college instructor, minister, or family physician of the author, and the full name and address of the certifier must be given. Manuscripts bound in decorative binders of any kind or hand illuminated or illustrated in any way will be automatically disqualified. Stories must contain between 1,500 and 4,000 words, and should be sent to the Secretary, Junior Fiction Contest, Youth's Companion, 8 Arlington street, Boston, Mass., on or before April 15. The Youth's Companion will also buy, at its regular fiction rate, any stories, apart from the prize winners, deemed worthy. Each issue of the Companion, beginning with the January 21 issue, will contain one of the competing stories. These stories will be paid for on acceptance, and will remain eligible to win one of the three prizes.

SMALL, MAYNARD, & Co., -41 Mt. Vernon street, Boston, offer $500 in prizes — $350, $100, and $50 for the three best summaries or synopses of Thames Williamson's current story, "The Man Who Cannot Die." Synopses must be typewritten in double space, with the name and address of the author in the upper left-hand corner of the first page, must not exceed 200 words, and must reach the "American Panorama Editor," not later than April 20. LIFE 598 Madison avenue, New York, is conducting an Alibi contest, and publishes each week a different picture, offering a prize of $50 each week to the contestant who furnishes the cleverest and most convincing conclusion to the sentence which starts, "Well, you see, it's this way." Five second prizes of $10 each will be awarded to the five answers next in rank. Answers must be limited to twenty-five words, not including the caption underneath the picture.

THE UNITED STATES INFANTRY ASSOCIATION -Washington, D. C., wants a rousing, individual march-song for the American infantry, and announces, through its official organ, the Infantry Journal, a prize of $1,500 for the best song received by July 1. Full particulars relating to the contest may be obtained from the Infantry Journal.

THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS-New Haven, Conn., has awarded the prize for 1926 in the Yale Series of Younger Poets, to "High Passage," by Thomas Hornsby Ferril, and the book was published in December.

PRIZE OFFERS STILL OPEN:

Prizes in Letters offered by the Columbia University School of Journalism: For the American novel published during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood, $1,000; for the original American play, performed in New York, which shall best represent the educational value and power of the stage in raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners, $1,000; for the best book of the year on the history of the United States, $2,000; for the best American biography teaching patriotic and unselfish service to the people, illustrated by an eminent example, $1,000; for the best volume of verse published during the year by an American author, $1,000. Also, Prizes in Journalism, amounting to $3,000 and a $500 medal, and three traveling scholarships having a value of $1,500 each. All offered annually under the terms of the will of Joseph Pulitzer. Nominations of candidates must be made in writing on or before February 1 of each year, addressed to the Secretary of Columbia University, New York, on forms that may be obtained on application to the Secretary of the University.

Prize of $7,500 offered by the Frederick A. Stokes Company and the Forum for the best American biographical novel, contest closing March 1, 1927. Particulars in May WRITER.

Two prizes of $25,000 each offered by the Woman's Home Companion and the John Day Company, Inc., for the two most interesting novels best adapted to serial and book publication, one by a man and one by a woman, competition closing July 1, 1927. Particulars in September WRITER, or from the John Day Company, Inc., 25 West Forty-fifth street, New

York.

Prize of $10,000 offered by the Atlantic Monthly for the most interesting novel submitted before February 15, 1927. Particulars in June WRITER.

Prize of $2,000 offered by Little, Brown, & Co., for the best book for boys and girls of ten years old or more, manuscript to contain at least 40,000 words, contest closing March 1, 1927. Particulars in June WRITER.

Prize of $25,000 offered by McClure's, the Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, and the Cosmopolitan Productions, for serial rights, book rights, and motion-picture rights for a novel, containing from 80,000 to 110,000 words, contest closing March 31, 1927. Open to any writer who has not had more

than three novels published in book form. Particulars in June WRITER.

Hart, Schaffner, and Marx prizes of $1,000, $500, $300, and $200 for the four best studies in the economic field submitted by June 1, 1927. Particulars in October WRITER.

Prizes of $1,000, $500, $250, $100, and three prizes of $50 each, offered by the Penn Publishing Company, for original play manuscripts suitable for amateurs, contest closing March 1. Particulars in December WRITER.

Prize offer of $500 for the best setting to "America, the Beautiful," offered by the Past Presidents Assembly for the National Federation of Music Clubs, contest closing March 1. Particulars in December WRITER.

Four national contests in play-writing conducted by the Drama League of America and Longmans, Green, & Company, closing May 1. Particulars in December WRITER.

Prize of $1,000 offered by the World's Work for the best article based on theories advanced by William T. Foster and Waddill Catchings in the series of economic articles now running in the magazine, contest closing March 31. Particulars in December WRITER.

Prizes of $300 and $100 offered by the Pasadena Center of the Drama League of America for a full evening play and a one-act play, contest closing March 1. Particulars in December WRITER.

Prizes of $100, $50, and $25 offered by the Atlantic Monthly to students using the Atlantic Monthly in courses during the 1926-1927 terms, contest closing March 31. Particulars in December WRITER.

Annual prizes offered by the Scholastic to students in junior and senior high schools for the best work in poetry, essays, short stories, drama, and art, con

test closing March 20. Particulars in December WRITER.

Prize of $25 offered by the Tanager for the best poem submitted by April 1. Particulars in December WRITER.

Monthly definition contests conducted by the Forum, payment being made at the rate of five dollars each for all printed. Particulars in June WRITER.

Prizes of $10 each for the best sonnet and the best short story, and a prize of $5 for the next best short story published in the Oracle during the next ten months. Particulars in the August WRITER.

Prize of $1,000, offered by the Chamber of Commerce, Hot Springs, Arkansas, for the best scenario for a historical pageant depicting the history of Hot Springs. Particulars in October WRITER.

Prize of $1,000 offered by C. C. Birchard through the Chautauqua Institution for a choral work — a religious cantata contest closing April 1, 1927. Particulars in November WRITER.

Witter Bynner Undergraduate poetry prize of $150 for the best poems printed in Palms during 1927, open to undergraduates in any American university or college. Particulars in November WRITER.

Prizes of the Poetry Society of South Carolina: Southern prize of $100; Caroline Sinkler prize of $50; Society's prize of $25; Harmon prize of $25; Skylark prize of $10; and the Ellen M. Carroll prize of $15 all offered annually. Particulars from the Poetry Society of South Carolina, 62 Broad street, Charleston, S. C., or in July WRITER.

Annual prizes awarded by Poetry (232 East Erie street, Chicago, Ill.) in November of each year: Helen Haire Levinson prize of $200, John Reed Memorial prize of $100, and the Young Poets' prize of $100, for poems published in the magazine during the current year.

Elihu Root has given the prize of $25,000, awarded him by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in recognition of his services in the interest of "peace through justice," to Foreign Affairs, as the nucleus of an endowment fund.

Warrington Dawson, special assistant of the American Embassy in Paris, has received one of the medals which the Forty Immortals of the French Academy give each year for works written in French by foreigners and adjudged "remarkable in form, style, and idea." Mr. Dawson is the first American to receive this medal, which was given for his war story, "The Gift of Paul Clermont."

Dr. Henry Osborn Taylor has been elected president of the American Historical Association.

John G. Neihardt has removed to St. Louis, where he will take charge of the weekly book page of the Post-Dispatch.

Harold Bell Wright has completely equipped the new Sisters' Home of St. Mary's hospital at Tucson, Arizona.

Ernest McCullough is the new editor of the Building Age and National Builder, and not of the American Architect, as wrongly stated in the January WRITER.

THE COPELAND READER. By Charles Townsend Copeland. 1700 pages. Cloth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

With anthologies filling everyman's book shelf, and with new ones making their appearance almost daily, it is indeed a distinction to produce one which is different. The selections in most anthologies are based on what some one man thinks is worthwhile or interesting in all or a specific part of standing literature. The Copeland Reader is something more than that. It is an anthology of the good literature of the past and present which has been tested out and proved interesting to the modern public. Any writer who is conscientiously striving to build up a theory of modern reader-interest will prick up his ears

at that.

Professor Copeland is the most famous reader-aloud of good literature in America. The selections in this book are those best received by his listeners from a great number that he has tried. He discovered a decade ago that nothing was quite so helpful in stimulating the creative talent of his students in Harvard as the reading aloud of short selections from various periods of literary history. His fame spread from his classes to the outside world; his services have been in constant demand by clubs and literary societies in other colleges throughout the East. A society has been formed in his honor by his former students who hold an annual banquet in New

York. This group contains many of the best known young writers and editors of the day.

"Copey," as his students have always called him, is more than a man, and more than a teacher. He is an institution, but an institution without walls-he is one of the easiest men to find and one of the ones most

worth finding. His Reader will undoubtedly become, in fact has already become, an institution.

From the Bible to Ring Lardner he has selected his material and it is almost impossible to open a page anywhere in this great seventeen hundred-page book without finding something that grips the interest and stimulates the imagination. A busy writer has too little time to read. He often neglects the good things of the past in the breathless attempt to keep up with what is popular today. Hardly a one can fail to profit from reading this book through from cover to cover if only to set his bearings right, and, if he does, he will find himself turning to it again and again for a moment's relaxation and enjoyment. It is a book most decidedly worth having at your elbow.

THE COMMERCIAL SIDE OF LITERATURE. HOW to Sell the Things You Write. By Michael Joseph. In collaboration with Grant Overton. 274 pages. $2.50. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1926.

As time goes forward in this material age, we are forced more and more to recognize

that there exists a commercial side to everything even literature. It is a sad commentary perhaps upon the world we live in that every man with the ability to write should not be able to sit at his desk, quill pen in hand, pouring out whatever is in his soul, and when it is finished, descend upon the town to find eager publishers with contracts. But the fact is, of course, that he can't- not, that is, unless the outpourings of his soul happen to coincide with the popular demand, or, better still, what some publisher thinks might become the popular demand. So, as in every other line of endeavor, there is a commercial side of literature and, as this is an age of handbooks to everything, there is a Michael Joseph to expound it.

It is in his chapter on the use of literary agents that he is at his best. The literary agent, he believes, is a great boon to both author and publisher. But "does every author need an agent? This is a difficult question to answer, since every author is a law unto himself. Generally speaking, the agent is most useful to the established author, since there is more scope for bargaining than in the case of the new writer, and more international rights to be disposed of. As a rule the beginner would do better, I think, to approach at any rate editors direct. . . In fact, the agent can rarely be of service in dealing with articles and stories by new writers." With the established author, even with the writer who is just beginning to sell, the agent can be of the greatest service, since his business makes him intimate with all the various "rights" which may be disposed of.

Grant Overton, in his chapter on the American market, is more direct and more informative than Mr. Joseph. In the brief space allotted him, he tells a great many facts about novels, stories, and serials and the prices paid for them, gives a word about contracting for entire output to a single magazine, and gives sage advice upon safeguarding the author's income. Stewart Beach.

IMAGINATION. Mind's Dominant Power. By Benjamin Christopher Leeming. 288 pages. Cloth. New York: M. H. Schroeder Company.

Mr. Leeming believes that Imagination is the dominant force in the universe. He has assembled an abundance of facts and illustrations and the result is a complete and logical presentation of his ideas. Highly scientific, this book is so simply written that the veriest dabbler in philosophy will find it stimulating as well as informing. Mr. Leeming comes to some amazing conclusions and while one may not always agree with them, he will find the book in general a common sense study of the principles of behavior, expressed with originality and enthusiasm.

New Books in Brief

"The House of Stokes: 1881-1926" is a record of the work of the Frederick A. Stokes Company, with letters from authors on the forty-fifth anniversary of the firm's establishment

"John Galsworthy as a Dramatic Artist," by R. H. Coats, is published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

"Emile Verhaeren," by P. Mansel Jones (Oxford University Press), is a biography and critical study of the Belgian poet.

"Great Names," edited by Walter J. Turner (Lincoln MacVeagh, the Dial Press), is an anthology of English and American literature from Chaucer to Francis Thompson.

"The Book of Play Production," by Milton M. Smith, instructor in English at the Teachers College of Columbia University (D. Appleton & Co.), is devoted to the theory and practice of theatrical production, and is of use to the playwright as well as to the producer.

The Macmillan Company has published a new edition of "The Young Man and Journalism," by Chester S. Lord, who was for forty-one years a member of the staff of the New York Sun, and for thirty-three years the Sun's managing editor.

"Crowell's Handbook for Readers and Writers," edited by Henrietta Gerwig (Thomas Y. Crowell Company), contains, among other things, a listing of famous characters and plots "in legend, fiction, drama, opera, and poetry," and also lists of literary and journalistic terms, and hundreds of familiar allusions, all indexed and cross-indexed.