history of a woman, who, having an unsatisfactory husband, nobly refuses to accept the love of a man for whom she has conceived an ardent attachment; why, it is difficult to say, for the hero is always an unmitigated cad, and at times a brute. We find the atmosphere of the tale none the less malodorous because it is that to which numerous writers of the hour, mostly women, are strenuously endeavoring to accustom us. The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame. (Stone & Kimball.) It is seldom that we have the happy fortune to find sketches of child-life at once so delightful and so true as those which make up this most readable book. It is a fragmentary chronicle of the lives of five parentless children, clever, healthy, and natural, who are physically well cared for by commonplace, uncomprehending relatives, the prop er amount of mental pabulum being dispensed by an equally conventional governess. Thus the little folk exist for the most part in a world of their own, themselves their only confidants, a world full of excitements and marvels of which their elders never dream. The author, we can hardly help saying the autobiographer, faithfully reproduces the child attitude of mind, and his work throughout shows the kindliest insight and the keenest humorous perception. We can recommend the volume as a pleasant and efficacious alterative after a course of "modern" fiction. - Joan Haste, by H. Rider Haggard. (Longmans.) Mr. Haggard's limitations become very apparent when he attempts to depict more or less every-day English folk dwelling in their own land. His remarkable inventive power -more truly inventive than imaginative – does not flag, but it is sadly hampered by working in civilized and familiar ways. It need not be said that the tale is always readable, but it is essentially melodramatic, and its unreality will probably be felt by even the least critical reader, who will be much more concerned with the involutions of Joan's sad history than with the hapless young woman herself. — The Wish, by Hermann Sudermann. Translated by Lily Henkel. (Appletons.) The Wish, one of Sudermann's shorter and earlier tales, is an undoubtedly powerful and also pitiless psychological study of a hidden sin, - an involuntary wish in a moment of strong excitement, bitterly repented of on the instant, having no least result in deed, and finally expiated by the suicide of the criminal or victim. The interesting introduction by Elizabeth Lee is partly biographical, partly critical; the former element being drawn from information furnished by the author himself. The Village Watch-Tower, by Kate Douglas Wiggin. (Houghton.) Though there are half a dozen stories in this volume, the author is justified in making the first give a title to the collection, for there is a unity of scene and character about the group which makes the rest read almost like continuations of the first. They are, in truth, scenes from Our Village, presented with a delicacy of characterization, a playfulness, a humane feeling, and a dramatic instinct which set the book apart from the ordinary group of short stories.- Neighbors of Ours, Slum Stories of London, by Henry W. Nevinson. (Holt.) The narrator of these tales is an East End lad, with the excessive sharpness and severe limitations of his class. The sketches are very well done. The writer has insight and humor, and convinces us at once that he has much more than a superficial knowledge of the life he describes, while he seldom makes the mistake of confounding his own point of view with that of his hero. - Kafir Stories, by William Charles Scully. (Holt.) Mr. Scully has the true story-teller's gift; his faults are mainly those of inexperience. His sketches have vitality and force, and sometimes evince a good deal of descriptive power; perhaps the most striking of them being The Quest of the Copper, a tale of savage tyranny and warfare, and also of savage heroism and loyalty. Of course, things horrible and revolting must have a part in such narratives, but the author does not generally dwell on them unduly, though such a sketch as Ghamba makes us fear that a possible danger to him may lie in that direction. — A Ringby Lass, and Other Stories, by Mary Beaumont. Iris Series. (Macmillan.) The title-story, which fills half the book, is conventional enough in its love-interest, but displays cleverness in some Yorkshire character sketches. All the tales have the effect of immature work, and, so considered, show promise. - The Honor of the Flag, by W. Clark Russell. The Autonym Library. (Putnams.) The eight brief sea-stories in this little volume are all rather conventional, both in their tragedy and comedy, and, comparing the author with himself, seem to be for the most part merely perfunctory bits of work. - Mr. William F. Apthorp has translated a half dozen of Zola's shorter tales, and the group is published in a pretty, Frenchy volume. (Copeland & Day, Boston.) The stories show Zola's vigorous hold of human life under what may be called sordid conditions: in one only, The Attack on the Mill, is there any stirring of the blood over high and honorable action; in the others, one is either spattered or about to be spattered with mud. Mr. Apthorp has translated his author with spirit, and does not hesitate to use slang when the idea is slangy. When Love is Done, by Ethel Davis. (Estes & Lauriat.) A novel which will not appeal very strongly to the hardened reader of fiction. It has, however, very attractive qualities for a reader who objects to highly seasoned food. The heroine is admirably drawn, and there are faint nuances which are true to life and delicately perceived. The construction of the book is not of the best. The reader has the odd sensation of attacking what may be called a fiction essay; the writer has her story and characters well in her mind, and writes about them as if she were making a study of somebody's else novel, and reproducing the effects along with an explanation of the causes. It is a thoughtful book, if not very dramatic, and contains many shrewd reflections, but it is above all a very nice study in the character of a not easily understood girl. Some of the Tenement Tales of New York, by Mr. J. W. Sullivan (Holt), make very vivid pictures of tenement life, told with an effort, not quite successful, at proper reserve. Mr. Sullivan seems to have tried to refrain from making a morbidly violent appeal to the reader's sympathies, but perhaps it is too much to expect any writer just now wholly to escape the professional povertystudying tone that fills the air. His aim, however, has been artistic, and not philanthropic, and some of the adventures of his tenement heroes are narrated with considerable skill. Mrs. Austin's Standish of Standish has been reissued in two volumes, with photogravures from admirable designs by Frank T. Merrill. It is a pleasure to see a story written after minute study of Old Colony history illustrated by an artist who has steeped himself in the same at mosphere. (Houghton.)-A Chosen Few, by Frank R. Stockton. (Scribners.) A delightful group of the author's characteristic stories, though doubtless each reader will miss one of his favorites. As an introduction to a fuller acquaintance with Stockton this pretty volume serves an excellent purpose.-Two other volumes now brought out in the charming Cameo Edition are Robert Grant's The Reflections of a Married Man, and The Opinions of a Philosopher, each with an etched frontispiece by W. H. Hyde. (Scribners.) - A one-volume edition of Crawford's Katharine Lauderdale has been published, uniform in style with the author's earlier works. (Macmillan.) — The Delectable Duchy, by "Q," and Crockett's The Stickit Minister, form the seventh and eighth volumes of Macmillan's Novelists' Library. No Proof, by Lawrence L. Lynch. (Rand, McNally & Co.) Books for the Young. The Nimble Dollar, with Other Stories, by C. M. Thompson. (Houghton.) These stories are frankly for boys to read, but they are so capitally told, and have so strong a constructive power, that we cannot think of a mature reader who would not read straight through the one he began. It is refreshing to find stories which are so devoid of subtlety on the one hand, and of commonplace on the other. - The Horse Fair, by James Baldwin. (Century Co.) In the usual convenient dream, the youthful hero of this tale is, under convoy of Cheiron, carried to the park of Morgan le Fay, where are exhibited the famous horses of myth and story, together with a few historic steeds. This of course gives an opportunity for the introduction of much entertaining lore regarding these renowned chargers, which is generally set forth in a spirited and readable fashion. Cricket, by Elizabeth Westyn Timlow. (Estes & Lauriat.) A very brisk book recording the antics of a headlong, winning little girl. The two or three pages with which the book opens are a trifle misleading; they suggest a somewhat conventional juvenile; but the moment Miss Timlow falls upon the sketch of her child Cricket, she forgets the conventions of book-making, and writes with an abandon which is truly delightful. The naturalness of the scenes and of the speech used by the children, though now and then narrowly escaping the charge of slang, is healthy and The free; an air of genuine domestic refinement pervades the book, and what little moral there is does not obtrude itself. We feel sure that when her boys and girls grow up they will be manly and well-mannered. The Young Pretenders, by Edith Henrietta Fowler. (Longmans.) A tale that has nothing to do with Prince Charlie, but is only the history of a small boy and girl whose parents are in India. The children, thus left to servants and kinsfolk not always sympathetic, live mostly in an atmosphere of make-believe, which sometimes, to their bewilderment, mysteriously results in what the higher powers call naughtiness. The children are a lifelike little pair, and their haps and mishaps will interest many grownup readers; for, though the volume is evidently intended to be a child's book, it is distinctly a story of children rather than for them. Viewed in this light, it lacks neither insight nor humor, and is commendably free from sentimentality. Kanter Girls, by Mary L. B. Branch. With Pictures by Helen Maitland Armstrong. (Scribners.) A tolerably entertaining fairy tale of the old-fashioned sort, which continues a fairy tale to the very end, the more effective because its heroines are quite natural little girls, who meet with coolness and confidence the startling adventures which diversify their every-day life; the most pleasing, perhaps, being their acquaintance with a dryad of their own age and their vain attempt to domesticate her. The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls, by Florence K. Upton. Words by Bertha Upton. (Longmans.) As the title indicates, this oblong juvenile is a picture-book with accompaniment of verses. The verses are somewhat machine-made; the pictures are in colors, and are amusing copies of wooden-jointed dolls. The jest is a merry one to grown folk, but we are not quite so sure that there is not a bit of carelessness in thus turning the poor objects of children's imagination into ridicule. The Child's Garden of Song, selected and arranged by William L. Tomlins. With Designs by Ella Ricketts. (McClurg.) A really admirable work of its kind. The music, good in quality and never beyond a child's range, will assuredly interest little singers, be readily learned, and not easily forgotten. The songs themselves are usually pleasing and childlike, and sometimes prettily fanciful as well, while the illumi nated pictorial borders will prove very attractive to young eyes. It does not need the sensible views expressed by the compiler in his preface to prove that he knows thoroughly what children can and should sing. Literature. Anima Poetæ, Selections from the Unpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. (Houghton.) This volume will superficially connect itself with the renowned Table-Talk. Chronologically it precedes that collection, but in essence the two are quite distinct. Anima Poetæ presents Coleridge in his conversation with himself rather than with the world, so that one is admitted to more intimate companionship. The detached thoughts remind one of Joubert's Pensées, only the thought is richer and deeper, and of Amiel's Journal, without the morbidness and sadness of that book. It has also a literary value as giving one of the hidden links of transition between the old England of Locke and Addison, of Johnson and Pope, and the modern England of Tennyson and Carlyle and Browning. It is a book which needs rereading and browsing over if one would get its full meaning. - The Temple Shakespeare (Dent, London; Macmillan, New York) now includes King Lear and Othello, clearly printed from the Cambridge text, with concise introduction, glossary, and notes; the former having an etched frontispiece of Shakespeare's cliff, the latter the Felton portrait. Not unlike the Temple Shakespeare in form is a new Tennyson (Macmillan), of which two little volumes have reached us, Juvenilia, and The Lady of Shalott and Other Poems. There is no critical apparatus and no frontispiece; the volumes have fewer pages, but the text is clear and agreeable. — The Lyrical Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, edited by Ernest Rhys, is one of the pretty series of Lyric Poets. There is an appreciative introduction, and the sonnets, poems from the Arcadia, and other verses are set forth in a tempting form. The conceits are not far away from pure fancy, and it is a pleasure to think that some will be found to read this gallant gentleman's lyrics for the first time. (Dent, London; Macmillan, New York.) — The Fortunate Mistress, or, A History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Belean, known by the Name of the Lady Roxana, by Daniel Defoe. Two more volumes of the uniform - edition of Defoe's Romances and Narratives. (Dent, London; Macmillan, New York.) It requires a great deal of adjustment of one's focus to the eighteenth century to see in the narrative anything more than a scandalous tale. It looks as if Defoe, by too close a love of realism, came to the same end as other realists, and could not distinguish dirt from matter out of place. — Sir Andrew Wylie of that Ilk forms the third and fourth volumes of the attractive new edition of Galt's novels. (Roberts.) In this tale the author is sometimes at his best, and occasionally if not at his worst, exceedingly near it. When he is depicting the Scottish life of his younger days, he is, as always, one of the most admirably natural of artists, and we hardly need Mr. Crockett's assurances to convince us of the absolute veracity of his work; but romantic incidents, complexities of plot, and sketches of London society are not at all in his way; in these things he, with small success, endeavored to conform to passing fashions of his time. A new edition of Holmes's Over the Teacups has been produced, uniform with the choice Birthday Edition of the Breakfast-Table Series. One may now take his literary meals morning and night off a very delicate service. (Houghton.)-Two more volumes have been issued in Messrs. Roberts' edition of Balzac in Miss Wormeley's always admirable translations, the seven tales contained in them forming part of the Scenes from Private Life, and for the most part ranking among the author's minor works. One volume gives us A Start in Life, Vendetta, Study of a Woman, and The Message; the other, The Marriage Contract, A Double Life, and The Peace of a Home. -The latest and handsomest reprint of Marryat's Mr. Midshipman Easy, a tale which after more than sixty years of life still possesses an almost youthful vitality, is Messrs. Putnams' Malta Edition in one large volume, liberally illustrated by R. F. Zogbaum. - A Descriptiv List of Books for the Young, compiled by W. M. Griswold. (The Compiler, Cambridge, Mass.) Mr. Griswold again makes one of his convenient lists; and as he generally excludes insignificant and commonplace books, his selective we really cannot write "selectiv" - principle enables him to keep his list within bounds and to make it genuinely useful, especially as he classifies the books - under history, geography, exploration, fiction, and the like. The unreformed reader must permit Mr. Griswold, however, to bite his letters off in a very consistent, very irritating fashion. Fortunately, the books he records are not printed in the spelling of what we hope is the invisible future. Mr. Frederic Harrison's The Choice of Books is reissued in Macmillan's Miniature (paper) Series. History and Biography. The publication of a new edition of Grant's Personal Memoirs is a distinct cause for congratulation, since the two volumes are not only presented in a readable and handy form, but Colonel Grant has annotated his father's work with marginal notes, which serve sometimes as indices, sometimes as compact biographical and historical references. The book has been read widely; it will now be studied more conveniently, and it is not likely that any change of fashion will diminish the interest attaching to so simple and vigorous a piece of narrative writing. Portraits, maps, and a full index complete the furnishing of this classic work. (Century Co.) - Oxford and her Colleges, a View from the Radcliffe Library, by Goldwin Smith, D. C. L. (Macmillan.) A history in outline of the University of Oxford and her colleges, an example of admirable and effective condensation, much being clearly and readably told in a brief space; for the narrative is compressed, not desiccated. It need not be said that the little book is written from abundant knowledge, and the author's hope that it may interest American visitors will probably be amply justified. The illustrations, reproduced from photographs, are usually very good, considering the small size to which they are necessarily reduced. - Life in the Tuileries under the Second Empire, by Anna L. Bicknell. (Century Co.) Some of the best known accounts of court life during the Second Empire have been collections of gossip, more or less idle, revamped and embellished newspaper cuttings, and the like, put together by writers without personal knowledge of the men and events described; in short, they have been notable specimens of a debased kind of journalism. Miss Bicknell's volume, as the work of an intelligent and clear-sighted gentlewoman recalling her own experiences, is of quite another class, and the fact that the writer is English makes her conclusions more impartial than would be likely to be the case with a French looker-on, either friendly or the reverse. She writes in an easy, unpretentious style, and always with good taste, and her book is interesting throughout, though in the closing chapters it suffers somewhat from the loss of the personal element. Especially is the sketch of the Empress, her strength and weakness, her virtues and foibles, graphic and lifelike. The impatience of this impulsive and willful lady under the restraints and exactions of her position would give new force, if it were needed, to the truism repeated by the author, that royalty is a profession that must be learned like any other. The volume is well illustrated, and pictorially, in one respect at least, vividly brings back its epoch, in its many reproductions of the crude and generally unlovely carte-devisite photograph of the sixties. — The provision for first-hand study of history among young people continues. Here, for example, is a series of American History Leaflets, Colonial and Constitutional, edited by Professors Hart and Channing, of Harvard. (A. Lovell & Co., New York.) A recent number contains The Stamp Act of 1765. The series of Old South Leaflets, also, published by the Directors of the Old South work at the Old South Meeting-House in Boston, besides a group of papers relating to English Puritanism and the Commonwealth, seven in all, gives President Monroe's message which is the text of the Monroe Doctrine. There can be no question of the stimulus which such publications afford teachers and intelligent pupils; yet one may not overlook the need of explicit, careful instruction of a dogmatic kind. It will not do to make young people arrogate to themselves the right to independent views. Nature and Travel. Landscape Gardening in Japan, by Josiah Conder. With numerous illustrations. Supplement to Landscape Gardening in Japan, by Josiah Conder. With collotypes by K. Ogawa. (Imported by Scribners.) These beautiful volumes will attract and repay the attention not only of persons especially interested in landscape gardening, but of all who take delight in things Japanese, — and who does not? The art of designing a garden is just as solemn and mysterious as that of arranging a vase of flowers, and is even more complicated. These gardens, while --- not at all formal (regularity in this as in other things being abhorred by the Japanese), are often extremely artificial, and a study of the art is necessary to a full appreciation of their beauty and meaning. No garden of any pretensions is complete without a lake containing islands, a river, hills, cascades, rocks, and trees, besides a well, stone lanterns, bridges, arbors, and stepping-stones; and as few of these things, and often none of them, are found on the spot, they are perforce made to order according to certain rules of art. The arrangement is in a style appropriate to the size and to the natural advantages, if any exist. Views famous for their beauty or of historic interest are often reproduced in full size or in miniature, and sometimes a purely abstract sentiment is suggested. Where water is unavailable, lakes and streams are made without it, cracked stones representing running water, and sand forming the surface of the lakes. The canons of the art are all based on æsthetic principles, but they are so enveloped in mystery and sanctity that, in the minds of the common people at least, their ethical importance is uppermost. The volumes are printed in Japan, and are excellent specimens of typography. The collotypes are sixty well-executed reproductions from photographs of the most famous and beautiful Japanese gardens. - North American Shore Birds, a History of the Snipes, Sandpipers, Plovers, and their Allies, by Daniel Giraud Elliot. (Francis P. Harper, New York.) Ornithologists, sportsmen, and observers will all rejoice that Mr. Elliot has turned aside from the preparation of his magnificent monographs long enough to write and publish these interesting biographies. Mr. Elliot is an ex-president of the American Ornithologists' Union, and though one of the older naturalists of this country he retains a very lively and practical interest in his chosen science, as is well shown by the present volume. Seventy-five species and subspecies are treated, and (with two unimportant exceptions) each is accompanied by an excellent portrait from the pencil of Mr. Edwin Sheppard. The book was written chiefly for sportsmen and bird-lovers, and the technicalities of the subject are reduced as far as practicable. A critical reading will bring few errors to light, but an occasional slip may be noticed, as when the author, apparently forgetful of the sev |