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by Kate Douglas Wiggin (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), is in every way a story for girls. It is almost a matter of course, therefore, that a part of it has to be told in such sprightly, curious, never-meant-to-be-printed letters, as only girls ever write. But Polly and the rest had more than one problem among them, as readers of their sayings and doings will discover. From G. P. Putnam's Sons comes More English Fairy Tales," collected and edited by Joseph Jacob, and well illustrated by John D. Batten. The giant and dragon, elf and fairy lore of England is distinct in character from that of any other land. This volume contains a number of quaint, curious, and very entertaining additions to the list of those already captured or reported for preservation. All are new to boy and girl readers, and their elders will be glad of the copious notes and references, while regretting that the author has herewith finished his fairy hunt, almost asserting that there are no more

to find. The Light Princess" (G. P. Putnam's Sons) is a collection of the charming fairy tales of George Macdonald. It will be gladly welcomed by his host of admirers, but it will, after all, owe a great deal to the exceedingly graceful illustrations by Maud Humphrey. As if not satisfied that they had otherwise done enough for the imaginations of American young people, the same publishers offer a handsomely printed and liberally illustrated edition of "The Little Mermaid, and Other Tales," by Hans Christian Andersen, himself a kind of wizard who sat away up North and spun and twisted and wove the most remarkable of all weird webs of story-telling.

The bound volumes of "Harper's Young People" (Harper & Brothers) are of themselves a good library of reading for the young. The appearance of the fourteenth volume, ending with the November number for 1893, almost compels a bit of moralizing,

sented collection of photogravures of children, from original photographs, by Mrs. N. Gray Bartlett. It belongs to the drawing-room table list of children's Christmas gifts, and will be much admired.

Thousands and thousands of American boys think they have read "Tom Brown's School Days," and so they have, after a fashion. Even those boys who read the doings at Rugby many a long year ago, however, ought now to take up this last and best edition, issued by Porter & Coates-not for the good binding and printing,. but for the preface, the portrait of Thomas Hughes, their "Old Boy" friend, and the more than a score of fine photogravures, illustrative views of buildings and places at Uffington and Rugby. The story was always as real as Robinson Crusoe, but even that could be helped by a photograph of Friday, or the parrot and cat. Here, therefore, is the perfect presentation of the great English school, and Tom's times there can be understood as they never were before.

text, which is not always the case with maps, and the pictures, of all sorts, actually tell an important part of the story.

Three volumes of the Roundabout Series are issued by Charles E. Brown & Co. They are on large paper and are vell and copiously illustrated. "The Ocean Rovers," by Louis Rousselet, is better described by its inside title of "The Two Cabin Boys," but they were rovers indeed. They had to do with sailors

of all sorts, not by any means excepting pirates, and some of these told them wonderful yarns. They served on a Confederate cruiser, assailing the commerce of the United States; they were terribly wrecked; they were cast-aways on a desert island; and they drifted to Australia, to have wonderful adventures among the gold mines and the forests, with wild animals, wild men, and rich discoveries of precious metal. Next come two volumes of 'Eddy's Travels in Europe," by Rev. D. C. Eddy, and again the inside title of "Rip Van Winkle's Travels " has an advantage, because it means something. To important places and through interesting parts of all the countries of Europe, three boys of New York, calling themselves the Rip Van Winkle Triangle, are led in a curious way. They do not go at all, but stay at home and read the letters sent them by their former schoolmaster, as he works his way from place to place, telling his story as if neither he nor they knew anything about it beforehand. The home audience increases until at last as many as forty or fifty ladies and gentlemen get together, with ample refreshments, to hear the letters. It is a book full to overflowing with interesting information, and its method has

"The Story of Washington," in the Delights of History Series (D. Appleton & Co.), is by Elizabeth Eggleston Seelye, with over one hundred illustrations by Allegra Eggleston, and is edited, with an introduction, by Edward Eggleston. It is admirably printed and bound, and forms an exceptionally valuable addition to the mass of our Washington literature. It does so because of the good judgment and extreme fidelity with which accumulated authorities have been sifted and condensed; while there is much that is new, that and the old together are so treated as to create an unexpected impression of freshness. The maps are intelligible additions to the

From "Little Ones Annual "- Estes & Lauriat.

the charm of originality. In the next volume, the letters of Schoolmaster Van Wert-a very wide-awake man to have ever been thought sleepy by his pupils-come first from the strange old countries of northern Africa, beginning with Morocco. From Egypt he passed over into Asia Minor for a very in

structive tour of Palestine, but returned for more of Egypt, and went up the Nile. There were grand letters written among the Pyramids and ruined temples. After that there was something done for the interior and the eastern coast, and then he went to India; and if the Triangle and the other boys who read the books can remember it all they will know a great deal.

Elizabeth W. Champney has taken one of her favorites, and others with her, across the Atlantic. "Witch Winnie in Paris" is noticeably older than she once was, and so, therefore, is the story of the goings, doings, and seeings of "the King's daughters abroad." There is a great deal of Paris, and there are also glimpses of chateau life and rural French people, dress descriptions, points in cookery, mixed, somewhat, with pleasant things about artists and their best ways-not their other ways. (Dodd, Mead & Co.)

"Bible Lamps for Little Feet," filled from miscellaneous sources by Charles B. Morrell, M.D., and sent out by the Standard Publishing Company, contains a great deal, and much of it is pretty good. The woodcuts in illustration of the text are well enough, but the colored plates are calculated to arouse feelings of resentment.

There is genuine pleasure, sometimes, in speaking the truth. For instance, in saying

that the title and sub-title of "Sunshine and Playtime," so handsomely presented by E. P. Dutton & Co., should be improved so as to set forth "Illustrations of rare excellence by Emma Justine Farnsworth, with very good explanatory or commentary verses by Rt. Rev. William Croswell Doane, D.D." Probably no verses have recently been written at all equal to the faces and actions of these pictured children. It is a relief to a critic to take photography into account, but then they are so capitally well posed and taken. It is almost a pity that "More Pleasant Surprises for Chicks of all Sizes," from the same house, is so very elegant a Christmas table book, since its perfect consideration requires it to be opened on the floor, with all the chicks around it. Then one picture can change into another before their very eyes, and they can go wild with the pleasure of pulling the "tab" and making it work with their own hands. There are chicks, too, who will keep on pulling to see if yet another picture will come out.

ner in which its young readers will be made to take in the animal creation, from a squirrel to a bear, as familiar playmates, with something human in them. The birds are

Copyright, 1893, by Charles Scribner's Sons.