Brandes's "Main Currents"

IT must be nearly or quite a quarter of a century since American scholars were first delighted and quickened with the German translations of the critical works of Georg Brandes. His Haupt-strömungen, we venture to say, has done more than any series of books produced outside of France itself to arouse interest in the germinal periods of recent European literature. Of the English translation in six volumes, now in course of publication,¹ four volumes have appeared: The Emigrant Literature, The Romantic School inGermany, The Reaction in France, and The Romantic School in France. The latter is really the fifth volume in point of order, but Naturalism in England, which precedes it, has been temporarily delayed in publication. The final volume, Young Germany, is also shortly to be issued. In the new contact with the English-reading public which the present spirited translation makes possible, these brilliant and suggestive books by one of the foremost of living critics deserve and will no doubt secure a wide influence upon a new generation of men of letters.