R AMERICAN FIRST A Series of Bibliographic Check-Lists* Edited by Merle Johnson and Frederick M. Hopkins CHARLES D. (GEORGE DOUGLAS) ROBERTS Charms G.D. Roberts. Compiled by W. L. Griffith OBERTS is not an American author except in the larger sense of North America. He was born in Nova Scotia, and has been a professor for many years in a Canadian college. However, he has also spent years in the United States, his books have seen their best presentation (especially those with the Bul! illustrations) in this country, and the scenes of his writings are mainly laid in the northeastern wild, the character of which does not change with the border. If this be annexation, make the most of it. ORION AND OTHER POEMS London, 1880. IN DIVERS TONES. London, 1887. THE CANADIAN GUIDEBOOK. New York, 1889. AN ODE FOR THE SHELLEY CENTENARY. London, 1892. SONGS OF THE COMMON DAY. London, 1893. THE YOUNG ACADIAN. New York, 1894. Reprinted as "The Raid from Beauséjour," 1907. AROUND THE CAMP FIRE. New York, 1896. A SISTER TO EVANGELINE. Boston, 1898. NEW YORK NOCTURNES. Boston, 1898. THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD. Boston, [1900]. BY THE MARSHES OF MINAS. Boston, [1900]. POEMS. New York, [1901]. BARBARA LADD. Boston, 1902. THE KINDRED OF THE WILD. Boston, 1902. THE BOOK OF THE ROSE. Boston, 1903. DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS IN THE CENTURY. Philadelphia, 1903. THE PRISONER OF MADMOISELLE. Boston, 1904. THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAIL. Boston, 1904. RED FOX. Boston, 1905. THE HEART THAT KNOWS. Boston, 1906. THE CRUISE OF THE YACHT DIDO. Boston, 1906. THE HAUNTERS OF THE SILENCES. Boston, 1907. THE HOUSE IN THE WATER. Boston, 1908. THE BACKWOODS MEN. New York, 1909. RED OXEN OF BONVAL. New York, 1909. KINGS IN EXILE. London, 1909; New York, 1910. THE FEET OF THE FURTIVE. New York, 1913. A BALKAN PRINCE. London, 1913. THE SECRET TRAILS. New York, 1916. Copyright, 1922, R. R. BOWKER CO. IN THE MORNING OF TIME. New York, [1919]. THE CANADIANS OF OLD (de Gaspe). London, 1889, and CAMERON OF LOCHIEL are translations. NORTHLAND LYRICS (W. C. Roberts, et al.). Boston, 1889, THE FACE IN THE HOP VINES appears in the Red Cross Story Book, London [N. D.]. What Do They Read On Shipboard? MUST confess that I have always had an insatiable curiosity, worse than that of the famous elephant's child, as to what fellow travelers on street cars and trains were reading, and I've often been guilty of making an even more than polite effort to find out. It is a habit that affords particular amusement on a slow ocean liner, for there you are with people long enough to discover whether the cue the book has given you about your companions is right or not. On the very first day of the crossing this summer it was plain that we had an unusually book-loving lot of passengers, for the magazines that appeared there before books were unpacked were nearly all Atlantics, Literary Reviews, Landmarks of the English Speaking Union, and Travel. I caught one glimpse of a Saturday Evening Post, but never saw it again. The book conspicuous first was "The Enchanted April." All sorts of people seemed to enjoy the experiences of the weary English ladies in their medieval castle on the Medi terranean. I saw an elderly white sidewhiskered Boston gentleman absorbed in it, heard three highly cultivated Philadelphia spinsters reading it aloud with glee and saw several flappers chuckling over it. Next I noticed a young American and his wife revelling in the delicious "Kai Lung's Golden Hours" and wasn't surprised to learn that they were to be in Europe several years studying and were to begin with a bicycle trip in France. One day thru my cabin window I heard with delight a woman praising David Garnett's "Lady Into Fox," for if she liked that she was sure to be a good person to borrow from. Later she did lend me "Proud Lady," by Neith Bryce, and a story about the Pennsylvania Dutch called "The House of Yost," both worth reading. Another time I heard peals of laughter from an extremely pretty English woman a few chairs down the deck. She was reading Galsworthy's "The Burning Spear." She had been conspicuous since the first afternoon because of her boots-knee high and loose topped they were and made of tan suede, but after hearing her laugh over the Galsworthy book I was really interested in her and in learning that she lived in South Africa somewhere and that her favorite sport was lion hunting. A certain Maryland woman proved quite as interesting as her reading indicated. One day she was enjoying "Where the Blue Begins" and the next "Chartres and Mont St. Michel." It wasn't surprising after that combination to see her crowned queen of the shuffleboard contest. A good many people read the various copies of "Trodden Gold," "Being Respectable" and "His Children's Children," but they seemed mostly agreed that, tho these books purpose to be "serious," they are the kind after all that go in one ear and out the other because they so lack distinction. I saw two delightfully wholesome women doctors open "The Sea-Hawk" when they were "ennuyé beyond the usual tense of that yawning verb," as Byron once said, but soon sit up all agog with interest over it. The single copy of "Mr. and Mrs. Sen" belonged to a charming girl who, as some one remarked, looked 16 and talked like 60. She was born in Honolulu of English parents and had lived for many years in Singapore and consequently made intelligent comments on the Anglo-Chinese marriage with which the Sen story deals. On one steamer chair I often saw "Moby Dick," but never discovered the reader; on others, Michael Sadleir's "Desolate Splendour" and Alexy Tolstoi's "The Road to Calvary," and "Far Away and Long Ago," by W. H. Hudson. I believe the only passengers who never read were the husky-looking golf champion who was on his way to an international tournament and the ship widow. It has often occurred to me that some publisher or bookseller is missing a good chance in not making a point of providing ship, libraries. They ought to contain especially, it seems to me, books the scenes of which the travelers are likely to visit, and they ought to be arranged on the shelves accordingly. "Romola" for Florence and the Browning poems; "The Marble Fawn" and "Daisy Miller" for Rome; the letters of Shelley and Byron for northern Italy; "A Tale of Two Cities" for London and Paris; "Vanity Fair" for London and Brussels; "Lorna Doone" for Devonshire, to name a few scattering examples. New books, too, like "Glimpses of the Moon," "Enchanted April," and Forster's "Room With a View," ought to be classified in a ship library according to the background of the story. Passengers would love it, I am sure, for after all the interest of most people in strange places is stimulated quite as much by the novels and poetry they have read as by any histories of art and politics and war. The New Century Religious Book Department THE HE Century Company has announced an extension of its well established church music department to cover a larger field of religious books. Two of its first publications in this field will be "Dramatized Bible Stories," prepared in collaboration with the National Playground and Recreation Association, and "The Children's Crusade," a pageant. The department will also issue annually a collection of the best of the year's work in religious drama and pageant, selected by a committee of forty, under the auspices of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. This department will also take care of the hymnals, including "The Hymnal for American Youth," edited by H. Augustine Smith, which the publisher says has found a sale of about 50,000 copies a year, and "Hymns for the Living Age," one of the most active volumes on the whole Century list. New Syndicate NNOUNCEMENTS come from two A big New York publishers of the form ing of organized agencies for syndicating. Doubleday, Page & Company launched the D. P. Syndicate, Ralph H. Graves, editor, and is interested in short stories of not over 1,200 words or news features of 25,000 words. Putnam's Syndicate, George Palmer Putnam, manager, and George T. Bye, editor, has begun activities. It will devote itself exclusively to features for newspapers. Wallace Irwin's "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy" and the novels of H. C. Witwer are now being put out. More Publicity on Children's JOHN MARTIN, whose lectures at Chau tauqua were one of the interesting efforts towards children's reading promotion this summer, is extending his activities in this direction under the pressure of invitations from several sources. The American Telegraph and Telephone Company has asked him to talk every Saturday night at 7:30, giving stories of his own selection for little people. Its broadcasting station WEAF is the most powerful in this district, and thus assures a wide attention for the series. The Company has also asked him on the third Friday of each month, at II A. M., to talk to mothers on subjects which he has chosen tical ideas about impressing very young to call "Psychology in Little," giving pracchildren. His talk to parents on Friday, November 16th, that being Children's Book Week, will be devoted to "Right Reading for Children." At the convention of the Springfield Playground Association during the week of October 11th, he has been asked to address a large group on "Right Reading for Children," thus having contact with a very influential body of workers, and in the Mount Vernon Library to give a talk, first, to parents on the subject on "Right Reading," and then, to the children in the school, on "Good Book Friends." The Humanity of Stevenson THE 'HE new "Letters" of Robert Louis Stevenson, which are about to be published, give new sidelights on his human characteristics as well as on his literary power. Those who have never found it possible to be models of orderliness may take comfort in his letter to Lady Colvin, which reads: "I am changed to myself. All my sham goodness-I mean all the orderliness and citizenliness and sort of respectability that I had laid on-is going away and away down thru wind into everlasting space. "Despise me if you please, my lady, but mind you I'll do good work in spite of it all, even tho I cannot catch trains (as now I cannot), and cannot write letters, and cannot keep engagements, nor generally do anything that a stout thoughtful citizen should do by nature." j The Consumption of Paper Statistics and a Chart Furnished by the American Paper and THE No effort has ever been made to find just if the estimate made by the War Industries Board is still accurate, consume 50,000 tons, or less than 1% of the entire paper production, and that means for all classes of books, including textbooks as well as subscription sets and general literature. The consumption of paper per capita has been estimated by the American Paper and Pulp Company as: 1899 57 pounds per capita 75 1909 93 1914 106 66 118 1918 1922 One reason for the increase is the very large expansion of the use of boxes made of pulp material, which have so largely replaced other forms of shipping and which use pulp at a very rapid rate. PRODUCTION OF PAPER IN UNITED STATES IN YEAR 1921 SOURCE: US CENSUS OF MANUFACTURES - 1921 Year-Round Bookselling For Children's Book Week THE HE National Association of Book Publishers has issued a pamphlet for the Fifth Annual Children's Book Week, November 11-17, 1923. The pamphlet was prepared by Mrs. Blanche Graham Williams, of the Department of English in the Indianapolis Public School, working with the Children's Book Week Committee. The booklet, called "Book Week Projects: Suggestions for Teachers," offers ways of "creating a taste for books," for forming youthful book clubs, for preparing book lists, for giving book plays. The suggestions for contests to be arranged for Children's Book Week, and for class or assembly programs to be used during the week are quoted in full below. Project IV.-Contests 1. Writing Essays. On favorite books. On favorite book characters. On local book club and its proposed work. On care of books. 2. Best poster designs, on books or reading. 3. Best slogans for book posters. 4. Best book-plate designs. (See special circular for teachers.) 5. Best book-cases. (See circular for manual training teachers.) 6. Best book-mark designs. 7. Best original verse for book-marks. 8. Best collection of book quotations. (Consult public library quotation books.) 9. Best ten suggestions for care of books. 10. Best book cheers. Suggestions for Use of Best Essays: For school paper or local newspaper announcements of Children's Book Week. For place on assembly program during Week. Suggestions for Use of Best Book-Marks: Have classes print them; Have penmanship classes mail them to parents; Distribute as souvenirs of Week to pupils. |