“It will delight every poetry-lover. ... It is the modern men whose work we are most interested to see. To us, at present, the unexpected mysticism of the man of the world, the man of letters, the man of action, the unbeliever, even the sinner, is of the deepest interest—because it is along mystic lines that the religious world is now feeling after assurance. ... But when we have drunk the new wine we turn back to Vaughan and Donne and Crashaw and George Herbert and Traherne, and say: ‘The old is better.’ We are, however, not the less grateful to Mr Nicholson and Mr Lee for giving us to drink of the new also.”
“A book in which a hundred or so poems, not all mystical but all fine and true, the work of poets, are buried in a wilderness of respectable religious verse which is only sometimes mysticism and hardly ever poetry.”
NICHOLSON, MEREDITH.Madness of May.il*$1 (5c) Scribner 17-11468
Billy Deering is in a tight place, very much worried about himself and his future, when a picturesque stranger, introducing himself as R. Hood, takes possession of him. Much against his will at first, thinking his companion is either an escaped lunatic or a crook, young Mr Deering accompanies the stranger on what turns out to be a series of fantastic adventures in which a girl who calls herself Pierrette plays a part.
“Appeared in Collier’s Weekly.”
“A story to be read by all honest lovers of romance in terms of whimsy.” H. W. Boynton
“It is so absolutely incredible that the perfectly plausible explanation of the whole situation in the end is positively irritating to the unsuspicious reader, who has not cared to come out of clouds.”
“It is just long enough to entertain a reader in the mood for a trifle that is not trash.”
“A trifle of delicious quality—a confection, if you will, of the purest and soundest materials.”
“A dainty, fluffy bit of most irresponsible foolery.”
“It’s just pure fun, and one only wishes the story were longer.”
“Very light, improbable, and amusing.”
NICHOLSON, MEREDITH.Reversible Santa Claus.il*$1 (6c) Houghton 17-28188
Billy the Hopper, ex-crook, is the hero of this Christmas story. The Hopper, now proprietor of a chicken farm, is leading a blameless life when temptation assails him in two-fold form. To make the matter worse, it is Christmas eve. One of his falls from grace results in the extraction of a bill-book from a fellow passenger’s pocket, an act of which he is heartily ashamed, for petty larceny is far below the level of his talents. The other slip is the stealing of an automobile. Out of this act grow complications. The machine has an occupant—a sleeping baby. It is while attempting to return the child to his parents that the Hopper is persuaded to play the part of a reversible Santa Claus, one who takes things away from people for their own good.
“It is burlesque, its quite impossible action moves swiftly; to see it pass once across the screen may divert an idle hour.”
“‘A reversible Santa Claus,’ gives free scope to his humorous fancy. It would be preposterous if it did not concern a fairy world.”
“It is with relief that it is found to be a most diverting tale, its more or less necessary Yuletide cheer well mixed with real gayety and humor.”
“Original and amusing.”
“Will hardly answer to the demand for a Christmas story, and is perhaps not worth the small library’s purchase.”
NICOLAS, RENÉ.Campaign diary of a French officer; tr. by Katharine Babbitt.*$1.25 (3½c) Houghton 940.91 17-10365
A diary covering three months of the war, from February to May, 1915. The author says, “When I visited America recently I came to realize the widespread interest in the European war shown by the citizens of the new world. ... The many questions I have been asked, and the earnest attention accorded to my accounts of the war, are my excuse for publishing this journal. ... Except for a few trifling omissions, this book reproduces exactly the notes I took at the front. ... The story is a true one, lived and lived intensely. In this fact lies the little merit the work may posses.”
“The book is of especial interest in comparison with the more off-hand accounts of Ian Hay and the member of ‘Kitchener’s mob.’”
“His book is everywhere simple, frank, humane. ... One cannot suppose that M. Nicolas’s experience or his fortitude is at all unusual. Such daily horrors must be the very stuff of life to thousands. To read of them, thus calmly set down, is to realize once more what an adaptable creature man is and to be filled with wonder that the mere threat of hell should have tortured his imagination for ages.”
“He who would gain an idea, not only of what war means, but of what France means to those who love her, should read this book.”
“For vividness it would be hard to match this brief story of the front, because it is a genuine diary. ... The printed book is quite as realistically thrilling as if it bore the scars of the original.”
NIEMEYER, NANNIE.Stories for the history hour; from Augustus to Rolf.*$1.25 (2c) Dodd
“These stories are written solely for the purpose of being told,” says the author in her preface. “They are not intended for children’s reading, but for teachers’ telling. ... These are stories which I wished to tell, and of which I could find no satisfactory version. ... I have avoided all stories of which numerous good versions exist.” The author is an English woman and the stories are planned to fit courses of study in Great Britain. The period from 50 B.C. to 900 A.D. is covered. Contents: Augustus; Onesimus; Trajan; Pliny; Cornelius; Alaric; Geneviève; Clovis; Columba; Cuthbert; Sturmi; Charles the Great; Charles and Alcuin; Ingiald; Eudes; Rolf. A list of authorities is given at the end.
“There is, fortunately, a growing movement in the direction of giving history a meaning and interest for children such as cannot be compassed by formal lectures and text-books. A good example of the kind of thing that is being done, and done successfully, is ‘Stories for the history hour.’” J: Walcott
NOBBS, GILBERT.On the right of the British line.il*$1.25 (2½c) Scribner 940.91 17-24723
Captain Nobbs was five weeks on the firing line on the Somme, four weeks mourned as dead, and three months a prisoner of war in Germany. He describes vividly how he planned the attack of his company under fire, brought his men into position, directed the charge, and fell, wounded in the head and blinded for life.
“One of the most moving of the personal accounts.”
“This is not a great book. It is so unpretentious, indeed, that one wonders why one has finished it at a single sitting. But as a graphic, moving picture it will hold any reader.”
“A simple and interesting personal narrative.” P. B.
NOBLE, EDWARD.Outposts of the fleet.*60c Houghton 17-17081
“That heroes of the merchant marine should, as a rule, receive but scant recognition seems very unjust to Mr Edward Noble. ... To the ordinary perils of the deep are now added the risks and the terrors of war, as is vividly brought out in such tales as ‘Torpedoed’ and ‘Homeward with grain,’ which, with seven other short pieces, make up the contents of the book. Most, if not all, of these sea-yarns have already seen the light in various British journals. ... They are new to American readers.”—Dial
“Nine graphic short stories which show a keen insight into the character of the British seaman and a wide knowledge of his life. Printed on very poor paper.”
“As full of the marine spirit as sea water is full of salt.”
Noontime messages in a college chapel.*$1.25 (4c) Pilgrim press 252 17-30764
Sixty-nine short addresses to young people by twenty-five well-known preachers of different denominations. The college is not named, but the preachers represented belong to Boston and its vicinity. Among them are: George H. Hodges, Charles F. Dole, Paul R. Frothingham, Daniel Evans, Samuel M. Crothers, and Raymond Calkins. The addresses are very brief and are in the nature of intimate talks.
“May be suggestive to ministers and leaders of religious organizations.”
“The thought itself, while sometimes brilliant and suggestive, is more often tame and commonplace.”
“All are characterized by freshness and insight.”
NORRIS, EDWIN MARK.Story of Princeton. il*$2 (3c) Little 378 17-28880
This story of Princeton has been written by the editor of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. It is based on well-known sources, and aims, in addition to giving the essential historical facts, “to present and preserve some of the more characteristic traditions and anecdotes that through two centuries have gathered about the name of Princeton.” (Preface) Contents: When we lived under the king; Princeton’s part in the making of the nation; The reign of terror; Depression and reconstruction; The great awakening; The university. The illustrations are from drawings by Lester G. Hornby.
“The book tells its story well. It is indexed, and the drawings are numerous and good.”
“A worthy volume to set beside Arthur Stanwood Pier’s similar study of Harvard. The volume is for the undergraduate and the alumnus in business, not for the man who has a professional or otherwise strongly developed interest in higher education and academic history. It is simply a bright sketch, made possible by Professor Collins’s recent exhaustive book, and frank in its shortcomings.”
“Mr Norris is particularly happy in depicting the great personalities among the presidents of bygone days.”
“The only defect of his entertaining sketch of the university’s history is a tendency to gloss over some of the ‘intellectual’ battles—if they were wholly intellectual—that were waged over questions of policy. ... Mr Norris’s book as a whole is pleasant and unpretentiously informing.”
NORRIS, KATHLEEN (THOMPSON) (MRS CHARLES GILMAN NORRIS).Martie, the unconquered.il*$1.35 (1c) Doubleday 17-22088
Martie Monroe, a girl of strong individuality and much ambition, brought up in a little California town, escaped from her family who economically and socially were on the down-hill grade, by marrying Wallace Bannister, a third-class actor. The Bannisters went to New York, where a son was born. As Wallace was constantly away, and failed to support his wife, she took charge of the boarding-house in which she lived. After her husband’s death, she returned to California to live in the old homestead with her father, her sister Lydia and her son Teddy, and to work in the Monroe public library. After she had accepted an offer of marriage from Clifford Frost, a leading citizen of Monroe about twice her age, John Dryden, who had known and loved her in New York, followed her to California; but Martie, being a Catholic, refused to marry Dryden because he was a divorced man, and, breaking her engagement to Frost, returned to New York to work in the office of a magazine for which she had written some successful articles. Her career is contrasted with that of her sister Sally, who married a poor boy and had four children whom she brought up on an allowance made her by “Dr Ben,” an old physician who believed in the endowment of motherhood.
“Published in the Pictorial Review.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“To touch unobtrusively and incidentally upon moral questions of the hour has been Mrs Norris’s object in the writing of all her novels, and never has she succeeded so well as in ‘Martie the unconquered.’ ... As a novel with its basis the problem of woman, it will make its strongest appeal because it is not a problem novel. ... There is little of the polemic in it, except as life itself is polemic. It contains much of reality and truth as they are faced by a young woman who is unable to remain amid the placid conditions of her birth. And best of all it is free from the morbid sentimentality that has too frequently obtruded itself into Mrs Norris’s other novels.” E. F. E.
“The book is readable, and much of it is well written; but it fails to carry out the author’s evident intention to picture the triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions.”
“The author’s handling of character and her power of rendering the details of village life are worthy of attention. The picture of Malcolm Monroe’s household, dominated by the suspicions of a petty tyrant, is an excellent bit of domestic comedy. Bonestell’s drugstore, where the young folk of Monroe gather for pink sodas; the library steps where they meet and shyly depart on Sunday afternoon walks; the drab existence of New York boarding-houses and flats; the dull reality of the mediocre actor’s days and nights,—these scenes and this youth are part of our American life and they are sketched with a skill that is really notable.”
“Kathleen Norris is suffering the inevitable penalty of over-prolific production. ... If her tricks of manner grow a bit hackneyed, the basic idea on which she works will bear a great deal of repetition.”
“Somehow, as has happened before in Mrs Norris’s work, the story which began so clearly and simply as a record of human experience is gradually enfolded and finally smothered outright in a fog of sheer sentimentalism.”
“It is encouraging to find in a story that is frankly the story of a popular romancer so much of the actualistic and veracious. Nor is the attack on our earlier romantic aura tradition confined wholly to the background. Mrs Norris’ heroine struggles through her loves and early love’s mistakes to her fulness of womanhood and achievement, and there is not even the condescension of a mating-finish.”
“The best-drawn figure in the book is Martie’s father, a fine and consistent portrait. He stands out, in his bigoted egotism, as one living personality among many vague shadows.” Clement Wood
“Mrs Norris’s portrayals of character are always graphic, even where they are slight and superficial. Martie is perhaps the most real and vital of all her gallery of feminine portraits.”
“There is close depiction of a rather narrow range of character. The story in workmanship is equal to the author’s best previous writing.”
“Martie must be regarded as one of Mrs Norris’s best characters.”
NORRIS, KATHLEEN (THOMPSON) (MRS CHARLES GILMAN NORRIS).Undertow.il*$1.25 (3c) Doubleday 17-11464
The story of a married pair who hold together thru adversity only to find themselves drawn apart when prosperity comes to them. Bert and Nancy marry on twenty-five dollars a week. With careful economy they keep well and happy in the little four room apartment. Children come one after the other and Bert’s salary keeps pace with the growing needs of the family. When they have attained real financial independence they move to a fashionable suburb. Here they are drawn into the gay, idle life of the place. They live beyond their means and worry about appearances, but they so far retain their common sense that they can look on the calamity that releases them as a bit of good fortune.
“Copyright by the Curtis publishing company under the title ‘Holly court.’”
“Even the characters hardly live. They move vaguely across the screen in the all-too well-known progress of their lives. If Mrs Norris wishes to do any more moral tales, she must make them more vivid and alive or her readers will fly for relief to the latest detective story.”
“This book is a lantern of warning set on a rock pile.”
“One wonders, indeed, if the author is not playing her characters false, in this [suburban] phase of their development, for the sake of the story she is weaving and the moral she desires her readers to get out of it.”
Reviewed by M. A. Hopkins
“The story presents a sharp lesson in the useless extravagance so conspicuous in the American home. But the story is so well balanced that the moral is at no time unduly prominent. It is not long, but is well worth the reading.”
“Interesting despite the heavily-accentuated moral.”
NORTHEND, MARY HARROD.[2]Memories of old Salem. il*$4 Moffat 974.4 17-27755
“This book, while written in the form of a romantic tale, is designed chiefly to carry the reader back to the days when Salem was in its glory, the days when its ships sailed the seven seas and brought riches and fame to the ancient port. Miss Northend’s story hangs upon the discovery of a packet of love-letters hidden in the frame of an old picture, and by means of the narrative she skilfully conveys the spirit and the setting of the past.”—Lit D
“In both text and picture Miss Northend emphasizes those striking qualities that make Salem one of the most interesting American towns. The great grandmother, in telling the story, recreates the past with all its glamour.” E. F. E.
“Mrs Northend ingeniously contrived a readable narrative in which to embody an immense amount of information. The illustrations alone will be a treasure for any one interested in the life and arts of early New England.”
“This volume is eminently attractive, both in its physical and pictorial form and in the curious information about old times and old things in Salem.”
“Whether or not this narrative is all that could be desired as an account of colonial manners and customs is by no means certain. Some readers, at all events, would prefer a larger amount of research, and a smaller admixture of personal sentiment. The pictures, however, are the real raison d’etre of the volume.”
NORTHRUP, EDWIN FITCH.Laws of physical science; a reference book.*$2 Lippincott 530 17-13944
The author’s aim has been to compile a handbook containing a complete list of the general propositions or laws of science. He says, “We have chosen for a title, ‘Laws of physical science’ but many general propositions, theorems and mere statements of important facts have been included which perhaps, if strictly considered, could not be discriminated as laws. ... When such doubts existed, a policy of inclusion has been followed in preference to one of exclusion.” In all the book contains 480 general statements. These are classified into six groups: Mechanics; Hydrostatics, hydrodynamics and capillarity; Sound; Heat and physical chemistry; Electricity and magnetism; Light. Bibliography and index follow.
“The book is a valuable epitome, and should be of special service to students of physics, chemistry, and engineering.”
“Dr Edwin P. Northrup of Princeton has done a very useful service in adding to existing reference books his ‘Laws of physical science.’”
“Students of engineering and the physical sciences have long needed a compact handbook of the established propositions of physical science. Dr Northrup has prepared just such a handbook. ... Each law is followed by one and in some cases by several references to easily accessible textbooks, standard treatises, etc., where detailed and systematic treatment is given of these propositions. This is not the least important contribution of the book.”
“A judicious choice has been made from a large selection of authors, so that in each case the law might be given in its clearest and most exact form. The book is attractively got up.”
“In a book which so obviously fills a gap in our literature it is perhaps a little ungrateful to point out minor defects. The contrast between the thoroughness of the section devoted to current electricity and the incompleteness and lack of unity of some of the other sections is very marked.”
“Unique work of great value for quick reference. Wider in scope than title indicates.”
“The demands of condensation have been met for the most part very successfully in statements which though compact are clear and correct. In a few instances, however, the statements should be revised. ... It is perhaps unfortunate that the author has chosen Rankine as his source for various thermodynamic statements, for with all his undoubted genius Rankine is not an easy guide to follow. ... But it is easy to be too critical;the author has successfully carried out his proposal and has done an important service.” A. L. Kimball
NORTON, MRS JEANNETTE YOUNG.Mrs Norton’s cook-book; selecting, cooking, and serving for the home table.*$2.50 (1c) Putnam 641.5 17-11938
The author says, “I have tried to make this a cook book, pure and simple, avoiding all reference to, and rules of, chemistry, feeling that the pupils of the schools of domestic science have all such information. ... [and that] lay women would not ordinarily use such information if it were given.” A half dozen chapters of general information precede the chapters devoted to recipes. Special chapters are given to Invalid cookery, Nursery diet, Child cookery, Children’s parties, School luncheons, Camp cookery, etc.
“Recipes are concise but some of them are rather extravagant for the average housekeeper of these times. Would be a great help to tea shops, clubs, or even hotels. Good index.”
“Besides hundreds of recipes, there are chapters of general information most useful to the housekeeper.”
NORWAY, MARY LOUISA (GADSDEN) (MRS HAMILTON NORWAY).Sinn Fein rebellion as I saw it.il*2s Smith, Elder & co., London 941.5 (Eng ed A16-1424)
“The author is the wife of the Secretary for the Post office in Ireland, and in the letters here reprinted, which were written for family perusal, gives a good idea of the sudden terrors and anxieties of the rising. ‘H.’ at the beginning of the war, had obtained a military guard, armed, for the G. P. O. When the outbreak occurred it was there, but had no ammunition. It is a shocking story of folly and mismanagement. ... Evidence is offered of German assistance of the rebels.”—Sat R
“No literary merit is claimed for these letters, which were intended for family perusal only, but they convey a vivid idea of the events and the anxieties they aroused.”
“A perfectly plain, straightforward narrative.”
NOURSE, EDWIN GRISWOLD.Agricultural economics. (Materials for the study of economics)*$2.75 (1c) Univ. of Chicago press 338 16-23032
For descriptive note see Annual for 1916.
“Chapter 1, The emergence of the problem of agricultural economics, is disappointing. ... The best material on the history of American agriculture has not been utilized. ... The editor has kept well in the foreground the social aspect of such matters as the standard of living of the rural population and the defects of the labor force both in quality and quantity. In so doing he has justified his advocacy of the teaching of agricultural economics in every institution which aims to give a liberal education.” P. W. Bidwell
“Should be a valuable help to teachers of undergraduate students, specially until the whole field is more fully developed. More complete and better edited than other books on this subject.”
“A more accurate title for this collection of valuable contributions would be ‘Source book of agricultural economics,’ since the author does not attempt to present what would commonly be looked upon as a textbook in the general principles of the subject.” J. L. C.
“A book significant at once of the trend of thought in this direction, and of the new technique of university instruction.”
“Where the problem under discussion is of a controversial nature, both sides of the case are carefully presented. But in some instances the author has failed to set forth important facts bearing upon his subject. That is, too little space has been given to certain topics. ... Professor Nourse has assembled some suggestive material. He has produced, as it were, a ‘comparative print’ which throws the searchlight of agricultural data on controversial points in economic theory—theory which has too often been developed without due regard for agricultural facts. In accomplishing his other aims he has not succeeded so well. His collection of materials can hardly be regarded as a first-class textbook. Nevertheless, it represents by far the best attempt that has yet been made to satisfy this need.” G: E. Putnam
NOVIKOVA, OLGA ALEKSIEEVNA.Russian memories; with an introd. by Stephen Graham. il*$3.50 Dutton (Eng ed 16-22949)
“People whose memory goes back to the eastern crisis of 1876-78 are not likely to have forgotten Mme Olga Novikoff, or the part that she played in the struggle between the Disraelians and the Gladstonians of that day. A Russian lady, handsome and clever, well connected and well backed, she captivated Mr Gladstone, and enlisted in support of her cause men so diverse as Carlyle, Tyndall, and W. T. Stead. ... Her new book, rather vaguely called ‘Russian memories,’ is partly a sketch of her past political activities, and partly a survey of certain aspects of Russia during recent years, of her politics home and foreign, and of the immediate situation.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“These reminiscences of a very notable woman, who has numbered among her friends Gladstone, Kinglake (’Eothen’), Carlyle, Froude, Tyndall, W. T. Stead, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Verestschagin, and ‘Mark Twain,’ are opportune in their appearance. ... The volume is provided with a good index.”
“That much-abused person who is commonly referred to as the future historian will probably consider this lady the last Mohican of Russian monarchism.” Abraham Yarmolinsky.
“It is a sincere analysis of the relations between Russia and England as she has observed them during the last fifty years. And the personality shown in her writing is one of great intelligence and charm.” R. M.
“The author has apparently spent little time on the ordered preparation of her book, but her manner of writing is invariably engaging and intelligent.”
“Her ‘Russian memories’ contain little or nothing that is new or important. They suggest the garrulity and magnification of self which often goes with old age.”
“Rightly is her book called a book of ‘Memories’; though sprightly, amusing, and entertaining, it is emphatically a book of the past.”
“What the author says concerning such of her own countrymen as Dostoevsky, Verestchagin, and Skobelev is of particular moment to the student of Russian life.”
“As she is an uncompromising champion of the old political regime in Russia, some of her observations, as touching czarism and Siberia for example, seem not a little wide of the mark.”
“The ‘Holy Russia’ of Madame Novikoff seems almost as remote from the Russia of Miliukoff and Kerensky as the England of George III and Lord North from the Britain of Lloyd George.”
“A vivacious and sufficiently self-revealing record of the activities of the most energetic of the unofficial promoters of the Anglo-Russian entente.”
“Its publication in England antedated the great days of March, so that it must not be grouped with the rapidly-augmenting library that owes its genesis to the revolution.”
“This is not a very systematic book, nor is it easy to collect from it any consistent series of impressions. ... The later pages, it is true, deal with the present war, but many others go back a whole generation, so that, as there is no clear marking of the chronology, younger readers will be often perplexed as to the relative position of events.”
NOXON, FRANK WRIGHT.Are we capable of self-government?*$1.50 (2c) Harper 330.9 17-16073
The author considers the “national problems and policies affecting business, 1900-1916.” He “has not tried to answer the question which the title of the book propounds, but rather to review the nation’s recent legislative and bureaucratic strictures upon organized business, sometimes true to the fundamental principles of our government, sometimes ludicrously childish and inconsistent, yet, because the underlying purpose has been honest rather than vicious, making for general progress.” (Introd.) There is a chapter on “Backsliding in New England,” one on “The new era in railway regulation,” and one on “Organized labor and the law.” The introduction is by Harry A. Wheeler, first president of the Chamber of commerce of the United States.
Reviewed by L. E. Robinson
“The author’s study of the various movements will be of interest to Socialists in recalling some recent events. His conclusions will be found curious, for he often seems to go far in boldness of thought and utterance and to miss wholly underlying causes and actual social forces.” Frank Macdonald
“This economic interpretation of current affairs is stimulating in high degree. ... It is rather a book for men of business than students, and wherever women have the vote or wish to be qualified to vote or discuss men’s affairs with men, the book should have women readers.”
“While the title of the book might indicate a pessimistic tendency, the author really shows that our form of government is favorable to the growth of those factors which may by proper cooperation produce the best results in both business and political life.”
NOYES, ALFRED.Open boats.*50c (4½c) Stokes 940.91 17-13295
A book based on the narratives of those who have been sent out in open boats after the sinking of vessels by submarines. Mr Noyes has been at pains to gather together as many authentic records as possible. Contents: Open boats; Sea savagery; The unforeseen; A Prussian; Magnificoes and the dead. Two poems are printed by way of prolog and epilog.
“Mr Alfred Noyes touches a chord of response in his readers by his facility in rhythmic, picturesque utterance. This facility is often fatal to his excellence as a poet, but it adapts itself readily to the description of German frightfulness on the high seas, which is the subject of this little book of sketches.”
“The horror of submarine warfare is nowhere made more real than in these terse records, drawn from admiralty reports and from the accounts by survivors.”
“Mr Noyes has been out with the British trawlers and has personal knowledge of the sea perils that he describes.”
“We wish Mr Noyes would more often leave the nail driven in without making assurance doubly sure by hitting it on the head a dozen times more. He has had presumably access to documents that are not published in the press, but we cannot think that he has succeeded in letting the survivors tell their own desperate story in their own vivid and unvarnished style.”
NYBURG, SIDNEY LAUER.Chosen people.*$1.40 (1½c) Lippincott 17-26391
Philip Graetz, a young rabbi, fresh from his studies, is called to minister to a wealthy Jewish congregation in Baltimore. Philip is an idealist, believing passionately in the unity of the Jewish people and in the power of the Hebrew religion to solve all problems. The wide gulf that exists between the people of his congregation and the poor Jews of the slums is brought home to him in a strike in the clothing trade, and the failure of “Jewish ethics” to solve the labor problem all but shatters his second ideal. Love brings a bitter experience to Philip too, for he learns to care deeply for a girl who is not of his own people, and is saved from sacrificing his chosen career only by her fine character and sense of values. An interesting character in the story is David Gordon, the self-made Russian-Jewish lawyer. He is a good foil for Philip, and the fact that they become friends promises well for the young dreamer’s future.
“In a rough sense this may be called a Jewish ‘Inside of the cup.’” H. W. Boynton
“A somewhat formal, slightly chaotic and altogether serious story. ... Although Mr Nyburg’s style is extraordinarily verbose, although he emphasizes trifles and is inclined to lengthy discussions of incidents, it is undeniable that in ‘The chosen people’ he has written a novel of exceptional quality.” E. F. E.
“I have seen few modern American stories so earnest, direct, free from palaver and sentimentality. ... The problems of the Jew in America are presented but not expounded.” J: Macy
“A book of notable sincerity and dignity, by a Jew who is proud of his race, and whose pride exacts much of that race; by an Americanalso, who desires that American life may be strengthened and ennobled by her Jewish citizens.” H. W. Boynton
“In delightful and reassuring contrast [to Cahan’s ‘Rise of David Levinsky’] is Mr Nyburg’s ‘The chosen people.’” H. W. Boynton
“Refreshing, because it contains none of the conventional sentimentality about the Jew found in the average novel about him. ... Any one who is in the least familiar with Jews will not fail to recognize the prototypes of Arthur Kahn, the cultured ‘cash register’; ... and Dr Philip Graetz, the cultured rabbi of this most fashionable congregation in the city of Baltimore.” Harry Salpeter
“A brilliant piece of work. ... From first to last the book is exceptionally interesting. Detailed as it is, it never drags.”
“He writes with a simplicity and directness that give the impression of one who speaks with authority.” M. K. Reely
“Mr Nyburg has written a keenly intelligent story which often penetrates the hypocrisies of society and shatters the platitudes and poses of conspicuous types. He has not conquered a penchant for theatrical climaxes, but the story ranks among the most substantial of the season’s fiction.”