“The author evidently knows her philosophical books, and shows no little acumen in weaving the theorems of the schools into the conversations of a philandering young man and a maid. By all odds the best things in the book are the satirical yet kindly sketches of the other students of the seminar who are not so soulful as Taddeo.”
“A vivid crescendo of experience, alive with the glamor of personality. You read it again as soon as you can, with the same quickened beating of the heart and far more understanding.” R. B.
“Presumably a first book, it shows the anonymous author to be possessed of unusual powers and of striking promise. Her ability to suffuse all life with the light of abstract thought, made glowing and vital, sets her in a class apart, while her power to express tensity of emotion and make it fine and beautiful is a gift ever welcome among writers of fiction.”
“A rather skillful book and also rather fascinating. Henrie can react with girlish enthusiasm upon Freiburg with its quaint formal professors, its dumpy landladies, and its uncompromising salespeople who are insulted if you ask for something they do not have: and she can love Taddeo, an olive skinned cosmopolitan.”
WATSON, FREDERICK.Story of the Highland regiments. il*$2 Macmillan 355 (Eng ed 16-6535)
“Mr Watson has collected into this volume a story of the campaigns in which the Highland regiments have taken part, and it covers the period from the beginning of the ‘Black Watch’ in 1725, to the spring of 1915. ... The volume is illustrated with full page pictures in colors, and the scenes depicted are the historic and striking incidents in the history of the various regiments. Apt quotations from the poets introduce the chapters and heighten the effect of the stories.”—Boston Transcript
“Every chapter is intensely interesting, those describing the service of the Highlanders in America especially so, for where the accounts deal with the conflict against the United States the story is told with expressions of appreciation of the cause of the American colonists.” J. S. B.
WATSON, SIR WILLIAM.Man who saw, and other poems arising out of the war.*$1 Harper 821 17-15992
“The contents of this volume include little that can be described as poems of action. The author desires his book to be considered as an intermittent commentary on the main developments, and some of the collateral phenomena, of the war. ... Nineteen of the poems are sonnets. ... Although many of these poems have already appeared in various publications, ... not a few have since undergone a process for which ‘revision’ would be a feeble word.” (Preface)
“Among the finest of the sonnets are those entitled ‘Tranquil liberty,’ ‘Commemorative,’ and ‘You at the helm.’”
“Nothing like this poetry has come from an English poet since Wordsworth lived and Swinburne died.” E. F. E.
“I think Sir William Watson has served England by proving that in patriotic and martial vigor the most fastidious of her artists can vie with the most daredevil of her rhymesters.” O. W. Firkins
“The energy of these poems will keep them alive long after many more tuneful echoes of the conflict are forgotten.”
“The subject matter of the sonnets is rather too pedestrian to justify the use of that metier, and the other poems incline to tickle the intellect rather than to stir the emotions. These verses of Mr Watson seem to exhibit the temper of an Englishman so outraged by contemporary events that he neglects to listen to the muse—a poet so overwhelmed that he forgets to sing.”
“Sir William Watson’s aim is clear, and he has achieved it. His book is, as he desired it to be, ‘an intermittent commentary on the main developments, and some of the collateral phenomena, of the war.’ But future times will turn to it when they want to know what Britain’s case was, what Britain felt and thought in the war, not when they need the consolation and exaltation of great poetry. ‘Crossing the Rubicon,’ ‘The battle of the Bight,’ ‘The charge of the 9th Lancers,’ and other poems that readers may remember to have seen in periodicals (though on most of them Sir William Watson has worked anew since they were first published) fire the blood. The strange Coleridgian poem, ‘Desolation’ is violently exciting.”
WATSON, SIR WILLIAM.Retrogression, and other poems.*$1.25 Lane 821 17-2699
This book of poems is a companion volume to the author’s prose work “Pencraft.” It is a defense of the stately and beautiful traditions of English literature, and a lament over their passing:
“For few and fewer do they grow, Who know, or ever care to know, The great things greatly said and sung In this heroic English tongue.”
The book is made up of two parts: Poems of the literary life; Poems personal and general. All the poems appear here in print for the first time with the exception of six reprinted from English periodicals.
“Little in this collection touches Mr Watson’s early standard of finished verse compact of serious if not profound thought. The title-poem is the best, but is too short to redeem the book from the charge of mere poetic journalism.”
“Most of the lyrics are brief—some consisting of only a couplet or a quatrain, and there is considerable evidence of temper which would have been better modified in more than one instance. There are also memorable lines and there are flashes of wit. But on the whole it is not a volume that will add greatly to Mr Watson’s reputation.” N. H. D.
“With this poem ‘Nature’s way’ and much else in his book that is sound in thought and brilliant in phrase, Mr Watson will find more sympathizers than he may realize or even desire—for he seems to enjoy thinking of himself as a sort of ‘lonely antagonist of destiny,’ a last survivor of the giants before the flood. It is a pity that this mood of haughty isolation has grown so strong in his work of late. ... The man who has successfully challenged Keats in ‘Ode to autumn’ and Arnold in ‘Wordsworth’s grave’ and Milton himself in ‘Lachrymæ musarum,’ might well afford to let alone all really ignorant or merely spiteful criticism of his work.” Odell Shepard
“Of late years, Mr William Watson has been making poetry a criticism of art rather than a criticism of life. Many of the poems in ‘Retrogression’ seem to be versifications of passages in his ‘Pencraft: a plea for the older ways.’ But the versification is deftly done; it glows now and then with the magic of Wordsworth’s grave’ and the ‘Ode in May.’”
“If our own poet’s judgments are correct, surely he need not excite himself over the faults which give to his own virtues the helpful emphasis of contrast; there are worse fates than insulation—on a pinnacle.” O. W. Firkins
“All lovers of good poetry, and especially of the finely adjusted word and phrase, will be delighted with the greater part of Mr William Watson’s new volume, ‘Retrogression.’ ... The last portion of the volume, entitled ‘Poems personal and general,’ contain some delightful verses written to Mr Watson’s own daughter, and some tributes to his friends. As a whole the volume will attract, in spite of the fact that none of the poems rises to the heights reached by the poet in previous years.”
“Not always does he attain the aphoristic character of Pope, and not often the sprightly wit and pungency of Lowell. Moreover, some of the rhymed epigrams seem inspired by ill-nature, with the malice ill-concealed. But, on the whole, the book can be recommended for its bracing effect.”
“This volume will certainly not add to Mr Watson’s poetic reputation. He has always been an admirable critic, and has shown more than any modern of Ben Jonson’s gift of converting literary criticism into poetry. But he used to have other gifts too. Here there isnothing else which is poetry and unfortunately a great deal which is scarcely even verse. ... But in the critical poems he has something to say and something that needs saying just now.”
WATTS, MARY STANBERY.Three short plays.*$1.25 (2c) Macmillan 812 17-1624
Mrs Watts, well known as a novelist, appears as a dramatist in this new book. The first, “An ancient dance,” is a two-act play in which a phonograph is utilized as an instrument of tragedy. In “Civilization,” the play in one act that follows, the theory that “a man’s a man for a’ that” is turned inside out and shown to be false according to the conventions of modern society. “The wearin’ o’ the green,” the third play, is a farce in two acts in which the appearance of a real plumber and a real burglar at a fancy dress party produces an amusing situation.
“These three plays, by a well-known American novelist, exhibit versatility and a considerable power of writing good dialogue.”
“The dialogue is well written and the characterization good, but the plays are rather over-weighted with detail.”
“‘The ancient dance’ depends upon unlikely error. ... ‘Civilization’ seems designed to prove the time-honored theory that society girls can fall in love with nothing but brass buttons. ... ‘The wearin’ o’ the green’ is a rather obvious farce depending upon mistaken identity carried far beyond the bounds of probability.”
WATTS-DUNTON, WALTER THEODORE.Poetry and the Renascence of wonder.*$1.75 Button 808.1 16-22776
“‘Poetry and the Renascence of wonder,’ the two famous essays by the late Theodore Watts-Dunton, are presented as rewritten by the author. The text is interspersed with ‘riders’ culled from his criticisms on poetry contributed to the Athenæum, printed in closer text than the material of the essays. The essay on poetry appeared in the ninth and subsequent editions of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ It examines and explains the principles of poetic art as exemplified by the poetry of all great literatures. ‘The Renascence of wonder’ is the return to the primitive, to the ‘childlike wonder of the Iliad and the Odyssey.’” (R of Rs) The second essay appeared first in the Cyclopædia of English literature. The book has an introduction by Thomas Hake.
“Not satisfactory as a finished product though full of suggestions to the earnest student of poetry.”
“We hoped, when the first volume on our list, ‘Poetry, and the Renascence of wonder,’ was announced, that the large essay or treatise on poetics which Watts-Dunton used to speak of as having been sadly cut down to form the article ‘Poetry’ in the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’ was going to be published at full length. It now appears that the original essay no longer exists, and that the excised portions were long ago used up, in our columns and elsewhere. ... Unfortunately, it has lost instead of gained by expansion into a book.”
“Includes the two essays by which he is best known as a critic, a body of historical and critical comment which will long have a distinctive value.”
“As no one is likely to read this book who has not a real interest in literature as a fine art, it will probably irritate all its readers by its formlessness as well as by the inclusion of such poor stuff as the essay on ‘Ethical poetry.’ Yet there will be very few of them whose gratitude will not survive their irritation, especially if they supply for themselves the index which the editor has neglected to supply.”
WATTS-DUNTON, WALTER THEODORE.Vesprie Towers.*$1.35 (2c) Lane 17-7458
An unfailing belief in their “Luck” had been the inheritance of all the Vespries of Vesprie Towers. It survived in Violet Vesprie, the last of the line, tho she is impoverished to the point of penury and finally has to face eviction from her home. She goes to London where she spends four years in wretchedness, but her pride and her faith never waver. In London she befriends a young girl in need, finding later that she is a girl from the neighborhood of her old home. And it is thru this act of kindness that good fortune comes to her, making way for a return to Vesprie Towers.
“The value of the novel lies chiefly in its beauty of spirit and in its evocation of beautiful images.”
“One of those leisurely, well-ripened Victorian novels that convey relaxation and a gentle degree of interest to their readers.”
“The story does not approach in any form or manner that other novel, ‘Aylwin,’ which made Watts-Dunton’s name known as an author. It is amateurish by every sign; there is not a character in it that does not smack of the lay figure, the style is faulty, the dialogue stilted and dull. Now and then it seems to get really under way; there will be a passage that stirs you—but immediately the thing falls down again. ... The book is interesting as some queer old print is interesting, simply as a relic of the kind of thing that once existed.”
WAUGH, FRANK ALBERT.Agricultural college; a study in organization and management and especially in problems of teaching.*$1.10 (3c) Judd 630.7 16-23153
The author, of the Massachusetts agricultural college, treats the problems of agricultural education from the viewpoint of the teacher. On controversial points, as he frankly states, he has stressed the unorthodox point of view. He says, “Education in general is ruled too much by tradition, and the agricultural colleges, of all academic institutions, should be free to take the radical course wherever tradition is called in question. The agricultural college is from the nature of the case, a radical, not a traditional, institution.” Contents: Purposes and ideals; College organization; Physical and financial problems; Organization of instruction; Specialization in agriculture; Course of study—materials; Course of study—arrangement; Methods of teaching; Extension teaching; The experiment station; Special problems and methods.
“Scholarly yet popular in treatment, and accurate. Interesting and profitable reading, whether or not one agrees with its conclusions.”
“Suggestive, interestingly written, critical discussion, the first in the field.”
“Clear and radical. ... It is a book for those who attend faculty meetings, for fathers with sons who want this kind of vocational education, and above all for legislators.”
WAUGH, FRANK ALBERT.Natural style in landscape gardening. il*$2.50 (9c) Badger, R: G. 710 17-17750
A collection of essays on landscape gardening. In the first essay, What is meant, the author reviews the controversy that used to be waged over the merits of the “formal” and the “natural” styles. Modern practice, he says, has developedan admirable catholicity of taste that accepts the best of both, and uses the one or the other as best suits the artist’s purpose. The remaining essays are: The native landscape; Form and spirit; The landscape motive; Principles of structural composition; The art of grouping; Features and furnishings; The open field. The author, who is head of the department of agriculture at Amherst agricultural college, has recently been appointed consulting landscape architect of the United States forest service. Photographs from his camera illustrate the work.
“The book, as well as the style of landscape design which it so sympathetically explains, should appeal forcefully to the engineer.”
WAUGH, FRANK ALBERT.Outdoor theaters. il*$2.50 (16c) Badger, R: G. 725.8 17-18366
A book on the design, construction and use of open-air auditoriums. While the outdoor theater is a new institution in America, there are thruout the country, as this book will show, a number of notable examples. Among these are “Bankside,” at the University of North Dakota, the Greek theater at the University of California, the outdoor theaters at Vassar and Bryn Mawr, the “Player’s green” in Chicago, the municipal theater in Anoka, Minnesota, and “Brookside” in Mt. Kisco, New York. The subject is treated in three parts: Questions of use; Problems of design; Selected examples. There is a brief foreword by Percy MacKaye. The book is well illustrated and there is a short bibliography.
Reviewed by M. H. B. Mussey
WAWN, F. T.Joyful years.*$1.50 (1c) Dutton 17-19508
“The joyful years are those when you are finding yourselves, children.” So speaks Shaun James, writer, widower, and one of the leading characters in this rather lengthy novel of English present day life. Other characters are Cynthia Rosemary Bremner, a normal, happy girl; her brother Alan; her young cousin Joyce; her older and more sophisticated cousin Phyllis; Laurence Man, an official of the “Great company,” in love with Cynthia; and Peter Middleton, meant to be an artist and trying to be a business man, also in love with Cynthia. The last eighty pages deal with the characters in wartime, but the story ends happily for Cynthia and her husband.
“Mr Wawn writes well, and his characters are people of flesh and blood in whom one can feel an interest. The scene is laid largely near Tintagel, and the descriptions of that beautiful and romantic country are well done.”
“Its endless descriptions are touched with a sort of mild eroticism.” H. W. Boynton
“In many ways this is an old-fashioned novel—which is another way of saying that it is a romantic, leisurely and delightful one. ... The wholesomeness and sweet reasonableness of the people one meets in the pages of this book are indeed refreshing. ... A word should be said also for the delicacy with which the author has written of love and marriage. The very soul of purity breathes in his pages.”
“‘The joyful years’ is best described as a first-rate second-rate novel. It is one of those stories of solid worth which only the English writers seem able to produce. On every page there is evidence of the trained thinker and writer who has observed life. ... A good story well told.”
“A mental revel in feminine pulchritude.”
“A tale rather hopelessly old-fashioned, since it records no more unconventional a sex-adventure than is involved in a runaway marriage. ... The story is ‘well-written’ in a way, but unduly drawn out, and marred by a kind of spinsterly voluptuousness which insists on our habitual assistance at the heroine’s toilet.”
“‘The joyful years’ falls short of being a good novel because of the saccharine sweetness of its love affair, because of the tawdry cheapness of its central philosophy, and because the author deliberately chooses the wrong side of great public questions. ... The one character of interest is Phyllis. She is real—she lives; her shallowness and flippancy are exquisitely drawn.” D. P. Berenberg
“The novel contains some interesting pictures of the war, as Peter saw it from the trenches, and as Cynthia saw it from the point of view of the women who had to stay at home and wait.”
“The pictures of the hero in the trenches are well drawn.”
WEALE, BERTRAM LENOX PUTNAM, pseud. (BERTRAM LENOX SIMPSON).Fight for the republic in China.il*$3.50 (4c) Dodd 951 17-31438
This book covers the years 1911 to 1917. A general introduction sketches events leading up to this period. To include everything which the student or the casual reader needs to know about the Chinese question is the author’s aim. He calls attention particularly to the inclusion of certain Chinese and Japanese documents which “afford a sharp contrast between varying types of eastern brains.” The appendixes give “every document of importance for the period covered.”
“It would be difficult to overestimate the service this book must render to the study of the more important aspects of Far Eastern questions. It must have a place in every library furnished with the best available materials for the intelligent consideration of China and Chinese problems in their relation to the social advance of the modern world.” L. E. Robinson
“An anti-Japanese bias is often markedly pronounced.”
“It is not only an important addition to our positive knowledge but a valuable contribution to political literature. It is of unique interest in that the case for the republic developed in the narrative is supported by official and semi-official documentary evidence. His sober analysis of the factor of Japan should be read by every intelligent citizen.”
“For the reader the work presents all the fascination of the drama, for, rapidly as events have moved of late in the Occident, they have moved even more swiftly in the Orient.”
WEAVER, ERASMUS MORGAN.Notes on military explosives. 4th ed rev and enl il*$3.25 Wiley 662 17-11354
“The book shows the leading developments wrought by the present war—particularly the employment of atmospheric nitrogen and the substitution of wood pulp for cotton. The text opens with some elementary notes on chemistry and descriptions of substances entering explosives. Then the characteristics and requirements of propelling, disrupting and detonating compounds are presented. There are chapters on tests, storage, handling and use for special demolitions. An appendix contains (1) laboratory experiments to illustrate the section on chemistry, (2) a paper by A. S. Cushman on ‘The role of chemistry in war,’ and (3) the Interstate commerce commission regulations governing the transportation of explosives as freight.” (Engin News-Rec) “The author, a major general in the U.S. army, is chief of coast artillery.” (St Louis)
“This book will be interesting to all who desire to serve their country as military engineers at the ‘front’ or to make the explosives that the needs of the front demand.”
“General Weaver’s treatise on military explosives has long been one of the most important books in the engineer’s military library, but the past four years have made the previous edition inadequate in regard to use, so that the present edition is welcome.”
WEAVER, HENRIETTA.Flame and the shadow-eater.*$1.40 (2c) Holt 17-14135
A book of short stories in which the author’s aim has been to present certain phases of eastern mysticism in the form of fiction. The stories bear such titles as The seller of dreams, The wonder-bubble of the world, Mirage in the desert, Dust in the wind, and The night-comer, and are written in a manner that is imitative of the oriental story teller.
“Told with all the richness of imagery and measured cadence of the oriental tale.”
“The author frequently succeeds only in being obscure when she endeavors to be mystical. ... Their abundance of color, their intellectual quality, and their departure from the commonplace make the stories quite interesting.”
WEBB, A. P., comp. Bibliography of the works of Thomas Hardy, 1865-1915.*$2.50 Torch press 016.823 17-5721
“Mr Webb has had in mind chiefly the collector of first editions, and has not attempted a complete bibliography, ignoring late editions and American editions, except where the latter rank as first editions. He includes contributions to books, periodicals, and newspapers, and a selection of critical notices, &c. The illustrations comprise a fine photogravure portrait of Mr E. O. Hoppé, and facsimiles of ‘The night of Trafalgar’ from ‘The dynasts,’ and the war poem ‘Song of the soldiers.’” (Ath)
“Mr Webb, who is now at the front, carried out his work while under training in camp, which is not the best place for an undertaking the performance of which necessitates close and constant attendance in libraries and a liberal expenditure of time. The errors of date and description in the collations, the want of uniformity in style, and lack of complete reference, of which complaint has been made, can easily be remedied in a second edition. Notwithstanding inconsistencies in typography, the printing has been well done, and the binding of the book is exceptionally tasteful. The index supplies much useful information.” A. L. C.
WEBB, MARY.Golden arrow.*$1.50 (2c) Dutton (Eng ed 17-15288)
This is one of those books that are distinctly novels of place. The Welsh hills that are its setting enter intimately into the story. Deborah Arden, the farmer’s daughter who has given her great love to Stephen Southernwood, is at home in the hills. But to Stephen, town-bred, they are hampering and confining. They become the symbol to him of the freedom he has renounced. His love for Deborah is not strong enough to hold him and he goes. But once on the other side of the world, he finds that it is powerful enough to draw him back. The half dozen characters of the story, all types from rustic life, are set forth with a sure hand.
“The author has borrowed largely and more or less superficially from Hardy, but she knows her country and her characters: she reflects the moods of that physical nature which has produced superstitions and an uplifting awe in its people, and she has created a story that is worth reading even for its own sake.”
“The novel is at its best in the beginning, for it is one of those books which seem never quite to get anywhere. ... There are some interesting pictures of life in the remote Welsh countryside which is the scene of the entire narrative, quite a number of unusually well-written passages, and altogether the book is a thoughtful one, possessed of many commendable qualities.”
WEBB, MARY.Gone to earth.*$1.50 (1½c) Dutton 17-18165
Hazel Woodus, only child of a Welsh harper and of a gipsy mother, is a passionate lover of nature, and especially of all weak and hunted things. “Her own close kinship to the little fox which is her great pet is emphasized early in the story.” (N Y Times) She is very beautiful, entirely untaught, and wants to be free. But two men, utterly unlike, love her: Edward Marston, the young minister, who appeals to her spiritual self, and Jack Reddin of Undern, who appeals to her physical self. One becomes her husband, the other her lover, and her life ends in a tragedy.
“There is from the very beginning an almost Æschylean sense of deepening gloom, and oncoming, unavoidable calamity. Nevertheless, there are numerous gleams of light. ... The separate individualities of the principal personages stand out strongly and clearly; and the author can be complimented upon having produced a notable work of fiction.”
“Mary Webb writes of her corner of the Welsh mountains with a very real understanding of the country folk, and also, alas, with unmistakable sentimentality.”
“On the whole, the ‘localism’ of this writer is hardly more than a garb for her bitter distrust of human nature and society.”
“Puritans will be shocked by the plain-spoken frankness with which the author treats questions of sex. ... There is nothing of lewdness even suggested—nor is sex glorified and surrounded with a halo of mysticism. It is dealt with simply, as a phase of life which cannot be ignored. ... Reddin, the brutal squire, is drawn a little too strongly, while Edward Marston, whom Hazel marries, is too much of an idealist to be true to life.” D. P. Berenberg
“Like her earlier novel, ‘The golden arrow,’ Mrs Webb’s new romance is a story of one of the more remote and lonely districts of Wales. ... Hazel’s character is skillfully analyzed, yet she remains always ‘a girl in a book,’ a thing of romance and unreality. Edward, whose very goodness and generosity proved his undoing, and his placid, altogether conventional mother, however, are real people, while the author shows throughout a keen sense of life’s ironies. The plot is well worked out and the final tragedy a clever bit of symbolism. But what one remembers best in closing the book is the beauty of its descriptions of the countryside.”
“The book is notable for the author’s success in conveying to her readers the impression of free open-air life in very wild country.”
WEBB, SIDNEY.Restoration of trade union conditions. pa*50c Huebsch 331.87
“A well known result of the war has been the suspension of trade union conditions in the British Isles. ... With the war came a demand for an enormously increased production in British manufacturing plants. In order to increase the output the government appealed to the labor unions to suspend their protective network of usages and customs. The unions, with great patriotism, consented, but only after receiving an explicit promise from the government that the old rules should be restored after the war. The suspension continues. ... Mr Webb’s main contention is that the restoration of the old usages and customs is impossible.”—Springf’d Republican
Reviewed by H. M. Kallen
“To disagree with Mr Webb fundamentally, it does not follow at all that what he writes is negligible.” J. W.
“A clear-minded and courageous analysis of the situation.”
“This little book of approximately one hundred pages should at the present time demand the serious attention of every trade-unionist, employer, and citizen interested in industrial relations; for in it Sidney Webb discusses one of the serious questions facing the English nation.” B. M. Selekman
WEBB, SIDNEY.[2]Works manager to-day.*$1 Longmans 658.7 17-31556
An address prepared for a series of private gatherings of works managers in Great Britain. Sidney Webb believes that, whatever form industrial organization may take in the future, whether state control, private control or government by the workers themselves prevail, the function of works manager must continue. “In my own opinion,” he says, “the profession of the manager, under whatever designation, is destined, with the ever-increasing complication of man’s enterprises, to develop a steadily increasing technique and a more and more specialised vocational training of its own; and to secure, like the vocation of the engineer, the architect, or the chemist, universal recognition as a specialized brain-working occupation.” Some of the points touched on are: The function of management; Reducing the cost of production; Appointments and dismissals; The recognition of trade unionism.
“The common-sense remarks as to the functions of works managers and the best way to exercise them may well appeal to those who still adhere to the principle that, business being business, profits are the most important thing to be considered.”
“Had such statements come from any one less fully recognized as a thorough student of conditions, in all probability they would have been put down as hysterical. The nature of the gathering, the occasion of the address and the position of the orator give them a grim significance.”
“It would be a good thing if managers of industrial enterprises in America were required to read ‘The works manager to-day,’ by Sidney Webb. Not that it is complete or very profound treatise of the science of management—on the contrary, it is easy fireside reading for a single evening—but it contains a good deal of very sensible talk to which industrial managers might well give heed.” J: A. Fitch
WEBNER, FRANK ERASTUS.Factory accounting. il $3.30 LaSalle extension univ. 657 17-4009
“This work is intended by the author to be of use to manufacturers and accountants as well as to students. It endeavors to cover a broader field than cost accounting; and in working out the factory accounting technique it deals quite as much with matters of production control as with accounting. ... Four distinct parts comprise the volume. In the first a brief descriptive survey of the different types of management is given. The second deals with the controlling accounts, the general exhibits and the relation of cost accounts to the general exhibit. It contains also chapters on specific order and process production, and on different methods of concentrating their principal characteristics for effective handling. Some of these schemes deal mainly with the distribution of manufacturing costs over product, others with planning and scheduling. The third part is a short chapter describing the different types of industries, classed according to production methods. The fourth part describes methods of collecting data concerning materials, labor, and expense, and of handling these accounts.”—J Pol Econ
“The present volume is better adapted to its primary use, correspondence instruction, although providing a fairly satisfactory text for classroom use. Mr Webner’s broad experience in the field of practice makes him an authority as to what is needed for preparation for that line of work. ... Mr Webner’s discussion of the human element is very good and calls attention to a subject which needs more attention than it generally receives.” R. B. Kester
“The unique position of the book in the range of accounting texts is attained by virtue of the fact that, while attempting to set forth a greater range of matter than comes within the sphere of technical cost accounting, the author deals carefully and in detail with the devices and methods of discovering and recording production facts.”
“‘The sixth volume of the La Salle course in higher accountancy. ... The clear definitions and statements of the author, supplemented by charts, graphs and forms, go far toward simplifying a rather complex subject.’”
“Succeeds in presenting a complex subject with simplicity.”
WEBSTER, HENRY KITCHELL.Thoroughbred. il*$1.35 (3c) Bobbs 17-3575
Like many other husbands, he kept his business concerns to himself and he told his wife of the impending crisis only when it had ceased to impend. He paid his stenographer, ordered the telephone taken from his office, and then went home to tell his wife that she might now go back to her mother. This was too much for Celia. She was a girl of spirit and she promptly flew into a rage. Was that what he thought of her! Very well, she would show him! And show him she did—in a twelve dollar a month flat (three rooms and bath, unheated, no closets). This is the story of Celia’s adventures in house-furnishing and housekeeping. It is also that rarity, a love story that is simple, honest and unsentimental.
“Slight, good for reading aloud. Appeared in Everybody’s Magazine.”
“It contains no episode such as defaces Mr Webster’s ‘The real adventure.’ ... ‘The thoroughbred’ is a wholesome bit of domestic romance. ... Mr Webster writes in what may almost be called the magazine dialect of American-English. It is the Saturday Evening Post style, a talky style which conveys an impression of being like real talk, and is very little like it.” H. W. Boynton
“The ‘Real adventure’ contained rather the promise than the evidence of literary mastership. Mr Webster’s third novel, ‘The thoroughbred,’ contains neither. Considering the work that has preceded it, it is extraordinarily disappointing; considering it by itself, the best that can be said is that it adequately and entertainingly fills a leisure hour or two.”
“The whole thing seems too easy; there is too much of the superman about it.” E: E. Hale
“This trivial prettifaction of the commonplace follows an old formula. ... Mr Webster combines this formula with a style of some distinction and considerable gayety. In ‘The real adventure’ he wrote a novel which was rich in performance. ‘The thoroughbred’ is mere timeserving to the gods of publicity and best-sellerdom.”
“Henry Kitchell Webster certainly understands the ways of women, which is another way of saying that he understands human nature. ... In some ways, despite its much smaller scope, ‘The thoroughbred’ is a better piece of work than ‘The real adventure.’” E. P. Wyckoff
“A diverting tale, not true or important, but the sentiment is pretty.”
WEBSTER, HUTTON.Early European history.il $1.60 Heath 940 17-12510
“Prof. Hutton Webster’s ‘Early European history,’ which begins with prehistoric man, covers the rise of European civilization down to the period of the Protestant reformation with which most histories of modern Europe begin, and it may, therefore, be used conveniently in conjunction with any standard modern history.” (Ind) “The work is intended for high schools which do not care to give a whole year to ancient history alone, but which prefer, in accordance with the recent recommendations of some educational bodies, to cover the general field of all history in a two years’ course.” (Nation)
“Mr Webster has kept to the same high level of excellence which he set for himself four years ago in his ‘Ancient history.’ ... He has unusually good chapters on the rise and spread of Islam, on the Mongols and the Turks, on the formation of national languages and literatures, and on early geographical discovery and colonization. ... The only unsatisfactory sections are those on feudalism and Germanic law.”
“Adds another valuable text to the growing list already in this field. ... As to maps, illustrations, and plates, the book is well supplied. The appendix contains a long table of events and dates, which will be likely to hinder rather than help the inexperienced teacher.” R. M. Tryon
WEED, CLARENCE MOORES.Butterflies worth knowing.(Little nature lib.; Worth knowing ser.) il*$1.60 (2c) Doubleday 595.7 17-13203
The author says, “In this little book an attempt has been made to discuss the more abundant and widely distributed butterflies of eastern North America from the point of view of their life histories and their relations to their surroundings.” Part 1, serving as an introduction, is given up to a discussion of the structure, color, life and habits, etc., of the butterfly. Part 2, the largest section of the book is devoted to descriptions of the true butterflies, superfamily Papilionoidea; part 3 to the skipper butterflies, superfamily Hesperioidea. There are over thirty color plates with additional plates in black and white.
“Brief, interestingly written book for the general reader. There is no key for the identification of species.”
“A volume that will delight and inform.”
WEEKLEY, ERNEST.Surnames.*$2.25 Dutton 929.1 (Eng ed 17-10193)
This book, like an earlier one, “Romance of names,” is, the author says, an “offshoot” of the “Dictionary of English surnames” on which he has been engaged for some years. He says, “The present volume treats much more completely, and hence more ponderously, of certain groups of surnames which I have investigated with some approach to thoroughness. ... Its relation to the ‘Romance of names’ is that of a more or less erudite treatise to a primer, matter which in the former book was dismissed in a paragraph or two being here expanded into a chapter. ... The index contains some six thousand existing surnames, including a certain proportion of French and German names and a sprinkling from other countries.” Among the chapter headings are: The study of surnames; The Teutonic name-system; Some local surnames; The corruption of local surnames; Some occupative surnames; Physical nicknames; Costume nicknames; Vegetable nicknames; Pageant names; The Shakespeare type of surname.
“A wonderful book.”
“This volume and two previous studies by Professor Weekley, ‘The romance of words’ and ‘The romance of names’ should be in every home library.”
“A professor and the head of a modern language department in one of our new universities, Mr Weekley may be supposed to know his business so far as learning goes. The satisfactory thing from the ordinary reader’s point of view is that he wears his learning lightly, and infuses some welcome humour into his research. ... We want good learning popularised, and he has gone the right way to do it.”