co-operation, trades unionism, and university extension. It began in 1903, not without opposition and with very little financial support, which Mr Mansbridge, to whose enthusiasm the organisation owes much of its vitality, counts like a true fighter amongst the reasons for its success. Mr Mansbridge and his colleagues preserved their eager optimism even through the depressing years of the war until, at the present day, they can number over seventeen thousand members in the British islands and many prosperous branches in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa. The vivifying idea of the movement is that most workers have an interest in education if they would only realize it; and to stimulate that interest and provide facilities for its gratification are the objects for which the association was formed.”—Spec
“This book is a short but inspiring introduction to the spirit of the whole movement. In passages it rises to levels of fine eloquence. The prologue should be read by every teacher; and the whole spirit of the movement should become known to social workers and lovers of democracy everywhere.” J. K. Hart
MANTLE, MRS BEATRICE. In the house of another. *$1.90 (2½c) Century
When the heroine of the story comes back to consciousness after an auto accident, she finds herself in a strange environment and among unfamiliar people. She even realizes she has a husband, Alan Leland, whose existence she has no remembrance of, and a circle of friends whom she does not recognize. But they take her quite for granted, which adds to her mystification. She wonders if she is out of her mind. The difficulties of the situation are increased by Willett Renshaw’s attitude to her which is that of a recognized lover. His attentions are distressing to her, but she does not understand the situation clearly enough to be able to straighten it out. Renshaw’s attitude finally results in her separation from Alan, to her sorrow. But she bravely tries to reconstruct her life on a new plan, until a wise friend who realizes that there is some big trouble in her life goes to the bottom of her fears and paves the way for her future happiness and Alan’s.
“It needs a Wells or at least an Anstey (as in ‘Vice versa’ or ‘The statement of Stella Maberly’) to carry out this idea of exchanged personalities satisfactorily.”
“As a novel written to divert and mystify, ‘In the house of another’ succeeds in its purpose.”
MANTLE, BURNS, ed. Best plays of 1919–20, and the Year book of the drama in America. *$2 Small 822
This volume marks the first appearance of a new annual which attempts to do for the professional drama what Mr Braithwaite’s anthology does for poetry and Mr O’Brien’s year book for the short story. Mr Mantle has selected ten of the successful plays from the New York season of 1919–20 and has presented them, partly in summary, partly in dialog. They are: Abraham Lincoln, by John Drinkwater; Beyond the horizon, by Eugene O’Neill: The famous Mrs Fair, by James Forbes; Declassee, by Zoe Aikins; Jane Clegg, by St John Ervine; The jest, by Sem Benelli; Wedding bells, by Salisbury Field; Mamma’s affair, by Rachel Barton Butler; Adam and Eva, by George Middleton and Guy Bolton; Clarence, by Booth Tarkington. The volume opens with “The season in review” by Mr Mantle and the year book at the close includes surveys of the season in London and in Paris, along with statistical summaries and other data relating to the stage.
“As to at least five of the ten, there will be general acquiescence in Mr Mantle’s choice, and as to the other five there will be general diversity of opinion.” Brander Matthews
“Friends of the drama in America owe Mr Mantle a real debt of thanks.” Dorothy Grafly
“Altogether a much-needed piece of work, and well done. If the next time Mr Mantle will include some account of the significant achievements in stage-craft, his year-book will prove even more valuable.”
MANUEL, HERSCHEL THURMAN. Talent in drawing; an experimental study of the use of tests to discover special ability. (School and home education monographs) $1.25 Public-school 136.7
Account of a pioneer investigation in the province of specialized ability, or talent, conducted by Professor Whipple, Miss Genevieve L. Coy, and Dr T. S. Henry among selected public school pupils and college students of Urbana, Illinois. The problem the investigators set before them was to discover “the essential psychophysical characteristics of persons talented in drawing,” and to learn how the test methods could best be used in the diagnosis of such talent. To the individuals selected were given certain tests of: general intelligence; higher thought processes; memory and learning; reading; observation; sensory discrimination; handwriting and drawing; also physical and motor tests. Tests given were taken from Binet-Simon, Whipple, Thurstone and other authorities. The investigation, completely described in this little volume, together with a list of the tests, and a bibliography of books used, “resulted in a somewhat detailed statement of the nature of talent in drawing and has yielded a tentative program of tests for the measurement of this talent.” (Conclusion)
MAPU, ABRAHAM. Sorrows of Noma. il *$1.50 (1½c) National bk. publishers, 200 5th av., N.Y.
A translation, by Joseph Marymont of the Hebrew historical romance, “Ahavath Zion,” the first novel that appeared in Hebrew literature. The story, beginning with sinister treachery and deceptions, and a bitter tragedy, centers about the motive so often recurring in the great Greek narratives—that of a noble son hidden away from evil intrigues of enemies, and raised in rural simplicity as a lowly born shepherd. In this case there is also a mother falsely accused by her husband’s enemies, and a beautiful daughter. The finding of the lad Ammon by an exalted lord’s only daughter, his restoration to his birthright both of nobility and property, the vindication of his mother Noma from false accusations, the inevitable punishment of the followers of iniquity, the loves of Ammon and his sister, are interwoven with a picture of the city of Zion during the reign of Ahaz, and the austere fear of God and love of nation inextricable from any conception of the ancient Hebrew.
“The story is well told in language borrowed for the most part from the Old Testament, and the manners and customs of the Jewish people are well described.”
“As a contribution to the cause of acquainting the world with Hebraic literature, ‘Sorrows of Noma’ comes as a valuable addition. But aside from the literary and classical considerations there is still a third value to this book. The human interest of it.” Rose Karsner
MARBLE, ANNIE RUSSELL (MRS CHARLES FRANCIS MARBLE). Women who came in the Mayflower. $1.50 (13½c) Pilgrim press 974.4
“This little book is intended as a memorial to the women who came in the Mayflower, and their comrades who came later in the Ann and the Fortune.... There is no attempt to make a genealogical study of any family. The effort is to reveal glimpses of the communal life during 1621–1623. This is supplemented by a few silhouettes of individual matrons and maidens.” (Foreword) Contents: Endurance and adventure; The voyage and landing; Communal and family life in Plymouth 1621–1623; Matrons and maidens who came in the “Mayflower”: Companions who arrived in the “Fortune” and the “Ann.” Index.
“A very attractive little volume. It is well worth reading.” W. A. Dyer
“Full of pleasant gossip about the Mayflower folks is this little volume.”
“Within its limits it is extremely comprehensive, and well worth reading.”
MARCH, NORAH HELENA. Towards racial health. *$2 (2c) Dutton 612.6
A book on sex hygiene and sex instruction designed for parents, teachers and social workers. It is an English work and is brought out in America with an introduction by Dr Evangeline W. Young of Boston, in addition to the original foreword by J. Arthur Thomson of the University of Aberdeen. The subjects covered include: The physical development of the child; The mental and emotional development of the child; Care of children; Supervision—psychological aspect; Nature study in the service of sex instruction; Further aids towards understanding the biology of sex; Ethical training; Education for parenthood (two chapters); Social safeguarding. Other important matter is presented in appendices, including suggested ways of answering children’s questions. There is a bibliography of seven pages and an index.
“The soundness of the author’s biological background is attested by Professor J. Arthur Thomson’s commendatory foreword, while her willingness to deal with delicate practical difficulties betrays the sympathetic understanding and intimate personal knowledge of the teacher.”
“What Miss March has done is well done—her chapters are poorly named, however. The American edition would be improved if statistics from American institutions and organizations were added.” E. M. Achilles
“The author exhibits a singular ignorance of the ways of real boys and girls and is to be credited with an extensive knowledge of the literature of the subject.” H. C. M.
“It is an unusually successful attempt in this difficult field.” L. B.
MARCHANT, JAMES, ed.[2] Control of parenthood. *$2.50 (5½c) Putnam 176
Arguments for and against birth control are presented in this volume, to which distinguished men and women of Great Britain contribute. The Bishop of Birmingham writes the introduction. J. Arthur Thomson and Leonard Hill write of Biological aspects; Dean Inge and Harold Cox of Economic aspects; Dr Mary Scharlieb, Dr F. B. Meyer and Dr A. E. Garvie of Social and religious aspects; and Sir Rider Haggard and Dr Marie C. Stopes of Imperial and racial aspects.
MARCOSSON, ISAAC FREDERICK. Adventures in interviewing. il *$4 (4c) Lane 920
The book, the author tells us, grew out of a series of articles dealing with war-time interviewing. He believes in making a record of people and events while they are alive and when the interest in them is keenest and he has met many of the commanding figures of the day. He introduces the reader to them both by word and picture. All the most prominent contemporary journalists, statesmen, military men, novelists and actors pass review along with the history of the launching of many a popular book and touches of personal friendships with the author. The contents are: Watterson and the early days; New York and the world’s work; A great American editor; The art of interviewing; Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt; The real Lloyd George; Northcliffe, the king-maker; Haig and other British notables; Kerensky and the revolution-makers; Pershing and Wood; Foch and Clemenceau; The Wall street sphinxes; Some literary friendships; Other literary associations; The story of “The jungle”; Plays and players. There are sixty-one illustrations and an index.
Reviewed by A. B. Maurice
“Mr Marcosson’s book is good reading for the general reader and a good text book for young writers and young newspaper men.” J. C.
“This is a rarely readable volume. It is also excellently illustrated; the photographs with which its pages are generously adorned are exceedingly well reproduced, and the volume takes on value, therefore, as a popular portrait gallery.”
“It is packed with big personalities described in a most entertaining way by a man who has a genius for interviewing and has had rare opportunities for its exercise.”
“The style is already familiar to hosts of readers—popular, fluent, rapid, pointed, occasionally showing irritating haste and carelessness, yet never losing the good journalist’s knack of telling his story interestingly and vividly.” E. M. Brown
“A book of many limitations. Mr Marcosson is not even an observer, he sees only the most obvious features in a man’s face and the most conspicuous qualities in his mind. Nevertheless his book is interesting. He sees little, but he sees clearly; and, again, he writes barbarously, but he writes clearly.”
“Mr Marcosson seems to have been especially fortunate in his intimacies with writers.”
“Unfortunately, Mr Marcosson has not the gift of revealing his personality in his writing, nor do any of the famous men whom he describes emerge from his pages bright and clear-limned. His book, indeed, is a pedestrian piece of work. But though its sole interest lies in the various subjects presented to the reader, that interest is substantial and well recompenses one for the momentary boredom produced by certain appallingly vapid statements.”
“A bright, racy and interesting account of interviews with a host of notables. From start to finish the personal pronoun ‘I’ looms up with great frequency. This detracts much from the delightfulness of the book.”
MARDEN, ORISON SWETT. You can, but will you? (Marden inspirational books) *1.75 (1c) Crowell 170
A collection of the author’s essays on right living. Among the subjects are: The new philosophy of life; The new idea of God; Facing life the right way; Winning out in middle life; How to realize your ambition; The web of fate; The open door; Do you carry victory in your face?
MARKHAM, EDWIN. Gates of paradise, and other poems. *$1.75 Doubleday 811
This is Edwin Markham’s fourth volume of verse. It is made up of short poems arranged in eight groups: Van-couriers; At my lady’s window; Wings for the spirit; Deeper chords; Finger-posts for the highway; Echoes from the world war; Memorable men; Songs to the supernal woman. There is a frontispiece portrait of the author.
“Is, at its best, rhymed moralizing: eloquent, sincere, restrained, but withal too absorbed in immediate domestic and sociological interests to touch the deepest mysteries of the heart of man.” R. M. Weaver
“‘Gates of paradise’ is pleasant for its simple yet technically capable lines only. The thought contained therein is as old and hackneyed as ham and eggs for breakfast. If he is not careful the mantle of Ella Wheeler Wilcox will descend upon him.” H. S. Gorman
Reviewed by O. W. Firkins
MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD. Many Junes. *$2 (2c) Dodd
Something stronger than himself had always dominated over Hugh Lelacheur even from infancy. First it was a strong-willed father that interfered with his destiny at the death of his mother. Later a too well disciplined reasonableness always triumphed over his strongest desires to make him give up what he liked best for the second best. The best things came too late and kept his life a lonely one with few high lights and many shadows. The shadow’s turn into bitterness and a hardening of the heart when on a memorable June day, given over to memory and a reliving of his past life, it comes to him that he could offer his unloved wife a measure of spiritual companionship, as the only remaining second best thing that he had so far withheld.
“Reaching us twelve years after its first appearance in England. ‘Many Junes’ reveals the constant quality of Mr Marshall’s genius. It might as well have been written yesterday, as far as internal evidence discloses. To ‘Many Junes,’ therefore, we may turn for the reading of a novel in its writer’s best and most characteristic manner.” E. F. E.
“Archibald Marshall has told the story pleasantly and neatly enough to hold one’s interest; and yet he fortunately does not make one take the book seriously enough to object to some of the incredibilities in the plot.” J. C. L.
“Mr Marshall’s new novel is something of a departure from his customary type of fiction. This new book is in a different vein, one more serious and more sorrowful.”
“The present novel has the same attractiveness with the exception that it lacks that pervading humor which made some of Mr Marshall’s earlier books so delightful.”
“‘Many Junes’ is a rambling, disjointed series or sequence of episodes in the life of an extremely disagreeable Englishman. Hugh Lelacheur is a prig, a snob, and an egotist.” H. W. Boynton
“The characters all are vividly portrayed flesh-and-blood people. Altogether the story is admirably conceived and developed, and will afford agreeable entertainment to Mr Marshall’s readers.”
MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD. Peggy in Toyland. il *$2.50 Dodd
A story about a little English girl and her two favorite dolls, one of them made of wood, one a very handsome person known as Lady Grace. There is a teddy bear too, and one night in her dreams the three of them conduct Peggy to Toyland where she has many strange adventures.
“The illustrations have the charm of the narrative; a child would like both story and pictures.”
MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD. Spring walk in Provence. il *$3.50 (4½c) Dodd 914.4
The original preface to this book is dated August, 1914, but events immediately following that date delayed its publication. In an added word the author says: “I have been over the manuscript again and made a few alterations here and there, but have altered nothing that shows it to have been written five years ago.” Among the chapter titles are: Hills and olives; Flowers and scents; In old Provence; Aix; Les baux; Mistral; Saint-Remy; Avignon; The palace of the popes; Vaucluse; Villeneuve-sur-Avignon; Arles. There are illustrations and an index.
“A volume of finished excellence, written without affectation, but with due regard for the stateliness of English prose.” Margaret Ashmun
“Mr Marshall’s journeyings through Provence inspire us with a desire to follow his footsteps.” E. F. E.
“The accompanying photographs are good.”
“Mr Marshall has produced a book that is interesting and quietly entertaining, but it is not one that will add to his reputation as a writer of finished prose. The book bears the marks of hasty composition, of a haste that has resulted in an occasional slovenliness and a frequent awkwardness of expression.”
MARSHALL, EDISON. Voice of the pack. il *$1.75 (2½c) Little
Dan Failing, the grandson of a frontiersman, has spent all his life in cities. In his twenty-ninth year he finds that he is far gone with tuberculosis and is told that he has but six months to live. He feels a yearning toward the mountain country he has never known except through his grandfather’s stories and he goes out to the Cascades. An old mountaineer who remembers the elder Failing takes him into his home, altho he cannot conceal his disappointment in this weak descendant of a mighty man. But Dan wins his host’s respect almost at once, for he is a natural born woodsman. He regains his health and later wins the love of Lennox’s daughter, a girl called Snowbird. There is much of forest and animal lore in the story.
“Again and again Mr Marshall leaves his commonplace style to indulge in some really good writing, but as often he returns to the dull monotone.”
“The story in the main is merely a woodsman’s idyl, rich in poetic fancy—although stern in its fidelity to the truth as that woodsman sees it—and throbbing with reverent love for nature.”
“Mr Marshall’s story runs close to nature’s heart. Thru a most engrossing and intimate presentation of forest life, develops a fine love drama.” Joseph Mosher
MARSHALL, F. HENRY.[2] Discovery in Greek lands. il *$3.40 Macmillan 913.38
“Mr Marshall has written an attractive sketch of the chief results attained by excavations in Greater Greece since 1870. He treats the subject historically, starting with the age of Knossos and Mycenae, and describing under each period the main sites examined. He gives special chapters to temples, to the famous centres like Delphi and Olympia, and to isolated discoveries like the Sidon sarcophagi or the fine statues dredged up near Cerigotto in 1900–1.”—Spec
“Though so highly compressed as to be little more than a skeleton review, his narrative is not without interest. The illustrations that accompany the text add much to its value.”
“He provides a useful bibliography and a number of good photographs. As an introduction to a large and fascinating subject, the book is much to be commended.”
MARSHALL, ROBERT. Enchanted golf clubs. il *$1 (3½c) Stokes
At the war office he was “Major the Honourable John William Wentworth Gore, 1st Royal light hussars”; to his friends: “There goes good old Jacky Gore, the finest sportsman living!” But he despises golf. The beautiful American widow, Katherine Clendenin Gunter, with a fortune of £2,000,000 sterling, is an enthusiastic golfer. To win her he decides to play a match with a golf champion and enters into a compact with the ghost of a cardinal to use his enchanted clubs. With the ghost’s aid he wins the game, but not the lady.
“Of course what the author describes in his shallow plot could not take place, for the book is admittedly a burlesque. But as a burlesque it is too extravagant to be funny.”
MARTIN, EDWARD SANFORD. Life of Joseph Hodges Choate. 2v il *$10 Scribner
“The reader will promptly discover that this life of Mr Choate is not so much a biography after the manner of Plutarch as a compilation. The chief contributor, by far, is Mr Choate himself, whose writings, public and private, make up four-fifths, or more, of the book.” (Introd.) The first volume opens with Mr Choate’s own story of his boyhood and youth, a fragment of autobiography dictated by him in 1914 while convalescing from an illness. The editor says further, “I have borrowed—whenever it could be done to advantage—from newspapers, commentators, and eulogists. A series of scrap-books, kept for forty odd years and covering more or less Mr Choate’s experiences as ambassador, supplemented the long series of letters which could be drawn upon.” Volume 1 covers the period to the nineties. Volume 2 covers the years of ambassadorship to England and the period of the war, closing with a review of his life. There are interesting illustrations and an index.
“It is a difficult task to cover adequately the many-sidedness of such a man in a biography unless it is systematic and well rounded. The career of Mr Choate merits such a biography. It has not yet been written. When it is, Mr Martin’s interesting and richly filled volumes will be the biographer’s chief source book.” S. L. Cook
“The two volumes are a new thing in biography. They will constitute a classic in editing.”
“This is an ideal method of combining biography with autobiography.” R. R. Bowker
MARTIN, EVERETT DEAN. Behavior of crowds; a psychological study. *$2 Harper 301
The book is somewhat of a critical enlargement on Le Bon’s “The crowd.” Its conclusions are based on the latest research in analytical psychology originated by Freud. The author holds that “as a practical problem, the habit of crowd-making is daily becoming a more serious menace to civilization. Events are making it more and more clear that, pressing as are certain economic questions, the forces which threaten society are really psychological.” (Foreword) As a remedy to this menace he suggests re-education along the lines of humanism expounded by such writers as James, Schiller, Dewey and others. Contents: The crowd and the social problem of today; How crowds are formed; The crowd and the unconscious; The egoism of the crowd-mind; The crowd a creature of hate; The absolutism of the crowd-mind; The psychology of revolutionary crowds; The fruits of revolution—new crowd-tyrannies for old; Freedom and government by crowds; Education as a possible cure for crowd-thinking; Index.
MARTIN, GEORGE (MADDEN) (MRS ATTWOOD R. MARTIN). Children in the mist. *$1.75 (3c) Appleton
In a series of eight sketches the writer, who has lived with the negro in Mississippi, in Louisiana, in Florida, the Carolinas and Kentucky, shows him as he is, neither praising him as his over-zealous advocate, nor indulging in race hatred. It is an arraignment of the white race for keeping this primitive people so long in confusion, discouragement and ignorance. The stories cover the period from the emancipation to the present and are arranged in chronological order. The stories are: The flight; The blue handkerchief; An Inskip niggah; Pom; The sleeping sickness; Fire from heaven; Malviney; Sixty years after.
“The stories are very readable.”
“The eight stories in this book are written with a commendable intention, but that intention does not after all extend beyond a limited field and a circumscribed aspect of the negro.” W. S. B.
“Unfortunately, while Mrs Martin writes with the authoritative manner of one who has known the black man intimately, she has, as she concedes, laid no emphasis in her tales upon negroes who have, to use her phrase, forged ahead. The result is an obvious struggle between the complacence which comes of having met coloured people as servants chiefly, and the feeling that it is inconsistent to deny them opportunity and to charge their race with the consequences.” H. J. S.
“Mrs Martin avoids both sentiment and indignation; her tone is warm but quiet; she lets the stern implications arise in their bare and tragic force.”
“They are typical of the kind of studied work in short-story writing which carefully applies principles of preparation, suspense, contributing effect, and climax, and never achieves the dynamic impulsion and the artistic inevitability of a directly told unpremeditated tale.”
“This book will prove her to have advanced in her art. Mrs Martin is too good an artist to let the purpose obtrude itself. It is there, none the less, and it gives her book a permanent value aside from its quality as fiction.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“A broad vein of humor runs through the tales, but invariably there is a serious note at the ending.”
MARTIN, HELEN REIMENSNYDER (MRS FREDERIC C. MARTIN). Schoolmaster of Hessville. *$1.90 (3c) Doubleday
The schoolmaster of Hessville, a Pennsylvania Dutch village, was John Wimmer, fine and strong of character but with the cravings of youth in his young body. It was flesh calling to flesh that made him love Irene, the glowing beauty with the coarse instincts. She played cat and mouse with him and her wiles were finally responsible for John’s marriage to Minnie, Irene’s opposite. Minnie’s winsomeness never quite compensated John for Irene’s more sensuous charms and when a cruel accident deprives Minnie of her reason leaving John with two motherless children on his hands, the now, on her part, widowed Irene, offers her services as housekeeper and becomes John’s mistress. He has fallen an easy prey but in time his eyes are opened, and when a successful operation restores Minnie to him he blesses her breadth of view that can condone his lapse.
“Not alone are the main characters well drawn, even the most minor minion is unforgettably sketched. The author has studied children and has thoroughly expressed her understanding of them.”
MARTIN, MABEL WOOD. Green god’s pavilion. *$1.90 (1½c) Stokes
This novel of the Philippines shows in almost lurid colors the irreconcilable difference between the East and the West. It is symbolized in the figures of two women, one, Julie, an American of a fair and spiritual beauty who goes out to Manila as a teacher and with the spirit of a crusader. The other, a native woman, Isabel, the “Empress of the East,” with the fierce passion of life that stops not at evil. It is a tragic story of how the East breaks all who come to her with the best of intentions of uplift and improvement, except they miraculously rise from the dead for a second birth. It broke Julie and left her for dead among the plague stricken huts of the natives. It broke Barry McChord, the man with the “Excelsior” face, who fell a victim to the plague after his high hopes were gone. But something selfless in both finally triumphs over all self-deceptions, even over death. Much philosophizing and much gruesome realism are a part of the story.
“Smoothly written and vivid tale of love and faith and hardship.”
“From its opening chapter, the reader’s interest is caught and held. Amy Lowell, herself, has done no more vivid color bits than this author has introduced in descriptions of Manila. Aside from the brilliancy of the local setting, she has woven a tale of exceeding interest and charm, and super-excellent quality in novels of today, its ‘third act’ is most engrossing.” C. K. H.
“‘The green god’s pavilion’ may hardly be termed an extraordinary novel, for it is built too obviously for thrill purposes, but it displays an intimate knowledge of conditions in the Philippines and presents with frequency pictures of native life that are vivid and finely written.”
MARTYN, WYNDHAM. Secret of the silver car. *$1.75 Moffat
Another book of the adventures of Anthony Trent, master criminal. In an indiscreet moment while they were shut in a caved-in dugout in Flanders, expecting death at any moment, Trent had told the story of his life to his unknown and unseen companion. Both escape and with the war over, he sets himself to find this unknown “William Smith” who knows too much about him for his own safety. He meets “William Smith’s” sister, falls in love with her and for her sake resolves to give up his brilliant criminal career. In her service he goes out to the Balkans, becomes involved in international intrigue, has many hairbreadth escapes, but secures the papers that mean so much to Lady Daphne’s father and is rewarded with her hand.
“Nor is this book mere swashbuckling. It is written always adroitly, sometimes humorously, and with the zest of the author’s own enjoyment.”
Reviewed by M. K. Reely
MARVIN, FRANCIS SYDNEY, ed. Recent developments in European thought. *$6.25 Oxford 901
“This volume, which is a sequel to ‘The unity of western civilization’ (1915) and ‘Progress’ (1916), is, like them, the fruit of a course of lectures given at a summer school at Woodbrooke, Birmingham. The addresses composing it were given in August, 1919, and it traces the idea of progress in European history since 1870. Among the contributors, besides the editor, are Mr A. E. Taylor, who writes on ‘Philosophy,’ Dr F. B. Jevons, who writes on ‘Religion,’ Mr A. D. Lindsay, of Balliol, whose subject is ‘Political theory,’ and Mr A. Clutton Brock, who discusses ‘Art.’ Each article is followed by a bibliographical note as a guide to further reading.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup N 11 ’20
“In spite of the difficulties of handling the vast intricate masses of still fluid material, the contributors have given readable and yet valuable summaries of the progress of thought. For the beginner, there could be no better introduction to the essential contributions of man’s recent achievement.” M. J.
“Naturally, the essays by different authors vary in value. The least satisfactory is the first, on philosophy.... The most brilliant essays are those dealing with the fields of thought most intensively cultivated by the last generation.... Compared with the treatment accorded history, the studies here offered of political theory and of economic progress are slightly disappointing.... Taken as a whole, the cumulative impression of these various lectures is greater than that of any one taken separately.” Preserved Smith
“The personality of each of the twelve writers is given full expression. It makes the diversity more interesting than the unity.” H. W. C.
“The aim of the writers is to trace the progress and acquisitions of thought and give a general picture of the results obtained by modern knowledge; and they have succeeded in producing essays that are of a high quality and also thoroughly readable.”
MARX, MAGDELEINE. Woman; tr. by Adele Szold Seltzer. *$1.90 (6c) Seltzer
A translation of a novel that is said to have created a sensation in France. It is a record of emotional moments. The characters have no names, no appearances. They are only personalities. The “woman” of the story loves and marries and bears a child. While still loving her husband she takes a lover and then loses both husband and lover in the war. Out of these experiences she emerges invincible, with an undimmed capacity for life and an indomitable will to live. Henri Barbusse says in his introduction, “In no other book perhaps so markedly as in this has the integrity of an individual been more respected, and never has an imaginary character so consistently warded off whatever is not of itself. You don’t even seem to feel that this ‘woman’ talks or tells a story. You simply know what she knows.”
Reviewed by Theodore Maynard
“To those in search of a well-written book, not to mention a contribution to real literature, Magdeleine Marx has nothing whatever to offer. The style is wordy, pretentious and empty, a disjointed collection of hollow phrases embodying all the platitudes of the so-called revolt of woman.” E. A. Boyd
“The story is frank and sincere and full of isolated perceptions that are both searching and beautiful. But it is also thin and scrappy and disjointed, and the complete shadowiness of all the characters robs its theories of the inner energy of a human content. In a word, Madame Marx has felt very deeply and reflected intensely, and those who agreed with her passionately have taken it for granted that she has written a great book. But that is taking for granted far too much.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“A very great deal of it gives the reader the impression of a mind out-stretching itself, to the point of dislocating all its joints, in order to perceive and express something that nobody else has ever perceived or expressed.”
“The book is written in a resignedly magnanimous strain, and passages occur, which, taken by themselves, might affect us as noble. Yet as a whole its absence of elevation in the midst of calls to elevation is confounding.”
“‘Woman,’ if nothing else, is an interesting psychological study of the type of mind that dwells upon sex and psychoanalysis with a neurasthenic intensity, when the world is full to overflowing with real woman problems.” M. E. Sangster
“It does seem to me that the book might more appropriately have been called ‘A woman.’ For the rest, the book is perfervid in a way that we do not quite like in America, perhaps because we are not wholly acclimated to it. It has pages of unusual beauty, and a high degree of unity and directness.”
MASEFIELD, JOHN. Enslaved. *$2.50 Macmillan 821
The long narrative poem of the title depicts courage born of love and begetting the brotherhood of man even in the untamed. A fair damsel is carried off by a pirate galley into the captivity of a khalif’s harem. Her lover follows into slavery to rescue her. He does so with the aid of a brother slave who must kill a traitor to accomplish their purpose. Recaptured and brought before the khalif they are set free because their tale causes human stirrings in the hawk breast of the latter. The other poems are: The hounds of hell; Cap on head; Sonnets; The passing strange; Animula; The Lemmings; Forget; On growing old; Lyric.
“It seems to us that Mr Masefield’s first business is to regain control of his words; and that he can only do this by deliberately attempting a subject that bristles with psychological nuances, and insisting that his language shall accommodate itself to them. Otherwise we fear he will never succeed in expressing that elusive beauty which he sees, but which at present comes to us only in assertion or in fitful gleams through the interstices of an opaque style.” J. M. M.
“Mr Masefield is the single poet writing in English today who both in popular esteem and by the most exacting critical estimate legitimately belongs to the august line of poets who are among the chief glories of our race: to his greatness no journalistic cavil can add or take away.” R. M. Weaver
“In this poem, [On growing old], as in so many aspects of the other poems in this volume, one feels the shadows of the world, deepened by the tumult of war, settling upon the radiance of a brave visionary spirit. The thrill, the excitement, the adventures of living are all now subdued to this key of sadness, in which the passion and beauty that was once a flame becomes an effable glow.” W. S. B.
“The whole thing seems bookish, remote, unreal. The characters do not become sufficiently interesting: seem, in fact, insufficiently equipped with a back-ground of flesh and blood experience.” J: G. Fletcher
“One of the signs that the times are good in English poetry is the fact that Mr Masefield keeps on writing poems which tell stories.” Mark Van Doren
“In his latest volume there are some serious offenses against rhyming, euphony, and scansion, but in the larger aspects, in the essential substance and indescribable quality of authentic poesy, he is more richly endowed than any other living writer.” Lawrence Mason
“‘Enslaved,’ his latest book of poems, offers a peculiarly fine view of Masefield in all his variety. There is no poet in England, unless we except Hardy, who possesses keener insight into the hearts of men. It is this attitude toward life, this same fatalism that recognizes the worst, yet sees the best behind, that makes John Masefield one of the finest living figures in the whole field of English poetry.”
“A volume which reveals anew the amazing power and versatility of that English poet.”
“‘Enslaved’ is a dramatic adventure tale. But ‘Enslaved’ is likewise a dreamy, semi-lyrical, murmurous, and caressing tale. It is Masefieldian in its power to be both these things at once.” O. W. Firkins
“The book is extraordinarily rich, for it contains beside others, ‘Forget’ and ‘On growing old,’ two of the most beautiful poems that Mr Masefield ever wrote, and in this age of singers Mr Masefield remains our poet of greatest achievements.”
MASEFIELD, JOHN.[2] Right Royal. *$1.75 Macmillan 821
“In ‘Right Royal’ Mr Masefield celebrates in a narrative poem the story of a horse-race. The story of Mr Masefield’s poem is that of a horse with great points and virtues, for speed and endurance, but very undependable, having lost a number of races by going panicky from fear. He was bought by Charles Cothill, who believed that all his potential qualities as a winner could be developed. Cothill backed his own horse to the extent of all his possessions, which created a crisis in his love for the woman he hoped to marry. If he lost, his love was lost. In fact, it was win all or lose all.”—Boston Transcript
“It will be acknowledged that the preliminaries of the race, the discussions in the stables, the professional tips and omens, the catalogue of the entries, are sandy soil for the growth of poetry. The best of the poem has no relation to the worst; the worst might have been sacrificed. Even in the best are imperfections, but we have learnt to swallow Mr Masefield’s longer poems without straining at the gnats.” E. B.
“It is growing very trite to say that Mr Masefield does this thing or that thing better than any contemporary poet. He does the things that nobody else does and is thus in competition with himself. ‘Right Royal’ may not be as fine a poem as ‘Enslaved,’ but no one can dispute that it is the best narrative of a horse-race that has been written by any modern poet.” W: S. Braithwaite
“‘Right Royal’ is a bad poem, both intrinsically and because it fails to satisfy certain necessary expectations. It promised to be as good as ‘Reynard the fox,’ but it is woefully, incredibly worse.” Mark Van Doren
Reviewed by W. B. D. Henderson
Reviewed by R: Le Gallienne
“The feeling that ‘Right Royal’ deserves to be placed below the earlier volume [‘Reynard the fox’] may be purely a matter of individual temperament on the part of the reviewer. In any case, it is a volume which occupies an enviable place in the field of modern poetry.”
Reviewed by G: D. Procter
“The weather—cloud, sun, wind, and shower—is given more prominence and is better conceived in ‘Right Royal’; but to balance this, the unsuccessful passages are decidedly worse than those in ‘Reynard the fox.’ Another fault it seems to the present writer to possess, which the incomparable ‘Reynard the fox’ does not: it is a little monotonous. As a ‘galloping poem,’ however, it is certainly one of the best in English.”
“He piles simile on simile and each simile is beautiful in itself, each is a patch of ornament stuck on, not woven into the fabric. Mr Masefield has told a brave tale bravely. If his courage had been like Right Royal’s, he would have dared to leave undecorated the beauty inherent in the tale.”
MASON, ALFRED EDWARD WOODLEY. Summons. *$2 (2c) Doran
Harry Luttrell had a strong sense of military honor and of the necessity for self-discipline. The first drove him to join the army, the second to tear himself away from the woman he loved and accept a post in Egypt. His friend and classmate, Martin Hillyard, had had a chequered career: as a sailor; in a three years’ struggle for existence in the port-towns of Spain; as an Oxford student and successful playwright; and during the war his knowledge of Spain serves him in good stead as a secret service agent. Stella Croyle, Luttrell’s one-time love, in his absence eats her heart out in neurotic, undisciplined longing and occasionally has recourse to the comfort of drugs. While on a leave of absence during the war, Luttrell meets Stella again without experiencing the old-time thrill and at the same time he meets and falls in love with Joan Whitworth. Poor Stella commits suicide under circumstances that throw suspicion on Joan. Through his experiences in the secret service, Hillyard is enabled to clear Joan and smooth the way for her and Luttrell.
“An interesting variant of the modern detective story.”
“It is a splendid story which Mr Mason has written, based upon his experiences in the war, full of dramatic vigor—a real novel in every sense of the word—and permeated with the atmosphere of England, Spain, and Egypt.”
“This novel is an excellent substitute for a modern detective story. Instead of possessing a single, unified plot it is composed of a rosary of minor plots which endows it with somewhat of the character of real life.”
“One cannot help wishing that the important character of Joan Whitworth were less exaggerated and more likable, for she does more than a little to harm the book, but it is easy to forgive this shortcoming when one remembers Martin Hillyard and the picturesque José Medina, the very amusing Sir Chichester Splay, Millie, and several others among the varied figures depicted on Mr Mason’s richly colored canvas.”
“Mr Mason, here as always, has an exciting and unusual story to unfold. This novel is hardly the equal of the ‘Four feathers’ or ‘The broken road,’ for the author attempts to ming a not very successful humorous vein with his natural plot-and-action type of fiction writing.”
“The touch of melodrama in the last section of the book is well conceived and exciting. The best piece of writing in the book is the description of the night passed by Martin Hillyard on the shore of a river in the Sudan. This vivid picture of the life of the game-hunter in wild countries affords a striking contrast to the sophisticated chapters at the beginning of the book.”
“Mr Mason has shown better form than this.”
MASON, ARTHUR. Flying bo’sun. *$1.75 (4c) Holt
The narrative, the author claims, is of his own experience. It tells of the voyage of a sailing schooner from San Francisco to the Fiji Islands, of the superstitious sailors’ taking alarm at the alighting on the ship of the “flying bo’sun,” the bird of bad omen, the subsequent death of the captain, his haunting of the cabin and spiritualistic rappings. On the return voyage the Hindoo stowaway has a mysterious illness and is left in a state of coma on the captain’s bed while a terrific hurricane is raging. During a critical moment, when all seems lost, the frail little Hindoo is suddenly seen in charge of the wheel giving commands in the captain’s voice with the captain’s ghost standing beside him. With the ship safe and calm restored the Hindoo is found just coming to life on the captain’s bed. He disclaims all knowledge of commanding a ship but is still shaken by the memory of the hideous dream he has had.
“The feeling persists that, with the exception of the spiritual phenomenon, the whole dramatic voyage actually occurred.” S. M. R.
“As a story of the sea it ranks with the best of Jack London or Morgan Robertson, and as a story of the uncanny it is comparable with ‘Dracula’ and ‘The master of Ballantrae.’”
“In spite of the undoubted accuracy of Mr Mason’s idiom, however, the discriminating layman is likely to find less of the authentic or communicable essence of the sea in ‘The flying b’sun’ than in the spiritual reaction of Masefield, Conrad, Tomlinson and McFee.”
MASON, AUGUSTUS LYNCH. Guiding principles for American voters. *$2 Bobbs 320
“Mr Mason aims this ‘handbook of Americanism’ chiefly at the newly enfranchised women and at the young men about to cast their first vote. He analyzes the make-up of the government and argues for what he aptly calls a ‘re-dedication to those principles which have made America great’—i.e., a conservative application of the underlying ideas of the Constitution. He objects to radical methods of taxation, to too much government ownership, governmental price fixing, etc., and he sees ‘Socialism’ as a menace.”—N Y Evening Post
“His arguments are cogently presented and supported by carefully examined data: an excellent brief for the preservation of a conservative republic rather than a radical democracy.”
“Its purpose is to popularize an argument, and it has no other value.”
MASON, WILLIAM LESLEY. How to become an office stenographer. (Just how ser.) il $1.50 Pitman 652
“A handy book intended for the untrained shorthand student who is ambitious to secure a good position without previous experience.” (Title page) The book is adapted for use as a text in business schools and in high school commercial departments. There are thirteen chapters, entitled: Your attention, please! “Safety first”; What business men expect of a stenographer; Preparedness; Your “busy” day; Taking the business letter; Transcribing the business letter; Typing the business letter; Typing business forms; The use and care of the typewriter; Words: their use and abuse; Filing letters; Time-saving office appliances. There are two appendixes giving postal regulations and information regarding the civil service.
MASSENET, JULES ÈMILE FRÉDÉRIC. My recollections. il *$3 Small
“An autobiography telling the story of this modern French musical leader’s career, and especially of his many works. [It is] translated, by express desire of the author, by his friend H. Villiers Barnett. Illustrated.”—Brooklyn
“Will be enjoyed by the average reader as well as the opera-goer and student of music.”
Reviewed by H: T. Finck
“A charming autobiography.”
“His narrative, like his music, reveals facility, grace, and charm, and is alternately gay and sentimental to the point of pathos. One is not very much wiser after reading the book, but one closes it with a certain regret at parting from such amiable company.” Henrietta Straus
Reviewed by Lawrence Gilman
MASSEY, MRS BEATRICE (LARNED). It might have been worse. *$1.75 (6½c) Wagner, Harr 917.3
An account of a motor trip from coast to coast taken in the summer of 1919, with notes on roads, hotels, and other matters of interest to travelers. Contents: The start; New York to Pittsburgh; Ohio and detours; On to Chicago; Through the dairy country; Clothes, luggage, and the car; The Twin cities and ten thousand lakes; Millions of grasshoppers; The Bad lands; The dust of Montana; A wonderland; Westward ho! Nevada and the desert; The end of the road.
MASSINGHAM, HAROLD JOHN. Letters to X. *$2.50 Dutton 824
“In ‘Letters to X,’ H. J. Massingham discourses on a great many phases of modern life and literature. There is hardly a modern English author of any consequence who does not come under the appraisement of his pen.”—Springf’d Republican
“The book contains many excellences of detail, and reaches at times and maintains for a while a level notably above its average. Perspective is perhaps Mr Massingham’s outstanding quality.” F. W. S.
“Familiar, rambling essays of a book lover that will please the ‘gentle reader’ with like leanings, particularly if he be fond of the Elizabethans and Carolines. Their exclusive bookishness will make them seem cold and remote to others.”
Reviewed by S. P. Sherman
“These are essays of rare quality in which the essayist is writing continuously of the alliance between literature and life.” E. F. E.
“Mr Massingham’s essays are delivered ex-cathedra and in a style both heavy and dense. He is a lover of dust covered books, but he seems widely read rather than discriminating, and though he ranges all the way from Richard de Bury’s ‘Philobiblon’ to John Gould Fletcher, he hardly does much to illuminate the names which he mentions. He declares many enthusiasms but lacks the gift of differentiation.”
“It is a pity that Mr Massingham has chosen to hide this wise, witty, companionably learned and most comforting book under the bushel of a title which not only gives no hint of its quality, but is actually dry and forbidding. Of the value of good literature, of the qualities which constitute it and of the laws of its making, he says some of the wisest, most pertinent, things written in a long day.” R: Le Gallienne
“The word which fits his style exactly is one of the best adjectives in our language which the language is guilty of criminal negligence in permitting itself gradually to lose—the word ‘lusty.’ If it were dead instead of merely decaying, it might be recalled to life by the easy, careless, rushing vigor of Mr Massingham’s undaunted prose.”
“Mr Massingham’s attacks on his own age, sharp, dipped in bitterness, aimed with truth though they are, do not really touch the monster. Bad though the age may be, he is too impatient and petulant with it; and he is divided in his desires.”
“Treating his work as art, susceptible to form, even in the rather strained sense of that word which he adopts, we find it deficient in that very quality, and especially in that element of form, tranquillity, upon which he so insists.”
MASSINGHAM, HAROLD JOHN, ed. Treasury of seventeenth century English verse, from the death of Shakespeare to the Restoration (1616–1660). (Golden treasury ser.) il *$1.50 Macmillan 821.08
“Mr Massingham has marked out as his claim the most characteristic part of the century in time, and has not excluded any kind except the dramatic. Most of his selections are naturally lyrical, but by no means all; and he has thus been able to find room for at least specimen fruits from the half-wilderness gardens of ‘Pharonnida’ and ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ He has also cast his gathering net unusually wide, and his readers will make acquaintance with authors who will pretty certainly be new to them, such as Thomas Fettiplace and Robert Gomersal. In giving uniform modern spelling throughout Mr Massingham may invite censure from some purists, but certainly not in this place. Whatever may be the case earlier, the printers’ spelling of the mid-seventeenth century is, as he justly says, ‘only externally archaic.’ Half its differences from present use are not uniform and are evidently haphazard. One may not perhaps approve quite so heartily his practice of excluding some beautiful things as ‘too well known.’ The authors are alphabetically arranged.”—Ath
Reviewed by G: Saintsbury
“A fresh, provocative, beautiful little book. Palgrave’s volume was not a bit better gauged for Palgrave’s time than Mr Massingham’s is for ours. The purest twentieth-century principles are in operation here. Mr Massingham’s notes are lively to the end, though often they are cleverly irrelevant and gloriously slap-dash. It is as if Mr Saintsbury were twenty again.”
“The completeness of the book makes it an excellent compendium for any one studying that era, although it is to be feared that many a general reader will be frightfully bored by the stiff artificiality that marks many of the poems, especially after they get past the Elizabethan era.” H. S. Gorman
“The poems, as a whole, are excellently chosen, and the enthusiasm of the introduction makes pleasant reading. The notes, with their short biographical summaries, are especially valuable. But it needs a certain type of mind to appreciate seventeenth century literature, and if all readers are not stirred to the same joy in it as Mr Massingham, it is not his fault, but that of the period.”
“Mr Massingham’s introduction is a delightful essay written in a style that has caught something of the curious felicity of the poets in whose work he has steeped himself.”
“He claims, and with justice, that the ordinary reader will find here a whole body of poetry with which he has never before had the chance of making acquaintance. This is a service for which the student of English poetry will be heartily grateful to Mr Massingham. But if he be a lover as well as student he will probably find it hard to keep down some irritation at an anthologist who sets out with the resolve to give him as few as possible of the poems which he is known to like.”
MASTERS, EDGAR LEE. Domesday book. *$4.50 Macmillan 811
In this volume Mr Masters has told a long story in verse. The body of Elenor Murray is found by the river near Starved Rock in Illinois and the coroner, William Merival, sets out to assemble the evidence, the material evidence from the man who finds the body, the doctor who performs the autopsy and the spiritual evidence from those who had known the girl from her birth or her parents before her. The effect of these testimonies brought together is to throw light on the many-sided character of one human being when all secrets are laid bare and to show how one life, however humble or pitiful, affects countless other lives, its influence radiating like ripples in a pool when a stone is dropped.
“If Masters can rid himself of his oracular airs and the bad Browning-Shakespeare patois with which he wearies his staunchest admirers, there are few limits to his possible achievements. ‘Domesday book’ is too diffuse and prosy to be a masterpiece of poetic fiction, but it contains the seeds and strength—and the hope—of one.” L: Untermeyer
“The great American poem of the war has come in the ‘Domesday book’ and come from the hand of the poet who laid the foundation in the synoptic Americanism of the ‘Spoon river anthology.’ The latter was a great work; ‘Domesday book’ is greater.... ‘Domesday book’ is a great national topic of America’s soul symbolized in the character of Elenor Murray.” W: S. Braithwaite
“The trouble with ‘Domesday book’ is chiefly that it thins this raw material out until it becomes hopelessly prosaic. The realism of ‘Spoon river’ had the virtue of selection and of epigram. In his latest work, Mr Masters has become extensive without any corresponding enlargement of the imagination and the power behind his broader canvas.” O. M. Sayler
“The total effect is often crude and heavy, now pretentious, now hopelessly flat; and yet beneath these uncompleted surfaces are the sinews of enormous power, a greedy gusto for life, a wide imaginative experience, an abundance of the veritable stuff of existence—all this, and yet not an authentic masterpiece. ‘Spoon river anthology’ still has no rival from the hand of its creator.” C. V. D.
“For all its largeness of intention, all its vitality and forcefulness, ‘Domesday book’ is not, to my mind, finally articulated. It seems to me unfinished. I do not mean that the poem is not brought to a conclusion. It is concluded, and, I believe, appropriately concluded. But it has parts that should have been cut away or have been more wrought over.” Padraic Colum
“It could have been produced nowhere but in America and nowhere so justly as in the Middle West. The epigrammatic compactness of ‘Spoon river anthology’ is lacking in it, but it takes on a huge strength that the former book lacked.” H. S. Gorman
“If there be any one who does not clearly realize that life is infinitely complex, that it is in the last analysis practically impossible to assign responsibility for evil, that much good may be where convention sees only evil ... if there be any one who is not convinced of these things already or cannot learn them from his own observations and the daily papers, he may derive great benefit from reading Mr Masters’ book. But those to whom these things are commonplaces will perhaps not care to wade through the poem.”
“The Edgar Lee Masters, whose ‘Spoon river anthology’ blazed a new trail thru American literature, returns with ‘Domesday book.’ Perhaps he is less sardonic now, but the vision of ‘Domesday book’ is broader and it is, happily, gently suffused with a very human tolerance and forgiveness.” G: D. Proctor
“The first part is very interesting, and the whole book is readable. Its essence is prosaic, though a back door is left open through which poetry can let herself in in a neighborly fashion, if she chooses. Her visits are infrequent.” O. W. Firkins
MASTERS, EDGAR LEE. Mitch Miller. il *$3.50 Macmillan
Mitch Miller’s story is told by his friend Skeeters Kirby. It is a story of boys and a boy’s town written for adults. Mitch has read “Tom Sawyer” and Tom is to him a living personality. The two boys hunt for buried treasure and try to repeat all of Tom’s exploits. They dig for treasure in Old Salem where Lincoln lived, and an old man who knew Lincoln talks to them of a different kind of treasure. They run away intending to visit Tom Sawyer but are brought back home. Later their fathers take them on a journey to Hannibal, Missouri, where they meet life’s first disillusionment. Mitch is something of a dreamer and a poet. He is killed stealing rides on the cars, and in the epilogue, written thirty years after, the author can say that he is now glad that his chum did not live to face the shattered idealism of the present day.
“The best boy’s story in our generation of American authors has been written by Mr Masters in ‘Mitch Miller.’” W: S. Braithwaite
“Those who have neatly ticketed Mr Edgar Lee Masters as a cynic will be obliged after reading ‘Mitch Miller,’ to change their label—if they must have labels. There is, to be sure, a sub-acid quality in the epilogue. But the mood of the book is one of dedication rather than of challenge. Its tone is sunny and fresh and sweet; its beauty quiet and unobtrusive. ‘Mitch Miller’ comes close to being a masterpiece with its breadth of interpretation, and the fineness and singleness of its mood. It is complete, even to the tragedy at the end.” C. M. R.
“The narrative is tangled in a snarl of moods. Its movement is often thick, its wings gummed and heavy. Only in flashes does the powerful imagination of Mr Masters shake itself free and burn with the high, hot light which so often glows in the ‘Anthology.’ There are touches of admirable comedy and strong strokes of character and some racy prose; but as a whole ‘Mitch Miller’ falls regrettably between the clear energy which might have made it popular and the profound significance which might have made it great.” C. V. D.
“If fidelity to nature were the whole of art, Mitch Miller would be a perfect book, or almost perfect.... The defect in the author’s method comes out in the end of the book.... Is there nothing in American life significant and interesting enough to make it worth while for a boy like Mitch to grow up? Perhaps there is not; but if that is true, it is an artistic problem to be faced, not evaded through a petulant dismantling of a stage well set.” Alvin Johnson
“Mr Masters’s novel is put down with mingled feelings. It has many faults, but it has quite as many virtues. There is so much to the book that it leaps into the mind to advise the author to write novels henceforth and forevermore and let poetry rest.”
“The book is unusual and captivating.”
“We are in the habit of looking to Mr Masters for clear-cut character drawing and for sympathetic, if sometimes ironic, understanding of the motives of men but we have often felt regretfully, that he seemed to be too much interested in the morbid side of human nature. ‘Mitch Miller’ comes as a grateful answer to that doubt.” Marguerite Fellows
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
MASTERS, EDGAR LEE. Starved Rock. *$1.75 Macmillan 811
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Perhaps the poet’s first worthy successor of ‘Spoon River’; but while displaying something of its sardonic spirit the present collection is of far wider range.”
“He is at his ripest and surest in such mordant and merciless analyses as Lord Byron to Doctor Polidori, The barber of Sepo. They’d never know me now, Oh you Sabbatarians! and that profound disquisition on Poe, Washington hospital. And the man who wrote Sagamore Hill, that incomparable portrait of Theodore Roosevelt; who wrote Chicago and I shall go down into this land, manifests an intimate understanding of the American heart at its noblest.” H: A. Lappin
“In ‘Starved Rock’ there is little music but much food for thought.”
“It is beginning to be apparent that Mr Masters neither can nor needs to depart from his original tone and method. He cannot do so profitably and there is no need, since the vein which served them seems inexhaustible. There are not lacking here the old familiar notes of sour, practical tragedy, of hoarse, heroic scepticism, of good, round, pagan, Chicago fleshliness. But [the reader] is sorry for a certain strenuous complacency which has been growing in Mr Masters over a considerable period and which is particularly objectionable in the present volume.”
“Unfortunately, Mr Masters frequently fails to sing because he fails to simplify. He is a thinker, first of all, and the thinker is naturally more discursive than the singer. And now a word for the best of the book. It is a poem about Roosevelt, called At Sagamore Hill. Here is a poem which has in it truth, dignity, vision, vitality.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“In ‘Starved Rock,’ the reader will not starve, though he will scarcely feast. There are the usual monologues, of which only two are slimy. There are bulky and hazy philosophies, cosmicisms, idealisms, feeble sedatives for bitter griefs. There is an excellent bit of journalism, self-described in the title, Sagamore Hill. There are landscapes of an alluring but unsatisfying picturesqueness. There are instances of that lyric pliancy and invitation which surprise the ear among the ruder notes of Mr Masters, and there are rare moments of true inspiration.” O. W. Firkins
“Mr Masters is the same versatile narrator who builds poems of facts rather than of fancies, and who presents carefully analyzed characters and situations in a cold, direct and fearless way. He is still at his best as an analyst or narrator, and he is still unsatisfactory and unconvincing when he wanders from matter-of-fact or satirical verse.”
MATHEWS, BASIL JOSEPH. Argonauts of faith: the adventures of the “Mayflower” Pilgrims. il *$1.50 Doran 974.4
In this book for boys and girls, with a foreword by Viscount Bryce, there is a prologue comparing the embarking of the Pilgrims on their quest for liberty to the ancient Argonauts’ quest of the Golden fleece. The epilogue suggests that the Pilgrim fathers had their counterparts in the heroes of “Pilgrim’s progress,” and that they laid the keel for a new Argo—the ship of state of a new commonwealth. The stories told are: On the great north road: The stormy passage; The land of threatening waters; The house with the green door; The ship of adventure; The adventures of scouting; A clearing in the waste; Builders in the waste; Greatheart, Mr Standfast, and Valiant-for-truth. There are a chronology, an index, illustrations and maps.
“The story is so well told that it is a pity not to have had it accurate in details.”
“Follows history with admirable care, presents an excellent atmosphere, and tells an absorbing story.” W. H. Dyer
“Of all the books relating to the Pilgrims, ‘The argonauts of faith’ by Basil Mathews has the best dramatic form and the most suggestive content for the story-teller, teacher, or librarian.” A. C. Moore
“It is a very readable account and the impression it leaves is an accurate one.”
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
“Basil Mathews has written an old story in an interesting way.”
MATHEWS, BASIL JOSEPH, ed. Essays on vocation. *$1.75 Oxford 174
“The purpose is to inculcate the importance of vocation as distinguished from mere profession or making one’s living, and the spirit of the book is ethical and idealistic. One of the essays, Vocation in art, by H. Walford Davies, is an inspiring piece of literature. The other essays are: Vocation and the ministry, by Edward Shillito; Vocation in law, by Sir E. Pollock; Vocation in the home, by Emily E. Whimster; Commerce as a vocation, by W. H. Somervell; Vocation in industry, by A. Ramage; Vocation in education, by J. Lewis Paton; The career of an elementary school teacher, by Fanny Street; and Sir William Osler’s Vocation in medicine and nursing.”—Ath
“As one might expect, a book of essays on vocation edited by Mr Basil Mathews, with contributions by such people as Mr Edward Shillito, Mr Lewis Paton and Sir William Osler could hardly be anything but good. But a good book on vocation is not good enough. It should possess, especially at such a time as this, a certain prophetic quality. It ought to be constraining, irresistible. But this is just what Mr Mathews’s book is not.” R: Roberts
MATURIN, EDITH (CECIL-PORCH) (MRS FRED MATURIN). Rachel comforted. *$2.50 Dodd 134
The authenticity and truthfulness of these “conversations of a mother in the dark with her child in the light” (Sub-title) are vouched for in a preface by W. T. Stead and a note by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The conversations between the author and her dead son were carried on by means of a planchette over a period of years and the mother asserts that she retired from the world and gave up herself, her health and her life to them and that the one essential condition for such communications are a perfect love on both sides. The object of the book is to comfort other bereaved parents.
MAUGHAM, REGINALD CHARLES FULKE. Republic of Liberia. il *$6.50 Scribner 916.6
“The author, Mr Maugham, knows much of Africa, has written on Africa, and, when he completed in 1918 the pages which are now published, he had had for some years personal experience of life in Liberia as British consul-general at Monrovia. He deals with Liberia from all aspects, with its geography, history, administration and institutions, its climate, races, birds and beasts, plants and trees. The words and the music of the Liberian national anthem are supplied, and a very clear account by a practised pen is made more attractive by a number of excellent illustrations and an adequate map.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His study of Liberia tries on the one hand to say pleasant things concerning Liberia, and on the other hand to show British merchants that now and here is their chance to exploit a rich land.” W. E. B. DuBois
“All through the book Mr Maugham gives evidence of genuine sympathy and understanding for the Liberians and their problems.”
“An excellent account of Liberia.”
“This is a timely, interesting and valuable work, giving a fairly complete description of the Negro republic. It is written in a kindlier tone than has sometimes been employed by other writers on the country.” I. C. Hannah
“Of this republic the present book tells us all that is to be told, and tells it well. Owing to difficulties and delay in publication, the book is a little complicated by two prefaces, and the editing or revision has not been immaculate. But, taken as a whole, it is a most interesting and informing book.”
MAUGHAM, WILLIAM SOMERSET. Land of the Blessed Virgin. il *$2.50 (5c) Knopf 914.6
In this book the author gives his recollections of Andalusia in a series of sketches—the land ablaze with sunshine, opulent with luminous soft color, with cities bathed in light, desolate wastes of sand, dwarf palms and the flower of the broom. The character of the country he finds typified in the paintings of Murillo and the colors of his palette—“rich, hot, and deep”—the typical colors of Andalusia. Some of the sketches are: The churches of Ronda; Medinat Az-Zahrā; The mosque; Cordova; Seville; The Alcazar; Women of Andalusia; The dance; A feast day; Before the bull-fight; Corrida de Toros; Granada; The Alhambra; The song.
“Its objective descriptions are full of rich and vivid color, its travellers’ tales are intimate and charming and its records of the impressions made upon the mind of the author, though not without touches of affectation, are so individual as to be far more interesting than most chronicles.”
“If the reader of ‘The land of the blessed virgin’ is not anxious to visit Andalusia after reading these pages he is impervious to the picturesqueness of the scene and to the rare qualities of Mr Maugham’s style.” E. F. E.
MAUGHAM, WILLIAM SOMERSET. Mrs Craddock. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
This is one of Mr Maugham’s earlier stories now first brought out in America. It is a story with one central interest, one woman’s passionate love for a man, its change to hate and gradual cooling to indifference. Bertha Ley, of Court Leys, falls rapturously in love with a handsome young tenant farmer on her estate and marries him in the face of his lukewarm response and the disapproval of everyone else. She is mistress of her own fortune and has but one relative, a keen-minded acerbic aunt who believes in standing aside and letting others follow their own courses. Bertha gives everything into Edward’s hands and Edward proves a model English squire. But as he rises in county estimation, Bertha’s love for him wanes and her abject devotion gives place to distaste. She leaves him, has a brief love affair with a quite different type of man, and comes home again to settle into a state of apathy and indifference from which his death, under the very circumstances she had once imagined with such poignant pain, does not rouse her.
“An unusual character study.”
“The merits of ‘Mrs Craddock’ as a story are no less than its high qualities as a character study, and it should have been offered to American readers long ago.” E. F. E.
“It has some subtlety, but moves rather heavily and joylessly.”
MAULE, MARY KATHERINE (FINIGAN) (MRS JOHN P. MAULE). Prairie-schooner princess. il *$1.75 (2c) Lothrop
A story of the crossing of the plains and the settlement of Nebraska. The Peniman family, Quakers from Ohio, are going west in a prairie schooner when fate throws little Nina Carroll into their hands. Her father has been killed by an Indian arrow but there is reason to believe that it was a white man not an Indian who was responsible. Valuable papers relating to the little girl are stolen and nothing can be learned of her family connections. She is adopted by the Penimans, altho they know that she has enemies who for some reason wish to gain possession of her. Because of their Quaker principles they treat the Indians with kindness and justice and at several crises in the story they are rewarded by the timely aid of their Indian friends. The children grow up, the boys take part in the Civil war, the mystery in Nina’s story is cleared away and Nina and Joe Peniman and two other pairs of young people set up new homes in the prairie state.
“This story of the West has all the atmosphere of the region it describes—that is to say, it is flat, monotonous, and dry.”
MAUROIS, ANDRÉ. Silence of Colonel Bramble. *$1.25 (3½c) Lane
This light-hearted war book is an interpretation of English, Irish and Scotch character from the point of view of a witty Frenchman. During the war the author acted as interpreter with a Scotch division, a position occupied by Aurelle in his story. It is composed largely of a series of mess-room conversations in which the different characters are allowed to reveal themselves. The translation is by Thurfrida Wake, with translations of Aurelle’s occasional verses by Wilfrid Jackson. The originals of these verses are given in an appendix.
“The humour of the story is somewhat less enjoyable in the translation than in the original; but the reader is still able to appreciate the incisive delineation of the gallant officer who fills the title-rôle.”
“The volume is interesting for its portrayal of the way a Frenchman sees the English race.”
“Those who have been the guests of British officers at the various staff and brigade headquarters will recognize every scene and every character in the pages of this book. It is distinctly a man’s book—a trifle risqué at times from a Puritanic point of view, but always witty and artistically delicate.” F: T. Hill
“‘The silence of Colonel Bramble’ is the wittiest book of comment on warfare and our national prejudices that we have yet seen. The rendering now published is well done on the whole, but it cannot equal the original.”
“No more sympathetic, and at the same time penetrating, appreciation of British character has appeared than this modest collection of sketches, which, by the way, include passages of unexpected tenderness and restrained power.”
MAXSON, CHARLES HARTSHORN. Great awakening in the middle colonies. *$1.25 Univ. of Chicago press 277
A study of the religious revival of 1740 as it affected the middle colonies, supplementing Tracy’s “Great awakening,” (1842) which dealt mainly with New England. Writing so many years later the author found himself “more in sympathy than was common in Tracy’s day with the catholicity of Whitefield and with the democratic tendencies of the revival which were so largely responsible for the destruction of the ecclesiastical system of New England.” (Preface) Contents: Introduction, and pietism in Pennsylvania; Frelinghuysen, and the beginning of the revival among the Dutch Reformed; The Tennents, and the beginning of the revival among the Presbyterians; George Whitefield, and his alliance with the New Brunswick Presbyterians; The year 1740, the great awakening at high tide; The schism in the Presbyterian church in the year 1741; Period of expansion and organization; Whitefield the pacificator; Triumphant evangelism in an age of unbelief; Conclusion; Bibliography (seven pages).
Reviewed by F. A. Christie
“This little book is a worthy treatment of a most interesting and important movement.”
MAXWELL, DONALD.[2] Last crusade. il *$7.50 Lane 940.356
“With 100 sketches in colour, monochrome and line made by the author in the autumn and winter of 1918, when sent on duty to Palestine by the admiralty for the Imperial war museum” reads the informing sub-title of this book. The author further informs us that hostilities were over when he reached his destination and he had to hurry up with his pictures and get over the ground as quickly as possible. He thus obtained glimpses of things and places from every point of view without rhyme or reason and found, in sorting out his drawings, that he was much better off than he would have been with more leisure. The pictures with his diary and explanatory notes make the story of the “Last crusade.” The contents are: Over old roads; Pisgah Heights; The streets of Askelon; Chariots of iron; Abana and Pharpar; The glory of Lebanon; The coasts of Tyre and Sidon; Sea-plane ships; The gates of Gaza; Armageddon; The valley of death; In terra pax.
MAXWELL, WILLIAM BABINGTON. For better, for worse (Eng title, Remedy against sin). *$2 (1c) Dodd
A story based on the injustice of the English divorce law. Feeling herself unloved and unwanted in her own home, Claire Gilmour marries Roderick Vaughan. She knows nothing of marriage and the feeling of admiration and affection which she had confused with love quickly dies. Roddy is a spendthrift and a brute. He squanders all of Claire’s fortune he can lay his hands on and bullies her into giving him more by threatening to take her child from her. She endures every indignity, but the members of her family, who had disapproved of the marriage, are set absolutely against divorce. Roddy goes to America and Claire learns the meaning of peace. He returns and consents to a divorce, but withdraws his consent when Claire inherits money and brings a counter charge of infidelity against her, quite false but easily proved true in court. Roddy and Claire are both declared unfaithful and hence forced to live in wedlock. Claire takes the one way open and goes away with the man who loves her and whose career has been ruined by the divorce scandal.
“The author who sets out deliberately to write a novel with a purpose must content himself with being a little less than an artist, a little more than a preacher. In ‘A remedy against sin’ Mr W. B. Maxwell has chosen to obscure his talents under a wig and gown that he may deliver a tremendous attack against the monstrous injustice of our present divorce laws. Up to a certain point we must admit that ‘A remedy against sin’ is a great deal better than the majority of novels.” K. M.
“The end is one that few novelists would have the courage to record, but it is a logical end, although it is not one that readers who seek for a novel with a ‘high moral purpose’ will approve. But since Mr Maxwell is writing the truth about life, he has made convincing the culmination of the tragic tale of the marriage of Roderick Vaughan and Claire Gilmour.” E. F. E.
“One of the strongest pleas ever made against the existing law in England. As a work of art the novel suffers little from the evident propaganda, because of the clearness of characterization, and the gradual working out of an inevitable crisis in an intolerable situation.”
“One thing about this new novel cannot, in view of its subject, be too strongly emphasized, and that one thing is this: it is absolutely clean. Admirable in its construction, sane and realistic in its development, intensely interesting from beginning to end, this new novel by W. B. Maxwell is a thoughtful, conscientious and notable book, a book worthy of the man who wrote ‘In cotton wool’ and ‘Mrs Thompson.’”
“A more moving fiction character than Claire is not often drawn—and all the more so that the author refrains from forcing the note of pathos. There are a few passages in the book that may offend taste by their baldness of statement, but the impact and purport of the novel are the reverse of immoral.”
“The character drawing is vivid and satiric. As in other books of Mr Maxwell, the tale unfolds with flawless logic—it has the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.”
“Mr Maxwell’s novel with a purpose is entirely free from that suspicion of dullness which, not always with justice, attaches to this type of fiction.”
“The story is told at great length and with considerable attention to detail, but it is difficult to feel great interest in the heroine, whose anæmic personality pervades the whole atmosphere of the book and increases its dreariness.”
“The narrative is well handled—related with force and yet with restraint. The book will, perhaps, excite more curiosity than corrective resolution. But it is at least reasonably lifelike and convincing.”
MAXWELL, WILLIAM BABINGTON. Glamour (Eng title, Man and his lesson). *$1.75 Bobbs
“The hero of this story is a writer of popular plays who, after being jilted by a very prominent beauty in favour of a duke, marries a more common-place young woman, with whom he is exceedingly content. Unfortunately his old love whistles him back, and his fall so preys on his mind that he is about to commit suicide, when the war breaks out, and he reflects that the enemy can probably ‘do the business’ as expeditiously as he himself. His final redemption of character and his wife’s forgiveness are effectively described.”—Spec
“It is a good and satisfying book, full of the stuff of life, beautifully told.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“Not a new story, you surmise, only the eternal triangle. But Maxwell has seen it from a new angle.” Katharine Oliver
“Mr Maxwell presents his characters with an imaginative intensity and emotional fidelity that win the reader’s sympathy with them in their dilemmas.”
“In this latter part of the story there are some fine descriptions of phases of the Somme battles; moreover, the change in Bryan from selfishness to altruism and nobility of outlook merging into war-weariness and a more wholesome selfishness, is excellently given.”
MAYNARD, THEODORE, comp. Tankard of ale; an anthology of drinking songs. *$1.75 McBride 821.08
In his introduction the author bewails the triumph of the teetotaller and the fact that “perfect social reform casteth out conviviality.” “In this book,” he says, “I have tried to offer to my readers practically the whole cream of our convivial songs. But ... I tried to omit everything that was not English in its spirit and in its authorship.... I have compromised to the extent of admitting poems by Scotsmen and Irishmen, while excluding their work when in dialect.... There are some good American drinking songs, but a prohibitionist nation does not deserve to be represented in the jolliest book in the world.” Only a few modern songs have been included, for the author holds that they lack spontaneity and appear to have been written out of pleasant affectation or in order to point a moral. There is an index of first lines.
“The collection is sufficiently comprehensive and sufficiently gay for all practical and abstemious purposes.” L. B.
Reviewed by B: de Casseres
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
MAYO, KATHERINE. “That damn Y”: a record of overseas service. il *$3.50 (2½c) Houghton 940.47
Katherine Mayo, originally prejudiced against the Y. M. C. A., went to France, so she says, on these terms: as a free agent, paying her own expenses, and only receiving from the Y. M. C. A. the right to wear its uniform and to examine its records. Her manuscript was not submitted to any member of the Y. M. C. A. for criticism or approval. The title she has given it she considers a disguised tribute: “They both wanted and expected to find the Y everywhere.... So, as naturally as breathing, always and all the time: ‘Where’s that damn Y?’” She renders a high tribute to Edward Clark Carter, “the head and shaper of the whole Y effort overseas.” The chapters giving her impressions include: The point of view; The key man; Christmas with the A. E. F.; The post exchange; Hot water, by gosh! Never dare judge; The way the people’s money goes; How can we thank them? Contributing facts. There are an index and two appendices: A. Partial lists of overseas Y secretaries killed and disabled in service and decorations and citations; B. Financial statement.
“A very timely and readable book.”
“The fullest, completest and most interesting account of Y. M. C. A. activities which has yet appeared.”
“She tells her stories remarkably, with a crisp, dramatic style and with vivid, forceful words. The judicial quality is not often found mated in books with fire and force and vividness, but Miss Mayo has achieved their commingling, in most of her work, with very great success.”
“Miss Mayo’s narrative is of many-sided interest; in style it is both sprightly and intense; it expresses deep feeling and at the same time shows an extraordinary grasp of facts, figures, situations. Every sentence, stinging, appealing or probative, makes its impression.”
“It would be difficult to imagine a more complete vindication of the work as a whole than it affords. As to the book itself, it is brilliantly written, with a vivid style, and it is full of humor and pathos. Taken altogether, it is one of the very best war books that has appeared.” F. H. Potter
“We hope that no one who contributed to the Y. M. C. A. war fund will be deterred by the title from reading this book; for in it will be found the most complete account of the ‘Y’ work in France that has yet been published as well as the ablest defense of its management. It is truly an inspiring story.”
“The book is frankly personal, emphasizes personalities, and in its generous hero- and heroine-worship sometimes fails to do justice to the less spectacular phases of the collective effort that made possible the achievements recorded.” J. D. Spaeth
MAYRAN, CAMILLE. Story of Gotton Connixloo, followed by Forgotten; tr. by Van Wyck Brooks. (Library of French fiction) *$2 Dutton
“Although this series of translations from the French is described by the publishers as ‘illustrating the life and manners of modern France,’ the first of the two exquisite tales which make up the present volume has to do, not with France, but with Flanders. It relates the history of the bellringer’s motherless daughter, christened Marguerite, but always called Gotton Connixloo, telling of her pathetic childhood, into which there entered few caresses and little play, and of her love for the lame, red-haired smith, Luke Heemskerck, who for her sake deserted his shrewish wife and five little children. Very delicately, very surely, does the author trace the slow development of remorse and of that consciousness of sin which at last, when the German inundation swept over the countryside, caused Gotton to become a martyr, ransoming by her sacrifice the lives of all those in the village. ‘Forgotten,’ the second of the two tales, is also a story of the German invasion, but a story of a very different kind, and of a very different class of people.”—N Y Times
“The first story is told with a penetrating appreciation of lowly life. The appeal of both stories is to those who appreciate artistic workmanship.”
“As delicate as two brooches, they are as appealing to the heart as they are fragile to the eye. Set in English by Van Wyck Brooks they constitute an unusual ornament to the library of Franco-American literature.”
“The sympathetic quality, the deep, strong feeling, the lovely style and fine artistry shown by these two simple tales make the volume a welcome and a notable one.”
MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE. Mazzini’s letters to an English family, 1844–1854. il *$5 Lane
In the introduction E. F. Richards, the editor of these letters, gives a short sketch of the career and character of Mazzini with their historical background and describes the various members of the English family, the Ashursts, to whom the letters were written. The value of the letters themselves, she says, lies in their exhibition of Mazzini’s character, his great and tender heart, never yet adequately shown. Explanatory paragraphs by the editor, throughout the book, help to unify the contents. The book contains several portraits of Mazzini and of the Ashurst family, and an index.
“The book has not much fresh information to offer; but it revives the Mazzini legend in all its magic.” D. L. M.
“A notable addition to the Mazzini literature.”
“Mrs E. F. Richards, as editor of the ‘Letters,’ has done her work with a refreshing enthusiasm tempered with a rare conscientiousness and a notable grasp of the events as well as the personnel of her period.”
“The letters do not add much of importance to Mazzini’s biography, but they help to show why he was beloved by his friends. The editor has taken great pains with the introduction and the commentary to these interesting letters.”
“The world can never know too much of a man so noble as Mazzini. His life is at once an inspiration and a warning to the world in its present condition. Almost every page is a warning to those idealists who have not learnt that the very alphabet of the art of politics is to act gradually, step by step.”
MEAD, ELWOOD. Helping men own farms. il *$2.25 Macmillan 334
“A practical discussion of government aid in land settlement.” (Sub-title) The author is professor of rural institutions in the University of California, and he devotes himself chiefly to the methods and results of land settlement in California, that state having taken the lead in this form of agricultural development. He also draws extensively on Australian experience. The chapters are: State aid in California due to economic and social needs; National carelessness in the disposal of public lands; Australia’s influence on the land policy of California; State aid in Italy, Denmark, Holland, and the British Isles; Methods and results of state aided settlement in Victoria; The practical teachings of Australian state aided settlement; The defects of private colonization schemes as shown by practical results in California; California’s first state settlement; Aid to farm laborers in the Durham settlement; Social progress through coöperation at Durham; The capital required by settlers; The lessons of the Durham settlement; Homes for soldiers; The function of government in social and industrial development. The California land settlement act is given in an appendix. There is no index.
MEAD, GEORGE WHITEFIELD. Great menace: Americanism or bolshevism? *$1.25 (4c) Dodd 335
A sensational appeal to the people of the United States to arise and combat the great menace of “ultra-radicalism.” Contents: The great menace; The relation of the people, labor, and capital in the impending revolution; Conditions favoring bolshevism that do not right themselves; and reasons for faith in the people; The new patriotism; Vital messages of religion for today; Appendix: a citizen’s working creed.
MEADER, STEPHEN WARREN. Black buccaneer. il *$1.75 Harcourt
The story of a New England boy of colonial days who is kidnapped from an island off the Maine coast by pirates. Among the cruel and bloodthirsty crew he finds one friend, Job Howland, a New Englander who is ready to abandon his reckless career. After a terrible sea fight the two make their escape but Jeremy is recaptured and there is every reason to believe Job dead. His life is now more filled with danger than before but a companion is brought to join him, young Bob Curtis of Delaware, who is held for ransom. In the meantime Job, who has escaped, joins Bob’s father in his search for his son and the two boys are rescued. The pirates are captured, Jeremy returns to his home and the buried treasure for which the pirates had sought is found on the very island from which Jeremy had been taken.
MEARS, DAVID OTIS. David Otis Mears, D. D., an autobiography, 1842–1893. il *$1.50 (2½c) Pilgrim press
The autobiography is an incomplete record of Dr Mears’ life, written for his children. It is edited and supplemented with a memoir and notes by H. A. Davidson. The whole commemorates the career of a successful minister who was “preeminently a man of vision, of decision, of action.” (Editor’s note) The book falls into two parts: The autobiography, 1842–1893; and the Chapters by the editor. The appendix contains appreciations and resolutions and a list of publications written or edited by Dr Mears. There are five illustrations.
“As a piece of agreeable autobiography the pages by Dr Mears are unusually interesting.”
“The biography has many interesting features.”
MECKLIN, JOHN MOFFATT. Introduction to social ethics. *$3 (1½c) Harcourt
In defining democracy the author holds that equity is more fundamental to it than popular sovereignty and that the insistence of equality must be limited to equality of opportunities. “Deeper than the notion of popular rule or of equality is that of fraternity, of spiritual and moral like-mindedness.” On this basis he looks upon the development of a social conscience as the task of democracy. Part 1 of the book which is Historical and introductory contains: The problem of democracy; The religious background; Calvinism; The triumph of individualism; The great society; Our uncertain morality. Part 2. Psychological, contains: The organization of the moral sentiments; The social conscience; Public opinion and the social conscience; Limitations of the social conscience; The problem of moral progress. Part 3, The social order, contains: The rôle of the institution in the moral economy; The individual, and the institution; The home; The ecclesiastical ethic; The school and the social conscience; The ethics of private property; Mechanism and morals; The worker and the machine process; The ethics of business enterprise; The problem of the city; Political obligation in American democracy. There is a bibliography at the end of each chapter, with a list of magazine articles and there is an index.
“Professor Mecklin’s book, like every other that is vital, contains many provocations to controversy, but from beginning to end it moves in a healthy atmosphere. It is an educative book, not a package of predigested dogmas.” A. W. Small
“Largely theoretical; will appeal to the reflective reader.”
“For a treatise on ethics, it is exceptionally interesting; it is unusually well written; it is peculiarly free from the conventional jargon of the schools; in short, it is a very readable book. The main criticism to which he exposes himself is that he does not go far enough, and that he stops short of the natural conclusion of his own logic.” R: Roberts
“The book offers much good material for college classes and the references at the end of each chapter make it still more useful in this respect. It is a welcome sign of broader ethical interest by the teacher and a contribution to further development of the field.” J. H. Tufts
“The book is excellently written and will be enjoyed by moderate liberals, who will find in it abundant matter with which to buttress their liberalism. To the more radical-minded the book will make little appeal.”
“‘An introduction to social ethics’ is one of the most interesting and valuable [volumes dealing with the subject] that have appeared recently.”
“The chapters entitled Mechanism and morals and The workers and the machine process are particularly good. The chapter on Public opinion sounds somewhat less in touch than the other chapters with the realities of today through its omission of the hurtful effects of the various kinds of war propaganda and wartime coercion. The best thing about the book is its repeated insistence upon a positive and creative conception of democracy.” H: Neumann
“A comprehensive and useful survey of its subject.”
MEES, CHARLES EDWARD KENNETH. Organization of industrial scientific research. *$2 McGraw 601
“‘Conceding the value of a research laboratory, the head of a large manufacturing firm will ask: “What will it cost?... Where shall I get the men?... What should it do? What may I expect to get from it, and when?... What should be its organization?” It is to answer these questions that this book has been written.’ The discussion is based on an extensive study of laboratories both in this country and abroad.”—Booklist
“The scope of the book and the method of presentment employed in its preparation are excellent, and both industrialists and scientific workers will find it interesting and informative. It is thought, however, that most of its readers will regret that the author has given such brief treatment to certain of the aspects of the subject, that no attention is accorded to the co-ordination of research, and that more space is not devoted to the systematic collection and distribution of scientific information.” W. A. Hamor
“The scope of the book and the sequence of chapters are admirable. Many readers will doubtless wish that the author had gone further into detail than is the case in many chapters. In general, however, the book bears the marks of experience throughout, and will well repay perusal.” A. P. M. Fleming
“Clearly, forcefully, tersely written, this book merits a wide reading in professional and business circles.” O. T.
MEIGS, CORNELIA. Pool of stars. il *$1.60 Macmillan
“This is a pretty tale of a young girl’s friendship for an older woman whom she, together with a lad who strays into the story, rescues from a trying position and restores to affluence and contentment. Its heroine, a young enthusiast who gives up the opportunity for travel in order to complete her preparation for college, makes the acquaintance of a gracious but retiring woman who lives in a simple home on the property adjoining ruins of a more elaborate mansion. That some shadow hangs over her happiness Elizabeth Houghton quickly discovers, and before long, having taken David Warren into her confidence, she applies herself to solving the mystery. All ends well, however, and the story closes with David and Betsy rejoicing in the good fortune of their elders and preparing to enter upon the college career so eagerly anticipated by both.”—N Y Evening Post
“The love of mystery will be satisfied by this book without the ‘blood-and-thunder’ accompaniments of the average mystery story. There are pleasant character studies. Strongest appeal to girls of teens.”
“Is a very well-written story, sustaining until the end a mystery, and good comradeship between a boy and girl of high school age.” A. C. Moore
“A chapter to which boys would listen with delight since it gives color and life to that period of our history following the war with the Barbary pirates, ‘The tree of jade’ is so well told as to completely reconcile the reader to the interruption of the main narrative.” A. C. Moore
“The style is vague and indefinite.”
“A story of mystery with melodrama refreshingly absent.”
MEIGS, WILLIAM MONTGOMERY. Relation of the judiciary to the constitution. $2 W: J. Campbell, 1731 Chestnut st., Philadelphia 342.7
This study of the relation of the judiciary to the constitution is a defence of judicial supremacy. The author’s studies have led him to believe that its origin antedates Marbury vs. Madison and he argues that “the judiciary was plainly pointed out by our history for the vast function it has exercised, and that it was expected and intended, both by the Federal convention and the opinion of the publicists of the day, to exercise that function.” Two chapters on The British colonies in North America and The public beliefs of our colonial days are followed by an examination of cases. There is an index. The author has written “The growth of the constitution,” also lives of Calhoun and Thomas H. Benton.
“This careful volume should take its place among the essays of high authority in our legal literature. The discussion of individual leading cases which Mr Meigs gives us is of deep interest.” S. L. C.
“The result will prove disappointing to the special student of the subject, though it is not without value for the general reader. Altogether it seems not unjust to remark that Mr Meigs will probably be remembered for his pioneer article of a generation ago, rather than for this more ambitious but one-sided and unoriginal study.” E: S. Corwin
MEIKLEJOHN, ALEXANDER. Liberal college. *$2.50 (4c) Jones, Marshall 378
The volume is the first of a series of centenary publications to be known as the Amherst books. It consists of a collection of papers and addresses elucidating the author’s conception of a liberal college. The introduction, “Making minds,” presents the three chief misunderstandings with regard to a college education, viz: that it makes minds; that it should not make minds but men; that men are not made but grow and that the college’s part in this is not to be taken too seriously. The papers are grouped under the headings: The determining purpose; The participants in the process; Discussions in educational theory; The curriculum.
“Dr Meiklejohn states his own case and Amherst’s case with rare strength and clarity.” H. T. C.
“For years President Meiklejohn of Amherst has stood forth as one of the staunch defenders of the liberal college in America, and now we have an able discussion of his faith in a volume filled with terse, well-packed sentences, each of which opens a new line of thought or a new angle from which to approach the problem.” J. W. G.
“Whether or not the suggestions here made are specific improvements or not, the present volume makes one deeply grateful that there is, in a position of authority, a man so fully convinced that learning is a noble thing, worthy of love and devotion for her own sake.” Preserved Smith
“Dr Meiklejohn’s book is noteworthy for its point of view and for the fine enthusiasm for scholarship which it reveals.” T: S. Baker
“It is written in a clear, earnest, straightforward, and convincing style, never abstruse and never platitudinous, but always fresh and always interesting. In spite of the author’s professed fondness for inviting misunderstanding, the book is throughout lucid and single in its aim.”
“Dr Meiklejohn’s discussion maintains a high level practically throughout the book. He meets many of the criticisms that have been brought against the college and liberal education.” J. K. Hart
MEIKLEJOHN, NANNINE (LA VILLA) (MRS ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN). Cart of many colors. (Little school-mate ser.) il *$1.65 Dutton
“It is the tale of a small Sicilian lad, dowered with artistic gifts and aflame with desire to make the most of his talents who, at the instance of his wise and indulgent mother and through the kindness of an uncle who recognizes his possibilities, accompanies the latter to Florence, there to study art. The greater part of the story is concerned with his life in the cultured family with whom he makes his home in the beautiful Tuscan town, and through whom he is given opportunity to see Rome, Siena and other cities of note. Its earlier chapters, however, have to do with his happy days in the midst of his own people in Palermo.”—N Y Evening Post
“A well-written story of life in Italy. We have seen nowhere so informing and so humanized an account of Italian life in America as Miss Converse gives in her introduction.” A. C. Moore
“Though throughout the tale much stress is thrown on description both of places and customs, yet there is sufficient incident of a simple sort to focus its interest upon the fortunes of Nello and his associates.”
“Pictures with insight and sympathy the life of children in Italy.”
MEISSNER, MRS SOPHIE (RADFORD) DE. Old naval days. il *$3 Holt
The author of these sketches from the life of Rear-Admiral William Radford, U.S.N. was the latter’s daughter and her record abounds in reminiscences, private and public. The admiral began his naval career in 1825 as midshipman on the “Brandywine” which conducted Lafayette back to France after his visit to America. He served through the Civil war and was retired in 1870. The book is illustrated and has an appendix.
MENCKEN, HENRY LOUIS. Book of burlesques. *$2 Knopf 817
“The present edition includes some epigrams from ‘A little book in C major,’ now out of print. To make room for them several of the smaller sketches in the first edition have been omitted. Nearly the whole contents of the book appeared originally in the Smart Set.” (Author’s note) Contents: Death: a philosophical discussion; From the programme of a concert; The wedding: a stage direction; The visionary; The artist: a drama without words; Seeing the world; From the memoirs of the devil; Litanies for the overlooked; Asepsis: a deduction in scherzo form; Tales of the moral and pathological; The jazz Webster; The old subject; Panoramas of people; Homeopathics; Vers libre.
“Mr Mencken is a clever and witty satirist, with an encyclopædic knowledge of the latest crazes and imbecilities.”
“The great difficulty about this book is that it will not irritate the intelligent and none but the intelligent can be amused by it.”
“Satire at times extravagantly and cheaply cynical, but also at times keen and entertaining is to be found in ‘A book of burlesques.’”
MENCKEN, HENRY LOUIS. Prejudices: second series. *$2.50 (4c) Knopf 814
In the present volume the author continues his tirade on American letters, generalizing on his theme in the first essay, ‘The national letters.’ In spite of the prophetic optimism of such men as Emerson and Whitman and, to some extent, even the pessimistic Poe, we have so far achieved nothing but a respectable mediocrity which he attributes to the absence of a cultural background, and of a civilized aristocracy. The other essays of the book are: Roosevelt: an autopsy; The Sahara of the Bozart; The divine afflatus; Scientific examination of a popular virtue; Exeunt omnes; The allied arts; The cult of hope; The dry millennium; Appendix on a tender theme. There is an index.
“As for his second series of prejudices, they are even as his first; his prejudices have not changed; nor his manner of hurling them at the fat heads of us Philistines. Some of his missiles are true dynamite, some—in my humble opinion—are duds; but not one of them is discharged at random.” L. W. Dodd
“Nothing is sacred in his hands, and by the same token is he interesting and unreliable. His style is as vigorous and bold as his ideas. It is a little hard to keep up with Mencken, but at any rate you will not be bored if you try.”
MENDELSOHN, SIGMUND. Labor’s crisis. *$1.50 Macmillan 331
“Looking at the question of labor reform from the employer’s point of view, the author argues that the labor scarcity is not entirely due to decrease in the number of laborers, and in support of his contention points to many effects of the unrest itself on production and on labor. In his keen introduction Mr Mendelsohn writes, ‘A labor problem still exists, and in more acute form than ever, but it concerns the welfare of society more than of labor. It is no longer based upon excess of labor, but upon insufficiency of labor; it no longer relates to an inadequate wage, but to an inflated wage; it no longer deals with an oppressed suffering class, but with an all powerful and militant element which is striving for economic dominance.’”—N Y Times
“An unusually thoughtful analysis of labor’s propositions to remedy the existing unrest.”
“Mr Mendelsohn’s thinking goes beneath the surface and his little book will be found suggestive by all classes of readers.”
MERCER, JOHN EDWARD. Why do we die? an essay in thanatology. *$2 Dutton 236
“Bishop Mercer points out that his question differs from the more usual one, ‘What happens after death?’ He finds it natural that we should speculate upon a future experience from which no one is exempt; but he wonders why no one has asked, ‘Why do we die at all?’ Neither biology nor physiology, he says, has answered this question; nor have the theologians or the philosophers approached any more nearly to the solution of it. The problem; What science teaches; Monadnology; and Higher aspects, are his four heads, under which he discusses Causes of the fear of death, The spiritual body, and other topics, closing with that of Death as a revealer.”—Springf’d Republican
“Though it is doubtful whether either scientists or philosophers would heartily endorse all the positions taken by Dr Mercer, it is pleasant to read a book written with good temper and rationality, without appeal to the prevalent superstitions of mediums and table-tipping.”
“Bishop Mercer pursues an extremely interesting and richly suggestive line of inquiry. It is one distinctly removed from that involved in psychical research. It is the purely religious inquiry of an eminent scholar and thinker who is familiar with all modern scientific thought, and whose wide culture and liberal mind endow him with vision.” Lilian Whiting
MERCIER, DESIRÉ FÉLICIEN FRANÇOIS JOSEPH, cardinal. Cardinal Mercier’s own story: prefatory letter by James Cardinal Gibbons. *$4 (3½c) Doran 940.3493
The book consists chiefly of Cardinal Mercier’s correspondence with the German governor general in protest to the latter’s régime as imposed on the Belgians. The work of collecting and editing these letters has been delegated by the Cardinal to Professor Fernand Mayence, of Louvain university, who has supplied them with an explanatory preface. Most of the correspondence is with Baron von Bissing and Baron von der Lancken and some with Baron von Falkenhausen. The correspondence on the Belgian deportations is of special interest.
“It must remain among the permanent records of the war.”
“It is the sheer courage of the letters more than anything else which makes them impressive, but they have also a dignity, a sobriety and a definite knowledge of facts which makes them peculiarly valuable at a moment when reparations and indemnities are under discussion.”
Reviewed by Muriel Harris
Reviewed by M. F. Egan
“Every one who reads this book will feel that he has come in contact with a really great personality, and will be the better for the feeling. The story of Belgium, in which the cardinal is the dominant figure, is as fascinating, in one aspect, as ‘The pilgrim’s progress.’ The cardinal’s book, too, like Bunyan’s classic, is almost as good a story for the young as it is for the old.”
“A serious omission which ought to be supplied in any new edition is the lack of any index.” Lyman Abbott
“The correspondence, always written in the lofty tone and closely reasoned manner of state papers, is interesting throughout; but the most engrossing pages of the book are those which deal with the deportations.”
MEREDITH, MRS ELISABETH GRAY (LYMAN). Terrier’s tale. il *$1 Houghton
“Although of a retiring disposition, I have always known that I am a person of importance, but recently I have become a person of note, and I have been asked to write my memoirs.” Thus the terrier begins his tale and it is full of interest and excitement and some wise reflections. It contains: Early days; Domestic life; Concerning baths; Sport; Travel; On being left behind; Fatherhood; Guests; Social life; As to cats; My great adventure; Through the window; Conclusion. The illustrations are by Mia E. Rosenblad.
MERIAM, JUNIUS LATHROP. Child life and the curriculum. $3.60 World bk. 375
A work by the professor of school supervision and superintendent of university schools, University of Missouri. That the subject matter of modern life should be used as the means of instructing boys and girls is his thesis. “In working out the details of this curriculum the effort has been, not, as some critics have erroneously judged, to get away from the traditional curriculum, but, on the positive side, to get as close as possible to the lives of children as found in the home and in the larger community.” (Preface) The book is divided into five parts: Point of view; The traditional curriculum; Principles in the making of curricula; The contents of a curriculum; Methods and results. Supplementary readings are suggested at the end of each chapter, and special reading lists, as well as lists of songs, games, etc., are given in appendices. In addition there is a general bibliography of fifteen pages, followed by an index.
“Not a course that can be adopted in a moment or by any school, but a virile, well presented point of view which has something of value for every elementary teacher.”
“The reader may be unable to agree with all of the conclusions of the book, but it furnishes material for critical thought, and will be of interest to those dealing with courses of study. The manner of presentation is somewhat tedious at times, and one feels that occasional condensations would serve to emphasize the content.”
“One may find some of his conclusions from well-known studies in the field of education surprising; and may be unwilling to see measurement deferred until after the attainment of seemingly impossible conditions. Nevertheless he will recognize in the book and the experiment it reports a contribution to the great effort to provide a curriculum more closely related to life.”
MERLANT, JOACHIM. Soldiers and sailors of France in the American war for independence (1776–1783); tr. by Mary Bushnell Coleman. *$2 Scribner 973.3
“‘Soldiers and sailors of France in the American war for independence’ is an account of the part played by our allies during the Revolution, written by one who participated in the world war. The author is Capt Joachim Merlant, assistant professor of the faculty of letters in the university of Montpellier, who, after a few months with the territorials, joined an active unit as infantry officer. Severely wounded in 1915 he never fully recovered, and being unable to fight resolved instead to write and talk for his cause. Thus he came to America, and from January to May in 1916 he lectured throughout the country. And through his gratitude toward America he decided to investigate the Franco-American alliance of 1778–1783 and retell the story of Rochambeau and LaFayette.”—Springf’d Republican
MERRICK, HOPE (BUTLER-WILKINS) (MRS LEONARD MERRICK). Mary-girl; a posthumous novel. *$2.50 Dutton
“Ezra Sheppard is a man with a consuming ideal. A devout Quaker, it is his dream to build a seemly meeting-house instead of the dilapidated barn where the Friends have hitherto met. The lavish terms offered for the services of Mary in nourishing the Earl of Folkington’s heir would convert his dream into real stone and lime. So he lets Mary go. Mary, poor girl, with the best will in the world, finds when her year is up that the life of a working gardener’s wife is not so pleasant as it used to be. And Ezra behaves badly about it, too. He repents, it is true, and realizes that his idol has cost him too dear, but not before Mary has been brought to shame, and his repentance takes the form of attempted arson.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“‘Mary-girl’ deserves something better than so foolish and inept a designation. If it were merely one among a thousand sentimental romances, its title would be unobjectionable, but it is something more than that, and it is a pity that it should be so misrepresented. As a whole, it is a notably truthful record of a soul conflict and an absorbingly interesting story.” E. F. E.
“A delightful human and unpretentious story, well written and very interesting, the tale has realism without pessimism, sentiment without sentimentality. A delightful book, vivid, human, dramatic at times and always entertaining, is this story of ‘Mary-girl.’”
“The late Mrs Leonard Merrick was endowed with the rare gift of being able to write a thoroughly sentimental story with undoubted charm. The episode of Mary’s downfall is the least satisfactory thing in the book. It is false to the character, and for all its disguise is mere ‘novelette’ in essence.”
MERWIN, SAMUEL. Hills of Han. il *$2 Bobbs
“Betty Doane, the heroine, daughter of a missionary, returns to China after six years in the United States. On the steamer she meets Jonathan Branchy, author, explorer and newspaper man and a somewhat unromantic love affair develops between them. The development of their emotions is interwoven with the dangers threatening all foreigners in China from a new society, a recrudescence of the old Boxer organization, known as ‘the Lookers.’ The chief item in the creed of this society is the extinction of all ‘foreign devils.’ Betty’s position becomes increasingly difficult and complicated through the intolerance of her father’s missionary coworkers, and through a want of a sense of humor on the part of her lover. The adventures of the principals attain a climax at the headquarters of a French mining concern; this form of foreign activity excites the particular antipathy of ‘the Lookers.’”—Springf’d Republican
“Both the story and the setting hold the reader though one dislikes the pictures of the mission teachers and the incidents are melodramatic. Some people will object to this.”
“As for the Chinese atmosphere and personnel of the story, one may accept them as sound—if that matters in a story of this kind, and if atmosphere and personnel can be sound when the action is unsound or patently artificial. All this, you may say, is the breaking of a butterfly on the clumsy wheel of criticism. ‘Hills of Han’ is not a butterfly; it is a sort of gilded bat with the butterfly label.” H. W. Boynton
“Samuel Merwin has written better novels than ‘Hills of Han,’ but it offers agreeable entertainment for an uncritical hour.”
“While neither as entertaining nor as vivid as some of Mr Merwin’s earlier romances, the story is an interesting one and has some dramatic moments.”
“There is good fiction stuff here, but it is clumsily put together.”
“A thoroly absorbing romance, and a most workmanlike piece of novel writing.” E. P. Wyckoff
“Through the color which Mr Merwin dashes upon his background and his descriptions of picturesque customs, and countryside, much of the unevenness of character portraiture is compensated for. Generally, the story holds the reader’s close attention.”
MERZ, JOHN THEODORE. Fragment on the human mind. *$4.50 Scribner 192
“After having mastered the history of modern philosophy the author considers its main problem to be the relation of religion and science. The problem of this relation is best approached, the author holds, by a study of the human mind. This may be done in a number of ways, but he prefers two, observation and introspection. Observation is the method used in studying the development of the race, going back to primitive times; introspection is used in the study of the individual life, going back to the infant mind. Special attention is given to the latter in this treatise. Many of the great metaphysical problems [are discussed] and such subjects as the moral law, the world of values, the relation of science to art and the respective provinces of each, the social order and the world of freedom.”—Boston Transcript
“In this brief treatise we find the idealistic philosophy set forth by a masterly mind which includes the common sense of the practical business man, the convincing logic of the acute thinker, and the wisdom of the broadminded scholar.” F. W. C.
“Admirable both in clarity of style and depth of matter.”
“The treatise, small as it is in bulk, fragmentary as it confessedly is, is a worthy crown to a lifetime of devotion to the task of instructing and enlightening the mind of its author and his numerous readers as to the history and nature of themselves and the world they live in.”
MIDDLETON, GEORGE. Masks. *$1.60 Holt 812
Here are six one-act plays of modern American life all more or less satiric and all with the same implication as the title play. In “Masks” we are introduced to the shabby home of a hitherto unsuccessful dramatist at the moment of his first success. While he is musing at his desk over the change in his fortune he is haunted by two of the characters of a former, rejected play, which now having been remodeled is making him rich and famous. They are the bitter reflections of one who knows that he has killed the real artist in himself in courting public favor. The other plays are: Jim’s beast; Tides; Among the lions; The reason; The house.
“The present volume not only maintains the high level of those preceding, but contains some work that challenges comparison with anything done earlier, while suggesting a new vein. This is particularly true of the title-piece. In all the six plays the trained hand of the practical theatre artist is evidenced in the stage directions and the conductment of the action.” R: Burton
“A book of plays by George Middleton promises interest for the reader, and ‘Masks’ is scarcely to be called a disappointment. Yet these dramas are rather thin in texture. The play which gives the book its title seems a bit forced in treatment.”
“Only in ‘Among the lions’ is there any deftness either of characterization or of action.” Gilbert Seldes
“Some of George Middleton’s published plays have been very bad, but they have always shown possibilities. That these possibilities have become actualities is evidenced by his latest volume.”
“His strength is in his ideas. He has thought justly and forcibly; he is clear where others are muddled, and collected where others are confused. What prevents Mr Middleton’s work a little from fulfilling one’s highest expectations of it is his dialogue. This weakness, one should add, is not wholly personal to Mr Middleton. We have little folk-speech.”
“All these plays are savagely polite, showing the ambition to achieve great satire without the ability to bite very deep.” M. C.
“Each of the plays is written with the least possible waste of words or of motion. There is a bitter tang to them, except the last, with its note of whimsical tenderness. It is a book that Mr Middleton’s readers will be glad to have, for it carries on fitly the work he has been doing, that of writing the one-act play with a true sense of its form and value and as a medium for swift and keen interpretation of modern life.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“His art is akin to mathematics. Apart from the soundness of the fabric, his strength lies largely in the hardness, the firmness, the insistence of the individual stroke. Unfortunately for Mr Middleton, this hardness strikes inward, and the virtue of the technician becomes the limitation and incumbrance of the man.”
“Perhaps the first is the most satisfactory. ‘Reason,’ a rather grim little study, is the other play in the book which has come off. The rest are a little nebulous, especially perhaps the playlet à la Sir James Barrie at the end.”
“Whether Mr Middleton is saving his best for Broadway today, or whether the six one-act plays published in this volume are what is left over from the early literary days and published now in the hope of sharing the sun of success, it is certain that, as a group they are distinctly dull, undramatic and unconvincing. ‘Among the lions’ and ‘The reason’—both satirical comedies of the irregular relation—are better than the others.”
MILES, EUSTACE HAMILTON. Self-health as a habit. il *$2.50 Dutton 613
“Self-health, according to Mr Eustace Miles, is mainly an affair of balanced (vegetarian) diets, good cooking and mastication, no alcohol, but habitual sipping of hot water, deep breathing, and ‘sensible exercises’—more particularly the ‘daily stretch.’”—Ath
“While experts will probably not agree with all that Mr Miles teaches, his advice is stimulating and helpful.” B. L.
“That he has a great deal that is extremely sensible to say about the individual’s life and habits, both physical and mental, all will admit.”
MILIUKOV, PAVEL NIKOLAEVICH. Bolshevism: an international danger; its doctrine and its practice through war and revolution. *$3.75 Scribner 335
“In view of the fact that most of the criticism of bolshevism that we are privileged to read comes from non-Russian sources, we should welcome this attempt of a great Russian scholar and statesman to appraise both the doctrine and the practical outcome of bolshevist rule from an international standpoint. Professor Miliukov, who will be remembered as the leader of the first government formed after the revolution of 1917, here traces the progress of bolshevism through war and revolution into a practical experiment in government and exposes the bolshevist propaganda in other countries, showing that its leaders are aiming at nothing short of a world-revolution.”—R of Rs
“An informative study to be recommended to the well read, discerning type of reader.”
“When finally he traces the coal-strike and the steel-strike to Moscow, we regretfully set his volume on the shelf, in its alphabetical order, next to Baron Munchausen.” Harold Kellock
“Beyond any doubt, he here renders a great service to the bolshevist cause by using ‘propaganda stuff’ which is so easy to refute. One might expect from a man like Miliukov a sounder criticism of Bolshevism, because it can and must be criticized from an entirely different angle.”
“The book is too detailed and assumes too much knowledge of details to be available for the general reader, but it is for this very reason the more valuable for students.”
“M. Miliukov’s eminence in Russian politics and his first-hand knowledge of conditions in Europe and the United States make him a sure guide to those engaged in public affairs; his masterly handling and clear exposition of so complicated a subject render the reader’s task not only easy, but pleasant.”
“An instructive account.”
“His facts are wonderfully correct. No honest man reading this work on Russian politics ... can come to any other opinion than that M. Miliukov’s work carries conviction, not only because it is well compiled, but because it is—at times almost painfully—correct in every detail.”
MILLAIS, JOHN GUILLE. Sportsman’s wanderings (Eng title, Wanderings and memories). il *$5 (5½c) Houghton
The author fired his first gun (and almost his last) at the age of six. At school his ornithological obsession repeatedly brought disgrace upon him, but he lived to become one of the most versatile of sportsmen and naturalists, as the book shows. The tropics and arctic ice are alike familiar to him and with the motto “The great thing in life is to live,” he has found being a “Jack of all trades” the most interesting existence. “In turn I have been soldier, sailor, a British consul, artist, zoologist, author and landscape gardener.” His desultory accounts include a description of his father the painter, and their family life, and of many distinguished personages. The illustrations are from drawings by the author and from photographs. Contents: When I was young; Some early experiences in shooting; Travels in Iceland, 1889; All sorts and conditions of men; Arthur Neumann, pioneer and elephant hunter; Scottish salmon-fishing; One African day, 1913; The Lofoden Islands, 1915; An arctic residence, 1916; Fealar, 1918—highland deer-stalking.
“A story that is interesting, varied, and well spiced with anecdotes.”
“Here is a readable blend of lively reminiscence and first-hand observation, without verbal or scientific excess baggage.”
Reviewed by M. F. Egan
“He ought to be able to write an interesting book, and he has done so. His reminiscences are disjointed, as—one imagines—his life has been; but they are alive with his own enthusiasm for describing live things.”
MILLEN, WILLIAM ARTHUR. Songs of the Irish revolution and songs of the newer Ireland. $1.50 Stratford co. 811
The author of these poems is an American of Irish descent who lived eight years in Ireland as a student and who believes that the National university of Ireland will be the salvation of the country. With his love for the land of his fathers and sympathy for the “Newer Ireland spirit” he combines great faith in Ireland’s men of learning. The book falls into two parts: At the dawning; and Echoes of Erin.
“Mr Millen is obviously pamphleteer rather than poet. One cannot help feeling that he would be more pleased at winning converts to his cause than at winning laurels for himself.” F. E. A. T.
MILLER, ALICE (DUER) (MRS HENRY WISE MILLER). Beauty and the bolshevist. il *$1.50 (7c) Harper 20–18254
Ben Moreton, the radical editor of “Liberty,” runs off hastily to Newport to prevent his brother’s marriage to Eugenia Cord, daughter of a multi-millionaire. He is too late to do that but he does something else, he falls in love with her sister. Crystal finds the common ground that will unite her irate conservative father and her radical lover and brings the story to the right ending. It appeared in Harper’s Magazine, May-July, 1920.
“Not so good as some others by the author, but amusing.”
“A clever and paradoxical comedy full of repartee.”
“One has come to expect clever conversation from Alice Duer Miller, and ‘The beauty and the bolshevist’ does provide that, but it is far from being as pleasing as some of Mrs Miller’s earlier novels.”
MILLER, ARTHUR HARRISON. Leadership. *$1.50 Putnam 355
“In the schooling of officers no course was included nor lectures given in leadership as a human science or in its relation to military success as a morale factor in peace or war.” (Preface) It is the object of the book to standardize the acknowledged methods of leadership in the army, and, for the sake of brevity, the methods and “formulae,” merely, are given without their psychological reasons. Contents: Foreword by Edward L. Munson; Leadership and morale; Character and personality; The leader and the soldier; The leader and the organization; Index.
MILLER, LEO EDWARD. Hidden people; the story of a search for Incan treasure. il *$2.50 Scribner
“The hair-raising adventures of a couple of shipwrecked college boys among the wild Indians, ‘monkey men,’ reptiles and gorgeous birds of South America, especially their adventures among a remnant of the old Incan civilization with their horde of gold.”—Cleveland
“A scientific novel for boys, a really sound study of a remnant of an ancient South American tribe in interesting natural surroundings.”
“Neither youth nor age need form a barrier to the enjoyment of ‘The hidden people.’ Mr Miller is particularly fortunate in the way by which he applies his local color.” Kermit Roosevelt
“Is the kind of book that will appeal to all lovers of adventure.”
“Those who follow his fascinating story, gain also a knowledge of the birds and beasts, the volcanic mountains and other interesting things that a scientific observer may see in South America.”
MILLER, WARREN HASTINGS. Ring-necked grizzly. il *$1.50 (2½c) Appleton
A hunting story for boys. Sid Colvin is recovering from typhoid and his father decides to give him a year in the open and sends him, accompanied by his chum Scotty, out to the Rockies where the boys are taken in charge by Big John, a trusted guide. They spend a winter in the mountains and the story tells of their adventures and exploits, which include, in addition to the killing of the ring-necked grizzly, other hunting and fishing experiences, snow-blindness and an encounter with outlaws. Mr Miller is author of “The boys’ book of hunting and fishing” and other works.
MILLIGAN, HAROLD VINCENT. Stephen Collins Foster; a biography of America’s folksong composer. il *$2.50 Schirmer
By a careful sifting of material the author has sought to present an authentic account of Foster’s career, taking special pains to dispel some of the legends that have grown up around his later years and death. The early chapters give an interesting picture of American pioneer society and suggest the state of development of music in America at the time. The concluding chapter gives an estimate of Foster’s musical attainment and an analysis of the influence of his environment on his career. Contents: The family; Boyhood; Youth; First songs; Ambition; Drifting; Tragedy; The composer. Among the illustrations are several facsimile pages from Foster’s manuscript book.
MILLIN, SARAH GERTRUDE. Dark river. *$2 (2½c) Seltzer
Human destinies rather than events form the interest of this South African story. Of the three men and three women that figure in it, John Oliver and René van Reede bungle their lives through defects in character. George Buckle possesses the substantial social virtues that make good in this workaday world and even enable him to take his rebuff in love philosophically. The three women, sisters, untouched by feminism, are more passive instruments in the hands of fate and are reduced to watchful waiting for the right man. Alma’s marriage to George is frustrated through the untimely interference of the flighty René, who goes off and forgets. Hester, feeling youth slipping away from her, marries the regenerate John, to her sorrow. Ruth, the youngest, eventually becomes the happy wife of George, although Alma’s shadow occasionally flits by.
“To read ‘The dark river’ is, after so much wind and brass, to listen to a solo for the viola. Running through the book there is, as it were, a low, troubled throbbing note which never is stilled. Perhaps a novel is never the novel it might have been, but there are certain books which do seem to contain the vision, more or less blurred or more or less clear, of their second selves, of what the author saw before he grasped the difficult pen. ‘The dark river’ is one of these.” K. M.
“So well does the writer of this story know her South Africa, and more particularly the diggings, that she has not attempted to add the glamour usually found in tales of these regions. In fact, so clearly defined has been her purpose to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’ that the story would be rather depressing in its sombreness and worse than drab details were it not enlivened by bits of real humor and by a delightful background of local color.”
“‘The dark river’ is well written, in a clear and vigorous style, it is interesting, it gives that sense of reality which makes us feel that we are actually observing the lives and fortunes of a group of living people. Moreover, it has the rare quality which distinguished Arnold Bennett’s ‘The old wives’ tale’—it gives an effect of the passing of time. ‘The dark river’ is a notable novel.”
“Outside of Hardy it would be difficult to find a setting which affords a more harmonious background for the characters whose sombre destiny is recorded in Sarah Gertrude Millin’s ‘The dark river.’” Joseph Mosher
“It is written not unpleasantly, but with a serious simplicity, and the characters introduced are well and distinctly drawn.”
MILLS, ENOS ABIJAH. Adventures of a nature guide. il *$3.50 (5½c) Doubleday 508
“Storm, sunshine, night, desert, stream, and forest are crowded with waiting attractions and moving scenes. To have the most adventures and the greatest enjoyment in a given time, ramble the wilds alone and without a fishing-rod or a gun.” (Preface) This is the author’s advice to nature lovers. He calls the wilderness the safety zone of the world and declares its experiences less dangerous than staying at home; while the hunter, armed and killing, multiplies dangers and enjoys less variety and fewer adventures. The book gives a solitary and unarmed camper’s adventures in the wilds of the continent. Contents: Snow-blinded on the summit; Waiting in the wilderness; Winter mountaineering; Trees at timberline; Wind-rapids on the heights; The arctic zone of high mountains; Naturalist meets prospector; The white cyclone; Lightning and thunder; Landmarks; Children of my trail school; A day with a nature guide; Play and pranks of wild folk; Censored natural history news; Harriet—little mountain climber; Evolution of nature guiding; Development of a woman guide. The many beautiful illustrations are from photographs by the author.
“Boy scouts will like it.”
Reviewed by LeRoy Jeffers
“The humor with which he relieves a tense situation, and his keen observations on the habits of the wild life of the mountains add to the interest of the book. A number of remarkably good photographs.”
“It is altogether a fascinating book; and its best title to recognition is that it approaches nature study from new angles, and with an unflagging and ever new interest.” Phillip Tillinghast
MILLS, JOSEPH TRAVIS.[2] Great Britain and the United States. *$2.50 Oxford 327
“An English scholar’s critical review of the historical relations between the two countries. The book is made up mainly of extracts from lectures that were delivered to various units of the American army of occupation in Germany in May and June, 1919. The author naturally takes the ground that in the family dispute of 1776 ‘Britain’s policy was logically defensible, however unwise her action.’ In other words, he contends that there really is a British ‘case.’”—R of Rs
“His audiences considered, Mr Travis Mills was outspoken indeed, and there must have been some shaking of wise young heads over the Kiplingesque patriotism of this Britisher. No harm is done, however, by a ‘straight talk,’ and the lecturer advanced a sound argument when he contended that want of understanding, rather than the intention to oppress, produced the rupture between the American colonies and Great Britain.”
“Much of it will probably be new to English readers, whose notions of the American revolution are derived from text-books with a strong Whiggish bias.”
MILN, LOUISE (JORDAN) (MRS GEORGE CRICHTON MILN). Invisible foe. *$1.25 (1½c) Stokes
This story, adapted from a play by Walter Hackett, is based on the possibility of communication with the dead. Helen Bransby is loved by two brothers, Stephen and Hugh. Thwarted in his love by Hugh’s success with Helen and smarting under a business failure as well, Stephen commits a crime which he contrives so that Hugh is blamed for it. The only person to discover the true state of affairs is Helen’s father, and the shock of it proves too much for his weak heart and he dies before he can right the wrong. Helen is positive of Hugh’s innocence, and as time goes on she is made more confident by the impelling feeling that her father is trying to get some message thru to her from the other world. The crisis of the story comes when she actually receives the message, and the hiding place of the paper that clears Hugh is psychically revealed to her.
“‘The invisible foe’ could easily stand on its own merits as a crime story without the aid of the spooks.”
MILN, LOUISE JORDON (MRS GEORGE CRICHTON MILN). Mr Wu; based on the play “Mr Wu” by H. M. Vernon and Harold Owen. *$1.75 (2c) Stokes
Wu Li Chang, one of the richest, most powerful of Chinese mandarins had had an English education and was an Oxford man. His daughter, Nang Ping, whose mother died when she was born, and who was reared in the utmost Chinese luxury, was betrayed by a young Englishman. How Wu, the father punished his daughter’s transgression in the time-honored Chinese way, by killing her, and how he took revenge on her seducer through the latter’s mother makes an impressive tale. It abounds in vivid descriptions of Chinese social customs and traditions and reflections on the habits of Englishmen in China, that are not much to the credit of our western civilization.
“It differs from most novelized plays in that the bones are not visible or even suggested. Mrs Miln must have put into it sufficient of her own personality to make the story quite her own. It is probable, moreover, that all three authors contributed something to the impression we have of being for the first time actually in the heart of China.” D. L. M.
“Though the vengeance of Wu Li Chang’s forms the climax of the book the best and most interesting part of it is the introductory portion, closing with the tragic fate of poor little Wu Nang Ping.”
“Poignant emotions and a portrayal of oriental manners and customs combine to make ‘Mr Wu’ of more compelling interest than the ordinary run of adventure fiction.”
MILNE, ALAN ALEXANDER. First plays. *$2 Knopf 822
A volume of five plays, written during 1916 and 1917. They are not, the author says, “the work of a professional writer, but the recreation of a (temporary) professional soldier.” The first, “Wurzel-Flummery” is a one-act comedy in which two distinguished members of Parliament are offered an inheritance of fifty thousand pounds—on condition of accepting the name Wurzel-Flummery. A two-act version of the play was produced in London in 1917. “The lucky one” is a three-act play. “The boy comes home,” a comedy in one act, is the one war play in the volume. “Belinda” is a comedy in three acts that has been performed in London and in New York, where Ethel Barrymore played the title rôle. “The red feathers,” the final piece, is an operetta.
“The lightness and irresponsible gaiety of Mr Milne’s dialogue are equalled by his wit.”
“They are intelligently amusing and have all the quality of admitting a thousand technical imperfections and carrying them off with wit or the grace of nice human relations.” Gilbert Seldes
“Throughout all these ‘First plays’ of Mr Milne’s the word whimsical haunts us. It is the trademark of the school, the school of Barrie; and as in so many plays in the Barrie manner the form has taken the place of the substance. What these plays show is simply that no glamour of pictorialism, no colouring of language can atone for an indifference to the fundamental requirements of drama.” J. C. M.
“No young continental artist, discovering himself to be a playwright during the very years of the war, would have written with this sobriety, good humor, and straightforward realism. Such an artist would, no doubt, have written more profoundly and imaginatively, but also more obscurely and, in no low sense, less usefully. Mr Milne, to be sure, is capable of being both trivial and sentimental. But his dialogue is deft and natural, and his observation of human nature cool and sane. His best play, The lucky one, is an admirable piece of dramatic writing.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Mr Milne’s plays belong to what might be termed the Barrie school of drama. It is the idea of whimsicality raised to terms of life. Situations that in the hands of another would be either broadly comic or broadly depressing are made by this school of dramatists into a fantastic realism. While these plays are extremely diverting to read, one will sometimes doubt their adaptability to the stage.” H. S. Gorman
“The others are excellent entertainments, they abound in high spirits and good nonsense, but ‘The lucky one’ cuts deeper. They are all excellent fun, superficial, naturally, but thoroughly sound and wholesome of its kind.”
“They are delightful parlour-games, all five. They do not affect, like the newest of Mr Shaw’s parlour-games, to be fantasies in the Russian manner. They are modestly and tactfully and good-humouredly in the English manner.”
“‘Wurzel-Flummery’ is what high comedy should be—satirical yet not bitter, amusing yet not farcical. The reader of a play is perhaps too apt to dwell upon its style; but, other qualities being equal, a play is really none the worse for being well written. And Mr Milne writes well.”
MILNE, ALAN ALEXANDER. Not that it matters. *$2.50 Dutton 814
“Mr Milne, who was formerly assistant editor of ‘Punch,’ contributed to that weekly many verses and paragraphs about his experiences in the war. He has left ‘Punch,’ chiefly because he wearied of having to be ‘whimsical’ once a week. In this book he writes about a score of subjects,—games, books, thermometers, snobbery, and the seasons.”—Review
“One of the most gracious things about these essays is that Mr Milne knows when to begin and when to stop.” E. F. E.
“No better book for vacation reading has been published this summer than ‘Not that it matters.’”
“To all that he attempts Mr Milne brings a style of perfect suppleness, ease and grace, albeit possessing that almost excessive informality that Charles Lamb is charged by some with having introduced into English prose. But when he rambles on, struggling with a subject that doesn’t yield much fruit one wishes that Mr Milne would adopt a somewhat severer principle of selection when collecting his writings for the pages of a book.”
“There is the satisfaction of knowing that wherever you may dip into this book you will be amused. So much of modern literature is only rough hewn that a finely finished work—even on goldfish—is welcome. In that respect ‘it’ does ‘matter.’”
MINNIGERODE, MEADE. Laughing house. *$1.90 (3½c) Putnam
Laughing house is another name for Shirley House, the ancestral home of the Shirley family in Shirley, Connecticut. It is packed with family lore and tradition, which Francis and Mary Elizabeth love and respect. There they have a happy childhood, whose joys are shared by Newell and Isabelle Rushmore and Billy Vane, who are almost as much at home at Shirley House as the Shirleys themselves. When the children grow up they are still the best of comrades. In fact, they know each other so well that all their future relations are taken for granted and it is tacitly understood that Mary Elizabeth is to marry Billy. But then a stranger comes into their midst, a nouveau-riche neighbor who tramples on their traditions and upsets all their calculations. But altho her methods are a trifle ruthless, she opens the eyes of several people to their real feelings toward various other people. Billy suffers most, but deservedly so. Mary Elizabeth does not marry him, but Newell, and Isabelle who had fancied herself in love with Billy, too, finds it is Francis after all.
“When Mr Minnigerode is dealing with this family he is altogether charming. Perhaps he cannot write of ugliness: when he brings in a member of the nouveau riche, and introduces us to a vulgar and ‘designing woman,’ his skill departs.” W: L. Phelps
“There is a pleasantness about the tale, and the reader will relish the quiet old Shirley homestead, the quiet of the village and surrounding hills, and the principal characters. The story is natural in its telling.”
“Slight both in matter and in length, and not free from preciosity.”
MIRZA, YOUEL BENJAMIN. When I was a boy in Persia. (Children of other lands) il *$1 (3c) Lothrop 915.5
The author is a young man of Persian birth who served in the United States navy during the war. He begins his story with an account of his parents’ marriage, thus giving a glimpse of the Persian caste system as well as of marriage customs. Subjects covered in other chapters include: The birth and care of a child; Schooldays; Persian games, amusements and massalie (stories); Persian fasts and festivals; Persian rugs and rug-makers. The final chapter, Preparations for a far journey, tells of the departure for America.
“An unaffected sincerity and a ring of truth and intimate knowledge are the fascinating things in this story.”
“This is a delightful book.”
MISCELLANY of American poetry, 1920. *$2 Harcourt 811.08
“This volume is as its name half implies, a miscellany of the most recent work of eleven American poets. These eleven form no particular group, illustrate no single influence, constitute no one ‘movement.’... Each poet has been his own editor. As such, he has selected and arranged his own contributions.... The poems that follow are all new. They are new not only in the sense that they have not been previously issued by their authors in book form but, with the exception of seven poems, none of them has ever appeared in print.” (Publisher’s foreword) The eleven poets are: Conrad Aiken; Robert Frost; John Gould Fletcher; Vachel Lindsay; Amy Lowell; James Oppenheim; Edwin Arlington Robinson; Carl Sandburg; Sara Teasdale; Jean Starr Untermeyer, and Louis Untermeyer.
“Some of the poems have come out in magazines; and, what is really important, most of them are below the author’s level. For a first number this volume might pass. But the next should be made to count by the contributors looking ahead and planning for it. Otherwise it is only a pleasant venture.” Stark Young
“An eminently sane and revealing experiment, and one which justifies itself in the results.” Lisle Bell
“Containing whatever it does, it vindicates with unusual accuracy the critical preferences which seem to prevail just now and so embarrasses the reviewer who would like to declare something newer than that John Gould Fletcher, Robert Frost, Vachel Lindsay, Amy Lowell, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Carl Sandburg are better than other poets today.”
“The most interesting thing about this volume is the curiously stratified cross section which it offers of contemporary poetry in America.” J: L. Lowes
“Here are all fashions, from free verse to the most conservative lines, and all done with exceptional finish and comprehension of poetic values. The book suggests in its general scheme those excellent Georgian anthologies. But a difference must be noted between these books and this American miscellany. In the American book is a wider range, the dissimilitude of the poets included is far greater than that of the Georgian group.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
MITCHELL, ROY. Shakespeare for community players. il *$2.50 Dutton 822.3
“Mr Mitchell’s authority as director of the Hart House theater of the University of Toronto and former technical director of the Greenwich Village theater, New York, is unquestioned. Taking Shakespeare as his text, he teaches the fundamentals of stagecraft which are applicable to community production, starting with the choice of a play, and discussing organization, rehearsal, stage-setting, furniture, dresses, lighting, make-up, music and other important elements.”—Survey
“His advice is sufficiently detailed to permit a clear grasp of all that is required. His principles are sound and scholarly.”
“Many a professional man of the theatre could learn something from Mr Mitchell’s book. The ordinary amateur actor will find it full of ‘tips.’ To the community theatre it will be necessary.”
“Suggestions on acting and stage-directing, and full illustrations covering every phase of the text, round out the volume as one of the most helpful of the many recent contributions to what may be termed the practical literature of community drama.”
MIX, JENNIE IRENE. At fame’s gateway. *$1.75 (1½c) Holt
Josephine Prescott was a musical prodigy in her little town of Parksburg and the admiration of her townspeople made it possible for her to continue her studies on the piano with a famous teacher in New York. There her personal charms secured her many friends among musical and literary people whose Bohemian life she shared. A great violin virtuoso chose her for his inspiration and she loved the man in him while the artist left her indifferent. Her teacher, the great Brandt, dubious about her artistic testing, tried her out; one year, two years. In the third year he tells her that, with all her talent, she will never be a great artist, for she lacks understanding. Despondent and with all her hopes shattered, she again hears the great violinist and suddenly awakes to the realization that she understands and thrills to his music, that she no longer loves the man but the artist. And outside of the hall on the sidewalk romance stands waiting for her.
“Although conventional, the well-sustained suspense and the pleasant characterization give it an interest that will appeal to women and girls.”
“The illuminating discussions of temperament, technique and the larger understanding necessary to genius, should prove valuable to many seeking a career in music, or indeed in any of the arts.”
“A moral tale but interesting, it has a lot of musical good sense and is highly to be recommended to the concert-stage struck girl.”
“The book lacks character development. The novel drags badly at times, but some of the scenes are well written. Brandt’s speeches are usually good, and as a whole it is a conscientious piece of work with an excellent moral.”
MOELLER, PHILIP. Sophie. *$1.75 Knopf 812
Sophie Arnould, famous Parisian singer, actor and wit of the eighteenth century, is the heroine of this comedy in three acts for which Carl Van Vechten writes a prologue giving the historical background of the play with a brief sketch of the life of Sophie Arnould. Although it is based on history, says Mr Van Vechten, the historical facts of the play are negligible while the author has “lighted up the atmosphere and the period, and re-created character. Sophie lives in this comedy, lives as she must have lived at the height of her career.” We see her as a triumphant lover, get glimpses of her as the superb artist, as the kind-hearted woman, but chiefly as the resourceful wit who cleverly outflanks her enemies.
“Philip Moeller, the creator of ‘Madame Sand’ and of ‘Moliere,’ has developed in ‘Sophie’ more searchingly his gift of satire and sparkling repartee. The lines of his play are closely interwoven in thought, and their significance is often multiple. In the repartee and in the rapid interplay of ideas lies the individuality of Mr Moeller.”
“The play fails not because its plot is unreal, its ‘morality’ frankly unmoral, its characters exaggerated. All this is true of many of those great comedies ‘which are in the best traditions of the English stage.’ It fails because it is not good of its kind.”
MONASH, SIR JOHN. Australian victories in France in 1918. il *$8 Dutton 940.394
“The part played by the Australian corps under Lieutenant General Monash in France during the closing months of the war is recorded in this volume. The corps commanded by Lieutenant General Monash was the largest on the western front, and while the body of his troops were Australians it contained some imperial divisions and the 27th and 30th American divisions. These troops went into action in the defence of Amiens when it was menaced by the great drive of the ‘Kaiser’s battle,’ and fought up to the taking of Montbrehain on Oct. 5.”—Boston Transcript
“Not only a valuable document but a human chronicle that adds distinctly to the literature of the war.” W. S. B.
MONEY, WALTER BAPTIST. Humours of a parish, and other quaintnesses. il *$2 Lane 827
Mr Walter Herries Pollock in the introduction to this book of reminiscences pays tribute to the author as clergyman and cricketer. The book itself is a collection of anecdotes and stories, part of the accumulated store from thirty years of work as a parochial clergyman.
“Mr Money’s anecdotes are good, but one has the tantalizing feeling as one reads them that the printed version is only the palest reflection of the real thing.”
“Embedded in Mr Money’s book of anecdotes there are an extraordinarily large number of really delightful stories; but the book on the whole suffers, as do most books of good stories, in being too long.”
MONKHOUSE, ALLAN NOBLE. True love. *$2 (2c) Holt
A psychological novel with special emphasis on the psychologic reactions of the war on its characters. Geoffrey Arden is an introspective journalist and playwright in love with Sibyl Drew, an actress. The war finds him on neutral ground and his comprehensive view leaves small room for narrow enthusiasm. Nevertheless the patriotic appeal wins out and he enlists. On proposing to Sibyl he finds that her stage name covers a German ancestry and that she is German to the core. They make a compact to be “chivalrous enemies” and lovers at the same time and in this lies the gist of the story: that to intellectually honest, well meaning people the war has presented two phases—the one the international human aspect, the other the national and patriotic.
“Mr Monkhouse is a professional novelist, quietly confident, carefully ironical, and choosing always, at a crisis, to underrate the seriousness of the situation rather than to stress it unduly. Admirable as this temper undoubtedly is, it nevertheless leaves the reader a great deal cooler than he would wish.” K. M.
“‘True love’ adheres to a course as conventional as its title, unrelieved by plot invention and unredeemed by emotional significance.”
“But those who like much fine and high feeling and good talk and whose interest in character study is strong will find it very satisfying. There is in it a great deal of clever, sometimes brilliant, and always interesting, conversation that covers a wide variety of subjects.”
“As fiction the book is not appealing, but it is keenly and sometimes brilliantly written.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“‘True love’ is an interesting and painfully engrossing story, in which the author practises a most artistic self-effacement.”
“His style is careful, neat and polished. His skill at play-writing has taught him how to make his novels dramatic, and the book advances in a good, orderly well-drilled fashion. Mr Monkhouse has given us a most readable novel.”
MONTAGUE, JAMES J. More truth than poetry. *$1.75 Doran 811
A volume of reprinted newspaper verses, many of them for or about children. Irvin Cobb, who writes the introduction, confesses that his favorites are “Healthy” and “Thoughts on pie,” of the Doughboy ditties, and “The Sleepy-town express.” Other poems are: The evening suit; Around the corner; The pictures on the panes; Why the katydids sing; Peter Pan; The mine sweepers; The road to success; The farmer’s idle wife; In behalf of the movies.
MONTAGUE, MARGARET PRESCOTT. England to America. *$1 (14c) Doubleday
A reprint of a short story that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in September 1919. It is the story of an American soldier on leave who visits his English friend’s family in Devonshire. The strange reserve of his hosts puzzles him and he interprets it, as coldness towards himself or his country. On the last day the truth comes out and he learns that for his sake they have been concealing the tragic news that had just preceded his own arrival. John Drinkwater writes an appreciative introduction. The story was awarded the O. Henry memorial prize for the best American short story of 1919.
MONTAGUE, MARGARET PRESCOTT. Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge. *$1 (11c) Doubleday
A short story reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly. The old southern mountaineer known as Uncle Sam, for his likeness to that national figure, has carried the fervor of the Civil war patriotism all through his life. In that spirit he gives up his only son and receives the tidings of his death in France without flinching. After the war he is heart and soul for the treaty and at the news of its rejection by the Senate takes his own life in the mystic belief that he is offering atonement for his country’s failure. The story has been commended by President Wilson.
“The simple, homely, genuine appeal of the central figure of Miss Montague’s parable makes a much needed call to the better spirit of the country, the real spirit of the great masses of the people.”
“It is one of those rare, great little books that all patriotic people will read eagerly and pass on to their friends, just as sixty or seventy years ago people read and passed on ‘Uncle Tom’s cabin.’”
MOODY, JOHN. Masters of capital; a chronicle of Wall street. (Chronicles of America ser.) per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 332
“In the course of the forty-first volume in the Chronicles of America series, Mr Moody discusses the necessity and value of capital as an accumulation of wealth, either money or substantial property, for use in the production of more wealth, and he outlines in a series of nine chapters the leading factors in its development. His starting point is the rise of the house of Morgan, and thereafter he chronicles briefly, in scarcely more than two hundred pages, the development of American railroads, the rise of the ironmasters and the Standard oil company, with successive chapters on The steel trust merger, Harriman and Hill. The apex of ‘high finance,’ The panic of 1907 and after, and Wall street and the world war.”—Boston Transcript
“Both books are written from the Wall Street standpoint. However, Mr Moody has given us two interesting, authoritative, and impartial narratives describing dramatic and not unimportant episodes in our economic history. And his firm biographies and stories of great financial deals—accompanied as they are by a constant flow of informing comment—enable an understanding reader to deduce more than he specifically tells.” V: S. Clark
“The entire story of the development of American capital and capitalists is picturesque in itself and especially romantic as told by Mr Moody.” E. F. E.
“One of the most fascinating volumes in the entire series.”
MOODY, JOHN. Railroad builders; a chronicle of the welding of the states. (Chronicles of America ser.) il per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 385
“The fascinating story of the projection and welding of the leading American railway systems and the careers of the men of vision who pushed out across the Mississippi valley and the Rocky mountains in this bold enterprise.” (R of Rs) “Has photographs and drawings of first locomotives and trains in America. Maps of routes. Author founded and edited until 1907 “Moody’s manual of railroad and corporation securities.’” (St Louis)
Reviewed by V: S. Clark
“A piece of high-class journalistic history that avoids obvious pitfalls without gaining any special elevation of interpretation. In the absence of the careful studies based upon original research in transportation that ought to be available and are not, Mr Moody’s volume is entitled to rank among the best of our summaries. His bibliography is sensible and his maps are good.” F. L. P.
“The final chapter in this volume, ‘The American railroad problem,’ is an excellent historical summary of this question as it presents itself at the present time.”
“Popular works in this field are not many, and Mr Moody has contributed to the ‘Chronicles of America’ series one of its most distinctive volumes. The narrative as a whole makes one of the most vital and thrilling chapters in nineteenth-century achievement.”
MOOKERJI, RADHAKUMUD. Local government in ancient India; with a foreword by the Marquess of Crewe. (Mysore univ. studies) *$5.65 Oxford 352
“As Dr Mookerji points out, the subject of local government in ancient India has both an historical and a practical interest. Dr Mookerji’s survey is limited by the inscriptions of southern India, which from the tenth to the fifteenth century are the most fruitful of all sources of information. The systems of self-government, which communities, bound together by birth, profession, or locality, evolved for their own protection and for the promotion of a common welfare, were founded on the model of the family; and they have formed a strong social framework which has resisted for ages the shock of political changes. Dr Mookerji contrasts the Indian guilds and corporations, which he regards as ‘practically sui generis’ with the various institutions which are now comprehensively included under the term ‘local government’ in the United Kingdom and other countries of modern Europe.”—Eng Hist R
“Many students of Indian history may be unable to accept some of Dr Mookerji’s conclusions; but all will feel grateful to him for the real service which he has rendered to scholarship by collecting together and arranging in a convenient form the widely scattered evidence for the early history of local government in India.” E. J. Rapson
MOORE, ANNIE CARROLL. Roads to childhood. *$1.50 Doran 028.5
Papers on children’s reading by the supervisor of work with children in the New York public library, in part reprinted from the Bookman. Contents: Roads to childhood; Writing for children; A Christmas book exhibit; Viewing and reviewing books for children; Holiday books; Children under ten and their books; Two lists of books for children; A spring review of children’s books; Books for young people; Vacation reading. An index lists authors, titles and illustrations mentioned in the text.
“The volume’s special contribution is its discussion, neither sentimental nor over-theoretical, of the psychology of children’s reading.”
“Her vast experience in weighing the tastes of young people is drawn upon on every page, and she approaches her task with freshness and with an abounding love for childhood necessary for the work.”
Reviewed by Annette Wynne
“Miss Moore knows these roads and talks of them delightfully.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
MOORE, EDWARD CALDWELL.[2] West and East. *$4 Scribner 266
“After a long time of waiting we now have the Dale lectures delivered at Oxford in 1913 from the hand of a master in the related sciences of history and missions. The publication of “The spread of Christianity in the modern era” by the University of Chicago press in 1919 increased the desire to have this treatise. There are eight lectures, setting forth the impact of the forces of the West upon the East.” (Bib World) “Many of the stock objections made to missions take no account of the fact that a large number of modern missionaries have conceptions of their work and of the Christian message very different from those of missionaries fifty years ago. Professor Moore sets forth the modern theory of missions. The great point upon which it insists is that missions should not seek to destroy the native religious traditions, but Christianize them from within.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“Dr Moore marshals his facts with consummate skill. He is able to hold our sustained interest through the complex story, which he renders clear and fascinating by his style. We enjoy the freedom of the page from a multitude of footnotes and references.”
“It is the breadth of view which gives its special quality to Professor Moore’s book.”
MOORE, FRANK FRANKFORT. Garden of peace. il *$3.50 (4c) Doran 710
The book is rightly named in its sub-title “A medley in quietude,” for it consists of a succession of sallies from the safe retreat of “The little sheltered garden” of Yardley Parva into the surrounding world, past and present. Mingled with domestic pleasantries between the author and his family are reflections on historical, literary, artistic and philosophic subjects. Contemporary history—the war et al—comes in for a goodly share of the author’s animadversions. A number of illustrations of beautiful gardens adorn the pages.
“A good book to while away an evening of leisure. Has only slight value as information.”
“Personal reminiscence and gossip reaching over a half-century; shrewd criticism and philosophy on a hundred subjects, make up a running commentary pleasant to read. Like the famous after-dinner speaker that he is, Mr Moore has put his medley tactfully together.”
“Mr Moore has given us a charming book that has no end of rambles into the fascinating realms of nature, literature and life.” W. S. B.
“‘A garden of peace’ is a gracious book, a haunt of healing from the stress and agony of the great war.” K. L. Bates
“The book will delight people who like to mix imagination and reflection with their gardening and their reading.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“To amateurs of the quieter pleasures this book may be confidently recommended.”
“Mr Moore’s ‘medley in quietude’ is spoiled by a good deal of elderly jocosity and ferocious jingo politics.”
MOORE, FREDERICK FERDINAND. Isle o’ dreams. il *$1.50 (3c) Doubleday
A party of three Americans hire a schooner in Manila and go out in search of an island of gold, on the say-so of a crazy ex-captain. The captain of the schooner and the crew, with a few exceptions, are a criminal gang who are bound to come to their reckoning whichever way the trip turns out. The island is reached but no gold is found, except the gold of love between Marjorie Locke and Robert Trask. The wicked captain and crew are outwitted, after a trial of strength, and the party returns safely to Manila.
MOORE, FREDERICK FERDINAND. Sailor girl. *$1.75 (2c) Appleton
A tale of adventure in the China sea. Eleanor Glendon, sole owner after her father’s death of a fleet of ships, has reason to believe that all is not well with her affairs in the Far East and she goes out to investigate on her own account. With a friend, Harriett Wade, she arrives in Manila to find that the “Coral Queen” is on the point of sailing for Hong Kong, and without warning to the captain, goes on board. She finds that the first mate is one John Strang, accused of complicity in a recent daring piece of piracy, and on hearing rumors of a plot to sink the ship readily connects him with it. But she is to learn that he is not the culprit, and following a series of stirring events, the truth comes to light and there is a reorganization of her company with a new man at its head and a wedding in prospect.
“A satisfactory adventure-comedy-romance, stirring enough but never distressing.” H. W. Boynton
“The reader will probably feel that the love story is perfunctory, while the adventure story is hair-raising enough for anyone.”
MOORE, FREDERICK FERDINAND. Siberia today. il *$2 Appleton 915.7
“As one of a number of intelligence officers dispatched by the United States to Siberia in the summer of 1918, Mr Moore had opportunity to see something of the diplomatic and political conditions of that distracted country, as well as much of its peasant life. His volume is a lively narrative devoted rather to description than to analysis.” (N Y Evening Post) “He has much of interest to tell about the people, the prisons, the Cossack chiefs, the work of Bolshevists, and the German propaganda, and there are a great number of photographs.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“A breezy account with serious convictions set down in journalistic style.”
“Captain Moore has a good journalistic sense, and he has enlivened his criticisms by many vivid and lively pictures of life in Siberia today.”
“An interesting journalistic account.”
“It is an easy, chatty chronicle that Mr Moore writes, filled with apparently insignificant details, the cumulative effect of which is to create an arresting portrayal.”
MOORE, GEORGE. Avowals. *$8 priv ptd Boni & Liveright 801
“A literary criticism in beautiful prose, much of it in the form of imaginary conversations between Moore and Gosse in which they discuss achievements in English fiction. Another conversation between Moore and an American gives the author an opportunity to state his opinion of censoring literature according to standards of morality, instead of according to art. Discussions of Tolstoy, Tourgueneff, Kipling and Pater, whom he admires greatly. A lecture in French on Shakespeare and Balzac is reproduced, together with Paris impressions.” Booklist
“With all its side-issues, its personalities, its portraits, its wisdom and wit and perversity, ‘Avowals’ is fundamentally an essay on the English novel of quite extraordinary subtlety and of rare charm and stimulating power.” S: C. Chew
“Mr George Moore’s ‘Avowals’ is one of the most companionable books of criticism I know.”
“Here is Mr George Moore talking about books, and giving us the most delightful example of printed talk that we can remember to have met with in English.”
MOORE, JUSTIN HARTLEY, comp. World beyond. (World Bible ser.) *$1.50 Crowell 208
The compiler has selected passages from oriental and primitive religions bearing on life, death and immortality. The selections are arranged under three headings: The world beyond; The higher knowledge; Life.
MOORE, JUSTIN HARTLEY, and HOUSTON, CHARLES A. Problems in business law. (College of the city of N.Y. ser in commerce. civics and technology) *$2.50 Appleton 347.7
The present volume confines itself to stating all the various problems of a legal nature that a business man has to deal with. It is a case book, pure and simple, designed for use in classroom discussion and quizzing, giving carefully selected cases, that have actually come up for decision in court, without the answers. It is intended for business colleges, corporation training schools, commercial high schools and universities where business law is a subject of study. After giving a table of the cases cited, the subjects are grouped under: Contracts; Quasi contracts; Sales; Personal property; Chattel mortgage; Lost property; Pledged property; Bailments; Agency; Carriers; Master and servant; Suretyship and guaranty; Negotiable instruments; Checks; Insurance; Partnership; Corporations; Bankruptcy.
“This is perhaps the most interesting and excellent case book of commercial law ever published for use in the classroom.”
MOORE, THOMAS STURGE. Little school. *$1.50 Harcourt 821
This is an enlarged edition of the book by the same title, and contains children’s poems on subjects of everyday life and of special interest to children as some of the titles show: Beautiful meals; To cook; Leaf-land; A song of cleanness; Picture folk; Nursery enactments; The house we built; The wild cherry; A child muses; Snow.
“I have been charmed with the poems in this collection.” W. S. B.
“An extremely charming book of poems for children.”
“Sturge Moore forfeits our interest, if not our respect, by a sort of timid refusal to come out and stare life in the face; his negative shrinking pleasantness betrays him. He has none of that deadly facility which is a symptom that besets even some great poets. One feels that he thinks deeply on language and on form, and that his music comes from a keen, individual understanding of both.” J. G. Fletcher
“He deliberately fumbles his rhythms in order to secure quiet, brown, ingenuous truth. His halting syntax, unauthorized and quaint, often makes for stupidity, but it makes occasionally for solemnity and honesty of prattle which beyond doubt is effective.” Mark Van Doren
“Strange to say, he is successful in several of the poems. For the most part, though, he does not quite hit off the elphin twist and whimsicality of de la Mare.” H. S. Gorman
MOORE, THOMAS STURGE. Some soldier poets. *$1.75 Harcourt 821.09
A series of essays on a group of young poets who are associated with the war, concluding with an essay on The best poetry, written for the Royal society of literature in 1912. Contents: Julian Grenfell; Rupert Brooke; A half pleiade [Robert Nichols, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon]; R. E. Vèrnede; Sorley; Francis Ledwidge; Edward Thomas; F. W. Harvey; Richard Aldington; Alan Seeger; The best poetry.
“Mr Sturge Moore’s volume is interesting because it contains, besides much acute and serious criticism, an illuminating summary of the poet’s artistic psychology.”
“Within a fixed circle, Mr Moore’s criticism is honest and impassioned, but his vision is limited by the horizons of the nineteenth century and he abhors anything modern or irregular.”
“The book brings nothing particularly new to the comment of the Georgians, but it does furnish the most compact and pleasurable volume put together so far about these men. Mr Moore’s chapter on Alan Seeger is particularly gratifying to an American.” H. S. Gorman
“Our view is that Mr Moore has failed, first, because he has let himself be seduced by the prevailing fashion into dealing with writers who in some cases owe more to their gallantry than to their verse, and secondly, because in his heart he does not, possibly with the exception of Brooke and Grenfell, at all believe in those whom he here praises.”
“He is a coach rather than a judge, and this is partly what will make his book so agreeable to the general reader, for, owing to his desire to help, his approval is never insipid nor his blame cantankerous. He is also a master of the comparative method.”
MOREL, EDMUND DEVILLE. Black man’s burden. *$1.50 Huebsch 960
The purpose of the book is to convey a clear notion of the atrocious wrongs which the white people have inflicted upon the black, and to lay down the fundamental principles of a humane and practical policy in the government of Africa by white men. As a comprehensive survey of Europe’s relations with Africa is not within the scope of the book the author has sectionalized the determining impulses of European intervention and has given specific examples under each section. He has also shown the inter-action between European affairs and the proceedings of European governments in Africa, making the former an inevitable aftermath of the latter. The first two chapters are explanatory of the white man’s and the black man’s burden and the rest of the book is divided into three periods: (1) The slave trade; (2) Invasion, political control, capitalistic exploitation; (3) Reparation and reform.
“Mr Morel writes in a clear, hard style, without prejudice or sentiment, and it will be impossible for any normal human being of white origin to read these two hundred and forty pages without a feeling of profound shame.” Llewelyn Powys
“His attitude toward the black men is that of the liberal Englishman: that is to say, he is opposed to the past atrocities and wants Africa helped in every benevolent and philanthropic way. He has, however, no conception of a self-governing, independent black Africa.” W. E. B. Du Bois
“The book can be judged on its merits. The merits consist in recalling and setting forth undoubted and glaring injuries inflicted upon Africa and the Africans by European individuals, companies, and governments, and in warning against the danger of repeating the injustice and wrong. The warning is needed at the present time. On the other hand, like other books of the kind, it lends itself to criticism both in detail and on general grounds. Though the author can discriminate and does, when he likes, discriminate, there are wholesale and one-sided statements and generalizations which are far too wide.”
MORELAND, WILLIAM HARRISON.[2] India at the death of Akbar. *$4.50 Macmillan 954
“The opening of the seventeenth century—the period selected by Mr Moreland—was a critical epoch in the history of India. It was immediately antecedent to the appearance of new forces destined to influence India profoundly, and may be described as the close of the medieval history of India and the beginning of its modern history (it was in the year 1608 that the English ship Hector reached Surat.) For the economic story of the next three centuries substantial sources of information are available, and Mr Moreland’s aim is to supply an introduction to the study of that period. List of authorities, 5pp.’—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Certainly no one could accuse Mr Moreland of forcing from the facts a too confident conclusion. His judgment is so cautious, so balanced, so hesitating, that if the one object of his book had been a definite comparison in material wealth and prosperity between 1605 and 1914, a captious critic might complain that the results arrived at hardly compensate for the sedulous care lavished on the inquiry. There are many shrewd reflexions on matters political and financial, the outcome of independent study and an original survey.” P. E. Roberts
“Mr Moreland’s excellent study of the condition of India in 1605, at the death of Akbar, shows how the subject should be approached. If we are to determine whether India has advanced or declined in wealth, we must have some standard by which to measure the changes.”
“It is pleasant to record a further advance in the study of Indian economics. All scholars will be delighted that Mr Moreland has resisted the obvious temptation to defer publication until the sources of our information had been more fully explored. No pioneer can hope to write the definitive work upon a subject of this magnitude, and Mr Moreland may reasonably hope to earn the more enviable distinction of founding a school and seeing others build upon his foundation.”
MORGAN, ANGELA. Hail man! *$1.25 Lane 811
With a few exceptions—which include the title poem, reprinted from the New York Times—the poems of this book appear here for the first time. They are arranged in eight sections: Symbols; Man in light; Man in darkness; Enchantment; Contrasts; Fancies; Tributes; Man tomorrow.
“Her note is ecstasy con fuoco; her exaltation is unremittingly fortissimo. Often on the point of a crashing success she fails because of this very too-determined vigour. Miss Morgan can and has done far better than this. Gifted with an ease and fluency, she lets her rippling sentences run on till they become a mere babble of words.” L: Untermeyer
“The best things in this book are the shorter and less pretentious poems, ‘Common things,’ ‘Steam’ and ‘Gardens.’ Many of the others have the energy and feeling essential to the making of poetry, even the imaginative touches, occasionally, and the love of natural beauty, but lack the masterly touch of proportioned art which might make of these spiritual conflagrations a serene and permanently shining light.”
MORGAN, ANNA BLUNT. Little folks tramping and camping. il *$1.75 (3c) Lothrop
A bird book for children with information presented in story form. The Marsden children learn about birds from an uncle who is an enthusiast. Their study begins in the winter with tramps through the snow to the haunts of cedar waxwings, grossbeaks and other winter habitants, and for Marshall, the eldest, who is an invalid, a feeding shelf is arranged outside the window to attract nuthatches and chickadees. The expeditions are continued into the spring and early summer and in July the children are taken on a camping trip where they learn more about wild life and where Marshall grows strong and well. The birds studied are those native to Wisconsin.
MORGAN, BYRON. Roaring road. *$1.75 (3c) Doran
Stories of automobile racing, first copyrighted by the Curtis Publishing Company. The titles are: The junkpile sweepstakes; The undertaker’s handicap; The roaring road; The hippopotamus parade; Second-hand ghosts; The bear trap. The same characters appear in all the stories.
“A chain of stories, that stir the blood and keep the attention in a manner that is sometimes called ‘breathless.’”
“Mr Morgan’s style is perfectly suited to his matter; the sharp staccato of his sentences is like the clean-cut crash of a flaming exhaust, and the sustained, compelling flight of his narrative matches the speed of the plunging, pounding cars of which he writes.”
MORGAN, JOHN DAVID. Principles of electric spark ignition in internal combustion engines. il *$3.50 Van Nostrand 621.43
“During the past few years a large amount of research has been carried out on ignition problems, and the object in the following chapters is to bring together the main results which are of direct value to designers and students interested particularly in the patrol[petrol] engine. Discussion of design and constructional details of ignition apparatus has been excluded, for the reason that the need for information of this kind is already well supplied.” (Preface) Contents: Gas characteristics; Spark characteristics; Interaction of spark and gas; Spark plug and test gap characteristics; Spark generator characteristics; Index. References follow the chapters and there are thirty-nine figure illustrations in the text.
“A wide circle of readers will feel grateful to the author for providing in this convenient form an account of the more important work along these lines, and for the reference which he provides to the sources from which information in fuller detail may be obtained. Mr Morgan puts them still further in his debt by the lucidity with which he writes.”
MORGAN, WILLIAM THOMAS. English political parties and leaders during the reign of Queen Anne, 1702–1710. (Yale historical publications) *$2.75 Yale univ. press 942.06
“In this book the author embodies the results of many years of painstaking and fruitful research. He has carefully studied ‘the new evidence that has become available in the last thirty years’—in the archives of England and Holland, in the recent reports of the Historical manuscripts commission, as well as in a mass of pamphlets and periodicals—and has reread, with a keen eye, all the older literature on the period, including the materials on which it has been based. He has been able to show that Queen Anne was a much more assertive person than is commonly believed, and that, from the beginning, the Duchess of Marlborough exercised much less influence on the policy of her sovereign than most writers on the period have assumed. On this perplexing period when personalities counted for so much, and when cabinet and party government were still in such an inchoate state, new lights are thrown; moreover, much fresh vivid detail is presented on the iniquitous methods of conducting elections which had come into vogue.”—Am Hist R
“Building on such secure and broad foundations he has succeeded in constructing a sound and enduring work.” A. L. Cross
“The author has been able to gain access to a large amount of hitherto inaccessible material which has enabled him to produce a critical discussion of this era of much value to the historical student.” E. J. C.
“Mr Morgan has written ably for scholars, and has performed just that sort of task which it is incumbent upon contemporary scientific historians to accomplish.” J. W. Krutch
“The book is extremely interesting, too, for its sketches of the leading politicians, as illustrated from their correspondence. Mr Morgan would have added to the value of his numerous citations from unpublished papers if he had dated them. It is sometimes difficult to follow his argument for lack of the dates of the letters to which he refers.”
“Professor Morgan has his merits, but he takes himself very seriously. His predecessors on the same voyage are swept aside with minute omniscience. He seems to us to mistake the phases of influence for the permanence of character, and to be indiscriminate in the party labels he applies. But in the process of his criticism he has rendered a real service to history.”
MORGENSTERN, JULIAN. Jewish interpretation of the book of Genesis. il *$1.50 Union of Am. Hebrew congregations 222
“This book is addressed to two publics: teachers in Jewish religious schools, that their instruction may be more authoritative and effective; and non-professional students of the Bible, to help them in getting a first-hand knowledge of Judaism. The author stands squarely on the assured results of thoroughgoing critical scholarship, recognizing clearly the presence of myth, legend, and tradition in Genesis, and relative little authentic history, but he is not content to stop with analysis. Whereas most scholars wholly ignore the motives and ideas controlling authors and editors in the process of producing the book as it now stands, the investigation of these motives and ideas is the point of departure for Rabbi Morgenstern, for whom Genesis is ‘a Jewish work, written by Jewish authors, and edited by Jewish thinkers, the product of Jewish religious genius, and a unit of Jewish thought and doctrine,’ hence to be interpreted from a positive Jewish standpoint.”—Bib World
“The author selects his materials wisely, and his comments, critical and practical, are discriminating. Rabbi Morgenstern has succeeded admirably in accomplishing his purpose.”
MORISON, JOHN LYLE. British supremacy and Canadian self-government, 1839–1854. *$2.50 Oxford 342.71
“In ‘British supremacy and Canadian self-government, 1839–54,’ Professor J. L. Morison of Queen’s university, Kingston, Canada, makes an interesting study of the manner in which imperial ascendancy and colonial autonomy were reconciled in the years of early Victorian Canada. He emphasizes the thought that the evolution of colonial Canada into a self-governing dominion was the wisest and best solution of the great problem that confronted the British and Canadian statesmen; through it, he holds, there was great gain to all concerned—gain to the empire as well as to the people across the Atlantic. That it caused no weakening of the tie between the mother country and the daughter land was demonstrated, we are reminded, by the magnificent conduct of Canada in the great war with Germany.”—N Y Times
“The volume is indeed thrice blest; it is felicitous in expression, scholarly in treatment, and broad-minded in its interpretation of public affairs. Notwithstanding its limitations, this volume easily stands out as the best contribution to Canadian history in recent years.” C. D. Allin
“By far the most important contribution of the volume is the series of vitally human studies of the four Canadian governors-general from 1839 to 1854—Sydenham, Bagot, Metcalfe, and Elgin. Apart from the personal equipment of the author in scholarly training, fair-mindedness, absence of racial prejudice, and attractive literary style, his work has the great advantage of a first-hand study of documents, hitherto unavailable, or but slightly employed by writers on Canadian history. The closing chapter, The consequences of Canadian autonomy, is much the least satisfactory.” Adam Shortt
“In thanking Dr Morison for a very able and stimulating volume one may be allowed to enter a caveat against the attitude of somewhat contemptuous superiority assumed towards past statesmen.” H. E. Egerton
“Excellent book.”
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON. Hide and seek. *$1.50 Doran 811
A volume of Verses, Sonnets, and Translations from the Chinese, varying from the broadly humorous to the whimsical and tender. The “translations,” the author frankly states, are based on a rather rudimentary knowledge of the language gleaned from laundry slips. The poems are reprinted from the New York Evening Post, Philadelphia Public Ledger, Life, and other periodicals.
“Christopher Morley is not quite so successful this time. He still tries to blend sugary light verse with even more sugary lyrics. He is at his best in the lowbrow translations from the ‘Chinese.’” Clement Wood
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON. Kathleen. il *$1.25 (5c) Doubleday
The story is an Oxford undergraduate prank. The Scorpions, literary club, agree to write a serial story on shares. In lieu of ideas they make up a tale around certain names mentioned in a letter accidentally found and signed Kathleen. They work themselves up into some romantic fervor about their heroine and eventually go on an expedition to find the real Kathleen at the address mentioned in the letter. She is all their fancy has painted. Under various disguises they gain entrance to her home and after an orgy of mystification, Blair, the Rhodes scholar from Tennessee, makes a clean confession and carries off the palm of victory.
“A slight and amusing tale.”
“‘Kathleen’ is forced from beginning to end. ‘Kathleen’ is a warning to all writers who ignore the fact that there are difficulties even in the construction of a trifle designed for an hour’s entertainment.”
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON. Pipefuls. il *$2 Doubleday 817
“Pipefuls” is apropos of the brevity of the sketches in this collection compiled from the New York Evening Post, the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger and other journals. The author characteristically declares: “These sketches gave me pain to write; they will give the judicious patron pain to read; therefore we are quits.... And yet perhaps the will-to-live is in them, for are they not a naked exhibit of the antics a man will commit in order to earn a living?” (Preface) In one of the sketches, Confessions of a “colyumist,” in which he expatiates on the task of conducting a newspaper column, he thus parodies Wordsworth:
The illustrations are from drawings by Walter Jack Duncan.
“Short crisp amusing papers with the mellowness and pungency which are characteristic of this fluent author’s work.” Margaret Ashmun
“Mr Morley is like a painter who converts the commonplace into a work of art.”
“In other words, if one wants to believe things honestly worth while, despite unquestioned difficulties, if one wants to walk in the reflected sunshine he sheds on the ‘sunny side of Grub street,’ if one longs to see the ultimate value of unconsidered trifles, if, in fact, one asks for a lifting grin at the bad crossings, or only some fun, humanwise, by the way, read Christopher Morley.” I. W. L.
“Mr Morley, one is glad to see, seems to be shaking off the sugar-crystals which were threatening to encase his style; and in this volume one rejoices in passages of real charm, the product of an alert and sensitive imagination.”
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON. Travels in Philadelphia. il *$1.50 (2c) McKay 917.48
In his introduction to this collection of sketches, originally printed in the Evening Public Ledger, A. Edward Newton says: “Where else shall we find simplicity, the gayety, the kindly humor, and the charm of this gentle essayist? Who, other than Morley, could make a walk out Market street of interest and a source of fun?... Who, but he, could find in the commonplace, sordid, and depressing streets of our city, subjects for a sheaf of dainty little essays, as delightful as they are unique?” Some of the titles are: Little Italy; Meeting the gods for a dime; Trailing Mrs Trollope; The Ronaldson cemetery; Chestnut street from a fire escape; The recluse of Franklin square; Up the Wissahickon; The Whitman centennial; Anne Gilchrist’s house; Penn treaty park; At the mint; Madonnas of the curb; On the sightseeing bus; Putting the city to bed. The illustrations are from drawings by Frank H. Taylor.
“These articles combine a happy, not too studied description with pleasant humor into a congenial guide book to Philadelphia.”
“The book is here for everybody to read and take pleasure in whether or not they have ever seen Philadelphia. Perhaps some day Mr Morley will come hither and give us a like book about Boston.” E. F. E.
“To an old Philadelphian the insight of Mr Christopher Morley is really wondrous.” M. F. Egan
MORLEY, LINDA H., and KIGHT, ADELAIDE C. 2400 business books and guide to business literature. *$5 Wilson, H. W. 016
This is a revision of the work called “1600 business books,” compiled by Sarah B. Ball and published in 1916. It has been prepared by Linda H. Morley and Adelaide C. Kight of the Business branch of the Newark public library, under the direction of John Cotton Dana. “The sub-title ‘Guide to business literature’ is added to make it plain that the book is far more than a list of 2400 volumes. It is an index to the contents of those volumes; that is, it lists, in alphabetic order, under 2000 different headings, the subjects which are treated in these 2400 books. These headings are in addition to those entries which give the names of the writers of the 2400 books and in addition to the entries which give their titles.” (Introd.) The entries are arranged in one alphabet, with a publishers’ directory at the close.
MORRIS, EDWIN BATEMAN. Cresting wave. *$1.75 Penn
“An American story of a young, successful, but unscrupulous, financier, giving a picture of society financial markets, and the conflict of business methods and the passion of love.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Edwin Bateman Morris’s preceding novels have prepared us for moderately good tales from his pen, and ‘The cresting wave’ is no disappointment.”
“The author here has taken a safe course in his novel of more than four hundred pages, and if he presents us with nothing especially new, at least he does no violence to no tradition and does not attempt to paint his hero in impossible colors.”
“‘The cresting wave’ is built upon one of the very oldest of ideas or morals: namely, that it is better to be decent than successful, better to serve than to grasp. Perhaps my gratitude to young William Spade for neither trying to write a novel nor spouting free verse nor hanging about cafes and studios in search of ‘life’ prejudices me unduly in his favor.” H. W. Boynton
MORRIS, HARRISON SMITH. Hannah Bye. *$1.75 Penn
“The Quaker life and character is sketched in this simple and sweet story of Hannah Bye. The scene is in a Quaker community and the characters are varied. Here is Deborah Bye, cold, harsh, uncompromising, whose conscience forms her whole character and whose personality rather than her religion, forms her conscience. Her daughter, Hannah, the heroine of the story, is a far sweeter character and one which appeals strongly to the reader. Ruth Blake, her nearest friend, makes the acquaintance of a city visitor to the country, of whom Hannah warns her without success. The fall comes and Hannah, in her effort to keep and save Ruth, draws upon herself her mother’s anger. The peaceful home is shattered but Hannah in the end restores its peace.”—Boston Transcript
“The story is restful, with here and there a dash of humor, but one which will appeal to all in its quiet delineation of character, which appears to be drawn from real life.”
“Mr Morris’s descriptions of the country are sympathetic and reveal an artist’s eye; he has handled the Quaker jargon with some success, but not exhaustively or to the complete satisfaction of the insider. Any Quaker will, certainly, take exception to the hard, domineering character attributed to Hannah’s mother, Deborah Bye. The Quaker meeting for worship is also incongruous, and the dance and its sequel are inappropriately melodramatic.” W. W. Comfort
“The picture of a little rural community centered about the quaint meeting-house of the society of Friends is delightful.’”
MORRISON, ALFRED JAMES. East by west; essays in transportation. *$1.50 (3½c) Four seas co. 382
“A commentary on the political framework within which the East India trade has been carried on from early times, starting with Babylon and ending very near Babylon.” (Subtitle) The book begins with the twentieth century before Christ describing the avenues of trade to and from Babylon, “formed by position for a seat of empire and commerce,” and falls into two parts, part one ending with Venice as the great commercial center in the fifteenth century. Part two begins with the trade ascendancy of Portugal, at the time of the discovery of America, and ends with the Bagdad railway and “The great transportation war.” An edition of the book was published by Sherman, French in 1917.
“The book was probably not designed and is certainly not adapted to fit the needs of a serious student, but may attract the casual reader by its rapid movement and informal style.”
“Some of the remarks seem but remotely connected with the subject of transportation.”
“The underlying causes which caused the movements of civilization are dealt with in a lively style, which is not often found in books of this kind.”
MORSE, EDWIN WILSON. Life and letters of Hamilton Wright Mabie. il *$3 (3½c) Dodd
A biography of a distinguished author, editor and lecturer, quoting liberally from his letters and from the letters written to him by others. There are chapters on: Ancestry, boyhood and youth; At Williams college in the ‘sixties; Recollections of Dr Mark Hopkins and Emerson; In the uncongenial law; On the staff of the Christian Union; Associate editor of the Christian Union; A memorable decade; Non-professional activities; Literary honors; The middle period; Ambassador of peace to Japan; The world war; The last year; Editor, author and lecturer; Character and personality. There is an index of names and places.
“Mr Morse’s ‘The life and letters of Hamilton W. Mabie’ is conceived and carried through in the spirit of its subject. It is clear, sympathetic, and convincing.” H: Van Dyke
“Mr Morse has performed his task excellently, with sufficient fulness and good judgment in selection of his material. The book is also well illustrated.”
“The reviewer does not mean to suggest that Mr Morse’s volume is dull, but is far from exciting. The subject of it led an uneventful life, in the sense that there were few dramatic happenings in his life.”
“Shows careful and sympathetic study of an influential American.”
MOSHER, MRS ANGE (MCKAY). Spell of Brittany. il *$3 Duffield 914.4
This volume by an American woman who had lived long in Brittany is devoted largely to its history, traditions and folklore. There are chapters on Madame de Sévigné; Folk-lore and Jeanne de Pontorson; Mont St Michel and its legends; St Malo and Chateaubriand; A folk song of St Malo; Dinard, Dinan and excursions; Félix de Lamennais; The legend and pardon of St Yves; Breton wedding; Brest and the adjacent islands; Audierne, and the legend of Ys; Saints and fairies; Nantes and Anne of Brittany, etc. Among the illustrations are reproductions of paintings. There is an index. The introduction by Anatole LeBraz is in the nature of a memorial to the author, who died in 1918.
“Good print and make-up.”
Reviewed by Margaret Ashmun
“Exceedingly bright and fascinating are these chapters out of the life of a lovely woman who made the study of these people her avocation, if not her actual vocation.” E. J. C.
MOTON, ROBERT RUSSA. Finding a way out; an autobiography. *$2.50 (4½c) Doubleday
In writing his story it was the hope of the author “that the telling of it would serve a useful purpose, especially at this time, in helping to a clearer understanding of the hopes and aspirations of my own people and the difficulties which they have overcome in making the progress of the last fifty years which has been so frequently described as ‘the most remarkable of any race in so short a time.’” (Preface) Contents: Out of Africa; On a Virginia plantation; Through reconstruction; Doing and learning; A touch of real life; Ending student days; Black, white, and red; With north and south; From Hampton to Tuskegee; At Tuskegee; War activities; Forward movements in the south; Index. The author succeeded Booker T. Washington as head of Tuskegee institute.
“This autobiography not only impresses one with the worth and dignity of its writer but charms and amuses the reader with the sense of humor and the sweetness which the author has carried with him.”
Reviewed by M. E. Bailey
“If not so romantic as the autobiography of his predecessor, Dr Booker T. Washington nevertheless this story of the life of the present head of Tuskegee, is a document of vital interest. The chapters on From Hampton to Tuskegee and At Tuskegee are among the most important of Dr Moton’s autobiography.” W. S. B.
Reviewed by M. W. Ovington
“We wish that this volume might find its way into every public library in the United States and into every school and church library in the South.”
“His book deserves to be read on his own account, and also for the side lights that it throws upon negro conditions and problems.”
“It is easy to read and is highly informing and inspiring regarding the career of one of America’s outstanding figures in contemporary affairs. It is bound to be read, especially by those who enjoy an unusual autobiography.” F. P. Chisholm
MOTTELAY, PAUL FLEURY, comp. Life and work of Sir Hiram Maxim; knight, chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, etc. il *$2 (4c) Lane
Biographical facts are set forth in a foreword by the author. This is followed by an introduction by Lord Moulton. The body of the book is then devoted to the inventions of Sir Hiram Maxim, with chapters on: Electric lighting; Maxim automatic gun; Powders; Explosives; Erosion of guns; Fuzes; Gun for attacking Zeppelins; Lewis gun—Madsen gun; Flight of a projectile; Aerial navigation; etc. There are seven illustrations, appendixes and index.
MOULTON, JOHN FLETCHER MOULTON, 1st baron. Science and war. pa *80c (7½c) Putnam 509
This small volume contains the Rede lecture for 1919, at Cambridge university. In beginning his enumeration of the debts the war owes to science Lord Moulton, without apparent ironical intent, points out that science made the war possible. He shows that the war represented “the results of the totality of scientific progress” from the beginning and then devotes himself to the more recent developments of science and invention that determined the character and extent of the war. In conclusion he warns that the next war may mean not only the end of civilization but the self-destruction of mankind.
Reviewed by B: C. Gruenberg
MOULTON, RICHARD GREEN, ed. Modern reader’s Bible for schools; the New Testament. *$2.25 Macmillan 225
“‘The modern reader’s Bible’ is not a new translation. It is the ordinary Bible (revised version), without alteration as to matter or wording, but printed in such a way as to bring out to the eye the full literary form and structure. This literary form and structure refers to such things as the difference between story, song, drama, discourse, essay: the distinction between verse and prose, together with the delicate variations of verse which make such a large part of the effect of poetry.” (Introd.) In addition to the general introduction each of the three parts, Gospels, Acts, Epistles and Revelation, has its special introduction. Some forty pages of notes are arranged at the end and there is an index “designed to give assistance in the more systematic reading of the New Testament.” There is also a frontispiece map.
“On the whole the book seems admirably adapted to the purpose intended—to provide a text of the New Testament with explanations adequate and truthful yet thoroughly adapted virginibus puerisque.”
“Professor Moulton’s ‘Reader’s Bible,’ good as it is, does not please everyone because he varies the order of the canon, and because he adopts the revised version. However, we are glad to see his simplified edition of the New Testament. It is far easier to read than any ordinary Testament.”
MOWAT, ROBERT BALMAIN. Henry V. il *$3.50 Houghton 942.04
“Henry V in his day was held to be the pattern of a chivalrous knight: round his name has centred the romance of medieval England; in his person Shakespeare found already expressed the glory of the Elizabethan age, the symbol of our national aspirations. The character of Henry V has many of the faults but all the virtues of his time; ... his kindness and good fellowship; his bravery and sense of justice; his unremitting industry; his piety.” (Chapter I) Among the contents are: The legendary and the real Henry; The French war; The conquest of Normandy; The treaty of Troyes; The work and character of Henry V. The book is illustrated and has an appendix, a bibliography and an index. An earlier edition of this work appeared in 1915.
“It is natural in such a biography rather to emphasize the heroic, and within the limits of his space Mr Mowat has given us a very readable and on the whole accurate history. But space would not permit the writer to add much that is new.” C. L. Kingsford
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“Mr Mowat has written a good book, which should be widely read. He has very rightly relied in the main upon the chief French and English chronicles and biographies, and has avoided the tendency, rather too common just now, to pick out erudite and often irrelevant detail from half-read sources.”
MUIR, EDWIN. We moderns; enigmas and guesses. *$1.75 Knopf 192
The volume is the fourth in the series of Free lance books, edited with introductions by H. L. Mencken. It is a book of aphorisms after the manner of Nietzsche and inspired by the philosophy of Nietzsche. They are animadversions on life and all the modern aspects of life as revealed in our art, literature, science, and religion; and are grouped under the headings: The old age; Original sin; What is modern? Art and literature; Creative love; The tragic view.
“There are lapses, superficialities, but on the whole this is criticism, of life and of literature, which must effect a change in one’s habits of thought.”
“These aphorisms are utterly without the meretricious glitter of the common epigram; they are luminous with the sober light of truth. Like Pascal’s ‘Pensees’ the logic that underlies the book is, in its smaller scale, an unconstructed cathedral of thought: it demands a certain architectural intuition of the reader. One thing is certain: no utterances more tonic, more bracing have rent the sultry firmament of contemporary literature.”
“He is, on the evidence of this little volume, a thinker not lightly to be passed by.”
MUMFORD, ALFRED ALEXANDER. Manchester grammar school, 1515–1915; a regional study of the advancement of learning in Manchester since the reformation. il *$8.50 (*21s) Longmans 373
“This volume has seventeen chapters with twenty-one appendixes of documents, tracing the history of the Manchester school for three hundred years. The author is more interested in the personal history of its benefactors, directors, masters, and graduates, than he is in detailed information regarding the school’s management, support, system of education, etc., at various periods. This is somewhat disappointing to the American student. On the other hand the volume is much more than a history of one school or even of the educational forces and agencies in Manchester. There is much of value on the educational and intellectual development of England in general, and comment on the larger factors of an economic, social, and religious character, which influenced the course of this development. The main thread of the story has to do with the struggle to democratize the school and to supplant the old classical curriculum with one which would more directly meet the new economic and social conditions ushered in by the industrial revolution. There are numerous illustrations of Manchester, the school and notables connected with it, and a good index.”—Am Hist R
“The book is a creditable piece of work, even if it does not measure up to the high standard of scholarship which other writers have set in their histories of similar schools.” M. W. Jernegan
“The last chapter of Dr Mumford’s book contains much valuable material. As he was for a long time medical examiner at the school, his testimony against military training in secondary schools is important. Other valuable expert testimony is that given in regard to the irregular development of the adolescent.” W. S. Hinchman
MUNDY, TALBOT. Eye of Zeitoon. il *$2 Bobbs
“Those who followed the fortunes of the four friends who traveled ‘The ivory trail’ will rejoice at the opportunity here afforded of meeting them once again and sharing the thrilling adventures which befell them because of ‘The eye of Zeitoon.’ This same ‘Eye of Zeitoon’ was not a precious stone of any kind, but a man named Kagig, an Armenian and a patriot, doing his best to save his countrymen from the Turks. Two women play important parts in the story—Gloria Vanderman, an American girl, resolute, strong-willed and fearless, able to handle a pistol or even a rifle in a moment of danger, and that effectively, and the mysterious Maga Jhaere, the wild, pagan, primitive half-gypsy, a veritable fiend at times, yet almost a child in her naïveté. She is interesting, but not so interesting as Kagig himself.”—N Y Times
“‘The eye of Zeitoon’ shows a great advance on ‘The ivory trail,’ which we reviewed not long ago. It has more coherence, fewer horrors, and a descriptive quality which at times touches the point of brilliance.”
“‘The eye of Zeitoon’ has most of the Kipling tricks and some of the Kipling virtues. As a yarn, it drags at times, its briskness of style being in odd contrast with the sluggish action.” H. W. Boynton
“Talbot Mundy would like to be a second Rudyard Kipling and he never will, but if you don’t insist on making invidious comparisons and if you like hot fighting you can find a lot of interest and excitement in this tale.”
“A dramatic, well-written and absorbing romance of high adventure.”
Reviewed by Katharine Oliver
“A highly interesting element is the author’s portraiture of eastern characters.”
“Mr Mundy strives valiantly after thrills and excitements, but scarcely succeeds in rising above the level of musical comedy.”
MUNDY, TALBOT.[2] Told in the East. *$2 Bobbs
“Two of the three stories in Talbot Mundy’s ‘Told in the East’ are of the proportions of novelets. They are based on dramatic incidents in the Indian mutiny. The third has a humorous trend but is withal a typical Mundy tale. The first of the trio, ‘Hookum, Hai’ has for its central figure Bill Brown, a stoical British sergeant, who, while assigned to an isolated outpost in command of a dozen men, is caught in the maelstrom of the initial uprising. A typical Mundy character—a loyal, aristocratic Rajput officer—is the hero of ‘For the salt he had eaten,’ the second story. ‘Machassan Ah,’ the final tale, relates the humorous experiences of two British bluejackets who go ashore at an Arabian port in pursuit of a native who proclaims himself an Englishman.”—Springf’d Republican
“None of the three tales published in the present volume is lacking in excitement; in fact, there is a little too much of it.”
“Through the magic of these printed pages, we are transported to the India of the last century.”
“The three stories will afford pleasure and entertainment.”
MUNK, JOSEPH AMASA.[2] Southwest sketches. il *$3.50 Putnam 917.8
The book describes the mesa and desert country and the coast line of the Southwest geographically, geologically, climatologically and ethnographically. The healthfulness, beauty and rare fascination of the country are dwelt upon and the 133 illustrations give some idea of the scenery and the remains of pioneer and aboriginal life. The contents are: The mesa country; Land of the cliff dwellers; In Hopiland; The Flagstaff region; The petrified forests of Arizona; El Rito de los Frijoles; On the Arizona frontier; Passing of the Apache; Ranch reminiscences; Big irrigation projects; Southwest climate; Southern California.
“A pleasantly informal travel book. Mr Munk evidently writes with thorough knowledge and shows an appreciative eye for the beauties and oddities of that country and its native people. Particularly fascinating is the description of the petrified forests of Arizona.”
MUNROE, JAMES PHINNEY. Human factor in education. *$1.60 Macmillan 370.1
“A volume defending vocational education and written by a vice-chairman of the Federal board for vocational education. The author tries to show that the old regime of twenty years and more ago was a flat failure in the scheme of education in the United States. There is strong intimation that much of the old system is still in force. He shows how the great world war has helped bring us to our senses in the matter of educating boys and girls in a many-sided way rather than in a narrow way as previously. (School R) “The book does not advocate, however, the separation of vocational from academic schools.” (Booklist)
“The plea for reorganization of elementary and secondary education could hardly be put more forcibly than is here given. To the casual reader, however, there seems to be some overemphasis in places; but this only makes one think more carefully.”
MURCHISON, CLAUDIUS TEMPLE. Resale price maintenance. pa *$1.50 Longmans 338.5
“Dr Murchison lays the foundation for discussion of price maintenance in the two chapters upon marketing: The organization of the market, and Irregularities of the present retailing system. The discussion of price maintenance is given in chapters five to eight.” (Am Econ R) “[Other subjects discussed are] the function of the retailer, and attempts to prevent price-cutting. Issued as Columbia university studies in history, economics, and public law.” (Brooklyn)
“A serious study such as this is to be commended even though it does not say the last word upon price maintenance.” H. R. Tosdal
“The various forms of price maintenance and of price cutting are described in detail, and the arguments for and against both, as well as for the author’s own compromise position, are stated with lucidity. If the reader remains unconvinced, the reason lies in the fact that in actual life the problem of price determination is bound up with a variety of other problems of equal importance to the consumer.” B. L.
MURDOCK, VICTOR. China, the mysterious and marvellous. il *$2.50 Revell 915.1
“Mr Murdock’s book is simply a narrative of a trip into China that took him rather far into the interior and away from the usual route of the tourist.” (Freeman) “He says, ‘Here is the history of the present volume. My brother in Wichita took the letters I had written and as they had been published in our paper, the Eagle, put them in the form they bear. Our idea was to let me give copies of it to particular friends.” (N Y Times)
“It is unfortunate, we think that Mr Murdock elected to write this story of his travels, not in English, but in journalese. Some three hundred pages of etymological ‘jazz’ places an undue strain on the reader’s literary nerves. And this is more the pity because the author can command good, plain English when he wants to.” Harold Kellock
“The text is so frisky, the words so plain and slangy, comparisons so lacking, and the subject dealt with so personally, that I wondered at a publisher printing such a book with paper and labor so dear.” F: O’Brien
MURRAY, ELSIE RIAEH, and SMITH, HENRIETTA BROWN. Child under eight. (Modern educator’s lib.) *$1.90 (*6s) Longmans 372.2
“The book which comes from England with this title, ‘The child under eight,’ is a discussion of the kindergarten after the fashion that might have been found in an American book fifteen or twenty years ago. The titles of the various chapters indicate the temper of the writers. There are chapters entitled The world’s mine oyster, All the world’s a stage, Joy in making, In grassy places, etc. The book is not without some practical suggestions for work in the kindergarten, but in the main it is a defense of the kindergarten with some reference to modern movements in the treatment of little children.”—El School J
MURRAY, GILBERT. Our great war and the great war of the ancient Greeks. (Creighton lecture, 1918) *$1.25 (13c) Seltzer 938
A comparison between the Peloponnesian war and the great war in Europe. The war between Sparta and Athens was the greatest war the world had ever known. “Arising suddenly among civilized nations, accustomed to comparatively decent and halfhearted wars, it startled the world by its uncompromising ferocity.” And it ended in a peace that was no peace and was followed by other wars, the outcome of which was death to both combatants. Drawing on the historians and dramatists of the time the author sets forth a picture that shows many striking similarities to our modern experience. In conclusion he expresses a hope that in spite of the terrible evils growing out of the recent war, we may make use of the opportunity to build a better international life out of the ruin. The work is dated November 7, 1918.
“Gilbert Murray’s translations are, as always, enjoyable, even though such words as ‘Niagara’ in the mouth of the Athenians make us a bit suspicious that other lively expressions also may be more Murray than Aristophanes.” J. W. Hughan
MURRAY, JOHN.[2] John Murray III, 1808–1892. il *$1.50 Knopf
“John Murray III was the grandson of the John Murray (1745–93, originally MacMurray!) who founded the famous publishing house in November, 1768, and the son of John Murray, jr. (1778–1843), who is perhaps best remembered now as friend and publisher of Byron and as publisher of the Quarterly Review. Of John Murray III (1808–92) there was no account adequate at all, except mere facts in the Dictionary of national biography, until his son’s interesting article appeared in the Quarterly Review for January, 1919. The present little book consists of that article, revised and enlarged, followed by the father’s paper on the ‘Origin and history of Murray’s handbooks for travellers,’ and by some new letters to his family (1830–91), mainly describing vividly various travels abroad and at home.”—N Y Evening Post
“The letters are excellent reading, and we venture to ask for more, if more are to be had.”
“Interesting because of his participation in literary events of real significance, such as Scott’s announcement of his authorship of ‘Waverly’ and the publication of the ‘Origin of species.’”
“One misses such anecdotes and illustrations of literary life as might have been expected from a publisher in close contact with great writers.”
“This is a very interesting and welcome little book.” L. L. MacKall
“The memoir has the unusual fault of being too brief, but it does justice to its subject and adds a new and interesting chapter to the history of English publishing.”
MUSCIO, BERNARD. Lectures on industrial psychology. 2d ed, rev il *$3 Dutton 658.7
“A book principally composed of a series of lectures given to general audiences at Sydney university.” (Survey) “These lectures discuss such topics as fatigue, muscle coördination, individual differences, scientific management, motion study, and other applications of psychology to the life of workers.” (R of Rs)
“Taken as a whole, Mr Muscio’s volume may be recommended particularly on account of its lucidity and common sense as providing what is probably the best short account yet published in this field. In certain places, however, these lectures are distinctly weak. The author sometimes betrays only a distant acquaintance with the statistical material of his subject. Another weakness of these lectures is their too great reliance on the anecdotal method.” P. S. Florence
“There is no other book for the general reader that states the case for a scientific handling of the human factor in industry more clearly or more convincingly.” B. L.
MUZZEY, DAVID SAVILLE. American history. il *$1.92 Ginn 973
A prefatory note to this revised edition says, “Besides bringing the narrative down to the spring months of the year 1920, the author has entirely recast that part of the book following the Spanish war, and has made considerable changes in the preceding chapters. The changes are chiefly in the direction of added emphasis on social and economic factors in our history. New illustrative material has been added, the maps have been improved, and the bibliographical references brought down to date.” The work was first published in 1911.
MYERS, ANNA BALMER. Patchwork; a story of the “plain people.” il *$1.75 (2c) Jacobs
The “plain people” is what the religious sects, Mennonites, Amish, etc., in the Pennsylvania Dutch country are called. Phœbe Metz was a child of the “plain people” and this is her story from the time she was a quaint, unusually interesting and original little “Dutchie” of ten until she told David Eby that she would be his wife. She was fond of the world and its vanity, her golden curls and pretty clothes. She was frank about it; she could not be anything else but honest. And she had the courage, likewise, to go her own way, sorely as she grieved and shocked Aunt Maria. She went to Philadelphia to study music; tasted and loved the world’s glitter; saw some of its wickedness too; but when it came nigh to brushing the bloom off her youth, she escaped unscathed to her beloved country. There among the people and things that were a part of her very life she found herself, and when David returned from the war with but one leg, they both knew how much they had cared since they were children. There is much charm in the book’s local coloring.
“Entertaining but with less convincing dialect and background than Mrs Martin’s ‘Tillie.’”
“There is a good deal of information about the ‘plain sects,’ their ways and speech and ideas, in this perfectly innocuous little story.”
MYERS, FREDERIC WILLIAM HENRY. Human personality and its survival of bodily death. *$4 Longmans 133.9
“This well-known work first appeared about sixteen years ago in two volumes, each of about seven hundred pages in length. The text is here materially condensed, and most of the appendices, which occupied about half each volume and contained examples of phenomena analysed in the text, are omitted. A short biographical sketch of Myers is included.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“As Myers’ theory develops to include more and more unusual phenomena it preserves its persuasiveness and elasticity: Myers’ patient skill is indeed the most attractive feature of the book.” J. W. N. S.
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
MYERSON, ABRAHAM.[2] Nervous housewife. *$2.25 (4½c) Little 616.8
“Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair.” (Introd. note) By examining the various causes and forms of nervousness in housewives, from merely deënergizing neurasthenia to highly pathological cases, from all points of view, the book seeks to stimulate the trend toward greater individualization in women, and to promote a more constructive and intelligent rebellion against old-established conditions and discontents. The book is indexed and the chapter headings are: The nature of “nervousness”; Types of housewife predisposed to nervousness; The housework and the home as factors in the neurosis; Reaction to the disagreeable; Poverty and its psychical results; The housewife and her husband; The housewife and her household conflicts; The symptoms as weapons against the husband; Histories of some severe cases; Other typical cases; Treatment of the individual cases; The future of woman, the home, and marriage.
“Written sympathetically and sensibly for the housewife herself to read.”
“There is a note of pessimism about the book, despite its wholesomeness, that strikes a discordant chord here and there. But on the whole the book is sane, frank without being indelicate, wise, and fairly well-written.”
NALKOWSKA, SOFJA RYGIER. Kobiety (women). il *$2 (3c) Putnam
This novel of Polish life has been translated from the Polish by Michael Henry Dziewicki. It takes the form of self-revelations of a beautiful, intellectual and self-centered girl—the transitional woman. Nothing matters to her but her own sensations, her own experiences. From the height of a coldly reasoning, logical intellect she surveys passion, coquettes with it, longs for it and, when it comes rejects it—from an inherited instinct of chastity. In the words of a rejected lover, she was: “A bundle of theories, of sentimental scepticism, of self-assurance.... A poor frightened bird always popping its head under its wing!” But then this particular lover was only a splendid specimen of physical perfection. At the end, discouraged and bewildered, Janka returns to her old professor, who had been sorely grieved when she had disappointed his hopes for her and had turned her back upon science. The confessions are in three parts: Ice-plains; “The garden of red flowers”; A canticle of love.
“Specifically a story of Polish life, this very unusual book reveals the secret springs of all human life. To read it after a long course of the mediocre, superficial writing through which a reviewer, in the course of his duty, must wade is like emerging from the subway and drawing pure air into the lungs. The translator has done excellent work and the Benda drawing is distinctive.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Considered in detail, it is a curious, sometimes brilliant, and often ludicrous work. We do not know whether the writer, for all her subtlety and power of detachment, is the least aware of what an absurd figure she has produced in Janka, this portentous type of modern youth. The book is indeed surprisingly uneven, subtle and extravagant, balanced and preposterous in turn.”
NAPIER, MARGARET. Songs of the dead. *$1.50 Lane 821
In his introduction to these poems Edward Garnett says of them that they are unlike anything else; that they are not a “normal” product; that they are a rough diamond from a matrix suggesting comparison with the author of “The marriage of heaven and hell”; that in the simplicity and intensity with which they banish from our sight everything extraneous, alien to their passion, they are a lesson in poetry; and that, with the conception that when we die we live on in the grave, in our memories, in our anguish, in our desires, they are a lesson in passionate feeling.
“They are poems of frustration, imperfect verbal equivalents of great spiritual experiences, greater in intention and conception than in realized execution. Miss Napier writes in free verse, in a curiously tortured style full of inversions (one has the feeling that she is trying to express, by the unnatural quality of the style, the more than normal intensity of her emotion).”
NATHAN, GEORGE JEAN, and MENCKEN, HENRY LOUIS. American credo. *$1.75 Knopf 814
One hundred and three of the one hundred and ninety-one pages of this “contribution toward the interpretation of the national mind” (Sub-title) are preface, excused by the authors on the ground “having read it, one need not read the book.” The authors’ contention is that “deep down in every man there is a body of congenital attitudes, a corpus of ineradicable doctrines and ways of thinking, that determines his reactions to his ideational environment.” While the preface consists of ratiocinations on these attitudes, doctrines and ways of thinking the book itself is a collection of maxims and traditional tenets that are supposed to make up the mental equipment of the ordinary man. The first one reads: “That the philoprogenitive instinct in rabbits is so intense that the alliance of two normally assiduous rabbits is productive of 265 offspring in one year.” Other examples are: “That Henry James never wrote a short sentence”; and “That German peasants are possessed of a profound knowledge of music.”
“None but a captious critic could find fault with the fact that the authors’ preface occupies fully two-thirds of the book, for in that space the truth about America and its inhabitants is told as it has not been for some time.” G. M. H.
“The stringing together of widely held fallacies does not constitute an ‘American credo’ any more than a collection of ‘want’ ads makes a job. It does not describe, explain or interpret anything. The authors themselves do not know American character, even in its major aspects, but only its ludicrous or despicable blemishes.”
“On the whole we do not gather from this repertory of popular fallacies any very definite picture of American mentality. But one can get from the latter half, at any rate, which does great credit to the authors’ ingenuity, a good deal of entertainment.”
NATHAN, ROBERT. Peter Kindred. *$2 (2c) Duffield
The story of a boy’s school and college life, and his first contacts with the outer world. Peter’s father sends him to Phillips Exeter with the vague intention of giving him a gentleman’s education. The two years in this school are followed by four at Harvard and the story traces the quiet unsensational development of his mind and character. He makes friends, is converted to Carverism—the economic creed of a popular professor, and in his junior year meets Joan, a Radcliffe student. Peter and Joan are married the year after his graduation. They set up housekeeping in a New York tenement and work and play together and test out their theories of life. The story ends with the birth and death of their child.
“Unluckily there is not quite enough ‘to him’ to command and hold our interest and concern at the exacted pitch.” H. W. Boynton
“The reader possessed of sufficient pertinacity to work his way through the first two hundred pages of ‘Peter Kindred’ will find in the last part of the book a realistic sketch of youthful theories and ideals at war with the economic facts of life.”
“The story is well thought out and well written. Mr Nathan has put a great deal into his work and has taken it seriously. That in itself is more than can be said for many writers of current fiction.”
“The boy is a tolerably nice boy, and he does and thinks and says the things a tolerably nice boy would. We do not deny that he is true to fact. But what of it? Who cares? Since the author has failed to make us care about him as a person?” H. W. Boynton
NEALE, REGINALD EDGAR. Electricity. il $1 Pitman 621.3
“In this book the author attempts no more than a review of the general nature of electricity, the methods of producing it and the services to which it is applied.” (Preface) The book is illustrated with forty-five figures in the text. It is issued as one of Pitman’s common commodities and industries series.
“It is remarkable how complete and accurate is the information given. The reader is, however, hurried on unpleasantly fast, and is never allowed to pause where his interest is aroused.”
NEIHARDT, JOHN GNEISENAU.[2] Splendid wayfaring. il *$2.25 Macmillan 978
“As a poet, picturing the savage adventure of the early days of the Yankee invasion of the plains and mountains, Mr Neihardt has already won his reputation: his theme is huge and his powers are not unworthy of it. In his new volume, a prose volume, he appears again in his chosen domain, now as an historian. The period taken is 1822 to 1831, the event is the career of Jedediah Smith, who in the eight years of his adventurous maturity was the first American leader to discover the central overland route to California—later the great immigrant and trade route—and to measure the length of the Pacific coast from Los Angeles to the Columbia.”—Bookm
“Mr Neihardt gives unity and verve to his volume by making Smith the central spirit: but it is in a truly epic mode that the story is conceived, and hence there could not be less than a picturesque emphasis upon the companions of the hero, among them Ashley and Henry, builders of the fur industry, and the trapper Hugh Glass who is the subject of one of Mr Neihardt’s best-known poems.” Hartley Alexander
“All this is fascinating reading, suggesting the lurid tales, much sought and pored over, in boyhood, but while it is fascinating, it is history, history of the growth of the United States; as important as the occupation of the older states and the taking of the central portion of the present union.” J. S. B.
“This task has evidently been a labour of love, for Mr Neihardt has not felt impelled to follow the pattern of angular, unimaginative recital into which so many books of this kind fall.” L. B.
“A parallel work by, say McMaster, and called, say ‘Western exploration from 1822–1831,’ would have been a valuable contribution to the history of the West; but ‘The splendid wayfaring,’ as the title plainly shows, is more than that; it is an American prose epic, an absorbing tale of courage and endurance.” Walter Franzen
“Mr Neihardt has for the subject of this prose story one of the truly dramatic themes of American history.”
“Mr Neihardt has allowed himself a rather lofty flight in his opening paragraphs, where he links his tale up with that of the western progress of the Aryan races. In a number of other places a tendency to ornate language may be observed. But in other respects ‘The splendid wayfaring’ has compelling force.”
“Mr Neihardt has succeeded in giving some epical quality to his heroes and painting, as he intended to do, the mood of their adventures.” M. C. C.
NEKLIUDOV, ANATOLII VASIL’EVICH.[2] Diplomatic reminiscences before and during the world war, 1911–1917; tr. from the French, by Alexandra Paget. *$8 Dutton
“A Russian diplomat’s frank statement of what he learned as Minister to Bulgaria during the Balkan wars of 1912 and of 1913, supplemented by his observations during the world war, when he was serving as Minister to Sweden, and Ambassador to Spain. Writing in the firm conviction that all who took part in the tremendous events of those years now belong to ‘an irrevocable past,’ M. Nekliudov speaks as freely concerning his contemporaries as if they were actually dead.”—R of Rs
“M. Nekliudov, with his tears and his discontents, is not a very interesting person. The best part of his long book is the record of his ambassadorship in Sweden during the war, and in his comments on certain Russian statesmen such as Stürmer and Protopopoff he has something to say that is not without interest.”
“The style is more than clear and studiously temperate: it is at times eloquent and pathetic, and throughout tinged with the philosophy natural to a cultured gentleman. The English of Alexandra Paget is so good that it must, we think, be ranked as a first-rate translation.”
“Having lost his emperor, his country and his sons, this former representative of a departed system sees no necessity to guard certain of those secrets which go to make up the mystery of diplomacy. In consequence of this break with the past which fate has forced upon him M. Nekliudov is interesting and informative.”
NEW Decameron; second day. *$1.90 McBride
The first volume was published last year. Like it this second volume is a collection of short stories by different authors, each story in keeping with the character of its narrator. Contents: Jim of Moloch’s bar, by Francis Carco: Bread upon the waters, by Michael Sadleir; The history of Andrew Niggs, by Basil Blackwell; The tool, by W. F. Harvey; The master-thief, by Dorothy L. Sayers; The affair of the Mulhaven baby, by M. Nightingale; The vase, by Camilla Doyle; “Once upon a time” by Bill Nobbs; A prayer perforce, by M. Storm Jameson; Salvator Street, by Sherard Vines.
“In spite of serious inequalities in the work, the total result is undoubtedly entertaining. In all the stories there is evidence of careful workmanship, a preoccupation with literary means which is highly satisfactory save when it aims at effect with too unchastened self-consciousness.” F. W. S.
“Some of them are excellent, some rather poor and a few unequivocally dull. Heralded simply as ‘Salvator street’ comes the surprise of the book. In it Sherard Vines has succeeded in creating a character besides writing the best story of the volume.”
“The idea of vocational guidance in the telling of tales is not altogether conducive to the best flights of the imagination. The obligation to relate the sort of story that a master-printer, a poet, or a psychic researcher would be apt to relate seems to have put a restraint upon most of the contributors.” L. B.
“‘The new Decameron,’ to carry on its excellent plan, must be, like the ‘Canterbury tales’ which its general method recalls, more variously human in substance and in modulation. Their inventiveness in plot and ingenuity in structure are remarkable. But these are not high qualities in fiction. ‘The new Decameron’ needs not, indeed, cheerfulness, but sunlight; less smell of the charnel house and more of the earth.”
“The structure of the book is cleverly contrived, and in reading it the fact that this is the work of several hands does not obtrude itself too violently. At its best the book is artistic, and it is always elegant. The remoteness, the wickedness, and the nervous dread of crudity dissociate the authors from the literary giants of past times. All the contributors give an impression of literary taste, and not one of them has generated a ‘human document.’”
NEWBOLT, SIR HENRY JOHN.[2] Book of good hunting. il *$3.50 (*10s 6d) Longmans 799
“Sir Henry Newbolt has put together many interesting stories about sport. Elephants, lions, and tigers come first: then there are chapters on deer-hunting and fox-hunting, with many extracts from Mr Masefield’s fine poem, ‘Reynard the fox,’ and a closing chapter on fishing. In his introductory chapter, ‘On the nature of sport,’ he states the arguments for and against sport, and insists very strongly on the value of true sportsmanship to the national character.”—Spec
“Sir Henry Newbolt writes so pleasantly that he will attract readers of all ages.”
“From a literary or sporting standpoint, the book is equally attractive.”
“The instances of hunting experiences chosen by Sir Henry are admirably described, and compel the reader to share the excitement of the hunter. He brings out all the concomitants which differentiate sport from killing.”
NEWLAND, H. OSMAN. Romance of modern commerce. il *$2 Lippincott 380
“The book is, as described in its sub-title, a popular account of the production of a number of common commodities. It collects a mass of miscellaneous information about wheat and other cereals, tea, coffee and cocoa, rubber, tobacco, cotton, silk, wool, timber, paper, fruit and wine, cattle and leather, vegetable and mineral oils, furs and feathers, precious stones and metals.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Informative and of varying interest. Could be used by upper grades and high schools.”
NEWMAN, ERNEST. Musical motley. *$1.50 Lane 780.4
A series of papers by an English musical critic. Among the titles are: “L’enfant prodigue”; On instruments and their players; On musical surgery; Criticism by code; Futurist music; The best hundred scores.
“Mr Newman is a musician of the nineteenth century. This must not be taken to mean that he is an old-fashioned pedant who is out of touch with new developments. On the contrary, he is intensely interested in modern music and has no sentimental illusions about that of the past. Music is for him always a thing of the living present.” E: J. Dent
“Mr Newman is never dull, even when he is grave.” H: T. Finck
“The chief attraction of Mr Newman’s book, besides its dry humor, is its lack of dogmatism and its corresponding illumination of speculative points.” M. H.
“He differs from a good many fashionable critics in his familiarity with the works of the ancients, and in testing the moderns by standards which these critics are either ignorant of, or refuse to accept. Perhaps the wisest and sanest passages in the book are those in which he differentiates the originality that counts from that which does not.”
“The book is always interesting, often gay, reading. The essays on the classics are apt, but do not go far enough; that on the grotesque is tentative, that on obituaries might have been omitted. We should have liked some more like ‘Originality in music’ and ‘Quotation,’ and that on Bishop Blougram in partibus, which are full of sound judgments delivered with a light touch.”
NEWSHOLME, SIR ARTHUR. Public health and insurance: American addresses. $2.50 Johns Hopkins 614
“Sir Arthur Newsholme has for thirty-five years been an active figure in the public health profession of Great Britain and for eleven of those years has served as principal medical officer of the Local government board. In the fall of 1919 he came to the School of hygiene and public health of Johns Hopkins as lecturer on public health administration. The book just published is made up of addresses delivered to public audiences in the course of visits paid to various university and medical centers in America.” (Survey) “It is largely devoted to the present state of public health in England and to the progress in public health policy that has been realized within the last fifty years.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“The sections which describe the wonderful progress made in dealing with tuberculosis and child welfare in England during the past few years will prove of absorbing interest to the specialist. There is hardly a chapter in the book, however, which should not be read by every social worker for its value as a contribution to the philosophy of social reform.” C.-E. A. Winslow
NEWTON, ALMA (MRS ALMA NEWTON ANDERSON). Jewel in the sand. *$1.35 (6c) Duffield
A beautiful girl, Cynthia, tells her story in detached episodes: how she left her barren, loveless New England home to come to New York and study music; how after her first success love came to her. The perfect soul union is marred by the man’s duality. She goes away, has more half mystic experience, becomes more and more spiritualized as she struggles with poverty and is at last rescued by the man who had always loved her unselfishly, had renounced her and had waited. He marries her and takes her home to the East.
“By dealing with life more realistically than she has yet done Alma Newton has deepened the effect of those unique spiritual qualities that have from the first distinguished her work.”
NEWTON, W. DOUGLAS. Westward with the Prince of Wales. il *$2.50 (2½c) Appleton 917.1
The author, as special correspondent, accompanied the Prince of Wales on his tour through Canada and the United States and gives his impressions of the Prince, the cities and country through which they passed, and the receptions they received, in an entertaining chatty way.
“He has a distinctive and pleasing style. His volume is as good-humored an account of travels as has appeared for some time.”
“He draws an intimate and charming portrait of the Prince, and furnishes at the same time, an entertaining view of Canada and some cities of the United States as they appear to an intelligent Englishman.”
“Gaily, vividly, even wittily, Mr Newton sets forth what he saw; unimportant and unpretentious as this record of a transcontinental journey across Canada is, it will inspire readers to go and do likewise. Mr Newton writes in a vein of amused appreciation.”
NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION. Newton chapel. $1.50 (2c) Am. Bapt. 252
A selection from the chapel talks delivered during the year 1918–19 by members of the faculty of the Newton theological institution. The first is on The meaning of the New year, by President George E. Horr. Among those that follow are: How Jesus looked at men, by Winfred N. Donovan; The compelling power of Jesus’ personality, by Henry K. Rowe; Freedom and service, by James P. Berkeley; The inner life, by Samuel S. Curry; The joy of forgiveness, by Frederick L. Anderson; The spirit of expectation, by Richard M. Vaughan; James Russell Lowell and the preacher, by Woodman Bradbury. The chapel talks are supplemented by seven addresses at the conference of the Baptist leaders of New England.
“On the whole the talks are unified, interesting, and excellent examples of little sermons.”
“The clergy expect the scientist, the historian, the statesman to stick to known facts, and then wonder why the church does not succeed better while the preacher is permitted to soar off into the realms of the imagination and preach as sacred truth that which finds its origin in theory and its expression in cant. Of course there are good things in the book, much sound advice, many godly admonitions, but it is proper to call attention to a dangerous method of preaching which succeeds in little else than furnishing ground for scepticism.”
NEXÖ, MARTIN ANDERSEN. Ditte: girl alive! *$2 (2c) Holt
This story, translated from the Danish, describes the life of poor fisherfolk and of the poorest of small farmers. It is the story of a little illegitimate girl left in the care of her grandparents, whose one joy in life she becomes. When her mother, a cold, selfish, cruel creature, now married to a rag-and-bone man and huckster, wants her as nurse for her other children, she does not hesitate to take her away from the blind, widowed grandmother. Ditte’s life is wretched, her only true friend her step-father, the jovial rag-and-bone man. She repays him by standing by him, through all his sorrows and afflictions, with indomitable good nature and courage, until she is forced to leave him to go into service.
“The loveliness in human nature and the evil also stand out in sharp relief against the simple, often sordid background. Will interest readers of ‘Pelle the conqueror.’”
“The Danish author has not been fortunate in the translation, however, which is uneven and lacking in idiomatic grace.” E. P.
“With all the straitened cruelty of its events the story has a quality which is almost glamorous. The simple telling and lack of stress somehow give it breadth; it is full of the effect of open spaces. There are passages of great tenderness, and others of fresh gaiety and resilience. Then, too a primary perception of human forces lifts the story out of any narrow bondage.” C. M. Rourke
“The story scrupulously avoids an artificial symmetry of structure and follows, so far as possible, the rhythm of life. The firmness and simplicity of the style shine even through an inferior translation.”
“The English version is a livid corpse, and the only function left for a reviewer who knows the original is that of coroner. In common honesty, Henry Holt & Co. should put on the title page of ‘Ditte: girl alive,’ ‘Mutilated from the Danish,’ and omit the name of the innocent author.” Signe Toksvig
“The characters in the book are flesh-and-blood people and their drab, dreary lives are made very real.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The book deserves to be read. It is well-written, effective, and above all, bears the earmarks of truth.”
“It is to be supposed that, as with ‘Pelle,’ this volume is but one of several dealing with the same characters, and that later Ditte will develop into womanhood. If that be so, Mr Nexö has made an interesting first movement, though it may be hoped that later ones may have the contrast of greater lightness; if this be all, then it can only be regarded as an unfinished fantasia.”
NICHOLS, ROBERT MALISE BOWYER. Aurelia, and other poems. *$2 Dutton 821
“The sequence of ‘Sonnets to Aurelia’ gives the story of a disappointed lover with his mistress whose falseness, though ugly, intensifies the helpless passion of the man. The form of the sonnet in which the poet tells his story is Shakspearean.”—Boston Transcript
“Mr Nichols, like many of the minor Elizabethan lyrists, uses the fourteen lines of the sonnet simply for the sake of their sound, their rich baroque handsomeness of appearance. That is the principal and, to our mind, damning defect of his sonnets. They have no substance. The fountains are dry, the parched stone faces open their mouths to no purpose; we are at a loss to see why the monument was built.”
“Among Mr Nichols’s most potent qualities the quality of vision is the steadiest and strongest. Among the most recent English poets he is the richest in this endowment.” W. S. B.
“The result is, to my taste, like a dish flavoured with nutmeg and cinnamon to which has been added a dash of tabasco sauce.” J: G. Fletcher
“With some of the faults of youth, Mr Nichols has all of its virtues. He is adaptable, he is resourceful, he is restlessly eager to try new methods, to pour his soul into an unaccustomed vessel. He has force, eloquence, fire, and passion.”
“The conspicuous fault of ‘Aurelia’ is the insecurity of its style. Here is a series of quasi-Shakespearian sonnets, in which we have conceits without gracefulness, artifices aimed at intensifying rather than at easing the situations they describe—in brief a conscious author, magnifying an experience the content of which was meagre at the best in imitation of a spontaneous one the experience of which is too full to be contained.”
NICHOLSON, MEREDITH. Blacksheep! blacksheep! il *$1.75 Scribner
“At a dinner in Washington the hero, one Archibald Bennett, whose income encourages his neurasthenia, sits next to a girl who tells him that no man whose life motto is ‘Safety first!’ is likely to have a very good time or escape a bored anaemia. Several days later the same Archie goes to Maine to look at a house for his sister, and the next thing he knows he has shot a man and is a fugitive from justice in the stolen car driven by the ‘governor’! After that you, together with the police forces of most of the states in the Union, are completely in the ‘governor’s’ power.”—N Y Times
“It is as breathlessly contrived and as diverting to follow as a crooked street in a mediaeval town, along which anything might happen.”
“The tale furnishes pleasant diversion.”
NICHOLSON, WATSON. Anthony Aston, stroller and adventurer. *$1.25 The author, South Haven, Mich.
This brief monograph forms a footnote to stage history. Little has been known of Tony Aston, the author says, “save that he was a strolling player for many years, the author of an unsuccessful play and the much more important Brief supplement to Colley Cibber’s apology.” An autobiographical sketch which he happened upon in the British museum in 1914 has been made the basis of Mr Nicholson’s account. This sketch is appended, as is the “Brief supplement.”
“The reprint is welcome and every student interested in ancient Bohemias will be delighted to hear Aston tell, with complete disregard for syntax and in the authentic pot-house style of Ned Ward and the other blackguard wits, of his amazingly varied career.”
“The student of the stage and society will find his career interesting for the light it throws upon the provincial and illegitimate stage of the time, concerning which practically nothing is known.” J. W. Krutch
NICHOLSON, WATSON. Historical sources of DeFoe’s Journal of the plague year. $2 Stratford co. 942.06
DeFoe’s “Journal of the plague year” which has hitherto been classified as fiction and has been accounted as a “masterpiece of the imagination” is here proven, by the aid of extracts from original documents in the Burney collection and manuscript room of the British museum, to be “a faithful record of historical facts, that it was so intended by the author and is as nearly correct as it was humanly possible to make it from the sources and time at his command.” The contents are: Originals and parallels of the stories in DeFoe’s Journal; The historical sources of the Journal; Errors in the Journal; Summary. The appendices consist of excerpts from the original sources of the Journal and from hitherto unpublished documents illustrative of the plague. There is a bibliography.
“Dr Watson Nicholson’s book suffers a little from the researcher’s usual impatience with those who preceded him; a little more from his sometimes odd and slack English; more still from careless proof-reading. But those who are interested in DeFoe should read the book, because the author does more than work his case out closely.”
NICOLAY, HELEN. Boys’ life of Lafayette. il *$1.60 (2½c) Harper
The author writes of Lafayette as “a very gallant, inspiring figure uniting the old world with the new.” She tells her young readers in the preface: “This is no work of fiction. It is sober history; yet if the bare facts it tells were set forth without the connecting links, its preface might be made to look like the plot of a dime novel.” The book is illustrated and has an index.
“Even tho this is pure history, as the author declares, there is a deal of romance in the life of Lafayette to fascinate the young reader.”
NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH WILHELM. Antichrist. (Free lance books) *$1.75 (5c) Knopf 230
Mr Mencken has made a new translation of “The antichrist,” Nietzsche’s last work with the exception of his “Ecce homo.” The introduction states: “The present translation of ‘The antichrist’ is published by agreement with Dr Oscar Levy, editor of the English edition of Nietzsche. There are two earlier translations, one by Thomas Common and the other by Anthony M. Ludovici.... I began this new Englishing of the book, not in any hope of supplanting them, and surely not with any notion of meeting a great public need, but simply as a private amusement in troubled days. But as I got on with it I began to see ways of putting some flavour of Nietzsche’s peculiar style into the English, and so amusement turned into a more or less serious labour.” Mr Mencken’s introduction offers a critical interpretation of Nietzsche.
“Mr Mencken’s translation of Nietzsche’s last considerable work is lively and energetic, and his introduction is a happy example of his critical writing.”
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
NIVEN, FREDERICK JOHN. Tale that is told. *$1.90 (1½c) Doran
The simple uneventful chronicle of a Scotch clergyman’s family, told in a leisurely manner. The father is a genial egotist who had preached to Queen Victoria at Balmoral and who never lets this fact be lost sight of. The story follows the course of the six children’s lives after his death, telling of their worldly success, business affairs, love affairs and marriages. For a time three of the brothers conduct a book store and circulating library, of which an amusing account is given.
“He takes such a ‘slice of life’ as might delight Mr Hugh Walpole, and he treats it quite in the manner of Mr Walpole, only—and it is an important difference—he lacks something of his vitality. The substance is more level, a level quality not due to restraint but to quality of vision.” D. L. M.
“The scenes in the library are especially good.”
“The novel as a whole reflects the commonplace lives of the vast majority of us, ‘such poor little figures struggling along in the jungle’ with considerable accuracy.”
“I wish I could feel the glow that so many writing people seem to be feeling about Frederick Niven’s ‘A tale that is told.’ It is pleasant enough, human enough in its somewhat lacklustre fashion; but in the end not much more than ‘a long preparation for something that never happens.’”
“The characters are unusually alive; it is a pity that they all lack charm. The book is well constructed; the author has distinct ability.”
“It is refreshing to come upon a man who can write both lightly and profoundly and who can mingle tenderness and humor without losing the force of either.”
“It is not a story with a pattern, but there is a frame to it that gives it bounds and a focus that gives it coherence; there is sunlight in it—the pale northern sunlight of Scotland. The characterization is clear and the more pungent for its tolerance.”
NOGUCHI, YONÉ (MISS MORNING GLORY, pseud.). Japanese hokkus. *$2 Four seas co. 895
The hokku is the seventeen syllable poem of Japan which the author describes at some length in the preface. This preface is in itself a prose poem in its quaint English and with the vista it opens into the Japanese mind. The real value of the hokku, we are told, is not in what it expresses but how it expresses itself spiritually: not in its physical directness but in its psychological indirectness. It is “like a spider-thread laden with the white summer dews, swaying among the branches of a tree; ... that sway indeed, not the thread itself, is the beauty of our seventeen syllable poem.” Of the translating of the hokku the author says, it is like the attempt to bring down the spider-net and hang it up in another place. The epilogue is a reflection on the introduction of western civilization into Japan.
“‘Japanese hokkus’ is remarkable for at least two reasons; one, because its poems are of that sensitive and illusive loveliness that is rare in the realism of contemporary publications, and another because the book links the literature of the Orient and the Occident rather more than any other poet whom we recall.” K. B.
“Whether it is because he is writing in a foreign language, or because English cannot have packed into it the associations of thousands of years and the treasure of half-forgotten philosophies, the Japanese poet fails to produce the effect achieved by Waley in his translations.” Babette Deutsch
“To enjoy this present volume and to be deaf to Mr Walter de la Mare—or to Shakespeare’s songs, for that matter—is to enjoy the art page of the newspaper more than a visit to the originals in the art gallery.” Llewellyn Jones
NOLEN, JOHN. New ideals in the planning of cities, towns and villages. il $1 (3c) Am. city bureau, Tribune bldg., N.Y. 710
“The cities of the United States have not yet made many of those public improvements that are so essential to modern life, especially for the new era.... They have not yet applied in a businesslike and economical manner the methods characteristic of the modern city planning movement. Therefore the American city still suffers in many ways from haphazard, piecemeal and shortsighted procedure.” (Part 1) To show how these shortcomings are to be remedied, how the new civic spirit is growing, what has already been done and what is the promise of the future is the object of the book. Among the topics discussed in the first part are: Two main divisions of city planning; Specific needs of the smaller city; How to replan a city; How to get a city plan into action. Part 2 contains in part: The city planning movement; Local data as basis of city plan; Types of city plans; Elements of city plans; Professional training and experience; New towns and new standards; Public opinion and city planning progress.
“We have never seen within such small compass a clearer description of the processes of town planning or of the principles that underlie good planning. A special merit of the book is that it reckons with the limitations and difficulties of the small town where at the present time such leadership as this is most needed and where examples taken from the costly improvement schemes of large cities are not helpful.” B. L.
NORRIS, KATHLEEN (THOMPSON) (MRS CHARLES GILMAN NORRIS). Harriet and the piper. il *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
Harriet Fields had an emotional adventure when she was seventeen, and her romantic fancy was captured by Royal Blondin’s talk on Yogi philosophy, oriental religion and poetry. She even went through a bogus marriage ceremony with him when her youthful timorousness saved her from further disaster. Ten years later, when she is filling a position of trust, as companion to the wife of the rich Richard Carter and governess to his daughter Nina, Blondin crosses her path again holding their former relationship over her as a sword, to enlist her aid in the furtherance of his new schemes, i. e., marrying young Nina Carter and possessing himself of her fortune. It involves Harriet in many temptations. Twixt the overcoming of and yielding to them her character is clarified. After Mrs Carter’s elopement and sudden death, Harriet enters a marriage of convenience with Richard Carter, whom she secretly loves and admires and the wooing by the husband of his new wife forms part of the interest of the book.
“A lively and interesting story.”
“Well worn, even threadbare as her material is, Kathleen Norris has contrived to concoct from it a very pleasant little story, and one which holds the reader’s attention until the last half dozen chapters, when it begins to drag badly. It is smoothly written, and agreeable to read.”
“Readers who can put aside the insubstantial theme and the artificial dilemmas attributed to the principals, will find some entertainment in the flow of life and color through their vaguely troubled days.”
NORWOOD, GILBERT.[2] Greek tragedy. $5 Luce, J: W. 882
“The summaries and criticisms of the extant plays constitute the main body of the book, forty-eight pages being given to Æschylus, fifty-four to Sophocles, a hundred and forty-one to Euripides. The book, as the author says, ‘aims to cover the whole field of the Greek drama, both for the student and the general reader.’”—N Y Evening Post
“We think that, for Euripides, his present work is sound as well as interesting. When we turn to his treatment of Æschylus and Sophocles, we feel that in attempting to cover the whole ground, Mr Norwood has undertaken more than he is at present ready to perform.” J. T. Sheppard
“It is certainly a convenience to have in one volume the literary criticism of the extant plays and the general history of Greek tragedy and the antiquities of the theatre, instead of looking for them in the two volumes of Haigh. In these subsidiary matters Professor Norwood’s scholarship though not independent is sufficient for his purpose. He still retains the British awe of any and all German scholarship and the British habit of ignoring American work.” Paul Shorly
“He writes throughout as an enthusiast, and illustrates his points by modern parallels which are always ingenious, and often happy. Reference might have been made to the modern performances of various plays, for the best way to understand any drama is to see it acted. The chapter on ‘Metre and rhythm’ at the end is an excellent idea well carried out.”
NOYES, ALFRED. Beyond the desert; a tale of Death valley. *$1 (7½c) Stokes
The story is symbolic of a soul losing itself in a desert of ideas before it emerges into the light of clear understanding. James Baxter, an I.W.W., is a prisoner in transport and escapes from a stalled train into Death valley in the Arizona desert. His hardships bring on delirium and in a trance he finds himself among a halted pioneer party of 1849. In exchanging notes on their respective civilizations with them he comes to see the error of his ways and when he is finally rescued he goes among his I.W.W. comrades to convince them also. He is successful with the crowd but the infuriated leaders kill him.
“Though Mr Noyes’s work is earnest and readable, we wish that so experienced a hand had not permitted polemics, poetics, and melodrama to crowd the same pages.”
“The very qualities that one admires in such a poem as ‘The highwayman,’ depreciate when used in the prose form. It is possible that in verse the story would not seem so lacking in vitality. The descriptions of the desert are good; the style is fairly clear; and yet there is a quality of unreality, of dreaminess, of sentimentality.”
NOYES, ALFRED. Collected poems. v 3 *$2.50 Stokes 821
A volume containing all of Mr Noyes’ poems written between October, 1913, and the present. With the two volumes published in 1913 it forms a complete edition of the poet’s verse to date. It comprises The Lord of Misrule and other poems; The wine-press; A Belgian Christmas eve; The new morning; The elfin artist and other poems.
“Mr Noyes possesses a delightful singing gift in his carefree moments—and can bore us almost to tears when the sense of his ‘message’ to the world descends upon him. When he turns to glamourous romantic ballads and to brief, sincere, intensely spiritual lyrics, such as ‘Paraclete,’ he is at his best.”
“Whenever he writes sermons and dissertations and criticisms in verse he fails. Whenever he writes ballads he succeeds. However, there are a few other poems in this volume for which we should thank Mr Noyes, notably ‘Old gray squirrel,’ the pathetic ‘Court martial’ and ‘A victory dance.’”
NOYES, ALFRED. Elfin artist, and other poems. *$1.50 Stokes 821
The elfin artist is the initial poem of this collection of verse written by the author since the spring of 1919. Some of the other poems are: Earth and her birds; Sea-distances; The inn of Apollo; The Sussex sailor; In southern California; The riddles of Merlin; The isle of memories; A ballad of the easier way; A Devonshire Christmas; Beautiful on the bough; The bride-ale; A sky song; A return from the air; A victory dance; The garden of peace; Four songs, after Verlaine.
“No Elizabethan could conceivably have written one of his poems. The conscious romanticism, the sentimentality, the imperialism expressed with a catch in the voice, the blurred, soft, unprecise language, the barrel-organ tunefulness—all these things, so characteristic of Mr Noyes, would have been impossible to an Elizabethan.”
“So sharply do these poems recall the poet of ‘The barrel-organ’ that we wonder whether the recent neglect of Noyes was reasonable; surely, with such books as these, he will yet sing his way back into the hearts of English readers.” S: Roth
“Not in any of what may be termed the petulant and irritable, spirited poems of this collection, striking as some may be for their frank and vehement qualities, is Mr Noyes’s reputation either sustained or enhanced. One may truly say that the poems that spring out of the Sussex scene, with their half-bucolic and traditional mood, alone retain the admiration of Mr Noyes’s readers.” W. S. B.
“Their redeeming features are Mr Noyes’ ability to handle metre and the very evident pleasure he takes in writing. That pleasure is a quality quite lacking in many modern poets who write far better than Mr Noyes.”
“Mr Noyes continues to write his pleasant anachronisms and it must be admitted that he does them with the usual dexterity and mellifluousness that is so much a part of his charm. He does possess charm and no one will actually die of ennui while reading his lines. But readers could far better occupy themselves with other poets, for Mr Noyes brings nothing new to his readers, not even his thought.” H. S. Gorman
“‘The elfin artist’ is the product of the author’s mature lyric gift, rich in variety or form and theme, and offering an equal appeal to the emotions and to the mind.” Philip Tillinghast
“Mr Noyes continues to annoy the devotees of all the varieties of free verse by his ability to use rhyme, and to observe the rules of prosody.” E. L. Pearson
“His gift to literature is twofold. He can write well himself and he can prevent others from writing badly.”
“With one or two exceptions, each of Mr Noyes’s poems is no better and no worse than any of the others. To study the volume is to get the impression of sameness, of easy fluidity, of lack both of thought and of labour. His simplicity is not the simplicity of compression and refinement. His responsiveness sweeps away his thought.”
NOYES, FRANCES NEWBOLD. My A. E. F.; a hail and farewell. *$1 (12c) Stokes 940.373
A book in the form of a familiar talk to A. E. F. boys by a girl who was a Y. M. C. A. worker in France. It is an appeal to them to remember the ideals they fought for, and to apply them in the new war “against selfishness and materialism and intolerance and hatred.” It is reprinted from McClure’s Magazine.
“A very fine and moving bit of writing is Miss Noyes’s little book, simple, comradely, full of memories, and wise with the wisdom of Eve. The book ought to be read by every man who served on the other side and also by every person at home who has ever said a slighting word about any of the phases of the welfare work for the army.”
NUTT, HUBERT WILBUR. Supervision of instruction. (Riverside textbooks in education) *$1.80 Houghton 371
“The shifting, unprofessional character of the teaching body makes the provision for competent supervision of instruction not only desirable, but necessary.... The undertaking of training supervisors involves the setting-forth of the job or activities of supervision, and the organizing of the means by which supervisors can best be trained to perform their duties.” (Introd.) The book is, accordingly, an analytical discussion of the principles underlying class-room supervision, and the devices and technique which should and which should not be employed. It falls into two parts. Part 1, The job of supervision, is a general survey of supervising activities. Part II[or 2?—see above], Principles underlying the supervision of instruction, is divided into the following sections: Supervisory method; Devices of supervision; Technique of supervision. There is an index.
“The book is to be welcomed as one of the first serious and successful attempts to create a specific literature for supervisors.”
NYBURG, SIDNEY LAUER. Gate of ivory. *$2.25 (1½c) Knopf
This is the story of Allan Conway who loved a beautiful siren of a woman and loved her so well that he allowed himself to be saddled with her and her husband’s crime, in order to shield her and to become an outcast for her sake. The remarkable part of the story is that, as an outcast, he loved her still, that he did not become a cynic—although he did take to drink periodically—and that he was even happy in the dream life that he now lived with his Eleanor. This life he elaborated in every detail from the house he built for and the conversations he had with her even to their dream child. A Peter Ibbetson with a difference is this Allan Conway.
O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD. Prize stories, 1919. *$1.90 (1½c) Doubleday
A volume published as a memorial to O. Henry and composed of the fifteen short stories which a committee of the Society of arts and sciences of New York city have decided on as the best short stories of 1919. Blanche Colton Williams writes the introduction. Contents: England to America, by Margaret Prescott Montague; “For they know not what they do,” by Wilbur Daniel Steele; They grind exceeding small, by Ben Ames Williams; On strike, by Albert Payson Terhune; The elephant remembers, by Edison Marshall; Turkey red, by Frances Gilchrist Wood; Five thousand dollars reward, by Melville Davisson Post; The blood of the dragon, by Thomas Grant Springer; “Humoresque,” by Fannie Hurst; The lubbeny kiss, by Louise Rice; The trial in Tom Belcher’s store, by Samuel A. Derieux; Porcelain cups, by James Branch Cabell; The high cost of conscience, by Beatrice Ravenel; The kitchen gods, by G. F. Alsop; April 25th, as usual, by Edna Ferber.
“One can only wish that more of such volumes might be issued, for many of our American writers are at their best in the short story. The ‘O. Henry memorial award’ volume of 1919 is a book well worth reading.”
OAKESMITH, JOHN. Race and nationality; an inquiry into the origin and growth of patriotism. *$4 Stokes 320.1
“As the result of an attempt to arrive at a lucid conception and precise definition of ‘a nationality,’ the author thinks that he has discovered the explanation of nationality ‘in what may be formally called the principle of “organic continuity of common interest”‘; and the constructive part of the book is devoted to the elucidation of this principle. The author considers that universal and lasting peace will be secured, not by ‘the sudden imposition of hastily manufactured machinery,’ but by the gradual extension of the above principle from national to international life.”—Ath
Reviewed by F. J. Whiting
Reviewed by I. C. Hannah
“This is a treatise of ability, displaying considerable knowledge of the literature of the subject.”
“It would not be difficult to show that there are inconsistencies in the discussion and conclusions arrived at by Mr Oakesmith; inconsistencies traceable largely to his desire to do justice to the representatives of all shades of opinion. It may be more profitable than dwelling on such points to note one or two omissions from the volume, in particular the demands of what may be called pseudo-nationality; that form of it which is not the slow result of continuously operating influences, but is artificially created.”
O’BRIEN, EDWARD JOSEPH HARRINGTON (ARTHUR MIDDLETON, pseud.). Best short stories of 1919. *$2 (1½c) Small
The authors represented in this year’s volume are: G. F. Alsop; Sherwood Anderson; Edwina Stanton Babcock; Djuna Barnes; Frederick Orin Bartlett; Agnes Mary Brownell; Maxwell Struthers Burt; James Branch Cabell; Horace Fish; Susan Glaspell; Henry Goodman; Richard Matthew Hallet; Joseph Hergesheimer; Will E. Ingersoll; Calvin Johnston; Howard Mumford Jones; Ellen N. La Motte; Elias Lieberman; Mary Heaton Vorse, and Anzia Yezierski. The book contains also an introduction by Mr O’Brien, discussing points raised by Waldo Frank’s “Our America,” and the usual features of the Year book of the short story.
“Of the twenty stories an indifferent half-dozen barely pass the average.... Sherwood Anderson’s ‘An awakening,’ and Joseph Hergesheimer’s ‘The Meeker ritual,’ have the distinction of subtlety and style, irrespective of theme. You feel about the other authors that each might with a little effort have written the other’s story, but these two of Anderson’s and Hergesheimer’s could only have been written by themselves.” W. S. B.
Reviewed by Doris Webb
“Mr O’Brien’s standards define themselves with precision, and a summary of his tests will serve as test for Mr O’Brien. He has no eye for style. The second point in literature to which Mr O’Brien is insensitive is tone. The third and final want is the sense of workmanship. Mr O’Brien, however, has qualities which are as incontestable as his limitations. He has a keen, if not infallible, sense, of the powerful in motive, the original and trenchant in conception. Mr O’Brien’s collection will be of service to those readers who are wise enough to grasp its limitations.”
O’BRIEN, GEORGE A. T. Essay on mediaeval economic teaching. *$4.75 (*12s 6d) Longmans 330.9
“Mr O’Brien passes in review the principal economic theories of the medieval schoolmen, not continuing the study farther than the beginning of the sixteenth century. In a concluding chapter he gives reasons for a favourable estimate of the medieval economic doctrine from the points of view of production, consumption and distribution.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is a truism (which unfortunately is rarely true) to say of a new book that it supplies a long felt want: but in the case of Dr O’Brien’s essay to say so would be strictly true. Mediæval economic theory has never before been discussed with the fullness it merited.”
Reviewed by C: A. Beard
“It is a work of learning and ability, concerned rather with the clear and concise presentation of doctrine than with the criticism of it.”
“The historian who peruses this book will put it down with mixed feelings of amusement over the wordy contest and of despair at the unfamiliarity the combatants display with the alphabet of historical science.”
ODELL, GEORGE CLINTON DENSMORE. Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving. 2v il *$12 Scribner 822.3
“Professor Odell has undertaken to do for all Shakespeare’s plays, tragedies and comedies, histories and dramatic romances, what has hitherto been attempted for two of the tragedies only, in Miss Wood’s ‘Stage history of Richard III,’ and in Brereton’s rather sketchy account of the various performances of ‘Hamlet.’ He has organized his two volumes in eight chronological divisions: the age of Betterton (1660–1710); the age of Cibber (1710–1742); the age of Garrick (1742–1776); the age of Kemble (1776–1817); the leaderless age (1817–1837); The age of Macready (1837–1843); the age of Phelps and Charles Kean (1843–1879), and the age of Irving (1879–1902). Not only does he give us what is to a certain extent a history of the theatres of London, he also supplies us with what is almost (if not quite) a history of the superb evolution of the art of scene painting.”—N Y Times
“Students should be grateful to Professor Odell for the painstaking manner in which he has traced the fate of Shakespeare on the English stage. Mr Odell has attacked the subject with freshness and zest. His enthusiasm never seems to flag.... Admire his work as I do, I am convinced that had Mr Odell been more thoroughly in sympathy with the new ‘unrest’ in the theater, he would have seen more clearly certain points relating the past with the present.” M. J. Moses
“No better medium than the work of Professor George C. D. Odell has thus far been provided to apprehend the gradual evolution of stage decoration, costume, and attention to historic accuracy.” H. H. Furness, jr
“It is no dry-as-dust chronicle that he has here given us. It is a readable book that he proffers, a book abounding in apt anecdote, in illuminating quotation and in genial comment. Although the author has had to correct many blunders and many misstatements of many predecessors, he spares us the acrimony of controversy.” Brander Matthews
O’DONNELL, ELLIOT. Menace of spiritualism. *$1.50 (3½c) Stokes 134
The author of the book, himself an investigator in the field of psychic research and a believer in spontaneous manifestations of the spirits of the dead, condemns the practice of spiritualism, with its mediumistic invocations of spirits as a vice. Its dangers are many. From the point of view of orthodox Christianity it menaces faith and morality alike; from that of the medical profession it is injurious to health; from that of the greater number of most eminent scientists it is a sham; and from the point of view of common sense it is a hotch-potch of imbecility, gullibility, and roguery. Contents: Foreword by Father Bernard Vaughan; “Spiritualism”—what is it? How spiritualism tries to distort the Old Testament; Spiritualism and the New Testament; Spiritualism and the churches; The phenomenal side of spiritualism and its effect on the health; The danger of fraud of all kinds at séances.
“He delivers some shrewd blows, and in a popular manner sets forth a strong case against spiritualists and their operations.”
“Such protests are welcome, however much they fall short of the sanction of a high consistency; it is hardly to be expected that a critic of Mr O’Donnell’s electric temper will find favor with those who see in psychical research a far wider menace and a subtler attack upon the fundamentals of sound thinking. Yet to part of the composite clientèle from which latter-day recruits for the occult are gathered, this earnest word of warning may prove helpful.” Joseph Jastrow
O’DUFFY, EIMAR. Wasted island. *$2 (1c) Dodd
A story of Ireland and the Irish movement culminating in the Easter rebellion. Bernard Lascelles, son of a successful Dublin doctor, is brought up in ignorance of his country’s history. In fact it is part of his father’s purpose to keep him in ignorance, fearing that the boy may take after his uncle Christopher Reilly, who died fighting England on the side of the Boers. Bernard is sent to an English school, but in spite of his father’s efforts is drawn into the Nationalist and later into the Sinn Fein movements, a letter left by his uncle Christopher to be read on his twenty-first birthday proving the turning point in his life. A very different bringing up is that of Stephen Ward, whose father, a discouraged Fenian, hopes that his son may never wreck his life in the hopeless cause but does not deny him knowledge. Both young men oppose the Easter uprising but both are involved in it. Bernard is wrecked by it but Stephen escapes. “‘And now,’ said Michael Ward to his son, ‘now that everything has turned out as I told you it would, what do you mean to do?’ ‘I suppose,’ replied Stephen, ‘we must begin all over again.’”
“The story is long and the plot complicated but it is well told and the interest is sustained to the close.”
“Although, as an artistic piece of work, the book leaves much to be desired, its vigour and sincerity save it from the category of the mediocre.” L. M. R.
“It is one-sided and its heroes are not very attractive characters, but it is interesting and informing.”
“Mr O’Duffy is refreshingly free from didacticism. He allows the facts to explain for themselves, and does not make any indictment in the bitter, devastating manner of Brinsley McNamara’s ‘The clanking of chains.’ Regarded as a human document this book should be of great interest and assistance to readers in America who want to understand the Ireland which confronts them in alarming headlines.” E. A. Boyd
“The animus of the book as a whole is unmistakable. Hate for England rather than love for Ireland is the mainspring of this active ‘patriotism.’” H. W. Boynton
OEMLER, MRS MARIE (CONWAY). Purple heights. *$2 (2c) Century
The hero is Peter Devereaux Champneys, a boy of eleven when the story opens. The scene is South Carolina where Peter lives in a four-roomed cabin with his mother, who runs a sewing machine to keep herself and Peter alive. Peter, who is considered a dunce in school, spends all his odd moments making pictures. One day he sketches the Red admiral—the beautiful butterfly that alighted on the milkweed pod by the side of the road—and the Red admiral proves to be his good fairy. His mother dies and Peter brings himself up, with the aid of Emma Campbell, a faithful negress. An unknown uncle appears out of the West and offers to send Peter to Paris, and so anxious is Peter to get to Paris that he accepts the uncle’s strange terms, marriage with an unknown Nancy Simms. His first sight of Nancy Simms is disconcerting, for she is a red-haired virago, but he runs away to Paris immediately after the ceremony and forgets her. In Paris he becomes famous and in the meantime Nancy grows up to be a beautiful woman and all ends well.
“Excellent, forceful writing appears on the earlier pages. Soon the benevolent persons enter, one after another, and they reflect urban life. The naturalness and sincerity of the story lessen.” R. D. W.
“A new author, writing real literature, is Mrs Oemler.” Lilian Bell
“The author knows the South, and her understanding of the black man’s mind is demonstrated on nearly every page. ‘The purple heights’ is a worthy successor to Mrs Oemler’s first success, ‘Slippy McGee.’”
“When Peter grows up and goes to Paris and becomes famous the charm vanishes and interest lags. It is in her beginnings that the author is most successful.”
“Decidedly inferior to ‘Slippy McGee,’ but nevertheless an entertaining story, with some delightful passages describing the hero’s youth.”
OGILVIE, PAUL MORGAN. International waterways. *$3 Macmillan 387
“‘International waterways’ is a history of the development of maritime enterprise. It sets forth the efforts of certain nations to secure the exclusive enjoyment of the seas. The first part of Mr Ogilvie’s book concludes with a critical discussion of the question of the freedom of commercial navigation. Part II is composed of a reference manual, where is to be found a list of all the international inland waterways of the world, together with the treaties and laws governing the same.”—Springf’d Republican
Reviewed by A. F. Hershey
“A valuable reference work. If there is any fault to be found with Mr Ogilvie’s work it is a fault perhaps inseparable from the breadth of the task and the limited size of the volume. The author has neither the time nor the space to pause for that wealth of illustration which the reader would like to demand. But he constantly cites his sources and the reader who is interested in more detailed study may turn to them.” G. H. C.
“The international lawyer, the historian, and the general student of modern problems will each be grateful to Mr Ogilvie for his helpful work.” M. W. Tyler
“Mr Ogilvie’s thoughtful treatise is very timely.” L. J. B.
“A scholarly, well-written history.”
“The bibliography of treaties is likely to be of much practical use in coming years and represents a great deal of most fruitful labour. The bibliography of works dealing with the subject, though not exhaustive, will be helpful. An excellent index concludes a very thorough piece of work.”
O’HIGGINS, HARVEY JERROLD. Secret springs. *$2 (3c) Harper 130
The author outlines the system of a Dr X who has “largely uncovered the mechanism by which the mind affects health” and who has evolved this system of mental hygiene according to which he treats his patients and directs them to safeguard themselves. It is based on the Freudian theory of psychoanalysis from which Dr X deviates and upon which he enlarges to some extent by not emphasising the sex element with the same insistence. The contents consider suppressions: In love and marriage; In health; In childhood; In happiness and success; In Theodore Roosevelt; In character and conduct; In dreams; In religion.
“Mr O’Higgins is agreeably free of Freudian and sexual obsessions.”
“It is a very cheerful book, not only because it escapes what the writer calls the ‘unspeakable’ abstruseness and laboratory gruesomeness of the expositions of Freud and his followers, but also because everybody gets cured.” Renee Darmstadter
O’KELLY, SEUMAS. Golden barque; and The weaver’s grave. *$1.75 (4c) Putnam
The longest tale in this collection, “The weaver’s grave,” describes an ancient graveyard “Cloon na Morav,” the meadow of the dead. So ancient is it that to have a right of burial there amounts to a pedigree. It is only the weaver, newly dead, and one survivor, Malachi Roohan, the cooper, who still have that right. On two other ancient inhabitants of the town devolves the task of finding the weaver’s grave. It is a well-nigh hopeless quest, related with insight and weird humor. The rest of the book, under the heading “The golden barque” consists of: Michael and Mary; Hike and Calcutta; The haven; Billy the clown; The derelict; The man with the gift.
“Slight plots, delightful people and the characteristic Celtic humor.”
“‘The golden barque’ is so finely and purely Irish that it is doubtful whether a child could make the most of it. But these are tales with so much literary and poetic quality that it would be unfortunate not at least to give the child a chance.”
“There is an indescribable charm in these two Irish stories, which is attributable to the manner in which they are told, rather than to any extraordinary merit in plot and action.”
“I shall recall the book for the long sketch with which it begins, but which for obvious reasons is not the title-story: ‘The weaver’s grave,’ a comedy most limited in scene and accessory, but rich in content and perfect in form.” H. W. Boynton
“His characters are new, not picked from the crowd but found here and there in Ireland with individuality stamped all over them. They are not very important characters, but such as they are they challenge attention.”
“If all these little stories were as beautifully told as the first, the set would be a rare delight. They vary in merit, and usually fall when Mr O’Kelly relies on detail, to rise again when he opens his inner vision.”
OLCOTT, FRANCES JENKINS. Story-telling ballads. il *$3 Houghton 821.08
The anthology contains seventy-seven of the ancient ballads and narrative poems such as were sung by minstrels and recited by gaffers and gammers in days of old. They are intended for boys and girls from twelve to fifteen years of age, and contain “romances, hero-tales, faërie legends and adventures of knights and lovely damsels. They sing of proud and wicked folk, of gentle and loyal ones, of laidley worms, witches, mermaids with golden combs, sad maidens, glad ones and fearless lovers, mosstroopers, border-rievers, and kings in disguise.” (Foreword) There are four color-prints, and the appendix contains suggestions for teachers, a glossary and indexes of subjects, authors, titles and first lines. The contents are grouped under the headings: The salt blue seas; A-harrowing o’ the border; Brave hearts and proud; Lays o’ faërie; Lays o’ wonder; Merry gestes; Sad gestes; Pretty mays and knights so bold; For Halloween and midsummer eve; All under the greenwood tree; O’ pilgrimage and souls so strong.
“Miss Olcott has selected her ballads with good taste, and the indexes and glossary are excellent.”
OLCOTT, HARRIET MEAD. Whirling king, and other French fairy tales. il *$1.50 Holt
Ten fairy stories adapted from the French and illustrated in silhouette. The titles are: Prince Rainbow; Bleuette’s butterfly; The frozen heart; The elf-dog; The whirling king; The magic mirror; The queen’s treasure; The stupid princess; The flying wizard; The forest fairy.
OLDMEADOW, ERNEST JAMES. Coggin *$1.75 (1½c) Century
The meeting of two human spirits for mutual uplift, development and regeneration is the theme of the story. The Reverend Oswald Redding, rector of a fashionable Episcopal church in Bulford-on-Deme, discovers in little Harry Coggin, son of a rags-and-bone man, a prodigy in intellect and spirit. In awarding him a scholarship at the grammar school, he has thrown a bombshell into the society of notables and inflamed the class hatred of the lowly. The story records Harry’s brief and distressing career at the school and shows how his rare gifts and spirit pierce the crust of the rector’s conventional Christianity, turning him from the well-worn ruts of his career to find God along new paths. Harry in turn receives the courage, the incentive, the divine impulse for his genius, from the rector’s enveloping love.
“The clever, respectful little boy, in this bit of his life, is perhaps a less interesting study than the more substantial figure of the rector. The case of the misuse of endowments and charities is intelligently argued; but we cannot believe in the ‘conversion’ of the socialist house-painter, and the definition of agnosticism would not satisfy an intelligent schoolboy.”
“This strange, extraordinarily attractive little personality is Mr Oldmeadow’s discovery, and from the moment we meet him talking to George Placker we are prepared to follow him anywhere he may like to take us. The novel as a whole lacks proportion. The closing scenes, with the rector for principal figure, are far too drawn out.” K. M.
“A quiet picture, very life-like, appealing to readers who do not demand much plot.”
“The story is the result of a literary craftsmanship worthy of notice.”
“No doubt the book is to be classed as propaganda; but propaganda is seldom so engagingly presented. The book has faults, the more irritating because they could have been easily avoided had the author exerted himself a little more. Nevertheless, its vitality is deep-rooted and its appeal is wide.”
“The first of a trilogy evidently ambitious of being the English ‘Jean Christophe.’ Though of fine craftsmanship and possessing a certain unique charm, not on the same artistic plane.”
“The story has charm and a warm subdued color and a savor of the earth and of old houses in forgotten sunshine.”
“Coggin is, to tell the truth, a fearful prig, and the reader must have a patient way with priggish and humorless virtue to bear with him till the end of the present narrative. The story is told with a certain skill and polish; but it is not very clearly worth telling, for all that.”
OLGIN, MOISSAYE JOSEPH. Guide to Russian literature (1820–1917). $3 (3½c) Harcourt 891.7
Because Russian literature reproduces the spiritual struggles of men and goes down to the very bottom of everyday existence to scrutinize the economic, the social and the political life of the country, its study becomes valuable not only as an art but as the surest road to the understanding of the Russian people and conditions. The author therefore has selected from the literary productions of the nineteenth and twentieth century only those which have value for the present either on account of their artistic qualities, or as representing some aspect of Russian life. The contents are in three chronological groups, each preceded by a general survey of the era. Part I—The growth of a national literature; Part II—The “modernists”; Part III—The recent tide. The book also contains a list of pronunciations of authors’ names, an appendix on juvenile literature in Russia, and an index.
“This might well be called an inspired booklist. It answers the question ‘What shall I read to understand Russian character and Russian life?’”
“The grouping of the material in this rather ‘sketchy’ volume is somewhat inadequate. Authors whose influence was very small are at times given more attention and space than is seemly in comparison to those who are very characteristic and important both from the historical and psychological point of view.”
“It is fresh in its treatment, original in its scheme and far more intelligently comprehensive than any other available handbook.”
“Mr Olgin combines an initiate’s grasp of the political and social background of his country with an intense and catholic appreciation of its literature and his command of incisive and pictorial English might be envied by writers to whom the tongue is native.” Jacob Zeitlin
“The book is expressly not devised as a ‘history,’ yet the American reader or student of Russian literature will find it of much greater value as a history than any so-called history he can lay his hands on in English.” Clarendon Ross
“In view of the number of authors dealt with, it is only natural the individual sections should prove more or less uneven. Some are splendid; others are far from satisfactory. The work as a whole is an excellent production.”
“That quality of compactness which one demands in a handbook is not invariably adhered to.”
“Mr Olgin has managed to convey an exceptionally colorful and rich picture of each of these writers, with a good deal of detail crowded into a small space.”
OLIVER, MAUDE I. G. First steps in the enjoyment of pictures. il *$1.50 (4c) Holt 750
A book designed for boys and girls which may also be helpful to other beginners in picture study. The fifty-five illustrations show examples from American museums and art galleries, and are limited to the work of American painters. One aim of the book is “to furnish a background for the reading of descriptive books on art.” Consequently the author has taken pains to introduce all the accepted art terms and phrases and to make their meaning clear. Contents: Media (two chapters); Classification; Color; Draughtsmanship; Values; Perspective; Composition; Technique; Character; Conclusion—A glimpse into fairyland (a suggested pageant).
“Any boy or girl above the age of twelve may use this book to advantage and will find it interesting and suggestive as well as instructive.”
OLMSTEAD, FLORENCE. Stafford’s Island. *$1.75 (2c) Scribner
Clarissa Stafford had grown up a lonely child on a lonely island, off the Georgia coast, with her apathetic, hermit grandfather, Peter Stafford. Her loneliness had developed occult powers in her and she sometimes felt certain that she saw the reflection of a man in the mirror of the drawing room where the picture of her grandmother, whose namesake and image she was, hung over the fireplace. When Clarissa is twenty a young man is washed ashore in a storm who resembles the vision. It all comes out in the story how Henry Thorne is the grandson of the man who painted Clarissa Stafford, and how that accounts for the picture and then ran off with the older the mysterious affinity that draws the living young people irresistibly towards each other.
“Miss Olmstead has, with appealing artistry, woven a fascinating love story.”
OMORI, ANNIE SHEPLEY, and KOCHI DOI, trs. Diaries of court ladies of old Japan. il *$5 Houghton 895
An introduction to the book by Amy Lowell describes the time and environment in which the ladies of these diaries wrote and gives a biographical sketch of each of them. The time was the middle of the Heian period which lasted from 794 to 1186, when Japan was thoroughly civilized, even “a little overcivilized, a little too fined down and delicate” and when women occupied an advanced position—they were educated, allowed a share of inheritance and had their own houses. Much of the best literature of Japan has been written by women. A common characteristic of the diaries is delicacy, rare and exquisite taste and skill in poetic composition. The ladies are Sarashina, Murasaki Shikibu and Izumi Shikibu. The illustrations are from Japanese prints, some in color, and the appendix contains an Old Japanese calendar and a chronological table of events connected with the diaries.
“A delightful curiosity and an attractively made book.”
“The literary quality of the three diaries is extremely high. They would all be eminently readable if written only yesterday. Added to the joyment of their intrinsic merits is the fact that they present a faithful picture of the court life of the times as well as some singularly striking contrasts between three women of totally different temperaments.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
O’NEILL, EUGENE GLADSTONE. Beyond the horizon; a play in three acts. *$1.50 Boni & Liveright 812
“The tragedy of the misfit. Robert Mayo, a young farm born dreamer who longs to travel ‘beyond the horizon,’ gives up going to sea when he finds out that Ruth Atkins loves him but refuses to sail with him. His brother Andrew, as well fitted to be a farmer as Robert is unfitted to be a farmer becomes a sailor. Robert marries Ruth, but they soon cease to love each other and Robert, wasted by tuberculosis, crawls out of the house to die ‘alone—in a ditch by the open road—watching the sun rise.’”—Wis Lib Bul
“A powerful, grim ironic tragedy.”
“Mr O’Neill is most successful with such primitive types as Ruth. When he approaches a complex nature like Robert’s, his presentation is weaker. ‘Beyond the horizon’ is a good drama. It might have been a great one but for two defects that create and sustain each other, namely the theatre-consciousness of the playwright, and the fact that he is a too anxious father to his brood.” Lola Ridge
“The appeal of ‘Beyond the horizon’ is instantaneous, but lasting. Never is it reduced to cleverness; never does it compromise with the American audience. Its truth is too profound and too soul-stirring to carry in one eye a smile, in the other a tear.”
ONIONS, BERTA (RUCK) (MRS OLIVER ONIONS). Bridge of kisses. il *$2 (2½c) Dodd
A story as sentimental as its title. Josephine Dale becomes engaged to a very worthy young man, Hilary Sykes, but obviously the wrong man for her. She frankly admits to herself that she is only doing it to give her mother peace of mind about her future. A young bridge-builder comes into the neighborhood on an engineering project, and, as his mother and hers had been girlhood friends, she takes a friendly interest in him, and that interest finally prompts her to find a wife for him. Her efforts do not meet with signal success, since it is obvious to everyone but Joey herself that the bridge-builder was made for her and her alone. A happy ending is inevitable, and Mr Sykes is consoled with a more suitable mate, so all is well.
ONIONS, BERTA (RUCK) (MRS OLIVER ONIONS). Sweethearts unmet. il *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
In the form of separate stories, confessions, so to speak, a young girl and a young man each in turn pours out the story of his and her life, of their longings, their love hunger and their ideals. They were meant for each other, they had dreamt and speculated about each other, but seemed actually destined to live lives apart till luck and chance brought them, when it was almost, but not quite, too late, into each other’s arms. On this the author philosophizes: many young people in the large cities who are meant for each other never meet and end by marrying the wrong one. Her remedy is, not social centres, or matrimonial bureaus but a more hearty, understanding welcome of young people in individual homes, the creation of an entirely new atmosphere for the possibilities and needs of youth.
“A sentimental, very light love story of the kind that will please young readers.”
“She proceeds to write the story, in her own pretty, quaint way, and a capital story it is—wholesome as a breath of spring.”
OPPENHEIM, EDWARD PHILLIPS. Devil’s paw. il *$1.90 (3c) Little
Miss Catherine Abbeway, the heroine of the story, is a wonderful woman. By birth half Russian and half English and an aristocrat, her sympathies are entirely with the oppressed and with labor. She belongs to a secret labor organization whose object it is to bring about an early peace with the Central powers. Of this organization or council all but two, and they the leaders, are honest men. The two are scoundrels in the pay of Germany. Catherine undertakes, at great personal risk, to intercept messages from alleged German socialists for the council. Julian Orden, son of a peer, and anonymous author of peace articles that are creating a stir, discovers her in the act and takes the documents from her. But, to protect her in a compromising situation, he proclaims her his fiancée. Later when, after some breathless days, Catherine has discovered the sinister plot of the pseudo labor leaders and has saved England and the Allies from disaster, the pretense becomes fact.
“One of his poorer stories.”
“The novel is not without ingenuity, and contains one or two fairly dramatic scenes; but it is not so entertaining a story as ‘The great impersonation.’”
“‘The devil’s paw’ is far from being his best work.”
“The story cannot be classed among the best that Mr Oppenheim has written, but will, nevertheless, stimulate a considerable degree of interest.”
OPPENHEIM, EDWARD PHILLIPS. Great impersonation. il *$1.75 (2c) Little
Baron Leopold von Ragastein had been educated in England, at Eton and Oxford. While there he had had a double in a school mate, Sir Everard Dominey. Later they meet again in a German colony in East Africa where von Ragastein is now military commander. The latter is a perfect type of German efficiency and fitness, while the other, with a growing drink habit upon him, is generally at outs with life. They exchange confidences and when the German receives sudden orders to go to England on a secret mission he resolves to go as Sir Everard Dominey after first making away with the real Sir Everard. There he faces many delicate situations, but all goes well and the tasks imposed by the German government grow with the impostor’s daring. When the war breaks out he out-does himself by enlisting in the Norfolk yeomanry and at the very end comes the startling disclosure that it is after all the real Sir Everard who had not been so drunk in Africa “but that he was able to pull himself up when the great incentive came.”
“A good Oppenheim book.”
“The story pursues its course, sometimes in a lively fashion and sometimes sluggishly, but always moving towards a goal of surprise that will doubtless astonish many a reader. Its characters have in them something less fairylike and more human than is customary with Mr Oppenheim.” E. F. E.
“‘The great impersonation’ is a very decided improvement on the productions which have recently been flowing from the excessively prolific pen of Mr E. Phillips Oppenheim. The main idea is a good one and many of the details are well managed.”
“Mr Oppenheim certainly springs a genuine surprise upon his readers in the outcome of this story. Unfortunately, it is often the case that things that are novel and surprising are not very convincing, and that is true here.”
Reviewed by Doris Webb
“The plot is exceedingly ingenious.”
“He taxes one’s credulity, however, in asking the acceptance of the Englishman’s magic rejuvenation and revolutionary alterations in character and habit.”
ORCZY, EMMUSKA (MRS MONTAGUE BARSTOW) baroness. His Majesty’s well-beloved. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
A quaintly told story of an English actor in the times of Charles II. John Honeywood, devoted to Thomas Betterton is permitted, in his capacity as friend and secretary, to see much of the intimate life of that famous actor. It is he, who, in the form of a beseeching letter to Mary Saunderson, formerly betrothed to Tom Betterton, tells of the latter’s strange, thwarted love and passion for a lady of nobility: the insults and outrage her family heap upon “the mountebank” who presumes to my lady’s affections; the bitter, relentless revenge Betterton slowly perfects and executes: and finally his utter renunciation to save the innocence of Lady Barbara, and to restore to her the man she loves, cleared from all dishonor. Throughout the narrative Honeywood pleads with Mistress Saunderson that Betterton’s love for Lady Barbara is naught but a wild infatuation, and that his feeling for herself is still pure and unsullied. Evidently he succeeds, for the final chapter chronicles the wedding of Thomas Betterton, actor, and Mary Joyce Saunderson.
“An interesting, wholesome adventure story.”
“The tale is picturesque and dramatic, with many an unexpected twist.”
“Better written, we think, than this author’s ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ romances and equally stirring in plot.”
“The Baroness Orczy is an old hand at this kind of story, has the machinery under control and the lingo pat.” H. W. Boynton
“It is a vivid tale, told with all the charm, color and romantic flavor characterizing Baroness Orczy’s novels.”
O’RIORDAN, CONAL O’CONNELL (NORREYS CONNELL, pseud.). Adam of Dublin. *$2 Harcourt
Adam was born in the gutter and began his career in life, at the age of seven, selling stale papers. When he came to a sudden realization of what that meant he went to pour out his heart in confession to Father Innocent Feeley and found his first and truest friend. He makes other friends too, for after Father Innocent’s intervention has secured for him an education for the priesthood, and after the good Father’s death occurred at a crisis in Adam’s school life that made his position there untenable, the queer old Frenchman in Adam’s lodging house, who was not a Frenchman at all but a German musician, took him under his wing and saw to it that he was freed from the clutches of the Jesuits. The book leaves young Adam—the incarnation of the romantic soul of Ireland—on the brink of a new and freer life, of which the reader is led to expect an account in another volume.
“Among so many dead novels it is a delight to hail one that is so rich in life.” K. M.
“The story so far is noteworthy not so much because of its youthful hero, as for the effortless creation of the atmosphere of Irish life.” L. M. R.
“Mr Conal O’Riordan has apparently embarked on a trilogy. However, Adam is an amusing child. One feels resigned to meeting him again.”
“It is not a story of plot, nor can it be called one of ‘child psychology’; but it is carried through with an underlying humour and a resourcefulness free from all the usual devices of the novelist, which is not without its charm.”
“The author feels acutely and deeply, both in joy and in pain. He has both quick sensitiveness and profound emotion, two qualities which do not always go together. We cannot at the moment recall any book that drags us so deep into the mire, yet keeps the light of love and hope so steadily shining throughout.”
ORTH, SAMUEL PETER. Armies of labor; a chronicle of the organized wage-earners. (Chronicles of America ser.). il per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 331.87
“As the subtitle suggests, this volume is a history of the labor movement as expressed through workers’ organizations, rather than of labor conditions. It touches only incidentally upon wages, hours of work, and other features of the labor contract at different periods, or upon the details of labor legislation. Within these limits it covers the field. The author cites mostly secondary sources. The volume is well indexed and contains bibliographical appendixes.”—Am Hist R
“It is readable, concise, and comprehensive.” V: S. Clark
Reviewed by L. B. Shippee
“In ‘The armies of labor’ Samuel P. Orth has written a book of great value.”
ORTH, SAMUEL PETER. Our foreigners; a chronicle of Americans in the making. (Chronicles of America ser.) il per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 325.1
“This book, by a professor of political science at Cornell university, is chiefly descriptive; and, owing to limitations of space, considerably condensed. The first two chapters cover the period prior to 1820; and the unique fourth chapter upon Utopias in America, describes the various communistic experiments. The negroes, Irish, Teutons, and Orientals each have a chapter to themselves; but all the more recent types of immigrants are mentioned, and are illustrated by cuts from photographs. Thirteen pages are devoted to the history of immigration legislation. A short bibliographical note is appended.”—Am Hist R
“In general the treatment is impartial. There is lacking a certain ethnological accent needed to bring out fundamental considerations.” P. F. Hall
“A better perspective would have brought out more sharply the cultural contributions of our foreigners, their political affiliations and influence, and the setting of our immigration legislation. Mr Orth writes well and with poise and discrimination, but he has added nothing to our knowledge. His book is for the general reader rather than the scholar.” G: M. Stephenson
“It may be said in fact that the many statistics with which ‘Our foreigners’ is enriched are admirable, and that the almost equally numerous opinions which scarify the work are for the most part violently prejudiced, wholly out of place, and not only false in deduction but entirely misleading in the theories to which they give rise.” E: H. Bierstadt
OSBORNE, JAMES INSLEY. Arthur Hugh Clough. *$2.25 (4½c) Houghton
The author has written the life of Arthur Hugh Clough with special emphasis on his intellectual development and the growth of his powers as a poet. There are interesting references to his friendships with Emerson, Lowell, and others and to his sojourn in America. Contents: Childhood; At Rugby; As undergraduate; As fellow of Oriel; The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich; Amours de voyage; Dipsychus; Last years; Conclusion; Index.
“The investigation has not, perhaps, been as thorough as it is clearheaded.” F. W. S.
Reviewed by J. W. Krutch
“Its one drawback is a peculiar style which changes back and forth between the past tense and the historical present.” E. F. E.
+ − |Boston Transcript p6 Je 26 ’20 1550w
“There is much in this study which the student of mid-Victorian poetry and intellectual life will find useful and suggestive. But Mr Osborne’s work has little charm of style, and fails to render Clough attractive to the reader.”
“Mr Lytton Strachey has already devoted a few acid paragraphs to ‘this earnest adolescent.’ But Mr Osborne is free from any such levity. To him Clough is neither the corpus vile nor the hero: he is the occasion none the less for some uncommonly adroit criticism.”
“Mr Osborne’s temper, at least as it exhibits itself here, is almost too well suited to his subject. A heartier, less scrupulous treatment might have left more oxygen in the air at the really depressing end.” M. V. D.
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
“Mr Osborne’s book is a critique rather than a biography; suggestive, but not satisfying. He would have done better had he given us less of his own interpretations and more of Clough’s letters, leaving the reader to interpret their significance for himself.”
“The unimportant subject is exhaustively and exhaustingly studied. Nothing could exceed the pains with which we are told what a man who is not made interesting thought.”
“If there is a defect in Mr Osborne’s book, it is that he seems less inclined to dwell on the positive qualities of Clough’s poetry than on its shortcomings. In a psychological and critical study of Clough’s life it is masterly; the analysis is searching, but there is sympathy as well as justice in the author’s intuition.”
O’SHAUGHNESSY, EDITH LOUISE (COUES) (MRS NELSON O’SHAUGHNESSY). Alsace in rust and gold. il *$2 (3½c) Harper 940.48
The author says that from the rut and routine of war-work in Paris she was conveyed “as on a magic carpet, to the blue valleys and the rust and gold and jasper hills of Alsace, where the color is laid on thick, thick,” when she accompanied the French military mission during the thirteen historic days preceding the armistice. In this well-illustrated book she describes with “no polemics and no statistics” the picturesque aspect of the country. Contents: The journey there; All Saints’ day, November, 1918; Fête des morts, November, 1918; Thann and old Thann; The Ballon d’Alsace; La popote; The houses of the chanoinesses; Luncheon at Bitschwiller—the mission in residence at St-Amarin—Saint-Odile; The “field of lies” and Laimbach; The valley of the Thur; The re-Gallicizing of Alsace; The Hartmannswillerkopf; “Les crêtes”—“Déjeuner” at Camp Wagram—the Freundstein and its phantoms; Return to Masevaux; The vigil of the armistice; Dies gloriæ.
“‘Alsace in rust and gold’ has a quality of permanence that will make it readable ten, fifteen, twenty years hence. It should occupy an honored place on the shelf, marked ‘Travel’ in every well-regulated library.”
“So long as she confines herself to impressions and sentiments the record flows smoothly, for Mrs O’Shaughnessy is a writer of quick perception and likely feeling. But from time to time there is a little attempt, unconscious perhaps, to parade the knowledge she has picked up in her long acquaintance with many lands and many men, and then even the most indulgent reader is roused to revolt.”
“It is a book of charm, to be read leisurely. The account of the last few days of the war in this province, which was so vitally affected by the outcome of the conflict, adds something worth while to the volume of war literature.”
O’SHAUGHNESSY, EDITH LOUISE (COUES) (MRS NELSON O’SHAUGHNESSY). Intimate pages of Mexican history. *$3 (3c) Doran 972
“This book, concerning the four presidents of Mexico whom I have personally known, contains only what I have seen myself, or what, by word of mouth and eye in eye I have learned from those intimately connected with the men and events of which it speaks.” (Preface) As the wife of a diplomat the author combines intimate knowledge of Mexican conditions with her personal reminiscences. The four presidents are: Porfirio Diaz, Francisco Leon de la Barra, Francisco I. Madero, and Victoriano Huerta.
“This is the most delightful of Edith O’Shaughnessy’s books. It deserves the place of honor among books dealing with Mexico.” C. A. Crowell
“It is an absorbing story, told in a masterly manner, by one who thoroughly comprehends it all and who is a master of English composition.” E. J. C.
“The book under discussion is decidedly worth while.”
“She is a brilliant writer, with a free hand and an indifferent tread.”
“There is throughout the whole book an intimacy and warmth which, if it does no more, can scarcely fail to make one’s mind receptive of a broader point of view. Probably it will do more. It is not easy to see that Mrs O’Shaughnessy’s philosophy of Mexico, realistic to the point of cynicism, yet generous in feeling, is in any essential way wrong.”
“The author has an advantage for which she owes thanks to no one but herself: a vivid and picturesque style which, reinforced by deep sincerity and an ardent enthusiasm, gives her narrative the glow of adventurous fiction. There is much in the latter chapters more spicy than reverential. But the author has a clear vision and her plain speaking makes for better understanding of Mexico.” Calvin Winter
O’SHEA, PETER F. Employees’ magazines; for factories, offices, and business organizations. il *$1.80 Wilson, H. W. 658
A book on house organs as a factor in employment management. The foreword says, “The value of the printed word in organizing, educating and managing large groups of employees in industry is greater today than ever before.... The old paternalistic shop paper which reached down to pat a man on the shoulder is out of date. But the modern house magazine, alive, sincere, human and constructive, has tremendous opportunities, that have been greatly increased by the wide-spread growth in intelligence and interest among workmen the country over.” Contents: The employees’ magazine as an aid to management; Promoting cooperation by the house organ; Educational work of a house organ; How a house organ improves morale; Democracy of an employees’ magazine; Organization and getting material; Editorial methods and costs; A contractor’s employees’ magazine; Magazines for offices, stores, and sales organizations; Learning from other fields; Appendix: a brief list of good exchanges.
OSLER, SIR WILLIAM. Old humanities and the new science. *$1.50 Houghton 375
The book contains Sir William Osler’s inaugural address as president of the British classical association, which proved to be his last public utterance. It contains a memorial introduction by Dr Harvey Cushing setting forth the unusually high and many-sided achievements of the author as both scholar and man and describing in brief the organization and purpose of the Classical association. One of these purposes—the furthering of a closer cooperation between natural science and the humanities—accounts for the choosing of “one of the most eminent physicians in the world” as its president. Dr Osler is said to have been “a well-nigh perfect example” of this union and his address to have “embodied the whole spirit of this ideal.”
“It is a rare production, witty, learned, fraught with a high degree of inspiration, full of sympathy for the old humanities, filled with surprises in the portrayal of great classical writers.”
“The conclusion is that an eminent medico, even with a generous dose of litteræ humaniores, is not qualified to lecture on mediævalism, philosophy and history.”
“It is a pregnant, witty and humane discussion of the interdependence of the two branches of learning. Osler reveals himself here as a physician of the line of Sir Thomas Browne and the scholar-philosophers of the renaissance.”
“As a whole this address of a man of science who was also a man of letters is delightful. It is scholarly, as became the place and the occasion, but it is never pedantic and it is never dull. Indeed, it is often playful.” Brander Matthews
“Wit and wisdom equally characterize this essay.”
OSTRANDER, ISABEL EGENTON (ROBERT ORR CHIPPERFIELD, DOUGLAS GRANT, pseuds.). How many cards? *$2 (2c) McBride
A murder in New York society forms the raison d’être for this detective story. Eugene Creveling is found dead in his library early one April morning. McCarthy, the ex-roundsman detective of previous stories, constitutes himself the chief investigator. He interviews the family, social and business friends and servants of the murdered man, and finds, as he says, “every last one of them bluffing and hedging and lying,” except the O’Rourkes, former friends of his in the old country, whose integrity he would swear by. He can’t understand what the others are all working for, but gradually their motives are uncovered, and altho they have a bearing on the character and habits of the dead man, the identity of the murderer remains still a mystery. Then in a flash the solution is revealed to McCarthy by a passing glimpse of a woman’s handwriting, the last woman in the world he would want to suspect. But thru an act of what he calls Providence she is not brought to justice, and after all perhaps Creveling got no more than he deserved for playing with a woman’s honor.
OSTRANDER, ISABEL EGENTON (ROBERT ORR CHIPPERFIELD, DOUGLAS GRANT, pseuds.). Unseen hands. *$1.75 McBride
“This story of Mr Chipperfield’s is placed before us as a mystery in which every member of a wealthy family seems to be menaced. The mother and the eldest son have each died under peculiar circumstances shortly before the opening of the story. We are instantly met with strange, murderous intention being disclosed in regard to the father and the second son. Such intimate knowledge of the family life is disclosed that we are forced to the conclusion that it is an ‘inside Job.’ The problem is to find the person with motive and means for such gradual but wholesale murder.”—Boston Transcript
“It is an unlikely situation in twentieth-century America, but capable of being quite mystifying if handled dexterously. Mr Chipperfield guards his secret well. His situations are not always screwed up to the highest pitch, but he does succeed in rousing false conjectures and the general air of suspicion which successful detective fiction demands.”
“Readers of detective tales will find this book of absorbing interest; the plot is well developed and the dénouement startling. Decidedly, Mr Chipperfield knows how to write a detective story. ‘Unseen hands’ is one of the best of its kind.”
“The climax is not unexpected, yet possesses the elements of a surprise. The story is entertaining of its type.”
O’SULLIVAN, MRS DENIS. Mr Dimock. *$2 (2½c) Lane
Horace Dimock, a prosperous American business man and a notorious philanderer, spends much of his time in England with his English friends, the center of whom are Lady Freke and the widowed Crystal McClinton, sisters and of American birth. To Crystal he is even secretly married. As the story opens he is coming to England, at the appeal of the sisters, to rescue his ward, Daphne O’Brien, daughter of a former love, from the nunnery. He falls violently in love with Daphne at first sight. His ardor diverts her from her purpose, but she turns from him as soon as she learns of his treachery to Crystal, whom he now seeks to divorce. At the end we find him sans Crystal and Daphne, and reduced to the goodnatured tolerance of the friends who had once admired him. Much of international, post war interest and of the havoc of war plays in the story and Daphne, the would-be nun, becomes the happy wife of a wonderful young Serbian hero.
“There is workmanlike writing in the book and there are moments of some emotional power. We object to a certain romantic staginess of the war heroes.”
OTTMAN, FORD CYRINDE. J. Wilbur Chapman. *$2.50 Doubleday
The biography of a distinguished and widely-known preacher written by a personal friend. “To write his life none among his friends was so well qualified as Dr Ottman,” says John F. Carson in his introduction. “In all his ministry Dr Ottman was his confidant, his companion in the home and on his world journeys, his friend and counsellor, a sharer of his joys and sorrows. Such intimacy supplies a biographer with materials for a sympathetic and revealing interpretation.” There are chapters on: Lineage; Environment; College and seminary; The Whitewater and the Hudson; Philadelphia and New York; A retrospect; Summer conferences; Evangelism; On the way to Australia; At home and abroad, etc., with a closing chapter on Personality. There is a frontispiece portrait.
“With sympathetic approach and with due appreciation of Dr Chapman himself, one lays down the book with a feeling that Dr Ottman has fallen short of the possibilities in the case.”
OUR unseen guest. *$2 (3c) Harper 134
Philosophical discussions communicated to Joan and Darby, the anonymous authors of this book—by a young soldier who had recently died, or “graduated,” and was living and working “on the other side.” In the beginning this spirit gave proof of his identity, which the authors quite accidently found corroborated. The communications center about “quality of consciousness.” Our development is both qualitative and quantitative. At birth we are given quality of soul—which is definitely fixed—a rebirth of a certain quality of consciousness, which has been developing on the other side, into our human body. During our earth life, if we are true to our “quality,” we develop quantity of soul, which upon our “graduation” we bring as our contribution to the whole of consciousness on the other side. There are many rebirths, until the supreme consciousness is reached. Joan and Darby at first were very material skeptics, holding fast to the theories of subconsciousness, telepathy, etc., but in the end were quite convinced.
“In view of the unconvincing and emotional quality of many of the popular books upon psychical research, the readers of ‘Our unseen guest’ will be inclined to [say]—‘the best thing of the kind!’” Margaret Deland
“Wordy nonsense as this is, it is more coherent because more modest than most of the revelations from the beyond; the evasion (in the vernacular bluff) is more transparent, less likely to produce the semblance of profundity by which the judgment is soothed to a blissful ignorance mistaken for knowledge.” Joseph Jastrow
OVERTON, GRANT MARTIN. Mermaid. il *1.75 (2c) Doubleday
A story of the sea and of sea-faring life seen from the coast and a coast-guard station. Captain Smiley and his crew have rescued a little girl of six, the only survivor of a wreck, and have called her Mermaid, from the ship’s name. With the captain as Dad and the crew as uncles she lives a life full of poetry and adventure. In spite of her name she grows into a sane and healthy womanhood, surrounded in her school days by boy friendships that later turn into love. From among these she chooses Guy Vanton the lonely poet boy, shadowed by a dark family history. In the course of the story several family histories of the old coast town are revealed and withal much human nature, some philosophy and the light of a new era is shown to lay old ghosts and to conquer old fears. Mermaid’s husband, Guy, pays for his conquest with his life, and Dick Hand, overstepping conventions with the courage of love, reaps his reward.
OVINGTON, MARY WHITE. Shadow. *$1.75 (2c) Harcourt
A story of the race problem told with an effective restraint. The plot is unusual. A white baby, for family reasons, is left in a negro cabin, to be brought up as a negro child and until the age of nineteen, to believe herself of negro blood. Then a dying and repentent grandfather restores her to her name and position and she is free to cross the line into the white world. Realizing what her fate will be wherever her story is known, she chooses to lose herself in New York, earning a living in the garment trades. Here she finds herself on the edge of the labor movement, but she is never quite drawn into it. She remains outside the conflict. The call to action comes to her when the life of her dark brother, the playmate of her childhood, is endangered, and to save him from the fury of a lynching mob, enraged to the point of blood lust at thought of a negro who has laid his hand on a white woman’s arm, she again crosses the color line and falsely declares herself of negro birth. The story ends as it began, in the South, with Hertha entering the beautiful southern home of which she is to be mistress, but even within its protection, with her lover’s arm about her, she looks ahead and knows that “the shadow of man’s making” will always lie beside her path.
“Miss Ovington has written a novel of keen interest. She has handled the story unfalteringly. She has shown the immense possibilities that lie in such a theme when treated truthfully and artistically. She treats her colored characters with the same attributes of nature and temperament as the whites, and in so doing opens up the way to the possibilities in the future of American fiction.”
“In no recent book has the American negro’s problem been more sympathetically treated than in ‘The shadow.’ She succeeds throughout in treating them as individuals rather than as racial types and does so with a simple and unselfconscious realism.” M. G.
“The execution is unexceptionable, but the people and the incidents lack concreteness. No doubt Miss Ovington has seen them in the flesh. But she has seen them as a sociologist rather than as an artist. But this will not trouble the average reader at all. And since in most of the novels he gets the characters are conventionalized into conformity with the demands of intolerance and hatred, one cannot but desire a wide popularity for this book in which the controlling spirit is one of humanity and of the civilized instincts.”
“There can be no doubt of Miss Ovington’s love and sympathy for the negroes. Each page is full of the burning resentment she feels for their wrongs, but one cannot help wondering what her real belief is with regard to the race.”
“Miss Ovington’s book is well constructed and faultlessly written.”
“Incidentally, the race question is touched upon with sympathy toward all sides of the problem.”
“The story is written throughout with a deep sympathy for all the characters.”
“Her black characters are drawn lovingly: for she seems to possess in rare combination that sympathetic affection which the southern white feels for the black when he ‘keeps his place’ together with comprehension of the aspiring mind and soul of the black race.” M. K. R.
OWEN, ROBERT. Life of Robert Owen. *$1.50 (1c) Knopf
The book is the first of a series of economic reprints which form a new social economic section of the famous Bohn libraries. The volumes deal with the great writers and pioneers in the field of economics of whom Robert Owen was the first to grasp the meaning of the industrial revolution. The present volume has an introduction by M. Beer, a bibliography of the works of Owen, and an index.
“A comparison of Owen’s ‘Life’ with contemporary records will reveal a number of substantial discrepancies.” R: Roberts
OYEN, HENRY. Plunderer. *$1.75 (3c) Doran
Roger Payne, an energetic young northerner, buys a thousand acre tract of “prairie” land in Florida. When he goes down to look it over he finds that the quality of the land corresponds quite exactly to the agent’s description, but that it is covered with about two feet of water. With the aid of his friend Higgins, an engineer, he works out a plan for drainage, but finds that the physical difficulties are the least of his obstacles. One of the men in the company that sold him the land is Senator Fairclothe, but he soon learns that this statesman is only the catspaw for Garman, the real villain in the situation. The senator’s beautiful daughter is engaged to Garman, but there is love at first sight between her and Roger and the outcome of the tale, which abounds in scenes of brutality, is the winning of the girl as well as title to the reclaimed land.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The book is an adventure tale of good quality: and if the reader will overlook its lack of plausibility it will hold his attention to the end.”
“The tale is exciting and adventurous.”
OZAKI, YEI THEODORA. Romances of old Japan. *$8.50 Brentano’s 895
“Madame Ozaki’s ‘romances’ are for the most part stories dealt with by the popular drama of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They are of two types, the sanguinary and the supernatural. The first corresponds to the earlier period of the Yedo popular stage and to the careers of the first three Danjūrōs, famous for their impersonations of ferocious warriors. In the present work ‘The quest of the sword,’ ‘The tragedy of Kesa’ and ‘The Sugawara tragedy’ belong to this type. The second type, represented in this book by ‘The spirit of the lantern,’ ‘The reincarnation of Tama,’ ‘The badger-haunted temple,’ etc., corresponds to the popularity of the great ghost-impersonator Matsusuke, who died c.1820.”—Ath
“These characteristic native idylls are charmingly translated.”
“It is not difficult to discover why Madame Ozaki’s material is drawn from the stage, and not from the classical literature of Japan. Her rendering of one or two poems in this book shows that she is imperfectly acquainted with the older language. Her style is that of cinema-libretti, a medium thoroughly suited to the nature of her material. Numerous illustrations by the contemporary artists Keishū and Hōsai add to the impression of modernity produced by the book. Might not it have been illustrated by old theatrical woodcuts?” A. D. W.
“Mme Ozaki’s very readable tales gain by being associated with native pictures, though the artist seems to have been influenced by western painting.”
“The illustrations are Japanese. None of them, we suppose, would be considered anything but negligible in Japan. But to the western eye there is hardly one which does not possess some of those qualities of grace, decision, and style which are seldom absent from the most trifling Japanese work.”
PACKARD, FRANK LUCIUS. From now on. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
Dave Henderson, through environment a crook, steals one hundred thousand dollars, which unfortunately is coveted by other, more hardened crooks. Scarcely has he hidden his prize securely when he is hotly pursued. Caught and convicted, he serves five years in the “pen” patiently, for is not the reward worth while? Released, he is a marked man to both police and crook. Nevertheless, after hair-raising adventures, he at last holds in his hands the hundred thousand dollars, only to find he can no longer enjoy this stolen money. Association with an honest, great hearted gentleman and a girl who loves Dave, creates in him values other than material, and a desire for clean straight living. He accepts “God’s chance,” and together with the woman he loves, looks forward to an honest, decent, constructive life “from now on.”
“As a well-constructed, plausible and exciting story, ‘From now on’ deserves unstinted praise.” A. A. W.
PACKARD, FRANK LUCIUS. White Moll. *$1.75 (1½c) Doran
The White Moll is the name Rhoda Gray has earned for herself in New York’s East side district by always playing on the square with its denizens. So Gypsy Nan, when dying in a slightly penitent frame of mind, entrusts her with the secret of a crime about to be committed. Rhoda tries to stop it, but is arrested, charged with committing it. She escapes but her career of charity as the White Moll is thus wrecked and she is forced for safety to disguise herself as Gypsy Nan in which rôle she finds herself in the midst of a criminal gang. She resolves to circumvent their schemes, and so plays the double part of Gypsy Nan, who is hand in glove with them, and the White Moll, their bitterest enemy and a fugitive from justice. Her part is hard, but her luck is good, and with the “Adventurer” as her ally she finally, after many exciting experiences, breaks up the gang and brings it to punishment. Then she makes the gratifying discovery that the Adventurer is not the thief she had thought him and that they had been working for the same ends.
“If a thrill on every page is any consideration, here you have it.” H. W. Boynton
“As is usual in his stories of the underworld, Mr Packard’s tale is filled with exciting adventures. He has without doubt built a place for himself and his particular type of tale.”
“There is no need for anyone to find life unexciting so long as there are men in the world with imaginations like Frank L. Packard’s.”
“It is a clever, absorbing story, with a certain freshness in its theme.”
PACKARD, WINTHROP. Old Plymouth trails. il *$3 (4c) Small 917.4
“He who would see Plymouth and the Pilgrim land about it as the Pilgrims saw it may do so. Nature holds grimly onto her own and sedulously heals the scars that man makes.... Plymouth is a manufacturing city, a residence town, a resort and a thriving business centre all in one ... but you have only to step out of town to find their very land all about you, traces of their occupancy, the very marks of their feet, worn in the earth itself.... Along the old Pilgrim trails you may step from modern culture and its acme of civilization through the pasture lands of the Pilgrims into glimpses of the forest primeval.” (Chapter I) A partial list of the contents is: Plymouth mayflowers; Nantucket in April; Footing it across the Cape; Along the salt marshes; Ghosts of the northeaster; White pine groves; The pasture in November; Coasting on Ponkapoag; Yule fires.
“Pleasant informal essay style with special appeal to the lover of the out-of-doors.”
Reviewed by W. A. Dyer
“As a prose technician, Mr Packard is, of course, inferior to W. H. Hudson, lacking both the English writer’s restraint and his sense of nervous rhythm. Yet he writes with great vividness at times, and his accuracy of observation is hardly less keen.” W. P. Eaton
Reviewed by C. L. Skinner
PAGE, GERTRUDE (MRS GEORGE ALEXANDER DOBBIN).[2] Paddy-the-next-best-thing. *$2 (2c) Stokes
When Paddy Adair was born, her father had ardently wished for a boy, but as she grew up he had become quite contented with the “next-best-thing,” and Paddy, while longing herself to be a boy, had satisfied herself with being as hoydenish and wild as the “next-best-thing” could be. But for all that, she had a way with her with the opposite sex, a captivating Irish way which won and held the heart of Lawrence Blake, as her sister Eileen’s dreamy moods could never do. But Paddy, because she thought Eileen was breaking her heart over Lawrence’s defection, swore eternal hatred against him. Altho patience was far from natural to him, he cultivated it and in the end won out. The story in play form has had a successful run both in this country and England.
“As fiction of the very lightest sort this tale has its good points. Although over-played, its heroine, Paddy, is real and often behaves like a human sort.”
“The author does not rely on plot for the appeal of her book. What she does is to offer a pleasing, polite, mildly amusing sketch of certain phases of life in Ireland, with nothing to remind one of Sinn Fein uprising and hunger strikes, and this work she has done with commendable skill.”
PAGE, KIRBY.[2] Something more. *90c Assn. press 248
The book, “a consideration of the vast, undeveloped resources of life” (Sub-title) is the first in the New generation series. It contains four essays enlarging respectively on the latent possibilities in God, in man, in Jesus Christ, in life—that are man’s for the searching. The last essay, Enemies of life, enumerates the negative factors, both material and spiritual, all rooted in ignorance, that keep man from entering into his true heritage.
“An invigorating book.”
PAGE, THOMAS NELSON. Italy and the world war. *$5 Scribner 940.345
Ambassador Page was in Italy during the entire period of the war and followed sympathetically the part played therein by the Italian people. He holds that the key to Italy’s relation to the war is to be found in her traditions, her history and in her geographical and economic situation. Accordingly the book falls into three parts: “The first is introductory and contains in outline the history of the Italian people in the long period when they were included in and bound under the Holy Roman empire. The second contains the story of their evolution, from the conception of their national consciousness on through the long and bitter struggle with the Austrian empire for their liberty down to the time when ... they developed into a new and united Italy.... The third part contains the story of the diplomatic struggle to establish herself in a position to which Italy considers herself entitled as a great power.” (Preface) The book has six maps, appendices, giving the texts of the armistice with Austria and of the pact of London, and an index.
“A much needed contribution to the political history of the war.”
“It is not impertinent to say that an experienced newspaper man, equipped with a good encyclopædia, a good atlas, and the newspaper files for the past five years, could produce an excellent replica of ‘Italy and the world war’ without having crossed the Atlantic. Mr Page had an opportunity to write a very remarkable pamphlet, and he wrote instead a hurried, congested, and unnecessary hotch-potch history of the war.” W: McFee
“It is to be regretted that the American public could not have had the benefit of this unequaled book months ago. Mr Page smashes beyond recovery many illusions which, during and after the war, militated against the character of Italy, her people, her statesmen.” Walter Littlefield
PAGÉ, VICTOR WILFRED. Automobile starting, lighting and ignition. 6th ed rev and enl il $3 Henley 629.2
“Mr Pagé first explains the nature of electricity—how a current is produced—and then goes on to explain in general the systems used for ignition, starting and lighting. This is followed by a detailed explanation of the individual systems on various cars. Many illustrations and diagrams make this book easy to understand.” (R of Rs) “The sixth edition repeats the material of the second edition with the addition of eight new chapters on leading electrical ignition systems, design of electrical measuring instruments and use in testing, and wiring diagrams of popular cars.” (Booklist)
PAGÉ, VICTOR WILFRED. Model T Ford car. rev and enl il $1.50 Henley 629.2
“Victor W. Pagé’s ‘Model T Ford car’ has appeared in its new and enlarged 1920 edition. This edition should be even more popular than the earlier editions, as it contains information and instructions for the Fordson farm tractor and the F. A. lighting and starting system, as well as all the principles and parts of the Ford. Numerous illustrations and diagrams make the instructions and explanations easily understood by a novice.”—N Y P L Munic Ref Lib Notes
PAGÉ, VICTOR WILFRED, ed. Motor boats and boat motors. il $3 Henley 623.8
“Mr Pagé has compiled a volume full of interest to the novice as well as to the experienced motor-boat enthusiast. It covers fully the design, construction, operation, and repair of boats and motors in general, including full instructions, with working drawings, for building five boats from tested designs by A. Clark Leitch, naval architect. A chapter on seaplanes and flying-boat construction gives both theory and practical application.”—R of Rs
“Clearly written and has nearly 400 exceptionally good illustrations. Anyone contemplating the purchase of a boat should be guided by the excellent advice given in the first chapter.”
PAGE, WILLIAM, ed. Commerce and industry; with a preface by William Ashley. 2v il v 1 *$15 v 2 *$10 Dutton 330.9
“In the twelve chapters that make up the main text of the first volume of this work, and the three appendices, an historical review of the economic conditions of the British empire for ninety-nine years, largely based upon parliamentary debates as reported by Hansard, is given. The second volume consists of statistical tables of the economic factors, such as population, taxation, imports and exports, production, finance, etc., in supplementation proof of the conditions as set forth in the text of the first volume. The subjects dealt with in the main portion of the work cover the Effects of war (1815 to 1820); Commercial reform (1820 to 1830); The reform Parliament (1830 to 1841); Repeal of the Corn laws (1841 to 1852); War and finance (1852 to 1859); Free trade (1859 to 1868); Retrenchment and reform (1869 to 1880); Organization (1880–1892); Foreign competition (1892 to 1900); The movement towards tariff reform (1900 to 1910); and Unrest (1910 to 1914). The three appendices discuss The Cabinet and Parliament, Ministries 1812 to 1912, and A chronicle of the British empire beyond the seas.”—Boston Transcript
“The volume is a storehouse of facts for politicians and economists.”
“Impartiality is a dominant quality of the work, as it ought to be.”
PAGET, STEPHEN. Sir Victor Horsley; a study of his life and work. il *$6 Harcourt
“The life was well worth writing by so practised a biographer as Mr Stephen Paget of Sir Victor Horsley (1857–1916)—a surgeon of great distinction and a pioneer on the field of scientific medicine, a keen champion of temperance and woman suffrage, and a Liberal politician—who closed a great career by giving his life for his country in Mesopotamia, where he patriotically volunteered for service as medical consultant with the forces and where he died of heat stroke on July 16, 1916.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Paget has written in a calm, dispassionate manner without literary tricks or mannerisms.”
“Admirable biography.”
“No happier selection could have been made than that Mr Paget should become the biographer of Sir Victor Horsley. The author, a man of letters, also possesses the scientific and medical knowledge essential to the theme, and his enterprises in other fields of literature have preserved him from the besetting sins of the medical biographer who makes his book unduly technical, or even dull.”
“There is no doubt that this biography, in the full sense of an overworked word, is an ‘inspiring’ record of a man’s character and achievement; it is the more so because it is always straightforward and concrete, showing the man exactly as he was.”
“It is not too much to say that of the many services which this author has rendered to scientific medicine and surgery none is so important as his biography of Sir Victor Horsley.”
PAINE, ALBERT BIGELOW. Short life of Mark Twain. il *$2.50 Harper
In answer to the demand for a short life of Mark Twain, Mr Paine, his official biographer, has prepared a condensed version of his longer work. The story is told in brief chapters and in simple language and is adapted for young people’s reading. There are eighteen illustrations.
PAINE, RALPH DELAHAYE. Corsair in the war zone. il *$4 Houghton 940.45
At a critical time in the submarine campaign a number of American pleasure yachts volunteered for service as French coast patrols. Their amateur crews had little naval training, and these yachts were dubbed the “Suicide fleet,” but they performed heroic service and played an important rôle in the war. The Corsair of whose exploits the book gives an account, was owned by J. Pierpont Morgan. Contents: The call of duty overseas; “Lafayette, we are here!”; At sea with the Breton patrol; Tragedies and rescues; When the Antilles went down; Admiral Wilson comes to Brest; Smashed by a hurricane; The pleasant interlude at Lisbon; Uncle Sam’s bridge of ships; The Corsair stands by; In the radioroom; The long road home; Honorably discharged; The ship’s company. There is a map showing the Corsair’s wanderings in the war zone and numerous illustrations.
“The book is a welcome and valuable minor contribution to the history of the world war. The numerous and excellent illustrations greatly add to its attractiveness.” E: Breck
“The author has collected and selected his official and unofficial documents with praiseworthy skill, and the result is a swift-flowing narrative, written in an easy style, that will prove interesting to sailor and landsman alike.” B. R. Redman
PAINE, RALPH DELAHAYE. Fight for a free sea; a chronicle of the war of 1812. (Chronicles of America ser.) il per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 973.5
“This volume is concerned with our War of 1812, the chief episodes of which are related by Ralph D. Paine under the title, ‘The fight for a free sea.’ The book has special chapters on Perry and Lake Erie, The navy on blue water, Matchless frigates and their duels, and Victory on Lake Champlain.”—R of Rs
Reviewed by D. R. Anderson
“It is of Perry on Lake Erie, of Macdonough on Lake Champlain, of Captain Bainbridge and of Captain Isaac Hull that Mr Paine writes charmingly, gloriously. Their brilliant deeds arouse his instinct for the sea, his hero-worship of sea-faring men. With them this writer of delightful sea stories is at home.”
“Mr Paine writes splendidly of the sea and of ships, as readers of his stories know, and this is a subject that lends itself especially to his talents.”
PAINE, RALPH DELAHAYE. Ships across the sea. il *$1.90 (2½c) Houghton 940.45
The author of these stories of the American navy in the great war has firsthand knowledge of the navy and the life on board ship, and his fiction breathes real life. The first story is one of jealousy between two petty officers over a wee Scotch lassie, a war orphan, who came on board on occasion of the sailors’ Christmas party. On Jim Cooney’s side it was something of a lark for he loved to bully simple minded Henry Turnbull. With Henry it was a matter of the heart. But when Henry is washed overboard Jim’s remorse inspires a Henry Turnbull fund, to be raised among the crew for the education and up-bringing of little Mary MacDonald. The stories are: The orphan and the battle-wagon; Ten fathoms down; Too scared to run; The quiet life; On a lee shore; The net result; The last shot; The silent service; The red sector.
“The sense of the sea and ships is vividly conveyed. ‘Ships across the sea’ gives an excellent idea of what it was like to be a sailor in the United States navy during the great war.”
+ |N Y Times 25:237 My 9 ’20 650w |Wis Lib Bul 16:195 N ’20 50w
PALAMAS, KOSTÈS. Life immovable. *$2 Harvard univ. press 889
“A volume of translations is ‘Life immovable,’ from the modern Greek of Kostes Palamas by Professor Aristides Phoutrides, a former instructor at Harvard. Kostes Palamas, secretary to the University of Athens, was one of the first writers of contemporary Greece to gain recognition outside his own country, and Professor Phoutrides has the courage to call him ‘a new world-poet.’” (Bookm) “The translator furnishes a sketch of the poet and his work, and an analysis of the poems in this volume.” (Booklist)
“It is reasonable to suppose that the unsatisfactory effect of the book before us cannot be entirely attributed to the defects either of the poet or the translator. It is tiresome to read these poems, where images rise and clash and fade in confusion, and to feel that in the original there may have existed harmony and emotional coherence where we are now oppressed by meaningless glitter and noise. Our annoyance is accentuated by the translator’s harsh and clumsy rhythms, and by an insensitiveness to word-values in the language into which he is translating, exemplified by the title ‘Life immovable.’” F. W. S.
“Too much of the symbolic, philosophical and mythological enter these pages to invite interest from any but the scholarly thinker.”
Reviewed by H: A. Lappin
“He deserves to be read widely beyond the confines of his own land and tongue; and Professor Phoutrides, with the Harvard press, deserves the cordial thanks of all lovers of life and letters for the present translation.” F. B. R. Hellems
“His book, with its thoughtful, well-written introduction, will give much pleasure to the quiet lovers of the quiet poetry of meditation and sentiment.” Paul Shorey
PALMER, EDWIN JAMES, bp. of Bombay. Great church awakes. *$2 Longmans 280
“The conception of ‘the great church’ which inspires this little volume may be described as a liberalized restatement of the traditional Anglo-Catholic position. In the first part of the work, called ‘Ideas,’ Dr Palmer insists strongly on the importance and force of the present desire for Christian unity, especially as it is manifested in India. The second section, entitled ‘Studies,’ is mainly devoted to the question of the Christian ministry. It opens with a careful study of the ‘Ministry in the primitive church.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
Reviewed by Lyman Abbott
PANCHARD, EDOUARD. Meats, poultry and game; with a preface by A. Louise Andrea. *$3 Dutton 641.5
“The author of this volume is managing chef for the Hotel McAlpin, Waldorf-Astoria, Claridge, Café Savarin and Fifth avenue restaurant, New York, and Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, Philadelphia, and honorary lecturer, Columbia university. He gives much valuable information about the buying, cooking and serving of meat, poultry and game, and as the book is illustrated even the amateur can learn readily from it. Not the least desirable part of the volume is a collection of choice recipes.”—Boston Transcript
Reviewed by M. F. Egan
“A book so simply and clearly planned and written that it must be a desirable acquisition.”
“Part I is written very definitely and clearly but Part II, ‘A potpourri of recipes,’ would be rather difficult for an inexperienced cook to follow.” M. E. Dakin
PANYITY, LOUIS S.[2] Prospecting for oil and gas. il *$3.25 Wiley 622.1
“This brief treatment of a large subject is designed to meet the needs of the practical oilman and the general reader. More than half of the text is devoted to surveying methods and geology, including general cross-sections of important districts. The rest of the book covers even more briefly: scouting, methods of locating wells, drilling methods, ‘bringing in,’ gauging, and leasing. Samples of forms and contracts are shown. Good illustrations and a number of mathematical and technical tables.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
“Good book on a subject not heretofore well covered.”
“The first ten chapters of this book, comprising 134 pages in all, deal directly with the subject indicated by the title, and they are by far the most useful part of the volume. The remainder of the principal part of the book is disappointing. It attempts to cover so much that it covers nothing at all.”
“It is undoubtedly an attractive and useful publication, which, by virtue of its clearness of diction, careful arrangement of subjectmatter, and freedom from ‘padding,’ should make an appeal to a very wide public.” H. B. Milner
PARK, JOHN EDGAR. Bad results of good habits and other lapses. *$1.50 (4½c) Houghton 814
The contents of these essays all hinge on the distinction the author makes between two kinds of goodness; respectable goodness and adventurous goodness. It is the difference between a mummy and a living body. For the ten commandments he would substitute the golden rule, as including them all, and his parting words to the reader are: “Don’t be solemn. Don’t be staid and conventional. Get off your pedestal. Fool a little. Love much.” A partial list of the contents are: The disadvantages of being good; The folly of getting there; The world, the flesh, and the devil; What I would not that I do; Lies; The grammar of life; The secret of the moral training of children.
“Altogether they are a very readable lot, and if most of them leave a moral truth behind, the reader will forget the preachment for the enjoying of his ideas.”
“Mr Park’s relaxations avoid the too facile generalization which is the usual fault of the type. Yet they breathe a certain serene remoteness from dust and heat. In contrast with the good gigantic smile of Mark Twain, it lacks what closet wit must always lack, an earthly and living contact with men and women.”
“It is bright, gay, and logically weak, with the useful knack of arraying a commonplace in the garb of a paradox.”
“There is a vein of humor in Mr Park that makes him a delightful companion in print or in person.”
PARKER, CARLETON HUBBELL. Casual laborer and other essays. *$1.75 (5½c) Harcourt 331
This posthumous volume of essays by Professor Parker has an introduction by Mrs Cornelia Stratton Parker in which she points out the fundamental characteristics of her husband’s work, and through numerous quotations the importance in which he was held as one of the frontiersmen not along geographical but along economic lines. He was first in studying the labor problem from a psychological point of view. “What is the psychic balance sheet?” he asks. “It is a relation between a plastic, sensitive, easily degenerated nervous organism called ‘man’ and an environment. The product is human character. The labor problem is one of character-formation.” The essays are: Toward understanding labor unrest; The casual laborer; The I. W. W.; Motives in economic life. The appendix contains Professor Parker’s report on the Wheatland hop fields’ riot with a foreword by Mrs Parker. The second paper is reprinted from the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the third from the Atlantic Monthly.
“In conclusion it may be said that the book is an interesting rather than a convincing one. The man really needs to be saved from his friends. The present book bears out the statement that when all is said and done, Professor Parker’s life was potential in promise and not in actual measurable performance.” G. M. J.
“As his discussion stands and so far as it has been carried on it is so fragmentary and one-sided as to appear somewhat crude and far fetched.” Virgil Jordan
“In their present state the essays reveal a lack in the organization of his new ideas as well as a faulty perspective in the arrangement of his biological and psychological material. His purpose, however, is admirable, and has brought about an advance of the line he set upon, namely the study of human behavior, as such, where it assists in the understanding of economic conditions.” Florence Richardson
“For the economist, the book is like one of those impressive events that make history. It marks the closing of a chapter.” H. A. Overstreet
Reviewed by C: Merz
“The book is a useful record of an industrious and brilliant investigator who seems also to have been an unusually inspiring teacher. It is not too much to say that no man who has anything worth writing about should be allowed to write so badly as Professor Parker seems to have done when left to himself.”
“Those interested to know how this labor problem will be handled when those in authority have been educated will do well to read this delightful and illuminating book. It marks the road.” W: L. Chenery
PARKER, DEWITT HENRY. Principles of æsthetics. *$2.50 (2½c) Silver 701
The book has grown out of lectures to students at the University of Michigan but the author’s appeal is to all people who are interested in the intelligent appreciation of art. For his broader philosophy of art he declares himself indebted to the artists and philosophers of the period from Herder to Hegel, and among contemporaries to Croce and Lipps. Among the contents are: The analysis of the æsthetic experience; The problem of evil in æsthetics, and its solution through the tragic, pathetic, and comic; The standard of taste; The dominion of art over nature: painting, sculpture; Beauty in the industrial arts: architecture; The function of art: art and morality, art and religion; Bibliography.
“For the beginner it is as satisfactory a work as has yet appeared.”
PARKER, SIR GILBERT. No defence. il *$2 Lippincott
“The scene is laid first in Ireland at the close of the eighteenth century; and we are taken thence to the fleet at the time of the mutiny at the Nore, and later to Jamaica. The hero, Dyck Calhoun, is a young Irish gentleman, who falls innocently into disgrace. He becomes a common seaman and a mutineer; he escapes to Jamaica; and here he gradually achieves success, in spite of the persistent enmity of the governor, with whom he has fought a successful duel in his early days.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The author seems well able to depict the English soldier and sailor of the day, but he knows nothing of the Irish soul or character.”
“To judge from internal evidence, ‘No defence’ was written simply and solely in order that it might eventually be turned into a motion picture, with little or no regard for literary excellence. From first to last, the book is carelessly written, and the tale is devoid of atmosphere, while the dialogue reveals very little effort to keep the speech of the different persons in character.”
“The book has dash, fire, and romance.”
“It lacks something both of the ardour and of the fundamental gravity which make romance completely valid; but it has an undeniable sincerity which makes it very much more readable than most such works.”
PARKER, SAMUEL CHESTER. Methods of teaching in high schools. il $2 Ginn 373
“The printing of a new edition of the ‘Methods of teaching in high schools’ has given the author an opportunity to make a number of slight but important revisions. Some of these are necessitated by new scientific investigations, while others are merely improvements in the examples or the phrasing. References have also been inserted to the supplementary volume, ‘Exercises for “Methods of teaching in high schools.”’... The fundamental organization, however, has nowhere been changed.” (Preface to revised edition)
PARKS, LEIGHTON. English ways and byways. *$1.75 (3c) Scribner 914.2
In the form of letters John and Ruth Dobson, an American clergyman and his wife, on a motoring tour in England, talk pleasantly of their experiences, which include unconventional glimpses of England and the English and much about the vicissitudes of motoring. Among the chapters on England are: The great North road; The England of Fielding; An English interior; Rural England; Education; A by-election; Sheep-dogs; The black country; The county families; The boat-race; Vested interests; Church and state.
“All that is written is interesting and often it is amusing; but the wit is never biting, the story never cuts in the telling, and when all is told we really have gained a very agreeable idea of our English cousins.”
“Add that both husband and wife are extremely clever with the pen, and rather impudent in their freedom of remark, and you have all the materials out of which Dr Leighton Parks has made as entertaining a little volume as one often meets with in these dull days.”
PARRISH, RANDALL. Mystery of the silver dagger. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
Philip Severn, a secret service agent, is a collector of curios. An odd lacquer box in a New York shop attracts his attention and he buys it, altho all the proprietor can tell him is that it had been left in a hotel room and never claimed. After returning to his home he accidentally drops the box to the floor, unlooses a secret spring and picks up a folded bit of paper. But while the box itself was of undoubted antique origin, the paper is modern. It rouses Severn’s suspicion and he resolves to trace down the mystery at which it hints. His search leads him to Jersey City, a deserted factory building, a Polish saloon and a beautiful girl. The plot he uncovers involves a conspiracy against Chile, and the last bit of mystery cleared away is the relation of the beautiful girl to the band of plotters. After that comes the conventional ending.
“The plot is ingenious and the story has the fascination of swift action.”
“A lively enough yarn.”
“A murder mystery skillfully handled.”
“Mr Parrish can always be depended upon for a breath-bating narrative.”
PARRY, REGINALD ST JOHN.[2] Pastoral epistles; with introduction, text and commentary. *$8 Macmillan 227
“The object of the author has been to inquire afresh into the critical and exegetical problems on which the question of the genuineness of I and II Timothy and Titus depends. The outcome is a vigorous defense of the Pauline authorship of all three letters.”—Bib World
“Without disparaging the conscientious work in these notes, we must say that so far as the object of the monograph is concerned, Dr Parry would have done better to omit the commentary altogether—it is not any advance on earlier English work—and to discuss the partition theories of the epistles, a branch of criticism which he passes by.”
“All that can be said in favor of this opinion is here brought together probably in as convincing a form as is possible. Yet the presentation does not carry full conviction, for it treats far too lightly the objections which have been urged by other scholars against Pauline authorship.”
PARSONS, JOHN. Tour through Indiana in 1840; ed. by Kate Milner Rabb. il *$3.55 McBride 917.72
The book contains the diary of John Parsons of Petersburg, Virginia, giving an account of a trip by railroad, by stage coach and by steamboat, and an intimate picture of the life of the then near west, in its political, geographical and social and family aspects ending with a personal romance. The illustrations are from old prints and drawings and from photographs.
“There is a quaint and charming flavor in this diary.”
“The book is of particular value to those interested in Indiana and surrounding country and in the lives of the great and soon-to-be-great men and women of the time. As such it holds rank as an unusual historic document, and is a quaint picture of the politics and life of the day.”
“This book breathes the very spirit of the young West. It is a flowing and human story that takes one into the heart of the time it describes.”
“The love story that is dragged in does not add to the credibility of the tale. If the volume is not an authentic record of the journey it pretends to chronicle, the deception is inexcusable. This does not mean that the book is a waste of time. On the contrary, it is a triumph of accuracy and readability. It lifts the curtain upon a most interesting scene and shows us a fairly typical American commonwealth at a definite stage of development.”
“An altogether entertaining book.”
PARSONS, SAM JONES. Malleable cast iron. il *$3.50 Van Nostrand 672
In this second edition the author has “considered it advisable to revise the contents so as to include information concerning the more modern and scientific methods of production, thus bringing the book up to date and adding considerably to its practical value.” (Preface to the second edition) Two chapters are added on Mining by analysis and Measurement of temperature; there is also an addendum on Malleable cast steel.
“It is somewhat surprising that in a book which is evidently designed to assist the malleable-iron industry to more scientific methods of production there is no mention of the light thrown by the microscope on the structural changes which occur in the malleablising process; nor is there any reference to the mechanical properties of the various types of iron produced.”
PARSONS, WILLIAM BARCLAY. American engineers in France. il *$4 Appleton 940.373
The motif of the book is the work of the nine regiments of American engineers, with one of which the author served. “In the writing, it has been necessary to touch on all the fields of engineer activity, because these regiments came in contact with every field, even if they did not invade each one, from constructing ports to digging and holding trenches, in all parts of France from the Atlantic to the Vosges, from the Mediterranean to Flanders. Consequently there results a brief outline of what all engineers did.” (Preface) The contents are in part: The new military engineer; America’s problem; Engineer organization; Ports; French railways; American railway operations in France; Relations with the French; Forestry; Water supply; Chemical engineers; Camouflage and other fields of engineering; Maps; Flash and sound ranging and search light detection; Artillery; Light railways; Roads; Trenches and trench warfare. There are full page illustrations, figures, maps and an index.
“He has covered the field in outline sufficient for the lay reader, and with an authority that will make this one of the lasting records of the war.”
PARTRIDGE, GEORGE EVERETT. Psychology of nations; a contribution to the philosophy of history. *$2.50 Macmillan 901
“This is a psychologist’s appeal for an understanding of what is fundamental in our national life and a warning against radical and superficial thinking; it was written during the closing months of the war and in the days that followed. The first part of the book is a study of the motives of war—an analysis of such motives in the light of the general principles of the development of society. The second part of the book is a study of the present situation as an educational problem, in which we have for the first time a problem of educating national consciousness as a whole, or the individuals of a nation with reference to a world-consciousness.”—N Y Times
“Two chapters dealing with Internationalism and the School and two others on the Teaching of patriotism are especially sane and well-balanced and will be suggestive to teachers of American history who wish to base their influence for Americanization upon something less superficial than tradition and prejudice.” W: H. Allison
Reviewed by C. G. Fenwick
“Part two, on education, offers many suggestions that should interest educators.”
“One’s total reaction to the book is emotional. It is impressive not as an argument or a scientific inquiry, but as a sermon. It is edifying rather than clarifying. One is swept along much as though one were reading a book of psalms; each sentence is an exhortation, and as one proceeds the exhortatory force accumulates until one ends in an ‘intoxication mood’ of edification. One can not emerge from the book without a feeling of enthusiasm for something which is critically important, but that something is intellectually elusive.” H. W. Schneider
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
“Mr Partridge has given to the public a book which doubtless will be, as it deserves to be, widely read.”
“The large value of his book—which really ought to be called ‘The education of nations’—is that it presents, compiled and digested, the theories of many men who have dealt with a broad complex of problems.”
PATCH, EDITH MARION. Little gateway to science. il $1 Atlantic monthly press 595.7
Nature stories for young children. The author calls them “hexapod stories,” for they are all about six-footed insects, butterflies, bees, grasshoppers and the like. The titles are: Van, the sleepy butterfly, who was awakened by a January thaw; Old Bumble; The strange house of Cecid Cido Domy; Poly, the Easter butterfly; Jumping Jack; Nata, the nymph; Lampy’s Fourth o’ July; Carol; Ann Gusti’s circus; Gryl, the little black minstrel; Luna’s Thanksgiving; Keti-Abbot, the littlest Christmas guest. A word to the teacher follows and there are notes, with references to other books. The pictures are by Robert J. Sim.
“They are simply told without any sentimentality or ‘writing down.’ Good for school libraries as well as public.”
PATERSON, WILLIAM PATERSON, and RUSSELL, DAVID, eds.[2] Power of prayer. *$4 Macmillan 217
“In May, 1916, the Walker trust of the University of St Andrews offered certain prizes on ‘the meaning, the reality and the power of prayer, its place and value to the individual, to the church, and to the state, in the everyday affairs of life, in the healing of sickness and disease, in times of distress and national danger, and in relation to national ideals and to world-progress.’ In response to this offer one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven essays were received, coming from all quarters of the world and written in nineteen languages. The first prize was awarded to Rev. Samuel McComb, of Baltimore, Maryland, and is printed as the first paper following an interesting essay by Dr Paterson entitled ‘Prayer and the contemporary mind.’ Twenty other papers of varying length of different aspects of the subject are also printed.”—Bib World
“The quality of the essay by Dr McComb warrants the decision of the readers in his favor. This book is the most voluminous and satisfactory study of the subject that we know.”
“Most appear to have read widely. They express themselves lucidly. They can give reasons, not unworthy of consideration, for the faith which is in them; though, with the exception of Canon McComb, no writer can be classed as a trained theologian of eminence. The volume has not, in consequence, the importance of the series of essays entitled ‘Concerning prayer,’ which Messrs Macmillan published a few years ago. The main value of the book consists in the light which it throws on the religious tendencies of the time.”
PATON, STEWART. Education in war and peace. *$1.50 Hoeber
“In ‘Education in war and peace,’ the author makes an appeal for a united effort by physicians, psychologists, and educators to search out and develop appropriately the basic instincts and deep emotional undercurrents which have so much to do in shaping personality, determining character, and controlling conduct. The current tendency to try to ‘compensate for personal inadequacy in facing the real problems of life’ by various forms of ‘wishful thinking’ is examined and illustrated.”—Survey
“His treatment is stimulating, and any educator or social worker may read the book with the hope of receiving immediate profit from it.” F. G. Bonser
PATRICK, DIANA. Wider way. *$2 Dutton
“Veronica Quening, with a dour and brutal market gardener (who is also a local preacher) for her father, but also with a devoted stepmother, entirely free from traditional stepmotherliness, is quite staggeringly fascinating, lovely, and magnetic. She has all our sympathy in her career as school teacher, as wife for a time—after another passionate love affair—of a German; and specially as friend of Lord Swathe, for there is evidently a kinship between the beautiful girl and the stately noble house. All ends well with Veronica.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Harmless and pretty and silly.”
“Veronica, with her complexities, her ambitions, her mental and spiritual endowments, her surface froth and her profound depths, is a creation that would do credit to an older and more practiced hand. As a whole, the novel is an exceptionally good first book, which reveals a real gift for story telling and a marked faculty for producing the illusion of reality.”
PATRICK, GEORGE THOMAS WHITE. Psychology of social reconstruction. *$2 Houghton 301
In considering the dangers that threaten our present civilization—reversion to barbarism, decadence, ill-timed social reforms, et al.—the author maintains that he is not taking the usual attitude of either advocate or critic, but that of a student of ultimate values. He sees in our present awareness of social evils a hopeful sign, but insists on the inadequacy of all economic and political reforms that disregard the psychological and historical factors. No reform can endure whose psychological basis does not rest on human needs and does not conform to human nature. The three first chapters are devoted to the psychological factors in social reconstruction and the remaining four to: The psychology of work; Our centrifugal society; Social discipline; The next step in applied science. There is an index.
“The book is eminently readable and deserves a wide response.”
PATTERSON, FRANCES TAYLOR. Cinema craftsmanship. il *$2 Harcourt 808.2
The author, who is instructor in photoplay composition in Columbia university, recognizes that the moving picture art is still in its infancy, but says that her motive for writing this book is faith in its future and a desire to help awaken the public to its possibilities. Contents: The art and the science; The plot; The characters; The setting; Adaptation; Scenario technique; Writing a synopsis for the photoplay market; Cinema comedy; The critical angle; The photoplay market. The scenario for the photoplay “Witchcraft” by Margaret Turnbull, awarded a prize offered by the Famous Players-Lasky company, is appended, together with bibliography and index.
“A model scenario and an excellent bibliography make the book a complete manual for all persons interested in photoplay writing.”
PATTERSON, JOHN EDWARD. Passage of the barque Sappho. *$2.50 Dutton
“‘The passage of the barque Sappho’ portrays in minute detail the voyage of a sailing vessel from San Francisco around Cape Horn, homeward bound, to a British port. The author, J. E. Patterson, died before the book was published, and it was prepared for the press by his friend, C. E. Lawrence, who contributes a foreword. The narrative purports to be the work of two individuals, and is told in the first person. The joint contributions come from the two extremes of sea society—the cabin and the fo’castle. One is an officer and the other an ordinary seaman. When events are witnessed by both, it is from different points of view. The officer and sailor write alternately, and describe in detail all that went on above deck and in the forecastle during the long voyage. The story ends with shipwreck in the Sargasso sea.”—Springf’d Republican
“The style of the story, in so far as it may be detached from its substance, is (but for certain passages of description) homely enough, lacking in the ordinary ‘literary’ graces; but this in the end appears to be a part of virtue. Beside Conrad and Bullen my copy shall take its place with confidence.” H. W. Boynton
“The book has a historical as well as a literary value. Mr Patterson proves by this posthumous novel his understanding of character as well as his ability to write an impressive description. Each officer and man of the Sappho is a distinct individual possessed of his own little traits and peculiarities—traits and peculiarities which the author’s leisurely method enables him fully to illustrate.”
“Quite at variance with the usual nautical romance, the chronicle is free from intrigues and brutality. The book is rather long (and expensive) and is likely to prove a bit tiring to all save those interested in the subject of seafaring.”
PAUL, EDEN, and PAUL, CEDAR. Creative revolution. *$2 (*8s 6d) (4c) Seltzer 335
The authors subtitle their book “A study of communist ergatocracy,” using the newly coined word “ergatocracy” to signify workers’ rule. In the opening chapter they say, “This little volume has a twofold aim, theoretical and practical. In the theoretical field, we wish to effect an analysis of socialist trends and to attempt a synthesis of contemporary proletarian aims. In the sphere of practice we hope to intensify and to liberate the impulse towards a fresh creative effort.” Contents: Communist ergatocracy; Socialism through social solidarity; Socialism through the class struggle; The shop stewards’ movement; Historical significance of the great war; The Russian revolution; The third international; The dictatorship of the proletariat; The iron law of oligarchy; Socialism through parliament or soviet? Creative revolution; Freedom; Bibliography.
“Do the gifted authors realize that the atmosphere of a Marxian library varied by stimulating conversations with trade union leaders, is not the same as the atmosphere of a bloody revolution? Do they clearly realize the difference? Do they, in fact, know what they are talking about?”
Reviewed by A. C. Freeman
“After so much has been written, camouflaged and in equivocal language, it is a pleasure to find a book so clear-cut, so incisive and so direct in its wording and in its thought. I still believe as firmly as ever that the principles of pacifism represent the most workable social philosophy. I am therefore at total variance with the authors in their interpretation of the lessons which the Russian revolution has taught. At the same time, I am glad to welcome their contribution because of the splendid effect which it will have in clarifying issues that have puzzled and baffled so many earnest souls during the past few months.” Scott Nearing
PAYNE, FANNY URSULA. Plays and pageants of citizenship. il *$1.50 Harper 792.6
A new book of plays by the author of “Plays and pageants of democracy,” and “Plays for anychild.” Contents: Dekanawida; The triumph of democracy; The spirit of New England; The soap-box orator; The victory of the good citizen; Old Tight-wad and the victory dwarf; Rich citizens; Humane citizens.
PAYNE, GEORGE HENRY. History of journalism in the United States. *$2.50 (2c) Appleton 071
A short history of American journalism from the first newspaper to the present day, written by a man of wide newspaper experience. Among the early chapters are: Historic preparation for journalism; The first newspaper in America; The first journals and their editors; Philadelphia and the Bradfords; Printing in New York—the Zenger trial; Rise of the fourth estate; The assumption of political power; The “Boston Gazette” and Samuel Adams; Journalism and the Revolution; Adams and the alien and sedition laws. Other chapters cover the newspapers of the west, suffrage and slavery and the Civil war. Special chapters are also devoted to such great dailies as the Sun, the Herald and the Tribune. There are closing chapters on Editors of the new school; After-war problems and reform and The melodrama in the news. Interesting documents and statistics are given in appendices. There is a valuable bibliography of twenty-nine pages, followed by an index.
“The story is compact, but it moves to a lively tune, and is widely allusive. The personal human interest is widely kept in the foreground, and Mr Payne reveals a keen perception of the dramatic values of his subject.” C: H. Levermore
“Will be useful to students of journalism, but it will have an interest of its own to the general reader as it traces the growth of journalism with the development of democracy.”
Reviewed by H: L. West
“A swiftly written and vigorously phrased volume.” D. C. Seitz
“It is hard to tell which impresses one most in reading this book—the author’s sincerity or his thoroughness. The book is very valuable and intensely interesting.” C. W. T.
“He has done a creditable piece of work, amassed adequate material, used it with discrimination and an excellent sense of selection, has not forgotten that he had a ‘story’ to tell, and that one of the prime requisites of a story is that it shall be interesting.” E. G. L.
“Mr Payne’s history of American newspaper publication is well written and well proportioned. He has made the story interesting from beginning to end.”
“Mr Payne’s treatment of the press in the years before the Civil war is much the more satisfactory because, while involving little original research, it deals out information suggestively. The last part of the book is intelligent in general outlines, but is a brief and inadequate summary and seems less frank in comment. The appendices are somewhat haphazard.”
PEABODY, ROBERT SWAIN, and PEABODY, FRANCIS GREENWOOD.[2] New England romance; the story of Ephraim and Mary Jane Peabody, 1807–1892. il *$2 Houghton
“Aside from the interest it has of a faithful account by his sons of one of America’s earliest and most distinguished preachers, it possesses value as revealing the life and manner of a period. No conscious attempt has been made to do this, however, and whatever of history the reader may get comes to him as from between the lines and is therefore the more subtly impressed. The early eighties, prior to the Civil war, are revealed through the lives, ambitions, and struggles of the minister and his wife.”—N Y Evening Post
“A quaint book for lovers of New England.”
“Because of its very evident qualities of naturalness and sincerity this little volume should escape the limbo which awaits the major part of commemorative literature and be preserved among those works classed as human documents.”
“Told with a simple and natural beauty of language fitting for such a theme. Incidentally it gives a graphic picture of revolutionary and pre-revolutionary days.”
PEAKE, C. M. A. Eli of the downs. *$2 (2c) Doran
The narrator of the story found Eli as an old man in his cottage, Beulah, on the downs, where he spends his last days carving fiddles, and surrounded by the few treasures he had garnered from his wanderings over the earth. He had always been a rare character, this shepherd, with a rich inner life. Early in life he had married a mate worthy of him, but it was a short happiness, and then the young widower took to wandering. For some eight years he followed the sea and saw many lands. Then it was surveying and ranching in Canada where an old Chinese cook instructed him in the wisdom of Confucius and Lao Tsu, but with failing health he turned his steps once more to England. At Beulah cottage, lonely to the last, but emanating a silent influence for good over the neighborhood, he ended his days in peace.
“The author cannot leave his characters to speak their mind, he must speak it for them, and even reinforce their statements with a kind of running commentary and explanatory notes which are very tiring to keep up with.” K. M.
“It is, on the whole, well written, and while not a particularly engrossing volume, neither is it a dull one.”
“Apart from its idea, or animus, this is a narrative of sincere and fresh quality, varied in substance and by no means artless, though it agreeably lacks the art of the professional story-teller.” H. W. Boynton
“‘Eli of the downs’ is more than a work of promise: Mr Peake tells the life-history of one who was ‘a shepherd at heart as well as by profession’ with a wealth of illuminating detail, with a love of his subject and an intimate knowledge of Wessex country life that combine to make the story memorable and delightful.”
PEARCE, FRANCIS BARROW. Zanzibar; the island metropolis of eastern Africa. il *$12 Dutton 967
“A very substantial work by the British resident in Zanzibar, embracing the history, politics, anthropology, resources, and archæology of the island.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“For a leisurely pursuit of odds and ends of knowledge, or for the scholar, geographer, historian, or student of Arab dominion I recommend his volume. No thrills, few laughs, but the book marches on in a pleasant and profitable path of facts and comment.” F: O’Brien
“He has taken immense pains in the compilation of his book, he has ransacked the chronicles, consulted the retailers of legends, referred to modern authorities and drawn upon his own experiences to produce a well-constructed and agreeably written compendium of all that there is to be told of Zanzibar.”
PEARL, BERTHA. Sarah and her daughter. $2.25 (1½c) Seltzer
The scene of the story opens on Henry street in the Ghetto and portrays the American Jew in every nuance of his racial peculiarities. The abject poverty and suffering, the breaking under suffering, the resiliency, the ethical slips in the fierce struggle for existence, the hysteria and nervous breakdowns, the seriousness and absence of a sense of humor and the fundamental goodness of heart that always has the last word to say, are all there and every type finds its place down to the tragic figure of the orthodox survivor of a dead religion. In Sarah and her daughter Minnie, the immigrant Jew and the first generation, with the resulting sad conflicts between parent and child, are represented.
“Not a pleasant story, but worth while as a sincere interpretation of a type of life which the author understands intimately.”
“As a story it is very little more than a string of episodes reported with pitiless minuteness. If ruthless and harrowing verisimilitude is of service to you, accept it in this book. Why the publishers should assert that it is a new thing, is not clear.” H. W. Boynton
“There is real emotional power in the author’s handling of her calamitous theme. She seems to lose subtlety at times because of her very sincerity; the book is in spots too wooden in its realism, and there is some careless workmanship. But the characterization is acute.” F. E. H.
“There is no relief, even in the scenes between the young children, and we wonder if the story is not too photographically realistic, missing some worth or beauty under the bald surface.” L. W. M.
“A rather amorphous but by no means talentless book. Miss Pearl has a very keen and clear eye for the physical conditions of her people’s lives—both in the Ghetto and beyond it—and a genuine gift, despite her blunt and sprawling style, for rendering the atmosphere of bleak and homeless places. There is no reason why Miss Pearl should not do admirable work as she grows in self-discipline of both style and feeling, and acquires a cooler spirit and a more tempered surface.”
“It does more than present a partially new viewpoint of matters with which we are familiar, it brings a new range of material within our understanding. Here is an American book with a straightforward story, in the main well told and without sentimentalism.” R. V. A. S.
“Her descriptions are so true that one can’t help but feel that the story is equally as true.” Rose Karsner
“It is a work that is noteworthy in American literature, suggesting Dickens and De Morgan modernized and Americanized.”
“To the American reader who has previously known little or nothing about that life, it is like the brilliant illumination from the inside of a dark room.”
“Whatever criticism may be offered lies in the possibility that even tenement existence is not always as barren of sunshine and joys of life as the author would have us believe. But that is not sufficiently outstanding to detract from the authentic interest of the story.”
PEARL, RAYMOND.[2] Nation’s food. il *$3.50 Saunders 338
“Mr Pearl was chief of the statistical division of the Food administration, and as such presents ‘unbiased statistical data rather than my own opinion as to their interpretation.’ The book is made up for the greater part of clear classifications and tables.”—Survey
“With his usual thoroughness and breadth of view he has included in his inquiry so many ramifications that his investigation covers Europe also. It thus possesses extraordinary interest at the present time.” E. J. Russell
“As a source book, this volume is warmly recommended.” B. L.
PEARSON, EDMUND LESTER. Theodore Roosevelt. il *$1.75 (5c) Macmillan
The book is one of the series of “True stories of great Americans,” and is a brief biography intended to catch the interest of boys. Contents: The boy who collected animals; In college; In politics; “Ranch life and the hunting trail”; Two defeats; Fighting office-seekers; Police commissioner; The rough rider; Governor of New York; President of the United States; The lion hunter; Europe and America; The bull moose; The explorer; The man; The great American; Illustrations.
“He has been unwise in trying to explain Roosevelt’s war-policies to the detriment of President Wilson, and to laud the efficiency of one party over another—especially in his capacity as writer for children who want the essential action of the man—Roosevelt—without the political struggles in which he was involved.”
“One of the best short summaries of Roosevelt’s career that have yet appeared. The author’s treatment of the intimate, personal phases of his subject is especially felicitous.”
“He has made excellent use of the new material about Mr Roosevelt which has been available since his death, and has brought out with skill and judgment the simplicity and singleness of Mr Roosevelt’s Americanism.”
“Mr Pearson has perhaps had more than ordinary success in confining his story to the essential features, keeping a good sense of proportion and never letting go the central thread of the narrative. His book is workmanlike as well as entertaining.”
“One cannot help feeling that the appeal would be stronger if the work were more graphic and less controversial and the author had seen fit to eliminate his attacks on the opponents of Roosevelt.”
PECK, LORA B. Stories for good children. il *$1.50 Little
These fairy and folk tales are collected from all countries. Some of them are very ancient, being traced back to the home of the Aryan race and all are so simple in their make-up and telling that they are offered as an aid to reading. The countries represented in the choice are: Ireland, Scotland, England, India, China, Japan, Mexico, Persia, Russia.
PEDLER, MARGARET. House of dreams-come-true. *$1.75 (1½c) Doran
Jean, though English, has never seen England until she is twenty. Then her father, a prey to wanderlust, packs her off to some friends of his, while he goes roaming the world. Just before she goes to England, Jean has one magical day with an anonymous young Englishman, and to her surprise and his apparent dismay when she arrives at Lady Anne’s home where she is to stay she finds the elder son of the house to be her unknown companion of Montavan. The magic still holds for both of them, but there are many barriers between them and many bitter hours before they finally enter their “house of dreams-come-true,” a house “not built of stones and mortar, but just—where love is.”
“Not ‘deep’ but entertaining.”
“A fairly consistent and always readable book of fiction. The book, as a whole, is one that will give excellent entertainment, although it is impossible to assign it any important place in the contemporary output of fiction.”
“A thoroughly readable story, though inclining somewhat to the sentimental.”
PEEL, GEORGIANA ADELAIDE (RUSSELL), lady. Recollections; comp. by Ethel Peel. il *$5 Lane
Lady Georgiana Peel, whose recollections are compiled in the present volume by her daughter, is the daughter of Sir John Russell and her recollections cover the period from the early forties to the present time. She was intimately acquainted with all the eminent people in Queen Victoria’s reign of whom she has recorded pleasant memories with many historical events of importance. The book is illustrated and has an index.
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
“It is mainly a picture of the most attractive side of English social life. It gives to the American reader a much more intimate acquaintance with that life than he could possibly attain by any introductions.”
“It is a kindly book, written by a gracious lady, giving a picture of an age that has passed away.”
“Lady Georgiana Peel’s engaging book of recollections ought to attract readers of many and varied tastes. The book is attractive in its frank simplicity.”
PENDEXTER, HUGH. Red belts. il *$1.50 (1½c) Doubleday
The time in which the story is placed is 1784, when the quondam colonies had not yet acquired the consciousness of a consolidated group of states. The scene is west of the Alleghanies in what was to be the state of Tennessee but where, at the time of the story, the white settlers were still fighting for their existence against the surrounding Indians aided by renegade white plotters in the interests of Spain. It is a tale of love and adventure in which the hero John Sevier, “Chucky Jack,” a pioneer of Americanism performs gallant deeds of heroism and daring and not only saves his state for the Union but lovely Elsie Tonpit from brutal outlaws and for her lover Kirk Jackson, another true American.
“A stirring pioneer tale.”
“Taken on the whole, ‘Red belts’ is a good example of the real adventure story, with enough patriotic suggestion to render it of wholesome appeal.”
PENNELL, ELIZABETH (ROBINS) (MRS JOSEPH PENNELL) (N. N., pseud.), and PENNELL, JOSEPH. Life of James McNeill Whistler. new and rev ed il *$6.50 Lippincott
“This is the revised sixth edition of the authorized biography of Whistler. Since the original publication in two volumes in 1908 the authors have been collecting and verifying documents, and have received numerous suggestions and statements of facts. The new edition, therefore, contains new materials in the text as well as new illustrations, which include more than one hundred reproductions of the artist’s works.”—R of Rs
“The book, because of the treatment no less than because of the subject, is vastly entertaining.”
PEPPER, CHARLES MELVILLE. Life and times of Henry Gassaway Davis, 1823–1916. il *$4 (4½c) Century
The life of “the grand old man” of West Virginia is marked by two phases, says the biographer: “the romance of railway building, the development of natural resources, the creation of industrial communities” is the one, “public service, political leadership, citizenship in its highest sense,” the other. His many-sided character and activities were unusual. He was intensely practical and was also a man of vision. A partial list of the contents follows: Ancestry and youth; Pioneer railway days; International American conferences; The Pan-American railway; Vice-presidential nomination and after; Benefactions and philanthropies; Famous contemporaries; Personal characteristics. There is an index and illustrations.
PERCIVAL, MACIVER. Glass collector; a guide to old English glass. (Collector’s ser.) il *$2.50 (4c) Dodd 738.2
“The collector who has been in my mind when writing this book has not very much money to spare, and none to waste. He wants to get full value when he makes a purchase, and if a bargain comes his way so much the better.” (Preface) To guide such a collector to know which to choose and how to distinguish the old from the new, the real from the sham is the object of the book. After an introductory chapter on drinking glasses in England to the end of the seventeenth century and seven chapters on the various kinds of wine glasses the contents are: Cut glass; Engraved glasses; Curios; Bottles, decanters, flasks and jugs; Opaque and coloured glass; Frauds, fakes and foreigners; Foreign glass; Manufacturing and decorative processes; Prices; Bibliography; Glossary; Index.
“Will be helpful to the amateur since it is very well illustrated and contains hints on the detection of imitations.”
PERCIVAL, MACIVER. Old English furniture and its surroundings. il *$7.50 Scribner 749
“The period Mr Percival covers in this work is from the restoration of the monarchy to the regency. This period he has divided into four sections: The restoration; The end of the 17th century and the early 18th; Early Georgian; Late Georgian. To each section he has given five chapters: Fittings and ornament decorations; Furniture; Upholstery, wall and floor coverings; Table appointments; Decorative adjuncts.”—Springf’d Republican
“Mr Percival writes with unusual good sense. Moreover, he is firmly though not pedantically for unmixed style and speaks with authority. For the trained decorator, however, the book contains little that is actually new or in any way suggestive.”
“If one can judge at all from some of the imposing Fifth avenue shops, people do enjoy living in period-houses, fitting up rooms in period-furniture, buying all manner of things antique. For these impassioned collectors, at least, Mr Percival’s book is unequivocally useful, being clearly written and having much practical information.”
PERCY, EUSTACE SUTHERLAND CAMPBELL, lord. Responsibilities of the league. *$2 Doran 341.1
“This is a book written in the interest of civilization. It is true that there have been civilizations, not altogether contemptible, without Christianity; and it is arguable that there may be civilizations hereafter not based on state sovereignty. But the author’s point is both true and indisputable that the revolution which threatens both of these institutions may drag all civilization with it unless a high intelligence commands and canalizes its forces. Lord Eustace considers the league of nations as the potential champion of the idea of the state and commonwealth, the possible medium by which we may come to the spirit of a united Christendom. That, no doubt, is his ideal: to set it off he offers a penetrating analysis of the past and makes the profound observation that the treaty of Versailles, which he does not defend, is the almost complete result of the two forces of nationalism and democracy.”—Dial
“I do not understand all of it nor agree with all I understand, but I am fain to mark its superior importance.” Sganarelle
“His book will provoke much dissent, but it has the supreme merit of making its readers think on the great problems that face the world.”
“The book fairly bristles with provocative suggestions. The treatment of the basis and mainsprings of American foreign policy makes an American gasp with envy at their insight and sympathy.”
“A solution must answer the conditions of the problem proposed, and one has the feeling that Lord Eustace’s criticisms of recent policy do not always take account of that fact. But that is a matter of controversy. What is not a matter of controversy is the quality of Lord Eustace Percy’s book—its breadth of outlook, its richness of information, its penetrating candour, its analytic power, and, above all, its depth of conviction.”
PERCY, WILLIAM ALEXANDER. In April once. *$1.50 Yale univ. press 811
“Mr Percy’s book consists of a poetic drama in one act, about half a hundred lyrics, and a longish philosophical monologue entitled ‘An epistle from Corinth.’ The drama—‘In April once’—is a study of a renaissance youth, Guido, who sacrifices his life out of impetuous generosity that a leper and a jailer (though a very knightly jailer) might tempt death.”—Bookm
“In his lyrics, Mr Percy tastes in some degree of the divine madness of Keats. Rare indeed is Mr Percy’s pure lyric gift: limpidity and strength of emotion and adequacy of art.” R. M. Weaver
“He is by no means distinguished, and he is somewhat too fond of his literary good manners, but he has done some shapely, thoroughbred exercises in elegy and exultation.”
“His work proves imitative in many ways.”
“Finer than his ‘Sappho in Levkas,’ with all its promise, is ‘In April once.’ This volume has all the charm and freshness of the earlier book, with a deeper and more appealing view of the world.” E: B. Reed
PÉREZ DE AYALA, RAMÓN. Prometheus: The fall of the house of Limón; Sunday sunlight. *$3 Dutton
“Under the threefold title, ‘Prometheus: The fall of the house of Limón; Sunday sunlight,’ the E. P. Dutton company publishes three novelettes of Spanish life by Ramón Pérez de Ayala, which Alice P. Hubbard has turned into English. ‘Prometheus,’ a modern tale which parallels or parodies a Greek legend, deals sunnily with a man who, seeking for perfect offspring, becomes the father of an oaf and hunchback. ‘Limón’ is a murder tale. ‘Sunday sunlight’ is a tale of ravishers which recites horrors which recall and surpass ‘Titus Andronicus.’”—Review
“Those who enjoy artistry, intelligence and pages overflowing with the evidence of original and unique talent will welcome the book and will read it more than once.”
“Señor de Ayala is all sprightliness and glow. He has a draughtsman eye, a colorist eye, an eye reminiscent of Gautier, and he scatters brilliancies with the prodigality of a man for whom splendor is the only warmth.”
PERKINS, LUCY (FITCH) (MRS DWIGHT HEALD PERKINS). Italian twins. il *$1.75 Houghton
The Italian twins are Beppo and Beppina, who live in an old palace on the banks of the Arno. They are kidnapped by two vagabonds with a monkey and a performing bear and are made to sing and dance and entertain the country people and villagers. They are taken to Venice but finally make their escape and after more wandering adventures reach their home safely.
“Beautiful makeup and sketches.”
“One is always sorry when Mrs Perkins fails to reach her own high mark. But this incredible tale of the kidnapping of two little aristocrats shows no side of real Italian life.” M. H. B. Mussey
“‘The Italian twins’ is a wholesome stimulating book for children between eight and thirteen to read and own.” E. R. Burt
PERKINS, LUCY (FITCH) (MRS DWIGHT HEALD PERKINS). Scotch twins. il *$1.50 Houghton
Jock and Jean are the hero and heroine of this story, with its scenes laid in Scotland. The pictures as in other books of the series are from drawings by the author.
“A good picture of national life and customs with a rather more dramatic plot than that of former volumes of the series.”
“Jock and Jean have, perhaps, the most exciting and amusing adventures of any of the twins, but, as a small boy critic said, ‘They have an absent-minded way of using occasional Scottish words and then relapsing into plain American talk.’”
“‘The Scotch twins,’ Jock, the sleepy-head, and Jean, the canny little polisher and scrubber, are just as lovable as any of their predecessors. There is a nice little surprise, too, in the last chapter.”
“Anyone who has never before understood the claims of a clan will find this and other peculiarities of Scotch life thoroughly explained.”
PERRY, ALLEN MASON, comp. Electrical aids to greater production. il *$2 McGraw 621.3
“Based upon a series of articles in the Electrical World, of which the author is engineering editor. The best of practice, as developed by the war, is presented as a practical handbook, rather than as a text-book, full of suggestions for the installation, operation, and maintenance, as well as the problems of layout and control. The eight chapters cover: General power problems of industrial plants; Distribution, transformation, switching and protection; Motors, control, specific applications, troubles and remedies; Illumination, selection of equipment, economies, and specific applications; Electric furnaces, welding, etc.; Meters and measurements as applied to industries; Handling material in industrial plants with electric tractors; Outdoor substations.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
PERRY, BLISS. Study of poetry. *$3.25 Houghton 808.1
In attempting “to set forth in decent prose some of the strange potencies of verse” the author has given but little space to the epic and drama and has devoted himself more especially to the various forms of the lyric, which to him seems to hold the future of poetry. “The folk-epic is gone, the art-epic has been outstripped by prose fiction, and the drama needs a theatre. But the lyric needs only a poet, who can compose in any of its myriad forms.... Through it today, as never before in the history of civilization, the heart of a man can reach the heart of mankind.” Accordingly the book falls into two parts. Part I, Poetry in general, treats of poetry in retrospect, of the province of poetry and the poet, of rhythm and metre, rhyme, stanza and free verse. Part II, The lyric in particular, contains: The field of lyric poetry; Relationships and types of the lyric; Race, epoch and individual; The present status of the lyric. There are also Notes and illustrations, an appendix, a bibliography and an index.
“While it has a genuine interest for the creator and critical interpreter of poetry, its specific value is for that very large body of readers who are between these two groups.” W: S. Braithwaite
“The book is avowedly written with the classroom’s needs in view, as well as those of the inquiring general reader, and the former aim to some extent vitiates the author’s treatment by imposing too eclectic an ideal upon him. The book is a résumé of poetics rather than a personal confession.” Llewellyn Jones
“No critic since Matthew Arnold seems to us to have so positively as Mr Perry the capacity to make us see more clearly and think more accurately and sensibly about poetry and at the same time make the seeing and the thinking increase our enthusiasm for the vital things.” C. F. L.
“In the long run his book is not simple enough. He will be useful to a certain kind of teacher; but he will move few students and he will enkindle no poets.” Mark Van Doren
“The fault of the book is that it contains too many long quotations from other critics. But this very fault, in the present instance, makes the book a presentation of the best modern critical thought on the lyric. He will be a bold man who attempts to cover Professor Perry’s field for many years to come.” C. E. Andrews
“Professor Perry’s volume is suggestive and stimulating. It will be useful to the classroom teacher, to the solitary student and to the average reader, who will gain from it knowledge certain to increase his enjoyment of verse.” Brander Matthews
“He gives an unusually clear analysis, supported by rich and apt quotation, of the effects of poetry upon the reader. The value of his essay lies in its vivid ability to provide us with those moments of lucid understanding in which poetic experience is restored to us.” L. R. Morris
“He is first of all a collector, secondly, an assayer, thirdly, and a little less willingly, an arbiter, and, only incidentally and reluctantly, a reasoner or controversialist.” O. W. Firkins
PERRY, LAWRENCE. For the game’s sake. (Fair play ser.) il *$1.65 Scribner
“Half a dozen tales, each having to do with some special form of athletics, make up Mr Lawrence Perry’s little volume entitled ‘For the game’s sake.’ The first tells of a football ‘star’ who, being also ‘The spoiled boy,’ broke training and misbehaved himself until the coach found it necessary to put him off the team. But there was a sensible and eloquent girl in the case, who brought the culprit to book in a manner which convinced him of the error of his ways. Another tale has to do with an international tennis tournament. Baseball of course is not neglected. Each of the tales presupposes a fairly close acquaintance on the reader’s part with that particular game with which it has to do.”—N Y Times
“The book stands for clean playing in every sport. Each story works up thrillingly to a dramatic climax where victory comes by the narrowest of margins.”
PERRY, STELLA GEORGE (STERN) (MRS GEORGE HOUGH PERRY). Palmetto. *$1.90 (1c) Stokes
Palmetto, as a child of thirteen, runs away from the only parents she has ever known, but whom she instinctively feels are only foster parents. She finds a refuge in New Orleans with a kindly fisherman who adopts her and brings her up as his own daughter. Associated with him is David Cantrelle, a lad of good birth whose family is genuinely shocked at his choice of occupation. He loves Palmetto from the first, and when her heart awakens and responds to his, they become engaged. But his family objects to the match, on account of the mystery of her birth and she determines to show them she is worth while. So she goes to New York where she makes a conspicuous success as an actress. One of her southern admirers follows her there, makes ardent love to her and almost succeeds in replacing David in her heart. But she learns in time that her love for David is deeper than any Hartley can command. The mystery of her birth is eventually cleared up and she finds she has as good blood in her veins as either David or Hartley.
“The greatest defect in this romance of the bayou region of Louisiana is that it is somewhat overlong. Individual sentences and paragraphs are frequently overgrown with too rank a growth of adjectives.”
PETERSON, SAMUEL. Democracy and government. *$2 Knopf 321.8
According to the author’s initial assumption that “a government carries into effect ideas,” the book naturally falls into two parts: What persons should have the legal right to determine finally the ideas to be carried into effect; and in what manner the ideas to be carried into effect should be selected, and how they should be carried into effect. Accordingly part 1, The ruling power of the state, discusses the difference between autocracy, oligarchy and democracy as one of conditions rather than of law, and defines a democratic government as a government of the intelligent members of the ruling race. Part 2, The organization of the government, is an inquiry into how the ideas to be carried into effect may be selected as reliably and carried into effect as certainly and efficiently as possible. The contents under part 2 are: Governmental functions; Legislative organization; Administrative organization; Judicial organization; Direct legislation. There is an index.
“A book which, while blazing no new paths, is well designed to assist the reader in forming a reasonably critical view of the state is Samuel Peterson’s ‘Democracy and government’ which treats fundamental political theories with knowledge of their historical importance, yet with hard-headed sociological insight. The author is always frank, and, while he has pronounced views of his own, he cannot be called a doctrinaire.”
“His criticisms of the present governmental machinery are generally just, but the remedies suggested might prove to be worse than the disease. The book shows hard work and earnestness throughout, however, and should prove a valuable contribution to the literature on the subject.” A. G. Dehly
PETRUCCI, RAPHAËL. Chinese painters; a critical study; tr. by Frances Seaver; with a biographical note by Lawrence Binyon. il *$2 Brentano’s 759.9
“The book comprises a comprehensive and yet compact study of painting in China. His survey takes us back to the dim ages long before the appearance of Buddhism in China, and then brings the reader to the present time.” (Outlook) “It explains briefly the principles of technique and then, as it sketches the historical evolution of painting, reveals its dominating philosophical idea, the search for abstract form. The author was an authority on oriental art. There are numerous pleasing reproductions, bibliography, index of painters and periods.” (Booklist)
“Concise and illuminating volume.”
“Happily the author writes for the general reader and the lover of art rather than for the elect; his treatment of a large theme shows the advantage of one who has a gift for luminous condensation.”
“For the uninitiated in these matters, ‘Chinese painters’ is a necessary education. For him who understands already the beauty of the masters of China, the book is valuable.”
PETTIGREW, RICHARD FRANKLIN. Course of empire; introd. by Scott Nearing. il *$4.50 Boni & Liveright 815
“The author of this volume held a seat in the United States senate during the ’90s of the last century. He was active in the senate at a turning point in the career of the nation, a period when the frontier was disappearing, when the great oligarchies of capital were organizing, and when the United States became a colonial power. In short, his public career is identical with the origin of imperialism in the United States. The book consists of a compilation of the speeches of ex-Senator Pettigrew in the senate on these imperialist policies as they were forming. They fall into three groups—those dealing with the annexation of the Hawaiian islands; those dealing with the conquest of the Philippines; and those dealing with the antagonism of the West to the banking and trust groups of the East. Accompanying the addresses which reveal a wide variety of information on the part of the author, are many documents of much historical value to the reader.”—N Y Call
“These speeches, both concerning Hawaiian affairs and those in the Philippines, are useful as a matter of record; they will be very valuable to the future historian, who desires to understand the obstacles encountered by the nation in its movement toward an expanded civilization and world power.” E. J. C.
“The addresses show that the author during his public career had that capacity which is so rare in the men of a later generation who have served in Congress. His mind was always open, and he advanced with the progress of his time.” James Oneal
“Although the book comprises a vivid study of the development of imperial policy in the United States it might better have been compressed into half the size for the benefit of the general reader. There are too many and too liberal quotations from Mr Pettigrew’s own speeches.”
PHELPS, EDITH M., comp. Selected articles on the American merchant marine. (Debaters’ handbook ser.) *$1.50 Wilson, H. W. 387
To this second edition of a handbook published in 1916 nearly one hundred pages of reprinted matter have been added. This matter is designed to cover events since the publication of the first edition, including the assembling of a large merchant fleet and the question of its disposal, together with arguments for and against government ownership and operation. The bibliography has been enlarged and brought down to date, and the introduction and briefs have been rewritten.
“A volume covering intelligently and with reasonable fulness the history and present status of the commercial fleet of the United States.”
PHELPS, EDITH M., ed. University debaters’ annual; constructive and rebuttal speeches delivered in debates of American colleges and universities during the college year, 1919–1920. v 6 *$2.25 Wilson, H. W.
Seven subjects of timely importance are included in this volume of the debaters’ annual: Government ownership and operation of coal mines; The Cummins plan for the control of railroads; Affiliation of teachers with the American federation of labor; Compulsory arbitration of railway labor disputes; Compulsory arbitration of labor disputes; The closed shop; Suppression of propaganda for the overthrow of the United States government (two debates). Each debate is accompanied by briefs and a selected bibliography. “The bibliographies have been compiled mostly by the editor, and are not limited to the material actually used in the debate, as their main purpose is helpfulness to the prospective debater.” (Preface) The volume is indexed.
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. As the wind blows. *$1.50 Macmillan 821
“Mr Phillpotts sings a good deal about his beloved Dartmoor, but he tells of other subjects, too—Gallipoli, the grave of Keats, etc.—and he has one descriptive piece from the jungle called ‘Tiger,’ and a longish blank verse poem staging Adam and Eve in Paradise.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Of some of his pieces one has the impression that they were written as an exercise in verse. But in others a genuine inspiration is apparent. ‘The neolith’ and ‘Tiger’ contain fine things.”
“It is the reality of the atmosphere rather than the circumstance that gives Mr Phillpotts’s verse its individuality; the taste, smell, contour of locality, rather than the sharp and sudden force of either crisis or event in human action that gives the unique character to his rhythmic expression.” W. S. B.
“He writes in the great English tradition, but brings a note that is essentially his own at the same time.”
“It is always difficult to analyse charm, but in this instance the effect of the attraction is that we are apt to like poems that have very palpable faults.”
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. Evander. *$2 Macmillan
“Evander is an apostle of plain living and high thinking in the early days when the gods of Olympus had not settled their respective rights in the hierarchy of worship and when marriage was still a rare thing among humble folk. Festus and Livia were perhaps the first among their neighbours to wed, under the auspices of Bacchus, while Evander, as the votary of Apollo, endeavours to convert her to the higher worship of his god. He succeeds for a time in gaining her allegiance, and she leaves her husband to follow him, but finds the mental atmosphere too rarefied for her, and finally returns to her home and husband, Bacchus being able to show his half-brother the unwisdom of vengeance on Festus.”—Sat R
“The delicate, bright atmosphere in which this enchanting book is bathed must be left for the reader to enjoy.” K. M.
“The dialogue is full of witty and amiable satire of our own times, the barb being especially sharp for the ‘intelligentzia’ of all times.” H. W. Boynton
“It is impossible to overlook the roguish satire upon social affairs of the present day that Mr Phillpotts has woven into his story. The very presence and name of Bacchus proves that he has reference to the immediate present in writing of the far-away past.” E. F. E.
“The trouble with the book is the same as with all of Mr Phillpotts’s books—a lack of felicity which is not compensated for, as it is in the case of his master, Hardy, by a dour grandeur. ‘Evander’ particularly needed grace and there is none.”
“The tale would, indeed, be worth reading merely for the grace and charm of its style, and its flexible, deft, and effective phrasing.”
“A bit of irony impishly humorous, entirely delightful.”
“The vein is one of mild social satire; the touch is light and easy; and here also is the charm of imagination and fancy.”
“We should like to congratulate the author on his success in a rather limited style of fiction. We can remember nothing in English at all equal to it since Dr Garnett’s ‘Twilight of the gods,’ while it has much in common with Anatole France in the satire of the foibles of the philosopher which lies at its root. It may be perceived we are giving Mr Phillpotts high praise.”
“A pretty, though often rather cheap, little story.”
+ − |Spec 123:822 D 13 ’19 100w
“Mr Phillpotts’s literary cunning makes an agreeable tale out of all this—picturesque and quietly humorous.”
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. Miser’s money. *$2 Macmillan
“The characters [of this novel] are drawn with realism and subtlety. More especially that of David Mortimer, the hard-bitten old miser, whose cheese-paring, hatred of women, and cynical disbelief in everybody and everything are so cleverly defended that they almost capture the young soul of his nephew Barry Worth, who lives with him and works his farm. David leaves his money to Barry on condition that he doesn’t marry, the fact that Barry was ‘tokened’ to a buxom barmaid having been concealed from him. Barry is true to Marian; the will is void; and the money divided between the miser’s brother and two sisters. But the lawyer who handed the will to Barry delivered at the same time a bulky letter from David to be read in solitude. In that letter is contained the mystery, the heart of the matter which makes the novel.”—Sat R
“The characters are interesting and the story moves along pleasantly and very calmly. There is less humor than in some of the earlier work.”
“After all, Mr Phillpotts has said his say about human nature on Dartmoor, and he has little new to offer in type or situation. It is pleasant and comfortable to meet some more of his people now and then—and that is all.” H. W. Boynton
“The story as a whole is an excellent example of Mr Phillpotts’s style at its best.” E. F. E.
“The novel is beautifully written. All Mr Phillpotts’s readers know how fine are his descriptions of his dearly loved Dartmoor, though there are fewer of them in this his latest novel than in the majority of his Dartmoor books.”
“An excellent example of the author’s quiet, subtle, and humorous exposition of contrasted character.”
“It is as charming a novel, and as telling a picture of family life on ‘Dartymoor’ as we ever read, or as Mr Phillpotts has ever written. Worthy to rank with the best of his many delightful novels.”
“The different veins of his talent, tragic and humorous, are here fused with happy results. ‘Miser’s money’ shows him at his mellowest and best as artist and observer.”
“The plot is simple and rather erratic, but taken as a whole the story displays that excellence of craftsmanship which long since placed the author in the forefront of his peculiar field.”
“Mr Phillpotts keeps us almost too near to life. He presents us with one more faithful and consistent study of Dartmoor people, but of Dartmoor people principally in their heavier and less significant moments. The plot, though simple and pastoral, is a very good plot; but no plot could survive this flood of conversation.”
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.[2] West country pilgrimage. il *$9 Macmillan 914.2
“A by-product of Mr Phillpotts’s researches into the lore of Devonshire has been put together in a volume entitled ‘A west country pilgrimage,’ with sixteen illustrations in color by A. T. Benthall. Here he sketches in a series of sixteen essays the scenes of heath and river, of village and shore as they meet the eye of the traveller through or the sojourner in that corner of England.”—Boston Transcript
“The book represents the happiest combining of language, printing, and art.” Margaret Ashmun
“Some of the water colors by A. T. Benthall are unusually fine, and they all display a decided originality of talent. To many, perhaps, the illustrations will seem preferable to the text, for they achieve their intended result with less effort.” B. R. Redman
“An attractive book for lovers of Devon and Cornwall.”
PICKARD, BERTRAM. Reasonable revolution. *$1.25 Macmillan 336.2
“A thin blue volume entitled ‘A reasonable revolution,’ filled with economic principles and suggestions, has just been brought out by Macmillan company. It is an ardent and eager defense of the state bonus for motherhood and national minimum income scheme as evolved by Dennis Milner, the head of the state bonus league of England. This book is written by Bertram Pickard, who has been a co-worker with Milner for some time.” (Springf’d Republican) “Briefly, the scheme is for a national appropriation of 20 per cent of all incomes, without consideration of other taxes or burdens on them; the resulting fund to be pooled and redistributed in such a way as to provide every individual and family with a national minimum sufficient to sustain national standards of comfort, health, education and other essentials of a full and efficient life.” (Survey)
“Mr Pickard is thoroughly conversant with his subject, looks at it tirelessly from every point of view and appears to answer every possible question with which a careful student of economics might attack the scheme.”
PILLSBURY, WALTER BOWERS. Psychology of nationality and internationalism. *$2.50 (3½c) Appleton 321
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“The argument is well-reasoned throughout.” C. G. Fenwick
“Following upon much political disputation on nationality and internationality, it is very clarifying to follow this psychologist through his discussion of the mentality of nations.”
“His belief in the integrity of the national state does not take into account that growing regionalism which challenges the authority of the state at the same time that it denies the false unity of belligerent nationalism. And the temperate lucidity of the author’s psychological exposition does not equate his superficial examination of the historical groundwork of nationality and internationalism.”
“The reviewer found the most interesting chapter the one on Hate as a social force.” Ellsworth Faris
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
“Dr Pillsbury’s chapter on Hate as a social force is very apposite and suggestive. The chapter on The nation and mob consciousness is an excellent criticism of LeBon’s group psychology. The chapter on Nationality and the League of nations is the least satisfactory.”
PINKERTON, MRS KATHRENE SUTHERLAND (GEDNEY), and PINKERTON, ROBERT EUGENE. Long traverse. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday
When Bruce Rochette comes into the northland he comes with a deadly hatred of the Hudson’s Bay Company and a determination to avenge his mother’s death which he holds the fur trading company responsible for. He wins the confidence of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s manager, Herbert Morley, and then uses every trick and stratagem at his command to establish a rival post at Fort Mystery. Everything is going well, until he meets Evelyn Morley, and falls in love with her. Judged by her absolute standards of right and wrong, his policy of all’s fair in war condemns him in his own eyes as well as hers. In an endeavor to straighten matters out, he very nearly loses his self respect, his girl, his job, and even his life. But finally everything is restored to him that is necessary for his happiness and Evelyn’s.
“A pleasantly written tale.”
PINKERTON, MRS KATHRENE SUTHERLAND (GEDNEY), and PINKERTON, ROBERT EUGENE. Penitentiary Post. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday
A story of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Phil Boynton is sent to take charge of the fort known as Penitentiary Post, a place with an evil reputation. Behind him at Savant House, he leaves the girl he loves, knowing that John Wickson, the man who is sending him north, also loves her and is determined to win her, and half suspecting that personal motives were back of the appointment. At Penitentiary Post he finds himself fully occupied with the mystery of the “weeteego,” or evil spirit, that haunts it. His Indians desert the place in fear and the fur hunters refuse to come near it. Joyce Plummer, hearing tales of what he is undergoing, comes alone through the storm to find him, and Wickson follows. The three, who are forced to make common cause against hunger, come to an understanding, and the poor, crazed Indian who had watched his family die of starvation and is taking a weird revenge on the white man, meets his own fate.
PINOCHET, TANCREDO. Gulf of misunderstanding; or, North and South America as seen by each other. *$2.50 Boni & Liveright 917.3
“This book first appeared serially in El Norte Americano. Mr Pinochet is a Chilean and the author of seven books on government and kindred subjects. He came to this country some years ago for the expressed object of learning to understand the United States that he might tell his countrymen about us. He has selected an entertaining manner of setting forth the views of the two Americas. He has made no attempt to make a story of his book, yet he has introduced two distinct characters. The first is a Latin-American man, who, being in the United States, writes letters to his wife at home about whatever interests him in this country. The woman is an American, a member of the censor’s department during the war. She reads the letters of the husband and in her turn writes an accompanying letter, discussing the same subject.”—Boston Transcript
“The surprising thing about the book is that Mr Pinochet should so have entered into the United States point of view as to make one believe, while reading his instructive volume, that a native of this country had risen in its defense.”
“The book should prove a link in the chain which should finally bind closer the two continents, so many of whose interests are the same.”
“Both the imaginary writers are interesting and neither writes a page that one can go to sleep over.”
“The book has a temporary flavor, being written before the adoption of the suffrage amendment and more recent events. But it will prove interesting to anyone who wishes to know how a highly intelligent ‘foreigner’ judges our country from the front it presents to him.”
PINSKI, DAVID. Ten plays. *$2 Huebsch 892.4
These ten one-act plays have been translated from the Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg. They depict the various weaknesses and passions of men: greed, selfishness, war hysteria, lust, war’s devastation, with at the end a dramatization of the Midrash legend. The titles are: The phonograph; The god of the newly rich wool merchant; A dollar; The cripples; The Inventor and the king’s daughter; Diplomacy; Little heroes; The beautiful nun; Poland—1919; The stranger.
“Plays which are often unpleasantly grim though not sordid. There is the same keen analysis of human nature as in earlier plays. The method is symbolic rather than literal, and sometimes the meaning is blurred.”
“Brilliant but not always clear.”
“There are few of his ‘Ten plays’ which can wholly escape the murkiness of inferior translation.” K. M.
“Mr Pinski has become an unswerving symbolist. He has deliberately silenced the voice of nature that sounded so clearly in his earlier plays. He still cultivates the ironic anecdote in dramatic form but his mind is more fixed on the bare intention than on the stuff of life. His peculiar dangers are the fantastic and the obscure, and these make several of his plays ineffectual.”
“Pinski may lack certain graces, especially graces of lightness and saving humor. But passion and power he does not lack, whether he writes in one-act or three. No American dramatist today gives such an effect of surging vitality. It will be a great pity if he does not identify himself more closely with American life and write ultimately for English-speaking audiences direct.” W. P. Eaton
“The shortest of the ten plays, ‘Cripples,’ is the strongest. Force, indeed, gnarled and ungainly, is characteristic of Mr Pinski’s drama at its best. This force, however, is accompanied by a heaviness of tread and a density of fibre which are prolific of trials for the sensitive reader.”
“Every play in the volume is readable, most of them are actable. It would, in fact, be safe to say that they would all be actable if they were in the hand of the players of the Jewish art theatre, who know as well as Pinski does how to make the quick transitions—native to the Jewish mind and heart—from tragedy to comedy, from irony to philippic, from joy to the depths of sorrow.”
PITT, FRANCES. Wild creatures of garden and hedgerow. il *$4 (7c) Dodd 590.4
A collection of papers by an English naturalist, who says, “The following account of some of the commoner birds and beasts around us is written in the hope of interesting boys and girls, and some of the older people too if possible, in the wild life of garden, hedgerow, and field.” (Preface) Contents: Bats; The bank vole; Two common birds (blackbird and thrush); Shrews; Toads and frogs; The longtailed field mouse; ‘The little gentleman in the black velvet coat’; Thieves of the night; Some garden birds; The hedgehog; Three common reptiles; The short-tailed field vole. The illustrations are from photographs.
“Her first-hand records are set out in an easy unpretentious style, and on obscure points she makes suggestions as illuminating as they are modest.” E. B.
“Miss Pitt’s book is beautifully printed and handsomely illustrated and is especially of value for the reading of young people, many of whom are glad to make friends with the living things of the world about them.”
“Miss Pitt is to be congratulated on a book which takes its place in the first rank of works on field natural history. It is a personal record of clever, patient, and sympathetic observation.” J. A. T.
“The author’s work is not inspired or inspiring, but it is clean of sentimentality and of spurious nature philosophy, pleasant reading, and informative.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“The photographs of the little creatures in their haunts are most cleverly taken.”
“Even if they sometimes carry a rather too large conclusion, these histories of birds and beasts and creeping things are full of fine insight and the right enthusiasm.”
PLATT, AGNES. Practical hints on playwriting. il *$1.50 (5c) Dodd 808.2
A book of advice on writing for the professional stage. The author says “I do most fervently believe that the dry bones of stage technique can be taught—in fact, all my personal experience goes to prove this. I have been handling plays now for more years than I care to remember, and have found in case after case that a little technical adjustment will turn an unmarketable play into a commercial proposition.” Among the topics covered are: What the public want; Things that are essential in a good play; How to choose a plot; How to select and differentiate the characters; Humour; How to sell a play when finished; Casting and production. A glossary of stage terms comes at the end. The author is an English woman writing with London conditions in mind but most of her discussion is general in nature.
“A beginner, provided he were only a beginner with no idea of the drama, would do well to read this book.”
PLUMB, CHARLES SUMNER. Types and breeds of farm animals. (Country life educ. ser.) rev ed il *$3.80 Ginn 636
A revision of a work published in 1906. The new edition contains “a more detailed discussion relative to the great breeds, and considerable space is devoted to families of importance and to noted individuals. A large amount of new data has been collected relating to various phases of production, although it is a hopeless task to bring such records down to date.... The number of chapters remains the same, but several obsolete breeds have been omitted and other new and more important ones have been substituted. Maps and many illustrations have been added.” (Foreword)
“The book gives probably the best account published of modern farm animals and there are good illustrations. Another very interesting feature is the history of the families which the author has diligently worked out.” E. J. R.
POLLAK, GUSTAV. International minds and the search for the restful. $1.50 Nation press 814
The collection of essays in this book are gathered from articles contributed to the Evening Post and the Nation before the war. As the title indicates, they fall into two groups. The first group bears out the author’s claim “that intellect recognizes no distinctions of nationality, race, or religion.” He has selected a representative of each, from the literatures of Germany, Austria, France and America in the persons of Goethe, Grillparzer, Sainte-Beuve and Lowell and points out a certain similarity of attitude toward life and literature, of perception of the dignity of literary achievement, of keen-eyed observation and of a self-contained repose. The second group of essays is devoted to Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben, and his book on the “Hygiene of the soul” which of late years has achieved a new fame. One of the essays gives a resumé of the book. The titles of the essays are: Literature and patriotism; Goethe’s universal interests; Grillparzer’s originality; Sainte-Beuve’s unique position; Lowell: patriot and cosmopolitan; Permanent literary standards; Feuchtersleben the philosopher; The hygiene of the soul; Feuchtersleben’s aphorisms; Feuchtersleben’s influence.
POLLARD, ALBERT FREDERICK. Short history of the great war. *$3.25 Harcourt 940.3
“Although several histories of the war have already appeared, only a few of them have been written by men who had an ante-war historical reputation. Dr Pollard is one of this small group. For many years he has held the chair of English history in the University of London, and is the author of numerous historical works, besides having served as assistant editor of the ‘Dictionary of national biography.’ His record of the war is chronologically complete, and includes the work of the peace conference.”—R of Rs
“Simply as an account of military events the volume leaves something to be desired, in spite however of what the book does not contain—and one cannot say everything in four hundred pages—the volume is well worth reading.” A. P. Scott
“An excellent feature of Professor Pollard’s evenly balanced and temperately written narrative is that it corrects several popular misapprehensions.”
“An excellent record of the facts, combined with a true representation of their relative importance. Some of his opinions will not be generally accepted, and he has a strong prejudice against the present prime minister. Original views will not, however, detract from the great and patriotic interest of the book. The style is vigorous and sometimes eloquent.” G. B. H.
“In contrast with some other writers on the subject, he has succeeded in being more historical than hysterical. Having mastered the sources, as far as they are available, he presents his conclusions with admirable impartiality. But his book is conclusive proof that the true history of the war will not be written in this generation.” Preserved Smith
“It is written from the British rather than from the world’s point of view.” Walter Littlefield
“He has vision, he has perspective, and almost more, he has style. In reading this book, we are clearly conscious that a discriminating spirit of power and clearness is ever preserving a proper balance, and so resisting the temptation of overcoloring and undercoloring. Professor Pollard has written a capital book, packed with common sense; it will be hard to surpass it.”
“His book undoubtedly represents the best that English historical scholarship can do at this stage by way of outlining the five-years’ struggle.”
“Professor Pollard’s lucid narrative and caustic comments are highly interesting. His very able and stimulating book deserves careful reading.”
“Professor Pollard’s is a notable achievement; and he who has been looking for the one small volume which shall tell him what innumerable more bulky ones have failed to impart may be confidently recommended to purchase this short history. We cannot, however, invariably follow Professor Pollard in his military appreciations.”
POLLEN, JOHN HUNGERFORD. English Catholics in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1558 to 1580; a study of their politics, civil life and government. *$7.50 (*21s) Longmans 282
“Father Pollen has written a history of the English Catholics under Elizabeth from the fall of the old church to the advent of the counter-reformation (1558–1580). He himself gives us the reasons of his beginning with the reign of Elizabeth; ‘Henry’s revolt is indeed the proper starting-point for a history of the reformation taken as a whole; but Elizabeth’s accession is better, if one is primarily considering the political and civil life of the post-reformation Catholics. Reform and counter-reform under Henry, Edward and Mary were transitory. The constructive work of each was immediately undone by their successor. But the work done by Queen Elizabeth, whether by Catholic or Protestant, lasted a long time. There have, of course, been many developments since, but they have proceeded on the lines then laid down. On the Catholic side the work of reorganization began almost immediately after the first crash, though it was only in the middle of the reign that the vitality and permanence of the new measures became evident.’”—Cath World
“The soundness of his assumptions, the critical value of his judgments, are certainly for us to consider. An internal history of Catholic organization such as Father Pollen might write would be exceptionally valuable, but this book does not contain it.” R. G. Usher
“Father Pollen has written an interesting and scholarly work on a critical period of our island history. The book is written, on the whole, with tact and discrimination: the author holds the scales more evenly than most Catholic historians do between the warring creeds and factions.”
“His present volume is well documented with printed and unprinted material. He is somewhat sparing in his references to other scholars who have laboured in the same field.”
POLLOCK, SIR FREDERICK. League of nations. *$4 (*10s 6d) Macmillan 341.1
“The author’s purpose is to give a practical exposition of the covenant of the League of nations, ‘with so much introduction as appears proper for enabling the reader to understand the conditions under which the League was formed and has to commence its work.’ The references to authentic documents and to other publications, which are given at the heads of some of the chapters, are of material assistance to the reader.”—Ath
“A valuable reference and guide to further reading written for the layman.”
“The veteran jurist’s exposition of the text of the covenant is lucidity itself.”
POLLOCK, JOHN.[2] Bolshevik adventure. *$2.50 Dutton 914.7
“Mr Pollock was in Russia from 1915 to 1919, and his book pretends to be nothing more than a calm statement of facts as he saw them.” (Ath) “We gather that until the revolution of November, the author worked on the Red cross committee: when the others left the country, however, he stayed on, though he should have left with them. One day in the summer of 1918, he was told by a friend that the Red guards were in possession of his rooms at the hotel. From that date he lived under a disguise and an assumed name. He got employment as a producer of plays, and to attain membership in the second food category he joined the ‘Professional union of workers in theatrical undertakings.’ He worked in this capacity first at Moscow, and afterwards at Petrograd until January, 1919, when he decided to risk an attempt at escape into Finland.” (Sat R)
“‘The entire upper class’ is Mr Pollock’s chief concern throughout his book. Everything else in Russia is anathema, to be damned in eternity. Especially the Jews. There are so many Jews in the ‘Bolshevik adventure’ that in reading the book one has the impression that Mr Pollock uses Russia as a misnomer for Jewry.” S. K.
“The like of his book for misstatement, weakness of thought, and excited imagination is not to be found even among books on Russia.” Jacob Zeitlin
“This book should have been written in two parts, the first containing Chapters I to VI and the second Chapters VII, VIII, and IX. Then the first part should have been filed with the Minister of propaganda at London and pigeonholed in an asbestos-lined receptacle. This treatment would have left us with eighty pages of rather vivid narrative by an English eye-witness.”
“It is a pity that Mr Pollock’s style of writing is not better: some of the confusion of Russia appears to have crept into the construction of his sentences. Apart from such minor defects as these, the book is a magnificent and crushing indictment of the Bolsheviks by one who has lived under their misrule for nearly sixteen months. No other work on the subject has conjured up for us such a vivid picture of the loathsome misery and degradation to which communism can drag a country.”
“Where Mr Pollock tells his own story he does succeed in adding to the volume of evidence against them. But the other portions of the book, written in the early days of the bolshevik régime, are too violent and too superficial to be convincing.”
POLLOCK, WALTER. Hot bulb oil engines and suitable vessels. il *$10 Van Nostrand 621.4
“The objects of this book are: (1) To popularise the engine, to explain what it has done and what it is capable of doing; (2) To enable those interested to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of the various designs; (3) To facilitate the study, and add to the general knowledge of this form of prime mover and its application to vessels of various types.” (Chapter I) There are 369 illustrations and an index.
“The photographic reproductions and clear and carefully executed drawings are calculated to give sufficient detail without introducing unnecessary complexity.”
POOLE, ERNEST. Blind. *$2.50 (2c) Macmillan
The theme of this novel is stated in Chapter 1: “I am blind—but no blinder than is the mind of the world, these days. The long thin splinter of German steel which struck in behind my eyes did no more to me than the war has done to the vision of humanity.” Larry Hart, who tells the story, begins with his boyhood, describing the happy home life that his Aunt Amelia created for himself and his sister Lucy as well as for her own children in the old Connecticut homestead. After college he goes to New York as a journalist, lives in the slums with his friend, Steve McCrea, a doctor, has a part in the budding reform movements of the nineties, mixes with radicals, interests himself in strikes, writes plays, is swept into the enthusiasm of the Progressive movement and in 1914 goes to Berlin as correspondent. Later he goes to Russia to report the revolution and when America enters the war enlists, and, as the first chapter foretells, is blinded. In its closing chapters the book becomes largely a commentary on America’s part in the war, arriving at no definite point of view or conclusion.
“Little plot, but real people and much earnest seeking after truth.”
“On the whole, it is newspaper correspondence worked into the shape of a novel. The parts dealing with Russia immediately after the fall of the Czar are especially interesting.”
“The author is more than a seer of social progress; he has the sense for individuality which a novelist must possess. It suffers not because it is, in large part, about the war period, but, like its blind, hard-thinking hero, because of the war. It is like many an ex-soldier, just perceptibly shell-shocked. As a book it should have been restrained, cut down, cooled, simplified. But so should the war.”
“‘Blind’ is just one more testimonial to the incompatibility as bookmates of art and argument, one more example of their mutually fatal effect upon each other. When ‘the will to convince’ comes in at the door, artistry flies out the window. Some of the descriptive writing in ‘Blind’ is excellent.”
“It must not be thought that the novel is one of social propaganda alone. It has fictional vitality because of the variety and realism of its shifting scenes, the good and bad human qualities of its actors, its rapid movement, and its precision in description.” R. D. Townsend
“It seems incredible that so soon after a devastating war anyone could write so sane a book as ‘Blind.’ Best of all, it is a book that compels thought, without a shred of the sentimentality that so many novelists feel is a necessity in any successful novel recipe.” E. P. Wyckoff
POOLEY, ANDREW MELVILLE. Japan’s foreign policies. *$3.50 Dodd 327
The present volume was originally a part of a larger unpublished work. The chapters of that work dealing with Japan’s internal affairs were published in 1917 under the title “Japan at the cross roads” while the chapters dealing with Japan’s foreign affairs compose the present book. It records the rapid imperialistic developments in Japan and its Chinese policy and hints at the possibility of a war between America and Japan in the making. Contents: Japan and the Anglo-Japanese alliances; Japan’s real policy in China; The first revolution in China, 1911–12; The second revolution in China, 1912–13; Japan, America and Mexico, 1911–14; The twenty-one demands; Japan’s commercial expansion, 1914–18; Note.
Reviewed by A. P. Danton
Reviewed by W. W. Willoughby
“In the present work special knowledge is manifest, but its value is vitiated from the outset by the violence of the author’s unconcealed hostility. His book is a sweeping judgment, and, like all sweeping judgments, unjust. There is evidence of this kind of haste throughout the book, from the literary as well as from the critical point of view.”
Reviewed by W. R. Wheeler
POORE, IDA MARGARET (GRAVES) lady. Rachel Fitzpatrick. *$1.75 (2c) Lane
The heroine is an Irish girl who spends two years with wealthy relatives in London. The Fitzpatricks belong to the gentry but are very poor and gladly accept the offer that means two years of education for Rachel. At the end of the two years she goes to Germany. The war finds her there alone with her aunt’s German husband, who takes advantage of the situation to make love to her. She runs away and after many difficulties reaches Ireland. The course of the war and the Irish attitude are touched upon and the story ends with Rachel’s marriage to her sailor lover.
“The authoress’s naive Irish heroine is skilfully and naturally drawn.”
“If there is a fault to be found with this story, it is that enough is not made of the big scenes in the life of the charming heroine. Yet, this does not, somehow, detract from the pleasure of the book, which is charmingly written in a style that is too rapidly passing. A good part of the pleasure derived from the story is due to its clever characterizations.”
“A novel which is neither better nor worse than hundreds of others.”
“What is perhaps the chief merit of quite a readable story is the pictures of Irish life and character, of which the author has an intimate knowledge.”
POPENOE, WILSON. Manual of tropical and subtropical fruits. (Rural manuals) il *$5 Macmillan 634
“The author is an expert, employed as agricultural explorer for the United States Department of agriculture. On his title page he announces his design of excluding the banana, the cocoanut, the pineapple, citrus fruits, the olive and the fig.... He begins with the avocado, which many people in the regions where it grows often call the avocado pear. He displays his scientific knowledge by giving first a botanical description of the avocado, its history and distribution, its composition and its uses.... The story of the avocado is followed with similar considerations of the mango, the date, the papaya and its relatives, the loquat, the guava and its intimates, the litchi, kaki, pomegranate, breadfruit and a great variety of other fruits of lesser fame, about which few of us have heard.”—Boston Transcript
PORTER, ELEANOR (HODGMAN) (MRS JOHN LYMAN PORTER) (ELEANOR STUART, pseud.). Mary Marie. il *$1.90 (2½c) Houghton
Her father had wanted to name her Mary, her mother Marie. Mary Marie was the compromise. But there had come a time when compromise seemed no longer possible, followed by separation and divorce. Mary Marie spends six months of the year with her father, six with her mother, and she tells about it in her diary. In one house she is Marie. In the other she tries to be Mary. But after awhile things get so mixed up she doesn’t know which she is, for she finds her mother trying to make her into a staid, dignified Mary, while her father seems to be encouraging the Marie side of her. And then she is the means of bringing the two together, and the book closes with a postscript that gives a glimpse of Mary Marie’s grown-up story.
“The book is very readable, and occasionally amusing.”
“The story falls short of what we expect from Miss Eleanor H. Porter.”
“Beneath the light tone of the narrative may be observed a serious moral. The frequent misfortunes of divorce, especially where there are children, are pointedly apparent here. But Mary Marie will be loved for herself alone, for her quaint observations, for her unspoiled character, and for her earnest efforts to understand life.”
PORTER, HAROLD EVERETT (HOLWORTHY HALL, pseud.). Egan. *$1.90 (2c) Dodd
When Bronson Egan came back to Plainfield, Ohio, after four years of service in France, he found his status very different from what it had previously been. He went away the only son of a wealthy father, and practically engaged to one of the city’s most attractive girls. He came back to find his father dead, their business wrecked, and the girl reengaged to a stay-at-home. With characteristic determination he set himself to gain back what he had lost. It was not all plain sailing, however, for he had keen rivals in business as well as love. But he had staunch friends as well, and the end of the story finds him re-established in business on a firmer basis than before, and happy in the love of a girl who is more worthy of him than the fickle Mary.
“The business element is particularly well developed.”
“Aside from occasional lapses, Mr Hall’s style is well adapted to his material, which is in part new.” C. K. H.
“It is the substantial characterization which makes the book finally so satisfactory. Its fresh and rapid story-telling ought to win for it a large general audience.”
“There is no letup in the interest, and the business element is especially well handled.”
“The present story is worthy of praise especially for the consistency and humanness of young Egan. Perhaps the financial and business sides of the book are a little too much to the front, but, as a whole, the novel keeps the reader’s attention on the alert, and it includes some exceedingly good character depiction.”
“The novel exists for its narrative, which is neatly conceived and marks Mr Porter’s further growth in the art of story-telling. It flows along with agreeable humor, and the reader’s interest is sustained without recourse to theatricalities.”
PORTER, REBECCA NEWMAN. Girl from Four Corners. il *$1.75 (2c) Holt
A California story with scenes laid on a lonely ranch and in San Francisco. Margaret Garrison, disappointed in the man she loves, yields to Frederick Bayne’s sudden wooing and goes to live on his ranch in Mendocino county. The marriage is unhappy, but with fine courage she makes the best of it and trains her little daughter, Freda, to be true to the highest ideals. Most of the story has to do with the career of this daughter, who after her mother’s death goes to San Francisco where she passes thru many experiences, some of them tragic, and finally finds happiness and love.
“The story is entertainingly told, and toward the end a dramatic touch is thrown in.”
POST, MELVILLE DAVISSON. Mystery at the Blue villa. *$1.75 (2c) Appleton
Seventeen dramatic short stories by the author of “Uncle Abner.” The settings in these stories are selected from many fascinatingly remote, and also familiar places. In the title story the action takes place at Port Said, a refuge for human derelicts, “the devil’s halfway house,” where through cleverly playing upon a guilty man’s fear of the supernatural, a dying sculptor gets money enough to die in the way it pleases him. “The great legend,” narrated by a semi-French, semi-oriental gentleman sitting beside a fire made of bleached bones, on an undulating, moonlit desert of sand, takes us to the underworld of Paris. “The miller of Ostend” is a tale of Belgium. “The pacifist” is a story of the United States and a German spy. Other titles are: The laughter of Allah; The witch of the Lecca; The new administration; The Baron Starkheim.
“Though somewhat overdramatic and artificial, the plots are clever and interesting.”
“The stories are well told and the people have much more character and individuality than is usual among inhabitants of mystery tales.”
“They have variety and freshness, and, if occasionally overemphasized, they are never trite.”
“In the matter of untangling a crime or running a mystery to its lair Melville Davisson Post can give even the immortal Holmes himself quite a brush. His latest collection in no way falls short of the Uncle Abner tales.” E. C. Webb
“All have the merit of sustaining the reader’s interest up to an unexpected conclusion.”
POST, MELVILLE DAVISSON. Sleuth of St James’s square. *$2 (3c) Appleton
A book of mystery stories. There are sixteen in all, and in each of them Sir Henry Marquis, chief of the Criminal investigation department of Scotland yard, figures. He is not the Sherlock Holmes type of detective, for mystery and solution seem to run side by side, instead of being spread out like a pattern before him. Some of the tales Sir Henry reads from the diary of an ancestor. The titles are: The thing on the hearth; The reward; The lost lady; The cambered foot; The man in the green hat; The wrong sign; The fortune teller; The hole in the mahogany panel; The end of the road; The last adventure; American horses; The spread rails; The pumpkin coach; The yellow flower; A satire of the sea; The house by the loch. Many of the tales journey far afield from St James’s square for their setting. Some have already appeared in short story form in popular magazines.
“The stories are short, piquant and cleverly maneuvered, though the mechanism which moves the puppets is sometimes a bit too evident and there is great lack of originality in the gestures made by them either when they pause or start up again.” N. H. D.
“They are not only unusual in construction; they are very well written, and with but few exceptions, close with a twist which will surprise even the skilled and habitual reader.”
“The author’s method is unusual and some of the tales are remarkably good.”
POSTGATE, R. W. Bolshevik theory. *$2 Dodd 335
The book is a sincere attempt to state what Bolshevism is and what it is not—to clear away “the atmosphere of a dog-fight which surrounds this subject.” (Introd.) The author claims for it that it is neither pro-bolshevik nor anti-bolshevik. “It is a mere exposition. It is true that a certain amount of intelligent sympathy is necessary for the understanding of a point of view. The marks of some such sympathy may be traced in this book. This is inevitable, for it is merely the reflection of the author’s belief that bolshevik theories are neither inhuman ... nor logically ridiculous.... If these assumptions are not correct, then Bolshevism is not worth considering.” (Introd.) The contents are: What is Bolshevism? Controversies; The dictatorship of the proletariat; On dictatorship; The two roads; The pedigree of Bolshevism; Extracts and comments; Syndicalism, Blanquism and Bolshevism; Karl Kautsky; Industrial pacifism; The soviet; The future of the soviet. There are appendices and a bibliographical note.
Reviewed by Jacob Zeitlin
“R. W. Postgate has set forth in a clear and concise manner the facts about Bolshevism.”
“His historical allusions are not to be depended upon. Many of the rest of Mr Postgate’s references to the Bolshevists, past and present, and to General Denikin and other anti-Bolshevists, are equally unreliable.”
POTTER, MIRIAM CLARK. Rhymes of a child’s world. il *$2 Four seas co. 811
A book of little verses for children. It is a collection of poems about the everyday things, child fancies, and lullabies. There are three groups of poems: In the house; Outdoors at play; Twilight songs. The illustrations are by Ruth Fuller Stevens. Many of the poems have appeared in the Youth’s Companion, St Nicholas and Little Folks.
“Such quaint imagery greatly appeals to the dreamy child. The illustrations by Ruth Fuller Stevens are especially charming and nicely adapted to the text.”
“Deserves to be noted for its naturalness and fidelity to childish moods. It has a strong appeal to both old and young.”
“Both verse and illustration have the subtle quality of imagination, even when their theme sounds realistic. These poems are amusing to children and well worth the attention of their elders.”
POUND, EZRA LOOMIS. Instigations of Ezra Pound, together with an essay on the Chinese written character. *$3.50 Boni & Liveright 814
“A collection of criticisms and essays, with an essay by Fenollosa on the Chinese written character, edited by Pound. There are short sketches of the modern French poets with quotations; a detailed appreciative criticism of Henry James and his works; another on Remy de Gourmont; a group including James Joyce, T. S. Eliot Wyndham Lewis, Lytton Strachey, the new poetry; essay by Jules Laforgue, an amusing commentary on Genesis, a discussion of Arnaut Daniel and some sharp raps at Greek translators, including Browning.”—Booklist
“An important point, however, about Mr Pound’s critical writings, which has been generally neglected, is this: they do satisfy two very conspicuous demands of the American public; the demand for ‘constructive criticism,’ and the demand for ‘first rate school teaching.’” W. C. Blum
“The ‘Instigations of Ezra Pound’ have this virtue—they badger and bully us out of a state of intellectual backwardness.” Padraic Colum
“Stimulating and provocative statements provide an intellectual shower bath.”
POWELL, CHARLES. Poets in the nursery. *$1.50 Lane 827
To this collection of parodies on well-known poets, John Drinkwater writes an introduction to the effect that although parodies are usually a defilement of poetry and contemptible, these never outrage our love of poetry but exercise it in a very friendly intimacy. Mr Powell, he says, invariably catches his subject’s external manner with easy precision, the underlying spiritual force never evades him and he measures himself successfully against the poet’s impulse as well as against its formal expression. While Mother Goose furnishes the subjects the poets are: G. K. Chesterton, John Masefield, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Alfred Noyes, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Newbolt, William Watson, Austin Dobson, W. B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, A. C. Swinburne, W. E. Henley, D. G. Rossetti, Walt Whitman, Omar Khayyám, Francis Thompson, Robert Browning, E. B. Browning, E. A. Poe, Alfred Tennyson.
“John Drinkwater’s introduction to ‘The poets in the nursery’ leads us to expect work of high distinction, and though we find traces of burlesque now and then, our expectations are realized.”
POWELL, E. ALEXANDER. New frontiers of freedom, from the Alps to the Ægean. il *$2.50 (5c) Scribner 914.9
The author has traveled by motor car and by sea “from the Alps to the Ægean, in Italy, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Rumania, Hungary and Serbia” and gives his impressions of what he saw in these countries during the year succeeding the armistice while they and their people were in a state of political flux. “To have seen millions of human beings transferred from sovereignty to sovereignty like cattle which have been sold—these are sights the like of which will probably not be seen again in our times or in those of our children” and, the author thinks, may serve to illustrate an important chapter in history. Contents: Across the redeemed lands; The borderland of Slav and Latin; The cemetery of four empires; Under the cross and the crescent; Will the sick man of Europe recover? What the peace-makers have done on the Danube; Making a nation to order. There are numerous illustrations from photographs.
“Major Powell gives an excellent description of d’Annunzio. He has brought the same keenness of observation and ease of style to the other portraits in this volume, which range from picturesque peasants to exiled royalties. His treatment of the political situation in the countries he visited is marked by clarity and fairness.”
“This narrative is spirited and colorful throughout.”
“A book as interesting as it is instructive.”
POWELL, LYMAN PIERSON, ed. Social unrest. 2v $2.50 Review of reviews co. 308
“The two volumes entitled ‘The social unrest’ present the best current thought of leading authorities as now focussed on the industrial and social problems of the day. The opinions of President Wilson and ex-president Taft are set forth side by side with those of Karl Marx, Morris Hillquit and Sidney Webb. All schools of opinion have here at least the privilege of utterance. The material has been edited and coordinated by Dr Lyman P. Powell.”—R of Rs
“We fear the editor’s somewhat hesitant attempt to link up these pieces into something looking like a methodically arranged whole has not been successful—at least we are unable to tell what the plan of that arrangement really is. But it is the collection itself that counts, and this is of great interest.” B. L.
POWER, RHODA. Under the Bolshevik reign of terror. *$2 McBride 947
“A record of domestic experiences in a bourgeois household in Rostov, on the Don, during the old régime, the revolution, and the Bolshevik occupation.”—Brooklyn
“A lively and readable little book.”
“An intimate, readable account of Bolshevism is presented in this volume. The book is free from theorizing and statistics, but it tells of the practical effect of Bolshevism on people who lived through the first days of this sinister experiment.”
“Miss Power has given us a series of vivid sketches. They are impressionistic and full of power, but they must not be accepted as descriptive of general conditions.”
“An extremely vivid and interesting account of certain phases of the Russian revolution from the pen of an eye-witness. One would like to know how far this family, of the rich bourgeois type, was representative of its class. If there were many others like it, the appalling violence and bloodiness of the revolution cease to be matter of wonder.”
PRATT, JAMES BISSETT. Religious consciousness; a psychological study. *$3.50 Macmillan 201
“Professor Pratt’s point of view in the present volume is avowedly scientific. He aims to describe the religious consciousness as it presents itself for observation to the modern psychologist, that is to say, without any attempt to press behind phenomena into the realm of the unknown or the unknowable. An interesting feature of his treatment is a constant use of the results of recent questionnaires sent out to ascertain the present state of the religious consciousness among various classes of Americans. He has studied the forms of Protestantism in America. Roman Catholicism he has studied in Europe and at home. Finally, he has made his pilgrimage through India, Burma, and Ceylon, seeking initiation into the letter and the spirit of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism in mosque and shrine and temple, from peasants, teachers, priests, and holy men. The last five chapters of the book deal with mysticism.”—Nation
“‘The religious consciousness’ is a very good book. Dr Pratt knows his subject and he knows how to write about it. There is hardly a dull page in the nearly five hundred of this volume. Perhaps the most valuable quality of the book is its quiet sanity.” R. R.
“His account of phenomena is remarkably fresh and instructive; and it differs commendably from some of its predecessors in emphasizing rather normal than exceptional types of experience.” S. P. Sherman
Reviewed by G. E. Partridge
PRENTICE, SARTELL. Padre. *$2 Dutton 940.476
“[This book tells the] experiences of a Red cross hospital chaplain of the Dutch Reformed church, principally in Base hospital 101, at St Nazaire and in Evacuation hospital 13 where wounded were received straight from the battlefield. [It is] full of anecdotes revealing the bravery of individuals, and the gratitude of the French people toward Americans.”—Cleveland
“There is nothing particularly new in the narrative, although the fact that it comes first-hand from one who saw and lived the awful scenes he describes gives it a value of its own which cannot be gainsaid.”
PRICE, EDITH BALLINGER. Silver Shoal light. il *$1.75 Century
When Miss Joan Kirtland, who has left town very suddenly after a disagreement with Mr Robert Sinclair, finds that the Harbor View house cannot take her in, she is at a loss for a place to spend the night. Captain ‘Bijah Dawson comes to her aid and suggests that the light house people may take her in. As Captain ‘Bijah assured her, they are “cur’ous folks,” Jim and Elspeth Pemberley and their little son Garth, but their presence in this unusual situation is explained and Joan, who had meant to stay a night, then a week, remains all summer. Joan, who had thought she did not like children, is captivated by Garth and at the end of the summer learns that Mr Sinclair is his Uncle Bob. Jim Pemberley has aspirations toward the navy and there is a German spy episode in the story.
PRICE, EDITH BALLINGER. Us and the bottle man. il *$1.50 Century
The story of three delightful children who play pirates and send out a message in a sealed bottle that brings a surprising answer and leads to a pleasantly mysterious correspondence. And then events take a serious turn. What had been play becomes reality and the “three poore mariners” become castaways indeed for the length of one dreadful night. Their rescuer is no less person than the Bottle man himself and a war-time romance is at the same time brought to a happy culmination.
“Although somewhat adult in point of view, the mystery and adventure will interest children from ten to twelve.”
PRICE, JULIUS MENDES. On the path of adventure. il *$3.50 (5½c) Lane 940.48
The author was war-artist correspondent for the Illustrated London News. The present work is a record of his adventures in the early months of the war, before the existence of war correspondents had been “officially admitted.” The book, he says, “does not in any way claim to be an addition to the formidable array of books on the technical side of the war. It is, on the contrary, merely a narrative compiled from the notes in my diary of a period during the early days of the war when I was ‘out’ to get all the material I could.... As my wanderings were entirely within the zone of operations, it is obvious that the incidents I have described were always more or less connected with the theatre of the war—but they were happenings rather behind the scenes than on the actual battle-front.” The book is illustrated with drawings from the author’s sketch book.
“One of the few interesting but not sordid personal narratives.”
“Mr Price puts down his remarkable escapades and hairbreadth escapes as a sportsman and an artist. There is something beautifully impersonal in the style of his book. This makes of his book something unique in war annals, a book that is ‘beautifully and completely something,’ as Henry James might have said.” B. D.
PRICHARD, HESKETH VERNON HESKETH. Sniping in France, with notes on the scientific training of scouts, observers, and snipers; with a foreword by General Lord Horne of Stirkoke. il *$5 Dutton 623.44
“Major Hesketh-Prichard was of course, as a big game hunter, a natural sniper. He enjoyed sniping because it employed all his highly specialised hunter faculties to the full—sight, hearing, and all those analytical powers which hunters possess. His book is full of good stories. But what will make the book interesting to the soldier is the complete way in which Major Hesketh-Prichard manages to justify the art of sniping, and to show how intolerable it is to be opposed to a well-organised sniping side unless you can answer in kind. Major Hesketh-Prichard proves completely that it will always be worth while from the point of view of moral to maintain an efficient body of specialist snipers.”—Spec
“Before the war the author was known as a sportsman, traveller, and athlete. It is his other vocation, that of writer, which helps him not merely to give us information, but to give it in a form enthralling as any detective story.”
“Written in a style that makes it pleasantly acceptable to the general reader.”
“His book is fascinating in its records of romantic individual tales and of cunning camouflage which are intended for the general reader, but we trust that the military authorities will not on this account overlook it. Major Hesketh-Prichard has a contribution to make to military science.”
PRISONER of Pentonville, by “Red Band.” *$1.50 Putnam 821
Poems written while the author was confined in Pentonville prison in London, between September, 1917, and May, 1918. They are written in varying meters and on different themes. Many are addressed to his wife, one is written on receiving news of his mother’s death, others recall scenes from boyhood, and one that brings to mind “Reading gaol” is written the day of an execution. The concluding poems record his sentiments as release approaches and there is an epilogue written after regaining liberty. Joseph Fort Newton, formerly of the City Temple, London, now of the Church of the divine paternity, New York, writes a foreword.
“The emotional sincerity which constantly contrives to break through a crust of indifferent and often absurd verse makes this series of prison meditations a very interesting and moving human document.”
PRITCHARD, MYRON THOMAS, and OVINGTON, MARY WHITE, comps. Upward path; with an introd. by Robert R. Moton. il *$1.35 Harcourt 810.8
The foreword to this collection of readings for colored children says: “To the present time, there has been no collection of stories and poems by negro writers, which colored children could read with interest and pleasure and in which they could find a mirror of the traditions and aspirations of their race. Realizing this lack, the compilers have brought together poems, stories, sketches and addresses which bear eloquent testimony to the richness of the literary product of our negro writers.” All of the contributors to the volume are negroes, among them Paul Laurence Dunbar, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson and others who have made names in literature. In addition to these there are the less familiar names of negro educators, social workers, ministers and lawyers, and there is one explorer, Matthew Henson, who was with Peary at the Pole.
“The selections in it are ably chosen and present a great variety. But more important is the fact that it must accomplish its intent. For while giving pleasure, it will foster the love of tradition, and from the evidences of past accomplishment, an honest racial pride.” M. E. Bailey
“A collection of stories and poems by negroes—many of them very good. Perhaps whites can gain as much from it as can the blacks. The book would be suitable for junior high schools.”
PRYDE, ANTHONY. Marqueray’s duel. *$2 (1½c) McBride
Marqueray, to all appearances, was a globe-trotter and a sportsman. In truth he was a secret spy in the employ of the British foreign office. His knowledge stands him in good stead against a certain Lord Marchmont, a millionaire Jew, implicated in illicit transactions in South America. The latter has allowed a poor innocent Irish girl, in reality Lady Marchmont, to consider herself duped by him and to be a “fallen woman,” after he had turned her adrift. Phyllida is found and rescued by Marqueray and his friend and cousin, Aubrey West. A romance grows up between Phyllida and Marqueray, who naturally wants to horsewhip Marchmont and free his beloved entirely from his clutches. Before this can be done a political election and much intrigue, involving West, intervene. In the end Marqueray is wounded by a shot from Marchmont who himself succumbs to his vicious morphia habit. Some fine touches of friendship and loyalty among men make one of the features of the story.
“The story drags somewhat in places; but ... the book as a whole may be read with a fair amount of satisfaction.”
“Very good work. Readers who liked Stephen McKenna’s ‘Sonia’ will probably like this.”
“It is evidently Mr Pryde’s first novel, and it is far and above the majority of ‘first novels.’ He writes with a good deal of style, and his characterization is excellent to the least important actor on his London stage.” G. M. H.
“The book is exceedingly well written, with a steady succession of incidents, always logical and never loosening their hold on the interest. The book is a long one, but it never becomes tedious.”
Reviewed by Isabel Juergens
“A very clever romance.”
“It is decidedly melodramatic, but the melodrama is well done.”
“The author displays much ability for character portraiture. As a romanticist he is not so capable.”
PRZYBYSZEWSKI, STANISLAW. Snow. *$1.50 Brown, N. L. 891.85
“‘Snow,’ a play in four acts by Stanislaw Przybyszewski, translated into English by O. F. Theis, is a powerful production. A man and wife are living happily together. A brother comes in and falls in love with the wife. A woman friend comes in and the husband falls in love with her. Result—unfaithfulness and a double suicide.”—Springf’d Republican
“The types are not typical; they are primarily unconvincing. There is an intense and urgent attempt at drama which, were it only dramatic, would be Ibsen, even Wagner, in terms of men and not gods. The play is disappointing to read, because it does not grip; it is scarcely fitted for theatrical success, because it has insufficient sustained interest.”
“The beautiful diction and Maeterlinckian charm of the Polish original, are somewhat lost in translation.”
“‘Snow,’ which bears amusing internal evidence of its translation from a German original, is a characteristic phantasmagoria of the acutely hysterical. It is not without moments of sombre effectiveness. But action and passion are both, humanly speaking, in the void. The characters are haunted wraiths in an unrealized world who live and love and die equally without motivation.”
“The tale is true to life and truthfully presented and commendable for artistic qualities, but uselessly nerve-racking for all that.”
“Limitations of temperament may easily prevent a western reader from doing justice to characters who seem to him so morbid and neurotic, so pathologically introspective: nor can he see ‘Snow’ as a play for the western stage. Yet he must admit that the author shows at times profound psychological insight and can write occasional passages of power.”
PUMPELLY, RAPHAEL.[2] Travels and adventures of Raphael Pumpelly; ed. by O. S. Rice. il *$1.75 Holt
The book is an abridged edition of the author’s autobiography, “My reminiscences,” for young readers. As a mining engineer, geologist, archaeologist and explorer, the author’s experiences, which transpired on our western frontier in it’s heroic days, on the mountains of Corsica, in China, Japan and Siberia, were many and thrilling and those portions of the original work have been selected that are most interesting to the young with only so much editing as was required to make a connected story. Appropriate illustrations have been added.
PURDAY, HERBERT FRANK P. Diesel engine design. il *$7.50 Van Nostrand 621.43
“This book is based on about twelve years’ experience of Diesel engines, mainly from the drawing-office point of view, and is intended to present an account of the main considerations which control the design of these engines. The author ventures to hope that, in addition to designers and draughtsmen, to whom such a book as this is most naturally addressed, there may be other classes of readers—for example, Diesel engine users and technical students—to whom the following pages may be of interest.” (Preface) Contents: First principles; Thermal efficiency; Exhaust, suction and scavenge; The principle of similitude; Crank-shafts; Flywheels; Framework; Cylinders and covers; Running gear; Fuel oil system; Air and exhaust system; Compressed air system; Valve gear; Index. There are 271 figure illustrations.
PUTNAM, GEORGE PALMER, comp. Tabular views of universal history. il *$2.50 Putnam 902
In this latest edition of the compilation the summary has been brought down to the peace conference in Paris; like former revisions, under the editorial supervision of George Haven Putnam. Two new maps are added showing the forfeited German colonies and Germany under the peace treaty, and there is a supplementary index covering events subsequent to August 1, 1914.
PUTNAM, MRS NINA (WILCOX).[2] It pays to smile. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
Miss Freedom Talbot, of Boston ancestry and birth, is the narrator of the story, and shares honors with “Peaches” Pegg as the heroine. Her family fortunes being at a low ebb, she answers an advertisement inserted by the millionaire Pinto Pegg for a chaperone for his daughter. This combination of money and breeding Pinto hopes will result in culture for the daughter. Their course in refinement includes a trip to Europe and a stay in California, in the process of which Miss Freedom receives perhaps as broad an education as “Peaches” does. Romance and mystery enter their lives, but after an exciting course, true love runs smoothly at last.
“The story is perhaps very improbable, but not unreal.”
“Except as a study of the Boston governess and Peaches, showing how each reacts on the other, there is little to note. When the author ventures to work out a ‘plot’ she is singularly unconvincing.”
“The early chapters describing the Talbot home on Chestnut street, Boston, are much the best of the book.”
PYLE, KATHARINE.[2] Tales of wonder and magic. il *$2 (3c) Little
This is the third volume of old-world fairy tales and folk lore translated, adapted and illustrated by the author. The stories are: White as snow, red as blood, and black as a raven’s wing—Irish; The wonderful ring—East Indian; The three sisters—Georgian; The golden horse, the moon lantern, and the beautiful princess—Swedish; The lady of the lake—Welsh; The beaver stick—American Indian; The enchanted waterfall—Japanese; Fair, brown, and trembling—Irish; The demon of the mountain—Transylvanian gipsy; The Lamia—Hindoo; The three doves—Czech; Mighty-arm and mighty-mouth—East Indian; The beautiful Melissa—Louisiana; The castle that stood on golden pillars—Danish; The twelve months—Czech.
QUENNELL, MARJORIE, and QUENNELL, CHARLES HENRY BOURNE. History of everyday things in England. v 2 il *$4.50 (v 1 and 2 in one volume *$9) Scribner 914.2
“The second volume of a history which applies real historical research to the making of children’s books. As in the first book the authors have described changes in building, furniture, dress, and games as ‘history in stone, wood, and fabrics.’ It is their desire to present work as a ‘joyous sort of business’ which shall give boys and girls the desire to take the pains with their labors which distinguished the craftsmen. Bibliography. Index.”—Booklist
“Charming volume.”
“This second part is not nearly so good as its predecessor. Its authors have been spoilt by success, and the latter pages of the book in particular show, to put it mildly, signs of haste. The first chapter, on the sixteenth century, is the best.”
“The second part is as original and as fascinating as the first, and those who read the first will know that no higher praise can be given.”
QUICKENS, QUARLES, pseud.[2] English notes. $15 L. M. Thompson, 29 Broadway, N.Y. 817
“In 1842, not long after the appearance of Charles Dickens’s irritating ‘American notes,’ there was published anonymously in Boston a work bearing for its title an obvious parody—‘English notes for very extensive circulation by Quarles Quickens.’ This book is now reprinted by Lewis M. Thompson of New York, with an introductory essay designed to prove that the person who hid under the pseudonym of ‘Quarles Quickens’ was Edgar Allan Poe. Joseph Jackson and George H. Sargent supply an introduction and notes, and the publisher has added two portraits of Poe.”—Springf’d Republican
“The book is valuable as a curiosity rather than as a masterpiece of Poe’s style.”
“The truth is that the pamphlet is mostly dull, a ponderous parody. Its merit today is that it has served Mr Jackson for an excellent and entertaining piece of detective work. In its present form, with this foreword, ‘English notes’ must have a place on the shelves of every collector of Dickens or of Poe.”
“Unfortunately, the attribution of the work to Poe is sustained by neither internal nor external evidence.”
QUILLER-COUCH, SIR ARTHUR THOMAS (Q., pseud.). On the art of reading. *$2.75 Putnam 028
The spirit of the volume can perhaps best be illustrated by two extracts from the preface: “The real battle for English lies in our elementary schools, and in the training of our elementary teachers. It is there that the foundations of a sound national teaching in English will have to be laid, as it is there that a wrong trend will lead to incurable issues,” and “that a liberal education is not an appendage to be purchased by the few; that humanism is, rather, a quality which can, and should, condition all our teaching; which can, and should, be impressed as a character upon it all, from a poor child’s first lesson in reading up to a tutor’s last word to his pupil on the eve of a tripos.” Contents: Apprehension versus comprehension; Children’s reading; On reading for examinations; On a school of English; The value of Greek and Latin in English literature; On reading the Bible; On selection; On the use of masterpieces; Index.
“We find it as hard to conceive that undergraduates did not enjoy hearing these lectures on ‘The art of reading’ as that ‘Q’ did not enjoy delivering them. The elements of an ideal professor were always in him. To communicate a gusto, a vivid and thrilling delight in literature for its own sake, as a delectable duchy where no passport, save the fact of your own enjoyment, is required, is a gift given to few. ‘Q’ is among them.” J. M. M.
“Especially useful to elementary teachers.”
“As an advocate of books, I know of none so well equipped in perspective to give advice as Quiller-Couch; as a precepter, I have met with no one on whom the burden of his task has rested so lightly, so agreeably, so sympathetically, as on him. Out of the fullness of his enjoyment he speaks, and it is refreshing to observe how jealously he tries to rescue the books he loves from the palsied grasp of the pedagog.” M. J. Moses
“Original points of view, apt quotations, and genial play with the subject characterize the volume.”
“The style is too discursive, there is too much quoting, some of the long sentences puzzle one on first reading. And yet what a professor of literature! Why do not all universities secure men like this King Edward VII professor?”
“Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his lectures shows that he has the interests of the children and of the young men strongly at heart. His are not the accustomed utterances of the professor of literature at an ancient university. They are not in the great style nor, in their form, are they learned. They abound in irrelevances, with a touch of facetiousness that is often tiresome, and occasionally they breathe the unction of the pulpit rather than the gravity of the chair. The lectures were doubtless more effective in their delivery than in their printed form.”
RADICE, SHEILA (JAMIESON) (MRS ALFRED HUTTON RADICE). New children; talks with Dr Maria Montessori. *$1.50 (4c) Stokes 371.4
The object of the book is to sketch in broad outline the Montessori system of teaching, for which and for Dr Montessori’s insight into child psychology, the author has a profound admiration. She holds that with a full recognition and adoption of the Montessori methods, the psycho-analyst’s vocation will be gone. Contents: Dr Montessori in England; Two Montessori schools; The Montessori apparatus; Dr Montessori herself; Dr Montessori as a lecturer; The ethical basis; The psychological basis; What is psychology? The psychology of the new-born; What is suggestion? What is music? Montessori and Bergson; Training for citizenship; Training for vision; Liberal education; A new theory of work; The education of the adolescent; The new children; The English nursery school; Appendices; Bibliography.
“In spite of a good deal of vague romanticism and loose writing the book leaves the impression that Dr Montessori herself is an unusually sane and sensible personality, who regards her own methods as not necessarily final.”
“Her book is quite entertaining. It is also exceedingly combative. Like many of those who believe in Mme Montessori, she regards any criticism of the Dottoressa’s methods as almost blasphemous and quite wanton and unnecessary.”
“The book is fragmentary and, as the author herself admits, ‘somewhat hastily done.’ Since the range of topics is so wide, the argument is brief and sketchy, giving glimpses of vistas for possible exploration rather than settling the discussion.” A. E. Morey
RADZIWILL, CATHERINE (RZEWUSKA), princess (COUNT PAUL VASSILI, pseud.). Secrets of dethroned royalty. il *$3 (6c) Lane 920
These secrets pertain to the love affairs of royal personages and the book is accordingly divided into three parts, Russia, Austria, and Germany. The author seems possessed of much intimate knowledge and the book is well illustrated.
“There is not much, of course, in all this that is new, but some of the instances are not well known, and now and then the author throws a light upon familiar incidents that makes them more intelligible to the American reader.”
RAEBURN, HAROLD. Mountaineering art. il *$3.75 Stokes 796
“In this volume an endeavour has been made to trace and indicate the broad principles of climbing and mountaineering, from ‘bouldering’ to the conquest of the highest summits of the earth. The book is the outcome of more than twenty years’ experience as a climbing leader in many parts of the Asio-European continent, and on almost every kind of rock, snow, and ice formation. In preparation for it, almost every published work on climbing and mountaineering, in English, and in the principal continental languages, has been consulted.” (Introd.) The book is in five sections: Mountaineering art; British mountaineering; Alpine mountaineering; For the lady mountaineer; General principles. The chapter on dress for women climbers is contributed by Ruth Raeburn. The work closes with a short list of books, glossary, and index.
“In general Mr Raeburn’s technical chapters are first-rate. His remarks on rock, snow and ice work are stamped by the seal of expert and up-to-date knowledge. Of exploration, bivouacs and camps he writes with the knowledge that many years of wandering in unexplored ranges have yielded him. On equipment he has also much to say which is new and needed saying. The book, as a whole, suffers a little from redundant chapters.” Arnold Lunn
“It is severely practical and written for use, not for entertainment. The numerous illustrations have all been chosen with regard to their instructional rather than their pictorial value. Mr Raeburn writes with conviction and refreshing candour.”
“Apart from the instruction he gives to the novice, Mr Raeburn has done the mountaineering public a service by composing a work which sets forth the latest views on the best mode of ‘climbing and mountaineering.’”
RAGOZIN, ZÉNAÏDE ALEXEÏEVNA, ed. and tr. Little Russian masterpieces. 4v *$7.70; ea *$1.25 Putnam 891.7
A collection of Russian stories brought together with the object of presenting American readers “with a selection which may not only prove acceptable in itself, but reveal to them some less familiar aspects of Russian thought and character.” There is an introduction, repeated in each of the four volumes, by S. N. Syromiatnikof, who also contributes biographical notes. There is one volume devoted to the work of Pushkin and Lermontof. Authors represented in the others are: Lesskof, Dombrovsky, Dostoyefsky, and Tolstoi; Saltykof-Stchedrin, Mamin-Sibiriak, Slutchefsky, Niedzwiecki, Uspensky and Helen Zeisinger; Staniukovitch and Korolenko.
“The stories that she presents are fresh, original, and full of dramatic incident. It is one of the most interesting collections ever got together. Her translation reads with exemplary smoothness and accuracy; she is a mistress of English style.” N. H. D.
“That there are here many names not familiar to the casual reader of Russian literature is not among the least attractions of the collection.”
RAGSDALE, LULAH. Next-besters. *$1.75 Scribner
“Robert Lee Poindexter—‘The boss’—was of the old South, the courtly and sweet-natured master of the ancient and impoverished plantation of Cherokee in Mississippi. But Pat and Polly, the Misses Poindexter, were very modern, up-and-coming young people, who shouldered both hard work and responsibility and evolved an energetic philosophy, though Patricia was only twenty and Polly was just eighteen. The story of their work and responsibility, and of how their philosophy resulted in action is the story of ‘Next-besters.’”—N Y Times
“A pretty and amusing little story that is always entertaining, and not without charm. Assuredly, ‘Next-besters’ is a pleasant piece of ‘light reading’ for a summer day.”
“An excellent story for young people.”
RAINE, WILLIAM MACLEOD.[2] Big-town round-up. il *$2 (3c) Houghton
This is the story of one of those bronzed, big-hearted westerners, whom fiction so often presents to us riding over the plains of Arizona. But in this novel, Clay Lindsay is functioning in the very heart of civilization, in no less a metropolis than New York city, but the traditional characteristics of the wild-west story are all here. There is the bad-man, Clay’s natural enemy, personified in Jerry Durand; there is the beautiful heroine, Beatrice Whitford; and there is the weak easterner, Clay’s rival in love, Clarendon Bromfield. All these and various minor characters play their accepted parts in the drama of romance and gun-play, with the inevitable happy ending for the deserving.
“Full of exciting situations, profanity and crude humor.”
“They used to put these stories into paper covers with the luridest scene in red and yellow on the jacket. Now—but it’s Diamond Dick just the same, sandpapered a little, but otherwise not much changed.”
“Mr Raine has written many another good story of the West, which he knows so well, but he will find it hard to beat this one.”
“The story has ‘punch.’”
RAINE, WILLIAM MACLEOD. Oh, you Tex! il *$1.90 (2c) Houghton
A story of the Texas Panhandle in the period following the Civil war. Jack Roberts, a line-rider for Clint Wadley, one of the big cattlemen, gets into trouble with Wadley’s son Rutherford and gives him a well-deserved trouncing. This is unfortunate, for Jack has just been promoted and is in love with Wadley’s daughter Ramona. A few hours after his dismissal, he enlists with the Texas Rangers. Rutherford Wadley, who has become involved with a band of cattle rustlers and outlaws, is shot by one of them. Suspicion falls on a young Mexican and to save him from a lynching mob, led by the real murderer, Jack puts up a brilliant bluff and risks his own life. His later adventures have to do with the pursuit and capture of the Dinsmore gang and the winning of Ramona.
“A fascinating story from beginning to end—in spite of its well-worn material.”
“An exciting, old-fashioned tale of the western cattle country.”
RAINSFORD, W. H.[2] That girl March. *$1.50 (*8s 6d) (1c) Lane
Curiosity draws Philip Gray to Blaisham. Some thirty years before, his mother, falling in love with the chapel minister, had defied her family, run away with her lover and been disowned in consequence. And now, father and mother dead, the son had returned to look on her old home. He does not reveal his identity and does not learn that his aunt, Lady Delwyn, has set her lawyers on his track, bent on reconciliation. In the meantime he meets and falls in love with Edith March, niece of one of the neighborhood farmers. The reconciliation with the aunt takes place, but in his new position Philip finds that his wooing does not proceed smoothly. However he has some of his mother’s spirit and “that girl March” stands in no awe of Lady Delweyn and it ends well.
“If this tale is representative of Mr Lane’s selection of first novels, that selection must be astonishingly excellent, for Mr Rainsford, or possibly Miss Rainsford, spins an enchanting yarn. The only fault of the novel is its length. Here and there, it drags a trifle.”
“This book is not cheap or unsuccessful in an ordinary sense. It is simply 366 pages with the book not there. One constantly apprehends cleverness, vividness—but gets not one clear visualization in much description.”
“‘W. H. Rainsford’ adopts a method that irresistibly recalls the seaside acrobat courting attention by means of ridiculous somersaults as a prelude to the display of more special powers. These affectations being suddenly discarded, to reappear only intermittently, it becomes possible to take a mild—a very mild—interest in the fortunes of Philip Gray.”
RAINSFORD, WALTER KERR. From Upton to the Meuse with the Three hundred and seventh infantry. il *$2 (4c) Appleton 940.373
The volume is a history of the 77th division and of the 307th regiment. This division Colonel J. R. R. Hannay in the introduction calls the cosmopolitan division of New York city, “New York’s own.” He also states that this division consisting of men unused to the sturdy activity of outdoor life conducted itself as the most perfectly trained and disciplined army in the world. The sketches and photographs in the book are of the best, the author being a graduate from the École des beaux arts, Paris, in 1911. Besides the introduction by Colonel Hannay, the foreword by General Alexander, and two poems by the author, the contents are: Camp Upton; With the British; Lorraine; The chateau du diable; Across the Vesle; Merval; Sheets and bandages; The forest of Argonne; The dépôt de machines; The surrounded battalion; Grand Pré; The advance to the Meuse; The home trail; Appendix.
“Very telling photographs and drawings which suggest a beauty which is the antithesis of war.”
“Captain Rainsford has succeeded in making his narrative clear, expressive, and entertaining—thanks in good part to a never failing sense of humor. We must give credit, too, for his having provided the maps necessary to follow his narrative—a too unusual provision in books about the war.”
RAMSAY, ROBERT E. Effective house organs. il *$3.50 (3c) Appleton 659
A book treating of “the principles and practice of editing and publishing successful house organs.” (Sub-title) Chapter one describes a house organ as “a small magazine or newspaper published once a month, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less, and made up wholly or in part of advertising from the house sending it out.” The treatise which is profusely illustrated with specimen pages of typical house organs, falls into three parts. “Part 1 lays down the underlying principles of editing and publishing house organs of all classes. Part 2 gives you the actual practice among successful house organs in applying principles previously laid down. Part 3 is made up of appendices containing valuable reference data on the general subject of house organs which may be of use to both student and practitioner.” There is an index.
“A book much needed by the amateur editor in business organizations.”
“His style is easy and readable.”
“The book contains many interesting examples of how a sound knowledge of psychology is valuable in producing a successful house organ.”
RAPEER, LOUIS WIN, ed. Consolidated rural school. il *$3 Scribner 379.17
This is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject and contains articles by leading specialists and successful workers in this field. Its object is to elucidate the general aim of the consolidated school: social efficiency, with its subordinate aims of vital, vocational, avocational, civic, moral efficiency. It shows how the new method fosters cooperation, and socialization, how children may be physically and mentally changed by suitable methods and how the consolidated school can furnish opportunity for a school farm, homes for teachers and a community centre. The first chapter, National and rural consolidation, and many of the subsequent chapters are by the editor, Louis W. Rapeer. Other chapters are: The American rural school, by Philander P. Claxton; Community organization and consolidation, by Warren H. Wilson; Rural economics and consolidation, by T. N. Carver; The growth of consolidation, and Transportation of pupils at public expense, by A. C. Monahan; A visit to a consolidated school, and The country girl and the consolidated school, by Katherine M. Cook; Methods and facts of consolidation, by W. S. Fogarty; The difficulties of consolidation, by L. J. Hanifan. The book is indexed and has a bibliography.
“The book is to be commended on its attempt to use the problem approach to the various topics.”
RASHDALL, HASTINGS. Idea of atonement in Christian theology. (Bampton lectures, 1915) *$5.50 Macmillan 232.3
“Mr Rashdall traces the history of the doctrine of the atonement down from its pre-Christian origins through the New Testament, and then by way of the Apostolic fathers, the Latin theology, the Schoolmen, and the Reformers down to modern times. His main interest lies in the controversy between the subjective and the objective types of atonement doctrines.”—Nation
“Even so competent and scholarly a discussion as this of Mr Rashdall’s carries with it a suggestion of belonging to a stage which we have left behind us. Those who are acquainted with Mr Rashdall’s work will find the sincerity and thoroughness of discussion which they have learned to expect from him.” R: Roberts
“This is one of the most important theological works that have appeared for more than a generation. Its quality is scientific.”
“It is probably the most important constructive treatise on systematic theology which has been published by an English divine during the present century. Parts of it will be found difficult by readers who are not experts in theology, for it deals with problems of great complexity. But it is both subtle and lucid; it is a unity and not patchwork; and, as compared with the reticence of some fairly recent work, it is remarkably outspoken.”
RASKIN, PHILIP M. Songs and dreams. *$1.25 Stratford co. 811
In a foreword the author tells something of the conditions under which his poems have been written. He learned English after the age of nineteen, published his first book of verse in English, with an introduction by Israel Zangwill, in London in 1914, and has since come to New York where he now makes his home. The poems are in five groups: Love and longing; Autumn flowers; Echoes of exile; Chequered shadow; The dawn of a nation. Some of the poems in the third group, such as To free Russia (1917), The Torah and “No news” are racial in theme, but the one purely Jewish section of the book is the concluding one, devoted to the Zionist ideal.
“Despite Israel Zangwill’s opinion that ‘the best of Mr Raskin’s poems might have been written by Robert Browning,’ there is much in them that is merely ‘pretty work’—though the same thing might be said, heaven knows, of the famous Victorian poet. In fact, the first of this volume, dealing, as it does, with love, is fairly puerile. But toward the end of the volume we happen upon a collection of poems entitled ‘The dawn of a nation’ which contains one or two verses worth while. The one poem which makes the collection notable is that called ‘After the British declaration.’”
RAVEN, CHARLES E. Christian socialism, 1848–1854. *$6.50 Macmillan 335.7
“This work is based on the Donellan lectures delivered by the author, who is dean of Emmanuel college, Cambridge, at Trinity college, Dublin, in May, 1919. It traces the ‘Christian socialist’ movement from its origin in the reaction against the ‘laissez faire’ principles of the early 19th century to the apparent failure of the effects of Maurice, Neale and Ludlow in 1853, after the passing of Slaney’s act, which gave recognition to the cooperative movement. The concluding chapter deals with the ‘Foundation of the working men’s college’ after the breakdown of the earlier hopes of the Christian socialists.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The volume as a whole is a genuine contribution to English economic history and will doubtless be received as such. Mr Raven would have been a little more convincing in some parts if he had been less profuse in praising his heroes and at the same time had shown more charity for Mrs Sidney Webb and other critics of the Christian Socialists.”
“Mr Raven’s contribution to the history of economics is valuable, and has obviously entailed much research. But he does not go deeply enough into the philosophic and historic interrelation of things, such as the relation of socialism to liberalism, or to anarchism, or to naturalism and supernaturalism.”
“Mr Raven has found a good subject for a book and has studied it industriously. The best part of his book is his account of the men who made the movement, especially of Ludlow, a man far less known than he deserves to be. But it is a pity that he tries to exalt his heroes by depreciating every one else.”
RAYMOND, E. T. All and sundry. *$2.25 (3½c) Holt 920
The book consists of a collection of striking pen pictures of prominent contemporaries in politics and letters, as seen through a brilliant and witty man’s eyes. The author’s avowed object is to show the “accredited hero,” as he really is and not in the effulgence of a halo. Among the sketches are: President Wilson; Georges Clemenceau; John Burns; G. K. Chesterton; Sir Eric Geddes; Dean Inge; Rudyard Kipling; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Robert Smillie; Harold Begbie; Lord Robert Cecil.
“The book is full of important facts brought together in an accessible form. But Mr Hutchinson has little penetration and suffers in any comparison that is drawn between his work, which may be admitted to be good, and the work which is entitled to be called excellent of some recent writers.” Theodore Maynard
“He is particularly good in his vivid sketches of John Burns, G. K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Smillie, and Lord Robert Cecil.”
“The inside analyst should be in a class by himself, and generally is. Mr Raymond demonstrated that he was one of the leaders of that class in ‘Uncensored celebrities,’ and ‘All and sundry’ is merely the second volume.”
“His second volume of character sketches is a worthy companion of his first. No one will maintain that the portraits are all equally successful, that all are speaking likenesses.” Archibald MacMechan
“Entertaining and chatty essays.”
“A mind full of ideas and a flowing pen are as exhilarating a combination as a wet sheet and a flowing sea. But they tend to run away with one. ‘All and sundry’ does—or do—not escape this danger. Nor does it altogether escape the contagion of war-time opinion. But it is a refreshing volume.”
“No man can seriously pretend that he is able to write with equal authority on the Prince of Wales, Marshal Foch, President Wilson, M. Clemenceau, the Bishop of London, Mr Hilaire Belloc, Sir Thomas Beecham, and Mr Frank Brangwyn—to take only a few names at random. Another unfortunate thing for Mr Raymond is that in his ‘Uncensored celebrities’ he had picked out the largest plums. However, even here Mr Raymond has his effective flashes, for he is a clever draughtsman with the pen, especially upon political subjects. There is real humour, as well as observation.”
RAYMOND, E. T. Life of Arthur James Balfour. il *$3 Little
“Most distinct as an individual, Mr Arthur James Balfour belongs to an easily recognisable type, represented both in England and France by a number of statesmen who owe their fame less to any specific performance than to the impression created by their intellectual brilliance.... He has always been credited with an indefinable superiority over his performances. They have been notable; but it is vaguely felt that the man is more notable still; in the midst of his greatest failures he was more interesting than other men in their most triumphant success. With others the “might-have-been” is a reproach: with men like Mr Balfour it is a tribute: they please in disappointing.” (Chapter I) The book is indexed.
“Wit, irony, detachment—these a writer must have if he is to ‘do’ Mr Balfour, and Mr Raymond has them. Why then does he leave us unsatisfied? At bottom, we think, because he does not bring the philosopher and the politician into any real relation.” S. W.
“His book is not ‘A life’ in any vital sense; it being a mere enlargement of a ‘Who’s who’ entry, with a few comments and quotations thrown in. There are, to be sure, some bright and witty things in the book.” F. P. H.
“Concise and serviceable biography.”
“Mr ‘Raymond’s’ biography of Mr Balfour is an entertaining book. He states the facts fairly, and his comments are lively and on the whole sympathetic. But the author is obviously conscious of difficulties.”
“He has not, in spite of the claim put forward in the title, produced what is commonly understood by a biography. The study is, in the first place, limited to a single aspect of Mr Balfour’s many-sided personality, and, in the second place, objective; but to say that is, by no means, to deny that it is worth reading. Within its limitations, it is brilliantly clever.”
RAYMOND, GEORGE LANSING.[2] Ethics and natural law. *$2 Putnam 171
“Intuitionalism is restated and made to account for all our ethical judgments. Conscience is asserted to be the basis of obligation, and the whole ethical problem is treated on psychological basis, as a conflict of the desires of the mind and of the body. All the particular problems treated, among them courtship and marriage, social pleasures, commercial and business relations, government, are solved by the exhortation to keep the mind’s desires uppermost.”—Springf’d Republican
“The student of ethics will considerably fortify his knowledge of the history of ethical thought by reading the book, especially the first twelve chapters.”
READE, WILLIAM HENRY VINCENT. Revolt of labour against civilization. *$1 (*3s) Longmans 331
“The author’s main thesis we shall best summarize in his own words:—‘Progress in civilization does always and everywhere manifest the working of a single and fundamental law—the greater the necessity of things, the smaller their importance.’ To pass on to the application of his thesis to the present situation, we find him in whole-hearted opposition to the ideal, as he conceives it, of Bolshevism, and the labour movement in general. In this he detects the main and imminent danger to civilization. The conflict between the Allies and the Germans was, he holds, of comparatively minor importance, not because he defends or justifies our enemies, but because he discovers no plain or clear-cut conflict of principle. The real danger he descries in the attempt, on the part of the so-called working-class, to evade or reverse his fundamental law of civilization, to make the satisfaction of the most primitive needs the only social activity of any value or deserving of any reward.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
Reviewed by H. J. Laski
“Mr Reade has no specific remedy to propose: that indeed is a merit of his essay, which is intended to make the reader think furiously, and which achieves its purpose.”
“Mr Reade’s book is one that provokes to disagreement; but for all that, perhaps even because of it, it demands to be read. After all, mere assent or dissent matters little compared with the pleasure to be derived from contact with so vigorous and sincere an intellect, and though we may traverse every one of his conclusions, it is with the sense that Mr Reade is, at least in spirit, on the side of the angels.”
READE, WINWOOD. Martyrdom of man; with an introd. by F. Legge. *$2.50 Dutton 909
“This book was published in 1872. Its author’s first intention was to write on the part which Africa had played in the world’s story. But the conception grew under his hands until it became a full-fledged philosophy of history. His guiding principle of explanation is given in the last pages of the book. ‘I give to universal history a strange but true title—“The martyrdom of man.” In each generation the human race has been tortured that their children might profit by their woes.’ The successive stages in this painful upward struggle he designates as war, religion, liberty, and intellect, and to each of them he devotes a section of his book. But another stage is yet to be traversed: we must in the interests of right thinking rid ourselves forever of anthropomorphic religion. It was mainly owing to Reade’s attack on Christianity that his book was passed over in disdainful silence by so many. ‘The martyrdom of man’ has now reached its twenty-first edition.”—Review
“Everything is made simple and clear with a few bold strokes, and the multiplicity of the trees never obscures the woods. The lively style is an added stimulus to the reader, for the author possessed an undeniable talent for direct and forcible statement. When he becomes enthusiastic in his narrative he can revivify the past as tellingly as Macaulay, whom he resembles also in the crispness of his sentences.” W. K. Stewart
RECOULY, RAYMOND. Foch: the winner of the war. *$3 (4½c) Scribner
This volume has been translated from the French by Mary Cadwalader Jones. The author has been closely associated with Marshal Foch as a brother-in-arms and in his estimation the co-ordinated military talent in the Allied leaders found its highest expression “in the keen intelligence and strategic genius of their generalissimo—Foch.” The account of Foch’s career in the great war is preceded by a short description of his family and earlier life. Contents: Some glimpses of Foch; His family and his career; His lectures at the Ecole de guerre; In command of the twentieth army corps; At the head of the ninth army; The pursuit and the check; The battle of Flanders; The French offensive of 1915; Verdun; The Somme; A visit to Foch; The change of command; Foch, generalissimo; The widening battle; Illustrations, maps, index.
“While Captain Recouly’s is not a very inspiring study of one of the few men of undoubted military genius in the late war, it does help the reader to some understanding of the man and to make clearer to him the battles fought by Foch.”
REED, EARL H.[2] Tales of a vanishing river. il *$3 (5c) Lane
The river was the Kankakee, near the southern end of Lake Michigan, and once the main confluent of the Illinois. Once it lapped its leisurely course with many ramifications through low marsh lands, teeming with natural beauty and bird life, the home of the Miami and Pottowattomie Indians. Now the Indians and the beauty and the birds are gone and a mighty ditch of straight-channelled course has drained away the marshes. The book is an attempt at the interpretation of the life along the river that has vanished and is illustrated with sketches by the author. The contents are: The vanishing river; The silver arrow; The brass bound box; The “Wether book” of Buck Granger’s grandfather; Tipton Posey’s store; Muskrat Hyatt’s redemption; The turkey club; The predicaments of Colonel Peets; His unlucky star.
“All have a rich flavor of newness, of freshness, of originality.” E. J. C.
“When you establish yourself in front of a wood fire in an easy chair with an hour or two of leisure to look forward to, an excellent book to have at hand is ‘Tales of a vanishing river.’”
“Mr Reed writes with a queer, mellow philosophy and humor and in a gently meandering style which seems to recapture something of the slow, placid course of the river whose loss he mourns.”
“They are invariably quaint and whimsical. Perhaps the most diverting is ‘The “wether book” of Buck Granger’s grandfather.’ Like the companion volume on the dunes of Lake Michigan, this work is rather unusual in character and invariably entertaining.”
REES, ARTHUR JOHN. Hand in the dark. *$2 (1½c) Lane
A house party at an English country home is going on. The guests are at dinner when they are startled by a woman’s shriek of horror, followed by the report of a pistol. They flock upstairs, to find Mrs Heredith, a bride of three months, the victim of murder. The police start investigations which result in the arrest of Hazel Rath, the daughter of the housekeeper. Altho she pleads innocence there are many suspicious things in her conduct which she refuses to explain. Philip Heredith, husband of the murdered girl, does not believe her guilty, and hires a private detective, who suspects Captain Nepcote, a house guest at the time of the murder. Then, from an unexpected quarter, comes a clue to the actual criminal, who had planned his crime with such diabolical skill and cunning, aided by chance, that it was only by as strange a chance that he was ever discovered.
“A detective story above the average, though to some readers it will seem too long drawn out and to others too tragic.”
“The details are rather gruesome, but the plot is one of the best of the year.”
“Mr Rees has set before the reader a mystery whose blind and baffling qualities are likely to puzzle and lead astray the most astute and skillful of lovers of detective fiction. For the author writes well, with a good, forceful, interesting style, makes graphic and pleasing pictures of his background, and puts vitality and individuality into the delineation of his characters.”
“The book is better written than the average crime tale.”
“In this detective story the murderer is really ingenious, and will not easily be discovered. Mr Rees has spent too much time at the beginning in picturing old-world details, and elsewhere by being ‘literary’ he delays the action of the story which is everything in a tale of this sort.”
“Mr Rees spins us with deft entanglements another of his first-class mystery yarns.”
REES, BYRON JOHNSON, ed. Modern American prose selections. $1 (1c) Harcourt 810.8
A selection of some twenty examples of modern American prose. The compiler’s aim has been to bring together examples of “typical contemporary prose, in which writers who know whereof they write discuss certain present-day themes in readable fashion.” Among the selections are: Abraham Lincoln, by Theodore Roosevelt; American tradition, by Franklin K. Lane; Our future immigration policy, by Frederic C. Howe; A new relationship between capital and labor, by John D. Rockefeller, jr.; My uncle, by Alvin Johnson; When a man comes to himself, by Woodrow Wilson; The education of Henry Adams, by Carl Becker; The struggle for an education, by Booker T. Washington; Traveling afoot, by John Finley; Old boats, by Walter Prichard Eaton.
REID, FORREST. Pirates of the spring. *$1.90 (2c) Houghton
The story is of a boy, Beach Traill, not clever at books, but of unusual integrity of character, and of his friends. They are all at the same school, three of them, and a fourth has recently been added as a sort of disturbing element. This fourth is Evans, a handsome, intellectual, timid lad, a bit off-caste socially, and somewhat lacking in manly spirit and upstanding courage. Troubles come, partly through bad influence, partly through irrepressible animal spirits, but the boys’ uprightness finds a way out. Beach wins out with his widowed mother and against a suitor of hers whom he detests. Beach and Miles fight it out in fierce battle which rivets their friendship. Palmer, the most clever, subtle and daring of the three, holds his own through his strong sense of justice, and it is in him that Beach eventually discovers, with an exuberant sense of happiness, his real friend.
“There is no climax in the story, but only the flow of everyday happenings, no progress but the development of the boys’ characters; and the whole is told in a narrative of quiet beauty.”
“Lovers of boys will appreciate the sympathetic understanding of Mr Reid’s portraying. The story gives added pleasure in its descriptions of the countryside and is altogether an artistic delight.”
“The narrative is of a singular though very quiet beauty—a beauty gained partly by the writer’s marvellous closeness to his subject, partly by his cool tenderness, partly by his sense of the almost pagan interpenetration of nature and the lives of his characters.”
“‘Pirates of the spring’ is less a story than a study of character development during the troubled and turbulent years of adolescence, a study handled delicately and sympathetically; with much subtlety and many deft touches of humor. It is of course admirably written.”
“One thinks of this book with Richard Pryce’s ‘Christopher,’ Hugh Walpole’s ‘Jeremy’ and E. F. Benson’s ‘David Blaize.’ But discriminating taste will accord a higher degree of artistry to Mr Reid’s work than to the efforts of these able delineators of adolescent boyhood. The mentality and philosophy of boyhood are an open book to Mr Reid.”
“The boys are boys, and not merely the mouthpieces of ideas.”
REIK, HENRY OTTRIDGE.[2] Tour of America’s national parks. il *$4 Dutton 711
“Colonel Reik’s book brings out the distinctive features of the greatest of these western parks. He shows that no two of them are alike, that each is worth seeing on its own account. While he has not attempted to write a guide book in the ordinary sense of the term, his chapters contain much of the kind of information that is sought in guide books and that will be found indispensable to anyone attempting a tour of the parks for the first time.”—R of Rs
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
REPINGTON, CHARLES À COURT. First world war, 1914–1918. 2v *$12 Houghton 940.48
“Colonel Repington in two stout volumes has recorded his ‘personal experience’ of the great war, and in so doing has given to the public the first of the great books of the war that is not simply military, political or diplomatic, but a combination of each that is focused on the personal activity and relationship of a single individual who was behind the scenes and in touch with almost every phase of the war. These pages of personal experiences during the war are a ‘contribution towards the elucidation of the truth so far as I was able to ascertain it at the time, and will, I hope, enable many to understand better the events of these memorable years,’ Colonel Repington declares. They are given from his diaries as he scrupulously kept them, recording the most trivial incidents innocently tucked away in some social engagement of chance meeting of soldiers, statesmen, journalists, or comments of the larger events which followed each other with such amazing rapidity.”—Boston Transcript
“Colonel Repington is, in fact, so simple that we cannot take any interest in him. His views on the war, in any important sense, are negligible. The only portions of his diary of any interest are his items of political and military information and the light he throws on prominent personages connected with the war. For the rest, and except when his professional interests are awakened and he gives lists of troops and ‘wastage’ figures, the whole diary is at the gossip level.”
“Colonel Repington moves between a bloodbath and a stale spittoon, and is apparently prouder of dipping his pen in the latter than in the former.” Shane Leslie
“The book is a curiosity. We have not been able to find in it the slightest evidence that Col. Repington, viewing the supreme tragedy of secular history, was even remotely aware of its human implications. He could observe a world convulsed, and report upon it without compassion, without gravity, without understanding.” Lawrence Gilman
“As a diarist he is intimate and unaffected and racy and explicit like Pepys, and he is almost as disconcertingly complete.”
“The self-assurance of Colonel Repington is to be noted. It is to that self-assurance, plus his vanity, that we owe this monumental book. But if we do not get too weary of his ‘practically no English articles are read and discussed except mine,’ we may find illumination—most of it unintentional—in his accounts of his work running to and fro between the generals, the politicians and the press.” F. H.
“He has produced an extraordinarily interesting gossip-book which will doubtless be widely read and extensively commented upon. It is apparent from the briefest characterization of this amazing book that it is on the delineation of society in the war that the readers will linger longest. It is one long indiscretion.” W. C. Abbott
“To an American reader the chief criticism to be made of all these accounts of luncheons, dinners and concerts in the company of the rich and fashionable is that they are intolerably wearisome. Colonel Repington continually speaks of the play of wit in these high circles, but gives very few examples of it.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“In short, his tendency to take his hostesses overseriously, apart from some waste of space, does little to impair the value of an enlightening book. His taste may be a bit at fault but rarely his judgment.”
“This is the best book on the war that has appeared, and we hope it is the last. Everybody is sick of the war, its horrors and its squabbles, and wants to forget it. The excellence of the book consists in its twofold claim on our attention. There is the exhaustive criticism of the conduct of the war by a military expert of European reputation: and there is the picture of manners in that section of society ruled by American women, drawn by one who lived in its favour.”
“Go into a shady part of the garden, or better still, into a damp shrubbery and lift up some big flat stone. Underneath you will find a quantity of crawling creatures, disturbed by the light so suddenly let in upon them.... Such a garden adventure recurs irresistibly to the mind as one reads Colonel Repington’s diary of the war years.... As to the enlightenment which his book should bring in regard to the way in which public affairs are too often handled, as to the advantages of the lessons to be learnt, and finally as to the value of this first step in the reform which comes with knowledge, we have no doubt whatever.”
REPPLIER, AGNES. Points of friction. *$1.75 (4c) Houghton 814
Essays reprinted from periodicals. Six have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, two in the Century, one in the Yale Review and one in the Nation. Contents: Living in history; Dead authors; Consolations of the conservative; The cheerful clan; The beloved sinner; The virtuous Victorian; Woman enthroned; The strayed prohibitionist; Money; Cruelty and humour.
“Keen and original, upholding recognized standards.”
“I find myself liking best the essay on ‘Dead authors,’ because it gives us more of the humor we have come to look for in Miss Repplier’s presentment of human error. But I confess myself at a disadvantage in dealing with her: I have almost never found myself failing to agree with her on any essential point, and my appreciation is apt to take the form of gratitude for the distinguished expression of what would seem to civilized people to be obvious.” K. F. Gerould
“Miss Repplier upholds many wholesome truths which in these days seem in danger of oblivion, and her ironic shaft pierces many a sham notion high in popular esteem. The noble art of the essay suffers at her hands neither diminution nor dishonor. ‘Points of friction’ is a stimulating and eminently readable book.”
“A halfscore of the delightfully keen-witted and observant papers which Miss Repplier is kind enough to write from time to time for the enjoyment of appreciative readers. They are always welcome and invariably worth while.”
“It would not be amiss to call Miss Repplier the Chesterton of America. Both are Tories of a sort, lovers of the good things mankind has found by long toil and is now so childishly anxious to discard.”
“Miss Repplier’s essays are sound in workmanship and sound but not granitic in thought. Not often does finished and pungent phrasing serve merely as a covering for thin or tawdry ideas. Usually there is an edge to the thought, and it will be found suggestive to those who may not accept all its implications.”
REW, SIR ROBERT HENRY. Food supplies in peace and war. *$2.25 (*6s 6d) Longmans 338
“In this essay, Sir Henry Rew considers briefly the world’s supply and demand and the extent to which the United Kingdom met its own demands for food before and during the war, and then discusses the outlook now that the war is ended.... [He concludes] that the cries of ‘Famine!’ are wide of the mark, inasmuch as nature, upon which the recovery of agriculture mainly depends, never goes on strike. He thinks that after the harvest of 1921 Europe will be producing as much food as before. He evidently believes that the Germans are deliberately exaggerating their troubles. He defines the British nation’s interest in agriculture as two-fold—to secure the maximum quantity of food, and to maintain the maximum number of persons on the land. He points out that insurance against famine caused by war implies not only a large wheat crop, but also a large stock of cattle, since milk and fat are as necessary as bread. He concludes with a reminder of the importance of the human factor in agriculture and the necessity for a life of wider scope and variety in the villages.”—Spec
“A very sane and reasonable discussion of the food problem.” T. N. Carver
“It is written in popular style and in this lies its real value.”
“This book is not very big, but it is full of information and of sagacious comments on the facts set out for the reader’s benefit.”
“Sir Henry Rew has the happy and unusual faculty of making statistics interesting. The book was badly needed, for it is highly important that the average man should realise the facts.” E. J. Russell
“The book is stimulating, authoritative and well worth reading.” B. L.
REYMONT, WLADYSLAW STANISLAW.[2] Comédienne. *$2 (2c) Putnam
The story is translated from the Polish by Edmund Obecny and relates the fate of a young actress. Janina Orlowski is driven from home by an insanely tyrannical father, whose choice of a husband she has refused. Her ambition is to become an actress and she goes to Warsaw and is taken on by a third-rate company. Her experiences there are a series of disillusionments, the actors she meets are not interested in art but are a sordid, coarse lot. She falls into dire poverty and on the verge of starvation and about to become a mother, she commits suicide.
“It is almost inconceivable that the novel has lost anything in translating, so delightfully lyric are the descriptions of the Polish countryside, so poignant the characterization, so diverting the dialogue.” W. T. R.
REYNOLDS, GERTRUDE M. (ROBINS) (MRS LOUIS BAILLIE REYNOLDS). Also Ran. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
Jacynth Pennant had spent her early life away from her home, having been adopted as a baby by an aunt. When she returned to it as a young lady, she found an air of mystery enveloping everything. Her father, though affectionate, was unhappy and worried. The neighborhood had not ceased talking about the murder of Guy Warristoun some time before. His brother Ranulf was suspected of the murder, but acquitted upon the testimony of a chauffeur. Ran subsequently disappeared and had not been heard of since. Shortly after Jacynth’s return, he unexpectedly put in his appearance once more. When he persuaded Jacynth to marry him after a short acquaintance, her impelling motive of acceptance was that her father was under heavy obligations to him. He explained as his reason for asking her that he wanted to put it out of her power to marry his cousin Hector, a worthless fellow with whom she was half in love, and to whom, though his lawful heir, he did not wish to leave his property. His one biggest reason he did not give—he was in love with her. How she came to realize this, after doubt and heartache for both is the culmination of the story, and in the process of its development is revealed the true explanation of Guy’s death and the chauffeur’s part in it.
“Though not always convincing the story is wholesome and ingenious and will interest men or women.”
“The tale, although not very convincing and one in which it would be easy to pick holes, is ingenious and interesting.”
“The author makes a fairly interesting book with a happy ending to this rather hackneyed theme.”
REYNOLDS, MYRA. Learned lady in England, 1650–1760. il *$2.25 Houghton 396
The book is one of the Vassar semi-centennial series, published in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Vassar college. Although it is specifically limited to the learned women in England in the period between 1650 and 1760, the first chapter is devoted to those before 1650, beginning with Juliana Barnes, who, although a nun, wrote a book on “hunting, hawking and fishing” in 1481. The outcome of the research is that in all ages “there have been individual women who by force of native endowment and through some favorable conjunction of circumstances, have risen into prominence in realms not ordinarily open to the women of their time,” but they have been isolated cases and “what was actually accomplished in the century before 1760 was a lavish sowing of seed, a steady infiltration of new ideas, a breaking up of old certainties as to woman’s place in domestic and civic life, and an accumulation of examples proving women capable of the most varied intellectual aptitudes and energies.” Contents: Learned ladies in England before 1650; Learned ladies in England from 1650–1670; Education; Miscellaneous books on women in social and intellectual life; Satiric representations of the learned lady in comedy; Summary; Bibliography; Index; and illustrations.
“It is an interesting and original piece of work and covers ground that has hardly been touched before.” Martha Plaisted
Reviewed by C. M. Rourke
Reviewed by Dorothy Brewster
“Years of research must have been devoted to gathering materials for this illuminating treatise. The presentation is clear and orderly; nor is it anywhere swamped by the multitudinous and clear-cut detail.”
RHEAD, GEORGE WOOLLISCROFT. Earth- (5c) Dodd 738
The author of this volume, we are told by H. W. Lewer in the foreword is a practical potter and, moreover, an artist and art examiner in pottery to the board of education. With his help, therefore, it is hoped that the collector will be enabled to discriminate between well authenticated examples and worthless specimens and probably forgeries. “The book covers the whole story of British earthenwares from those of the Slip and Salt glazed period, now more and more sought after, to the less coveted but still interesting specimens of the early nineteenth century.... The illustrations include many rare examples from well-known collections.” (Author’s preface) Among the contents are: Early British, mediæval and sixteenth century wares; Slip wares; English Delft wares; Wedgwood; Contemporaries and followers of Wedgwood; Lustred wares; The makers of image toys and chimney ornaments; Glossary of terms; Bibliography; Index.
“The subject of Mr Woolliscroft Rhead’s work is so enormous that we can hardly complain of inadequate treatment, but it is less well written than Mr Young’s [‘The silver and Sheffield plate collector’] and less likely to be useful. His spelling and phraseology are also sometimes at fault. It is further extremely inconvenient that the plates are not numbered, which makes reference to them a complicated matter.”
“Mr Rhead, as an artist and a potter, writes of a subject which he knows, and young collectors will find some useful hints in his pages.”
RHEAD, LOUIS JOHN. Fisherman’s lures and game-fish food. il *$4 (7c) Scribner 799
A book intended as a companion volume to the author’s “Trout stream insects,” and like that work illustrated with pictures in color painted from living specimens. The author states: “This book has a two-fold object. First: to multiply largely all species of game-fish for the people’s use by a new method and a logical system of ‘feeding’ that will more rapidly attain a better result in the conservation of American fresh-water game-fishes.... Second: to vastly improve present angling conditions by introducing a new and entirely superior style of fishing with artificial nature lures in place of the live bait that is now being employed in ever-increasing quantities.” (Preface) The illustrations include pictures of live creatures that fish eat and of artificial nature lures; also chart plans to show feeding places. The book is indexed.
“Mr Rhead’s new volume is commended to Outlook anglers as a book which deserves a place in every library beside the writings of George La Branche and Dr Henshall.” H. T. Pulsifer
RHOADES, CORNELIA HARSEN (NINA RHOADES). Four girls of forty years ago. (Brickhouse books) il *$1.50 (2½c) Lothrop
A story for girls picturing the social life of New York in 1880. The four girls, Dulcie, Daisy, Maud and Mollie, live in an old house near Washington Square and spend their summers on the Hudson river at Tarrytown. They live with a stepgrandmother who enforces the rule that children should be seen and not heard, but there is an Uncle Stephen who comes from California and takes them to see “The pirates of Penzance,” and they have other good times. The news that their father is coming home from China bringing a stepmother fills them with consternation, but the dreaded stepmother proves to be their loved friend Miss Leslie and every one is left happy at the close.
RHODES, HARRISON GARFIELD. American towns and people. il *$3.50 (6c) McBride 917.3
Papers that have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, touching lightly and with humor on the external aspects of certain American cities. There are six essays of this character: Why is a Bostonian? Who is a Philadelphian? What is a New Yorker? The portrait of Chicago; Washington, the cosmopolitan; Baltimore; and one other, Is there a West? devoted to California. To these are added: The hotel guest; The high kingdom of the movies; The American child; The society woman.
“Although there are serious moments and some penetrating analyses, the sketches are on the whole light and entertaining, not thorough studies.”
“Never is Mr Rhodes dull, never does brilliancy become an obsession with him, but his writings on American days and ways are of decided value.” G. M. H.
“‘American towns and people’ has its classic prototype in Henry James’s ‘The American scene,’ but it is a version highly journalized and simplified, intended not so much to interpret as to amuse. In this doubtless quite as important capacity, it for the most part succeeds admirably, only at times seeming a little fatuous, a little too effusive, a bit bland perhaps.”
“Generally speaking, Mr Rhodes only sees about one-third of his subject. He sees the Four hundred, but not what O. Henry called the Four million. The book is a credit to its publishers, and is beautifully illustrated. If it is one-sided or no-sided, it is at any rate written in a swift, bright style, illuminated by a keen sense of the comic.”
“The unusually discriminating comment of this book is matched by exceptionally good pictures.”
“To have discovered the individuality of some of our American cities and to have in so many little things shown exactly in what it consists, is no small achievement. So much for the social student’s appreciation of this book. As a piece of descriptive writing, its excellence is likely to appeal to a much wider circle.” B. L.
RHODES, HARRISON GARFIELD.[2] High life: and other stories. *$2 (3c) McBride
High life, the first and longest story, is an amusing skit picturing life in a colony of exiled royalty in Switzerland. The other stories are: The little miracle at Tlemcar; Fair daughter of a fairer mother; The importance of being Mrs Cooper; The sad case of Quag; Springtime; Vive l’Amerique! They have been copyrighted by the Curtis publishing company, Collier’s, the Ridgway company, the Metropolitan and Harper’s.
“It is all told with much grace, cleverness and conversation, realism, and with a Daudetesque humor. Mr Rhodes is a cosmopolitan, and he understands the art of the short story; only in two or three passages is his manner of writing open to any censure.” N. H. D.
RHODES, JAMES FORD. History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley, 1877–1896. *$2.75 Macmillan 973.8
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Mr Rhodes’s new eighth volume is not a fair continuation of his memorable five volumes on the Civil war, or even of the sixth and seventh in which he gave a partial picture of the next dozen years. Its abbreviated scale of treatment affects both contents and manner of presentation. Rarely do the related facts in this volume appear to have meaning or to be parts of a coherent structure.... Stopping short of McKinley’s inauguration, he fails to show the foundations of the silver movement and the Populist party, with the result that his picture of the second Cleveland term lacks its background. Yet he fails also to explain the emergence of the tariff issue and the identification of the Republican party with it, although these facts are vital to the period of his choice. Mr Rhodes has probably not broadened his historical repute by this volume, but he has not ceased to be sagacious along the lines of his experience and attainment.” F: L. Paxson
“The author’s impartiality is little short of miraculous. South and North can read him on the Civil war without great irritation.”
“If the most recent volume of the ‘History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley, 1877–96’ is of less importance than those which preceded it, this is not due to any shortcomings on the part of the author. Dr Rhodes shows the same robust good sense, severe impartiality, and scrupulous accuracy which have secured him his position among American historians.” H. E. E.
“This volume is of the same general character as the preceding volumes and with one possible exception, deserves to rank with them. While the style is not brilliant, it affords easy, sometimes even attractive reading. Yet, for all that, the student of our recent history will close the book with disappointment, a disappointment due to the feeling that the author has failed to show a discriminating sense of proportion. On the topics discussed the author, in most cases, can hardly be said to have touched the bottom. The treatment of industrial unrest falls far below chapter IV of his earlier work, dealing with slavery.” D: Y. Thomas
“It seems invidious to speak in any tone of disparagement of a work of Mr James Ford Rhodes, who has given us the classic interpretation of our history from the compromise of 1850 to the close of the reconstruction period. And yet competent judges must feel grieved that the ‘History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley’ is added, as an eighth volume, to the classic seven. It is as thin as the lean kine that followed the seven fat ones in Pharoah’s dream.”
“He has industry and a judicial temperament which, though not always quite unbiassed in regard to individuals enables him to survey contemporary politics without evidence of partisanship. He has, moreover, a lucid narrative style and a happy gift of choosing apt and trenchant phrases. Not all his authorities are first-rate; but he uses them nimbly. It is very much to be regretted that a book which represents so much sound labour and has so much permanent value, in the assistance which it will be to all future writers on this period, should be so marred by petty faults.”
RICE, ALICE CALDWELL (HEGAN) (MRS CALE YOUNG RICE), and RICE, CALE YOUNG. Turn about tales. il *$1.90 (8c) Century
There are ten short stories in this book, five by Cale Young Rice, and five by his wife, Alice Hegan Rice, arranged alternately. Mrs Rice’s contribution includes Beulah; The nut; A partnership memory; Reprisal; and The hand on the sill; while Mr Rice’s are entitled Lowry; Francella; Archie’s relapse; Under new moons, and Aaron Harwood. Some of the stories have appeared in magazine form.
“This volume of stories should hold its own with any collection likely to be published this year. They cover a wide range of emotion, background, and subject, and are of high literary merit.”
RICHARDS, MRS CLARICE (ESTABROOK).[2] Tenderfoot bride. il *$1.50 Revell
“A cultured eastern woman with a delight in new things and a sense of humor describes events on a Wyoming ranch.” (Booklist) “When the ‘tenderfoot bride’ arrived it was still a lawless, pioneer land, with cattle, cowboys, and desperadoes. Then came a pastoral age: sheep and Mexican herders, followed by the farmer. Her record covers but sixteen years, yet the earlier phases are as extinct as the Pharaohs. She has caught them all in passing, and portrayed them to the life.” (Bookm)
“She has given us more than a bit of current history, for one senses the writer’s personality,—a growth through the delights and trials of existence among elemental conditions to a broad vision of life and its responsibilities. Therein lies the rare charm of the book.”
RICHARDS, CLAUDE. Man of tomorrow. new ed *$2 Crowell 174
“A discussion of vocational success with the boy of today.” (Sub-title) The author believes that there is special need of attention to vocational guidance today. “Following this great world war, civilization will take on an aspect of general reconstruction, and hence the man of the future will need an equipment that will fit him to take his place in a society with difficult problems to solve and big tasks to perform.” (Preface) The book is divided into seven parts: The need of vocational guidance; The importance of specializing; The need of a broad foundation; Choosing a vocation; Representative vocations; Avocations; General conditions of vocational success. An appendix contains a word to the counselor and there is an index. The author states that while the work is intended primarily for men there is little in it that does not apply equally to young women.
“An excellent vocational guide-book. Its tone is high and the little ethical teaching that it contains is safe and sound.”
RICHARDS, GRANT.[2] Double life. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
Olivia Pemberton was the wife of a semi-commercial, therefore fairly successful novelist. She was all that a wife and mother should be until her two children were away at school, when she became bored and restless. Half apathetically she accompanied her husband to Newmarket one day where he went in quest of racing atmosphere for a new novel. It ended with a tentative, very small and haphazard bet on one of the horses. From now on Olivia secretly takes to reading sporting papers and making greater and greater ventures, even ordering a trainer to buy and train a horse for her. She goes thru all the stages of the gambling fever, sometimes on the verge of a breakdown. Twice her horse wins and when she is dreaming of the triple crown at the Derby with honored publicity to herself, her trainer informs her that the horse is broken down and will race no more. But with her winnings and the sale of the horse, she is enabled to accompany her confession to her husband with a goodly sum of money and her complete renunciation of gambling.
“The technical details will be found interesting even by neophytes, and the whole produces that effect of coherence and facility proper to a practised pen.”
“The book will prove entertaining, but hardly more than that.”
“To put it bluntly, Mr Grant Richards is not an artist. ‘Double life’ has some power to please, partly because it conveys double the number of sensations enjoyed in the ordinary routine of life by that never realized type—the average, everyday person.”
RICHARDS, MRS LAURA ELIZABETH (HOWE). Honor Bright. il *$1.65 (3c) Page
The story of an American girl’s school days in Switzerland. Honor is an orphan and the Pension Madeleine is the only home she knows. She speaks in the quaint French-English of her teachers and is very happy with her school-girl companions. While on an expedition into the mountain, she slips and sprains her ankle and is kept a prisoner in an Alpine cottage for a time. It is a delightful experience and Honor thereafter dreams of spending her life in the Alps, making cheese and tending goats. But an unknown cousin from America comes to take her away to a new and strange world.
RICHARDSON, C. A. Spiritual pluralism and recent philosophy. *$4.50 Putnam 192
“Mr Richardson, a disciple of Professor James Ward, sets himself the task of elaborating, on purely metaphysical lines, the case for the ‘spiritual’ and theistic pluralism which formed the basis of his master’s ‘Realm of ends: pluralism and theism.’ Incidentally he undertakes to answer the neo-realists in general and Mr Bertrand Russell in particular. He accepts Mr Russell’s conclusions as valid with limits, i.e., the limits of reality considered as objective. But, Mr Richardson urges, Mr Russell and his school, with all their ingenuity, do not account for the subjective reference, whereas spiritual pluralists can account for it without detriment to the positive results of the neo-realists.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The book is written with great care and much subtlety. There is, however, a tendency to rely too much on arguments from concepts, without due inquiry into their meaning and source. In general, I think the book would gain cogency through a larger use of empirical material.” D. H. Parker
“To speak bluntly, Mr Richardson is excessively difficult reading, and some part of the fault lies with himself, and not with the subject. As a provisional guess, one would suggest that he has thought mainly about the general philosophic attributes of his universe, and has not sufficiently pondered, not only the position but the capacity and attributes of the individual who exists therein. This part of his work, it seems to us, he will not get right until he dips down more thoroughly into the grand question of consciousness.”
“It is not easy to justify a pluralist metaphysic on intellectualist grounds, and one cannot help feeling that, as against Mr Russell on the one hand and Mr Bradley on the other, Mr Richardson is ‘playing the odd’ all the time. But he plays with spirit and no mean dialectic skill.”
RICHARDSON, DOROTHY M. Interim. *$2 Knopf
“Fifth in the long series of volumes published under the general title of ‘Pilgrimage,’ Miss Dorothy M. Richardson’s new novel, ‘Interim,’ continues the history of that young woman, Miriam Henderson. So closely connected with its predecessors as to be a part of them rather than a separate book, ‘Interim’ would probably be almost unintelligible to any one not possessed of a close acquaintance with the earlier books. When ‘The tunnel’ came to an end Miriam Henderson was apparently on the verge of leaving Mrs Bailey’s house, but we find her still living there when we meet her in ‘Interim,’ despite the coming of the boarders. Among these boarders there are several young physicians from Canada, and one of them, bearing the unattractive name of von Heber, supplies the suggestion of a plot, which is the only thing of the kind the book contains.”—N Y Times
“She leaves us feeling, as before, that everything being of equal importance to her, it is impossible that everything should not be of equal unimportance.” K. M.
“We prefer our novels as novels, and not following the technique of Chinese chess explained by a politician in yachting terminology. There are pages and pages of drivel, too.” C. W.
“From no point of view could ‘Interim’ be called easy reading, and a method of sometimes almost ignoring punctuation and printing dialogue in solid pages does not tend to make it any the easier.”
“There lies the secret of Miriam’s appeal. Nothing seems to escape her. She is never dull or unaware; she never ceases to live and to respond to stimulus. And thus life, seen through her eyes and felt through her emotions, comes to be an exciting business, and the world an infinite stretch of inexhaustible delights.”
RICHARDSON, NORVAL. Pagan fire. *$1.75 (1½c) Scribner
Anne Rennell was quite contented and happy as the wife of an American politician in Washington. Franklin Rennell, too, was contented as United States senator. He took his work seriously and was of the eternal-boy sort of type, honest and plodding without intellectual brilliance. The first disturbance came when political intrigue put the flea into Anne’s ear that she was cut out for an ambassador’s wife in Rome. Rome it must be, henceforth. Anne feels that she has a right to her own life and happiness and that Franklin’s career must give way to it. In Rome she blossoms out, the romance of it enters her blood and with it an infatuation for Prince Cimino. The latter ends with a night with the Prince at his castle in the Campagna. After that Anne has something to live down, which, the reader trusts, she will be able to do with the aid and the sacrifice of two devoted friends.
“The most human and most logical character in the book is that of Senator Lelong. The story is pleasantly told in the slow analytical style of the English novel.”
“While Norval Richardson’s well-written novel ‘Pagan fire’ is far from uninteresting as a story, the greater part of its claim on the reader’s attention is derived from its quite fascinating setting.”
“The interest of the novel is derived less from the actual story than from the glorious settings of the drama.”
RICKARD, L. (MRS VICTOR RICKARD). Cathy Rossiter. *$1.75 (1c) Doran
Cathy Rossiter, by birth of the English aristocracy, was a modern woman who, without breaking her old ties, became interested in all sorts of progressive movements. Her personal charms make her a favorite in every circle from the aristocratic drawing room down to the half-starved strikers in Sabury road. Her most intimate friend is Dr Monica Henstock, a successful practitioner and her opposite in character and temperament. At her house she meets John Lorrimer who is about to propose to Monica when Cathy’s beauty and personality intrigue and side-track him. In time Cathy marries Lorrimer and through a complication of circumstances Monica’s and Lorrimer’s emotions and ethics both become befuddled and Cathy after an illness is locked up in an insane asylum on a flimsy pretext. Her experiences at the asylum and her rescue by some of her old friends make a thrilling tale.
“Mrs Victor Rickard has here achieved, without directing her energy towards any lofty or even wayward ambition, a marked success. The story is sheer melodrama from beginning to triumphant and happy end; but melodrama tempered with sound observation of character.”
RICKARD, THOMAS ARTHUR. Technical writing. *$1.50 Wiley 808
“Mr Rickard has served as editor of three leading mining periodicals and has written several well known professional works. He laments the carelessness shown by engineers in the preparation of reports and papers and has brought into this work the expansion of five lectures which he delivered in 1916 to engineering classes in the University of California. The many faults of composition and errors of vocabulary are discussed and illustrated by many examples of bad writing (with corrections) gleaned mainly from mining books and periodicals.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
“Mr Rickard’s exposition is vigorous and broad-minded.”
“It is well worth discriminating perusal, the chapter on style being particularly good. Violations of present-day typographical orthodoxy mar nearly every page of his book. They suggest the amateur. They are not classic. Also, in a work of this sort, it is only reasonable to expect that the author will observe his own precepts.” W. N. P. R.
“The lay reader should also get much from the volume.”
RIDEAL, ERIC KEIGHTLEY. Ozone. *$4 Van Nostrand 546.2
The author begins with the Early history of ozone and its general properties, and continues his treatment of the subject with chapters on: The natural occurrence of ozone: Chemical production; Thermal production; The electrolytic preparation of ozone; Production by ultraviolet radiation and by ionic collision; Production by means of the silent electric discharge; The catalytic decomposition of ozone; Industrial applications; Methods of detection and analysis. There are two indexes, to names and subjects. The author is professor of physical chemistry in the University of Illinois and the book is published as one of the series, A treatise on electro-chemistry, edited by Bertram Blount.
“The author deals with the whole fascinating subject in a manner which should appeal to most readers.”
“The author has been distinctly successful in his effort to collect and correlate the various references to ozone which occur in chemical literature, and his monograph will be welcomed if only for that reason. In addition, it contains a valuable summary of what is known about ozone, and by indicating problems which remain to be solved should also serve to promote investigation.”
RIDEOUT, HENRY MILNER. Foot-path way. *$1.90 (2c) Duffield
A story of the Far East. Dan Towers, the hero, is an American adventurer who has decided that it is time to go home. Fate brings him across the path of an old friend, Parimban, an Arabian merchant. Parimban is murdered and Towers is left with Leda, his friend’s beautiful young daughter, on his hands. He finds a refuge for her with a religious order and goes on his way, accepting the dangerous mission he had earlier made up his mind to refuse. He has many adventures, some in company with a religious fanatic, called Hury Seke, from his habit of writing gospel messages on walls and rocks, all beginning “Hury Seke Jehovah.” To others he is introduced by a gay young troubadour, Runa la Flèche. In the end the beautiful ward, who had once shown uncomfortable signs of falling in love with Towers, is more suitably mated with Runa.
“I turn the last page and lay down the book with the sense of having enjoyed a modest work of art instead of having been merely diverted by a pretentious bag of tricks. I like his story, but I like still more his way of telling it, his freedom from the slipshod smartness now fairly encouraged as normal by editors still getting pay-ore from the vein (or the tailings) of the Kipling-O. Henry tradition.” H. W. Boynton
“The tale is entertaining, swift-moving and romantic, and gives a colorful picture of adventurous lives.”
“This is not of a genre that all novel readers care for, but those who do will find this book an excellent example of it, exciting and amusing.”
RIDGE, LOLA.[2] Sun-up; and other poems. *$1.50 Huebsch 811
These are free verse, imagiste poems. In the group “Sun-up,” the poet sees the world through a child’s eyes and gives us glimpses of a child’s soul. All the poems express modernity, a free spirit and a turbulent world. They are grouped under the headings: Sun-up; Monologues; Windows; Secrets; Portraits; Sons of Belial; Reveille—the last group containing lines to Alexander Berkman, to Emma Goldman and to Larkin.
“No adult knows what little girls think about, but one is willing to believe that it is approximately what he finds here, where Freud rather than Plato is read back into the infant mind.” D. M.
“The series of poems from which the book takes its name are vividly poignant renderings of the child-mind, intimate in their apperception and flaring forth in arresting magic and color at times. Her method is free verse, but it is a distinct free verse. It is the sudden throwing of vivid phrases before one that conjure up limitless thoughts.” H. S. Gorman
RIDSDALE, KNOWLES. Gate of fulfillment. *$1.50 (4c) Putnam
A story told in letters. Margaret Bevington, a very charming and brilliant widow, answers an unusual advertisement calling for a secretary for an invalid. The invalid, who is also a misogynist, sends her a caustic reply declining her services, but a correspondence develops out of the incident. Later, learning that the secretary he had preferred to her had proved incompetent, she applies in person under an assumed name and is engaged. She then leads a double life, as staid, prim Martha Pratt and as witty Margaret Bevington, and the misogynist finds himself falling in love with two women. The tonic good sense of one and the mental stimulus of the other do their work. He is restored to health to learn that the two characters who have meant so much to him combine into one person.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“This is a very commodious, even lazy, way of writing a book; and, unless the letters are uncommonly brilliant, the result is generally disappointing. In this case, however, Mr Ridsdale has turned out a worthwhile correspondence in developing an ingenious though rather slender plot. ‘The gate of fulfillment’ will be read with interest.”
“It is a piquant situation, and some of its possibilities are well realized. But it wants a light, tactful, restrained treatment of which the author knows nothing. The letters of every one concerned are as fulsome, as precious, and as humourless as they can possibly be; and their prolix affectations become painfully tiresome long before the end is reached.”
RIHANI, AMEEN F. Descent of bolshevism. $1 (9c) Stratford co. 335
A small book written to prove that bolshevism is of oriental origin. The author goes back to fifth century Persia and has chapters on: Mazdak and Mazdakism; The Khawarij; The Karmathians; The Assassins; The Illuminati.
“Mr Rihani’s little book ends suddenly and without a satisfactory conclusion. His statements must be read with great caution.” N. H. D.
“He tells his stories roundly and underlines his morals blackly; but his essential facts are sound.”
RIHBANY, ABRAHAM MITRIE.[2] Hidden treasure of Rasmola. il *$1.75 (5½c) Houghton
This story of the digging for a treasure is a true story and a personal experience of the author’s. The scenes portrayed are real phases of the life of the common people of Syria and the people participating in the enterprise were real. The psychology, beliefs and mode of life of the people concerned are also depicted and the thrilling part of the story is that the treasure too, to all probabilities was real although it eluded the grasp of the diggers thru the machinations of a clever rogue.
RINEHART, MARY (ROBERTS) (MRS STANLEY MARSHALL RINEHART). Affinities. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
A volume of short stories. The first is the story of a group of married people who decide on an affinity picnic, with husbands and wives left at home. The affair comes to grief and when the parties concerned learn that the other set of wives and husbands have been carrying out a similar idea there are mutual recriminations and forgivenesses. The other stories are in like vein. Contents: Affinities; The family friend; Clara’s little escapade; The borrowed house; Sauce for the gander. The stories were copyrighted by the Curtis Publishing Company and date from 1909 to 1915.
“Entertaining, but several readers say not up to her usual standard.”
“Delightful tales each with a snap at the end.”
“Mrs Rinehart always writes entertainingly and she tempers humor with rare human sympathy and common sense. These stories are just the thing for hammock reading on a lazy afternoon.”
“Each one as unexpected and as amusing as the others, stories that keep you laughing and interested, stories full of the little absurdities of human nature and the queer tricks of fate.”
“If laughter really does promote health, Mrs Rinehart should take her place among the great physicians of the age.”
“The studies of English life and manners would strike most English readers as imaginative, and it is hard to believe that life in America exactly tallies with the authoress’s description, though it may really be like this. Anyhow it makes cheerful reading.”
RINEHART, MARY (ROBERTS) (MRS STANLEY MARSHALL RINEHART). Poor wise man. *$2 (1½c) Doran
The time of the story is immediately after the war and the circumstances social unrest, strikes, plots, political campaigns, mobs, riots, bombs, wise vigilance on the part of the Department of justice and timely interferences of the American Legion. The romance is supplied by Lily Cardew, granddaughter of the richest man in town, just back from her war-work and much changed, and Willy Cameron, a poor drug clerk who had been Lily’s pal in camp and is one of nature’s noblemen. Soon after her return Lily is ensnared by the wiles of an arch anarchist and all-round fiend. She even marries him but at that very crisis is rescued by Willy. Many are the adventures and hairbreadth escapes of both before their final reward.
“The story is well told, but our hearts are not touched by the romance of the impossible hero and heroine.”
“Mrs Rinehart gives us a very thrilling story, and a sense of disappointment with her method need not obscure the good points and readable character of this ‘novel with a purpose.’”
“The novel is alive and vigorous.”
“The book is exceedingly timely. It states the problem between labor and capital fairly and proves the futility of mob violence. And it states it in the lives of very actual people.” Katharine Oliver
“A story well worth reading.”
RINEHART, MARY (ROBERTS) (MRS STANLEY MARSHALL RINEHART).[2] Truce of God. il *$1.50 Doran
In the days of chivalry and when the church had decreed a “truce of God,” from Thursday of every week until Monday morning, during which time all fighting must cease, a young French overlord had put away his wife because she had borne him no son and because, heirless, upon his death his estates would fall to his cousin and arch enemy, Philip of the Black Beard. That the lady took refuge with this same Philip, enraged Charles still more. But it came to pass on a Christmas day that the truce of God entered the heart of Charles when he came to the castle of Philip in search of his runaway little daughter, Clotilde. As he goes to the bedside of his wife to ask her forgiveness he finds that a son has indeed this day been born to him.
“The story is told interestingly and with effective simplicity, and successfully reproduces the mediæval atmosphere; but the author leaves the impression of having put an undue strain upon plausibility in order to reach a desired conclusion.”
RIPLEY, GEORGE SHERMAN. Games for boys. il *$1.60 Holt 790
A collection of games for players of the adolescent and post adolescent age. The compiler says: “Properly played games develop courage, initiative, generosity, cooperation, cheerfulness, loyalty, obedience, alertness and sense of honor,” and in selecting the games he has based his choice on these qualities. Contents: Circle games; Opposed line games; Tag games; Quiet games; Miscellaneous games; Relay and other races; Stalking and scouting games; Camp stunts and water sports; Mimetic setting-up exercises; Contest and exhibition events; Camping notes.
RISING, LAWRENCE. She who was Helena Cass. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
Jay Sefton, a rising young novelist, acted a novel when he constituted himself a secret detective to find Helena Cass, dead or alive. Three years previous, her mysterious disappearance had set two continents agog with rumors and surmises. Jay Sefton had once met her socially, been greatly impressed by her personality and now the fever of the search had entered his blood. In disconnected accounts the story pieces itself together, and clue follows upon clue, revealing the rich possibilities of an undisciplined impulsive young girl; her tragic side-step from the conventional path; her all but murder in a Spanish inn; her refuge in a convent; temporary return to a world that had known her; her second escape to the convent; her motherhood and her final discovery in a secluded rural retreat in Spain by Jay Sefton and his wooing of her.
“It’s well told, too, with a slightly French touch and an intriguing style.” S. M. R.
“From the standpoint of style the book is decidedly jerky. It possesses many faults, many inconsistencies, but we are obliged to remember that the author has subordinated everything to the weaving and unraveling of his mystery. The first is ably done, and the second is accomplished with commendable ingenuity.” D. L. M.
“The novel is full of Latin color, some of the descriptive bits being powerfully photographic. All the characters are real and intensely individualized. The development of Helena Cass from a self-centred, selfish girl to a fine, broad, lovable character is a fine bit of psychological analysis.”
“The book is full of Spanish color, and some of the descriptive passages are striking.”
“The story is original, but its literary quality is not particularly good.”
Reviewed by L. M. Robinson
RITCHIE, ANNE ISABELLA (THACKERAY) lady (MRS RICHMOND RITCHIE). From friend to friend. *$2.50 Dutton
“‘From friend to friend,’ a little volume of recollections by Thackeray’s daughter, Lady Ritchie, edited by her sister-in-law, Emily Ritchie, has just been published. Lady Ritchie met many of the most interesting people in England in the course of her long life, which covered the period from 1838 to 1919, and in this little book she has ranged far back into the past and given glimpses of her father, of Tennyson and his wife, of Mr and Mrs Browning, of Adelaide Kemble and many others. There are anecdotes of Thackeray in his younger days, when he was beginning to write and wishing rather to paint, and later on when he was in the full tide of literary production.”—Springf’d Republican
“If at times, in spite of its delicate artistry, the narrative grows a little prim, there is usually a twinkle of humour to light it up again before many lines are past. Our old-world hostess is too skilful to let us get dull.”
“This little volume is slight but pleasing.”
“It is more enjoyable than many books of reminiscence. Lady Ritchie abounds in good-humor.”
“Lady Ritchie interests and amuses us without falling either into the distortions of malice, or the sentimentally which dwells on the ‘dear old days,’ and leaves us as cold as if we were listening to a canting preacher.”
“Charming little book.”
“Lady Ritchie knew what was interesting and what was not; she lived intensely in her memories, and she can take her readers to live in them with her.”
RITCHIE, ROBERT WELLES. Trails to Two Moons. il *$1.75 (3½c) Little
The story is of the Wyoming cattle country at the time when the struggle for existence was on between the cattle rangers and the sheep-raising homesteaders. Little by little the latter were encroaching upon the former’s grazing lands. Three figures stand out in the tale, Zang Whistler, the cattle-thieving outlaw, Original Bill Blunt, inspector for the Stockman’s alliance, and Hilma Ring, a sheepherder’s daughter, a dazzling but heartless beauty. A lonely life of hardship and struggle had cut her off from all femininity and hardened her heart. It is the taming of this shrew that tempts both Zang and Original. Amid killings and rough horse-play, during which Hilma has her fill of terror, loneliness and despair, nursing her hatred for Original, the latter’s character and power finally subdue and awaken the woman in her. Even Zang, whose wild career is but an offshoot of his inherent integrity, receives Hilma’s recognition of his loyalty and devotion.
“The story possesses a sort of crude strength besides exciting incidents; its characters are fairly well individualized; its descriptions are vivid, and its fights colorful. However, we cannot say that the conversion of the heroine’s hate for the hero to love for him is convincing. The strings that pull the character hither and thither at this point of the story are altogether too evident.”
“The story is ultra-romantic and the characters not essentially of flesh and blood—mere types and caricatures. But the setting in which the story occurs is painted so very vividly that it lends the air of reality to ‘Trails to Two Moons’ which the characters themselves and their vigorous actions lack.”
ROBBINS, CLARENCE AARON (TOD ROBBINS). Silent, white and beautiful; and other stories. *$1.90 (3c) Boni & Liveright
Short stories by an author who makes a specialty of the gruesome. Contents: Silent, white and beautiful; Who wants a green bottle? Wild Wullie, the waster; For art’s sake. There is a preface by Robert H. Davis.
“If these grotesque and morbid tales were just a bit better, they might even be great! But failing of greatness, they are so horrible as to be occasionally funny.”
“The horror of the truth in daily life is greater than the horror Mr Robbins seeks in his imaginative and improbable wanderings among murderers and spirits.” R. D. W.
“Genuine horror requires a certain inner logic, a subtle plausibility not discoverable in these stories.” L. B.
“There is no doubt that he has an eerie fancy, great fertility of invention, and not a little psychological insight. But he is unequal to the point of eccentricity. Two of his four narratives, ‘Wild Wullie, the waster,’ and ‘Who wants a green bottle,’ are simply inept. ‘Silent, white and beautiful,’ on the other hand, has an original and strangely vivid central idea.”
“Frankly tales of terror, built upon most improbable foundations, they would be revolting in the hands of a lesser artist.”
“The author has dipped his pen in blood while steeping his literary ego in diablerie, and the outcome is a feast of melodrama and morbidity that leads logically to nightmare.”
ROBERTS, CECIL EDRIC MORNINGTON. Poems. *$1.50 Stokes 821
This collection of poems falls into three parts: Poems; The dark years; and Other poems. John Masefield writes a preface to the collection and says of the author: “When I think of the poems, I feel that he must be young; not young enough perhaps to have been carried away, or destroyed, by the recent great events, but young enough to see them clearly, to respond to them, and to realize that the tragedy of them has been the tragedy of the young, the blasting of the young, for the benefit and at the bidding of the old.... That, in the main, is the tragedy of Mr Roberts’ latest and best poems, in the volume here printed.” In another place he says of the poet: “He has a quick eye for characters, a lively sense of rhythm, and a fondness for people, which should make his future work as remarkable as his present promise.”
“Will be liked by those who enjoy conventional poetry touching on a note of sadness.”
“These labored verses move us not at all. The book is full of echoes and infelicitous imitations. The book, in short, is full of clichés of thought and phrase.” H: A. Lappin
“The experience which has made Mr Roberts ‘old’ to his friends, has by a curious paradox kept him gloriously young in his dreams and visions. These poems, even embedding such grim interludes as is represented by the ‘Charing cross’ poems, are the poems of youth; but of a youth who has been trebly stored with the ancient wisdom and ways of the world.” W. S. B.
“Delightful poems chiefly on Arcadian themes.”
+ |Cleveland p52 My ’20 60w
Reviewed by Mark Van Doren
“It is not enough to be high-spirited, and warm-hearted, and quick-witted, and brave and sensitive—and this poet is all these. To feel splendidly is one thing, to shape the feeling another. Mr Roberts at present is apt to throw off his feeling into rhyme without due concentration, as though assuring us of his exuberance and bidding us be content with that.” J: Drinkwater
“The many lyric poems are a flower-garden in which the reader can spend a long time, and to which he will want to return. Mr Roberts writes gracefully and melodiously, and is never elaborate or artificial.”
ROBERTS, RICHARD. Unfinished program of democracy. *$2 Huebsch 321.8
“‘The unfinished programme of democracy.’ by Dr Richard Roberts, readily divides itself into two parts: the first three chapters in which the author sets forth what he considers to be the causes of the present crisis in democracy, and the rest of the book in which he specifies in detail and supports with argument the measures and changes that would, in his view, fulfil the democratic ideal.” (Freeman). “The main lines of practical doctrine on which the discussion is conducted are—a national minimum and a secure standard of life universally enforced and provided for; the limitation of profits; the elimination of the ‘social parasite’; the economic independence of women; the abandonment of the dogma of ‘State sovereignty’ and the recognition in the organization of government of the geographical and the vocational unit; the growth of the spirit and practice of social fellowship; a democratic world knit by a federation of democratic nations.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“Mr Roberts’s work is one to be read and inwardly digested.”
“It is only the first part of the book, in which Dr Roberts states his social theory, that in the view of the writer of this note exposes itself to criticism.” T. M. Ave-Lallemant
“The book is both refreshing and heartening and deserves a wide reading, not only for the soundness of its ideas but for the distinction and charm of its temper, and the vividness of its style.”
“He writes with force and charm; and he gives evidence of wide reading and of serious reflection. But when he comes to chapter VII, ‘The organization of government,’ his hand fails him.” W. J. Ghent
“It is a scholarly book by a man of vision.” A. J. Lien
“One of the ablest of the ministers of the English Presbyterian church here discusses the social problem in a comprehensive and practical way, with a full appreciation of new conditions and new trends of thought.”
ROBEY, GEORGE. My rest cure. il *$1.40 (4c) Stokes 827
The author informs his readers that he is tired of being funny, that he has had a collapse and needs a complete rest, and he is going to tell about his holiday in the country in his natural serious and solemn manner. By the skin of his teeth he succeeds in escaping from home without his wife and the entire family. His haven of rest is the Sunrise Arms of Little Slocum. The dream and the reality of Little Slocum are not quite the same. He almost succumbs to the ministrations of the sewing-bee of Little Slocum mothers, but after a ten mile flight in pajamas and mackintosh and rubber boots he catches a train that takes him back to the city. The illustrations by John Hassall add to the solemnity of the book.
“It may be that Mr Robey converses too much about nothing in particular, it may be that his humor is not that of America; but various episodes in his book are excruciatingly funny.”
“We cannot say that we have been vastly exhilarated by ‘My rest cure.’”
ROBINSON, ALBERT GARDNER. Old New England houses. il *$5 Scribner 728
“‘Old New England houses’ has about one hundred sumptuously printed views, mostly of the type of plain, unpretentious small country houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which we roughly classify as ‘colonial,’ though quite a few of the more pretentious mansion type of house, such as were built by the wealthier merchants and shipmasters in the larger coast towns, are included. The subjects are selected from an artistic rather than an architectural or antiquarian viewpoint. The first few pages are given to an untechnical talk on the varied types and styles of houses and where one may hunt for them with reasonable chance of success, but the greater part of the book is devoted to the pictures of the houses themselves, an entire page being usually given to each print.”—Boston Transcript
“The text of this book is slight, not wholly unsuggestive perhaps, but disappointing. The illustrations, however, are of positive interest.”
Reviewed by W. B. Chase
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“Like most books of the sort, ‘Old New England houses’ is more to be valued for its pictures than for its text. Here the text, however, is entirely adequate as a brief introduction to upward of a hundred photographs.”
“‘Old New England houses’ will be interesting and useful.”
ROBINSON, EDWIN ARLINGTON. Lancelot. *$1.75 Seltzer 811
“In ‘Lancelot’ Mr Robinson has continued the study of Camelot which he began three years ago in ‘Merlin.’” (Nation) “We open at the period in the Arthurian triangle when Lancelot, who has seen the grail, has determined to leave Camelot and Guinevere forever, and follow the lonely marsh-light that the knights hailed as the true gleam. Guinevere tempts him out of this. Arthur and his knights return, and find what the purblind king has shut his eyes to so long. Lancelot flees, and Guinevere is to be burnt at the stake. The greatest of the knights returns and rescues her, taking her to his castle of Joyous Gard; from which he later surrenders her. But the poison of the situation has raised up enemies in the king’s own household, especially his illegitimate son, Modred, and Lancelot, persuaded too late to go to the king’s aid, arrives after the battle in the north, in which king and bastard alike receive their death-wounds. He pays one final visit to Guinevere, habited as a nun, but still enough of her own self to listen to Lancelot’s belated plea that she rejoin him, and now enough of her new self to refuse it. Then the passion-wrecked knight rides away after that will-o-the-wisp whose presence men still vainly seek without themselves.” (N Y Call)
“Any modern treatment of the Arthur material challenges comparison at once with some of the illustrious names in English literature: Tennyson, Swinburne, Arnold, and Morris, to mention only the best known. Mr Robinson’s ‘Lancelot’ is no misbegotten changeling in this notable company. The analysis is subtle, unsentimental, and contagiously sympathetic.” R. M. Weaver
“In this narrative Mr Robinson not only proves by reason of thought and substance his position as the greatest of all living American poets, but also by the supreme consciousness and evocation of beauty.” W. S. B.
“The verse moves with dignity and attains at times even a detachable beauty, and yet the memorable lines are comparatively few—for this author.”
“It has no pictorial exuberance. Scarcely a line could be quoted for self-sufficient imagery. For the rest, the beauty of the poem is a low-keyed, intense but quiet beauty of cadence and rhythm. Its matter speaks with restraint and with completion. Its power lies in the immanence of its people and their struggle with their fate.” C. M. Rourke
“The verse of ‘Lancelot’ is as athletic and spare as an Indian runner, though it walks not runs. At the same time, he varies his verse in admirable accord with situation and character. Since Browning there has been no finer dramatic dialogue in verse than that spoken by Lancelot and Guinevere and no apter characterization than the ironical talk of Gawaine. One must go out of verse, to George Meredith and Henry James, to find its match. But Mr Robinson has the advantage of verse.” C. V. D.
“Edwin Arlington Robinson can say more in two lines than most poets can in several verses. His vision is somber; it is marked by an uncompromising consistency in the handling of eternal values.” H. S. Gorman
“‘Lancelot’ is life, albeit a gray and grim vision of it. It is a great tale, greatly told. American poetry is richer for the aching disillusionment of Mr Robinson’s art.” Clement Wood
“It has been well thought out, well felt and well made. This is not to say that it is a great poem, however, or that no important criticism can be brought against it. When he draws personality the lines are firm and flawless. But can he show us the color and texture of life, and make us feel the heat of it in those old days of myth and magic?” Marguerite Wilkinson
“Its supreme beauty lies in its analysis of character and motive.”
“Mr Robinson’s ‘Lancelot’ is a finer achievement than his ‘Merlin.’ Splendidly imagined and unerringly wrought, this book reaffirms the conviction that Mr Robinson is today the most significant figure in American verse.” E: B. Reed
ROBINSON, EDWIN ARLINGTON. Three taverns. *$1.50 Macmillan 811
“Edwin Arlington Robinson’s new volume of miscellaneous poems, ‘The three taverns’ is likely to earn him—if he has not already earned—a reputation as the Henry James among poets. His fondness for portraying the complex facets of character in an oblique light and by means of inscrutable hints and sinuous innuendoes has led him to further workings of the vein of dramatic lyric opened four years ago by his famous ‘Ben Johnson entertains a man from Stratford.’ The present collection contains seven long poems of this sort, revealing in monolog or dialog a moment in the life of St Paul, Lazarus, Brown of Harper’s ferry, Hamilton, and real or imagined people of lesser note.”—Springf’d Republican
“‘The man against the sky’ indicated very clearly the place of the poet, it was very high—how high we had not the standards by which to measure. ‘The three taverns’ brings us much nearer to him, closer within the embrace of his sympathies, and, by the same law, lifts him much farther above us.” S: Roth
“The substance of the longer poems in this book is more profoundly grounded in Mr Robinson’s philosophy of human nature and experience than in any of his other poems. Even in the shorter poems we find this power distilled until almost achingly the meanings break through a speech that is simplified to a bareness of figure or illusion. Take the poem ‘The mill’ and say if a tragedy could be so mercilessly told with the economy of speech by any other living poet.” W. S. B.
“Here is a great virtue that belongs peculiarly to Mr Robinson among American poets. His work is always packed with thought. ‘The three taverns’ is a big book and it grows with each reading. It is the work of lonely hours, of unfailing meditation, and of authentic genius, if such a thing may be admitted to exist in these troublous times.” H. S. Gorman
“It is a sombre book, ‘The three taverns,’ sombre and polished to a high dark sheen, and the bitter tang of it remains in the memory after reading.” C. F. G.
“Separate enough in themselves, they yet stand with respect to each other in a sort of pattern, like the monoliths of a Druid circle.... What holds them in the pattern is that tone of mingled wisdom and irony, that color of dignity touched with colloquial flexibility, that clear, hard, tender blank verse and those unforgettable eight-line stanzas and dramatic sonnets which go to make up one of the most scrupulous and valuable of living poets.” C. V. D.
“‘The three taverns’ is a finished product. It is a book such as only a master, touched with the authentic fire of genius, could make possible. Within its 120 pages is crystallized the best of modern American poetry. No European could find better introduction to American achievement in letters than through the poems that are contained in ‘Three taverns.’” H. S. Gorman
“Little of his old magic of intonation and rhythm is lacking from ‘The three taverns,’ even though the intellectual appeal overmasters at times the poetic.”
“Mr Robinson’s verse, as always, flows with limpid purity, but his quaintly compounded vocabulary and his intellectual penetration compel the closest attention to his pages. Readers who have the patience or the agility to follow Mr Robinson are not meanly rewarded.”
ROBINSON, EDWIN MEADE (TED ROBINSON, pseud.). Piping and panning. *$1.75 Harcourt 811
The author conducts a column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and this is a volume of his humorous newspaper verse. Among the titles are: To a lady; The lecture; The story of Ug; Things I despise; Things I like; Some Anglicisms; The drawbacks of humor; Love lyrics; We Olympians; The critic’s apology; In various keys; The typewriter’s song; Rural delights; Butter and eggs; The average man.
“Of its kind, Edwin Meade Robinson’s ‘Piping and panning’ is of a pleasant quality. No man may trifle with the muse day after day with impunity, but Mr Robinson has been able to command her support in a fair average of instances. His book discloses a nimble fancy, a facile dominion of vocabulary and verse forms, and a ready wit.” L. B.
“Many of the verses, it is true, are occasional and uninspired; but the book is a wholly satisfactory one for the good things it has in abundance.” Clement Wood
ROBINSON, ELIOT HARLOW. Maid of Mirabelle. il *$1.75 (2c) Page
A story of the last days of the war and the period immediately following. The scene is laid in a village of Lorraine. Here Daniel Steele, an American Friend who has come to France to do relief and reconstruction work, falls under the spell of Joan le Jeune, the maid of Mirabelle. When Daniel had left home he had taken with him the promise of his foster-sister Faith to be his wife on his return. But for a little time Joan makes him forget Faith, and Joan, to whom he brings the romance of strange lands, almost forgets her own soldier lover Jean. But when Jean is under suspicion she turns to him, and Daniel, too, recovering from a wound, finds his thoughts bound up in Faith and is ready to return to his own country leaving Joan to her happiness.
“Somewhat too sentimental in execution, but simple and pretty.”
ROCHE, ARTHUR SOMERS. Uneasy street. il *$1.75 (2c) Cosmopolitan bk. corporation
He was an impecunious clerk before the war, but won a commission and was swept into New York gilt-edged society by his millionaire chum after their discharge. He goes the pace and one night of it finds him in debt and in love and temptation staring him in the face in the form of a trunkful of money under his hotel bed. He falls for it, takes what he needs with intentions to refund, but is found out before that happy event can take place. Then his manhood reasserts itself, he returns the stolen money and makes a clean confession of his guilt to his employer, his chum’s father. He is forgiven and is reinstated in the good graces of his fiancée, his chum and gilt-edged society.
“In construction the present story is by far the best he has written.”
“That the story is devoid of all plausibility will not detract from its interest to such readers as enjoy this sort of a book.”
Reviewed by Joseph Mosher
ROCHECHOUART, LOUIS VICTOR LÉON, comte de.[2] Memoirs of the Count de Rochechouart; auth. tr. by Frances Jackson. *$5 Dutton
“These memoirs are a first-class historical document of the period before and after the Napoleonic wars. The Count de Rochechouart was only a lad when the revolution broke out, and practically without money he made his way across Europe and took service with the Emperor of Russia, whom he served until 1814, when he was appointed to a military post under the restored Bourbons in Paris, and took a prominent part in the refounding of royalist France.”—Sat R
“His narrative is of absorbing interest, in itself: material enough for a dozen historical romances, told with vivacity, a wealth of illuminative anecdote. The version is faithful and admirably written, a valuable contribution to French and European history in our language.”
“The Rochechouart memoirs become thin and unsatisfactory after the peace, and give few details of the new French society which Balzac was afterwards to describe so brilliantly; and with the count’s retirement into the country in 1822, they practically cease. But as they stand, they are a valuable contribution to a period of which we can never have too much information.”
ROE, A. S. Chance and change in China. il *$3 (3c) Doran 915.1
A book devoted not to political affairs but to the little alterations in custom that indicate social change and the influence of the outside world. Among the chapters are: The seductive city; The city of the river orchid; The black smoke [opium]; The dragon house; The gem-hill city; The serpent month; On the “river of broad sincerity”; The city of western peace; The pepper month; The contemptible one [woman]; A painted cake. The title given to this last chapter signifies “a thing that has come to nothing,” and refers to the republic, altho the author says, “Though to many the republic has become a ‘painted cake,’ some at least of the seeds scattered here and there in the days of its first youth have taken root.” There are many illustrations and an index.
“The accounts of travel and life in New China are fascinating, and Miss Roe’s book both promises and provides some rare hours of entertainment.”
“A varied and entertaining account of modern life in the Far East. It is by no means a serious book. Rather it appears to be a collection of more or less coherent reminiscences carried away by the author after traveling through parts of the country.”
“Her book does not lend itself to continuous reading, for it is both discursive and disjointed. Too retiring to weave a connecting thread out of the accidents that befell herself, too logical to put forward a reconciliation of contradictions that defy it, too honest to suggest a whole where she had seen but a small part, she leaves on the mind an idea of confusion—and that, perhaps, is the truest impression she could give of China at this period of chance and change.”
ROGET, FRANÇOIS ROGET. Altitude and health. (Chadwick lib.) *$5 Dutton 612.27
“Professor Roget, of Geneva, was invited by the Chadwick trustees to form one of their panel of lectures. The subject which he treats in the three lectures which he delivered for the Trust in 1914, and which are contained in this volume, has become, since the development of aviation, one of increasing importance; but the professor, though he does not ignore aviation, explores with great care and fullness the effect of altitude upon health and physique mainly from the point of view of the Alpine pedestrian climber and resident.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The information contained in this book regarding climate appears on the whole to be accurate and reasonably complete. So much cannot be said regarding matters physiological. Whether on account of war prejudice or other cause a large mass of valuable German work is passed over almost in silence and even in the selections from English and American investigators the most important modern contribution is merely mentioned.” Yandell Henderson
“If, as undoubtedly is the case, there are still many people who dread the effects of unmitigated fresh air, and especially that of mountain resorts, these lectures should help to convert them to saner views.”
ROHMER, SAX, pseud. (ARTHUR SARSFIELD WARD). Golden scorpion. *$1.75 (2c) McBride
Mystery, magic and an element of indefinable horror enter into this story by the author of the Fu Manchu tales. Gaston Max, a famous Parisian detective, Inspector Dunbar of Scotland Yard, and Dr Keppel Stuart, an obscure London practitioner with an unusual knowledge of poisons, are all concerned in the case of the golden scorpion. For a time no one of them knows who or what the scorpion may be, altho this symbol is known in some way to be associated with a series of mysterious deaths in both London and Paris. Dr Stuart is drawn into the case when the beautiful and alluring Mlle Dorian comes to him as a patient. As in the author’s other stories there is a strong tinge of the oriental.
“A good mystery story.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
Reviewed by Joseph Mosher
“It is a relief to have mystery and magic mixed up with good detective work after so great a glut of German espionage, and the reader will find the golden scorpion in a pleasing variety of unusual and unexpected situations.”
ROHMER, SAX, pseud. (ARTHUR SARSFIELD WARD).[2] Green eyes of Bast. *$2 (2½c) McBride
This story is of the unreal, and presupposes the existence of hybrid beings, half woman and half cat, born in Egypt in the month sacred to the goddess Bast. The fate of the individual or family upon which the enmity of such a being rests, may be imagined. The Coverly family in England is so marked, and one by one its members meet their deaths in various ghastly manners. To the police, who are naturally not in possession of the secret of the cat-woman, it is very mysterious. Altho they make many discoveries, what finally clears it all up is the confession of the Eurasian, Dr Damar Greefe, who had brought up the hybrid monstrosity in the interests of science. Though they are in league together, she finally masters him and the final tragedy is his death, for she eventually adds his murder to the already long list of fatalities of the story.
“Persons of experience know that, in shockers as in life, it is not the goal but the road there that matters, and their gratitude to the author will suffer no diminution because the villain’s explanatory discourse reveals some weak points in the construction of the story.”
“Mr Rohmer devotes himself to the production of atmosphere with his old skill.”
ROLLAND, ROMAIN. Liluli. il *$2 Boni & Liveright 842
“In ‘Liluli’ Romain Rolland has given to the world one of the most daring satires that have ever been written. Liluli is illusion, the ideal, the chimera, the eternal vamp of history. The time and place of the drama are fanciful. The stage is a ravine spanned by a footbridge. The human race is on the march—toward a mirage. There are peasants and intellectuals, diplomatists and socialists, satyrs and mountebanks, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Truth and Opinion, the Gallipoulets and the Hurluberloches (who are at war), shopkeepers, peddlers and fettered brains. And Polichinello. He is the laughing brain. He is the eternal mocker. He believes in nothing and smiles at all things. He is the wisdom of folly. In the general crash on the bridge of the world, when the human race goes into the abyss, Polichinello goes with it. Everything collapses on him—the fighting people, furniture, crockery, poultry, stones, earth and the grand chorus of idealists. On top of the mess sits Liluli, her legs crossed, smiling and showing the tip of her tongue, her fore-finger to her nose.”—N Y Times
“The play is a farce and a savage satire all in one. It is Aristophanic in its conception and working out, now bitter, now blatant, now indecent, and at times blasphemous. It would have been entirely possible to satirize hypocrisy and venality as playing potent parts in the stirring up of war without insulting religion and its God.”
“It is a strange and powerful book, this monstrous comedy of world-wide calamity. The logical necessity of the catastrophe, the inevitableness with which not only the vices, but even the virtues of her victims play into the hands of Liluli, make them susceptible to her lure, and hasten their doom, gives this weird farce the impressiveness of a Greek tragedy.” H. M. Evers
“It is a pity that M. Rolland has chosen the now dominant symbolical forms for the embodiment of his fable. Never so much as today did art need to speak directly. ‘Liluli’ is beautiful and memorable. But its literary sophistication stands in the way of its broader effectiveness.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Probably Rolland had in mind to write somewhat after the manner of Aristophanes. Certainly he has the necessary verve and gusto and satiric sting. But the Greek stuck to themes that could be represented on the stage. The Frenchman has tried to sweep all humanity into the scene, and the result is that you, the reader, have to create a brain theater for the work in order to realize its true values. It would have been far more effective for most people in some other form.”
“‘Liluli’ is a memorable book. It demolishes with great Rabelaisian and Aristophanic guffaws the ridiculous and anarchistic societies that we live in. The book is a bridge to a new world—still nebulous, not even yet a mirage.” B: de Casseres
“‘Liluli’ is written in behalf of what is, or was or should be, a noble cause; it is written with an art and grace which should have fitted it to charm and to serve; yet its spirit and methods are such as to dispel that charm and to annul that service.”
“Perhaps Romain Rolland is scarcely of the race and lineage of the master satirists, and his ‘Liluli’ may not be the ideal satire for this crazy age; but Rolland shows many of their great traits, and ‘Liluli’ is so far the one outstanding satire of its time.”
“Here are all the arguments and experiences with which the pacifist is familiar incisively personified—not without a certain strong tang of a former literary age.”
ROLT-WHEELER, FRANCIS WILLIAM. Boy with the U.S. trappers. (U.S. service ser.) il *$1.50 (2c) Lothrop 639
This unusually well illustrated volume follows the plan of the other books of the series in combining information with narrative. In telling the story of young Gavin Keary, from the time he is left alone to shift for himself till he is engaged as a trapper by the U.S. biological survey, the author manages to impart a great deal of information about the work of this branch of the government service, the conditions of modern trapping and the ways of wild animals.
“The average reader will find it interesting and boys will find it even thrilling.”
“It avoids the insipidity that goes with most boys’ books and is packed full of information about ranch life.”
ROOF, KATHARINE METCALF.[2] Great demonstration. *$2 (3c) Appleton
Roger Lessing and Terry Endicott are both in love with Lucretia Dale. She is in love with neither until on the eve of Terry’s departure for the war, she realizes that he has her heart. But report comes that he is dead, and half against her own will, she consents to marry though she cannot love Roger. Roger has always been a disciple of New thought, believing “What I desire, will come to me,” but even his desire for Lucretia’s love cannot bring it to him. Then Terry is miraculously returned to life from a German prison; and Roger’s desire for Lucretia’s love is intensified. From the creed of New thought he advances into more dangerous forms of eastern mysticism to gain his end until finally the power that he sought to use masters him, and he meets his death in his last effort to control Lucretia’s mind and love.
“It cannot be said that the psychic element in this novel is either interesting or convincing. On the other hand, the sketches of daily existence in the ‘studio’ are amusing and the general atmosphere of the story is pleasing.”
ROOSEVELT, KERMIT. Happy hunting-grounds. *$1.75 Scribner 799
“In the opening chapter, the author gives an intimate picture of his father, as he remembers him in the rôle of companion during numerous hunting expeditions. There are numerous personal incidents and reminiscences. Other chapters have to do with hunting in America, including trips into Mexico. ‘Book collecting in South America’ recalls another purpose of a trip into a foreign land. At the end of the volume a sketch is given of Seth Bullock, his father’s friend, sometimes called the ‘last of the frontiersmen,’ a type celebrated and adored by Roosevelt.”—Springf’d Republican
“The volume is interesting and well written throughout—Kermit Roosevelt has inherited his father’s knack of clear description and vigorous English.”
“Will be welcomed by the many admirers of the former president, those who admired him as a man, and not only as a political leader.”
ROPER, WILLIAM W. Winning football. il *$2 (4½c) Dodd 797
The author distinguishes between an old and a new way of playing football. The old way “was first and last a trial of speed and strength and weight and courage” in which cleverness was at a discount and mere pounds and inches at a premium. The new way is “thinking football,” for which the author claims every manly virtue and that it is “a splendid preparatory school for life.” Of this game the book proposes to set forth the underlying principles. Contents: Modern football a battle of wits; The spirit behind the team; The routine of early season practise; Every man in every play; A real quarter-back must have brains; Running the team; The kicking game; The schedule; The day of the big game; Illustrations.
“A readable unusually valuable book for any one who is coaching football.”
“It is not only informational, but inspirational. The attitude throughout is that of the highminded amateur sportsman of the best type. For this reason, if for no other, it is a book that most men and all boys should read.”
ROSE, JOSHUA. Complete practical machinist. il $3 Baird 621.9
In the twentieth, greatly enlarged edition of this work, the reader is introduced “to the machine tools in which the cutting tools are used, whereas in the earlier editions the cutting tools only were treated upon.” (Preface) The present edition has 432 illustrations. The work originally appeared in 1894.
ROSEBORO, VIOLA. Storms of youth. *$1.75 (2½c) Scribner
Just before Perry Grantley left college, a faculty incident revealed to him in a flash what “a sporty thing” it would be to be a man. It clinched his decision to stay in the old home town and fight the political graft that had crept into the local government there. In the story we follow Perry’s crusade against the insidious corruption of the town and his personal vicissitudes in matters of the heart—how his unguarded marriage to a flower-like girl with an unborn soul resulted in early widowerhood and his final union with the playmate of his youth whom he had always loved. Incidentally a picture of small town life, its outstanding figures, with their normal, their sub- and super-normal qualities, unfolds itself, leaving the reader with the impression that life with its successes, its failures and its sorrows is all a part of “the beauty and wonder.”
“There is a very vivid picture of the life of the town from the beginning of the book. One must admire the author’s skill in visualizing these varied elements.”
“The characters are well realized, the situations are poignant, and the method of narration becomes progressively more coherent and telling.”
“The book would be a better one if the end were reached a little sooner. The novel contains a good many characters, but the author keeps firm hold on each one of them, and their variety helps to give verisimilitude to this tale of love and politics in a small American town.”
“My feeling about the whole book is that it is too elaborate a mechanism, with a weakness at its vitals. Finally, we are reluctantly aware of the style as artful in its polish and saliency. We feel that the writer has labored well, but we feel that she has labored.” H. W. Boynton
ROSENFELD, PAUL. Musical portraits. *$2.50 (3c) Harcourt 780
In these “interpretations of twenty modern composers” (Sub-title) the author characterizes the music of each and shows how each composer reflected the age in which he lived either in its entirety or in certain phases and according to the musician’s temperament. The composers are: Wagner; Strauss; Moussorgsky; Liszt; Berlioz; Franck; Debussy; Ravel; Borodin; Rimsky-Korsakoff; Rachmaninoff; Scriabine; Strawinsky; Mahler; Reger; Schoenberg; Sibelius; Loeffler; Ornstein; Bloch. The appendix consists of short biographical notes of each composer.
“Mr Rosenfeld knows how to write. This fact alone would make him of the minority among those who write at and about music. His style is nervous, clear, ironical if not humorous, and he uses words with precision. A well-written, interesting, sincere, exasperating book. In other words, a book worth reading.” Deems Taylor
“Each is a sort of snapshot of the essential personality of a musician, and all taken together make up a gallery of modern composers so penetrating, vivid and trenchant that no reader is likely to forget them. The method used is the impressionist. Inevitably, the special pitfall of a method like Mr Rosenfeld’s is over-subjectivity and sentimentalism, with its resultant turgidity and tendency to ‘fine writing.’ Mr Rosenfeld’s first book of essays at once establishes him as one of the few writers on music able really to illuminate their subject.” D. G. Mason
“Many of the fundamental ideas set forth have been voiced at one time or another by the more penetrating of European critics. Yet Mr Rosenfeld has displayed a marked faculty for reinvesting these ideas in fresh and striking habiliments, embroidering them with such originality and skill that they take a new aspect. The whole book, in fact, is an astounding exhibition of virtuoso writing.” Henrietta Straus
“For its many good qualities, this book is deserving of unstinted praise. For one thing, it is, I believe, the first noteworthy attempt to take an accurate and full-size measurement of the music makers of our day, and for another, the critical yard stick is applied by a hand equally as artistic as it is dexterous. The only annoyance I experienced in reading the book was due to a feeling that, in parts, many of the pages were overwritten.” Max Endicoff
“Mr Rosenfeld delights in vivid colors. At moments, to be sure, one sees a tendency to overdo this eloquence; to pass too suddenly from rhapsody to invective, and from praise to blame. But even with such faults—perhaps because of them—these ‘Twenty portraits’ are in their own field unique.” C: H: Meltzer
“There is an abundance of subtlety, of ‘style,’ of smart theories that are more preoccupied with themselves and their inner consistency than with their subject-matter.”
ROSS, EDWARD ALSWORTH. Principles of sociology. (Century social science ser.) *$4 Century 301
“This is not merely another textbook in sociology but the exposition of a system of sociology which is the result of seventeen years of work. The work begins with a brief treatment of social population. In a limited but strong treatment of Social forces, Ross contends that social laws are not physical but psychical, following Ward in the theory that the social forces are human desires. Part III, on Social processes, contains the bulk of the book—480 pages. This is subdivided into thirty-eight chapters, including such subjects as association, domination, exploitation, opposition, stimulation, personal competition, adaptation, cooperation, stratification, gradation, commercialization, expansion, ossification, estrangement, individualization, liberation, and transformation. Under Social products are treated uniformities, standards, groups and institutions. The book closes with four chapters on sociological principles—anticipation, simulation, individualization and balance.”—Survey
“No one preparing to be a professional social scientist, whatever his particular division of labor, can afford to be ignorant of this book, or even only superficially acquainted with it. Henceforth the student of social science who has not assimilated it is undertrained. It is a luminous revelation of realities of the common life.” A. W. Small
“Mr Ross’s cardinal fault is lack of historical-mindedness. He accepts as absolute the standards found or conceived in his own social environment and seems generally incapable of a Kantian critique of their validity. Yet with all its defects ‘The principles of sociology’ remains a work of real utility. Though the author’s resolute determination not to think anything through may deter the philosophical student, the vast scope of the book with its wealth of illustrative material may commend it to the teacher of sociology.” R. H. Lowie
“The tone of this book is generous and whole-souled and the reader is thereby predisposed from the outset. The style goes with the tone. It is generously expansive to the verge of breeziness. By reason of its qualities of tone, style, and the rest this book ought to be of use in colleges and to the general reader.” A. G. Keller
“Few writers have the ability to present a subject in as interesting a manner as Ross. His style is pungent, clear and clean-cut.”
“It is not only the most important sociological work of the past few months but without question the most important since the appearance of Todd’s ‘Theories of social progress,’ and possibly since Ward’s ‘Pure sociology.’ The book is not only a masterpiece as a scientific work but it is intensely interesting.” G. S. Dow
ROSS, SIR RONALD.[2] Revels of Orsera. *$2.50 (2c) Dutton
This medieval romance purports to be based on some historical facts and on a manuscript by one Johannes Murinus, found in the library of the University at Bâle. The story is illustrative of the mystical conception that good and evil flow from the same source and are interchangeable and the result is a novel interpretation of dual personality. A proud mother of twins—one of whom is a deformed dwarf, albeit with a beautiful poetic spirit—thinks that by murdering him his spirit will enter into a corporeally beautiful demon, who obtrudes himself upon her in a dream, and thus make spirit and body one in beauty. She is correct in her first surmise but to her dismay, the body of the son also lives on with the spirit of the demon she has ousted. A second time she attempts to kill him in his new guise but only effects another exchange.
“It is written with a swash-buckling air, which reproduces with curious effectiveness the mediæval period in which it is laid.”
“Always the reader feels that the volume is the result of a fullness of rare knowledge which enables its author to pick and choose as he lists, with the calm certainty that whatever he writes will bear the stamp not only of literary artistry, but of absolute originality.”
“The author’s invention remains at a high level throughout the story, and it is not till near the end that the practised novel reader begins to suspect his secret, but his vocabulary every now and then becomes too modern for the atmosphere such a story imperatively demands.”
“‘The revels of Orsera’ would claim admiration on its merits quite apart from the antecedents of the author. When they are taken into account it moves the critic to something like amazement. Regarded merely as a story, ‘The revels of Orsera’ is continuously exciting, prodigal of surprises and often genuinely if grotesquely humorous.”
“It is an extraordinary story, in which most of the principal characters come to a bad end, for which the reader cannot honestly be very sorry. But there is one thing that he will have noticed by that time, which is that the descriptions of Alpine scenery and atmosphere, which can only be due to personal observation, stand out with a far brighter vividness then all the medieval fineries.”
ROSS, VICTOR. Evolution of the oil industry. il *$1.50 (5c) Doubleday 665
Beginning with the first mention of “oil out of the flinty rock” in Deuteronomy and the ancients’ acquaintance with it in the earliest historical records, the book shows that petroleum is a comparatively new agent for the service of mankind and the latest of earth’s riches man has learned to adapt to his needs. The development of the industry is described from the boring of the first well in 1859 to the present time. The book is illustrated and the contents are: Petroleum in history and legend; What is petroleum? Dawn of America’s petroleum industry; Founder of the petroleum industry; Petroleum as a world industry; Locating the oil well; Drilling the oil well; Collecting and transporting crude: the pipe line; Refining and manufacturing petroleum products; Petroleum and other industries; Petroleum on the seven seas; Petroleum in the great war; America’s investment in petroleum; Petroleum in the future.
ROTHERY, AGNES EDWARDS (MRS HARRY ROGERS PRATT) (AGNES EDWARDS, pseud.). Old coast road from Boston to Plymouth. il *$2.50 (6½c) Houghton 974.4
Beginning with a description of old Boston, by the way of a foreword, the author invites the reader to accompany her on a trip along the earliest of the great roads in New England, the old coast road, connecting Boston with Plymouth. We are asked to travel comfortably “picking up what bits of quaint lore and half-forgotten history we most easily may.” The trip is charmingly reminiscent—a pleasure trip into history and old traditions, as the table of contents reveals: Dorchester Heights and the old coast road; Milton and the Blue hills; Shipbuilding at Quincy; The romance of Weymouth; Ecclesiastical Hingham; Cohasset ledges and marshes; The Scituate shore; Marshfield, the home of Daniel Webster; Duxbury homes; Kingston and its manuscripts; Plymouth. The illustrations and chapter vignettes are by Louis H. Ruyl.
Reviewed by W. A. Dyer
“A pleasant, friendly guide book. It is charmingly illustrated.”
“If one would journey down the old coast road from Boston to Plymouth, he will do well to choose Agnes Edwards for his guide. He will find each stage of his journey possessed of an individual charm.”
“The pen-and-ink illustrations are unusually attractive.”
ROUTZAHN, MRS MARY BRAYTON (SWAIN).[2] Traveling publicity campaigns. il *$1.50 Russell Sage foundation 374
The book comes under the “Survey and exhibit series” edited by Shelby M. Harrison and gives a review of the educational activities carried on in recent years by means of modern transportation facilities, i.e. “the putting of exhibits, demonstrations, motion pictures and other campaigning equipment on railroad trains, trolley cars, and motor trucks so that they may tour a whole city, a country, or cross a continent.” (Editor’s preface) Contents: Purposes and advantages of traveling campaigns; How trains have been used in campaigning; Campaigning with motor vehicles; Advance publicity and organization; The message of the tour; Exhibit cars; The tour of the truck or train; Follow-up work; Appendix, bibliography, index and illustrations.
“Home economics workers who are touching the extension work field will find this volume indispensable.” B. R. Andrews
ROWLAND, HENRY COTTRELL. Duds. *$1.75 (2½c) Harper
The story turns about the smuggling of war loot in the form of jewelry and antiques. The chief smuggler—a sufficiently bona fide dealer in the above articles, is ostensibly out to discover and expose the gang. He engages the wrong person to do his chief spying in Captain Phineas Plunkett, who finds out more than he is expected to. But Karakoff although the chief of the gang is not one of them and repudiates their methods. He has nothing to do with the gun play and clubbings and killings that go on in the story, throws the whole thing over when he realizes the dirty mess he has let himself in for and makes ample restitution for his loot. Of the two women of the story, Karakoff’s daughter Olga is a beautiful artless child, whose rescuer Phineas becomes on two occasions, and finally her lover. The other, a devil woman par excellence, looks like a fairy, wrestles like a pugilist, dares unspeakable things, poses as a secret service agent but is really a thief and a crook in league with the Apaches of Paris.
“Mr Rowland is no novice at story-writing and knows how to keep up an unflagging interest to the end. In Miss Melton he has introduced a singular character, and the situations are unusual and make exciting reading.”
“The tale is cheerfully improbable, swift-moving, and very entertaining.”
ROWLAND, HENRY COTTRELL. Peddler. il *$1.75 (2½c) Harper
The somewhat erratic peddler of the title carried his miscellaneous stock of wares in and on an immense ex-army truck, so that his approach was invariably heralded by a clanging and banging of hardware. In this way he made his entry into the exclusive New England colony where the Kirkland family of four sons and a daughter was justly famous. To the same resort in less spectacular style came a small band of European crooks, who proceeded at once to work silently and effectively along their own original lines of robbery. Not until William Kirkland was accused of the thefts, did the peddler reveal the fact that he was there as a member of the secret police incognito. But when an attempt upon William’s life was made, the peddler was on hand to rescue him and to try to capture the criminals. Altho the result was not satisfactory to him, the others concerned seemed to be quite content, and the bonus which he claimed in the person of Diana Kirkland reconciled him to what he considered his failure. Some of the characters and some of the stolen jewelry figured previously in Mr Rowland’s novel “Duds.”
“Not much characterization, but brisk and interesting.”
“It is a rattling tale, full of new complications and exciting incidents. The interest does not flag, the characters are sharply differentiated human beings, and not automata. It is an admirable mystery story.”
ROYCE, JOSIAH. Lectures on modern idealism. *$3 Yale univ. press 141
“The ground covered by the book is largely the same as the substance of Royce’s ‘Spirit of modern philosophy,’ but the treatment is wholly different, being as professedly technical as the earlier book was not. And, whether wisely or unwisely, the author has avoided repeating what is contained in the ordinary histories of philosophy by emphasizing the neglected aspects of the thinkers whose systems he expounds.”—Springf’d Republican
“Interesting as a pre-war study of German philosophy.”
Reviewed by Hartley Alexander
“Throughout, Royce’s accurate scholarship and gift of sympathetic interpretation are at their best, but nowhere more so than in the three lectures on Hegel’s ‘Phaenomenology of spirit.’” R. F. A. H.
“The initial presumption that we have a book here worthy of careful study is amply justified by the reading.”
RUSH, THOMAS EDWARD. Port of New York. il *$3.50 Doubleday 387
The purpose of this book, by the surveyor of customs of the port of New York, is to make it easier for business men, officials, teachers and students, to understand New York harbor, and to estimate its importance for the city, the country, and the world. It tells its history from the very beginning and points out five agencies as responsible for its improvements: the cities within the port areas; New York and New Jersey state governments; the federal government; the projected bi-state unified port control; and extra governmental agencies voicing the public’s demands and needs. Many drawbacks and inefficiencies are pointed out and the fact emphasized that New York is “first and foremost a port.” Among the contents are: Birth, christening, and youth; Piracy and privateering abolished; Eternal vigilance against smugglers; Giant growth in commerce; Government far-sightedness and short-sightedness; The port awakening of New Jersey; Forts and fortifications; New York, the nation’s first air harbor; Advertising New York port’s nautical school; Immigration’s gateway to America; Bibliography and illustrations.
“The port of New York is deserving of a more comprehensive and more technical study of its processes than is provided by Thomas E. Rush. An adequate study of the port from the transportation or engineering point of view it emphatically is not.”
RUSSELL, BERTRAND ARTHUR WILLIAM. Bolshevism: practice and theory. *$2 Harcourt 335
A book containing the articles which appeared in the Nation together with new material. Bertrand Russell writes as a communist who finds much to criticize in the bolshevist method of putting communism into practice. He says: “A fundamental economic reconstruction, bringing with it very far-reaching changes in ways of thinking and feeling, in philosophy and art and private relations, seems absolutely necessary if industrialism is to become the servant of man instead of his master. In all this, I am at one with the Bolsheviks; politically, I criticize them only when their methods seem to involve a departure from their own ideals.” (Preface) The book is the outcome of a brief visit to Russia. Part 1, The present condition of Russia, has chapters on: What is hoped for Bolshevism; General characteristics; Lenin, Trotsky, and Gorky; Art and education (written by Mr Russell’s secretary, Miss D. W. Black); Daily life in Moscow; etc. Part 2, Bolshevik theory, is a criticism of the materialistic conception of history and other accepted doctrines, with chapters on: Why Russian communist has failed; and Conditions for the success of communism.
“We have found the most interesting part of Mr Russell’s book to be, on the whole, his analysis of the theory of Bolshevism.” J. W. N. S.
“A clear and convincing critique of Bolshevism as a social theory.” E: E. Paramore, jr.
“No such remarkable book as his ‘Bolshevism: practice and theory,’ has been published on this subject. Small as the volume is, only 192 pages, it is amazing how much he says.”
“Bertrand Russell is not a clear thinker. The chief value of this book lies in the fact that it is a condemnation of the spirit of Bolshevism by one whose prejudices for its avowed principles would naturally make him its apologist if not its defender.”
“Mr Bertrand Russell’s book is likely to remain the most damning criticism of Bolshevism, whether that strange delusion be considered as a faith or as a political institution. Although Mr Russell seems to us to be no more practical than a Russian Bolshevik, he is beyond doubt a brilliant philosopher, and often one cannot help finding fineness in his thought, even when he seems to us least to understand the ways of the ordinary man. Among the most interesting things in the book are the accounts of Mr Russell’s meetings with Lenin and Trotsky.”
“Not the least interesting chapters are those on ‘Revolution and dictatorship’ and ‘Mechanism and the individual,’ in which Mr Russell reveals his own views as to the future industrial system which is to replace the present. Mr Russell himself is sanguine as to a new economic order emerging from the present chaos. But his grounds of faith are unconvincing.”
RUSSELL, CHARLES EDWARD. Story of the Nonpartisan league; a chapter in American evolution. il *$2 Harper 329
Altho covering practically the same ground as Herbert E. Gaston’s “Nonpartisan league” this book goes more fully into the conditions out of which the league movement developed, bringing together much illustrative material and documentary evidence to show the workings of the system under which the farmer was exploited. The author says in beginning, “I have no idea that in the succeeding pages I can remove the fixed belief of the dwellers in cities that the farmer of America is becoming clog-footed with wealth, but it has occurred to me that a plain record of the tragic struggles of a large body of American farmers for bare justice and a chance to live ... might have some interest as a human as well as a social and political document of facts.” The part devoted to the rise and present organization of the league is correspondingly less complete than Mr Gaston’s, but the main facts are sketched. The book has been carefully indexed.
“Rather more interestingly and dramatically written than Gaston.”
“Admirable book.” W. H. C.
“The book should be viewed as a clever piece of journalism, effective but inaccurate. It has the earmarks of being scientific; it cites references: it affects a certain restraint in statement. Yet the critical reader will find its ‘citations’ ex parte, fragmentary, undated for the most part. The book is a good example of skilled juggling with half-truths. In short this book is not what it pretends to be—the facts about the Nonpartisan league.” J. E. Boyle
“While this book is not to be compared with the more intimate and comprehensive work by Mr Gaston, it is none the less a valuable account of a movement that has been much misrepresented in the public press.”
“Mr Russell’s defense of the league’s attitude during the war is the best that can be put forward, and it is put forward by a sincere patriot who risked and suffered much for his loyalty. But the country has made up its mind on that point, and his defense, honest as it is, is unconvincing.”
RUSSELL, MRS FRANCES THERESA (PEET). Satire in the Victorian novel. *$2.50 Macmillan 823
“The author of this book is a professor at Leland Stanford junior university, and her interpretation of the satiric contributions to literature, offered by novelists of the Victorian epoch, has literary as well as scholastic value. Written primarily as a thesis, offered at Columbia university for the degree of doctor of philosophy, the author’s style bears necessarily unmistakable and potent signs of academic standards. The volume is divided into Premises, Methods, Objects and Conclusions. After giving to her readers the groundwork of her scheme, making certain that they understand the satiric motive, Professor Russell passes to the categorical stage in her exposition. She analyzes methods of satire, romantic, realistic, ironic. For this purpose she quotes from the writers of the period she is considering, writers such as Samuel Butler, Thomas Love Peacock, Meredith, Disraeli, Thackeray, Trollope and Dickens. She takes pains to show us how much ingenuity these men display in their methods of satiric attack and how their weapons vary, likewise their skill.”—Boston Transcript
“A thoroughly competent and scholarly study.”
“What will interest the un-academic mind particularly in this treatise is the author’s personal contribution. She offers, sometimes with a charming unconsciousness, her philosophy of living; and more than one of her reflections has a satiric thrust which makes us realize that the talent for touching on the weaknesses of humanity with a deftly humorous hand did not die with the Victorians!” D. F. G.
“She has a better talent for the abstract than for the concrete; her analyses are better than her discussions of actual examples. The reader learns much from her pages by gleaning over wide territory, but he drives behind an inexorable chauffeur who whirls him past alluring byways and leafy vistas. Names and ideas spin by like telephone poles. The author has a nice ear for the turn of a sentence, but she cannot train sentences to speak together.”
“It is full of sustaining, gently amusing reading, and—most important—the reader will want to read it all. There is no waste.”
“A certain rehabilitation of the Victorians is the chief service that Prof. Russell seems to have performed, often, seemingly, in spite of herself.” G: B. Dutton
RUSSELL, RUTH. What’s the matter with Ireland? *$1.75 Devin-Adair 914.5
“Miss Russell has undertaken her theme objectively, in the best reportorial sense, and by sounding a number of disparate apostles—as widely dissimilar as De Valera, George Russell, Countess Markiewiecz and the Bishop of Killaloe—she manages to throw light upon all phases of the problem. The book opens with a chapter on statistics, which bring the present plight of the country into the foreground of the reader’s imagination, and with this accomplished, the author turns to the narration of incidents, and to the gleaning of opinions, which are set down with impartial emphasis.”—Freeman
“She succeeds in rousing our sympathy for the poor working girls of Dublin, and the other unfortunate people of the city and the bog-field. But when she takes up the political, she seems unable to do justice to her subject. There is no doubt Miss Russell’s intentions are good, but it is doubtful if such books as this will help Ireland’s cause.”
“She wisely refrains from any ex cathedra dogmatism on her own account.” L. B.
RUSSELL, THOMAS. Commercial advertising. (Studies in economics and political science) *$2.50 Putnam 659
“Mr Russell is the president of the Incorporated society of advertisement consultants, and was sometime advertisement manager of the Times. He writes, therefore, with authority, and he deals fully with such themes as the economic justification of advertising, the functions and policy of advertising, the chief methods of advertising, and with advertising as a career.” (Ath) “The six lectures were delivered in the spring of this year at the London school of economics.” (Springf’d Republican)
“The book should be useful and suggestive to commercial men and others.”
“The six lectures are not only worthy of their academic auspices but might well serve as models of modern academic exposition. They have the breadth and insight that is properly called philosophic, whatever the subject-matter may be, and the concreteness that makes a philosophic treatment glow with interest.”
RUTZEBECK, HJALMAR. Alaska man’s luck. *$2 Boni & Liveright
“The book is a unique autobiographical chronicle, told in the form of a diary, of the struggles of its author-hero to make a home for himself in the land of the snows. Hjalmar Rutzebeck, or Svend Norman, as he calls himself in his book, was born and raised in Denmark. He left school at the age of twelve and has had no further formal schooling since then. We first meet our twentieth century viking in Los Angeles, just after he had been honorably discharged from the United States army. With winning naïveté he tells us how he has fallen in love with Marian. When Svend learns that the northland is as dear to Marian as it is to him, he immediately sets out to make a stake there.... As Svend goes on from adventure to adventure he records them in his diary, and it is this diary, mailed to Marian piecemeal as he went along, that is reprinted in ‘Alaska man’s luck.’”—N Y Times
“Interesting specially to men or older boys.”
“It must be confessed that the tale is fascinating, in spite of, or perhaps because of its naïveté.” Margaret Ashmun
“An extraordinary story.”
“There is no self-consciousness in ‘Alaska man’s luck,’ nor is there any suggestion of a sophisticated striving to return to the simple and primitive.” L. M. R.
“For his first novel, Hjalmar Rutzebeck has wisely chosen a hero of his own race and temperament. He attains a consistent realism by letting Svend Norman’s diaries and letters tell their own story.”
“The simplicity and directness with which the author tells his blood-stirring story, even the occasional crudities in his English, serve to enhance rather than mar the epic quality of his narrative.”
RYAN, AGNES. Whisper of fire. *$1.25 Four seas co. 811
A series of poems arranged as: Wood, Kindling, Smoldering, Smoke, Blaze, Smoke again, Flame, Coals, Ashes. Altho they are loosely strung together the succession of verses tells the story of a woman’s love life.
“Several of the verses, notably ‘I wonder,’ are compact and vivid in imagery and spiritual message.”
“Each poem is a mere fragment in free verse, a chip off the old block of femininity. This will please readers of poetry of the hour. For the present vogue is fragmentary. Many of these poems are trivial and unimportant, but a few have the eloquence of reality.” Marguerite Wilkinson
RYAN, JOHN AUGUSTINE. Church and socialism; and other essays. (Social justice bks.) *$1.50 University press, Brookland, Washington, D.C. 304
“A collection of papers that have appeared in various publications during the past ten years. Only the first paper relates intimately to the title of the book. Other topics discussed are: A living wage; The legal minimum wage; Moral aspects of the labor union; The moral aspects of speculation; Birth control; and Woman suffrage.”—Am Econ R
“The essay, ‘False and true conceptions of welfare,’ is to our mind the most practical of the entire series.”
“They reveal a large acquaintance with economic and industrial problems. It would be beside the point to criticize these papers without remembering that they were written for Catholics. While we agree with many of Dr Ryan’s conclusions, we should find it difficult to subscribe to some of his premises and to submit to the intellectual limitations which follow.” R: Roberts
RYAN, JOHN AUGUSTINE. Living wage; with an introd. by R: T. Ely. *$2 Macmillan 331.2
“A revised and abridged edition of a work that has had much influence in bringing about the enactment of minimum-wage laws and the acceptance of the principle that the laborer has a moral claim to at least a decent living wage. The author is a priest of the Roman Catholic church and a professor in the Catholic university of America.”—R of Rs
“It is agreeable to say that Dr Ryan argues the living wage question better than almost anybody else.”
“Ethically it is far in advance of the thought of a generation ago, and many even now will find themselves unable to keep pace with it.”
RYAN, WILLIAM PATRICK. Irish labor movement. (Modern Ireland in the making) *$2 Huebsch 331.09
In reviewing the history of Irish labor in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the author points out how the genius of the Irish people was submerged and its spirit broken by the enforced assimilation of a foreign social system, a foreign speech and a foreign character. However cruel and inhuman English dominion has proved itself to be, the struggle for freedom has been mental and spiritual as well as economic. “The breaking of the chains, the unloading of the degrading burdens that we know, will inevitably lead to the resurrection and the flowering of the workers’ deeper natures, now blunted and buried. Then they may be artists and creators.” Contents: Labor and the Gael; Land workers’ ordeals and deeds; William Thompson, Robert Owen and Ralahine; Our early trade unionism; The guilds and the unions; Illusive emancipation; O’Connell and tragi-comedy; Weavers and “lock-ups”; Lalor and lean years; In Davitt’s days; Connolly in the schools of labor; Connolly’s teaching—industrial unionism; Larkin’s youth in the depths; The rise of “Larkinism”; Up from slavery in Ulster; The struggle of 1913; The ultimate sacrifice; Towards the commonwealth; Authorities and sources.
SACKVILLE, MARGARET, lady. Selected poems. *$2.50 Dutton 821
“Lady Margaret Sackville is a feminine version of the late Richard Middleton. Her themes are the themes of Middleton—the gay seasons, love and desire with their antithesis of crepuscular quiet, a selected Greek mythology, and the vaguely idealistic ‘dreams’ of the romantics.” (Ath) “She writes lyrics and short plays: her subjects are largely Greek, and, so far as effects of brightness and directness, of clear air and frank sunshine, are concerned, the atmosphere is Greek.” (Review)
“Out of her materials she makes a bright, easy poetry, which it would be unfair to subject to the test of frequent reading. It is only at rare intervals that something of more permanent quality, as, for example, ‘Invitation au repos,’ rises above the level of pleasant facility.”
“Lady Margaret Sackville is the possessor of charm. Original or powerful she may not be, but charm in itself is fortune.” O. W. Firkins
“Lady Margaret Sackville has suffered by reason of being Lady Margaret. The paths were made too easy for her. She set out with the true throat of the bird at dawn, but somehow somewhere the music went wrong. It is wrong now.”
“Pieces that give the effect of having been written as technical exercises, but which are not without charm.”
SADLER, MICHAEL. Anchor. *$1.75 (2½c) McBride
The interest of the story centers about Laddie Macallister, an over-sensitive, introspective young man whose self-questionings and doubtings make him feel hopelessly adrift and unstable for all his solid foundation of a clean and honest manhood. We meet him first as newspaper correspondent for an English paper in Paris; later as literary secretary for a radical London weekly. The anchor, the “something-firm-to-cling-to” which he craves he finds in Janet Tring, daughter of a country squire and a singularly well-poised, straightforward bit of young womanhood. It is the character-drawing rather than the plot that is significant in the story. Some of the other characters that stand out are Laddie’s father, the country parson, whose mellow wisdom and dependable love for his son are the latter’s safe armor; Dermot Gill, the very odd, very lovable and very radical Irishman, whose friendship Laddie picked up en route; Janet’s cousin, the militant suffragette, proud of her prison record; and the wily newspaper woman whose vindictive designs on Laddie rebound from Janet’s good sense.
“The sentimentality of such fiction lies in its slavish worship of youngness—the mere state and act of being young, of muddling through youth.” H. W. Boynton
“The story is lacking in form and consistency; the latter half, which tells the love story, has the greater driving force. The character of Laddie is, within limits, fairly clear and truthful. Mr Sadler’s method is psychological, but not unduly so, and the story of the partial love affairs which accompany his great love is done with some originality and insight.”
SAFRONI-MIDDLETON, A. South Sea foam. *$2 (2c) Doran 919.6
In “the romantic adventures of a modern Don Quixote in the southern seas” (Sub-title) the author has attempted to capture and hold for all times, some of the earliest “poetic babblings” of the children of nature of the South Sea islands before, with the advent of the missionary, “island mythology and heathen legends were sponged off the map of existence.” He has attempted to see the mysteries of nature with the eyes of the primitive man and, in retelling the legends of some old Polynesian chiefs, to remain as faithful to primitive conceptions as is possible to a sophisticated mind. The contents give glimpses of the author’s own adventurous youth in following the call of the “true poetry of life” and some of his island reminiscences in: Fae Fae; The heathen’s garden of Eden; In old Fiji; Kasawayo and the serpent; O Le Langi the pagan poet; An old Marquesan queen; Charity organization of the South Seas.
“Not the least stimulating portions are those devoted to the sailing vessels in which the author has pursued his study of man and nature.” Margaret Ashmun
“The jerky transitions, the Bowdlerized legends, the tantalizing sequels that the author ‘can’t tell,’ the dialect never heard on land or sea, the author’s occasional verse ... contrive to trip the reader up time after time just as the magic joy of life is beckoning him farther into fairyland.”
“Here is a chronicle of vagabonding among the isles of the South seas that sets him who has lived amid the cities of civilization to wondering whether or not he has squandered his life.”
“Much of the same delicate charm of fantasy which belongs to so many of the Hindu stories told us by F. W. Bain distinguishes, also, these tales of the isles in the far seas.”
“It makes one long for Stevenson, who could be frank and downright enough, but never wrote with a leer.” E. L. Pearson
“Mr Safroni-Middleton gives us a glimpse of true natural poetry that should appeal to the lover of life and beauty.”
ST JOHN, LARRY. Practical fly fishing. (Outing handbooks) il *$1.25 Macmillan 799
“As the title indicates, it is a treatise about luring the finny inhabitants of pond, lake or other watery area into human hands, through the medium of the ‘fly.’ There are numerous illustrations that will please and enlighten both the amateur and the ‘old-timer.’ There is a brief historical review of this form of fishing, while considerable space is given over to tackle, other chapters are given over to flies, reels, apparel, biological, preparatory and casting. The final chapter is entitled ‘strategy,’ and deals with methods of best making use of the tackle, reels, etc., previously described.”—Springf’d Republican
“The descriptions are written in simple direct form, and are easily understood and applied.”
ST MARS, F. Way of the wild (Eng title, Pinion and paw). il *$2 (2c) Stokes 590.4
Epics of the wild would truly characterize these tales of thrilling adventures of wild things in their own haunts. They are not natural history but stories of animals befitting their characters as men conceive them. Thus in “Gulo the indomitable” we see the wolverine—most hated of all the animals among themselves, with a character “that came straight from the devil,” and with brains “that only man, and no beast, ought to be trusted with”—and his ghoulish escapades. The weak and the powerful, the four-footed and the winged tribes, even the legless viper, engage our human sympathies for their fears, their passions, their struggles and their wiles. Contents: Gulo the indomitable; Blackie and co.; Under the yellow flag; Nine points of the law; Pharaoh; The cripple; “Set a thief”; The where is it? Lawless little love; The king’s son; The highwayman of the marsh; The furtive feud; The storm pirate; When nights were cold; Fate and the fearful; The eagles of Loch Royal; Ratel, V. C.; The day; Illustrations.
“Real art here, with the scientist’s passion for strict accuracy. It is a book for the whole family, a book to be kept and cherished and handed on to the children as they grow old enough to appreciate it.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
SAINT-SAËNS, CAMILLE. Musical memories; tr. by Edwin Gile Rich. il *$3 Small 780.4
“This book is virtually an autobiography, but the story of the author’s life is told briefly, so as to leave room for chapters on Rossini, Meyerbeer, Offenbach, Viardot, Louis Gallet, Delsarte, Victor Hugo, which, however, are also more or less autobiographic, for these were among his friends. The English volume omits some of the chapters in the original French edition and changes the order of others.” (Bookm) “Contents: Memories of my childhood; The old conservatoire; Victor Hugo; The history of an opéra-comique; Louis Gallet; History and mythology in opera; Art for art’s sake; Popular science and art; Anarchy in music; The organ; Joseph Haydn and the ‘Seven words’; The Liszt centenary at Heidelberg (1912); Berlioz’s requiem; Pauline Viardot; Orphée; Delsarte; Seghers; Rossini; Jules Massenet; Meyerbeer; Jacques Offenbach; Their majesties; Musical painters.” (Pittsburgh)
“It should be in every library.” H: T. Finck
“Camille Saint-Saens is not only one of France’s greatest living composers but a musician who can write excellent and witty prose, and an erudite scholar who knows how to impart information without being pedantic.” Henrietta Strauss
Reviewed by Lawrence Gilman
SAINTSBURY, GEORGE. Notes on a cellar-book. *$3 Macmillan 663
“Mr Saintsbury, it will be remembered, had proposed to write a history of wine; for sundry reasons he renounced his intention; and what he gives us in this small volume are ‘notes and reminiscences on the subject which may ... add a little to the literature of one of the three great joys of life.’” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The body of the work is occupied by a history of Mr Saintsbury’s experiences in keeping a wine cellar; literally, as the title has it, the record of a cellar-book.” (Review)
“Here, then, is a book which few men, and no woman, could have written, full of knowledge that comes of experience, and is therefore, as a rule, useless to others—full of the ripe humour that characterizes all the best things of the world.” R. S.
“A quaint and delightful chronicle it is, and as we have a right to expect from such a pen, interspersed with many an apt literary hint and suggestion.” Michael Monahan
“Mr Saintsbury was prevented from carrying out his original intention of writing a history of wine, but he has done the next best thing in giving us this book.”
“No man could be less of a pedant. His erudition does not obtrude itself; it merely supplies suitably evocative expressions; the bubbles wink, and so does he. There is the very spirit of wine in the genial ferocity with which he denounces those who would deprive him of that good gift.”
SAMPSON, EMMA SPEED. Mammy’s white folks. il *$1.50 (2c) Reilly & Lee
Dr Andy Wallace is a shy young doctor with no use for women folks when a baby girl is left on his doorstep. His negro Mammy persuades him to keep the child and he brings her up as his own daughter. The story tells of the happiness she brings to him, and of the happiness that comes to her when she grows to womanhood. Mammy has a large part in the story and the widow Richards and her daughter Lucile, who try to steal Esther’s privileges, are also factors, as is Dr Jim Dudley, the doctor’s assistant.
“A good wholesome story dominated by the motherly old negro’s philosophy.”
SAMPTER, JESSIE ETHEL, ed. Guide to Zionism. il $1.50 Zionist organization of Am. 296
The book has grown out of an earlier publication, ‘A course in Zionism,’ now out of print. The present volume is more than twice the size of the first and presents as many more problems and facts concerning the Zionist movement. Its purpose is to serve not only for individual perusal but as a text-book for groups of students. Of its thirty-three chapters the first ten deal with Zionist theory, history and organization, the next ten with more specialized phases of the movement, and the last thirteen with Palestine. Each chapter is followed by a short bibliography and there are important appendices, a general bibliography, an index and illustrations.
SANBORN, MARY FARLEY (MRS FRED C. SANBORN). First valley. *$1.75 (2½c) Four seas co.
A story of life after death. Tina, a pleasure-loving girl, killed in an automobile accident, is speeded to the other world in the swift car of Death, not knowing what is happening to her. She finds herself in the first valley of the life to come and valiantly sets herself to learn its ways. She makes friends with the Spade Man, who teaches her to cultivate her garden, and with Odo, the childlike poet, and she lends a helping hand to those who follow her to this new world, to St Leon, the university professor who bemoans his lost career, and to Helene, the beautiful woman whose worldly ideals have not been abandoned. The story ends with her passage to the second valley.
“A curiously interesting book.”
“It is a little book conceived in a spirit of singular purity and reverence, and almost faultlessly executed; without cant or sentimentalism or any forcing of the risky note.” H. W. Boynton
SANCHEZ, MRS NELLIE (VAN DE GRIFT). Life of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson. il *$2.25 (2½c) Scribner
“Whoever reads this book from cover to cover will surely agree that no woman ever had a life of more varied experiences nor went through them all with a stauncher courage.” So writes Mrs Sanchez in the preface to this biography of her sister Fanny, wife of Robert Louis Stevenson. There are thirteen chapters: Ancestors; Early days in Indiana; On the Pacific slope; France, and the meeting at Grez; In California with Robert Louis Stevenson; Europe and the British Isles; Away to sunnier lands; The happy years in Samoa; The lonely days of widowhood; Back to California; Travels in Mexico and Europe; The last days at Santa Barbara. There are a number of portraits and other illustrations. Letters from Henry James and others are quoted and the book closes with an account of the services at Vailima in 1915 when the ashes of Mrs Stevenson were carried to her husband’s resting place on the summit of Mount Vaea.
“Well worth while, not only as an addition to Stevensoniana, but also as a picture of a very interesting woman.”
“To the Stevensonian, this book is a mine of delight. It sets down what has never before been sufficiently made clear, that Mrs Stevenson was, in her own way, as remarkable and as gifted as her husband.” Christopher Morley
“So interesting that one could wish it more extended. We are inclined to think the book better worth while than anything that has been printed about Stevenson since the Letters.’”
“This concise and vivid narrative reveals Mrs Stevenson clearly as the splendid woman she was, but it also reveals her, first and last, as the reason why the literary world today possesses some of the most highly valued of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson.”
“One might venture to say she has written a manly book. She has drawn the character of a frank and courageous woman with a straightforwardness that would surely have pleased its possessor.”
SANDBURG, CARL. Chicago race riots, July, 1919. pa 60c Harcourt 326
“Reprinted from articles contributed at the time to a Chicago newspaper, Mr Sandburg’s description tallies with other authentic accounts of the origin and progress of the race riots. Though he acted merely as a reporter, the author evidently formed strong opinions of his own as to the most promising line of action to prevent the recurrence of this outrageous happening. Better housing, more and better industrial opportunities, and—immediately—a thorough federal investigation of the unsatisfactory race relationships that lead to race conflicts seem part of such a program.”—Survey
“A serious and intelligent investigation into conditions which made the race riots possible. A contribution to the solving of the negro problem in any section of the country.”
“The pamphlet is naturally less constructed, less pondered than Mr Seligmann’s careful thesis. But it has the advantage of its journalistic method, for by personal narrative and comment it makes vivid its statistics and analysis, and brings the general problem down to more specific terms.” M. E. Bailey
“Everyone in this country who is interested in our sharpest national disgrace—our treatment of negro citizens ought to read this collection of articles. Especially every Chicagoan ought to read it.” E. F. Wyatt
SANDBURG, CARL. Smoke and steel. *$2 Harcourt 811
The sections of this new book of poems are called Smoke nights, People who must, Broken-face gargoyles, Playthings of the wind, Mist forms, Accomplished facts, Passports, Circles of doors, Haze, Panels. Some of the poems are reprinted from Poetry, the New Republic, Liberator, and other periodicals.
“‘Smoke and steel’ is both an epic of modern industrialism and a mighty pæan to modern beauty.” L: Untermeyer
“Mr Sandburg has no sense of the past, no vision of the future, and so his reality is a little huddled bunch of dried-up aspects out of which have escaped the aspects of life about which he is so passionately concerned. This is a great pity, because I believe there is no poet in the country who has by nature the qualities of spirit which, if fused and blended in the proper alembic, would not make some of the loveliest and most convincing poems of our day.” W: S. Braithwaite
* + -|Boston Transcript p7 O 16 ’20 2050w
“Sandburg has lost (at least temporarily) the one and only thing which makes him great—the ability to determine when he has written something good. He now apparently believes that everything he writes is a poem. He imitates Gary, and turns his product out on a quantity basis.” Arthur Wilson
“‘Smoke and steel’ is longer than either of the earlier volumes, and not so uniformly good. Over many pages, it must be admitted, Mr Sandburg has rather obviously repeated himself, has put himself through motions that were more profitable once than they are now. But the book as a whole has great fascination and pull. Technically, Mr Sandburg is as interesting as any poet alive.”
“This new collection establishes what ‘Chicago poems’ only promised and ‘Cornhuskers’ plainly intimated. It proves that these states can now claim two living major poets: Sandburg and Frost.” L: Untermeyer
“He is misty, rather than descriptive or truly evocative; he is the whole antithesis of the imagist demand for a sharply evoked image, if this is their demand; and, sometimes at least, it should be. We see the smoke, and miss the steel.” Clement Wood
Reviewed by Babette Deutsch
“Reading these poems gives me more of a patriotic emotion than ever ‘The star-spangled banner’ has been able to do. This is America, and Mr Sandburg loves her so much that suddenly we realize how much we love her, too. Either this is a very remarkable poet or he is nothing, for with the minors he clearly has no place. He has greatly dared, and I personally believe that posterity with its pruning hand will mount him high on the ladder of poetic achievement.” Amy Lowell
“Mr Sandburg has introduced themes which have seldom, perhaps never, been treated before. There is an impressive display of energy in ‘Smoke and steel.’ His poems are true to a certain kind of life, they are undoubtedly American. They do succeed, then, in doing what they set out to do, but whether this in itself constitutes a high and right art is another question.”
SANDERS, LLOYD CHARLES. Patron and place-hunter; a study of George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe. il *$5 Lane
George Bubb Dodington was a prominent political and social figure in the reigns of George I and George II on whom Lord Chesterfield bestowed the sobriquet of “blest coxcomb,” on account of his supreme conceit and ostentation, but who nevertheless had some compensating qualities of sincerity, capacity for friendship, and courage. His notorious diary has made him a historical figure and the present account of his life is a picture of the England of his day. Contents: Dodington’s ancestry; The youth of George Bubb; George Bubb, plenipotentiary; The seizure of Sardinia; Dodington and Walpole; Eastbury; A prince and a duke; From Walpole to Pelham; Frederick, Prince of Wales; La Trappe; Henry Pelham; The duke of Newcastle; Chaos; The end of the reign; Dodington’s last years. There are illustrations.
“Mr Lloyd Sanders puts with ease what the usual maker of research states heavily, and the confusions of politics for forty years up to 1762 become almost agreeable in his animated narrative.”
“Casual references to Dodington abound in the political histories and studies of social life of the eighteenth century. It must have been a source of regret to those who study this period that no intimate material regarding Dodington has been procurable. Mr Sanders’s volume fulfills this want. Besides, a man that Robert Browning parlayed with for more than 300 lines is well worth attention.”
“If it be easier, as Mr Lytton Strachy assures us, to live a good life than to write one, Mr Lloyd Sanders deserves not only praise but gratitude for presenting us with his admirable monograph on Bubb Dodington. If we have a complaint to make of Mr Sanders it is that he repeats the common saying that Bubb was a wit, but gives us no specimens.”
“A good biography of a second-rate man often throws more light on the period in which he lived than a biography of a great man, who is necessarily exceptional and abnormal. We should recommend any one interested in the early Georgian era to read Mr Lloyd Sanders’s witty and scholarly memoir of George Bubb Dodington, who was a typical eighteenth-century politician.”
“Bubb’s biographer is not biassed in his favour. He makes a cold, exhaustive investigation of the career of a place-hunter when Walpole ruled the roost and every man had his price, and he is successful in every respect save one. He cannot make a picturesque ill-doer of his hero. His story constitutes not so much a page of eccentric biography as a quaint footlight to the rather squalid politics of George the Second.”
SANDES, EDWARD WARREN CAULFEILD.[2] In Kut and captivity with the Sixth Indian division. il *$10 Dutton (*24s Murray) 940.472
“Major Sandes has written an interesting book on the earlier phase of the war in Mesopotamia. Major Sandes was attached to the Sixth Indian division, under General Townshend, which formed the main portion of Sir John Nixon’s expeditionary force. He was in charge of the bridging train which followed the army up the Tigris. He describes the capture of Kurna, the rapid advance up to Amarah, the battle of Es Sin, where the Turks offered a strenuous resistance, the occupation of Kut, and the fatal advance upon Baghdad which ended at Ctesiphon. He gives a full narrative of the retreat, which was most skilfully conducted, and relates the history of the five months’ siege of Kut. After the surrender in April, 1916, he was taken to Asia Minor, and remained at Yozgad till Turkey capitulated a year ago.”—Spec
“It is likely to remain for some time a classic on the heroic stand of the Kut garrison and the awful sufferings they subsequently endured.” R. C. T.
“Depressing as it must needs be, the undauntable spirit which it shows, the endurance, simplicity, modesty, lift this book into the class of great siege narratives and give it high place among the first-hand records of great military disasters. And so, for all its unconscious concreteness and scattered masses of detail, it gives in the end that purging of the spirit which Aristotle assigned to high tragedy.”
“Major Sandes is rigidly objective; he sets down plain facts and leaves his readers to rely on their own imaginations. We are not sure, all the same, that his story of Kut is not rendered more remarkable by his resolute avoidance of fine writing.”
“The story of the siege of Kut is well told by Major Sandes.”
SANDWICH, EDWARD GEORGE HENRY MONTAGUE, 8th earl of. Memoirs of Edward, Earl of Sandwich, 1839–1916. il *$7 Dutton
“The ‘Memoirs of Edward, eighth earl of Sandwich, 1839–1916,’ have been edited by Mrs Steuart Erskine from the material which Lord Sandwich himself collected from old diaries with the object of publishing his autobiography. Besides the intimate pictures provided of society at home and abroad, of state visits to Berlin and St Petersburg, of missions to Fez, and travels in many lands, the story is told of his experiences in spiritual healing and other psychical phenomena which became his dominant interest towards the end of his life.”—Boston Transcript
“Such material as is found in these selections from the diary not only furnish valuable matter for the historian, but it reveals the personality of the diarist, and thus makes very interesting and enjoyable reading for those who delight in following the movements, personal and social, of human beings.” F. W. C.
“So varied a life clearly presented opportunities for an interesting book. We cannot say, however, that Mrs Steuart Erskine has been altogether fortunate in her materials. Lord Sandwich’s wit in conversation vanishes when he tries to commit it to paper. He intended to write his biography, but here we only get it in the raw, so to speak.”
“The value of these memoirs lies in the picture they afford of a typical representative of a long-established order now apparently in the throes of dissolution.”
SANGER, MARGARET H.[2] Woman and the new race. *$2 (4½c) Brentano’s 176
In his preface to this book Havelock Ellis says that its contents are already as familiar as A B C to the few who think, but to the millions and to the handful of superior persons whom the millions elect to rule them, they are not familiar, yet it is a matter of vital importance to the race that they should be. The reason why is clearly set forth in the book which is a plea for a free and voluntary motherhood. The chapters are: Woman’s error and her debt; Woman’s struggle for freedom; The material of the new race; Two classes of women; The wickedness of creating large families; Cries of despair; When should a woman avoid having children? Birth control—a parents’ problem or woman’s? Continence—is it practicable or desirable? Contraceptives or abortion? Are preventive means certain? Will birth control help the cause of labor? Battalions of unwanted babies the cause of war; Woman and the new morality; Legislating woman’s morals; Why not birth control clinics in America? Progress we have made; The goal.
“Calm, temperate, informed, sound, and winning book.”
“While Mrs Sanger’s book contains nothing new to students of the subject, it is an excellent summary of the arguments for voluntary motherhood. In several instances, however, she overstates her case.” B. L.
SANGER, WILLIAM CARY, jr. Verse. *$1.50 Putnam 811
The poems of this volume are arranged under the headings Tides of commerce (Verse of the railroad); The city of toil and dreams; Miscellaneous poems; With the armies of France; Additional war poems, 1918: In the land of the harvest. Most of the poems are reprinted from earlier volumes by the author and the original prefaces to these volumes appear in an appendix.
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
SANTAYANA, GEORGE.[2] Character and opinion in the United States; with reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and academic life in America. *$3.50 Scribner 304
“Mr Santayana, who was professor of philosophy at Harvard, has now come to live in Europe. In this book he looks back with intimate knowledge and complete detachment at the intellectual life which he has left. He is, he says, an American only by long association.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The book is a keen, kindly analysis of American life, particularly of the more subtle mental attitudes. It seems to centralize around a conception of the American character as vigorous, hopeful, good, somewhat childish; hampered intellectually by conventional prohibitions and compulsions; and devoted to a liberty based on cooperation and the spirit of live and let live.” (Booklist)
“In ‘Character and opinion in the United States,’ Professor Santayana has written what one is inclined to believe will become the classic essays on William James and Josiah Royce.... What must he think of America? On the whole, his answer to this question is an extraordinarily kindly one. When he is most perceptive, he gives his generalizations amiably rather than scornfully.” Harold Stearns
Reviewed by Alvin Johnson
“A compelling, stimulating, and essentially a significant book. The book itself is a unique essay in interpretation, an attempt to evaluate American character under the play of the ideas which it has projected and by which, in turn, it has been influenced.” L. R. Morris
“On the whole he is eminently fair, if not more than fair, in his judgments. It is another question whether there is much profit in such an attempt as he has made to analyze the temper of a people.”
“Professor Santayana has written one of the most fascinating books imaginable.”
“The book is a very original one; indeed, the two chapters on William James and Josiah Royce belong to a new genre of literature. They are character-studies of philosophers, studies of the reaction between character and philosophy, which ought to be dull but are as amusing as if he were talking scandal about the manners and habits of fashionable ladies. His book is one of the best he has written.”
SANTAYANA, GEORGE. Little essays, drawn from the writings of the author by Logan Pearsall Smith, with the collaboration of the author. *$3 Scribner 814
“Mr Pearsall Smith explains in his preface that this book owes its genesis to his habit of copying out such passages as particularly interested him in the writings of Santayana. He came to see, however, that these extracts ‘were bound up with, and dependent upon, a definite philosophy, a rational conception of the world and man’s allotted place in it, which gave them a unity of interest and an importance far beyond that of any mere utterances of miscellaneous appreciation—any mere “adventures of the soul.”’ He therefore persuaded Mr Santayana to arrange these extracts in such a way as to preserve their original connection as far as possible.”—Ath
“We confess that we are agreeably surprised at the result. The masterful and inclusive vision of the author of the ‘Life of reason’ appears here broken and disconnected, but not betrayed.” J. W. N. S.
“Contains a vast amount of interesting material distilled from profound scholarship and meditation.”
“Any one who has a taste for short essays will find a good feast provided for him. While the essays can well hold their own as detached disquisitions on special subjects, they form a catena of thought which hangs logically together, exposing a rational philosophy. Indeed it has been said that George Santayana has imperiled the recognition of his philosophy by the fine robes in which he has consistently presented it.” Robert Bridges
“A new immortal book.” P. L.
“I believe that this publication will accomplish two things: it will establish Mr Santayana’s reputation as one of the foremost masters of English prose now living, and it will persuade many readers to buy the complete works from which these essays are drawn.” W: L. Phelps
“It is a notable book. Professor Santayana possesses charm of style; that merit must be accorded to him by his worst enemy, if enemy he has. His culture is broad, and his mind is discursive, touching in its range many points of metaphysics and art and literature and morals.”
“Short though the pieces may be, they are, as a rule, brief only through extreme compression, and the great beauty of the style in which they are written links them together rather than divides them. Hidden in the book there lurks the exposition of a theory of life.”
“Even if his philosophy does not satisfy us, we must enjoy his art. If we cannot believe that he tells us the truth about the nature of the universe, he tells us many incidental truths about the nature of man.”
SARETT, LEW R. Many many moons; a book of wilderness poems. *$1.50 Holt 811
Of these poems on Indian themes the author says that they “are in no sense literal translations of original utterances of aboriginal song and council-talk; they are, rather, very free, broad interpretations ... in the light of Indian symbolism and mysticism, of the mythology and superstition involved, and of the attendant ceremonies.” (Preface) This is especially true of Parts I and III of the poems, and an appendix of expository comments has been added to make them clearer to the reader. Part II consists of nature poems giving the atmosphere of the Indian’s environment. The book has an introduction by Carl Sandburg and the three parts are: Flying moccasins; Lone fires; Chippewa monologues.
“A book of beautiful, rugged verse.”
“Mr Sarett makes one understand the Indian. We understand the Indian in relation to his thoughts, moods, his customs, his legends, his symbolism, his natural mysticism. With the poet’s full equipment, he has psychologically become an Indian and thus his interpreter to the outside world. ‘Many many moons’ is a remarkable book!” W: S. Braithwaite
“Noise clearly is his forte; heap big Indian talk is his best line. The pale-face stanzas which attempt quieter and tenderer sorts of interpretation are vacant and over-facile in their faith.” M. V. D.
“He does not prettify the wilderness. Especially good are ‘The granite mountain’ and ‘God is at the anvil’ and ‘Of these four things I cannot write.’”
“When Mr Sarett writes of nature he is writing with genuine feeling of something he really knows. He has been in the wilderness.” M. Wilkinson
SAROLEA, CHARLES. Europe and the league of nations. *$2.50 Macmillan 341.1
“This book by Professor Sarolea of the University of Edinburgh is, as its title implies, devoted principally to the league of nations, although there are chapters of interest on other subjects. The author warmly supports the league as a panacea for the ailing world.” (N Y Times Mr 14) “He takes up a number of problems growing out of the treaty of peace and out of the league covenant such as The status of small nations within the covenant, America within the league, The trial of the kaiser, The future of Poland, Germany’s political reconstruction. The author expresses great dissatisfaction with the economic terms of the treaty.” (N Y Times Ap 18)
“Dr Sarolea’s book is excellent in temper and spirit, but its sentimental idealism is unrestrained by the realities of present-day politics.”
“‘Europe and the league of nations’ cannot be described as a weighty book, but it is fluently and brightly written.”
SASSOON, SIEGFRIED. Picture-show. *$1.50 Dutton 821
“The contents of the volume, in spite of its suggestive title, are not wholly given over to the sidelights, fevers and fantasms of modern warfare. Almost one third of the book is a record of those passages of love which verge from the physical to the metaphysical; reflections of an emotion that is half-celebrated, half-stifled.”—New Repub
“Every last utterance of Siegfried Sassoon’s makes a farce out of the deeds of the romantic soldier-poet the world has worshipped during the last five years.” W. S. B.
Reviewed by Malcolm Cowley
“He knows the secret of the clean pentameter, he is distinct and clever and casual; yet there exists no feelable personality behind his lines. It is not required that he have intellectual drive or spiritual mounting-power: it merely is required that he show some sort of intellectual edge and awareness. He does that nowhere in ‘Picture show.’” M. V. D.
“Now we have ‘Picture show,’ a vigorous answer to those who feared that Sassoon had ‘written himself out’ or had begun to burn away in his own fire. The same outrage and loathing of war is in the new poems but a darker restraint is here; an emotion remembered not so much in tranquility as in irony. One of the most rousing of his recent poems. Aftermath, might well be the title of this volume, so firmly does it balance and round off his trilogy.” L: Untermeyer
“There is a mass of the verse that is heavy and halting—far too large a mass for so small a book. More careful pruning hereafter will lift the worth of his collections amazingly.” Clement Wood
“In this book Mr Sassoon describes warfare just as he did in his two earlier books. But the last lyric in ‘Picture-show,’ [Every one sang,] is, perhaps, the very loveliest of all the songs written to welcome peace.”
“Mr Sassoon sometimes is as shaken in his expressions as in his emotion, and then he is apt to write as though art could not contain him. But every poet must learn that no man feels too deeply or too quickly to write well.... At its best here is a proud, tender poetry, indignant often but magnanimous always, the creation of a loving and aristocratic art.” J: Drinkwater
“When it comes to sheer poetry, I find in Mr Sassoon but two outstanding merits, a feeling for phrase and a sense of the occult, both present in the degree which redeems verse from insignificance without lifting it to distinction.” O. W. Firkins
SAUNDERS, CHARLES FRANCIS. Useful wild plants of the United States and Canada. il *$3 McBride 581.6
The purpose of the book is to call attention to certain useful wild plants, growing in the woods, waters and open country of the United States, that have in the past formed an important element in the diet of the aborigines and that could be both interesting and useful to dwellers in rural districts, to campers, vacationists and nature students. It is copiously illustrated by photographs and line drawings and the contents are: Wild plants with edible tubers, bulbs or roots; Wild seeds of food value and how they have been utilized; The acorn as human food and some other wild nuts; Some little regarded wild fruits and berries; Wild plants with edible stems and leaves; Beverage plants of field and wood; Vegetable substitutes for soap; Some medicinal wildings worth knowing; Miscellaneous uses of wild plants; A cautionary chapter on certain poisonous plants; Regional index and general index.
SAUNDERS, MARSHALL. Bonnie Prince Fetlar. *$2 (2½c) Doran
The hero of this new story by the author of “Beautiful Joe” is a Shetland pony, and there are many other characters, both animal and human. The scene is a Canadian farm to which the pony and his master, a delicate boy with over-strung nerves, are sent. Neither likes the strange, wild country at first but in time both come to love it, the young master’s health is restored, he makes new friends with a family of six lively Canadian children and in the end the mother he had believed dead returns to him. All this story is told in the words of the pony.
“The author of ‘Beautiful Joe’ has written a horse story which friends of Beautiful Joe will be disappointed in. But after all, comparisons are unnecessary—and ‘Bonnie Prince Fetlar,’ left to itself, is an attractive book, full of incident and interest.”
“It is hardly necessary to say that here is an offering which any healthy boy or girl must enjoy, but to this it may be added that also it makes a strong appeal to grown-ups.”
SAVI, ETHEL WINIFRED. When the blood burns. *$2 (1½c) Putnam
Marcelle was a typist in a London office. Her beauty attracted her employer and his charming personality easily persuaded the inexperienced girl that she loved him; also—since he was married to a much older woman who would not hear of divorce—that it was right for her to go away with him to India. The monotony of the life there soon palled on David and he is glad, eventually, of the summons back to England. Marcelle, left behind, suffers untold miseries and excruciating experiences, and is finally rescued by the one friend who has stood by her from the first and who takes her home as his wife. The interesting feature of the story is its description of life in India.
“It is a very old situation upon which E. W. Savi bases her story. She gives it no new twist, but she infuses into it so vital a sense of reality that it draws us and holds us keenly interested in its developments. She possesses the story-telling art in a very marked degree, and her story is full of both the beauty and strangeness of genuine romance.” D. L. M.
“The author hero has been content to tell a plain, somewhat sordid, tale of illicit love, with its inevitable penalties, which has little more color than can be found in the records of the average divorce suit. None of the characters commands much sympathy. As a whole, the offering may be called just a passable novel.”
“The scenes which pass in India are much the most interesting.”
“The story has a certain sympathetic charm with a moral that cannot be missed.”
“Despite a great deal of burning talk about love and passion, the story leaves one quite cold.”
SAWYER, RUTH (MRS ALBERT C. DURAND). Leerie. il *$1.75 (2½c) Harper
“Leerie” was what the patients at the “San” lovingly called their nurse Sheila O’Leary, and like Stevenson’s “Leerie,” she brought light into the lives of her charges as no other nurse could. Especially to Peter Brooks, she brought light which they both felt could never die out. Then just on the very eve of her marriage to him, she felt the call to go to France, and went. But she did not leave him behind for he too found his place over there. There, after her period of service which offered experiences both bitter and sweet, they were reunited, “glad they had both paid their utmost for the love and happiness that she knew was theirs now for all time.”
“Somewhat sentimentalized and improbable, but women and girls will like it.”
“The book contains the correct philosophy of life throughout, showing that happiness comes from making others happy, from giving freely.”
“A vivacious story, with plenty of sentimental appeal and written with a good deal of cleverness and ingenuity, Ruth Sawyer’s new novel springs lightly out of the conventional lines of fiction and goes its own gait.”
SAYLER, OLIVER M. Russia white or red. il *$2.50 Little 947
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“The author took with him his best gifts as critic—a quick eye, ready critical discernment, and an easy pen. He added to these gifts something of the historian’s grasp of the unity of events. The result is a quite unusual freshness and lucidity in the view we get of the Russian theatre.” T: H. Dickinson
“The value of his account is in its freedom from political interest. Without prejudice toward either white or red but with sympathy for the struggles and sufferings of both sides, he simply relates what he observed of the surface and common movement of things.”
“‘Russia white or red’ is free of any taint of propaganda, and among a torrent of writings full of distorted pictures of revolutionary Russia, it stands out as a truthful and honest if by no means profound contribution.” M. J. Olgin
“Altogether, the book reveals a sympathetic understanding of the Russian masses, and an appreciation of their yearnings for freedom and peace. It does not pretend, however, to be a serious treatise on the fundamental changes which have come about since the revolution.” Alexander Trachtenberg
“It is neither a complete record nor an interpretation of events, and will appeal primarily to those who may still be interested in getting the background of revolutionary events and vivid glimpses of daily living during the first months of the Bolshevist régime.” Reed Lewis
SAYLER, OLIVER M. Russian theatre under the revolution. il *$2.50 (3½c) Little 792
The author chose the winter of 1917–1918, while the Bolshevik revolution was in progress, for a study of the Russian theatre. It was a time when the theatre had not significantly survived either in England or France or even in neutral New York and war had revealed it as being only too clearly a luxury, a pastime and an industry. But the Russian theatre is one of profound introspection and inspiration. “Out of their sorrows the Russians have builded all their art. And in the days of their profoundest gloom, they return to it for the consolation which nothing else affords.” In Moscow and Petrograd, the author testifies, the modern theatre has been carried to its finest achievement. Among the contents are: Plays within a play; The world’s first theatre; The plays of Tchehoff at the Art theatre; From Turgenieff to Gorky at the Art theatre; The Russian ballet in its own home; The deeper roots of the Russian theatre; The Kamerny, a theatre of revolt; Meyerhold and the theatre theatrical; Yevreynoff and monodrama; Russian theories of the theatre. There are numerous illustrations and an index.
“Interesting and remarkable book. It is a valuable contribution to the literature of the theatre.” N. H. D.
“A book so eager, so cordial, so intelligent, so frankly the expression of a personal appetite that one would like to think of it as typical of a new dispensation.”
“He seems overstimulated by the shock of strangeness and the pervading atmosphere of idealism and experiment so different from the atmosphere of Broadway. Nevertheless, his book is tonic for the knowledge it brings us of theatrical theories, experiments and striking achievements in a land which is far ahead of ours so far as the theater is concerned.” W. P. Eaton
“The author presents his material in such a way that not only will those interested in the theatre be attracted to it, but also those who are drawn to the puzzling topic of the Russian revolution.”
“His sincerity is unquestionable but his temper runs to hyperbole. In spite of all doubts and deductions, Mr Sayler’s book should be read by all students of contemporary drama. If it is not a striking history, it is a spirited and curious novel.”
“A comprehensive and graphic account.” Reed Lewis
“It cannot be recommended too highly when considered merely as a source of knowledge and inspiration to those who are organizing our theatre guilds, Greenwich Village theatres, arts and crafts playhouses, and other steps toward a native art theatre. The casual reader will find the chapters absorbing with a human appeal quite lacking in most books about the theatre; but the same reader will meet something of a jolt when he reaches the last chapter—for here are gathered in concentrated form (and often in darkly philosophical terms) the most recent of revolutionary theories of the stage. A handful of Americans will find these few chapters worth more than all the rest of the book together—worth more, too, than scores of the usual superficial books of criticism.”
SCHAEFER, CLEMENS T. Motor truck design and construction. il *$2.50 Van Nostrand 629.2
“This volume has been written to fill a pressing want; to give a practical discussion of the gasoline propelled commercial car of the present type, and to present this subject in the plainest possible manner by the use of numerous illustrations.” (Preface) A chapter on the general layout of the chassis is followed by chapters devoted to the various details, engine, cooling system, carburetion, ignition systems, etc. The illustrations number 292, consisting largely of figures in the text. There is an index.
SCHAUFFLER, ROBERT HAVEN. Fiddler’s luck. *$1.90 (3½c) Houghton
Being “the gay adventures of a musical amateur.” (Sub-title) The young son of a family in which the flute was hereditary finds a cello in the garret and sets about to teach himself. He is sent to a musical cousin for his education and returning, as a fairly well equipped fiddler, has a falling out with his puppy love, Priscilla, because her progress on the piano has not kept pace with his, and she plays an ear-splitting fortissimo for his accompaniment. After many musical vicissitudes in the army he comes unexpectedly on Priscilla in Paris. She no longer strums but is a finished pianist and the harmony is now complete.
“One of the most thoroly enjoyable books—whether you are a musician or not—that you have read in a long, long while.”
“‘Fiddler’s luck’ is full of love, laughter, music and good drink. It is worth a ton of best sellers and ‘serious studies’ in these melancholy days that are upon us.” B. De C.
“‘Fiddler’s luck’ is a charming series of war sketches that Mr Schauffler tries to make impersonal, but his own engaging personality sparkles through the sketches.”
“A cheerful vein of optimism is in evidence continually, and its influence on the reader will be anything but depressing.”
SCHAUFFLER, ROBERT HAVEN.[2] White comrade; and other poems. *$1.50 Houghton 811
Poetry in many forms and in many moods is represented in this volume: the ballad, the ode, the lyric, the sonnet, thoughts of this life and of the beyond, of the country, of love and of war. They fall into four groups: Between two shores; Magic casements; Conflict; and Other poems.
“Out of all the book—and it contains much which repays reading and re-reading—there is nothing which more fully satisfies the high poetic mood than does the little poem called ‘Worship,’ as lovely and distinguished a bit of verse as Mr Schauffler has ever given us.” D. L. M.
SCHEM, LIDA CLARA (MARGARET BLAKE, pseud.). Hyphen. 2v *$6 Dutton
“The book is really a pamphlet masquerading as a novel, and it offers an analysis of the state of mind and fundamental character of the large German element in the United States, and also a vision of the ideal of American democracy as it appears to a thoroughly un-English observer. Her hero is presented as a personification of acquired Americanism. The son of a Prussian-American father and a Nihilist Russian princess, he is conceived as a synthesis. Brought up in a wholly German environment (Hoboken is thinly disguised as Anasquoit), the boy aspires to become a ‘real American.’ Curiously enough, and yet convincingly, he gets the strongest stimulus toward Americanism from a young Englishman. The war disillusions him as to German kultur, and he concludes that the only way out for those of German blood who truly aspire to Americanism is to ‘go and fight Germany.’”—Review
“The story is very rich in material, a novel to be read slowly and thoughtfully for it contains a wealth of contemporary opinion and criticism. It is a colossal work and yet it is human.” D. L. Mann
“Excellent in parts, it is dismally unsatisfactory as a whole; rich in promise, it is a triumph of frustration. The author, apparently, drew the plans for an imposing work of fiction, but as the business of construction proceeded she became so engrossed in ornamental details and features of dubious importance that she mislaid her drawings.” B. R. Redman
“Complicated, and presenting many divergent points of view, the book is nevertheless full of repetitions. It impresses one as a kind of storehouse in which the author has stowed away a number of opinions on a number of subjects; the story merely provides a sort of makeshift for these opinions. There is no artistry shown in its construction.”
“It is especially interesting to those who are concerned about the Americanization of immigrants, because it shows so clearly what the reactions of the newcomers are to the influences which begin to surround them almost as soon as they set foot in their new country.”
“Regarded merely as fiction, ‘The hyphen’ would be of small moment. The book’s chief interest lies in its minute portrayal of many and variant types of German-Americans both before and during the war.”
SCHINZ, ALBERT. French literature of the great war. *$3 (2c) Appleton 840.9
The author distinguishes three periods in the war literature of France between 1914 and 1918. “The first was one of spontaneous, sudden and strongly emotional reaction, following immediately the first bewildering shock; the second, one of documentation on the causes of the war and on the war itself; and the third, a period of calm philosophical consideration of all that was involved in the gigantic struggle.” (Introd.) Although the lyric and satirical note predominated in the first period, memoir literature in the second, and philosophical essays and treatises in the third, no period can be said to have produced one type of literature to the exclusion of all others. The contents of the book fall into two parts, part 1 discussing in successive chapters the three periods and part 2 containing: Poetry of the war; The stage and the war; War-time fiction; Epilogue. The appendices contain a bibliography; documents relative to the war; and a catalogue, in alphabetical order, of some of the best war diaries and recollections. There is an index.
“The French literature of the late war is very adequately discussed by Professor Schinz. The chief defect of his treatise is a tinge of partisan feeling, somewhat out of place in work of this kind, and his attack of Romain Rolland is hardly just.” C. K. H.
“A very interesting and scholarly account.”
“The scholarly orderliness and completeness of Mr Albert Schinz’s ‘French literature in the great war’ contrast glaringly with its temper. He prefers polemics to poetry. Instead of writing the history of a literary movement which is memorable even if not great, he still is battering the Teutonic hordes with the familiar accumulation of civilian energy unspent on any other field.”
“We consider the work, as a whole, timely and important. It must have been the labor of love, for no other motive could have produced a result so eminently satisfactory.”
“He is quite prodigiously well read in French war literature. But unhappily there is hardly any criticism in the book, nothing profound, nothing illuminating, nothing very thoughtful even—except for a few passages—and none of those fortunate phrases by which the real critic ‘gets at’ the significance, the vitals, so to speak, of the work he is discussing.”
SCHLEITER, FREDERICK. Religion and culture. *$2 Columbia univ. press 201
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Dr Schleiter has given us a critique of method which not only challenges modern methods and theories but deliberately drives them all from the field, some more gently than others.... As a preparation for a methodology—a destruction of methods to make way for method—Dr Schleiter’s work deserves the serious attention of all workers in the field of origins, social and religious, and may well be the most significant work of recent years.” A. E. Haydon
“On page after page the false assumptions, the blundering reasoning, and the erroneous conclusions that have hitherto characterized comparative religion are laid bare with a detachment of judgment and a wealth of erudition that make the book a model of criticism. Dr Schleiter has put out of action a good many of the heavy guns that were to batter the walls of the citadel of religion.”
“Dr Schleiter, though an acute critic, is not a lucid writer, and his work is critical rather than constructive.”
“He deserves special credit for rescuing from obscurity the principle of convergence, i.e., the doctrine that like cultural results may evolve from unlike antecedents. However, it is the more original treatment of casuality that not only arrests attention but makes one hunger for more.” R. H. L.
“The book is a signal illustration of two characteristic features of American thought—the tendency to concentrate on what authorities have written about a subject rather than on the subject itself, and the neglect to cultivate any grace or clarity of literary style.”
SCHMAUK, THEODORE EMANUEL. How to teach in Sunday-school. (Teacher-training handbook) $1.50 (2c) United Lutheran publication house 268
A book devoted to the art, the method, the material and the act of Sunday-school teaching. The author suggests that for a short and effective teacher-training course chapters 20–22 (comprising the discussion of the act of teaching) be used. For a more comprehensive course the sections devoted to method and material are suggested. The author is professor of pedagogy in the Theological seminary at Philadelphia and has had “twenty-five years’ experience in Sunday-school reconstruction.”
SCHOFF, WILFRED HARVEY.[2] Ship Tyre. il *$2 Longmans 224
The dooms of the ship “Tyre” and of the “King of Tyre” as pronounced in the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth chapters of the book of the prophet Ezekiel are here shown to be entirely symbolic and the material things mentioned to refer not to any real commerce but to matters of a political and religious significance. According to the sub-title, the ship “Tyre” is “a symbol of the fate of conquerors, as prophesied by Isaiah, Ezekiel and John and fulfilled at Nineveh, Babylon and Rome.” Contents: Introduction; The tabernacle; Division of spoil; The temple and palace; Ophir voyages: Profanation and pillage; Captivity; The ship “Tyre”; The prince of Tyre; The king of Tyre; Notes to the allegory; The second temple; The great city “Babylon”; The Holy City; The pomp and the trappings; Precious stones; The specifications compared; Date of the tradition; Appendix; Index.
SCHOFIELD, ALFRED TAYLOR. Modern spiritism. pa *$1.25 Blakiston 134
“Dr Schofield, a student for over thirty years of psychological problems, and a rather copious writer upon them, especially from the medical point of view, gives an instructive review of the history of spiritism, and of its modern developments, and discusses, with many examples from his own experience and with an open mind, the strange phenomena of ‘possession,’ ‘second sight,’ etc. His own position is that, while the facts of spiritism cannot all be explained by purely human agencies, communications with ‘spirits’ are certainly not with the disembodied spirits of the dead. He regards spiritism as practised today to be full of the gravest dangers, mental and spiritual, and to be definitely anti-Christian.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
Reviewed by B: de Casseres
“The author’s argument is trenchantly expressed and is supported by evidence. But the fact that he has a religious belief of his own to uphold against the beliefs of the spiritists somewhat weakens his argument.”
SCHOFIELD, WILLIAM HENRY. Mythical bards, and The life of William Wallace. (Harvard studies in comparative literature) *$3 Harvard univ. press 821.09
“This is primarily a discussion of the authorship of the metrical fifteenth century life of the Scottish patriot (d. 1305), which is ascribed to ‘Blind Harry.’ Mr Schofield contends that ‘Blind Harry’ is a pseudonym, and that the biographer was no quiet scholar or amiable ecclesiastic like Barbour, but ‘a vigorous propagandist, a ferocious realpolitiker without principle when it was a question of Scotland’s place in the sun.’ The writer diverges from this problem to chapters on ‘Blind Harry and blind Homer,’ and on Conceptions of poesy which occupy the last two chapters.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is all readable enough and often not uninteresting: whether it proves anything must be left to the reader to decide.”
“Every page of it betrays the author’s enjoyment of an opportunity to build a huge structure of learning around—a soap bubble.”
“In general, ‘Mythical bards’ is marked by the broad scholarship and the keen vision of literary problems which have always been the chief characteristics of the author’s work.” T. P. Cross
“Like most of Prof. Schofield’s books this shows originality as well as the result of deep research, with an undoubted power of holding the attention of the reader.”
SCHOLEFIELD, GUY HARDY. Pacific, its past and future, and the policy of the great powers from the eighteenth century. il *$5.50 Scribner 990
“Mr Scholefield, a New Zealander, adds materially to our knowledge. There is a growing tendency, on wholly right and sound lines, to treat of the vast Pacific ocean as a single unit. ‘The Pacific: its past and future’ is a short political history of the Pacific from the first days of European exploration and intrusion, excluding in the main the history of Australia and New Zealand, but by no means excluding their Pacific aspirations and policy. The appendices contain selections of the principal treaties and conventions relating to the Pacific, and a chronological table. The maps are adequate, the last being a map of the whole ocean.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His book is illuminative and opportune.”
“There are numerous books on the subject of the Pacific and its problems, but in none will be found so careful and discriminating an account of the past history as is here given. It is based mainly on the British parliamentary papers, and, though the author has strong views, he shows himself commendably free from exaggeration or prejudice.” H. E. E.
“Mr Scholefield’s narrative is well arranged and most interesting.”
“Mr Scholefield has spared no pains in consulting the best sources of information, and gives chapter and verse for his authorities. In a book of 311 pages, excluding appendices, he has produced a clear, well-arranged, temperate and accurate account, which was wanted and will be used and valued.”
SCHOLL, FRANK B. Automobile owner’s guide. il *$2.50 Appleton 629.2
“The purpose of this book is to serve as a practical guide for those who own, operate, or contemplate purchasing an automobile. The contents cover the entire field that would be of value to the owner or chauffeur in making his own repairs.... Technical terms, tables and scales have been entirely eliminated.... Since there are many different makes of cars, motors, and equipment, the functional action of all is practically the same, therefore we use for illustration only those which are used by the majority of manufacturers.” (Preface) An introductory chapter gives the history of the gasoline engine and of early automobile construction. The parts of the automobile are then taken up chapter by chapter and a Ford supplement of sixty pages occupies an appendix. There are 154 illustrations and an index.
SCOTT, ARTHUR PEARSON. Introduction to the peace treaties. *$2 (2½c) Univ. of Chicago press 940.314
The book is an attempt at an altogether impartial statement of the causes leading to the war, and the treaties and peace conference resulting from it. The author states that he has no inside knowledge of what went on in Paris or of any unpublished documentary material, that he has relied largely on newspaper and magazine material, unsatisfactory as that may be, and that his object is to give his readers a clearer idea of what is going on in the world. “A considerable part of the book is taken up with a detailed summary of the treaty with Germany, including more or less extensive explanatory comments on many of its clauses,” (Preface) and an attempt has been made to summarize as fairly as possible the arguments on both sides. Contents: War causes and war aims; Peace plans and negotiations during the war; The peace conference; The framing of the treaty of Versailles; The supplementary treaties; The Austrian settlement; The Bulgarian settlement; Hungary; Elements of the Near-eastern settlement; Italy, the South Slavs, and the Adriatic; Public opinion and the settlement; References for additional reading; Index.
“Mr Scott’s book is an excellent illustration of the value of perspective combined with careful study of documents, as opposed to the impressions of first-hand observation. It seems to the reviewer that he has succeeded admirably in a difficult task.” C: Seymour
“The author’s comments are discriminating, unbiassed, and always helpful.”
“A useful aid to the reader or voter who wishes to form intelligent opinions.”
“Though the author escapes the criticism of partisanship to which Keynes, Dillon, Baker, and other commentators on the peace have been subjected, his book lacks the interest and color of theirs. A good many of the author’s comments upon treaty clauses might be questioned.” Quincy Wright
“A volume which may be especially commended to students and teachers.” W: MacDonald
“Professor Scott’s ‘Introduction to the peace treaties’ should prove an invaluable volume to students of the great settlement. Not all of Mr Scott’s conclusions can be passed without challenge. For the most part, however, Mr Scott has done his work extremely well and it was work worth doing.” E. S. Corwin
“If the question of treaty ratification is to be one of the leading issues of the coming presidential campaign, this book will prove an invaluable source of information.”
SCOTT, CATHARINE AMY DAWSON. Rolling stone (Eng title, Against the grain). *$2 (2c) Knopf
Harry King is an unusual boy. He is uncommonly well built and strong and active. He does his own thinking in his own way, has little use for books and the conventions, is direct and honest to a fault in his dealings with men and a little hard. But he saves a school-fellow’s life at the risk of his own. At an early age he runs away from school and sees a bit of the world and on his return learns a trade and becomes a practical engineer. But youth and strength lure him on: he becomes a foot-ball champion and a pugilist. When his family frowns upon such fame he goes to India. Returning, he enlists as a volunteer in the Boer war where his love of fair dealing leads to insubordination and he barely escapes the firing squad. Later on in New Zealand his experiences include women. He is not averse to making a fortune and plans for the future, but his innate restlessness plays with opportunities and at the age of thirty-five he is back in England, without a career and looked upon askance by his family. The reader leaves him possessed with a new craving for a settled life, a family and children of his own and haunted by the hazel eyes of a young widow.
“Mrs Dawson-Scott has created in Harry a notable character, though not a likeable one. Mrs Dawson-Scott has not the resource of style to fall back on, and her descriptive powers are not of the best. As it is written ‘The rolling stone’ is an excellent example of masculine psychology as seen by a woman. It is not an excellent portrait of a man.”
“If the book has no weaknesses neither has it passion or exaltation. If it is not absurd neither is it poignant, exotic, or brilliant. It moves steadily onward, never wandering; it is competent, well-fed, without beauty of conception or expression. It is realism without passion or accuracy.”
“A minute and interesting study of character.”
“In her latest work she has elected to adopt a masculine standpoint, and we feel that she is, as a result, less convincing.”
“As Harry is interested merely in himself, he is not very interesting to other people. In fact, he proves himself real not by his doings—about which one is sceptical—but by boring the reader just as in real life he would have bored the people he met.”
SCOTT, EMMETT JAY. Negro migration during the war; ed. by D: Kinley. *$1 Oxford; pa gratis Carnegie endowment for international peace 326.1
In this volume of Preliminary economic studies issued by the Carnegie endowment for international peace, the movement of population among negroes during the war is handled by Emmett J. Scott, a member of that race and secretary-treasurer of Howard university. The introduction compares the recent migration with earlier movements of similar character. The chapters then take up: Causes of the migration; Stimulation of the movement; The spread of the movement; The call of the self-sufficient North; The draining of the black belt; Efforts to check the movement; Effects of the movement on the South; The situation in St Louis; Chicago and its environs; The situation at points in the middle West; The situation at points in the East; Remedies for relief by national organizations; Public opinion regarding the migration. There is a nine-page bibliography of books and periodicals, followed by an index.
“This monograph is a valuable addition to the limited number of carefully made studies of negro life. The oversight of data about the investigations and activities of several state governments, of the United States Shipping board and the Department of labor, needs correction in subsequent editions. Constructive suggestions would add to the utility of the study.” G: E. Haynes
SCOTT, JAMES BROWN, ed. Judicial settlement of controversies between states of the American union; an analysis of cases decided in the Supreme court of the United States. *$2.50 Oxford 353.9
This volume of the Publications of the Carnegie endowment for international peace is a companion to the two volumes of cases which precede it. It has been prepared in the belief that the experience of the United States holds “a lesson for the world at large.” As the editor’s preface states: “The experience of the union of American states shows that a court of justice can be created for the society of nations, occupying a like position and rendering equal, if not greater, services, applying to the solution of controversies between its members ‘federal law, state law, and international law, as the exigencies of the particular case may demand.’” The volume is indexed.
Reviewed by J. P. Hall
“Dr Scott has rendered a most useful service in bringing this material into such form that men can readily lay their hands on it.”
“The absence of any classification enhances the uselessness of the volume. By abstracting from its setting the material he presents, Dr Scott offers a delusive palliative to a sick and suffering world. He would have done better had he done nothing.” T: R. Powell
“A lucid and detailed analysis which may be read with interest by laymen.”
SCOTT, MARTIN J. Credentials of Christianity. $1.50 (2½c) Kenedy 239
Father Scott, author of “God and myself,” “The hand of God,” etc., writes this book in the belief that “Christianity has not failed, but mankind has failed Christianity.” The one thing that can save the world from disaster is “the adoption in private and public life of the principles and spirit of Christianity.” Contents: Christianity the most startling innovation in the history of the world; Christianity’s need of the soundest credentials; A judicial examination of the credentials; The gospels as a historic document; The truth of the gospel facts; The resurrection; The establishment of Christianity; Christ Himself; Christ and the world; The world after Christ; Christianity and men of genius; The world restorer; Your verdict.
“The best pages are those that contrast pagan and Christian life—the world before Christ and after.”
SCOTT, SIR PERCY MORETON. Fifty years in the royal navy. il *$6 (7c) Doran
These reminiscences were begun, the author states, after his retirement, by way of recreation and amusement, yet he hopes that they will show “how opposed the navy can be to necessary reforms, involving radical departures from traditional routine; the extent to which national interests may be injured owing to conservative forces within, and without, the public services; and what injury the country may suffer from politicians interfering in technical matters, which they necessarily do not understand.” (Preface) Contents: Entry into the navy; A cruise around the world; With the naval brigade in Egypt; H.M.S. Edinburgh and Whale island; H.M.S. Scylla and gunnery; How the 4.7–inch gun reached Ladysmith; Martial law in Durban; In the Far East; The Boxer rising; Gunnery on the China station; Wei-hai-wei and the cruise home; Gunnery muddle; Inspector of target practice; H.M.S. Good Hope with the channel fleet; An imperial mission; Vicissitudes of director firing; My retirement from the navy; War—back to work, 1914 and 1915; The defence of London against zeppelins; War reflections—1915–1917.
“This, book is a grave pronouncement by a distinguished expert in gunnery, and should receive the attention which it assuredly deserves.”
Reviewed by C. C. Gill
“Altho more sober and restrained in style, Sir Percy Scott’s book is quite as critical in substance as Lord Fisher’s.”
“A work of value to anyone interested in the technique of naval gunnery.”
“Apart from opinion on professional matters, the narrative of these recollections is rather unequal. We get too much of ‘the mayor in proposing the toast of “our guests” referred,’ etc., and ‘in reply I said,’ etc.”
“We associate the name of Sir Percy Scott with naval gunnery. It is no surprise, then, to find that his memoirs are mainly devoted to this question. The book deserves careful reading, for the subject is of prime importance.”
“His book is to be carefully read, not without skipping over shrewish passages here and there, but with thought.”
SCOVILLE, SAMUEL, jr. Blue pearl. il *$1.75 (3c) Century
This story introduces all the characters of “Boy scouts in the wilderness.” Jim Donegan, the lumber king, offers to give the boys $50,000 if they will bring a blue pearl like the one Joe Couteau, the Indian boy, remembers to have seen in his childhood. Joe and Will Bright, the heroes of the earlier book, with two chosen companions, start on the quest. It takes them out to the Pacific coast and into the far north to the old home of Joe’s people, and after many adventures they return with the prize.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
“This is a story of some literary value.” H. L. Reed
SCOVILLE, SAMUEL, jr. Everyday adventures. il $3 (4c) Atlantic monthly press 590.4
A book of nature essays, most of them describing personal adventures with birds or other forms of wild life. The photographs which illustrate the book are especially noteworthy. Contents: Everyday adventures; Zero birds; Snow stories; A runaway day; The raven’s nest; Hidden treasure; Bird’s-nesting; The treasure hunt; Orchid hunting; The marsh dwellers; The seven sleepers; Dragon’s blood. The papers are reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, Yale Review, the Youth’s Companion, and other periodicals.
“In these papers he proves himself among the fortunate few who can be called interpreters of outdoor things.”
SCHRIMSHAW, STEWART.[2] Bricklaying in modern practice. il *$1.50 Macmillan 693.2
“The author, who is Supervisor of apprenticeship for the state of Wisconsin, has written more inspiringly than his title suggests. He would have the artisan appreciate his possible opportunities in the erection of buildings that ‘shall reflect in their appearance the character of a substantial and refined people.’ The first chapter, largely historical, shows that lumber scarcity is leading to a wider use of brick and that opportunity is not lacking. Materials, tools and the outlines of practice are described. Estimating, safety and hygiene, economics, the bricklayers’ relation to the public, trade organizations, and apprenticeship are discussed in a way to interest the boy or young man who leans toward the trade. The ten pages descriptive of fire-place construction should appeal to many a lay reader. A good glossary.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
SEAMAN, AUGUSTA HUIELL (MRS ROBERT R. SEAMAN). Crimson patch. il *$1.75 (4c) Century
Mrs Seaman’s latest mystery story for girls involves a German spy plot. Patricia Meade is staying in a large hotel with her father, who is on a secret government mission. He can not disclose his business to her and she unwittingly allows an important paper to be stolen. Suspicion falls on Virginie de Vos, the little Belgian girl with whom Patricia has made friends. Patricia refuses to believe the girl guilty, and with the aid of Chet Jackson, the bell boy, sets out to find the missing paper. The two suspect one of the waiters, but he proves to be a friend in disguise. The paper is restored, the mystery of Virginie and her relation to her supposed aunt, Mme Vanderpoel is disclosed and happier days dawn for the little Belgian. The story has been running as a serial in St Nicholas.
SECHRIST, FRANK KLEINFELTER. Education and the general welfare; a text book of school law, hygiene and management. il *$1.60 Macmillan 370
“Professor Sechrist has prepared a general introduction to the study of education. One of his early chapters deals with broad social facts such as illiteracy and Americanization of immigrant children. He also deals with the efforts of the federal government to subsidize education in the states and to promote the development of higher institutions. The third chapter treats the costs in the different states of conducting schools of various grades. The fourth chapter has to do with child labor, reviewing the legislation which has been attempted and the effects of this legislation. Following these introductory chapters there is a discussion of the material equipment of the school and the psychological characteristics of children. One chapter deals with the question why children are dull and reviews the medical facts which come out in inspections of school children. There are chapters of a psychological type and suggestions throughout of the possibilities of standardizing the work of the school in a scientific way.”—El School J
“Of the many educational books recently published this is one of the best and deserves the attention of all teachers and school supervisors.”
“By his title and subtitle Professor Sechrist describes a rather unusual combination of material, presented in a valuable way.”
SECRIST, HORACE. Statistics in business: their analysis, charting and use. il *$1.75 McGraw 310
“A concise, practical, and systematic treatment, more particularly for the use of business executives and students in schools of commerce. Chapter 4 deals with classification and tabulation; chapter 5 (pp. 42), with graphics; chapter 6, with averages and kindred terms.”—Am Econ R
“The book will be serviceable as an introductory text.”
“No city official or head of a department or a business man who has an annual report to make can afford to miss the suggestions contained in Mr Secrist’s book.”
“The particular methods explained by Mr Secrist are not new; but they are presented with commendable clearness and brevity.”
SEDGWICK, ANNE DOUGLAS (MRS BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT). Christmas roses, and other stories. *$2.25 (2½c) Houghton
The titles of these stories are: Christmas roses; Hepaticas; Daffodils; Pansies; Pink foxgloves; Carnations; Staking a larkspur; Evening primroses; Autumn crocuses; and in each there is something in the delicately complicated situation or in revelation of character of which the flower is a symbol. The stories are all English in background and reflect the war.
“Quiet delicacy of style and subtle character analysis mark these nine flower-named stories.”
“Her understanding of character, her appreciation of beauty in all its forms, her ability to work quietly and effectively, yet with dramatic intensity, all make up the sum total of the satisfaction which we find here.” D. L. M.
“With her happy choice of words and smooth rhythm of her style, the artistry is invisible, yet produces a telling effect. The characters and temperaments of her people are implied and evolved, not labelled.”
SEDGWICK, ANNE DOUGLAS (MRS BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT). Third window. *$1.50 (10c) Houghton
The setting of this story is the parental estate of a soldier killed in the war, and in it his young widow, Antonia, his maiden cousin, Miss Latimer, of contracted but acutely intensified vision, and Captain Saltonhall, the husband’s friend and now Antonia’s lover. Miss Latimer, whose entire limited emotional life had been concentrated on her cousin Malcolm, has succeeded in putting Antonia in an agonized frame of mind. The latter is torn by misgivings that, by marrying Saltonhall, she will be unfaithful to her first husband. By certain telepathic powers Miss Latimer obtains a knowledge of the unspoken thoughts in the two lovers’ minds and with it conjures up a vision of Malcolm’s sorrowing ghost standing by the fountain (seen from the third window of the drawing-room). The result is a tragedy, for the distressed Antonia takes an overdose of her sleeping powders.
“Few writers of fiction today can equal in perfection of style the work of Anne Douglas Segwick. But ‘The third window’ has an intrinsic interest as a story.” F. A. G.
“It is a welcome relief to find, among the flood of books that exploit the present interest in psychic phenomena, one that is both an artistic piece of work, and a sincere attempt to penetrate beneath the usual morbid sentimentalism of the theme to the vital problems involved in a belief in survival.” H. W. M.
“It has much of the delicate precision of line and enhanced effect of perspective which the frame of a fine window can give to the view which it reveals. But the perfection in arrangement is not complete, and the flaws which appear come close to calling in question the validity of Miss Sedgwick’s studied placement of events and deliberate simplification. Yet even with these lapses, ‘The third window’ keeps a singular and exquisite beauty.” C. M. R.
“Her characters are drawn with deftness, delicacy and skill, the book is beautifully written in a style at once clear and subtle, and all the values of the picture are finely maintained. Yet for all its excellences it has one great flaw, a defect at the very root of the argument. The reader cannot but believe that Antonia’s fondness for Malcolm was a very superficial thing, since she was not only willing but even anxious so quickly to put another man in his place.”
“Somber in theme, the story is written with exquisite delicacy and grasping strength.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The redeeming features of the book are its truth to English life and its brevity. It may be added also that the delineation of the characters, such as they are, is quite skilfully done but there is nothing in the book as a whole which the world could not spare without any great sense of loss.”
“So tense and subtilized is the atmosphere of Mrs de Sélincourt’s story that we fear to breathe lest we should break its charm. Indeed, the story is its atmosphere. It seems to emanate from and surround its characters like the perfume of flowers. Yet they affect us at length as if they were mere automata.”
“The story is told with fine artistry and will appeal to discriminating readers with a taste for mental analysis.”
SEGUR, SOPHIE (ROSTOPCHINE) comtesse de.[2] Old French fairy tales. il *$5 Penn
“An octavo with full-page plates, both in color and in black and white, by Virginia Frances Sterrett, is ‘Old French fairy tales,’ compiled by Comtesse de Segur.” (Springf’d Republican) “The titles are: Blondine, Bonne-Biche, and Beau-Minon; Good little Henry; Princess Rosette; The little grey mouse and Our son.” (Booklist)
“These tales are told in that simple and direct fashion that children love and older folk find good. And the illustrations are in truth among the loveliest that have ever translated fairy tale into fairy scene.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
SEIFFERT, MARJORIE ALLEN (ELIJAH HAY, pseud.). Woman of thirty, and Poems of Elijah Hay. *$1.50 Knopf 811
This is vers libre that sings. There is elusive beauty, the sweet and the bitter of life, and the wistfulness of passing youth. The opening piece is a morality play: The old woman, in which the new that makes place for the old is but the old in disguise. The poems are divided into Love poems in summer; Studies and designs; Interlude; Love poems in autumn; and the Poems of Elijah Hay.
Reviewed by H: A. Lappin
“The trouble with ‘A woman of thirty’ is its lack of synthesis. Colour and a free movement, subtleties of thought and rhythm are here, but they have not been integrated: they ravel out into many unconnected loose ends.” L: Untermeyer
“The poems are sophisticated and a little cynical. She writes free verse naturally, unaffectedly and effectively.”
“Her figures, elaborate and excellent as they are, do not penetrate that core of the memory which lives on tranquilly and forever.” M. V. D.
“Almost one wishes that Mrs Seiffert could produce some disassociation in her personality. Then she might give us, besides the poems that are all too human, much more about the harsh black birds flying in the design—more in the style of that odd and very memorable little morality ‘The old woman.’ These are poems that evidence intellectual conception.” Padraic Colum
“It must be admitted that in her failing Mrs Seiffert is better than many who achieve their limited successes; but the dominant overtone is an attempt at a deft sophistication, which can never quite conceal that it is the sophistication of rural Illinois, rather than the sophistication of Chicago, London.” Clement Wood
“Mrs Seiffert writes equally well in free verse and in regularly stressed rhythm. Her work is remarkable for a felicitous ease in expression and a great variety of interests and ideas.”
SELIGMAN, V. J. Salonica side-show. il *$4 Dutton 940.42
“There are four parts to the book, of which the first and last were written in Macedonia during the summer of 1918. Beginning with a description of the Seres road which was of the greatest importance for the British line of communications and on which the writer ‘can really claim expert knowledge’ after spending two years in various camps by its side, he proceeds to give amusing accounts of life behind the front among the British Tommies and Greek Johnnies.... The second part, which explains the events that led to the final offensive of September 15 to September 30, 1918, and gives an account of the battle itself with more details regarding the Anglo-Greek attack at Doiran, will prove of greater value to the historic mind.”—Review
“Mr Seligman’s book embodies a considerable amount of information regarding the expedition, and is printed in a clear and readable form.”
“There is a harmonious combination of humorous anecdote and serious study expressed in an easy but by no means slipshod style. Equally entertaining and instructing, the book is well worth reading.” A. E. Phoutrides
“Mr Seligman treats the expedition so disconnectedly that his is a terrible rag-bag of a book. Some of his stories are excellent.”
“His chapter on ‘The tragedy of Constantine’ is worth reading; nothing that he says about the allied diplomacy in regard to Bulgaria is too strong, but he errs in putting all the blame on the British foreign office.”
“Those who enjoyed ‘Macedonian musings’ will certainly take pleasure in ‘The Salonica side show.’”
SELIGMANN, HERBERT JACOB. Negro faces America. *$1.75 Harper 326
This book is a study of the negro problem in the United States today from the friendly viewpoint of a former member of the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post and the New Republic, who is now connected with the National association for the advancement of colored people, The author discusses race prejudice at length and tries to show how many problems that most people consider to be racial are fundamentally economic and political problems. There are chapters on the negro in industry, the negro as scape-goat of city politics, and the effect of the European war upon the American negro. The Chicago, Omaha and Washington riots are explained and the Arkansas trouble of 1919 is treated under the caption “The American Congo.” There is an appendix on the Bogalusa, Louisiana, trouble by the president of the Louisiana state federation of labor. There is no index.
Reviewed by M. E. Bailey
“‘The negro faces America’ is the best general survey yet written on the negro in the United States. The book contains much fresh material.” M. W. Ovington
“Besides reporting unanswerable facts Mr Seligmann gives us excellent discussion of such questions as ‘social equality’ and sex relationships.” O. G. V.
“Mr Seligmann has written an interesting book, a generous, ardent piece of agitation, but its usefulness is greatly impaired by its failure to make good upon the pretences of its arrangement. The issue as to the evolutionary inferiority of the negro, which, if it was relevant at all to his purpose, deserved thorough scientific presentation, is superficially handled.” L. B. W.
“Mr Seligmann is a vigorous writer, very journalistic, who interests you by the rapid flow of his thought. He has considerable power in arranging his facts, but he quotes and quotes and quotes.”
“The question is here discussed in an intelligent, fair-minded manner.”
“His book should be read by those who wish to know what negroes think and feel.” W: A. Aery
SERAO, MATILDE. Souls divided; tr. from the Italian by William Collinge. *$1.75 Brentano’s
“The telling of a story by means of a series of letters is a fictional form which, though once exceedingly popular, is seldom used by modern writers. This method is employed in the new volume by Matilde Serao, the noted Italian writer. It is the hero, Paolo Ruffo, who does all the letter-writing, the lady to whom all his passionate epistles are addressed never replying to any one of them. She was an orphan, Diana Sforza, eldest daughter of an ancient house, and practically penniless. Gifted with a rarely lovely and very sympathetic voice, she won Paolo Ruffo’s heart by her singing. For a year he worshipped her, followed her about from place to place, and poured out his heart to her in a long succession of most fervent letters. Then, at last, utterly discouraged and broken, he left his native country, accompanied by the faithful sister upon whose shoulder he had wept more than once, and became a wanderer upon the face of the earth.”—N Y Times
“‘Souls divided’ is probably a better novel than the translator has managed to project, yet even with this allowance its theme and substance tend toward emotional futility.”
“The story is like a pressed flower suddenly found in the pages of a Lamartine. For a moment it gives you the nostalgia of the past. Then it crumbles.” L. L.
“Though it is always difficult to judge of the style of a book read only in translation, ‘Souls divided’ would seem to be very well written. As far as its interest and its appeal to the reader are concerned, these will depend largely upon whether that reader is or is not a sentimental temperament.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The fact that the whole story, except the epilogue, is related in Paolo’s letters to Diana is bound to give it an air of unreality, since he is obliged to write her a detailed description of her own wedding. But the southern passion of the letters, though it strikes one as a little strained in our colder northern tongue, has a genuine ring about it, and the lady reader who falls under its spell will readily forgive such little improbabilities. The translation is above the average.”
SERGEANT, ELIZABETH SHEPLEY. Shadow-shapes; the journal of a wounded woman, October 1918–May 1919. *$2 Houghton 940.48
In this record of her hospital experiences the writer attempts to envisage “a vast, embracing, unseizable truth that was essentially our common possession. The heightened glow cast by danger and death on the faces of the young, and its fading into the rather flat daylight of survival; the psychological dislocation of armistice; the weariness of reconstruction; the shift in Franco-American relations that followed President Wilson’s intervention in European affairs; and the place of American women in the adventures of the A. E. F.” (Preface) The three parts of the book are: The wing of death; Pax in bello; The city of confusion.
“It is, indeed, amazing that Miss Sergeant is able to make her meagre details of vivid interest, but such is her art that she ably succeeds in holding attention throughout the pages of this novel journal.” C. K. H.
“The book derives a unity from its synthesis of fragments—a shade too clinical at times, but otherwise sharply realistic and delicately expressed.”
“Books so concentrated, so vivid, and so sustained in their spiritual excitement rarely get written.”
“How readable ‘Shadow-shapes’ is, and what is more, how full of feeling, of generosity, of the gold of human intercourse delicately essayed, of difficult things bravely thought out, of fine things appreciated, of good things described with sympathy, accuracy—this quite outweighs in my impression of it that vast excess of the sympathy over the accuracy, of the personal over the impersonal which, artistically at least, is a serious fault.” R. L.
“Originality is a force everywhere, and Miss Sergeant’s ‘Shadow-shapes’ is a very original volume. Miss Sergeant is an accomplished stylist, her art conceals itself. Picture after picture rises before us, in its very color, form and significance. If Miss Sergeant is supremely sensitive to the drama of minds, she is no less sensitive to the beauty of nature. Truly, every one should read this book.” Amy Lowell
“A book of fine perceptions, enriched by a background of feeling and intelligence.”
“Miss Sergeant has done much more than give a vivid record of hospital experiences. That indeed, although interesting, is the least part of an unusual book. The figures which Miss Sergeant draws from real life, frequently giving initials or only first names, are extraordinarily vivid and human.”
Reviewed by E. B. Moses
SETON-WATSON, ROBERT WILLIAM. Europe in the melting pot. *$1.50 Macmillan 940.3
“One of the most authoritative writers on eastern European politics here brings together a series of important papers which he has written during the war. For the most part they are reproduced from The New Europe, the weekly review which he founded in 1916 to represent the policy of himself and of those who cooperated with him. These embraced a league of nations, looking forward ultimately to all-round disarmament; support of the Slav movement; an advanced democratic programme for Russia; a federal solution for the border nations; agrarian reform throughout eastern and southern Europe; parliamentary control over foreign policy; equality of treatment for big and small nations; ‘satisfied nationalism’ as ‘the first essential preliminary to a new international order.’ A few of the papers have appeared in the Round Table or the Contemporary Review and one in the English Review. There are seven maps.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Especially well informed, competent, and obstinate in dealing with southern Europe.”
“The book is the work of a historian at grips with reality, and has the stamp of the best qualities of political writing.” N. C.
“The author’s history merely records diplomatic and military events. Of history as a series of processes, dependent mainly on regional economics and national tradition, he shows little conception.”
“His treatment of the Adriatic question in this volume seems to us unfortunate, especially in regard to Fiume.”
“They are an excellent illustration of the best kind of political writing, viz., the application of genuine knowledge and settled principles to the immediate situation which from time to time presents itself.”
SEWALL, MRS MAY (WRIGHT). Neither dead nor sleeping; introd. by Booth Tarkington. *$2.50 Bobbs 134
“There is a peculiar difference between Mrs Sewall’s communications with the world beyond and most of those with which the public is familiar through books without number. For she says that she found the discarnate spirits, urged and led by that of her husband, anxious to give her help and direction. The whole of Mrs Sewall’s nearly 300 pages is filled with the continuous, detailed, personal story of her intimate association and communication with these spirits. There is not much about conditions of life with them, as there usually is in books of this kind, but its place is taken instead by her account of what they did for her, what they taught her, and what she learned of their anxiety to help human beings. Their efforts in her behalf were mainly inspired, she says, by their wish to make it possible for her to give their message to humanity.”—N Y Times
“Strains certain tenets of temperate spiritualism but is brightly written and replete with interest.”
“The story is told with such full detail and sincerity, all resting, too, on the character of a woman so widely and favorably known, as to make on any reader a profound impression.” Lilian Whiting
SEYMOUR, HARRIET AYER. What music can do for you; a guide for the uninitiated. *$2 Harper 780
The author holds that we need a new scheme of education which will be based upon the idea that man is his own salvation, that within himself are all the possibilities for harmony and growth. The new education must furnish the stimulus that will awaken this larger self. This stimulus is music and in this sense music is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Contents: Awakening to life through music; Melody, rhythm, and harmony; Melody; Rhythm; Harmony; Music for children; Practicing; Technique; Music for grown-ups; Phonographs and pianolas; Music and health; The philosophy of music. The appended bibliography contains three groups of book: books on psychology taking cognizance of music; biographies and books on music. There is also a list of phonograph records chosen from the catalogue of the Columbia Graphophone Company.
SEYMOUR, WILLIAM KEAN, ed. Miscellany of British poetry, 1919. *$2 Harcourt 821.08
“This ‘Miscellany of poetry, 1919,’ is issued to the public as a truly catholic anthology of contemporary poetry. The poems here printed are new, in the sense that they have not previously been issued by their authors in book form.” (Prefatory note) Among the contributors are: Laurence Binyon; Gilbert K. Chesterton; William H. Davies; John Drinkwater; Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; Theodore Maynard; Edith Sitwell; and Alec Waugh. There are decorations by Doris Palmer.
“Mr Seymour is to be congratulated on having brought together what is on the whole a very interesting collection of verse. The list of contributors on the cover is in itself reassuring, and when we read the book we find that almost all of them are worthily represented.”
“Chesterton’s St Barbara ballad contains touches as magical as his Lepanto, although the sustained flight does not equal the earlier chant. Lawrence Binyon is represented by verses full of magic, Davies is his own naive self, Drinkwater is faultless and polished, Edith Sitwell is whimsically delightful, Muriel Stuart is sharply dramatic, and, best of all, W. W. Gibson appears in verses equal to his best.” Clement Wood
“To sum up, Mr Seymour’s book can be recommended to those who already possess collections of contemporary poetry in which poets of more modern temper are represented, or to those reactionaries who will read nothing but the most conservative verse.” Marguerite Williams
“Mr Seymour has not exercised, or indeed sought to exercise, the faintest critical faculty in forming his collection.”
“There is a wholesome (one means esthetically, not morally wholesome) departure from the preciosity, the fine-spun, over-intellectual, finically phrased impressionism that was, in prewar days, the distinctly Georgian note.”
SHACKLETON, SIR ERNEST HENRY. South. new ed il *$6 (4½c) Macmillan 919.9
The book is the story of Shackleton’s last expedition, 1914–1917, undertaken to achieve the first crossing of the Antarctic continent. It failed in its object, owing to the loss of one of its ships, but, says the author: “The struggles, the disappointments, and the endurance of this small party of Britishers, hidden away for nearly two years in the fastnesses of the polar ice, striving to carry out the ordained task and ignorant of the crisis through which the world was passing, make a story which is unique in the history of Antarctic exploration.” (Preface) Contents: Into the Weddell sea; New land; Winter months; Loss of the Endurance; Ocean camp; The march between; Patience camp; Escape from the ice; The boat journey; Across South Georgia; The rescue; Elephant island; The Ross sea party; Wintering in McMurdo sound; Laying the depots; The Aurora’s drift; The last relief; The final phase. The appendices contain: Scientific work; Sea-ice nomenclature; Meteorology; Physics; South Atlantic whales and whaling; The expedition huts at McMurdo sound. There are eighty-eight illustrations and diagrams and an index.
“The volume is extremely well illustrated.”
“Sir Ernest Shackleton’s new book adds another to those priceless records of high human quality, and the story that it tells, aside from its scientific value, will have many readers who will find its pages enthralling and deeply moving.”
“Few modern authors have so effectively utilized the pent-up force of sturdy Anglo-Saxon monosyllables.” Philip Tillinghast
“Sir Ernest Shackleton’s book is written in a vigorous style.”
“The story of the voyage that six men made in an open boat across eight hundred miles of the roughest water in the world, to bring relief to the twenty-two companions who remained on the island, rivals the best sea tale ever written. It is good for any one to read such a narrative as ‘South!’ We see what men may be.”
“The story is told simply, for the most part without much passion; but there is no need for that to hold our interest. This book, and many another like it, are written for the general reader; and the general reader (who would not read a scientific treatise if it were set before him) is rather prone to forget the scientific aspects of polar exploration. Sir Ernest Shackleton yields, perhaps too far, to this consideration.”
SHACKLETON, ROBERT. Book of Chicago. il *$3.50 Penn 917.7
“To Chicago goes Mr Shackleton, after having exhausted New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The Art institute, the clubs, the theatres, the elevated, the freight subway and the river all come in for his inspection, and Mr Shackleton has apparently gone over, under, around and through Chicago with a thoroughness that not many of its citizens would care to duplicate. Anon, he varies a charming style by telling stories, and by gallant attempts to rake up some worth-while poetry that has been written concerning the city.”—Boston Transcript
“For each matter which Mr Shackleton has not set down, there are a dozen that he has. Mr Shackleton is always interesting.” G. M. H.
“A truly interesting and broadly conceived tribute to the much abused ‘Windy city.’”
“The book is far from being a catalogue of land-marks and monuments, or even of merits and faults. It gives to the city a personal quality, and to the reader a sense that here is a mass of people, living, breathing, and enjoying life.”
SHAFER, DONALD CAMERON. Barent Creighton. *$2 (2c) Knopf
“An old time story of youthful romance and hot adventure, well seasoned ... with simple love and pleasant humor”—thus the author himself correctly describes his story. In the early forties, when the hero’s fortunes are at their lowest, an old aunt leaves him a legacy of four old keys, a box full of small gold figures of Inca gods, an undecipherable manuscript and the family estate with 5000 acres to hold in trust for his wife to be. The first three items point to family secrets all of which develop and unravel in the course of the story in quaintly romantic fashion with underground passages and chambers and hidden treasures. Of immediate interest to Barent, however, is to find a wife that is to save him from a debtor’s prison. How a wealthy land greedy neighbor of the Creighton estate offers his daughter to fill the place; how the daughter resents the bargain; how Barent tears up the contract when he finds he loves her and faces a variety of troubles instead; how the tables turn and how Ronella comes to require Barent’s help; and how the two really love each other more than gold and acres, make a fascinating tale.
“Very readable romance.”
“This is Mr Shafer’s first novel, and it is one of considerable promise, colorful and related with no little spirit.”
“A broad vein of humor rescues the tale from melodramatic lapses.”
SHANKS, EDWARD BUXTON. People of the ruins. *$1.90 (2c) Stokes
According to this “story of the English revolution and after,” (sub-title), the revolution broke out in 1924. During its first skirmishes Jeremy Tuft, physicist, is overtaken by a bomb while inspecting a new scientific discovery. Thanks to the new “ray” he awakens from the shock and crawls out of his hole in the ground in the year 2074 into a ruined and degenerate world. Almost all traces of our civilization are gone and the people are too ignorant and tired to restore what is left or to rebuild better. What is left is a ruling house in England, landlordism, and a degenerate industrialism in the north of England. In the ruler—an old Jew known us the “Speaker”—however, some of the old ambition survives. The form it takes to desire to reconstruct, with the aid of the oldest surviving mechanics, the onetime efficient gun. Now Jeremy Tuft is pressed into his services and the gun becomes a fact. Immediately there is war and more disaster in which the Speaker, his daughter Eva, and Jeremy, her lover, all go down to destruction together.
“The author writes entertainingly, imaginatively, and with a creative skill that makes his work pleasant if not nutritious reading.”
SHANNON, ALASTAIR. Morning knowledge: the story of the new inquisition. *$5 Longmans 192
“For two years and a half a prisoner of war in Turkey, the author devoted nearly half of that period to the writing of this work. If, perhaps, somewhat premature as a presentment of philosophy, the book is at all events an essay at the expression of a young man’s ‘positive assurance in the value of man as a real creator.’ Beginning with negations, the author advances by degrees to the conclusions that there is ‘more in life than mechanism, and more in reason than intellect’; that intellect is ‘so formed as to grasp mechanism wholly’; and that reason is so formed as to reflect life wholly and to find for life a purpose which is not yet palpable, though psychologically evident.”—Ath
“A very beautiful and a very sane philosophy will be found in these pages. The poetry in them has a lyrical quality reminiscent of Mr W. B. Yeats, and the prose at times glows at white heat. Although Mr Shannon’s work is uneven, and sometimes baffling, it is never commonplace.”
“The condemnation of Mr Shannon’s method lies in the obscurity of his own conclusions.”
SHARP, DALLAS LORE. Patrons of democracy. 80c (8c) Atlantic monthly press 379
Professor Sharp of the English department of Boston university, holds that the true end of American education is not life or the getting of a living, but “living together,” “getting-on-together.” For this purpose the higher schools and colleges are negligible and the secondary schools are everything; for all the fundamental things of life are learned by the time a person reaches his eighteenth year. The spirit of democracy is one of these fundamental things and it is a matter of education. The book, therefore, is a plea for the common school and an arraignment of the private, parochial and vocational school.
“The book is a witty and idealistic appeal for a truer democracy.”
“Dallas Lore Sharp’s belief in democracy is a tonic for us all. Moreover, he has a simple and, within limits, entirely practical prescription for democracy.”
SHARP, HILDA MARY. Pawn in pawn. *$1.90 (*7s) (1½c) Putnam
Julian Tarrant, a distinguished English poet, comes into a fortune somewhat late in life. He has never married and has no close kin and he one day expresses his intention of adopting a child whom he may make his heir—and then forgets all about it. But his friend, Richard Drewe, who has taken him seriously, goes to the orphanage flippantly known as the Pawn shop, and returns with a little six-year old girl. The story thereafter is concerned with the development of this child, her relations to her adoptive father and uncle, and to one other man, a younger friend of the two others. An anonymously published book of poems proves the girl to have unusual poetic talent and then the secret of her birth and parentage is revealed. The story covers the last years of the nineteenth century and the period up to and including the world war.
“‘A pawn in pawn’ is an example of excellent writing, and in point of vital interest and ingenuity of plot quite out of the ordinary.”
“It is a tale which will really give great pleasure in the reading; but its weak construction and the hackneyed coincidences which lie at the back of it must prevent its ranking very high among novels of the moment.”
SHAW, CHARLES GRAY. Ground and goal of human life. (Studies in philosophy and religion) $3.50 N.Y. univ. press 171
“The problem which Professor Shaw presents and endeavours to solve is the establishment of a ‘higher synthesis’ between an individualistic egoism and a scientifico-social self-suppression. The ‘higher synthesis,’ when he arrives at it in book three, is expounded in three sections, The joy of life in the world-whole, The worth of life in the world-whole (to be found in work), and The truth of life in the world-whole (to be found rather in culture than in æstheticism).”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“In formulating his code of ethics, Dr Shaw has succeeded in adding an illuminating and clearly written volume to the already large library dealing with the origins and values of human conduct.” L. M. S.
“Prof. Shaw’s presentation of his case is far from shallow and unconsidered—and has the inestimable merit of making no concessions to prejudices, of being absolutely unafraid. Moreover, it is a positive and too rare joy to find a book with exact footnote knowledge of the history of thought and literature.”
“It may be doubted whether this very substantial volume makes any very definite fresh contribution either practical or theoretical to its subject; and Professor Shaw is by no means free from the tendency among American philosophers to avoid clear logical exposition and to smother their thought under a heavy load of philosophic verbiage.”
SHAW, FREDERICK JOHN (BROUGHAM VILLIERS, pseud.), and CHESSON, WILFRID HUGH. Anglo-American relations, 1861–1865. *$2.50 Scribner 327.73
“‘Anglo-American relations, 1861–1865,’ deals with the causes of friction and misunderstandings between Great Britain and the United States during the trying years of the Civil war. The reasons which, for a time, gave prominence to the southern sympathies of the British ruling classes, while rendering almost inarticulate the far deeper feeling for the cause of union and emancipation among the masses of our people, are examined and explained. W. H. Chesson, grandson of George Thompson, the antislavery orator, who was William Lloyd Garrison’s bosom friend, contributes a chapter which attempts to convey an impression of the influence of transatlantic problems upon English oratory and the writings of public men.”—Springf’d Republican
“While Mr Villiers’s general presentation of national attitudes is excellent and very well worth reading in both countries, the facts of history which are brought into his narrative are unfortunately not so well understood by him.” E. D. Adams
“The whole book is instructive and very timely.”
SHEDD, GEORGE CLIFFORD. Iron furrow. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
An American engineer of indomitable grit and perseverance sees possibilities in a barren tract of Arizona desert if the land is irrigated. He buys the land and sets to work in the face of the intrigues of a Mexican plutocrat, the wiles of eastern capital, his own shortage of funds, and the inclemencies of an Arizona winter. With all these troubles he still finds time to fall in love with a girl of fickle affections. The successful termination of his work on the canal is marked by the termination of his engagement by the faithless girl and the crowning of his efforts by a true woman’s love.
“It is a pleasant story in a quiet key, and is restful after the many stories where gun-play is a prominent practice.”
SHEDLOCK, MARIE L. Eastern stories and legends. *$2 Dutton 294
An enlarged edition of a collection of stories of the Buddha published in 1910, now issued with a foreword by T. W. Rhys Davids and an introduction by Annie Carroll Moore. “In India, Prof. Davids tells us, crowds may be seen listening all night long to these tales. There are many hundreds of them from which Miss Shedlock has selected only a few, and of these we are assured that their appeal to an audience never fails. She has told them again and again, and Miss Moore, of the New York Public Library, adds her conviction of their admirable suitability for telling.”—Boston Transcript
“In rearranging and expanding this selection of stories from the Buddha rebirths, Miss Shedlock has wisely freed the book from limitations, which in the earlier edition gave it too much the appearance of a text-book to look readable.” A. C. Moore
“Discriminating and valuable selection of stories.” A. C. Moore
SHEEHAN, PERLEY POORE. House with a bad name. *$1.90 Boni & Liveright
The house was an anachronism in a part of New York that had fallen from a former grand estate. The neighborhood would have it that it was haunted. The people living in it were anachronisms and as such full of mystery. Old Nathan Tyrone and his daughter Mélissine lived in an older generation in thought, in dress, in habits. They were paragons of virtue and unworldliness, and their butler a good second to themselves. In due time Mélissine falls in love, and, about the same time, an evil woman appears upon the scene with blackmail and corruption. After the death of Mélissine’s father she insinuates herself into the house and for a time the air is dense with mystery and evil forebodings. But before so much virtue and saintliness even the wicked Belle becomes repentant and the evil mysteries she conjured up fade away. All but one, which comes to light after Mélissine’s marriage: through some estrangement between her father and grandfather, the former had been disinherited and had unwittingly been living on the bounty of the butler, the sole heir, all his life.
“Mr Sheehan is a facile, delicate artist in the weaving of such a theme; the texture of it is excellent and his people, especially the two women, are admirably real.”
“With a slight, old-fashioned plot, little dramatic action and characters that have been worn threadbare, it still must be conceded that the lazy reader, desiring mild bookish entertainment, will find it worth while to work his way through this placid novel.”
“The mingling of love and mystery is well sustained.”
SHEFFIELD, MRS ADA (ELIOT).[2] Social case history; its construction and content. *$1 Russell Sage foundation 360
The book belongs to the Social work series and deals with the recording of the relief workers’ cases and the purposes it subserves. The record is made with a view to three ends: (1) the immediate purpose of furthering effective treatment of individual clients, (2) the ultimate purpose of general social betterment, and (3) the incidental purpose of establishing the case worker herself in critical thinking. To expound these three ends from every point of view is the purpose of the book. It is indexed and contains: The purpose of a social case history; A basis for the selection of material; Documents that constitute the history; Composition of the narrative; The narrative in detail; The wider implications of case recording.
“‘The social case history’ is a new landmark in the profession of social case work. No one hereafter can undertake case work without first mastering the material and the method put into permanent form by this book. It does for the case record, and incidentally for certain phases of treatment, what Miss Richmond’s book on ‘Social diagnosis’ has done for investigation.” Frank Bruno
SHEFFIELD, LYBA, and SHEFFIELD, NITA C.[2] Swimming simplified. il $1.75 The authors, box 436, San Francisco 796
“The purpose of this text book is to simplify the learning and teaching of swimming from a scientific point of view. Our further objective has been to arrange a series of lessons in their logical progression to meet the demands of schools, playgrounds, clubs and aquatic centers.... A special section upon the class man-procedure for mass instruction and class management has been arranged for teachers of swimming.” (Introd.) Contents: The method of procedure in learning or teaching swimming; The beginner’s first lessons; Analysis of the various swimming strokes; Racing turn—treading water—plunge for distance; Diving; Life saving; The safety valve and the swimming and life-saving tests; Water sports; Suggestions to instructors. There are numerous helpful illustrations. The authors are teachers of swimming in the San Francisco high schools and the University of California.
SHERARD, JESSE LOUIS. Blueberry bear. il *$1 Crowell
This biography of a bear cub forms an entertaining story for children altho it belongs to the type of story in which human psychology is attributed to animals. Blueberry with his father and mother lives near the home of Farmer Green. The father is shot by one of the farmer’s men and the little bear thereafter does all in his power to take revenge. Finally the farmer’s boys make him a captive and take him home with them and he learns that his father is still alive and a prisoner. The two escape and the bear family seeks a new home in the canebrake far from the haunts of man.
SHERIDAN, SOLOMON NEILL. Typhoon’s secret. il *$1.50 (2½c) Doubleday
John Wentworth, a bank president’s son, is suddenly stranded, when the bank fails and his father mysteriously disappears out to sea. John’s friends scent a mystery and foul play connected with the failure and send John in a wild goose chase over the Pacific in search of clues and his father. The rest is a sea yarn full of thrilling incidents which culminate in a yacht’s wild flight before a typhoon, a burning ship, a companion yacht with romance on board, and finally a restored father, a restored fortune and a bride for John Wentworth.
SHERINGHAM, HUGH TEMPEST. Trout fishing memoirs and morals. il *$5 (5c) Houghton 799
The author begins his fishing reminiscences with an account of eel-fishing by hand as a child of nine, newly escaped from London. But he soon found that trout fishing is the sport par excellence and that trout fishers “by-nature,” not merely because sporting fashion prescribes it, belong to the pick of humanity. Among the contents are: Early days; A little chalk stream; The fishing day; The fly question; Minnow and worms; In a Welsh valley; Weather and wind; New waters. There are illustrations.
“It is rather long drawn out, and not straight to the point.... Anyway, the angler who can’t learn something and get many new thrills from the book will not be found hereabouts.”
“His volume is as delightfully written as any work on angling which we have recently seen. American anglers will find themselves very much at home in the atmosphere of this work, even though it deals with unfamiliar waters.”
“Mr Sheringham’s latest book on fishing is delightful for its humour and sound English as well as for the range of its reminiscences and its insight into the ways of trout. Its morals make it as companionable as its memories.”
SHERLOCK, CHESLA CLELLA. Care and management of rabbits. il *$1.25 (4c) McKay 636.9
The purpose of the book is to set forth the commercial possibilities of rabbits and to point out to beginner and breeder alike the most economical way to success. It is intended as a handy, companionable guide on all phases of the care, breeding and management of rabbits. A partial list of the contents is: Some reasons for raising rabbits; The domesticated rabbit; The commercial breeds; The fancy breeds; The hutches; Feeding adult stock; Feeding young stock; Breeding; Utility value of rabbits; Fur farming; Pedigrees; Diseases and remedies; Appendix-handy feeding schedules. The book is illustrated.
SHERRILL, CHARLES HITCHCOCK. Have we a Far Eastern policy? with an introd. by David Jayne Hill. il *$2.50 Scribner 327
“One-half of Mr Sherrill’s book is not suggested by its title, and deals with matters which have no political implications—with the flora of the Hawaiian islands, with Japanese umbrellas, footwear, lanterns, street games, chrysanthemum shows, and private gardens. As to whether the United States has a definite Far Eastern policy, a negative is not distinctly asserted but is clearly implied. At any rate our author presents us with one of his own which he considers worthy of adoption by our government. Shortly stated, it is as follows: That the United States should refrain from all opposition to Japan’s expansion north and west upon the continent of Asia, that is, in the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Siberia; that, in return, Japan should agree to abandon her southeasterly development and transfer the Caroline and Marshall islands to international control or to administration by Australia; and, thirdly, that Japan, Australia, and the United States should jointly guarantee the independence of the Philippines.”—Review
“General Sherrill’s ten months in the East seem to have been insufficient to awaken him to an adequate sense of the intricacy of problems that with such bland simplicity he has undertaken to solve.” R. M. Weaver
Reviewed by Harold Kellock
“This book, though spirited enough, lacks verity of perception, and is typical of the thanks propaganda of foreigners who visit Japan and spend their time with hospitable officials.” F: O’Brien
Reviewed by W. W. Willoughby
SHERWOOD, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS. Glimpses of South America. il *$4 Century 918
The author knows South America well, as a business man having made several prolonged trips throughout its extent. He calls his book an informal one, covering the ground and containing information about that part of South America that a casual visitor would be most apt to visit and about which he would be less likely to get information from more formal treatises. It is compiled from notes jotted down for personal amusement and is illustrated with the author’s own photographs. It has six maps, a geographical and a general index and the text contains: The beaten track around South America; New York to Kingston and Panama; Panama and the Panama canal in war time; Down the west coast—Panama to Lima, Peru; Lima—the city of the past; Southern Peru and northern Chile; Iquique, Antofagasta and the nitrate desert; Valparaiso and Viña del Mar; Santiago—the capital of Chile; Over the Andes to the Argentine Republic; Buenos Aires—the Paris of America; Montevideo and the republic of Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the way home.
“He gives many valuable tips about hotels, boats, and railroads in an entertaining way. His chapters on Lima and Buenos Aires are rather long, but his chatty method of writing gives charm to the volume.”
“‘Glimpses of South America’ is frankly a book of travel—and a very entertaining one—but it will prove highly educational for the man who wishes to learn something of Latin Americans, their customs, mode of living, needs and psychology.” B. R. Redman
“Mr Sherwood’s characterizations of people and places are terse and vivid and he makes no pretensions to an elaborate study of any of the matters of which he treats. What he has to say is intended to be helpful to the ordinary traveler.”
“If there are traces of exaggeration, or of facetious inference, the reader, amused thereby, will not be disposed to be too inquiring. The work, as a whole, is vivid and informing—a thoroughly animated travel book.”
SHERWOOD, MARGARET POLLOCK. World to mend. *$2 (2c) Little
The story is ostensibly the journal of a working man. He was not always thus, this son of the idle rich, of New England birth, who had lived fifty years of inactivity, addicted to theoretical speculations of a critical and analytical nature, when the European war broke out. The war brings him a sudden realization that he has been but a looker-on in life, has not been a good citizen, not in immediate touch and sympathy with his fellow men. He must act, must become a worker, must undertake a handicraft. He chooses cobbling, settles in a typical New England coast town, and gradually works himself into the confidence of his fellow townsmen and into local influence. His journal records his experiences, is full of philosophical criticism of American life and character in general, of the flaws in our democracy, of our attitude to the war before our entry into it and of the imminence of a regenerated world after the war. Our actual participation in the war fills him with satisfaction and pride and the hope of future greatness.
“Of the high earnestness of her mood there are visible manifestations. The delicate play of humor which we have so often noted in her work is absent. The poetic trend of her prose has been almost as ruthlessly stifled. Yet in spite of the handicap of abandoning two of her largest assets, the spell of the book is very strong. Miss Sherwood here as in ‘The worn doorstep’ has lived up to the magnitude of her opportunities.” D. L. Mann
“The cobbler of Mataquoit is a good thinker. He thinks through his problems, whether they be of government, economics, education, religion or sociology. He is, moreover, the master of a high style which sounds the tocsin of hope for literature in America once again.”
“Miss Sherwood has genuine literary power, and whatever she writes is worth reading from the point of view of style as well as for its subject. Miss Sherwood has spiritual insight and, looking through her eyes, we have at least a vision of how the new world should be built.”
SHESTOV, LEO. All things are possible. *$2 McBride 891.7
In this collection of aphorisms the author delivers himself of his reflections on life and literature. The work is translated from the Russian by S. S. Koteliansky and has a foreword by D. H. Lawrence, who sees in Shestov the final liberating struggle of the Russian psyche to shake itself free from the bondage of an alien European civilization.
“There is much that is brilliant in the book, much that is even profound. Moreover, if Hamlin Garland is right in reproaching this part of the United States with being ‘hopelessly sane,’ its influence here might be salutary. But we wonder whether a native of Iowa could be cajoled into reading beyond the first two pages. Nevertheless it is well now and then to face a defiant arraignment of the entire fabric of our civilization.” C. M. S.
Reviewed by Stark Young
“His style is clear, uncollegiate and literary.” B: de Casseres
“In any proper sense of the word there is not an atom of originality in the book, which is merely a decoction from Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche. To exalt Shestov as original, or as in any sense a philosopher, is mischievous nonsense. He is interesting as an illustration of the Slavonic nihilism which is capturing the fancy of so many of our half-educated modern youths.”
SHOWALTER, NOAH DAVID. Handbook for rural school officers. (Riverside textbooks in education) il *$2 Houghton 379.17
The object of the book is to stimulate the rural school officers’ interest in education. The information given is based on personal investigation of the best plans, methods and practices now in use in the best rural communities of the United States. The foreword is a creed of nine paragraphs for the school trustee or director and the ground covered in the text takes in school organization, election and work of officers, resources and finances; school sites, plants, furnishings, apparatus and decorations; selection of teachers; the daily program, home and school cooperation, and supervision; the consolidation of rural schools; manual training and home economics; the question of lunches, health education and medical inspection, and, lastly, citizenship. There are also illustrations, appendices and an index.
SHUGRUE, MARTIN JOSEPH.[2] Problems in foreign exchange. *$2 Appleton 332.45
The principles and methods of foreign exchange are briefly described in the introduction to the book which falls into three parts. Part 1 consists of typical problems and solutions fully worked out. Part 2 sets problems for the student to work out. They come under the headings; Sources of supply and demand; Par of exchange; Theory of foreign exchange rates; Conversions in foreign exchange; Financing imports and exports; Arbitrage transactions and finance bills; General problems. Part 3, Appendices, contains foreign exchange documents and tables for the simplification of foreign exchange calculations.
SHUTE, HENRY AUGUSTUS. Real diary of the worst farmer. il *$1.75 (1½c) Houghton 817
The diary begins with March 10, the appearance of the first bluebird, and gives a delightfully humorous account of all the haps and mishaps of an amateur farmer’s summer, until the reader takes leave of him on November 21, meditating before his empty pork barrel—he still had his pork barrel left—after the pigs, reared with so much effort, expense and expectation, turned out to have been tubercular. He consoles himself with characteristic optimism, that, in spite of a pile of unreceipted grain bills and other debts, he now has before him the satisfying winter pleasures of milking, bedding, feeding and caring for his stock twice a day by lantern light. The book is dedicated to amateur farmers, particularly to professional and salaried men, whose love of the soil and of domestic animals takes them to the country not for the money profit that may result, but for the interest in the life for its own sake.
“Professionally I am inclined to condemn the book as a piece of deliberate manufacture by a man who knows too well that he is expected to be funny; personally I like it very well indeed.” W. A. Dyer
“‘The worst farmer’ satisfies all expectations with its dry wit and skilfully woven humor.”
“The book is amusing in its way, and no doubt many amateur farmers will find their own experiences more or less accurately reflected in this ‘Real diary of the worst farmer.’”
“Aside from the humor of the book one finds the author a genuine nature lover.”
SIDGWICK, CECILY (ULLMANN) (MRS ALFRED SIDGWICK), and GARSTIN, CROSBIE. Black knight. *$2 (2c) Holt
When Michael Winter comes up with a jolt against the fact that his father is a swindler and a suicide he ships for Canada with not a friend to bid him farewell. But a compassionate young girl, noticing his loneliness, proffers her hand as a good-bye for England and cherishes the memory of her daring as her romance ever after. In Canada he roughs it with the roughest and plunges with the rashest and indeed makes a fortune but incurs a term of prison in the bargain. Free again and rich he arrives in Paris in time to rescue his unknown friend from the clutches of a wicked aunt. They marry first and he pays the piper after, to settle his own and his father’s score, and there is an interrupted honeymoon, with a happy ending.
“The workmanship of the novel bears intrinsic evidence of its subdivision of labour. The Canadian scene is sketched with descriptive vigour, and enlivened with incident. Mrs Sidgwick, however, scarcely qualifies with her entries.” L. B.
“The collaboration is only a juncture of opposites and not a mixture of complementary elements. In short, however faithful and interesting a collection of adventures the two authors may have chronicled, however successful they may have been in parts, as a unified whole their book fails because of a lack of unity in construction, in style, in character and in place.”
“Life on the great wheat ranch, in lumber camps, and in other more conventional scenes is described with vigor, knowledge, and a certain robust sense of fun. The book holds the attention firmly.”
“Having been given the first innings Mr Crosbie Garstin has scored so fast and freely that the sequel inevitably partakes of the nature of an anti-climax.”
“A live and busy story.”
SIEVEKING, L. DE G. Dressing gowns and glue. il *$1 Harcourt 827
A book of nonsense verse, with drawings by John Nash. It is published “with an introduction about the verses by G. K. Chesterton and an introduction about the drawings by Max Beerbohm and something about all concerned by Cecil Palmer” and is edited by Paul Nash.
“Introductions, nonsense verses, and pictures are all alike absurd and equally delightful.”
“Nonsense in its finer form will be found in the illustrations more frequently and more definitely than in the text. Captain Sieveking’s verses have got extremely pleasant qualities; some of the poems that he calls ‘examples of blatant naughtiness’ have a real charm of idea; but he is not sufficiently severe, and allows himself to go on writing when the humor of the idea has already been sufficiently illustrated.” R. E. Roberts
“There is not quite enough of this book—that is its only flaw.”
SIMONDS, FRANK HERBERT. History of the world war. 5v v 4–5 il ea *$5 Doubleday 940.3
v 4–5 “The fourth volume of Mr Simonds’ ‘History of the world war’ is concerned with the crucial developments of the year 1917—the German retreat to the Hindenburg line, the entry of America into the war, the Russian revolution and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the French and British offensives and reverses on the western front, the Italian defeat, and the aggressive submarine campaign on the part of Germany.” (R of Rs F ’20) “The fifth volume marks the culmination of his account of the allied campaigns. He tells with dramatic vividness the full story of American participation.” (R of Rs S ’20)
“Here again we have, possibly displayed better than elsewhere, his fine sense of historical proportion, his superlatively dramatic style garnishing the most prosaic scientific manoeuvers, if important, with all the color of romance. He has taken critical advantage of the books by German military men published since the war.” Walter Littlefield
“The author’s running comment and interpretation are most illuminating and instructive.”
SIMPSON, CHARLES TORREY. In lower Florida wilds. il *$3.50 (4c) Putnam 917.59
“A naturalist’s observations on the life, physical geography, and geology of the more tropical part of the state.” (Sub-title) The author has been a resident of the region he describes for more than twenty years. He found it an almost unbroken wilderness in 1882, which is now rapidly and forever disappearing. “Today most of its hammocks are destroyed, the streams are being dredged out and deepened, the Everglades are nearly drained; even the pine forests are being cut down.” (Introd.) Many species of animals and plants, found only in this area, have already been exterminated. The author has thoroughly explored the territory in its virgin fecundity and describes it both as a collector and a general naturalist. Contents: The building of the land; The Florida keys; The Ten Thousand islands; Cape Sable; The south shore of the mainland; The Everglades; The planting of our flora; The lure of the piney woods; The origin of the hammocks; In the primeval forest; Along the stream; Along the mangrove shore; The open sea beach; The wonders of Ajax reefs; The secrets of the sea; The story of the land snails; The beauty of the night; The survival of the fittest. There are an index, a map, and numerous illustrations.
“The style is a curious, though pleasant, blending of the scientist’s delight in naming, describing or explaining, and the artist’s sensitiveness to vivid coloring, ethereal lights or deeps of forest.”
Reviewed by S: Scoville, jr.
“He has written well and he has presented his material in as popular a form as was possible, but the reviewer would be failing in his duty if he did not warn the casual book-buyer of the scientific nature of this volume with so attractive a title.”
SIMPSON, EUGENE E. America’s position in music. *$1 (14c) Four seas co. 780.9
A brief essay in which the author points out “that America has for a long time possessed a number of distinctive elements in music which were found in no other country, therefore were inevitably American.” He traces the pioneer efforts in American music, beginning with Lowell Mason in 1821, and he takes special notice of the use made of Indian and negro themes. The chronology at the end lists over ninety American composers, with the titles of their best known works. The essay is reprinted from “Modern music and musicians,” revised edition of 1918.
“Unfortunately Mr Simpson, who means well and has much common sense, tries to write grandiloquently. It is often difficult to understand him.”
SIMS, NEWELL LEROY, ed.[2] Rural community. il *$4.50 Scribner 301
“Regarding the present stage of rural community development as one of transition from an individualistic to a co-operative economy, it is the expressed purpose of the volume to bring together in organized form the available ‘knowledge of the past communal order, both ancient and modern, for the shaping and perfecting of the order that is to be.’ The book is divided into three parts, each comprising four chapters, each chapter presenting material from several sources so organized as to constitute a comprehensive discussion of some unit phase of the general topic. Thus, the first part treats of the Ancient community, one chapter being given to each of the following topics: The primitive village; The mediaeval manor; The village community in America; and The disintegration of the village community. Part 2 considers the modern community under the headings, The modern community defined; Types of communities; Institutions of the community; and The evolution of the community. The latter half of the book is devoted to Part 3, Community reconstruction.”—School R
SIMS, WILLIAM SOWDEN, and HENDRICK, BURTON JESSE. Victory at sea. il *$5 (4c) Doubleday 940.45
This is not a complete history of the operations of our naval forces during the great war, but an account of the submarine campaign and the means by which it was defeated. Little or nothing was made public of the anti-submarine exploits at the time of their happening owing to the necessity for secrecy. Contents: When Germany was winning the war; The return of the Mayflower; The adoption of the convoy; American destroyers in action; Decoying submarines to destruction; American college boys and subchasers; The London flagship; Submarine against submarine; The American mine barrage in the North sea; German submarines visit the American coast; Fighting submarines from the air; The navy fighting on the land; Transporting two million American soldiers to France; Appendix; Index.
“This is a very interesting book carrying with it a comprehensive and intelligent description of the submarine and anti-submarine warfare of the late war, and is by far the best yet made known to the world.”
“Among the numberless books about the war I have seen no other which is so concise and clear and which shows the march of the main events so unobscured by unessential details. From beginning to end, the reader is never left in doubt on a single point.” B. A. Fiske
“The most illuminating account of the war against the submarines which has yet appeared. It is a thrilling narrative, and we advise everybody to read it.”
“It is in the highest degree authoritative.”
“The telling of this story is so attractive that the book ought to have a wide popularity.” W: O. Stevens
SINCLAIR, BERTRAND WILLIAM. Poor man’s rock. il *$1.90 (2c) Little
A story of Puget Sound. Jack MacRae comes home from the war to find his father dying. In a letter left to his son the father tells the story of his youth and explains the reasons for his hatred of Horace Gower. Jack also learns that he has been robbed of his inheritance by Gower, and adding his father’s grievances to his own, he sets out to compete with the rich man in the salmon industry. As an independent buyer for his friend, Stubby Abbott, a rival canner, he makes inroads on Gower’s business and soon merits the magnate’s open hostility. In the meantime Jack has fallen in love with Betty Gower and the working out of the story involves the old tangle of youthful love thwarted by family disapproval, which in the end is triumphantly overridden.
“As a student of character, Mr Sinclair is rather clever than profound. His interest lies primarily in the story he is telling and not in its setting, and, fortunately, he has the power to make us follow that story so keenly that only here and there do we miss the background.” E. A. W.
“In the telling Mr Sinclair has revealed a strange mental combination of psychologist, economist and artist. Nevertheless, ‘Poor man’s rock’ is an interesting story of an interesting phase of American endeavor.”
“This is by far Mr Sinclair’s best novel. There is a great deal in it that is worth while, and every page is real. The theme is handled with such a blending of strength and beauty that it falls wide of the mark of maudlin sentimentality.”
“Altogether the novel is a strong piece of writing.”
“Taken all in all, it’s a story that moves rapidly and with a lift straight to the end.” L. M. Harbeson
SINCLAIR, MAY. Romantic. *$2 (4c) Macmillan
This story of the first weeks of the war in Belgium is a psychological study of cowardice. At the opening of the story Charlotte Redhead has just broken off an episodic love affair with Gibson Herbert, her employer. The qualities that attract her in John Conway are his apparent cleanness and strength. The two work together as farm laborers for a year, maintaining a very satisfactory relationship on platonic terms. With the beginning of the war they go out, in company with two others, as an ambulance corps. And here under danger Charlotte sees John go to pieces. He welcomes the idea of danger and death, but turns tail at the reality, and at the same time develops a strain of cruelty. Charlotte gives in to the truth slowly and it is only after he has been killed, when a psycho-analytic doctor gives her the key, that she comes to understand, and so forgive, his weakness.
“It is not possible to doubt the sincerity of Miss Sinclair’s intentions. She is a devoted writer of established reputation. What we do deplore is that she has allowed her love of writing to suffer the eclipse of psycho-analysis.” K. M.
“Into ‘The romantic,’ which for its greater part is scarcely anything more than a sketchy record of war-time incident, Miss Sinclair has put a curious jumble of pseudo science and pretentious psychology.”
“In ‘The romantic’ the psycho-analytic purpose stands out like a framework. It is a semi-scientific study rather than a novel, missing almost entirely the effect of mixed, unguided, concrete life which belongs to fiction.” C. M. Rourke
“Her Charlotte Redhead is new and authentic both as a type and as an individual. The implications of Miss Sinclair’s fable and analysis are of the broadest significance. It is these implications that give Miss Sinclair’s book an extraordinary intellectual suppleness and strength.”
“A more difficult subject than this one which Miss Sinclair has chosen it would be almost impossible to find. And she has treated it sanely, admirably, with a certain clean honesty which renders it void of offense. ‘The romantic’ is a most unusual and most noteworthy book.” L. M. Field
“The story in all its poignant brevity has that assured touch of artistry which we have a right to expect from the author of ‘The divine fire.’” F: T. Cooper
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The book is a notable achievement in psychoanalysis, and Miss Sinclair is to be congratulated on the close study of character which she has given us.”
“‘The romantic’ is a rather curious book in that it is written almost spontaneously according to fixed theory. Its mechanism is flawless.”
SINCLAIR, UPTON BEALL (ARTHUR STIRLING, pseud.). Brass check. *$1; pa *50c U. B. Sinclair, Pasadena, Cal. 071
The book is a fierce arraignment of our present-day journalism. “When you have read this story, you will know our journalism; you will know the body and soul of it, you will know it in such a way that you will not have to be told what it is doing to the movement for industrial freedom and self-government all over the world.” (Introd.) It falls into three parts: part 1, The evidence, which is one half of the book, is a personal story telling what the author himself has seen and experienced in his struggles with the press for a period of twenty years. In part 2. The explanation, other witnesses are heard, “the wisest and truest and best people of our country” and the author pledges his honor that his statements are based on facts and facts only. Part 3, The remedy, has among its contents a practical program for a “truth-telling” weekly to be known as the National News.
Reviewed by H: L. West
“Mr Sinclair’s book is a brave and sincere effort carried out in the worst of all tastes—so that your attention becomes focused on the writer instead of his writing.” Edwin Björkman
“Is Mr Sinclair telling the truth? If he is not, the Associated press and every newspaper he includes in his amazing revelations owe the American public the solemn duty of bringing him to justice but if Mr Sinclair’s statements go unchallenged by the press, every honest American must possess himself of the facts. Fascinating as his book is, incredible though it may appear to the dazed reader, it is a treatise based on names, places and dates, convincing despite our great desire to remain unconvinced.” J. J. Smertenko
“This is a most important book which every reader will want to pass on to his neighbor. It is a complete, masterful study, and the presentation of its facts is wholly convincing. With Mr Sinclair’s conclusions, drawn from his facts, it is not necessary to agree. Mr Sinclair is a Socialist. He sees everything through the spectacles of class-consciousness. Also, at times he is humorless, and he has been persistently naive.” E. H. Gruening
“There is nothing here even remotely approximating a rational survey of the conditions and practices of American journalism. There is a vast deal about the topic most interesting to Mr Sinclair—and that is Sinclair himself. The picture, while more or less true in many of its details, is, as a whole, a caricature. Is the book worth reading? It is; indeed, it should be widely read. But it should be read with the intelligence and information which will enable one to sift the truth from the mass of absurd and misleading statements which it contains.” W. J. Ghent
“The effectiveness of the facts in ‘The brass check’ for the average reader, not to mention a hostile critic, is seriously marred by the intermittent ‘bow-wowings’ of the writer. Can the author bring to the tragic theme of the prostitution of modern journalism no language but that of the yellow press? The people have been too deeply betrayed by the illusions of language not to demand the facts without the fireworks.” M. C. Crook
“A passionate, intimately personal, elaborately detailed and documented indictment.” J. G. McDonald
“For the sake of the honour of the American press—the better elements in which cannot but be glad to see the worse exposed—one would like to know that this book was being widely read.”
SINCLAIR, UPTON BEALL (ARTHUR STIRLING, pseud.). 100%; the story of a patriot. *$1.20 (1½c) pa *60c Upton Sinclair, Pasadena, Cal.
In fiction form Mr Sinclair has told the story of the Mooney case, bringing in other recent events that show the methods used by business interests and their secret police, under-cover men, and agents provocateur. Peter Gudge is near the scene of the explosion on preparedness day. He is knocked senseless, arrested as a suspect, and given the third degree. Taking his measure, Guffey, the chief of police, decides that Peter is the man for his purpose and uses him first as star witness in the Goober case and later as one of his secret agents, detailed to spy on the “reds.” Peter is faithful and painstaking and rises to the top in his profession, a true 100% American. The data on which the story is built is supplied in an appendix.
“Mr Sinclair has abandoned the Zolaist symbolism and declamation of his earlier books and has chosen an intellectual and artistic method which is none other than that of Swift. Mr Sinclair has gods and a great subject burning, literally burning, out his heart. And so it comes about that this pedestrian mass of graceless prose achieves—in the most fundamental sense—literary values that young intellectuals seeking cultural modes for our American life can never reach. The book is a literary achievement of high and solid worth.”
“Dealing in certain facts that we all know to be true, it carries an impression of verisimilitude, despite elements of sentimentality and exaggeration. It gives a graphic insight into some of the ugliest phases of the class struggle.” G. H.
SINGMASTER, ELSIE (MRS HAROLD LEWARS). Basil Everman. *$1.90 (2½c) Houghton
Basil Everman, who never once appears in person, nevertheless dominates the entire story. The scene is laid in a small college town, lying a little north of Mason and Dixon’s line, where “the Civil war was still the chief topic of discussion among the older men.” The chief characters (after Basil) are: Richard Lister, son of the president of Walton college; Richard’s mother who is violently opposed to the musical career on which he has set his heart; Eleanor Bent, who has promising literary talent and with whom Richard falls in love; Mrs Bent, formerly Margie Ginter, an innkeeper’s daughter, who conceals Eleanor’s parentage from her; Dr Green, a physician; Thomasina Davis, spinster, who loved Basil Everman; and Mr Utterly of Willard’s Magazine, who has come across a story, an essay and a poem of Basil’s so wonderful that they have sent him to Waltonville to learn all he can about the defunct genius. The story ends happily.
“A good armchair story for people who enjoy this kind of character study, which is pervaded by kindly humor and gentle satire.”
“Miss Singmaster gives us a warm and charming picture of her little college town; she catches the external characteristics and harmless little oddities of her people. But she will not let herself regard their real lives with a critical eye.”
“Carefully and skillfully written, showing a restraint and finish far removed from the hasty, slipshod performances of so many writers of contemporary fiction.”
“Told with care and dignity, this novel has the quality we call distinction.”
“A fine piece of work.”
“Both in plot and in character delineation Miss Singmaster has been very successful in this story. ‘Basil Everman’ ought to be one of the star volumes of the year.”
SIRÉN, OSVALD. Essentials in art. il *$3.50 Lane 704
The author of this volume is professor of the history of art at the University of Stockholm and has a world reputation as lecturer on art, especially primitive Italian art, in other European countries, in America and Japan. The essays in this volume are: Rhythm and form; Art and religion; Art and religion during the renaissance; The importance of the antique to Donatello; A late Gothic poet of line. The last two essays are profusely illustrated. The poet of line in the last essay is Parri Spinelli, a list of whose works is appended.
“His book on Leonardo da Vinci is better worth reading than many others that have been written on that, apparently inexhaustible subject. But his new volume can hardly be said to satisfy the expectations that the title might legitimately arouse.” E. M.
“Most of the book is objective criticism of the highest order; the essay on ‘Rhythm and form’ is both penetrating and remarkable. Professor Sirén understands art—his volume is a distinctive contribution to aesthetics.”
“Really touches essentials only in the initial essay on ‘Rhythm and form,’ in which an important matter is treated with more fulness than precision or originality. The rest is agreeable padding from the author’s recent magazine articles. The book is well made, and has the merit, in a critical work, of being easy to read.”
“Professor Sirén is a typical modern student, who has travelled much, and has first-hand knowledge of many arts. In his more purely historical essays he does not, in the pursuit of facts, lose sight of underlying principles. The essay ‘On the importance of the antique to Donatello’ is actually marred by a too careless treatment of material facts, and by a strange misconception of the character of Gothic art.”
“We welcome Professor Sirén’s collection of essays, for, although they contain nothing that is very fresh in point of view, they breathe a reasonable spirit, and state the modern position with moderation and sense.”
“With the subject of line-drawing and rhythm, he is especially happy.”
“He is not a lively writer, at least in our language; and his thought is so abstract that, dealing as it does with a subject so concrete and particular as art, it is often hard to follow. He is, by the present condition of aesthetic thought, forced to use a number of general terms without defining them; we ourselves have to supply the definition as we read, and we may supply it wrong; but those who are really interested in the subject will find his essay [Rhythm and form] worth reading.”
SITWELL, OSBERT. Argonaut and juggernaut. *$1.50 Knopf 821
This volume by one of the young soldier-poets of Great Britain opens with a preface poem “How shall we rise to greet the dawn?” written in November, 1918. The four parts of the volume are entitled: The Phœnix-feasters; Green-fly; Promenades; and War poems. In the war poems satire predominates.
“Poems by one of the more notable exponents of the modern manner, who seems as yet to be uncertain both of his aim and method.”
“Some will applaud Mr Sitwell’s political sentiments; others, when they read such things as ‘Sheep song,’ will be profoundly irritated. The intensity of their irritation will be the measure of Mr Sitwell’s success as a writer of satire. When we turn from Mr Sitwell’s satirical to what we may be permitted to call his ‘poetical’ poems, we are less certain in our appreciation and enjoyment.”
“Mr Sitwell is thought by many, and doubtless considers himself, to be extremely wild and daring, when in reality he is merely a bad rider of his hobby. The only pieces in this volume in which he betrays genuine feeling are some of the vers libre efforts written in protest against the attitude of society towards the war.” J: G. Fletcher
“As a satirist, and he is nothing if not a satirist, he never is vivid; he nowhere bites or breaks. His abuse is oratorical in its plenitude, oratorical and round and blunt. He by no means has mastered the indirectness, the cut, the slant, the side-sweep, the poetry of satire.” M. V. D.
“He is moved to write by unbelief in the ideals of other people rather than by the passionate force of ideals of his own. He is a sceptic, not a sufferer. His work proceeds less from his heart, than from his brain. It is a clever brain, however, and his satirical poems are harshly entertaining and will infuriate the right people. They may not kill Goliath, but at least they will annoy Goliath’s friends.” Robert Lynd
“Mr Sitwell’s impressive title is about the only impressive thing in his book.” Clement Wood
“There are passages in these pages which show that Mr Sitwell has embryonic poetic talent that may develop significantly, if he can get far enough away from the disturbing moods and reflections of war to give it free rein. He has the love of nature that is the poet’s best teacher. In ‘Argonaut and juggernaut’ Mr Sitwell is primarily not a poet, but a prophet. And his prophecy is full of flaming indignation and scorn.”
“When Captain Sitwell is not occupied with telling home truths he discloses an imaginative mind and a subtle sense of the value of words. Nor can his word-pictures fairly be criticised as rhetorical; each embodies an unobtrusive idea. Thus his ‘Sailor-song’ expresses with Elizabethan freshness the Elizabethan delight in the wonders of ocean and the life marvellous.”
SKELTON, OSCAR DOUGLAS. Canadian Dominion; a chronicle of our northern neighbor. (Chronicles of America ser.) il subs per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 971
“Volume forty-nine of the series is about ‘The Canadian Dominion’ and is by Oscar D. Skelton, professor of political science at Queen’s university. The book takes up the story of Canada from where it was left off by G. M. Wrong in ‘The conquest of New France’ at about 1760 and continues it to Canada’s entry into the great war.”—N Y Times
“The limitations are insignificant in comparison with the high intrinsic merit of the whole book. Its delightful literary form, together with its accuracy and suggestiveness, make it both the most readable and the most valuable of the general histories of the Canadian Dominion. The volume, in short, is a credit to Canadian scholarship.” C. D. Allin
“While thoroughly Canadian and more intensely patriotic than the self-styled scientific historians may favor, Mr Skelton is broad visioned, never provincial. To write impartially of Quebec Nationalists and Ontario Orangemen and of the language and separate school questions, required the restraint of a scholar.”
SKILLMAN, WILLIS ROWLAND. A. E. F. who they were, what they did, how they did it. il *$2 Jacobs 940.373
“We all have hobbies,” says the author, and his is the collection of facts and figures. From his habit of noting down “bits of information about army organization, divisions, insignia, casualties, dates, awards of medals, and a dozen other subjects of interest to soldiers” (Foreword) grew this book, and its object is to “explain, in terms any civilian can understand, the system by which the American army accomplished its work in France.” Among its distinctive features are statistical tables, maps, charts, diagrams, collar insignia, officer’s insignia, chevrons and a large colored chart of the shoulder insignia of the United States army. The table of contents is: A soldier’s survey of the world war; America’s part in the world war; System of command; The American divisions; The branches of the service; Army honors and symbols; Reminiscences; Appendix; Index.
SKINNER, ADA MARIA, and SKINNER, ELEANOR LOUISE, comps. Child’s book of modern stories. il *$3.50 Duffield
Sixty-six stories by such authors as Louisa M. Alcott, Julia Darrow Cowles, Abbie Farwell Brown, Josephine Scribner Gates, Mary Stewart, Patten Beard, Thornton Burgess, and others. They are grouped as: Home tales; The story garden; Cheerful stories; and Tales and legends beautiful. There are eight pictures by Jessie Wilcox Smith.
“Filled with seventy or more of the best short stories for children that have been written in recent years.”
“The stories have been edited with tact and put into a style easy of comprehension by the simplest minds.”
“The pictures are characteristically charming.”
SKINNER, ADA MARIA, and SKINNER, ELEANOR LOUISE, comps. and eds. Garnet story book. (Jewel ser.) *$1.75 (3c) Duffield
For this collection the compilers have brought together “tales of cheer both old and new.” The collection opens with The good-natured bear, by Richard H. Horne, a story praised by Thackeray. The other stories are: Christmas wishes, by Louise Chollet; The man of snow, by Harriet Myrtle; Butterwops, by Edward A. Parry; Finikin and his golden pippins, by Madame De Chatelaine; The story of Fairyfoot, by Frances Browne; The snow-queen, by Hans Christian Andersen; The merry tale of the king and the cobbler, from Gammer Gurton’s Historie; The story of Merrymind, by Frances Browne.
SKINNER, CONSTANCE LINDSAY. Adventurers of Oregon; a chronicle of the fur trade. (Chronicles of America ser.) il per ser of 50v *$250 Tale univ. press 979.5
“Constance Lindsay Skinner’s ‘Adventurers of Oregon’ describes the Lewis and Clark expedition and the cruise of the Tonquin, through which John Jacob Astor hoped to ‘control a mighty fur-trading system reaching from the Great Lakes to the Pacific ocean and on to China and India.’” (N Y Times) “The titles are: The river of the West; Lewis and Clark; The reign of the trapper; The Tonquin; Astor’s overlanders; Astoria under the Nor’westers, and The king of old Oregon. The period covered is from the beginnings of exploration to the settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute in 1846, and the themes represented by the above chapter-heads are essentially two—discovery and exploration, and the fur-trade.” (Am Hist R)
“This book is a delight. The author treats the dramatic scenes and incidents in the background of Oregon’s history, achieving therein a wholly unusual degree of literary perfection. Thus she has produced a narrative which, for adult readers, deserves to take very high rank in its special field.” Joseph Schafer
“Occasionally it would seem that the effort to maintain a swiftly moving narrative has betrayed the author into sacrificing clarity. As a ‘Chronicle of the fur trade’ this work fulfills the purpose of the editors of the series in presenting an interesting account of a romantic phase of American development; historical perspective appears to have suffered in ‘Adventurers of Oregon.’” L. B. Shippee
“The book has the true pioneering tang.”
SKINNER, ELEANOR LOUISE, and SKINNER, ADA MARIA. Children’s plays. il *$1.25 Appleton 812
The authors urge the use of dramatic material in school work and have designed these plays to that end. They say “The little plays in this book, planned primarily for class room reading lessons, may be used (1) for practice in oral reading, (2) for original dramatizations in language work, (3) for school entertainments.” Some of the plays are original, others are adaptations. Contents: Nick Bluster’s trick; Cicely and the bears; The happy beggar; Professor Frog’s lecture; Cock-Alu and Hen-Alie; Mother Autumn and North Wind; The one-eyed servant; Little rebels; Everyday gold; The village shoe maker; The faithful shepherd; A royal toy-mender; The new New year. There are pictures by Willy Pogany.
“The simple, natural dialogue of these thirteen plays makes them excellent for reading and acting or for exercises in language work.”
SLATER, THOMAS. Foundation of true morality. *$1.25 (9c) Benziger 171
The author holds that man is not a mere physical machine but a moral agent, endowed with freedom to choose between good and evil. What is needed is a moral standard by which man can judge their actions. That this standard can be supplied by the Catholic conception of Christian morality rather than by the Protestant conception is the contention of the book. Contents: Man a moral agent; Legalism; Casuistry; Counsels and precepts; Sin; Grace.
SLATTERY, JOHN T. Dante. *$2 Kenedy 851
A course of lectures delivered before the student body of the New York state college for teachers in 1919 and 1920. The author treats of Dante as “Christianity’s greatest poet” and adopts for him Ruskin’s descriptive phrase “the central man of all the world.” There are five lectures: Dante and his time; Dante, the man; Dante’s “Inferno”; Dante’s “Purgatorio”; Dante’s “Paradiso.” There is a preface by John H. Finley.
SLATTERY, MARGARET.[2] Highway to leadership. *$1.50 Pilgrim press 174
In a series of essays the author expounds all the qualities necessary for leadership and incidentally the necessity of leadership. In the first essay: “A leader—one who leads,” the illustrations of born leadership are taken from children’s playgrounds with the conclusion that the requirements are three: “some knowledge and the hunger for more, an abandon of self-effacing consecration to the purpose, and a real passion for the goal.” The other essays are: The eyes that see; The ears that hear; The heart that feels; The mind that interprets; The practice that prepares; The courage that faces facts; The patience that teaches; The will that persists; The confidence that dares dream.
“In the clear convincing style which is usual with her, Miss Slattery gives the world another of her inspiring volumes.”
SLOANE, THOMAS O’CONOR. Standard electrical dictionary; a complete manual of the science; with addition by Prof. A. E. Watson. il *$5 Henley 621.3
To this 1920 edition a second part has been added to the first. “In this part all the recent advances in appliances, new developments and refinements in theory have been very fully treated. The second part includes a series of short treatises on a multitude of topics which have arisen in the short period since the last enlarged edition appeared. There are also a large number of what may be properly termed definitions, which are required because of the increased terminology of the science.” (Preface) The new section comprises 175 pages of text with new illustrations and diagrams.
SLOANE, WILLIAM MILLIGAN. Balkans; a laboratory of history. 4th ed, rev and enl *$2.50 Abingdon press 949.6
“The first edition of this work was issued a few months before the outbreak of the world war. Beginning with the fall of the Byzantine empire, the history of this section of Europe, where the blood of so many races have mingled that the author considers it an ethnological museum, the history is followed down to the opening of the year 1914. To make his story of the Balkans complete it was necessary for the author to revise it in the light of the last six years. Seven new chapters have been added. They make a concise and very broad sketch of the events leading up to the war, of the war, and of events up to and including the peace conference.”—Boston Transcript
“The author transforms his pre-war volume so that it becomes one of the best books on the war that we have.” F. W. C.
“In this difficult work he well maintains his reputation for fairness and impartiality as an historian.”
SLOSSON, EDWIN EMERY. Easy lessons in Einstein. il *$1.35 Harcourt 530.1
“A discussion of the more intelligible features of the theory of relativity.” (Sub-title) Dr Slosson, literary editor of the Independent, has attempted a simple explanation of the Einstein theories, making use of “such crude and absurd analogies as trains and elevators and projectiles flying through space and Coney island mirrors.” A paper by Dr Einstein on Time, space, and gravitation is reprinted from the London Times, and there is a bibliography of eight pages and an index. Parts of the book have appeared in the Independent.
“He is to be congratulated on the enthusiasm he has brought to what must have been a difficult and fatiguing performance.”
“The main points of the Einstein theory and the experiments leading to it are explained in an interesting, informal way so that those not trained in mathematical physics can grasp them.”
“Slosson’s ‘Easy lessons in Einstein’ is a good attempt written in an easy style far above the breezy smartness of the Sunday supplements; it is trustworthy and throughout entertaining, if not always instructive. There is perhaps too much about the fourth dimension and somewhat too much striving ‘to loosen up,’ as he puts it, ‘our conventional ideas of the fixity of time and space.’” R: F. Deimel
“A book with which the absolute layman may amuse himself for a few hours.”
“If the reader will take the time to read this little book only as fast as he can really understand it—say a few pages at a time, with intervals of a day or more to let the ideas soak in, or to think them over—he will find this both stimulating and informing.” B. C. G.
SMALLWOOD, WILLIAM MARTIN, and others. Biology for high schools, il *$1.40 Allyn 570
“Specifically the book aims to do six things: (1) To teach the pupil to see accurately what he looks at and describe exactly what he sees. (2) To teach him to think clearly and to base his conclusions upon his facts. (3) To broaden his knowledge of his own body through the study of the structure and functions of other animals and plants. (4) To show him by the adaptations of plants and animals how he can adapt himself to the varying conditions of life. (5) To make him a good citizen through his knowledge of good food, good health and good living conditions. (6) To teach him how biology has helped human progress and welfare.” (Preface) The contents are in four parts: Animal biology; Plant biology; Human biology; General biology. There are numerous illustrations and an index.
SMITH, CHARLES HENRY.[2] Mennonites. $2.25 Mennonite bk. concern, Berne, Ind.
“The volume falls into two parts: the Mennonites in Europe, and in America. Beginning with the Anabaptists in Switzerland, and the indigenous movements of a similar character in Germany and the Netherlands, and their unjust and unwarranted identification by the authorities with the tragedy at Münster, the book leads to the systematizing of Anabaptist views by the Dutch ex-priest, Menno Simons, after whom the religion is named. The early scattered congregations in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Cleves-Julich, East and West Prussia, East Friesland, Hamburg, Holstein, Bavaria, Württemberg, Alsace-Lorraine and France, Moravia and Galicia, and their leaders all find their place. The story is one of martyrdom, division, confiscation, dispersion, but of abounding willingness to die for faith. The source for much of this is Thielman von Bracht’s ‘Martyr’s mirror,’ one of the monuments of Mennonite literature. The section devoted to the Mennonites in America is a reworking of Dr Smith’s earlier treatise on the ‘Mennonites in America.’ The final chapters of Dr Smith’s study are given over to special topics.”—Am Hist R
“Dr Smith is to be complimented on the patience and skill which has enabled him to produce what is undoubtedly the most authoritative work on the Mennonites in our language. His impartiality in dealing with the present-day rival branches of the sect is also worthy of commendation.” E: Krehbiel
SMITH, CHARLTON LYMAN. Gus Harvey, the boy skipper of Cape Ann. il *$1.65 (6c) Jones, Marshall
A story for boys. Gus Harvey is a New York boy adopted by the captain of a fishing vessel from Gloucester. In spite of his New York bringing up Gus is familiar with boats and he readily adapts himself to the life of Cape Ann, his new home. He wins a yacht race, learns to build a boat and with his chum salvages a wreck and captures a band of burglars. There is a glossary of marine terms.
“Only for the boy who understands sailing and nautical terms. Nicely printed and illustrated.”
“The story has the quality of an old skipper’s talk.” A. C. Moore
SMITH, CORINNA HAVEN (PUTNAM) (MRS JOSEPH LINDON SMITH), and HILL, CAROLINE R. (MRS WILLIAM HILL). Rising above the ruins in France. il *$3.50 Putnam 914.4
“Observations in the devastated regions of France, made since the armistice, by two American women who have devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the work for ‘the children of the frontier.’ By the use of pen and camera these women undertake to show us in America something of the destruction that the north of France has undergone and something of the brave spirit with which the population has sought to rebuild its devastated homes.”—R of Rs
“The authors’ pictures of the re-awakening of life are simply and impressively sketched.”
“When they speak of conditions actually witnessed they speak with the natural authority of sincerity and lucidity. The book takes a particular value from the large number of photographs with which it is enriched.”
“There is little of deliberate description, there are few adjectives, no one incident or visualization is dwelt on long. But the book is a glimpse of life and indomitable achievement—and that is an epic thing.”
“It is no small praise of the narrative to say that, while by no means purely descriptive, it matches the pictures in striking or appealing presentation of fact.”
“This incessant use of the historical present time gives their style an air of pretentious artifice; their frequent use of direct discourse gives it an air of fiction. So, except for the pictures and the appendix, they have succeeded in producing only an effect of make-believe in confusion.”
“It would be misleading to say that this record of wonderful accomplishment is interesting throughout. Literary interest can hardly be achieved unless the principle of progression and climax be adhered to. Mrs Haven Smith, gives us a good many of those human touches which one always looks for in such a book.”
SMITH, DAVID. Life and letters of St Paul. *$6 Doran 220.92
“The author’s point of view in this book is well expressed in the preface: ‘Controversy is a foolish and futile employment; and I have endeavored to portray St Paul simply as I have perceived him during long years of loving and delightful study of the sacred memorials of his life and labor, mentioning the views of others only as they served to illustrate and confirm my own. And I would fain hope that I have written nothing discourteous, nothing hurtful.’ One of the most attractive parts of this volume is the translation of the epistles into modern English. The text is accompanied by a running exposition which takes note of the thought and purpose of these rich writings, and sets them in their historical context in a way that the average mind can understand. On the other hand, the scholar will find a great deal of suggestion from the extensive footnotes, which discuss the deeper questions of Biblical learning on subjects that are not always familiar even to the general run of scholars.”—Bookm
“The warmth of its style is likely to make it more acceptable as an aid to devotion than as a contribution to historical research.”
“This detailed, voluminous, and interesting life of Paul is by the author of ‘In the days of his flesh,’ and bears all the marks of unwearied scholarship, sympathetic interpretation, and exegetical insight that we have learned to associate with the name of Dr Smith.”
“Dr Smith has produced a work of genuine literature. He has a lucid style, a finely poised imagination, deep historical insight, a rich understanding of religious values, and a full grasp of the profoundest scholarship. He has thus written a volume that unquestionably takes rank with the great biographies of recent times. There is not a dull page.” O. L. Joseph
“This book is disappointing. The notes indicate that the author possesses minute scholarship, but the text does not indicate that he possesses spiritual insight.”
“It is designed for the general reader rather than for the scholar, and throughout it maintains an allusiveness to general literature and history which will make it specially attractive to a wide circle of readers.”
SMITH, GEORGE GREGORY. Ben Jonson. *$1.25 Macmillan
“After many years Ben Jonson has been admitted to the sacred circle of English men of letters, that series of little critical biographies now numbering more than sixty names. In Mr Smith’s belated biography we have in his two opening chapters a recital of about all that is known of the circumstances of Jonson’s life, the rest of the book being given to a study of his literary work, with chapters on ‘literary conscience,’ the comedies, masques, tragedies and poems, and a final survey of his influence.”—Boston Transcript
“Mr Smith, in his entirely laudable anxiety to write unlike Swinburne, has written the greater part of his book with too much caution. The biography is all crowded into the first fifty pages and the remaining two hundred and fifty are left wholly free for criticism: the easiest arrangement, perhaps, but in this case not the best. It is only in the last two chapters, those on Jonson’s literary criticism and influence, that Professor Smith, himself an authority on sixteenth and seventeenth century poetical theory, comes into his own and does his author the fullest justice.” Mark Van Doren
“The new ‘Ben Jonson’ is generously written, but Mr Gregory Smith has kept Ben’s secret. It was, of course, impossible to quote much in the limits of space set by the conditions of the series; the more’s the pity that it came out in a series at all. The book is too big for it; it is so rich a harvest that one could wish the master of it had pulled down his barns and built greater; cancelled his contract, and made ‘Ben Jonson’ his magnum opus.”
“Mr Smith is constantly on the defensive; he is often arrogant and peevish in his attitude towards other critics. Under his handling Jonson becomes not only dull but a source of dullness in other men, to wit in Mr Smith himself.” S. C. C.
“Professor Smith has done full justice to Ben’s robust character without minimizing [his] grave faults. His plays are analysed with much ability, and their peculiar qualities are admirably explained and illustrated with reference to the theory upon which they were constructed. Insight and accuracy are the chief essentials in a short account of Ben Jonson, and Professor Smith possesses both.”
“For the critical study in the Men of letters series which Mr Gregory Smith has just produced there is a place; it satisfies curiosity, it supplies many just observations, it provides valuable matter on the neglected masques; it only fails to remodel the image of Jonson which is settled in our minds.”
SMITH, GORDON ARTHUR. Pagan. *$1.75 Scribner
“This is a collection of twelve short stories. In ‘The pagan,’ from which the book takes its title, there are three outstanding characters: Ferdinand Taillandy, son of Maxime Taillandy, a wealthy Parisian; his sister Marthe, and Peter Mason, a young American lawyer whose firm practiced on both sides of the Atlantic. In the ‘Feet of gold’ and ‘The end of the road’ the author draws further entertaining pictures of the same Ferdinand Taillandy—‘poet, pagan and wanderer on the face of the earth.’ The ‘City of light’ and ‘The bottom of the cup’ are pathetic tales of two young sisters, daughters of a widow of Evremont-sur-Seine, who, dazzled by the attractions of Paris, leaves home, only to return broken and disillusioned. ‘Tropic madness’ is decidedly humorous.”—N Y Times
SMITH, HENRY LOUIS.[2] Your biggest job, school or business. *$1 Appleton 174
These heart-to-heart talks with boys contain “Some words of counsel for red-blooded young Americans who are getting tired of school.” (Sub-title) The author’s object is to give the boy the necessary incentive to develop the will-power that will enable him to go thru with an irksome task for the sake of his future. The essays are: The American freight train; Quitting school for business; Grindstones: A study in tool-sharpening; A neglected art; The key to success in study; A widespread fallacy disproved; On getting rich; The cash value of book-learning; First lesson of the world war: Value of morale; A square deal for the home folks; College and university training; The home half of college preparation.
SMITH, HERBERT ARTHUR.[2] American Supreme court as an international tribunal. *$3.50 Oxford 341.6
“This small volume essays to draw an analogy between the Supreme court of the United States, when sitting as a tribunal to try cases involving sovereign states, and any international court that may hereafter be established for such purpose. The author reviews the various cases before the Supreme court in which one or both of the litigants have been states of the union, stressing those cases in which the jurisdiction of the court has been challenged, either successfully or otherwise.”—N Y Evening Post
“Professor Herbert Smith has compiled a very useful book, deserving close study at the present time.”
SMITH, JUSTIN HARVEY. War with Mexico. 2v *$10 Macmillan 973.6
“This exhaustive historical work may be regarded—although the author does not so claim—as a sequel to his previous work, ‘The annexation of Texas.’ Professor Smith devotes two opening chapters to the consideration of the social, economic and political condition of Mexico and the Mexicans, both before and since the revolt from Spanish rule, which made it an independent state under the rule of Iturbide. Next are considered the relations between Mexico and the United States prior to the beginning of the war and the attitude of both powers on the eve of war. The second volume is devoted chiefly to a description of the war itself, the siege of Chapultepec, the capture of the capital city, the naval operations and the final victory and the signing of a treaty. Professor Smith has sought his material for this exhaustive history in public documents and records of the two governments, in collections of historical societies, and public and private libraries, in manuscripts public and private ... and in personal recollections of men still living, who took part in the conflict.”—Boston Transcript
“The reviewer is disappointed, because it seems to him that Dr Smith has not accomplished once for all the results that his immense labor and impressive grasp of the subject would have enabled him to do had he written with more regard to the necessary limitations of his readers. It would be a grievous error, however, to infer that he has not produced a notable book. One may not always agree with the author, but very few will be rash enough to neglect him.” E. C. Barker
“This book must be regarded as the definitive work on this important episode in the history of the expansion of our country.” E. J. C.
“A thoroughgoing and accurate narrative.”
“Elaborate, but not very plausible.”
“The many engagements before final victory are described with a particularity which proves the author to have acquired a general understanding of military matters, with an appreciative grasp of the technique of the battlefield that make his narrative markedly convincing.”
“Professor Smith has labored with a keen eye for the human and picturesque qualities in his material. At the same time this is fundamentally the work of a painstaking scholar.”
“Mr Smith has made a thorough examination of the available material, and has built it into a monumental work which supersedes all previous histories of the subject. His treatment of the military part is admirable. His book is fully documented, and in every way a credit to the American school of history.”
“The public is deeply indebted to Prof. Smith, who after years of patient delving in the vaults of historical societies, in local archives, in private collections, etc., has produced a scholarly and well thought-out history.”
“The episodes are sufficiently distant to have enabled the passions and excitements to grow cold and for their comparative importance to be weighed and allocated in a just position in the history of the construction of the United States. The materials are adequate, even abundant, and the author with commendable industry has fortified his narrative with a wealth of corroborative annotation, and a formidable bibliography of his subject. He has, moreover, compiled a really useful index.”
SMITH, LAURA ROUNTREE. Like-to-do stories. il 55c Beckley-Cardy co.
A book of stories for boys and girls who are just beginning to read for themselves. Each story has its moral, as some of the titles will show: The little girl who liked to wash dishes; The little boy who liked to bring in wood and water; The little girl who couldn’t tell time; The little boy who was afraid of the dark; The little boy who liked to hang up his coat and hat; The little girl who did a kindness every-day.
SMITH, LEWIS WORTHINGTON, and HATHAWAY, ESSE VIRGINIA.[2] Skyline in English literature. il *$2 Appleton 820.9
The object of the book is to present the story of English literature in continuity by eliminating minor details and minor writers and keeping the attention on the skyline. The authors hold that territorial expansion and intellectual expansion go together and that while English-speaking peoples hold the forefront of the world their literature is the greatest in the world. The book is intended for high school use and its contents are: The English language and the English people; The Anglo-Saxon beginning; The Norman-French expansion; The Englishman’s house in order; The Greco-Italian expansion; The world expansion; Spiritual and social idealism: the overthrowing of masters; Spiritual decadence: the return of the masters; The intellectual expansion; the age of enlightenment; The spiritual expansion; idealism and the rebirth of song; The beauty and fullness of life; The industrial expansion; artists, workers, thinkers; Recent and contemporary writers. There is a list of literary places in England with map; a chronology, a glossary, an index and illustrations.
SMITH, LOGAN PEARSALL, ed. Treasury of English prose. *$1.75 (3c) Houghton 820.8
This collection of extracts from English prose begins with Chaucer in the fourteenth century. From the sixteenth century there are extracts from the “Book of common prayer,” from Sir Philip Sidney, Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare. Beginning in the seventeenth century with quotations from authorized versions of the Bible, there are, moreover, such names as Izaak Walton, Sir Thomas Browne, John Milton, Jeremy Taylor, and on through the eighteenth century, Swift, Addison, Johnson, Burke and Gibbon. Some of the more modern writers presented are Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Shelley, Keats, Carlyle, Emerson, Ruskin, Walter Pater, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and George Santayana.
“Not absolutely representative but includes some charming and little-known prose gems by several famous poets.”
“Mr Smith has let his ear preside at every choosing, so that his volume is as rigorously cadenced as a collection of sonnets would be. Here with some omissions is the most perfect music which English prose has made.”
“What Mr Pearsall Smith holds to be good prose is to us only a kind of good prose; the kind that is alembicated and, as we say, poetical. It is the prose of conceit, imagery, and eloquence which stands over against the prose of narration, argument, or satire. So that it would strike even one who had no critical opinion of English prose and very little reading in it as somewhat strange that there is not one single piece of narrative in all this book.”
“The contents are charmingly arranged and delightfully savory and brief.”
“His treasury is a book of beauty, a book to keep at one’s bed’s head, a book to dip into, to travel with, to reread.” P. L.
“The anthology as it stands is now anything but representative.... The selections from the Bible are entirely admirable. The passages from Jeremy Taylor and Dr Donne are excellently chosen, and Mr Pearsall Smith is to be congratulated upon his phrase from Traherne and upon having recollected that Chaucer was not only the first English poet. Indeed, much of the prose written by poets in this book will delight and surprise most of Mr Pearsall Smith’s readers.”
SMITH, MABELL SHIPPIE (CLARKE) (MRS JAMES RAVENEL SMITH).[2] Maid of Orleans. *$1.25 Crowell
“M. S. C. Smith has published a new volume of the old story of ‘The maid of Orleans,’ written particularly for girls, but by no means confined to such a constituency. To the length of nearly 300 pages the author relates the story of the girl and the voices that guided her in her efforts to free France from a foreign foe and set her rightful sovereign upon the throne.”—Springf’d Republican
“A commendable piece of work.”
SMITH, NORA ARCHIBALD. Christmas child, and other verse for children. il *$1.75 Houghton 811
Verses for children reprinted from the Ladies’ Home Journal, Outlook, Youth’s Companion and other periodicals, including school and educational journals. There are about twenty poems on Christmas themes followed by others, with such titles as The fairy ring; Everybody’s baby; The answer of the flag; Learning to knit; Easter blossoms; The doll’s calendar.
“Miss Smith has the gift of sprightly versification, and her experience as a kindergartner leads her to a knowledge of the theme and the treatment that will please boys and girls.”
SMITH, ONNIE WARREN. Casting tackle and methods. il *$3 (4½c) Stewart & Kidd 799
Part 1, which is devoted to tackle, has chapters on The bait casting rod; The casting reel; Terminal tackle; Casting lures; Housing the tackle; Repair kits and methods. Part 2, on Methods, has nine chapters: A first lesson in casting; Landing tools and how to use them; Fishing a wadeable stream; Fishing a river from a boat; Shore casting; Casting after dark; Lake casting from a boat; Spoons and how to cast them; Trolling for bass. There are fourteen illustrations. The author is angling editor of Outdoor Life, in the pages of which the chapters of the book originally appeared. He is also author of “Trout lore.”
“A free and easy book full of authentic information given with the jocular assurance of the long-experienced angler.” Margaret Ashmun
“It is good reading; but it is meant primarily to be a guide to catching bass by casting, and such it excellently is. That it is well and heartily written is an added virtue.”
SMITH, WILLIAM WESLEY. Pork-production. il *$3 Macmillan 636.4
This volume of the Rural science series has been prepared by an associate professor of animal husbandry in Purdue university. “The material in the book has been drawn from three sources: from practical experience; experimental studies, particularly of feeding questions; and the results of research in the field of chemistry and biology.” (Preface) Subjects covered include handling and feeding of the herd, size of litters, forage crops, cereals, corn substitutes, cost of producing pork, marketing, judging, breeds and breeding. A chapter on The prevention of hog diseases is contributed by R. A. Craig. The volume is illustrated with eight plates and is indexed.
SMYTH, ETHEL MARY. Impressions that remained. 2v il *$10.50 Longmans
Miss Ethel Smyth is an English musician and composer. In this book of memories she writes of her childhood and girlhood in a typical Victorian household and of her musical life in Germany, more particularly in Leipsig where she went as a student in 1877. The story of her friendship with Elisabeth von Herzogenberg adds a dramatic element to the book.
“Relentlessly truthful about herself, she refuses to say anything that could hurt others who still live. Her autobiography ends almost before her artistic career began; but even so it is a wonderfully fascinating record of a fierce, passionate and courageous life, told from the point of view of a woman who has reached a plane of rare serenity and detachment.” E: J. Dent
“This book is a rich and irresistibly vivid panorama. The reader has the pleasure of it that he has of a portrait gallery whose subjects, interesting in themselves, are delineated with comprehension and an unerring instinct of reproduction.” Pitts Sanborn
“No one can fail to be drawn by the record of that vanished Germany. The psychologist will study these fascinating pages for data of the artistic temperament, its force, its egotism, its limitations, of which it is not itself aware. But no one who begins the book can lay it aside until he reaches the end.”
“Of the earlier part we can say little. Despite the fact that the author has a nice turn for observation, an easy style, and a good memory, we feel that much of the material is of too private a nature. It is when the author goes to Germany that the chief interest in the book begins.”
“She writes of herself for the most part as if she were writing of another person, with a detachment that is almost uncanny. And although music naturally plays a large part in the narrative, these memoirs can be read with the keenest interest by those to whom music is a sealed book.”
“This is one of the most remarkable books of memoirs that has appeared in recent times. The intensity of the private life which she discloses, with something of Rousseau’s sensitiveness yet with a mixture of lively humour quite beyond his capacity, carries the reader away from the very outset. Without the descent into the abyss of the second volume there would have been matter enough for admiration in these witty pages; but it is that descent which gives the book a power of appeal which raises it far above the merely amusing and interesting.”
SMYTHE, J. A.[2] Lead, including lead pigments and the desilverisation of lead. il $1 Pitman 669.4
The author of this booklet in the Pitman’s common commodities and industries series assumes very little knowledge of chemistry and physics on the part of the reader and tells the story of lead from the time the ore is dug from the earth to its finished products. Contents: History of lead; Lead ores: their method of occurrence and mineral associates; The finding and mining of lead ore and the preparation of the ore for smelting; The chemical changes involved in smelting; Smelting in the ore-hearth; Smelting in the reverberatory furnace; Smelting in the blast furnace; Condensation of lead fume; Softening and desilverisation of work lead; Cupellation of alloys of silver and lead; Properties and uses of lead and its alloys; Compounds of lead—litharge and red lead; White lead and other lead pigments; Lead in medicine and lead poisoning; Index, map and illustrations.
SNAITH, JOHN COLLIS. Adventurous lady. *$2 (2c) Appleton
Lady Elfreda Catkin was something of an imperious young lady. Her parents, owing to Lord Carabbas’, the father’s, impecuniosity, had decided on a wealthy marriage for her with the newly rich, new nobility. Lady Elfreda had decided on frustrating their plans. On the spur of a moment opportunity offers for an exchange of rôles between her and a poor shy little nursery governess. After a true comedy of errors the hoax comes to light with the result that little Miss Cass marries Lord Duckingfield and the now thoroughly emancipated Elfreda marries George Norris, grandson of the former butler of her ladyship’s grandfather and of a former ladies’ maid.
“The adventures are very little adventures and dreadfully dull.” K. M.
“Gay, crisp comedy shot through with a thread of genial satire.”
“The adventures of Girlie Cass may not be morally significant to a universe in the throes of parturition, but they surely are jolly good fun, as Elfreda would say.”
“‘The adventurous lady’ is perhaps more nearly akin to the history of the delectable Araminta than to any other of Mr Snaith’s books—a social comedy, witty and amusing, light and sparkling as sunflecked foam. All this it is, and yet more—an admirable illustration of what a really good writer can do with a well-worn and somewhat trite plot.”
“The tale is mildly amusing, but it is a pity that the author of ‘The sailor’ should think it worth while to write such a trifling farce.”
Reviewed by Katharine Perry
“The story is obviously at variance with the class of work Mr Snaith has done heretofore. It is a sprightly tale, written to amuse.”
SNOWDEN, JAMES HENRY. Truth about Christian science; the founder and the faith. $2.40 Presbyterian bd. 289.5
It is the object of the book to ascertain and state, as accurately and impartially and fairly as possible, the facts as to the founder and the faith of Christian science and to discriminate between the truth and error of the system. That it contains both is the author’s conviction. Contents: The subsoil of Christian science; Life of Mrs Mary Baker G. Eddy; Where did Mrs Eddy get her system of healing? “Science and health”: (1) the making of the book; (2) the contents of the book; Christian science teaching; The Christian science church; Mind healing and Christian science cures; The appeal of Christian science; Old truths newly emphasized; Index.
“‘The truth about Christian science’ is for the layman. It may be heartily recommended.”
“He has put together a very readable and useful account of the movement, together with a lucid examination of its doctrines, from the standpoint of an orthodox Christian theologist.”
SNOWDEN, JAMES HENRY. Wonderful night. *$1.25 Macmillan 232
“Egyptian history, old Greek and Roman, Persian, Phœnician, early Jewish, historic and prehistoric; all were preparation for the coming of Christ. Then came the first Christmas, the wonderful night. The writer of this version has undertaken to reconcile religion and science, to show that all thinking men could but have expected the thing which came to pass. It is an attempt to correlate the Christian story with ancient and modern history.”—Boston Transcript
“If it must be done it could not be done in a more finished manner, with more attractive illustrations and illuminations.”
SODDY, FREDERICK. Science and life. *$4 Dutton 504
“Among the investigators of radioactive substances Professor Frederick Soddy shares with possibly half a dozen men a position of preeminence. To the general public he is best known through his readable little book on ‘Matter and energy’ in the Home university library.” (Freeman) ‘Science, and life’ is the outcome of Professor Soddy’s five years’ tenure of the chair of chemistry at Aberdeen; and the addresses, together with articles here collected with them, are devoted to two main themes—the vast significance and importance of radioactivity, and the need of more and better science teaching in school and university. The Evolution of matter is the subject of one of the chapters reprinted from the Aberdeen University Review. In appendices Professor Soddy criticizes the financial operations of the Carnegie trust for the universities of Scotland.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“It is surely a great merit in Mr Soddy’s book that it awakens in us once more the feeling of adventure.... Being brought back to realities, and finding that they are purely ‘material,’ we can discover hope of essential change only in a profound alteration in the material basis of life. Mr Soddy’s book is exciting because this is exactly what he promises.” J. W. N. S.
“The book is of special interest to men of science, because it brings out their immense burden of responsibility. The chapters on radioactivity are beautifully written, and, coming from Prof. Soddy, are authoritative.” Ellwood Hendrick
“Given his lack of metaphysical subtlety, Professor Soddy can not be expected to say anything particularly new or enlightening on the relation of religion and science. Indeed, the essay devoted to that theme is singularly pointless. On the other hand, Dr Soddy is refreshingly clear and sound in his discussions of the relation of science and democracy.” R. H. Lowie
“The whole story [of research in radio-activity] is told in a condensed form in several of the essays in this volume, and it could not be told better. Those who are interested in such subjects should obtain the book and read it.” W. A. T.
“Professor Soddy, in urging the claims of the present and the future, seems unduly contemptuous of the past. He should leave it to undergraduates to make a bonfire of the ancient humanities, and should remember that the study of the past serves to guide the present and interpret the future.”
“Specially interesting to those who wish to know what light has been thrown upon the inmost secrets of matter in the last few years are the three papers entitled ‘Science and life,’ ‘The evolution of matter,’ and ‘The conception of the chemical element as enlarged by the study of radioactive change.’”
SOME British ballads.[2] il *$5 Dodd 821.08
“Although this charming collection is entitled ‘British ballads,’ most of them are Scotch, but are none the worse for that. Indeed, we suppose it may be truly said that the best ballads are those of Scotland. There are here such old favourites as The lass of Lochroyan, Young Bekie, Chevy Chase, The twa corbies, Binnorie, and Get up and bar the door. There are eleven illustrations in colour by Arthur Rackham.”—Sat R
“Everybody knows the drawings in color with which Mr Rackham is wont to embellish the classics. This new volume is, if possible, more exquisite than those preceding. It is all that heart could wish.” Margaret Ashmun
“It may be that when parents see Rackham’s dramatic picturing of the ballad of ‘The twa corbies,’ they will have some misgivings as to its suitability for young folks. For boys and girls of fourteen there is much to be missed, if ‘Chevy Chase,’ and ‘The duke of Gordon’s daughter,’ and ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ are passed by because of nerves or the difficulties of dialect. Rackham is always decorative, delicate, and dramatic.”
“It is hard to decide which is the more attractive feature of this book—Mr Rackham’s paintings or the ballads themselves.”
SOMERVILLE, EDITH ANNA ŒNONE, and MARTIN, VIOLET FLORENCE (MARTIN ROSS, pseud.). Mount Music. *$2 (*7s 6d) Longmans
“‘Mount Music’ is a tale of Ireland in transition, beginning in the late ‘eighties’ and ending early in this century. The years in which the action takes place mark the passing of the old régime, incarnate in the person of Major Richard Talbot-Lowry, a genial, improvident, dashing, and artless sportsman. And the situation is complicated for him by the fact that his estate marches with that of a young kinsman, a Roman Catholic and a home ruler, the playmate, and in time the lover, of Dick’s daughter Christian. Larry Coppinger, the young home ruler, was ‘in tune with all the world’; and if Christian yielded to the wishes of her father when he was broken in health, she had personally no fear of a mixed marriage. They are both attractive and generous young people, but the finest portrait is that of Francis Mangan, the ‘big doctor like an elephant in his hugeness and suppleness, his dangerousness and his gentleness.’ His relations to his father confessor and his family, his social ambitions and real benevolence, make a wonderful amalgam.”—Spec
“An Irish story, charming and wise and hard to classify because it is such a real book.” R. M. Underhill
“Her Irish characters are every whit as entertaining, and presumably as truthful as those of Mr Birmingham himself. There are none of the stereotyped good and evil persons of modern fiction here. Everyone is taken as he or she is, and Miss Somerville wastes no valuable time in moralizing over the foibles of her characters. A good story, excellently told.” G. M. H.
“It is hard—nay, it is impossible—for an alien to write sympathetically or truthfully of things Catholic, especially if there be question of Catholic Ireland.”
“Alike in description, characterization, and dialogue preserves that unerring felicity of phrase, wide range of sympathy, and intrepid humour which were first exhibited in ‘An Irish cousin.’”
“The authors have written many pleasanter books and many that will be more popular, but their genius has never been more unmistakable than in this picture of the ‘big doctor,’ so sordid and vulgar and crafty and with something so big in him.”
SONNICHSEN, ALBERT. Consumers’ coöperation. *$1.75 Macmillan 334
“John Graham Brooks gives a brief introduction to this volume. The author gives a brief review of the history and explanation of the cooperative movement, developed extensively throughout Europe during the war and now being adopted to some extent in the United States, especially in the middle western and western sections. He asserts it to be the alternative, not an antidote, to bolshevism. The growing importance of the procedure is illustrated by statistics. Its object, the author shows, is to reorganize industry on a collective basis from the point of view of the consumer; to create a consumers’ industrial democracy. He points out that it proceeds by action, rather than by talk.”—Springf’d Republican
“The value of the book consists in its giving the most adequate exposition of consumers’ coöperation yet given in this country,—a comprehensive story of the movement, the fullest in later years, and interesting suggestions as to future achievement.” E. P. Harris
“The book is well written and is a clear exposition of consumer’s co-operation.” L. E. Hagerty
“Students of the coöperative movement will find some useful information, lucidly set forth.”
“Informing and of general interest.”
“Of singular interest in this book is the full description which it gives of the history of cooperation in the United States and its present status. We cannot, however, agree with the author in his interpretation of success and failure even though we take his statements of fact as accurate.” B. L.
SORLEY, CHARLES HAMILTON. Letters; with a chapter of biography. *$5 Macmillan
“It has been said that the death, in action, of Charles Hamilton Sorley constituted the greatest loss of the war to English literature. There may be some, perhaps, who will hardly commit themselves to this; but none will be so foolish as to deny that more than sufficient interest in his personality was kindled by the publication, in 1916, of his ‘Marlborough and other poems’ to justify the present appearance of this volume. These letters, edited by his parents with admirable restraint, form an invaluable commentary on the poems themselves. The letters really divide themselves into three groups: those written while at school at Marlborough; those while staying (and studying) in Germany, first at Shwerin in Mecklenburg and then at the University of Jena; and, lastly, those while in the army at home and in France.”—Sat R
“We do not receive many such gifts as this wonderful book; the authentic voice of those lost legions is seldom heard.” J. M. M.
“His published book of poems is not alone evidence of his literary ability. His letters reveal exceptional powers and proclaim the man that might have been.” E. F. E.
“One approaches them prepared to find little beyond promise—a hint of something fine cut down before fulfillment; they turn out to be very much more than mere promise; they are in themselves achievement, the expression of a rarely independent mind, humorous, rich and wise far beyond its years.” R. L.
“Charles Sorley was a born letter-writer. As we read we feel ourselves to be wandering pleasantly among the green places of earth, with a brilliantly discursive boy at our side.”
“They necessarily lose something of freshness and vividness when they are put together in a book, but they are full of amusing phrases and interesting comments.”
“Quite apart from any sentimental associations, it is a more entertaining book than the average, and it has been edited by Professor and Mrs Sorley with a perfect restraint which has been sadly lacking in certain other books of this kind.”
SOTHERN, JOHN WILLIAM MAJOR.[2] Oil fuel burning in marine practice. il *$7.50 Van Nostrand 621.12
“A manual of practical instruction in oil fuel burning: contains full and copiously illustrated descriptions of all modern oil fuel burning systems, together with exhaustive practical information relating to same; intended for the use of naval and mercantile marine engineer officers, etc.” (Sub-title) The book is in six sections; The properties and combustion of fuel oil; Fuel oil tests; Description of oil fuel fittings; Pressure systems of oil fuel burning; Faults in oil fuel burning; General notes on oil fuel burning. There are 102 diagrams and other illustrations. The author is principal of Sothern’s Marine engineering college, Glasgow, and member of the Institute of marine engineers, London, and of other engineering societies.
SOUTHARD, ELMER ERNEST. Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems. (Case history ser. Boston State hospital, Psychopathic dept.) il $10 Leonard 616.8
“A comprehensive volume setting forth the conclusions of medical experts in a field which has recently undergone remarkable development is Dr E. E. Southard’s ‘Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems.’ The data are presented in 589 case histories from the war literature—largely French and German—of the years 1914–1918, from these data Dr Southard draws about 70 pages of conclusions. The book has a bibliography by Dr Norman Fenton and an introduction by Prof. Charles K. Mills of the University of Pennsylvania.”—Springf’d Republican
“Primarily of value to physicians and army surgeons, the book is interesting even to the layman in its dramatic accounts of the soldiers who were victims of shell-shock.”
“Dr Southard presents his ideas not only with the thoroughness of the medical expert and scholar but with a certain humor and pungency, general literary culture and full appreciation of the relations of the subject to military service, and, incidentally, to everyday life.”
“The book will stand as a monument to a man of many talents. Southard the scholar would not object to the statement that his book is as much a part of history as of medicine.” A. Myerson, M. D.
SPADONI, ADRIANA. Swing of the pendulum. *$1.90 (1c) Boni & Liveright
Opening in San Francisco and ending in New York, this long novel tells the story of a woman’s life from youth to the beginning of middle age. The swing of the pendulum carries her from an unfortunate early marriage thru a passionate love affair with a man who is already bound by wife and child, to a safe and settled union based on mutual regard and need. Jean Norris graduates from the University of California, turns her back on teaching as a profession, enters library work, marries Franklin Herrick, follows Journalism, discovers the settlement movement, comes to New York as a social worker, plunges into civic reform, loves and loses Gregory Allen, forsakes her work to return to San Francisco, comes back and takes it up again, and after many emotional reactions marries her co-worker, Jerome Stuart.
“There is a good deal of fine characterization in this book; the dialogue is extraordinarily natural. But the prevailing atmosphere is sultry with sex; the middle-aged reader, at least, may find the performance as a whole both strained and wearisome.” H. W. Boynton
“This novel cannot be commended as a work of art. The story does not grip, several of its chapters are so episodic that they might be suppressed without loss, and the male characters are not men, but marionettes.”
“To hold the serious attention of serious readers through nearly five hundred pages argues at once a kinship with the wealthy mind of the true novelist. And such a kinship Miss Spadoni undoubtedly possesses.”
“Miss Spadoni’s imagination sends forth into a real, three-dimensioned world a troop of pale characters cursed with congenital indistinctness doomed from birth to wander unrecognisably in the fog of a common origin.” R. L.
“It is sincerely conceived and written, it shows grasp of character and its development, and it unfolds its story interestingly. It has also its distinct crudities, technically and ethically. Like others of its numerous kind, its prolonged emphasis upon sex will condemn it for a large body of readers who will feel that it gives a distorted and unhealthy view of life.”
“Any sincere study of ‘the woman alone’—to use Brieux’s phrase—is bound to be interesting, bound, indeed, to have a certain amount of value. In ‘The swing of the pendulum’ there is much that is crude, but there is real thought, real study and some vividness.”
“Miss Spadoni has done some notable work in the past. Some of her short stories were of men and women, futile, and sordid, but she cut down beneath the events of their lives to the poetry of life. She has not, in ‘The swing of the pendulum’ kept the pace which she set herself in those tales.” Lucy Huffaker
“There are evidences of cuts which in places make for uncertainty of delineation—the only blemish of an otherwise almost perfect work of its kind.”
SPARGO, JOHN. “Greatest failure in all history.” *$2.50 (2c) Harper 947
In this “critical examination of the actual workings of bolshevism in Russia” (Sub-title) the author claims to have assembled evidence which “must compel every honest believer in freedom and democracy to condemn bolshevism as a vicious and dangerous form of reaction, subversive of every form of progress and every agency of civilization and enlightenment,” and to show it up as “the curse which during less than thirty months has afflicted unhappy Russia with greater ills than fifty years of czarism.” (Preface) Contents: Why have the bolsheviki retained power? The soviets; The soviets under the bolsheviki; The undemocratic soviet state; The peasants and the land; The bolsheviki and the peasants; The red terror; Industry under soviet control; The nationalization of industry (I-II); Freedom of press and assembly: “The dictatorship of the proletariat”; State communism and labor conscription; Let the verdict be rendered; Documents; Index.
“Although most of the evidence carries its own weight the disinterested reader will wish in many cases for some critical evaluation of authorities cited.”
“Mr Spargo is a Socialist, and it is because he considers the doctrines of Lenin and his followers a ‘grotesque travesty of Marx’s teachings,’ and a blow to socialism, and the arch enemy of all democracy, political, and industrial, that he exposes it as it is. This is the great merit of the book. It compels the reader to look at bolshevism as it is.” F. W. C.
“His latest volume attains a level of even greater detachment and cool judgment than its predecessors. The first uprush of hot revulsion of feeling against a false and violent philosophy, masked in the forms of the author’s own cause, has passed. Attacks upon the personal characters of bolshevist leaders are practically absent. The argument gains greatly in strength from this avoidance of personal invective.” M. W. Davis
“Mr Spargo’s book is a stern book, but a just one. It was much needed, and it is especially timely now.” W: C. Redfield
SPARGO, JOHN. Russia as an American problem. *$2.25 (2c) Harper 947
The author is a sworn enemy of Bolshevist rule and thinks that Russia is not ready for anything like a socialist state, lacking industrial development as she does. “At present she needs capital and capitalist enterprise.” This makes Russia an American problem and “there should be a very clear recognition, alike by the government and the people of the United States, of the great and far-reaching importance of securing for this country a very large share in the immense volume of trade which Russia’s recovery and economic reconstruction must inevitably produce.” Contents: Russia as an American problem; Russia and western civilization: Russia’s subjection to Germany; Japan as Germany’s successor; Japan and Siberia; Russia’s needs and resources; Postscriptum; extensive appendices and an index.
“The ultimate political advantage for the world of a Russia free from economic vassalage to militaristic neighbors is obvious, but Mr Spargo’s case would be equally strong if he did not magnify the danger of Russia’s position; for whatever may be the reality of Japan’s menace in Siberia the threat from Germany to European Russia or of a German-Japanese alliance belongs for the present in the realm of imagination.” Jacob Zeitlin
“Mr Spargo’s study is vitally interesting and illuminating, and it contains a wealth of precise information which will be priceless to business men in many lines when the time comes for meeting German commercial rivalry in her new Mitteleuropa.” J: Corbin
“Vital and patriotic book.”
Reviewed by Reed Lewis
SPEARS, RAYMOND SMILEY. River prophet. il *$1.50 (1c) Doubleday
A story of the “Old Mississip” and of the vagrant population—shanty boaters, pot hunters, river pirates—that lives upon its broad waters. Parson Elijah Rasba, from the mountains, floats down the Tug river to the Big Sandy, down the Big Sandy to the Ohio, down the Ohio and out onto the great river, where he exclaims “If this is the Mississippi what must the Jordan be!” Parson Elijah is seeking a lost soul, Jock Drones, whose mammy wants him back in the mountains, and so he joins the motley throng that goes “dropping down” the lower river. Among the other characters are Nelia Carline, who has left her husband, Gus Carline, the husband in pursuit of her, Lester Terabon, a newspaper man in search of copy, Mame Coape of the many divorces, Buck the river gambler, and Jock Drones, the lost soul who turns back to his mammy.
+ |Booklist 17:160 Ja ’21
SPENCE, LEWIS. Legends and romances of Spain. il *$6.50 Stokes 863
The literature of the romantic period in Spain treated by a folk-lorist, who says, “Since the days of Southey the romantic literature of Spain has not received from English writers and critics the amount of study and attention it undoubtedly deserves.... I have made an earnest endeavour to provide English readers with a conspectus of Spanish romantic literature as expressed in its cantares de gesta, its chivalric novels, its romanceros or ballads, and some of its lighter aspects. The reader will find full accounts and summaries of all the more important works under each of these heads, many of which have never before been described in English.” (Preface) Among the chapters are: The sources of Spanish romance; “Amadis de Gaul”; Catalonian romances; Moorish romances of Spain; Tales of Spanish magic and sorcery; Humorous romances of Spain. There are illustrations and a brief bibliography.
“It is an honest attempt to interest the general reader in a delightful department of literature. A book of this sort is in special need of an index, especially as there are no detailed ‘Contents,’ only general chapter-headings. But though there is a useful short bibliography, there is no index at all.” G: Saintsbury
“Extremely readable.”
“The attractive page, the good print, the popular treatment, the fine coloured illustrations, render it exactly suitable for a present to an intelligent youth of either sex, while the accounts and summaries of all the important works under the various headings provide a real fund of instructive information.”
“‘Legends and romances of Spain’ is not only a story book. There is a great deal of information in it and some real research. It is not quite up to date, perhaps.”
SPENCE, THOMAS, and others. Pioneers of land reform. *$1.50 Knopf 333
This book is one of the series of economic reprints of the famous Bohn libraries. It contains an introduction by M. Beer, characterizing and comparing the three essays. The essays are: The real rights of man, by Thomas Spence; The right of property in land, by William Ogilive; and Agrarian justice, by Thomas Paine.
SPENDER, HAROLD. Prime minister. il *$4 Doran
In writing this biography the author has drawn upon “the memories of twenty-seven years of unbroken friendship” and in summing up the characteristics of his friend he says: “It is this combination of the slow qualities, with the swift—of judgment with daring, of mercy with rigour, of slow reflection with swift attack, of the zeal of the Cambrian with the shrewdness of the Fleming—that marks him off from so many of his race.” The first thirteen chapters are devoted to Lloyd George’s childhood and youth and earlier career up to the beginning of the war and the rest of the contents is: A war man (1914–1915); East or west? (1915); Serbia (1915): Munitions (1915): The new ministry of munitions; Premiership (1916); The saving of Italy; The Versailles council; Victory; The peace conference; The new world; The man; Highways and byways; Through foreign eyes. There are illustrations, appendices and an index.
“This record has the force of an autobiography rather than of a detached appraisal.”
Reviewed by D: J. Hill
“The book is pitched in a high dithyrambic key which is too laboriously sustained to be convincing and at last becomes exasperating. The literary frills are, moreover, a trifle cheap and shabby. Either the whole thing is the most flagrant and therefore self-defeating sort of pamphleteering or Mr Spender’s once robust literary sense is suffering a sad decline.” R: Roberts
“Mr Spender’s portrait of the Prime Minister can claim in one respect only to be a faithful one. It is Mr Lloyd George as he appears to himself—not to his Maker. Not merely by false interpretation of events but by false attribution of qualities and acquirements Mr Spender fabricates his hero.” J. A. Hobson
“It has none of the detached judgment of a historical appraisal of a completed career. Instead it has the militant interest of a brief presented in behalf of one of the most brilliant statesmen of modern times. It is not biography in the highest form of that art nor is it great literature. But Mr Spender’s work is not cheapened or vitiated by unseeing eulogy of his subject.” W: L. Chenery
“Mr Spender knows no discrimination in his eulogy: whatever his hero has done is not only right but so conspicuously right that it needs neither apology nor explanation. The best we can honestly say of ‘The prime minister’ is that it will serve as a quarry from which some future biographer may draw useful materials.”
“Much the most satisfactory part of the book is that which describes Mr Lloyd George’s birth and upbringing, his early political activities, his entry into Parliament, and the brilliant fighting years in which he marked himself out as a certain minister of the crown. The history of his career as a minister down to the outbreak of war is vague and scrappy and generally inadequate.”
SPOFFORD, HARRIET ELIZABETH (PRESCOTT) (MRS RICHARD S. SPOFFORD). Elder’s people. il *$1.75 (2c) Houghton
Through these stories of old New England we look into the hearts of the country people, hear their gossip, learn to know their homely religion, their superstitions, see the struggles they have with their baser selves and glimpse their higher natures. We also learn to love the sturdy souls that recur in all the stories and embody the best that is in them all—Elder Perry, Old Steve, Miss Mahala, and others. The stories are: The deacon’s whistle; A change of heart; A rural telephone; The step-father; John-a-dreams; Miss Mahala’s miracle; An old fiddler; The blessing called peace; Father James; The impossible choice; A village dressmaker; Miss Mahala’s will; A life in a night; Miss Mahala and Johnny.
“Undramatic, but interesting.”
“Mrs Spofford is not by any means a great craftsman, her limitations are quite evident, but within her power—and she is never unduly anxious to achieve what is beyond her—she provides some interesting and entertaining bits of fiction.”
“The series of short stories which makes up this chronicle contains nothing particularly new or striking, but the tales have quite a good deal of verisimilitude, and some of the characters are likable.”
“Mrs Spofford has finely and strongly delineated a number of choice spirits here whom one will not easily forget. She has also incorporated much of the quiet humor of this type of people, and, all in all, has presented here not an especially great book but a very interesting one.”
SPRING RICE, SIR CECIL ARTHUR. Poems. *$3 Longmans 821
“Mr Bernard Holland reminds us in his preface that the late ambassador to the United States published two books in his lifetime, a book of verse with interludes in poetic prose ‘adapted from the Persian’ and a prose version of a Persian love tale with a veiled mystical meaning. Besides the Persian sonnets this volume contains ‘In memoriam, A. C. M. L.,’ and a number of miscellaneous poems.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His poems are like his personality and please us by some charm which is not quite analysable. They are strangely different from the work of most men of action. There are only a few poems in this book which are absolutely bad, but, on the other hand, there is probably none which is not marked by some flaw.”
“They are true poetry. The volume may not add one to the list of great English sonnets; but the beauty and the sincerity of these claim attention.”
SPYRI, FRAU JOHANNA (HEUSSER). Cornelli; tr. by Elisabeth P. Stork. (Stories all children love ser.) il *$1.50 (3½c) Lippincott
In his introduction to this story for children Charles Wharton Stork regrets that its author should be known for one of her books only, altho that one is the justly popular “Heidi.” In the present story, he thinks “we find a deeper treatment of character, combined with equal spirit and humor of a different kind.” It is the story of a happy-hearted little Swiss girl who is changed into a sullen, morose and unattractive child through the misunderstanding of two women in whose care her father leaves her. A woman of different type, the mother of a family of four, finds the secret of Cornelli’s unhappiness and brings back the old sunny disposition.
“There is a breath of the mountain freshness which suggests ‘Heidi.’ The translation of the children’s speeches into formal English gives them sometimes a rather stilted effect.”
SPYRI, FRAU JOHANNA (HEUSSER). Toni, the little wood-carver; tr. by Helen B. Dole. il *$1 (9c) Crowell
From earliest childhood Toni had carved animals out of wood and his dearest ambition is to be a wood-carver. But the cost of instruction is beyond his mother’s means and he is sent up into the mountains to herd the farmer’s cows. Here, overcome by the loneliness, he breaks down and falls into a lethargy from which nothing arouses him. He is taken to a great sanitarium where he finally recovers and finds a good friend who provides the money for the desired training.
SQUIRE, JOHN COLLINGS (SOLOMON EAGLE, pseud.). Birds, and other poems. *$1.25 Doran 821
Birds, the first poem of this collection is based on the thought that the birds are older than man and that in the days of his infancy they built their nests in the self-same way and with the same perfection they do today. The other poems are: Processes of thought, Airship over suburb, Harlequin, Winter nightfall, Two songs, and A far place.
“‘The birds’ is an interesting poem full of felicitous things. But it seems somehow to lack intensity. The three poems called ‘Processes of thought’ are naturally more personal, more intimately felt; for they are a record of introspection. In these we seem to be getting nearer our ideal of what the lyric inspired by science or philosophy should be like.” A. L. H.
“His nature minutæ, his tenderness, his color are Wordsworthian, with a drama, a music, a diamond-cut-diamond quality, as well as a quality of the noblest oratory, that the old bard never knew.”
“The poem after which the collection takes its name has a common idea but one which Mr Squire expresses with uncommon vigor and suggestion. The advantage of Mr Squire over the average American poet of similar gifts is his ability to express sentiment without sentimentalizing the mood.” W: S. Braithwaite
“The difficulty with his poetry, for there is a difficulty—lies in the unfortunate fact, that despite the obvious care he lavishes upon it, it is too lax, too impersonal. Like everyone else who has something new to say, Mr Squire has discovered that a new idea depends on a new form of utterance being found to fit it. It is only a pity that he has so few new ideas, and that he is content instead with writing poems in which neither the idea—nor the utterance—is of the slightest importance.” J: G. Fletcher
“His head is clearer than his poetry is fine; he is sober, and he has a vein of reflection not wholly resembling other men’s, but the strength that he has displayed rather than implied, and his metaphors, of which he apparently is proud, are painfully overdeveloped.”
“The writing of verse is only one of Mr Squire’s innumerable activities, and yet he is a poet of no small talent. Unlike most of his brother Georgians, he is at his best when he is most metaphysical. At his best he is fantastically powerful; at his worst he is florid and bombastic. The present volume shows him more in the latter mood.”
“Mr Squire in his present volume has lost none of that quiet controlled distinction which was always his; but he seems to have got rid of the rather hard, metallic note which was noticeable in some of his former work. The most remarkable poem of the book is called ‘A far place.’ To us it seems one of the most original and absolutely successful and complete poems that Mr Squire has ever written.”
“This little book is not merely a joy in itself and additional to what is now a considerable body of work, but extremely rich in promise.”
SQUIRE, JOHN COLLINGS (SOLOMON EAGLE, pseud.). Books in general. (2nd ser.) *$2.50 (3½c) Knopf 824
This is the second series of short essays, reviews and squibs on books and writers, collected from weekly contributions to the New Statesman. They are brilliant, witty and full of originality. Some of the topics are: The descendants of Shakespeare; Scientific management for Pegasus; The inferior poems of Keats; One’s favourite author defined; Shelley’s letters; The essay in America; The humours of hymnology; Dialect in literature; Verhaeren; On submitting manuscripts; Rupert Brooke in retrospect.
“Even more interesting than technical success, in this sort of thing, is the quality of mind we see at work. Mr Squire has an admirable sanity.” K. F. Gerould
“Mr Squire’s style is distinctly conversational. The fluent grace of such table-talk, however, neatly disposes of the adage that all men talk in prose.”
“Somehow the sense of leisure in ‘Books in general’ is not richly filled; the notations are too fluent, the writing lacks spring, and more often than not it lacks the effect of enjoyment. Scarcely one of his papers can be read without expectancy. But the promise is seldom fulfilled.” C. M. R.
“The comments on books, politics and things in general are thoughtful, amusing and suggestive, worth reading and thinking about.”
“They are informative, witty, often merely playful. Critical acumen is shown at times, but more often the evident purpose of the papers is to amuse.”
“Mr Squire mentions books and publications from this country only for the purpose of jeering at them; it is gently done, but still a jeer. ‘Books in general,’ however, includes such pleasing essays ... that most of us will forgive ‘Solomon Eagle’ for tweaking a feather or two of the American eagle’s tail.” E. L. Pearson
Reviewed by P. U. Kellogg
STARLING, ERNEST HENRY. Feeding of nations. *$1.90 (*5s) Longmans 338.1
“This small book of one hundred forty-five pages contains a vast store of information concerning the principles of human nutrition and the application of these principles to the problem of feeding the community in times of peace and war.” (N Y Evening Post) “Dr Starling was chairman of the Food committee of the Royal society which took up the study of the problem of feeding the nation before the government realized that there was a problem, and afterwards scientific adviser to the ministry of food.” (Survey)
“An extremely able and attractive presentation of a difficult subject.”
STEARNS, HAROLD EDMUND. Liberalism in America: its origin, its temporary collapse, its future. *$1.75 (2½c) Boni & Liveright 321.8
“The core of liberal philosophy” writes the author, “is respect for the individual and his freedom of conscience and opinion.” To trace the foundations of this philosophy in America and to account for its complete break-down during the war is the main purpose of this book. The ten chapter titles are: What liberalism is; The English heritage and the American development; American liberalism to the eve of the war; The emotional breakdown before warhysteria; Timidity and the seductions of office or career; President Wilson, the technique of liberal failure; Political symbolism and the mob; Débâcle of pragmatism; Leadership; The future. A bibliography of two pages follows. The author was formerly associate editor of the Dial.
“His plea for tolerance is marked by intolerance, for good-nature with ungenerosity in weighing the motives of others, for nonpartisanship and detachment with evident animus and one-sided advocacy rather than fairness and breadth of vision. Hence the value of the work as a critique of American liberalism is very seriously impaired for the general reader and the serious student.” C. E. Merriam
“While one cannot altogether agree with the conclusions of the author of this extremely readable exposition of liberalism, the arguments are in most cases clear, and fairly presented.”
“But for all the flat contradictions with which the book seems to abound, it is interesting for the variety of subjects of current interest it touches notwithstanding the author does not seem to have completely assimilated these—as, indeed, who has? One thing that can be said about the book in general is that it is liberal.” W. A. M.
“Herein lies the fundamental weakness of the discussion. One gathers no clearly defined impression of what liberalism is or expects to do, and who are the liberals. Mr Stearns writes impassionately and with a refreshing verve that carries the reader headlong with him.”
“One inclines to a wish that the writer had brought to his task a little more sympathy, a little more humility, and a great deal more information, and the wish becomes very strong when one reaches his discussion of Mr Wilson. In a considered estimate by a liberal thinker one looks for a fair and balanced examination of causes and results. Mr Stearns simplifies the president’s problems so that any departmental clerk might have overcome them. He imputes low motives without the least apparent justification.” Jacob Zeitlin
“The book is of great value. Its analysis of American tendencies is more balanced and inclusive than any contemporary work upon the subject.” C. W.
Reviewed by W. J. Ghent
“It is no engaging picture of our American war mind that Mr Stearns paints, and twenty months ago it would have been hotly resented by the great majority of our people. That the average man of intelligence is likely to find himself mainly in agreement with it now (although he may hesitate to admit the fact, even to himself) is the best evidence that the picture is essentially true.” F: A. Ogg
“As a volume of broad discussions, enriched by much reflection on books and events, and by brilliant insight into motives, this book is a success. Yet as an ordered analysis of the basic problem of liberty the book fails, and its chief value will be lost unless it becomes the starting point of a much needed discussion.” G: Soule
STEBBING, EDWARD PERCY. Diary of a sportsman naturalist in India. il *$5 Lane 799
This diary is published with a purpose. The author says: “The sporting anecdotes and material selected from my note-books, which form the greater part of the book, are designed to lead up to and emphasize the necessity which exists of affording an adequate protection to the game and other animals of India.” (Preface) The book is in two parts: Sport in the big game jungles of India; and Game protection and the provision of sanctuaries for the preservation of the Indian fauna. There are illustrations from photographs and sketches by the author and others.
“He describes his experiences fairly graphically, although, after a few pages, we have too much confidence in his shooting to be seriously alarmed for him.”
“There is a chapter on ‘Jungle lore,’ and several real tiger stories that outdo most of those common to fiction. All the photographs are very good, and the little pen and ink drawings, which are the productions of five different persons, while not equal to Mr Seton’s, carry their own individuality, and give new life to the already entertaining text.”
“A most interesting collection of reminiscences. His tiger stories are capital.”
“As a faithful account of conditions as they have been during the last quarter of a century, Mr Stebbing’s book is likely to have a definite and permanent value; and he knows well how to entertain as well as to instruct.”
STEELE, DAVID MCCONNELL. Papers and essays for churchmen; being a series of studies on topics made timely by current events. *$1.50 (2½c) Jacobs 204
The only unity that the author claims for this collection of papers is that “they were all written to be read either to or by churchmen.” (Foreword) The author’s mental tenor is conservative and his thinking along the lines of his convictions is vigorous. He holds that the war has dispelled the mist of immoral emotionalism that had begun to envelop the churches, a form of this emotionalism being the literal interpretation of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” He repudiates woman’s suffrage as wholly bad, hurls anathema against labor organisations and socialism and advises that the poor, as the “economically sick,” are properly the charges, not of the church, but of the state. The contents are: Effect of the war on religion; Wanted, an American Sunday; Woman suffrage and religion; Men’s clubs and the churches; The poor, with you always; The church and labor agitation; Socialism—Christian and pagan; Revelation—final or progressive; The Episcopal church; Change of name of the church; Proportionate representation.
STEELE, HARWOOD ELMES ROBERT.[2] Canadians in France, 1915–1918: with 8 sketch maps. il *$8 Dutton 940.371
“A detailed history of the operations of the Canadian Army corps, consisting of four divisions and ‘corps troops.’ In writing this account Captain Steele is describing in the main events that occurred under his own observation in 1915 to the close of the war in 1918.”—R of Rs
“Captain Steele has the gift of clear, straightforward description; and there is little to be desired in the succinctness and clarity with which he etches in a number of Homeric incidents.”
“Captain Steele’s book is admirably written and full of vivid detail.”
STEINER, RUDOLF. Four mystery plays. 2v *$3 Putnam 832
H. Collison, one of the translators of these plays, describes them as representing “the psychic development of man up to the moment when he is able to pierce the veil and see into the beyond.” (Introd.) They embody the author’s occult philosophy and form one continuous series. The characters are represented on their physical as well as on their spiritual plane and include many types—the occult leader, the seeress, the artist, scientist, philosopher, historian, mystic, and man of the world, also the forces of evil in Lucifer and Ahriman. Collaborators with the translator are S. M. K. Gandell and R. T. Gladstone. The plays are: The portal of initiation; The soul’s probation; The guardian of the threshold; The soul’s awakening.
“‘Four mystery plays’ will doubtless command the attention of the author’s disciples, but they are too formidable to win the interest of the average outsider. The blank verse translation is adequate, but hardly inspired.”
“The only advantage gained by the play form is, perhaps, a little simplicity in the treatment of very abstract subjects.”
STEPHENS, JAMES.[2] Irish fairy tales. il *$5 (6½) Macmillan
The first of these ancient folk-tales tells of the subduing of Tuan mac Cairill, the powerful heathen, by Finnian, the Abbott of Moville. Finnian lays siege to Tuan’s stronghold by seating himself before its gates and fasting. Heathen etiquette forbade the attack of a defenceless man and heathen hospitality a man’s starving before the gates. So Finnian is admitted and at once proceeds to convert Tuan. Thereupon Tuan, the grandson of Noah, tells his story which dates back to the beginning of time in Ireland and is wonderful indeed. The other tales are: The boyhood of Fionn; The birth of Bran; Oisin’s mother; The wooing of Becfola; The little brawl at Allen; The Carl of the drab coat; The enchanted cave of Cesh Corran; Becuma of the white skin; Mongan’s frenzy. The full page illustrations in color and the chapter vignettes are by Arthur Rackham.
“This book is written by a man who has a touch a little beyond talent.” R. E. Roberts
“It is unfortunate that in the arrangement of his book he does not give greater heed to the various cycles in which nearly all Irish stories belong. But lack of unity is almost the only adverse criticism that can be brought against the book. Mr Stephens has re-told Irish legends in a volume that should take a permanent place in literature.” N. J. O’Conor
“James Stephens’ writing has the gift of everlasting youth. Arthur Rackham’s drawings have inherent magic. Wherefore the two are fortunately met in a new book, primarily for children, but also full of appeal to grown-ups with a sense of humor.”
“Though some of the stories as told by Mr Stephens appear to be more in the nature of historic legends rather than fairy tales, the collection provides good reading in which humour of a subtle kind abounds.”
“There is enough of the hard line of beauty in his work to make one rejoice in its amplitude.” F. H.
“Humor shines, here, riots in wild fancy, extravagance rides by the side of beauty.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“Stephens has put a lot of himself into the telling of these tales; they are moulded by his story-telling instinct, given finish by his English and burnished by his humor.” D. W. Webster
“Children may enjoy it, but, like Arthur Rackham’s exquisite illustrations, it will be fully appreciated only by more sophisticated readers.” E. L. Pearson
“There is much good narrative, much humour, and, usually, unstrained simplicity in the book, but above all there are passages of enchanting beauty.”
STERRETT, FRANCES ROBERTA. Nancy goes to town. *$2 (5c) Appleton
Nancy goes to town to take nurses’ training, telling all her friends in Mifflin that she intends to marry a rich patient. She meets two rich patients, one an old woman, the other an old man. The two are business rivals and they become rivals also for Nancy’s favor. One has a nephew, the other a grandson, both put forward as candidates for Nancy’s hand. So the rich husband is within her reach, but Nancy chooses, after some faltering, to marry Dr Rolf Jensen, the poor young doctor.
“The description of hospital life from the point of view of a lively girl, with quick wit and a keen sense of humor, is capital.”
STEVENS, WILLIAM OLIVER, and WESTCOTT, ALLAN FERGUSON. History of sea power. il *$6 Doran 359
This volume covers the evolution and influence of sea power from the beginnings to the present time and treats naval history not from the point of view of a sequence of battles but as a vital force in the rise and fall of nations and in the evolution of civilization. It traces its beginnings from the Island of Crete in the Mediterranean long before the dawn of history to its present significance. The book is indexed, has a list of references at the end of each chapter and ninety-six maps, diagrams and illustrations. Contents: The beginnings of navies; Athens as a sea power; The sea power of Rome; The navies of the middle ages (two chapters); Opening the ocean routes; Sea power in the North; England and the Armada; Rise of English sea power (two chapters); Napoleonic wars (three chapters); Revolution in naval warfare; Rivalry for world power; The world war (three chapters); Conclusion.
“Though surprisingly condensed, an informative and authoritative work.”
“It is a more objective and less theoretical study [than Mahan’s ‘Influence of sea power on history,’] with more interest for the general reader; in addition to which it is a convenient reference book.”
STEVENSON, GEORGE. Benjy. *$1.75 (*7s) (2c) Lane
The book recounts the fortunes of the Ainsworth family from the time when young Dr Ainsworth drives his bride Priscilla home in the gig, to the coming of the children—up to the number of thirteen—with its resultant poverty; and the varied careers and fortunes of all these in turn. Benjy, the youngest, his mother’s favorite, follows his father into the medical profession. Outwardly his life is drab, all its important happenings being of the nature of disappointments. The more brilliantly endowed brother, Basil, wins and weds Benjy’s own beloved Clara who dies in childbirth through Basil’s light-hearted want of foresight. When Uncle Benjy adopts little Clara to save her from a bad step-mother, death robs him of her also. Then comes the war and offers him a welcome escape from himself.
“It is only when the children grow older and come into touch with the world that Mr Stevenson fails lamentably. The quaint, old-fashioned children are replaced by plain, strange young men and women, and the author in his effort to convince us of Benjy’s purity of heart pours over him such a great pale flood of sentimentality that he is drowned before our eyes.” K. M.
Reviewed by R. M. Underhill
“An almost masterly understanding of human (and English) limitations pervades the story. It is told always with a sure judgment and reticence.”
“A calm tale; interesting incident and fairly interesting characters, but no particular point.”
“Such is the charm of Mr Stevenson’s insouciant style that we lose consciousness of the fact that we are listening to an ‘author.’ The author’s powers of characterization are, in fact, responsible for a minor fault in ‘Benjy’—the diffusing of interest in too many characters.”
“It is well conceived and full of appreciation of individual character.”
“Though the reader may become rather bewildered in trying to follow each particular thread, the book is illuminated with many of the author’s quiet touches of humour and is written with his usual distinction of style.”
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS BALFOUR. Learning to write; ed. by J: W: Rogers, jr. *$1.35 Scribner 808
“This book is a compilation of everything R. L. S. has said on writing, both in his essays on literary art and in the casual observations made in his letters.”—Booklist
“You cannot learn much about electricity by watching the lightning in the thunder cloud. Even if Stevenson did teach himself to write as he says he did, which is nothing more than an improbable hypothesis, reading his extremely characteristic and technically complex descriptions of his methods will not help a single youngster out of the toils and troubles of the early days of his probation.” W: McFee
“It is to be feared that Stevenson’s confidences in regard to his own literary processes have done all too much to foster hope in the bosom of ‘would-be’ authors.... One is inclined to take it with several grains of salt.” R: Le Gallienne
“Likely to prove a gold mine of interesting information not only to aspiring writers, but to people who are interested in books as well.”
STEWART, BASIL. Japanese color prints and the subjects they illustrate. il *$20 Dodd 761
“Mr Stewart knows just what collectors of Japanese prints want and do not want. But they want a handbook of 300–odd pages, with reproductions of signatures, lists of important sets, chronological tables, brief biographical information; of handy format and popular style. And such is the book before us. There are a glossary, a chapter on ‘Forgeries and imitations,’ another on ‘Actor prints’ in general, and an excursus on the ‘Forty-seven rōnins’ in history and on the stage.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is no serious condemnation to say that ‘Japanese colour prints’ is not the book on Japanese colour prints for which we are all looking.”
“The ground covered is so vast that the treatment in certain cases inevitably seems somewhat cursory. One or two inaccuracies may be noted.”
STEWART, WENTWORTH. Making of a nation. $1.50 (3c) Stratford co. 325.7
In this discussion of Americanism and Americanization the author holds that we cannot make American citizens of aliens by formal educational programs, that we must take into consideration the psychology of Americanization and treat Americanism as a thing of the spirit rather than of naturalization papers. Certain undesirable features in our alien population—such as foreign language newspapers, religious worship in a foreign tongue—should be treated by a process of elimination rather than coercion, while “all anarchistic agitators,” and unamerican labor agitators should be summarily dealt with. As one of the educational factors for Americanization a modified form of the open forum is recommended. Contents: The nation’s awakening; The nation’s task of unification; Eliminating the handicaps to Americanism; Constructive government and nation building; Providing conditions for Americanism—or the application of constructive government; The neighborhood and the nation; International sentiment and nationalism.
STILL, JOHN. Poems in captivity. *$2 Lane 821
The author discovered the poet in himself during his three years of captivity in Turkey, “where each one of us was driven to seek inside himself some alleviation of the daily dullness, many of us there found things we had not suspected to exist.... I found these verses, all of which were written there, and their discovery made more happy many of the eleven hundred and seventy-nine days I spent as a prisoner of war.” (Foreword) The poems are in five groups: Prison verses; Woodcraft and forest lore; Tales from the Mahawansa; Various songs and sketches. The frontispiece is a facsimile of a part of the ms. which was concealed in a hollow walking-stick, and some explanatory notes are appended.
“Mr Still’s work is undeniably interesting, and his chosen vehicle seems to be the right one.”
“He writes fluently and the Ceylonese legends that he relates are interesting in themselves, but his medium hardly ever touches the authentic heights of poetry.”
“The merit of Mr Still’s work is that it gives aptly and agreeably a full, warm picture of scenes picturesque and historic.”
STOCKBRIDGE, MRS BERTHA EDSON (LAY). What to drink; the blue book of beverages. il *$1.50 Appleton 641.8
In these days of prohibition this book solves the hostess’ problem of what to serve to drink. All she needs is a stock of syrups, shrubs and vinegars, says the author. “If, however, she is inclined to think it an arduous task, let her turn to these recipes, and she will be convinced that the labor and the time expended bring their own reward in ... a delicious drink delightfully made.” (Foreword) The contents present an exhaustive array of recipes for fruitades and punches and drinks hot and cold—non-alcoholic cocktails, syrups, grape juice, root beer and cider, hot drinks such as coffee, chocolate, etc., drinks for invalids and children, sundaes and sauces, ice-creams, sherbets, etc. There is an index.
STOCKBRIDGE, FRANK PARKER. Yankee ingenuity in the war. il *$2.50 Harper 623
It was as a reaction of the author’s patriotic pride to the slanderous disparagements of America’s participation in the war that the book was written and for that reason it is limited to the consideration of distinctly American enterprise. It has, however, not been written for the scientist or the technologist, but for the average American, neither skilled nor interested in technical details. A partial list of the contents is: The mobilization of science and industry; The Liberty motor; American military airplanes; The chemical conquest of the air; Potash, sulphuric acid, and dyestuffs; Poison gas; Some extraordinary ship-building feats; Some Yankee tricks in undersea warfare; The wonders of war wireless; Medical and surgical achievements. The book is profusely illustrated from official photographs.
“Interesting and informative.”
STOCKLEY, CYNTHIA. Pink gods and blue demons. *$1.50 (9c) Doran
A story of South Africa. The pink gods and blue demons are the lightning flashes of temptation from the facets of diamonds. Loree Temple, a young and much indulged wife, falls under their spell. Her husband has gone north on business leaving her alone in Kimberley. She falls under the spell of the diamonds and so into the power of the man who can give them to her. She is extricated through the loyalty and generosity of another woman, and, her lesson learned, goes to join her husband.
“The tale is interesting and moves swiftly forward to a sufficiently dramatic climax.”
“The story holds one’s attention closely.”
STOCKTON, JAMES LEROY. Project work in education. *$1.20 (3c) Houghton 371.3
The book is one of the “Riverside educational monographs” edited by Henry Suzzallo. Its object is to show what can be done to replace the traditional teaching by isolated subjects by a more vital method built on a practical psychological basis. The project method in brief implies “learning to do by doing,” or “self-education through activities,” and is the result of the working-out of the most fundamental of modern educational principles. The book falls into two parts, considering project work both as a method and as a subject. Part I contains: The evolution of the principles underlying the project method; The transfer of the principles to America; Modern American principles of education; The project method in the modern public school; Project work in trade education. Part II contains: The evolution of the project subject; The broader conception of the content of the project subject; The necessity of more direct teaching of the project subject; Summary; Outline.
STODDARD, THEODORE LOTHROP. Rising tide of color against white world-supremacy; with an introd. by Madison Grant. *$3 Scribner 327
“Mr Stoddard has written an analysis of the present-day relations of the white and colored races throughout the world. What he describes as the rising tide of the yellow, brown, black and red races is graphically described in a series of tersely written chapters. This is followed by an historical account of The ebbing tide of white, and the book concludes with brief chapters on The outer dikes, The inner dikes, and The crisis of the ages. Mr Stoddard’s immediate program, involving what he regards as ‘the irreducible minimum,’ calls for a thorough revision of the Versailles treaty and a provisional understanding by which the white races will give up their tacit assumption of domination over Asia, while the Asiatics forego their dreams of migration to the lands of white and other races. Without some such understanding Mr Stoddard looks forward to a race war on a world scale.”—R of Rs
“On the resurgence of Asia Mr Stoddard writes wisely, yielding neither to panic nor to ignorant optimism. His views on the future of his own North American continent display less sanity.”
“Interesting to read in connection with Du Bois’ ‘Darkwater.’”
Reviewed by M. E. Bailey
“Mr Stoddard’s book is one of the long series of publications devoted to the self-admiration of the white race. The books must be characterized as vicious propaganda, and deserve an attention not warranted by any intrinsic merit in their learning or their logic. The fundamental weakness of all books of this type, and eminently so of Mr Stoddard’s book, is a complete lack of understanding of the hereditary characteristics of a race as against the hereditary characteristics of a particular strain or line of descent.” Franz Boas
“A brilliant and highly suggestive survey.”
“Many people will regard this book as highly dangerous and provocative. This verdict, though it might at first sight seem just, would be, we are convinced, short-sighted and unfair. When we say this we do not mean that we agree with every word of the premises put forward by Mr Stoddard or with all his conclusions; for we do not. What we do feel, however, is that it is a book which gives with vigour, and yet with essential moderation, most important and often most necessary warnings.”
“Because of its profound knowledge and eloquence this is a book that must be reckoned with. Had he been more moderate in his diagnosis and prognosis of the impending racial conflict, his book may have found fewer readers, but it would have been more convincing to the student of history and of public affairs.”
“Mr Stoddard’s work is more convincing and useful when he deals with subsidiary questions, such as the real peril of Asiatic industrial competition or the serious pressure of overpopulation brought about in ‘coloured’ lands by the humanitarian hygiene of the whites. But his vision of the ‘rising tide of colour’ fails to carry conviction.”
“Mr Stoddard’s book is the work of a pseudoscientist with a considerable skill in writing who, sincerely enough no doubt, jumbles assumptions and facts in a plausible and dangerous combination.” N. T.
Reviewed by W. R. Wheeler
STODDART, JANE T. Case against spiritualism. *$1.50 Doran 134
“This book assembles articles from various writers, culling even from believers every clause usable as antagonistic comment. It is not backed by personal experience.”—Booklist
“Perhaps the best Protestant manual opposing the cult.”
“It will require mightier counter-thrusts than the slight rebuff of Miss Stoddart to make any headway against the encroachments of the insidious brand of personalism sponsored by psychical research.” Joseph Jastrow
“A short but effective and well-considered statement of the case.”
STOLL, ELMER EDGAR. Hamlet; an historical and comparative study. (Studies in language and literature) pa $1 Univ. of Minn. 822.3
“A close analytical study; reaching the conclusion that Hamlet is meant for an heroic, not a pathetic, figure, and not for one who falters or who deceives himself.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His results afford a wholesome check to introspective and romantic criticism, and may be accepted as the starting-point for a reasoned consideration of Shakespeare’s intentions.” G: F. Whicher
STONE, GENE. Cousin Nancy and the Lees of Clifford. il *$1.75 Crowell
The Lees are a jolly western family living in a mountain valley in Nevada. Nancy is a cousin from New York who comes to spend a year with them. Nancy has been used to every luxury and there are many things about her cousins’ way of life that surprise her. She is not used, for one thing, to being introduced to delivery boys and she doesn’t see Ralph Mariner’s outstretched hand. But Nancy is a “real girl” after all. She easily adapts herself and enjoys the hearty fun and the impromptu good times her cousins offer her, and comes to appreciate Ralph’s worth, at the same time that he comes to see that she isn’t a snob. Nancy changes her mind about finishing schools too and decides to go to college and a great discovery, made on one of their expeditions, makes it possible for the others to go too.
STONE, GENE. Jane and the owl. (Sage brush stories) il *$1.50 (5c) Crowell
A series of fairy tale adventures for young readers. The initial setting is unusual. Jane lives in the sage brush country and her playground is a rocky canyon. Climbing its steep slopes one day, she sits down on a broad flat rock to rest and falls asleep and then begin her adventures in company with Oskar the owl. The stories are: Jane and the owl; The wobbly wudgets; The tremendous terwollipers; The moon sprites; The strike of the stylish young ladies of Fairtowers; The land o’ nod; The joyful mermaids; Break o’ day country.
STOREY, MOORFIELD. Problems of today. *$1.50 Houghton 304
A volume containing the Godkin lectures for 1920. These annual lectures, delivered at Harvard, must deal in some manner with “the essentials of free government and the duties of the citizen.” Mr Storey chose five unrelated subjects of vital present interest. These are: The use of parties; Lawlessness; Race prejudice; The labor question; Our foreign relations. The author is a lawyer and member of the American bar association. He has been president of the Massachusetts civil service reform association, the Anti-imperialist league, and of the National association for the advancement of colored people.
“Mr Storey is at his best when he is considering conditions that are not complex, where rightmindedness and neighborly feeling and a willingness to do one’s share are enough to remedy human ills. When we turn to discussion of the distribution of wealth and the relations between employer and employed we find Mr Storey less adequate.”
STORM, MARION. Minstrel weather. il *$1.50 (8c) Harper 814
A volume of nature essays, one for each month of the year, with such titles as: Faces of Janus; A woodland valentine; Ways of the March hare; The April moment; The crest of spring; Hay harvest time. The author has a keen eye for the delicate shadings of the seasons’ changes, and the book will appeal to those of similar tastes. In addition to the twelve essays for the months, she writes of Landscapes seen in dreams; Hiding places; The play of leaves; The brown frontier; Far altars.
“The style is full of color and highly charged with meaning. It is not a smooth papershelled almond, but a shagbark hickory nut. If you want the full sweetness of the kernel, you must pick it out carefully. It well rewards the trouble. I am glad she has chosen to send out her first book, not in some strange form of free verse, but in clear, spicy, juicy prose. It is alluring and refreshing, a cupful of cordial.” H: Van Dyke
STORY, A. M. SOMMERVILLE (FRANKFORT SOMMERVILLE, pseud.). Present day Paris and the battlefields. *$1.50 (3½c) Appleton 914.4
“The visitor’s handbook with the chief excursions to the battlefields.” (Sub-title) All but one of the fifteen chapters are devoted to Paris. There are chapters on Paris of today; Fashionable Paris; Intellectual Paris; The origins of Paris; Paris of the middle ages; The art, gayety and genius of Paris; Aristocratic and pious Paris; etc. The excursions to the battlefields are outlined in the final chapter. The style is intimate and many of the conventional guide book features are omitted. There is no index.
“It is well written, interesting, accurate as far as it goes, but it is not a handbook. It has no index, no maps. A more important omission, however, is its failure to live up to its title. The book has little concern with ‘present-day’ Paris.”
STRATON, JOHN ROACH. Menace of immorality in church and state; messages of wrath and judgment. il *$1.75 (2½c) Doran 176
A series of sermons preached in Calvary Baptist church, New York city, all dealing with “the rank paganism and ever widening indecencies of the modern age.” The author says, “After every war, there is a wave of immorality. We have just passed through the greatest war of all time, and we are now witnessing the widest wave of immorality in the history of the human race.” Among the subjects of the sixteen chapters are: Slaves of fashion: the connection between women’s dress and social vice; The awful corruption of the modern theater: should Christians attend? The scarlet stain of sexual impurity: will America go the way of the great empires of the past? The great American gambling craze; God or Mammon? a message to the millionaires of New York; Sabbath observance as social sanity.
“The book is all emphasis. Ring the bell for church a few times and it has an effect; toll the bell and the stridence of its tone wearies.”
“The value and importance of his appeal, which might have been great, are largely lost by lack of perspective, grotesque exaggeration, superficial reasoning, and inaccurate statements of important facts. To those abreast of the times in the field of social hygiene effort and accomplishment, the book offers an object lesson in unscientific method and presentation.” B. J.
Reviewed by F: H. Whitin
STRATTON, CLARENCE. Public speaking. *$1.48 Holt 808.5
“This book on public speaking attempts to provide fundamental rules and enough exercises to train members of a class to become effective speakers before audiences. It aims to be practical. The idea underlying the treatment is that the student will be continually doing much more speaking than studying.” (Prefatory note) The chapters take up: Speech; The voice; Words and sentences; Beginning the speech; Concluding the speech; Getting material; Planning the speech; Making the outline or brief; Explaining; Proving and persuading; Refuting; Debating; Speaking upon special occasions; Dramatics. Additional exercises are given in the two appendixes and there is an index. The author is a member of the English department of Central high school, St Louis, and of the Division of university extension, Washington university.
“The chief value of the book is its excellent organization of the large variety of activities which make up a worthy course in public speaking.”
STRAUS, RALPH. Pengard awake. *$2 Appleton
Pengard was first discovered by some English tourists, as a bookdealer in Chicago. According to the testimony of his friends, he had been queer for some time and was getting queerer, disappearing from time to time for increasingly long intervals. As he also appeared to be suffering, Sir Robert Graeme sets himself to fathoming the mystery. A famous English physician is requisitioned for the probe. That Pengard is a victim of amnesia, is coming more and more under the influence of another personality and is living in dread of complete surrender, is certain from the start. And this is what gradually reveals itself: John Pengard and Hartley Sylvester are one and the same person, and the latter, author of a book that has made him famous, is gaining in sinister influence. By the aid of psychoanalysis, hypnotism and shrewd guesses, Dr Arne achieves the unexpected result that Pengard fades away as a dream person and Sylvester comes to stay. After more patient experimenting, more startling disclosures, Sylvester transforms himself into John Mathieson, one-time pal and brother-in-arms to Sir Robert’s dead brother.
“We must admit that even an inveterate novel reader will scarcely be able to forecast the various developments which arise, and in particular the utterly unlooked-for conclusion.”
“The story becomes more and more baffling as we proceed. The mystery is well worked out and the unraveling is exciting up to the very close.”
“An uncommonly good story of this kind. Based upon actual psychological fact.”
“While the plot is clever enough to carry the book, the pleasant literary style it is that will attract the average reader.”
“Anybody who wants to be entertained will thoroughly enjoy this story, but most readers will probably agree that Lucius Arne is the least convincing part of it.”
STRAUS, SIMON WILLIAM. History of the thrift movement in America. il *$1.50 (2c) Lippincott 331.84
The book is one of Lippincott’s thrift text series edited by Arthur H. Chamberlain. In his introduction Mr Chamberlain says of the author: “He clearly saw the wasteful tendencies of our people, and deplored the results, bound, he well knew, to come from them. He saw the problem in its totality. He appreciated thoroughly the distinction between proper spending and useless wasting; between common-sense saving and narrow parsimony.... He alone could write the history, indicate the need and significance and point the way of the thrift movement, of which he is the apostle.” The book falls into two parts. Some of the chapters in part 1 are: Characterization of thrift; America’s record of thriftlessness; The organization of the American society for thrift; The international congress for thrift; Resolutions recommending the teachings of thrift in the public schools of America. Among the contents of part 2 are: Little talks on thrift; Money-making and money-saving; How thrift shapes the character; The need of personal account keeping; Waste in the kitchen; Personal standards of thrift; Thriftlessness among the poor. There is an index and five symbolic cartoons by Rollin Kirby.
“Certainly, the gospel of thrift which Mr Straus expounds needs to be spread far and wide. The little talks on thrift contained in part II will be helpful to teachers as illustrations of the thrift idea.” G: F. Zook
STRAYER, GEORGE DRAYTON, and ENGELHARDT, NICKOLAUS LOUIS. Classroom teacher at work in American school. il *$1.48 Am. bk. 371.2
“This volume is one of the American education series, of which Prof. Strayer is the general editor. It treats exhaustively of the organization and administration of public education, as well as of the technique employed by the teacher in his daily work. Chapters are included dealing with records and reports, the organization of public education, the classification and progress of children, the measurement of the achievements of children, the health of school children, as well as extra-curricula activities that make possible an intelligent and sympathetic cooperation with the plans of the administrator.”—Springf’d Republican
“Contains little that is new, but is a restatement of material which is already familiar to all except elementary students of education. It will doubtless be used in many introductory courses.”
STREET, JULIAN LEONARD. Sunbeams, Inc. il *$1.25 Doubleday
Henry Bell Brown is introduced to us first as he is leaving the staff of the New York Evening Dispatch, and is given a farewell banquet. He is leaving to join a firm of “advertising engineers,” and subsequently becomes H. Bell Brown. It is only when he goes into business for himself that he rises to the glory of “Belwyn Brown.” It is his big idea of “merchandising” (one of his favorite verbs) sunshine that brings him success. He becomes a sort of a commercial Pollyanna spreading Gloomer Chasers broadcast on boiler-plate pages—something on this order: “No business is busted when there’s a smile left in the bank.” The war threatens the business of Sunbeams, Inc., but he enlarges its scope, goes to France and helps “win the war with sunshine.” Upon his return he is more convinced than ever that his name and fame shall be a household word and spares no effort to accomplish this result. At the end of a successful banquet given in his honor by the Pundits he is able to “indulge himself in a brief self-gratulatory yet philosophical reflection. ‘One thing is sure,’ he said to himself; ‘In this world a fellow gets just about what’s coming to him.’”
“Not only is the story so thin that it will hardly hold together, but it is impossible to feel any sympathy with the leading character—a state of things which often is fatal in a work of this kind. That it is not so in this instance is immeasurably to the credit of the author. It affords whimsical entertainment of unique quality.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“Short story with a lot of humor and various amusing exhibitions of psychology.”
STREETER, BURNETT HILLMAN, ed. Spirit; the relation of God and man, considered from the standpoint of recent philosophy and science. *$2.50 Macmillan 231
“The movement toward a scientific and philosophical conception of God is materially aided by the publication of a book called ‘The spirit,’ edited by Canon B. H. Streeter of the Church of England. ‘This volume,’ says the editor, ‘puts forward a conception of spirit—considered as God in action—which is definite but not scholastic, and which is capable of affording a basis both for a coherent philosophy and for a religion passionate and ethical, mystical and practical.’ The chapter on Immanence and transcendance is by Prof. A. Pringle-Pattison. Miss Lily Dougall writes on God in action. The psychology of power is treated by Capt. J. A. Hadfield of the Ashhurst neurological war hospital at Oxford. A. Clutton-Brock’s customary distinction of mind and style is apparent in two chapters on Spiritual experience and Spirit and matter. Other chapters are What happened at Pentecost by Rev. C. A. Anderson Scott, The psychology of grace, by Rev. C. W. Emmet, The language of the soul, by Miss Dougall and Christ, the revolutionary by Canon Streeter.”—Springf’d Republican
“Its temper is frank, its thought, for the most part, keen and clear, and its language, though frequently employing the terms of traditional theology, simple and eloquent.”
“Alike in its fearlessness, in its refusal to make terms with narrow types of orthodoxy, and in its strong Christocentric theology it is a characteristic product of modern English religious thought. Its main defect is that it only implicitly recognizes the affirmation of modern research that Christianity is a synthesis.”
STREIT, CLARENCE K. “Where iron is, there is the fatherland!” il *$1; pa *50c Huebsch 940.318
The booklet comes under the “Freeman pamphlets” series and is “a note on the relation of privilege and monopoly to war.” (Subtitle) It is an exposé of the stock and bond morality of big business and shows “that the interests of a nation and the interests of private property are two separate and distinct things. Whether the money and mineral international did or did not prepare and start the war ... it is certain that the fifty-one months during which millions of men were killed was a most profitable era for these interests.” Some of the topics discussed are: The basin of Briey; Interlocking directorates; Nickel not contraband; The French trust favors Krupps; Patrioteers; When is a fort not a fort? The agreement for a Lorraine offensive; The flag of big business; Bloody profits.
“Mr Streit tells the story simply, straightforwardly, with ample citation of authority, but almost too unjournalistically. The booklet is marred by awkward translations and by careless proof-reading of place names.”
STRINGER, ARTHUR JOHN ARBUTHNOTT. Prairie mother. il *$2 Bobbs
“Those who met ‘Chaddie’ McKail in ‘The prairie wife’ will be glad that Arthur Stringer has embodied her later experiences in ‘The prairie mother.’ Many of the characters of the earlier story of the Canadian prairie appear here. The story is in the form of a diary in which she sets down the details leading up to, and during, her greatest trial. The McKails have passed the first material difficulties of home-making in the new land, and their condition borders on opulence. But unfortunate speculation sweeps away their broad acres and solid home, and they are faced with the necessity of starting all over again. The ‘prairie mother’ gladly surrenders her charming home to the husband’s titled English cousin, and moves her household and three small tots to an unbroken half section which is in her name. The new owner of the old home is a woman who had entrusted funds to McKail. The former speedily proves the fly in the ointment, for she seems to fascinate ‘Dinky-Dunk’ and ere long there is a virtual separation. With deep sympathy, Mr Stringer details Chaddie’s efforts to mend her broken life.”—Springf’d Republican
“Mr Stringer’s public is accustomed to expect good work from his pen and we venture the opinion that in ‘The prairie mother’ he has surpassed himself.”
STRONG, EDWARD KELLOGG, jr. Introductory psychology for teachers. il $1.80 Warwick & York 370.1
A series of lessons in psychology arranged to form a classroom course. The author has planned the course on the well-known principles of proceeding from the known to the unknown, of learning by doing, etc. He describes his method in the preface: “Instead of beginning with the most uninteresting phases of psychology and those most unknown to students, the course takes up concrete experiences of everyday life, relates them to the problems of learning and individual differences, and so develops these two topics. Each general principle is discovered by the student out of his own experience in solving specially organized problems. Only after he has done his best is he expected to refer to the text and by then the text is no longer basic but only supplementary.” The sections of the book following the introduction are devoted to: The learning process; Individual differences; Some physiological aspects of psychology. There is a brief general review at the close. Charts and diagrams illustrate the book, references follow most of the chapters, and there is an index. The text is also printed in the form of seventeen booklets. The author is professor of vocational education, Carnegie institute of technology.
“There is growing up a pronounced distinction between two schools of educational psychologists. The one is interested in dealing with the relatively tangible outcomes of learning activities and is satisfied to put all explanations in the form of Professor Thorndike’s easy, but quite meaningless, formula of bonds. The other is interested in finding out in detail the steps by which a pupil acquires his mental results. Professor Strong may be described as belonging to the first type. For that school he has rendered the service of getting together a large body of interesting examples, and he has put these examples in a more teachable form than any writers of that group who have preceded him.”
STUART, SIR CAMPBELL.[2] Secrets of Crewe house. il *$2 (*7s 6d) (4½c) Doran 940.342
Crewe house was the headquarters of the department of propaganda in enemy countries under the directorship of Viscount Northcliffe. The story of its activities and successes during 1918 are revealed in this book. According to a quotation from the Tägliche Rundschau on page 127, “It cannot be doubted that Lord Northcliffe very substantially contributed to England’s victory in the world war. His conduct of English propaganda during the war will some day find its place in history as a performance hardly to be surpassed.” The book is indexed and contains besides the portraits of the various members of the committee on propaganda and other illustrations several maps and facsimiles of the leaflets distributed by means of balloons. The contents are: Propaganda: its uses and abuses; Crewe house: its organization and personnel; Operations against Austria-Hungary: propaganda’s most striking success; Operations against Germany; Tributes from the enemy; Operations against Bulgaria and other activities; Inter-allied cooperation; From war propaganda to peace propaganda; Vale!
“Although there is much that is eulogistic of his chief, Sir Campbell does not overdraw the picture. He uses none of the arts of the professional writer, preferring at all times to tell the story without attempting the dramatic.” H. D. C.
“This complacent book is ludicrous, not because it takes for granted that all it aimed to achieve was achieved; nor because it omits due credit to French propaganda (more extensive than British) and Russian (not even mentioned); but because it tries to get glory out of war.” Heber Blankenhorn
“Sir Campbell’s lively style and his keen enjoyment of what he has to tell engross the reader.”
“‘Secrets of Crewe house’ is rather hastily put together, and is too much a eulogy of Lord Northcliffe by his chief assistant. But it contains a good deal of interesting description of the sundry ingenious devices by which Lord Northcliffe spread his propaganda.” H: W. Bunn
“In Lord Northcliffe’s mentality we have always been struck with a strong vein of simplicity, which the charitable call naïveté, and the uncharitable call knavery, or stupidity. There are two signs of this quality in this book. Again and again it is explicitly stated that the propaganda told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is childish. No propaganda could succeed which told the truth.”
“A very lively and exciting story, which the many illustrations in the volume help to diversify. Yet the book is more than a piece of good reading about the war, and more than a historical record. It will have a permanent value as a handbook to the principles of propaganda in enemy countries.”
STUCK, HUDSON. Winter circuit of our Arctic coast. il *$6 (5c) Scribner 979.8
This is the author’s fourth book of Alaskan travel and describes a journey with dog-sled around the entire Arctic coast of Alaska in the winter of 1917–18. It is not a record of discoveries of exploration and does not describe an already “scientifically known” people anthropologically but rather socially during their “normal life” which is their winter life. “My purpose was an enquiry into their present state, physical, mental, moral and religious, industrial and domestic, into their prospects, into what the government and the religious organizations have done and are doing for them, and what should yet be done.” (Preface) Besides many illustrations, two maps and an index the book contains: From Fort Yukon to Kotzebue Sound; Kotzebue Sound to Point Hope; Point Hope; Point Hope to Point Barrow; Point Barrow; The northern extreme; Point Barrow to Flaxman Island; Flaxman Island and the journey to Herschel Island; Herschel Island and the journey to Fort Yukon.
“There is a quiet and peculiar charm, distinctly of the North, in this narrative.” F: O’Brien
“This book is readable from cover to cover—entertaining, thoughtful, wise in its recommendations concerning our great territory, and attractive in its illustration.”
“Mr Stuck is a man of many interests, and his narrative is the more absorbing for being discursive.”
STUDENSKY, PAUL. Teachers’ pension systems in the United States. *$3 Appleton 371.17
The book is published under the auspices of the Institute for government research, in the series Studies in administration, and is both a critical and descriptive study of the subject. It “should be not only a substantial contribution to the science of administration, but an immediate and practical aid to teachers, school authorities, legislators and all other persons interested in solving the problem of reorganizing their own systems or establishing systems ... upon bases that have been tested by experience and are in accordance with sound social, economic, and financial principles.” (Editorial introd.) Part 1: The problem of teachers’ pensions, contains: The evolution of teachers’ pensions in the United States; The teachers’ pension problem outlined; Superannuation benefits; Disability benefits; Death and withdrawal benefits; Determining the cost of benefits; The division of cost between government and teachers; The government’s contribution; The teacher’s contribution; Compulsory participation and the right to management. In Part 2 an account is given of the movement in the United States and an examination made of the history and present condition of the more important systems now in existence. There is also an appendix, actuarial tables and a bibliography.
“In his efforts to inculcate the sound principles, Mr Studensky errs rather on the side of overloading his discussion with too much detail, which for the readers most concerned will probably lead to confusion rather than clarification. While general agreement will be found with the principles of a sound pension system discussed in the volume, Mr Studensky’s acceptance of the salary scale as the basis of the pension considerably diminishes the value of his work.”
“The book covers the subject critically and thoroughly.”
“The volume will serve the purpose of a work of reference and will be of value to committees of teachers considering the establishment of a pension system. The average teacher, however, will perhaps be a little more confused by the problem after reading the book than before, mainly because it is over-loaded by too much detail and because the discussions of theory and practice are too widely separated.” I. L. Kandel
STURGEON, MARY C. Studies of contemporary poets, rev. and enl. *$2.50 Dodd 821.09
“These short studies, warmly presenting the merits of a number of contemporary poets with much illustrative quotation, first appeared in 1916. The additional chapters are on John Drinkwater, ‘Michael Field,’ (Katharine H. Bradley and Edith E. Cooper), Thomas Hardy, J. C. Squire, Contemporary women poets (Anna Wickham, Helen Parry Eden, Anna Bunston, Olive Custance, Eva Gore Booth, Margaret Radford), and W. B. Yeats.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The best one can say about Miss Sturgeon’s work is that it is the outcome of a wide knowledge of the poets and versifiers of her time. But she fails to do justice to whatever understanding of them that knowledge might have given to her.”
“One does not receive in these pages the keen analysis, the subtle interpretation of contemporaries such as Arthur Symons gave to his public in ‘Studies in two literatures,’ but they do give an honest, workable survey of the figures and qualities among the contemporaneous poets of England that is serviceable and informative.” W. S. B.
“The fact is that Miss Sturgeon’s criticism leans toward sentimentalism, and not only because she tends always to stress the good, the true, the perennially sad. Her writing clings too close to its matter even when she is at her best, which is in interpretation of the thought and melody in giving passages; and her exquisiteness of appreciation tends in one way or another to impede the flow of critical thought. One poet seems in retrospect very much like another.” C. M. Rourke
“Miss Sturgeon’s book, taken with the necessary ‘grano salis,’ has much to recommend it. Its value as criticism would have been higher if Miss Sturgeon had not been so uniformly enthusiastic.” R: Le Gallienne
STURGIS, ESTHER MARY (OGDEN) (MRS RICHARD CLIPSTON STURGIS). Personal prejudices. *$1.65 (4c) Houghton 814
In these chatty essays the author gives her opinions on many subjects, as the table of contents reveals, with much wit and humor. Her husband in his preface to the book says of it that it is not immoral and therefore not really modern, but commends it for its patriotic enthusiasm. Contents: Gardens; Husbands and housekeeping; Autres temps, autres mœurs; The lost art of letterwriting; My Bolshevist; Old friends; New acquaintances; House and home; Quality versus equality; Differences and distinctions; Epilogue by the favourite nephew.
“Sweet, homely essays with the humor which pleased readers of ‘Random reflections of a grandmother.’”
“The odd thing is that this book of informal essays will probably please readers of sharply different types, though perhaps not always in the way in which the writer would choose. She has the real gift of the familiar essayist, the gift for self-revelation.”
“Her originality is as clearly reflected in her refreshing style as in her prejudices. Her commentaries sparkle with the same charming wit, compounded of shrewd common sense and abundant humor that made such delightful reading of her ‘Random reflections of a grandmother.’”
SULLIVAN, ALAN. Rapids. *$1.75 (2) Appleton
The story is a fairy tale of what the genius of one man can achieve in developing the powers of nature. Robert Fisher Clark was a man of vision, of action, of unusual concentration, and of hypnotic personality. At a glance he takes in the possibilities of the Rapids of St Mary’s and the surrounding wilderness. Immediately he is at work developing plans and attracting the necessary money and good-will by his personal magnetism. But the test of his greatness comes when human covetousness and stupidity wrests the fruits of his labor from him after the end of seven years and he is ready to acknowledge that he has worked in the service of humanity not for his own gain. He abandons everything, even the woman he loves, to the equally wholehearted love of his engineer and seeks new fields for his activity.
“Men will like it.”
“It is an interesting and well-told story, with vivid presentation of its scenes. In its purpose and manner and spirit the author has made a successful venture in turning aside a little from the usual lines of fiction.”
“A fine romance of industrial enterprise from the western world.”
SULLY, JAMES, My life and friends. *$5 Dutton
“James Sully’s latest book, ‘My life and friends: a psychologist’s memories,’ is the record of a man devoted to music and literature as well as to his technical subject. The book is not burdened with formal information about himself. It does not tell us the date of his birth, or the name of his wife, or the number of his children. It begins the narrative of his life by a description of the sleepy Somersetshire town of Bridgwater, where he was born, and ends with a chance remark on Sicilian painted carts. It touches upon the circumstances of his childhood in a Nonconformist family and of his early education in Baptist schools; upon his student days in Germany under Ewald and Lotze; upon his literary and professional work in London, where he became professor of philosophy in University college. But it dwells most affectionately upon his vacations and upon the men and women whose intimacy or acquaintance he enjoyed.”—Nation
“An inspiring reminiscent volume.” E. F. E.
“A very readable contribution to biographical literature and to the intellectual history of an important period is offered in Professor James Sully’s volume of reminiscences.” R. H. Lowie
“His memoirs are not great in themselves: it is rather the friendships they chronicle that add lustre to them.”
“By those who wish to enjoy the society of the superior Hampsteadians of the last quarter of the last century, Dr Sully’s autobiography should be read, and will certainly be relished.”
“Dr Sully’s new volume belongs to that class of books, unhappily rare, which are much more pleasant to read than to criticise. Its merits, like those of a well-baked cake, are diffused imperceptibly throughout the whole mass; it does not lend itself to quotation; there are many plums, but to savour their true excellence they have to be taken in their original environment.”
“Dr Sully contributes to literature a book of value as well as interest in ‘My life and my friends.’”
SUMMERS, A. LEONARD. Asbestos and the asbestos industry. (Pitman’s common commodities and industries ser.) il $1 Pitman 553.6
“Until the completion of this work, there existed no comprehensive book on the absorbing study of asbestos.... The uses and scope of asbestos having now become universal, it has long been felt that a book thereon was much needed, so few people really understanding the subject; and the author (for many years closely associated with the industry), while avoiding as far as possible too dry and tiresome technicalities, has dealt with everything of real interest and utility in a concise and popular style to appeal to every class of reader.” (Foreword) There are illustrations by the author and from photographs and the book is indexed.
“The volume on ‘Asbestos’ decidedly suffers by comparison with its companion volume [on ‘Zinc’ by T. E. Lones] as the author does not take care to avoid a number of errors, which, though common enough in the trade, ought not to find their way into a book of this description.”
“As a catalogue of finished products the volume will find use; as a text-book covering the technical preparation of asbestos it hardly merits consideration.”
SUMMERS, WALTER COVENTRY. Silver age of Latin literature. *$3 Stokes 870
The period covered is from Tiberius to Trajan. The preface says: “The term ‘Silver Latin’ is often applied loosely to all the post-Augustan literature of Rome: in this book it has been reserved for that earlier part of it which, in spite of a definite decline in taste and freshness, deserves nevertheless to be sharply distinguished from the baser metals of the imitative or poverty-stricken periods which followed.” (Preface) A chronological table is followed by discussions on: The declamations and the pointed style; The epic; Drama; Verse satire; Light and miscellaneous verse; Oratory; History, biography and memoirs; Philosophy; Prose-satire and romance; Correspondence; Grammar, criticism and rhetoric; Scientific and technical prose. There are notes on translations and an index.
“The book contains some smooth translations, of which, as might be expected, the renderings from the satirists are probably the most successful. Without stating any particularly fresh theory, Mr Summers covers the old ground very thoroughly.”
“In ‘The silver age of Latin literature,’ we are given a text-book, admirably written and closely digested, that is an open door to a literature that often amazes us by its evident modernity.”
“Rather dull. But Prof. Summers is full of learning on the period which is not commonly mastered by classical students; and his record is so thorough that it should not be neglected.”
SUMNER, WILLIAM GRAHAM. What social classes owe to each other. 2d ed *$1.50 (4c) Harper 171
This is a republication of Prof. Sumner’s book on ‘Social classes’ with an introduction by his successor to the chair of social science at Yale university, Albert Galloway Keller. Prof. Keller thinks that our age, more than any other, needs an unflinching statement of the individualistic position, of laissez-faire. “At a time when the world is menaced with the curtailment of civil liberty and the paralysis of individual initiative through weird and grotesque developments of socialism ... the man who takes to heart the truths of this little book cannot be led by the nose even into that pseudo-open-mindedness that toys with bolshevism and anarchism.” (Foreword)
“The book is a brilliant piece of writing, an impassioned vindication of individualism, a resolute arraignment of the social meddling and social doctors that were popular in 1883, are now, and perhaps always will be.”
“Plausible as all this may have sounded in 1883, it seems unfair to the memory of an eminent scholar to resurrect a study in which such manifestly outgrown sentiments are predominant.” Ordway Tead
“Whatever we may think of such old-fashioned individualism, it is wholesome to have a dash of it now and then, and the reading of such a book as this, like a cold bath after a warm day, is both refreshing and stimulating.” J. E. Le Rossignol
SWEETSER, ARTHUR.[2] League of nations at work. *$1.75 Macmillan 341.1
“A series of articles contributed to the New York Evening Post by Arthur Sweetser, a member of the American peace commission, is published in book form. Mr Sweetser writes to clear away misconceptions and to make the purposes and the actual machinery of the league as clear as possible. Mr Sweetser’s study covers in detail the permanent court, the secretariat, the questions of disarmament, minorities and mandates, international labor and health organizations, freedom of transit, economic co-operation and open diplomacy.”—Springf’d Republican
“He shows a very clear understanding of essentials and he presents his well-digested knowledge in clear language, with simple figures to drive home his points. As a popular elucidation of the league, Mr Sweetser’s book is from every point of view commendable.”
SWEETSER, ARTHUR, and LAMONT, GORDON. Opportunities in aviation. il *$1 (3½c) Harper 629.1
The authors of this volume, one a captain in the American air service, the other a lieutenant in the Royal air force of Canada, claim that it is the training, not the individual, that makes the pilot and that “any ordinary, active man, provided he has reasonably good eyesight and nerve, can fly, and fly well. If he has nerve enough to drive an automobile through the streets of a large city ... he can take himself off the ground in an airplane, and also land—a thing vastly more difficult and dangerous.” (Introd.) The authors also claim that aeronautics in the future must cease to be a highly specialized business, that the airplane will become a conveyance of everyday civilian use and that what they have written is based on actual accomplishments to date. Contents: War’s conquest of the air; The transition to peace; Training an airplane pilot; Safety in flying; Qualifications of an airplane mechanic; The first crossing of the Atlantic; Landing-fields—the immediate need; The airplane’s brother; The call of the skies; Addendum.
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES. Selections; ed. by Edmund Gosse and Thomas James Wise. *$2 Doran 821
Mr Gosse and Mr Wise, who edited Swinburne’s letters and a collection of “Posthumous poems,” have prepared the first selection from his works since the one compiled by Watts-Dunton in 1887. This early volume, the present editors say, “was not broadly characteristic of Swinburne’s many moods and variety of subjects.” The aim has been to make the new selection more representative.
“Without having at hand the older volume of selections made by Swinburne himself it may yet be said that the present selection is a good one. It would have been more ‘representative’ if it had included one or two of the ‘Songs before sunrise,’ and the omission of ‘Laus veneris’ and especially ‘The leper’ is regrettable. What one would like to have would be a volume of selections including these poems and omitting the two choruses from ‘Atalanta,’ and another volume containing the whole of ‘Atalanta.’” T. S. E.
“The present selection is, in almost every way, admirable, and represents adequately the poetical genius of the author.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“Lovers of Swinburne will be grateful to Mr Gosse and Mr Wise.”
“So long as a selection contains the ‘Triumph of time,’ the ‘Garden of Proserpine,’ ‘Hertha,’ the Atalanta choruses, and a few others, it will content us; these we need, and beyond these whatever else is included the editor may be at peace—we shall take it and be satisfied.”
SWINDLER, ROBERT EARL. Causes of war. *$1.75 Badger, R. G. 902
“This publication is based on the idea that it is idle to talk of world peace without an intelligent world understanding. ‘The causes of war’ is designed to meet the need of a systematic organization of the great mass of material concerning the war. It gives all the essential points, and is equally suited to the busy student, teacher, or general reader. The work includes not only an outline and study of the world war together with the official peace negotiations, but also a survey of all the wars that preceded with particular emphasis upon those since 1870.”—School R
“This volume is pertinent and timely. It is one of the most convenient reference books on a subject of universal interest that has so far been published, and is well-nigh indispensable for writers and speakers.”
“The work is so clearly and logically written that it is particularly valuable for use in current history classes.”
SWINNERTON, FRANK ARTHUR. September, *$1.90 (2c) Doran
Mr Swinnerton’s new novel is a story of the coming and passing of love in the late summer of a woman’s life. As in his memorable “Nocturne,” the characters are four: Marian Forster; her husband, Howard; Cherry Mant; and Nigel Sinclair. In the beginning, Howard, who is eleven years older than his wife, and far past his youth, is carrying on a love affair with Cherry, a girl of twenty and daughter of one of Marian’s friends. Marian is shocked, not at Howard’s faithlessness, which is an old story to her, but at Cherry’s bright callousness, for irresistibly she feels herself drawn to the girl. Then comes Nigel, young, charming and adoring, to offer her his boyish adulation and surprise her into love. But youth responds to youth and Nigel is won over by Cherry. The interplay of emotions is delicately complex, involving on Marian’s side love for Nigel, sympathy for Howard, and genuine friendship for Cherry.
“Mr Swinnerton’s analysis of the women’s characters is singularly penetrating. He makes the conflict and its solution arise inevitably out of the two opposed natures; the plot and the characterization are not two distinct things, but the same.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Granted his acceptance of the established romantic values of fiction, he has concocted a good story, serious and sensitive along its own lines.” F. H.
“‘Nocturne’ established Frank Swinnerton as one of the highly promising novelists in the young English group that is building an age of novels in England commensurate with the two great periods of the past. ‘September,’ to our mind, is an even greater and more penetrating study of the human mind and heart.” Clement Wood
“The novel lacks something of the intensity, vividness and variety of ‘Nocturne’ which still remains Mr Swinnerton’s best book, but it is a very great improvement on the rather disappointing ‘Shops and houses.’”
“The beautiful artistic quality of the author’s wonderful ‘Nocturne’ appears again in this new book, one of the most notable productions of the season.”
Reviewed by F: T. Cooper
“Mr Swinnerton’s sensitivism, if the term may properly be applied to him, is on the side of the angels. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he does not throw decency overboard because hypocrites exist, or exalt impulse over principle.” H. W. Boynton
“The book is one that almost any English novelist might have been proud to write.”
“The relationship between the two women is the theme of the book; and as Mr Swinnerton has been at pains to endow each with character, and to make out from his own insight how such a relation might shape itself, the development is original enough to have an unusual air of truth.”
SWINNERTON, HELEN (DIRCKS) (MRS FRANK SWINNERTON). Passenger. *$1.50 Doran 821
In introducing this book of poems Frank Swinnerton refers to originality and candour as their outstanding qualities. Of the author he says, “Whatever technical faults her verses may have they remain altogether unspoilt by literary sophistication.” Some of the titles are: Underground; Withholding; Then and now; Alone; Piccadilly, 1917; America, 1917; London in war; The betrayal; Adjustment; Garden song; Trying to sleep; The traveller; In the dark.
“Many of these pieces are happy little efforts in lyrical poems of love or regret, and the whiffs of verse in vers libre are felicitous.”
SWISHER, WALTER SAMUEL. Religion and the new psychology. *$2 Jones, Marshall 201
“A psycho-analytic study of religion,” with chapters devoted to: The nature of the religious problem; The nature of the unconscious and its influence on the religious life; The motivation of human life; Determinism and free-will; Mysticism and neurotic states; The problem of evil; Pathological religious types; The occult in modern religious systems; Conversion and attendant phenomena; The changing basis and objective of religion; Methods of mental and religious healing; The religious problem in education. Two appendices are devoted to: Dreams and dream mechanisms and Birth dreams. There is a brief bibliography and an index. The author goes rather fully into the principles of psycho-analysis and the book may serve as an introduction to those who have not read widely on the subject.
“The most useful part of the book deals with religious education and illustrates the baneful effects of early religious fears. The author is dogmatic in his statements regarding the religious and non-ethical life of primitive people. Most of the readers, familiar with psychoanalytic literature, will turn from the book with the conviction that a satisfactory discussion of religion and the new psychology is hardly to be expected from within the ministerial profession. The book would serve a useful purpose were it not unlikely to be read by those who need it most.” E. R. Groves
“Rarely, perhaps never, has a writer failed so signally to accomplish his aim. The book is a heterogeneous mass of poorly digested, badly assimilated psychology, and worse religion, while from the pedagogical point of view that which he says has been said many times.” Joseph Collins
“That much is here done to illustrate the indubitable connection between the religious motives of mankind and other motives and faculties, is true; it is also true that the book by swallowing the Freudian system of sex symbols too uncritically makes itself a candidate for laughter in that day, sure to come, when the excesses of Freud will recall the excesses of Max Müller.”
Reviewed by G. E. Partridge
“Like many other books on psycho-analysis, this one proves that until expounders of this theory develop greater balance or a keener sense of humor in considering the phenomena of sex, there is small likelihood of their labors resulting in a substantial addition to our scientific understanding of ourselves.”
TAFT, HENRY WATERS. Occasional papers and addresses of an American lawyer. *$2.50 (2½c) Macmillan 304
Of these addresses the author says, in his long introduction, that “the march of events has been so rapid that little more than a historic interest now attaches to the subjects they deal with,” but he hopes they may stimulate the younger members of the legal profession to greater effort in promoting the effective administration of justice and in the duties of citizenship. The contents, in part, are: Address to the Harvard law school students delivered in 1908; Some responsibilities of the American lawyer; The bar in the war; Report of the war committee; Aspects of bolshevism and Americanism; The League of nations; Sovereignty, constitutionality and the Monroe doctrine; What is to be done with our railroads? Some of the papers appeared in the New York Times.
“Mr Taft brings to his consideration of these subjects sound information and a forceful dignity of judgment.”
“A fresh, clear viewpoint, together with that true liberalism which is the fruit of independent thought, makes these essays enjoyable. One of the most interesting of all is the introduction, in which there are some critical and friendly estimates of Theodore Roosevelt and of some of the things proposed by him—these latter more critical and not quite so friendly, though never ungenerous or unfair.”
“They are uniformly clear, good tempered, and conservatively progressive.”
TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD. Taft papers on League of nations. *$4.50 Macmillan 341.1
The papers are edited by Theodore Marburg and Horace E. Flack and the former, in a long introduction, sets forth the reasons why they are an evidence of the ex-president’s grasp of the guiding legal principles of our government and of the attitude of mind which the best thought and feeling of the country heartily accept as true Americanism. Among the papers are: League to enforce peace; The Paris covenant for a league of nations; Constitutionality of the proposals; The purposes of the League; Self determination; Workingmen and the League; Why a league of nations is necessary; Disarmament of nations and freedom of the seas; President Wilson and the League of nations; Senator Lodge on the League of nations; Representation in the League; Ireland and the League; Answer to Senator Knox’s indictment; Guaranties of article X. The book is indexed.
“Although this important collection of documents appears subsequent to the conclusion of the ‘solemn referendum,’ and the fall of Wilsonism in our country, it will doubtless prove of great value when the new régime shall come in and the whole question of the League of nations shall be definitely disposed of.” E. J. C.
“This volume embodies much of the soundest thinking on the subject of the League of nations that has thus far found expression in America.”
TAGGART, MARION AMES. Pilgrim maid. il *$1.60 (2c) Doubleday
For the heroine of her story for girls the author has chosen Constance Hopkins, a real maid of Plymouth who came in the Mayflower in 1620 with her father, her stepmother and younger brothers and sister. Other real people have a place in the story too, among them John Alden and Priscilla. The preface says, “The aim has been to present Plymouth colony as it was in its first three years of existence; to keep to possibilities, even while inventing incidents. Actual events have been transferred from a later to an earlier year.... But there is fidelity to the general trend of events, above all to the spirit of Plymouth in its beginnings.”
“Interesting, though accentuating the severity of Puritan life. For older girls.”
“‘A Pilgrim maid’ is that rare thing, a really good story for girls. It is a story first and history second.” W. A. Dyer
TALBOT, FREDERICK ARTHUR AMBROSE.[2] Millions from waste. il *$5 Lippincott 604
“The present volume deals with the reclamation of waste of all kinds, from scrap-iron to fish-offal. Although it is written from the British standpoint, the solutions that are given of the various problems are as applicable to American conditions. In general, each chapter considers some particular kind of waste product, discussing both the extent of such waste and the processes that have been developed for utilizing these products. Wastes from the kitchen, the slaughter-house, the fishing industry, the ash-can, the sewer, the metal industry, and many other branches are discussed.”—Mining and Scientific Press
“This timely book combines to a marked degree solidity of substance with an entertaining style.” C: W. Mixter
“The treatment is popular enough to be interesting, but not so popular as to fail of being informative.”
“A capital book for the general reader.”
TALBOT, WINTHROP, comp, and ed. Americanization. 2d ed rev. and enl. by Julia E. Johnsen. (Handbook ser.) *$1.80 Wilson. H. W. 325.7
In this second edition the bibliography is brought down to date and fifty-three pages of new matter are added. In these additional reprints “special endeavor has been made to emphasize the more concrete aspect of Americanisation.” (Explanatory note)
“Eminently suited to its purpose.”
“The purely political aspects of the subject—especially the effect of deportation proceedings—are not yet included. Perhaps the editors have been wise in limiting their attention to the purely constructive efforts. The book in its present form should prove very useful to Americanization workers.”
TANSLEY, ARTHUR GEORGE. New psychology and its relation to life. *$4 Dodd 150
While the old psychology has over-emphasized the purely rational faculties of the mind, the new psychology recognizes the importance of its unconscious processes. The object of the book is to set forth the fundamental importance of the instinctive sources of human actions, and the part played by psychotherapy in throwing light upon normal mental processes. Part 1 describes the scope of the new psychology and the problem of the relationship of mind and body. The other divisions or the contents are: The structure of the mind; The energy of the mind; By-ways of the libido; Reasons and rationalization; The contents of the mind. There is an index.
“Mr Tansley has written a really excellent exposition and summary of the chief speculations in modern psychology.”
“The author reveals throughout his work the poise of the man who has mastered his subject. The book will be welcomed by those who wish to know the latest developments in psychology.” F. W. C.
“His survey of the Freudian theories is both readable and clear. His graphic method of presenting the interaction between consciousness and the unconscious in convenient spatial diagrams is very helpful as long as the reader guards himself against taking them too literally.” A. B. Kuttner
“Mr Tansley’s book is most satisfactory when he is dealing with such matters as the interpretation of dreams, the ‘rationalisations’ by which men try to justify conduct which is really prompted by non-rational motives, and the great psychic complexes which correspond to the main instincts of man. The book is less satisfactory in the general theoretical chapters with which it opens.” H. S.
“Mr Tansley’s book seems to me the best general survey of psychology now available. It is the best, partly because it is the latest, but chiefly because Mr Tansley enjoys a fine gift of exposition. He himself has an orderly and a lucid mind, and an unfailing respect for the reader.” W. L.
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“Particularly interesting is his discussion of the ‘universal complexes’ of the ego, herd, and sex which result from the play of experience upon the primary instincts. The book is on the whole free from those pathological exaggerations which characterize so many of the productions of so-called psychoanalysts.” Bernard Glueck
“Mr Tansley is not, however, a blind follower of these authorities; he has preserved his independence of view, and produced an original and stimulating discussion.”
TAPPAN, EVA MARCH. Hero stories of France. il *$1.75 (3c) Houghton 944
These stories, written for children, begin with the first encounters of the Gauls with the Romans under Caesar, and the gallant patriot hero Vercingetorix’ desperate efforts to save his country from the powerful conqueror. From the entire history of France, down to our own time and Marshal Foch, heroic personalities are selected and among them are: Vercingetorix; Clovis; Charlemagne; The six heroes of Calais; Jeanne d’Arc; Coligny; Henry of Navarre; Richelieu; Lafayette; Napoleon the Great, and “Napoleon the Little”; and Marshal Foch. The book is illustrated.
TARBELL, IDA MINERVA. In Lincoln’s chair. *$1 (11c) Macmillan
In fiction form, this is a condensed story of the life of Lincoln as told, by way of reminiscence, by Billy Brown, in his drugstore on the public square of Springfield, Illinois, and while his listener was seated opposite him in “Lincoln’s chair.” It brings out the salient features of Lincoln’s life before he went to Washington, his views on God, and their influence on his intellectual development, his early experiences as a lawyer, and his political progress.
“Must a saint or hero be all sugar, without spice or salt? Miss Ida M. Tarbell seems to think so still more in her imaginary conversation ‘In Lincoln’s chair’ than she did a dozen years ago in ‘He knew Lincoln.’ The moment she leaves the cold path of history she falls into the most abandoned myth-making.”
TARN, WILLIAM WOODTHORPE. Treasure of the isle of mist. *$1.90 (5c) Putnam
This is a delightfully fantastic story of a student and his little daughter Fiona who lived on the Isle of mist on the shores of a gray sea-loch. The old hawker who came to them with a pack of buttons to sell and who gave Fiona an old copper bangle bracelet, and the “search” turned out in the end to have been the king of fairies. The bracelet gave Fiona the power to talk with animals—to hold long philosophic conversations with a centipede—and to see and talk with the spirit of the mountain. But it was not only on account of the bracelet that she could do this but—because she was a child and could still see. When the treasure cave was closed up to her by a great fall of rock she knew that now she was too old for the search. The chapters are headed: The gift of the search; The beginning of trouble; The haunted cave; The urchin vanishes; The oread; The king of the woodcock; Fiona in the fairy-world; Fiona finds her treasure.
“Delicately imaginative and beautifully written.”
“An exquisite fantasy of youth and autumn.” A. C. Moore
“W. W. Tarn has written a book so beautiful, so whimsical, so exquisite alike in its humor, its loveliness and its sheer charm that it will be a dull reader indeed to whom it does not bring an abiding joy. This is a rare and beautiful book, a real discovery.”
“The fact is that Mr Tarn, apart from his lovely scenery, has adorned his tale with a remarkably bushy moral, excellent for Fionas and Urchins as such, but un-fairyish.”
TASSIN, ALGERNON DE VIVIER. Craft of the tortoise. *$1.50 Boni & Liveright 812
A satirical play in four acts tracing the evolution of the present status of woman, especially her social supremacy over man, from the ancient faraway beginnings to the present day. The play is built on the premise that woman, at first a slave, subjugated to man’s will and power, had to resort to trickery, exploitation of her sex attractions, and a clever use of clothing and adornment, in order to get ahead of her lord and owner; and that she finally made a complete reversal of social conditions. In his long introduction, brilliant and with a certain Bernard Shaw piquancy, the author is complimentary to neither sex. Having in his introduction compared woman with the tortoise in the fable racing with the gamboling hare, the author has titled the four acts respectively: The tortoise finds herself; Tortoise turns the first corner; Tortoise strikes her gait; Tortoise on the home stretch. The first three are remotely laid in that past so alluring to the imagination, the last is a satiric picture of modern life.
“In the preface, Mr Tassin’s style reminds one of Chesterton in its sharp shafts of wit and depths of irony. The first and second acts are excellent in their humor and sardonic style, the third lapses momentarily, and the fourth merely ‘carries on.’”
“The plays hover between satire and burlesque, and contain much that is arbitrary, didactic, and as inept as the figurative title; but they contrive to be both entertaining and provocative.”
“An ingenious and sometimes witty satire.”
“The source of this play in Mr Tassin’s mind was some moment of extreme irritation over the modern American woman. But to jump to the conclusion, as many would at once, that he is an anti-feminist, would be quite erroneous. The play has wit, it has wisdom, it has keen characterization of the purely intellectual sort, and it has dramatic energy.” L. L.
“Undoubtedly in many respects this dramatic symposium is outrageously unfair. It is a bit of special pleading, at once vigorous and shallow, which it would be absurd to take too seriously. And it is marred by a spice of somewhat cheap and unattractive cynicism. But it is a piece of literary and dramatic workmanship of highly superior quality.” J. R. Towse
“It is quite amusing in parts, although it is written to the length of prolixity. Mr Tassin’s characterizations are entertaining; he scores his points with consistency if one accepts his premises, and reveals a genuine humor that is admirable.”
“In spite of a satyrical vein which makes many of the scenes amusing, the entertainment is too heavy for continuous enjoyment. The known facts of anthropology and history are in places perverted into grotesque misstatements.” B. L.
TAUSSIG, FRANK WILLIAM. Free trade, the tariff and reciprocity. *$2 Macmillan 337
“A collection of papers and addresses covering the phases of the tariff controversy now chiefly under discussion in the United States by the Henry Lee professor of economics at Harvard (who has been chairman of the United States tariff commission).”—The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The papers have been taken from talks to various audiences and periodical articles from 1904 to date discussing the tariff pro and con in a form usable by the general reader.”—Booklist
“Useful to high schools.”
“Dr Taussig’s authority, which rests alike upon research and watchful, even-tempered criticism, is preeminent.”
“The volume is characterized by more of unity than usually attaches to such a collection, and the reader will find in it a coherent, consistent presentation of the author’s views on the main issues of the tariff question. In a time marked by the uncertainties and confusions which characterize domestic conditions and foreign relations today, it is not surprising to find the author chary of dogmatism as to the future course of events.” F: C. Mills
“Each problem is handled with the author’s characteristic open-mindedness. Each conclusion is reached after painstaking analysis, with a realization that future developments and changes in economic factors may take from an argument all its force.”
Reviewed by Bertram Benedict
“There is no safer guide on these topics than Dr Taussig. He was never an opportunist, but ever a preacher of the true word, with little if any reference to partisan expediency. Therefore, he is able to reproduce his arguments for the most part without change. Dr Taussig is a popular as well as an authoritative writer.”
TAWNEY, RICHARD HENRY. Acquisitive society. *$1.40 Harcourt 330
The author holds that no change of system or machinery can avert those causes of social malaise which consist in the egotism, greed, or quarrelsomeness of human nature. But it can create an environment in which these qualities are not encouraged; it can offer people an end on which to fix their minds, thus, in the long run directing their practical activity. To think of the economic organization of society on the basis of function rather than of rights, is a habit of mind to be encouraged. It implies three things: that proprietary rights shall be maintained when they are accompanied by the performance of service and abolished when they are not; that the producers shall stand in direct relation to the community for whom production is carried on; that the obligation for the maintenance of the service shall rest upon the professional organization of those who perform it. Contents: Rights and functions; The acquisitive society; The nemesis of industrialism; Property and creative work; The functional society; Industry as a profession; The “vicious circle”; The condition of efficiency; The position of the brain worker; Porro unum necessarium; Index.
“The author uses sound logic and pertinent historic facts to maintain his cause and there can be little doubt that this book will exert a great influence for good, for his theory is perfectly consistent with Christian principle.”
“This little book is destined, we believe, to be regarded as a classic masterpiece upon its subject. The treatment is at once profound and brilliant; brilliant because it gives powerfull and worthy expression to profound thought.” D. S. Miller
“He advocates revolutionary doctrines with temperateness and a seasoned mind. He writes of the ‘nemesis of industrialism,’ but with no trace of fanaticism.” R. B. Perry
“Cleverly written pamphlet. It is encouraging to find that one Socialist at least is on the right track.”
TAYLOR, EMERSON GIFFORD. New England in France, 1917–1919. il *$5 Houghton 940.373
The book is the record of the Twenty-sixth division of the American Expeditionary force, whose organization, personnel and record as a fighting unit are typical of American fighting troops in the field, on the march, in billets, or in the heat of battle. It is also the story of volunteer American citizens, non-professional soldiery. The contents in part are: Organizing the division; Overseas; Settling down in France; The chemin des dames; On the march; The Le Reine (Boucq) sector; The fights at Bois Brulé and Seicheprey; The affairs of May and June; The Aisne-Marne offensive; The Saint-Mihiel offensive; In the Meuse-Argonne offensive; Before the armistice and after. The book is illustrated and indexed and has six maps.
TAYLOR, FRANCES LILIAN.[2] Two Indian children of long ago. il 70c Beckley-Cardy 398.2
A book that combines information about the Indians with stories drawn from Indian myth and legend. “The author has endeavored to describe child life in the wild-rice region west of the Great Lakes ... and to retell some of the most interesting stories enjoyed by Indian children. The aim of the book is to gratify the American child’s natural interest in primitive life by stories of our own land and to increase his respect for all that is original and worthy in the lives of the first Americans.”
TAYLOR, IDA ASHWORTH. Joan of Arc, soldier and saint. il *$1.50 (2½c) Kenedy
A very simple and direct presentation of the life story of Joan of Arc. A prefatory note states: “The list of the lives of Joan is long; but some are too lengthy, some too much weighted with historical complications and details of campaigns, some too full of more or less controversial matter, to commend themselves to young readers. The following narrative is purely a personal record of her deeds and ideals, recounted, whenever possible, in her own words or in those of contemporary chronicles and in the archives of her tragic condemnation as heretic, her death as martyr, and her triumphant rehabilitation.” There are eight black and white illustrations by W. Graham Robertson.
TAYLOR, KATHARINE HAVILAND. Yellow soap. il *$1.75 (1½c) Doubleday
In an atmosphere of yellow soap, Theodore Hargraves Bradly grew up—laundry soap, for his mother was a washerwoman. She tried her best to bring him up as a gentleman, as, she impressed upon him, his father had been. At her death, he was left at seventeen, to shift for himself and became a ‘Knight of the road,’ which calling he followed for several years. He then came into an unexpected fortune and proceeded to gratify his own desires and those of his pals of the road. Running along with his story is that of Frances Milton, the little girl in whose home his mother had done washing, and whose childhood, in its way, was unhappier than his. She was always his ideal and when their paths cross again, the barriers which he had erected between them on account of his origin, proved to be no barriers at all.
“Despite its many crudities and its frequent unconvincingness, the book shows a real gift for the creation of character, much inventive faculty and an instinct for story-telling that promise worth-while achievement in the future.”
TEAD, ORDWAY, and METCALF, HENRY CLAYTON. Personnel administration; its principles and practice. *$5 McGraw 331.1
“The field of their task is defined by the authors as setting forth the principles and the best prevailing practice in the field of the administration of human relations in industry; and they take up seriatim the personnel department, employment methods, health and safety, education, research (job analysis, specifications, etc.), rewards, administrative correlation, and joint relations.”—Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering
“An unusually full index adds much to the usefulness of this valuable and timely volume.” T. T. Read
“An honest and intelligent effort to induce employers to face the industrial problem intelligently and with a liberal spirit. Although not as incisively phrased or as brilliant as Sidney Webb’s ‘Works manager today,’ or Commons’s ‘Industrial good will,’ this is nevertheless a good book in a field where good books are unfortunately rare.” P. H. Douglas
Reviewed by G: Soule
“Adequate scholarship and a fine instinct for democracy characterize the writing.” W: L. Chenery
TEALL, GARDNER CALLAHAN. Little garden the year round. il *$2.50 Dutton 716.2
“Mr Teall has had much experience as an editor of House and Garden and American Homes and Gardens to sponsor his name on a book cover. It isn’t merely a horticultural handbook that he offers, such as any enterprising seedsman might evolve for the guidance of the uninitiated; this is the work of a garden litterateur, a man who knows the flowers, knows what to say about them, and what the poets have said about them and various other things that are more or less essential ingredients of a real garden essay or a series of them. He writes ‘to convey some sense of the joys of gardening, some realization of the pleasures that find place in the heart and soul of one who combines the companionship of prose and poetry in the going about his gardening.’”—Springf’d Republican
“One somehow gets the impression from this book that a garden-maker must be completely happy—or would be if it were not for slugs, aphids, and red spiders. Mr Teall writes with contagious enthusiasm and full knowledge of his subject.”
TEALL, GARDNER CALLAHAN. Pleasures of collecting; being sundry delectable excursions in the realm of antiques and curios, American, European and oriental. il *$4 (6½c) Century 749
“The contentment to be found in the acquisition and in the contemplation of the things that are dear to the heart of the antiquarian and the art-lover is a contentment that is the gift of the gods, always awarded the intelligent, though not always disclosed to them. A friend, then, will be he who discovers to one a treasure like that which the joy of collecting uncovers.... And so it is that this little book is not devised for savages, but tenderly has been nurtured in sympathy with the interesting and beautiful things of yesterday.” (Foreword) Among the contents are: The pleasures of collecting; Collectors of yesterday; American tables; Tea and antiquity; Chintz; Pewter; Samplers; Hand-woven coverlets; Chairs; English drinking-glasses; Delft; Early desk furniture; Saving the pieces; Consoles; The romance of a potter; Bernard Palissy; Italian Maiolica; Engraved gems; Fraudulent art objects. There are many illustrations, an extended bibliography and an index.
“Useful to the collector, it will also beguile leisure moments of others.”
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
“Any one who harbors even the germ of the collecting habit will find it developing in the glowing atmosphere of the author’s enthusiasm.”
“Of course there is not enough about any one hobby to more than whet the appetite for a deeper acquaintance with the subject; and the book opens up vistas that are impractical for any but millionaires. Nevertheless. It is also a book for general reading and will prove entertaining to many a reader who gets much pleasure from looking into shop windows without being able to purchase the goods behind the glass.”
TEASDALE, SARA (MRS ERNST B. FILSINGER). Flame and shadow. *$1.75 Macmillan 811
“Sara Teasdale has found a philosophy of life and death. In this latest book we may watch the conflict between the light that comes from the everlasting flame and the darkness that is the ever-present shadow.... There are many poems in ‘Flame and shadow’ to delight those who cannot share her philosophy. There are songs of the faithful beauty of Aldebaran and Altair, and songs of the open sea and the mountains. It is necessary to mention, also, the songs of places, of St Louis, of New York, and Santa Barbara, and the songs of people and of their secret thoughts, ‘rushing without sound’ from the hidden places of their minds. But the best of Sara Teasdale’s songs of people are her love songs, always.”—N Y Times
“While other melodists are still copying the effects of Sara Teasdale, Miss Teasdale has stopped imitating herself. The clean, straightforward idiom of ‘Rivers to the sea’ has a warmer naturalism in ‘Flame and shadow,’ a more spontaneous intensity.” L: Untermeyer
“Into these songs are gathered many an element, many a mood, many an image that I cannot display here upon the screen of comment. It is indeed almost like sacrilege to do ought but read and be delighted by the rare and subtle presentment of them in Miss Teasdale’s songs.” W. S. B.
“Sara Teasdale seems constantly assailed with two temptations, and it is only at intervals that she entirely surmounts them. One is the temptation to make effective endings, to save up points and appeals for a last line. The other temptation is to deal exclusively in stock love-lyric materials.” Mark Van Doren
Reviewed by Babette Deutsch
“This is a book to read with reverence of joy.” Marguerite Wilkinson
TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS, ALEXANDER LOUIS. Tyltyl. il *$5 (21c) Dodd
A prose version of Maeterlinck’s play “The betrothal” prepared by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. The story is told in seven chapters: The woodcutter’s cottage; The miser; The fairy’s palace; The ancestors; The children; The leave-taking; The awakening. There are eight colored illustrations by Herbert Paus.
Reviewed by Margaret Ashmun
“The pictures here are distinctly made for the text, not merely repetitions of the play.”
“It has all the appeal to both young and old that Maeterlinck is able to conjure with such apparent ease. It is a fascinating story. Paus has achieved a sort of stained glass quality in the illustrations, and this effect is enhanced by the mounting.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
TELBERG, GEORGE GUSTAV, and WILTON, ROBERT.[2] Last days of the Romanovs. il *$3 Doran 947
The book consists of two independent parts. Part one contains an account of the judicial examinations of the witnesses connected with the life of the family at Czarskoe-Selo, Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg by N. A. Sokoloff and copies of the depositions taken from the Omsk archives by George Gustav Telberg, after the fall of the Kolchak régime. Part two is the narrative of Mr Robert Wilton, for sixteen years correspondent of the London Times in Russia. While part one is taken up almost entirely with the examination of witnesses Mr Wilton’s narrative contains: Prologue; The stage and the actors; No escape; Alexandra misjudged; Razputin the peasant; Captives in a palace; Exile in Siberia; The last prison; Planning the crime; Calvary; “Without trace”; Damning evidence; All the Romanovs; The jackals; By order of the “Tsik”; The red kaiser; Epilogue. Among the contents of Part three are a list of the members of the imperial family at the outbreak of the revolution, a chronology of the documents and an alphabetical index of names.
“We cannot speak very highly of Mr Wilton’s method of handling this tragic history. His narrative contains much that is of interest and importance, but it seems to have been hastily written, and it is diffuse, occasionally slangy, and hotly argumentative. The second part of the book is the more interesting.”
“To the present reviewer at least Mr Wilton’s habit of intemperate statement largely vitiates whatever of truth there may be to his charges. This allowance being made, however, the present work is really invaluable as historical evidence, and simply as a human document and a dramatic picture of life it possesses a profound and poignant interest.” J: Bunker
TEN-MINUTE talks with workers. $1 (2½c) Doubleday 330
Short articles reprinted from The Times (London) Trade Supplement. “In preparing them for American publication, only such editorial interpolations were made as were considered desirable in order to make the talks more readable for an American audience.” Among the subjects are: The partners; Paying our way; The origin of wealth; The pillars of society; What is capital? The sanity of society; The cost of an article; What is money? Money and prices; What banks do for us; What is the worker entitled to? What are profits? The ideal factory; The upward path.
“They are clearly worded, aptly illustrated, and the lessons are easily understandable. He is talking rather to employers in his book than with workers, for he makes no point of contact with the latter.”
“There is a bit too much of a literary quality about it, and it is too advanced in subject matter for consumption by American factory labor much below the rank of foreman. But with suitable modifications it could be adapted to the requirements of any given group. In the hands of an able and resourceful teacher it would be an admirable text in conventional economics for secondary schools or even college freshmen.” E. R. Burton
“They all contain a great deal of thought, pithily and happily expressed in compressed form.”
TENNYSON, HAROLD COURTENAY. Harold Tennyson, R. N.; the story of a young sailor; put together by a friend. *$2 Macmillan
“The facts about young Tennyson are mainly drawn from his mother’s journal and from his own bright, chatty letters to members of his family. That he was the grandson of the poet and, in addition, came from such stock as the clever Boyles and the handsome Courtenays accounts for his gifts of brain and physique, as well as for his wonderfully keen appreciation of all things beautiful, whether in nature or in human relations. The story of his early years is told from Lady Tennyson’s diary. After entering the British navy, his letters home take up the narrative. He served for a while on board the Queen Mary before being transferred to the destroyer Viking, which struck a mine in the English Channel in January, 1916. The explosion killed him and several of his shipmates, and brought to an end a career full of promise of the highest order.”—Nation
“Presents a peculiarly engaging character, and forms, in its modest way, a valuable document on the British navy’s doings in the war.”
“In those letters written during his midshipman’s cruise to the West Indies the descriptions of the places visited reveal an unusual eye for scenery, as well as a happy faculty of making real the persons he met.”
“This little volume is full of charm, and the best part of it consists of Harold Tennyson’s letters. Perhaps the most delightful letters are those about Russia. The description of Reval is a masterpiece of condensation, and the brilliant account of Petrograd is quite as good.”
“The main characteristic of his letters is his striking power of description.”
TERHUNE, ALBERT PAYSON. Bruce. *$2 Dutton
“All dog lovers, especially those who have read ‘Lad—a dog,’ by Albert Payson Terhune, will be interested in another story about a collie by the same author. Bruce’s story is different, however. His early history is unique. We learn of his mother’s unfortunate experiences, and how she came to ‘The place’ by accident. Her only son, named Bruce, a ‘hopelessly awkward and senseless pup,’ soon merited the name of ‘The pest,’ through his countless escapades. Interesting, indeed, is the story of his development from an ‘Ugly duckling’ into a beautiful, intelligent collie, who was destined to play his part in the world war; and no small part it was that Bruce played overseas. Trained at home to carry messages, he readily learned the duties of a courier dog, and soon became the idol of the soldiers with whom he was stationed. Through many thrilling crises of war Bruce proved himself a soldier and a hero. Finally wounded, he was allowed to return to his happy home in America.”—Springf’d Republican
“Few writers have portrayed collies as cleverly as has Mr Terhune. Bruce is made to seem quite as much a personality as any of his human friends, and his actions are always interesting and never boresome.”
“Whether or not the incidents are true matters little, so entertainingly and sympathetically is the story told. A well-written war-story with a collie for its hero ought to find many readers.”
THATCHER, EDWARD. Making tin can toys. il *$1.50 Lippincott 680
“The instructor in metal working at Teachers college, Columbia, gives a detailed instruction book on the making of toys in which both grade pupils and wounded soldiers have found interest and profit.”—Booklist
“This book is very useful in its emphasis on methods of working.”
“A book that will appeal both to the experienced mechanic and to the inexperienced one, particularly to the younger or older boy who delights to handle tools.”
THAYER, LEE (MRS H. W. THAYER). Unlatched door. *$1.75 Century
“The hero of this mystery tale, after a night with Bacchus, misses his own doorway and steps through the unlatched door of his next neighbor in the brownstone block in which his house is situated. But in a few moments he emerges, thoroughly sobered, for just within the door lay the dead body of a beautiful woman. She has been murdered of course; and the young man instinctively decides that he will be wise to maintain ignorance. The next day, however, he is drawn in, when the servants next door summon him. Unfortunately, he has accidentally left evidence of his visit, and when the police take charge he becomes one of the suspects. A considerable group is involved, and, characteristically in stories of the type, each one suspects the other. When guilt is fixed, the one least suspected proves to be the murderer.”—Springf’d Republican
“A fairly well written mystery murder story with an ingenious plot better worked out than the average.”
“It would be foolish to suggest that ‘The unlatched door’ is as thrilling a mystery story as ‘The thirteenth chair,’ because it most certainly is not. It is a good mystery story, but Mrs Thayer is rather too much interested in the love story which she introduces.”
“‘The unlatched door’ is likely to puzzle even the most sophisticated of fiction readers.”
THAYER, WILLIAM ROSCOE. Art of biography. *$1.50 Scribner 920
“‘The art of biography’ is a subject on which Mr W. R. Thayer may justly claim to be heard, since he has proven his mastery of the art by his biographies of Cavour, John Hay, and Theodore Roosevelt. In this little volume, which comprises three lectures which he gave at the University of Virginia, Mr Thayer does not attempt to formulate rules to guide aspiring biographers to success. But he does trace the development of the art of biographical writing from that perfect ancient example—the story of Joseph and his brothers—down to Morley’s three-volume ‘Gladstone.’ Mr Thayer thinks that ‘the constant direction in the evolution of biography has been from the outward to the inward.’ Three indispensable qualifications, he thinks, the biographer must have. He must have real sympathy with his subject. In the second place, the biographer must tell the story as nearly as possible as the actors underwent it. Finally, the biographer must work as the portrait painter works with his brush, always aiming to discover and to reveal the salient characteristics which made a real flesh-and-blood personality.”—Review
“Mr Thayer’s work evidences a wide range of reading and his critical faculty gives especial value to his comment.”
“At his best he is capable; at his worst, his lack of imagination is conspicuous.”
“A scholarly, illuminating survey.”
“There is more than entertainment here: it is a pungent bit of literary criticism.”
THOMAS. DANIEL LINDSEY, and THOMAS, LUCY BLAYNEY.[2] Kentucky superstitions. *$3 Princeton univ. press 398.3
“Ancient and modern love signs, weather signs, good luck signs, bad luck signs, cures, wishes, dreams, beliefs about ghosts, witches, hoodoos, haunted houses, and a great variety of other things are brought together and arranged in a very readable form. There are altogether 3,954 superstitions listed. An index adds to the value of the volume.”—Survey
“The volume will be of great value for psychologists.”
“The authors have done an excellent piece of work by collecting and classifying with great patience and care the current superstitious beliefs found almost everywhere in this region.” J: F. Smith
THOMAS, EDWARD. Industry, emotion and unrest. *$1.75 (3c) Harcourt 304
In dealing with our modern economic life and the factors which make for industrial and social unrest, the author chooses to portray incidents and cases rather than to present economics and sociology as a science. He emphasizes the need of an ethical interest of the worker in his work and a satisfying emotional connection with its product. He sees the solution of our present day troubles in administrative methods rather than in more drastic revolutionary changes; and makes it one of his practical suggestions, at the end of the book, that the middle class youth—as the potential industrial leaders—should learn by practical experience of the strenuous life of workers. Contents: Emotion in industry; Business groups and business ideals; Business methods and business ethics; Decadence of the middle class; Our social group heredity; Ideas, ethics and institutionalism; Education, emotion and idealism; Adventure and ethics; The government, law and unrest; Some gulfs, complexities and loyalties; A summary and some suggestions; Notes and index.
“The form of his book is unusual because, being a lawyer, the author has seen the advantage of presenting his material in the case system. They are in fact actual and not theoretical cases, which will mean much to the interest of readers.”
Reviewed by C. S. Parker
THOMAS, GEORGE HOLT. Aerial transport. il *$12 (*30s) Doran 629.1
The author was one of the first to advocate aircraft as a weapon in war-time and is now interested in proving its value in commerce, for high-speed travel and mail service. His object in this book is to supply “between the covers of a single volume, and written in a quite informal, non-technical way, a clear, uncoloured statement of just what a commercial aircraft can do, and also—which is just as important—what it cannot do.” (Foreword) The contents, after an introduction by Viscount Northcliffe, are: First considerations (Essence of the problem—length of stages—loads—speed—risk—etc.); Progress—immediate and future; “The air express”; Speeding up the business letter; Meteorology in commercial flying; Some general conclusions, with special reference to airships; Some questions of L. S. D.; Flying and the law; Aerial transport in remote places, with some notes as to passenger-carrying; Aerial photography and patrol. The book is profusely illustrated, has an appendix, an index, and four infolded maps.
“Mr Holt Thomas is an enthusiast, but a reasonable and restrained enthusiast. As the book is somewhat discursive and contains many repetitions, it is a pity he did not see that a proper index was provided.”
THOMAS, SHIPLEY. History of the A. E. F. il *$6 Doran 940.373
In the foreword to the volume, Brigadier General U. G. McAlexander says of the author that he “has taken great pains to present historical facts in an attractive, readable form and to show to the mind a realistic picture of the whole scene of operations.” After giving the history of events, from the arrival of Pershing in France to the armistice, he devotes four chapters to: Auxiliary arms; The services of supply; Division histories; A visitor’s guide. The book has illustrations, maps and an index.
“Amid the great multiplicity of books on the war in its various phases which have appeared since the armistice there is none which, in the present or the future, is of more intensive value than this.”
“It is written with unflagging energy and interest, is thoroughly readable, and its author is the very embodiment of the type and spirit of the thousands of young officers from civil life who made such admirable leaders of our troops in action.” F. V. Greene
“It is the opinion of those most competent to judge that his story of America’s participation in the war is as accurate and complete as it can be made at this time.”
THOMPSON, CHARLES THADDEUS. Peace conference day by day; a presidential pilgrimage leading to the discovery of Europe. *$2.50 Brentano’s 940.314
“Mr Thompson is the superintendent of the Associated press foreign service. He acted as special correspondent in reporting the proceedings of the Peace conference, and Colonel House has vouched for his accuracy. This book gives a circumstantial account of the writing of the peace treaty and the League of nations covenant.”—R of Rs
“This is by far the most interesting and valuable of the contributions to our post-war literature. Mr Thompson’s work seems to be an honest, unbiased effort to present the reader with the facts as he saw them. His training enabled him to get at the inside of many situations that were decidedly complex. All this wealth he gives most liberally to his readers in a vivid, chatty way that entertains and enlightens.”
Reviewed by W: MacDonald
Reviewed by M. F. Egan
“Such a useful volume as this should assuredly have had an index. The work is not only extraordinarily informative but equally entertaining.”
THOMPSON, FRANK VICTOR. Schooling of the immigrant. *$2 Harper 371.9
This volume is the first of eleven Americanization studies instituted by the Carnegie corporation of New York, under the direction of Allen T. Burns. The author calls attention to the fact that since the preparation of the volume was begun such a complete overturn of ideas respecting Americanization has taken place that the term itself is being replaced by such terms as “citizenship” and “national unification.” This implies a larger comprehension of the problem and a realization that the “drive” method must give way to a process of education “not to be undertaken impulsively, but systematically, persistently, and determinedly.” Contents: The school and nationalization; Problems and policies; Public-school administration; Private schools and public responsibility; Methods of teaching English; Measuring progress in English; Educational service stations; The training of teachers; Trend of legislation; Schooling in citizenship; Summary; Appendix, maps, diagrams and tables.
“Very useful to the serious organizer of immigrant work.”
“As a text-book it gets to the heart of the matter and will be found invaluable to teachers interested in the education of the immigrant.” A. Yezierska
“Leaders in educational, industrial, or welfare work in any community which is facing the immigrant problem will find this book interesting in its account of conditions that exist and rich in suggestion of means by which these may be improved.”
“This is the most reassuring book on the subject of immigrant education that has yet appeared.” J. K. Hart
THOMPSON, HOLLAND. New South; a chronicle of social and industrial evolution. (Chronicles of America ser.) il per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 975
“With no desire to encourage sectionalism, it seems to have been the purpose of the editors to have every part of the country intelligently presented in ‘The chronicles of America.’ ‘The new South,’ written by a southern man, Dr Holland Thompson, gives an account of the industrial, intellectual, and social progress that has been made by the South since the Civil war. In this volume, land and labor problems have an important place.”—R of Rs
“This small volume on a large subject has two notable characteristics. One is its catholicity of spirit. The other characteristic of the book is its descriptive value. As a brief and suggestive survey of the rise of a civilization the book is unsurpassed.” W: K. Boyd
“The chapters on The background, The revolt of the common man, and Industrial development may, perhaps, be found to contain more that is new than any of the others. The second mentioned, which describes the wresting of political control from the Confederate soldier, is probably the best in the book. All are good, however.” M. J. White
THOMPSON, MRS JANE SMEAL (HENDERSON), and THOMPSON, HELEN GERTRUDE. Silvanus Phillips Thompson, his life and letters. il *$7.50 Dutton
“Many old students of the Finsbury technical college will welcome the life of its first principal, which has been compiled by his wife and daughter. Thompson accepted that post in 1885 and occupied it until his death in 1916. In addition to his life-work at Finsbury, Thompson wrote one of the best of elementary textbooks on electricity and magnetism, a standard work on dynamo-electric machinery, lives of Faraday and Lord Kelvin, and various monographs connected with Gilbert and the early history of magnetism, besides other books and a number of scientific papers. He was a convinced member of the Society of Friends, and frequently spoke at the Westminster meeting and elsewhere. Some of his religious addresses were printed in a posthumous work, ‘A not impossible religion.’—Spec
“These ladies enable us to make a closer acquaintance with one, to whose lucid explanations from the platform we have listened with pleasure, and whose text-books we have read with profit. The references to his home life are restrained but interesting. But we could have wished that letters other than those dealing with scientific matters were more plentiful.”
“His biography is interesting and it is also stimulating.”
THOMPSON, JOHN REUBEN. Poems; with a biographical introd. by J: S. Patton. *$2 Scribner 811
“The University of Virginia edition of the ‘Poems of John R. Thompson’ is a tribute to the memory of one of the most memorable of Confederate poets. Now first collected, Thompson’s verses exhibit the gay and friendly—nor wholly unpuritanical—spirit which ruled the older literary Richmond. Here are echoes of Byron, Campbell, Southey, Béranger, Heine, Praed, Holmes, Saxe, neatly fitted to Virginian occasions. The rhymed essays, Patriotism, Virginia, and Poesy, sum up practically all that young Virginians were thinking and feeling from 1855 to 1859. The book was made possible by the Alfred Henry Byrd gift, and well edited by Mr John S. Patton.”—Nation
“It is good poetry of its time and kind, perfectly typical of the spirit of the mid-nineteenth century, although it does not touch the beauty and vigor of Poe, or the later sweetness and light of Lanier.” E. F. E.
“John R. Thompson was not a genius. He was a gentleman of talent and culture. His verse is witty, fluent, eloquent, exquisitely ironical, but never great.” M. Wilkinson
THOMPSON, MARGARET J. Food for the sick and the well: how to select it and how to cook it. *$1 World bk. 641.5
Of the author of this practical little volume of recipes and suggestions on diet Dr William Gerry Morgan says in the introduction that she “has had years of experience in the care and feeding of the sick, and during all that time she has been a close and earnest student of dietetics from a practical standpoint.” Contents: General considerations—food and health, a balanced menu, suggestions and cautions; Recipes; Treatments; Index.
“This little book is written more especially for nurses but should prove very handy also on the household book shelf of the home maker.”
THOMS, CRAIG S. Essentials of Christianity. *$1.25 Am. Bapt. 230
“Religion, like everything else,” says the author, “has caught the temper of the age,” and this little book can be called an attempt to apply modern efficiency methods to religion. In these times of wornout institutions and necessary readjustments in all our relations, religion too must be reduced to its lowest terms in order that we can build anew; and constructive thought and vigor of action are called for. Whatever our difficulties may be, the author thinks it is always possible “to secure an effective starting point for one’s religious life by beginning where one is and cooperating with God according to one’s light and opportunity.” Contents: Faith; God; Christ: Evolution; The Bible; Prayer; Immortality; The church; Cooperating with God.
THOMSON, JOHN ARTHUR. System of animate nature. 2v *$6 Holt 570
Two volumes containing the Gifford lectures delivered in the University of St Andrews in the years 1915 and 1916, by the Regius professor of natural history in the University of Aberdeen. The subject matter of this lecture series is usually philosophical, dealing with the nature of man and the universe. In presenting the biological point of view, Professor Thomson’s remarks are valuable, but as a coninterpretation or our religious conviction, we must admit the desirability of having more than a passing acquaintance with the system of things of which our everyday life is in some measure part.” His aim has been “to state the general results of biological inquiry which must be taken account of if we are to think of organic nature as a whole and in relation to the rest of our experience.” (Preface) Volume 1 contains ten lectures on The realm of organisms as it is; Volume 2, also composed of ten lectures, is devoted to The evolution of the realm of organisms. Volume 2 has a bibliography of nineteen pages and an index.
“As correcting the ‘red in tooth and claw’ conception of the animate world. Professor Thomson’s remarks are valuable, but, as a contribution to the ethical and religious problem, they are unimportant.”
“Will appeal only to the reflective who can use biological facts as the material of thought. For large and special libraries.”
“The author’s resources in the way of naturalistic erudition are astounding, and his command of English at once fresh and fascinating.” E. P.
“It is a book that most certainly ought to have been written. It takes stock, so to speak, of the situation of speculative biology at the beginning of a new phase in science, and it does so in a manner that is candid, comprehensive, and most attractive.” J. J.
“If these Gifford lectures had no other value they would be welcome for their simple and comprehensive statement of the present phase of the Darwinian theory. In some cases he lays himself open to a charge of bad philosophy, in others of bad science. None the less, we are grateful for what is always a serious and often a true and beautiful book.”
THORLEY, WILFRID CHARLES, tr. and ed. Fleurs-de-lys. *$2 Houghton 841.08
This anthology of French verse reaches from the thirteenth century to the present. It is a free translation and in his introduction to the collection, which is in part a treatise on the art of translation, the author sets forth his reasons for a free rendering. The greater part of the introduction is a historical survey of French verse. The poems are chronologically grouped and the English employed is likewise chronologically adapted to the original verse. There are copious notes, an index of authors and an index of first lines.
“Mr Thorley’s power of fluent expression gets the better of his sense of history. What he brings with him obscures what he takes. But to harp on Mr Thorley’s failures is ungenerous. Let us rather express our surprise and admiration that in a volume so large and so varied the failures are not more numerous and more complete.” A. L. H.
“The whole collection is marked by inspiration, technical flexibility and literary tact.”
“Mr Thorley displays more earnestness than achievement.”
“There is perhaps no version in his book that is not accomplished poetry, and he has an especial richness, ease, and sonorousness in handling the frequent sonnet form. He is less happy when he rebuilds poems. But it is his whole book that places Mr Thorley definitely in the front rank of those artists among whom he wishes to be counted.” Ludwig Lewisohn
“Mr Thorley is sometimes a spirited translator. But his felicity is intermittent, and is sometimes dotted or crossed with infelicity.”
“With a remarkable gift for translation, he has chosen his material with taste and with a scholarship free from pedantry.” E: B. Reed
THORNDIKE, ASHLEY HORACE. Literature in a changing age. *$3 Macmillan 820.9
“The effect of life upon literature, especially as it concerns the English people, is the problem that Professor Thorndike examines in this book. His survey includes a century as he contrasts the difference of English literature after Waterloo with its character today after the great war. The study of the changes that are the groundwork upon which literature bases its expression is primarily concerned with life. Thus Professor Thorndike in the first four chapters of his book deals with literature—down to Carlyle with a more or less historical sense. His next five chapters shift the whole basis of this historic groundwork with the revolts and evolutions that began to change the aspects of society. Hence Progress and poverty, Democracy and empire, Religion, Woman, and Science, invention and machinery are the subjects discussed. What Professor Thorndike predicts for the future is a reconcilement, a quicker compromise than in the past, between the changing forces of life and the imaginative symbols, which is literature’s interpretation and embodiment of them.”—Boston Transcript
“One always takes up with respect a work by Professor Thorndike, but this book is below his reputation. It is solid and sensible, and presents truly the main facts about the period and its literature. But the ground covered is so wide that little not already known to the student of history or of literature can be told within the small compass of the volume: and the book lacks the unity, lucidity, and brilliancy which could alone make memorable so brief a treatment of so large and complex a subject.” W. C. Bronson
“A careful piece of work that will interest only widely read people who do not need an entrancing style to attract them. No index.”
“Perhaps it is this wealth of illustration which hinders the movement of the thesis: the author is continually led astray into the realms of literary criticism admirable in itself, but not bearing directly enough on the subject under discussion. We must confess to having found the opening chapters dull, academic, a laboring of the obvious.” W. H. B.
“On the political and economic side his conclusions are terrifically unconvincing.” Pierre Loving
“To this new study he has brought the integrity of method and the comprehensive acuteness which he had displayed in his previous works. He has written a book to be enjoyed by all lovers of literature and to be appreciated by all who can recognize the clear and cogent writing which is the result of wide culture and of deep thought.” Brander Matthews
“With what seems pretty near perversity, he has chosen scrupulously to avoid the inevitable circumstances of chronology, and to arrange his matter under such categories as ‘Democracy and empire,’ ‘Woman,’ and so on, and instead of stating facts he is apt only to allude. The resulting impression is of confused admiration.”
“It is an extensive and fascinating subject, and it is handled as we should expect a thoroughly efficient American professor to handle it. That is to say, he designs his structure in a clear and logical way.”
THORNLEY, ISOBEL D. England under the Yorkists, 1460–1485; with a preface by A. F. Pollard. (Univ. of London intermediate source-books of history) il *$3.35 (*9s 6d) Longmans 942.04
“Though primarily intended for the use of undergraduates, this volume of extracts from contemporary sources for the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III will interest a larger public. Miss Thornley has ranged widely among printed and unprinted materials in selecting passages to illustrate the political, constitutional, ecclesiastical, economic, and social aspects of that turbulent generation.”—Spec
“The work is admirably done.”
THURSTON, ERNEST TEMPLE. Sheepskins and grey russet. il *$2.50 Putnam
This is the story of a curious couple, “vagabonds,” the author calls them, from the restlessness with which they change from one abode to the other. They have a fad for old houses, and whenever they are “settled for life” in one place they find another which is even older and more to their liking. At last they buy quite an ancient farm near Tewkesbury and it is at this place that “A. H.” describes his visit to them. They are a most engaging couple, are Bellwattle and Cruikshank, with their oddities and whimsies and their farming vicissitudes, and the reader is left with the impression that if a child should come to bless their union, their restlessness would vanish. The illustrations are by Emile Verpilleux.
“There is a whimsical tenderness in Mr Thurston’s treatment of his characters. It is his most pleasing mood, and it is present throughout his pastoral.” D. L. M.
“‘Sheepskins and grey russet’ is really of value. This is a most gentlemanly book, with good antecedents, a reasonable income, and an excellent digestion.”
“Many chapters give us an insight into country life in England. Not in the manner of Thomas Hardy or Eden Phillpotts, but in the more substantial and eternal manner of the ‘Stable boys’ almanac.’” B: de Casseres
“Charmingly printed and illustrated.”
“The charm of the present book lies not a little in its slightness and unobtrusiveness as a story. The thread is there, a tale is told; but with great economy of motion, almost as if by inadvertence.” H. W. Boynton
“It must be confessed that as far as any practical assistance to an American family wanting to break into country life is concerned, the book is literature pure and simple, and by no means to be classed under useful arts. Perhaps they would say the same in England; but anyway, literature is quite worth while, and this book belongs in the worthwhile class.”
THWING, ANNIE HAVEN. Crooked and narrow streets of the town of Boston, 1630–1822. il *$5 (7c) Jones. Marshall 974.4
The book gives a brief historical survey of how Boston came to be Boston and then confines itself to the history of its streets and their original inhabitants and ancestry. But few of the old streets survive even in pictures and of the survivors most have been widened. “Many of the old streets were so narrow that it was difficult for two vehicles to pass each other and so crooked that after a fire the town invariably ordered them straightened.” (Introductory) The contents are: The North end; Government and business centre; South end; The West end; The neck; Notes and index of streets. The book is illustrated with old prints and has seven insert maps.
“It is replete with accurate and minute information, and yet it does not lack the anecdotal vivacity which makes this kind of book good reading. The volume is admirably put together, and the engravings and old maps are especially interesting.” Margaret Ashmun
“There could hardly be a pleasanter guide book for a devout explorer than ‘The crooked and narrow streets of Boston.’”
“Its accuracy is vouched for by the fact that it is the outcome of a life-work, whose results are treasured by the Massachusetts Historical society. There are numerous agreeable lighter touches.”
“It is a work giving much valuable information and might well be imitated in all of our important cities.”
“Miss Thwing’s book will remove any lingering doubt you may have as to the historical interest of those streets or as to the quaint picturesqueness that was theirs in a bygone age.”
TITUS, HAROLD. Last straw. il *$1.75 (2c) Small
Jane Hunter falls heir to a western ranch. She is an eastern society girl who knows little about the West and had it not been that her fortunes were at a low ebb she would have taken little interest in her new property. She goes West hoping to realize ready money out of the place and once there events decide her to stay. Dick Hilton, the easterner who had long wanted to marry her, follows her to the West and remains there to add to her troubles. Of the latter she has many, including a dishonest foreman, cattle thieves, and a “nester” who cuts off her best watering place and who is only a tool in the hands of her enemies. Tom Beck, who had refused to take a chance in the draw for foreman but who stays on the ranch to serve her at every turn, makes a very satisfactory hero and after an exciting bit of fighting the story comes to a peaceful close.
“The excellence of the novel lies not in its characters, not in its plot, which is always stirring, but in the way the plot works out of the characters. This stamps it as first-class work.”
“Mr Titus knows his subject; he writes with a facile pen, and ‘The last straw’ will be keenly enjoyed by all lovers of western adventure tales.”
TODD, ARTHUR JAMES. Scientific spirit and social work. *$2 Macmillan 361
“Prof. A. J. Todd, in his new book, points out that for 25 years social work has been professionalizing itself. He shows how modern social work enlarges the ‘rights of man,’ how it contributes to social progress, and what qualifications in character and training it demands of those who have entered it as a vocation.”—Springf’d Republican
“A most readable book for social workers”
“The book, like some others based on college lectures, achieves an effect of reasoning by interpellation of ‘then,’ ‘therefore,’ ‘it follows,’ ‘and to sum up’ and contains frequent adjurations to ‘hard thinking’ without corresponding performance. Much of the material is a trifle obvious.”
“In matters of detail we find much with which we differ. But all trained social workers and all teachers of applied sociology will welcome this vigorous, powerful statement of the principles and methods and ideals of social work.” J. E. Hagerty
TOMLINSON, H. M. Old junk. *$2 (5c) Knopf 910
This collection of sketches and essays has been reprinted from various publications between January, 1907 and April, 1918. They contain impressions and reminiscences from many lands and seas. S. K. Ratcliffe in his foreword to the volume, says of the author: “Among all the men writing in England today there is none known to us whose work reveals a more indubitable sense of the harmonies of imaginative prose.” The last seven of the papers reveal the author as war-correspondent. Among the contents are: The African coast; Old junk; The pit mouth; The art of writing; The derelict; The Lascar’s walking stick; On leave; A division on the march; The ruins.
“It is at times like these that we find it extraordinary comfort to have in our midst a citizen of the sea, a writer like Mr H. M. Tomlinson. We feel that he is calm, not because he has renounced life, but because he lives in the memory of that solemn gesture with which the sea blesses or dismisses or destroys her own. The breath of the sea sounds in all his writings.” K. M.
“One opens this book at random and finds sentences, paragraphs, whole pages that are at once a delight and a despair: a delight because they are—well, delightful; and a despair because, peer as you may, you cannot discover the secret of their making.” J: Bunker
“For a set of essays written on land and sea, ‘Old Junk’ is a misleading title. Mr Tomlinson is an artist to whom ‘the light that never was’ is plainly visible. His descriptions of two voyages, one along the African coast, and the other, the more familiar passage across the Atlantic, are marvelous prose.” C. H.
“Delicate and helpless in his gestures, he yet is enduringly accurate in imagination. His images are of that excellent variety which send your eye to the corner of the ceiling for testing and reflection and acceptance.”
“No one has the right to look knowing when literature is mentioned unless he is fully aware of Mr H. M. Tomlinson.” Rebecca West
“A collection of stories of travel and chance which open out to the reader new visions of the sea and all that thereon is.”
“Several of his papers deal with the war. He does not describe the fighting, but its effect on those who come back from it—how it disgusts them with life, how it works in them a change, not outwardly perceptible, which makes them strangers to their own kith and kin. All this is admirably thought and said, and so is a tribute to ‘the nobodies’ who restore the balance of the world when it has been upset by the highly placed.”
TOMPKINS, DANIEL AUGUSTUS. Builder of the new South; being the story of his life work, by George Tayloe Winston. il *$3 Doubleday
The new South, says the author, is not the achievement of educational and religious missionaries but of industrial forces which are epitomized in the life of Daniel Augustus Tompkins. “He built a new South—of mills and factories, of skilled labor and machinery, of diversified and intensified agriculture, of improved railways and highways, of saving banks and building and loan associations—a new South also of public schools, technical colleges, and expanding universities, of independent journalism and independent thought—a new South of universal education and democracy.” (Author’s summary of the contents of the book)
“Describes a strong character and an important movement in American history.”
TOMPKINS, JULIET WILBOR (MRS JULIET WILBOR [TOMPKINS] POTTLE). Joanna builds a nest. il *$1.75 Bobbs
“Joanna is a competent business woman, attractive, and with a bird’s own instinct for home building. She buys a wretched little house on a hill, sets the carpenters to work, advertises for a cheerful working housekeeper and a slightly disabled soldier to run the place, and herself comes out to enjoy her nest whenever she can snatch time from business. The house becomes eventually a charming home, but the cheerful, all-too-golden-haired housekeeper and the first and second ventures in soldiers are vexing problems. The first man had been in the wrong war. The second had come off rather badly from the right one, but Joanna’s passion for remodelling only rejoices in the material thus brought to her hand.”—N Y Evening Post
“How she succeeded in her efforts is related in a delightful manner, quite in harmony with the subject and its circumstances.”
“It is a comfortable story, a little sentimental, and the characters are extremely well sketched. On the other hand, the illustrations are anything but that.”
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
Reviewed by D. W. Webster
“There’s a good bit of sound sense in the house-remaking, and plenty of entertainment in the story as a whole.”
TOOKER, LEWIS FRANK. Middle passage. $1.90 (3c) Century
David Lunt, a mere boy, of seafaring ancestry, ran away to sea in what turned out to be a slaver. Being a saucy and adventurous lad he tried the patience of the captain and the treatment he received aroused in him a passion for vengeance. For this reason and not from a bad heart he ships a second time in a slaver but his experiences this time close that episode. Other risky undertakings follow, just this side of crime. He is kept from overstepping the boundary line by the memory of a face back home. In his brief and infrequent visits to the home town, his love for Lydia becomes a pledge and he finally overcomes her father’s opposition by a courageous confession of his near lapses in church. The story is full of thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes.
“It retains a certain value as a picture of life in an era which today is as remote as Babylon. Mr Tooker is an alert and companionable story-teller—a disciple of Conrad in action, though not in atmosphere.” L. B.
“Certain merits lacking in many of the sea stories which come from the presses every year are possessed by this novel. In the first place, Mr Tooker knows the sea in the intimate way that a sailor knows it. Secondly, he has style, a simple and effective style.”
“Mr Tooker always writes of the sea with sympathy and knowledge, and we are inclined to think that this is the most vivid and exciting book he has written.”
TORMEY, JOHN LAWLESS, and LAWRY, ROLLA CECIL.[2] Animal husbandry. il $1.40 Am. bk. 636
“This brief manual has been prepared for use in the agricultural classes which the Smith-Hughes act brought into being, and it is consequently written for elementary students and for use in connection with practical, every-day farm work. It comprises, like most ambitious texts in animal husbandry, a description of the principal breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry, a guide to methods of stock judging, and a section on the care and management of animals.”—N Y Evening Post
“A comprehensive volume, well illustrated, and most useful to the intelligent student of modern farming.”
“A few faults arise from the necessary brevity of the treatise. Occasionally important information is left out.”
TOUT, THOMAS FREDERICK. Chapters in the administrative history of mediaeval England. (Publications of the University of Manchester) 2v ea *$7 (*12s) Longmans 354
“Mr Tout’s magnum opus had its origin in a mood of almost casual curiosity, awakened ten years ago by the essay of a young French scholar upon the use or ‘diplomatic’ of the small seals which the English kings used in their correspondence—the privy seal, the secret seal, the signet. A desire to clear up a few obscure points in English diplomatic of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries led him to explore the untouched treasures of the public record office. The next step was a reconstruction of the royal household—in particular, of its administrative offices, the chamber and wardrobe, and of their instruments, the small seals. Hence the sub-title of the work——‘The wardrobe, the chamber, and the small seals.’ To a scholar with Mr Tout’s wide knowledge of European history in the later middle ages such an inquiry was full of suggestion; and so his book reached its present form—a survey of English administration, almost a revision of English political and constitutional history, from the Norman conquest to the death of Richard II.”—Ath
“A most valuable feature of Professor Tout’s book will be found in the luminous exposition of sources and authorities as set forth in a descriptive chapter on documentary material. With clearness and originality there is apt to be excessive positiveness. In points of controversy the author occasionally falls into the temptation of exaggeration by over-stating an opposing view in order the more sharply to challenge it.” J. F. Baldwin
“In these days of specialism Professor Tout has never forgotten the more spacious period of scholarship. He is still under its influence. And this is why, to a book packed with new material and highly technical in character, he has been able to give the quality of fine and significant history. Limited in range though it is, this book is not unworthy of a place beside the ‘Constitutional history of England.’” F. M. P.
“This is the most important contribution to the study of English history that has been made in many a year. At every point it breaks new ground; and at every point it shows an amplitude of knowledge and a depth of research which put Professor Tout among the most eminent scholars of this generation.” H. J. Laski
“In emphasizing a too much neglected phase of institutional development, Professor Tout has added greatly to our true appreciation of English mediæval history. No student of English mediæval institutions can afford to neglect these two invaluable volumes.”
“The labour must have been exhausting, but the dry bones live again, in so far that the reader sees precisely how England was governed in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.”
TOWARDS reunion; ed. by Alexander James Carlyle. *$2.75 Macmillan 280
“‘Towards reunion,’ a book of fourteen chapters—half by writers in the church of England and half from the Free churches—is well named. Both words are strikingly suggestive of the purpose of the book. In different ways, that sometimes do not altogether agree, they give expression to a common vision of a ‘great spiritual and visible unity.’ That the emphasis should be put upon the spiritual, as the means to the visible, unity, is expressed in the preface and suggested by putting as the last and climactic chapter ‘The holy spirit in the churches.’ Besides the names of the writers appear, as witnessing to the common aim of the book, the names of over fifty other leaders in the churches, all of whom were also members of the inter-church conferences out of which the book really came.”—Bib World
“It is open, no doubt, to the criticism that the groups concerned had never any serious divergences; but, though this lessens its value as a practical step to reunion, it does not detract from its worth as a general contribution to the problem.”
“There is much in what they describe as ‘contributions to mutual understanding’ which commands sympathy. On the main issue, that of reunion, it is difficult not to think that they multiply words without increasing sense. It is certain that they contain a large number of very disputable assertions.”
TOWNS, CHARLES BARNES. Habits that handicap. *$1.50 (4½c) Funk 613.8
An exposition of the present prevalent evil of drug addiction in the United States; the results it invariably causes, both socially and individually; the difficulty of overcoming it; and the surest effective remedy. The poisons Dr Towns condemns include many widely used narcotics,—bromides, headache powders, cough syrups, etc.,—alcoholic beverages, all forms of tobacco, as well as more virulent drugs. As a nation we are fond of poisoning ourselves. Prohibition has driven many to more harmful habits than the daily cocktail or glass of beer. Our women have, many of them, acquired the cigarette habit. Depoisoning ourselves will not be easy. The author urges as the most effective remedy, legal regulation of the sale of all drugs and narcotics, authoritative control of their use, and “pitiless publicity.” The book includes a preface by Dr Richard C. Cabot, and an appendix on The relation of alcohol to disease, by Dr Alexander Lambert. The book covers practically the same ground as the volume of similar title published by the Century company in 1915.
“The new edition is written in a manner even more attractive and vigorous than the first.”
“Were the moderation of the book’s title reflected in the letterpress, its influence would be strengthened. His denunciations take no account of divergent views, save in so far as he disposes of them on the ground of bias.”
“On the title page we find the sub-title, ‘The remedy for narcotic, alcohol, tobacco and other drug addictions.’ It is disappointing therefore to find no hint or suggestion in the book as to what the remedy is.”
TOWNSHEND, SIR CHARLES VERE FERRERS. My campaign (Eng title, My campaign in Mesopotamia). 2v *$10 McCann 940.42
“If the first campaign in Mesopotamia is not the best-known episode of the war it is not for lack of information, and Sir Charles Townshend’s contribution is one that will appeal to the student of military affairs not only for the light it casts on the motives that moved him, but also and even more as a careful and frank study of a campaign which must ever be memorable in our history. Sir Charles Townshend took the field as commander of the Sixth division in succession to General Barrett, who retired through ill health, in April, 1915; and in the last month of the year his offensive operations had ceased and he was shut up in Kut. He had fought three battles, and his Sixth division had proved itself a splendid fighting unit.”—Ath
“General Townshend reveals himself throughout as that rarest of British products, a thoughtful, well-instructed student of scientific warfare.”
“The commanding officer of those British forces which fought Kut and Ctesiphon writes a magnificent story without patches, and with considerable skill.”
“A remarkable personality lives in these pages ... but the maps suffer from a somewhat puzzling arrangement of arrows, and too much textual detail.”
TOWNSHEND, GLADYS ETHEL GWENDOLEN EUGENIE (SUTHERST) TOWNSHEND, marchioness. Widening circle. *$2 (2½c) Appleton
The story begins realistically with an account of the girlhood of two sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret Sutherland, who are shuttled back and forth between affluence and penury by their father’s speculations. Meg, the practical minded one, marries Lord Stranmore, a man twice her age, and is very happy in her marriage. Elizabeth meets a prince in disguise and from this point on the book becomes a fairy tale.
“The unreality of it cannot fail to appall any adult of sensibility who peeps into its pages.”
“Reality, or even probability, counts for nothing in novels written for flappers, male and female, for shop girls and errand boys. Of incredible nonsense is this tale made up.”
“A quite negligible tale.”
TRABUE, MARION REX, and STOCKBRIDGE, FRANK PARKER. Measure your mind; the mentimeter and how to use it. il *$3 Doubleday 136
This popular treatise on the measurement of intelligence by scientific methods is based on the experiences of psychological investigators in both school and army. It addresses itself “to employers and those in charge of the selection, grading, and promotion of workers of every class, in factories, offices, and stores; to teachers of all grades, from kindergarten to university; to parents who are interested in ascertaining, and watching the growth of their children’s mental development and to young men and young women striving for self-improvement and advancement and desirous of learning something of their own mental capacities and limitations as a guide to the intelligent choice of vocations or professions.” (Preface) Contents: Science versus guesswork; The applications of psychological tests; What these tests measure; Standards for mental tests; Different types of mental tests; Mental tests in the army; Psychological tests in education; Mental tests in industry; How to use the mentimeter tests; The mentimeter tests; Trade tests or tests of skill; Appendices, charts and diagrams.
“A thoughtful examination of the tests will show that they have been carefully worked out. But this valuable material of the book is likely not to receive its due attention from industrial or business men because, although the book purports seriously to crave the audience of industry, it wavers to catch the teacher and other professional classes; the early pages are sluggish, indefinitely organized reading. The defects of ‘Measure your mind’ are entirely those of organization and composition; the theory, the technique, and the essential content are meritorious.” C: L. Stone
“If books of this sort can be used by others than experts, this one has the advantage of simplicity.”
“The appendices with their diagrams are not the least valuable parts of the work. The mentimeter tests form its more especially unique feature.”
“An excellent handbook, in popular style and very readable, but in thorough-going scientific fashion. The book will have great value for industrial personnel managers.” B. D. Wood
“The chief value of the book lies in its contribution to the general education of the public.”
TRACY, LOUIS. Sirdar’s sabre. $1.90 (4½c) Clode, E. J.
This book consists of a series of ten loosely-connected stories of life in India. They are told by Reginald Wayne, a young Englishman who becomes an officer in the 2d Bengal Lancers. For the most part they concern the exploits of Sirdar Bahadur Mohammed Khan, a “fire-eater” Mohammedan officer. Three of them have an element of romance, but the majority tell of the various problems that the English government meets in India. The titles are: First impressions; La belle Americaine; How Mohammed Khan became invulnerable; How the Sirdar prevented a great war; The Tàj—and a fortune-teller; How the Sirdar dacoited a dacoit; How we fed crocodiles on the Indus; The destiny of the emerald eye; How we guarded the great pearl necklace; How the Sirdar fought Ali Bagh, the Afridi.
“Full of adventure but not the author’s best in plot or characterization.”
“With ‘The sirdar’s sabre’ something seems to have gone radically wrong. From the man who built up such atmosphere and vitality as was in ‘The wings of the morning’ this book is inexcusable. Here we find no sustained interest, little of characterization, and slight exercise of the descriptive powers which the author possesses. Mr Tracy is to be soundly berated for wasting excellent material.” J. W. D. S.
Reviewed by Caroline Singer
TRACY, LOUIS. Strange case of Mortimer Fenley. $1.90 Clode, E. J.
“When John Trenholme, artist, accepted a welcome commission from a magazine editor to journey down to a certain old Hertfordshire village and make a series of sketches of its imperiled beauties, he looked forward to nothing more exciting than an agreeable, wholly peaceful little expedition. Certainly he did not in the least expect to get mixed up with a murder. It was a series of accidents which caused him to be at a spot from which he could see a certain portion of the beautiful old Elizabethan mansion misnamed ‘The towers’ at the moment when Mortimer Fenley, banker, fell, ‘shot dead on his own doorstep.’ Mr Fenley’s elder son, Hilton, telephoned to Scotland Yard, and that was how the two detectives, known to their colleagues as the ‘Big ‘un’ and the ‘Little ‘un’ came to the assistance of the local police, one of whom had already, and quite without suspecting the fact, had an extremely important share in the development of events which was to bring about the solution of a most involved and puzzling mystery.”—N Y Times
“The usual mystery story written with charm of style, satisfying humor and a wealth of allusion pertinent to both literature and life.”
“The story is well written, it moves quickly, and its characters are real people, not the puppets who so often figure in tales of this kind, the two detectives being especially well done.”
“The outstanding feature of Louis Tracy’s ‘Strange case of Mortimer Fenley’ is the absence of blood and ghastliness, of grimy alleys and sordid back rooms. Mystery there is, in plenty, and excitement.” Joseph Mosher
TRAIN, ARTHUR CHENEY. Tutt and Mr Tutt. *$1.75 Scribner
“The nine stories in this volume deal with the affairs of the firm of Tutt & Tutt (the members are not related), the senior partner of which is always addressed deferentially by his colleague as Mr Tutt. It is Mr Tutt who tries the cases, Tutt who does the work of preparing them; and to the unfriendly eye their activities might seem those of shysters if they were not devoted, as a rule, to the worthy object of protecting the poor and friendless against the stupidities and brutalities of the law and some of those who practice it. The hero of the book is Mr Tutt, who in the first story has a frame like Lincoln’s, and by the end of the book has progressed so far that his face looks like Lincoln’s. The villain, it must be confessed, is the law itself.”—N Y Times
“The best of the nine are very good, and all of them are ornamented by entertaining comments on the philosophy of the law and justice.”
“The stories are very human. Outwardly, Mr Tutt is a dry-as-dust attorney; but association discloses in him a broad vein of humanity which makes his many-sided character a bottomless well of delight. It is one of Mr Train’s most entertaining books.”
TRAVEL stories; retold from St Nicholas. il *$1.25 (3½c) Century 910.8
Sixteen descriptive articles have been selected from St Nicholas for this volume. Among them are: The Grand canyon of Arizona, by William Haskell Simpson; In rainbow-land, by Amy Sutherland; Traveling in India, by Mabel Albert Spicer; Where the sunsets of all the yesterdays are found, by Olin D. Wheeler; Firecrackers, by Erick Pomeroy; Curious clocks, by Charles A. Brassler; Motoring through the golden age, by Albert Bigelow Paine; Lost Rheims, by Louise Eugenie Prickett; Out in the big-game country, by Clarence H. Rowe. There are five illustrations.
“Informational but not lacking in story interest.”
“An entertaining, informative volume.”
TREMAYNE, SYDNEY, pseud. (MRS ROGER COOKSON). Echo. *$1.75 (1c) Lane
All thru her girlhood Echo Stapylton is subjected to morbid and unwholesome influences. Her mother runs away with an artist and Echo grows up in the home of straight-laced unsympathetic relatives. When she is seventeen a quarrel is precipitated over her friendship with Max Borrow, an artist, and she goes to Paris to live with her father. Max follows her, and to prevent their meetings her father places her in a girls’ school. By practicing various deceits she arranges to see him on various occasions but they have a disagreement and he goes to America. Thereafter Echo meets her mother and it is arranged that she is to live with her part of the time. She learns however that her mother’s pretense of reform is a farce and leaves her to be greeted with the news of her father’s death. Alone and dependent she accepts an offer of marriage from a successful solicitor, some years her senior. The marriage is unhappy and when her husband leaves her for another woman she is free to marry her old lover Max.
“The tale is clever and readable.”
“The novel is a long and fairly interesting one, but it gives the impression that the author has gathered a great deal of commonplace material before she begins and pours it into the pages through a hopper. Readable as the book is, it is singularly lacking in literary grace.”
“The story is intense and written in the same brilliant style that characterized Miss Tremayne’s previous story, ‘The auction mart.’”
“The interest of the book lies in the slow revelation of the character of Echo. It is a tribute to the author that the reader finds his impatience with Echo gradually changing to sympathy; it is as if he encountered her in real life and found that he liked her better as he knew her more intimately.”
TRENCH, HERBERT. Napoleon; a play. *$2 Oxford 822
“‘You are the eddy—they are the tide’, says Mrs Wickham to Napoleon over the body of her dead son. The tide of humanity sweeps onward, and the Napoleonic selfishnesses and individualisms that run counter to it are no more than eddies swirling back against the current, soon to be straightened out again by the irresistible onrush. Geoffrey Wickham is the apostle of humanity, whose aim it is to make Napoleon see the unreasonableness of his attitude. His plan is to kidnap Napoleon from Boulogne—it is the year of the threatened invasion of England—to take him out to sea, and there, in solitude, to persuade him into reason. The plot of the play, which is full of dramatic situations, is the story of his failure and death.”—Ath
“Mr Trench uses prose as his medium except in the critical scene between Wickham and Napoleon, where he rises to a fine and rather Browning-like blank verse.”
“Now here is at least a play. It has argument, dignity, eloquence and dramatic movement; it is based upon a real conflict of ideas, in any case they scarcely affect the whole. The whole work is disciplined; there is rhetoric, where rhetoric should be; and where dispassionate prose should be, there is dispassionate prose. It does honour to English literature; and when we learn that it has been played for one hundred nights with success, we shall believe that the English public has begun to do honour to itself.” J. M. M.
“Mr Trench’s play is worth all his poems twice over. It is one of the few real fruits of the war.” Mark Van Doren
“The play has faults. It is unwieldy in construction, the threads are not always connected and the writing is at times over-elaborated. But these defects cannot outweigh its poetic quality, its power of characterization, and its intense drama. The scenes in Napoleon’s room at Boulogne and those in Wickham’s boat are particularly noteworthy. It would be interesting to see how it would stand the test of production.”
“Surely this play is not merely to be read, but to be seen. But every character is clear in outline, awaiting embodiment, demanding presentment. Its characters are never mere puppets ... not even Napoleon who must by now be more disgustedly weary of his earthly immortality than any denizen of the underworld. He, at any rate should return thanks to Mr Trench for this just, urbane and pitiless rehabilitation.”
TRENT, WILLIAM PETERFIELD, and WELLS, BENJAMIN WILLIS, eds. Colonial prose and poetry. il *$2.50 Crowell 810.8
The present volume is a reprint on thin paper and in one volume of an earlier three-volume set under the titles: The transplanting of culture (1607–1650); The beginnings of Americanism (1650–1710); The growth of the national spirit (1710–1775). The object of the anthology is to give the critic of literature an opportunity “to study the effects of environment upon the literary powers and products of a transplanted race.” (Introd.)
TREVELYAN, GEORGE MACAULAY. Lord Grey of the Reform bill; being the life of Charles, 2d Earl Grey, 1764–1845. il *$7 (*21s) Longmans
“It was a happy chance that caused the authorized life of the second Earl Grey to be left half finished sixty years ago, and that induced the late Lord Grey to assign the task to Mr George Trevelyan. The Lord Grey who passed the reform bill of 1832 has always been an enigma to later generations. His political career was like a drama in which the hero holds the stage in the first act and has a brief and effective scene in the second act, but then is seen no more till the fifth act. Entering Parliament in 1787, when he was twenty-three, he attached himself to Fox, and made himself notorious by founding the Society of the friends of the people and by moving annual resolutions in favour of parliamentary reform. He succeeded to his father’s peerage in November, 1807, and felt that his career was ended. Three-and-twenty years had passed when all at once England discovered that the retired statesman was, like Cincinnatus, the one man who could extricate her from a dangerous situation. Lord Grey tore himself from his country pleasures, took command of a mixed and quarrelsome team of Whigs, radicals, and Canningites, and set himself to achieve parliamentary reform with such skill and determination as few ministers have ever displayed.”—Spec
“The proportion of the text of 369 pages bearing directly upon Grey is too slight to give unity to the whole, and too scattered for focusing into any but a vague image. This is what Mr Trevelyan’s volume really is: an indictment of Tory administration during the era in which Grey lived—an indictment conceived in the unmeasured violence of a political antagonist.” C. E. Fryer
“It is a fascinating story, excellently told, and even the reader who knows little of English political history will find it interesting on account of the light and hope that it sheds on modern conditions.” A. G. Porritt
“Truly admirable book.” Ll. S.
“As a biographer, though not concealing Grey’s failings, he is in sympathy with his subject, while as regards politics his zealous advocacy of the virtues of the Whigs and his condemnation of their opponents occasionally, and especially in the earlier part of his work, outrun his discretion.” W: Hunt
“Mr Trevelyan belongs to a great tradition; and he worthily maintains the dignity of a literary ancestry of which Macaulay is only the most eminent figure. Known wherever literature is cherished for his own superb study of Garibaldi, his ‘Life of John Bright’ showed admirably that he was not less competent to illustrate the history of England. This latest work is not a whit less excellent.” H. J. L.
“Mr Trevelyan’s biography is so excellent in every way, so thoroughgoing in its preparatory studies, so familiar with the epoch, so just in its appraisements and so interestingly written that it is well worth waiting for.”
“Mr Trevelyan has put us heavily in his debt by so agreeably presenting a character about whom too little has been known in the past. Mere personal intimacies are subordinated to historical perspective, and we gain a shrewd insight of a psychology under the stress of problems not unlike those now confronting the world.”
“While we refuse to admire Mr Trevelyan’s hero, we have nothing but praise for Mr Trevelyan. The note of urbanity is never absent from his writing; his style is free from the exuberance, the piling up of effects by antitheses and adjectives, and the lack of humour, which mar the earlier books of his distinguished father.”
“The author, except in his occasional Whiggish outbursts, writes as a sober historian and states the facts fairly.”
“The biography is an excellent history of the time and one that repays reading for its analogies with the present.” G: F. Whicher
“Within its own limits and for its own public the work could not be better done, and will confirm and establish its author’s reputation as a biographer and historian. It is brilliantly written, and the right reader, especially the lover of English political history, will not willingly lay it down till he has drunk his cup of pleasure to the last drop. It is full, too, of interesting judgments on matters which only incidentally come within its scope.”
TREVELYAN, JANET PENROSE (WARD) (MRS GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN). Short history of the Italian people, from the barbarian invasions to the attainment of unity. il *$5 Putnam 945
The writer was impressed with the need of a short history of Italy while giving a series of lantern lectures on Italian history to London school children in 1902. The present volume, which the author modestly calls a “summary” is the result “of a deep and growing love for the subject, of many wanderings in the bypaths of Italy, and of an inherited affection for her present population.” (Preface) She disclaims having made any original research, studied the archives, or made new discoveries. “But I have endeavoured, by using the work already done on each period by Italian, British, French, and German scholars, and by illuminating it with the sayings of contemporary writers, to present a narrative as near the truth as it was possible for me to make it.” (Preface) Partial contents: Italy in the century preceding the barbarian invasions (284–395); The barbarian invasions (395–476); The beginnings of the middle ages (800–1002); The rise of the cities, and their conflict with Frederick Barbarossa (1100–1183); Rome and the papacy during the fourteenth century (1305–1389); Italy in the sixteenth century; Napoleon’s first conquest of Italy (1792–1799); The years of revolution (1846–1849); The completion of Italian unity (1860–1870); Epilogue; Bibliography; Index. There are twenty-four illustrations and six maps.
“Mrs Trevelyan has wrestled with the difficulties of her subject with marked success. She has a thorough grasp of essentials and a due sense of proportion which have enabled her to produce an admirably balanced, well-arranged book, while she writes in a way that is sure to make it widely read.” L. C.-M.
“The chapters are well arranged and in all but the spirit of the presentation of the material, satisfactory.”
“As is the case with all English histories of Italy, the least satisfactory part of the book is the ‘Epilogue,’ which treats of the fifty years since 1870.” W. M.
“The author failed to grasp, or rather utilize, the proper hypothesis—to write the story of the communities as influenced by individuals and extract from that story not what was merely entertaining, but what permanently influenced the future.” Walter Littlefield
“As regards political history the volume is valuable, but its author does not sufficiently emphasize Italy’s glory in her men of art, literature, science, and religion.”
“Popular histories of Italy in English are not many. This one is likely to be recognized very soon as among the best.”
“Mrs Trevelyan has accomplished a feat which we should have deemed hardly possible, in view of the fascinating complexity of the subject. Her book is intensely interesting, and we commend it heartily.”
“It might be suggested that she is apt to overrate the capacity of her reader to grasp from a few words the summaries and the conclusions that have been formed by the writer after long and extended study and reflexion. Mrs Trevelyan has every right to assume that her fresh, lively, and sympathetic appreciation cannot be superfluous.”
TRIDON, ANDRÉ. Psychoanalysis: its history, theory and practice. *$2 (3c) Huebsch 130
A popular treatment of psychoanalysis. The author has attempted “to sum up in a concise form the views of the greatest American and foreign analysts which at present are scattered in hundreds of books, pamphlets and magazine articles.” (Preface) The author is not an unqualified Freudian, holding that Jung, Adler and others have contributed much of value to the new science. Among the chapter titles are: The history of psychoanalytic research; The unconscious and the urges; Night dreams and day dreams; Symbols, the language of the dream; The dreams of the human race; The psychology of everyday actions; Feminism and radicalism; The psychology of wit; The artistic temperament; The psychoanalytic treatment; The new ethics. There is a glossary of terms used, and a bibliography, but the book lacks an index.
“This book is more valuable than the usual popular exposition of psychoanalysis. Clearly written.”
“The present book is by no means a good fulfillment of its avowedly popular purpose. A Freudian critic might say that the disorderly arrangement of its material reveals a mental disturbance of a most alarming character. That much of the subject matter is extremely illuminating goes without saying, but the author constantly betrays, as do nearly all writers upon this subject, an astonishingly uncritical habit of mind in the interpretation of specific cases analyzed.” C. M. S.
“In a field that has developed a considerable wealth of literature, this book of Tridon’s is a distinct and welcome contribution to the subject.” W: J. Fielding
“The volume is wholly a compilation and done without display of literary skill or apparent intimacy with the subject. Any one who wishes to get a comprehensive synopsis of the position of psychoanalysis today may get it with greater readiness and satisfaction from ‘Psychoanalysis and its place in life’ by Miss M. K. Bradby, than from the book in question.” Joseph Collins
“Dr Tridon has carried out his purpose of furnishing in brief compass a survey of the large bearings upon the affairs of mind, normal and abnormal, which underlie the practice of psycho-analysis. But this is not the long awaited and still awaited book which will give the intelligent and critical public some satisfactory account of the animus and the technique and the background of the Freudian system. Dr Tridon tells us far too much of the several schisms and divergences of Freud and his followers.”
“There is nothing original in it except some of Mr Tridon’s opinions, which are not impressive.”
“He is an industrious disciple and sets his matter out lucidly and uncritically. He will give the intelligent reader some appreciation both of the value of psychoanalytic work and (though unconsciously) of some of the extravagances of psychoanalytic enthusiasts.”
TRIDON, ANDRÉ. Psychoanalysis and behavior. *$2.50 (3½c) Knopf 130
This, the author’s second book on psychoanalysis, “is an attempt at interpreting human conduct from the psychoanalytical point of view.” Contents: The organism; Problems of childhood; Progress and regressions; Sleep and dreams; Problems of sex; The psychoanalytic treatment; The four schools of psychoanalysis; Index. Bibliographical notes follow the chapters.
“A rather useful aspect of the book is the chapter distinguishing the four schools of psychoanalysis headed respectively by Freud, Jung, Adler, and Kempf.”
“Mr Tridon’s second volume, ‘Psychoanalysis and behavior,’ is far more meritorious than the first. It shows that he has examined psychoanalytic literature and that he is able to percolate it through his conscious mind with much ease and some grace.” Joseph Collins
TRINE, GRACE STEELE (HYDE) (MRS RALPH WALDO TRINE), comp. Dreams and voices; songs of mother, father and child. $2 Womans press 821.08
It is the aim of this anthology of contemporary poetry “to present some of the best poems on the mother and child relationship written in recent years, not forgetting to include several that deal also with the love of father and child.” (Foreword) It is a de luxe edition with a frontispiece in color by Clinton Brown.
“The fact that most of the material is of quite recent creation gives the volume an interest not shared by older anthologies of the same character.”
“There is necessarily much sentimentality, much vatic utterance, much capitalization and saccharinity. De la Mare’s ‘Rachel’ is a relief from some of it, tender without being ‘sweet.’”
TROUBETZKOY, AMÉLIE (RIVES) princess. As the wind blew. *$1.75 Stokes 811
Some of the poems in this collection are reprinted from other sources but many appear in print for the first time. The collection opens with a memorial poem to Adair Archer and the grouping of the contents is under the headings: Rhymes and rhythms; Balkan songs; The wonderful child; Of Babylon; Fantasia; Autumn and winter.
“The technique of poetry is vividly manifest in the present volume of poems, as well as some ingenuity and warm imagination; but the dramatic lucidity of emotion is still absent.”
TUCKER, IRWIN ST JOHN. History of imperialism. *$2.25 Rand school of social science 321.03
“There is a straight line of descent from the throne of Menes to the chair of Wilson; a straight course of empire from that far off day when Upper and Lower Egypt were united beneath the crown of the first empire, to the day when the expanding credits of America forced her imperial merchants to create an imperial figurehead. Our symptoms of imperialism are identical with those which all budding empires have displayed.” (Foreword) For a better understanding of imperialism the book takes up the study of the separate nations from earliest history both before and after the great spotlight of imperial power picked them out for the stage of some particular act. In conclusion the author points out the two forces that are now struggling in our political structure to head us either towards an empire or an industrial republic. The book falls into two parts: ancient and modern imperialism. Part 1 contains: The book of Egypt—of Babylon—of Persia—of Greece—of Rome—of Nicea; part 2: The book of Islam—of France—of Germany—of Spain; The strife of the Eagles; The book of England—of India—of America.
“Throughout the work there are numerous excerpts from ancient documents which are of absorbing interest and which throw a stream of light into many dark corners. The style, too, is a departure from the customary method of dealing with economic subjects. There is only one defect in the making of the book that we note. There is no index.” James Oneal
TUELL, HARRIET EMILY. Study of nations; an experiment in social education. (Riverside educational monographs) *80c Houghton 909
This is a plea that we substitute for our old “dry as dust” method of teaching history “an elementary study of nationality.” In a high school course such as this book proposes, “each nation is carefully considered by itself, that pupils may gain a definite impression of its individual characteristics. First it is viewed as it appears today; then its development is briefly traced. After this historic background has been sketched in, an attempt is made to evaluate the peculiar gifts of the country and its people to the sum of modern civilization.” (Preface) This is a pioneer book, for the use of teachers, and, as such, the main part of it is devoted to helpfully suggestive material, outlines, and comments upon the following nations: France, England, Germany, Russia, Italy, Austro-Hungary, Turkey and the Balkan states, China, Japan, and the Philippine Islands (“a nation in the making”). The book includes a complete bibliographical list, and a connected outline of all the chapters. The chapters on China and Japan were contributed by Dr K. S. Latourette. Dr Tuell is the head of the department of history, Somerville high school, Massachusetts.
“Books of this sort are undoubtedly useful to teachers who have access to well-equipped libraries and are themselves trained to get the materials out of these libraries, but the movement which Miss Tuell represents will hardly be successful until someone has prepared in detail and in a form that can be presented to children the materials that she has gone over in outline. The book is in this sense a first step in the direction of actual school use of this sort of material.”
TUOHY, FERDINAND.[2] Secret corps. *$2 Seltzer 940.485
“Captain Tuohy deals with all the methods of espionage and counter-espionage practised during the war, enlivening his exposition here and there with anecdotes. He explains incidentally the value of seemingly harmless military details to an alert enemy and thus justifies the censorship. He declares that our own system proved highly efficient and that our French allies had, after February, 1916, to implore the assistance of our secret service in Germany as all their own agents had been captured. The British system was based on the principle that each agent should know and be known to his chief alone.”—Spec
“‘The secret corps’ is thrilling in its every paragraph, and, speaking personally, it is the first book of the war we have enjoyed for two years.”
“This volume has value unsurpassed, if not unequaled, by any other that has dealt with the same material.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
TURNER, EDWARD RAYMOND. Europe, 1789–1920. *$3.50 Doubleday 940.2
The raison d’être of the book is the alteration in historical perspective wrought by the last few years which makes the epoch since 1789 “the most important and interesting in the history of mankind. It began with a revolution whose effects are not yet all measured; it ended with another whose consequences can scarcely yet even be guessed at.” (Preface) During this period immense changes took place in the relations of people with each other, with their governments, with capitalists and employers, in the attitude of people toward the problems of the world in which they lived, and in their habits of thought. The book falls into two parts: 1789–1871; and 1871–1920. The outstanding points of part one are the old Europe before, during and after the French revolution, the Congress of Vienna, the rise of Prussia after 1870 and the condition of Russia during the period. Part two begins with the military triumphs of Germany between 1864–1871, its subsequent development and that of the other great powers, and treats of events before and during the great war. There are numerous maps, a bibliography at the end of each chapter, an appendix and an index.
“About the completest single volume history of Europe covering the years between the two most epochal events in her experience. Excellent historical work.”
“It is naïve, sincere, and, if the English is sometimes colloquial, one has no difficulty in understanding what the author means. It is a book intended to be read by the person of average cultivation, and not very much instruction—and judged from that point of view the author’s task is very well done.” M. F. Egan
“In style and method the latter half of the book is somewhat like those editorial summaries of current events contained in some of the best modern journals. It is concise, considered, rather neutral, but useful for exactly the purpose for which it was designed. The book’s value lies not so much in the backward glimpses of the past from the present point of view as in the light thrown forward on the war and upon our present state by the course of events since 1879.”
TURNER, FREDERICK JACKSON. Frontier in American history. *$2.50 Holt 973
Professor Turner’s essay on “The significance of the frontier in American history” was read at a meeting of the American historical association in Chicago in 1893 and has had a profound influence on American historical thinking and writing. It is to be found in the Proceedings of the State historical society of Wisconsin for 1893, and in the Report of the American historical association for the same year and is reprinted here together with other papers bearing on the same theme. A statement of his thesis may be taken from “The West and American ideals”: “American democracy was born of no theorist’s dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.” The other papers are: The first official frontier of the Massachusetts bay; The old West; The middle West; The Ohio valley in American history; The significance of the Mississippi valley in American history; The problem of the West; Dominant forces in western life; Contributions of the West to American democracy; Pioneer ideals and the state university; Social forces in American history; Middle western pioneer democracy.
“Interesting to students or general readers.”
“The high significance of this work has long been recognized by writers on American history; but if the influence of Mr Turner were to be estimated on the basis of his published work alone, it would be accounted far less than it has in fact been.” Carl Becker
“Though the chapters in this book are essays on aspects of frontier history and written at different times, they might well have been written within a few months. The book contains a fund of information, clearly reasoned, significantly and concisely expressed. It is readable, and it is suggestive.” C. L. Skinner
“Are we hypercritical in thinking that essays of such pith and moment demand a better format?”
“The present volume sets forth in the clearest possible manner the view of American expansion which has inspired and illuminated all of Professor Turner’s work from the beginning. Among all American historians no one has so fully caught the meaning of the frontier in our national development.”
“As a treatise, Prof. Turner’s book loses something from being a compilation of articles and addresses, but it makes an excellent general presentation of a subject which is insufficiently understood by the average American, yet is so fascinating that any reader will be thankful to have it brought to his attention.”
“The book is highly suggestive to one who wishes to understand the American attitude toward social problems and the course which social work has taken in America.” Lilian Brandt
TURNER, GEORGE KIBBE. Hagar’s hoard. *$2.25 (2c) Knopf
The story describes a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis in 1878 in all its weirdness and horror. In a large brick house lived an old man, Athiel Hagar, with his daughter and adopted nephew. The man is a miser and many are the stories current among the negroes about the fabulous sums he has hoarded in his house. His property is his obsession which keeps him rooted in the house when fleeing from the fever is the only sane thing to do. At last he succumbs to the enemy and in his last death agony accidentally pulls the cord which brings his treasure down upon him, burying the dead man under it.
“The plot of ‘Hagar’s hoard’ is unconvincing as regards its chief motive. Then, too, the characters are sadly stock-in-trade. Even the negroes are grossly machine-made and lack warmth and conviction, and the author certainly has overlooked a fine opportunity to add color and the throb of life to a fairly interesting tale.”
“Mr Turner has unfortunately made a full-length novel out of what should have been a long short story, or at most, a novelette. The plot is of the very slightest. The merit of the book lies in its excellent description of the fever-stricken town, but excellent as this is it becomes wearisome when repeated again and again.”
TURNER, JOHN HASTINGS. Place in the world. *$1.75 Scribner
“The heroine of ‘A place in the world,’ Iris Iranova, is an illegitimate and temperamental young woman of about twenty-five. Married to an over-amiable Russian, she lost her temper and stuck a knife into him. This inconsiderate action made it necessary for her to leave Russia and come to England, where she is living very comfortably when the book opens. Following a whim, she decides to settle for a time in an English suburb, and it is with her relations with the persons she meets there that the novel is principally concerned. Among these persons two are of especial importance—a really charming old clergyman, broad-minded, sympathetic and possessed of a keen and abundant sense of humor, and Henry Cumbers, an apparently fussy and insignificant little man who, in time of stress and sorrow, proves that he has splendid stuff in him.”—N Y Times
“Mr Turner has a clever pen, and the fluttering of the dovecotes caused by Iris’s unconventionality gives him scope for a number of incisive character-sketches. Mr Turner is to be congratulated on the keenness of his observation as well as the liveliness of his style.”
“Fairly amusing.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“Mr Turner has written a charming novel, fresh and vivid in dialogue, with characters that live in every pulse and gesture.” W. S. B.
“Witty comedy.”
“The plot of the tale is extremely slight and at times the novel drags badly, but the style is often agreeable and the characters of Henry Cumbers and of the Rev. John Heslop are very well drawn indeed.”
“Mr Turner’s ‘Simple souls’ was amusing; this novel goes deeper. It is fine workmanship as to its writing, and in its essence it makes for soundheartedness and human tolerance.”
“The especial merit of the book is the Rev. John Heslop, a character any writer might have been proud to invent.”
“Mr Turner’s fiction challenges comparison with that of Mr Locke, not because he imitates the latter’s method, but chiefly because his work falls within the same general field of whimsical personalities, kindly humor, and pleasing romance so long cultivated by Mr Locke. The characters charm and delight and provide the zest to an unusually entertaining story.”
TURNER, JOHN KENNETH. Hands off Mexico. pa 35c Rand school of social science 327
This pamphlet is devoted to an exposition of the motives that lie back of intervention propaganda, and concludes with a plea to the American people to make common cause with the people of Mexico against the interests that are a menace to both. In proposing his solution the author says, “In the cause of the Mexican ‘problem’ is found its solution. As our meddling has been a decisive factor in creating and prolonging the disorder, and in subjecting Americans to danger, so an opposite policy would tend to produce the opposite result. We must stop threatening Mexico, stop invading Mexico, stop embargoing Mexico, enter into a fair agreement for policing the border, keep a few of our fine promises, make a fair trial of treating our neighbor as an equal.”
“The author of this brochure, which as a plea for the rights of the Mexican people is fundamentally admirable and excellent, employs a great deal of the hammer-and-tongs method of his previous volume, ‘Barbarous Mexico.’ Nevertheless the booklet is a timely summary of information concerning the facts of the controversy.” G. B. Winton
TURNER, W. J. Dark wind. *$2 Dutton 821
“‘The dark wind’ has been most cordially received in London and is especially interesting to students of poetry because it combines much of the colorcraft of the imagists with the melodies of the Georgians. Indeed, none of the young English poets has given us verse in which sense impressionism plays a more important part than it plays here.” (N Y Times) “Not the least interesting peculiarity of Mr Turner’s art is that he has made no startling departures into irregular verse forms. Nor does Mr Turner seek to startle by the choice of bizarre subjects. He writes on Haystacks and Sunflowers and Hollyhocks and Aeroplanes and Recollecting a visit.” (Bookm)
“There is no careless rapture in any of his verse: it has the studious rigidity of a cultivated and audacious craftsmanship, but with the magic of genuine inspiration.” R. M. Weaver
“One might name such poems as In the caves of Auvergne, The search for the nightingale, The sky-sent death and Magic, which not only show Mr Turner at his best poetically but at his subtlest allegorically.” W. S. B.
“Mr Turner possesses, simultaneously with the knack of astonishing, the knack of cloying and blurring. He is intoxicated with exotic masses and meanings. He has visual genius; his images expand in the mind’s eye. Yet, once he has created a scene, he does nothing with it. He has not the firmness to finish what he gloriously begins.” M. V. D.
“Turner’s ‘The dark wind’ is first of all a book of color and beautiful rhythms. He possesses the virtue of flinging lovely pictures before the reader, not the hard emphasized colors that cry from Miss Amy Lowell’s efforts, but a soft yet glittering mingling of hues that is warm with sunlight and harmonious with spring and autumn.”
TURPIN, EDNA HENRY LEE. Treasure mountain. il *$1.75 (3c) Century
This story for girls has a picturesque setting in the southern mountains. Page Ruffin, the young heroine, is helped out of a dangerous situation by a mountain boy who gives his name as Harson Ruffyan. She is struck with the likeness to her own name and her teasing companions see a facial resemblance as well. Page’s father suspects a real relationship but he is angrily turned away by Mac Ruffyan, who refuses to recognize the kinship. On another occasion Page is lost on the mountain and is rescued by Mac Ruffyan and taken to his cabin home. Here she sees her possible cousin in a new light and becomes his champion. In the meantime her father has been investigating family history to learn the secret of the relationship. A second mystery of the story, which leads to a still more thrilling adventure and rescue, is concerned with a cave, buried treasure and a ghost. Incidentally the author introduces the lesson of wild flower preservation.
“Will interest girls from ten to fifteen.”
Reviewed by A. C. Moore
“It would be worth while to put up with the disagreeable little heroine if young folks could learn from this to enjoy wild-flowers in their native setting.” M. H. B. Mussey
“A real story with plenty of action and thrills.”
“Here is that rarity, a good story for girls.”
TUSSAUD, JOHN THEODORE. Romance of Madame Tussaud’s. il *$5 Doran 791
The story of the famous wax works, established in Paris during the revolution and later brought to London, written by one of the great-grandsons of the founder, the present proprietor of the exhibition. Madame Tussaud, altho a young girl at the time of the revolution, was already famed as a modeler in wax and had been a favorite at court. She was conscripted and compelled to model the guillotined heads of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Marat murdered in his bath, and other horrors, a number of which are reproduced in the illustrations. The story is brought down to the present day, describing many of the recent additions, with illustrations. Hilaire Belloc has written an introduction and the book is indexed.
“The amazing feature of the book is, however, the manner in which its author has made so intrinsically interesting and romantic a theme dull and commonplace. It is evident that he possesses absolutely no qualifications for his task. He is simply adept at the compilation of a scrap-book. Yet his subject is so fascinating that it is better to have his account of Madame Tussaud’s life and work than none at all.” E. F. E.
“‘Romance’ is possibly a strong word for this book, and is applicable only where some story connected with a character in the collection is told. Sometimes this takes Mr Tussaud far afield. But as a collection of anecdotes it ranks almost with Siboutie’s ‘Souvenirs of a Parisian.’”
“Mr Tussaud has appreciated the value of his materials both from the historic point of view and from the viewpoint of human interest. His narrative, like his wax figures, simply presents facts of undeniable interest. But it is the pictures that make the book unique.”
“The book is often pleasantly gruesome.” E. L. Pearson
TUTTLE, W. C. Reddy Brant: his adventures. il *$1.75 (5c) Century
A series of short stories reprinted from Boy’s Life. The hero is fourteen-year-old Reddy Brant, a young vagrant who wanders into the cattle country of the far West. His adventures are many and exciting and aided by his native wit and courage, with the occasional help of coincidence, he acts as both agent of justice and angel of mercy. The titles are: A rooting tooter; The go-getters; The clean-up kid; A sage-brush Santa Claus; The jump of a forty-five; Reddy’s muzzle-loader; A bunkie of the buckaroos; Reddy Brant—thinker; When Reddy wondered why; Good-night, knight; Three wise men and a star.
“There is a genuine flavor of old-time American humor in the telling, and an unusual spirit of good fellowship.” M. H. B. Mussey
“There are more adventures to the square inch in this book than any other that has come to hand since ‘The three musketeers.’ The manner of telling is swift, humorous, breezy. Reddy is a find.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
TWEEDALE, CHARLES L. Man’s survival after death: or, The other side of life in the light of Scripture, human experience, and modern research. *$6 Dutton 218
“The researches made of late years to determine some proof of existence, especially bodily existence after death, have been mainly based upon science applied to psychical intuition and evidence. This method is one elimination, discarding all the agents and influences that might spring from irrational and abnormal factors in human experience, and tracking what remained of evidence as proof of communication with identities translated to a life beyond the grave. Mr Tweedale in this work seeks to prove a similar fact but his evidence has its origin in faith, and faith receives its confirmation in the doctrines of Scripture. Mankind in general, he believes, holds the germ of this faith but fails to make it an active conviction by reason of insufficient knowledge of the realities supporting that faith. On his part Mr Tweedale rejects psychic phenomena as the theory whereby to command the knowledge of survival, though he does not hesitate to refine upon its evidence to prove his own convictions of faith.”—Boston Transcript
“No such vast array of evidence, consisting of well-authenticated occurrences, has ever before been brought together in one volume. Not only this vast survey of the entire field of psychic phenomena, with admirable presentation in its relation to man’s religious nature and spiritual development, but there is added the clear explanations and lofty thought of Mr Tweedale.” Lilian Whiting
TWEEDALE, MRS VIOLET (CHAMBERS). Beautiful Mrs Davenant. *$1.75 (1½c) Stokes
There are two mysteries in this story, that concerning the past of the beautiful Mrs Davenant and the mystery of Lake House, which Letty Thorne senses on first coming there to stay with her uncle. In the solution of the second the secret of the first is also revealed. It is revealed to the reader and to one other person in the story, but Mrs Davenant, feeling that there is that in her life which forbids remarriage says no to the man who loves her and keeps her own confidence. A minor love story develops between the vicar and Mrs Davenant’s friend Agnes Howard, and to this affair as well as to the love story of Letty there is a happy ending.
“The story is not very probable, but it is entertaining and cleverly handled. It belongs to a rather old-fashioned type of romance, but it is treated in a modern way.”
“A very good mystery story.”
“If this ‘novel of love and mystery’ is somewhat crudely melodramatic and makes considerable demands on the improbable, Mrs Tweedale at least gives her readers plenty of incident.”
TWEEDALE, MRS VIOLET (CHAMBERS). Ghosts I have seen, and other psychic experiences. *$2 (2c) Stokes 133
Supernatural experiences of a lifetime are recorded here. The author has the convictions of the theosophist, and in these pages there are occasionally brief essays on reincarnation, spiritualism, the “other side.” Unlike most current spiritualistic books, there is here no argument on alleged “irrefutable evidence.” The author is a psychic, has seen these things, we may believe or not. At any rate, reading at midnight, in a dimly lit house alone, we cannot remain indifferent. Some of the titles are: “Silk dress” and “rumpus”; The ghost of Prince Charlie; The invisible hands; Peacock’s feathers—the skeleton hand at Monte Carlo; I commit murder; The angel of Lourdes; “The new Jeanne d’Arc”; Auras. An interesting picture of Madame Blavatsky (in the flesh) is presented in this book.
Reviewed by Preserved Smith
“This book introduces the reader not only to many interesting visitors from the world beyond mortal ken but to a very interesting human being as well. For the author’s own sake, it is well worth reading.” Cornelia Van Pelt
TYRRELL, GEORGE. Letters *$7 Dutton
“‘George Tyrrell’s letters,’ selected and edited by Miss M. D. Petre, author of the ‘Life of George Tyrrell,’ will bring the opportunity of a more familiar acquaintance to the many Americans who have been interested in the well-known Irishman’s life and work. Modernism claimed great sacrifices and the labor of some years; but it was not all his life. And in this selection of letters it has been the intention to show him in his dealings with widely moral and undenominationally spiritual issues, to show him also in his lighter moments, when he spoke true words in jest, or hid his meaning under a veil of persiflage.”—Springf’d Republican
“So long as there are Christians of even a simple type, Tyrrell will be read, because of his instinct for the things of Christ. His cruel ironies and his flaming resentments, his rash speculations and his tottering syntheses may all be buried in his grave.”
“These highly interesting letters have been published, as we are told, with the view of showing Tyrrell in ‘his lighter and brighter, as in his sadder and graver moods.’ We must confess to finding him sometimes equally depressing in both. His humour has a tinge of that professional flippancy (as lay-people esteem it) which seems common to clergymen of every denomination. The ‘letters of advice’ included in this collection show us Father Tyrrell at the best, wise, comforting, sympathetic, with no thought but the welfare of his correspondents.”
“Miss Petre has done well to publish this selection from his correspondence. He was a many-sided man, and his letters reflect his many-sidedness.”
“Miss Maud Petre has shown good judgment in issuing this collection of George Tyrrell’s letters as a supplement to his ‘Autobiography and life.’ It is plain that Tyrrell was a born correspondent. He expresses himself with more ease in a letter than in a volume. And he would, we think, have spared both himself and his church much trouble had he written more letters and published fewer books.”
TYRRELL, ROSS. Pathway of adventure. *$1.90 (2c) Knopf
Stuart Wayne, writer of detective stories, finds himself involved in a genuine plot. He picks up a note dropped by a girl in a passing taxi and it starts him on the road of adventure and mystery. It is an appeal for help from a girl held imprisoned in an abandoned house in the Chicago suburbs. Through a lucky chance he gains entrance to the house and talks to the girl, Zaida Grayson, but his presence is discovered, with all but fatal consequences to himself, and the gang of crooks, with their fair prisoner, eludes him. But he has learned enough of her story to gain a clue and to connect it with the sudden death of Patrick Cullom, the iron king, whose young granddaughter is to inherit his wealth. With the aid of the secret service the band of kidnappers and murderers are brought to justice and by his own devotion and daring he wins the girl.
“Any lover of this type of tale must have discovered here [in the Borzoi books] a number of excellent examples, of which ‘The pathway of adventure’ is by no means the least successful.”
“Events follow familiar lines, but with just enough variation to sustain the interest as incident follows incident.”
ULLMAN, ALBERT EDWARD. “Line’s busy.” il *$1 (4½c) Stokes 817
Goldie is the telephone operator in a large hotel and she tells her story in slangy letters to her pal Myrtle. Events in which she takes a share from her switchboard reveal her as a girl “always there with the helping hand, no matter how much it’s been lacerated in the past.” In particular the love affairs of her patrons and co-workers interest her, and she straightens out several tangles, and finally, her own love story develops happily.
“A love story that is both clever and jolly is so rare nowadays that one seizes with avidity upon the romance of little Goldie.”
“Mr Ullman deserves full credit for a lot of ‘good lines.’ The wit of Goldie’s letters is catchy and largely original—not current vaudeville wheezes warmed over. We wish there was more of it and less of the ‘good-old-ham-and-eggs,’ ‘man-from-home’ brand of philosophy.”
UNCENSORED letters of a canteen girl. *$2 (3c) Holt 940.48
These letters were “scratched down on odds and ends of writing paper, in a rare spare moment at the canteen; at night, at my billet, by candle-light, in the mornings, perched in front of Madame’s fire-place.... Why were they never sent? Simply because all letters mailed from France in those days, must of course pass under the eyes of the censor.” (Foreword) They contain everything that happened generously interspersed with the conversations of the doughboys. Contents: Company A; The doughboys; The front; The artillery; The engineers; The ordnance; The French; Pioneers, M. P.’s and others.
“Rather more tempting to the jaded war appetite than most personal narratives because of the fresh frankness which anonymity permits. Will be liked better later on.”
“So piquant and fine-humored are the observations and revelations that one regrets that the book is anonymous. The publishers’ claim, that this ‘gives the human side of soldiering as no book yet published has done,’ does not seem extravagant.”
UNDERHILL, EVELYN (MRS STUART MOORE). Jacopone da Todi; poet and mystic—1228–1306; a spiritual biography. *$6 Dutton
“Jacopone da Todi, that remarkable Italian mystical poet, was born soon after the death of St Francis of Assisi, about 1228 or 1230, while Dante was yet in the prime of his manhood. Living in the world until he was forty, a shrewd lawyer, a man of vivid temperament, of wide culture and refined tastes, he received at that age his first religious call. For the next ten years he wandered about as a missionary hermit and in 1278, being then about fifty, he became a Franciscan lay brother. Miss Underhill’s book is divided into two parts of about equal length. The first is devoted to Jacopone’s life, set in its proper historical environment. In the remaining part of the book Miss Underhill gives us a chronological selection from his mystical poems, so well known as the Laude, accompanied in the fellow page by an English translation (also into poetry) by Mrs Theodore Beck.”—Cath World
“Miss Underhill has a fine flow of language, a nice choice of adjectives, and a thorough, if somewhat undiscriminating, knowledge of the literature of her subject. Altogether her book is well done in its way, and it is not the slightest use wishing, as we do, that it had been done in another.” R. S.
“The biographer’s comprehension of the worldly accomplishments of her subject and her equal insight into his spiritual attainments, is strikingly the counterpart of that two-sidedness which she emphasizes in the man himself. The bibliography apart from its immediate value as indicating the sources of the present work, will be of service to those interested in the whole subject of Christian mysticism.” Marianne Moore
“When the romantic personality falls into the hands of the scholar there is necessarily something of glamour and delight lost. This is what has happened in this austerely spiritual biography of Evelyn Underhill.” L. C. Willcox
“Friar Jacopone was a poet of extraordinary power, and the fire, ease, and accomplishment of his rather erotic mystic poems are astonishing.”
“The materials are rather flimsy for the construction of a biography. We cannot agree with Miss Underhill that Jacopone was a great poet. Intense religious feeling, vividly and forcibly expressed, does not of itself constitute poetry, and beyond such expression Jacopone does not often rise.”
UNDERHILL, RUTH MURRAY. White moth. *$2 Moffat
“Miss Underhill has converted the old fable of the ant and the grasshopper into a very modern romance which she calls ‘The white moth.’ Hilda Plaistead is the earnest plodder, Guy Nearing the gay and irresponsible hero, and the setting is the town of Cato. The two have a childhood engagement, become widely separated, and in the final chapter again discover that they were always meant for each other, but it is only after Guy has learned the folly of being jack of all trades and master of none.”—N Y Evening Post
“We can scarcely claim for Miss Underhill’s story either originality of substance or of treatment. What she does accomplish is an exceedingly readable and very human story, which possesses certain scenes of quiet and insistent realism.”
“High school days are described as well as in Booth Tarkington’s ‘Seventeen.’ The characters are all well drawn. However, the true merit of the book is in taking some new aspects of life, such as the business rivalry between man and woman or the problems of factory management and using them to construct a good old-fashioned romance which holds the attention from start to finish.”
“It is a real romance and has a charming atmosphere.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
UNSEEN doctor. *$1.75 (5c) Holt 134
The book is one of the Psychic series and describes the cure of a case of illness of fifteen years’ standing in the course of a year and eight months by an invisible spirit doctor. It contains a preface by J. Arthur Hill, testimonials by several personal friends of the patient and a report by the physician long in charge of the case in the flesh. The contents are: A chance paragraph; A chain of coincidences; The first interview; A further surprise; The invisible hand; Experiences and experiments; Fellow-lodgers; Royal progress; Learning to walk; “My little girl”; Six months later; Comments and criticisms; Appendix and index. The book was published in England as “One thing I know, or, The power of the unseen.”
“‘The unseen doctor’ is as respectable a book of psychic experiences as has come to the public. There is no doubt that it is a record of real experiences. But, respectable as the book is, it still leaves open the eternal question, ‘Why should spirit doctors cling to the earth, and why have they no concerns of their own?’”
“As a ‘psychic’ tale the book is futile and foolish, indeed, rather fertile in folly.”
“There is nothing fantastic in the story, and it is told with such convincing truth that the reader seems to have no choice save to accept it on its face value.” Lilian Whiting
UNTERMEYER, LOUIS, ed. Modern American poetry. *$1.40 Harcourt 811.08
“In his anthology, ‘Modern American poetry’ Louis Untermeyer has selected 132 poems by 80 authors, arranged them effectively, with brief notices for each writer and handy indices. Old favorites are here; ‘Little boy blue’ rubs shoulders with ‘The purple cow,’ and ‘When the frost is on the punkin’ with ‘A stein song.’ Franklin P. Adams, Oliver Herford, and Carolyn Wells are represented.”—Springf’d Republican
“All the best recent things are here.” H: A. Lappin
“This verse is remarkable for vigor and energy, form being sacrificed for content. An interesting feature is the group of seven poems on Lincoln by seven different poets.”
“Though it too often misses the authentic current, is too often led away into stagnant marshes, it is perhaps as good a map as we yet possess. The editor is a better conversationalist than guide.”
“It is a comprehensive and unusually satisfying collection.”
Reviewed by R. P. Utter
“The present reviewer’s quarrel with Louis Untermeyer’s ‘Modern American poetry’ is not so much because of its selections and omissions—both often very wise ones—as because of Untermeyer’s attitude of mind in his introduction. It is the typical attitude of the poets of our present little ‘renaissance,’ and perhaps one should hardly quarrel with it, but smile at it. You would suppose poetry that was honest, fresh, contemporary, had never been written before.” W. P. Eaton
“If there be any critic in the country who ought not to make a schoolbook, that critic is Louis Untermeyer. He is much too brilliantly individual and his likes and dislikes are too pronounced. It is a book of verse that young people probably will like, if they like verse at all. Many of the selections included are humorous.... A good professor would make a better anthology for use in schools.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“The criticism may be raised that Mr Untermeyer has been too generous to the ultra-moderns. But the selections of Carl Sandburg, John Gould Fletcher and Alfred Kreymborg are chosen with discrimination, and serve to accomplish the editor’s purpose.”
“This book is a delightful one to read; it has a distinct individuality, and if Mr Untermeyer, in avoiding the beaten track, does not always publish the finest work of his poets, he recovers many a line that has been undeservedly forgotten.” E: B. Reed
UNTERMEYER, LOUIS, ed. Modern British poetry. *$2 Harcourt 821.08
A companion volume to Mr Untermeyer’s ‘Modern American poetry.’ Over seventy-five poets are represented, ranging from Thomas Hardy, born in 1840, to Robert Graves, born in 1895. Among the others are Alice Meynell, William Watson, Francis Thompson, A. E. Housman, Ernest Dowson, Hilaire Belloc, Walter de la Mare, G. K. Chesterton, W. W. Gibson, John Masefield, Ralph Hodgson, Harold Monro, John Drinkwater, Siegfried Sassoon, Francis Ledwidge, Irene Rutherford McLeod, Richard Aldington, Robert Nichols and Charles H. Sorley. In an introduction the editor discusses the new influences and tendencies.
“A few months ago saw the birth of Mr Untermeyer’s book of ‘Modern American poetry,’ a work remarkable as showing the wide variety of theme and treatment which is at least one characteristic trait of American poetry today. Now Mr Untermeyer, for some obscure reason, essays the same feat with ‘Modern British poetry.’ And the result is conspicuously a failure.” J: G. Fletcher
“The disproportionate amount of space allotted to the various poets gives a false emphasis: Mr Hardy, Mr Bridges and Mr Russell have each less than three pages, while Mr Chesterton has nine and Mr Kipling and Mr Noyes (Mr Noyes!) twelve each. The anthologist is tolerant of many schools; but his eye is more on the present than on the immediate past.” S. C. C.
“Aside from the small flecks the book presents itself as an admirable attempt and one that, through its delightful snapshots of the poets prefixed to each writer’s work, should inveigle readers into a closer scrutiny of British verse.”
“The editor’s taste is sensitive, and his curious bitterness towards the Victorians, which is the main drawback to his liberality, does not greatly affect the catholicity of the work.”
UNTERMEYER, LOUIS. New Adam. *$1.75 Harcourt 811
As an introduction to this book of poems Mr Untermeyer reprints “A note on the poetry of love” from the New Republic. He comments on the artificiality of the love poetry of the preceding age and notes that in our day there is a tendency to return “to the upright vigor, the wide and healthy curiosity” of our earlier ancestors, the Elizabethans. Among the poems of the book are: The new Adam, Hands, Asleep, Summer storm, A marriage, Wrangle, Equals, Supplication, The eternal masculine, Windy days, The embarrassed amorist, Words for a jig, Disillusion, The prodigal.
“There is nothing about love or woman in this collection, except it be in the verses called ‘The wise woman,’ that is new in love poetry, and there is many a mood and theme that has been both artistically and emotionally better expressed by any number of poets in the past ‘two centuries.’” W: S. Braithwaite
Reviewed by Babette Deutsch
“There is in this recent work of Mr Untermeyer’s a note that is singular in American poetry. It shows a writer who has become curious about the soul.” H. S. Gorman
“Mr Untermeyer is casual, as he promised, and flippant, and frank, and dutifully vulgar; but seldom is his effect other than that of an agile pen tracing a facile passion.”
“Neither the rhapsodic nor the mocking quality, however, gives the substance of Untermeyer’s work. The roots of his power lie deeper. Upright vigor, wide and healthy curiosity describe his own work excellently.” Babette Deutsch
“One of Mr Untermeyer’s most marked traits is a delightful whimsicality. It crops up again and again throughout the volume, for, strangely enough, this book, which purports to be so revealing, is really extremely reticent. But a dissatisfaction obtrudes itself. Why, oh why, has Mr Untermeyer, master of so many differing forms, chosen to follow Heine in his tight little rhythms and mathematically cut stanzas? In Mr Untermeyer’s case, the effect is not exactly what I imagine he hopes.” Amy Lowell
USHER, ABBOTT PAYSON. Introduction to the industrial history of England. il *$2.50 Houghton 330.942
The book is a narrative of all the historical facts in the industrial development from the earliest beginnings to the present time, which presumably explains the word introduction in the title. The ground covered is shown in the contents: Forms of industrial organization; The rise of the crafts in antiquity; Crafts and craft gilds in medieval France; The population of England: 1086–1700; Village and manor; The traders and the towns; The development of gilds in England; The woolen industries: 1450–1750; The enclosure movement and land reform; The industrial revolution; The East India company and the vested interests; The new cotton industry; The reorganization of the metal trades; The rise of the modern factory system; The rise of collective bargaining; The protection of health and welfare by the state; The development of the railway; The government and the railways; Combinations and monopolies; Incomes, wages, and social unrest; Selected references; Index, maps, figures, and graphs.
“His exposition is generally clear. The balance of general statement and of particular fact is in most chapters good. The author is usually a trustworthy guide. The most serious weakness of the work, when it is appraised as a manual for college undergraduates, lies in its plan rather than in its execution. I think, however, that few teachers who examine the book will dissent from the conclusion that it would be greatly improved if a large part, almost one third of the whole, were cut out, and if the space saved were used for the consideration of the topics now omitted.” Clive Day
“The facts are presented with scholarly care, but the style is not too technical.”
“Marked by scholarliness and originality.”
“English industrialism, is, primarily, a consequence of certain philosophic ideas, but the author fails to comprehend this major fact, not from any lack of knowledge of the complexities of economic organization, but rather, one surmises because such intricacies are too much for him. He has not seen the wood for the trees, and he fears generalizations—except the one implied throughout the book, that there are no generalizations possible.” R. W.
“The book shows throughout the discriminatory use of the latest available results of research and much painstaking original work. The controversial treatment, the careful qualification in discussion, as well as occasional heaviness in style, make the book unsuited for an undergraduate text.”
“It is encyclopædic in its character and is much more full in dealing with the mechanical aspects and the mechanical development of industry than with the history of the men, women, and children who have been engaged in the industries of England. In this respect it is a disappointing book.”
“It is no small task to formulate a general text-book covering so enormous a field and involving many disputatious matters. Professor Usher has, however, accomplished this with skill. Some of his chapters are inadequate. In his discussion of land reform and the inclosure movement, for example, the plight of the evicted peasant farmers seems to be poorly understood. A similar criticism of a narrowness of sympathy, or at any rate of an inadequacy of understanding, might be directed against the final chapter. Professor Usher has a very thin knowledge of the British labor situation today.” W. L. C.
USHER, ROLAND GREENE. Story of the great war. il *$2.50 Macmillan 940.3
“Professor Usher begins his story with the assassination of the Archduke of Austria; but he shows beyond doubt that the war really began months before this event. The German attitude in 1914 is described; the reports of spies concerning the French and the Russian preparedness and the British reluctance to enter into war. With these preliminaries, which include the first five chapters of his book, Professor Usher begins his narrative with the story of the campaign on Paris and the wonderful strategy displayed by General Joffre, followed by the aggressiveness of Foch.... He traces the work of Hindenburg; the entrance of the British and the Italians into the struggle; the submarine campaign and the incident of the Lusitania; ... the German offensive of 1918; the entrance of America into the war; Chateau-Thierry and the surprising fighting qualities of the American soldier; St Mihiel, the crumbling of the German line; and the final crash and fall.”—Boston Transcript
“Many of the illustrations, taken from newspapers published in the most acute moments of the war, are full of extreme feeling. The book, therefore, does not tend to form cool and restrained views of the world war. Probably the author did not wish to form such views. Its strong point is in its large amount of information presented clearly and directly.”
“It is distinctive for the clearness of statement, an interpretation rather than a catalogue of events. May be read with interest by upper grade pupils or grown-ups. Good illustrations and maps.”
“Professor Usher’s story is told with wonderful vigor, great picturesqueness and with a rare comprehension of causes and of effects. His final brief discussion of the query, ‘Who won the war?’ is illuminating and beyond doubt thoroughly correct in its findings.” E. J. C.
“It was to be expected that what was written under the stress of war should partake largely of the character of propaganda, but the war is now a matter of history and we have a right to expect that historical students will try to assume a more judicial attitude toward the events of the past few years. The chief objection to Mr Usher’s work is that its viewpoint is that of 1917.” L. M. L.
“It is a serious handicap to American history that much of it is now written to meet the needs of the immature mind, that is, for the college audience. Professor Usher has composed a ‘story of the war’ in which the bright boy will find just what he wants, but in which the thoughtful man can grasp little to satisfy him.” Preserved Smith
“This history is terse, clear, and well proportioned. It will serve satisfactorily as a ready reference book and for schools, and will help in reading the more elaborate histories that will later appear.”
“The volume is attractively illustrated.”
VACHELL, HORACE ANNESLEY. Whitewash. *$1.90 (1c) Doran
The past, the present, and the future are represented in this story, and, as must be expected, clash. Lady Selina Chandos, widow of the Squire of Upworthy, writes with a quill and carries on her husband’s work along his lines. Consequently the picturesque village of Upworthy is in a state of decay, and sickness and death lurk between the rotten floors and leaking thatched roofs. Her daughter Cicely has been at school and her chum there was Tiddy, the very incarnation of modernity and daring feminism. Also the old parish doctor, owing to conditions in the village, is obliged to take on a partner in the person of young Dr Grimshaw. Lady Selina’s nearest neighbor is Lord Wilverley, an up-to-date landlord. Of course there is trouble and not until Lord Selina’s son, Brian, is dead in France, the village in revolt, the manor house in ashes, and Cicely has jilted Lord Wilverley and declared her love for Grimshaw, does Lady Selina realize that whitewashing time is over and a new day has dawned.
“A trenchant indictment of obsolete systems of estate-management.”
“In spite of its sociological theme, a well told story untainted by preachiness.”
“All this seems very serious, and somewhat in the nature of a social and political tract for the times, but the discussion of conditions in the village of Upworthy and on the Chandos estate are so closely interwoven into the story that they are made much more effective than if they were direct propaganda. The love element in the story is ingenious.” E. F. E.
“The story is mediocre in characterization but rich in the dramatic portrayal of a wealth of incident.”
“It is pleasant, leisurely writing with some excellent character drawing.”
“In a characteristic English country home the old and the new order strive for supremacy in Mr Vachell’s new novel. And the story through which he portrays the conflict between them is a fine piece of workmanship, telling a real story—which so much English fiction does not—and having a compact framework and an ample supply of interesting and illuminating incident.”
“The novel is capital both for its entertainment and its picture of old and new English society.”
“The dénoûement is ingeniously contrived, with a good curtain, and throughout there is no lack of animated and appropriate, if undistinguished, dialogue. Yet the book leaves us with far less sympathy for the representatives of either régime than Mr Galsworthy’s more serious studies of patricians and rebels.”
“Mr Vachell invariably writes in an optimistic vein and with due sense of the humorous and romantic possibilities of a situation. But the serious under-current is always visible beneath the sun-tipped waves of the author’s light mood.”
“It is the sudden confrontations, the changes of fortune and the impact of fate against fate that go to make the book, and they make it in spite of Mr Vachell’s deficient insight into character. The dialogue is clever, amusing, enterprising; but it does not seem to be just exactly what the given person must have said on the given occasion. Mr Vachell supplies a good plot, and the plot is nine-tenths of the novel.”
VALLANCE, AYMER.[2] Old crosses and lychgates. il *$7.50 Scribner 718
“Mr Vallance sees in the erection of crosses a suitable way to memorialize England’s dead in the great war. ‘It is hoped,’ he says, ‘that it might prove useful to gather together a collection of examples of old crosses and lychgates, as affording the most appropriate form of monuments for reproduction or adaptation to the needs of the present.’ In his historical and descriptive studies of the crosses to be found in England and Wales, except for some unclassified varieties, Mr Vallance classifies them under five types to which he devotes a chapter each. They are the monolith crosses, the shaft-on-steps type, the spire-shaped or Eleanor crosses, preaching and market crosses.”—Boston Transcript
“The volume is richly illustrated in lithograph of over two hundred crosses and lychgates with many plans and details in line, making with the documentary and historical and descriptive text a fascinatingly instructive work.”
“Mr Vallance surveys his field both widely and closely, and we find but few occasions of criticism.”
VANCE, LOUIS JOSEPH. Dark mirror. il *$1.75 Doubleday
“Priscilla Main, the heroine, is subject from childhood to strangely realistic dreams. She is a wealthy young society woman and artist; but in the dreams she assumes another personality and moves in an unfamiliar environment. In the dream existence she associates with denizens of the underworld in ‘the street of strange faces,’ and is known as ‘Red Carnahan’s girl.’ She is loved by Mario, who belongs to another world, but dwells in the lawbreakers’ region of the city, and who wants to remove her from those unwholesome surroundings. Priscilla grows to love this man of her dreams. The dreams become so vivid and distressing that the girl seeks the aid of a psychoanalyst who loves her, and who undertakes to solve the mystery of her wandering ego. The mental experimentalist gradually is able to harmonize dreams with reality and startling data from the realm of psychology are brought to light.”—Springf’d Republican
“Plausible though slightly overdrawn. The end is unexpected and also fresh.”
VANDERLIP, FRANK ARTHUR. What happened to Europe. *$1.50 (3c) Macmillan 940.314
For the second edition of this work Mr Vanderlip has written a new preface of twenty-one pages in which he analyzes the financial and economic development in Europe in the ten months following the writing of his book. “On the whole,” he says, “the events which have since occurred have been in harmony with the broad analysis made last May [1919].” He believes that America has missed a great opportunity and thinks that there is now little that we can do. “Our first task now is to put our own house in order.” Descriptive note with critical excerpts for the first edition will be found in the Annual for 1919.
VAN DIEREN, BERNARD.[2] Epstein. il *$12.50 (26c) Lane 735
Jacob Epstein, whose genius the author of this volume compares to that of Rembrandt, is said to be one of the greatest living sculptors. He belongs to that order of original creative minds “who have made the world, made humanity what it is in its best aspects. Human achievement is their work, human thought takes its foundation from what they have recognized and revealed, and the sum total of knowledge progresses by cumulative effect from one of such masters to the next one.” As it is the author’s opinion that words can not help in the appreciation of an art that does not speak to the spectator in its own language, the observations of the book are chiefly devoted to the problems of appreciation and understanding of art in general. The book contains fifty reproductions in collotype of the sculptor’s work.
“The reproductions are beautiful in the profoundest sense. The volume is an accessible enrichment to the world of art.”
“In spite of a treatise as heavy-handed as any ever inflicted by pretentious and empty shoptalk the illustrations of the sculptor’s art still interest and entrance. It is characteristically absurd that a public which does not buy a sculptor’s work should purchase a comparatively expensive book about him in which none of his spirit lives and which, while it contains his apotheosis as a divinity, contains still more the apotheosis of up-to-date studio and café commonplace.”
“If we gather anything from it all, it is a general impression that most people who interest themselves in the arts are fools, and that Mr Van Dieren has tried to say so in a hundred and thirty pages with a persistent implication that he is not one of them. As for Mr Epstein, if we wish to add to our knowledge of him, we must look at the fifty plates considerately separated from the text at the end of the book.”
VAN DOREN, MARK. Poetry of John Dryden. *$3 Harcourt 821
“This is an effort to brighten the most neglected side of the greatest neglected English poet. There is some novelty, I hope, in a treatment on an extended and more or less enthusiastic scale of Dryden’s non-dramatic verse as a body, with attention to the celebrator, the satirist, the journalist, the singer, and the story-teller all together.” (Preface) The contents are: The making of the poet; False lights; The true fire; The occasional poet; The journalist in verse; The lyric poet; The narrative poet; Reputation; conclusion; Appendix; Index.
“His study of a great poet and a great dramatist is a singular mingling of contradictions and it is hardly necessary as an introduction to a poet who needs no introduction.” E. F. Edgett
“Mr Van Doren has read his English poetry devouringly up to Dryden and down from him, with the purpose of showing from whom the poet received each genre, what he did to each, and what it became in the hands of his successors. By letting in these sidelights skilfully and relevantly, he manages, without clogging his exposition, to make his discussion of Dryden a compendious history of poetic form. The effect upon the reader is, as I can testify, almost riotously stimulating.” S. P. Sherman
“Our debt to America in the matter of criticism and true scholarship applied to English literature grows greater year by year. An admirable example of the thoroughness, nay, of the exhaustive quality of American criticism, even when it is most sympathetic and least pedantic, is to be found in this delightful study of John Dryden. The present writer must confess to a personal interest in Mr Van Doren’s book because it happens that the American critic’s judgment, not merely in the whole, but in the parts, agrees in an uncanny way with his own.”
VAN DYKE, JOHN CHARLES. Grand canyon of the Colorado; recurrent studies in impressions and appearances. il *$2 Scribner 917.91
“The book of the northern rim [of the Grand canyon] has yet to be written, but Professor Van Dyke has studied the scenery from the southern side and in his recently published book ‘The Grand canyon of the Colorado,’ gives us a popular account of the geology of the region. He protests against the naming of the great temples and buttes of the canyon after the gods of India. The views from a number of the southern points are described and details are given of the principal trails to the river. Reference is made to the animals, birds, and trees, and to the discoverers and prehistoric inhabitants of the canyon.”—Bookm
“Will delight readers, especially those of a slight scientific bent, who are not traveling.”
Reviewed by Le Roy Jeffers
“The most complete, picturesque and satisfactory account of the Grand canyon that we have.”
“Written with all his graceful style and imagery, it may be called a literary guidebook of a superior kind. About half the book is devoted to the rock structure of this geologist’s paradise, and as these pages have not only been carefully prepared by the author but have been read in proof by Mr Ransome, of the Geological survey, they may be accepted as accurate.” F: S. Dellenbaugh
“It is a good book for a pleasant afternoon. Mr Van Dyke does not philosophize or preach or rub in his colors so intensely that he forces you to yawn. There are none of the clichés of the improving book here.” M. F. Egan
“Here is an exceptionally good book about the Grand canyon.”
VAN DYKE, TERTIUS. Songs of seeking and finding. *$1.50 Scribner 811
“It would have been rather disappointing if the music of many little (and unpronounceable) rivers, spilled down his boyhood years, had not left song in the heart of the master of Avalon’s son. So it is not at all surprising to discover that ‘Songs of seeking and finding’ is a book of very pleasant and profitable verse. The strong, virile faith behind the poems—their wholesome Christianity—impresses the reader more than the polish of their lines. Mr Van Dyke pleads for real values of life and real religion.”—Springf’d Republican
“Tertius Van Dyke writes poetry in the manner of his father, but not quite so well.”
“The best things in the book seem to me to be ‘The war-makers,’ because there is a bit of good healthy rage in it, and ‘A minister learns about life,’ because it has a good idea in it and ends at just the right moment.” M. Wilkinson
“Mr Van Dyke is more successful in poems thus reflective than in his lyrics, though in them the same forceful spirit is unmistakable.”
VANE, DEREK. Ferrybridge mystery. *$2 Moffat
“A suburb of London is the scene of Derek Vane’s story. Basil Monck, a member of the London stock exchange, whose antecedents are unknown to his most intimate acquaintances, is found shot dead in his home. There is not the slightest clue to the identity of the murderer, but there are many people who might logically be suspected of the crime. Monck had more enemies than friends; he was generally known to have used his fascinating personality unscrupulously in his dealings with women, and more than one man blamed him for the loss of a fortune. Motives for the murder are plentiful and every man or woman who had cause to hate Monck falls naturally under suspicion.”—N Y Times
“It is a pleasure occasionally to find one story of the kind which justifies the publisher’s contention. The latest book by Miss Derek Vane is a worthy example. It is above the average of its kind.” C. H. O.
“In choosing the character upon whom to settle responsibility for Monck’s death, the author has displayed a courage and an originality that may react against the popularity of her story.”
VANE, GEORGE (VISCONDE DE SARMENTO). Waters of strife. *$1.75 (2c) Lane
Beginning before the war in England we get a glimpse of the pre-war intrigues carried on by a German count, exiled in England, and his accomplices. But the greater part of the story transpires on Belgian soil in war-time showing up the ruthlessness of the Germans, and the indignities to which the Belgians were subjected. The heroism of an American boy and girl of Belgian descent furnish most of the thrills, and some fine friendships among the English aristocracy and the middle-class are depicted.
“The story is full of vigor and coloring befitting the day and scene in which it is laid.”
“The book is very badly constructed and the character drawing amateurish, but the account of Aline’s experiences in Belgium is interesting and occasionally dramatic.”
“The book has some good episodes, but in the ordinary way it is difficult to work up much excitement, principally because the heroes and scoundrels alike ignore probabilities.”
VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM.[2] Ancient man. il *$3 Boni & Liveright 571
“‘Ancient man’ is to be the first of a series of nine history books in story form, which ‘will explore the intricate wilderness of the bygone ages’ and in summing up ‘try to show where the human race has lived up to its highest possible achievements and wherein it has failed to rise above the status of the earliest cavemen.’ (Ind) “It begins about fifty thousand years ago with a broad sketch of prehistoric man, struggling against elemental nature. It skips to the Nile and comes on down the ages to the Phoenecians.” (N Y Times)
“The text is terse, up to date, and thoroughly interesting.” A. C. Moore
“The famous historian undertook this task for his own boys, eight and twelve years old, and he has sensed unfailingly the way to stimulate the interest and satisfy the curiosity of youngsters of about that age.”
“Absorbingly interesting. This is the way to tell history to children—and to the rest of us.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
VANSITTART, ROBERT GILBERT. Singing caravan; a Sufi tale. *$2 Doran 821
The device of the pilgrimage, with alternating narrative and song, is put to new uses by this young English poet. For the end of the matter is not mere entertainment by the way, but philosophical discussion, in which the views of the watchmen, the merchant, the scholar, the sheikh, the sceptic, and even the camel, are represented.
“‘The singing caravan’ hammers mysticism into clean, efficient verse, which in its ease and correctness, displays the immense technical equipment of the recent English poets; but his subject matter shows the lack of freshness and homeliness that handicaps the Georgian poets as a group in comparison with their American rivals.”
“Eastern mysticism and the imagery of the caravan form the vehicle by which Mr Vansittart conveys his mind upon final things; but there is no affectation of the Orient in his thought, and even his words are straightforward and plain; he has Schubert’s knack of turning common phrases into bewitching melody.”
“The charm of Persian landscape, the wealth of Persian poetry have been woven into these tales, and they may be read just as profitably for the pictures they paint as for the lessons they teach.”
“‘The singing caravan’ is ‘a tale of Persian mystics,’ and with the Persian mystics we are few of us on intimate terms. But its rich and clear colouring, innocent of purple patchwork, though ‘local,’ may none the less charm the untravelled; and the poem may be enjoyed either for its landscape and characters, its allegory, its remarkable craftsmanship, or for the sake of the mind and spirit which are revealed in it.”
VAN VECHTEN, CARL. In the garret. *$2 (3c) Knopf 780.4
From the garret of his memory the author produces many things, scrutinizes them whimsically and chats about them at random. The things are authors and books and music and people he has met. Contents: Variations on a theme by Havelock Ellis; A note on Philip Thicknesse; The folk-songs of Iowa; Isaac Albéniz; The holy jumpers; On the relative difficulties of depicting heaven and hell in music; Sir Arthur Sullivan; On the rewriting of masterpieces; Oscar Hammerstein: an epitaph; La tigresse; In the theatres of the purlieus: Mimi Aguglia as Salome, Farfariello, The negro theatre, The Yiddish theatre, The Spanish theatre.
“He has a magnificent way of being unimportant. His touch is light and artistic. His culture is Hunekeresque. His scholarship is musicianly, sometimes jazzy.” Mary Terrill
“The author does himself injustice by opening with the least attractive essay in the book, though it shows the most erudition.... It is when he surveys the American scene that we go all the way with Mr Van Vechten.”
VAN VECHTEN, CARL. Tiger in the house. il *$5 Knopf 636.8
“I have written, how skilfully I cannot tell, on the manners and customs of the cat, his graces and calineries, the history of his subjugation of humankind. Through all the ages, even during the dark epoch of witchcraft and persecution, puss has maintained his supremacy, continued to breed and multiply, defying, when convenient, the laws of God and man, now our friend, now our enemy, now wild, now tame, the pet of the hearth or the tiger of the heath, but always free, always independent, always an anarchist who insists upon his rights, whatever the cost. The cat never forms soviets; he works alone.” (Apotheosis) The illustrations are many and beautiful. There is an exhaustive bibliography and an index and the contents are: By way of correcting a popular prejudice; Treating of traits; Ailurophobes and other cat-haters; The cat and the occult; The cat in folklore; The cat and the law; The cat in the theatre; The cat in music; The cat in art; The cat in fiction; The cat and the poet; Literary men who have loved cats; Apotheosis.
“The book is a revelation concerning the more or less important part which cats have played in history and literature.”
“The suggestive ingenuity of its title is matched by the far-reaching skill with which he has amassed and arrayed his facts so as to make them into a continuous story that blends both fact and the imagination.” E. F. Edgett
“Mr Van Vechten is less fortunate in his choice of pictures than in his text.” J. W. Krutch
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
VAN VORST, MARIE. Fairfax and his pride. *$1.75 Small
“Miss Van Vorst’s narrative is the story of the struggles of Antony Fairfax to gain distinction as a sculptor. He is largely self-taught, but soon after coming to New York in 1880, at the age of twenty-three, we find him perfecting an epoch-making piece of modeling in the studio of a famous sculptor. The latter steals the credit for Fairfax’s work, and starts the young man on the career which threatens to snuff out his ambition and great talents. It is after this mischance that Fairfax becomes successively fireman and engineer for the New York Central. His railroad service ends abruptly with the receipt of a small inheritance from an admirer. This takes him to Paris, where he establishes his fame, experiences a brief romance, and finally has the satisfaction of confounding the man who stole the early fruits of his genius.”—Springf’d Republican
“Not as interesting as ‘Big Tremaine’ and will not be as popular.”
“It is safe to say that no American novel of the season so far surpasses the quality of ‘Fairfax and his pride.’ It tells a story that takes you astray and brings you back to the main current of events with surprising interest. The characters are all well drawn. We close the book with the consciousness that here is a real American novelist.” W. S. B.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The young sculptor and his difficulties do not produce a very lively impression. Miss Van Vorst never brings her readers into intimate touch with him, and the short, jerky chapters are irritating in their effects.”
VAN WESEP, HENDRIKUS BOEVE. Control of ideals. *$2 (5c) Knopf 171
This “contribution to the study of ethics” (Sub-title) is concerned primarily with the problem of war prevention. The author holds that man is more an imaginative than a rational animal and apt to mistake his imaginative world for the world of reality. By learning to control our ideals we learn to distinguish between an ideal and a fixed idea and to live by rather than die for them. The book takes up in turn the origin, nature, and function of human ideals and the supreme worth of the individual and of human life. Contents: Variety of ideals; Attitude toward ideals; Assimilation of ideals; The survival of ideals; Nations; Development of self-consciousness; Society versus the individual; Utopianism; Democracy; Tolerance; Harmony; Symbiosis; Atomism; Functions of ideals; Moral courage; Index.
“Scholarly but written for the layman.”
“His optimism seems a little too easy for a disillusioned civilization, but at least he is intelligible, a great recommendation for any one educated among the fogs of metaphysics.”
VAST, HENRI. Little history of the great war. il *$2 Holt 940.3
A short history of the war, translated from the French by Raymond Weeks of Columbia university. Contents: The German race—pangermanism; The environment—William II and Europe (1900–1914); The critical moment—responsibility for the war; The sudden attack—battle of the Marne; Eastern front—Serbia and Russia (1914–1916); Distant theaters of war—in the Orient—on the sea and in the colonies; The Italian effort—the army of Saloniki; Retrospective preparation (1915–1916); The ruin of Russia (1916–1918); American aid; Peace offensives; Victory—capitulation of Germany. There are twenty-seven maps, but no index.
“A wonderfully compact story of the war, composed with characteristic French clarity.”
VAUGHAN, WALTER.[2] Life and work of Sir William Van Horne. il *$5 Century
The life of Sir William Van Horne is something of a romance, he having made his way from a poor boy in Illinois to an English peerage. He gained his fame and his fortune as a builder of railroads of which the Canadian Pacific was his greatest achievement. With his natural abilities, says his biographer, he would have achieved greatness in any field; as a military commander, as an engineer or architect, as a painter or in the natural sciences. The book has several maps, illustrations and an index.
“The chief merit of the book is its really vivid picture of a striking personality.” Allan Nevins
VEBLEN, THORSTEIN B. Place of science in modern civilization, and other essays. *$3 Huebsch 330.4
“The assumptions of the existing economic order are studied in Thorstein Veblen’s latest book, ‘The place of science in modern civilization.’ This is a carefully selected series of papers published in economic journals during the past twenty years, and sums up the principles of an economic attitude so popular among modern economists that it has been entitled ‘Veblenism.’”—Springf’d Republican
“If these old essays are valuable, in the face of all that their author has since contributed, it is because of their emphasis upon the spirit of his work; because, as much as anything he has done, they show the impulse and intention of his scholarship. There are here, as elsewhere, passages that rouse impatience because of the author’s very carelessness of pragmatism.” Babette Deutsch
“There are serious difficulties in the way of a ‘scientific’ treatment of economics, over which Mr Veblen does not help us, and many of which he does not see. A keen critic, he is not a close or clear thinker; destructively valuable, we can hardly follow him as a constructive leader.” F. H. Knight
“The book is a rich contribution to economic and social literature, and is, in a way, Mr Veblen at his scientific best.” H. A. Overstreet
“Nowhere in them is there any indication of that subtle wit, the telling thrust, the finely pointed characterization that rewarded the hours of toil through his other writings. While our author’s standing as a humanist is enhanced by the essays, his reputation as an economist will not be.” N. W. Wilensky
“One cannot help wondering whether Mr Veblen himself knows what an excellent literary quality his writings have, and what a boon to the jaded reader is the absence in his work of certain conventional literary virtues—solemnity, geniality, sonority, and the like.”
“The position of Mr Veblen is so deserving of attention that one must regard his involved style and ponderous vocabulary as a misfortune.”
“Several of them are on academically important topics which, nevertheless, the more general public that has become interested in the author’s theories can afford to skip. Others deal with fundamental issues which the layman should try to understand. Among these we would class the three papers on the preconceptions of economic science which demonstrate the shifts in the boundaries of that science, and especially the newer emphasis on its human aspects.”
VERNÈDE, ROBERT ERNEST. Port Allington stories, and others. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
A volume of short stories by an English author who was killed in the war, issued now as he had prepared them for publication, with a preface by his wife. Some of them had appeared in Harper’s Magazine. Contents: “This is Tommy”; The greatness of Mr Watherstone; The outrage at Port Allington; The offense of Stephen Danesford; Soaring spirits; The bad Samaritan; The sunk elephant; The adventure of the Persian prince; The smoke on the stairs; On the raft; Madame Bluebird; The missing princess; A night’s adventure; The maze.
“Deftness of phrasing, and a sense of character and of the social ironies mark a volume of tales whose sarcasm is never bitter and whose laughter is always good-natured.”
“Nowhere except in Mrs Wharton’s matchless ‘Xingu,’ and possibly in Mr Benson’s current ‘Queen Lucia,’ have the humors of feminine club-made culture been more amusingly displayed.” H. W. Boynton
VERNÈDE, ROBERT ERNEST. War poems, and other verses. *$1.50 Doran 821
Edmund Gosse in his introduction gives a biographical sketch of the author, an Englishman of French descent who, altho past military age, enlisted at the beginning of the war and was killed in 1917. Among the war poems are England and the sea, The call; The Indian army; A legend of the fleet; To the United States; Christmas, 1914; To Canada; Before the assault. These are followed by a small group of “other verses” on such themes as The July garden, Friendship, To an English sheep-dog. The volume was published in England in the fall of 1917.
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“In Lieutenant Vernède’s unhesitating and uncompromising verse the man sustains the poet, but the poet merits that support.” O. W. Firkins
“Some of the finest poems that have come from the trenches. They are instinct with an exalted patriotism.”
VERRILL, ALPHEUS HYATT.[2] Islands and their mysteries. il *$1.75 Duffield 551.42
The author offers this volume as a companion to “The ocean and its mysteries.” It explains in a non-technical manner how islands are formed, how they resemble or differ from one another, how they become covered with vegetation, and are inhabited by animal life and many other puzzling and interesting features of islands and insular life. Imaginary trips to imaginary islands of various types hold the young reader’s attention. Contents: The romance of islands; Islands and islands; Volcanic islands; Coral islands and other islands; Island life; Island vegetation; A ramble on a lake island; An island in the sea; Exploring an island in a tropical river; A visit to an island in tropical seas; The island of salt; The island of pearls; When people dwell in a volcano; Islands of the frozen seas. There are illustrations.
“The story is an extremely fascinating one and although designed undoubtedly for the reading of adults, cannot fail to be both interesting and instructive to boys and girls in their teens, whose minds are beginning to expand and to reason and inquire into the causes of things.”
“Always he retains a human viewpoint, so that his book reflects the wonder and mystery of life instead of degenerating into a mere scientific treatise.”
“Although the style, which smacks somewhat of the elementary geography, grows a bit monotonous at times, he leaves one wishing for more.”
VESTAL, SAMUEL CURTIS. Maintenance of peace. *$5 (2c) Putnam 341
“The foundations of domestic and international peace as deduced from a study of the history of nations.” (Sub-title) At the hands of history, going as far back as ancient Assyria, the author endeavors to prove that peace can only be secured on a basis of militarism and preparedness and on a “balance of power” rather than on a world confederacy or a league of nations. Sea power ought naturally to belong to the nation weakest in land power, in order that the balance of power may be maintained and “freedom of the seas” can be little more than a phrase. Of pacifism he will have none for it teaches “a spiritless doctrine of cowardice.” Preparedness is as necessary for the maintenance of domestic peace as of peace between nations. A partial list of the contents is: The domestic peace of nations; The integration of nations; World federation; The balance of power; Early history of the balance of power; The thirty years’ war; Part taken by England in maintaining the balance of power since the treaty of Utrecht; Lessons that should be drawn from attempts to overthrow the balance of power and establish world empires; The Holy alliance; Arbitration as a panacea for war; Neutralization of small states; Disarmament; Germany prepares for world conquest; Growth of pacifism outside of Germany; Index.
“Many new ideas are broached in this thoughtful volume, which is worthy of the close study of statesman and militarist.”
VILLARS, MEG. Broken laugh. *$2 (1c) McBride
The heroine, a very simple and trusting little English girl, who answers to the name of Kissy-Girl, is betrayed at the age of seventeen and goes to London alone to await the birth of her child. A chance clue from a newspaper sends her to Paris in search of the man and she is there decoyed into a house of ill fame. Refusing to become one of the professional inmates she is allowed to remain as a servant. In this capacity she meets Jim Crighton, an Englishman who falls in love with her and takes her to Brussels. He has made up his mind to marry her when the war breaks out. He enlists and succeeds to a title. His intention to marry Kissy remains, but a German bomb puts an end to everything.
“If she had been content to develop her whole story in the milieu she knows best, she would probably have produced a really effective narrative.”
“A novel of more than usual literary excellence. The reader’s sympathy with this story will depend almost entirely upon his conception of the importance of conventionally fixed morality.”
“Like much latter-day fiction, this work has numerous touches of interest and reality; but, as a whole, gives an effect of weakness.”
“Such a tale might be sensational, but, in Miss Villars’s telling, it is delicate.”
“Obviously the war should not have been allowed to intrude; it spoils everything. But one day she may write a book as good from cover to cover as the first hundred pages of ‘The broken laugh.’”
VILLIERS, FREDERIC, il. Days of glory. il *$5 Doran 940.49
“The sketch book of a veteran correspondent at the front.” (Sub-title) The volume consists of a series of fifty full-page illustrations showing scenes at the front, each accompanied by brief descriptive comment. Philip Gibbs contributes an introduction, “A salute to Frederic Villiers.”
“A well made book.”
“It is worth whole tomes of verbal description. The pictures are vivid and accurate.” N. H. D.
“Villiers represents the type of the old-guard war correspondent at its best. The sketches in ‘Days of glory’ have no special artistic merit. They look very old fashioned beside the modern methods of Nevinson and Nash. In character they are topographical, anecdotal, documentary. There is no doubt that they possess a certain historical significance.”
“The artistic merit of Mr Villiers’s work consists not merely in the personal element wrought into the pictures as contrasted with the mechanical work of a camera, but also in the fact that here are pictures at which no camera had a chance in 1914–15, and the other pictures which no camera could have furnished with all the license in the world.”
VILLIERS, FREDERIC. Villiers, his five decades of adventure. 2v il *$6 (7½c) Harper
Two volumes devoted to the life of a veteran war correspondent and artist. He was born in 1851, in England, and his first association with wars came in 1870 when he went over to Paris to pick up material for a panorama of the Franco-Prussian war. The next adventure that offered was the war between Serbia and Turkey in 1876, and others followed, taking him to every part of the earth, down to the great war. The volumes are illustrated.
“These tales of five decades of adventure must be placed among the greatest of autobiographies.” E. J. C.
“Here between covers are the dramatic figures and the stirring events of two and a half generations presented by a writer trained throughout a lifetime in the art of bringing out all the high lights and shades of dramatic contrasts.”
“With long practice in telling the public what it wanted to know, it might go without saying that this autobiography is chatty and interesting from start to finish.”
VINCENT, FLORENCE SMITH. Peter’s adventures in Meadowland. il *$2 Stokes
A nature-fairy story for children. Peter is a little boy who has no playmates. For saving the life of an oak tree that his father had wanted to cut down, he is rewarded with the friendship of all the living things. He not only learns their language, he is able at will to make himself smaller and smaller until he meets butterflies and grasshoppers and crickets on equal terms. He can enter their houses, climb up spider web ladders and ride on a butterfly’s back. So he learns of their ways, and finds out that they are just as wise, and sometimes wiser, than humans.
VORSE, MARY MARVIN (HEATON). Growing up. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright
“This book is concerned solely and entirely with the growing up of a small family of children and the trials, perplexities and mooted questions which the parents of those children faced every day of their lives in their effort to do the right thing by their offspring.” (N Y Times) “Very likely many who start this book will be impressed with a sense of familiarity since Tom and Alice Marcey and their three children have already seen the light some years ago in the pages of a magazine, but we must know Robert and Sara and Jamie in book form to fully appreciate them.” (Boston Transcript)
“Will delight all modern troubled parents and other grownups.”
“One of the most interesting characteristics of the book is the breadth of its appeal. The children are so natural, their parents are so natural, that it seems impossible that anyone could fail to find something attractive in their story.”
“The tale presents a more or less deft but quite obvious mixture of pedagogy and feminism, in an ample solution of juvenile prattle and misdemeanour. The whole, however, is so well spiced with humour and sweetened with domestic sentiment that (to quote the publisher’s tribute) ‘the tired business man and the weary housewife will find a real release in reading it.’” H. S. H.
“Her humor is fresh and rich and delicate. One may quite forget her psychological implications and yield to the mirth and human charm of her story and her people.”
“Mrs Vorse’s story, though backed by sound psychology and keen observation, is yet light fiction. Its merit is rather in the contribution it makes to the growing volume of child thought, to the explanation of such pieces as ‘The young visiters’ than in the intrinsic value of either the tale or the style.” Henrietta Malkiel
“It is a most engaging book. The freshness, the humor and the spontaneity that characterized Mrs Vorse’s former novel are equally manifest here, along with a deeper purpose and a greater significance.”
“Every one who enjoyed ‘The Prestons’ will be glad to read ‘Growing up.’”
“This story is as delightful as ‘The Prestons,’ and that is saying much for it. The author has an uncanny understanding of children and the problems that they offer to conscientious parents.”
VORSE, MARY MARVIN (HEATON).[2] Men and steel. *$2 (3c) Boni & Liveright 331.89
After a graphic description of the power of iron and of how coal, iron and steel rule our civilization, of the great machines in the mills to which man is but a negligible adjunct, of the mill towns—the slummiest and the comparatively decent—all with the common motive: “Man is puny; Industry great”—the author gives the history of the great steel strike which she has personally followed up and observed in detail. The book falls into four parts: Strike background; The steel strike; Silence; The dying strike.
“Skillfully written the book is, but it proves next to nothing, for throughout the author uses the individual’s story (easy to find among several hundred thousand people) to prove broad truths.”
“It is a beautiful and a terrible book, because like a true work of art it embodies the elemental beauty and terror of life.”
“This book of Mary Vorse’s is a thrilling and a perfectly sane and down-on-the-ground contribution to the history of that historic steel strike of last winter. It is a book really of stories—of stories of men and of women and of children and of homes.” W: Hard
“At the beginning of chapter II there is a really powerful bit of writing.... And there are other pieces of really good writing in the book. The rest too frequently tends toward the bathos of film captions and magazine stories. The story she tells is not only improbable, but she puts her own opinions and feelings into the mouths of her Slovaks with a ruthless roughness. Where they do not speak as she would have them she makes them think her thoughts.”
“On the whole, she has done an illuminating bit of work. It is propaganda rather than detached painting, but it is propaganda of a high quality. At times one regrets that the artist in Mrs Vorse was not more rigorous in its exactions on the other side of her personality, but, after all, no one else has given so moving a picture of the routine of life in the steel towns.” W. L. C.
VORSE, MARY MARVIN (HEATON). Ninth man. il *$1.25 (7½c) Harper
This story, set in a medieval Italian city, is a study of hate and fear. Mazzaleone, the conqueror of the city, has decreed that it shall mete out its own punishment and to each ninth person passing in review before him he has given a black disc which signifies power over life or death. For within thirty days each possessor of a disc may designate secretly one who is to be put to death. First mad lust for life breaks loose, then hatred and revenge, and lastly fear. But among the frenzied populace there moves one who preaches love and forgiveness and who offers to take on himself the death for all. This is Brother Agnello, who carries one of the black discs and who was first shown the way to keep his own hands clean and then the way to redeem his townsmen.
“It is a colorful tale, and will appeal to those who have found pleasure in the earlier Italian stories of Maurice Hewlett and the romances of James Branch Cabell’s invention.”
WADSLEY, OLIVE. Belonging. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd
The heroine is a beautiful English girl married to a French count. She does not love him but is devotedly loyal during his long and hopeless illness. Two men love her, Charles Carton, who had been the object of her girlish devotion, and Julian Guise. Following her husband’s death she becomes engaged to Julian. Jealousy between the two men leads to a struggle and Carton is killed. Julian, who is severely injured, is taken away by his father and kept in ignorance of what follows. The guilt is placed on Sara and she suffers a year’s imprisonment. When she meets Julian after her release he is terribly changed but a second meeting brings explanations and reconciliation.
“Taking well-worn material, Miss Wadsley has used it so skillfully and with so firm, yet delicate, a literary touch that it comes near to being a masterpiece in its way. If the subject enjoyed a higher moral tone this commendation could be given without qualification.”
“We cannot say that in the matter of construction this story is very successful.”
WALDMAN, LOUIS. Albany: the crisis in government; with an introd. by Seymour Stedman. il *$1.75 Boni & Liveright 335
“This is the story of the suspension, trial and expulsion from the New York State legislature of the five Socialist assemblymen. It was written by one of the expelled members. It is an ex parte report of the case, to which an introduction is supplied by one of the attorneys for the defense.”—R of Rs
“The illustrations scattered through the volume might well have been omitted, partly because they are copies of cartoons and partly because they are poorly done. The introduction by Seymour Stedman is lucid and interesting.”
“Written by one of the victims of the injustice, the book is of course extremely partisan. Yet if one may judge from a generous reading of the newspaper accounts of the trial, it is fairly representative. The proofreading is poor, and there are further evidences of undue haste in preparation and printing. But for all that it is a book well worth anybody’s reading and reflection.” W. J. Ghent
“The line of cleavage in public opinion as to the merits of this case is not likely to be materially modified by the publication of this book. It is, however, an interesting and readable account of a famous episode.”
“Mr Waldman’s book is convincingly written and his argument forceful. The author tells his story in a fair and straightforward manner.” L. D. Lasker
WALEY, ARTHUR, tr. Japanese poetry, the Uta. *$3.25 Oxford 895
“The poems here translated are from the Manyo Shu anthology (Ten-thousand leaves collection), compiled by Otomo no Yakamochi, who died in 785, and are considered as the beginnings of Japanese poetry as an art. ‘The translations in this book,’ says Mr Waley, ‘are chiefly intended to facilitate the study of the Japanese text; for Japanese poetry can only be rightly enjoyed in the original. The original texts of the poems accompany the translations, and notes on grammar are given to facilitate the student who wishes to master the originals.”—Boston Transcript
“Mr Waley comes not halfway, but all the way to meet an intelligent ignorance. He is instructive without severity; he is learned, but affable. His translations have, we think, every indispensable quality of good literal translation—especially a kind of negative rhythmical and tone value, and distinction of vocabulary without a trace of preciousness or squeamishness.” F. W. S.
“It is decidedly difficult to find anything in the literature of the West which recalls these brief lyrics, which confine within seventeen or at most within thirty-one syllables the passion of a life or the shadowing imminence of death.” Babette Deutsch
“The volume shows the scholarly care and literary taste which were the charms of Mr Waley’s previous translations, and nobody could wish for a better introduction to Japanese poetry; but the poems do not give the same thrill as those little decorative masterpieces—the Chinese translations. Some of them seem to be too purely decorative.”
WALISZEWSKI, KAZIMIERZ. Poland the unknown; tr. from the French. *$2.25 Doran 943.8
It is the contention of the author that the characteristics of the Polish people and of their national ideals has always been quite distinct from those of western Europe and that, as a vanquished nation, she has for nearly a century and a half presented not her own face but a mask to the world. That her exceptional virtues rather than her failings have been the chief cause of her undoing and that of all the nations that participated in the latter, Prussia has been the arch-criminal, is the object of the book to show. Contents: The enigma of a nation’s fate; The Polish paradox; Ideas and principles; Organs of government; Anarchy; The crisis; The catastrophe; Beyond the grave; Resurrection; Conclusion.
“M. Waliszewski’s book is largely a vigorous and effective polemic against the misrepresentations of Polish history so long and systematically inspired by Berlin and St Petersburg. Unfortunately, his own views as to the causes of Poland’s downfall are nowhere very concisely summed up. The author may be criticized for great carelessness in the matter of names and dates.” R. H. L.
“It is written in a somewhat ebullient manner which, although it makes agreeable reading, is not altogether favourable to processes of reasoned argument. We do not wish to suggest that M. Waliszewski is consciously prejudiced, but he is perhaps too closely affected by the conditions he describes to judge them dispassionately.” P. S.
“M. Waliszewski is an excellent sales-agent who knows his literary and historical wares and knows, also, how to spread them before his customers with tact and grace; but for all that, his work will hardly serve as a reliable guide for future historians of the Polish question—if only because, having spent most of his life in Paris, be writes with a decidedly French accent.” H. W. van Loon
“Unfortunately for his main purpose, he has felt called upon to develop his thesis in a detail which makes the book rather difficult reading for anyone not intimately acquainted with Polish history.” M. A. Chickering
“Being written as a corrective it tends to give a somewhat one-sided view if taken only in itself without reference to the mass of literature which it seeks to controvert. Even so it is of very considerable interest, especially in regard to the history of the nineteenth century.
WALKER, ABBIE (PHILLIPS) (MRS FRED ALLAN WALKER). Sandman’s rainy day stories. il *75c (2c) Harper
These rainy day stories are quite properly fairy tales, with such titles as Princess Cantilla, The tree of swords, The silver horseshoes, The blue castle, Nardo and the princess, The enchanted boat, The gingerbread rock, and so on. The book belongs to the Sandman series and is illustrated by Rhoda C. Chase.
WALKER, ABBIE (PHILLIPS) (MRS FRED ALLAN WALKER). Sandman’s stories of Drusilla doll. il *75c (2c) Harper
A book of stories for very little people. Drusilla is an unbreakable doll, and it is very lucky for her that she is, for her adventures are many and dreadful and only an unbreakable could have survived them. The book belongs to a series of Sandman’s stories and is illustrated by Rhoda C. Chase.
WALKER, HENRY CRAGIN. Jimmy Bunn stories. il *$1.75 (8c) Century
A book of animal stories for little folks. As in the older folk lore of many lands the rabbit and the wolf are pitted against one another, and the nimble wits of Jimmy Bunn, here as always, are more than a match for the craft of his adversary. The black and white illustrations are by Hope-Innes.
“Fortunately this is not one of that new type of children’s books attempting to compete with the moving pictures. Its language is simple; its faint moralizing successfully camouflaged.”
WALKER, SYDNEY FERRIS. Electric mining machinery. il $5 Pitman 622
A British work by a member of the Institution of electrical engineers, who is also author of “Electricity in mining,” “Electricity in houses and workshops,” and other works. The author says, “I have endeavoured to explain every little point that, from my own experience, I think may trouble mining men.” The book is illustrated with 132 figures and is indexed.
WALLACE, DILLON. Ragged inlet guards; a story of adventure in Labrador. il *$1.50 (2½c) Revell
Four boys on a Labrador coast were left as the mainstay of their families went when their fathers and big brothers went to the war. They constituted themselves the Ragged inlet guards, and did men’s work. Their home life, their hunting experiences and adventures are described in the book and the climax of the story is their capture of a German wireless station which brought them a medal each from King George.
“Stirring book of adventure. Librarians will find it in great demand among their younger patrons.”
WALLACE, EDGAR. Four just men. *$1.75 (2c) Small
The “Four just men” are a conscientious little band who are not satisfied with justice as it is meted out by law, and therefore take certain cases of wrong-doing into their own hands. The first case that this book records is that of Sir Philip Ramon, English Secretary of foreign affairs. He intends to introduce an aliens’ extradition bill in Parliament which if put thru will exile from England one Garcia, and virtually hand him over to the “corrupt and vengeful government” which is persecuting him. The Four just men are determined this shall not happen and are even willing to resort to taking Sir Ramon’s life that the bill may not go thru. He is warned of his danger and the police take unprecedented precautions but their protection proves inadequate and the Four just men have another success to add to their list. The second case the story takes up has to do with the “Red hundred,” an anarchistic body whom the Four just men work against. One of their number almost meets his Waterloo in this adventure, but finally makes his escape thru the cleverness of the rest of the band.
“Readers of crime and mystery tales will find this book entirely satisfying. The dénouement is startling.”
“The action is absorbing.”
WALLACE, EDGAR. Green rust. *$1.60 Small
“‘The green rust’ is the story of Oliva Cresswell, the granddaughter and heiress of a millionaire, but ignorant of the fact, and of a conspiracy to destroy the wheat crop of the world by a new mildew—the green rust—of a most virulent and aggressive type. The dangers she runs from those engaged in the conspiracy, who are anxious to obtain control of her money to finance an enormous wheat speculation, and the protection she receives from the most unlikely persons, make up a story full of excitement.”—Sat R
“His hero is disappointing because his judgment is so often bad, his resource meagre and his foresight dull. Its character drawing is sufficiently sharp for its purpose.”
“The whole narrative is breathless, sometimes even confusing, in its rapid melodrama, but it has a grip that never loosens. It is essentially a story of ‘action.’ The characterization does not yield novelty in any instance.”
WALLACE, EDNA KINGSLEY.[2] Stars in the pool; a prose poem for lovers. *$2 Dutton
“The tale is about King Telwyn’s daughter, Roseheart. Here came, sent by his father, King Lokus, to learn from the wise King Telwyn ‘somewhat of life and living in the great world,’ the young Prince Flame. And Flame ‘looking upon the Princess Roseheart, drew one great breath, and loved her with the love of a man’s heart. And Roseheart, when she looked into the eyes of Flame, and his heart therein, knew him for her lord, and loved him.’ Flame met the Old gray woman of Shadows who told him that she ‘was Sorrow, and the Way of destiny, and the Shadow of things.’ And Flame had to experience these things on a quest which was prefigured to him in a vision. On his wanderings he met with many natural and spiritual adventures, coming back in the end when he had searched and found the truth beyond self, to wed the Princess Roseheart and realize the meaning of love.”—Boston Transcript
“An exquisite tale that has the shimmering grace and spiritual charm of the romantic spirit of chivalry.”
“‘The stars in the pool’ tells in dainty fashion a story which is part fairy tale, part allegory.”
WALLAS, GRAHAM. Life of Francis Place, 1771–1854. 3d ed *$3.50 Knopf
“The American edition of Graham Wallas’ life of Francis Place is chiefly a reprint of the original edition printed in 1898. The career of Francis Place spanned the beginnings and the early development of the industrial revolution. Born in 1771, he was a young man when the fires of the French revolution illuminated the world. He was a trade unionist when unions were outlawed by Parliament as conspiracies. He engaged in bitter industrial struggles and paid those terrible penalties which are exacted only of working men who are loyal to their fellows. He became a liberal, and after he had made a fortune he was an influence in the politics of the kingdom. To his efforts are attributable some of the important beginnings of social legislation.”—Survey
“Mr Wallas’s biography of Francis Place is a valuable contribution to the economic, the social and the political history of England.” E. F. E.
“It is almost idle to praise it now, for it has taken its place among the accepted masterpieces of English political biography. It is difficult to overestimate the significance that attaches to his portrait.” H. J. Laski
Reviewed by R: Roberts
“Good, timely reading.”
“His account of this fascinating pioneer of the British labor movement is a classic in biographical research.” W. L. C.
WALLING, WILLIAM ENGLISH, ed. Sovietism; the A B C of Russian bolshevism—according to the bolshevists. *$2 Dutton 335
“This is a summary of bolshevist utterances, made with a view to showing what the real aims of the bolshevist leaders are. The official documents and decrees, the speeches of Lenine and other leaders, the published opinions of Maxim Gorky, acclaimed as the greatest Bolshevist writer, are the chief sources from which Mr Walling has drawn in formulating this ‘A B C of Russian bolshevism.’ Mr Walling assumes that the public wants to know ‘what the bolsheviki actually stand for—according to a fair summary of their own acknowledged words and deeds.’”—R of Rs
“The book should do much as an antiseptic against the bolshevist poison.” A. W. Small
“Scattered material makes it better for reference than for straight reading. No index.”
“His encyclopædic labours would be more convincing if it were not for his careless habit of misquotation and of quoting isolated sentences which when placed in their context convey a far different meaning.” Harold Kellock
“Granted that all of his conclusions are supportable, Mr Walling’s method of establishing the case is far from satisfactory. What is needed at this time is less political opinion and more economic facts.” W. E. Atkins
“Nine-tenths of the book is made up of quotations taken chiefly from the hostile press. It is worthy of note that Mr Walling seems to have found one of the clues of bolshevist philosophy: he emphasizes the militarization of industry which took place in some parts of Russia and which is incompatible with the principle of industrial democracy. It is really a strong point, and one should begin with it; but unfortunately Mr Walling mentions it only accidentally and then again dives into the characteristic anti-bolshevist hysteria.” Gregory Zilboorg
“We do not know of any book from which the American reader can get a better photograph of Russian Bolshevism as portrayed and interpreted by the Bolshevists themselves.”
“The conclusions reached are irrefutable. Mr Walling is entirely fair in his selections and it is unnecessary for him to indulge in an argumentative attack.”
WALPOLE, HUGH SEYMOUR. Captives. *$2 (1c) Doran
Captives of their inheritance and environment are the two leading figures of this psychological novel. Maggie Cardinal’s youth had been loveless and her father’s, the miserly, sordid, unlovable vicar’s, religion repellent to her. His death, when Maggie was nineteen, was a liberation; now she would lead her own life. But she only escapes to more fanatical religion, in the house of her aunts, and her natural truthfulness and the absence of early training in conventional forms, make her both a religious and social rebel. Martin Warlock’s early fetters had been different. His intense love for his father, preacher of the Kingscote Brethren, had included the father’s religion. Long years of wandering over the earth had preserved the love but dimmed the religion. The love becomes Martin’s chain. It also becomes his conscience when Maggie’s trust confronts him with his past life. To save Maggie from himself he goes away. The story resolves itself into Maggie’s courageous struggles to remain true to her self and to her love for Martin in spite of her marriage to an unloved clergyman and of the demands of conventional society.
“We cannot, with the best will in the world, see in the result more than a task—faithfully and conscientiously performed to the best of the author’s power—but a ‘task accomplished,’ and not even successfully at that. For we feel that it is determination rather than inspiration, strength of will rather than the artist’s compulsion, which has produced ‘The captives.’” K. M.
“One is especially interested in the environment, but feels a lack of the spontaneity of other Walpole novels.”
“A long looked-for and worthy successor in the Walpole line. It is bigger in theme than its predecessors, more than ever a novel of life as opposed to the episodic novel.”
“Its criticism of life in general, and specifically with the elements of life with which it deals, presents a many sided view so that we are able to understand clearly the weaknesses and strength of all the characters. As a chronicle of these times and as a portrayal of people we all may easily come into contact with, it is an eloquent example of the consummate art of a literary artist.” E. F. Edgett
“‘The captives’ makes Mr Walpole’s previous books look like agreeable fragments. For the wealth of substance here is not more notable than the display of architectonic power. ‘The captives’ scarcely ranks below ‘Clayhanger’ and not very greatly below ‘Of human bondage,’ and is, therefore, one of the foremost British novels of the period.”
“No reader will set ‘The captives’ down without the figure of Maggie Cardinal having been permanently limned upon his memory. The portrait is consistent throughout. The pictures of the band of religious fanatics, some of them charlatans, and of their sincere leader are particularly forceful. Mr Walpole’s method is that of the realist, but he has scarcely employed it to the best of its possibilities.”
“In distinction of literary workmanship Mr Walpole is at his best in this story.” R. D. Townsend
“While the direct subject of the volume concerns the religious teachings of one narrow sect in England, which he designates as the Kingscote Brethren, the application of his theme is as wide as the two continents.” Calvin Winter
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The book is full of perturbed and uneasy striving, and is elemental both in its energy and the simplicity of its theme.”
“The characters are essentially unlovely though undeniably strong. Despite all this, it is a story of rare power—sober, to be sure, but never morbid—and one that emphasizes the author’s advanced position in the ranks of contemporary novelists.”
“There is something wanting to make the æsthetic pleasure of reading this book as intense as it should be, which argues something wanting in the performance. It is not that one misses the mystery and excitement of ‘The dark forest,’ and ‘The secret city,’ but there is the unavoidable feeling that, after the keenest appreciation of so much artistic skill, it should be possible to put the book down with the exhilaration of having read a masterpiece; and it is not possible.”
WALSH, JAMES JOSEPH. Medieval medicine. *$2.75 Macmillan 610.9
“This book, by an American medical authority, belongs to the series of Medical history manuals, edited by Dr John D. Comrie. It embraces the history of about 1,000 years, during which the achievements in medicine and surgery were quite as remarkable as the achievements of the middle ages in other spheres.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“The volume is fully within the comprehension of any educated reader, and is as entertaining as a novel.”
“As to the learning and competence for his task, no question can be raised, but the method he elects to adopt is one which has brought much work on the history of science into not unjustified contempt.” C: Singer
“Severe compression has been necessary; but the process has not interfered with the lucidity or the interest of this instructive little book.”
WALSH, JAMES JOSEPH.[2] Religion and health. *$2.25 (2c) Little 265.8
The argumentation of the book turns on the influence of the mind on the body and attempts to show how a trusting faith in God tends to produce an equilibrated mind, which is the foundation of psychic health, and, by interaction, of physical health. The book is indexed and contains much sound advice as to the way of achieving both kinds of well-being. The contents are: Can we still believe? Prayer; Sacrifice; Charity; Fasting and abstinence; Holydays and holidays; Recreation and dissipation; Mortification; Excesses; Purity; Insanity; Nervous disease; Dreads; Suffering; Pain; Suicide and homicide; Longevity; The Bible and health; Health and religion.
WALSH, THOMAS. Don Folquet, and other poems. *$1.50 Lane 811
The title poem has for its theme an episode of French history and tells how Don Folquet, a trader’s son, was first celebrated at the court of Toulouse as Prince of song, how he tired of court life and became a monk and later the Bishop of Toulouse and as such pronounced a ban on the city for its wickedness. Among the other poems are a Mother Goose sonnet series; Murillo paints “The assumption”; Catullus anent his Lesbia; The sigh for Deirdre; Ad limina.
“Mr Walsh has composed a medieval and monastic narrative in effete, Tennysonian pentameters which singly are good but which in the aggregate are wearisome.” Mark Van Doren
“To this reviewer ‘Don Folquet’ is less interesting than other things in the book. It is a poem for those who would forget reality. ‘The brownstone row,’ written in the kind of unrhymed cadence now in vogue, shows that Mr Walsh could do something with reality if romance charmed him less.”
“The execution falls short of the motive. Its merit is confined to grace, and the grace is confined to landscape.” O. W. Firkins
WALSH, THOMAS, ed. Hispanic anthology. $5 Putnam 861.08
“A collection of translations, ‘by northern Hispanophiles, of Spanish poems into English verse,’ offered as an affectionate tribute to the Spanish poet of today, whether he writes in the old world or the new. Dr Walsh, besides contributing a large portion of the versions, has garnered almost eight hundred pages of translations into something like a chronological unity, providing the selections with short prefatory notes and interspersing them with some twenty-nine portraits of ancient and modern Spanish poets.”—Freeman
“With the material at hand he has produced a creditable collection that should be at the elbow of every Hispanic student.”
“Masefield’s rendering of Gustave Adolfo Becquer’s ‘They closed her eyes,’ is one of the most beautiful poems in the collection.”
“Catholic readers will especially rejoice to possess, in this delightful form, some of the most impressive work of the great Spanish mystical poets, Fray Luis de Leon, St John of the Cross, and St Teresa.”
“A valuable book not alone for its well-arranged collection of poems, but for the fine reproductions of famous portraits and for the biographical notes.”
“The volume, despite its shortcomings, should be owned by every Hispanophile; it represents a pioneer-effort in a field agape with pitfalls, and, however much one may criticize the result as it now stands, Dr Walsh, by the mere fact of having initiated it and brought it forth, has earned the thanks of his fellow enthusiasts.” I: Goldberg
“Never has Spanish poetry been done so good or complete a turn in English as Mr Walsh now does it.” D. M.
“Mr Walsh has not only edited this volume, providing it with valuable typographical and critical notes, but he has supplied it with the bulk of the translations, translations which show him possessed in an uncommon degree of one of the most valuable, as it is one of the most unselfish of literary gifts.” R: Le Gallienne
“The plan of his anthology is remarkable for its comprehensive inclusion of selections from the work of every significant figure in Hispanic poetry from the unknown author of the ‘Poema del Cid’ to the latest of Porto Rican modernistas, born in 1898. Equally important, and especially so from the point of view of the American reader unacquainted with the Spanish language, is the finely judicious selection which Mr Walsh has made in choosing not only the original Spanish poems most representative of their authors but the translations into English which constitute the anthology. For the most part these translations are of highly poetic quality.” L. R. Morris
WALSH, WILLIAM SEBASTIAN. Psychology of dreams. *$3 (2½c) Dodd 135
The author views dreams from many points of view and is not pledged to any one theory. He presents the theories made popular by recent writers on psycho-analysis, but also sets forth the opinions of Freud’s critics. Contents: Historical sketch; The mind in sleep; The material of dreams; The instigators of dreams; The peculiarities of dreams; Dreams as wishes; The effects of dreams; Typical dreams; Prodromic dreams; Prophetic dreams; Nightmare; Night terrors; Somnambulism; Miscellany; The analysis of dreams; Day-dreams. There are two indexes, to proper names and to subjects. The author is a practicing physician and he has endeavored to make the work as practical as possible with a view “toward aiding sufferers from nervous affections, as well as toward promoting a better understanding of various normal and abnormal mental processes.”
“What he has written is a book of popular medicine rather than one of popular psychology. Upon psychology he does not appear to have any theories, and his very opinions are undecided. But when he writes about the ‘night terrors’ of children and the best means of mitigating them, he is full of common sense, and proves himself an admirable popular doctor.”
“For all practical purposes, ‘The psychology of dreams’ is an adequate exposition of interesting data, carefully collected. The chapter on prodromic dreams is perhaps as interesting as any in the book.” C. K. H.
“The chapter dealing with daydreams is especially interesting and instructive and, like the other chapters, is written in so clear a manner that the beginner will have little difficulty in becoming acquainted with the dream mechanism and its meaning. On the whole it can be said that the work is an excellent medium for the student who wishes to become acquainted with the workings of the unconscious.” L. P. Clark
Reviewed by R: Le Gallienne
“Not intended for professional reading, but distinctly popular in its appeal, this book will have lively interest for the general reader who likes to be entertained while he is being instructed. There are many sensible hygienic suggestions.”
“Dr Walsh might have made his point of view clearer, but he at least presents attractively a good deal of interesting material.”
WALSH, WILLIAM SEBASTIAN. Yours for sleep. *$2.50 Dutton 613.7
“The title of Dr William S. Walsh’s book, ‘Yours for sleep,’ is somewhat misleading, as appears from the first sentence in his preface: ‘The object of this little volume is not only to help the sleepless to sleep, but also to instruct them on a few of the principles of right living, a disregard of which is most often the sole cause of their disorder.’ People who are not in the pink of condition will be interested in the author’s treatment of such subjects as indigestion, eye defects, diseases of the teeth and gums, value of exercise and fresh air, and general hygiene.”—N Y Times
“No one has written more helpfully or collected more valuable information for the sleepless than Dr William S. Walsh.”
“It is a valuable contribution to the subject and amply repays perusal. The book is evidently the product of reflection, erudition and experience.” J. E. Kelly, M. D.
WALSTON, SIR CHARLES (SIR CHARLES WALDSTEIN). Eugenics, civics and ethics; a lecture delivered to the summer school of eugenics, civics and ethics on August 8th, 1919, in the Arts school, Cambridge. *$1.60 Macmillan 171
“A strong plea is made in this lecture for the organisation and development of the study of ethics, or, as the author prefers to call it, ethology. The interdependence of eugenics and civics, and the foundation of both in ethics, are discussed, and warning is given against striving to produce the perfect physical specimen of man without due consideration of character and mental attributes. Towards the end of the lecture the progressive nature of ethical codes is made clear, and great stress is laid on the importance of the establishment of our ideal of the perfect man and the teaching of such practical ethics in both schools and homes.”—Nature
“This lecture provides an excellent introduction to the author’s somewhat forbidding larger works.” B. L.
WALTERS, L. D’O., comp. Anthology of recent poetry. *$1.75 Dodd 821.08
An anthology of modern British verse. Harold Monro, who writes the introduction, supplies the key to the collection when he says, “The best poetry is always about the earth itself and all the strange and lovely things that compose and inhabit it.” The first object, he says later, is to give pleasure. “Moreover, it is adapted to the tastes of almost any age, from ten to ninety, and may be read aloud by grandchild to grandparent as suitably as by grandparent to grandchild. It is an anthology of poems, not of names.” Among the poems and their authors are April, by William Watson; The lake isle of Innisfree, by W. B. Yeats; The donkey, by G. K. Chesterton; The south country, by Hilaire Belloc; The west wind, by John Masefield; Full moon, by Walter de la Mare; A dead harvest, by Alice Meynell; The great lover, by Rupert Brooke; Star-talk, by Robert Graves; Stupidity street, by Ralph Hodgson; The oxen, by Thomas Hardy.
“It is a good coat-pocket anthology.”
“This collection includes some charming things by living hands of real distinction, and some others which make us regret young poets lost in the war. The anthologist has given us real pleasures, and we forego the reviewer’s privilege of grumbling about the inclusion of this or the exclusion of that.”
“The poems are few but well chosen from the standpoint of the seeker after clear language and well-defined images. There is little of that strained impressionism and hazy, finespun introspection which are the bane of modern verse.”
WALTON, GEORGE LINCOLN. Oscar Montague—paranoiac. il *$1.50 (3c) Lippincott
In this novel Dr Walton embodies the ideas prevalent in his non-fiction books, “Why worry,” “Those nerves,” and others. Ruth Fulton, chronic fusser, in a fit of pique, jilts her steady serious-minded fiancé and marries the town rake, who thinks most men are against him. Oscar, their son, grows up spoiled, idle, badly educated, boon companion of ruffians and loafers. He has the obsession that everyone is in a conspiracy against him, and secretly cherishes the illusion that one Nicky Bennett is trying to harm him. Accidentally meeting Nicky when in an evil mood he pulls out a revolver and shoots him; pleads insanity to escape the electric chair, but once inside the asylum finds that the law refuses to let him out. The daughter of Ruth and Gerrold is normal and lovable, and happily marries the son of her mother’s old sweetheart, after having by a bit of clever detective work “on her own,” saved the lad from being falsely convicted for the murder of her father.
“The characters are clearly drawn, and are thoroughly lifelike people, whose lives, without anything brilliant or startling, are full of quiet interest, humorous or pathetic.”
“Amateurish is the only adjective to describe adequately this novel, with its wooden puppets in place of characters and its obviously mechanical situations. The book’s two redeeming features, are the occasional flashes of whimsical humor the author displays, and the disarmingly naïve manner in which he pokes fun at his own inexperience as a novelist.”
“The only person of any interest in the book is the daughter, Helen, and the only episode of any interest is Helen’s discovery of the real culprit who had run over and killed her father. This has not much to do with Oscar Montague—paranoiac, who is quite a secondary character in a poor novel.”
WARD, HARRY FREDERICK. New social order. *$2.50 Macmillan 304
“Prof. Harry F. Ward of Union theological seminary, in his new book, ‘The new social order,’ writes on social and industrial change both from economic and from ethical standpoints. His book considers in part 1 the underlying principles of the new order, in part 2, various programs, such as those proposed by the British labor party, the Russian soviets, the league of nations, various movements in the United States, and the churches.”—Springf’d Republican
“Dr Ward has been developing a very unusual fluency of speech, mental power, and moral insight that appear strikingly in this book. Although some of the chapters on the principles might well have been a little shorter and crisper, the style is always interesting, at times rising to natural and impressive eloquence; and the thought is throughout clear and weighty. This is one of the most important books for the citizen of this generation to read thoughtfully, and read at an early date.” C. J. Bushnell
Reviewed by C. G. Fenwick
“Dr Ward has rendered a real service in bringing together in compact form so many expressions of the new spirit. He knows that they are signs rather than realities, but it is a poor skipper who cares not which way the veering flaw blows. Christians and pagans will do well to ponder them.” C: A. Beard
“In this latest of his several volumes Professor Ward makes his most notable contribution to the religious interpretation of the changing social order. Professor Ward’s discussion of the controverted points dealt with is frank and fearless, notwithstanding, perhaps the more because of, the criticism he has all along met from certain ecclesiastical and special interest groups.” Graham Taylor
“The chapter on the Russian soviet constitution is far and away the ablest and clearest statement yet given to us upon that very important subject. Mr Ward is to be envied for his twofold gift of grasping details and of strong speculative thinking; and this combination makes his book a singularly valuable and safe guide for the student.” R. R.
WARD, JOHN. With the “Die-hards” in Siberia. *$2.50 (3c) Doran 957
The author commanded a detachment of British troops sent to Siberia to support Kolchak. He blames his own government for its halfhearted support of the enterprise it had undertaken, and is especially bitter against the Americans and the Japanese. The book was written, he says, “for the private use of my sons in case I did not return.” Among the chapters are: From Hong Kong to Siberia; Bolshevik successes; Japanese methods and Allied Far-eastern policy; Administration; Omsk; Along the Urals; Russian labour; In European Russia; American policy and its results; Japanese policy and its results; General conclusions. There is an index.
“Colonel Ward is too innocent for a propagandist. We knew Colonel Ward had been no nearer to Moscow than had we in London, but we have received an impression that in far-away Siberia he fought desperately against the Red armies. Why did the coalition permit their friend to write a book and give the show away so completely? We find that Colonel Ward never met the disciplined armies of Trotsky, and, except for one engagement, the whole campaign was a series of affairs with Bolshevik bands.”
“Colonel Ward’s book is bound to furnish material for controversy. His narrative is couched in a style that is the acme of plain speaking; he wastes no time in euphemisms or diplomatic circumlocution, but fearlessly handles facts as they come to him. From all internal evidence his book has the air of a straightforward, truthful narrative.”
“Colonel Ward’s narrative makes a vivid and fascinating picture of stirring events and gives throughout the impression of keen observation and sincerity.”
“There is nothing small about this book. The countries he traversed, the observations he made, and the cause he worked for, all convey a sense of space and sanity, which no niggling pen could have produced. There is no delicate tracery of outlines here, no precious selection of words to convey an atmosphere and the genial author does not deal in suggestions and impressions, but relies almost entirely on forthright facts.”
“Colonel Ward’s account is very welcome because it is obviously honest and sincere.”
WARD, MARY AUGUSTA (ARNOLD) (MRS HUMPHRY WARD). Harvest. il *$2 (2½c) Dodd
When Rachel Henderson took the Great End farm near Ipscombe to lead an independent life as a woman farmer, she had had a past in Canada. She had been married to a worthless man, had lost her child, had been divorced and—more than that—when fleeing from her husband’s cruelty, had succumbed to the sympathy and protection of Dick Tanner, a neighboring farmer, and had stayed with him for three days and nights. When, in the course of events at Great End farm, she becomes engaged to a young American captain, from a near-by camp, still guarding her secret, she faces a spiritual struggle. After all the confessions are made and the lover also has achieved a victory over his time honored prejudices, a bullet from the former, now hate-crazed husband, kills her in her lover’s arms.
“Mrs Ward cannot be judged by ‘Harvest,’ It is a plain mystery novel; it bears the impress of her desire to emerge from the library and to walk in the cornfields—in the new land which is war-time England. But she is unhappy in such surroundings and her serenity is gone.” K. M.
“It would be an injustice to Mrs Ward to say that ‘Harvest’ is in any degree worthy of a novelist of her reputation, or indeed of many a novelist of lesser reputation. ‘Harvest,’ in common with its immediate predecessor, ‘Helena,’ and many of her later stories, might have been written by any one of a hundred English fiction writers of the hour. It is utterly conventional in form, and commonplace in plot and characterization.” E. F. E.
“Written in that smoothly flowing style to which Mrs Ward’s readers have so long been accustomed, the book, while not indeed equal to her best, shows no falling off from the standard set by her recent work, but on the contrary rises somewhat above it. The novel contains some lovely pictures of the English country.” L. M. Field
“It is with peculiar pleasure that one recognizes in the late Mrs Humphry Ward’s posthumous novel, ‘Harvest,’ the qualities that have marked the very best of her fiction writing. This tale of rural England in war time is notable for the balance and unity of theme and development. It is almost astonishingly superior, for instance, to ‘Helena.’”
“I for one should be unhappy if it were necessary for me to remember Mrs Ward by this book.” H. W. Boynton
“Mrs Ward does not make these women seem very real. She idealizes their ‘trim’ appearance in pseudo-masculine attire and at no time visualizes their lives and pursuits from their own standpoint. Sympathy, and an earnest effort at understanding, however, are always apparent.”
WARNE, FRANK JULIAN. Workers at war. (Century New world ser.) *$3 Century 331
From a dispassionate, conservative point of view the author reviews the present industrial situation with its resultant high cost of living. He accords high praise to the statesmanship of President Wilson in controlling the situation during the war and to the activities of the National war labor board. That the government now fails to realize the three essentials of industrial justice: a fair profit, a fair wage and a fair price is due to the present autocratic system of corporate organization of production. The remedy lies in the democratization of the corporation and in an American federation of consumers. A partial list of the contents is: The workers and the world war; The government as the employer; The Wilson administration’s labor policy; The National war labor board; The government, wages, and the cost of living; The vicious cycle and the labor union; Democracy in industry; The three parties to production; Industrial autocracy and the corporation.
Reviewed by G: Soule
“The book is valuable as a summary of governmental labor policies during the war, as a record of the achievements of labor and the effect of autocratic control on the wage earner and the consumer.” J. D. Hackett
WARREN, ARTHUR. London days. *$2.50 (3c) Little
This book of reminiscences begins in 1878, when the author, fresh from Boston, arrived in London at the age of eighteen. He made the choice because “history already made and rounded and woven into legend, the scenes among which men have lived and wrought through centuries, shaping the rich past on which we build the present” fascinated him more than the prospect of pioneering in the West. The period covers nineteen years of Journalism, nine of them as correspondent for the Boston Herald, and combines with memories and impressions of London those of celebrated personages. Contents: First glimpses of London; London in the late seventies; A Norman interlude; I take the plunge; Browning and Moscheles; Patti; John Stuart Blackie; Lord Kelvin; Tennyson; Gladstone; Whistler; Henry Drummond; Sir Henry Irving; Henry M. Stanley; George Meredith; Parnell; “Le brav’ général” (Boulanger); Index.
Reviewed by Margaret Ashmun
“As journalism the writing is good; it does not assume to be more. Gossipy, wholesome, harmless, never profound, but lighted up here and there by almost poetic touches of admiration and of reverence, these reminiscences should well suit those who desire an easy introduction to the charm of biography.”
“Despite the fact that in many cases he insists on writing an old story as if it were still of vital interest, he has preserved some anecdotes that merited survival and he has drawn the portraits of several famous Britons with commendable skill.”
“His estimate not only of men, but of the social and literary forces of modern London, are trenchantly expressed.”
“It is a book to evoke enthusiasm for his literary style as well as for the human interest that attaches to the people whose names are chapter headings here.”
WARREN, HOWARD CROSBY. Human psychology. il *$5 Houghton 150
The author distinguishes between genetic and descriptive psychology: the one dealing with mental growth and mental progress from species to species; the other with mental life as it actually exists. The interest of the book centers mainly on the latter, the static view of psychology. At the end of each chapter is a list of collateral reading and some practical exercises intended to train the student in precise critical observation of mental phenomena. The contents are: The science of psychology; The organism; The neuro-terminal mechanism; Physiology of the neuron; Stimulation, adjustment, and response; Behavior; Conscious experience; The senses; The components of mental states; Primary mental states; Secondary mental states; Succession of mental states; Attitudes; Character and personality; Organized mental life. The appendix deals with some debatable problems for the benefit of the advanced students and contains: The mind-body relation; Mechanism and purpose; Neural activity; The visual process. There are also illustrations and tables; directions for performing the exercises and an index.
“Comprehensiveness, thoroughness, clear definitions, elaborate classifications and an open-minded, progressive outlook are what characterize this work. And it is not only comprehensive, in that it covers the entire field of descriptive psychology, but it is comprehensive in its grasp of the subject.” F. W. C.
“Professor Warren’s book is interesting not only in itself, but also in the indication which it gives of the phases of psychology which may be expected to survive after this period of devotion of the science to its practical applications.”
“In sum, this is a most scholarly work, which in the beginning, and generally in outward semblance, gives promise of breaking fairly away from the traditions that produced the behavioristic schism, but which is found to be still heavily burdened with the inheritance of formalism, only partially offset by its clearness, criticism, humor, and tolerance.” F. L. Wells
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
“Professor Warren’s work as a whole would be an excellent introduction for beginners in psychology, though it is, of course, a work of interest for advanced students also.”
WASHBURN, CLAUDE CARLOS. Order. *$2 (1½c) Duffield
Marville, the beautiful residential suburb of a big city was law and order incarnate—order with all its ugly sordid features pruned away, beautified and civilized. Into it blows its antithesis, the spirit of romance in the person of Peter Gresham, Englishman, packed off to America by his aristocratic relatives. He literally explodes into Marville in a train wreck, becomes its hero, and later upsets the tranquillity of everybody with whom he comes in contact. The reactions of this spirit of romance on law and order form the substance of the story. By one man and one woman it is understood. Peter himself does not understand but is it, and when it brings him in contact with Annette Cornish, beautiful young wife of an elderly man, there is fire. Others are simply stimulated, bewildered, shaken out of their repose for the nonce. Annette and pretty Elsie Cook succumb completely to its spell. Annette, disciplined and broken-in by order from childhood, fears it and is broken by it. Elsie, the half-savage, gives herself to it unstintingly, but comes out with flying colors by dint of a saving remnant of hard practical sense. Peter turns his back on it all and is killed at Neuve Chapelle.
“Exceptionally interesting story. Here we have a book of ideas which is never didactic, but presents both sides of a case with striking fairness, a tale whose plot springs from the natural interplay of character upon character, and whose lights and shadows are managed with notable artistry.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
WASHBURNE, CARLETON W. Common science. il *$1.60 World bk. 502
The book belongs to the New-world science series edited by John W. Ritchie. It is based on a collection of 2000 questions asked by school children in the upper elementary grades over a period of a year and a half. These questions are sorted and classified according to the scientific principles involved in answering them. The object of the method is to lead the child from an interest and curiosity in a specific phenomena to a general principle and to arouse his imagination by making it clear to him what part it plays in his own life. The contents are grouped under the headings: Gravitation; Molecular attraction; Conservation of energy; Heat; Radiant heat and light; Sound; Magnetism and electricity; Electricity; Mingling of molecules; Chemical change and energy; Solution and chemical action; Analysis. There are appendices, an index and illustrations.
“The book should be of value in conserving and developing the science interests of children of junior high-school age.”
WASSERMANN, JACOB. World’s illusion; auth. tr. by Ludwig Lewisohn. (European library) 2v *$4 (1½c) Harcourt
This is the first book by this author, a Viennese novelist, to appear in English. It was written, he says, during the last years of the war: “Only in this way could I keep contact with and faith in humanity.” It has nothing to do with the war, but is a picture of pre-war society in central Europe, a brilliant, feverish picture of a society in the first hectic stages of decay, resting on insecure foundations of poverty, misery and crime. The first volume is devoted to the life of the upper classes, represented by Crammon, the Austrian aristocrat, Christian Wahnschaffe, son of a German captain of industry, Eva Sorel, the dancer, and almost countless others. The scenes flit from capital to capital with the haste and inconsistency of a screen drama. In the second volume we have in contrast the dregs of society, for Christian, in search of truth, has descended to the lowest depths. He gives up his fortune, studies medicine to fit himself for a field of usefulness and in the end cuts himself off entirely from his family and disappears, to continue his search elsewhere.
“Despite the penny-dreadful stuff there is a breath of serenity that reveals the artist in complete mastery of his material and despite the frank consideration of sex, there is an indubitable chastity hovering over all these pages. In fact, were one to select a single word with which to describe the mood of the work as a whole, he would most probably say, austerity.” I. G.
Reviewed by Paul Rosenfeld
“It would hold the interest through all its 787 pages if there were nothing in it save its arresting procession of grotesque incidents, but there is something more, and that something is an ironical quality that suggests the manner of the great Russians. All his characters, high and low, are pathological cases. Thus the chronicle, to an American, cannot carry much conviction despite its fine passion and its vivid detail.” H. L. Mencken
“Wassermann has created a work of strange and sombre power. The translation is unusually good.” E. A. Boyd
“The book’s chief values lie in its interpretation of modern industrial society as Wassermann sees it. But surely not all European society is degenerate. Humanity as a whole is not portrayed in ‘The world’s illusion.’”
WATKIN, EDWARD INGRAM. Philosophy of mysticism. *$5 Harcourt 149.3
The author differentiates between the mystic and his mystical experiences, and the metaphysics of mysticism. The mystic, he says, can not adequately state his experiences in terms of discursive reason, nevertheless the philosophy of mysticism is “the body of truth about the nature of ultimate reality and of our relationship to it to be derived from the content of mystical experience.” (Preface) He regards the Catholic church as the best vehicle of expression for this body of truth. The contents are: The divine immanence; Unity of God; The transcendence of God; The relation between the soul and God; Views of the mystic way; The negative way; The active night; Mystical experience previous to the night of spirit; The passive night of spirit; Purgatory and the passive night of spirit; The transforming union: or mystical marriage; On the mystical interpretation of Scripture; The witness of nature mysticism to the teaching of Catholic mysticism studied in the mysticism of Richard Jefferies; St John the poet; Epilogue; Notes.
Reviewed by G. E. Partridge
“Mr Watkin’s book is written exclusively for his co-religionists, and others will not find it worth while to study it.”
WATSON, E. L. GRANT. Deliverance. *$2 (2½c) Knopf
The author tells us that in this his third novel he has tried to portray the spiritual emancipation of a woman whose “love for the increasing light of her own spirit ... becomes more precious than even the unique love of woman for man.” (Preface) The scene is laid in contemporary England. The principal characters are Susan Zalesky, who is brought up in the country by her aunt, Mrs Dorothy Tyler; Paul Zalesky, Susan’s father, a philanderer, who carries on a secret love affair with Dorothy; Tom Northover, the “primitive male,” who marries Susan but makes “no claims upon her soul”; Noel Sarret, a young painter with whom Tom, who believes that the only test of morality is “the sincerity of the emotion,” goes to live shortly before the birth of Susan’s child; and Martin Hyde, a gentle young painter who loves Susan.
“However one takes it, it is a novel exposition; there is much reality in these persons, not least in the figure of Susan’s irresponsible and almost incorrigible father.” H. W. Boynton
“If he had nothing else, he would be sure to win recognition for the sheer beauty of his workmanship. Indeed it is easier to quarrel with some of the natural results of his process of spiritual emancipation than with his illustrations of it in characters, or with his manner of setting it forth.” H. I. Gilchrist
“His story is not quite as persuasive as his philosophy. His women are suspiciously fine in fibre and amazingly articulate. Attractive as they are, they remain a little dim. And the dimmest of all is Susan, whom Mr Watson adores and through whose words and actions he chiefly projects his sense of the new moral world that is being created by all sorts of people in many places today.”
“Just what Susan Zalesky emancipates into is a little difficult to conceive, and sounds, on the whole, much less interesting than the rather fascinating story of her procedure. Judged more freely, however, ‘Deliverance’ is interesting and delightful for other qualities than its processes. It comes in many ways as near the art of the Russian novelists as any English novel.” R. V. A. S.
“Each reader will determine for himself whether or no Mr Watson’s message is worth this unpleasant ragout.”
WATSON, JOHN BROADUS. Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. il *$2.50 Lippincott 150
“A treatise on the new American methods in psychology known as behaviourism. The essential feature of this school is that it regards man purely as a ‘reacting mass,’ and endeavours to determine his reactions without importing into the observation preconceived ideas, affecting interpretation. The present author, indeed, does not find it necessary to use such terms as ‘sensation,’ ‘perception,’ ‘attention,’ ‘will,’ ‘image,’ and the like. He states that he does not know what they mean, and he suggests that no one succeeds in using them consistently.”—Ath
“By consistently disregarding all the essential steps in ‘thinking’ in which most psychologists (and the world at large) are interested, and by cavalierly treating the problems in which the behaviorist happens not to be interested, he produces a ‘psychology’ which is as true as the railway maps of any one company showing only the towns on its line, with its own route straight and prominent, and rival systems indicated if at all by lightly drawn and circuitous detours.” Joseph Jastrow
“The present writer as he reads the book finds himself in continual expectation that now he is coming to the end of the physiology and the beginning of the psychology, but is continually disappointed. This book may inspire, and will direct, the student to practical researches of the highest interest to the advance of science. To this extent every psychologist will welcome it. It is difficult to find anything in its principle to disagree with, save only its limitation and negation.” H. W. Carr
WATSON, ROBERT.[2] Stronger than his sea. *$1.90 (2c) Doran
Much of the charm of the story lies in the quaint Scotch dialect of its characters and much of Sandy Porter’s winsomeness in his Scotch sturdiness. Five when his father died, he began to help his mother support the family when he was six. He carried milk to the customers of a dairy night and morning throughout his school years and still found time for boyish mischief. How he led his schoolmates in a strike against a superannuated tyrannical master, and other escapades is amusingly told. In old Doctor Telford he had a wise friend who kept an eye on him and made things possible without making them too easy for him. So it was that the penniless boy reached his goal and became a veterinary surgeon. He also won the old doctor’s daughter, Doreen, altho there was a rival and Sandy blundered in his impulsiveness. But his poetry helped.
“The story of the young man Sandy is fully as attractive, if not so adventurous as that of the child, and both are delightfully told.”
“‘Stronger than his sea’ illustrates perfectly the difference between the novel that is literature and the story that is simon-pure entertainment. It is good of its kind—‘light fiction’ that scarcely aspires to the artistic dignity of holding the mirror up to life.”
WATTS, MRS MARY STANBERY.[2] Noon mark. *$2.50 Macmillan
“It is emphatically an American story, full of the flavor of American life—American life, that is to say, as it is lived in such a small middle-western city as that one in which the scene of ‘The noon mark’ is laid. As this story progresses, the dominant figure is discovered to be that of Nettie Stieffel, whose father was in the accounting department of the Travelers and Traders’ bank. Clean-minded and clean-hearted, generous, brave, efficient, unimaginative and consequently a little hard, without an ounce of romance in her composition, honest and loyal to the core, and incidentally very good looking, she develops into an easily recognized type of American business woman, capable, hard-working, intelligent and dependable. When we leave her she is a married woman who has, as she herself says, ‘everything anybody could want,’ including a motor car—and happiness.”—N Y Times
“It is a story to be placed, by those who respond to this story-teller’s genial-ironic kind of thing, beside ‘The Boardman family’ and ‘The rise of Jennie Cushing,’—not a great novel but a real and solid one.” H. W. Boynton
“It is, indeed, a small fragment of American life that Mrs Watts has described in ‘The noon mark,’ but it is a very real fragment and an extremely realistic portrayal of it.” E. F. Edgett
“Mrs Watts’s new novel is more rewarding in transit than in termination. The conclusion is indefinite in its effect, ending on an interrogation which does not flow naturally out of the materials with which the author started.” L. B.
“In the loose-jointed aggregation which is our United States, there can be, we must conclude, no ‘American’ novel. There can be only sectional novels, the portraiture of a sort, of a class. Of these Mrs Watts is a valuable chronicler. She is selective. It is not the light of imagination that lives in her books, but the steady rays of the impartial sun.” Alice Brown
“The author’s comments on it all are cleverly phrased, with occasional touches of irony which lend spice to the story. She is a realist, unspoiled by pessimism.”
“In construction and the centralizing of interest in one large situation the novel is less successful than some of its predecessors.”
“Her localism, as always, is faultless. But it is in characterization, the ultimate test, that she achieves most. Her Nettie Stieffel is as actual and unescapable a person as Dreiser’s Jennie Gerhardt—or her own Jennie Cushing.” H. W. Boynton
+ |Review 3:623 D 22 ’20 440w
“The story is not so organic as Mrs Watts’s best, but will arouse a considerable degree of interest among readers.”
WAUGH, ALEC. Loom of youth; with a preface by Thomas Seccombe. *$1.90 (1½c) Doran
This novel of English school life was written some three years ago when the author was barely past seventeen. It is a boy’s criticism of the English public school, its emphasis on sports at the expense of scholarship, its lack of mental discipline, its low standard of morals, and the dull formalism of its teaching, written while these matters were fresh in mind. Midway in his school course Gordon Caruthers accidentally discovers the delights of English poetry and Byron, Swinburne and Rossetti influence his development. The story is carried into the first years of the war and the author shows how school life was affected by outward events. For one thing, the glamor was stripped from athleticism and school sports.
“He has not ranted. He has not preached. But he has spoken the truth as it appeared to him, swiftly, unalterably. It must remain, I think, for a long time, as one of the few remarkable records of school life which this generation or any generation has furnished.” D. L. M.
“‘The loom of youth’ is apt to bore American readers because the viewpoint is annoying, and the action and dialogue not sufficient to stimulate reading.”
“There are very definite signs of youth in the minuteness of detail in all matters and in the exhaustive descriptions of cricket and football matches, but the writing on the whole is astonishingly mature.”
“What is fresh in the book is its clear insight into the morality of the boys, especially in their relations with the masters and its objective projection of its complex and busy scene.”
“A very evident sincerity and an infinite patience in the transcription of details give a value to this book altogether greater than that of most of the innumerable books about Harrow, Eton, and other similar institutions.” S. C. C.
“The breath of a dogged sincerity, a determination to set down nothing but the truth, emanates from every page. As a narrative of sustained power and interest the book holds up well. Mr Waugh’s characters are broadly drawn but they do give forth an intimate sense of reality. It is the meticulous eye of Mr Waugh that plays a large part in the book’s success.”
“The book is one which will probably be of far greater interest to an English than to an American audience. It would seem to be, take it all in all, a book of no little promise.”
“Everything in this really spirited book is sane, equable, intellectually mature. It may be read either as a narrative of a boy’s school days or as a treatise on education. Remarkable to relate, it is about equally instructive and diverting from either point of view.
WEALE, BERTRAM LENOX PUTNAM, pseud. (BERTRAM LENOX SIMPSON). Wang the ninth. *$1.75 (3c) Dodd
Shrewdness, courage, loyalty, honesty and resourcefulness are this remarkable Chinese boy’s equipment. Of the poorest peasantry, he is early an orphan, and in shifting for himself he comes to be a groom in the household of one of the “foreign devils.” During the Boxer rebellion he remains with his master, partly from ignorance of what it is all about, partly from self-interest and an instinct of loyalty. He is sent on a dangerous mission to the allied army, bearing the message rolled up in his ear. Reaching the army after a perilous journey he is given a return message. This is too bulky for his ear, so in a moment of panic of discovery, he swallows it. Of this he calmly informs his master, when at last, spent and exhausted, he returns to him, adding, “and by your blessing I shall now die a natural death.”
“The book is throughout written, at least theoretically, from the native point of view, and has, in consequence, an unusual and fascinating quality.”
“There are many dramatic adventures and a rich background of Chinese life.”
“A good picture of peasant childhood in China as well as a first-rate adventure story for boys.”
+ |Cleveland p107 D ’20 40w
“A highly interesting book, worth while both for its story element and for the faithful picture of the humble inner life of the great sleeping empire off in the yellow West.”
“The tale is one of adventure and courage, and the character of the Chinese boy is unusual and decidedly interesting.”
WEAVER, GERTRUDE (RENTON) (MRS HAROLD BAILLIE WEAVER) (G. COLMORE, pseud.). Thunderbolt. *$1.90 Seltzer
“Mrs Bonham takes her engaged daughter for a trip on the continent. In Germany Dorrie injures a foot and is sent with her French maid to Professor Reisen, a famous clinician with whom Mrs Bonham has become acquainted. Instead of taking the girl to the doctor’s private office, the blundering maid takes her to a clinic conducted by Dr Reisen for experimental purposes. Shortly after this a suspicious sore appears on Dorrie’s arm, followed by a similar one on her lip. Alarmed by the sores, Mrs Bonham takes her daughter to a specialist in Paris, and is filled with horror when she learns the name of the disease with which Dorrie was inoculated in Dr Reisen’s clinic. Back in England Mrs Bonham tells Dorrie’s fiancé what has happened. The young man promptly ends the engagement. Dorrie does not learn of her lover’s defection and is kept ignorant of her disease. The old nurse, who has been sent for, realizes the truth of Dorrie’s statement that it would kill her if her fiancé stopped loving her. She determines that Dorrie must never learn the truth, and, by a noble and tragic sacrifice, keeps it from her.”—N Y Times
“This sorry fable is quite devoid of the melodramatic ‘punch,’ the thrill of spurious horror which was, obviously, its one attainable merit. Honestly written, it would have been a rattling shilling shocker. Aping the sober garb and earnest manners of a modern novel, it has succeeded in being hailed—for various reasons—as a masterpiece.”
“‘The thunderbolt’ has all the exquisite artistry of Swinnerton at his best, and a realism as ultimate and magic as Leonard Merrick’s. It is hard to overpraise this book, and you are unfair to yourself if you do not acquaint yourself with it.” Clement Wood
“The two parts of the book might have been written by different authors in different ages. Absolutely nothing prepares the reader for the shock he receives when the author launches her thunderbolt. An ugly story with an undeniable dramatic dénouement.”
“Having once read the book, no competent judge of good craftsmanship would dare refuse to acknowledge the unfaltering purpose, the patient insistent building up, the cumulative power of this grim book.” Calvin Winter
“It might have been, within its limits, a little masterpiece. But in the groping for tragedy the author fails and the conclusion is merely shocking. The most captivating human figure is the nurse, Hannah.”
WEBB, CLEMENT CHARLES JULIAN. Divine personality and human life. (Library of philosophy) *$4 (*10s 6d) Macmillan 231
“This volume contains the second part of the Gifford lectures, delivered in the University of Aberdeen in 1918–1919.” (Nation) “In the first series of these lectures, ‘God and personality,’ it was argued that by a ‘personal God’ is meant a God with whom a personal relationship is possible for his worshippers; that such a relationship is associated with the higher forms of religious experience; that in Christianity certain difficulties which attach to the conception of the personality of God are avoided by the assertion that God is not a single person; and it was claimed, not indeed that this position was free from difficulties, but that it was attended by fewer and less serious difficulties than its rivals. In the present course personality in man is examined in the light of these conclusions; the various activities in which this human personality expresses itself—economic, scientific, aesthetic, moral, political, and religious—being viewed in relation to the supreme spiritual reality revealed to us in the experience given in religion. The three concluding lectures consider the rank to be assigned in the kingdom of reality to the finite individual person.” (Spec)
“A careful reader will very seldom even suspect him of confusion in ideas; there is hardly a word and—once the sentences have been construed—hardly an argument to baffle an intelligent schoolboy. Yet, with all these pitfalls avoided, we are defrauded of a good philosophical style, the worthy yet popular expression of a valuable thought, by the elementary failure to construct an unambiguous and balanced sentence.”
“It belongs to the front ranks of its class. Altogether the reading of the book is a rich experience, and its comparative freedom from the jargon of the philosophical schools makes it available for a much wider circle of readers than is usually the case with this kind of literature.” R. R.
“In Mr Webb, terminology is reduced to a minimum. His argument can be followed by any fairly well read man without difficulty, and this is no small praise.”
“Mr Webb could not, we think, publish a book that did not contain acute and illuminating pages, but he certainly does not show here anything like the constructive force, or the lucidity of exposition, which marked his earlier volume.”
WEBB, CLEMENT CHARLES JULIAN. God and personality; being the Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Aberdeen in the years 1918–1919. (Library of philosophy) *$3 Macmillan 231
“All students of the philosophy of religion know that Mr C. C. J. Webb, fellow of Magdalen college, Oxford, has, within the last few years, won for himself a position in the front rank among philosophical critics and defenders of religion. Mr Webb’s argument [in this book] amounts to a philosophical defense of the Christian conception of and belief in God. Mr Webb’s emphasis falls wholly on the value of ‘religious experience’ as affording the profoundest clues to the nature of the world we live in. He holds that religious experience testifies to the reality of God and of the worshipper’s personal intercourse with God. More than this, he holds that the doctrine of the trinity, with its distinction of three persons within the Godhead, renders in language admittedly metaphorical, a differentiation within the all-enfolding divine life which is required for an adequate interpretation of religious experience in its highest, i.e., Christian form.”—New Repub
“A fine and characteristic specimen of the best type of modern Oxford philosophy. Unlike so many modern English philosophers, Mr Webb has an admirably pure and simple vocabulary. It is the more to be regretted that his syntax is often obscure and even inaccurate.”
“Mr Clement C. J. Webb has written a book on ‘God and personality’ which is a remarkable achievement in more ways than one. He has managed to discuss a difficult and abstract problem in delightfully clear and often beautiful language. And in doing so he has shown that he possesses in considerable degree the quality of which real philosophers are made. Mr Webb’s answers are interesting, and in the main we may agree with them, but they are certainly not incontestable.” Lincoln MacVeagh
“From Aristotle to Bergson, from the fathers of the church to Benedetto Croce, from Dante to H. G. Wells, he moves with equal mastery, and when he measures swords with Bradley or Bosanquet, the honors are not all on their side.” R. F. A. H.
WEBB, SIDNEY, and WEBB, BEATRICE (POTTER) (MRS SIDNEY WEBB).[2] Constitution for the socialist commonwealth of Great Britain. *$4.25 (*13s 6d) Longmans 335
“The volume falls into three parts. The first is a survey of the existing signs and agencies of collectivism: the democracies of consumers (cooperative societies, friendly societies, municipalities, and national services); the democracies of producers (trade unions, copartnership concerns, and professional associations); and finally the political democracy of king, lords, and commons. The second part of the volume deals with the national structure that is to be set up in the socialist commonwealth. The lords are to be swept away and there are to be two parliaments—one political and the other social. Both are to be elected by universal suffrage but the idea of a vocational or economic soviet is utterly rejected. In the third part the authors propose to administer nationalized interests through special committees of the social parliament—one committee for each.”—Nation
“The idea that foreign affairs, the maintenance of order, the administration of justice, colonies, and defense can be separated from cities, municipalities, and national services; economics seems utterly chimerical. The third part of the volume is real, stimulating, suggestive. It is here that the Webbs have laid all students of government under a great debt. They do not speculate, but with clear eyes face the terrible tangle of realities that must make up any order new or old.” C: A. Beard
“There is no field of social organization they do not enter; and there is no field where their analysis is not at once amazingly suggestive and incomparably well-informed. Not indeed, that there is not ample room for criticism and even criticism of fundamentals. What Mr and Mrs Webb have done is to cast a light upon the mechanism of government such as it has not had since Mr Graham Wallas’s ‘Human nature in politics’ in one field, and Bagehot’s ‘English constitution’ in another.” H. J. L.
“It deserves the careful study of every person who desires to see a better system, and who is anxious that that system be inaugurated with the maximum of intelligence, the minimum of pain.”
“Lenin would contemptuously sweep the whole thing aside as lackeyism in the interests of the bourgeoisie. We are not prepared to do that, but we cannot help arriving at a like degree of condemnation for entirely different reasons.”
“What the authors fail to appreciate is that to forbid the social parliament to interfere with conduct by making it criminal will be of no effect; the body in control of the price system can enforce conformity to prescribed economic conduct by methods which, though subtler, are no less effective than the criminal law—methods by which the present capitalists exercise their dictatorship. This criticism is not intended to detract from the merits of an extraordinarily able work.” R. L. Hale
WEBB, SIDNEY, and WEBB, BEATRICE (POTTER) (MRS SIDNEY WEBB). History of trade unionism. rev ed *$7.50 (*21s) Longmans 331.87
“‘The history of trade unionism,’ is issued in a revised edition. The original work, published in 1894, broke off in 1890. The present edition carries the story on to the beginning of 1920. There is little alteration in the main part of the book, which describes the origin and progress of trade unionism in the United Kingdom.”—Springf’d Republican
Reviewed by J: R. Commons
“They are quite clear in their own minds as to the relative importance of facts and ideas.”
“Americans particularly will find this study of value, because the British labor movement is more like our own than that of any other country, and its differences from ours are consequently more significant.” G: Soule
“The new part of the work would be very valuable if it stood alone, but it gains immensely from coming after the story of the building-up of the movement.”
“In solidity of knowledge, in massiveness of generalization, in the firm grasp of complex details, Mr and Mrs Webb have certainly no superiors and possibly no equals. If they lack any single quality, it is an inability to make the institution reflect the men who build it.” H. J. L.
“The authors unite a thorough knowledge of their subject with a sympathetic understanding of the struggle of the masses, making a combination that is rare in historians. A number of appendices and a good index, together with good binding and paper, make this work heartily welcome.” James Oneal
“Mr Webb, like most Fabian Socialists, is cultured, persuasive, smooth-spoken. In the gentlest words possible he has pronounced the failure of trade unionism. We can be grateful to him for his exposure of its vices.”
“‘The history of trade unionism’ might easily have been a very great work; even as it stands it possesses high merit; but its partisanship divests it of authority, and the reader must be continually on his guard lest he accept its statements without independent evidence of their truth.”
“I cannot feel that even the Webbs have been able to achieve the same objectivity in dealing with the almost contemporary records as they did with earlier data and still it is of more value to have their original great work brought up to-date than it would be to obtain a separate narrative covering only recent industrial history.”
“It remains unchallenged, after a generation not by any means barren in books on industrial affairs, as the standard work on the rise and development of trade unions. It is a pity that the greater part of the section given to the railway trade unions in the new edition should be too biased to be historical.”
“A vital change is to be noted in his viewpoint. A quarter of a century ago he wrote primarily as a scholar, though from a frankly avowed moderate socialist standpoint. Now he writes, equally frankly, as an avowed political partisan, as a statesman of the Labor party. Despite all this Mr Webb’s analysis of the present labor and political conditions in Great Britain is invaluable. It is not difficult, after his bias is once known, to allow for his prejudices.” W: E. Walling
WEBLING, PEGGY. Saints and their stories. il *$5 (9c) Stokes 922
The stories of saints related in this edition de luxe are: St Christopher; St Denis; St Helena; St Alban; St George; St Nicholas; St Ambrose; St Martin; St Augustine of Hippo; St Bride; St Gregory the Great; St Augustine of Canterbury; St Etheldreda; St Swithin; St Dunstan; St Hugh of Lincoln; St Zita; St Francis of Assisi; St Catherine of Siena; St Joan of Arc. There are eight full page illustrations in color by Cayley Robinson.
“Written particularly for Catholic children, but with much in it to interest all young lovers of beautiful stories.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
“The volume’s chief value lies in the narrative of those saints not well known. The illustrations are beautiful.”
WEBSTER, HENRY KITCHELL. Mary Wollaston. *$2 (1½c) Bobbs
Two emotional situations complicate this novel. One is the triangular relationship involving Mary, her father, and Paula, her beautiful stepmother. The other grows out of the fact that Mary, while engaged in war work in New York, has had a casual love affair with a young soldier bound for overseas. Once she tries to tell her brother, but he will not listen. Again she tries to tell her father, but he refuses to believe, thinking that Mary in her innocence doesn’t know what she is talking about. Finally she flings the truth in the face of young Graham Stannard, who in asking her to marry him, persists in treating her as a whited saint. The situation is saved by Anthony March, who listens to Mary’s story, understands it and loves her none the less for it. Anthony also resolves the difficulty in the other situation. Anthony is a composer of genius and Paula is an opera singer, and there is much musical talk in the story.
“This will be pronounced immoral by some readers. The analysis of women’s thoughts and emotions is illuminating; a book that women rather than men will read.”
“Mary Wollaston and her Anthony March have discovered that ‘sentimentality is the most cruel thing in the world’; but it would be difficult to find another word for the atmosphere with which this story invests its realism of fact. That is why I for one find little health in it.” H. W. Boynton
“This novel has both the faults and the merits of its subject-matter, which is a representative cross-section of American metropolitan life in the immediate wake of the great war. It has neither faults nor merits of its own. To apply to it the canons of literary criticism would be an empty futility, for it has nothing to do with literature. It is, in three words, a competent realistic novel.” Wilson Follett
“The most interesting thing about ‘Mary Wollaston’ and the chief reason for reading it is that it is so accurately contemporary. The young generation seem to be frightening their elders in these days, and perhaps this novel will explain the fear without allaying it.” W: L. Phelps
“It is most cleverly compact and as neat as a good play in its action. But the climax lacks something of convincing the reader. ‘Mary Wollaston’ is well worth reading. And if read, it demands to be thought about. If you like stimulating novels, you cannot find a more satisfying one than Mr Webster’s latest.” E. P. Wyckoff
“One finds that the title is inappropriate. Indeed, not a few will conclude that Mary never quite attains a position of first importance.”
WEBSTER, NESTA H. French revolution; a study in democracy. *$8 Dutton 944.04
“‘The siege of the Bastille—the march on Versailles—the two invasions of the Tuileries—the massacres of September—and finally the reign of terror—these form the history of the French people throughout the revolution. The object of this book is, therefore, to relate as accurately as conflicting evidence permits, the true facts about each great crisis, to explain the motives that inspired the crowds, the means employed to rouse their passions; and thereby to throw a truer light on the role of the people, and ultimately on the revolution as the great experiment in democracy.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup Jl 24
“The method of the book is as unscientific as the conception of the problem. It was a pure waste of time to write such a book, and it is unfortunate that it was ever published, for it is attractively written, has all the earmarks of a scientific work, and may do much harm, if it finds its way into public libraries and into the hands of readers incapable of forming a correct estimate of its value.” F. M. Fling
“That there is a kernel of truth in each of these factors which fomented trouble and disorder in France, as there is at the bottom of every caricature, none will deny; but to magnify them a hundred-fold as the great cause of the revolution is to caricature, not correct, history. Mrs Webster’s volume is exceedingly interesting: it may lead historians to pay more attention to these new factors which she emphasizes.” S. B. Fay
“The book is interesting reading. A good deal of the evidence accepted by Mrs Webster is very shaky, since it consists of accounts given after the ending of the terror by men who wished to exculpate themselves at the expense of their colleagues.” B. R.
“It overstates its case in an endeavor to emphasize the dangers and the downright wickedness of revolutions and revolutionaries. It is, perhaps, too long. Certainly it is prejudiced. But it is a good piece of work, and good reading, for all that, and any account of the French revolution must reckon with it and the material on which it is based.” W. C. Abbott
“The style is fascinating, the temper sincere, and the argument (granting the hypotheses) convincing. But there are faults of method, prejudices of standpoint, and manipulations of material, which make the book not only a most biased interpretation of the French revolution but one of the most mischievous and malicious attacks on democracy that have come to our notice. The book is called ‘a study in democracy’; it is a studied insult to democracy from cover to cover.” D. S. Muzzey
“Allowing for Mrs Webster’s tenderness for that old régime, to which in other respects she is only just, she deserves our devout thanks for having shown that the French revolution was not at all a democratic movement. To a large circle of younger readers who are more and more getting their knowledge of historical events from text books and novels, this volume will prove a real delight.” M. F. Egan
“She has written an interesting and ingenious survey from her own special angle, but one can not help feeling that the angle is a somewhat narrow one.”
“Is there anything left to be said on the subject? Frankly, we thought not, and the first glance at Mrs Webster’s book seemed to confirm this opinion. Yet Mrs Webster makes good. The style of the book has no particular individuality: it is plain, straightforward and devoid of ornament. But the author is scrupulous in affording ample data for every statement made.”
“Mrs Webster, by drawing largely on Royalist and Moderate sources, supplies a much-needed corrective to the many books which glorify even the wild and wicked excesses of the revolution. Yet she goes too far in suggesting that the revolution was unnecessary and disastrous.”
“Mrs Webster’s book is full of vivacious interest, and the lines of her argument are followed through the mass of detail with an artistic skill. Her ardour communicates to the reader a desire to get close to facts. But the facts may not be the same as Mrs Webster’s, for though she has read extensively and marshalled her authorities, her use, and often her choice, of them shows how strongly she is bent on proving a case. So she does not convince us that her book is the one true history of the revolution.”
Reviewed by W. C. Abbott
WEIGALL, ARTHUR EDWARD PEARSE BROME. Madeline of the desert. *$2 (1½c) Dodd
Madeline had been born beyond the pale of respectable society at Port Said in Egypt; had grown up in ignorance of conventional morality and lived in open defiance of it until she was twenty-three. But there had been growing pains and a crisis came when she must either die or be reborn. Father Gregory—retired from ecclesiastical honors in England to a hermitage in the desert—and his nephew, Robin Beechcroft, the young explorer, help her to a rebirth. The former points her to her supreme need, Christ, the latter loves and makes her his wife. The story traces Madeline’s unfoldment as a woman, a thinker and a seer. She and Robin pass through trials, even tragedies, but it is Madeline’s fineness and clear-sightedness that at last saves the day for them both.
“Under its appearance of superficiality there is a quite unusual and remarkable understanding of the character of Madeline.” K. M.
“Mr Weigall’s novel grows weaker with the turning of pages, and there is no marvelous rising above climax after climax. Madeline, vivid at first, becomes more and more pallid as the tale progresses.”
“It is impossible to withhold from Mr Weigall a tribute of admiration for the amazing fluency and fertility of imagination which enable him to make a long story out of very scant material. Whether the story was worth making is another question.”
“The author’s vivid pictures of Egyptian life are explained by the fact that he has lived in Egypt a great deal, and has the faculty of presenting pleasingly and convincingly that which he sees. On the whole, he has presented to the world a very readable, as well as clever, book.”
WEIGLE, LUTHER ALLAN. Talks to Sunday-school teachers. *$1.25 Doran 268
“While much of the subject matter is in essence that contained in ‘The pupil and the teacher,’ it is given here in the form of delightful chatty chapters, supplementing the previous work. The book brings the same pleasure and information that often comes from the question period following a lecture. The first chapters deal with the pupil and seem to be repetition of much that has already appeared for the use of the teacher of religious education, though special mention should be made of chapter 12, ‘How religion grows.’ The last chapters are most suggestive, especially ‘Learning by doing’ and the ‘Dramatic method of teaching.’”—Springf’d Republican
“Professor Weigle is a trained pedagogue who has lost neither his enthusiasm, his love of youth, nor his sound common sense, and is excellently fitted to be the teacher of teachers that he proves himself to be by the test of his last book.”
“Written popularly and made effective for more intensive work by chapter questions and carefully chosen bibliographies.”
“The lists for further reading at the end of each chapter are excellent and quite up to date.”
WELLES, WINIFRED. Hesitant heart. *$1 Huebsch 811
Poems reprinted from the North American Review, the Century, the Liberator, Contemporary Verse and other periodicals. Among the titles are: The hesitant heart; From a Chinese vase; The unfaithful April; Driftwood; Threnody; Love song from New England; Moonflower; Surf; Setting for a fairy story.
“Miss Welles’s is an art at times as ingenuous as Emily Dickinson’s though always classical in its impeccable taste.” R. M. Weaver
“The mood of the book is April’s mood. The process by which the poems arrive at bloom is exactly the process by which April arrives at fulfilment. You can only feel the pulse of it, the subtle and mysterious thrill in it, and by that realization know without defining the loveliness of a miracle.” W. S. B.
“Like a handful of golden pollen scattered on the wind is the little book of Winifred Welles’ poems, ‘The hesitant heart.’ Simple, fresh, luminous, of the early morning, they are as whimsical as charm itself, and as reticent in their cool distinction.”
“Hers is a limited gamut, an obviously restricted range. Yet, within that range, her voice is pure, the art is skilful and the melodies exquisite. None of the younger singers has communicated with more charm her accents of soft delight mingled with a perturbed wistfulness. Even her more intense affirmations have a timid tenderness.” L: Untermeyer
“‘The hesitant heart’ is a lovely collection of fragile lyrics. Miss Welles has a deft and magical touch all her own, a slight and restrained magic, but an authentic one.”
“Miss Welles is no purveyor of novelties. She cannot be called original, or even inventive. Yet she has a magic of lyrical speech that gives the reader a sense of new delight and of a new personality in the world of lyric artists.”
“Her technique is much like that of Miss Millay, although she is not so mature as an artist. But this is not to say that Miss Welles has imitated Miss Millay. She is very much herself.”
WELLS, CAROLYN (MRS HADWIN HOUGHTON), comp. Book of humorous verse. *$7.50 Doran 827
This volume is intended for everyone of the human race who possesses the power of laughter. The compiler calls attention to the book as a compilation, not a collection, as no cover of one book could contain the latter. The poems are classified under the headings: Banter; The eternal feminine; Love and courtship; Satire; Cynicism; Epigrams; Burlesque; Bathos; Parody; Narrative; Tribute; Whimsey; Nonsense; Natural history; Juniors; Immortal stanzas. The book is indexed for authors, titles and first lines.
“As a whole. Miss Wells has done a most excellent piece of work that should be an addition to the library of every lover and maker of verse.”
“Here at last is a collection of humorous lyrics, chosen and set in order by an expert anthologist, who is also an expert humorist.” Brander Matthews
“‘The book of humorous verse’ has done in its province what Burton Stevenson’s ‘Home book of verse’ has done for all poetry.” E. L. Pearson
WELLS, CAROLYN (MRS HADWIN HOUGHTON). Raspberry jam. il *$1.60 (2½c) Lippincott
Sanford Embury is found one morning dead in bed. He was an exceptionally healthy man, and absolutely no reason can at first be discovered for his death. His proud, hot tempered wife is at once suspected, for the two had many tiffs about money matters, for although Embury was rich, it pleased his pride to give his wife no ready spending money. Detectives are called in, investigations made. No headway is gained until Fleming Stone and his irresponsible “kid” helper, Fibsy McGuire, appear on the scene. Then the mystery slowly clears, through the aid of a “spook,” a trumped up medium, a pot of raspberry jam and certain information in regard to a “human fly.” Mrs Embury is acquitted, the real murderer at once arrested, and a long delayed love comes at last into its own.
Reviewed by M. A. Hopkins
“The story stirs a lively interest in the reader.”
“As is common in detective stories of this type, Miss Wells makes considerable demands on her readers’ credulity or ignorance.”
WELLS, HERBERT GEORGE. Outline of history. 2v il *$10.50 Macmillan 909
Mr Wells’ “plain history of life and mankind” (Sub-title) is in two volumes, composed of nine books, as follows: The making of our world; The making of man; The dawn of history; Judea, Greece and India; Rise and collapse of the Roman Empire; Christianity and Islam; The great Mongol empire of the land ways and the new empires of the sea ways; The age of the great powers; The next stage in history. The work has been written with the advice and editorial help of Mr Ernest Barker, Sir H. H. Johnston, Sir E. Ray Lankester, and Professor Gilbert Murray. It is illustrated with maps, time diagrams and drawings by J. F. Horrabin.
“A history of this kind is just what is wanted at the present day. There are now sufficient scientific and historical data to make the attempt possible; it is time we had a glimpse of the wood: we have had innumerable examinations of the separate trees.”
“In praising so large a work, one must presumably begin with its arrangement. Arrangement is a negative quality, but a great one: it is the faculty of not muddling the reader, and Wells possesses it in a high degree. Selection is of course a more controversial topic, and here the critics can get going if they think it worth while. A third merit is the style. The surface of Wells’ English is poor, and he does not improve its effect when he tints it purple. But it does do its job. Arrangement, selection, style; so these make up the case for his ‘Outline,’ and it is an overwhelming case.” E. M. F.
“Now for the defects, and the first of them is a serious one. Wells’ lucidity, so satisfying when applied to peoples and periods, is somehow inadequate when individuals are thrown on to the screen. The outlines are as clear as ever, but they are not the outlines of living men. He seldom has created a character who lives and a similar failure attends his historical evocations.... Such are the defects of the book; but, as the previous article indicated, they are entirely outweighed by its great merits.” E. M. F.
“It has been a great book, finely planned, well arranged, full of vivid historical sketches and of telling raps upon the knuckles and noses of the great, but as soon as it starts for the stars its charm decreases.” E. M. F.
“The great thing which Wells has done—and it is, unqualifiedly, a very great thing—is to state the evolutionary concept of history as a continuing, growing entity, in terms readily understandable of the common man. It is not too much to call it the most potentially formative book of our day.” H. L. Pangborn
“In his entire career Mr Wells has never written a more important book than this. It is a superlatively fascinating piece of writing, in all its details and as a whole, and it proves that the best historian is the man with imagination who has created, or who is capable of creating, real literature.” E. F. Edgett
“This is the true and lasting value of the work of Wells—that he has given our world a greatest common historical denominator.” H. W. van Loon
“History as seen through the temperament of Mr Wells is novel, piquant, and entertaining. Mr Wells has no sense of time, for he discusses events in the remote past as if they were still happening. This gives vividness to his story and truthfulness, too.... With the chapter on Buddhism the ‘Outline’ reaches its high water mark. From thence on, a startling change is noticeable. And the change is for the worse. J. S. Schapiro
“There is one criticism that I should like to make. Mr Wells has written political history and overlooked economic facts.... One cannot help wishing that Mr Wells had restrained his enthusiasm a little by omitting Book 1, and thus clipping off several hundred million years from the period which he was seeking to cover. He might also have eliminated Book 2 on ‘The making of man.’ I am glad that there was someone in the English-speaking world brave enough and earnest enough and with enough leisure time to write it.” Scott Nearing
“It is eminently readable. Mr Wells could not write dull if he tried to. The first impression made by his volumes is deepened by their study. It is that Mr Wells has undertaken a task too great for his powers and equipment. Mr Wells has, of course, read widely and industriously. Yet his sources are plainly meagre. They are almost exclusively English.”
“Certain sections—the early chapters upon the origin of the earth and of man upon the earth, the part dealing with the rise and spread of Buddhism, for examples—are excellent when read by themselves.” E. L. Pearson
“Most of us think of history only in terms of the records of particular nations, races or periods. Mr Wells ventures on a far bolder conception—viewing all human history as one whole. If the work did nothing more than to fix definitely this new viewpoint it would be worth while.”
“High-school history teachers and students will read the work with profit. They certainly come more nearly being world-history than any previous work in the field.”
“It is good to take a broad view of history, and Mr Wells has done a real service to his generation by writing this entertaining ‘Outline.’ He has found a talented illustrator in Mr Horrabin, whose numerous maps and diagrams and reconstructions of extinct mammals are very attractive and helpful. There are also many photographs, well chosen and well reproduced.”
“There is room for Mr Wells’s ‘Outline of history,’ for the hand of the specialist has lain heavy on this branch of scholarship, and the books which give a bird’s-eye view of world history are few and not very accessible.”
“The ‘History’ is a remarkable one: there should be more books as readable and provocative and daring.” P. B. McDonald
“Magnificent as is the panorama which Mr Wells unfolds, the details of it are sometimes questionable.”
“Mr Wells’s work should find its way into all but the most bigoted sectarian colleges and even into the schools, as supplementary reading for both teacher and pupil.” J. H. Robinson
WELSH, JAMES C. Underworld. *$1.75 (1½c) Stokes
A story of the British coal industry by the author of “Songs of a miner.” While yet a mere boy Robert Sinclair sits up long past his bed time to listen to the talk between his father and Robert Smillie, and it is the inspiration of that remembered conversation that sends him far in the growing labor movement. Robert goes into the pit at twelve years and on that very day there is an accident in the mine that kills his father and brother and leaves him his mother’s chief support. The story pictures the hard conditions in a disorganized industry, the tyranny of the foreman and his control of the private lives of the men, and the discouraging efforts to form a union. Robert loses the girl he loves and in the end meets his father’s fate in the mine while trying to save others. His mother is left desolate and the author’s final plea is to the men to stand firm together and protect their women folk from such tragedies.
“James Welsh, the miner, has rough-hewn a rather powerful and readable tract.”
“As he commands a fluent and forcible pen, complete mastery of the dialect, and an unflinching realism in the treatment of details, his work claims attention as well as respect.”
WENDELL, BARRETT. Traditions of European literature, from Homer to Dante. *$6 Scribner 809
This book has developed from lectures given at Harvard between 1904 and 1917. The author says: “Years of dealing with Harvard students had shown me not only that Americans now know little of the literary traditions of our ancestral Europe, but also that they are seldom aware even of the little they know.” (Introd.) He adopts the point of view of “English-speaking Americans of the twentieth century of the Christian era” and concerns himself with those traditions of literature “which, we need not ask why, have chanced among ourselves to survive the times of their origin.” His task is somewhat simplified by the fact that during the period covered, from Homer to Dante, the traditions “originating in the primal European civilisation of Greece, and extending throughout imperial dominion of Rome, remained for many centuries a common possession of all Europe.” It has been possible therefore to treat the subject as a whole. This is done in five books: The traditions of Greece; The traditions of Rome; The traditions of Christianity; The traditions of Christendom; The traditions of the middle ages. Bibliographical suggestions occupy twenty-three pages and there is an index.
“Nothing brings a keener joy to the heart of a conscientious reviewer than to have in his hands to appraise and to praise a book which seems to him altogether good—worthy in theme, comprehensive in conception, shapely in plan and skillful in execution. This joy is mine now that I have read this admirable example of interpretive scholarship.” Brander Matthews
WEST, WILLIS MASON. Story of modern progress; with a preliminary survey of earlier progress. (Allyn and Bacon’s ser. of school histories) il $2 Allyn 940.2
This work is a successor to the author’s “The modern world” written with a redistribution of time to give more space and emphasis to the period since 1870. The author says, “I have taken glad advantage of the chance to write a new book, better suited, I hope, to elementary high-school students; and I have used the treatment in the ‘Modern world’ only when I have found it simpler and clearer than any change I could make today.” (Foreword) An unusual amount of space has been given to English history, while American history, which is sure of full treatment elsewhere, is omitted “except where the connection of events demands its introduction.” Contents: Introduction: a survey of earlier progress; Age of the reformation, 1520–1648; England in the seventeenth century; The age of Louis XIV and Frederick II, 1648–1789; The French revolution; Reaction, 1815–1848; England and the industrial revolution; Continental Europe, 1848–1871; England, 1815–1914; Western Europe, 1871–1914; Slav Europe to 1914; The war and the new age. There is a list of books for high schools, followed by an index and pronouncing vocabulary.
“This present ‘Story of modern progress’ is consoling in a measure, but also provoking. The writer has some straight views, then again, the three-hundred-year-old tradition enfolds him.”
“For a one-year course in modern European history there is possibly no better text on the market.”
WESTERVELT, GEORGE CONRAD, and others. Triumph of the N.C.’s. il *$3 Doubleday 629.
The N.C.’s are flying boats as distinguished from hydroaeroplanes and the present volume contains the story of their design and building and of their first achievements. In part 1 Commander G. C. Westervelt tells “How the flying boats were designed and built”—the immense number of details that had to be worked out, the numerous tests that had to be conducted, and the many troublesome features that had to be corrected. Part 2—The “lame duck” wins—is Lieut.-Commander A. C. Read’s story of the transatlantic flight of the N. C. 4. Part 3 contains the log of the N. C. 3 by Commander H. C. Richardson, who also gives an account of previous attempts at transatlantic flight.
“The story of the crossing is told in lively and readable narrative, with picturesque details and with unassuming modesty.”
WESTON, GEORGE. Mary minds her business. il *$1.75 (2½c) Dodd
Of the long line of Josiahs of the firm of Josiah Spencer & son, successful manufacturers, Mary’s father was the last. His cousin, Stanley Woodward, had long been figuring on the eventuality of Josiah’s demise, to get entire control of the business. But he had not counted on Mary. His first shock came when Mary had herself chosen president of the corporation and proceeded, with the coaching of a friendly judge and business councilor to run things for herself. And run them she did in a most revolutionary manner. She employed women to such an extent that the factory was finally worked entirely by women on a greater level of efficiency than ever. Other reforms went hand in hand—a rest room, nurseries, kindergarten, laundry, an orchestra of one hundred pieces all played by women. Of course there was fighting to do, Uncle Stanley to be over-ruled, his son Burdon to be shown his place. When the scheme was out of the woods and the most pressing suitor married off, the woman in Mary was alone and aweary and it was then that Archey Forbes, the construction engineer, came into his own.
“The light story has sometimes, under Mr Weston’s pen, developed a diaphanous quality, which has made us wonder why it was worth writing at all. Now in surprising manner Mr Weston has discovered some ideas—not very new ones perhaps, but nevertheless things of substance.”
“Brightly written, full of action, and with a love interest kept discreetly subordinate to that of the extremely efficient Mary’s management of the factory, this story also has the merit of dealing with a question which many will think has been thoroughly answered—the proper sphere of women in this age.”
WEYL, MAURICE. Happy woman. *$1.75 (2c) Kennerley
The distinctive feature of this story is its character drawing. There is Henry Hardwick, a man of decided ability but with just that grain of iron lacking in his make-up that would make him a success in his enterprises and the master of his domestic circumstance. Fred Pemberton’s efficiency, on the other hand, verges on hardness and almost wrecks his love-life, deep and true though it is. The two leading women of the tale are likewise opposites, but both in the end can claim the title. Ruth Bernstein, proud, reticent, an unusually able business woman, but feminine in the best sense when off guard, is happy when she yields to her love for Fred Pemberton. Dowdy, voluble, irresponsible Mrs Hardwick is happy when she discovers that her “gift of gab” can be put to good use in swaying and winning admiration from an audience.
“‘The happy woman’ is that rather unusual thing—a genuinely realistic novel.”
WHALE, GEORGE. British airships: past, present and future. il *$2 (4c) Lane 629.1
Without attempting a lengthy and highly technical dissertation on aerostatics the book briefly describes the main principles underlying airship construction. It then gives a general history of the development of the airship to the present day before taking up the British airship, which had been practically neglected prior to the twentieth century. The contents, with many illustrations and charts are: Early airships and their development to the present day; British airships built by private firms; British army airships; Early days of the naval airship section—Parseval airships, Astratorres type, etc.; Naval airships: the nonrigids; Naval airships: the rigids; The work of the airship in the world war; The future of airships.
“A useful account, well illustrated.”
“It is a pity that the usefulness of the book is hampered by the absence of an index.”
WHARTON, ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH.[2] In old Pennsylvania towns. il *$5 (6c) Lippincott 974.8
The author describes a motor trip thru Pennsylvania, on which Lancaster, Lebanon, Gettysburg, Carlisle, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barré, Bethlehem and other towns were visited. Philadelphia and Germantown are omitted, as too well known, for it is the author’s purpose to call attention to the quaint and unusual. The pictures show many of the interesting old Pennsylvania houses.
“The illustrations will delight all who are interested in early American architecture.” M. K. Reely
WHARTON, MRS EDITH NEWBOLD (JONES). Age of innocence. *$2 (1½c) Appleton
The milieu of the story is New York “society” in the early seventies. It describes the old aristocracy who took life “without effusion of blood,” who “dreaded scandal more than disease,” who “placed decency above courage” and who considered “nothing more ill-bred than ‘scenes.’” Newland Archer was one of the few whose vision penetrated this crust of conventionality and he fell in love with the one off-color member of the tribe just as he had engaged himself to its most perfect product. Ellen Olenska, wife of a profligate European count, had left her husband and returned to America at this critical moment and Archer hastens his marriage to May Welland before he becomes too deeply involved with Ellen. Ellen’s fine sense of honor and of human kindliness, on the other hand, holds him to his compact and puts the ocean between herself and Archer by returning to Europe. Almost thirty years later, Archer has the satisfaction of seeing his own children step out freely and joyously on the road that had been closed to him.
“The time and the scene together suit Mrs Wharton’s talent to a nicety.” K. M.
“On the book’s enduring quality it is idle to speculate. The slight theme beaten out with delicate care is the fashion of the day, and the best examples will no doubt remain. What is certain, however, is that a multitude of readers today will read with a well-justified delight this picture of New York in the ‘seventies.’” A. E. W. Mason
“As a matter of fact, the author of ‘The age of innocence’ is not the Mrs Wharton of ‘The valley of decision,’ ‘The house of mirth,’ ‘Ethan Frome’ or of any one of the several volumes of short stories with which her reputation was made. She is the Mrs Wharton—with some of her skill and much of her knowledge of life remaining—of a new era that demands yellow pages in its fiction as well as yellow newspapers in its journalism. Until she becomes again the Mrs Wharton of a decade ago, she certainly cannot maintain her once high place among the novelists of today.” E. F. Edgett
“One must occasionally be grateful in a day devoted, on the one hand, to detail, and on the other to a futuristic sketchiness, for a literary gift as serene as Mrs Wharton’s. Her new novel, ‘The age of innocence,’ is the perfect fruit of an austere and disciplined art.” L. M. R.
“The interest of the story lies, not with the doings of the rather wooden characters of the book, but with the picture it purports to give of New York some fifty years ago. Here the author is clearly at fault in portraying a society of such portentous dullness and also in representing the town as devoid of anything else. The book is full of anachronisms which are sure to be noticed by old New-Yorkers.”
“‘The age of innocence’ is a masterly achievement. In lonely contrast to almost all the novelists who write about fashionable New York, she knows her world. In lonely contrast to the many who write about what they know without understanding it or interpreting it, she brings a superbly critical disposition to arrange her knowledge in significant forms.” C. V. D.
“Someone told me that ‘The age of innocence’ was ‘a dull book about New York society in the seventies.’ This is amusing. It is, undoubtedly, a quiet book, and quietness is dullness to the jazz-minded. It is really a book of unsparing perception and essential passionateness, full of necessary reserve, but at the same time full of verity.” F. H.
“Mrs Wharton’s story-telling method is precise and neat, and it is her own. What surprises us, however, in ‘The age of innocence’ is the pervasive glint of oblique criticism that dazzles our eyes from almost every page. And that criticism is no wise lessened because it happens to be leveled against New York society of the ’70s. Is New York, or America, so different in the year 1920?” Pierre Loving
“A fine novel, beautifully written, ‘big’ in the best sense, which has nothing to do with size, a credit to American literature—for if its author is cosmopolitan, her novel, as much as ‘Ethan Frome,’ is a fruit of our soil.” H: S. Canby
“By the side of the absolute mastery of plot, character and style displayed in her latest novel, ‘The house of mirth’ seems almost crude. Edith Wharton is a writer who brings glory on the name America, and this is her best book. It is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and looks like a permanent addition to literature.” W: L. Phelps
“Mrs Wharton’s new novel is in workmanship equal to her very best previous work. In its adequate dealing with a large motif this is a book of far more than ephemeral value.” R. D. Townsend
“The plot is unobvious, delicately developed, with a fine finale that exquisitely satisfies one’s sense of fitness, and as always with Mrs Wharton, the drama of character is greater than that of event. One revels recognizingly in her clean-cut distinction of style, the inerrant aptness of adjectives, the vivisective phrase.” Katharine Perry
“The limitations of the present note on Mrs Wharton’s new story may be revealed by the confession that the annotator’s delight in it as a picture is greatly tempered by his distrust of its leading male figure. I don’t much like this Newland Archer, and I don’t quite believe in his existence; and this doubt curdles my faith in the integrity of the story as a whole.” H. W. Boynton
“From a literary point of view, this story is on a level with Mrs Wharton’s best work. As a retrospect of the early ‘seventies, it is less satisfactory, being marred by numerous historical lapses.”
“The picture is so finished, so convincing, and withal so entertaining, that the study of these pages is recommended to all students of manners.”
“The greatest defect in the book is that of the character of Ellen, whom her creator constantly asserts to be charming, but who does not in the least produce that effect on the reader.” Lilian Whiting
“Altogether Mrs Wharton has accomplished one of the best pieces of her work so far. As for her picture of the times, how is any of us over here to criticize it, beyond saying that it is full of vivacity and of character and of colour, and that there is not a point in it which seems to be false?”
“This theme, the contrast of times and manners, dealt with in some of her short stories, is one Mrs Wharton handles with skill.”
WHARTON, MRS EDITH NEWBOLD (JONES). In Morocco. il *$4 Scribner 916.4
“In 1918 Mrs Wharton, under the guidance of a French military mission, in a French army motor, spent a month traveling in Morocco. Her account of her travels in a country without a guide book is for the benefit of the travelers who she feels sure will flood the land when the war is over. All the properties of an Arabian Nights tale are here.” (Nation) “In the space of one month a military automobile carried her from Tangier to Marrakech, from Rabat to Fez. She entered the sacred city of Moulay Idriss, the surviving stronghold of the Idrissite rule; she walked the streets of ancient Salé, the ‘Phoenician counting house and breeder of Barbary pirates’; she examined the ruins of Volubilis, the African outpost of the Roman legions; and she enjoyed the hospitality of his Majesty the Sultan Moulay Youssef and his favorites in ‘the happiest harem in Morocco.’” (N Y Times)
“Edith Wharton’s ‘In Morocco’ is a model of restrained and rounded prose, as well as a vivid picture of oriental richness.” Margaret Ashmun
“‘In Morocco’ adds another swiftly-told, graceful, vivid, and yet informative travel book to Mrs Wharton’s globe-trotting shelf.”
“The best thing a returned traveler can do is to give you not facts but atmosphere. Edith Wharton in ‘In Morocco’ does this for you excellently well, partly because she is so impersonal, never intruding her own reactions, simply bringing up the scene around you with all its blinding sunlight, desert heat and vivid colors.”
Reviewed by Irita Van Doren
“The combination of authenticated facts and illuminating comment makes her book fascinating.”
“The publication of ‘In Morocco,’ by Mrs Wharton, is practically simultaneous with that of her most recent novel, ‘The age of innocence.’ Both of these books add security to their author’s position as one of the foremost contemporary writers of English prose. Never before has Mrs Wharton enjoyed so ideal an opportunity to display her gifts of colorful description as she does in this volume.” B. R. Redman
“Nothing seen by her sensitive, unsparing eye is omitted, and her nervous style never fails to convey the effect at which she aims.”
“The duration of her visit—one month—was fortunately too short for her to carry out her intention of writing a guide-book. One writes ‘fortunately,’ for her book would have lost in broad suggestiveness far more than it would have gained from precision in detail. With her knowledge of other countries and peoples, her sensitiveness, her gift of vivid description, and her unobtruded skill in ordered presentation, she does more than one would have thought possible to convey what was suddenly revealed to her eyes to those who will never see it with their own.”
WHEAT, GEORGE SEAY, ed.[2] Municipal landing fields and air ports. il *$1.75 Putnam 629.1
The book is a compilation with chapters by the chief of the army air service, General Menoher, the director of naval aviation Captain Craven and their officers in charge of landing field operations. The most acute and immediate problem now facing commercial aeronautics is the need for flying routes and landing fields. It is the object of the book to present all that this involves in concrete form. Besides illustrations, diagrams, a map and an appendix containing a list of landing fields on file in the office of the chief of air service, the contents are: The need for landing fields; The present plight of flight; How to construct a field; Aircraft hangers; Aerial routes; Naval air ports; Airplanes and seaplanes.
WHEELER, EVERETT PEPPERRELL. Lawyer’s study of the Bible; its answer to the questions of today. *$1.50 Revell
“Mr Wheeler’s book is really a study of life, and he uses the Bible in interpreting life. His chapter titles indicate this characteristic of his volume: they are such as The presence of God in the soul of man; Prayer; Socialism; War; Labor, capital, and strikes; Immortality. Incidentally he asks what light does the Bible throw on these problems?”—Outlook
“Perhaps the most important feature for the average reader is the adaptation of legal procedure into rules for the study of the Bible.”
WHIBLEY, CHARLES. Literary studies. *$3 Macmillan 820.4
“Five of these eight studies are from the ‘Cambridge history of English literature.’ They deal with phases of literature in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries. The others are on Rogues and vagabonds of Shakespeare’s time (a chapter in ‘Shakespeare’s England,’ 1916), Sir Walter Raleigh (from Blackwood’s), and Jonathan Swift, a Leslie Stephen lecture at Cambridge, 1917.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup N 13 ’19
“Mr Whibley is as readable as ever.”
“He has the first requisite of a critic: interest in his subject, and ability to communicate an interest in it. His defects are both of intellect and feeling. He has no dissociative faculty. There were very definite vices and definite shortcomings and immaturities in the literature he admires; and as he is not the person to tell us of the vices and shortcomings, he is not the person to lay before us the work of absolutely the finest quality.” T. S. E.
Reviewed by Augustine Birrell
“Mr Whibley, by being included among the journalists, dignifies journalism. His way is not that of the headline, nor are his literary manners those of the siren in a fog—a not unfair description of much that appears in the journal to which he is a weekly contributor it?) acquired the habit of writing for the sake of filling a column.”
“It is very convenient to have these essays detached from the larger volumes in which they first appeared. Here they express the author’s own mind, they support and answer one another, not dressed and drilled by an editor in company not of their own choice. Here there is harmony among them.”
WHIPPLE, GUY MONTROSE. Classes for gifted children. (School and home education monographs) $1.25 Public-school 371.9
Detailed account of an experiment successfully carried out in the year 1917 in the public school of Urbana, Illinois, consisting of selecting and training especially gifted, or super-average children. Fifteen pupils from the fifth grade, also fifteen from the sixth, constituted the special class. Of these thirty, it was found eight had been wrongly selected as gifted. The remaining twenty-two completed a two years’ course in one, without forcing or fatigue, in addition to gaining certain cultural advantages. Through tests applied, and results observed, a more reliable standard of selecting children than that of teachers’ marks was evolved. The book includes an analytical study of talent in drawing, with an annotated bibliography, and it closes with a partial bibliography on gifted children and education. Dr Whipple, formerly professor of education, University of Illinois, is at present professor of applied psychology, Carnegie institute of technology.
WHITAKER, ALBERT CONSER. Foreign exchange. *$5 (2c) Appleton 332.4
The book, the author suggests, will serve the double purpose of a practical business manual, and a treatise in economics. “Stated briefly, the subjects of study in this volume are the methods or proceedings and the forms or documents of foreign-trade settlement, banking, and financing. Belonging with these, the international movement of gold and the measures taken to influence it are examined at length.” (Preface) A partial list of the contents is: Means of payment and commercial paper; The negotiability of commercial paper; Discount and interest; Commercial banking; The rates of exchange; The bank credit and letter of credit; Foreign money market factors; Speculation in exchange; The mint price and the market price of gold; Standard money; Monetary systems of the leading nations; Specie shipments; Addendum and index.
“This volume is probably in many ways the most satisfactory that has appeared up to the present time on foreign exchange.” M. J. Shugrue
WHITAKER, CHARLES HARRIS. Joke about housing. *$2 Jones, Marshall 331.83
Housing is here treated as a problem of land values. The remedy for present conditions is “for the state to put an end to the frightful waste involved in our present riotous development of land, and thus make the house a stable element of our national life, free from the destructive effects of speculation in land which forces speculation in building and which always brings communal disaster in its train.” The subject is discussed in seven chapters: Why do we have houses? The house and the home—a world program; Houses and wages; The employer and the housing question; The two plants; What are the possible ways out of the dilemma in housing? The general problem of land control. In the appendixes two prize essays on the solution of the housing problem are reprinted. The author is editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects.
“The style in which the book is written should make this book one of the most popular works on housing. Like all books devoted to the presentation and emphasis of one fundamental idea the work suffers from lack of perspective in so far as its use as a work upon which a thoroughly constructive housing program could be built.” Carol Aronovici
Reviewed by L: Mumford
“Some will no doubt assert that he lays too much stress upon the idea that the solution hangs upon the disallowance of speculation in land. Possibly this single subject is over stressed. But relative emphasis is a matter of little importance. What is of importance is that the subject of land and profit and speculative adventuring has been intimately connected with housing in the sense of cause and effect. The importance of this change of base, so to speak, in approaching the problem can not be overrated.” F. L. A.
“The book is written from a full heart and with sympathetic understanding for the aspirations of common folks; it is one of the most readable tracts from the ‘left wing’ of the housing movement that we have seen.” B. L.
WHITE, BENJAMIN.[2] Gold, its place in the economy of mankind. il $1 Pitman 669.2
In the volume of the Common commodities and industries series devoted to gold, chapters take up: Its appreciation—ancient and modern; Its properties and distribution; The production of early times; The production of the nineteenth century; Present production and prospects; The evolution of British coinage; The mintage of the world; The gold standard; The movements of gold; Stocks; Industrial use; Gold and the great war. There are illustrations, tables, an index and a brief list of works consulted.
“The tables should be of interest to students of commercial geography and economics.”
WHITE, BENJAMIN. Silver, its intimate association with the daily life of man. il $1 Pitman 669.2
In this volume of Pitman’s common commodities and industries the author treats his subject under three heads; Production; Industrial consumption; Utility as money, past and future. There are several illustrations and tables and two folding charts. Some of the tables are based on the annual reports of the director of the United States mint. There is an index.
“Contains much of service to teachers and students.”
WHITE, MRS GRACE (MILLER). Storm country Polly. il *$1.75 (2c) Little
The scene of the story is a squatter colony on the shores of Lake Cayuga. The colony is known as Silent City and Jeremiah Hopkins is its unofficial mayor. His daughter Polly is the story’s heroine. Polly, the one person in Evelyn Robertson’s confidence, knows the story of Evelyn’s secret marriage to Oscar Bennett. Evelyn desires release, for she is now in love with Marc MacKenzie, the man making war on the squatters, and Bennett will grant it only on condition that Polly agrees to marry him. And Evelyn, who might intercede with MacKenzie, promises to do so if Polly will pay the price, but Polly cannot, for she is in love with Robert Percival, Evelyn’s cousin. Marc carries out his threats. Daddy Hopkins is sent to jail, wee Jerry is torn from Polly’s arms and her love is turned to hate. But not for long and love triumphs all round in the end.
“A more apt title for the book would have been ‘Storm country Pollyanna,’ for the leading figure in the novel is so good that it almost hurts to think of her. In spite of the archaic construction and material of the story, it manages to sustain a certain amount of interest.”
WHITE, SAMUEL ALEXANDER. Ambush. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday
In the days when the Hudson’s Bay company, north of Lake Superior, is fighting two rival fur trading companies, Paul Carlisle is factor of one of their most important posts. In addition to his never-ending disturbances with the Free traders and the Northwest Fur company, his position is further complicated by the fact that he is in love with Joan Wayne, daughter of the Free trader’s chief. And as if being his business rival were not enough, Ralph Wayne is in addition Paul’s bitter personal enemy, for a reason which Paul at first can not understand. But the cause of this enmity is made clear to him presently by Richelieu, the third party in this three-cornered rivalry, the manager of the Northwest Fur company, and also in love with Joan. Eventually Paul wins out both in business and love, after a series of exciting and dramatic events.
WHITE, SAMUEL ALEXANDER. Foaming fore shore. il *$1.50 (2½c) Doubleday
A tale of the sea. Cap’n Walter Taylor is a fisherman in Newfoundland waters, but becomes a fugitive as the result of breaking some of the fishing regulations. He takes refuge in the Magdalen Islands and there finds Madeline Boucher, with whom he speedily falls in love. But Jacques Beauport, his hereditary enemy, as his father before him had hated him, has been on the field first, and considers Madeline engaged to him. He seeks Taylor out to return him to justice, but Taylor has no idea of tamely submitting to this, and the chase grows exciting before its finish. Finally a decision of the Hague tribunal puts Taylor in the right, but not before Beauport has lost his life in his spiteful attempt to make Taylor suffer. The story is full of descriptions of fishing and sailing in the turbulent northern waters.
WHITE, STEWART EDWARD. Killer. il *$1.75 (1c) Doubleday
“The killer,” which opens this collection, is a story of novelette length. It is a story of the old West with a central character whose malignity and propensity for killing extends even to birds and insects. He never kills men, but has only to nod to one of his Mexican servitors and the desired deed is accomplished. How a reckless young cowboy took a dare and asked for a night’s lodging at his ranch and what followed form the substance of the story. Two shorter tales, The road agent and The tide, come next and the remainder of the book is taken up with three descriptive essays reminiscent of Mr White’s earlier work in “The forest.” The titles are: Climbing for goats; Moisture, a trace; The ranch.
“‘The killer,’ the first story in Stewart Edward White’s new book, is crammed with action, exciting, unexpected, mysterious; in the last story, ‘The ranch,’ nothing happens at all and yet the chances are that you will read them both with interest and joy. The moral of which of course is that the important thing about a tale is the way you tell it.”
“The essays in the volume are entirely delightful.”
“Mr White knows the old land of the cowboys, desert, ranches, and border raiding settlements as do few writers of the present day.”
“Mr White belongs to the school of American literature which has been more popular than any other in this country principally because we ourselves have nothing similar to it. From the point of view of construction his stories are, as he himself allows, irregular, but for sheer gustiness they are hard to equal.”
WHITE, STEWART EDWARD. Rose dawn. *$1.90 (1c) Doubleday
This novel follows “Gold” and “The grey dawn” and completes Mr White’s California trilogy. It is a story of the transition period of the eighties when the great ranchos of the cattle era began to give place to irrigation and the small fruit farm, and pictures the land boom that heralded the change. It opens with a fiesta at Corona del Monte, the rancho of Colonel Peyton, an old time Californian, who with his wife, Allie, dispenses hospitality to all comers with the high-handed manners of the old days. Other characters are Brainerd, the easterner who experiments with irrigation on a small scale, foreseeing the future of the country from a scientific point of view, and Patrick Boyd, who recognizes its financial future. The romance of the story develops between Daphne Brainerd and Kenneth Boyd, and the plot turns on the rallying of all the colonel’s friends, including Sing Toy, his cook, to save Corona del Monte. The story ran as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post.
“Mr White has always written good books, but he has never written as good a novel as ‘The rose dawn.’ Incidentally it is by far the best of his California trilogy.” G. M. H.
“The book is written by one who loves to write. We have the leisurely style of the Victorians. The writer goes into byways of description and character drawing, forcing us to his mood. In the art of description he is unusually gifted. One could not imagine this book dramatized, the action is of so little importance. The story, nevertheless, is delightful.”
“In this sequel to ‘Gold’ and ‘The grey dawn,’ there is all the charm, scenic coloring and clean-cut delineation of character which distinguished the earlier works.”
“With much to commend it as narrative and as descriptive of California, ‘The rose dawn’ is an addition to the White novels that many readers will welcome.”
WHITE, WILLIAM ALANSON. Thoughts of a psychiatrist on the war and after. $1.75 Hoeber 940.3
“The author sees in the social upheavals incident to the war and after merely a reflection on a huge and unprecedented scale of the phenomena which the psychiatrist encounters daily in frustrated individual lives. It is because of this that he endeavors to apply some of the psychological principles which have been found to be of help in adjusting individual lives for the purpose of a better understanding of the changes that have come with the war and as an aid to their adjustment.”—Survey
“The brevity of the book will make it difficult for readers unacquainted with psychoanalytic literature. If it leads some of these into the more extended discussions of the psychology of war it will accomplish what doubtless was the purpose of the author.” E. R. Groves
Reviewed by A. R. Hale
“The psychiatrist adds his hope to the hopes of the advocates of a league of nations that shall make it possible to outgrow war, as men in socialized communities have outgrown their older, cruder ways. Such a confirmation of our political hopes by scientific analysis is encouraging; and Dr White maintains his thesis with skill and interest.”
“The book is an interesting contribution to individual and social psychology and is written with the lucidity characteristic of the author. It ought to prove of considerable help to those interested in the problems of individual and social maladjustment.” Bernard Glueck
WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON. Hidden trails. il *$1.90 (1½c) Doubleday
This tale starts merrily with two wild west killings before the twentieth page, and whiskey and shots follow one another briskly thruout the book. Johnny Ramsay, “an impulsive young man of uncertain temper,” is the hero. He undertakes to earn the reward offered for the capture of the bandits who are making the life of Sunset county exciting at the time. He has two pals in partnership with him in his private detective work, Racey Dawson and Telescope Laguerre, but to Johnny belongs most of the credit. The bandits prove to be a large band, and it is no easy job to round them all up, but Johnny very nearly accomplishes it. His life is not always safe; once he comes perilously near being lynched, but thanks to a girl, he is spared. The tale is certainly not lacking in adventure, with a dash of romance added.
“There is a clever, though somewhat involved plot which keeps the reader guessing. The dialect and style seem crude in spots. On the order of ‘The Virginian,’ though not so well done.”
“Though the story possesses a definite human appeal, is entertaining, and contains several suggestive bits of landscape description, it is not done with deftness or a sure touch.” L. B.
“It shows so firm a touch, such sure and skillful handling of materials and so good an eye for local color that it bespeaks for Mr White a cordial welcome to the realms of authorship and gives hopeful promise of his future work.”
WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON. Lynch lawyers. il *$1.75 (1½c) Little
A story of the wild West opening with a stage coach robbery. The occurrence is one of a chain of daring deeds and, much to the discomfort of Red Kane, the evidence seems to point to a recently arrived “nester,” Ben Lorimer. At first sight Red had fallen hopelessly in love with Lorimer’s daughter Dot and he knows that a man who takes a stand against her father will have no chance with the girl. He protects the father from a lynching mob, is shot and nursed back to health by the girl. Eventually after much action and many complications the mystery of Lorimer’s past is cleared away and all ends well.
“The story as a whole is a masterpiece of remarkable conversation, and excellent descriptions.”
“Written along thoroughly familiar lines, the story is considerably longer and very much slower in movement than are the majority of such tales. The book contains a fair amount of bloodshed, and gunplay enough to satisfy the most exacting.”
“A cowboy story with wild excitement in every chapter and a strong touch of romance to offset the sensationalism.”
WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON.[2] Paradise Bend. il *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
A story with all the features of the western thriller. Tom Loudon is in love with Kate Saltoun, his employer’s daughter and when he learns that she is engaged to Sam Blakely he throws up his job and leaves. He had long suspected that Blakely is responsible for the frequent disappearances of cattle, but “Old Salt” had refused to believe his neighbor guilty and Kate sides with her father. With Tom’s departure for Paradise Bend Blakely manages to throw the blame on him and he narrowly escapes arrest and lynching. Sudden death lies in wait and is averted in countless other forms before the story closes, with the villains receiving their just deserts and the lovers happy.
“Nothing in this book distinguishes it from the crops of mediocre western novels which glut the market year after year and which all seem to be made according to a standard recipe.”
“What ‘Paradise Bend’ lacks in literary finish and pretensions to intellectual pabulum it replaces with a plenitude of skill in construction and dialogue.”
WHITEHOUSE, VIRA (BOARMAN) (MRS NORMAN DE R. WHITEHOUSE). Year as a government agent. il *$3 (4c) Harper 940.48
When our country entered the war Mrs Whitehouse was appointed by George Creel as representative for Switzerland of the Committee on public information. Her duties were to give every possible publicity to American news through the press, through special articles and pamphlets and motion-picture reels. The book is an accurate, honest account of her experiences, throwing interesting sidelights on diplomacy open and otherwise. Not until the difficulties she encountered in the American legation at Berne drove her to abandon her undertaking and return to America, did she in her second attempt succeed in breaking through the diplomatic armor plate and in gaining a foothold for her work. The contents are: My appointment; Diplomatic methods; The vanishing news service; Apparent defeat; To America and back; At work; Success under difficulties; One thing after another; Swiss problems; The approaching end; Grief and adventure; Strife and confusion; The end of the year. There are illustrations and appendices containing the correspondence and cablegrams between Washington and the American legation on the one hand and Mrs Whitehouse on the other.
“She writes of important international work from an agreeably personal angle.”
“Our conviction that her story is essentially true is not only because of her own definiteness and of the evidence the older diplomatic tradition gives about itself in the appendix, but also because of our general experience throughout the reign of war psychology. Mrs Whitehouse has the gift of taking the reader along with her in her adventure.” Edith Borie
“Aside from its historical interest, the book has fascination as a narrative, for Mrs Whitehouse possesses the very great gift of unconsciousness. The story runs as simply as though she were telling it over a table, and there is a delightful, if somewhat caustic, vein of humor that gives color to the whole.” G: Creel
“A reading of her book, interesting as it is, leaves one in doubt as to whether it is an apologia or a suffrage tract. Further, it exposes again the error of creating an extra-legal government department, the Committee on public information, with authority to act abroad in matters of foreign policy independently of the Department of state.”
“Besides being a woman of invincible courage and executive ability, as her work in Switzerland proved, Mrs Whitehouse shows in her book that she has a sense of humor and pleasing ability as a writer.”
“In a delightfully straightforward style Mrs Whitehouse has told the story of her work in Switzerland.”
WHITELEY, OPAL STANLEY. Story of Opal (Eng title, Diary of Opal Whiteley). il $2 (2c) Atlantic monthly press
This “Journal of an understanding heart” (Sub-title) is the diary of an orphan, brought up in a lumber camp, and is ascribed to the end of her sixth and to her seventh year. Before her adoption by strange people she evidently had a careful bringing up and careful instruction from a loving mother, as the outpourings of her childish heart and bits of her history reveal. The records are remarkable for the deep and loving insight into nature and the child’s communion with animal and plant life, which they reveal. Parts of the diary have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.
“We have no space to pursue our analysis into details. An amateur Sherlock Holmes will find much of interest in this volume. For instance, is the vocabulary consistent? Is the idiom consistent? Is the ignorance consistent? For the rest, and in spite of Earl Grey’s ‘sheer delight’ in the book, we find it flat, dreary, utterly uninteresting, a reductio ad absurdum of, as we have hinted, the American sentimental novel.” J. W. N. S.
“Nature lovers and lovers of childhood especially will be delighted by it.”
“The truest thing about the journal to my own mind is its truth of emotion—it is the absolute record of a child’s emotion.” A. C. Moore
“Completely delightful book.” C. H. O.
“That it is a beautiful and touching and piercingly honest revelation of an imaginative child’s spirit seems to me evident beyond cavil.” Christopher Morley
“The question asked with regard to ‘The young visiters’ is being repeated in connection with the present book—‘Could a child really write it?’ Only a child could have written ‘The story of Opal.’ No adult could put into language such innocent and spontaneous grace combined with such freshness of perception.” Marguerite Wilkinson
“If ever the word unique is appropriate to a literary production, certainly it is here. The reader sometimes tires of the singular manner and strange expressions in the diary, but he never fails to feel the genuine fineness and charm of Opal’s love for animals and trees and all of out-of-doors, and her sweetness and affection toward the few human beings who responded to her appeal.”
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
“The book is so incessantly sentimental as to be very tiresome reading to most English people—Americans seem to have stronger stomachs. Again, the inverted style is tedious—almost perhaps as tedious as the humour.”
“The style of the diary is irresistible. Full of quaint phrases, unconscious humor, the profound philosophies of childhood, the sentences move along in solemn, yet sparkling procession.”
“It is not safe to dogmatize upon the limits of precocity, but the hand at work in many passages is prima facie not that of the six-year-old, but of the more mature professional humorist. Whatever be the solution, the main interest of the book is its vitality of imagination and its pregnancy of issues bearing upon child life remains unaffected.”
“We may say without absurdity that the child has a style. And it reaches, particularly towards the end of the diary, a rare poetic suggestiveness. We hope that Opal Whiteley will write the other books she planned in childhood, but we do not expect them to be like this book; it is one of those inspirations which can seldom be repeated.”
WHITHAM, G. I. St John of Honeylea. *$1.75 (1½c) Lane
When Evelyn St John was ten he was left an orphan in the keeping of a hard aunt. Of his father’s family he knew nothing. By force of character and personal charm he holds his own, makes friends and achieves a sheep farm at the Cape, when at the age of thirty he falls heir to the ancestral estate of the St John’s, Honeylea, in the south of England. In reality he had inherited much more: dark mysteries, a curse and the hatred and suspicions of a neighborhood. Honeylea had once been abbey land, had been wrested from the monks, who still haunted the woods where they had been murdered and had cursed the place. What became the banqueting hall of Honeylea had once been a church and all the St Johns had come to grief—the curse and their own pride being their undoing. The modern skepticism and moral courage of the present St John struggles bravely against the atmosphere and hidden malignity of the place which he loves for its beauty. Not until he has learned to pray as a last refuge from despair and the house is burned, is the curse lifted and fortune in love returns to a St John.
“A very good bit of character work, an intensely absorbing story, this will appeal equally to those who love realistic tales of today, and to the fortunate folk who are made happy by medieval legends of days of old. For the book has both.”
“Those who read ‘Mr Manley’ will not need to be told that G. I. Whitham knows how to write an interesting story. And ‘St John of Honeylea’ is an improvement on her earlier book, more convincing and better written, to say nothing of its possession of an unusually romantic and picturesque atmosphere.”
“It is a good book, and many interesting people are to be met in it; not the least of whom are two who live only in the descriptions of the neighbours who have known them, ‘Uncle Charles,’ and his nephew and successor Cecil, the two last owners of the house. They are perhaps more distinctly drawn than any of the actual characters of the story.”
“The subject sounds familiar, but Mr Whitham has treated it in an original way.”
WHITIN, CORA BERRY. Wounded words. *$1 Four seas co. 793
A little book of rhymed charades designed by the author for the entertainment of convalescent soldiers. At the end a key is provided by which answers may be tested.
“Mrs Whitin has been more concerned with ingenuity of expression than with Tennysonian polish of her verses.”
WHITING, GERTRUDE. Lace guide for makers and collectors. il *$15 Dutton 746
“While this is a book which few people would enjoy for leisure reading, it represents the work of years of careful study of a subject which is nearest and dearest to the author’s heart. The work was produced, with the cooperation of lace experts of the Metropolitan museum for the guidance of students, makers, collectors and classifiers of bobbin laces. The author explains in detail the general rules for making various laces. These rules are expanded to include all variations from the simple grounds to the most complex stitches of many patterns of laces.” (Springf’d Republican) “The book is profusely illustrated with plates giving key designs, with accompanying directions to show students of lace how certain meshes are woven, to aid those planning to produce lace, and to assist classifiers and collectors in identifying laces. The book also contains a bibliography and lace nomenclature in five languages.” (Nation)
“There is an increasing interest in lacemaking and lace collecting in this country, and Miss Whiting’s thorough technical knowledge as imparted in this book will do much to foster the movement.”
“The author has undertaken an arduous task, which she accomplishes with seeming ease. The explanations are made yet more valuable by the excellent photographs.”
WHITING, JOHN D. Practical illustration; a guide for artists. il *$3 Harper 741
The book deals with the problems peculiar to the work of the illustrator and the commercial designer and proposes to acquaint him with actual conditions in the publishing world. It is offered as a textbook for the teacher of “applied art” and a guide to the student. It is indexed and profusely illustrated—many of the plates in color—and the contents are: Looking over the field; Pictorial art for reproduction; Concerning illustrations; Concerning cover designs; Concerning commercial designs; Filling “rush orders”; Mechanical reproduction; Processes in color; Some concrete examples; The published art of tomorrow.
WHITLATCH, MARSHALL. Golf; for beginners—and others. il *$2 (4c) Macmillan 796
The author had disdained golf as a mollycoddle game but when he tried it, it hit him hard. He spent much time—wasted it—copying the style of professional experts, till he came to the conclusion that—barring a few fundamentals—it is an individual game for which each player must develop his own method. The object of the book is to call attention to the fundamental principles that must be observed under every form or method. The book is well illustrated and some of the chapter headings are: Balance the foundation of golf; Getting the power into the ball; Accuracy—not distance; Making the swing; Ease rather than effort; The part the body plays; On the putting green.
“There is little advice in it which may not be found in other books of its kind, but Mr Whitlatch has suited his instructions particularly to the man who takes up golf in middle age with the handicap that his years force upon him. The illustrations are rather more radical than the text.”
WHITMAN, ROGER BRADBURY.[2] Tractor principles. il *$2 Appleton 621.14
Tractors are far from being as standardized as automobiles and there are almost as many types and designs as there are tractor makers. A man competent to handle and care for one type may be at a loss as to how to handle another. The purpose of the book is to describe and explain all the mechanisms in common use so that anyone may be able to identify and understand the parts of any make. The contents are: Tractor principles; Engine principles; Engine parts; Fuels and carburetion; Carbureters; Ignition; Battery ignition systems; Transmission; Tractor arrangement; Lubrication; Tractor operation; Engine maintenance; Locating trouble; Causes of trouble. The book is indexed and carefully illustrated.
WHITMAN, WALT.[2] Gathering of the forces. il 2v *$15 Putnam 814
The books contain the editorials, essays, literary and dramatic reviews and other material written by Walt Whitman as editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846 and 1847. The editors of the collection are Cleveland Rodgers and John Black, the latter contributing a foreword, inspired by the spirit of Whitman, and the former a sketch of Whitman’s life and work. The contents fall into seven parts with classification of the articles as follows: Part 1—Democracy: American democracy; Europe and America; Government; Patriotism. Part 2—Humanity: Hanging, prison reform, unfortunates; Education, children; Labor, female labor; Emigrants; England’s oppression of Ireland. Part 3—Slavery and the Mexican war: The extension of slavery; The union of states; War with Mexico; The Oregon boundary dispute. Part 4—Politics; Political controversies; Two local political campaigns; Civic interests; Free trade and the currency system. Part 5—Essays, personalities, short editorials; General essays; Personalities of the time; “The art of health”; Short editorials; Whitman as a paragrapher. Part 6—Literature, book reviews, drama, etc. Part 7—Two short stories not included in Whitman’s published works: The love of Eris; A legend of life and love. The books are illustrated and indexed.
Reviewed by E. F. Edgett
“To those who knew him only by his great and minor poems or by the stories of his vanities and eccentricities, these volumes will be a revelation. They reveal his soul as it grew; and nothing will be more surprising than their conventional form, their respect for the current conventions of morality, and their unforced and clear style.” M. F. Egan
“It is a human document, a great side-light on Whitman’s poems, and incidentally, a mine of information on a host of matters of temporary and local interest.” F: T. Cooper
WHO was who. *$6.50 Macmillan 920
“This book fills the gap between the standard biographical dictionaries and the current Who’s who. It contains the notices, reprinted from former volumes of Who’s who, of those more or less well-known persons who died between 1897 and 1916, with the dates of their deaths. It runs to nearly eight hundred pages of small type.”—Spec
“There is no reason why ‘Who was who’ should not be a democratic work instead of what it is now. There is even no reason why it should not be readable. Accidental exclusion must always occur; deliberate ought never. We commend to the editors the ‘Modern English biography’ of Frederic Boase, as a model of hard fact, of brevity, and yet of amplitude. At the same time, we recognize the greatness of their task and the great usefulness (in the right quarter) of their volume.”
Reviewed by Ralph Bergengren
“As a work of reference it will be found exceedingly useful, all the more because many of the persons named will never figure in the ‘Dictionary of national biography’ if, as we hope, that great work should be continued.”
“Apart from its utility as an indispensable book of reference for the man of affairs, ‘Who was who’ will remain as a permanent store house of information about the personalities of one of the most important and critical epochs of British history.”
WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER). Boardwalk. *$1.60 (3½c) Harcourt
Omitting all the rose-garden atmosphere of her novels, Margaret Widdemer has written a series of short stories about boys and girls of high school age. The scene is one of the summer resort towns along the Atlantic coast during the months of the year when the boardwalk belongs to the young people who live there the year round. The titles are: Changeling; Rosabel Paradise; Don Andrews’ girl; Black magic; The congregation; The fairyland heart; Good times; Oh, Mr Dreamman; Devil’s hall.
“Clear cut, interesting little sketches into which the same people step again and again until one knows quite the whole village.”
“We must admit of them all that they piece together with their small tragedies and happinesses into what seems a very truthful representation of an American town. Whether or not these stories meet with the immediate popularity of ‘The rose garden husband,’ it must be conceded that Miss Widdemer has done a more difficult thing and revealed a more mature and a surer art.” D. L. M.
“It is a sordid, tawdry, unwholesome atmosphere, the sort of atmosphere that one would shun if the ideas back of the stories and their psychology, for they are primarily stories of character, were not really interesting. Is the skill with which it is done a sufficient excuse for painting dead fish and tinsel?”
“Her delving into the substrata of inarticulate being is sometimes faltering, and her presentation of the less obvious springs of human emotion is not always convincing, but her distinct penchant for transferring to paper the elusive quality of personality is undeniable.”
“On the whole, it is a strong and searching collection.”
WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER), comp. Haunted hour. *$1.75 Harcourt 821.08
The little volume presents an anthology of ghost-poems and contains only such poems as treat of the return of spirits to earth. Even so no attempt has been made at inclusiveness, but the selections range from the earliest ballads to the present time. With an opening poem by Nora Hopper Chesson: “The far away country,” the poems are arranged under the headings: “The nicht atween the sancts an’ souls”; “All the little sighing souls”; Shadowy heroes; “Rank on rank of ghostly soldiers”; Sea ghosts; Cheerful spirits; Haunted places; “You know the old, while I know the new”; “My love that was so true”; Shapes of doom; Legends and ballads of the dead. There is an index.
“A most unusual anthology of real merit and charm.”
WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER). I’ve married Marjorie. *$1.75 (3c) Harcourt
Married in haste, Marjorie Ellison has had ample leisure to repent while her soldier husband has been away in France. Now on the eve of his return she is badly upset at the thought of the reunion. When Francis comes, it is as bad as she had feared. With the best intentions on both sides, he frightens her, and she hurts him. Hot tempers and strained nerves almost complete a tragedy of separation. But Francis is really in love with Marjorie and so he ventures on an experiment before giving her up entirely. In a delightful spot in the Canadian woods, his scheme is tried out, a scheme which leads through storm and stress to final joy and happiness for both.
“This will be liked by young girls and many women, though some readers will find it light and sentimental.”
“Her theme in ‘I’ve married Marjorie’ is cut from the sheerest gossamer material. Also it possesses all the old essential ingredients of cuteness, wistful humor and the necessary serious touch that brings the theme to a sweet conclusion. But there is a sparkling sanity about it.”
“A lively and amusing tale. Not a big book nor a provable story, but agreeable ‘summer reading.’”
WIENER, LEO. Africa and the discovery of America. 2v ea $5 Innes & sons 970
The book is archaeological and etymological, showing how many of the plants believed to have been indigenous to America, and how much of the language and customs of the Indians, have an African origin. Besides a long list of the sources quoted, illustrations, a word and a subject index, the book contains: The journal of the first voyage and the first letter of Columbus; The second voyage; Tobacco; The bread roots.
“It is unfortunate that one so well trained in this field of study should not have undertaken to present his material in a more logical and readable manner. He is not always convincing, and is often dogmatic.” E. L. Stevenson
“It is not to be expected that a work like this can pass unchallenged, and the soundest of criticism and the most profound of scholarship should be invoked before an exact estimate can be made of its value. But the erudition displayed in this volume is enough to make us wait with impatience Professor Wiener’s second volume.” G. H. S.
“Worthless as a scholarly contribution, the book provides the psychologist with a valuable example of distorted erudition and methodological incompetence.”
“His book indicates the widest scholarship.” W. E. B. Du Bois
WIGMORE, JOHN HENRY. Problems of law; its past, present, and future. *$1.50 Scribner 340
“Professor Wigmore discusses the law’s evolution, its mechanism in America, and its problems as they relate to world legislation and America’s share therein. These lectures constituted one series of the Barbour-Page foundation lectures at the University of Virginia.” (N Y Evening Post) “It is assumed by Dean Wigmore that a new age is at hand, for which a considerable amount of new legislation will be required, and in view of this fact he urges that our legislators must be made experts ‘(1) by reducing their numbers, (2) by giving them longer terms, (3) by paying them enough to justify it [that is, apparently, the work of legislation] as a career for men of talent, (4) by making their sessions continuous.’” (Review)
“Three clarifying lectures for the thoughtful layman.”
“Dean Wigmore demonstrates anew the wide range of his intellectual rummaging and the queer quirks of his marvelous mind. The second lecture on ‘Methods of law making’ is intelligible and sensible.”
Reviewed by E: S. Corwin
WILDE, OSCAR FINGALL O’FLAHERTIE WILLS. Critic in Pall Mall. *$1.50 Putnam 824
A selection from the reviews and miscellaneous writings of Oscar Wilde made by E. V. Lucas. The papers were contributed to the Irish Monthly, Pall Mall Gazette, Woman’s World and other journals and date from 1877 to 1890. At the end under the heading Sententiæ Mr Lucas has grouped a number of briefer extracts from other reviews.
“The extent to which Wilde was a deliberate poseur is made very clear by this book, for here there is very little pose. In these reviews, chiefly from the Pall Mall Gazette, we see Wilde as a critic with strong common sense, general good taste and with an outlook on life and literature sufficiently ordinary to be indistinguishable from that of half-a-hundred other critics of his time and of ours.”
“It has all his delights and all his superficialities and all his faults.”
“There is nothing especially characteristic about the collection except, perhaps, a lightness of touch that distinguishes its contents from the ordinary book-review, and while they reveal the delicacy of Wilde’s taste and the sincerity of his delight in art and letters they reveal his limitations, also, and the shallowness of his intellectual draught.”
“There is certainly no adequate reason why these forgotten writings of Oscar Wilde should be sought out and set in order, and sent forth in a seemly little tome of two hundred pages. Their resurrection does not add anything to his reputation, nor does it detract anything. It does not enlarge our knowledge of the writer or cast any new light upon the character of the man.” Brander Matthews
“These modest criticisms impress one collectively as good-natured, orthodox, and sensible. Its art vibrates between distinction and mediocrity—which is another way of saying that it is undistinguished.”
“Collections of this kind usually do no honour to their author. But in this case the result is a contribution to literature; in the first place, because the selection has been made by Mr E. V. Lucas, and in the second place, because it illustrates not only Wilde’s gift for perverse banter, but also his genuine scholarship and his ability to perform plain, downright work in an honest, craftsmanlike way.”
“These chapters are slight, but they are models of literary criticism of the less formal and serious type. Apart from style their superiority over the contemporary causerie lies chiefly, perhaps, in the cultivated background that they denote in the writer and presuppose in the reader.”
WILDMAN, EDWIN. Famous leaders of industry. il *$2 (3c) Page 926
This is a book for boys about boys who have gained success, wealth, honor, and prestige in the business world. It contains more than twenty-six sketches of successful men, among them: Philip Danforth Armour—California pioneer and Chicago packing king; P. T. Barnum—the world’s greatest showman; Alexander Graham Bell—immortal telephone inventor, and humanitarian; James Buchanan Duke—American tobacco and cigarette king; Henry Ford—the Aladdin of the automobile industry; Hudson Maxim—poet, philosopher, and wizard of high explosives; John Davison Rockefeller,—oil king and world’s greatest industrial leader; John Wanamaker—America’s foremost retail merchant and originator of the department store; Orville and Wilbur Wright—who achieved immortal fame as airship inventors. A portrait accompanies each sketch.
“In these conventionally laudatory portraits of a group of American inventors and business men there is no departure from the old Sunday school type of ‘helpful’ stories for the young except in a decided journalistic snappiness of style.” E. S.
WILKINSON, MRS MARGUERITE OGDEN (BIGELOW). Bluestone. *$1.50 Macmillan 811
A volume of lyrics. In her preface the author touches on the relation of lyric poetry to music as she employs it in the composition of her poems. Contents: Bluestone; Songs from beside swift rivers; Songs of poverty; Preferences; Love songs; Songs of an empty house; Songs of laughter and tears; Whims for poets; California poems; The pageant.
“Songs with a wide appeal because they are mostly ‘themes of the folk.’ The appreciation of nature and outdoor feeling are keen.”
“There is an undoubted poetic element in these poems of Mrs Wilkinson, but it is dew rather than flame. And being excellently even in craftsmanship, there is no poem that fails to satisfy the reader’s interest in being what it is.” W: S. Braithwaite
“Marguerite Wilkinson has decided moral and metrical spring without conspicuous originality; though she is deeply touching here in Songs of an empty house, on the childless state.” M. V. D.
“Mrs Wilkinson undoubtedly possesses a deal of talent; it is evident throughout her work, cropping out in felicitous stanzas here and rhythmical lines there, but she allows an occasional triteness to retard the success of the book as a whole.”
WILLARD, FLORENCE, and GILLETT, LUCY HOLCOMB.[2] Dietetics for high schools. il *$1.32 Macmillan 613.2
“Home economics teachers will be interested to learn that a much needed textbook of dietetics has recently appeared. The content of the book is especially significant in view of the experience of both authors as teachers of the subject and of one of them as worker with actual problems of malnutrition and of family feeding on low incomes in the Association for improving the condition of the poor. The book starts with a comparison of the weights and heights of the girls in the class with the standards for their ages. Following this is a study of food values as to fuel, protein, mineral, vitamines, and the requirements of a good diet. Following the general study of the basis for planning meals, the authors make an interesting and concrete section of the book by selecting a family containing children of various ages and discussing the marketing problems of this family. The high-school girl thus makes application of her earlier nutrition study to actual food purchase for the family’s need.”—School R
“This book is a distinct contribution to the very small group of elementary textbooks in nutrition. The work is accurate and up-to-date. The points are supported and illustrated by suitable tables and charts in such number as to constitute a unique feature of a beginner’s book in nutrition. One specially commendable feature is the fact that it may be used quite as appropriately as a textbook for boys as for girls.” M. S. Rose
“A splendid and thoroughly scientific body of material makes the book a well-rounded and teachable text.”
WILLIAMS, ARIADNA TYRKOVA- (MRS HAROLD WILLIAMS). From liberty to Brest-Litovsk. *$6 Macmillan 947
“This is a narrative of events from the first uprisings of the revolution in March, 1917, to the ratification of the peace with Germany a year later. Herself a member of the Petrograd municipal council and the Moscow conference, Mrs Williams has described in detail the cabinet crises and political vicissitudes of the provisional government and the steady trend of the socialist center toward bolshevism. Less complete is her account of the first months of the bolshevist régime and its negotiations with Germany at Brest-Litovsk.”—Survey
“Although the book is emotionally coloured with righteous anger and hatred towards the Bolsheviks, we cannot but welcome it as an honest attempt to narrate the history of the first year of the Russian revolution.” S. K.
“The facts here recorded will be most impressive to all who keep even an approximately open mind on the Russian question.”
“She might have made her book a skilful and telling arraignment of her political opponents if she could have restrained her quite intelligible hatred and indignation. She betrays her prejudice and weakens her case most seriously in loading on the Bolsheviki the blame for all that Russia has suffered since the beginning of the revolution.” Jacob Zeitlin
“When we had finished this long book of Mrs Harold Williams, we asked ourselves why it left us with the taste of the dust of Dead Sea apples. The answer is, we believe, that nothing is so barren as perpetual denunciation. Only a political controversialist could be quite so self-blind as Mrs Williams.”
“This book may be recommended as a storehouse of facts, and it is to be hoped that the author will in due course produce another volume, bringing the story down from Brest-Litovsk to the present day.”
“She shows an intimate knowledge of the political convulsions of 1917, and she describes them in a clear and forcible style. The dominant note of the book is amazement that the Russian people, with their many good qualities, could have allowed themselves to be dominated by a gang of scoundrels.”
“Partisan and patriot Mrs Williams is, and the reader will not find in her description of the storm-tossed waters of the revolution any clear perception of its deeper currents. But the reader will find in her book a useful chronicle of events and an interesting and vivid representation of the political kaleidoscope and of the opinion of no small part of the Russian intelligentsia during that momentous year.” Reed Lewis
“A connected account of the first phase of the Russian revolution has been badly needed. Mrs Williams has a clear picture in her own mind of what led to Bolshevism, and her main theme is easy to trace throughout the book. In these days, when many English liberals join in the foolish denunciation of nearly all Russian liberals as counter-revolutionaries without examining the positive side of their policy, it is useful to see the aims and policy of the provisional government clearly and sympathetically restated.”
WILLIAMS, BEN AMES. Great accident. *$2 (1½c) Macmillan
This is a story of American provincial politics and of education gone wrong. The way Winthrop Chase, junior, had been brought up by a well meaning father and mother had brought out strongly the negative side of his character. He always did the thing he was told not to do and was fast becoming a drunkard. Shrewd old Ames Caretall, congressman, returns from Washington just as a mayoral election is coming on. He resolves to take a gambler’s chance with young Wint and uses his influence to have him elected mayor over the head of Wint’s own father. How the “joke” does the trick, knocks manhood into Wint, and develops him into a sober, unusually decent, honorable and lovable character is the burden of the story.
“This town and its inhabitants stand out with remarkable clearness, and it is well worth while for English men and women to read of it. They will see for themselves how different is their country from that huge one which speaks the same language.” O. W.
“This is a capital story. There are a number of well-drawn subsidiary personages, making the life of the small town vivid and often amusing. Its atmosphere is distinctive and typical.” N. H. D.
“It is a perfectly good idea and the characters are interesting enough, but the author seems to be a little bit tired; it all needs to be keyed up to a higher pitch.”
“It will go far toward dispelling in the average reader’s mind the illusion that a realistic presentation of American life must necessarily be dull, morbid and unduly sophisticated.”
“The merit of the tale lies in its portrayal of small town life, of the men who control or try to control the political destinies of the friendly little town of Hardiston, and in an easy and agreeable style.”
“Two romances and a broad vein of humor balance the political narrative, making an entertaining if rather unlifelike American tale.”
WILLIAMS, GAIL. Fear not the crossing. $1.25 (9c) Clode, E. J. 134
A series of spirit communications given to the author through automatic handwriting by the spirit of a man who had but recently died, and who found it at first very difficult to adjust himself to conditions on the other side. The messages are given from day to day, and describe the life beyond death, its great beauty, satisfying joy, its boundless service for others, and its superiority to our flesh-bound existence. Advice is given too for our greater serenity of the spirit while still in the flesh. Think of God, pray to Him, in order that His power may radiate through you, and enable you to do the tasks assigned to you, is the advice frequently repeated by this spirit control. He speaks often of love as the most beautiful earthly force. A new note in this book is its description of the temporary agony of the soul newly awakening “on the other side of death.”
“The just complaint that most spirit revelations are of such trivial and childish nature, finds no grounds here, as the matters treated are all of large and worthy import.” Katharine Perry
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
WILLIAMS, HENRY SMITH. Witness of the sun. il *$1.90 (3c) Doubleday.
When John Theobold is killed in his office, some one has to be found to fasten the murder to, as is usual in such cases. The guilty man seems to be Señor Cortez, a fiery Brazilian, jealous of Theobold’s interest in his wife, with Frank Crosby, the murdered man’s private secretary, as his accomplice. The case comes to trial, and the counsel for the defense springs a surprise. With the aid of Jack Henley, a bright office boy with an interest in photography, he presents proof, substantiated by actual pictures taken on the spot, showing that Cortez and Crosby could not have committed the crime, and who did and why. But all surprises are not yet over: the counsel for the defense learns that no amount of circumstantial evidence ever proves anything, it only shows that things might have happened in a certain way, but they might also have happened in some other way, and in this case they did.
“The plot and its solution evince striking ingenuity on the part of Mr Williams.”
WILLIAMS, JAMES MICKEL.[2] Foundations of social science. *$6 Knopf 301
The book is an analysis of the psychological aspects of the social sciences and emphasizes the vital relation of social psychology to the other social sciences, pointing out how the advancement of the latter is dependent on the development of the former. Although the assumptions of social science are in their last analysis, all resting on human nature, they have relied too much on the traditional social relations and have failed to discriminate between “a motive that is essential in traditional political relations, or in traditional economic relations and one that is essential in human nature.” Also they have allowed mass phenomena to obscure the individual and have lost sight of the fact that only through the operation of certain instinctive dispositions of individuals do they act as groups. The volume falls into four parts: Social psychology and political science; Social psychology and jurisprudence; Social psychology as related to economics, history and sociology; The field and methods of social psychology. Appended is a partial list of the books, documents and articles referred to in the text, and an index of subjects.
WILLIAMS, JENNIE B. Us two cook book, rev and enl ed *$1.50 Harper 641.5
In this cook book “every recipe has been carefully estimated and tested—the ingredients reduced so as to supply the requirements of two.” (Preface) Contents: Soups; Fish; Meats; Poultry and game; Entrees; Vegetables; Eggs; Beverages; Breads, cakes, etc.; Desserts; Fruits, pickles and sauces; Miscellaneous. Tables for cooking and measuring come at the end. There is no index. The book was copyrighted in Canada in 1916.
WILLIAMS, LLEWELLYN W. Making of modern Wales. *$2.25 Macmillan 942.9
“The recorder of Cardiff, in this well-organized, well-documented, and well-indexed treatise, studies the processes, legal, political, and social, by which mediæval was transformed into modern Wales. He devotes much space to the story of Catholicism in Wales after the reformation, and to an account of the Courts of great session—subjects on which far less has been written than on the council of the Marches, the history of Welsh nonconformity, and other main topics. His last chapter deals with the bilingual problem.”—Ath
“The author’s chapter on the Great sessions, which were abolished in 1830, is the best account of them that has yet been written.”
“The solid value of Mr Williams’s researches arouses gratitude and deep respect. We should, however, describe his work as research of the second—the organizing stage, chiefly—rather than of the first stage. The chapter on the reformation is extremely interesting. The chapter on the Welsh Catholics is the most picturesque and attractive in the book, and probably contains the most generally unfamiliar information. The most workmanlike and most original chapter is that on the king’s Court of great sessions.”
WILLIAMS, SIDNEY CLARK. Unconscious crusader. *$1.75 (2c) Small
This is a story of present-day journalism and of James Radbourne, who started as reporter on a daily paper and ended as proprietor of one. All the ups and downs of a newspaper career, all the rivalries and jealousies between staff and managers of different papers come out in the story and how James Radbourne took the straight course until he won out and made himself a name for honest journalism. He did not know that some one was watching this course, but when she was satisfied that it was the right one she came and asked for a job. It was “Miladi.”
“When we turn from the world of business and politics to that of romance the atmosphere is clean and fresh. The setting for the romance is deliciously funny.” G. L. E.
“‘An unconscious crusader’ will hardly set the world aflame, yet it is readable and affords a glimpse of the inside workings of a newspaper office.”
“An attempt, not wholly successful, is made to weave in a love story, or rather an alleged one. It detracts from the interest of the story, rather than adds to it.”
WILLIAMS, WAYLAND WELLS. Goshen street. *$1.90 (1½c) Stokes
Goshen street is a New England country road. David Galt, who is born on a Goshen street farm, is given an education thru the benevolence of a millionaire who makes a hobby of sending poor and promising boys to college. He goes into journalism afterwards and rises high in his profession, but Goshen street always remains an influence in his life. It is Sylvia Thornton who first brings David to her father’s attention and as he continues to make his way up in the world David holds to the intention of marrying Sylvia, but instead he marries Naomi Fiske. The war comes, David is first a correspondent, then a soldier. Naomi dies of influenza while nursing in France and after the war David and Sylvia again meet in Goshen street.
“Interesting, well written, a truthful picture of Connecticut farm people.”
“Although the scenes in New York are interesting, and although David’s wife Sylvia is an artistic triumph, particularly because she is so difficult, it is Goshen street itself, David’s ancestral home, and his father, mother and brother, to which my memory returns most fondly. The descriptions of the street are admirable examples of English style. This book has such fine quality that it sharpens one’s appetite for the next.” W: L. Phelps
WILLIAMS, WHITING. What’s on the worker’s mind. il *$2.50 Scribner 331.8
“Mr Williams was a prominent official in a large steel fabricating concern. He wished to fit himself for the position of employment manager, and thought it a part of his preparation to find out what it was like to be a workman. Therefore he left home with a few dollars in his pocket and looked for a job. This is the story of his adventures in a basic steel plant, a rolling mill, a coal mine, an oil refinery, a shipyard, and other resorts of toil.”—Nation
“Reveals without bitterness or antagonizing radicalism the unsatisfactory lives of the workers. Vivid and worth while, but will not be popular.”
Reviewed by Harold Waldo
“An unusual and interesting book.”
“As a first-hand account of actual working and living-conditions in the great basic industries, Mr Williams’s ‘What’s on the worker’s mind’ is of considerable value for the author is an excellent reporter. But as an analysis of what the worker is actually thinking and doing about his problems, and in so far as it proposes solution for these problems, the book falls far short of its mark.” W: Z. Foster
“The narrative of his adventures is of extraordinary interest and his conclusions are worth attention.”
Reviewed by G: Soule
“Short as the book’s economic perspective is, its central contribution remains intact; its psychological analysis is penetrating and original. Its educational value can be literally tremendous.” Ordway Tead
“Not only are the observations obviously timely, but they have a force that results from their having been derived from actual experience.”
WILLIAMS-ELLIS, CLOUGH, and WILLIAMS-ELLIS, A. Tank corps; with an introd. by H. J. Elles. il *$5 (4½c) Doran 940.4
Major-General Ellis commander of the tank corps, in his introduction to the volume, calls attention to the “difficulties of dealing concisely, even by comment, with the kaleidoscopic events of two and a half crowded years—with the questions of organisation, training, personnel, design, supply, fighting, reorganisation, workshops, experiments, salvage, transportation, maintenance.” This states in a nutshell the enormous problem solved by the tank in its rapid and forced evolution while the war was in process. The first chapter is intended for the civilian who, thanks to the censorship, “has had no opportunity of making himself familiar with the tactical opportunities and problems that the use of tanks has introduced or with the conditions under which tank crews fight.” It contains several plans and diagrams showing the general arrangement and construction of this formidable machine. There are other illustrations and an index.
“Excellent and well illustrated book.”
“The tank corps was one of the miracles of the war, and its history was bound to be one of the best romances. It is good to have the full story told so soon and by such competent chroniclers. The authors give us all the technical information that is needed, and at the same time they fit the achievement of the tank corps into the great movements of the campaign. The style is never for a moment ponderous or dull.” J: Buchan
“A vivid military treatise.”
“A confused collection of details instead of a coherent story. The confusion is not helped by the absence of maps. The book is a disappointment; but no mistakes can entirely rob of their interest the first full accounts that have been published of the terrible struggles of the tanks in the Flanders mud during the third battle of Ypres.”
WILLIAMSON, CHARLES NORRIS, and WILLIAMSON, ALICE MURIEL (LIVINGSTON) (MRS CHARLES NORRIS WILLIAMSON). Second latchkey. il *$1.60 (2c) Doubleday
Annesley Grayle meets the man who calls himself Nelson Smith under romantic circumstances and marries him without knowing his real name or anything about him. As paid companion to a crabbed old lady she has found life dreary and colorless. He brings love and joy into it and she adores him and asks no questions. Shortly after it becomes apparent to the reader that the man is a very clever jewel thief. The heroine however is slower witted and when the truth is forced home to her she is crushed and believes her love dead. There follows a period of estrangement and penitence spent on the hero’s ranch in Texas, followed by reconciliation.
“A tale of plot, whose surprises and thrills are never balked by the improbable.”
“The Williamsons have succeeded in concentrating our entire interest in their plot, and though—as is natural in this type of story—we should not be likely to read the book a second time, it is equally likely that we should be inclined to read the next Williamson book upon the recommendation of this.” D. L. M.
“The authors have not allowed a trifle like probability to stand in their way, but the tale holds the reader’s interest, and Annesley is a charming heroine. Smoothly and pleasantly written, ‘The second latchkey’ is an agreeable and an entertaining romance of things as they are not.”
WILLIS, GEORGE. Philosophy of speech. *$2.50 Macmillan 404
“Mr Willis’s book is not so much a connected system of philosophy as a series of thoughts on various subjects connected with the faculty of speech. Beginning with a discussion of the origins of speech, he goes on to show the connection of the history of speech with the history of thought; he devotes a chapter to metaphor, another to grammar, another to the question of spelling and spelling reform, others to purism and correct speech, and a final section to speech and education.”—Ath
“One does not always agree with Mr Willis, but one can never find him anything but very entertaining and stimulating.”
“This is, indeed, a strange book. It seems to be a survival from the linguistic dark ages. The author does not disclose any intimacy with Anglo-Saxon, with Gothic or with old high English, nor does he show any scholarship in comparative philology.” Brander Matthews
“The present writer has not for years come across a book in which highly disputable assertions were mixed up with facts with such complete impartiality. Nothing could be more admirable than the author’s attack upon the ordinary grammar-books, and his exposition of the causes which have led to the extraordinary muddle-headedness of these compilations.”
WILLOUGHBY, D. About it and about. *$5 Dutton 824
“These essays, most of which appeared in Everyman, consist of comment on questions of the day, written from a ‘moderate’ point of view.” (Ath My 21 ’20) “Roughly speaking, Mr Willoughby touches on all the burning or still glowing topics of the day, on peace and war, on housing, on labour, on Ireland, on servants civil and domestic, and many other more or less immediate doubts and difficulties.” (Ath Je 11 ’20)
“Readably and brightly written.”
“The rational good-humor characteristic of the book, a really precious quality at this time, naturally brims over in laughter, spontaneous and frequent enough to convey to the reader a feeling of expectant animation. Occasionally, the easy note of mirth has been forced.” F. W. S.
“A witty, animated, keen-sighted, judicious and mature product of journalism. Informing and revealing sentences abound.”
“The author is implicit in it—‘his vaunts, his feats.’ He is often amusing. Mr Willoughby’s detachment is aloofness; from his Olympian height he scans the depths—or would if the depths were not shallows. His knowledge, however, does not come of patient observation, but from the study of the authorities.”
WILLOUGHBY, WESTEL WOODBURY. Foreign rights and interests in China. $6 Johns Hopkins 327
“Professor Willoughby, of the Johns Hopkins university, served as legal adviser to the Chinese republic during the war. He has used his special knowledge to compile a statement of the rights conferred by treaties or agreements of an official character upon foreigners and foreign powers in China. As he says, the situation is ‘complicated in the extreme,’ for China permits all kinds of extra-territorial rights and suffers ‘spheres of interest, “special interests,” war zones, leased territories, treaty ports, concessions, settlements and legation quarters’ to infringe on her sovereignty, to say nothing of commercial concessions and revenue services under foreign control.”—Spec
“As a work of reference the volume may be highly commended.”
“His explanations and comments are thorough-going and illuminating. They are never wearisome, as legal discussions sometimes are.” E. B. Drew
“It has a quality that renders it easily read from beginning to end. This happy issue must be ascribed in due degree to the author’s admirable style and control of his material; but while the book is a model of what a thesis should be, it possesses, besides its usefulness as a work of reference, a human interest that is altogether compelling.” F: W. Williams
“The work is well done and is an addition of permanent value to the literature on the Far East.” W. R. Wheeler
WILSON, CAROLYN CROSBY.[2] Fir trees and fireflies. *$1.75 Putnam 811
Poems on varied themes. Among the titles are: Mid winter; The patchwork quilt; Houseless; On the arrogance of lovers; Roads; December; Two songs for my child; Late March. These miscellaneous verses are followed by a series of love sonnets. Some of the pieces are reprinted from Vanity Fair, New Republic, Pagan and Vassar Miscellany.
“There is a certain nicety of phrasing, evenness and melody of line that raises them out of the ordinary and yet they are by no means pallid bits. Throughout, there is upon these poems, some greater, some less, the unmistakable hallmark of distinction.”
“At its best Miss Wilson’s verse has a tight-lipped irony about it; or it may even develop into humor that is broad but never blatant. At its worst her poetry is quite a different matter; without ever being badly written, it is pompously and conventionally emotional.”
WILSON, EDWIN BIDWELL. Aeronautics. il *$4 Wiley 629.1
“The introduction to the book includes the ideas underlying simple flight and the aerodynamics of aerofoils. In the chapter on ‘Motion in two dimensions’ are collected with proofs the fundamental theorems in dynamics. The principles are carried step by step to the consideration of stability, and are then illustrated by example. The study of motion in three dimensions is committed to a following chapter. The last chapter in the section devoted to rigid dynamics applies the equations developed to the stability of the aeroplane. The rest of the book is devoted to ‘Fluid mechanics.’”—Nature
“It is very clearly written, and will be particularly valuable to advanced students of the subject for many reasons. On the other hand, it will not appeal strongly to the less advanced worker.”
WILSON, MRS MARY A. Mrs Wilson’s cook book. *$2.50 Lippincott 641.5
According to the title page the author was “formerly Queen Victoria’s cuisiniere,” as well as instructor in domestic science in the University of Virginia summer school and for the United States navy. The present volume contains her best recipes, set forth, as she says, not in the heavy cook book style, but in a more intimate manner “as if housewife and author were conversing upon the dish in question.” The recipes follow one another without arrangement or order but an index provides a guide to the contents.
WILSON, MAY (ANISON NORTH, pseud.). Forging of the pikes. *$1.90 (1½c) Doran
The pikes are forged for the rebels of the Upper Canadian rebellion of 1837. The hero Alan’s sympathies are with the rebels the while his whole being is in the toils of his love for Barry. Barbara Deveril, the supposed daughter of the tavern-keeper is Indian in appearance and in her love for the forest and Indian traditions. She is Alan’s “Oogenebahgooquay”—the wild rose woman. One day, soon after the appearance of a dazzlingly handsome stranger, an Englishman, she disappears from the woods and the countryside, leaving Alan with his grief and his suspicion. While the rebellion and its dangers, and a brief sojourn in Toronto engage Alan, Barry is living through her short and sorrowful romance as the Indian-wed wife of the handsome Englishman. But they were meant for each other and the sick, disillusioned and widowed Barry finds herself still linked to life by her love for Alan.
“The description of country life, of the woods and of nature is vivid. The historical portions, on the other hand, are unsatisfactory.”
“The story part of the book is an entirely secondary affair, conventional and not particularly interesting. To the average American reader the best of the tale will be the picture it gives of Canadian life at the time.”
“The style is flowing and simple and has an agreeable if not strictly synchronous flavor of Pepys.” H. W. Boynton
WILSON, PHILIP WHITWELL. Irish case before the court of public opinion. il *$1.25 Revell 941.5
“Mr P. Whitwell Wilson, who has more than once written for this Review and who is now living in the United States as a special correspondent of the London Dally News, has produced for American readers a little volume entitled ‘The Irish case before the court of public opinion.’ Mr Wilson was formerly a Liberal member of Parliament and also for a number of years worked in harmony with men like the late Mr Redmond and the other nationalist leaders. Mr Wilson, however, is wholly opposed to the present Sinn Fein movement for a separate Irish republic, and he undertakes in this book to show how, one after another, the real grievances of Ireland have been remedied.”—R of Rs
“Whether one agrees with Mr Wilson or not, one cannot help admiring his extremely lucid and convincing defence of Great Britain’s Irish policy. Partisan it is, but books on the Irish question have a tendency to be strongly pro-Irish or pro-English, and Mr Wilson sets forth his case in a very tolerant manner.”
“It is almost unbelievable that any competent journalist who undertakes to discuss Sinn Fein should be still ignorant of the meaning of those two words, yet that is the plight of Mr Wilson. Since he has not yet discovered the meaning of two simple words now universally familiar to every newspaper reader, it is not surprising that his references to the financial relations of Ireland and England teem with incredible misstatements.” E. A. Boyd
“A remarkably fair-minded and adequate summary of the reasons for viewing with distrust the Sinn Fein propaganda.”
“Whether or not one agrees with the conclusions presented by Mr P. Whitwell Wilson, one must appreciate the good temper and moderation with which he argues.”
“His book is valuable from the standpoint of its convenient recital of recent political history in relation to Ireland, and should have a wide reading.”
WILSON, THEODORE PERCIVAL CAMERON.[2] Waste paper philosophy; with an introd. by Robert Norwood. *$1.50 Doran 821
The author of these papers and poems had been a schoolmaster before his enlistment in 1914. He was killed in 1918. Waste paper philosophy, part I of the book, is composed of short prose essays written for his son. Part 2 contains his poems, the first of which, Magpies in Picardy, was printed in the Literary Digest in February, 1917.
“Among the many poems inspired by the late war, ‘Magpies in Picardy’ has stood out as one of the very best. To every schoolboy in our land should a copy of ‘Waste paper philosophy’ be given. One closes the little book tenderly, for here is the record of a rare spirit.” C. K. H.
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
WILSON, WOODROW. Hope of the world. *$1 (2c) Harper 353
This volume of speeches continues the series that began with “Why we are at war.” It contains “Messages and addresses delivered by the president between July 10, 1919, and December 9, 1919, including selections from his countrywide speeches in behalf of the treaty and covenant.” In making the selection from the addresses on the peace treaty and the League of nations the aim has been to avoid repetition and to present “the more cogent and significant portions of Mr Wilson’s appeal to the public.” Among the state papers are included the message on the high cost of living, letter to the national industrial conference, appeal to the coal miners, and message to the new Congress.
“Nearly all have in greater or less degree the characteristic merits with which we have become familiar, and the title chosen for the collection hits very well the note of earnest, almost wistful, conviction that gives impressiveness and driving force to practically everything that President Wilson has said. There is much material here for reflection, and it is presented with the lucidity and grace that we have learned to respect.”
WINDLE, SIR BERTRAM COGHILL ALAN. Science and morals. *$2.75 Kenedy 215
“Sir Bertram Windle, the distinguished Roman Catholic scientist, now professor of anthropology in St Michael’s college, Toronto, collects here (with some revision) nine essays which he has contributed to the Dublin Review, the Catholic World, America and Studies. Apart from the title essay he writes on Theophobia and Nemesis; on the narrowness of the strictly scientific, especially the biological view (Within and without the system); on the relation of the Roman church to science (Science in ‘bondage’); Science and the war; Heredity and ‘arrangement’; Special creation; Catholic writers and spontaneous generation; and he reviews Mr F. H. Osborn’s ‘The origin and evolution of life.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“This is worth while and very much worth while. It is worth while as a readable and popularly rendered contribution to apologetical literature; it is very much worth while because it is a contribution from a recognized scientist on a subject of wide scientific consequence.”
WISE, JENNINGS CROPPER. Turn of the tide. *$1.50 (3c) Holt 940.373
Cantigny, Château Thierry, and the second battle of the Marne are the three operations in which the American troops made their initial appearance in battle in the great war and which mark the transition of the Allies from the defensive to the offensive and the turn of the tide of victory in their favor. The author was a member of the Historical section of the General staff of the American expeditionary force for a number of months after the armistice, had access to the archives at General headquarters, came in contact with many of the leaders of the war and visited and made a careful study of every battlefield of which he writes. The three battles are the subjects of the three chapters of the book which also has a number of maps and appendices.
WISTER, OWEN. Straight deal; or, The ancient grudge. *$2 (2c) Macmillan 327
The ancient grudge is the American feeling of ill-will toward England. This anti-English prejudice is explained by the author as a “complex” founded on false history teaching in childhood and fostered by Great Britain’s enemies. He reviews the history of our relations with England from the revolution down and says in conclusion: “In this many-peopled world England is our nearest relation. From Bonaparte to the Kaiser, never has she allowed any outsider to harm us. We are her cub. She has often clawed us, and we have clawed her in return.... Her good treatment of us has been to her own interest.... If we were so far-seeing as she is, we also should know that her good will is equally important to us.”
“Mr Wister’s purpose in his new book commands our sympathies. He has good intentions, but he is just a shade too friendly. He presses our hand a little too enthusiastically.”
“Mr Wister is too good a writer of fiction to be quite satisfactory as a historian. He relies too much upon imagination and invention; he deals with historic personages as though they were characters in a novel, to be managed as the requirements of the plot dictate. The fact is that this book of Mr Wister’s, like his earlier ‘Pentecost of calamity,’ is a product of war psychology. It is a case of off with the old hate, on with the new.” R. L. Schuyler
“Hysterical and rather silly book. To put it bluntly, Mr Wister has far to go before he recovers from the panic psychology of the war. Mr Wister is the victim of economic innocence and of a sincere admiration, which does him credit, for English civilization.” H. S.
“Makes many true and effective points, but is a little exclusive in its attitude towards nations outside the frontiers of Anglo-Saxondom.”
“Mr Wister’s frivolity and fatuity are basic. He has his grip on the facts of Anglo-American history. In this region he escapes being a jingo and, what is more, he escapes being a toady, at least nine times out of ten. But once he tries to grip the facts of the world, outside Anglo-America, he is dangerously sentimental and at sea.” F. H.
“His is not a calm judicial mind; he is very much a partisan and a fighter. His vehemence now and then runs to the choler of the elderly man who dogmatizes angrily from his club window. Apropos of America’s attitude toward England, we learn the writer’s opinion of Roosevelt, of Secretary Daniels, of Admiral Sims, and so on. I for one regret his occasional fling of cynicism.” H. W. Boynton
“Mr Owen Wister has written a good book; and in writing it he has done a good deed. Mr Wister knows the English at home and abroad; he is an American of the Americans, but he is a grandson of Fanny Kemble and he has both relatives and relations in England. He is therefore unusually well equipped to discuss the social usages and the national peculiarities of the two countries.” Brander Matthews
“A very readable book. We do not agree with him, or with the politicians and the press men, in thinking that friendship can be ensured by books, and speeches, and leading articles.”
“Unfortunately, the book will not attain its end. For this Mr Wister is himself to blame. Much of the work is trivial arguments. It will not be any better to write our history with deliberate sympathies than with deliberate antipathies.”
WITHAM, GEORGE STRONG. Modern pulp and paper making; a practical treatise. il $6 Chemical catalog co., 1 Madison av., N.Y. 676
The author has had thirty-seven years’ practical experience in the pulp and paper industry. He is now manager of mills for the Union bag and paper corporation, Hudson Falls, N.Y. His aim in this book has been “to describe the equipment and processes actually used in pulp and paper plants on this continent today.... No attempt has been made to describe every piece of equipment ever used in the industry. Neither has the author attempted to deal with the historical aspect. Also, while recognizing the great importance of chemistry in connection with papermaking, no chemical considerations have been introduced which would not readily be comprehended by one with no special knowledge of that science.” (Preface) Contents: Processes by which pulp is produced; Materials from which pulp is produced; Varieties of paper; The saw mill; The wood room; The sulphite mill; The acid plant; The soda process; The sulphate process; The ground wood mill; Bleaching; The beater room; The machine room; The finishing room; General design of pulp and paper plants; The power plant; Testing of paper and paper materials; Paper defects: their cause and cure; Personnel; Useful data and tables; Index. There are over 200 figures in the text.
“This is the first book on the subject of paper-making that we have ever read that is really worth while; it is a practical treatise on paper technology that bears the stamp of genuine authority. One subject, however, in the book which has been somewhat summarily dealt with is that relating to the dyeing and coloring of paper. In its typographical makeup the present volume is a credit to its publishers.”
“For ‘the man on the job’ this is, on the whole, a much more satisfactory work than that of Cross and Bevan; moreover it deals only with American practice. The practical aspect of the book should be emphasized.”
WITWER, HARRY CHARLES. Kid Scanlan. *$1.75 (2½c) Small
Kid Scanlan, welterweight champion, goes into the movies and this is the story of his adventures as told by his manager, Johnny Green. Among the titles of chapters, each of which constitutes a short story, are: Lay off, Macduff; Pleasure island; Lend me your ears; The unhappy medium; Life is reel! Hospital stuff.
“This book may be scoffed at by the more intellectual, but the wideness of its appeal is evident.”
“A humorous mixture of extravagance and slang in Witwer’s happiest vein.”
WITWER, HARRY CHARLES. There’s no base like home. il *$1.75 (3c) Doubleday
A combination of baseball and the movies. Ed Harmon, “the undisputed monarch of the diamond,” continues the series of letters to his friend Joe, and tells what happened after he brought his French wife, Jeanne, to New York. Jeanne not only learns English, she undertakes to teach that language to her husband. She also goes into the movies, and drags her reluctant husband with her. Jeanne’s relatives come from France to pay a surprise visit, but as suddenly return, inspiring their son-in-law to give three cheers for prohibition. The stories are: There’s no base like home; She supes to conquer: A fool there wasn’t; So this is Cincinnati!; The merchant of Venus; The freedom of the shes; A word to the wives; The nights of Colombus; The league of relations.
“Abounding in picturesque slang, unusual figures of speech and shrewd comment on present-day tendencies and foibles.”
“In a certain way, Witwer’s stories remind one of Keystone comedies, although, of course, they are not quite so far-fetched in their incongruous situations. This kind of patter is handled with skill by Mr Witwer, who hardly ever descends to a too-obvious cheapness.”
WODEHOUSE, PELHAM GRENVILLE. Little warrior. *$2 (1½c) Doran
Jill Mariner is an American girl brought up in England. In her, cheerfulness and impulsive kindliness are counterbalanced by pride and quick temper. Between the two she never succumbs to any situation, but fights her way through. There are abrupt changes in her circumstances. From possessing a fortune and being engaged to an English peer, she drops to the position of chorus girl in an American musical comedy. After a brief but stormy career of a tragi-comical nature—with the emphasis on the comical—and after being wooed a second time by Sir Derek, she decides that she loves Wally Mason, her girlhood chum and now a writer of musical comedy in New York, best.
“So much of current fiction is touched with glowering realism or sour-mouthed cleverness that such real spontaneity and good humor as Mr Wodehouse’s is irresistible.” H. W. Boynton
“The author manages to play upon even such a light-eroded spot as Forty-second street and Broadway with such piquant and Americanesquely touch-and-go ironical sparkle, such color and deft comedy tempo, as to leave with the reader an illusion of freshness and a complex of winning aftertones.”
“The gay comedy-romance is a top-notcher of its kind. The reader who doesn’t chuckle over this melange of English and American slang will have to be determinedly gloomy.”
“The tale is capital burlesque with a warm touch of human nature.”
WOLCOTT, THERESA HUNT, ed. Book of games and parties for all occasions. il *$2 Small 793
The material for the book has largely been compiled from the entertainment page of the Ladies’ Home Journal. The contents are intended to furnish entertainments for home, school and church parties, beginning with New Year’s Eve, extending throughout the year and taking in all the holidays of a general and private character, with invitations, menus for special occasions, appropriate rhymes and poetry, illustrations and an index.
WOOD, CLEMENT. Jehovah. *$2 Dutton 811
A long narrative poem with frequent lyric interludes. The time is 1034 B. C., in the reign of David. David’s forces under Joab, sweeping south, spoiling and conquering in the name of their God, Jehovah, meet the resistance of the Kenites, the hill dwellers of Mount Sinai whose tribal God Jehovah is. Demanding tribute for their king and worship for their God, the Israelites are faced with the Kenites’ claim for priority in Jehovah worship, Moses having learned it from his Kenite father-in-law, Jethro. In the conference that follows two conceptions of Jehovah are set forth. The tribal god of the Kenites is opposed to the imperialist god of Israel. By trickery Joab outwits the weaker forces and falls upon them unawares to slay and exterminate, all for the glory of Jehovah. Toward the end a new conception of God is developed, the God of brotherhood as visioned by the prophet Jotham. The poem was awarded one of the Lyric poetry prizes for 1919.
“If it won the Lyric prize, it was hardly for its lyrism. Still, the poem is dramatic, the characterization interesting, and some of the passages genuinely powerful.”
“When Clement Wood wrote ‘Jehovah’ he took the chance at being dull on the bigger chance of successfully writing a poem about an evolving god. He fails, and he is dull; but there is a sort of leaden grandeur about the attempt.” R. D.
“It has, curiously, a flavor of ‘Beowulf’ rather than of the Hebrew poets and prophets. It is written in a variety of verse forms, many of them interesting.”
“‘Jehovah’ suffers from a too constant strenuousness of reach and a too mighty savagery of diction; there is more motion than flow, more activity than strength. Yet certain of the songs genuinely mount; and Uz, the wrinkled patriarch, spokesman for the Kenites, is a triumph in portraiture.” Mark Van Doren
“The various songs about Jehovah sung by the two conflicting tribes of warriors, are replete with beauty that is made more significant and meaningful because there are depths to the thoughts expressed. There is an unmistaken classic air about Clement Wood’s ‘Jehovah.’” Alvin Winston
“The grim expectancy in the tale is a strong point. There are cases, unfortunately, in which the vocabulary, not the conception, is herculean, in which it is only the dictionary that bares its thews.” O. W. Firkins
“The poem is a faithful attempt to produce a visualization of men and events of 3000 years ago. It is hardly distinguished, but it shows considerable knowledge of the subject.”
WOOD, CLEMENT. Mountain. *$2.50 Dutton
“Pelham Judson grows up on the mountain, the son of the successful exploiter of its resources in iron; goes to Yale and absorbs the conventional social ideals (including an exploit as a strikebreaker); leads an almost preposterously chaste life, which he compensates for after his marriage to Jane by a delayed affair with Louise; returning to Adamsville after graduation, becomes converted to the cause of labor and socialism and is one of the leaders in the long drawn-out strike in the mines. The result of the conversion is, of course, permanent estrangement from his father and mother, the former the leader of the standpat forces.”—New Repub
“A heterogeneous mass of capital and labour, love and catastrophe. Mr Wood’s masterful portrayal of the negro race, however, furnishes a background which puts his high-lights to shame and leaves us the hope that he will visualize the white race with equal clarity.”
“Love, it may be said, Mr Wood presents more convincingly than economics. The characters of his story, never clearly realized, make sudden and inexplicable shifts of attitude to meet the necessities of a somewhat vaguely conceived plot, just as his social theories are strained to make destructive facts work toward constructive ends.” H. S. H.
“One looks in vain for a single passage of supreme beauty, for one arresting phrase; yet there is in the book an undercurrent of power rare in a first novel.”
“From the point of view of art the mind is unpersuaded and the imagination a blank. The book is all haste and over-eagerness. The creative hand has scarcely touched it yet.”
“This is an uncommonly fine bit of work, for a first novel. The working class type is a real one, not a caricature. Yet the chief protagonists, Pelham Judson in particular, do not come into the reader’s experience with that unerring finality which is always the mark of sure imaginative creation. They are not inconsistent; they are plausible; they are unfailingly interesting. But they are mere sketches, not realities.” H. S.
“With ‘Mountain’ Clement Wood has added 335 pages to the little heaps of worthwhile contemporary literature.” A. W. Welch
“The novel reflects truthfully and interestingly an ardent if not entirely substantial type of temperament.”
WOOD, ERIC FISHER. Leonard Wood: conservator of Americanism. il *$2 (3c) Doran
The author admires the subject of his biography as the conservator and champion of Americanism, for his work at Plattsburg, his pleas for preparedness and his dignified reticence about himself. His flawless record in the past the author hopes gives just grounds for predicting a still greater career for him in the future. “He has ever been a true prophet in all matters pertaining to the political and military welfare of his native land, its allies and dependencies. He has never had to make excuses, for although the administrative tasks successively allotted to him have been vast in scope, he has never in any one of them fallen short of exceptional success.” (Conclusion) Contents: Ancestry and boyhood; Personal characteristics; As a surgeon; The Geronimo campaign; The Spanish-American war; Governor of Santiago; The Wood method; Appointed governor of Cuba; Governor of Cuba; Turning their government over to Cubans; The conquest of yellow fever; The Rathbone case; Governor of the Moro province; Dato Ali; The military administrator; The conservator of Americanism; The world war; Illustrations, appendix and index.
“A most interesting and most readable book.”
“Although Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Wood is an indifferent biographer, his book contains several oases of competent writing. Thus he gives a graphic sketch of the Geronimo campaign, and his account of the Cuban operations is soldierly and useful.”
WOOD, FREDERIC JAMES. Turnpikes of New England and evolution of the same through England, Virginia and Maryland. il $10 Jones, Marshall 386
“A detailed history of each of the many turnpike companies, such as is here furnished, offers a great deal to interest the engineer, and, from one point of view, summarizes the economic development of the country from the close of the revolution to the middle of the nineteenth century.” (Review) “The author, an engineer, has included everything—engineering problems, history, finance, management, vehicles, description.” (Booklist)
“It is written in a fascinating style, full of good humor, replete with stories and historical incidents, and its enthusiastic verve carries the reader from start to finish.” N. H. D.
“A handsome volume of which both author and publisher have reason to be proud.”
WOOD, IRVING FRANCIS.[2] Heroes of early Israel. il *$2 Macmillan 220.9
“‘Heroes of early Israel’ is one of the Great leaders series. It seeks to tell in a popular manner the stories of the old Hebrew heroes whose lives are too often lost for the young in the more difficult portions of the Bible.”—N Y Times
“The book is intended especially for use in schools, but many will like to put it into the hands of their children as an introduction to Biblical study.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
WOOD, LEONARD. Leonard Wood on national issues; comp. by Evan J. David. pa *$1.25 (8c) Doubleday 308
“In compiling this book the object has been to collect representative statements from the speeches and writings of General Leonard Wood on national problems.” (Compiler’s introd.) Among the subjects covered are: How Cuba won self-determination; Capital, labor and the golden rule; American women—today and tomorrow; War and peace; The league of nations; The farmer—his rights and wrongs; Teachers, moulders of the future; Immigration without assimilation: Americanization. In addition to the compiler’s introduction there is a foreword by Edward S. Van Zile.
WOODBERRY, GEORGE EDWARD. Roamer, and other poems. *$1.75 Harcourt 811
The greater part of the book is taken up by “The roamer,” a long poem in four books symbolizing the soul’s pilgrimage through the ages and its upward progress. A sonnet sequence, Ideal passion, Poems of the great war, and a group of Sonnets and lyrics complete the volume.
“For those who like conventional, idealistic poetry.”
“Mr Woodberry’s lines are penned with such precision, dignity, and grace, and express so noble an enterprise, that one feels they should not be allowed to perish without protest. And yet they fail to stir. Is it that Mr Woodberry is too much merely the inheritor of Victorian maladies and philosophies?” L. M. R.
“As an occasional poet Mr Woodberry is not exciting after the occasion has passed; in the present period of enforced listlessness toward the war, his poems on that occasion, at least, seem good work thrown away, seem good words robbed of their right to ring. Mr Woodberry is more surely a poet when he is a Platonist, as in ‘Ideal passion,’ on the whole the most vibrant portion of his recent output.” Mark Van Doren
“Professor Woodberry’s book must be accounted one of the genuine poetical achievements of the year, but it will hardly make a wide appeal to this generation.” H. S. Gorman
“‘Ideal passion’ is excellent, while the ‘Roamer’ is valuable only to specialists in literature or disciples of Mr Woodberry. The shorter poems in the volume are vastly better than the ‘Roamer,’ but attain no equality with ‘Ideal passion.’” O. W. Firkins
WOODHOUSE, HENRY. Textbook of applied aeronautic engineering. il *$6 Century 629.1
“The bulk of this book is devoted to a description of existing machines, but in the first chapter the author declares that for commercial success the aeroplane should be built to carry twenty tons of useful load, and considers how this can be done. Other chapters consist largely of reprints of papers and documents, many from American sources, relating to aeroplane and seaplane engineering in the U.S.A. navy, the theory of flight, rigging, alinement, maintenance and repairs, and the value of plywood in fuselage construction.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
WOODHOUSE, THOMAS, and KILGOUR, P. Cordage and cordage hemp and fibres. (Pitman’s common commodities and industries ser.) il $1 Pitman 677
An introductory chapter suggesting something of the early history of cordage is followed by: Definition of cordage and sources of fibres; Classification of fibres; The cultivation of hemp; Retting, breaking and scutching; The cultivation of plants for hard fibres; The preparing and spinning machinery for hemp and other soft fibres; The preparing and spinning machinery for manila and other hard fibres; Twines, cords and lines; Ropes and rope-making; Yarn numbering; Marketing. There are 31 illustrations and an index. The authors are connected with the Dundee technical college and school of art.
WOODS, ARTHUR. Policeman and public. *$1.35 Yale univ. press 352.2
“‘The policeman and public,’ by Lieut.-Col. Arthur Woods, former police commissioner of New York city, places in book form the author’s lectures in the Dodge course at Yale on the ‘Responsibilities of citizenship.’ Points discussed are: The puzzling law; The policeman as Judge; The people’s advocate; Methods of law enforcement; Esprit de corps; Reward and punishment; Grafting; Influence; Police leadership; and The public’s part.”—Springf’d Republican
“Throughout the book is a sympathetic discussion of the problems from the standpoint of the policeman. At the same time Mr Woods appreciates the reasons for the sometimes hostile attitude of the public toward the police.” J. L. Gillin
Reviewed by G. H. McCaffrey
“A popular and interesting presentation of the problems and methods of the police, and of the ways in which the public may cooperate to add effectiveness to the service.”
“Colonel Woods has done a great service to the policemen of the entire country by putting their case fairly before the public.”
“The little book is instructive and intensely interesting.”
“Entertaining and instructive, not only to those connected with an important branch of municipal government and to applicants for places therein but to the public generally.”
“They are made lively reading by a mass of illustrative anecdotes.”
WOODS, GLENN H. Public school orchestras and bands. il $2 Ditson 785
In realization of the growing importance of music in our educational curriculum this book is offered to meet in particular the needs of the teacher who has no knowledge of instrumental music. It emphasizes three essentials for the instrumental work in the public school system: that the instruments for the band and orchestra be supplied to the children; that the work begin in the lower grades of the elementary schools and be carried through the high school; and that the instruction be given by special teachers of instrumental music. Among the contents are: Importance of instrumental instruction; Preparation of teachers: How to organize instrumental instruction; Instruction in the elementary schools; Instruction in the high schools; Conducting; Suggestions about tuning; How to assemble an orchestra score; Transposition; List of band and orchestra music, and instruction books. There is an appendix and numerous illustrations.
“For music leaders who lack professional training this book will be most helpful. It is practical, concise, and is written by one who has first-hand knowledge of the problem.”
WOODWORTH, HERBERT G. In the shadow of Lantern street. *$1.75 (1½c) Small
The hero of this story is a little boy in China when the story opens. He knows nothing of his parentage and believes himself to be Chinese. But he really is white and his American father, altho unwilling to recognize his son, still takes him, at sixteen, back to the United States and educates him. Most of the story is taken up with the tale of the young man’s striving to accommodate himself to American ideals, especially in relation to women. Two women come into his life, Bess and Barbara. To Bess he found marriage to mean the reversal of the Chinese idea—her husband was to become her chattel. Fortunately he found out in time and with Barbara is promised the happiness that comes with love that means partnership.
“It is apparent that Mr Woodworth knows China well, for he has framed in these early pages a picture that is very foreign and that contains a large number of realistic details. If Mr Woodworth had succeeded in keeping his entire novel as vivid as these early chapters it would have been no mean achievement.” D. L. M.
“There is some good material in the book, but the treatment lacks color, and shows no sense either of dramatic values, of style or of character. Such faint interest as the story has flickers out entirely as soon as the hero leaves China, which he does on the sixty-third page.”
“The early portions of the narrative are interesting because of an atmosphere of adventure and exploration; the later phases are speculative and analytical.”
WOOLF, LEONARD SIDNEY. Empire and commerce in Africa; a study in economic imperialism. *$7 Macmillan 960
“Omitting consideration of Egypt, Mr Woolf records in detail the history of those portions of Africa which fell under the influence of European imperialism. Separate chapters are devoted to Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, Abyssinia, Zanzibar, and the Belgian Congo. In all cases the sequence of events as disclosed by the narrative is much the same. The awakening of covetous desire in the hearts of European statesmen; the entering wedge of commercial or financial enterprize, ostensibly promoted by private initiative but in reality fostered by the state; the eventual declaration by the home government of its intention to guarantee the integrity of the economic advantages thus gained by its citizens; the marking out of spheres of influence; the friction aroused between the powers by the crossing of imperialistic purposes, and the threat of war; the adjustment of these international differences by the devious methods of diplomacy, and the final emergence of the victor secure in the possession of the spoils. No patriotic bias is shown in the record. France, Italy, England, Germany, and Belgium are accused impartially of sordid motives and heartless conduct. A generous equipment of maps illustrates the text, and a reproduction of the necessary documents lends support to the narrative of diplomatic intrigue.”—Am Econ R
“A high order of merit is shown by the writer in his skillful disentangling of the strands of intrigue in which the imperialistic aims of the rival states are involved, and in the accomplishment of his main intent: to set forth clearly the sequence of events which discloses the true purpose of Europe in its penetration into Africa. Even those readers who cannot agree that a single motive actuates the modern state in its imperial policy will find this study of the progress of empire in Africa illuminating and suggestive.” E. S. Furniss
Reviewed by W. E. B. Du Bois
“This is a book of great value and startling candor. It will remind some of a Veblen satire, but it is more concrete and human than that.” W. E. B. Du Bois
“The merits of the book are that it bears evidence of much research, though always on the one side and directed to proving what the author wants to prove, and that it is not greatly disfigured by indiscriminate abuse or by anti-patriotic bias.”
WOOLF, VIRGINIA (STEPHEN) (MRS LEONARD WOOLF). Night and day. *$2.25 Doran
A long and slow-moving story dealing with a criss-crossing of love affairs. Katharine Hilbery, granddaughter of the poet Alardyce, is engaged with her mother in writing the poet’s life. Her father is editor of a literary review and all her associations are of a literary character. In secret however her predilections are for mathematics and she spends lonely midnight hours with Euclid. She becomes engaged to William Rodney, author of poetic dramas, altho she feels herself drawn to Ralph Denham, a masterful young man of no family or position. Ralph maintains a platonic friendship with Mary Datchet, a suffrage worker, who loves him and refuses his lukewarm offer of marriage for that reason. Katharine’s cousin Cassandra comes to town and captivates William, setting Katharine free to marry Ralph. This leaves everyone provided for except Mary, who continues to devote her life to causes. Considerable care is devoted to the delineation of minor characters.
“It is impossible to refrain from comparing ‘Night and day’ with the novels of Miss Austen. There are moments, indeed, when one is almost tempted to cry it Miss Austen up-to-date. It is extremely cultivated, distinguished and brilliant, but above all—deliberate. There is not a chapter where one is unconscious of the writer, of her personality, her point of view, and her control of the situation.” K. M.
“The half expressed thought, the interrupted sentences by which the action of ‘Night and day’ proceeds, are baffling. Carry this sort of thing a few steps further and you have Maeterlinck. Yet even this intent study of a fragmentary and delicate thing strikes one as in the spirit of Tennyson’s ‘flower in the crannied wall’ whose complete comprehension means comprehension of what God and man is.” R. M. Underhill
“‘Night and day’ is perhaps less fine than ‘The voyage out’; it is not quite all of a piece as the other book almost miraculously is, or perhaps the ancient fact that comedy is less impressive than tragedy weighs in its effect. But it is an ample book.” C. M. Rourke
“This novel of Mrs Woolf’s is profoundly irritating. She has devoted such fine ability, such remarkable understanding, to the description of the doings of people profoundly unimportant and insignificant.”
“All of the characters are drawn with art; their thoughts and actions are minutely observed and dissected. In point of literary style the book is distinctive.”
“The narrative moves tardily along, and to the story, as such, one becomes somewhat indifferent. But in fresh characterization of its people and in charming pictures of England, especially of London, the work never fails.”
“Round each scene and round the tale as a whole sound sympathetic notes, that are not definitely struck, but respond to those which are. We feel the dignity of a love-story worthily told. We see much more than we are shown. ‘Night and day’ is a book full of wisdom.”
WOOLF, VIRGINIA (STEPHEN) (MRS LEONARD WOOLF). Voyage out. *$2.25 (1½c) Doran
In this kaleidoscopic picture of real life, people come and go with all their commonplace attributes. They are natural people and act naturally without any dramatic high lights to throw them into relief. To make the events transpire in a little world of their own a shipboard is chosen and a tourist’s hotel on a South-American mountain side. Helen Ambrose, wife of a Greek scholar, is put in charge of a niece, twenty years her junior, who at the age of twenty-four is still a child in world wisdom and experience. Helen, with rare insight and good sense, undertakes to initiate her into a larger life. In South America they meet the tourists—a variety of types compressed into a miniature world. Here Rachel unfolds and the greatest of experiences, love, comes her way, and there it all ends. Rachel falls a victim to the treacherous climate.
“To the reviewer, the opportunity to read about people who are real, but intelligent, is an unusual delight. These people employ self-control and common sense, even as you and I, and the plot proceeds without misunderstanding or murder.” R. M. Underhill
“The story is strangely lacking in construction. It has neither beginning nor end nor single point of view, but it is thoroly interesting, a distinctly unusual book.”
“For all its tragic interest ‘The voyage out’ is not low-keyed; it even has a slight buoyancy of tone, as if clear perception itself brought a continual zest to its writer. Mrs Woolf has the diversity of power which makes the great writer of narrative.” C. M. Rourke
“This English novel gives promise in its opening chapters of much entertainment. Later, the reader is disappointed. That the author knows her London in its most interesting aspects there can be no doubt. But aside from a certain cleverness—which, being all in one key, palls on one after going through a hundred pages of it—there is little in this offering to make it stand out from the ruck of mediocre novels which make far less literary pretension.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“As a first novel, it shows promise but is not well-rounded. Portrayal of women and scholarly elderly men is keen and well handled; that of younger and ‘red-blooded’ young men somewhat unsatisfactory.”
WOOLMAN, MRS MARY (SCHENCK). Clothing: choice, care, cost. (Lippincott’s family life ser.) il *$2 Lippincott 646
“This book faces the every-day living conditions of the people and treats clothing in its selection, use, care and cost. It is the result of many years of personal experience in technical and popular instruction in textiles and clothing to college students, ... to women’s clubs, to young wage earners, ... to buyers and managers in the retail trade, and recently, during the war, as a textile specialist in the service of the government among home keepers and extension leaders.” (Preface) Contents: Thrift in clothing; Woolen and worsted clothing; Cotton clothing; Silk clothing; Linen for clothing and household; Clothing accessories; Clothing and health; Intelligent shopping; Serviceable clothing; The clothing budget and the wardrobe; The care, repair and renovation of clothing; Dyeing, laundry and spot removal; A clothing information bureau; Planning for clothing progress; Appendix—made-over garments, with charts, bibliography, glossary; Illustrations and index.
“Useful to students, housekeepers and retail dealers.”
WORKS, JOHN DOWNEY. Juridical reform. *$1.50 (3c) Neale 347
“A critical comparison of pleading and practice under the common law and equity systems of practice, the English judicature acts, and codes of the several states of this country, with a view to greater efficiency and economy.” (Sub-title) “This little book is intended not only to point out some of the changes in the laws of pleading, practice, and procedure, necessary to mitigate present conditions resulting in interminable delays and enormous expense in maintaining the courts and the administration of justice, but also to show that a large part of the delays, and consequent unnecessary expense of litigation, is not brought about by defective laws alone but by the dilatory and faulty administration of the laws we have.” (Preface) Contents: Courts; Actions; Pleadings; The demurrer; Empaneling juries; Examination of witnesses; Taking cases under advisement; Briefs; Written opinions; Findings; Continuances; Appeals; Rules of court; Reports of decisions; Efficiency; Appendix.
“He writes with an apparent knowledge of his subject and with a high degree of common sense and authority.”
“There is much in this little volume that entitles it to the attention of every voter, certainly of every public-spirited lawyer.” E: S. Corwin
WRAY, W. J., and FERGUSON, R. W., eds. Day continuation school at work. *$3 (*8s 6d) Longmans 374.8
“The editors have brought together the discussions of twelve individual contributors, each paper constituting a chapter of the book and dealing with some more or less specific phase of the writer’s experience in organizing and conducting the scheme of training described. The introductory chapter, written by one of the editors, is a general discussion of the necessity for continued education and the relation of day continuation schools to the national educational system. The next chapter is a rather full description of the plan of administration of a girls’ continuation school, written by the head-mistress. This is followed by a similar account of a boys’ school by its head-master. In each case explicit statements are made concerning the curriculum, grading, discipline, and the usual problems of administration. The several chapters following, each written by an instructor in one or the other of these schools, take up such topics as Problems of class teaching in a boys’ day continuation school, The teaching of mathematics and science in a day continuation school for boys, Physical training in a girls’ school, and Arts and crafts. The last two chapters present the employers’ own statement of their attitude toward continuation education and their impressions of the value of the plan here described.”—School R
“‘A day continuation school at work’ has particularly interesting sections dealing with camp and outdoor schools, but it does not achieve quite the modern spirit.”
Reviewed by M. C. Calkins
WRIGHT, GEORGE E. Practical views on psychic phenomena. *$1.60 (4c) Harcourt 130
There is still much confusion of thought, even among people of considerable general culture, on the subject of super-normal phenomena, says the author. In order to help the reader to steer clear, on the one hand, of illogical skepticism and, on the other, of unreasoning credulity, the book endeavors to lay down the broad lines on which an examination of the published records in the chief departments of psychical research should be carried out, and to summarize briefly the evidence and put forward the conclusions to which they have led the author. Contents: Evidence in general; Telepathy; Physical phenomena; Materialization and spirit photography; Communication with the disembodied: (1) the methods; (2) the evidence; Conclusion.
“This sensible and restrained introduction for the layman gives an unbiased summary of the evidence in the case for psychical research.”
Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
“He approaches the whole subject in a singularly cautious spirit; and his careful and candid examination of the nature of evidence in psychical research and of different theories is worth reading.”
WRIGHT, HENRY PARKS. Young man and teaching. (Vocational ser.) *$1.50 Macmillan 371
“In ‘The young man and teaching,’ by Henry Parks Wright, the author, who is dean of Yale college, discusses every aspect of the teaching profession, laying particular emphasis on the psychological qualifications of the man who would devote his life to teaching. Among the chapter headings are the following: Teaching as a profession; Objections to the vocation considered; Personal qualifications; Educational preparation; Instruction; Government; Rules and penalties; Teaching in college, and others.”—N Y Times
“His book is thorough and suggestive.”
“Some of the author’s sentiments are tinged with those of the ‘old school,’ but a majority of his thoughts about teaching are strictly up to date and unquestionably true.”
WRIGHT, ROWLAND. Disappearance of Kimball Webb. *$1.75 (3c) Dodd
Mystery and adventure story centering about a man who disappears as if by magic the night before his proposed wedding to a beautiful young heiress. All efforts to find him prove for weeks in vain. Some think him spirited away by ghosts. Elsie, the heiress, is implored by her relatives to marry some one else, for if she does not marry soon, by the conditions of the will, she loses her fortune. But for her there is no one but Webb. Finally after desperate efforts, and dreadful adventures, the mystery is solved at last. Webb is brought back in time to save the fortune, and the “master mind” who has spirited the bridegroom away and kept him basely hid is one least expected.
“The characters are the mere sketches which pass in most latter-day mystery fiction. The style is slipshod, the dialogue barren, the action forced. Mr Wright has a new idea, cleverly developed in its essential details. With this he stops short.” C. H.
“A somewhat new idea is used as vehicle, showing that modern mystery fiction can be based on a single unsolved point. But the supporting material is inferior, in comparison, and causes the story to prove somewhat disappointing.”
WYATT, EDWIN M.[2] Blue print reading. il $1 Bruce pub. co. 744
“This book is the result of several years teaching of blueprint reading in night schools and several years teaching of drafting preceding it.... Essentially it is a tried text, one that has been used to teach the reading of drawings to one class of mixed trades, one class of ship carpenters, two classes of house carpenters, and one class of machinists. It has been designed to suit as wide a range of trades as possible. Usually each new principle is illustrated by both a machine and an architectural example.” (Preface) The book is illustrated with twenty-nine plates, and questions and problems follow the chapters.
“A valuable addition to the library of manual training teachers and craftsmen wishing to be fluently versed in the universal language of mechanical drawing.”
WYLD, HENRY CECIL KENNEDY. History of modern colloquial English. *$8 Dutton 420.9
“This book may be described, in one way, as a documented history of English pronunciation from Chaucer to the present day; in another, as an attempt to show that, ‘during the last two centuries at least, the modifications which have come about in the spoken language are the result of the influence not primarily of regional, but of class dialects,’ the final result being the ‘public school English’ which is now the normal spoken idiom of the educated classes. In chapter I the author surveys in broad outline the various problems dealt with in minute detail later in the book. Chapter II, dealing with ‘Dialect types in middle English, and their survival in the modern period,’ contains an elaborate phonetic description of the three main contributory dialects. Chapter IV, on ‘From Henry VIII to James I,’ shows us the English language arriving at the self-conscious period. With chapter V, ‘Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,’ we are on modern ground. Chapters VI to IX deal with the phonetic history of the modern language and the origin of inflections. The final chapter, on ‘Colloquial idiom,’ gives us examples of familiar speech from John Shillingford (1447) to Miss Austen; and there are some final sections on the trimmings of speech, such as greetings, epistolary formulas, expletives, compliments, etc.”—Ath
“Professor Wyld is to be congratulated on the accomplishment of a very valuable, and evidently laborious, piece of work. We would suggest that he should so far consider the intelligent layman as to publish an abridged edition, with a few characteristic examples replacing the ponderous mass of phonetic detail which concludes each chapter, and, above all, that he should add an index.” E. W.
“It may be well to indicate what strikes one as its only defect—that he takes the insular attitude not uncommon among British scholars. This caveat once filed, it is only fair to say that Professor Wyld has done very well indeed what was well worth doing.” Brander Matthews
“No matter how familiar the outlines of the story, no one can follow Professor Wyld’s version of it without finding his interest in it quickened and enlarged on every page.” H. M. Ayres
“Professor Wyld commands a fluent style, but not of the highest order. Of minor errors and slips there is too large a number. To end on a fault-finding note would be to give a false impression of our appreciation of this notable book. We hasten to set down our tribute to the author’s courage and enthusiasm.”
WYLIE, IDA ALENA ROSS. Children of storm (Eng title, Brodie and the deep sea). *$2 (1½c) Lane
The story of an unequal marriage. Ursula Seton, daughter of one of England’s wealthiest families, and Adam Brodie, son of an humble grocer, are married as the result of a brief wartime romance. After the war, and Adam’s return, they try to make the necessary adjustments. The first attempt is made in Ursula’s home. Although her family mean to be sympathetic and kind, Adam is independent and sensitive and the experiment fails. A second attempt is tried out in Adam’s humble circumstances. Here the pettiness of everyday drudgery wears upon Ursula until she can stand it no longer. The two seem to have come to a deadlock when a new element enters into their affairs. Ursula’s grandfather, who has confidence in Adam, leaves him the management of the steel industry which has brought the family their wealth. In grappling with the problems which this position brings, Adam grows and develops in mind and soul until Ursula sees again in him the man with whom she had fallen in love.
“The domestic scenes revealing their difficulties are perhaps the best in the book.”
“Miss Wylie’s straightforward and felicitous style is an unmixed delight.”
“The author fails signally to answer the question she raises. ‘Children of storm’ contains some dramatic passages and some character-revealing dialogue, but the author cannot be said to meet satisfactorily the artistic demands of her self-imposed, ambitious theme.”
“The final reconciliation of husband and wife through the husband’s endeavour to settle labour troubles is, however, not quite convincing. The writer obviously has fine but vague ideals at the back of her mind for the improvement of the life of the workers, but she does not quite succeed in imparting them to the reader.”
“In the first chapters Miss Wylie writes with truth and without partisanship, so that you see this struggle from every side, sympathize with every character and feel their inevitable sorrows. It is ... partly perhaps that Miss Wylie was in a hurry to bring her tale out of tragedy to a triumphant conclusion, which makes the end of the book melodrama. It is good melodrama, but by comparison with the first part of the book superficial and theatrical.”
WYLIE, IDA ALENA ROSS. Holy fire, and other stories. *$1.75 (2c) Lane
Michael Gregorovitch, of the title story, is a Russian priest. He was a man of peace, a non-resistant, he loved and prayed for his enemies and he kept the lamp burning before the altar of the little church—the light of God that had not gone out for two hundred years. The night the village was sacked the women implored him to give the signal from the belfry, to sound the tocsin, for the peasants to break forth from their hiding and kill the invaders. But the priest standing before the holy fire remained firm—although his house was burned, his wife and little grandson killed, he would not countenance killing. When the ruffians entered the church, he did not resent their insults—they put out the holy fire that had burned for two hundred years and the priest escaped to the belfry and gave the signal. The other stories are: Thirst; The bridge across; “Tinker—tailor—”; Colonel Tibbit comes home; “‘Melia, no good”; A gift for St Nicholas; John Prettyman’s fourth dimension; An Episcopal scherzo.
“Most of them are marked by tense emotion, but frequently there are gleams of humor.”
“Miss Wylie’s work is frankly colored with sentiment. She does not ignore the sensibility of the race which was not ashamed to sob over Colonel Newcome and even Little Nell.” H. W. Boynton
WYLLARDE, DOLF. Temperament: a romance of hero-worship. *$2 (½c) Lane
Joan Delamere, of English parentage, was born in the tropics and had an exotic temperament. She was a musical genius, imaginative and romantic to a degree. She dreamt dreams and fashioned them in music. While still a child the personality of a certain Lord Oswald Lancaster fired her imagination and became her hero. Chance encounters with him at long intervals kept the fire burning, but not till the hero was sixty and Joan thirty did they come to know and love each other. As a child she had made a vow never to marry and her union with Lord Oswald remained an illicit one. When an older obligation claimed the latter, Joan hid herself from him and the world on her native Seychelles islands where she died a lonely death in giving birth to her son.
“The book is not quite as compact as the theme demands, and this diffuseness militates a bit against its complete success but in a large measure the theme, in its ample treatment, is developed in a surprisingly interesting manner. The reader will find much to satisfy him in the book by considering Joan as a feat in portraiture.”
“As usual with this author, we are attracted, half in our own despite, by the sheer cleverness often revealed in dialogue, characterisation and description.”
“Her sentimental adventures are not completely convincing, and Lord Oswald Lancaster is of so commonplace and unattractive a type that the reader will have very little sympathy with Joan Delamere’s obsession.”
“The events of the tale are plausible, and the persons behave quite naturally and credibly. To that extent the book is a skilful and successful piece of fiction. Yet it is very far indeed from being a good novel in any more serious sense than that. The reason is that the persons, though carefully imitated from life, are only lay figures. They are the product not of an act of creative imagination, but of skilled and painstaking manufacture.”
YATES, L. B. Autobiography of a race horse. *$1.75 (3c) Doran
A story of horse racing containing considerable inside information on racing methods, comparisons of English and American systems of training and riding, and something of the history of racing in America. Like the ugly duckling, the horse who is made the narrator of the story shows little promise in early youth, but the young master who buys the colt at auction for a paltry thirty dollars is justified in his judgment. He tells of his training, his stable companions and his first races, adding also an account of a race into the Cherokee Strip at the time it was opened for settlement.
“An extremely entertaining romance, filled with authentic gossip of past eras on the American track. The story has many thrilling moments that are lightened by a deft humorous touch that makes the book pleasing to read.”
YATES, RAYMOND FRANCIS. Boys’ book of model boats. il *$2 Century 623.8
This book for boys has chapters on: Why a boat floats; The hull; How to make simple boats, with and without power drive; Steam and electric propulsion; An electric launch; A steam launch; An electrically driven lake freighter; An electric submarine-chaser; Boat fittings; The design of model steam-engines; A model floating dry-dock; Operation of flash steam power plants for model boats; Sailing yachts; Two-foot sailing yacht. There are seven full-page illustrations and 166 figures in the text. A dictionary of marine terms is given in an appendix.
“Would require a good deal of material and of manual dexterity.”
YEATS-BROWN, FRANCIS CHARLES CLAYPON. Caught by the Turks. il *$2 (4c) Macmillan 940.47
In his preface to the story Owen Wister assures the reader that the tale is true. This is well for it is as strange as fiction. A young soldier in an aeroplane was captured with his pilot by the Turks near Baghdad. He is a prisoner of war for nearly three years; escapes, is recaptured and escapes again. He adopts various disguises, once as a woman, once as a Hungarian mechanic, and his adventures and experiences are altogether unusual and romantic. Life in a Turkish prison camp is likewise very different from the prison camp of the western front.
“A war book that is readable on every page.”
“The narrative is lively and humorous, and the author writes an easy style. We ought to know more about the Turk’s character and habits than we do: and the book before us will help our education and stimulate our interest in the Ottoman barbarian.”
“The author tells the story in a straightforward conversational manner. Humor is not the least of his characteristics, and he shows ability to distinguish between the important and the nonessential.”
“A vividly told tale.”
YERKES, ROBERT MEARNS, ed. New world of science, il *$3 Century 509
The book is one of the Century New world series and its object is to show the impetus given to research in the various branches of science by the war. The various chapters are written by specialists in the subjects under discussion and the contents fall into groups according to the role in the war of each science. The contributors to the respective groups are: Physical science, Robert A. Millikan, Augustus Trowbridge, Herbert E. Ives; Chemistry, Arthur A. Noyes, Charles E. Munroe, Clarence J. West; The earth sciences (geography and geology), Douglas W. Johnson; Engineering, A. D. Kennelly, Henry M. Howe; Biology and medicine, Vernon Kellogg, Frederick F. Russell, John W. Hanner, Victor C. Vaughan; Psychology, Robert M. Yerkes. The relations of the war to progress in science is treated by George Ellery Hale and James R. Angell. The book is illustrated and indexed.
“It is excellently illustrated; a record of great value and interest.”
YEZIERSKA, ANZIA, pseud. Hungry hearts. *$1.90 (3c) Houghton
The Russian immigrant in the ghetto, reaching out with hungry heart to higher things, is the subject of this collection of sketches. There is something fierce and savage and to our sober self-control almost unreasonable in this cry for beauty, life and freedom that rings from the heart of this oppressed race in the voice of one of their number. The sketches are: Wings; Hunger; The lost “beautifulness”; The free vacation house; The miracle; Where lovers dream; Soap and water; “The fat of the land”; My own people; How I found America.
“Very intense, with a touch of sadness or bitterness here and there, but vivid and appealing.”
“The characters in these ten stories of imaginative squalor are truly conceived as portraits, but their speech is too often falsely poetic, Miss Yezierska has a firm command over her subject-matter; when she restrains herself she is artistic.” E. P.
“It is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant books produced by an adopted American.” E. A. S.
“When she leaves the East side neighborhood to which her art is native she never quite has the look of reality. And yet she has struck one or two notes that our literature can never again be without, and she deserves the high credit of being one of the earliest to put those notes into engaging fiction.” C. V. D.
“When one considers her own struggles to become an American her detachment strikes one as little short of miraculous.”
“Many realistic tales of New York’s ghetto have been written; but in point of literary workmanship and in laying bare the very souls of her characters, the superior of Miss Yezierska has not yet appeared.”
“Quite in addition to fulfilling her purpose of making her far-from-mute race even more articulate, Mrs Yezierska has succeeded in making some very readable stories. They are not only Jewish; they are human.” M. C. C.
YOAKUM, CLARENCE STONE, and YERKES, ROBERT MEARNS, eds. Army mental tests. il *$1.50 Holt 136
“The purposes of psychological testing are (a) to aid in segregating the mentally incompetent, (b) to classify men according to their mental capacity, (c) to assist in selecting competent men for responsible positions.” (Introd.) Although the results given in the present volume are based almost entirely on military needs and indicate the success of this service in the army, it has been prepared in the hope that it may suggest possible uses of similar methods in education and industry. Contents: Making the tests; Methods and results; The examiner’s guide for psychological examining in the army—Directions for giving the army mental tests; Army tests in the Students’ army training corps and colleges; Practical applications; Army test record blanks and forms.
“Suggestive to an instructor or employment manager, as it gives a practical illustration of what might be done with these tests in a commercial way.”
Reviewed by P. S. Florence
Reviewed by F. L. Wells
“If the American army was not actually as wonderful as the peruser of these tests might suppose, we must realize that, as far as the theory of mental tests is concerned, an exceedingly valuable piece of work was nevertheless performed. They appear, as far as the reader can judge, to have vindicated themselves completely.”
YORK, THOMAS A. Foreign exchange; theory and practice. $2.50 Ronald 332.4
“The author’s purpose is to explain the operation of the exchanges between gold standard countries under normal financial conditions. In the introductory chapters he discusses the meaning of the gold standard, or what constitutes money in a gold standard country. A hypothetical method of treatment is proposed in the theoretical part of the discussion. In the last few chapters the hypothetical assumptions are abolished and attention is given to practical foreign exchange operations as conducted in the New York market.”—Am Econ R
YOUNG, FLORENCE ETHEL MILLS. Almonds of life. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran
When Fred Wootten marries a beautiful young wife and brings her home to South Africa he surprises all his friends, not least of them George and Maud Allerton. Mrs Allerton welcomes the bride and does all in her power to make her happy in her new home. But neither she nor the hapless husband is aware of the sudden passion that awakens between George Allerton and Gerda Wootten and up to the moment of flight both are unaware of what is impending. George and Gerda go to England. Wootten is willing to set his wife free but for the sake of her children Maud refuses to consider divorce. Eventually Gerda comes to feel the guilt of her action and sends George from her. The title is taken from a Chinese proverb, “Almonds come to those who have no teeth.”
“The book is smoothly written, but it has no especial charm of style, nor any particular quality either of discernment or of drama to freshen its more than well-worn plot. The proofreading is strikingly careless.”
“She has given George Allerton’s wife sterling qualities and then wasted them all. The author, in fact, has taken throughout the book a low view of love, and love has spread his wings and flown away. We have seldom found so little love in a book which contained so much talk of it. Being what it is, however, it is a well-told story.”
YOUNG, FRANCIS BRETT. Poems, 1916–1918. *$2 Dutton 821
“This book contains poems which appeared in Mr Brett Young’s first volume of verse, ‘Five degrees south.’ But there is a large number of new poems.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup p718 D 4 ’19) “Mr Brett Young’s finer poems are of two kinds—reverie and fantasy. Both are in the nature of dreams; the one a brooding on love or beauty, a scene, a memory; the other on adventure, heathenish maybe, and magical, of the imagination.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup p779 D 25 ’19)
“His ardent appreciation of the richer, more obvious kinds of beauty makes him a remarkably picturesque writer. He possesses, in modernized form, a great measure of the talent of that much neglected writer, Thomas Moore.” A. L. H.
“The difficulty is that Mr Young has not made his verse the true instrument of his experiences. He writes about them, rather than records them. And the way in which he writes about them is by echoing other poets.” J: G. Fletcher
“Young has already made an enviable reputation as a prose writer, but it is quite safe to assert that his poetry immediately gives him a much higher place in English letters than he has occupied heretofore. There is not a mediocre poem, not a verse without its modicum of aesthetic satisfaction and impressionistic suggestion for the reader. The reviewer can but advise lovers of poetry to secure it as soon as possible.” H. S. Gorman
“Mr Francis Brett Young tries experiments in metres that are more crafty than wise. He is prone also to that kind of verse in which things well said and things not nearly so well said are set forth in undiscriminating proximity.” O. W. Firkins
“Mr Brett Young has a distinguished, ardent, and promising muse.”
YOUNG, FRANCIS BRETT. Young physician. *$2.50 Dutton
“This story proceeds by definite stages. First of all we have the boy in the English public school. We find him suffering keenly from the roughness and cruelty of public school life. His own escape from this torment is in his dreams. He confides these dreams to his mother and she responds with an understanding which tightened the bond between them. After his mother has died, Edwin’s father has a period of poignant self-revelation. He takes Edwin on a bicycle trip to the country where his boyhood was spent. His father uses rather undue influence in persuading him to give up his chosen career in order to study medicine. It is easy to understand that the father longs to see his own personal ambitions fulfilled in the boy, but after the first Edwin himself becomes interested in the work. We see him in the medical school, in the dissecting room. When he discovers late in his medical school course that his father is planning to marry again, Edwin is forced to leave home by an interior urge too strong to be overborne. It is their definite point of cleavage.”—Boston Transcript
“Readable, yes, eminently readable—readable to a fault. If only Mr Young could forget the impatient public and let himself be carried away into places where he thinks they do not care to follow!” K. M.
“Mr Young has given us a genuine achievement, one with real revelation for every reader who likes to experience contact with the deeper currents of individual life. Edwin Ingleby should, if this book has the fate it deserves, become one of the characters with whom acquaintance is considered a prerequisite of good taste in fiction.” D. L. M.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The book is an interesting, if somewhat morbid, study of life, as seen by a youth in the egotistic years between boyhood and manhood. The main theme is the hero himself—to the detriment of several deserving minor characters.”
“But for the episode of Rosie Beaucaire and one more rather tiresome and trivial incident Mr Brett Young would have succeeded in producing a long and interesting work of fiction in which the relations of sex played no part whatever.”
“Perhaps the most striking thing about the book is the ease with which Mr Young blends poetry and realism—out of some such blend as this the great novels of the next few decades must be written. Probably Mr Young has not attained his finest balance yet. He seems to have the power of using the modern spirit to classical ends.”
“If more novelists wrote as well as Mr Brett Young, whose style is attractively clear and simple, the world would be a happier place; but manner is not everything, and the matter of Edwin Ingleby’s life is comparatively wanting in dramatic interest. We wish the author could convey to his imagination the very obvious zest which moves his pen.”
YOUNG, FRANCIS BRETT, and YOUNG, E. BRETT. Undergrowth. *$2 Dutton
“The story which it tells is the story of a conflict between modern men and the ancient pagan forces, the ‘old gods’ who from prehistoric times have dominated the lonely Welsh valley in which the action is laid. This conflict manifests itself at once physically and spiritually. Physically, in the endless series of accidents which befall those engaged in building the great dam that is to restrain the waters of the Dulas; spiritually, in their effect upon the characters and souls of Forsyth, the young engineer with whose coming to take charge of the work on the dam the book begins, and his predecessor, Carlyon, the dead man whose diary and whose influence form important parts of the narrative.”—N Y Times
“As a short story, it would be a decided success, as a long one it is overelaborated.” C. K. H.
“‘Undergrowth’ is a novel of atmosphere. Characters and incidents alike are of value to Mr Young only as they can help to make more vivid the picture he is painting of the rugged, fear-inspiring mountains of South Wales.” D. L. M.
“We wonder whether lack of conciseness, rather than any lack in imagination or expression, is not the great rift in this book. And at the last the imagination slips the noose. The book becomes hysterical.”
“The book is interesting, dramatic at times, and full of a strange, compelling beauty.”
YOUNG, GEOFFREY WINTHROP, ed.[2] Mountain craft. il *$7.50 Scribner 796
“This book comprises 609 pages in all; about 394 pages are occupied by Mr Young in person in a discussion of what he justly calls ‘Mountain craft.’ Of the remainder, sixty-three are occupied by Mr Arnold Lunn with a section on Mountaineering on ski, which leaves 162 pages for eleven other contributors and the index.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“In the result the book is disproportioned and ill-arranged; it affords some compensations. Mr Lunn’s article is a very valuable treatise on a subject which deserves more attention. Captain Farrar finds it possible in a small space to say all that is necessary about equipment and outfit, writing, as he always does, with complete mastery of detail and admirable conciseness. Mr Spenser on photography is helpful and adequate.”
YOUNG, GEORGE. New Germany. *$2.25 (4c) Harcourt 943
There is a note of optimism for Germany in this book—the Germany that has learned “to lift up its eyes to the hills” in all its misery—and a grave note of warning for the Entente. “The mistake we are all making about Germany ... is that we can’t realize what Germany today is like.... Germany has given up. It carried on until it collapsed, and now lies semi-comatose; and we, still absorbed in our quarrel, keep pestering it with solicitors and foreclosures instead of patching it up with doctors and food.” The author is, since the armistice, a special correspondent of the London Daily News in Germany. Contents: The revolution; The reaction; The council republics; Ruin and reconstruction; Council government; The treaty of Versailles; The constitution. The appendix contains a copy of the constitution with notes, and there is an index.
“This able analysis of a complicated situation makes good supplementary reading to Keynes.”
“Admirable little book.” H: W. Nevinson
“On the whole, although necessarily impressionistic and journalistic in character, the work is an intelligent account of the political transformations in Germany since the armistice, lively and readable at all times, penetrating and brilliant in places.”
“Mr Young, it must be added, is a companionable guide to this unknown land. He saw Germany in the fever of revolution, when to see it was an adventure, and we doubt whether any observer who was there, German or foreigner, saw half so much. He came to his work, moreover, with a background of intimate knowledge of the old Germany. On the folly of the peace treaty he writes with knowledge and with passion. Mr Keynes from the outside has traced its economic effects. Mr Young from within has sketched its no less tragic psychical results.”
“It is an expert view Young presents.” A. J.
“Mr Young’s interpretation is liberal and fairminded.” A. C. Freeman
“‘The new Germany’ is not a profound book and it is frequently marred by bad writing, but it is one of the best accounts of political and economic events in Germany since the armistice.”
“The writer has first hand knowledge of German political and economic conditions, and sound intelligence and an understanding of political theory illuminate his judgments.”
“Mr Young has, as all who know his other writings would anticipate, produced a book which is not only interesting and at times amusing and clever, but also parts of which deserve serious consideration by students of contemporary politics. Clever, perhaps too clever; for some there will be too much of the cheap jest and the facile alliteration. Mr Young has certainly done more than any other writer to help us in understanding what happened.”
“Despite a journalistic fondness for euphuistic phrases in their extreme form, Mr Young holds the reader’s attention. Of real value are the final chapters on the new German constitution, and the appendix, which contains the text of the constitution with illuminating annotations.” C: Seymour
YOUNG, P. N. F., and FERRERS, AGNES.[2] India in conflict. *$1.40 Macmillan 266
“This ambitious title covers a manual for missionary workers in India. But the authors—representatives of the Anglican church—know that India is more interesting than missions, and it is of India that they write. In a hundred and fifty pages they give the reader a clear impression of the ignorance and poverty met in the teeming native villages, and of the obstacles to true missionary work springing from the fact that even if the ill-paid missionary lives in the poorest, barest cabin, he seems a marvel of wealth to most natives. They define the great needs of rural India as, first, medical aid, and second, schools of a Montessori type.”—N Y Evening Post
“An instructive study of Indian conditions.”
YOUNG, W. A. Silver and Sheffield plate collector. (Collector’s ser.) il *$2.50 Dodd 739
“A guide to English domestic metal work in old silver and old Sheffield plate.” (Sub-title) In view of the considerable literature already gathered around the above subject the author avers that no previous writer has surveyed the field solely from the standpoint of domestic requirements and that “the present volume seeks to furnish something about any and every class of article made of silver or Sheffield plate that was made between the years 1697 and 1840, provided it was of such sort as might have had a place in the homes, or about the persons of the well-to-do and middle classes.” (Introd.) Contents: Some history and a little law; Some sources of information; Marks on old metal wares; The craft of the silversmith and the plater; Six chapters on “The quest” for the various kinds of utensils; Bibliography; A glossary of terms used in connection with the silversmiths’ craft and the plater’s trade; Appendix; Index and over one hundred illustrations.
“Mr Young’s introduction is valuable and interesting, as is his first chapter. The illustrations are well chosen and excellently reproduced.”
YOUNGHUSBAND, SIR GEORGE JOHN.[2] Jewel house. il $5 Doran 739
A work by the Keeper of the jewel house in the Tower of London. “Some of the most interesting chapters in the book are those devoted to the description of the chief pieces of the regalia and to the history of the more famous gems. There is a full account of the sovereign’s three crowns—Edward the Confessor’s crown, the Imperial state crown, and the Imperial crown of India—of the Queen’s crowns, the Prince of Wales’s crown as eldest son of the king, and the different sceptres and orbs. The Koh-i-nur is, of course, one of the historic jewels dealt with by Sir George in a special chapter. Another gem with a story is the Black Prince’s ruby, presented to him after the battle of Najera by his ally Don Pedro of Castille.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
ZAMACOÏS, EDUARDO. Their son; The necklace. (Penguin ser.) *$1.25 (3½c) Boni & Liveright
Two stories translated from the Spanish by George Allan England. In the first, an honest, faithful, industrious locomotive engineer marries a young girl of provocative beauty. In his zeal to get on, and to provide properly for her in case he should suddenly die, he insists on their taking as boarder a friend of his who is fond of “wine, women, and song.” Not until three years pass does he learn that his friend has been too intimate with his wife; and although he knows it must cost him his home, his delight in his wife and his gay little son, he kills his deceiving friend in a duel. After twenty years in prison he returns to a wife hardened and made ugly by work, and a dissolute son. He is happy again, prosperity comes; but another duel occurs through no fault of his, in which he is killed by the son who is not his son. The second is a passionate story of the power of a courtesan over a young student from the country. The translator contributes an appreciative estimate of the author.
“‘Their son’ is a novelette of a very high order of merit. The action is rapid, the pathos bare and virile, the observation of circumstance exact. ‘The necklace’ is more hectic in atmosphere and the theft of the jewels is somewhat wildly conceived.” L. L.
“The themes of both of the novelettes are antique, but the style is direct, simple and vigorous. Here is a book worth reading.” A. W. Welch
“We predict for Señor Zamacois a high appreciation among American readers.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“This author has been compared to both Balzac and Maupassant; but it seems to us that his nearest double in French fiction would be Anatole France, with whom he has in common a fine irony which directs the thought of the reader to fundamental ills in present-day social relationships.”
ZANELLA, NORA. By the waters of Fiume. *$1.35 (*3s 6d) Longmans 940.3436
“This little book purports to have been written by an English girl who married a young Italian of Fiume just before the war. The husband had to serve as a conscript in the Austrian army, and was shot for refusing to fire on the Italians. The wife survived him only a few months. Whether or not the story is true it represents faithfully enough the Italian sentiments of the majority of the people of Fiume and their sufferings during a war in which all their sympathies were with the Allies and against their Austrian and Croatian oppressors.” (Spec) The facts of the author’s life are told by her sister, Madame de Lucchi, in an introduction.
“You can tell what Fiume is like by reading the early pages of this book.”
“It is a moving record of love, expressed with great exuberance.”
ZILBOORG, GREGORY. Passing of the old order in Europe. *$2.50 (4c) Seltzer 940.5
The author has lived through the war as an observer and is not writing an academic treatise or a book based on authorities but claims merely to be analysing his own experiences. It is his conviction that “in the course of the struggles of the present-day world, humanity has developed a very serious disease.... The disease is mob psychosis. The contagion was carried by the war, by revolution, by political lying, by diplomatic betrayal, social disturbances and moral suppression.” (Introd.) The book concerns itself with the diagnosis of the disease and the possibilities of restoring health. Contents: The impasse of politics; The debauch of European thought; The morass of war; The recovery of revolution; Revolutionary contradictions; Additional contemplations; Light and shadows; Consequences and possibilities.
“It is an important contribution, full of apposite citation from an unusually wide range of knowledge and personal experience of penetrating criticism and suggestive generalization. This message just now deserves a wide hearing.” B. L.
ZIMMERN, HELEN, and AGRESTI, ANTONIO. New Italy. *$2 (3c) Harcourt 914.5
The authors say in the foreword that Italy’s glorious past stands in the way of comprehension of her present, that she is still for the average Englishman and American the land of the renaissance and the Risorgimento, or the country of the picturesque brigand and lazzarone, while in fact the modern Italian is not a romanticist but a positivist, not an excitable, emotional individual but a reflective one. The great change that has come over the people, especially during the last twenty years, has surprised even the nation itself into knowing itself for the first time. The endeavor of the book is to give a short, synthetic view of Italy as she was at the outbreak of the war, as she is today and as she is likely to be after the conclusion of peace, for Italy’s entrance into the war marks the end of the book. The three main divisions of the contents are politics, civil questions, and Italy and the great war. There is an index.
“They know and love the old Italy, and they have packed much valuable information into their book, despite haphazard statistics and recurrent bellicose homilies on the war. There is need of an authoritative book on new Italy; this is not it.”
“The book provides a certain amount of guidebook information about Italian history, education, industry, etc. But, as an interpretation of ‘New Italy,’ it is a total failure.” A. C. Freeman
“The volume as a whole is thoroughly satisfactory, and our only regret is that its brief compass does not permit a fuller development of the subjects with which it deals.”
“Miss Helen Zimmern and Signor Agresti have tried to explain modern Italy to English readers, and their survey is both compact and intelligent. The writers have not quite got to the root of Italy’s discontents.”
“So far as it goes it gives a clear outline of the progress of Italy. But her present developments are among the most interesting in all Europe, and this book, ending the survey where it does, hardly prepares us to understand them.”
“She has written numerous books on Italy, and she has written better ones, not a little better.” F. O. Beck
ZOOK, GEORGE FREDERICK. Company of royal adventurers trading into Africa. $1.10 Journal of negro history, 1216 You st., N.W., Washington, D.C. 382
This monograph is reprinted from the Journal of negro history, (April, 1919) and is a contribution to the history of the slave trade. The time period covered is 1660–1672. Contents: Early Dutch and English trade to West Africa; The royal adventurers in England; On the west coast of Africa; The royal adventurers and the plantations; Bibliography; Index. The author is professor of modern European history in Pennsylvania state college.
“On the whole Dr Zook has presented a clear and straightforward account of the company’s activities and relationships.”
ZWEMER, SAMUEL MARINUS. Influence of animism on Islam; an account of popular superstitions. il *$2 Macmillan 297
The object of the book is to show how animism, the superstitious belief in spirits, witches and demons, on which all pagan religions are founded, still controls Islam in its popular manifestations. Mohammedanism, as an outgrowth of paganism, Judaism and Christianity, is characterized as a religion of compromise, that has easily yielded to the pagan survivals in the countries over which it has spread its influence. That these superstitions are popular expressions that have nothing to do with the monotheism of Islam, does not make them less pernicious. The contents are: Islam and animism; Animism in the creed and the use of the rosary; Animistic elements in Moslem prayer; Hair, finger-nails and the hand; The ‘Aqiqa’ sacrifice; The familiar spirit or Qarina; Jinn; Pagan practices in connection with the pilgrimage; Magic and sorcery; Amulets, charms and knots; Tree, stone and serpent worship; The Zar: exorcism of demons. There are illustrations and a bibliography.
“His book is well worth reading.”
2. This book is mentioned for the first time in this issue.
Accidents
Accidents and accident prevention in machine building. Lucian W. Chaney. (U.S. Labor statistics bureau. Bul. 256) 123p pa ’20
Industrial accidents and their prevention. Ralph R. Ray. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 47) 66p pa ’19
Advertising
Advertising methods in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. J. W. Sanger. (U.S. Foreign & domestic commerce bureau. Special agents series 190) 119p pa ’20
Agricultural census
Number of farms, by states and counties: 1920, 1910 and 1900. (U.S. Census bur.) 29p pa ’20
Agricultural cooperation
Farmers’ cooperative gins in Texas. H. M. Eliot. (Texas. Agricultural experiment station. Special circular) 23p pa ’20 Agricultural experiment station, College station, Brazos county, Texas
Fundamental principles of cooperation in agriculture. G. Harold Powell. (California. Agricultural experiment station. Circular 222) 24p pa ’20 University of California, Berkeley, Cal.
Agricultural education
Development of agricultural instruction in secondary schools. H. P. Barrows. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1919, no. 85) 108p pa ’20
Lessons in animal production for southern schools. E. H. Shinn. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 56) 136p pa ’20
Agricultural extension
Cooperative extension work in agriculture and home economics, 1918. (U.S. States relations service) 157p pa ’19
Books for a farmer’s library. L. O. Lantis. (Ohio. State university. Agricultural extension service. Bul. v. 15 no. 20) 32p pa ’20 Ohio state university, Columbus, Ohio
Agriculture
Status and results; county agent work: northern and western states. W. A. Lloyd. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 106) 19p pa ’20
American expeditionary forces
Final report of Gen. John J. Pershing, commander in chief, American expeditionary forces. (U.S. War dept.) 95p 16 folded maps pa ’19
Americanization
Community Americanization; a handbook for workers. Fred Clayton Butler. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1919, no. 76) 82p pa ’20
State Americanization; the part of the state in the education and assimilation of the immigrant. Fred Clayton Butler. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1919, no. 77) 26p pa ’20
Training teachers for Americanization; a course of study for normal schools and teachers’ institutes, by John J. Mahoney; with a chapter on Industrial classes, by Frances K. Wetmore, and on Home and neighborhood classes, by Helen Winkler and Elsa Alsberg. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 12) 62p pa ’20
Animal breeding
Essentials of animal breeding. George M. Rommel. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1167) 38p pa ’20
Apple powdery mildew
Control of apple powdery mildew. D. F. Fisher. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1120) 14p pa ’20
Apples
Common insects and diseases of the apple. W. W. Chase. (Georgia. State board of entomology. Bul. 54) 51p pa ’19 Atlanta, Ga.
Argentina
Economic position of Argentina during the war. L. Brewster Smith, Harry T. Collins, Elizabeth Murphey. (U.S. Foreign & domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous series, 98) 140p pa ’20
Automobile repair
Course of study for automobile maintenance and repair. (New Mexico. State board for vocational education. Bul. no. 3) 43p pa ’19 Santa Fé, N. Mex.
Baking
Baking in the home. Hannah L. Wessling. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1136) 40p pa ’20
Beef production
Growing beef on the farm. F. W. Farley. (U.S. Agric. dept. Farmers’ bul. 1073) 23p pa ’19
Bees
Beekeeping for beginners. H. B. Parks. (Texas. Agricultural experiment station Bulletin 255) 25p pa ’19 College Station, Brazos county, Texas
Botany
Directions for collecting flowering plants and ferns. S. F. Blake. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 76) 8p pa ’20
Bovine tuberculosis
The problem of tuberculosis in cattle. Veranus A. Moore. (New York State. College of agriculture. Cornell reading course for the farm. Lesson 146) 12p pa ’19 Ithaca, N.Y.
Boys’ and girls’ clubs
Bean club demonstrations. R. G. Foster. (New Mexico. Agricultural extension service. Extension circular 63) 14p pa ’20 New Mexico college of agriculture and mechanic arts, State college, New Mexico
Brazil
Brazil, a study of economic conditions since 1913. Arthur H. Redfield and Helen Watkins. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous ser. 86) 99p pa ’20
Brest-Litovsk
Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk peace conference: the peace negotiations between Russia and the Central powers. November 21, 1917–March 3, 1918. (U.S. State dept.) 187p pa ’18
Canning
Home canning and food thrift. O. H. Benson. (New York [State] Farms and markets dept. Agricultural bul. 130) 61p pa ’20 Albany, N.Y.
Cattle
Breeds of dairy cattle. H. P. Davis. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 893) 35p pa ’20
Cheese industry
Trend of the cheese industry in the United States and other countries, simple charts with interpretations. T. R. Pirtle. (U.S. Agric. dept. Department circular 71) 24p pa ’19
Chelan national forest
The land of beautiful water. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 91) 16p pa ’20
Child-labor
Industrial instability of child workers; a study of employment certificate records in Connecticut. Robert Morse Woodbury. (U.S. Children’s bur. Publication 74) 86p pa ’20
Children
Child-welfare programs; study outlines for the use of clubs and classes. (U.S. Children’s bur. Bur. pub. no. 73) 35p pa ’20
Child-welfare special; a suggested method of reaching rural communities. (U.S. Children’s bur. Bur. pub. no. 69) 18p pa ’20
Eyesight of school children; defective vision as related to school environment, and methods of prevention and correction. J. H. Berkowitz. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1919, no. 65) 128p pa ’20
Instructions for the use of child hygiene survey cards. (U.S. Public health service. Miscellaneous pub. 23) 30p pa ’20
Joy and health through play; the new age-grade-height-weight athletic standard. George E. Schlafer. (U. S. Education bur.) 19p pa ’20
China
Commercial handbook of China. Julean Arnold. v 1. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous ser. 84) 630p 2 maps pa ’19
Commercial handbook of China. Julean Arnold. v 2. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous ser. 84) 470p pa ’20
Cities—U.S.
Population of cities having 25,000 inhabitants or more, 1920, 1910 and 1900. (U.S. Census bur. 14th census) 8p pa ’20
Citizenship
Civics and patriotism: syllabus for elementary schools. University of the State of New York. Bul. 704) 91p pa ’20 State library, Albany, N.Y.
Civic training through service. A. W. Dunn. (U.S. Education bur. Teachers’ leaflet no. 8) 13p pa ’20
Lessons in civics for the six elementary grades of city schools. Hannah Margaret Harris. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 18) 110p pa ’20
Visualizing citizenship. Ina Clement. (New York city. Municipal reference library. Special report no. 4) 32p pa ’20 15c Municipal reference library, New York city
Citrus industry
Citrus—fruit growing in the gulf states. E. D. Vosbury. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1122) 46p pa ’20
Clearing of land
TNT as a blasting explosive. Charles E. Munroe & Spencer P. Howell. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 94) 24p pa ’20
Clothing
Selection and care of clothing. Laura I. Baldt. (U.S. Agric. dept. Farmers’ bul. 1089) 32p pa ’20
Coal
Safe storage of coal. H. H. Stock. (U.S. Mines bur. Technical paper 225) 10p pa ’20
Coal-mine gases
Coal-mine gases. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 39) 35p pa ’20
Coal mines
Award and recommendations of the United States bituminous coal commission accepted by the President, 1920. U.S. Bituminous coal comm. 120p pa ’20
Comfort stations
Wisconsin public comfort station code and rest room suggestions. (Wisconsin. State board of health) 62p pa ’20 Madison, Wis.
Commerce
Trade of the United States with the world, 1918–1919. Part 1—Imports. (U.S. Bur. of foreign and domestic commerce. Miscellaneous ser. 106) 103p pa ’20
Commercial organizations
Commercial and industrial organizations of the United States; rev. to Nov. 1, 1919. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous ser. 99) 121p pa ’20
Community buildings
Rural community buildings in the United States. W. C. Nason, and C. W. Thompson. (U.S. Agric. dept. Farmer’s bul. 825) 36p pa ’20
Community centers
The community center: list of lantern slides with notes on the community schoolhouse. Walton S. Bittner. (Indiana university. Extension division. Bul. v. 5, no. 8) 30p pa ’20 Extension division, Indiana university, Bloomington, Ind.
Constitutions
Constitutions of the state at war, 1914–1918; ed. by Herbert F. Wright. (U.S. State dept.) 679p pa ’19
Continuation schools
Compulsory continuation schools; a circular of information on the Boston compulsory continuation school. (Mass. Education department. Bul. 1920, no. 2) 185p pa ’20 Dept. of education, Boston, Mass.
Organization and administration of part-time schools. (N.Y. State university. Bul. 697) 42p pa ’20 University of the state of New York, Albany, N.Y.
Cooperation
Farmers’ cooperation in Minnesota, 1913–1917. John D. Black, and Frank Robotka. (Minnesota agric. experiment station. Bul. 184) 62p pa ’19 St Paul, Minn.
The Russian cooperative movement. Frederic E. Lee. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bur. Miscellaneous ser. 101) 83p pa ’20
Cooperative marketing
Cooperation applied to marketing by Kansas farmers. Theodore Macklin. (Kansas. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 224) 61p pa ’20 Kansas State agricultural college, Manhattan, Kansas
Cooperative marketing of horticultural products. J. W. Lloyd. (Illinois. Agricultural experiment station. Circular 244) 15p pa ’20 University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.
Corn
Better seed corn. C. P. Hartley. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1175) 14p pa ’20
Corn oil
Production and utilization of corn oil in the United States. A. F. Sivers. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 904) 23p pa ’20
Cotton
Cost of producing cotton (842 records—1918) L. A. Moorhouse and M. R. Cooper. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 896) 59p pa ’20
Cotton variety tests 1918. A. C. Lewis, C. A. McLendon. (Georgia. State board of entomology. Bul. 52) 40p pa ’19 Atlanta, Ga.
Growing cotton in Arizona. G. E. Thompson and C. J. Wood. (Arizona. Agricultural experiment station. Bulletin 90) 12p pa ’19 Tucson, Arizona
Cotton boll weevil
Dusting machinery for cotton boll weevil control. Elmer Johnson, and B. R. Coad. (U.S. Agric. dept. Farmers’ bul. 1098) 31p pa ’20
Cotton warehouses
Construction and fire protection of cotton warehouses. J. M. Workman. (U.S. Dept. of agriculture. Bul. 801) 79p pa ’19
Cotton yarn
Cotton yarn; import and export trade in relation to the tariff. (U.S. Tariff commission. Tariff information ser. 12) 320p pa ’20
Cowpeas
Cowpeas: culture and varieties. W. J. Morse. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1148) 26p pa ’20
Crows
The crow in its relation to agriculture. E. R. Kalmbach. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1102) 20p pa ’20
Dairy cows
Rules for testing dairy cows for advanced registration. J. B. Fitch and F. W. Atkeson. (Kansas. Agricultural experiment station. Circular 82) 12p pa ’20 Manhattan. Kans.
Dairying
Government exhibit at the 1920 National dairy show. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 139) 17p pa ’20
Danube river
The Danube. Joseph P. Chamberlain. (U.S. State dept.) 122p pa ’18
Published in 1918 as a confidential document.
Diabetic foods
Report of the Connecticut agricultural experiment station on food products and drugs, 1919: part 2.—diabetic foods. (Bul. 220) 82p pa ’20 Agricultural experiment station, New Haven, Conn.
Drama
One-act play in colleges and high schools, with bibliographies and a list of one-act plays for study and production. B. Roland Lewis. (Utah. University-Bul. v. 10, no. 16) 25p pa ’20 Salt Lake City, Utah
Drug Industry
Crude botanical drug industry. (U.S. Tariff commission. Tariff information ser. no. 19) 69p pa ’20
Drugs
Drug plants under cultivation. W. W. Stockberger. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 663) 50p pa ’20
Dry farming
Sixteen years of dry farm experiments in Utah. F. S. Harris, A. F. Bracken and I. J. Jensen. (Utah. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 175) 43p pa ’20 Utah agricultural college, Logan, Utah
Education
National crisis in education: an appeal to the people. William T. Bawden. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 29) 191p pa ’20
Report of the Proceedings of the National citizens conference on education called by the U.S. Commissioner of education and held at the Washington Hotel, Washington, D.C., May 19, 20, 21, 1920.
Statistical survey of education, 1917–18. H. R. Bonner. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 31) 48p pa ’20
Advance sheets from the Biennial survey of education, in the United States, 1916–1918.
Statistics of state school systems, 1917–18; prepared by the Statistical division of the Bureau of education under the supervision of H. R. Bonner. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 11) 155p pa ’20
Survey of education in Hawaii. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 16) 171p pa ’20
Education, Adult
Adult working-class education in Great Britain and the United States: a study of recent developments. Charles Patrick Sweeney. (U.S. Labor statistics bur. Bul. 271) 101p pa ’20
Eggs
Preserving eggs. Joseph William Kinghorne. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1109) 8p pa ’20
Electrical Industry
Electrical goods in Spain. Philip S. Smith. (U.S. Bur. of foreign and domestic commerce. Special agents ser. 197) 178p
Employment management
Bibliography of employment management. Edward D. Jones. (U. S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 51) 119p pa ’20
Job specifications. Franklyn Meine. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education) 63p pa ’20
The labor audit, a method of industrial investigation. Ordway Tead. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 32) 47p pa ’20
English for foreigners
Teaching English to the foreign born; a teacher’s handbook. Henry H. Goldberger. (U.S. Education bureau. Bulletin, 1919, no. 80) 46p pa ’20
European war, 1914–1919
Neutrality proclamations, 1914–1918. (U.S. State dept.) 64p pa ’19
Export trade
Foreign trade promotion work. Letter from the chief of the Bureau of efficiency transmitting a report on the federal government’s activities in the promotion of foreign commerce. (U.S. Congress, 66:2. House document no. 650) 88p pa ’20 Apply to congressman
Paper work in export trade (document technique). Guy Edward Snider and others. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bur. Miscellaneous ser. 85) 2v pa ’20
Farm buildings
Beautifying the farmstead. F. L. Mulford. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1087) 65p pa ’20
Farm implements
Report of the Federal trade commission on the causes of high prices of farm implements, May 4, 1920. (U. S. Federal trade commission) 731p pa ’20
Farm leases
The farm lease contract. L. C. Gray and Howard A. Turner. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1164) 35p pa ’20
Farm management
Economic study of small farms near Washington, D.C. W. C. Funk. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bulletin 848) 19p pa ’20
Factors that make for success in farming in the South. C. L. Goodrich. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1121) 31p pa ’20
Farm inventories. J. S. Ball. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1182) 32p pa ’20
Farm leasing systems in Wisconsin, B. H. Hibbard and J. D. Black. (Wisconsin. Agricultural experiment station. Research bulletin 47) 60p pa ’20 University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.
Method of analyzing the farm business. H. M. Dixon and H. W. Hawthorne. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1139) 40p pa ’20
Planning the farmstead. M. C. Betts and W. R. Humphries. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1132) 24p pa ’20
Farm ownership
How California is helping people own farms and rural homes. Elwood Mead. (California. Agricultural experiment station. Circular 221) 28p pa ’20 University of California, Berkeley, Cal.
Farms
Selecting a farm. E. H. Thompson. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1088) 27p pa ’20
Feeble-minded
Schools and classes for feeble-minded and subnormal children 1918. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1919:70) 37p pa ’20
Feeding of schoolchildren
The lunch hour at school. Katharine A. Fisher. (U.S. Education bur. Health education no. 7) 62p pa ’20
The rural hot lunch and the nutrition of the rural child. Mary G. McMormick. (New York State university of the State of New York. Bul. 696) 19p pa ’19 Albany, N.Y.
The rural school lunch. (Ohio university, Agricultural extension service. Circular v. 5, no. 8) 56p pa ’20 Columbus, O.
Fire prevention
Fires in cotton gins preventable. H. H. Brown. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 28) 8p pa ’20
First aid
First aid to the industrial worker. S. Dana Hubbard. (New York city. Bureau of public health education. Keep well leaflet no. 19) 43p pa ’20 Department of health, New York
What to do in accidents. (U.S. Public health service. Miscellaneous pub. 21) 61p pa ’20
Farms
Farm land values in Iowa. L. C. Gray, and O. G. Lloyd. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 874) 45p pa ’20
Flies
The stable fly; how to prevent its annoyance and its losses to live stock. F. C. Bishopp. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1097) 23p pa ’20
Food
Home supplies furnished by the farm. W. C. Funk. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmer’s bul. 1082) 19p pa ’20
Forage
Forage for the cotton belt. S. M. Tracy. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1125) 63p pa ’20
Foreign markets
Construction materials and machinery in Brazil. W. W. Ewing. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Special agents ser. 192) 96p pa ’20
Textile markets of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. S. S. Garry. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bur. Special agents ser. 194)
Foreign trade
Annual review of the foreign commerce of the United States, 1919. (U.S. Foreign & domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous series 103) 36p pa ’20
Forestry
Care and improvement of the farm woods. C. R. Tillotson. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1177) 27p pa ’20
Forestry and farm income. Wilbur, R. Mattoon. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1117) 36p pa ’20
Forestry lessons on home woodlands. Wilbur R. Mattoon and Alvin Dille. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Bul. 863) 46p pa ’20
Growing and planting hardwood seedlings on the farm. C. R. Tillotson. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1123) 29p pa ’21
Fortifications
Pamphlet on the evolution of the art of fortification. Major General William M. Black. (U.S. Engineer school. Occasional papers 58) 107p pa ’19
Frost
Frost and the prevention of damage by it. Floyd D. Young. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1096) 48p pa ’20
Frost protection in lemon orchards. A. D. Shamel and others. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 821) 30p pa ’20
Fur trade
Maintenance of the fur supply. Ned Dearborn. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 135) 12p pa ’20
Furnaces
One-register furnaces (pipeless furnaces) A. M. Daniels. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1174) 12p pa ’20
Game laws
Game laws for 1920; a summary of the provisions of federal, state and provincial statutes. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1138) 83p pa ’20
Game protection
Directory of officials and organizations concerned with the protection of birds and game, 1920. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 131) 19p pa ’20
Games
Non-equipment group games for outdoor picnics and miscellaneous social gatherings. O. F. Hall. (Indiana. Purdue university. Agricultural extension div. Extension bul. 94) 12p pa ’20 Lafayette, Ind.
Gas
Standards for gas service. (U. S. Standards bur. Circular no. 32, 4th ed.) 140p pa ’20
Germany
Constitutions of the German empire and German states, ed. by Edwin H. Zeydel. (U.S. State dept.) 542p pa ’19
Gipsy moth
Gipsy moth tree-banding material: how to make, use, and apply it. C. W. Collins and Clifford E. Hood. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 899) 18p pa ’20
Government ownership of railroads
Government ownership of railroads. South Carolina high school debating league. (South Carolina. University bul. no. 81) 176p pa ’19
Grain
Growing irrigated grain in southern Idaho. L. C. Archer. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1103) 28p pa ’20
Grape Industry
Currant grape growing: a promising new industry. George C. Husmann. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 856) 16p pa ’20
Grapes
Products and utilization of muscadine grapes. W. J. Young. (South Carolina. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 206) 37p pa ’20 Clemson college, S.C.
Grasses
The genera of grasses of the United States, with special reference to the economic species. A. S. Hitchcock. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Bul. 772) 307p pa ’20
Hail Insurance
Hail insurance on farm crops in the United States. V. N. Valgren. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 912) 32p pa ’20
Health
Health almanac 1920. R. C. Williams. (U.S. Public health service. Public health bul. 98) 56p pa ’20
Health education
Child health program for parent-teacher associations and women’s clubs. Lucy Wood Collier. (U.S. Education bureau. Health education no. 5) 16p pa ’20
Hessian fly
The Hessian fly and how to prevent losses from it. W. R. Walton. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1083) 16p pa ’20
History
Syllabus in history. (New York. University of the State of New York. Bul. 710) 229p pa ’20 New York state library, Albany, N.Y.
Hogs
Hogs in Kansas. Report of the Kansas State board of agriculture for the quarter ending Sept. 1918. 429p pa ’19 Manhattan, Kansas
Home economics
Home economics courses of study for junior high schools. (U. S. Education bur. Home economics circular no. 9) 14p pa ’20
Hygiene
Rural hygiene. L. L. Lumsden. (U.S. Public health service. Reprint 570) 23p pa ’20
Ice
Harvesting and storing ice on the farm. John T. Bowen, (U.S. Agric. dept. Farmers’ bul. 1078) 31p pa ’20
Illegitimacy
Illegitimacy as a child welfare problem. Pt. 1, Emma O. Lundberg, and Katharine F. Lenroot. (U.S. Children’s bureau. Bureau publication no. 66) 105p pa ’20
A brief treatment of the prevalence and significance of birth out of wedlock, the child’s status, and the state’s responsibility for care and protection: bibliographical material
Indiana
One hundred years of Indiana’s resources. Richard Lieber (Indiana. Conservation dept. Publ. no. 11) 45p pa ’20 Department of conservation, Indianapolis, Ind.
Industrial education
Trade and industrial education for girls and women. Anna Lalor Burdick. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 58) 106p pa ’20
Pt. 1. Economic and social aspects of vocational education for girls and women.
Pt. 2. Ways and means of establishing and operating a program.
Training of workers in trades and industries. (Texas university. Bul. 2002) 16p pa ’20 Austin, Texas
Industrial fatigue
Studies in industrial physiology: fatigue in relation to working capacity. 1. Comparison of an eight-hour plant and a ten-hour plant. Josephine Goldmark and Mary D. Hopkins. (U.S. Public health service. Public health bul. 106) 213p pa ’20
Industries
Industrial survey in selected industries in the United States, 1919; preliminary report. Allan H. Willett. (U.S. Labor statistics bureau. Bul. 265) 509p pa ’20
Infectious diseases
The common infectious diseases and their prevention. A. G. Young. (Maine. Health department. Bul. v 2, n.s. no. 11) 20p pa ’19 Portland, Maine.
Insect powder
Insect powder. C. C. McDonnell and others. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 824) 100p pa ’20
Insurance
A system of records for local farmers’ mutual fire insurance companies. V. N. Valgren. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Bul. 840) 22p pa ’20
Irrigation
The western farmer’s water right. R. P. Teele. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 913) 14p pa ’20
Irrigation plants
The small irrigation pumping plant. W. L. Powers, and W. J. Gilmore. (Oregon. Agricultural college experiment station. Station bul. 160) 16p pa ’19 Corvallis, Oregon.
Jack pine
Jack pine. William Dean Sterrett. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Bul. 820) 47p pa ’20
Japanese in the U. S.
California and the Oriental; Japanese, Chinese and Hindus. (California. State board of control) 236p pa ’20 The Governor, Sacramento, California
Kindergarten
The kindergarten as an Americanizer. S. E. Weber. (U.S. Education bureau. Kindergarten circular 5) 5p pa ’19
Knots
Practical knots, hitches and splices. C. A. Norman. (Indiana. Purdue university. Agricultural extension div. Extension bul. 88) 16p pa ’20 Lafayette, Ind.
Kudzu
Kudzu. C. V. Piper. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 89) 7p pa ’20
Labor
Proceedings of the first Industrial conference (called by the President) October 6 to 23, 1919. (U. S. Industrial conference, 1st.) 285p pa ’20 U. S. Labor dept.
Labor laws
New York labor laws enacted in 1920. (N.Y. [State] Labor dept. Special bul. 99) 93p pa ’20 Albany, N.Y.
Labor turnover
The turnover of labor. Boris Emmet. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 46) 60p pa ’19
Latin America
Commercial travelers’ guide to Latin America. Ernst B. Filsinger. (U. S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous ser. 89) 592p portfolio of maps ’20 Supt. of doc. $1.25
Laundering
Home laundering. Lydia Ray Balderston. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1099) 32p pa ’20
Lawns
Spraying lawns with iron sulfate to eradicate dandelions. M. T. Munn. (N.Y. Agricultural experiment station, Geneva. Bul. 466) 8p pa ’19
Leasing of public lands
Regulations concerning coal mining leases, permits and licenses, under act of February 25, 1920. (U.S. General land office. Circular 679) 28p pa ’20
Leather
The care of leather. F. P. Veitch, H. P. Holman and R. W. Frey. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1183)
Leather industry
Hides and leather in France. Norman Hertz. (U.S. Bur. of foreign and domestic commerce. Special agents ser. 200) 159p pa ’20
Legumes
The story of legumes. W. C. Frazier. (Wisconsin university. College of agriculture. Extension service. Circular 125) 19p pa ’20 Madison, Wisconsin
Lumber
Production of lumber, lath and shingles in 1918. Franklin H. Smith. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Bul. 845) 47p pa ’20
Machinery
Industrial machinery in France and Belgium. Charles P. Wood. (U.S. Bur. of foreign and domestic commerce. Special agents ser. 204) 61p pa ’20
Malaria
What can a community afford to pay to rid itself of malaria? L. M. Fisher. (U.S. Public health service. Reprint 595) 7p pa ’20
Manganese
Manganese: uses, preparation, mining costs and the production of ferro-alloys. C. M. Weld and others. (U.S. Mines bureau. Bul. 173) 209p pa ’20
Manure
Handling farm manure. F. L. Duley. (Missouri. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 166) 29p pa ’19 Columbia, Missouri
Marketing
Cooperative marketing. O. B. Jesness. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1144) 27p pa ’20
Marketing by federations. Theodore Macklin. (Wisconsin. Agricultural experiment sta. Bul. 322) 24p pa ’20 University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.
Marketing eastern grapes. Dudley Alleman. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 861) 61p pa ’20
Marketing of farm produce
Methods for marketing vegetables in California. Stanley S. Rogers. (California. Agric. experiment station. Circular 217) 19p pa Berkeley, Cal. University of California
Markets
The New Haven market. I. G. Davis and G M. Stack. (Connecticut. Agricultural college. Extension service. Bul. 18) 32p pa ’20 Storrs, Conn.
Markets and marketing
Cooperative marketing in Mississippi through county agents. (Mississippi. Agricultural & mechanical college. Extension bulletin 15.) 20p pa ’20. Agricultural college, Miss.
Cooperative marketing of woodland products. A. F. Hawes. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1100) 15p pa ’20
Meat
Farm slaughtering and use of lamb and mutton. C. G. Potts. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1172) 32p pa ’20
Milk
City milk plants: construction and arrangement. Ernest Kelly and C. E. Clement. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 849) 35p pa ’20
Milk for the family. (U.S. Agriculture dept Department circular 129) 4p pa ’20
The food value of milk. Edna L. Ferry. (Connecticut. Agric. experiment station. Bul. 215) 30p pa ’19 New Haven, Conn.
Milk powder
Dried milk powder in infant feeding; safety, usefulness, and comparative value: a preliminary report. W. H. Price. (U.S. Public health service. Reprint 588) 22p pa ’20
Millinery trade
Conditions affecting health in the millinery industry. S. Dana Hubbard and Christine R. Kefauver. (New York city. Health dept. Monograph ser. 22) 39p pa ’20
Mineral industry
Industrial readjustments of certain mineral industries affected by the war. (U.S. Tariff commission. Tariff information series 21) 320p pa ’20
Minerals
Our mineral supplies. H. D. McCaskey, and E. F. Burchard. (U.S. Geological survey. Bul. 666) 278p pa ’19
Mines and mining
A glossary of the mining and mineral industry. Albert H. Fay. (U.S. Mines bureau. Bul. 95) 754p pa ’20
Mining laws
State mining laws on the use of electricity in and about coal mines. L. C. Ilsley. (U.S. Mines bureau. Technical paper 271) 53p pa ’20
Mortality
Mortality statistics, 1918. 19th annual report. (U.S. Census bur.) 603p pa ’20
Motion pictures
Motion pictures and motion picture equipment; a handbook of general information. F. W. Reynolds and Carl Anderson. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1919, no. 82) 16p pa ’20
Motion pictures of the U.S. department of agriculture; a list of films and their uses. Fred W. Perkins and George R. Goergens. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 114) 22p pa ’20
Mount Hood
Forest trails and highways of the Mount Hood region. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 105) 32p pa ’20
Natural gas
Waste and correct use of natural gas in the home. Samuel S. Wyer. (U.S. Mines bureau. Technical paper 257) 23p pa ’20
Netherlands
Economic aspects of the commerce and industry of the Netherlands, 1912–1918. Blaine F. Moore. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous ser. 91) 109p pa ’19
Norway
Norway: a commercial and industrial handbook. Nels A. Bengtison. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bur. Special agents ser. 196) 58p pa ’20
Nutrition
Feeding the child. J. E. Darrah. (Texas. College of industrial arts. Bul. no. 77) 30p pa ’20 Denton, Texas.
Oats
Fall-sown oats. C. W. Warburton and T. R. Stanton. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1119) 21p pa ’20
Onions
Onion diseases and their control. J. C. Walker. (U.S. Agric. dept. Farmers’ bul. 1060) 23p pa ’19
Orchards
Orchard rejuvenation in south-eastern Ohio. F. H. Ballow and I. P. Lewis. (Ohio. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 339) 42p pa ’20 Experiment station, Wooster, Ohio
Paraguay
Paraguay: a commercial handbook. W. L. Schurz. (U. S. Foreign & domestic commerce bur. Special agents ser. 199) 195p map pa ’20
Peaches
Peaches: production estimates and important commercial districts and varieties. H. P. Gould, and Frank Andrews. (U.S. Agric. dept. Bul. 806) 35p pa ’19
Peanut butter
Manufacture and use of peanut butter. H. C. Thompson. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 128) 16p pa ’20
Peanuts
Peanut growing for profit. W. R. Beattie. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1127) 33p pa ’20
Pears
Pears: production estimates and important commercial districts and varieties. H. P. Gould, and Frank Andrews. (U.S. Agric. dept. Bul. 822) 16p pa ’20
Peat
Agricultural value and reclamation of Minnesota peat soils. F. J. Alway. (Minn. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 188) 136p pa ’20 University farm, St. Paul, Minn.
Personal hygiene
Keeping fit. (U.S. Public health service) 13p pa ’20
Pickles
Fermented pickles. Edwin Le Fevre. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1159) 23p pa ’20
Pine
The western pine bark-beetle, a serious pest of western yellow pine in Oregon. Willard J. Chamberlin. (Oregon. Experiment station. Station bul. 172) 30p pa ’20 Corvallis, Ore.
Poison ivy
Ivy and sumac poisoning. E. A. Sweet and C. V. Grant. (U.S. Public health service. Reprint 584) 18p pa ’20
Poison ivy and poison sumac and their eradication. C. V. Grant and A. A. Hansen. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmer’s bul. 1166) 16p pa ’20
Pork
Selecting, dressing and curing pork on the farm. M. D. Helser. (Iowa. Agric. experiment station. Circular 61) 24p pa ’19 Ames, Iowa.
Potash
Potash deposits in Spain. Hoyt S. Gale. (U.S. Geological survey. Bul. 715—A) 16p pa ’20
Potash deposits of Alsace. Hoyt S. Gale. (U.S. Geological survey. Bul. 715—B) 39p pa ’20
Poultry
Care of baby chicks: boys and girls poultry club work. (U.S. Agric. dept. Department circular 14) 7p pa ’19
Common poultry diseases. D. M. Green. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 114) 8p pa ’20
Housing farm poultry. A. G. Philips. (Purdue university. Agricultural experiment station. Circular 98) 22p pa ’20 Lafayette, Indiana
How to select good layers. Frank E. Mussehl. (Nebraska, Agricultural experiment station. Circular 12) 8p pa ’20 Lincoln, Nebraska
Improving mongrel farm flocks through selected standard-bred cockerels. William A. Lippincott. (Kansas. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 223) 48p pa ’20 Kansas State agricultural college, Manhattan, Kansas
Incubation of hens’ eggs. Harry M. Lamon. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1106) 8p pa ’20
Mites and lice on poultry. F. C. Bishopp and H. P. Wood. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 801) 32p pa ’20
Poultry houses. Alfred R. Lee. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1113) 8p pa ’20
Selection and care of poultry breeding stock. Rob. R. Slocum. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1116) 10p pa ’20
Selection and preparation of fowls for exhibition. J. W. Kinghorne. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1115) 12p pa ’20
Poultry houses
Poultry houses, boys and girls poultry club work. (U.S. Agric. dept. Department circular 19) 8p pa ’19
Privies
How to build and maintain approved types of improved privies for rural districts and towns without sewer systems. (Texas. Bureau of county health work. Special bulletin) 12p pa ’20 State board of health, Austin, Texas
Sanitary privies: plans and working directions for inexpensive sanitary privies, with notes on the protection of surface wells. (Illinois. Public health dept.) 31p pa ’20 Springfield, Ill.
Prohibition laws
Laws relating to national prohibition enforcement, with questions and answers based on titles I and II of the prohibition act of October 28, 1919. (U.S. Bur. of internal revenue) 199p ’20
Pruning
Pruning the apple. V. R. Gardner. (Missouri. Agricultural experiment station. Circular 90) 20p pa ’20 Columbia, Missouri
Rabbits
Rabbit raising. Ned Dearborn. (U.S. Agricultural dept. Farmers’ bul. 1090) 35p pa ’20
Rainier national forest
Mountain outings on the Rainier national forest. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 103) 28p map pa ’20
Recreation
Recreation and rural health. E. C. Lindeman. (U.S. Education bur. Teachers’ leaflet no. 7) 14p pa ’20
Rhodes scholarships
The Rhodes scholarships: announcement for the United States of America, 1920. (U.S. Education bureau. Higher education circular 19) 4p pa ’20
Roses
About roses. Alfred C. Hottes. (Ohio university. Agricultural extension service. Bulletin, v. 15, no. 5) 16p pa ’20 Columbus, O.
Salaries
Salaries in universities and colleges. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1920, no. 20) 43p pa ’20
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, its past and its present condition. (Dominican Republic. Military government) 67p pa ’20 Military government, Santo Domingo City, D. R.
Saskatchewan
The province of Saskatchewan, Canada: its development and opportunities. F. H. Kitto. (Canada. Natural resources intelligence branch) 153p pa ’19 Department of the Interior. Ottawa, Canada.
Schools
Administration and supervision of village schools. W. S. Deffenbaugh and J. C. Muerman. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1919, no. 86) 63p pa ’20
Rural school playgrounds and equipment. K. Cecil Richmond. (U.S. Education bur. Teacher’s leaflet 11) 12p pa ’20
Schools in the bituminous coal regions of the Appalachian mountains. W. S. Deffenbaugh. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 21) 31p pa ’20
Statistics of public high schools. 1917–18. H. R. Bonner. (U.S. Education bur. Bul. 1920, no. 19) 192p pa ’20
Advance sheets from the Biennial survey of Education in the United States, 1916–18
Seeds
New Missouri seed law. Jewell Mayes. (Missouri. State board of agriculture. Monthly bulletin, v 17, no. 11) 35p pa ’19 Jefferson City, Mo.
The New York seed law and seed testing. M. T. Munn. (New York. Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 476) 15p pa ’20 Geneva, N.Y.
Sewage disposal
Municipal wastes: their character—collection—disposal. H. R. Crohurst. (U. S. Public health service. Public health bul. 107) 98p pa ’20
Sewage disposal: residences and small institutions. R. B. Wiley. (Purdue university. Engineering experiment station. Bul. 6) 36p pa ’20 Purdue university, Lafayette, Ind.
Shipping
Shipping act and merchant marine act, 1920, suits in admiralty act, emergency shipping legislation and other laws, proclamations and executive orders relating to the shipping board and emergency fleet corporation, revised to July 1, 1910. (U.S. Shipping bd.) 151p pa ’20
Training for the steamship business. R. S. MacElwee. (U.S. Foreign & domestic commerce bur. Miscellaneous ser. 98) 49p pa ’20
Sickness
Keeping tab on sickness in the plant. Dean K. Brundage and Bernard J. Newman. (U.S. Public health service. Reprint 589) 12p pa ’20
Slugs
Gray garden slug. A. L. Lovett and A. B. Black (Oregon. Experiment station. Station bul. 170) 43p pa ’20 Corvallis, Ore.
Smuts
Rusts and smuts of grain crops. V. W. Jackson. (Manitoba. Manitoba farmers’ library. Extension bul. 44) 35p pa ’19 Manitoba department of agriculture and immigration, Winnipeg, Canada
Soldiers
The care of the fallen; a report to the Secretary of war on American military dead overseas. (U.S. War dept.) 44p pa ’20
South America
Seeing South America: principal routes, larger cities, natural wonders, time required, approximate cost and other condensed information for prospective travelers. William A. Reid. (Pan American Union) 80p pa ’20 Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
Spain
Spanish finance and trade. Arthur N. Young. (U. S. Bur. of foreign and domestic commerce. Miscellaneous ser. 202) 199p pa ’20
Squabs
Squab raising. Alfred R. Lee. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 684) 23p pa ’20
Starling
Economic value of the starling in the United States. E. R. Kalmbach and I. N. Galbrielson. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 868) 66p pa ’20
State government
Movement for the reorganization of state administration. Charles Grove Haines. (Texas university. Bul. no. 1848: August 25, 1918) 80p pa ’18 University of Texas, Austin, Tex.
Stowage
Stowage of ship cargoes. Thomas Rothwell Taylor. (U.S. Bur. of foreign and domestic commerce. Miscellaneous ser. 92) 350p pa ’20
Sugar
Refined sugar; costs, prices, and profits. (U.S. Tariff commission. Tariff information series no. 16) 43p pa ’20
Sugar supply
Report of the Federal trade commission on sugar supply and prices. (U. S. Federal trade commission) 205p pa ’20
Swine
Feeding garbage to hogs. F. G. Ashbrook and A. Wilson. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1133) 26p pa ’20
Switzerland
Economic position of Switzerland during the war. Louis A. Rufener. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau. Miscellaneous ser. 90) 88p pa ’19
Tariff
Import and export schedule of France. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bureau) 56p pa ’20
Import and export schedules of Italy. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bur. Miscellaneous ser. 100) 93p pa ’20
Reciprocity with Canada; a study of the arrangement of 1911. (U.S. Tariff commission) 114p pa ’20
Subject index to tariff information surveys and reports. (U.S. Tariff comm. Tariff information ser. 17) 25p pa ’20
Teachers
Last of references on teachers’ salaries. (U.S. Education bureau. Library leaflet no. 8) 16p pa ’19
Telephone industry
The telephone industry; a report submitted to Alfred E. Smith, Governor of the State of New York. (New York (State) Labor dept. Special bul. 100) 95p pa ’20 Albany, N.Y.
Textile Industry
Textile markets of Brazil. L. S. Garry. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bur. Special agents ser. 203) 48p pa ’20
Timber
Timber depletion and the answer; a summary of report on timber depletion and related subjects prepared in response to Senate resolution 311. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 112) 16p pa ’20
Tobacco
Supply and distribution of Connecticut valley cigar leaf tobacco. Samuel H. De Vault. (Massachusetts, Agricultural experiment station. Bul. 193) 94p pa ’19 Amherst, Mass.
Tractors
Influence of the tractor on use of horses. L. A. Reynoldson. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1093) 26p pa ’20
Tractors in Connecticut. Walter T. Ackermann. (Connecticut. Agricultural college. Extension service. Bul. 25) 16p pa ’20 Storrs, Conn.
Treaty-making power
The treaty-making power in various countries: a collection of memoranda concerning the negotiation, conclusion and ratification of treaties and conventions, with excerpts from the fundamental laws of various countries. (U.S. State dept.) 89p pa ’19
Trees
Street trees. F. L. Mulford. (U.S. Agric. dept. Bul. 816) 58p pa ’20
Tree surgery. J. Franklin Collins. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Farmers’ bul. 1178) 32p pa ’20
Tree planting in Texas towns and cities. Lenthall Wyman. (Texas. State forester. Bul. 11) 40p pa ’20 Office of state forester. College Station, Texas
Tuberculosis
Questions and answers on tuberculosis. Benjamin K. Hays. (U.S. Public health service. Miscellaneous publ. 26) 10p pa ’20
Tuberculosis background for advisers and teachers. John W. Turner. (U. S. Federal board for vocational education. Bul. 59) 42p pa ’20
Turpentine
Turpentine; its sources, properties, uses, transportation, and marketing with recommended specifications. F. P. Veitch and V. E. Grottisch. (U.S. Agriculture dept. Department bul. 898) 51p pa ’20
United States
Statistical record of the progress of the United States, 1800–1920, and monetary, commercial, and financial statistics of principal countries. Edward Whitney. (U.S. Bur. of foreign and domestic commerce) 104p pa ’20
From the Statistical abstract of the United States, 1919, with fiscal-year figures for 1919 and 1920, which are subject to revision.
Navy ordnance activities, World war, 1917–1918. (U.S. Ordnance bur.) 323p ’20
Statistical abstract of the United States, 1919. (U.S. Foreign and domestic commerce bur.) 864p ’20 50c U.S. Supt. of doc.
University extension
Class extension work in the universities and colleges of the United States. Arthur J. Klein. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1919: 62) 48p pa ’20
Public discussion and information service of university extension. Walton S. Bittner. (U.S. Education bureau. Bul. 1919, no. 61) 54p pa ’20
Utah
Wonders of Utah geology. (Utah. University. Bul. v 10, no. 13) 24p pa ’19 Salt Lake City, Utah
Vegetable gardens
Planning the home vegetable garden; growing early plants. Robert Bier. (New York state. College of agriculture. Cornell reading course for the farm) 22p pa ’19 Ithaca, N.Y.
Venereal diseases
Fighting venereal diseases. (U.S. Public health service) 37p pa ’20
Virgin Islands
Virgin Islands: report of Joint commission appointed under authority of the concurrent resolution passed by the Congress of the United States, January, 1920. (U.S. Congress, 66:2. House document no. 734) 38p pa ’20 Apply to Congressman
Vocational education
Third annual report of the Federal board for vocational education, 1919. 2v pa ’19
Vocational education: compulsory part-time education; information for the use of teachers, school authorities, employers of youth, and the general public. (California state board of education. Bul. 23 P. T. E.) 61p pa ’20 Sacramento, Cal.
Vocational guidance
Industrial opportunities and training for women and girls. Bertha M. Nienburg. (U.S. Women’s bur. Bul. 13) 48p pa ’20
Survey of junior commercial occupations. F. G. Nichols. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education through State boards for vocational education in nineteen states.)
Wages
The wage-setting process. Alfred B. Rich. (U.S. Federal board for vocational education. Bulletin 44) 30p pa ’19
War medals
Congressional medal of honor, the Distinguished service cross and the Distinguished service medal, issued by the War department, April 6, 1917–November 11, 1919. (U.S.—Adjutant-general) 1054p pa ’20
Warehouses
Information concerning the United States warehouse act. (U.S. Markets bur. Service and regulatory announcements 61) 36p pa ’20
Washington (State)
Advantages and opportunities of the state of Washington for homebuilders, investors and travelers. Harry F. Giles. (Washington. Statistics & immigration bureau) 152p pa ’20 Olympia, Wash.
Weeds
Wisconsin weed law with interpretations and illustrations. (Wisconsin. Agriculture dept. Bul. 26) 28p pa ’20 Madison, Wis.
White Mountain national forest
Vacation on the White Mountain national forest. (U. S. Agricultural dept. Department circular 100) 24p pa ’20
Women
The farm woman’s problems. Florence E. Ward. (U. S. Agriculture dept. Department circular 148) 24p pa ’20
Women in Industry
The new position of women in American industry. (U. S. Women’s bureau. Bul. 12) 158p pa ’20
Woodlands
Making woodlands profitable in the southern states. Wilbur R. Matoon. (U.S. Agric. dept. Farmers’ bul. 1071) 38p pa ’20
Wool industry
A survey of the British wool manufacturing industry. (U.S. Tariff commission) 106p pa ’20
Printed for use of Committee on ways and means, House of Representatives.
Yellowstone national park
Geological history of the Yellowstone national park. Arnold Hague. (U.S. National park service) 22p pa ’20
Yosemite national park
Sketch of Yosemite National park and an account of the origin of the Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy valleys. F. E. Matthes. (U.S. National park service) 45p pa ’20 10c Supt. of documents
The Senate and House documents and reports are issued in limited editions, and unless otherwise indicated may be obtained only through members of Congress. Librarians should make application to their own representatives in Washington.
The Department of Agriculture’s supply of the current numbers of Farmers’ Bulletins is ordinarily sufficient to make it possible to send them free to all applicants. They are also for sale at 5 cents per copy [by the Superintendent of Documents].
The Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C., is authorized to sell at cost of paper and printing any United States public document in his charge, the distribution of which is not otherwise provided for. Publications cannot be supplied free to individuals nor forwarded in advance of payment.
Fuel oil in industry. S. O. Andros. Shaw pub. co. 244p. $3.75.
A timely book giving information about the properties of fuel oil, its value as compared with coal, and details of methods of using it in industrial plants, locomotives, steamships, heating of buildings, etc. Contains a chapter on colloidal fuel, which consists of pulverized coal held in suspension in oil.
Author is editor of Oil News.
Inventions; their development, purchase and sale. W. F. Baff. Van Nostrand. 230p. $2.00.
Written by a patent attorney, the book discusses how an inventor, having secured his patent, may sell or otherwise realize on it, the many points being considered in detail.
Boy bird house architecture. L. H. Baxter. Bruce. 61p. $1.00.
Designed to encourage a liking for birds, to teach something of their habits, how to construct and put up houses to attract the various kinds of birds, and how to conduct bird house contests. Illustrated with half-tones and twenty plates of drawings showing details of design and construction of bird houses, and feeding devices.
Author is director of Manual Training, Public Schools, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Armature winding and motor repair; practical information and data covering winding and reconnecting procedure for direct and alternating current machines, compiled for electrical men responsible for the operation and repair of motors and generators in industrial plants and for repairmen and armature winders in electrical shops. D. H. Braymer. McGraw. 515p. $3.00.
A practical book for repairmen who have to do with the locating of troubles and the repair of electric motors in repair shop work, power station work, and industrial plants. The matter is for the most part a compilation from various sources.
Author is managing editor of Electrical World.
Forest products: their manufacture and use. N. C. Brown. Wiley. 471p. $3.75.
Treats of the production, manufacture and use of many important forest products, but not of lumber. Chapters are devoted to wood pulp and paper; tanning materials; veneers; cooperage; turpentine, tar, pitch; wood distillation; charcoal; railroad ties; piles and piling; posts; mine timbers; fuelwood; shingles; maple syrups and sugar; rubber; dyewoods and materials; excelsior; cork. A bibliography accompanies each of the 22 chapters.
Author is professor of forest utilization, New York College of Forestry, Syracuse University.
The wireless experimenter’s manual, incorporating “How to conduct a radio club.” Describes parliamentary procedure in the formation of a radio club; the design of wireless transmitting and receiving apparatus, long distance receiving sets, vacuum tube amplifiers, radio telegraph and telephone sets, the tuning and calibration of transmitters and receivers, general radio measurements and many other features. Completely revised and rewritten. E. E. Bucher. Wireless press. 350p. $2.25.
One of the best books for the amateur wireless experimenter.
Author is instructing engineer, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America.
The essentials of business law. rev. ed. F. M. Burdick. Appleton. 361p.
A high school text-book, plainly written, designed to teach “those legal principles and ideas involved in ordinary business affairs,” and some of their applications.
The last previous ed. was published in 1908; the present ed. has been revised and the necessary changes made to bring it into conformity with present day practice.
Author is Dwight professor of law in Columbia University Law School.
How to use cement for concrete construction for town and farm. H. C. Campbell. Stanton. $2.00.
Contains plain directions for using concrete for the usual purposes in town and country, and in addition tells how to construct tennis courts, flower boxes, lawn seats, etc. Fully illustrated.
What bird is that? A pocket museum of the land birds of the Eastern United States arranged according to season. F. M. Chapman. Appleton. $1.25.
Eight colored plates, supposed to represent as many cases in a natural history museum and showing pictures of three hundred birds arranged according to season, in their proper colors and drawn to scale. The text of this book gives an entry for each one of the birds, describing its appearance, its length in inches, its range, the dates of its arrival in various places, its habits, and refers by number to its picture in the colored plates.
Author is curator of birds in the American Museum of Natural History.
Language for men of affairs. 2 v. Ronald. 1136p. $8.00.
V. 1. Talking business. J. M. Clapp. Considers voice production, enunciation, vocabulary, construction of sentences, and business conversation. Has sections on the preparation and delivery of business addresses.
Author is lecturer on the language of business, New York University.
V. 2. Business writing. J. M. Lee. ed. Considers business English in written form for correspondence, advertising, journalism, report-writing, preparing copy for the printer, proof-reading, etc.
Editor is director, department of journalism, College of the City of New York.
The work is an important contribution to the literature of the subject and valuable to executives, salesmen and others engaged in business.
The hen at work: a brief manual of home poultry culture. Ernest Cobb. Putnam. 233p. $1.50.
A book on keeping hens for egg production. Considers breeds, housing, hatching, raising chickens, diseases, etc. Contains a chapter on ducks.
American machinists’ handbook and dictionary of shop terms: a reference book of machine shop and drawing room data, methods and definitions. 3d. ed. thoroughly rev. and enl. F. H. Colvin and F. A. Stanley. McGraw. 758p. $4.00.
Revision of a standard machine shop and drafting room reference book, enlarged by 160 pages above the last previous ed., published in 1914, and the original text revised where necessary.
Authors are respectively editor and associate editor of American Machinist.
Automotive ignition systems; prepared in the extension division of the University of Wisconsin. E. L. Consoliver, and G. I. Mitchell. McGraw. 269p. $2.50 (Engineering education series)
Correspondence school text book dealing plainly with the various gasoline engine ignition systems used on automobiles, trucks, tractors and airplanes. Addressed to workers who have to install, adjust, and repair ignition systems in factories and shops, and to automobile owners.
Authors are connected with the mechanical engineering department, University of Wisconsin.
Submarine warfare of today; how the submarine menace was met and vanquished, with descriptions of the inventions and devices used, fast boats, mystery ships, nets, aircraft, etc., also describing the selection and training of the enormous personnel used in this new navy. C. W. Domville-Fife. Lippincott. 304p. $2.25. (Science of today series)
An interesting, popularly written book. Describes conditions as they were at the beginning of the war, and tells of the measures adopted and the devices employed to meet the submarine menace by convoying ships, laying mines, and destroying enemy submarines. Fully illustrated.
Author was of the staff of the British school of submarine mining, and has written other books on submarines.
Traveling salesmanship. A. W. Douglas. Macmillan. 153p. $1.75.
“This little book is not merely the usual study of the psychology of Salesmanship, but rather the result of forty years’ close contact with the traveling salesmen of one of the largest distributing mercantile organizations of this country.” Preface.
Contains chapters on the nature and function of salesmanship, preparations for the road, work on the road, contact with customers, competition and prices, some phases of selling, claims, the human equation.
The author is chairman, committee on statistics of the United States Chamber of Commerce.
Experimental wireless stations; their theory, design, construction and operation; including wireless telephony, vacuum tube and quenched spark systems; a complete elementary course of instruction in and on account of sharply tuned modern wireless installations. New 1920 ed. P. E. Edelman. Henley. 392p. $3.00.
A revised and enlarged edition of a successful amateur’s book on wireless communication. Some knowledge of the fundamentals of electricity and mathematics on the part of the reader is presupposed.
Direct-current motor and generator troubles. T. S. Gandy and E. C. Schacht. McGraw. 270p. $2.50.
A book for the man concerned with the selection, operation, care and repair of direct-current electrical machinery. Discusses types of motors and generators, and their uses; their installation, starting and operation; switchboards; troubles and their remedies; tests and repairs, etc.
Senior author is designing electrical engineer of direct-current machinery, General Electric Company.
Advanced shop drawing; prepared in the extension division of the University of Wisconsin. V. C. George. McGraw. 147p. $1.60.
Correspondence school text book. A book for the student who, having had training in elementary mechanical drawing requires practice in its applications to special phases of the subject. The book has chapters on working drawings; gearing; isometric, cabinet and shaded drawings; patent office, structural and electrical drawings; piping layouts, and sheet metal work. Well illustrated with line drawings.
Author is instructor in mechanical engineering, University of Wisconsin.
Every step in canning: the cold-pack process. G. V. Gray. Forbes. 253p. $1.25.
Plain directions for canning in glass and tin by the one period, cold-pack process. Tells how to can fruits and vegetables; to make and can soups, jellies, jams and preserves; to dry fruits and vegetables; to cure, smoke and preserve meats; to preserve eggs, etc.
Addressed to those who are concerned with canning and preserving at home.
Author was formerly associate professor of home economics, Iowa State College.
Food facts for the home-maker. L. S. Harvey. Houghton. 314p. $2.50.
“This book is intended to be a help to the young housekeeper who is starting out in the new home without either a knowledge of science or the technical training which could help her. The book is also intended to help those women who have kept house for years and who are excellent cooks and careful planners. It should give a scientific foundation to their technical skill ... perhaps showing them ways in which they may shorten processes and thus save time and energy.” Preface.
Considers the various articles of diet and their food values, kitchen arrangement and equipment, buying food for infants and young children, school children, invalids. Contains recipes, and could supplement cook books.
Partly based on lectures to classes. Author is town dietitian, Brookline, Mass.
Concrete work; a book to aid the self-development of workers in concrete and for students in engineering. W. K. Hatt and W. C. Voss. v. 1. Wiley. 451p. $4.00. (Wiley technical series: Industrial texts).
The first book in a series of industrial texts written by teachers who trained men in military schools during the War, the methods and materials worked out in that practice being utilized in the preparation of these texts. The object of the authors is to present scientific principles with their practical applications in a manner intelligible to the worker or novice in concrete work, in order to enable him to fit himself for a foreman’s position or enter into business as a local contractor. The present work is in 2 vols., the second of which is now in press, and the matter is so arranged that the two should be used together.
Authors are respectively professor of civil engineering, Purdue University, and head, department of architectural construction, Wentworth Institute.
Motor car upholstering; a plainly written book on the fundamentals of motor car trimming and upholstering. Phila., Hirst-Roger Co. 180p. $2.50.
Designed as an instruction book in vehicle trimming for men taking up that kind of work. Describes the materials, tools and methods employed, and contains many illustrations.
The matter is well prepared and reliable.
Trade publication of a firm which manufactures automobile carpets.
The new stone age. H. E. Howe. Century. 289p. $3.00.
By the “new stone age” is meant the age of concrete construction. The present book, written for the layman, tells of the materials employed and of many uses to which they are applied. The treatment is general, no details being given. A timely book in view of the wide field of applications of concrete in building and engineering work.
The new merchant marine. E. N. Hurley. Century. 296p. $3.00.
The former chairman of the United States Shipping Board tells in this book of how the problem of supplying ships for war demands was met, and discusses the future of the American merchant marine, foreign fields of commerce and related topics.
Elements of retail salesmanship. P. W. Ivey. Macmillan. 247p.
A text-book for store classes in salesmanship, or for individual reading. Author writes from personal experience and bases his book on lectures to store classes. Considers knowing the goods, knowing the customer, personality, the selling process, and store system and method. Problems are provided for each of the nine chapters, and a bibliography of business books is appended.
Author is associate professor of economics and commerce, University of Nebraska.
The engines of the human body, being the substance of Christmas lectures given at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Christmas 1916–1917. Arthur Keith. Lond. Williams. 204p. 12s. 6d.
At the Christmas holiday season the Royal Institution of Great Britain invites some eminent scientist to deliver popular lectures to young people. In the lectures which make up this book the author considers the human body from an engineering standpoint: the bones as levers, the muscles as internal combustion engines, the heart as a pump, the nerves as a telephone system, etc. It is an interesting boys’ book on physiology, and would interest some more mature readers.
Splendors of the sky. I. E. Lewis. Duffield 343p. $1.50.
Interesting chapters on astronomy written for the general reader. Valuable as a popular account of recent progress in astronomy. Illustrated. Appeared originally in a daily newspaper.
Artificial light, its influence upon civilization. M. Luckiesch. Century. 366p. $2.50. (The century books of useful science.)
The author traces the methods of producing and uses of artificial lighting from its earliest forms of which we have knowledge to the present day, and considers how human progress has been advanced by the overcoming of darkness. The book is interestingly written and well illustrated.
Author is director of applied science, Nela research laboratory, National Lamp Works of the General Electric Company.
The motor cycle handbook: the construction, operation, care and repair of modern types of motor cycles, their accessories and equipment. H. P. Manly. Drake. 320p. $1.50.
A practical book describing and illustrating in considerable detail various types of motor cycles, their engines, fuel systems, electrical equipment, transmissions, running gear, etc. Contains chapters on power attachments and side cars, and on motor cycle repairs.
The author has written several practical books on the automobile.
Automobile electric systems; an analysis of all the systems now used on motor cars with 200 wiring diagrams and giving special attention to trouble shooting and repairs. D. P. Moreton and D. S. Hatch. 591p. $3.50.
Describes and illustrates in detail the various electrical installations employed in igniting the gas, starting the motor and supplying light for the lamps of automobiles of all types. Particular attention is given to systems used on Ford cars.
The book is addressed to car owners and repairmen, and some knowledge of the fundamental principles of the electric circuit is presupposed.
The same authors’, “Electrical equipment of the motor car”, (U. P. C. book co., 1920, $3.50) considers the more elementary phases of the subject, without describing the special installations which form the subject of the more recent book.
Senior author is associate professor of electrical engineering, Armour Institute of Technology.
Practical trade mathematics for electricians, machinists, carpenters, plumbers and others. J. A. Moyer and C. H. Sampson. Wiley. 172p. $1.50.
A practical elementary mathematics for adult students. All the problems relate to operations familiar to the men in their various occupations, and unusual mathematical terms are avoided. Numerous problems and worked-out examples are provided, the electrical problems being grouped separately.
Senior author was formerly in charge of division of electrical calculations in the General Electric Company; the junior author is head of technical and mathematical departments, Huntington School, Boston, Mass.
Interior electric wiring. A. L. Nelson. American Technical Society. 265p. $2.50.
A practical book, of the correspondence school type, on the installation of electric wiring in buildings, with directions for wiring for special purposes.
Shop mathematics; a treatise on applied mathematics dealing with various machine-shop and tool-room problems, and containing numerous examples illustrating their solution and the practical application of useful rules and formulas. Erik Oberg and F. D. Jones. Industrial press. 280p. $3.00.
A practical mathematics designed to teach the machinist or apprentice learning machine shop practice how to perform the calculating necessary in his work.
Authors are respectively editor and associate editor of Machinery.
The English of commerce. J. B. Opdycke. Scribner. 435p. $2.00.
A high school text-book teaching the choice of words, spelling, construction of sentences, paragraphs and letters for business purposes. Contains also sections on newspapers and magazines, advertising, business talk, sales and advertising literature, abbreviations and special terms, proofreading, business forms, etc. Examples of good and bad usage are given in the various sections. The book could be studied with profit by young business people who have gone through school without instruction in the writing of business English.
Motor boats and boat motors; design, construction, operation and repair; a complete handbook for all interested in motor boats, considering all details of modern hulls and marine motors. Deals with boat construction, design and types of power plants, installation of engines, and all phases of motor boat and engine care, operation and repair. Written by a corps of experts; compiled and edited by V. W. Page. Includes complete working drawings and full instructions for building five boats, ranging in size from a sixteen-foot general utility model to a twenty-five foot raised cabin cruiser, by A. C. Leitch. A special chapter on seaplanes and flying boats is included. Fully illustrated with 374 illustrations. Henley. 524p. $4.00.
Part I. The hull and fittings.
Part II. The power plant and its auxiliaries.
A useful book for all interested in motor boats; their design, construction, equipment, navigation and care. Well illustrated, the plans of boat design being drawn to scale.
Pitman’s common commodities and industries. Pitman. $1.00. 2s. 6d.
A collection of thin monographs, written in nontechnical style by authoritative British authors for the general reader. Suitable for general libraries. About thirty volumes have appeared. The following are recent publications:
Furniture. H. E. Binstead.
Carpets and the carpet trade. R. S. Brinton.
Knitted fabrics. J. T. Chamberlain and J. H. Quilter.
Zinc and its alloys. T. E. Lones.
Clays and clay products. A. H. Searle.
Asbestos. A. L. Summers.
Gas and gas making. W. H. Y. Webber.
Coal. F. H. Wilson.
Cordage and cordage hemp. T. Woodhouse and R. Kilgour.
Personal efficiency in business. E. E. Purinton. McBride. 341p. $1.60.
Interesting discussion of business efficiency principles and methods, for the guidance of business men ambitious to succeed in office work, salesmanship or as executives.
Technical writing. T. A. Rickard. Wiley. 178p. $1.50.
An instructive book on the writing of English as it applies to engineering reports, papers, articles for the press, etc. Numerous examples of bad grammar, incorrect use of words and faulty construction of sentences are provided, and much good advice on correct technical writing is given. The matter is based on lectures delivered before engineering classes.
Author is editor of the Mining and Scientific Press.
House painting, glazing, paper hanging and whitewashing: a book for the householder. 2d. ed., rev. and enl. A. H. Sabin. Wiley. 143p. $1.00.
Instructive book for householders interested in knowing about materials and methods employed in exterior and interior house painting, varnishing, painting structural metal, floor-finishing, glazing, papering, whitewashing, kalsomining, mixing paints, etc. A book for the amateur.
Author is consulting chemist of the National Lead Company, and writes from large experience in paint and varnish manufacturing.
Bricklaying in modern practice. Stewart Scrimshaw. Macmillan. 182p. $1.20.
An elementary text-book designed to teach the fundamentals of the bricklaying trade, and a source of information concerning the trade. Emphasis is placed upon trade ethics and Americanization. Considers briefly the history of bricklaying, materials of the trade, tools and apparatus, practical bricklaying, special phases of bricklaying, theory of the trade, safety and hygiene, economics of bricklaying, the bricklayers relation to the public trade organizations, apprenticeship. Each of the eleven chapters is followed by a summary, questions, and literature references.
Author is supervisor of apprenticeship for the State of Wisconsin.
Pattern making. J. A. Shelley. Industrial Press. 332p. $3.00.
Practical book on the making of wood patterns and core-boxes for foundry castings. Explains and illustrates in detail actual operations in laying out and constructing patterns and core-boxes; the tools, machinery and materials employed, and contains other information valuable to the pattern maker and student. Fully illustrated with original halftones and line drawings.
Author is instructor in pattern making, Pratt Institute, and writes from experience as a practical pattern maker.
The world’s food resources. J. R. Smith. Holt. 634p. $3.50.
An interesting book on the world’s food resources of all kinds; where and how produced, the possibilities of increasing production and of employing foods not now estimated at their real value. Considers also the cost of production of various foodstuffs in comparison with their nutritive values and, in general, the whole question of food supply from an economic standpoint.
Author is professor of economic geography in Columbia University.
Industrial Spanish. C. F. Sparkman. Allyn. 259p. $1.40.
A Spanish reader entirely in the Spanish language, providing reading exercises relating to the trades, business, manufactures, engineering, agriculture, professions, etc., with many illustrations. A section on grammar and a vocabulary are appended.
Author is assistant professor of Spanish, Purdue University.
The practice of presswork. C. R. Spicher. Pittsburgh. Author. 240p. $3.60.
Authoritative, practical book describing the mechanism and operation of various types of printing presses; the “make-ready” operation for printing; printing inks; rollers, etc. Contains chapters on automatic feeders, paper-making, typesetting machines, photo-engraving, electric drive.
A good text-book for schools where printing is taught, and contains much that is instructive for those who are interested in printing and photo-engraving for advertising or other purposes.
Author is instructor in presswork, Carnegie Institute of Technology.
Swoope’s lessons in practical electricity; an elementary text book. Ed. 16, rewritten, revised and enlarged by H. N. Stillman and Erich Hausmann. Van Nostrand. 625p. $2.50.
A complete revision of a good elementary textbook which has been largely used for nearly twenty years. In the present edition the matter has been brought up to date and some additional chapters added. It is a valuable text-book for schools or for home study.
Dr Hausmann, the surviving reviser, is professor of physics at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
Tires and vulcanizing; a comprehensive and practical manual of rubber tires, tire repairing and vulcanizing, including all necessary information and instructions on rubber, compounds, cotton and repair materials; the construction of pneumatic tires together with their use, injuries and abuse. H. H. Tufford. Henley. 410p. $2.00.
An instruction book for beginners or for those employed in tire repairing, describing in detail the materials, tools and operations employed in the various processes. The book is plainly written and illustrated.
Author was formerly chief vulcanizing instructor in a U. S. army school.
Operation and care of vehicle-type batteries. (Prepared with the cooperation of the construction division of the Army, War Department.) Wash., Government Printing office. 94p. Paper 30c. (U.S. Bureau of Standards circular, No. 92.)
An authoritative book on storage batteries for electric tractors and trucks. Describes in detail lead-acid and iron-nickel types of batteries, their construction, testing, charging, storage, etc. Contains U. S. Government specifications and a glossary of terms.
A practical course in roof framing; the underlying principles and their application to practical work, especially written for foremen, journeymen and apprentice woodworkers, and as a textbook for schools. R. M. Van Gaasbeek. Drake. 151p. $1.50.
Plainly written, practical home study book for carpenters and apprentices, or a text book for trade schools. Illustrated with 72 line drawings and halftones made for the book.
Author is head of department of woodworking, Pratt Institute.
Electric welding. Ethan Viall.
A comprehensive treatise, largely a compilation from various sources, describing the apparatus and operations employed in arc and resistance welding for manufacturing and repairing purposes. The different makes of apparatus now in use are described and illustrated, and many examples of work performed are given. Contains chapters on the physical properties and metallurgy of arc-fused steels. The book is fully illustrated.
Author is editor of American Machinist.
Furniture for small houses; a book of designs for inexpensive furniture with new methods of construction and decoration. P. A. Wells. Lond., Batsford, and N. Y. Dutton. 35p. text, and 57 plates. 10½ × 7½ in. 12s. 6d. American price $7.00.
An English book of furniture for small town and country houses. The articles are severely plain in design, small in size, and inexpensive to make. An experienced amateur could make any of the pieces. Pictures of the furniture and detailed drawing for its construction are given.
Author is head of cabinet department, London County Council Shoreditch Technical School, where all the furniture shown in the book was originally made. The text describes the woods used and decorations employed.
The automobile repairman’s helper; a pocket book for the mechanic, owner, chauffeur, and student, covering every trouble likely to be found in all the standard cars and including chapters on inspection and lubrication, drills, taps and lathes, welding storage, batteries, cylinder and piston ring work, bearings, axle adjustments, repairing tops, mudguards, lamps, etc. 2v. S. T. Williams. Each vol. has 448p. $3.00 per vol.
V. 1 appeared in 1918.
The books contain plain instructions for performing all kinds of repair work on automobiles. Fully illustrated.
Modern pulp and paper-making; a practical treatise. G. S. Witham, Sr. The chemical catalog company, inc. 599p. $6.00.
Treats in a practical manner of the materials, plant, and all the operations employed in the production of pulp and paper, according to American practice, quite the best practical book on the subject and valuable in any community where the paper industry is carried on. Paper manufacturers, dealers, salesmen and others interested in the subject, may gain much information from the book.
Author is manager of Mills, Union Bag and Paper Corporation, Hudson Falls, N.Y.
Clothing; choice, care, cost. M. S. Woolman. Lippincott. 289p. (Lippincott’s family life series.)
An instructive book on the clothing and accessories which make up the wardrobe, especially of women and children. Describes the various materials: cotton, linen, silk, and leather, and discusses their uses, cost, care and repair. Contains chapters on thrift, shopping, dyeing, laundry, spot removal, and related matter.
Author writes from experience as teacher and textile specialist.