“There is plenty of go to the stories, which afford a pleasant couple of hours’ entertainment.”
“Remind one very strongly of the work of Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells ... though they fall perceptibly short of the very close approach to technical perfection of both those writers.”
Rowntree, B. Seebohm.Betting and gambling: a national evil.*$1.60. Macmillan.
“There is probably no more useful work on the whole subject of betting and gambling than the present volume.” W. R. Sorley.
Rowntree, Joseph, and Sherwell, Arthur.Taxation of the liquor trade, v. 1. *$3.25. Macmillan.
“The present volume is concerned with public-houses, hotels, restaurants, theaters, railway bars, and clubs as they are managed in Great Britain. It also includes two chapters on the subject of license taxation in the United States, giving the varied experiences of such states as Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. The chief purpose of the writers in this volume is to show the inadequacy of the existing scale of taxation in Great Britain.”—R. of Rs.
“Though written with a distinct purpose and to support a precise programme, it is a careful study of a highly complex question, a well stored armoury for the friends of temperance, and also a careful aid to the fiscal reformer.”
“Our authors are concerned chiefly with the fiscal aspects of the license problem, and it is from this point of view that their performance must be judged. Tested by such a criterion, they have done their work well and they have left few loopholes for the shafts of the severest critic.”
“Timely and valuable volume.”
Rowson, Susanna Haswell.Charlotte Temple: a tale of truth; with an historical and biographical introd. by Francis W. Halsey; reprinted from the first Am. ed., 1794. $1.25. Funk.
“Mr. Halsey has given his edition a very thorough equipment of historical and bibliographical matter.”
Rumbold, Sir Horace.Final recollections of a diplomatist. $5. Longmans.
The fourth volume of Sir Horace Rumbold’s reminiscences covers the period from 1885 to his retirement from diplomatic service in 1900. During these years he was sent to three courts—to Athens, The Hague, and Vienna.
“It is characterized by the same lightness of touch as its predecessors, and also, perhaps by the same preference for matters of superficial and personal interest over the graver side of public affairs.”
“The reader’s one regret is apt to be that the man who had the chance to see so much saw so little.”
“Garrulous Sir Horace Rumbold is in the sense that he repeats a fact simply because it is a fact, and he happens to remember it, without ever stopping to consider whether it is an interesting fact.”
“The merits of this book, if viewed not only as the story of a long diplomatic life, but as literature, are visible in every chapter.”
Runkle, Bertha.Truth about Tolna. †$1.50. Century.
Tolna, the golden-throated tenor, who is not what he seems to be, gives to this novel of modern New York society a real individuality. The whole action occupies but seven days. There are many people more or less rich and more or less socially ambitious involved in the plot, but they are merely vivacious adjuncts to the story of Tolna and his love for Honor, the cold beauty who was his boyhood’s playmate, and or Denys Alden, the man who, having lost his own voice, rejoices in the triumphs of his protégé, living in his success until he even renounces to him Marjorie, the girl he loves, only to find that her heart is his, but not his to renounce.
“There is a degree of clever originality about Bertha Runkle’s new book. ‘The truth about Tolna,’ of which her previous venture in fiction, ‘The helmet of Navarre,’ gave scant promise.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“This frothy story is moderately entertaining, but is not to be taken seriously from any point of view.” Wm. M. Payne.
“Miss Runkle has conceived a very original plot, and shows much skill both in tangling and untangling its threads.”
“There are a dash and vigor about the handling of this novel of modern New York life that will carry it perhaps beyond its real merits.”
“It can hardly be counted a successful piece of fiction.”
“From the ‘Helmet of Navarre’ to ‘The truth about Tolna’ is a long leap, but Miss Runkle has taken it with no signs of effort.”
Ruskin, John.Works; edited by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. 37v. ea. $9. Longmans.
The thirty-seven volumes which make up this library edition contain the complete written life-work of Ruskin, illustrated with woodcuts, plates, and facsimile manuscripts. “The introductions ... are consecutive chapters of what will always remain a far more authoritative biography of Ruskin than any that exists. The reprints of the published books and lectures contain the best possible text, with annotations as careful and minute as if the editors were dealing with a Greek classic; they give us a remark on every various reading, hundreds of cross references, and many references also to many passages in other writers whohave been influenced by them or controverted them. Moreover ... a great number of the lectures and letters are here published for the first time.” (Lond. Times.)
“The editors have striven with the most praiseworthy diligence to make their edition complete and definitive. They have done a great work.”
Russell, George William Erskine.Social silhouettes. **$3. Dutton.
“An essay in ‘character’ writing, the author passing in review most of the types that a clubman and Londoner meets with in the narrow confines of his life—the eldest son, the journalist, the Bishop, the don, the carpet-bagger, the invalid, the buck, and so forth.” (Lond. Times.) “They catch those fleeting aspects of things which, once let slip, are recovered with the utmost difficulty; and they establish suggestive standards of comparison between the present and a comparatively recent past. Mr. Russell knows Dickens, Thackeray, and Disraeli by heart, nor has he neglected that most faithful of writers Anthony Trollope.” (Ath.)
“‘Social silhouettes,’ it is not unfair to remark, are a little lacking in balance. Still, without attaining omniscience, Mr. Russell has succeeded in hitting off the polite and professional world in nearly every instance, and his stories are so cleverly handled that he avoids wounding the feelings even of the most susceptible.”
“We lay the book aside with the conviction that Mr. Russell has not observed enough, has not lived enough, for this kind of work. He has met many men and heard many stories, but he lacks alike the seeing eye and the searching phrase. Also the sense of the moment for he seems to have stood still for many years.”
“The political portraits are drawn with a peculiarly expert hand.”
“The various short papers on English types are full of refreshing and enlivening touches.”
Russell, T. Baron.Hundred years hence; the expectations of an optimist.*$1.50. McClurg.
The mechanical, scientific and ethical progress which the author predicts for the next hundred years promises to our descendants a world of “almost unthinkable perfection.” No war, no coal, no washer-women; all unelevating domestic labor will be eliminated; dress, heat, travel, the air we breathe, the water, we drink, will be perfected; and man, enlightened and developed, will live in a net-work of invention so complicated that life itself will seem a very simple thing.
“Even regarded as the baseless fabric of a vision, the book has a certain fascination; but its forecasts are not without a foundation of scientific probability.”
“So far from being in advance of his age in his ideas, he has not caught up with it. He has an open and unprejudiced mind and makes many interesting suggestions.”
“Far from astonishing us by a bold flight into the regions of scientific impossibilities, which he seems to fear, he leaves us lost in amazement at the feebleness of his imagination.”
Russell, W. Clark.Yarn of Old Harbour town. *$1.50. Jacobs.
Harbor life, and life on the high seas one hundred years ago is vividly pictured in this story of Lucy Acton who was kidnapped by her lover and feigned madness for her own protection. The search made for her by her father in his “Aurora,” the appearance of Admiral Nelson, the rescue of Lucy, all making stirring reading, but after all is done, instead of bringing her abductor to justice Lucy nurses him thru an illness, forgets, forgives, and marries him.
“Although the plot and construction of the tale leave little to be desired yet there is much superficial description, and many trifling details are here introduced.”
“As a love story the book is not very successful, but as a picture of sea and harbor life a hundred years ago it cannot fail to interest its readers.”
Rutherford, Ernest.Radio-activity. 2d ed. with much additional matter. *$4. Macmillan.
“The fact that the second edition is almost a new work, although the first edition was everywhere hailed as most remarkable, simply evidences the wonderful advance of the science in which Professor Rutherford is himself so large and active a factor.” (Nation.) “It is not a popular work. It is not easy reading to the layman: it is not intended for him. It has a spaciousness of active scientific thought which reaches far into the unknown. Authentic, it is rich in suggestions to the investigator, be he chemist, physicist, engineer, or physiologist.” (Engin. N.)
“It seems likely, therefore, that for some years to come successive editions of Professor Rutherford’s work will remain the best source of information for the reader in whom may be assumed a certain modicum of technical information.”
“No words are wasted. The terse diction of the masterpiece gives it a literary charm that carries the competent reader on almost precipitously, yet with discriminating caution.” Charles Baskerville.
“For the student. Professor Rutherford’s book is of the greatest value.”
“Is the most complete and authoritative account of the recent remarkable discoveries in this field by one who has made many of them.”
“We must once more congratulate Prof. Rutherford on the admirable manner in which he has brought his book up to date.” R. J. Strutt.
“The new treatise gives evidence of the same skilful presentation and arrangement as the old.” C. Barus.
Ryan, Coletta.Songs in a sun garden. **$1. Turner, H. B.
In Miss Ryan’s poems dreams seem so possible of realization that one credits her with having found a demonstrable principle of life. Head, heart and imagination are all active. “She is a young woman of strong emotion, a child of the imagination, and if no conventional or reactionary power curbs or holds in check her higher and finer impulses, she will do much fine and vital work.” (Arena.)
“There is much imagination displayed in some of the lines—something all too rare in present day verse. Many of the poems are also rich in rhythmic and musical qualities that tend to sing the lines into the mind of the reader.”
“‘A lover’s song’ is one of the few things afforded by this volume that are reasonably acceptable.” Wm. M. Payne.
“They are in the main, bright and sweet, with individuality in their tenderness and with a buoyant spirit of trust and good-will.”
Ryan, John Augustine.Living wage: its ethical and economic aspects. *$1. Macmillan.
The work of a Roman Catholic priest and teacher in St. Paul’s seminary. “It is perhaps the first attempt in the English language to elaborate what may be called a Roman Catholic system of political economy.... Professor Ryan combines in this work economic and ethical arguments with those derived from authority, and while Professor Ely admits [in the introduction] that members of other religious bodies, both Christian and Jewish, may reject this particular system of wages because it is assumed to rest on the approved teachings of the Roman Catholic church, he bespeaks for it an examination of the question: Does or does not this doctrine of wages rest upon broad Christian, religious, and ethical foundations?” (R. of Rs.)
“The credit due to him for the conception of his task is doubled by the manner in which he has executed it. Thoroughly acquainted with all authorities on political economy, economics and ethics, he has done his work in scientific fashion.”
“Mr. Ryan’s economics are stronger than his ethics.”
“As an alternative to socialism, as an antidote to anarchism. as a stimulator of thought the book seems to us well described in Dr. Ely’s words—‘a meritorious performance.’” Edward A. Bradford.
“Many modern writers have dealt with the subject from the same point of view. Few of them have had the courage of their opinions to the same extent as Professor Ryan.”
Ryan, Marah Ellis (Martin) (Mrs. S. E. Ryan).For the soul of Rafael: a romance of old California. †$1.50. McClurg.
The heights of San Jacinto stand guard over the valley which furnishes the picturesque setting of this tale. The ruined dome of an old mission gleams among the clustered adobes of the Mexicans which are “like children creeping close to the feet of the one mother: and beyond that the illimitable ranges of mesa and valley.” The characters are all the fine, aristocratic Spanish type, looking upon Americans as “godless invaders.” Dramatic intensity marks each development in a story of strong passions and a splendid renunciation.
“A picturesque and romantic story, which stands out vividly against the careful and realistic brushwork of the background.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“Mrs. Ryan’s new novel has so confused a way of introducing its characters and setting forth their relationships that we are midway in the volume before we have fairly straightened them out. Aside from this defect of constructive technique, we may say that the work is one of vivid dramatic quality and appealing romantic charm.” Wm. M. Payne.
“A somewhat crudely told melodrama.”
“A dramatic story of California.”