“An admirable novel is the result, and one which introduces us to a territory hitherto almost unexploited in fiction.” Wm. M. Payne.
“In ‘Alton of Somasco’ Mr. Bindloss is seen at his best.”
Bindloss, Harold.Cattle-baron’s daughter.†$1.50. Stokes.
The transition-period when the boundless cattle-landsof the Northwest were first opened to the home-steader is well handled in this story of the cattle-baron’s daughter and her divided loyalty to her father, the champion of the old order, and to her lover, the leader of the homestead boys. The characters are well drawn Western types and the scenes of feud and riot, of miniature war and revolution, are stirring, because behind the hero is the spirit of the times, the steady march of the settler leading to the final triumph of the plow.
“A tale of thrilling adventure with plentiful humorous relief.”
“The interest is well sustained to the end of the story, which is much above the average and is well worth reading.”
Binns, Henry Bryan.Life of Walt Whitman.**$3. Dutton.
In Mr. Binns’ biography and interpretation it has been the aim to write about Whitman rather than to give Whitman’s work with running commentary. The author is an Englishman “who ‘loves’ the United States,” and thinks the time is not yet ripe for a final and complete biography, and therefore his work is suggestive rather than conclusive in the sense of literary decisions. “It is as a man that I see and have sought to describe Whitman. But as a man of special and exceptional character, a new type of mystic or seer.” (N. Y. Times.)
“As a biography, it will easily take its place as our most exhaustive and authoritative record of Whitman’s career.”
Reviewed by M. A. DeWolfe Howe.
“Both in biographical detail and in critical comment the book is an excellent piece of work, perhaps the fullest and best study of the poet’s life and writings that has yet appeared.” Percy F. Bicknell.
“A book of some interest and value, which yet has a few of the faults common to most biographies. In the first place, it is too long.”
“The poet’s work is, indeed, vindicated simply and naturally by Mr. Binns, with no violence of argument, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge the fine quality of spirit which he displays.” Jessie B. Rittenhouse.
“Mr. Binns’ book, granted a few somewhat soulful peculiarities, is not at all bad.”
Birney, Mrs. Theodore W.Childhood. $1. Stokes.
Believing that “discord in the home is in most cases due to a lack of comprehension of child nature and its needs,” Mrs. Birney offers parents and teachers the benefits of her earnestly acquired experience. “She is singularly free from fads; does not write as if she were the whole Law and the Prophets on the subject of children.” (Critic.)
“A careful perusal of the book should bring help to many households.”
Birrell, Augustine.Andrew Marvell.**75c. Macmillan.
“Very little is said of the poetry upon which his reputation rests.”
Birrell, Augustine.In the name of the Bodleian, and other essays.**$1.50. Scribner.
“A collection of short essays on a great variety of subjects by a writer who is, by nature and training, a spectator and commentator of the school though not of the genius of Charles Lamb.” (Outlook.) “He opens his service, so to speak, in the name of the Bodleian, and goes to tell us of book-worms—the literary bookworm, not the one with spectacles—confirmed readers, first editions, libraries, old booksellers, collecting, and some score of similar things of value to the bibliophile.” (Acad.)
“If his work is always slight, it is very nearly always agreeable.”
“Represents him favorably enough as a critic none the less stimulating because he touches his topics with a light hand.”
“Is characteristically full of quaint fancies, brilliant sallies of wit and humor, keenly-calculated judgments of men and things, and an erudition that pointedly avoids beaten highways to cull its treasures from old nooks and dusty corners.”
“Without being in any sense of the word a great essayist, Mr. Augustine Birrell is a brilliant and lucid writer.”
“It would be a limited taste indeed that could not extract from [these essays] several half-hours of entertainment.”
“None of them will seem really trivial to lovers of ‘Obiter dicta’ and its successors. For they are all marked with the good-humored acuteness, the animated nonchalance, which engaged us in him long ago.” H. W. Boynton.
“This volume is more fragmentary and discursive than the earlier books from the same hand, and the papers are, on the whole, less valuable.”
“These essays, aside from the Arnold fling, are charming in tone and in their literary quality, which ranges from Baconian formality to a very effective use of modern slang.”
“It is always easy, but not always comforting, to read Mr. Birrell. When he is writing about books he is commonly delightful, though even here he cannot resist the temptation to ‘get his knife into’ something or somebody that he dislikes.”
Birukoff, Paul.Early life of Leo Tolstoy, his life and work. **$1.50. Scribner.
The work of a man who was a friend of Tolstoi’s and in his employ. The outlines of M. Paul Birukoff’s biography were filled in by notes furnished by Tolstoi himself which fact lends a serious and authoritative value to the work. This first volume gives an account of the origin of the Tolstois, the novelist’s childhood, youth and manhood, and ends with his marriage. “A great deal of attention is devoted to the moral development of the young prodigy and very little to those amusements and external interests that probably were of far more importance in shaping his character.” (Acad.)
“It is indeed a most serious work and suggests that the author was much more anxious to exhibit Leo Tolstoy as a prophet and teacher than as a literary artist whose province it is to hold the mirror up to nature.”
“This most interesting publication ought to find many readers.”
“There can be no doubt that this work will be a mine of information to the more critical biographer as well as in itself of much value.”
“It is an exhaustive analysis of the youth and early manhood of a personality of exceptional interest, with whose later years of achievement the reading-public is generally familiar.” Annie Russell Marble.
“When completed bids fair to become one of the important contributions to our biographical knowledge during recent years.” Wm. T. Brewster.
“One can pardon somewhat his lack of literary skill, in view of his transparent honesty, and modest attitude toward his work as ‘material’ for the use of more competent workers hereafter.”
“There is in his attitude towards his literary master a certain servility of indiscriminate admiration, a too thoroughgoing sympathy. The net result of which simplicity is that the eminent Russian’s worst enemy could have wished him no other biographer.”
“The undisguisedly autobiographic portions are exceedingly frank in places, and always intensely egotistical.”
“The book is thus chaotic and almost incoherent, yet most of the material is of intense interest.”
Black, Rev. J. F.Bible way: an antidote to Campbellism. *50c. Meth. bk.
An argument in dialogue form which presents arguments against the doctrine of so-called Christian or Campbellite church.
Black, John Janvier.Eating to live, with some advice to the gouty, the rheumatic, and the diabetic: a book for every body. *$1.50. Lippincott.
“Forewarned is forearmed” might be said to be the watchword of Dr. Black in his present work. He aims to save from pitfalls the mortals who eat and drink from instinct rather than from reason. He discusses the economics and values of different foods and gives dietary advice to people variously afflicted.
Blackmar, Frank Wilson.Elements of sociology. *$1.25. Macmillan.
“On the whole, the author has furnished us with a very serviceable text. It is a logical development of the principles of the science and the different branches have been brought into proper correlation. Its style is sufficiently simple for easy comprehension and the student will find it a working manual of great value.” George B. Mangold.
“Is a singularly ineffective and eminently mediocre book. It affords no real penetrating insight into the nature of society. It has no intrinsic coherence.”
“In general it may be said that Mr. Blackmar has made effective use of the new sources of material and new developments of theory that have become available since the publication of Mr. Fairbanks’ book.... Many pages of Mr. Blackmar’s book are marred by English not merely faulty, but incorrigibly and persistently so to such an extent that the sense may be recovered only with difficulty.” Robert C. Brooks.
“The chapters on social pathology bring the science down to earth, and constitute probably the most valuable part of the book.”
“Will serve a useful purpose ... for intelligent general readers and social workers who wish to gain a social attitude of mind in relation to all varieties of man’s activities.”
Blair, Emma Helen, and Robertson, James Alexander, eds.Philippine islands, 1493–1898.55 v. ea. *$4. Clark, A. H.
“In eight volumes just under consideration, ninety documents ... are produced in translation, as are parts of the whole of seven old printed works. The editorial work upon these documents shows painstaking care and much discrimination. The translations—and this is important—appear generally to deserve the same commendation.” James A. LeRoy.
Reviewed by James A. LeRoy.
“The volumes of 1905 are, all in all, the best edited and most carefully arranged and translated of the series thus far.”
Blake, Katharine Evans.Hearts’ haven. †$1.50. Bobbs.
“A stirring romance, rich in lights and shadows, full of human interest and possessing the peculiar charm of new scenes and surroundings. Another excellence of this work is the remarkable knowledge of psychology displayed.”
“The author of ‘Hearts’ haven’ has made clever use of her material, and the admission that the book leaves behind it a sense of depression is in itself a tribute to her strength.” Frederick Taber Cooper.
Blake, William.Poetical works: a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letter-press originals; with variorum readings and bibliographical notes and prefaces by J. Sampson. *$3.50. Oxford.
“‘Blake’s final version is uniformly adopted as the text, while all earlier or cancelled readings are supplied in foot-notes.’ All the poems are arranged exactly as they are found, and each group is given, as far as is known, in chronological order. The two main MS. sources, the Rossetti and the Pickering MSS., are now printed for the first time from careful and accurate transcripts, made by the present owner, Mr. W. A. White of Brooklyn, N. Y.”—Ath.
“If it be desirable to possess a scholarly and complete edition of Blake, it would be impossible to imagine anything more suitable to the purpose than the edition before us.”
“Mr. Sampson’s edition of Blake is a masterpiece of editing and Blake, of all modern English poets, was most in need of a good editor.”
“We cannot be too grateful for this beautiful and scholarly edition of the great mystic.”
“Mr. Sampson has compiled texts, compared different readings, grasped and illuminated obscure points, with all the tact and insight of the born commentator. His book should become the standard authority for all Blake students.”
“Is in point of laborious research and painstaking arrangement, one of the most admirable pieces of editing that we have lately seen.”
Blanchard, Amy Ella.Four Corners.†$1.50. Jacobs.
The three Virginia acres on which the somewhat impoverished Corner family lived formed the center of the stage upon which the four little Corners, Nan, Mary Lee, and the twins, a cousin, an old mule named Pete, an angora cat, a mongrel dog, and a few delightful grownups, act out a little family drama. In it, sad little economies, sickness, and trouble bravely met, are contrasted with the joys of healthy girlhood with homely adventures, and happy little surprises. It is a story that will make careless little girls thankful for their blessings.
“It is a peasant, homy sort of tale.”
Blanchard, Amy Ella.Little Miss Mouse. †$1. Jacobs.
Miss Hester Brackenbury in days of affluence adopts two little waifs, a small boy and a girl, and when a few months later, she becomes poor she refuses to give them up but moves into a cottage and supports them by making buttonholes. It is a pretty story for grown-ups as well as children, for in the background is an old love-story which throws a mellow light upon the children in the foreground, their joys, their contentions and their troubles. In the end, thru little Miss Mouse and an old receipt, Aunt Hester is restored to her old estate.
Bland, Edith (Nesbit) (Mrs. Hubert Bland).Incomplete amorist.†$1.50. Doubleday.
“A study of an accomplished and refined male flirt who plays the game of love with counters only to find that at last he must play with gold. Contrasted with this superfine trifler is a straightforward, even impulsive English girl whose common sense and simple ignorance of the early Empire. These last three studies her girl artist life in Paris. The story has movement, variety, and originality.”—Outlook.
“It is essentially bright, witty, superficial work, and we are sorry to be, more than once, confronted with problems and situations which demand a stronger treatment and a deeper insight into human nature.”
“There are several reasons why ‘The incomplete amorist’ is deserving of attention. To begin with, it treats old and well-worn material in a new and whimsical way.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“To judge by the experiment her true vein would promise to lie not in the picturesque region of Bohemian romance, but on the quiet levels of rustic comedy.”
“‘E. Nesbit’ has shown that she understands grown-ups as well as she does children, and in ‘The incomplete amorist’ has written a novel original, clever, and full of interest.”
“It has the great affirmative merit that it never bores the reader.”
“As this novel is a study in masculine psychology it is unsatisfying.”
“The greater part of the story is extraordinarily vulgar, and to that part of it which is not vulgar it is impossible to apply any epithet but that of ‘stagy.’ The story cannot but remind its readers of the sentimental fiction of about twenty years ago.”
“In the midst of the inrush of novels it is one of the few that deserve a better fate than that of serving as a time-killer.”
Bland, Edith (Nesbit) (Mrs. Hubert Bland).Railway children; with drawings by C. E. Brock. †$1.50. Macmillan.
“By a family misfortune these children are for a time deprived of their father, compelled to leave their pleasant home, and obliged to live in a little cottage close to the railway. All their strange joys and troubles are in one way or another connected with this railway and its surroundings.”—Outlook.
“A fragrant and sweet story. It would be indeed difficult to find one better suited for reading around the nursery fire or one which boys and girls alike would more enjoy.”
“The interest—of which there is fair amount—is fortunately independent of the weak pen-and-ink drawings.”
“E. Nesbit has put into a book for children some of that cleverness and charm which characterize his grown up stories.”
“The incidents are worked out in a decidedly original way, and the story is strong enough to hold the attention of older readers as well as of young people”.
“It seems to us a pity that she has introduced into her latest story so very tragic and unpleasant a subject as imprisonment, whether wrongful or otherwise; to say nothing of implanting a premature distrust of British justice in the youthful reader’s mind.”
“We can thoroughly recommend ‘The railway children’ as an excellent story.”
Bland, Edith (Nesbit) (Mrs. Hubert Bland).Rainbow and the rose.*$1.50. Longmans.
This volume of poems shows the author to be “Skilled in her craft.... We like her best in her village monologues, which are full of insight and humour and sound philosophy. But when she pleases she can write also graceful songs.” (Spec.)
“Full of clever things in the conventional condescending mood which ought not to succeed, but unquestionably does. For the rest, E.Nesbit is not a poet, not a minor poet, not even an exquisite maker of verse; but all that an able woman who is not these can do by means of verse, she can do.”
“Many of the occasional pieces here tremble on the verge of success, and it seems as if a little more trouble and thought would have made them excellent.”
“Her work always pleases. It reaches about the level of Jean Ingelow’s thought and sentiment, but never quite achieves the distinction of Christina Rossetti.” Wm. M. Payne.
“Has the same qualities that has given her other collections rather exceptional circulation. Mrs. Bland’s poetic sentiment is appealing rather than poignant with the true poetic poignancy; though she has no gift of verbal magic, she has verbal adequacy, and her verse is always readable.”
“The ‘Rainbow and the rose’ ... is neither decadent nor revolutionary, but fresh and individual in a simple way that makes agreeable reading of her more or less subjective verse.”
“Shows much dexterity in versification, and a wider range than is usual in modern lyrics.”
Bliss, Frederick Jones.Development of Palestine exploration. **$1.50. Scribner.
This book which presents in amplified form the lectures delivered before the Union theological seminary in 1903 “treats of the progress made in the art of identifying sites, of the shifting point of view of travellers of different times, of Edward Robinson, Renan and his contemporaries, and of the Palestine Exploration fund and the exploration of the future.” (Am. Hist. R.)
“The work, as a whole, is written in an admirable spirit. Justice is done to the labors of each writer mentioned, though Dr. Bliss does not hesitate to mete out fair criticism to each when it seems necessary. The book contains an occasional misprint.” George A. Barton.
“His tone is scholarly and his criticism remarkably just and well balanced. In a future edition Dr. Bliss might correct some misprints.”
“An ambitious work covering in small compass a large tract of history.”
“The book is full of important information, not only for the Bible student, but also for the modern traveller, who incidentally receives some good advice.”
“His work is neither a complete bibliography, with such notes as will enable a student to select what he wants for study, nor, on the other hand, is it a narrative of exploration. It falls midway between.”
Blomfield, Reginald.Studies in architecture. *$3.25. Macmillan.
Mr. Blomfield who is a “practising architect of distinction and enthusiasm sends a side-glance at Byzantium and Lombardy, but is chiefly occupied with the architecture (and architects) of the French and Italian renaissance.... Mr. Blomfield has not fallen into the faults he denounces: what he writes is full of interest because of his standpoint (and standing) as an architect, his personal knowledge of the buildings of which he writes, and his researches into their history. Above all, he has great enthusiasm for his art, a passion which archæology (while admitting others) tends, it would seem, to exclude.” (Spec.)
“A book as interesting as it is sound.”
“The volume is a real contribution to architectural criticism.”
“Can be heartily recommended to layman and architect alike. Its literary flavour is delicate; its architectural criticisms are sound, to the point, and keen.”
Blundell, Mary E. Sweetman (Mrs. Francis Blundell).Simple annals. †$1.50. Longmans.
Natural simple stories of humble village life. “Mrs. Blundell says in her Foreword that a golden thread runs through the homespun of even the most commonplace life. In each of these stories she has followed the golden thread. The village girls are innocent and charming, the men are chivalrous—their purpose is invariably marriage, and courtships end, as they should, with wedding-bells.” (Acad.)
“Our only quarrel is with her claim in the Foreword to call these charming fables ‘studies.’ For that, they are surely too slight and too determinedly optimistic.”
“None of them reaches the high level which the best of ‘Dorset dear’ attained.”
“It is as charming a book of the kind as we have come across in many a long day.”
“The book is full of delicately handled studies of the lights and shadows that fall across the existence of the modern workaday world.”
“A collection of short stories, which are even better from a point of view of comprehensive description than her novels.”
Blundell, Mary E. (Sweetman) (Mrs. Francis Blundell; M. E. Francis, pseuds.).Wild wheat: a Dorset romance. †$1.50. Longmans.
Another tale of the West country, which “carries its readers’ thoughts far afield on to the blue hills and into the wild woods.” (Spec.) “It has more of passion and sorrow in it than most of her romances, but is all the stronger for this, while there is enough of the humorous and cheerful to balance the whole. The love story is sweet and wholesome.” (Outlook.)
“‘Wild wheat’ is an admirable story and Peter’s character is finely handled, but in general interest it does not reach the level of some other Dorset tales.”
“This is a very readable story of country life, though it is not equal to ‘The manor farm.’ The plot is a little thin.”
“A correct, pretty, unpretentious tale that will please those who love the primroses of literature.”
“Inconsequent as the story is, it is readable, and perhaps we have found it the more provoking because indications are not wanting of the author’s capability of really good work.”
Boas, Henrietta O’Brien (Owen) (Mrs. Frederick Samuel).With Milton and the Cavaliers. **$1.50. Pott.
“This book is a collection of biographical sketches relating to the chief personages in England at the time of the civil war. The only connection that binds them together is the common period of which they treat and the historical thread that runs through them. The political, military, religious, literary, and social figures of the time are all illustrated in these essays, which taken together, thus present in a way a sort of picture of the moving forces of the period.”—N. Y. Times.
“Is not an instructive or a well-written book.”
“She has written soundly and soberly and from abundance of information. She has not made her work abstruse, and it is a clear and consistent account of a momentous period in English history.”
Boggs, Sara E.Sandpeep. †$1.50. Little.
Keren Happuch Brenson, better known as Sandpeep, a child of the waves as well as the shore who “fished and lobstered for a living” and listened in ecstasy to the music of her fiddle string across the pane of her cobwebby loft, is a heroine “rustic from her finger tips to her innermost cerebral atom.” Her development from the moment she became young Geoffrey Warrington’s governess to the day that established her in Munich for musical study is characterized by fearless loyalty and keen devotion to purpose. With a “Jane Eyre heroine and a virtuous Rochester” the story also records the mercenary intrigue of a woman’s substitution, of herself and child for her departed twin sister and baby, out of which deception grows the plot.
“Parts of it are really exciting.”
Boissier, Gaston.Tacitus and other Roman studies tr. by W. G. Hutchison. †$1.75. Putnam.
“This volume contains four essays: the first, occupying more than half the whole work, deals with Tacitus as an historian, the others with subjects connected with the same period carry her through some trying experiences andcontain much instruction and not a little entertainment. The Roman ‘Schools of declamation’ are described with admirable point and refreshing humour.... The essay on ‘The Roman journal’ helps us to realize how a worldwide empire managed to survive without newspapers. The discussion of the poet Martial is a specimen of ... lively and illuminating literary criticism.”—Sat. R.
“The young student of the Imperial age ... can get to closer grips with the facts, even if he cannot deal with them so incisively and so elegantly as M. Boissier.”
“The translation is correct in the main, and reads fairly smoothly. We wish that the book might be read and pondered by lovers of Tacitus, writers of history, and any other scholars who are planning learned works.”
“M. Boissier’s sympathetic essay will please all those who believe in the educational value of the ancient historians and who admire the greatest of them.” Robert L. Schuyler.
“If consequently we advise all those students who can do so to read M. Boissier in the original, no offence is intended Mr. Hutchison, whose translation is readable and accurate, and will lead many to work at the subject who would be deterred by a French book.”
Bolton, Sarah Knowles (Mrs. Charles E. Bolton).Famous American authors. $2. Crowell.
“Entertaining, chatty, sympathetic essays.”
Bombaugh, Charles Carroll.Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature. **$3. Lippincott.
“The collection is large and varied, and the ‘chestnut’ is not more frequent than one would expect.”
Bond, Francis.Gothic architecture in England. *$12. Scribner.
“Mr. Bond’s work is extraordinarily full, extraordinarily minute, and enriched by a wealth of illustrations, as well as most elaborate indexes, a very full bibliography, a chronological table, and many sheets of comparative mouldings drawn ... to a uniform scale.... Part 1 is introductory, and covers the whole origin and development of mediæval church architecture in this country; while Part 2 is an analysis in which the whole ground is gone over in detail, piece by piece.”—Spec.
“This is in every sense of the word, a great book. It is a book that at once steps to the front as authoritative, and it will be long before it is superseded.”
“Weighty and eminently trustworthy volume. His language is never obscure, and the veriest novice can follow with ease the arguments that are the result of many years’ study and of the critical insight that is so rare a gift.”
“As a mine of erudition, of detailed analysis and information, and of criticism on English mediaeval church architecture, the book is worthy of all praise. It is no rival in persuasive literary style to the charm of Viollet-le-duc’s delightful mastery of lucid French.”
“This is a scholar’s book.”
“Altogether a volume very well worth having, worth inspecting, worth reading, even, up to a certain point, worth studying.” Montgomery Schuyler.
“Must stand for many years to come asthebook of reference on the subject of ecclesiastical Gothic in England for all architects and archæologists.”
Bond, Octavia Zollicoffer.Old tales retold; or, Perils and adventures of Tennessee pioneers. *$1. Pub. House of M. E. Ch. So.
The annals of Ramsay and Putnam and later historical chronicles have been followed “with faithful and painstaking exactness” bythe writer in these tales of pioneer life. “They will give the rising generation of Tennesseans more admiration and respect for the hardy and intelligent pioneers who invaded the wilderness and built up our western civilization.”
Bonner, Geraldine (Hard Pan, pseud.).Castlecourt diamond case. †$1. Funk.
Lady Castlecourt’s diamonds are stolen, and thereby hangs a detective tale in the relating of which six people participate. First the lady’s maid tells her story, then follow statements by the real thief, by Cassius P. Kennedy and his wife into whose innocent possession the stolen gems are thrust when the scared thief is forced to act quickly, by the private detective, and, lastly, by Lady Castlecourt herself who furnishes the key to a surprising situation.
“A detective novelette of some uncommon qualities.”
“An amusing detective story.”
Booth, Eva Gore-.Three resurrections, and The triumph of Maeve. **$2. Longmans.
Mythological and metaphysical parables based upon the themes of Lazarus, Alcestis and Psyche form the first part of this volume of poetry, while the second is a romance in dramatic form which is “filled with the haunting spirit of Celtic mysticism.” (Dial.)
“Miss Gore-Booth is a very thoughtful poet, who avoids affected diction, and combines depth with simplicity.” Wm. M. Payne.
“The bathos which is so frequently the result of a forced alliance between poetry and science, is a feature of ‘The three resurrections, and The triumph of Maeve.’”
“There is an unreality in the imagery and a monotony in the epithets which, in spite of all her art, affect the reader with weariness.”
Borrow, George.Romano lavo-lil; word book of the Romany or English-Gypsy language. $2. Putnam.
“Altogether it is an entertaining book, full of the spirit that makes ‘Lavengro’ so attractive, and with a bit more of a serious definite character.”
Bose, Jagadis Chunder.Plant response as a means of physiological investigation. *$7. Longmans.
“A substantial octavo volume of more than 700 pages, devoted to the elucidation and illustration of a single thesis. Although this thesis is here given in many forms and stated in connection with numerous associated topics, it is essentially simple in its outline. It is this: the plant is a machine; its movements in response to external stimuli, though apparently various, are ultimately reducible to a fundamental unity of reaction.... By means of ingenious delicate instruments which exaggerate the slightest motion at any spot, he has long been able to demonstrate that even the oldest tissues of a plant, so long as they are living are capable of responding in a marked degree to certain external stimuli. A special feature distinguishing this treatise from many of its class is the presentation, at the end of every chapter, of a summary which gives in a few short sentences the substance of the chapter.”—Nation.
“One which no plant physiologist, however much he may combat details in it, can afford to ignore.”
“The account itself is too detailed and too diffuse to be read straight through by any but a lover of plants or a student of the problem. It is however, simple and straightforward.” E. T. Brewster.
“The book is not without errors, both of reasoning and fact, into which the author has fallen by reason of some unfamiliarity with his materials. But whatever the future may show as to the accuracy of details, this book may be acclaimed as a path-breaking one; for it shows a method of attack and a refinement of instrumentation for the study of the phenomena or irritable reactions in plants that are sure to be of the utmost service.” C. R. B.
“The treatise is stimulating and is likely to be fruitful in controversy.”
Boswell, James.Life of Samuel Johnson; ed. with an introd. by Mobray Morris. 2v. $2.50. Crowell.
The introduction sketches briefly the difficulties and perils which surrounded Boswell in the preparation of his lasting work, and concludes with “A great subject and a great picture! Nor can portrait and painter ever be dissociated. As long as the huge bulk of Johnson rolls down the stream of Time, so long will the queer little figure of his biographer be saluted with no unkindly laughter.”
Boswell, James.Life of Johnson.$1. Frowde.
A reprint of the third edition of this standard biography. It is similar in make-up to the handy classic volumes.
Boulton, William B.Sir Joshua Reynolds. **$3. Dutton.
“If less vigorous in its ideas than Armstrong’s work, has the merit of telling the story of the painter’s life with much entertaining detail.” Royal Cortissoz.
“While the work of Leslie and Taylor must remain the best source for an original study of Reynolds, this volume is easily the best general survey that we know.” Charles Henry Hart.
“He has something of Boswell’s gift. He knows what facts are worth telling and what are not. His style is unpretending, but not disagreeable.”
Bourne, Henry Eldridge.History of mediaeval and modern Europe. $1.50. Longmans.
“In the volume under review, Professor Bourne aims to give an account of European history which shall accent the features of the development common to European peoples as a whole, and subordinate the details of the different countries. He has met with reasonable success in this aim as well as in the effort to adapt the narrative to the needs of secondary school students; for it is this audience rather than that of a college that the author appears to have had in mind.”—Yale R.
Reviewed by Earl Wilbur Dow.
“A conveniently arranged and well illustrated text-book for school.”
“The geographical relationships have been carefully noted, and strict attention has been paid to chronology, the various events of history in several countries being arranged in respect to time, so that the pupil will be able to carry the general situation pretty clearly in mind, while studying some special detail.” Francis W. Shepardson.
“The style on the whole is excellent, simple, remarkably free from technical terms, and abounding in effective illustrations.” Curtis Howe Walker.
Bousset, Wilhelm.Jesus; tr. by Janet Penrose Trevelyan; ed. by W. D. Morrison. *$1.25. Putnam.
A book which “is a study of the mind of Jesus in its relation to the Jewish circle of His time, with its ideas and ideals, and also to the larger world of humanity.” (Ath.) “Bousset rejects the miraculous from the Gospel story and regards it as a later accretion. The only wonderful works of Jesus which he considers genuine are His miracles of healing. ‘His healing activity lies entirely within the bounds of what is psychologically conceivable.’” (Hibbert. J.)
“Translated into excellent English.”
“Tho brief in compass and designed as a popular hand-book, could not be omitted from any fair list of recent scientific studies in the records of the past.”
“The character and teaching of the Saviour are treated by Professor Bousset with splendid sympathy, though he occasionally adopts a tone of patronage; and he frankly rejects some of His moral teaching as exaggerated and impracticable. But in spite of this, we welcome the book as being a real step back from mere criticism towards a deeper religious appreciation of our Lord and His gospel.”
Bovey, Henry Taylor.Theory of structures and strength of materials. *$7.50. Wiley.
“The book, as its title indicates, is an attempt to cover, in one volume subjects which are generally and in the opinion of the reviewer, better, separated. It apparently aims to be a treatise on mechanics, the strength of materials, friction, framed structures, masonry, and, to some extent on machinery. The subjects of toothed gearing, dynamometers, belts and ropes appear, although they are usually included in works on structures.”—Engin. N.
“The book contains a very large amount of information, and will be useful as a book of reference for those familiar with the subject, but it is very poorly arranged and there is a lack of emphasis on fundamental principles.” George F. Swain.
“We have no hesitation in saying that Prof. Bovey in thus practically rewriting his book has considerably improved its value, both to the engineering student and to the civil engineer, engaged in the design of all classes of structures in steel and iron.” T. H. B.
Bowen, Marjorie.Viper of Milan.$1.50. McClure.
“The viper of Milan,” written by a youthful novelist of sixteen, outlines against a mediaeval background the black intrigues of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. The plot centers about Visconti’s destruction of Verona, his abduction of the Duke of Verona’s wife and the efforts of the Duke to rescue her, necessitating a round of treacherous adventure.
“While making no special pretensions to historical accuracy, it attains, from the standpoint of romance, an unusually high level. We notice with regret the numerous grammatical slips which disfigure an otherwise excellent style.”
“The book represents an infinitesimal achievement, and it would not be serving Miss Bowen to pretend that we find special promise in it.”
“Della Scala and Visconti stand out most vividly in one’s memory of the characters, but there are many others drawn with admirable delicacy and skill. She has certainly triumphed along unconventional lines, for love is not the absorbing theme in ‘The viper of Milan,’ and the ending is most unhappy.”
“For so young a writer, Miss Bowen shows a remarkable sense of style, which, taken in conjunction with her energy and imaginative power, make her a welcome recruit to the ranks of adventurous romancers.”
Bowne, Borden Parker.Immanence of God. **$1. Houghton.
The author says that “The undivineness of the natural and unnaturalness of the divine is the great heresy of popular thought respecting religion.” He would offset the heresy with the statement “God is the omnipresent ground of all finite existence and activity.” “Two ... characteristics are very apparent in this little book.... The first is his ability to see clearly the reality so often hidden behind a voluminous debate about words; the second is his literary knack in so expressing the truth that the non-scholastic reader can understand it.” (Outlook.)
Reviewed by George Hodges.
“His volume is a very sane and a very readable book, at once profound in thought and intelligible in expression.”
Boxall, George E.Anglo-Saxon; a study in evolution. $1.25. Wessels.
The aim of this volume is “to bring all the English-speaking peoples together by enabling them to realize their own characteristics.” And to this end the author “has covered the ground that the Anglo-Saxon occupies in anthropology, history, economics, art, theology, and everything else.... The privileged classes of England are a Latin survival, and so is the ‘boss’ of American politics. Nevertheless, Americans, Australians, and other Anglo-Saxons are far ahead of Great Britain in their progress towards true Anglo-Saxonism; but a revulsion is coming even there.” (N. Y. Times.)
“He goes on for page after page proclaiming statements, sometimes of the most far-reaching importance positive and negative, and sometimes completely reversing conclusions of the students of those subjects, without a rag of evidence except the statement of his own general impression.”
“His observations are comprehensive and interesting, but rather cursory and superficial. In philosophizing upon them he is plainly amateurish.”
Boyce, Neith, pseud. (Mrs. Hutchins Hapgood).Eternal spring: a novel. †$1.50. Fox.
A drama full of youth and love is enacted bya group of Americans on an Italian stage. A young American of thirty whose struggle for a competence in the Chicago stock-market had worn him down to “the absolute essentials of physical being” goes to Italy to marry the woman he had secretly loved—eight years his senior and now a widow. While pursuing the course of a luke-warm wooing he falls in love with her cousin, a gifted girl made melancholy by a wrongly fostered idea of hereditary insanity. The courage of the woman who relinquishes her claim on him is only surpassed by his energy in dispelling the illusion of insanity that holds the woman he loves.
“‘The eternal spring,’ forms a curious and not altogether satisfactory antithesis to ‘The forerunner,’ insomuch as its plot is a much more conspicuous feature than its human nature. It is not so fine a piece of art as the author’s earlier novel, not so fine even as her short stories.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“Sentimentality runs riot in this story of young love in Italy.”
“The story is told with freshness and charm, in parts almost with distinction.” Wm. M. Payne.
“Although we have found its leading characters not a little exasperating, ‘The eternal spring’ is a model of unusual originality and interest.”
“This story is not bad reading.”
“The absence of plot and incident seems to indicate that it was intended to be a psychological novel; but the absence of any real psychological analysis leaves it doubtful just where to place it.”
Boyd, James E.Differential equations. 60c. James E. Boyd, Columbus, O.
“The merit of the book consists in a large number of mechanical and electrical problems that are given. These ought to do much to stimulate the interests of the students for whom the author writes.” William Benjamin Fite.
Boyd, Mary Stuart.Misses Make-Believe. †$1.50. Holt.
The Misses Make-Believe occupy a dilapidated London house, drive a victoria, jobbed for the London season on the most moderate terms, give “ghastly” receptions, the eve of which function finds them in the kitchen making half a dozen packets of table jelly and a bag of flour and a dozen shop eggs into supper for fifty. The guardian of these ambitious sisters at length persuades them to leave their stifling atmosphere and take up their abode in the country. The story really begins at this point, for when Belle and Eileen learn to live natural lives, their most coveted desires are within reach,—happiness, friends, and even husbands.
“The book is not remarkable, nor is it, in style, to be called common-place.”
Boyesen, Bayard.Marsh: a poem. $1. Badger, R: G.
“Is a piece of rather shadowy symbolism, which has, withal, a continuity of poetic atmosphere that is distinctly of promise.”
“It contains some fine lines, but the average reader is too intent upon economizing his gray cortex to use it in deciphering allegories.”
“Is poetic both in feeling and expression, moving swiftly and easily in its dramatic form, but the symbolism is too pervasive and rather obscure and the setting is cumbersome for the matter.”
Bradford, Amory H.Inward light. **$1.20. Crowell.
“Altho these papers were written before the publication of Sabatier’s ‘Religions of authority and the religion of the spirit,’ they may be regarded as the doctrine and message of that remarkable book adapted to the religious situation in America.”
Bradford, Gamaliel, jr.Between two masters. †$1.50. Houghton.
“A young man who suspects taint on money won in State street but is uncertain as to how it may be removed or avoided is the central figure of the tale. In addition there are three young ladies, one standing for ease of living and material comfort, one for charm and vivacity of manner, and the third for social service. In the end his feet stray into the paths of the social settlement.”—Pub. Opin.