Books of the Month

Travel and Description. The second volume of The Wheelman (Thu Wheelman Co., Boston) has the dash and noiselessness of this narrowest-gauged vehicle. It is extraordinary how the enthusiasm of the wheel makes even literature a servant. Baseball occupies more space in the newspaper, but the bicycle takes a higher flight, and spins triumphantly through the monthly magazine. It is a pleasure to find so clean and spirited a literature attached to this cheerful sport.— Seven Spanish Cities and the Way to Them, by Edward E. Hale (Roberts), is a contribution to the accumulating literature of Spanish travel; for Mr. Hale carried with him the wealth of the Indies, and while he writes in the lively, almost breathless manner which we know so well, he is full of interesting suggestion in historical matters, and the best of traveling companions always.

Literature and Criticism. The new Riverside edition of Emerson’s Works (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) includes now the second series of Essays, Representative Men, Society and Solitude, and English Traits, four volumes. The clearness of the page seems to strike into the thought.—Mr. W . J. Linton and Mr. R. H. Stoddard have prepared a collection of poetry under the general title of English Verse, two volumes of which, one Chaucer to Burns, the other Lyrics of the XIX. Century (Scribners), have already appeared. The external finish of the work is extremely attractive in its elegant simplicity; the head lines alone mar the effect of the page, by introducing a needless eccentricity. The editorial work shows good taste, scholarship, and patient care. Mr. Stoddard has written a spirited introduction to each volume, and the editors have furnished useful notes at the end. The stream of verse is clear, and one will not find worthless work as he will miss — who will not ? — many of his favorites ; but the scheme intends compactness. In the latter volume American and English authors appear in a general chronological order. — The Book-Lover’s Enchiridion is the catch-title of a little book which is further explained on the title-page as Thoughts on the Solace and Companionship of Books, selected and chronologically arranged by Philobiblos. (Lippincott.) .This edition is an American reprint, revised and enlarged. We do not think it was a courteous proceeding to revise and enlarge without stating specifically what is the share of the American editor. The selections are good and full of fine suggestion. — Pen Pictures of Modern Authors, edited by William Shepard (Putnams), is a larger-paged and illustrated edition of a book published a year or two ago. It is a mosaic of personal descriptions of familiar authors. — Mr. Frederick Saunders’s Salad for the Solitary and the Social, a book which is a medley of the curiosities of life and literature, has been reissued by T. Whittaker, New York. — The Wisdom of Goethe, by the veteran John Stuart Blackie (Scribners), is an anthology, prefaced by an essay on Goethe. Professor Blackie is an old friend of Goethe, for it was he who introduced Eckermann to the English public.

Biblical Study and Theology. The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, a critical, historical, and dogmatic inquiry into the origin and nature of the Old and New Testaments, by George T. Ladd. (Scribners.) This is a work in two octavo volumes, thoughtful, learned, reasonable, and in general agreement with the sense of Christendom. The author’s conclusion states the result reached: “ The race is in need of redemption, and man dimly or more clearly recognizes his need. The Bible is the book which presents the facts and ideas of redemption, as God has brought the process of redemption to its culmination in the personal appearance and work of Christ and in the founding of the Christian church.” The book is thorughly indexed, and is a thesaurus for the student of the subject. — Biblical Study, its Principles, Methods, and History, together with a catalogue of books of reference, is the work of C. A. Briggs, professor of Hebrew and the cognate languages in Union Theological Seminary. (Scribners.) He has collected and rewritten in a consecutive form a number of his special articles upon the subject of his book, which is in effect a hand-book for students of the Bible and of Biblical criticism. It is somewhat piecemeal in character. — A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (Harpers) is a manual of textual criticism, by Dr. Philip Schaff, and includes also a historical sketch of the work of the revision committee. The book will interest the curious, also, by its many facsimile illustrations of MSS. and standard editions of the New Testament.—In the International Revision Commentary on the New Testament, also edited by Dr. Schaff, a volume has been published on the Gospel according to John. (Scribners.) The editors are W. Milligan and W. F. Moulton, who were members of the English committee. There is a whole meadow of commentary to a trickling rill of text. It is a pity, we think, to publish commentaries which, like this, smother a reader’s mind.—The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, by Professor Geo. P. Fisher (Scribners), is a discussion of the evidences of both natural and revealed religion, with special reference to modern theories and difficulties. Professor Fisher always claims attention by his eminent fairness in argument.

Fiction. Fortune’s Fool is Mr. Julian Hawthorne’s latest novel. (Osgood.) — A Woman of Honor, by H. C. Runner (Osgood), is the author’s novelization of his drama; it has the brusqueness of style which seems the contribution of the stage to modern manners, and is clever, but its cleverness is wasted upon a trifle. What would a Scrap of Paper be, made into a volume of three hundred pages ? — A Great Treason, by Mary A. M. Hoppus, is a story of the war of independence. (Macmillan.) The independence is of these United States, and the story centres upon Arnold and André. It is a somewhat galvanized work, but apparently the historic facts are studied with care. The liveliness of the book is not made less wiry by the use of the historic present. — Godfrey Morgan, a Californian Mystery, by Jules Verne (Scribners), is the story of — But why should we tell the story, since there is then nothing left for the reader of the book? By the way, is the general appearance of Verne’s books an intimation of the publishers’ estimate of their value?— Ruby is the second of Col. Geo. E. Waring’s spirited horse stories. (Osgood.) — The Recollections of a Drummer Boy, by Harry M. Kiefer (Osgood), comes under the head of fiction, from the form in which it is cast, but it purports to be the author’s personal recollections of three years of army life in actual service in the field. It has the air of honesty. — A new and complete edition of the works of Donald G. Mitchell (Scribner’s Sons) shows that they have not lost the charm which won them multitudes of readers twenty years ago. The Reveries of a Bachelor and Seven Stories constitute the first two volumes of the reissue, the typography and externals of which are exceedingly neat.

History and Biography. The third volume of Mr. Bancroft’s last revision of his History of the United States of America (Appletons) covers what the author makes the second epoch, when Britain estranges America, 1763-1774. —Comprehensive Dictionary of Biography, by Edward A. Thomas (Porter & Coates), is a double-columned crown octavo volume of six hundred pages, containing from five to ten titles on a page. The editor has made his selection without any apparent law, his articles have not the conciseness which a book of reference requires, his information is not always of the latest, and the book shows little evidence of thoroughness and care. —Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has written Margaret Fuller for the Famous Women series. (Roberts.)—John Keese, Wit and Littérateur, is a biographical memoir, by William L. Keese (Appletons), of a New York book auctioneer who was a well-known figure in New York when trade sales formed the only literary congress, and by his tastes was a friend of the authors as well as of their books. — Albert Gallatin, by John Austin Stevens, is the latest volume in the series of American Statesmen. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

Books for Young People. Our Young Folks’ Plutarch, edited by Rosalie Kaufman (Lippincott), is a reproduction of some of the Lives in a form for young people. While we are heartily glad that young people should read Plutarch in any form, we question whether the limpid English of Clough’s Dryden or the more picturesque rendering of North is not good enough for boys.—Young Folks’ Whys and Wherefores, a story by Uncle Lawrence (Lippincott), is an adaptation from the French, in which the pictures and ideas are retained and the story is rendered by American persons. It contains a familiar explanation of an assortment of phenomena. — The Hoosier SchoolBoy, by Edward Eggleston (Scribners), is a pendant to the same author’s Hoosier School-Master, and like that reproduces with a blunt pencil characteristic scenes of Indiana life. Mr. Eggleston has, however, sharpened his pencil somewhat in this little book, and uses a finer taste in his choice of material.—The Story of Roland, by James Baldwin (Scribners), is another of the valuable adaptations of medieval romance to a youthful audience. The more boys and girls cut their romantic teeth on those books, the better men and women they will make. — The American Girl’s Home Book of Work and Play, by Helen Campbell (Putnams), is an admirable hand-book for the family, full of good hints for sport and occupation. Mrs. Campbell refers to Mrs. Child’s Girl’s Own Book as if it had been in some sort the basis of this, but we think the acknowledgment is due to the American Girl’s Book, by Miss Leslie, and not to the Girl’s Book of the former writer. — The London S. P. C. K. through E. & J. B. Young & Co., their New York agents, send us two toy books, Blue-Red and From Do-Nothing Hall to HappyDay House. The former relates in verse the history of the discontented lobster, in which the changes are run ingeniously on the colors blue and red ; the pictures are fairly good and printed in colors. The second is a simple little parable with modest pictures.—The Bodley Library—it is almost as if one were to say the Bodleian Library— has a notable addition this year in a volume in which the American Bodleys are brought into personal relations with the English branch of the family. This capital idea affords Mr. Scudder the chance to give his readers a great variety of happy letter-press and fitting illustrations. The book, which forms the seventh volume of the series, is entitled the English Bodley Family. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

Poetry. Patrice, her Love and Work, by E. F. Hayward (Cupples, Upham & Co.), is a story in verse, in which great injustice is done to the first wife. — Whispering Pines is a volume of poems, by John Henry Boner. (Brentano Bros., New York.) It is of Southern origin, and from the excessive attention paid to memory in it we should surmise it to be the work of a young man. — Sol, an Epic Poem, by Rev. Henry Iliowizi, Minneapolis, is a commemoration of a faithful Israelite in Africa, and incidentally a plea for more justice to the Israelitish faith.—Hymns and a few Metrical Psalms, by Thomas MacKellar (Porter & Coates), is intended for devotional use.—The Early Poetical Works of Franklin E. Denton (Cleveland, Ohio, W. W. Williams) is introduced by A. G. R , who states that Mr. Denton is but twenty-three. The title of the book is thus all ready for future use, but we trust Mr. Denton will get over this feverish attack.

Philosophy and Science. Man a Creative First Cause, by Rowland G. Hazard (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), is a little volume of two discourses given before the Concord School of Philosophy. It is in effect a vindication of metaphysics from the charge of fruitlessness. — Instinct, its office in the animal kingdom and its relations to the higher powers in man, is a reissue of the Lowell Lectures of the late President P. A. Chadbourne. (Putnams.) Dr. Chadbourne was a most intelligible lecturer, and a good observer in science. — The Law of Heredity, a Study of the Cause of Variation and the Origin of Living Organisms (John Murphy & Co., Baltimore), is by W. K. Brooks, associate in biology, Johns Hopkins University, and is modestly put forward as a contribution to speculation on the subject. It is dedicated to Mr. Darwin, from whose works the facts have largely been drawn, although the author is no mere compiler, but is himself an investigator.

Education and Text-Books. The Iliad of Homer, Books I.-VI., with an introduction and notes by Robert P. Keep (Allyn), is an admirable school-book, both from the thoroughness with which the text is annotated in the interest of school-boys and from the number of practical suggestions which Dr. Keep offers to teachers. It is a book which has grown, and was not made. — Dr. A. P. Peabody’s translation of Cicero de Officiis (Little, Brown & Co.), though a contribution to the literature of ethics, is excellently adapted for educational uses by those who would naturally study the original if they had the appliances. - Anti-Tobacco, by A. A. Livermore, R. L. Carpenter, and G. F. Witter (Roberts), is a little book which is plainly of most use to school-boys, or rather their teachers. Yet we question whether a more guarded presentation of the evil would not in the long run be worth more than this, which, while in the main good, runs into extravagance. — In Mrs. Gilpin’s Frugalities, by Susan Ann Brown (Scribner’s Sons), the wise housewife will be glad to find directions for using the remnants of food usually wasted or unappetizingly reproduced. The author shows how these fragments may be served in two hundred different ways.

Politics and Society. The People and Politics, or the Structure of States and the Significance and Relation of Political Forms, by G. W. Hosmer (Osgood), is an octavo volume, which intends a critical and historical view of the subject. It seems to fail in establishing any definite conclusions,— In Putnam’s Handy Book Series of Things Worth Knowing is a treatise on Work for Women, by George J. Manson, in which practical suggestions are made by a hopeful man.