are long periods of humdrum existence. Though the book is, in the main, sombre and tragic, it is not without its lighter side. Tucker Corbin, the optimistic old soldier, is a pleasing character, and Carraway, the lawyer, occasionally lightens things a little, and the two Weatherbys are good, sane, wholesome, ordinary people.

Take it for all in all, we have found this novel an unusually good one in every respect, and we feel like prophesying for it a large measure of success.

MY FRIEND PROSPERO. By Henry Harland. (New By Henry Harland. (New York: McClure, Phillips & Company. $1.50.) So thoroughly delightful a comedy novel as this it is seldom the good fortune of the reviewer to come upon. It is all airiness and grace, sunshine, blue sky, clever people, witty conversation, and happy deeds, if the slight actions of the four charming people who constitute the dramatis personae can be called deeds. The scene is the hills of Italy, - a fine old castle the immediate habitat. The persons are a young Englishman, a young Austrian woman, a child, and the young man's aunt, Lady Blanchemain. The young people, of course, fall in love, but, knowing each other only by the names of Prospero and Maria Dolores, each fears that the other is low-born and unsuitable. But Lady Blanchemain becomes. a beneficent "goddess from the machine" and, of course, "arranges" things so that all ends happily.

Indeed, this is the beautiful part of the book. You know from the very beginning that all is going to be happy and to end happily. You never have any problem doubts, or any queer feelings. From start to finish the entire book is a joy and a delight.

The Englishman, whose real name is John, not Prospero, is just the kind of hero one likes, manly and worldly, as well as fascinating. The girl has all the attraction of beauty and charm without insipidity. Lady Blanchemain is the type, so far as we can know it in fiction, of the high-born English woman, with sympathy world-wide, and, at the same time, distinctly conservative, in other words, just the sort of woman that we should all like to know and love.

So far, we have not spoken of the wonderfully clever and fetching child, Annunziata, who is, perhaps, the best character in the book, a little girl so delightful, so fascinating, so naïve, so altogether unique, that we feel in speaking of her that we may easily sound too enthusiastic, but we can only say to our readers: read about this charming child, and then love her as we do, love her naïveté, her charm, 'her superstition, and her general lovableness. will easily take rank with our nicest children in fiction, and we can permanently love her.

She

There really is, in this reviewer's mind, nothing to be said about this book that is not complimentary, and we can cap this climax by saying that the book is not too long, a most desirable and uncommon trait in modern novels.

66

THE HAGGARD SIDE. Being Essays in Fiction. By the author of "Times and Days and Auto da Fé." (New York: Longmans, Green & Company. $1.50.) THAT any one should call a book by so depressing a title as "The Haggard Side" is extraordinary; that he should supplement this by "Being Essays in Fiction" is foolish; and that he should care to rewrite all the commonplaces of this gloomy side of life is un-understandable. That there is a temptation to take the unhappy and the tragic as themes for short stories

is undeniable, because it is easier to get an effect on these subjects in a few words than on less violent themes. But in making up a whole book, thirteen short stories, each one of which is more depressing than the last, the very effect aimed at is defeated. Especially is this so in this case, as none of the plots is fresh, and the author's style is not vigorous or keen enough to drive home the old story with any new force.

ODD CRAFT. By W. W. Jacobs. (Chas. Scribner's Sons. $1.50.)

As long as Mr. Jacobs writes his sketches of merchant marine life, so long will he find plenty to read them. His latest book fully keeps up the pace set by his first one (and there have been six others between the two), which is a rattling, breezy clip. In this book he reintroduces us to some old acquaintances of previous tales, Bob Pretty, the "foxy Quiller" of a little country town, as well as that trio of trouble-hunting seamen, Ginger, Sam, and Pete. Their new adventures are even more amusing than their old ones were, one will read more than once, and laugh, more than a score of times, over Ginger's début as a prize-fighter, and Bob Pretty's experiences as a conjurer assistant, -assisting himself much more than the conjurer, by the way. The rest of the stories are in the author's best vein, and the only pity is that there are not more of them.

THE WHITE CASTLE OF LOUISIANA. By M. R. Alle(John P. Morton & Company. $1.25.)

THIS is a curious little story, dealing with life in Louisiana before, during, and after the Civil War. As a result, the book is much more interesting as an exposition of manners, customs, and scenes than as a narrative. The thin love-plot is told in disjointed fashion, with a glorious disregard for tenses, and some of the Ethiopian humor is more suggestive of the vaudeville stage than the cotton fields. But there are many exquisite bits of description, and now again some stirring word-pictures of slavery days. As a whole, however, the book has more local than general interest.

THE DUKE DECIDES. By Headon Hill: (A. Wessels Company. $1.50.)

THIS is a detective story de luxe, with a three-million pound swindle as its mainspring. It involves an American millionaire and his family, a retired Indian general, with a thug-hunting reputation which proves useful, his Indian body-servant, some young aristocrats, not forgetting the duke who decides, and whose strange slip-up is the cause of the adventures related, and an interesting gang of criminals, with a remarkable and curious leader. These people perform some strenuous and time-killing exploits, and there is at least a thrill and a half to every page. As a whiler away of time on a boat or train, the story is as good as any of its kind, and is better appearing than most tales of its ilk.

OLD HEIDELBERG. By William Meyer-Förster. Translated by Max Chapelle. (New York: Dodge & Metcalf. $1.00.)

THIS story-it has the great merit of being shortis, as many theatre-goers know, from seeing Mr. Mansfield in its dramatization, the story of a young prince, bound down all his life to a small, stiff German court, who has a three months' term of liberty with the students at Heidelberg, and then goes home to take up court life again as reigning prince. It is "a rather pretty little story," full of German sentimentality. To

The Book Market

LONDON, January 10, 1904.

JUST as newspapers have their off season at the fag end of summer, so book publishing falls in the month of January, and there is little to say about it.

It seems to me that it is time to say something about the recent plethora of "Edited Books." This seems to me a phase of pseudo-authorship which might well be frowned down in favor of original workmanship- the founts are not all dry as yet; new thought is by no means entirely tabooed. I would not be thought to cavil at the labors of Doctor Furnival or Professor Skeat, to whom Shakespeare and Chaucer are an inexhaustible mine for the exercise of their profound knowledge and ingenuity, but there seems no reason why every little tutor or obscure college don should be so desirous of seeing his name in print that he should not be able to resist the temptation of producing a "Definitive Edition" of Gray's Elegy or an "Analytical Index" of Wordsworth's Prelude.

If he really could explain some of the things which Mr. Kipling periodically promulgates in verse he might have some excuse for being, but, as it is, the average editor is merely taking advantage of the possibility of rising to empyrean heights by hitching his halting wagon to a first-magnitude

star.

Has it been remarked, I wonder, in America the great influx of the motor-car (automobile, I believe you call it, which is assuredly a more graceful word) into literature? I mean fiction.

There have been for some time, of course, technical treatises on mechanical traction, as there have been on theatre building and water-supply, but it is Mr. Kipling-again the ubiquitous Mr. Kipling, who is always to the fore who led off a year ago with a genuinely humorous tale of the eccentricities of the automobile, called "Steam Tactics." The late Mr. Henley followed with that wonderful "Song of Speed," which quite rivalled Whitman's verse in its most obscure phases. Then we have had a highly successful bit of fiction (or rather you in America have made it successful, not we ourselves), The Lightning Conductor," by C. N. and A. M. Williamson, who have just ventured another, as a serial, "The Princess Passes." Sir Henry Norman - though in America you will always prefer to think of him without his title, as you will Sir Gilbert Parker — contributes constantly to the periodical press descriptive articles on "The Modest Man's Motor" and the like, which, if not literature, are certainly not technical. It only remains now for our popular novelists, our Corellis and our Caines, to make the most extravagant use of the automobile as an accessory, in order to be strictly up to date.

If one may be pardoned for so putting it," the literary event" of the month has been the death of Herbert Spencer, whose genius, Victorian though it was to no small degree, is come to be recognized by all classes of readers and thinkers alike as something out of the common.

Of literary memorials, I have to record two erected in London since my last letter.

On the 9th of December a marble bust of Chaucer, by George Frampton, R. A., was unveiled in the library of the Guildhall by the Lord Mayor. Doctor Furnival was of course present, and he pleaded eloquently for fewer functional dinners of the city fathers, and more marble or bronze witnesses to geniuses dead and gone.

In the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral was unveiled, in December, a brass tablet, also the work of Mr. Frampton, to the memory of Sir Walter Besant, "novelist and historian." This was the outcome of a movement originated by the Society of Authors, with which Sir Walter was long connected.

The lovers of bibliographic treasures are having a period of unrest over the final disposition of the newly found MS. of the first book of "Paradise Lost." However, there be those temperate minds who think it really not worth troubling about. Rumor has it and rumor it most probably is that Mr. Pierpont Morgan has offered $50,000 for the doubtful treasure, while Doctor Furnival, in an open letter of advice to the British Museum authorities, declares its worth to be not $500; which is most likely true enough, in that it is a mere scrivener's" copy, anyway, and has not even interpolations or corrections by the poet's hand.

This would have been impossible, of course, bearing in mind Milton's infirmity. From the fact that it is uncertain that this particular transcript ever even served the purpose of "printers' copy," it appears to have less and less value the more we know of it. No, American millionaires do not spend their money so injudiciously, whatever may be the opinions of the London bibliophiles to the contrary.

An attractive volume of light verse, "As the Sparks Fly Upwards," has just been issued to the credit of Dora Sigerson (Mrs. Clement Shorter), who, if we are to take a pretty general consensus of opinion as final, we must accord repute as the leading balladist of our time. This is certainly an enviable reputation, and it is further endorsed by the fact that her delicate verses are so frequently seen in Longman's and Macmillan's magazines, whose pages, be it known, are not open to indiscriminate versifiers, no matter how "timely or taking" their product.

M. F. M.

NEW YORK, January 15, 1904.

THE year 1903, which started so auspiciously, did not, during the fall, fulfil the promise of the earlier months. Many reasons might be given for the slump in the latter part of the year, but probably the most potent factor in New York to cause this condition was the unsettled condition of Wall Street. The violation of the rules of the American Publishers' Association by some of the local department stores, accompanied as it was by much price cutting, perhaps caused some lack of confidence on the part of the dealers.

In

However, the year as a whole was fair. Rather more than the usual number of books that live for years to come were published. The most notable publication of the year was Morley's "Life of Gladstone," which headed the list of serious books, and had about the same place in the fall business that Wilson's "History of the American People" occupied last year. Gordon's Reminiscences of the Civil War" and Senator Hoar's Autobiography are books of permanent worth that were prominent among the fall season's successes. fiction, the novels which attained the greatest popularity were London's "The Call of the Wild," Wiggin's "Rebecca," and "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," by John Fox, Jr., while Crawford's "The Heart of Rome and F. Hopkinson Smith's "Colonel Carter's Christmas" were also notably successful. "Gordon Keith," by Thomas Nelson Page, sold well, but it is doubtful if it will have the continued sale that "Red Rock" has had.

The Christy edition of "The Courtship of Miles Standish was the most popular of the distinctively "holiday" books, Parker's "Old Quebec" following closely with splendid sales. While mentioning holiday books, it is worthy of remark that the greatest failures of the year were the illustrated editions of "Mrs. Wiggs" and "Lovey Mary," not only in New York but throughout the country.

"The Five Nations," by Rudyard Kipling, was the leader in its class, as was Riley's "His Pa's Romance" in the field of lighter verse.

Ernest Thompson Seton's "Two Little Savages" was the leading juvenile, but as yet it has not reached the popularity of his "Wild Animals I Have Known."

One of the remarkable features of the year was the continuation of the sale of "The Virginian" and "Mrs. Wiggs," both of which were in great demand during the fall and in the thick of the Christmas rush; this in spite of the competition of scores of new books.

Two books of importance are to come out in January; both have had large advance sales. They are "The Deliverance," by Ellen Glasgow, to be marketed on the fifteenth, and My Friend Prospero," by Henry Harland, which will make its appearance on the twentieth. As both are by authors who have a large following, and little competition is to be met at this time, their success is almost assured. Other good things are promised later, the most important being a new book by Winston Churchill, to appear early in April. This, it will be remembered, was expected last year, but was held

over.

Trade at present is quiet, though not unusually so, January being one of the dull months.

66

The ten most popular books during the last month were: "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," John Fox, Jr.; "Rebecca," Kate Douglas Wiggin; "The Heart of Rome," F. Marion Crawford; Colonel Carter's Christmas," F. Hopkinson Smith; "The Courtship of Miles Standish," Longfellow and Christy; "The Call of the Wild," Jack London; "The Virginian," Owen Wister; "The Long Night," Stanley J. Weyman; "The Lightning Conductor," A. N. and C. M. Williamson; "Mrs. Wiggs," Alice Hegan Rice.

F. R. H.

BOSTON, January 15, 1904.

THE Christmas season just ended was fully as busy as that of a year ago, although there was rather more of a tendency toward the buying of the cheaper books; the traffic was quite evenly divided during the last days, so that there was not

gallant knights than gilded youths; the poorest of the historical novels are safer companions than "Wooed but Not Mated or "Broken Vows." Sometimes historical novels even lead to the reading of sober history!

As to character drawing, there is no reason why it should not be as well done in a tale of the Inquisition as in the most "natural" story of to-day. Human nature changes little, and some of our historical novelists have given us people who are not only thoroughly alive, but worthy of hearty liking as well.

Then, too, the historical novel has in a measure rescued us from the "problem novel" and the novel of character dissection, which usually meant the attributing of all actions to the very meanest and lowest motives.

Another debt we owe to the historical novel is the suppression of the unutterably dreary "natural school" of fiction, in which an interesting person or event was regarded as a crime. Jane Austen's delightful books have much to answer for, because she could write a story in which nothing particular happened, and make it interesting by force of wit, charm, and a keen insight into humanity; her followers think they can do the same by simply leaving out plots and writing pages upon pages about people who in real life they themselves would regard as intolerable bores.

At its best, the historical novel possesses most of the virtues of fiction; at its worst it has some sort of plot, and, if its men and women are lay figures, the author drapes them with all the good gifts at his command. Other things being equal, it is better to read of the immaculate and invincible hero of the historical novel than of the blackguard who is only too often the central figure of the so-called "psychic novel" or the 'quaint" which means ungrammaticalperson of the "b'gosh" class. All hail, then, to the historical novelist! Long may he live to tell us of fair maids and hairbreadth escapes, and to help keep alive in a materialistic world the spirit of romance and chivalry.

LOUISE MAUNSELL FIELD.

FROM the Mershon Company we have received a number of books for boys and girls, varying in kind from rousing tales of adventure, like "With Boone on the Frontier," which contains Indians galore, to the rather goody-goody adventures at a girls' school in "The Manor School." An amusing story for girls is one laid in Ireland, full of wit and Irish liveliness, called "The Girls of Banshee Castle." Another story of a similar nature is "A Popular Girl," which deals with an American girl's life in Germany. One of the Fighting Scouts" deals with the Boer War and a young hero of many and surprising adventures. Dr. Gordon Stables, in "Sweeping the Seas," tells a thrilling story of the Alabama. Other adventure stories are "The Defence of the Castle," a mediæval tale by Tudor Jenks, "The Secret of the Everglades," "Under the Star-Spangled Banner,” and “The Rover Boys on Land and Sea.'

THE Fleming H. Revell Company have in press a volume by Dr. George C. Lorimer-"The Modern Crisis in Religion that will appear in the International Pulpit Series. Doctor Lorimer is thoroughly familiar with religious conditions both here and abroad, and, moreover, has the happy faculty of seeing just the point in the problems of the day that the average man is interested in. That there is a crisis in church circles" is certain, and what Doctor Lorimer has to say about it will be awaited with keen interest.

TWELVE years have passed since the death of the great London preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon, and still the weekly publications of his sermons appear as during the preacher's lifetime. The British publishers announce further that they have MSS. of unpublished sermons sufficient to supply the weekly issue for some years to come. 1904 is the jubilee year of the publication. What a record for one man! For fifty years not a week has passed without the appearance of his printed sermon in what is known as The Tabernacle Pulpit. The American publishers, Fleming H. Revell Company, issue a topical and textual list of all these sermons, which they supply gratis on application, together with a list of all Mr. Spurgeon's works.

FROM Howard Wilfred Bell, New York, we have received the first two volumes ("The Marble Faun" and "Letters and Addresses of Abraham Lincoln ") of the Unit Books. The two books received are excellent and plain in their neatness, and fully carry out the publisher's promise in their prospectus. At the back of the books is an explanation of the unit system on which these books are published, from which we quote: "We began with the proposition that books worth having

are too dear in this country. Here the dear books and the cheap books are dearer than the corresponding books of the great reading nations of Europe. Such is the need. We answer it with the Unit Books, the cheapest series of books ever published in America, and made on a system fair to book-producer and book-buyer. Our books are sold at prices based on the length of the book, and therefore on the actual cost of production. However long the original text, we publish it in its entirety on a uniform quality of paper and in the same size of type. The length and binding of the book determine its price. We begin with our unit of 25 pages. The price of each set of 25 pages is one cent. The price of 100 pages is four cents, and each additional 25 pages adds one cent to the price. The cloth cover costs 30 cents additional. The leather binding costs 50 cents additional." Thus "The Marble Faun," 21 units, 525 pages, costs in paper 21 cents, in cloth 51 cents, in leather 71 cents. The cloth binding seems to us the most satisfactory of the three, and in this form "The Marble Faun," for 51 cents, is a mighty good bargain, for it is far prettier than the ordinary cheap book, or than most ordinary novels at any price.

We cannot see the use, as we said in regard to Dickens's Poems, issued last fall, in raking out a famous man's poor work and producing it all together in one damning volume. This thought comes to us now in looking through Tennyson's Suppressed Poems," just issued. To be sure, some of these poems do not seem to us any worse than some in the collected works, but, if Tennyson thought they were unworthy, why hunt them out of their obscurity? The editor, Mr. J. C. Thompson, gives as an excuse that the issuing of these shows that Tennyson was a poet made (and with difficulty), not born. It is hardly necessary to do more than look through the authorized editions, we fancy, for one of discernment to discover this; and we cannot believe that many are sufficiently interested in "the development of a poet" to want to struggle through this volume.

THE Putnams have again reprinted Mr. Whistler's ever "musing "Gentle Art of Making Enemies." About this book, both contents and make-up, it is certainly proper to use the word unique. Never did a man show himself up in just this way before, and never did any one so unblushingly exhibit himself and his unpleasant relations with his friends — or enemies. If any one save a genius did such a thing, the book would be unendurable; but this is not that (save perhaps to those whose letters are so unwarrantably printed); it is, instead, highly diverting and thoroughly readable. The volume contains, it will be remembered, the famous "Ten O'Clock." If any lover of the impudent and the bizarre does not know this extraordinary collection, now is his time to get it. The book has been out of print for some years, we believe, and we are glad that it is back again.

THOSE Who remember reading "The Colonel's Opera Cloak," which appeared years ago in the famous "No Name Series," will be glad to know that its continued popularity has been such as to warrant a new and illustrated edition, just undertaken by Little, Brown & Company. It is interesting to compare a successful story of those days with some of the successful ones of these days, and to wonder what present little novels will be reprinted in twenty-five years. The author's name is now given, Christine C. Brush, and the present volume is elaborately illustrated by E. W. Kemble and Arthur E. Becher.

IN the new edition of the "Songs from Vagabondia" Series, just issued by Small, Maynard & Company, the authorship of the individual poems is indicated by initials. It will be remembered that in the first two volumes-"Songs from Vagabondia" and "More Songs from Vagabondia - the reader was left to guess whether Bliss Carman or Richard Hovey wrote the several poems. This guessing led to much entertaining criticism, and caused considerable amusement to the authors and those who were in the secret. "The Last Songs from Vagabondia,” issued after Mr. Hovey's death, had the authorship given in the first edition. This set, in special leather covers, makes the eighth edition of the Songs, the sixth of More Songs, and the third of The Last Songs. Few books of verse in recent years have been so, and so deservedly, successful, and we believe that so long as Youth and Spring and Vagabondia survive, these books will have their readers.

"A LIST OF BOOKS (with references to periodicals) on the Philippine Islands, with Chronological List of Maps," is the title of a 412-page volume just issued by the Government Printing Office. The list is compiled by A. P. C. Griffin, of