Books of the Month

Holiday Books and Books on Art. City Ballads, by Will Carleton (Harpers), has an uncertain air; one is not quite sure whether it is a volume of verses supplied with pictures, or a gift book,—one of that class which one gives away without reading and without expecting the receiver to read. In this case we should certainly add that it also need not be looked at. The pictures, whether humorous or severe, are equally tame. — Oil Paintings, a Handbook for the Use of Students and Schools, by Frank Fowler (Cassell.) It is difficult to see how a person, who appears to know as much as the author of this handbook, can really expect other people to learn the art of painting by means of this manual. — Drawing in Charcoal and Crayon, for the Use of Students and Schools, by Frank Fowler. (Cassell): another volume of the same sort, only less unpractical, since it deals with simpler material. — Wild Flowers of Colorado, from original water-color sketches drawn from nature, by Emma Homan Thayer (Cassell), is a folio of brightly colored prints of flowers, accompanied by a pleasantly written text, describing the experiences of an English lady in Colorado. She used her time well in gathering this bouquet. The illustrations are effective; they enable one to identify the flowers intended, but they do not disclose the poetic secret hid in the gentians, wind-flowers, and others.

Literature and Literary History. The Harpers bring out George Eliot’s Poems, together with Brother Jacob and The Lifted Veil, two short stories, in a form to correspond, we suppose, with the author’s novels in their library edition. If they had it in mind to discourage George Eliot’s pretensions to poetic place they could not have carried out their scheme more judiciously. — Mr. Oscar Fay Adams brings out new editions of his very serviceable little handbooks : the one A Brief Handbook of English Authors, the other A Brief Handbook of American Authors. (Houghton.) Both books have been thoroughly revised and enlarged, and those who are curious regarding the younger writers on both sides of the water will find many interesting details of age and accomplishments not easily found elsewhere.—C. N. Caspar, of Milwaukee, has produced a Directory of the Antiquarian Booksellers and Dealers in Second-Hand Books of the United States, which will be of great service to collectors. —A Monograph on Privately Illustrated Books, by Daniel M. Tredwell (Fred. Tredwell), is a volume that will commend itself in various ways to the book-lover. The author brings expert knowledge and great enthusiasm to his subject, and the publisher has backed him by printing his essay in the handsomest manner. Though dealing with only one phase of bibliomania, the work will interest every collector.— Mr. E. C. Stedman’s Poets of America (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is the most important critical work of the season, as it is perhaps the most painstaking study in literature yet produced in America. We shall have more to say about it later. — From Shakespeare to Pope, an Inquiry into the Causes and Phenomena of the Rise of Classical Poetry in England, by Edmund Gosse (Dodd, Mead & Co.), contains the lectures given last winter in Boston. One is tempted to inquire also into the causes and phenomena of the amusing dedicatory poem.

Fiction. A New England Conscience, by Belle C. Greene (Putnams), although in story form, is evidently written less for the sake of telling a story than of relieving the mind of the author. The heroine is a young girl who has seen her mother frightened into insanity by the “terrors of the law,”and at last herself reaches a more rational theological position. The prime defect of the story, as a reflection of New England life, is in its omission of all the connecting links. It is the homely life of the farm and mill which renders such theology, even when at its extreme, consonant with sanity and even with cheerfulness. — “ As We Went Marching On,” a story of the war, by G. W. Hosmer (Harpers), while it has a plot, seems after all more of a vehicle for carrying reminiscences of soldier life. — The Haunted Adjutant and Other Stories, by Edmund Quincy (Ticknor): a collection of Mr. Quincy’s agreeable, leisurely stories, in which one looks for other things than the story ; he looks for Quincy, and he looks for a certain Boston which is now fast becoming a tradition. — Timothy, his Neighbors and his Friends, by Mrs. Mary E. Ireland (Lippincott), is a story in which the author, having provided herself with characters in different stations of life, and being herself endowed with good principles, sets everybody right and reverses human judgments. The book is not without a touch of humor and a certain animation which lifts it above the level of the ordinary Sundayschool book. — A Mission Flower, by George H. Picard (White, Stokes, and Allen), has good work in it, — enough almost to excuse a lame and impotent plot. — Andromeda, by George Fleming (Roberts), a writer who commands respect fur her work. — A Model Wife, by G. I. Cervus. (Lippincott.) There is plenty of “go ” in this book, but the author seems to mistake a great deal of activity for real movement forward. He has managed also to tell a repulsive and not very natural story. — Love, or a Name, is the title of Mr. Hawthorne’s latest story (Ticknor), in which he tries his hand at the portrait of a young aspirant for political honors. It is not Maud Muller over again, for the Judge comes back, after a freckled career, and marries Maud after all.— Color Studies, by Thomas A. Janvier (Scribners), is a collection of four short stories — the table of contents is on the cover — which have done good service in the Century. Barring a tendency to affectation of quaintness in his nomenclature, the author shows a capital instinct for what is telling in a short story. — Criss-Cross, by Grace Denio Litchfield (Putnams), is a story told in the form of letters crossing the Atlantic back and forth. — For a Woman, by Nora Perry (Ticknor), has the liveliness and the sentiment characteristics of this writer; the situations are made up, but the people, except in emergencies, are quite natural. There are, after all, few things more easily done than reports of conversations between women upon ordinary topics, and the liveliness of the book is largely derived from these. — An Original Belle, by E. P. Roe (Dodd, Mead & Co.), a story of the war, in which the Northern lover and the Southern love become united at last. The lover is as grave and noble as Miss Warner’s lovers used to be. But perhaps it is rather the mantle of Dr. Holland than the mantilla of Miss Warner that has fallen upon this writer. — The Household Myth, by H. G. Creamer (C. H. Whiting, Boston): a story with a mildly sensational plot, wrought rather unskillfully. Does not the writer mistake myth for mystery? — The Last Meeting, a story, by Brander Matthews (Scribner’s Sons), involves a novel mystification which loses a little in the unraveling. We shall return to the book later. — Recent numbers of Harper’s Handy Series are The Luck of the Darrells, by James Payn; Self-Doomed, by B. L. Farjeon ; and Houp-la, by John Strange Winter.

Public Affairs and Society. The Coming Siruggle for India, by Arminius Vambery (Cassell), is one of those books which at once command attention, for the subject is a fascinating one, and Vambery is one of the few men who are sure to be heard on the question of the encroachments of Russia in Central Asia, because he brings the personal knowledge of a traveler and a very bright man. That he is an alarmist is simply an element to be taken into account. — Features of Society in Old and New England, by Henry Mann (S. S. Rider, Providence), is a little volume of short articles, some of them reprints from newspapers, by an Englishman who has become thoroughly naturalized here, and thus is able to write from a somewhat fresh point of view. He is a good and thoughtful observer, and if his reflections are not all of equal value, there are many suggestions of interest to the social student.—A new edition of A Century of Dishonor, by H. H., somewhat enlarged, has been published. The death of the author, her recent Ramona, and the present healthy interest in the Indian, all conspire to make the reissue timely. It has been well said, however, that the book might properly have been called A Century of Blunders. (Roberts.) — Henry Holt & Co. have issued a translation of De Bacourt’s Souvenirs d’un Diplomate, reviewed in these pages in February, 1883. De Bacourt treats of an interesting period of American society and politics; but his misconceptions render his book valueless, though they do not prevent it from being amusing. If De Bacourt had been accurate he would have been tedious. It is treating him with cruelty to reproduce the silly preface of his editress, the Comtesse de Mirabeau. It is quite a case for Mr. Bergh. — Social Silhouettes, edited by Edgar Fawcett (Ticknor & Co.), is a collection of more or less satirical studies of New York society.

Education and Text Books. A History of the United States, for Schools, by Alexander Johnston (Holt): a school history which bears especially on the history of the past hundred years, and is intended to educate the citizen sense. We think a less strict adherence to the annalistic form would serve to give young people a better notion of the continuity of history. It is the continuity of cause and effect rather than of time, that needs to be impressed upon them. — The Eureka Collection of Recitations and Readings, edited by Mrs. A. R. Diehl (Ogilvie): to be avoided for its inclusion of such an offensive piece as Rev. Oleus Bacon, D. D. It belongs to the class of humorous poems from which may the good Lord deliver children.