"THE OLIGARCHY OF VENICE," which Houghton, Mifflin & Company announce for early publication, will show the newly elected Mayor of New York in a novel light. As Congressman and member of the important Ways and Means Committee of the House, Mr. McClellan's name has been well known to the public for years. This dignified and graceful essay will call attention to another side of his character, that of scholar and political thinker. Mr. McClellan's attainment as a linguist and his familiarity with European history have been known to his friends. This readable and attractive book will make them known to a wider public.

SINCE the publication of "Dr. Lavendar's People" (Harpers), Mrs. Margaret Deland is in constant receipt of letters whose writers regard Dr. Lavendar as a living reality. The other day one of the author's unknown correspondents berated her with vigor for having ever allowed Dr. Lavendar to smoke or occasionally take a drink. The writer blames Mrs. Deland altogether for this weakness of Dr. Lavendar's, and declares that she is sure the minister would never have done anything of the kind had not Mrs. Deland “made him do it several times, and I feel sure," continues the writer, addressing Mrs. Deland, "he would resent it if he could, without hurting your feelings." There could scarcely be a stronger testimonial to the living reality of a fictitious character, nor a more curious view of the relation between that character and his creator.

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"A fool can win the love of a man, but it requires a woman of resources to keep it."

"A man would often be the lover of his wife-if he were married to some one else."

"An action committed in bad taste is more curing and disillusionizing to love than the cruelest blows of rage and hate." "It is a wise man who knows when he is happy, and can appreciate the divine bliss of the tangible now. Most of us retrospect and so lose the present."

if you can

Seize love at whatever age he comes to youavoid being ridiculous." "It is a good hostess who never inclines her guests unconsciously to look at the clock."

WRITING to the publishers of "Tittlebat Titmouse," the Bradyized edition of Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year," Senator Hoar says: "I remember reading it in my boyhood, and then being very much amused by it. But I have not since had the same liking for it. I do not think I care about the portraiture of cheap and vulgar heroes, like the hero of that book, however well done it may be. Somehow I do not care about the company of people like Titmouse, or even like some of Thackeray's heroes, or his heroine, Becky Sharp, even in imagination. I like Trollope's country gentlemen and especially his country parsons, and Dickens's worthies like Mr. Pickwick and the Brothers Cheeryble. Better than all I like the noble strokes of Scott."

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"THE typical American story," says an acute observer,

HAMLIN GARLAND, author of "Hesper," tells an interesting story of how he got his first inspiration to write fiction. He had left Wisconsin for a time, and was sitting in a little attic room in Boston, wondering about his future, when he heard a man unloading a cartload of coal in the street below. The sound made by the coal as it was released from the man's shovel a sort of ringing scrape- - seemed exactly like the sound made by shovelling corn into a corn-crib. It brought back to the homesick young man a vivid picture of his home, the farm, and the life he had left. The inspiration for a story came to him, and he wrote a tale that was published in the New American Magazine, of New York, then edited by William Wyckoff. This was in 1885, and the story was afterward incorporated in Mr. Garland's " Boy Life on the Prairie," and reproduced in his lecture on "Life on the Prairie."

WHEN William R. Lighton, author of "The Ultimate Moment," which a Western paper describes as the best Omaha story ever written," was only a small boy, he tried his hand at all sorts of writing, stories, fragments of natural history, verses, and insisted upon sending them to magazines. To earn the money for postage-stamps, he picked cherries "on shares" for a neighbor, and peddled his own share around the town. He made more than a dollar that June, and invested in a supply of stamps that kept his MSS. going for several months. Despite this persevering spirit of enterprise, it was many years before his MSS. began to be accepted; but, with his new novel, Mr. Lighton seems to have arrived.

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Americans are either trying to make money or to keep from losing what they have. But the hunt for money may seem to be the central motive of a man's life and yet not be his goal. Such is the case of Dan Devin, the main character of The Forerunner," Neith Boyce's strong novel, just published by Fox, Duffield & Company. Devin's whole life is occupied in making or losing money, yet he puts into his speculative enterprises a quality of temperament and imagination, a really large ambition, which lifts him out of the class of the "money grubber," and makes him perhaps a truly typical American. "The Forerunner" describes the landboom which a few years ago temporarily wrecked Los Angeles, and is rather a drama of temperament than a romance.

Two years ago the name of Onoto Watanna was entirely unknown, except among a coterie in Chicago; to-day it is known everywhere, and her new volume, "The Heart of Hyacinth," is one of the most popular books of the season. In 1901 the manuscript of "A Japanese Nightingale was going the rounds of the publishers. About the same time a theatrical manager paid the author a paltry sum- ten or fifteen dollars for the dramatic rights of " A Japanese Nightingale," upon her showing a scenario of the dramatization she proposed to make of it; a year later she bought back the rights for a large sum, and, through the agency of Miss Marbury, subsequently disposed of the dramatic rights in America to the managers of the present magnificent production now appearing in New York, and also the English rights to Miss Marie Tempest, who will produce the play later in London. Fortune has certainly been kind to Onoto Watanna, who is not yet twenty-five, but her success has been well earned. She is the daughter of a Japanese mother and an English father, was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and came to this country by way of England and Canada, and early in her teens found herself in Chicago, where she became engaged in journalistic work. Meanwhile, from her fourteenth year, she had been writing short stories and sketches of Japanese life with an instinctive gift of delicate perception and an exquisite, inborn sense of artistic expression which were extraordinary in so young a writer, and can only be accounted for by the early maturing of an Oriental mind enriched by the Occidental strain in her blood.

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AMONG all the novelists who have written of pirate ships and their bloodthirsty commanders, it remains for a young American novelist, Miss Mary Johnston, to be singled out by the London Sphere, in its latest issue, for mention in connection with a double-page pirate picture. Among recent novelists," says the Sphere. "Miss Mary Johnston has drawn some very vivid pictures of life on a pirate vessel." and forthwith reproduces an extract from "To Have and To Hold," which, by the way, was published in England under the title "By Order of the Company." It seems a literary wonder that a young American woman can draw such virile seapictures as Miss Johnston has done, and is now again doing Sir Mortimer" in Harper's Magazine, with what would almost certainly be described as masculine vigor.

in

SEUMAS MACMANUS has emerged from his three years of retirement among the hills of Donegal and appeared in New York. He is to give a series of lectures throughout the country on Irish wit and humor, and Irish folk-lore, with readings from his own works, such as "The Red Poocher," "Through the Turf Smoke," etc. This will be under the auspices of the Columbian Lyceum Bureau. Another pur

pose in view in visiting America is to arrange for American publication of two books by his late wife, who wrote under the name of Ethna Carbery. One is a book of poems, "The Four Winds of Eirinn," now in its eleventh edition in Ireland, and the other is a work of fiction called "The Passionate Hearts."

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL has for many years been collecting a valuable library of cookery books in Latin, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and English. Her account of them, in "My Cookery Books," will entertain the general reader, delight the epicure, and gain a hearty welcome from the book collector, for it is issued only in a limited quarto edition of 300 copies in the special Riverside Press series by Houghton, Mifflin & Company. The volume contains a valuable bibliography and is printed from a beautiful, modern_type on a high quality of Arnold paper, with uncut edges. There are many full-page illustrations, consisting of mounted reproductions of interesting old engravings and title-pages.

"THE History of Oliver and Arthur," originally written in Latin, has just been done into English by William Leighton and Eliza Barrett in a quarto edition of 300 numbered copies published in Houghton, Mifflin & Company's special Riverside Press series. The only other English translation of this mediæval romance was made in 1518, but no copy has been preserved and it is unknown to bibliography. Following the chief characteristics of the original, the new edition is printed in double columns of black letter, with rubrication throughout, and is illustrated with numerous engravings redrawn from the old wood cuts of the original. It is printed on hand-made paper and bound uncut, with paper label.

WHEN Senator Albert J. Beveridge was gathering material in Russia for his book, "The Russian Advance," just published by the Harpers, he had an amusing experience with a native interpreter. Mr. Beveridge has the prime quality of the successful man, a capacity for hard work. Having engaged the interpreter, Mr. Beveridge started in on a good day of American hustle," with this result: After first day's work, from 7 A. M. to 7 P. M., interpreter somewhat exhausted, Mr. Beveridge fresh and hearty. After second day's work, same hours, interpreter gasping, Mr. Beveridge enthusiastically planning the work for next day. After third day's work, interpreter requesting a day off for rest, Mr. Beveridge regretfully giving his permission. But after that day the interpreter never turned up again. Later the senator heard that he complained he couldn't work with a man who wanted to do a year's work in a day. Subsequent frequent relays of fresh interpreters enabled Mr. Beveridge to accomplish his own work in his own way.

MARK TWAIN is quoted, in Punch, as having said he fled to Italy to escape one of Punch's contributors, Mr. H. W. Lucy, Toby, M. P.," who has been in America recently. Mr. Lucy thus explains the cause of Mark Twain's alleged flight to Europe. He and Twain once decided to collaborate in a magazine to be called "The Obituary." Each was to write scurrilous obituaries of any of his personal friends who chanced to be famous, making all sorts of accusations against them. They were then to submit proofs to the victims, intimating that, unless large sums were paid to the writers the obituaries would be published after the death of the subjects. So Mr. Lucy, when he arranged to visit America, wrote Mark Twain, complaining that he had never received any profits from "The Obituary," to which his friend replied that in its earning capacity The Obituary' is better for Twain than for two," and that he intended to escape his dissatisfied partner by a trip to Italy.

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BENNET MUSSON, author of the successful story for children, Maisie and Her Dog Snip in Fairyland," was born in Cairo, Illinois. His father was a railroad official, and took his son with him on many expeditions through the State. Consequently, Mr. Musson says that his earliest impression of America was that it was all prairie, with an occasional tree here and there. His father's business necessitated frequent

change of residence, and Mr. Musson's education was begun in Missouri, continued in Ohio, and completed in New York. As a boy his life had been so migratory that he was always surprised when he met a child who still lived in the place where he was born. Mr. Musson is not only author, but actor as well.

BETTY SAGE, author of "Rhymes of Real Children," lately published by Fox, Duffield & Company, is a graduate of Farmington, whose alumnæ throughout the country have shown great appreciation for this attractive holiday book. Miss Porter's historic school in the little Connecticut town has a loyal graduate body. It has had also an uninterrupted history until the late split arising out of the terms of Miss Porter's will, when Miss Dow, with a large following, founded another school at Briarcliff on the Hudson. Nothing of split or schisms, however, is reflected in Betty Sage's genial volume.

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"AFTER WORCESTER FIGHT," a companion supplementary volume to "The Flight of the King," contains the five important contemporary narratives of Charles II.'s escape after the battle of Worcester, which were issued collectively in 1830, under the title of "The Boscobel Tracts," viz., The King's Narrative," Blount's " Boscobel," Whitgreave's "Narrative," Ellesdon's Letter," and the "Claustrum Regale Reseratum." Tract I., "The King's Narrative: An Account of His Majesty's Escape from Worcester, Dictated to Mr. Pepys by the King Himself," in the year 1680, is, of course, of first importance, though, narrated after a lapse of nearly thirty years from the occurrence of the events, there are many errors in it. The original document (in cipher), in the Pepysian Library_at_Cambridge, was printed first in the year 1766 by Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes), with additional notes by the diarist from information subsequently obtained from Father Huddleston and Colonel Phelips, who, it will be remembered, were active agents in getting the royal fugitive out of the country. This volume contains an interesting account of several relics in connection with the story of Charles II.'s escape, some of which are reproduced therein; also an account of the petitions, pensions, gifts, etc.

A SOCIAL party of well-known New Yorkers, with no knowl. edge of professional book reviewing, sailing recently on a steam yacht bound for the West Indies, competed for a prize, to pass the time, by writing twenty-word criticisms of Mrs. Ward's novel, "Lady Rose's Daughter." These are the miniature critiques :

"Here is to the daughter of Lady Rose! Every inch a woman, her own worst enemy. Never her best friend." "Julie was a crooked woman bent on matrimony, carrying out the axiom, 'It is not the start, but the finish.""

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'The moral tone is unwholesome. It holds your attention. Julie is delightful, Jacob is a fool. Peace to their ashes." 'Poor, unconventional Julie, having heredity to contend with, she didn't contend much. Her own best friend when she married Jacob."

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'An unsatisfactory book, portraying a woman of false ideas, also other characters unnaturally intense."

"A well-written tale of a fascinating and clever woman, who, lacking conventional standards, honestly followed her heart's promptings."

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Story of unusual interest. One rebels against the heroine's power, but cannot fail to acknowledge the force of her charm." "A clever portrayal of an intense collection of interesting and emotional characters. Striking good features in the dialogues; unforeseen plot."

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An interesting book.

Characters well drawn. Climax satisfactory. The strongest character finally overcoming the tendency to evil in Julie."

"Rather interesting in places, but on the whole unnatural and unreal."

The seventh criticism won the prize.

A GARBLED anecdote of the first meeting between Miss Mary E. Wilkins and Mr. F. Marion Crawford has lately been in circulation. Miss Wilkins's publishers, the Harpers, vouch for the truth of the story as follows: The two au

"Fischer wrote as no man dared write before him."- N. Y. World.

"The scandal it retails, however, will cause many people to read it." New York Sun.

April 10th.

My Dear Mr. Fischer :I have read with care the two volumes of your Private Lives of William II. and His Consort, and have derived from the reading a great deal of information and pleasure. Of course, I know nothing as to the authenticity of the entire narrative; but, assuming it to be above question, I would say that no book of the kind has so interested me since the publication of the

Memoirs of Madame de Remusat. The present Kaiser is such thing which can throw light upon his personality.

an enigma to the world at large as to give especial value to any

I have seen in the press the statement that objection has been made to this book upon the ground of the alleged impropriety of certain portions of it; but after having read it through I cannot understand how such an objection could be sustained. Here and there certain passages might perhaps be modified; but if so, it would be done as a matter of taste, and not at all as a matter of morals; for I do not see that the question of morality can be raised in connection with anything that you have written down. The book, in fact, is simply a minutely detailed, intimate, and curious delineation of the life and immediate environment of one of the most interesting figures in contemporary history. Very sincerely yours,

DE LUXE EDITION 100 numbered copies printed for SUBSCRIBERS only, three-quarter crushed levant. Price, $15.00 net.

HARRY THURSTON PECK.

LIBRARY (limited) EDITION, large crown 8vo, extra gray cloth, gilt top, style of high priced SUBSCRIPTION books. Price, $7.00 net.

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