Casca. "Cassius, what night is this?" From "Julius Casar" in the Irving Shakespeare. (Scribner & Welford.)

The World's Benefactors Series now includes Henry M. Stanley, John Bright, and David Livingstone, excellently written popular biographies; and "The Popular Missionary Biographies already embrace some of the staunchest workers in the mission field, women and men. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's "Popular Portable Commentary" offers at a very low price a thorough commentary on the whole Bible.

ROBERTS BROS. offer in Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney's "Louisa M. Alcott" one of the most interesting books published this year. Miss Alcott's charming letters and the details of her beautiful self-sacrificing life make this volume one that every reader of "Little Women" will covet. Her own experience, made use of to a large extent in her stories, was as novel as anything she found in her imagination. In the diary which she begun as a mere child, and which is published by Mrs. Cheney, with few abridgments, the story of her early struggles and sorrows is fully told. It is another testimony to the saying that "truth is stranger than fiction." The work is more fully described in the front pages. Two books of last season, "A Summer Voyage on the River Saône" and "In His Name," are works of such permanent value that they should be remembered in providing seasonable remembrances for the household. The volume on the Saône is one of the most captivating of Hamerton's narra

tives of summer tours, and is especially adapted to the sporting member of the family. The holiday edition of Mr. Hale's "In His Name" makes this artistic story most appropriate for the joyful Christmas times.

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS have two valuable works by Miss Amelia B. Edwards to which her present visit to America once more attracts admiring attention. "Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys," first published in 1873, was the first book Miss Edwards wrote about Egypt, to which she has since devoted her rich stores of learning and her magic pen, and these sketches of her journeyings in the wonderful rock region of the Dolomite country are full of humorous episodes of adventure as well as interesting scientific facts; and "A Thousand Miles Up the Nile," written in 1876, gives the latest revelations of the spade up to that date, and sets before us the identifications, readings, and interpretations of scholars in a narrative which, in spite of its heavy subject, is full of fun and eminently readable. Any one who has the good fortune to hear Miss Edwards' lectures will certainly want to know more of the subject to which intrinsic interest and her warm enthusiasm lend such charm, and they can find in these volumes more than they can carry away from many lectures. As in former years, the Routledges make a specialty of artistically illustrated French fiction, notably of the fascinating works of Daudet. All the successes of former years are on hand, and during this year have been joined by "Jack," illustrated by Myrbach, and "Artists' Wives," illustrated by Rossi, Bieler, etc. This house also introduced Maupassant into this country and made of his "Afloat a very pretty book. English erudition and French fancy are put into taking shape by this house.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS have issued "The Viking Age," by Paul Du Chaillu, a luxuriously printed and profusely illustrated account of our Norse ancestors which has been described at

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length elsewhere. For the first time also a most important and interesting subject has received in which experts explain the construction, develadequate treatment in "The American Railway," miles of road. This volume is also noticed elseopment, management, and appliances of 150,000 where. The general reader, unacquainted with natural science, can find in Earth," by Prof. N. S. Shaler, an interesting and Aspects of the graphic account of earthquakes, cyclones, volcanoes, rivers, forests, caverns, etc., embellished with many and artistic illustrations; and "Among Cannibals," by Carl Lumholtz, will also give general readers an account of four years' travel in Australia, where the author spent his time in learning the customs, habits of life, and manner of thinking of these Australian aborigines who will soon become extinct. A work which poor artists can only dream of and which dilettanti will probably be favored with is the "Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians," edited by J. D. Champlin, Jr., of which the second volume is now ready. This work contains portraits, autographs, medals, monuments, fac-similes of famous compositions, etc., scattered through critical and descriptive text, and is almost a perfect encyclopædia of music. The Cameo Edition of "Reveries of a Bachelor" and "Dream Life" is described elsewhere in this issue, and their veteran author has a new book this year called "English Lands, Letters, and Kings." "A Collection of the Let

ters of Dickens, 1833-1870," is brought out uniform with the handsome edition of "Thackeray's Letters" published last season. A cheap edition has been made of "Memories of Fifty Years," by Lester Wallack, with an introduction by Laurence Hutton. Students of history can be made happy with "The History of the United States," by Henry Adams, which is written in admirable style and has been favorably noticed by the most fastidious critics.

SCRIBNER & WELFORD have made their usual careful selection of literary treasures for the cultivated buyers of "books that are books." To begin with, they have a limited edition of "The Book: its printers, illustrators, and binders, from Gutenberg to the present time," by Henri Bouchot, of the National Library, Paris, which includes a treatise on the art of collecting and describing early printed books, and a LatinEnglish and English-Latin typographical index of the earliest printing places, a most valuable work for book collectors and antiquarians. Important biographical and historical works are The First of the Bourbons," by Catherine Charlotte, Lady Jackson, the new editions of "The Life and Times of Savonarola" and of Symonds' "Life of Benvenuto Cellini," and "Caroline Schlegel and Her Friends," by Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, and "Fanny Burney and Her Friends." A very interesting work on curious industries is called "Days with Industrials," giving details of the work of raising quinine, canaries, rice, and of the industries connected with pearls, amber, Burton Ale and Dublin Stout, petroleum, electric telegraphs, railway whistles, diamonds real and artificial, postage stamps, etc. Works of imagination are represented by Charles Lamb's "Prince

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Dorus," with illustrations in fac-simile (handcolored); Lyrics from the Dramatists of the Elizabethan Age," edited by A. H. Bullen; Poems and Translations," by W. J. Linton; and "The Select Essays of Thomas De Quincey," edited and annotated by Prof. David Masson. Besides these standard works, which we can only mention thus baldly, this house has its imprint on some of the most erudite religious works brought to this country.

FREDERICK A. STOKES & BRO. offer a number of beautiful art-works for the holidays, in etchings, in fac-simile of water-colors, in engraving and other methods of reproduction. Their collection of "Selected Etchings" and "Etchings, Places" will be found noticed under a special heading of "Art-Works-Etchings and Photogravures," and their other leading work, "Fac-similes of Aquarelles by American Artists," will be found there likewise. Next to these comes in importance "Venice," made up of a number of fac-similes of colored Venetian photographs of St. Mark's Cathedral, the Doge's palace, the Bridge of Sighs, and other spots in the "City by the Sea," noted in history and literature, and accompanied by selections from the valuable work of the same name by Charles Yriarte. This volume is handsomely bound in cloth, but is offered also in two parts in paper and as two separate books in the Gondola Series under the titles of "Gondola and Palace" and "The Queen of the Adriatic." Each part contains four of the colored plates of the larger work, and is in an elaborate paper cover, being a fac-simile of a colored photograph, surrounded by a border representing a Florentine frame of white and gold. The sixth series of "The Good Things of Life" represents

the best cartoons and jokes of the past year that have appeared in the well-known society paper, Life. This series has a deserved popularity, every volume is so rich in laughter and entertainment. The present volume seems even better than its predecessors, it is so bright and sparkling. Almost the same words could be said for "Fun from Life," a smaller and thinner volume, which takes its material from the same source. A new series that bids for popularity this year is the Patriotic Songs Series, which includes prettily illustrated editions of the three following national songs-"America! My Country, 'tis of Thee," "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," and "The Star-Spangled Banner." These make attractive souvenirs, and appear in double covers of illuminated metals and colors, tied with gilt cord. The three songs bound together in one volume, cloth, take the name of "National Songs of America." WARD, LOCK & Co. have ready a special edition of "Our National Cathedrals" complete in three volumes, which contain besides the 150 illustrations in the text the beautiful series of steelengravings executed for "Winkle's Cathedrals," and give a succinct account of the modern transformations, improvements and injuries which have taken place in the Cathedrals of England, Ireland, and Wales. "The World's Inhabitants." by G. T. Bettamy, is a popular description of the races, peoples, animals, and plants now inhabiting the globe, and "The Conquerors of the World" is the history of the European races, by the same author. A very valuable book for the amateur tool-user is the first volume of "Amateur Work," a cyclopædia of constructive and decorative art and manual labor, copiously illustrated. This house also has a cheap edition of the best-known novels of Turgenieff and new editions of "Shelley's Poems" and "Wordsworth's Poems." Their Minerva Library now includes some fine standards.

F. WARNE & Co. offer this year the Bedford Shakespeare, a charming eight volume edition described elsewhere in detail. Very handsome gifts are their Imperial Standard Poets, including Milton, Wordsworth, Burns, Hood, Hemans, Byron, Moore, Shakespeare, and many more that live not for an age, but for all time."

WHITE & ALLEN have in "Sheridan's Rivals" a volume that is, in artistic and literary merit, one of the notable gift-books of the holiday season. Their New Ballad Series corresponds

in general appearance with the Favorite FolkBallads Series of last season, although somewhat more elaborate and more ambitious in style, the illustrations having been made by members of the Salmagundi Club. The ballads illustrated are "Old Uncle Ned," the artist being G. W. Brenneman; "Sally in our Alley," illustrated by Joseph Lauber; "The Blue Bells of Scotland," illustrated by Frank M. Gregory, and "Shandon Bells," illustrated by Joseph Lauber. As" Dear Old Songs" a fine edition on larger paper is issued of these four ballads bound in one volume. It is in every respect a very elegant gift-book. The well-known author of "BeaconLights" and other nautical souvenirs, Miss Elisabeth N. Little, has prepared a new oblong, flat volume of selections and illustrations taken from life on the sea. It is named "Off the WeatherBow on Life's Voyage."

THE WORTHINGTON Co. have secured for America an edition of the supplementary new volumes of the Villon Society's version of "The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night." The Arabic text of two favorite stories in the collection, " Alaeddin, or, the wonderful lamp," and "Zeyn Al Asnam and the King of the Genii," has at last been discovered in MSS. recently purchased by the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. Much disappointment was caused by the omission of these stories from the original nine volumes, and in compliance with many requests Mr. Payne has translated the tales, and they now appear in a three-volume supplement. There are also an édition de luxe of Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," Main's "Treasury of English Sonnets," and Daudet's "Wives of Men of Genius." Their Banner Library has received additions of European and American classics and bright modern novels.

E. & J. B. YOUNG & Co. have many chrome and manufacture are of the best. Mrs. Molesand color-books this season. Texts, illustrations, worth, Rev. J. G. Wood, Prof. Schreiber, Manville Fenn, and other writers of this calibre are among the providers of text, and Mrs. Sunter, Kate Greenaway, E. M. Jessop, Gordon Browne, and other artists of this plane of merit will illustrate what they provide. Mr. Jessop has once more taken a hand at " The Jackdaw of Rheims," and furnished it with many new illustrations, and he also has tried his practised pencil this season on" Netley Abbey."

THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY provide an appropriate Christmas book for young readers in "The Bible in Picture and Story," in which Mrs. L. S. Houghton gives a complete résumé of Scripture history, from Genesis to Revelation, in entertaining style, quite within the grasp of her youthful public. The book is profusely illustrated, and the youngest children will delight in the pictures and readily learn the stories they typify. "Vermont Hall," by Mrs. John Ripley, tells an interesting temperance story; the Picture and Story Series contains six stories put up in a box; and the Star Library is intended as a gift to Sunday-schools, giving one hundred little storybooks, put up in a chestnut case, which would be a welcome addition to the shelves.

D. APPLETON & Co. have in Edward Eggleston's "Household History of the United States and its People" and "A First Book of American History" two books that make history delightful to young readers by introducing them to men who were actors in it, men who are the great landmarks of the country's story. A child is above all interested in persons. In the "First Book" Dr. Eggleston describes Columbus, Cabot, Hudson, John Smith, Miles Standish, William Penn, etc., in a way that makes them real for all time. "The Household History," written first, is more elaborate and for older readers, but both are charming books brought out in charming shape. The talents and skill of some of the most eminent illustrators in America have been brought into requisition to lend a charm to these American histories. Although not strictly Christmas books they will make excellent additions to your boys' libraries.

ROBERT CARTER & BROS.' imprint has the dear, restful look of an old friend on the many books for young people that can most suitably be