"Gwenn," that deservedly popular story of fifteen years ago. The relation of the selfish, absorbed artist to the innocent, ingenuous peasant girl is the same in each case; but in the later story the problem is worked out in a northern clime and in a manner more congenial to a public which demands the satisfaction of final moral edification, at least.

From the standpoint of the pastor, Mr. Bradley Gilman has told a story in his novel "Ronald Carnaquay" (Macmillan) which recalls in certain aspects Harold Frederic's masterpiece, "The Damnation of Theron Ware." Each is the history of a minister absolutely unsuited, spiritually, to his calling, but the problem is worked out in very different manner by the two authors. Only personal knowledge of the petty jealousies and ambitions of a would-be fashionable congregation could have suggested the well-defined types of Mr. Gilman's story, which, like its predecessor, is American.

There is a moral problem at the base of William Farquhar Payson's novel "The Triumph of Life" '(Harpers), -it is the spiritual salvation of the hero of the book, a successful writer who achieves seeming success at the cost of his better nature.

THREE TALES OF MYSTERY.

In "The Filigree Ball" (Bobbs-Merrill), Anna Katherine Greene again succeeds in developing an absorbingly interesting murder plot with her old-time skill, which for a while seemed to have deserted her. The story plays in Washington.

A new writer in the field of mystery is Frances Powell, who makes her début with the book of the suggestive title "The House on the Hudson" (Scribners), which develops the love motif more prominently than is customary in detective stories.

There seems to be a divergence of opinion as to whether "The Life Within" (Lothrop), by an anonymous author, shall be attributed to a Christian Scientist or to a clever outsider who has seen the commercial advantages of a novel dealing with the new cult. The scene of the story is Kentucky, and it must be admitted that considerable restraint is manifested in the presentation of Christian Science doctrines and "miracles."

STORIES PICTURING THE LIFE OF LOCALITIES. In contradistinction to the perennial interest attaching to tales of adventure and fighting is the equally strong though quieter interest aroused by stories depicting the life and character of more or less obscure communities. Of these, the abiding prototype is Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford," but each season brings forth a number of such studies of provincial life worthy of serious consideration. "Putnam Place" (Harpers), by Grace Lathrop Collins, pictures in quiet, subtle manner the narrow, intense life of a New England village, whose quarrels and loves and jealousies the author renders vividly interesting. Equally successful in the same field is Elmore Elliott Peake in his novel "The Pride of Tellfair" (Harpers), in which he depicts with much insight the life of a small Illinois town. Of somewhat different nature from the foregoing is "Lovey Mary" (Century), the new story by Alice Hegan Rice, author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch," in that it does not pretend to be an exhaustive study of a community, but merely an amusing peep into one corner of Louisville's most obscure quarter. Mrs. Wiggs, with her quaint sayings, reappears in this book, together with other old friends.

In "The Substitute" (Harpers), Will N. Harben continues his studies of North Georgia types, which attracted attention in "Abner Daniel." A story of a quaint religious community in one of the Western States is "Walda" (Harpers), by Mary Holland Kinkaid, in which the conflict arises between love and the heroine's clearly defined duty as prophetess of the peculiar sect that frown upon love and marriage.

Three excellent though widely divergent books on Canadian life are "Glengarry School Days" (Revell), by Ralph Connor; "In the Garden of Charity" (Harpers), by Basil King; and "Conjurer's House" (McClure, Phillips & Co.), by Stewart Edward White. In a sense, the first of these is a continuation of "The Man from

Glengarry," in that several of the characters of that story reappear in this one; but, on the other hand, it is a tale of the primitive community from the boy's point of view, rather than from that of grown-ups. Mr. King's novel is radically different from his first book, "Let Not Man Put Asunder," being a picture of the simple fisher-folk of Nova Scotia, against which background is projected a tragic story of love and fidelity and faithlessness. Mr. White's book is the stirring account of a man who defies the monopoly of the Hudson Bay Company and persists in trading with the Indians regardless of the company's time-honored but no longer legally recognized rights.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE.

In the present category of novels must be reckoned "A Summer in New York" (Henry Holt), by Edward Townsend, author of "Chimmie Fadden," since the story may be regarded as a guide, in fiction form, to the pleasures of the metropolis during the hot season.

Mrs. Henry Dudeney's latest novel, "Robin Brilliant" (Dodd, Mead & Co.), possesses to the full charm of local color and rustic simplicity, being a quiet tale of Sussex, written with much insight into human motives and character, and with a pleasant fillip of humor. Of somewhat similar nature is Elsworth Lawson's story of Yorkshire life, "From the Unvarying Star" (Macmillan), but with a certain justice it may be objected that there is lacking in this novel the restraint which keeps sentiment from becoming oppressive.

STORIES OF THE SEA.

Both Frank Bullen and Joseph Conrad have given us, this year, new stories of the sea; not stories simply about the sea, such as any landlubber of imagination can write, but stories with the smell and sweep of the ocean in them. Mr. Bullen, who is of English birth but American education, first gained popularity with "The Cruise of the Cachalot," which was a simple, straightforward account of a whaling voyage, full of adventure, but without love, or anything else extraneous to the tale. In his recent book, "A Whaleman's Wife" (Appleton), he has introduced the conventional elements of the novel, not even omitting the villain and the disappointed lover. There is, however, no lack of purely pelagic elements. Mr. Conrad's book is a collection of three long

VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES.

Collections of short stories are said to be, commercially speaking, a drug on the market, and are accepted by publishers only under protest. This accounts for the small number of such collections, and for the fact that they usually bear the name of a well-known author. Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman, or, as she is better known, Miss Mary E. Wilkins, challenges our approval with two separate collections, each containing six stories, mainly of New England setting. In "Six Trees" (Harpers), she weaves the tales in every case about some particular tree, which is made typical of the special phase of life depicted in the story. "The Wind in the Rose-Bush" (Doubleday, Page & Co.), on the other hand, is made up of good old-fashioned ghost stories, which were generally supposed to have gone out of fashion some time ago. They are told, however, with ease and conviction.

There is general agreement that the fairest flower of the genius of Henry James is seen in his short stories, and this contention is sustained by the perusal of his latest collection, "The Better Sort" (Scribners). Needless to say, in the nine stories here brought together the psychological note is dominant, but there is a delicacy and freshness in the volume which go far to compensate for the prolixity of "The Wings of the Dove" and "The Awkward Age."

Of essentially American character, although extremely varied in subject, are the stories gathered together by Arthur Colton under the name of "Tioba" (Henry Holt). Direct, humorous, full of action, they may serve as a delectable antidote to the hyperanalysis of Mr. James. Equally fresh and spontaneous is Sewell Ford's collection of equine stories, "Horses Nine" (Scribners); and in addition, it possesses literary qualities of a high order. In these stories, Mr. Ford has done nine separate times for the horse what Mr. Kipling did so cleverly for the locomotive in his story ".0003."

Mr. Israel Zangwill, author of "Children of the Ghetto," has recently appeared in the guise of poet, and he now bespeaks our suffrage with a collection of striking stories and novelettes bearing the title "The Grey Whig" (Macmillan). Of these, some are old and some new; "The Big Bow Mystery," one of the novelettes, it

may be recalled, was published a number of years ago by an enterprising English periodical, with a prize for the solving of the mystery before the appearance of the last installment.

"Cap'n Titus" (Doubleday, Page & Co.) is a short collection of interrelated tales of New England life, mostly humorous, by Clay Emery. Of more ambitious setting are the two artistic stories by Arthur Cosslett Smith, published under the title of the initial tale, "The Turquoise Cup" (Scribners). The scene of the first story is Venice; that of the second, the desert of Sahara.

SOME UNCLASSIFIED NOVELS.

Readers of novels have awaited with much interest the posthumous story, "The Conquering of Kate" (Doubleday, Page & Co.), of the writer who of late years chose to be known as J. P. Mowbray, although his rightful name was Andrew C. Wheeler and he had long since attained fame as a humorist under the pseudonym Nym Crinkle. Mr. Wheeler's story, which is laid in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, after the Civil War, has the same qualities of rural freshness and love of nature which made popular "Tangled Up in Beulah Land" and "A Journey to Nature."

"Journey's End" (Doubleday, Page & Co.), by Justus Miles Forman, is a story with a glimpse of the stage door in it, and which has enjoyed considerable vogue, despite, or perhaps in virtue of, its flimsy character. Also of slight structure, but quite amusing, is Dr. Weir Mitchell's little volume, "A Comedy of Conscience" (Century), which recounts the tribulations of a spinster lady with an unduly loud warning voice in her breast.

Two books dealing with college life, although, to be sure, in very different ways, are "When Patty Went to College" (Century), by Jean Webster, and "The Chameleon" (McClure, Phillips & Co.), by James Weber Linn. Miss Webster's book is a collection of humorous incidents of girl-student life, each complete in itself, but correlated; while in Mr. Linn's story the college scenes are secondary to the development of the thesis of the book, which is the punishment awaiting him who by nature is incapacitated from speaking the truth. The "Chameleon's" punishment, however, it must be admitted, strikes one as rather severe for the mildness of his "fibs."

"From a Thatched Cottage" (Crowell), by Eleanor G. Hayden, is a successful attempt to depict English country low life in the evolution of a story based upon crime and its effect upon the innocent descendants of the guilty one and his victim. Also dealing with murder, but among the less interesting lower middle class, is "The Stumbling Block" (Barnes), by Edwin Pugh. It is a tale such as George Gissing might have writtenwith greater carrying power.

In "The Bishop" (Harpers), that most prolific of contemporary writers, Cyrus Townsend Brady, attempts to picture the West in a series of experiences, amusing and otherwise, grouped about the figure of the church dignitary. Like his other books, it shows inventive fertility and a certain dramatic and pictorial power.

"Veronica" (Doubleday, Page & Co.), by Martha W. Austin, is described by the publishers as a "story of feeling and not a tale of adventure." It is a love story, the scenes of which are laid mostly in Louisiana; but it is the geography of the heart, not that of the State, which the author seeks to teach.

NATURE-STUDY AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE.

A "bird book" that is by no means lacking in the quality of human interest is Mr. William E. D. Scott's "Story of a Bird Lover" (New York: The Outlook Company). Mr. Scott is curator of the department of ornithology of Princeton University. In his house at Princeton, he maintains a laboratory of six rooms, con

MR. WILLIAM E. D. SCOTT.

taining about five hundred live birds, native and foreign. Mr. Scott has made this collection for the purpose of conducting investigations that may lead to a better understanding of birds in their natural environment and of problems that arise in their out-of-door life. We mention this fact in this connection by way of showing that Mr. Scott's work is of an original and almost unique order, and the glimpses of it that he gives us in his book tend to justify fully the statement made in an introductory note by his publishers that he has done much to bring the life of birds nearer to the life of man, and has established-so to speak-personal relationships with the whole bird kingdom. A graduate of Harvard, where he had been a pupil under Louis Agassiz, Mr. Scott for some years followed the taxidermist's calling; and later, after his connection with Princeton began, he made journeys all over this country studying the life and character of birds in their natural surroundings. The simple story of his life, of which this sympathetic nature-study has been so great a part, makes up the volume before us. We can cordially recommend the book, not only to students of bird life, but to all readers whose interests are in the direction of out-of-door study and observation.

A very complete "Handbook of Birds of the Western United States" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) has been compiled by Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey. This book

does for the Western half of our country what Mr. Frank M. Chapman's handbook has done for the Eastern States. It gives descriptions and biographical sketches of all our Western birds, including all the American species not treated by Chapman, besides those which are common to both sections of the country. Mrs. Bailey has worked in California three years, and has also spent some time in Utah, Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. The book has over six hundred illustrations, including thirty-two full-page plates from drawings made expressly for it by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The introduction includes several practical papers, notably one by Mr. Bailey on collecting and preparing birds, nests, and eggs, and suggestions on bird-protection by T. S. Palmer, besides several valuable local lists of birds.

Many of our readers will doubtless recall a charming little book bearing the rather blind title "Mr. Chupes and Miss Jenny" which appeared a year or two ago and was noticed at the time in these pages. This book was the life-story of two robins, and the author, Mrs. Effie Bignell, has been encouraged to write another little volume of bird-lore which she has entitled "My Woodland Intimates (Baker & Taylor Company). The region in which Mrs. Bignell's bird studies have been made is in eastern New Jersey, although in the present volume occasional excursions are made to the Laurentian Mountains of Canada.

Brof. Harris H. Wilder, of Smith College, has prepared "A Synopsis of Animal Classification" (Holt), which is designed as an aid to students and teachers in zoology in our schools and colleges.

"A Prairie Winter," by "An Illinois Girl" (New York: The Outlook Company), is a sort of journal of observations made from day to day, beginning in the autumn and continuing through winter and spring. Some of the facts and inferences here recorded seem inconsequential and irrelevant, but, on the whole, there is much that is suggestive of prairie life out-of-doors in the most inclement seasons, and much that will interest all who have ever lived in the country, whether East or West.

An "Introduction to Botany " has been written by Prof. William Chase Stevens, of the University of Kansas (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.). This book is intended for use in high schools, and while it is sufficiently comprehensive to provide a full year's work for such schools as devote that amount of time to the subject, the material has been arranged in such a way that schools devoting less than a year to the study may have a thoroughly symmetrical and adequate introductory course. Special attention is devoted to the study of common flowering plants that may be easily procured during the spring and early summer in almost every locality.

The publication within a few months of each other of two books entirely devoted to hardy plants for gardens and lawns indicates the increased interest that is taken of late in this branch of landscape gardening. Miss Helena Rutherfurd Ely, in "A Woman's Garden" (Macmillan), which has already reached the third edition, tells how to prepare the soil, lay out the garden and borders, bed and plant the seeds, and arrange for a constant succession of flowers from April to November. The volume is illustrated from photographs taken in the author's garden by Prof. C. F. Chandler. Mr. J.

Wilkinson Elliott's "Plea for Hardy Plants" (Doubleday, Page & Co.) represents a landscape architect's attempt to teach, not the art of landscape gardening, but the need of it. Mr. Elliott directs our attention to the prevalent folly of intrusting the treatment of grounds surrounding costly houses to "the nearest two-dollar-aday jobbing gardener," although for the designing and planning of the house itself an architect is usually employed. It is Mr. Elliott's conviction that while 50 per cent. of the cost of the better class of houses in this country is expended with the desire of producing beauty, one dollar intelligently spent on the ground will afford more beauty than ten spent on the house, and the attractiveness of the house is greatly enhanced by the beauty and fitness of the grounds. Mr. Elliott makes his points by the aid of good pictures.

An excellent "Woodsman's Handbook," by Director Graves, of the Yale Forest School, has been issued by the United States Department of Agriculture. The purpose of this book is to give a collection of tables and rules of practical use to lumbermen, foresters, and others interested in the measurement of wood and timber. Only such information as is deemed of immediate practical value to American woodsmen is included. The first volume comprises rules for finding the contents of logs, standing trees, methods of estimating timber, a brief outline of forest working plans, and a description of instruments useful in the woods. It is the author's intention to include in the second volume directions for studying the growth of trees, tables of growth, directions for the study of future production of forests, tables showing the future yield of forests, and so forth.

"Variation in Animals and Plants," by H. M. Vernon, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford (Holt), is a treatise that can only be understood and appreciated by the experienced naturalist. The botanical side of the subject is treated with less fullness in this work, owing to the author's greater familiarity with animals than with plants, and hence his more thorough acquaintance with the literature of animal life. Scientists will find the chief value of the book, perhaps, in the full accounts that it gives of the author's own researches, although due recognition is given to the work of other investigators.

Of a more popular character is the interesting illustrated volume on "Animals Before Man in North America," by Frederic A. Lucas (Appleton). Owing to his official position as curator of the Division of Comparative Anatomy in the United States Museum, at Washington, Mr. Lucas has had unusual facilities for the study of his favorite subject, and he possesses in an unusual degree the ability to write entertainingly upon scientific topics. The plan of his book involves the treatment of the history of the past by periods. Mr. Lucas has endeavored to sketch the characteristic or more striking features of the life of well-marked epochs, and to tell something of the habits, appearance, and relationships of the more conspicuous animals. In doing this, he calls attention to some of the causes that are believed to have brought about the marked changes that have taken place in the life of our continent and in the world generally, and at the same time imparts some of the varied information that has been obtained from the study of fossils. Some of the localities where fossils are to be found are described, and some account is given of the methods followed in reproducing these animals and interpreting their habits from a study of their bones.

A study of the prehistoric world from an astronomer's point of view is interpreted by Sir Robert Stawell, Bart., of the University of Cambridge, England, in a volume entitled "The Earth's Beginning" (Appleton). This volume treats of the evolution of the earth, the planets, and the sun from the fire-mist. The volume is really made up of lectures given before the Royal Institution of Great Britain and adapted to an audience of young people. It is strictly a popular exposition of the subject, well illustrated, and fitted for supplementary reading in school and college classes.

A capital elementary work covering the whole field of natural science is Prof. Edward S. Holden's "Real Things in Nature" (Macmillan). This work treats, in the successive parts, or books, of astronomy, physics, meteorology, chemistry, geology, zoology, botany, the human body, and the early history of mankind. Questions likely to be asked by the average American boy concerning railways, electric lights, the telegraph, telephone, and so forth, are answered in the section on

physics. In this and the other sections of the book, it is, of course, impossible to give complete or satisfactory explanations in every instance. Professor Holden has endeavored, however, in every case, to make the explanations complete so far as they go. As certain scientific ideas are evidently too difficult to be grasped by young minds, it has seemed wiser to omit such topics altogether. In the department of chemistry, a few fundamental ideas are presented, enforced by a few safe and simple experiments, while the rest of the science is left untouched. The author insists on the fundamental ideas of science and its methods, using the facts chiefly as means of illustrating his mode of thought.

Mr. Francis M. Ware's "First-Hand Bits of Stable Lore" (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.) is a practical book which meets the needs of the amateur horse-buyer and stable owner or manager. It has some excellent chapters on such topics as "The Horse's Education," "Mouths and Manners," "The Foot and Its Treatment,"

"The Saddle-Horse," "The Hunter and His Education," "Riding for Women and Children," "Four-in-Hand Driving," "Coaching and Its Accompaniments," and "Management of a Pack of Hounds." Mr. Ware is well known as the manager of the American Horse Exchange, in New York City, and for many years has been identified with the leading horse-show organizations throughout the country.

Mr. Henry Rankin Poore's book on "Pictorial Composition" (Baker & Taylor Company) is full of suggestions to the amateur photographer and to the student of painting. The man who desires to excel in landscape work, whether with the camera or the brush, will do well to pursue Mr. Poore's chapters on "Balance," "Evolving the Picture," "The Circular Observation of Pictures," "Light and Shade," and so forth.

"The A B C of Photo-Micrography," by W. H. Walmsley (New York: Tennant & Ward, 287 Fourth Avenue), is designed as a practical handbook for beginners. It is perhaps the only elementary treatment of the subject in existence. The writer has taken great pains to explain many of the things a knowledge of which is presupposed in more elaborate works.

Mr. Edward W. Newcomb has written a little book entitled "How to Improve Bad Negatives" (New York: Published by the author at the Bible House). In this little manual, an attempt is made to give the best methods used by photographers in their modern practice, methods which the writer believes will enable any one to turn bad, unprintable negatives into choice ones.

"The Photo-Miniature" continues to be issued monthly (New York: Tennant & Ward, 287 Fourth Avenue). Each number of this publication, as we have explained in former notices, is devoted to some single topic related to the art of photography. In the last number, for example, the "Kallitype Process" is described. Previous numbers are devoted to such topics as "Development Printing Papers," "More about Orthochromatic Photography," "Coloring Photographs," "Photographic Chemicals," "Copying Methods," "Photographing Animals," Color Photography," "Film Photography," and so forth.

NEW VOLUMES OF BIOGRAPHY.

In Appleton's "Historic Lives" series, a volume on "Horace Greeley" has been contributed by Mr. William Alexander Linn. No other American journalist of his own generation or of this has so interested the American public as did the eccentric editor of the Tribune. All the earlier biographies of Greeley were such as the readers of the Tribune delighted to read. They were largely anecdotal, and to a certain extent eulogistic; but as estimates of Greeley's career and influence, they were decidedly lacking in the judicial quality. This lack has been fully realized by Mr. Linn, who has written a life of Greeley which differs in a marked degree from any of its predecessors. Mr. Linn seems to have recognized Greeley's shortcomings quite as distinctly as he recognized his merits. In his analysis of the great journalist's conduct during the Civil War, he is unsparing and merciless. His earlier chapters on the founding of the Tribune and the sources of the Tribune's influence, however, as well as the chapter on the anti-slavery contest, give full credit to Greeley for the preeminent virtues and abilities that he displayed in those years. Yet Mr. Linn feels compelled to say of Greeley's journalistic work as a whole: "His weaknesses throughout his editorial career are almost as

marked as his strength, and a lack of foresight often played havoc with his judgment."

Another eminent American about whom much has been written is William Ellery Channing, the subject of a new biography by the Rev. John White Chadwick (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). Students of the anti-slavery conflict are already familiar with Channing's part in that struggle. No biographer could expect to add very much to the general knowledge of that subject. Of more immediate interest, in view of the present tendencies in liberal religion, is Channing's criticism of these tendencies as reviewed by Mr. Chadwick.

Two volumes of "New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle" now appear under the editorship of Alexander Carlyle, with an introduction by Sir James Crichton-Browne (John Lane). These volumes contain many letters that were rejected by Mr. James Anthony Froude in compiling the three volumes of Mrs. Carlyle's letters and memorials which were published some years ago. The writer of the introduction to this new selection seizes the opportunity to defend the fame of Thomas Carlyle against the assaults that he believes to have been made upon it by Mr. Froude's "Reminiscences." The main purpose of the present publication seems to have been to vindicate the memory of Carlyle against aspersions and insinuations that have passed current since his death in regard to his domestic relations.

"British Political Portraits" is the title of a volume of character sketches of men prominent at the present time in the public affairs of England, by Justin McCarthy (New York: The Outlook Company). Mr. McCarthy has had a long experience in Parliamentary life himself, and writes from intimate personal knowledge of such political leaders as Mr. Balfour, Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Joseph Chamberlain, John Morley, John Burns, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, John E. Redmond, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, James Bryce, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Mr. McCarthy has the journalist's faculty of seizing on those traits in the subjects of his sketches that are most likely to interest the reading public, and the journalist's facility in description.

People with a keen scent for literary sensationalism made much of the recent discovery that Mrs. Humphry Ward, in her novel "Lady Rose's Daughter," very closely paralleled the career of Mlle. de Lespinasse, whose letters were published in translation a year or two ago by the Boston house of Hardy, Pratt & Co. Whoever is interested in tracing the parallelism will find entertainment, if not profit, in perusing this translationthe work of Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

The life of Luigi Alamanni, the Florentine poet who passed many years in exile at the court of France in the sixteenth century, has been written by Henri Hauvette (Paris: Librairie Hachette & Co.). It is by no means inappropriate that a Frenchman should be the biographer of this Italian writer, since it was in France that Alamanni passed the greater part of his life, and at the French court were written or published all the works by which he is now known.

The two most interesting characters of the nineteenth century, according to Mark Twain, are Napoleon and Helen Keller. Miss Keller's remarkable book, "The Story of My Life" (Doubleday, Page & Co.), is a record of achievement that can hardly be compared with any human experience-even Napoleon's. When were such difficulties ever so completely mastered in a