T

HE Christmas harvest of books this year is nearly as great and as varied as that of the holiday season of last year. As usual, probably the intending buyer will meet with the customary embarrassment of riches among the stores of those volumes reckoned as distinctively Christmas books; but he may be less dismayed by the solid front of new books of abiding interest and value, lately issued from a prolific press. There are not many books this year of the permanent worth of Theodore Sedgwick Fay's "Three Germanys," Colonel Church's biography of John Ericsson, or Henry Adams's new volumes of American history. But in the matter of gift-books, lighter fiction, and reprints of old favorites, the market has not been neglected.

One notable feature of this year's book-harvest is the latest development of the annual, or books of days and seasons. It is a long step from the "Young Ladies' Annual" and "Friendship's Offering" of the old times to the artistic and sumptuous folios of to-day. Will the dilettanti of thirty years hence look on these offerings of ours with the same mild amusement with which we regard the annuals of 1830? It seems hardly possible that art can go much

further than in this beautiful folio, "Time's Footsteps," published by E. P. Dutton & Co., for example. It is a record of red-letter days, days made memorable by rare pleasures; and these delightfully illuminated pages are arranged for the recording of special holidays, visits of dear friends, choice bits of music heard. books read, and other pleasures of the fleeting months. The artistic printing, like so much that is new this year, comes from Nuremberg. "The King's Highway," with texts and poetical selections for every day in the month, richly set and adorned, is from the same house and the same Bavarian printers. The same is true of "Year In, Year Out," another of the dainty books of days put forth by this house. A novelty in the same field of art is "Sea Chimes," six charming etchings, with appropriate poetical selections, bound in navy blue and tied with a silken cable; published by the Frederick A. Stokes Co. Oscar Fay Adams, in "The Poet's Year" (D. Lothrop Co.) has also achieved a notable success. He has compiled a poet's calendar for all the year round from the works of the poets who have lived nearest to Nature's heart -Tennyson, Longfellow, William Morris, Browning, and others of the singing brotherhood; and these selections are profusely and beautifully illus

trated. The same firm put forth in Out of Doors with Tennyson" a less elaborate work, but a more delicately illustrated book; it is a work of art, the pencil accompanying the poet through the leafy glades and by the talking brook made memorable by Tennyson's genius. Here are Tennyson's best poems of out-of-door inspiration. "Golden Links," from E. P. Dutton & Co., is a birthday book pure and simple, prettily illuminated, and printed in Nuremberg. Susan Coolidge's year-book, "The Day's Message," is a handy volume of scriptural prose and poetical selections from the masters, a goodly companion for the coming years, published by Roberts Brothers.

One of the most superb of this season's giftbooks is "The Golden Treasury of Art and Song," a collection of pretty little bits of verse, edited and arranged by Robert E. Mack and illustrated by R. A. Bell, and printed in Nuremberg. This lovely folio comes from E. P. Dutton & Co., and its pictures have all the delicacy and brilliancy of water-color drawings. "A Pathway of Flowers," from the same house, is an autograph book, printed in colors so soft and rare as to deceive" even the very elect" into the notion that its pages are "hand-painted," as the uninitiated sometimes have it. This house also publishes "Familiar London," the letterpress of which is by C. T. L'Estrange, and the tinted illustrations, which are very fine indeed, by Allan Barraud. In the same line of beautiful work is "Bunyan's Home," by John Brown, D.D., a pastor in the old

P. Dutton & Co. Health Guyed" is an amusing skit with pen and pencil, by Frank P. W. Bellew, published by the Frederick A. Stokes Co.; and from the same house comes a delightfully satiric trifle translated from the German by Blanche Willis Howard, "The Humming-Top," an elaborate joke in covers.

Of the books of the year on art, none will excel, undoubtedly, this second edition of Professor W. H. Goodyear's "History of Art," published by A. S. Barnes & Co. It is an altogether admirable work, and the reviewer can confidently commend it to the amateur who desires to learn a little something about the art of every land, to the tourist who proposes to study art in its own dwelling-places, and to the teacher who seeks a trustworthy text-book. In its way, this handsome volume is unique. "The Good Things of Life" is published by the Frederick A. Stokes Co., and, as heretofore, the good things are too few to satisfy the pleased excursionist through these pages. They are many, but they might be more, though not better. "The Grand Army Picture-Book," from George Routledge & Sons, though by no means an art work, is full of entertainment and instruction for the young folks, and in "Great Cities of the World," edited by Elbridge S. Brooks and pub

Bunyan meeting-house, and "Shakespeare and His Birthplace," by Emma Marshall, a very competent authority on English antiquities. Both of these books are from the Nuremberg press, and are published in this country by E.

D. Lothrop Co.

season by another volume in a similar vein, "Idyls of the Field," by the same author, and published by Roberts Brothers. It is difficult to define the differences that separate from each other such close observers of nature as

Gilbert White, John Burroughs, Henry D. Thoreau, and the rest of the goodly company who have written in the same vein and have observed in the same fields. All of them impress one with the charm of leisureliness in their mode of living and thinking; all have the same indefinable grace of manner with which they approach the secluded haunts of Mother Nature. But none of these comes any nearer a universal familiarity with animated nature than Mr. Knight. The number of topics that engage his attention and the easy terms of his acquaintanceship with all may well confound the average reader. These two books are delicious and gracious reading. They gratify while they refine.

Two books from Eugene Field, who is sometimes known as "the Chicago humorist," are notable contributions to the literature of the

Charles Scribner's Sons.

of a very considerable reputation; and the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, have clothed the two volumes in a garb that is as dainty as the thought of the writer. There is something more than wit and humor in these verses, so delicate in their fancy and so refined in feeling. Here and there, as in "Casey's Table d'Hôte" or "Professor Vere de Blaw," the humor is less fine in fibre, but actual coarseness is never found in any of these delicious bits of true Western humor. The songs of Christmas breathe a genuine Christmas feeling, and the archaic verses, like "Chrystmasse of Olde" and the "Mediæval Eventide Song," are good examples of an antique style, the secret of which can be seized only by a careful student. Mr. Field's versatility is something remarkable. It is difficult to believe that from the same pen came the delightful and delicate "In the Firelight" and "The Little Peach," so familiar to all theatre-goers who have heard that ridiculous burlesque. The little tales pos