“It may be that the author of this volume is (as certainly he makes it abundantly evident that he thinks he is) the greatest living authority on criminology, but he is so rambunctiously controversial that he overloads his treatise with a vast mass of perfectly unnecessary arguments directed against every person who has ever dared to enter this great field. ... It is much to be desired that a greatly shortened summary of Signor Ferri’s constructive philosophy of crime might be extricated from his bulky volume, eliminating entirely the controversial portions and leaving only the pure gold of his admirable doctrine, based on his actual observations.” N. H. D.
“Enrico Ferri, is a positivist of the Italian school, who holds that crime is a biologic and social abnormality, produced in part at least by extra-social forces. ... His hatred of religion breathes on every page. ... We regret very much that the American institute cannot find American scholars to write on these topics objectively, instead of translating works nearly forty years old of anti-Christian bigots.”
“This book still remains the most distinguished general contribution to the subject of criminology, though much of its data and some of its conclusions are now out of date.” L. L. Bernard
“One of the most valuable volumes in a useful series. Ferri’s classification of criminals appears to us now somewhat overlapping and difficult to establish in given cases by practicable tests.” K. H. Claghorn
FETTER, FRANK ALBERT.Economics. 2v v 2*$1.75 Century 330
v 2Modern economic problems.
“A year ago there appeared a book by Professor Fetter dealing with the broader economic principles of value and distribution. This is now followed by a volume entirely devoted to the treatment of practical problems which furnish concrete illustrations and applications of the principles developed in the earlier volume. These are grouped under the following heads: Resources and economic organization; Money and prices; Banking and insurance; Tariff and taxation; Problems of the wage system, and Problems of industrial organization. The two books are intended to cover a complete course in economics, but they are so arranged that they may be used separately.”—R of Rs
“The sentiment of the book is thoroughly modern and progressive, but the policies advocated are based upon scientific principles throughout rather than upon the popular reform policies of the hour. The wisdom of confining references to other works, and bibliographical material in general, to a separate manual, may be questioned. Many readers of the text will, presumably, never see the ‘Manual’ but still will need guidance to further study of those problems in which they are particularly interested.” W. I. K.
“The reviewer knows of no other economic text book where the application of principles to practical problems is more successfully made. The result is that much merely confusing descriptive material is eliminated, and what remains is solid and stimulating. From this point of view, the book will probably make a strong appeal to the teacher, to the student and to the general reader.” E. E. Agger
“This work is, in a sense, a sequel to a book published by the same author a year ago. ... It will repay careful study because it dispels a number of popular fallacies and because, as has been said, it offers an excellent introduction to the more modern method of dealing with economic phenomena.”
“Professor Fetter’s discussion is clear and well-informed, and his conclusions are temperate and suggestive.”
FICKE, ARTHUR DAVISON.April elegy.*$1.25 Kennerley 811 17-12484
“An April elegy,” the poem that fills the first half of this book, is a verse narrative, telling the story of two lovers who fail ever to recapture the passionate beauty of their first meeting. The remainder of the book is taken up with three groups of poems: Seven Japanese paintings; Lyrics;Cafésketches. Some of the poems have appeared in the Little Review, Poetry, Century, Midland, and other magazines.
“Unlike some of his fellow poets of the new school, however, Mr Ficke has a genuine gift of poetic expression; he has, too, a disciplined metrical skill that shows to advantage in his handling both of the ordered verse forms and of free verse; finally, he always has something to say and says it intelligibly. ... In all his work it is when Mr Ficke is most purely lyrical that he is most delightful.” R. T. T.
“The poems mingle bald realism and free verse with imaginative and lyric beauty. In intellectual content, they are subtle and at times difficult of interpretation. Mr Ficke is best known from his ‘Sonnets of a portrait painter’ and as an interpreter of Japanese art.”
“The whole-hearted sentimentalism of ‘An April elegy’ will certainly recommend it to many, though scarcely to those readers whom Mr Ficke’s real powers and previous performance fit him to address.” Odell Shepard
“In eight sonnets of his new volume the proud and sombre note of Mr Ficke’s ‘Sonnets of a portrait-painter’ is audible in renewed vigor and beauty. Next in merit to these poems, I should place, I think, ‘Seven Japanese paintings.’ ‘An April elegy’ is equally unworthy of its associates and its parentage.” O. W. Firkins
“Full of impassioned beauty, rich restraint, and romantic appeal.”
“Verily, this is a book for a diverse public or for a single reader with very catholic taste. Mr Ficke at times reaches the Pierian hights of the old school, and at times approaches the gutter depths of much of the new.”
FIELD, CLIFTON COUTARD.Retail buying. (Harper’s retail business ser.)*$1.25 (2½c) Harper 658 17-21788
The author, recently instructor in merchandizing in the University of Wisconsin, has also held positions with Marshall Field & Co., of Chicago, and James McCreery & Co., of New York. His book aims to give “a simple and readable explanation of what is best to-day in buying principles and practice.” (Editor’s introd.) Contents: The merchant as a buyer; Merchandise; Buying practice; Stock systems.
“A book list of descriptive material issued by manufacturers will be suggestive to librarians who wish to build up a working trade collection.”
“Gives many convenient hints as to kinds and qualities of commodities, especially in the clothing trades.”
“The style is matter of fact, almost laconic. There is an element of stiffness and bluntness in it that appears to arise from lack of practice in writing. The discussion, however, is clear and usually simple. The real contribution in this book is to be found in part 3, entitled ‘Buying practice.’ It is just here that an undeveloped field was entered.” C. S. Duncan
“Instructive reading for any one connected with retail buying or selling.”
FIELD, LOUISE MAUNSELL.Little gods laugh. il*$1.40 (2c) Little 17-23975
In this story of New York society Miss Field has given us a picture of the development of a high-minded young woman of good family, who, bred to position and ease, finds herself obliged to make her own way in the world. The refreshing side of the story is in its normality. Nita Wynne, through the interest of friends, uses and develops her natural abilities and though she, of course, loses leisure, she does not in any way lose her proper position. But her experiences do teach her to view life whole rather than from the narrow angle of her girlhood.
“The story is told with dignity and charm.”
“There is some clever characterization, but that is not a sufficient excuse for the addition of one more novel to the already overlong list of American mediocrities.”
“It is a real achievement of the author that Nita is never a prig. In her most intolerant moments there is something likeable, and very human, about her. The characters and incidents of the book are interesting and its theme is thoroughly wholesome and sane.”
Fifes and drums; a collection of poems of America at war. (Vigilantes books)*$1 Doran 811.08 17-18155
“The Vigilantes’ headquarters are in New York, its members are authors, artists and other professional workers, and its purposes are thus described: ‘To arouse the country to a realization of the importance of the problems confronting the American people. To awaken and cultivate in the youth of the country a sense of public service and an intelligent interest in citizenship and national problems. To work vigorously for preparedness, mental, moral, and physical.’” (Boston Transcript) “These poems, written under the immediate stress of great events by the Vigilantes, furnish a striking record of the emotional reactions of the American people during the fortnight preceding and the six weeks following the declaration of war.” (Foreword) Some of the contributors are Amelia Josephine Burr, Don Marquis, Clinton Scollard, Wallace Irwin, Edith M. Thomas, George E. Woodberry, Cale Young Rice, Theodosia Garrison, Percy MacKaye and Hermann Hagedorn.
“Their literary excellence is very high. It would be easy to forgive much under the circumstances, but there is nothing to forgive. ... To single out a single poem in any collection as superlatively the best is usually futile and an invitation to violent argument, but we have no reluctance to place Miss Garrison’s ‘April 2nd’ at the head.” E. F. E.
“The whole anthology carries a glowing atmosphere of enthusiasm, every page breathing the wide range of high human emotion which is brought into being during the stress of wartime.”
FIGGIS, JOHN NEVILLE.Some defects in English religion, and other sermons. (Handbooks of Catholic faith and practice)*$1 (3½c) Young ch. 252
The defects in English religion to which the author devotes the first four sermons in this book are Sentimentalism, Legalism, Cowardice, and Complacency. This series of sermons was preached in Grosvenor chapel, Mayfair, in August, 1916. Among the other sermons in the volume is a group on The mysteries of love, preached as a Lenten series.
“A master of the philosophic ideas of history, and equally at home with Bernard Shaw or Nietzsche and the significant movements of today in letters, Dr Figgis is a preacher of an unusual sort.”
FIGGIS, JOHN NEVILLE.Will to freedom; or, The gospel of Nietzsche and the gospel of Christ.*$1.25 Scribner 193 17-15172
“Dr Figgis, who is a member of the Community of the Resurrection, a religious order of the Church of England, was invited to deliver the Gov. Bross lectures at Lake Forest university in Illinois in 1915, and made the German philosopher his subject.” (Springf’d Republican) “In the lectures he aims at correcting some prevalent misconceptions as to Nietzsche and his influence in Germany. The six lectures deal in turn with ‘Nietzsche the man,’ ‘The gospel of Nietzsche,’ ‘Nietzsche and Christianity,’ ‘Nietzsche’s originality,’ ‘The charm of Nietzsche,’ and ‘The danger and the significance of Nietzsche.’ In particular Dr Figgis insists that, unlike Stirner, Nietzsche did not teach egotism, but rather a religion of valour involving the sacrifice of immediate desire to an ideal of nobility; egotism being, indeed, in direct opposition to some of Nietzche’s most important principles, such as natural asceticism, the sacrifice of ages in order to speed the superman, the raising of the type of man. But while endeavouring to set before us a reconsideration of much of Nietzsche’s position in a more favourable light than the controversialists of recent years generally allow, Dr Figgis protests equally against those who argue that becauseNietzsche in his later years held and loudly expressed anti-Russian views therefore modern Germany was not deeply influenced by him.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
Reviewed by W. C. A. Wallar
“There may be, however, some doubt whether many who call themselves Christian would accept Dr Figgis’s statement that they ‘assert the will to freedom.’ That is the weakness of the book; for it is only too easy to make out that anything that is true or good is Christian.”
“For the reader who has not time for the writings of Nietzsche but who would like to know what it is all about, this is the book.”
Reviewed by C. H. P. Thurston
“The discussion is pitched in a key so much lower than Nietzsche’s own writing, and is conducted in such obvious and pedestrian terms that the many quotations blaze across the page with a heat that seems almost to shrivel the unfortunate commentator. What Dr Figgis has done here is to make the common mistake of confusing a diagnosis with an ethics. The common mind seems unable to keep from confounding Nietzsche’s analysis of what is with his ideal of what ought to be. ... The book must be credited, however, with what is perhaps the best short sketch of Nietzsche’s life to be found in English.” Randolph Bourne
“A book of real weight and of philosophic power.”
“The relation of Nietzsche to contemporary thought and particularly to Christianity, as well as to the prevailing ideals in Germany, is well brought out in Dr Figgis’ book.”
“His study of Nietzsche is able, fresh and sympathetic. Perhaps because he is under Nietzsche’s charm, he does not quite come to grips with his subject.” M. J.
“We can not praise too highly this exposition. It is unbiased, fair, and square. No debatable characterization of the subject lacks chapter and verse from Nietzsche’s writings.”
“The title gives a sufficient intimation of Dr Figgis’s purpose, but one could wish that he had followed this purpose a little more tenaciously. As a matter of fact, the best part of the book is the exposition of Nietzsche’s philosophy before the author enters upon his critical comparison.”
“It would be difficult for any Christian reviewer to excel Dr Figgis in combining just criticism of an iconoclastic atheist with so impartial an appreciation of his merits.”
“Dr Figgis’s books have an unusual circulation, which they deserve. Christianity has few apologists of equal power, for he is not only learned in divinity, he is also an historian and a philosopher who keeps in touch with the spirit of his time. He knows the latest book of Mr Bernard Shaw as well as of the Modernists. ... Nietzsche is much more talked about than read, and Dr Figgis does well in adding to his lectures typical specimens of his writings and the views of the best critics on them.”
“The analysis Dr Figgis offers in these lectures is at once the most painstaking and the most convincing we have seen.”
“Dr Figgis approaches his subject fairly and judiciously, though hardly with the freedom from preoccupation which is essential to a complete comprehension of Nietzsche. ... He devotes much space to the progress of Nietzschian ideas in modern German.”
FILLEBROWN, CHARLES BOWDOIN.Principles of natural taxation; showing the origin and progress of plans for the payment of all public expenses from economic rent. il $1.50 McClurg 336.2 17-5160
Of part 1 of this book Mr Fillebrown is compiler; of part 2, author. Part 1 is a compilation, the object of which is “to trace the metamorphosis of the land question into the rent question; of the equal right to land into the joint right to the rent of land, etc.” The authors represented in this progression are, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Patrick Edward Dove, Edwin Burgess, Sir John Macdonell, Henry George, Rev Edward McGlynn and Thomas G. Shearman. For each of these a biographical sketch with an estimate of the man’s importance to the single tax movement is provided. Part 2 has chapters on: A burdenless tax; Land; Taxation and housing, etc. The preface says, “While this volume is a revision and enlargement of ‘A single tax handbook for 1913,’ which it was thought might reappear at intervals, it is issued with the idea of permanence, as representing the best authorities, early and late, upon the development of the idea.”
“The book will prove a very useful single-tax document, and Mr Fillebrown has performed a real service to economists in calling attention to the need for a redistribution of emphasis in discussing certain aspects of the single tax. As is perhaps to be expected, where the material has been gathered from scattered sources, an occasional slip in statement has crept in.” R. M. Haig
“For a full exposition of the subject, we have seen few books equal to Mr Fillebrown’s latest effort.” Alexander MacKendrick
“The second part of Mr Fillebrown’s book contains the kind of polemic for the single tax with which readers of his former publications, and of single-tax propaganda generally, are familiar. There is much in it that is plausible, much even that is sound; but there is also a great admixture of shallow assumption as well as an ignoring of vital difficulties.”
“Particularly interesting chapters are ‘The professors and the single tax,’ disclosing incidentally how much the professors are like the man in the street in missing the essential point of the doctrine, and ‘A catechism of natural taxation,’ carefully revised by the best authorities to meet the inquirer’s questions with the best possible answers.”
FILSINGER, ERNST B.Exporting to Latin America; with a foreword by Leo S. Rowe.*$3 Appleton 382 16-17440
For descriptive note see Annual for 1916.
“Two qualities in Mr Filsinger’s book stand out as noteworthy: it is specific and it is comprehensive. When to this statement I add that it is distinctly a business man’s book, written by a business man who still has the student’s knack of covering a subject fully and expressing himself clearly, it may easily be understood that this is one of the best publications on Latin America that has been placed on the American market. ... Among the many writers onLatin American trade Mr Filsinger seems to be almost the discoverer of the effective work being done by the Bureau of foreign and domestic commerce, to which he devotes considerable, but by no means excessive, space. ... It would certainly pay every prospective exporter to have a copy not in his library but on his desk for constant reference and study.” E. E. Pratt
“An especially interesting chapter is that on Export commission houses and agents. ... Mr Filsinger’s outline of the function of the export commission house is followed with the chapter on Traveling salesmen, general and local agents, which is of particular interest to manufacturers desiring to market their product by direct representation overseas. This includes suggestions as to obtaining foreign agents by correspondence. ... This book is a valuable addition to a quite substantial bibliography developed by the painstaking work of Hough, Aughinbaugh and other students of Latin-American trade problems.” R. H. Patchin
“Of unusual practical value is the appendix. This contains, besides other important information, a detailed description of each of the Latin American countries, including language, newspapers, currency, with American equivalents, weights and measures, postage, location, area, and physical characteristics, population, purchasing power, railways and transportation, resources, industries, mines, principal cities, best methods of canvassing the country and the articles most needed. In another part of the appendix he gives the typical advertising rates in Latin American export journals, the principal directories of the Latin American republics, and the principal banks of the large cities.”
“Manufacturers and merchants anxious to discover and improve foreign trade opportunities will find of particular interest the chapters on Latin-American correspondence, Banking documents, Credits, Catalogues and quotations, Parcel post and mail order business, but the subjects covered extend to practically all the questions that business men are compelled to ask in advertising new lines.”
“The work of a man who is president of the Filsinger-Boette shoe company and consul of Costa Rica and Ecuador in St Louis, and who was formerly president and commissioner to Latin-America of the Latin-American foreign trade association. Incidentally Mr Filsinger is the husband of Sara Teasdale, the poet. ... The book is plainly the most valuable of its kind that has yet been published.”
FINCK, HENRY THEOPHILUS.Richard Strauss; the man and his works. il*$2.50 (3c) Little 17-26876
A carefully prepared life of the first great realist in music who “has done for programme music what Wagner did for the opera.” Besides the story of Strauss’s life and a number of reliable anecdotes, there is an estimate of his place in the history of music, and a full description, with critical comments, of his more important compositions including all the tone poems and operas which have been launched with so much interest and success. A sympathetic appreciation of “Richard Strauss: seer and idealist” is contributed by Percy Grainger who sees the inborn effortless greatness of a man who is a genius of the purely inspirational order.
“Stimulating to musicians who do understand Strauss; and, for mere bewildered music lovers who do not, it will serve to foster at least an ‘intelligent ignorance.’”
“This is a useful survey of the external facts touching the life and musical compositions of Richard Strauss. But it does not, on the whole, suggest that it has been a labor of love. Mr Finck makes it abundantly clear that his reason for writing the book was rather the fact that Strauss is considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of living composers than that he himself considers him to be such. And the general tone of Mr Finck’s book is blasé, sometimes yawningly so.” E: Sapir
“Not only the biggest but also the most interesting and the most valuable work on this composer yet produced in English. If the book contained only this sort of intensely personal dislike, paraded as an attempt to determine Strauss’s place in the history of music, it would be of small worth. But it contains a deal of more profitable matter.”
“It is a big book in more senses than one. ... To be sure, all the thrice-familiar Finckian critical stigmata are present; his Wagner worship and the clamorous praise of Rubinstein, Grieg, Paderewski, Liszt, MacDowell, and Percy Grainger. ... Mr Finck’s musical enthusiasms are always exhilarating, and while his study of Strauss is not as significant as his ‘Life of Wagner’—the best biography in English—we must remember the difference in the career of the two men. Wagner’s life, like his music, was dramatic. The life thus far of Strauss has been almost commonplace.” J. G. Huneker
“This biography of Strauss the composer has the quality of sprightliness to an exceptional degree—partly, no doubt, because of its subject.”
FINDLATER, MARY, and FINDLATER, JANE HELEN.Seen and heard before and after 1914.*$1.50 Dutton 17-26479
“There are six stories in this book—the stories of Scottish life that the Misses Findlater know so well how to tell—and the coming of the war divides them square in half. This in itself gives the book added value as a picture of the conflict’s far reactions. For the war came to the Scotch villages of the Highlands and changed the face of life for the village folk. And the things that were ‘seen and heard’ after Aug. 1, 1914, were very different from the Highland happenings of the hills and villages in the months before. ... The first story is of the wandering tinkers of the Highlands, and of the claim of their gypsy life upon all the tinker ‘clan.’ ... The second story is a strange bit of Highland pathos. ‘When Johnny comes marching home’ is a human little tale of a village ne’er-do-well, who lost his chance of manhood, but the second war story is full of whimsical humor and sweetness. Jane Findlater has written all the tales but one—the last, ‘Real estate,’ longer than most of the others, and rich in human understanding and charm.”—N Y Times
“The stories are written with the same feeling for words and situations which has previously distinguished the work of these two authors. They show life within a very narrow radius, but the stamp of truth is on all they write.” D. L. M.
“Jane Findlater’s writing has the charm of an older time. ... What we really get in ‘The little tinker’ is more like the scene of a Dutch master, incident and atmosphere and character projected upon a tiny canvas, with sympathy but without sentimentalism. The stories written after the war are less happy.”
“A lovable, human book.”
“As always with these writers, it is not the story in itself but the shrewd and intuitive handling of its elements which gives marked individuality to the work.”
FIRTH, JOHN BENJAMIN.Highways and byways in Nottinghamshire. (Highways and byways ser.) il*$2 Macmillan 914.2 (Eng ed 17-7460)
“To an excellent series this is a most readable addition. Mr Firth writes well and has accumulated a mass of curious information. The chapters on Nottingham and Newark and the parts they played on opposite sides in the civil war, the account of Southwell and its ancient minster, the elaborate description of the dukeries—Welbeck, Clumber, and Thoresby, all set in the remains of Sherwood Forest—are the chief features. Robin Hood is cautiously handled. Byron in poverty at Southwell and in transient splendour at Newstead is another picturesque figure.”—Spec
“Gives fewer descriptions of scenery than other books in this series.”
“The book is crammed with information, yet it is written with an ease and grace that any novelist might envy.”
“The book is profusely and beautifully illustrated, and the large-scale maps will be invaluable to the explorer of the byways of Nottinghamshire.”
“Especially interesting in its relation to several of the best-known families of England.”
“There has scarcely been a better book in the series, and one can often dip into his ‘Nottinghamshire’ with pleasure and relief. It is a book to enjoy, and the hours given to it will not be wasted. Mr Griggs’s illustrations are often delightful too. Some of his drawings of domestic architecture—notably of old houses in the city of Nottingham—are very nearly as good as Prout, and we much like his Southwell minster, west front.”
“For Americans no other town of Nottinghamshire can have so great appeal as Scrooby. For Scrooby was the home of William Brewster, the Pilgrim father, and the little band of Brownists met usually at Brewster’s house. ... Mr Firth’s spirited pen traces the features of Nottinghamshire towns, and revives much entertaining local history.”
“A book like this brings strongly home to the reader the tides of change which have helped to mould the most placid English landscapes.”
FISH, ADA Z.American Red cross text-book on home dietetics. il*$1 Blakiston 641.5 17-6350
“The author of ‘Home dietetics’ has emphasized the means of avoiding illness rather than the ways of catering to it. She has suggested very concisely the important principles involved in the cooking of food, and so far as possible has illustrated these principles by directions for the preparation of common articles of diet.”—Survey
“A unique and valuable feature of the book is the emphasis placed on the importance of hygiene which should be observed in the handling of food to prevent the spread of disease.” L. H. G.
FISHER, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.Francis Thompson; essays. il $1 (15c) Franklin pub. co., Canton, O. 821 17-17070
A short sketch of the life and an appreciation of the poetry of a rare spirit whose genius is the nacre covering the grains of hardship as a pearl was produced for poetry. While after years were kinder to him than the early period of cruel hardship, he was broken in health and died at the age of forty-eight. The late Benjamin Fisher was a sympathetic student of Thompson’s poetry and hoped thru his essays to interest many in the clear quality of Thompson’s poetical gifts.
“Students of Francis Thompson’s poetry will find interest in this attractively bound little book.”
“Of flowery and figurative language, this tiny book possesses real critical grasp, and has itself real beauties of phrase that make us curious to see that earlier work, ‘Life harmonies,’ praised of Alice Meynell.”
FISHER, DOROTHEA FRANCES (CANFIELD) (MRS JOHN REDWOOD FISHER).Understood Betsy.il*$1.30 (3c) Holt 17-23050
“Betsy has been brought up from infancy by her Aunt Frances, a maiden lady past her first youth who has deluged the child with love and anxiety and determination to ‘understand’ her. And so at the age of nine she has been ‘understood’ into an anaemic, morbid, neurotic, egotistic condition that saps her rightful enjoyment of childhood and undermines the promise of useful womanhood. ... A sudden upheaval in Aunt Frances’s family makes it necessary for Betsy to be sent along to relatives who live on a farm in Vermont. And there life takes on a very different complexion. Nobody tries to ‘understand’ her, nobody pays attention to any of the things that caused Aunt Frances to cuddle and care for her as if she were an infant. Instead, they put responsibilities upon her for herself and others, expect her to amuse herself and in general to be an upstanding, self-reliant little girl.”—N Y Times
“Published in St Nicholas.”
“The one girls’ story of the season which seems to have the qualities that make for permanence—Miss Alcott’s qualities, say, of warm feeling, golden common sense, and ease and simplicity of style.” J: Walcott
“Betsy is the concrete example of so much that Mrs Fisher has written on child training, that we are obliged once again to remark the skill with which a true story teller can reveal her morals while she is telling a thoroughly interesting story.” D. L. M.
“The book is intended primarily for children, but Mrs Fisher with her usual insight has touched upon a modern tendency in education with an irony that will be appreciated by their elders.”
“It is a story for a child—or for the child-lover with many suggestions in child-development and training quite suited to a teacher.”
“Dorothy Canfield is always extraordinarily likable, even if she has grown troublingly wistful, and doubtful about cities. ... Her wistfulness for pioneer conditions saps a necessary confidence in cities in a way her Montessori mother did not. But is it, after all, a book for children? Would it not be, of itself, just a little bit of an Aunt Frances?”
“It has ostensibly been written for children, but we should be sorry for any adult who could not enjoy it. ... As a gift to a little nine or ten year old girl who reads easily, we cannot recommend anything more charming and worth while than ‘Understood Betsy.’” M. G. S.
“This story about a little girl will be read with pleasure by people who are small and young, while people who are larger and older also will read it with pleasure combined, if they have humor and sense, with profit. ... The scene is that section of New England where Mrs Fisher has made her home for a number of years, and the people are the same sturdy Vermonters whom she has put into hershort stories about ‘Hillsboro people.’ She interprets the New England character with truth and verve.”
“A charming and entertaining little story.”
“As a story pure and simple, it is delightful, a mine of fun, wisdom and common sense.”
“A most delightful narrative. The reader feels an impulsive affection for Aunt Abigail, Uncle Henry and Cousin Ann.”
FISHER, GEORGE JOHN, and BERRY, ELMER.Physical effects of smoking; preliminary experimental studies.*$1 Assn. press 613 17-12837
Dr Fisher is connected with the International committee of the Y. M. C. A., and Professor Berry is professor of physiology in the International Y. M. C. A. college at Springfield, Mass. Professor Berry states that “the material here brought together represents an effort to secure definite experimental data regarding the effects of smoking,” that the work, covering researches conducted 1914-16, has been done as graduation theses under his direction, and that it is presented as “entirely preliminary and tentative.” The subjects were “normal, healthy, athletic fellows between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five.” The experimenters returned results remarkable for their uniformity and general consistency, showing that smoking raises the heart rate and blood pressure, that it markedly delays the return of the heart rate to normal after exercise, and that it impairs the neuro-muscular control as indicated by delicate finger exercises and gross muscular coordinations. There is a bibliography of eight pages.
“With rare good judgment the authors refrain from conclusions, and rest their case upon a simple statement of recorded facts, not claiming infallibility but presenting their results so that the reader arrives at his own conclusions. The book is an excellent short story to put into the hands of school teachers and high-school boys.” Haven Emerson, M.D.
FISHER, MARY.The Treloars.*$1.35 (1c) Crowell 17-13953
“The scene is California. The Treloars, who live in the country near Berkeley, are a family of high cultivation and of warm humanity. The father is a brilliant man who has ceased to be a parson because he can no longer conform to the creed of the church. ... Hard by lives his friend, who is also a detached philosopher—of another school. Their chief recreation is in controversy. Treloar has three grown children. One of the daughters, Catherine, has brains enough only for the hard and selfish part of the modern feminist practice. Margaret, the other, is a woman of intellect and character. Her brother Dick holds the centre of her stage, and responds to her devotion. We meet her at the moment when Dick is about to try his fledgling wings at journalism. In the city he presently meets an enchantress, an actress of none too savoury past. The wrecking of his sister’s happiness and a luckless marriage are the result. He is released before the total crippling of his life, and after an illuminating experience [at] the war-front, achieves a real union with the girl he should have married in the first place; to Margaret also the chances of war have brought a fitting mate.”—Bookm
“A book of scope and power by a hand fresh at story-making. Readers who like swift action may find the conduct of the narrative too leisurely. By others, the digressions and discussions which fill so many of these pages may be regarded as the cream of the book.” H. W. Boynton
“What a godsend the war has been to lazy or unimaginative novelists! With it they can cut every Gordian knot.”
“The book’s fault is talk, tho much of it is Interesting enough and clever. But there is too much of it.”
“A book of uncommon flavor: to begin with, its style instead of falling in with modern fashions of briskness or nonchalance, takes its own time and goes its own way, with a faint suggestiveness, perhaps, of George Eliot rather than any later writer. It is the medium of an intelligence both sympathetic and scholarly, interpreting character in the light of present conditions.”
“‘The Treloars’ belongs to a class of novels written not because the author has a story to tell, but because he has views to ventilate, theories to expound, a fund of information of which to disburden himself. ... Although well written, showing wide reading, and expressing forcible opinions upon nearly all the subjects now agitating the public mind, ‘The Treloars’ does not take hold of the reader. The characters seem to have been created to hold long conversations upon every conceivable topic, ... while certain of the situations are almost amusing in their improbability.”
FISK, EUGENE LYMAN.Alcohol.*$1 Funk 178 17-20843
“A non-scientific discussion for the general reader of the deleterious effect of alcohol. Divided into three parts, it discusses its relation to life insurance, to physiology, and human efficiency. Supplementary notes give views of Great Britain, Russia and France and the attitude of the American medical profession.” (A L A Bkl) The contents appeared first in the form of articles in the Atlantic Monthly.
“Modest and yet most important volume. It would be a good thing for America and the world if his pages could be carried in the knapsack of every soldier, at home and abroad, and studied by every citizen of our country.”
“It is too slight, too dogmatic, and too evidently written to maintain a theory.”
FISKE, MINNIE MADDERN (MRS HARRISON GREY FISKE).Mrs Fiske; her views on actors, acting, and the problems of production; recorded by Alexander Woolcott. il*$2 (6c) Century 792 17-29247
Witty, spontaneous, unconventional bits of theatre wisdom dropped over the tea cups by one of the foremost producers, directors and actresses of the present day and recorded out of the long memory of the dramatic critic of the New York Times. The seven chapters set forth Mrs Fiske’s theory of the theatre,—a theory which has been evolving thru years of honest, sincere progress towards the goal which the world has seen her brilliantly achieve. Deductions are interpolated with interesting comment on the portrayal of certain of her well known rôles. The book is full of inspiration and food for thought and study for young actors, while for the theatre goer who never misses a Fiske play it will serve as a review of her successes.
“Expensive for its value to the average library.”
“Mr Woolcott is an adept prompter; he usually sets the scene piquantly; fills the pauses neatly; gives Mrs Fiske her head, as it were, while his memory sits elastic in the saddle; and generally conducts himself as a beaming Boswell, save for a tendency to the simpering and airy phrases of literary and artistic youth at tea in the college across the Charles. As for Mrs Fiske herself, she courses through the conversations like Delilah in Milton’s chorus, ‘bedecked, ornate, and gay.’”
“No one could doubt the authenticity of these repeated conversations, for they are so consistent with her life and seem so possessed of herpersonality as to make one see the lift of her head, the whimsical light in her eye, and visualize the touch and gesture of her personality.”
“Woolcott expresses the hope that some day Mrs Fiske will write her own book. It is here seconded, for it must be admitted that there is a feeling, especially in the opening chapters, that just when the actress is about to say something really vital, the writer interrupts her train of thought.” L: Gardy
“The book is full of interesting exposition, nuggets of wisdom, conclusions clearly thought out and forcibly presented. No one who is in the least interested in the theatre can fail to find the book fascinating and stimulating.”