man of Concord, are nicely printed. Mrs. Julia C. R. Dorr, in her "Periwinkle" (Lee & Shepard), has given a delicious bit of verse about the wild-wood flower, and Zulma de Lacy Steele has illustrated the volume, an oblong folio, with many and most effective drawings in crayon.

In "Our Colonial Homes" (Lee & Shepard) Samuel Adams Drake has brought together a series of sketches of historic houses and homesteads in New England. Nobody is better qualified for this labor of love than Mr. Drake, and the photographic fidelity of his pen is satisfactorily supplemented by sunpictures of such famous houses as that of John Hancock, the Pepperells, the Adamses of Quincy, the Minots, and many others here duly celebrated.

Life is incomplete without its good things, and this year's instalment, the tenth of its line, of "Good Things from Life," issued by the Frederick A. Stokes Co., is not one whit behind its predecessors in delicate wit and humor and genuinely artistic illustration. The men whose pencils have made Life famous are seen here at their best.

Marie Corelli, whose novels have the rare distinction of Queen Victoria's approval and reading, in her " Barabbas, a Dream of the World's Tragedy" (J. B. Lippincott Co.), takes a new and realistic view of that wonderful story of the ages. Like her "The Soul of Lilith," this work is mystical and yet full of the most vivid realism. Her version of Pilate's conduct in the condemnation of Christ is certainly original. A religious or altruistic pensiveness pervades "What Necessity Knows," a novel by L. Dougall (Longmans, Green & Co.), the scene of which is laid in the Province of Quebec, during the Second Adventist excitement of 1843, and an expectation of "the immediate coming of the Lord" is one of the sections of the panorama unfolded in this highly pictorial tale. Hungarian literature is laid under contribution by Emma M. Phelps, who, in her translation of "Seraph," one of Sacher-Masoch's novels, has given us an intense and tragical romance of the rude, hard, social life of Hungary. Seraph is the hero, not heroine, of this mov

46

From "The Bow of Orange Ribbon."-Dodd, Mead & Co.

ing tale; published by the George M. Allen Co. Equally alien to our Anglo-Saxon habits and thought is the Norwegian drama of Pastor Sang," translated from Bjornson's "Over Ævne." This, too, has a religious undercurrent running through it, and the intensity of Bjornson's nature throbs in every scene of the drama, which is translated by William Wilson and published by Longmans, Green & Co. The multitudinous admirers of Thomas Bailey Aldrich's literary work will be very glad to get this daintily printed and bound volume from his pen, An Old Town by the Sea" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). It is a sheaf of reminiscences and memories of that old town of Portsmouth which has been in a measure glorified by the touch of Aldrich's magic pen. It is a group of sketches from New England history, told with the charm of genius. In the same vein, but with no pretension to historical accuracy, are two of Sarah Orne Jewett's delightful books. "Deephaven " is already such a prime favorite that, in its new and brave array of illustrations and handsome print, it will have a yet wider circle of friends than ever. "Deephaven " is one of the pioneers of a literature

the first book only has yet appeared. The others will be awaited with interest.

Among recent books of verse, William Trumbull's "The Legend of the White Canoe" (G. P. Putnam's Sons) is a worthy attempt to preserve in poetic form some of the folk-lore of the aborigines of our land. The book is beautifully printed and illustrated. Very beautiful, too, is Kate Raworth Holmes's

From "Tales from Shakespeare."

"Pictures from Nature and Life" (A. C. McClurg & Co.), to which Helen E. Stevenson has added some choice adornments with her graceful pencil. The longest poem in the book, "One Fair Day," is a pretty narrative of foreign travel. John Alleyne Macnab, whose "Song of the Passaic " will be remembered with pleasure by many, has given us this year "The Legend of a Lake," a melodious bit of verse, which is illustrated by Edgar M. Bacon and published by the George M. Allen Co. From the same house come three bright and clever skits of verse, "The Song of the Sandwich," by Ella Wheeler Wilcox; "Pen and Inklings," by Oliver Herford, and "In Cupid's Name," this last being a selection of amorous ditties taken from many poets by Frank Chaffee.

Several notable additions are made to the store of knowledge which we have of the early beginning of things in the New World, in the season's new books. One of the most important is Henry Powell's edition of Esquemeling's famous work, "The Buccaneers of America," wherein were set forth, as we all remember, accounts of "the most remarkable assaults committed of late years upon the coasts of the West Indies by the Buccaneers of Jamaica and Tortuga (both English and French)." John Esquemeling, as they know who recall with a thrill of fearful joy the Pirate's Own Book " of their boyhood, was present at those tragedies, being himself one of the buccaneers. This book was first done into English in 1684, and to it is now added the scarce Fourth Part, which contains Basil Ringrose's account, printed one year later, of the "Dangerous Voyage and Bold Attempts of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others." This work is a noble tome, a classic in its way, and is imported by Charles Scribner's Sons, with all the original and unique portraits and maps.

J. B. Lippincott Co.

old men were buried with all the gloom that could be induced to gather over "the house prepared for all the living." In this work the author begins with the birth in the household and ends with Funeral and Burial Customs," thus carrying her subject from the cradle to the grave. But on the way there is a plenty of material gathered to divert and instruct the reader concerning the ways and manners, the private and public life, and the hopes and aims of the early settlers of New England. In Mrs. Earle's book are quoted some of the letters of Margaret Winthrop to her husband, the Governor. And very delightful are those missives as we find them in "Some Old Puritan Love Letters," written by John and Margaret Winthrop between 1618 and 1638, and now edited by the Rev. Joseph Twichell, of Hartford, published by Dodd, Mead & Co. This lovinge and obedient wife" and "faithfull husband" exemplify in their intimate letters the truth of Mrs. Earle's remark that Puritan husbands and wives were happy in their marriages, though their love was shy, almost sombre, “and flowered out of sight, like the fern.” In any case, these letters are not only full of pleasant pictures of that far-off life, but full of sweetness and light. In the same historical alcove do we find Thomas Hazard, Son of Rob't, call'd College Tom, a Study of Life in Narragansett in the XVIIth Century," by Caroline Hazard (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). College Tom has been worthily celebrated and judiciously edited here by one of his own lineal descendants, in a portly and handsome volume. She has utilized journals, letters, account-books, and other available material in such a way as to recall for us not only the figure of the redoubtable Thomas but the men and the manners of his time. The book is a distinctly valuable contribution to American social history, giving us, as it does, vivid glimpses of life in Rhode Island and Connecticut in old colonial times.

John Addington Symonds's monumental and learned work on Italian art and literature has been slightly abridged by his friend and companion in travel, Lieut.-Colonel Alfred Pearson, with the concurrence of

Mrs. Symonds, and now appears in one elegantly printed volume as A Short History of the Renaissance in Italy." We may be sure that the task has been a labor of love, and that the lamented author of the standard work on that period of Italian history which we call the Renaissance could not have failed, had he lived, to approve the completeness and fulness of the work of Colonel Pearson. A fine portrait of Mr. Symonds forms the frontispiece of the book, which is imported by the Scribners. The Renaissance garden forms the alluring topic of Charles A. Platt's "Italian Gardens" (Harper & Brothers), a book of rare delights, composed with good taste and illustrated with artful skill. These are fascinating glimpses of the most famous gardens of southern Europe, which, of course, means the most famous of the world, although the entourage of Rome and Florence only are explored for these beauties of art and nature.

Italy, the home of Aldus, naturally cuts a considerable figure in Alfred W.Pollard's latest contribution to the series of six which he has edited, and known as "Books about Books." These are The Great Book Collectors," by Charles I. and Mary Augusta Elton; "Book Plates," by W. J. Hardy; "Books in Manuscript," by Falconer Madan; "Early Printed Books," by E. Gordon Duff; "Early Illustrated Books," by Alfred W. Pollard; and "Book Bindings," by Herbert P. Horne. Of these the sixth is yet to be published, and the fifth is the latest to appear. Mr. Pollard writes with the enthusiasm of the bibliophile and the accuracy of the conscientious historian. Incidentally, of course, much social and political history is suggested by these pages, relating, as they do, to the art of illustration, rubrication and printing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but specialists, as well as students of social progress, are interested in this painstaking review of the golden age of printing and the genesis of book illustration. The book, as it should be, is a perfect. example of typography, and is adorned with rubrications and fac-similes of the earliest examples of high art in printing. It is imported by the Scribners. In the same line of art and