which the great story-teller of the Rockies surrounded his inimitable works, yet Mr. Fletcher's stories are original in conception, and admirable in style. In the first story of the collection, "The Johnstown Stage," there are a mother and baby, a road agent, and a brave and handsome lieutenant of infantry. Some quick shooting is done, and the lieutenant is wounded, but the Adams Express stage-coach is saved; the story concerns the woman's bravery in driving the runaway stage horses through the mountains at night, with her baby under the seat. The lieutenant recovers, and then there's a marriage. O. M. COURAGE. By Ruth Ogden. 114 pp. Cloth, $1.25. Illustrated. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 1891. Courage is the name of a twelve-year-old New York girl, who makes her home, after her father's death, with her brother Larry, on board of his lighter in New York harbor. She is a girl of many noble qualities, which are manifested in her devotion to her brother, who becomes blind and dies. "Courage" is a story for young girls, and is sure to please its readers. L. F. THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. By Samuel Adams Drake. 174 pp. Cloth, 50 cents. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1891. "The Battle of Gettysburg" is a volume in the Decisive Events for American History Series, and is a valuable little book. Mr. Drake's account of the celebrated battle is as interesting as a story. Further than this, it is a condensation and a compendium of all that has been written about a great event, by a writer who takes a dispassionate, and, therefore, an instructive, view of things. L. F. MEMORY AND THOUGHT. By James P. Downs. 42 pp. Paper, 10 cents. Harrisburg: Published by the author. 1891. This is a pamphlet issued as an "extra" in the Memory and Thought Series, and has to do mainly with the overthrow of certain of the old methods of strengthening the memory. L. F. ANATOMY IN ART. By Jonathan Scott Hartley. Illustrated. 113 pp. Cloth, $3.00. New York: Published by the author, 145 W. 55th street. 1891. The purpose of Mr. Hartley's book is to present a simple and direct method of studying external anatomy to the art student who is engaged in the study of the human form, either in action or repose. The work is illustrated, and is valuable because of its apparently authentic information. L. F. ABOUT AN OLD NEW ENGLAND CHURCH. By Rev. Gerald Stanley Lee. 89 pp. Paper. Sharon W. W. Knight & Company. 1891. The quaint and spontaneous pleasantry of this little sketch would justify its reading, even if it had no other charms. It is racy, spirited, written in a perfect story-telling vein, humorous all the way through, but with a certain fresh and natural humor which is quite infectious. Sharon, Conn., a modest little village in the hills of northwestern Connecticut, is the scene of this choice bit of local color, which stands unique and individual amid contemporaneous literature. L. F. ACROSS RUSSIA. From the Baltic to the Danube. By Charles The reputation of the author as an accomplished traveller is fully maintained in this book, in which he narrates the personal experiences of himself and companion in a journey through the Tzar's dominions. He gives authentic descriptive accounts of all the great cities, of the palaces, the churches and cathedrals, the architecture, the railways, the monasteries, the art and treasure repositories, and of the lives of noble and peasant alike. While the travellers were more than interested in what they saw and learned of the country, they were glad enough to return to civilization. L. F. THE WATER BABIES. A fairy tale for a land baby. By Charles Kingsley. Vignette edition, with one hundred new illustrations by Frederick C. Gordon. 308 pp. $1.50. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 1891. The binding of this edition of Kingsley's famous book is a marvel of artistic beauty. The back and part of the sides are in marbled white, with a delicate tracery in gilt as fine as a bit of real lace. The rest of the side binding is embossed, with satin and gilt finish, and profusely ornamented with daintily painted representations of cyclamens. A more beautiful dress for a book cannot easily be imagined. L. F. A TREASURY OF FAVORITE POEMS. Edited by Walter Learned. Vignette edition, with one hundred new illustrations by Joseph M. Gleeson. 390 pp. $1.50. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 1891. This new anthology is uniform with "The Water Babies," the bindings being identical. The poems are judiciously selected from the best in the language, and include some of those of most writers of the modern school. L. F. LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. Chronicles of a Stroller in New England from January to June. By Frank Bolles. pp. Cloth, $1.25. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Company. 1891. 234 The secretary of Harvard College in this neat little book narrates what he saw in the course of a series of walks in the suburbs of Boston, in some more remote Massachusetts rural localities, and in the White Mountains. The minuteness of his observations would fairly astonish any one unacquainted with the endless variety of animate and inanimate wonders Nature possesses for him who loves her even in her winter attire. Amid the rigors of a February gale, Mr. Bolles journeyed to Crescent Beach, there to watch the tempest in its wildest career; one April day he invaded quaint old Provincetown, and the vicinity of its light-house, and found a host of pleasing marine pictures, and myriads of sea-birds in the sky; he listened to the vesper song of the woodcock on One Pine Hill, and the croaking of the woodfrog, harbinger of spring; he faced the equinoctial storm in the Ipswich dunes one wild March day, when other less adventurous folks kept in doors; he watched from Pegan Hill the red-wing, the sparrow-hawk, and the pine warbler, and other members of the winged tribe as only a passionate lover of natural history could; and one fine May morning found him on Mt. Wachusett gazing at the wonderful panorama of its surrounding beauty. He explored woodland, field, and swamp, and saw their wondrous animal and insect life. Trees, grasses, wildflowers, brooks, sky, clouds,- none escaped the particularity of his vision, and each was noted down as an item in his interesting observations. What he saw is written in a clear, compact literary style, with passages of brilliant sky and cloud effects interwoven, the whole making a beautiful and varied series of pen pictures of Nature's slow awakening from her winter sleep. 'Straight On" is a story which will please boy-readers. It is full of incidents such as may occur to any boy in his teens, and carries a wholesome lesson with it. The exciting experience of life at a military school, where the young hero comes under the ban of suspicion for a crime committed by another, and his bravery in shielding a friend, even at the expense of his own good name, form the elements of a story which is told in a spirited way and never loses its interest. L. F. ONE REASON WHY. By Beatrice Whitby, author of the Awakening of Mary Fenwick," "Part of the Property," etc. 319 pp. Paper, 50 cents. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1891. In ordinary novels, the discovery by the young man of the young woman's love for him is brought about in different ways, none of which are in these days original. But in "One Reason Why" the heroine betrays the condition of her heart in a new way. She has refused to marry nobleman in whose house she young the occupies the position of governess, on accoun of the difference in their social spheres. She loves him, nevertheless. One day she finds his hat, cane, and gloves in the hall, and her heart prompts her to appropriate one of the gloves and keep it as a precious souvenir of what might have been. She picks up the glove, thrusts it into her bosom, and is about to make off, when the young nobleman's mastiff, sole witness of the petty theft, springs forward in threatening attitude, and blocks her way. It seems that the dog had been charged by his master to guard the gloves, and did so, to the young lady's discomfiture. The next moment the lover arrives, but the mastiff refuses to be appeased until the beautiful thief gives back the glove, and thus confesses what she wished to conceal. "One Reason Why" has many other points of origi nality, and is an entertaining story. BOOKS RECEIVED. O. M. [All books sent to the editor of THE WRITER will be acknowledged under this heading. They will receive such further notice as may be warranted by their importance to readers of the magazine.] THE ROMANCE OF A CHILD. By Pierre Loti. 179 pp. Paper, 25 cents. Chicago: Rand, McNally, & Company, 1891. THE SIGNBOARD, AND OTHER STORIES. By Michel Masson, Emile Souvestre, Théophile Gautier, André Theuriet. Translated by O. A. Bierstadt. 251 pp. Paper, 50 cents. Chicago: Rand, McNally, & Company. 1891. HIS MARRIAGE VOW. By Mrs. Caroline Fairfield Corbin. THE SIGNBOARD, AND OTHER STORIES. Translated by O. A. SENATOR LARS ERICKSON. By Franklyn W. Lee. 311 pp. Paper, 50 cents. St. Paul: The Price-McGill Company. 1891. THE KNIGHTS OF THE GREEN CLOTH. By Antonio Scalvini. Translated by Isabel Le Dyrol. 467 pp. Paper, 50 cents. St. Paul: The Price-McGill Company. 1891. A WIDOWER INDEED. By Rhoda Broughton and Elizabeth Bisland. 228 pp. Paper, 50 cents. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1891. THAIS. By Anatole France. Translated by A. D. Hall. 205 pp. Paper, 50 cents. Chicago: Nile C. Smith Publishing Company. 1891. EMMETT BONLORE. By Opie Read. 371 pp. Paper, 50 cents. Chicago: F. J. Schulte & Company. 1891. HOLIDAY STORIES. By Stephen Fiske. 208 pp. Paper, 50 Boston Benjamin R. Tucker. 1891. cents. OLD ABRAHAM JACKSON. By Anson Uriel Hancock. 260 pp. Paper, 50 cents. Chicago: Charles H. Sergel & Company. 1891. THE INDUSTRIAL PRIMARY ARITHMETIC. win, Ph. D. 263 pp. 1891. FLORINE. By the author of "Mignonnette," "The Devil and I." 325 pp. Paper. New York: G. W. Dillingham. 1891. A ROMANCE OF THE WILLOW. By Marie Woodruff-Walker. 74 pp. Cloth, $1.00. New York: American News Company. 1891. By James BaldCloth. Boston: Girn & Company. NEW MUSIC RECEIVED: From the White Smith Music Company, 62 Stanhope street, Boston: Vocal -" Thou Art My Queen," A. Monro Grier and Emma Fraser Blackstock; "Fiddle and I," Fred E. Weatherby and Mrs. Arthur Goodeve; "The Picture that We'll Never Turn from View," Arthur Malone; "I'm All Right," Le Brunn; "In the Morning," Felix McGlennon; "Fadeless Roses Blow," Lollie Belle Wylie; "Sweet Little Pansy Eyes," Paul Jassett; "When My Sailor Lad Comes Home," Arthur Malone; "But, Oh, What a Difference," B. M. Davison; "The Same Old Story," Clifton Bingham and Annie Armstrong; "The World in Peaceful Slumber Lay," Christmas anthem for quartette, C. T. Steele. Piano - " -"Reverie," "Amelia Redowa," "Lightheartedness," and "Dolores Valse," Theodore Moelling; "L Esperanza Waltz" and "Evelyn Gavotte Caprice," Loren Bragdon; "Gross-WienTout Vienne," Johann Strauss; "Love's Dream After the Ball," Alphons Czibulka; "Tyrolienne," Paul Beaumont ; "Cavalleria Rusticana," P. Mascagni; "Gnome Bells," Gustav Lang; "Meadow Brook," Loren Bragdon; "Carnival of Venice," arranged by Jules Schulhoff; "La Cigale Polka," arranged by Charles Coote; "Belle Coquette," 99" Manola," ," "Good Night," and "Japanese March," Paul Keller; "Don Quixote," Michael Watson; "Innamorata," waltz, Florence Fare; "La Cigale Waltzes," B. M. Davison; "Rest and Dreams," Paul Keller; "La Cigale," B. M. Davison. HELPFUL HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. Manuscript Files. For keeping manuscript sheets clean and flat, yet ready for instant inspection, make "files," such as were formerly much used for docketing checks, folded bills, etc. For sheets eight by ten inches, cut two pieces of heavy pasteboard each eight and onehalf by ten and one-half inches. Across the back of one of these, and three inches from its top, glue (not paste) a strip of strong muslin eight and one-half by three inches wide, having each edge turned under a quarter of an inch, so that there remains visible a strip two and onehalf inches wide, the top edge of which is three inches from the top of the pasteboard. After thoroughly drying it under pressure, turn it over and score nearly through the pasteboard, four and one-quarter inches from its top, thus leaving a hinged flap eight and one-half by four and one-quarter inches. Put the sheets between the flapped paste board and the other, and secure with rubber bands. The name of the manuscript or manuscripts may be written or pasted on the flap. NEW YORK, N. Y. R. G. BOOKS AND READING. I. How to Read. Rev. Lyman Abbott, D. D. Youth's Companion for November 19. EDWARD EVERETT HALE. Frontispiece Portrait. Chautau quan for December. A PLEA FOR RAPID READING. Eunice Dorr. Kate Field's Washington for November 18. JOURNALISM, PAST AND PRESENT. Reprinted from the Paris Revue Bleue in Public Opinion for November 7. ENGLISH REALISM AND ROMANCE. Reprinted from London Quarterly Review in Public Opinion for November 7. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITtier. With Portrait. Stewart, D. C. L., LL. D. Arena for December. EDGAR FAWCETT. Portrait. Arena for December. T. C. DE LEON. Portrait. Lippincott's Magazine for December. George The December number of Lippincott's Magazine is a special Southern number. All the contributions have been prepared by popular Southern authors. "The Magic Ink" is the odd title of William Black's new novel. Mrs. L. B. Walford has selected an equally odd title for her new story, which is to be called "The One Good Guest." Lew Vanderpoole & Company, of New York City, will publish about the middle of December a symposium on modern conventional crimes and abuses, entitled "Transplanted Shame." It has been written by four of America's leading thinkers, and will be the first of a new line of similar works to be known as Vanderpoole' Bi-monthly Series. It is announced that the author of "Dr. Lamar" is Miss Elizabeth Phipps Train, of Dorchester. The Critic Company, New York, has begun the publication, for the Charity Organization Society of the city of New York, of a new magazine, entitled the Charities Review. Music is the name of a new monthly magazine published at 240 Wabash avenue, Chicago, and edited by W. S. B. Matthews. In form it resembles the Forum. The first novel which Miss Mary E. Wilkins has ever written has been christened by its author "Jane Field." It is perhaps more proper to call it a novelette. In the December Forum Sir Edwin Arnold has a description of a "Day with Lord Tennyson," describing the home-life of the Laureate, with many incidental criticisms of his works. Edmund Clarence Stedman is delivering a course of eight lectures before the Berkeley Lyceum, at New York, on "The Nature and Elements of Poetry." Brooklyn Institute subscribers are to enjoy a course of six lectures by Abby Sage Richardson on "The Victorian Age of Poetry." William Dean Howells, has accepted the offer of John B. Walker, owner of the Cosmopolitan Magazine, to become one of the co-editors of that periodical. Mr. Howells has already taken a house in New York City, where he will live in the future. His editorial connection with Harper's Monthly will end January 1. Mr. Howells' contract with the Harpers has expired, but his new contract will not prevent his continuing to write novels for them. Professor Charles F. Johnson, of the chair of English Literature, Trinity College, Hartford, has prepared for the use of high schools and colleges and for general reading an important work on "English Words," which Harper & Brothers will publish immediately. It embraces an elementary study of derivations, including a discussion of the literary value of words, and, besides its value as a text-book, will be of interest to all who care to acquire correctness of diction. |