“So far, this is the most informing book from the Italian side.”
“A comprehensive study of Italian conditions, strategy, fighting. ... An interesting feature of his book, too, is the information that Mr Low has to give us about Austria and the Austrian part in the war. ... The book is illustrated, too, with excellent photographs from the Italian headquarters photographic department.”
LOWE, CORINNE MARTIN.Confessions of a social secretary. il*$1.25 (1c) Harper 17-5813
Those who delight in reading of the private affairs of that limited section of the social body that is labeled Society will find much to interest them in this book. It gives what appears to be an honest account of the inner workings of the households of a society leader, including town house, country house and Newport cottage. There are details regarding the management of servants, the arrangement of house parties, the planning of dinners, etc. Society, if this be a true picture, must be a deadly dull affair! There is a slight thread of fiction in the story of the rich young girl who chose to marry a real man. The title of the serial publication of these confessions was “This is the life.”
“The book is written in a humorous, readable manner, with more than one touch of real character drawing and a moral in the futility of the life that strives for nothing better than social pre-eminence—and attains it.”
“One must be curious indeed about the doings of this set to be diverted by the detail of their domestic arrangements; these details Miss Lowe presents with photographic candor.”
“Its thread of fiction is not without charm, but its interest and its conspicuousness alike are due to its authenticity. There is nothing fictitious about this record; the anecdotes are true stories; the people are real and may, with no great effort, be identified if one knows enough; the descriptions are photographic.”
LOWELL, AMY.Tendencies in modern American poetry. il*$2.50 Macmillan 811 17-25828
Amy Lowell, herself a leading exponent of the new in poetry, writes of six fellow poets: Edwin Arlington Robinson; Robert Frost; Edgar Lee Masters; Carl Sandburg; “H. D.” and John Gould Fletcher. In her preface Miss Lowell says, “What sets the poets of to-day apart from those of the Victorian era is an entire difference of outlook. Ideas believed to be fundamental have disappeared and given place to others. And as poetry is the expression of the heart of man, so it reflects this change to its smallest particle. It has been my endeavour in these essays to follow this evolution, in the movement as a whole, and also in the work of the particular poets who compose it. I have tried to show what has led each of these men to adopt the habit of mind which now characterizes him, why he has been forced out of one order into another; how his ideas have gradually taken form in his mind, and in what way he expresses this form in his work.” A bibliography of the works of the poets represented closes the book, and there is an interesting photogravure portrait of each.
“An excellent critical estimate.”
“In her ‘Tendencies in modern American poetry’ Miss Lowell is emphatically ‘there’; there in heart, mind, and spirit: there with her faith and her reasons for it; there with her polemical aptitudes and her full employment of them; on the spot, up to date, with her eye on the poetical clock, to the last second of the latest minute.” H: B. Fuller
“To meet the ordinary extraordinary ignorance about poets and poetry nothing could be more useful and valuable. When Miss Lowell is not busy with amateurish ethnology and ‘atavism’ and evolution and pseudo-science, she is one of the best expositors that modern poetry could have. And it is for her sympathetic exposition of the things she likes rather than her ineffectual announcement of a system and a touchstone that her book deserves to be read.” F. H.
“The outstanding fault of the book lies in the fact that Miss Lowell has cast herself into double and conflicting rôles—those of critic and propagandist. It becomes a certainty that she is not looking at her subject from an unbiased standpoint, but, instead, that the book is written to bolster up the case for imagism.” Clement Wood
“‘Tendencies in modern American poetry’ is a book that needed to be written, and it is doubtful if any one else in America besides Amy Lowell could have written it. She has brought to the task not only critical insight and independence of spirit, but a personal acquaintance with the poets she has discussed. This has served to enlarge her view, not to guide her judgments.”
LOWNDES, MARIE ADELAIDE (BELLOC) (MRS FREDERIC SAWREY-LOWNDES).Lilla: a part of her life.*$1.35 (1½c) Doran 17-10163
A story based on a possible situation growing out of the war. Lilla is a delicate, reticent woman whose marriage to Robert Singleton has been uneventful and colorless, altho not unhappy. Making her home with his people, she has found it necessary to repress her own personality until she hardly knows what strong emotion can mean. It is after the report of her husband’s death early in 1914, while she herself is taken up with war work, that she meets Dare Carteret. They are married a short five weeks after their first meeting. Lilla, to whom love had been unknown, has learned its meaning. Then in the midst of her great happiness Robert Singleton returns. The story closes with Lilla in France and with one of the two men involved in her tragedy starting out with Kitchener on his ill-fated voyage.
“It is disappointing to find the introduction of characters wholly extraneous to the subject in hand and not even indirectly promoting the action, yet in whom the author attempts to create an interest by long explanations concerning their earlier lives.”
“There are many vivid pictures of London in war time, especially dramatic and thrilling being that of the first Zeppelin raid. The story moves quietly and rapidly, through emotional climaxes of many kinds that are always tense and gripping and incidents that would be bizarre against any but their fateful war background, to its tragic conclusion. But out of the mangled and smashed human happiness upon which it closes there rises the note of spiritual triumph.”
“The book is ably and sincerely written, and there is a dignity in Mrs Belloc Lowndes’s handling of her characters which gives them both interest and stability.”
LOYSON, PAUL HYACINTHE.Gods in the battle; tr. from the French by Lady Frazer; with an introd. by H. G. Wells.*3s 6d Hodder & Stoughton, London 940.91 (Eng ed 17-25626)
The author is the son of Père Hyacinthe, the great preacher, and was, before the war, “a rational pacifist” and the editor ofLes Droits de l’Homme. Since 1914, he has devoted himself to speaking and working in the cause of the Allies in France, England, Holland and elsewhere. “This collection of ‘Open letters’ to a great variety of persons appeared originally under the title ‘Étes-vous neutres devant le crime?’ A considerable portion of the book, however (104 pages), is devoted to ‘The Roman Rolland case’—appeals and criticisms and other matter connected with the attitude towards the war of M. Rolland, as shown in his ‘Above the battle’ and elsewhere. ‘Notes’ on the contents of the book at the end occupy45 pages. Neither author nor translator receives any benefit from the sale of the volume; M. Loyson’s fees for the rights of translation has been given by him to the British Red cross fund.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“No Englishman could have written this book, but we must get our insular minds to realise that there is more than one way of doing a thing. The popular style of to-day in England rather tends to telegraphese than to sustained efforts of argument, irony, and rhetoric. ... M. Loyson fortifies his statements throughout with notes and references, especially regarding the case of M. Rolland. ... M. Rolland, on the evidence here set out at length, is clearly convicted of dodging and paltering.”
“We do not write in M. Loyson’s manner, or, if we do, we do it ill. But M. Loyson does it well, for it is his natural way of expressing himself. He can make the grand gesture without becoming absurd. ... With all its fire it is never spiteful even against the German people. M. Loyson is still a pacifist and a gentleman. The translation is all the more successful because Lady Frazer, herself a Frenchwoman, has not tried to make it too English.”
LUCAS, SIR CHARLES PRESTWOOD.Beginnings of English overseas enterprise; a prelude to the empire.*$2.90 Oxford 382 17-20009
“There has been much study and writing on special periods in the history of the English chartered commercial companies, but almost no attempt to give a continuous narrative of the whole career of any one of them. The work of Sir Charles Lucas, which endeavors to tell the story of three of the earliest companies, is therefore a welcome and important contribution to the literature of the subject. These three are the Merchants of the staple, the Eastland merchants, and the Merchant adventurers. The first is perforce, for lack of materials, very brief, and the second a slight, almost an outline sketch; the work is therefore practically a history of the Merchant adventurers of England from their obscure origin in the Netherlands in the fourteenth century to their dissolution, after at least four centuries of continuous existence, at Hamburg in 1808.”—Am Hist R
“It is written with the ability and mastery of the trained historian.” E: P. Cheyney
“Their story as unfolded in Sir Charles Lucas’s concise but weighty monograph, is not only illuminating as regards the past but pregnant with lessons for the future after the war. The ‘Beginnings of English overseas enterprise’ is a real and important contribution to that history which is ‘philosophy teaching by examples.’”
LUCAS, ST JOHN WELLES LUCAS.April folly.*$1.50 Dutton
“In ‘April folly’ Mr St John Lucas continues the story of Dennis Yorke which he began some years ago in ‘The first round.’ The central theme of the first part was the relation of Dennis, a wayward boy and an artist, to his father, ‘The Apostle of the respectable.’ This sequel begins with the funeral of Mr Yorke and the return of Dennis to his artistic friends in Chelsea,—Tellier, and Sandys, and others. Now that the death of his father has set him free to develop his musical genius Dennis’s artistic progress is great; but he is still very much in the making, serious with that immense seriousness of youth which Mr St John Lucas can describe so accurately and sympathetically, drawn one way by his art, another by the cold rectitude which he has inherited in the very fibres of his being.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Lucas’s version has the merit of quietly humanising materials which have been so often merely galvanised for an easy public.” H. W. Boynton
“After a decidedly well-told story, in progress, the reader suffers the anti-climax at the end with rebellion and dissatisfaction.”
“A first-rate analysis of calf love in London Bohemia. The only difficulty lies in the comparative slimness of the subject; it does not draw out the novelist’s resources. The whole group of Chelsea musicians is well sketched and we should have preferred following their adventures rather than turning to the sordid, pathetic little tragedy to which the story finally devotes its course.”
“His adventures in sex take us along none of those miry ways to which the bold young school have now wonted us. Nevertheless, they would have seemed desperate enough if we had been regaled with them at the time of their alleged occurrence, a quarter of a century ago. ... ‘Yes, but what of it?’ is the mood in which this kind of story, however nicely done, has a way of leaving us.”
“The musical and artistic environment in which this drama of human relationships is played out to its pathetic and ironic conclusion is delightfully sketched.”
“Mr St John Lucas is one of the very best of our short-story writers, to say nothing of his excellent anthologies of French and Italian verse and his graceful original poems. ... He avoids the monotony of uniform cleverness which marks the dialogue of some excellent novelists. He is judicious, too, in skating over thin ice, for you cannot write of Bohemia without touching on its squalid fringes as well as its hearty camaraderie. We may note in conclusion that while the story is written by an artist, with a lively sympathy for artistic ideals, he is so impartial in dealing with normal and even Philistine people that we come away with a heightened respect for them.”
“The story is told with a gentle penetration and judgment which give it charm; and the friends who are grouped together both in Chelsea and at Hampstead move and act with the pleasant ease of real companions; their comments on their arts are vivid and faithful.”
LUEHRMANN, ADELE.Other Brown. il*$1.35 Century 17-23048
“A story of dual personality ... [by the author of ‘The curious case of Marie Dupont’]. It adds to its psychological interest, a murder, a mine in Mexico and a love story ending in New York.”—Ind
“The story is unnecessarily complicated with endless twists and tangles. ... It is a mediocre story.” C. W.
“‘The other Brown’ is well able to baffle and enthrall the most astute reader, and the personalities taking part in it are altogether charming.”
“The author handles her plot with sufficient skill to keep the reader mystified—which is the only requirement of fiction of the sort. ... The conclusion is not entirely easy and natural.”
LUTZ, RUFUS ROLLA.Wage earning and education.diags 50c (1c) Cleveland foundation. Survey committee; Russell Sage foundation 370.91 16-26854
This is a summary volume of the Cleveland survey series, presenting a synthesis of the results of the survey as a whole. Part 1 has chapters discussing some of the general phases of the subject, among them: The industrial education survey; Forecasting future probabilities; The wage earners of Cleveland; The future wage earners of Cleveland; Industrial training for boys in elementary schools; The junior high school; Trade training during the last years in school, etc. Part 2 is given up to summaries of the special reports.
“The risks of such an assumption of static social and economic conditions are already apparent. ... The experiences of the nations at war, as well as developments in older American communities, raise some doubts about the advisability of confining the vocational training of women to retail selling, to the sewing trades and to limited fields of the more mechanical forms of office work. The least satisfactory portion of the report is that dealing with vocational guidance and school placement.” Lucile Eaves
“The volume contains independent and illuminating comment. The chapter on vocational guidance is one of the sanest in the whole field.”
LYNDE, FRANCIS.Stranded in Arcady.il*$1.35 (3c) Scribner 17-14177
Neither Donald Prime nor Lucetta Millington knows how they happen to find themselves alone in the northern woods on the shore of an unknown lake. Each tells a story of preceding events that ends in haziness. That they have been separately drugged, kidnapped and left together in this lonely place is the only explanation. But the story has to do not so much with this mystery as with the adaptation of two sophisticated young people, one a novelist, the other a teacher of domestic science, to primitive conditions.
“Appeared in Scribner’s Magazine.”
“Ingenious and unusual.”
“There was a time when it seemed as though the author of ‘The honorable Senator Sage-Brush’ might intend to use his very marked gifts as a story teller for the serious presentation and interpretation of certain phases of our American life, but Mr Lynde has apparently decided instead to devote himself to a lighter kind of fiction. However, this little romance is interesting, amusing, and well written, and will prove a very pleasant means of whiling away a few idle hours.”
“So well told that one is willing to forget mere improbability.”
“This story is different from and less spontaneous than the bulk of Mr Lynde’s other work. Still the action is rapid and a spirit of comradeship and good nature pervades it.”
LYNDON, LAMAR.Hydro-electric power. 2v il v 1*$5; v 2*$3.50 McGraw 621.31 16-23566
“The work, as may be inferred from the title is quite general in scope, covering both the hydraulic and electrical phases of design. Volume 1 is entitled ‘Hydraulic development and equipment,’ and volume 2 is entitled ‘Electrical equipment and transmission.’ However, it should not be concluded that the two volumes are entirely independent of each other. As the author puts it in the preface to volume 2, ‘this volume forms a companion to, and is, in fact, a continuation of volume 1. There is no definite point of division between the two volumes, and this treatise was divided into two sections solely to make it less cumbersome and more convenient for reference.’”—Engin Rec
“Vol. 1 of this work is about the most concise treatment of hydraulic engineering from the standpoint of design and construction that is now available. ... The work is notable for its completeness rather than the newness of material presented, since it incorporates fundamental and standard formulas that have been used in the design of water-power developments. In interpretation of this information lie the practical difference and usefulness of the book as compared with other works available. ... Vol. 2 forms a very good supplement to the first volume but cannot be considered an adequate treatise on the electrical design and installation of station equipment or on transmission systems.”
“Students and practising engineers interested in the design of hydroelectric-power plants will wish to add this book to their libraries. ... On the whole, it may be said that the author’s work is well done. In scope the book is excellent; it touches on almost all phases of plant design and defines the principles governing design very well. ... A number of very good charts and diagrams are included. The illustrations are excellent, and the publishers have done their part well.”
LYNN, ETHEL.Adventures of a woman hobo.*$1.50 (3c) Doran 17-15672
The author tells of a trip from Chicago to San Francisco taken in company with her husband in 1908. She was threatened with tuberculosis, and looked on a return to California, her native state, as her only salvation. Lacking funds for the journey, they started out to work their way, using a tandem bicycle as a means of travel. Midway across the plains, the tandem was abandoned. They traveled for a time in a prairie schooner, and finally completed the last stages of the journey on freight trains. The experiences described are varied and interesting. At the close the author reports that her health was fully restored and that her view point had been modified. She says, “My belief in the inherent kindliness and unselfishness of the human heart has been strengthened. ... Never again will I think it necessary to change human nature before we can improve social conditions.”
“This book is worth the reading of all Socialists. It is a clarifying description of why the stranger you meet would rather knock you down than bid you the time of day.” L. W.
LYTTELTON, EDITH SOPHY (BALFOUR) (MRS ALFRED LYTTELTON).Alfred Lyttelton. il*$4 Longmans 17-15058
This life of Alfred Lyttelton, who died in 1913, is a particularly intimate biography. It is written by his wife, who says in the preface to part 2, “Alfred’s unique position among his contemporaries was due not so much to gifts of intellect as to gifts of character. His life was not full of adventure, nor, if measured by some standards, even of achievement. What he was, rather than what he did, needs to beportrayed. In trying to draw the picture of a man’s character, his affections must be described, and as truthfully as possible.” Alfred Lyttelton entered Parliament in 1895, was sent to South Africa as chairman of the Transvaal concessions commission in 1900, and in 1903 was made secretary for the colonies.
“Few biographies offer more chapters of constant and varied interest.”
“An unusually intimate record of the man as he revealed himself to his family and friends. What his loss meant to his friends has already been declared by the tributes paid to his memory by Mr Asquith in the House of Commons; by the address delivered by Mr Balfour last August at the unveiling of the memorial tablet in St Margaret’s, Westminster; and by the appreciations contributed by Lord Curzon and Lord Midleton to the Times at the time of his death. He made fresh friends all his life, but never lost his older ones.”
“Alfred Lyttelton was not a great man, yet his widow has written an extraordinarily interesting and fascinating biography of him. Mr Lyttelton married two remarkable women, first, Laura Tennant, sister of Mrs Herbert H. Asquith, and on her death, the author of the present volume, who was Edith Balfour.”
“She has executed her labour of love both with skill and judgment, throwing the strong lights in her picture upon Alfred Lyttelton’s incontestable splendour of character and charm of disposition, and leaving his ministerial rank and political achievement to furnish just the drapery and the background of the figure.”
MABIE, HAMILTON WRIGHT.Fruits of the spirit.*$1.25 (2c) Dodd 204 17-13307
A collection of essays that have appeared in the Outlook during the past ten and more years. The preface says, “It is significant that the latest essays, written in 1916, during a period of great physical depression, are concerned with the fundamentals of faith, action and achievement.” A few of the titles are: The practice of immortality; The ultimate companionship; The prophecy of love; The larger plan; The child and the world; Lodgings and homes; A secret of youth; The wisdom of youth; The long view of life; Meeting life squarely; The test of courage. There is an introduction by Lyman Abbott.
“Ethical in content, hortatory in spirit, they are unexceptionable in matter and form and also quite undistinguished.”
“The essays will be found spiritually valuable, not only to the individual reader, but to groups, and even to congregations, especially in the summer when opportunity to attend ordinary church service is often denied.”
MCADIE, ALEXANDER GEORGE.Principles of aërography. il $3 Rand 551.5 17-19384
“‘The principles of aërography’ deals with the most recent advances in meteorology. ... The purpose and scope of the book are summarized in the opening sentence of the preface, ... to present this new knowledge [of about the last ten years] in a convenient form even if considerably condensed.’ ... The successive chapters are: ‘A brief history of meteorology; units and symbols; temperature scales; thermodynamics of the atmosphere; stratosphere and troposphere; the circulation of the atmosphere; the major circulations; the minor circulations; forecasting storms; the winds; the water vapor of the atmosphere; condensation; dust and microbes; atmospheric electricity; precipitation; floods and notable storms; frosts; [and] solar influences.’”—Science
“The book is well printed on paper calculated to make the illustrations appear at their best. In fact, the illustrations are one of the chief charms of the book, for they are refreshingly new. The treatment of the clouds is especially good and well illustrated. The long chapter on atmospheric electricity, which is devoted almost entirely to the consideration of the thunder shower and lightning, is again an excellent one. ... Judged as a textbook, and thus the first book to be used by a student or general reader, it has many shortcomings. The material is not well arranged; there are too many omissions and not enough elementary detail in the treatment of many subjects.” W. I. M.
“All teachers of meteorology and physical geography owe a deep debt to Professor McAdie for this helpful volume.” F. W.
“Well illustrated and indexed.”
“Unfortunately, coherence and clearness seem to have been sacrificed to brevity in the attempt to make the book a college text. The volume will probably be of greatest value as a reference accompaniment to a well-ordered course in meteorology. As a reference book for the advanced student, however, it is lacking in footnotes or bibliography, but it offsets this with its wealth of tables computed only with difficulty, and of illustrations and diagrams drawn from valuable, inaccessible sources.” C: F. Brooks
MCARTHUR, JOHN CAMPBELL.What a company officer should know. (Harvey military ser.) il $2 Harvey 355 17-16323
“The officer will learn how to maintain discipline without becoming a martinet, to foster in his men those absolutely essential requirements of cleanliness and sobriety, initiative within proper restrictions, cheerfulness under hardship, and last but not least how to make thoroly understood that the good conduct and comradeship of each individual is responsible for the well being of the whole command. Of these, examples are given by way of personal anecdote, which assist in pointing the author’s instruction.”—Ind
“It is not too much to state that every reserve officer should provide himself with this handy guide. ... There is an excellent appendix of military forms and abbreviations but one wonders why a little book so cheaply bound and printed should cost so much.”
MACAULAY, MRS FANNIE (CALDWELL) (FRANCES LITTLE, pseud.).Camp Jolly; or, The secret-finders in the GrandCañon. il*$1.25 (3c) Century 17-24510
A story of the Grand Canyon. Three Kentucky boys, Billy Hargrave, and his cousin Teddy, and Rags, a young colored boy, accompany Billy’s father, an eminent geologist, on an exploring trip thru the canyon. Under the guidance of Wildcat Pete, they have many adventures, and Rags, with his droll comments and his amazement at everything he sees, furnishes much merriment for the party.
“Well written.”
“The record is a pleasant and mildly exciting one.”
“A good open-air story for younger boys.”
MACBETH, MRS MADGE HAMILTON (LYONS).Kleath. il*$1.35 (1½c) Small 17-24097
Christopher Kleath who comes to the Klondike in the early days of the gold rush is something of a mystery. He is engaged as a linotype operator on the first newspaper published in Dawson. But he gives evidence of many other talents, and his manner and social bearing give the impression that he is, or has been, a man of the world. Then too, on one occasion, he shows a surprising skill in picking a lock. Clare Meredith, the wife of the big, fine Klondike doctor, early shows an interest in Kleath, but he proves impervious to her wiles. On the other hand, while he is plainly in love with little Goldie Meadows, he never tells her so. The secret of his past is dramatically explained in the trial scene, after he has been accused of robbing the bank.
“It is regrettable but true that we could not lose a heart-beat during the course of this innocuous story.”
“Her tale is mingled of humor, pathos, and sensationalism, with an unbecoming leaning toward dare-deviltry. It carries a certain air of conviction and will serve for readers whose imaginations accept the printed page as probable truth.”
“The story is a fairly good specimen of the particular class of fiction to which it belongs, and is sufficiently interesting to hold the reader’s attention.”
“The picture of conditions in Dawson city at the height of the Klondike gold rush is more restrained than is sometimes found in novels of the type.”
MCCABE, JOSEPH.Pope’s favourite.*$1.50 (2c) Dodd 17-14139
Pope Alexander VI, Giulia Farnese, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, Fra Savonarola and other historic personages appear in the pages of this novel. The author says, “I have chosen a period so rich in colour, so instinct with turbulent life, and so well known to us, that imagination had not a laborious task. I have put a little blood into the veins of the great dead figures of the Borgia period and restored the missing threads of the worn historical tapestry.” Giulia, the pope’s mistress, is drawn sympathetically. She appears as a young girl, accepting unquestioningly the customs of her time and deeply puzzled by Savonarola’s preachments. Lucrezia Borgia is presented in a new light, a weak rather than a vicious woman.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“It is not all of equal merit, but at least in the figures of this beautiful Giulia and of her ‘Cousin’ Cesare he has made us see a real man and woman of much more than ordinary fascination. He has made for us a brilliant historical picture.” D. L. M.
“Historically accurate but not very full-blooded story.”
“If the title cause the reader to expect a book that he will conceal behind a magazine in public, he will be misled. It is hardly ‘pour les jeunes filles,’ neither is it for the sensation seekers. It is simply a good historical novel—one of the best that it has been our luck to see in a long time.”
“The picture is rich in detail, colorful, yet described with a certain cool aloofness, a curious lack of vitality. The reader finds himself calmly admiring the author’s scholarship rather than excited or enthralled by his narrative.”
“The author succeeds in making Pope Alexander a living character, but Cesare Borgia is only a shadow.”
“Mr McCabe, who writes so trenchantly on so many subjects of religion, history, science, and biography, here turns his busy pen to the task of writing a romance of a period to which he has devoted special study.”
MCCABE, JOSEPH.Romance of the Romanoffs. il*$2 (2½c) Dodd 947 17-29048
In his first chapter the author sketches the primitive democracy of the early Slavs as it existed before the “inevitable military chiefs” had fastened their hold on the people and established the beginnings of autocratic government. He then proceeds with the ugly story of Moscovite and Romanoff rule. There is irony in his title. He says, “This is not a history of Russia, but the history of its autocracy as an episode. ... To a democratic people there can be no more congenial study than this exposure of the crime and failure of an autocracy. To any who find romance in such behaviour as kings and nobles were permitted to flaunt in the eyes of their people in earlier ages the story of the Romanoffs must be exceptionally attractive.” The story is carried down to the abdication of Nicholas II in 1917.
“He takes visible delight in exposing the vices and crimes of Russia’s rulers and he revels in exploding time-hallowed historical reputations, for instance, that of Peter the Great. Although this denunciatory and iconoclastic tendency has its drawbacks, particularly in a historical study, it should be welcomed as a wholesome reaction against the complacencies and shams of official Russian historiography.” Abraham Yarmolinsky
“Mr McCabe’s book would be more useful, and the story of the Romanoffs could be followed more easily and intelligently, if he had appended a family tree of this not too familiar line of monarchs, or if he had even given a chronological list of the Romanoff czars.”
MCCALEB, WALTER FLAVIUS.Happy: the life of a bee. il*75c (2c) Harper 595 17-12824
The autobiography of a bee. The author’s purpose is to set forth the life of the hive, the perils, joys and adventures of honey gathering, in attractive story form. The book has attractive illustrations and decorations by Clement B. Davis.
“A true story, its incidents being as scientifically exact as they are interesting.”
“For young readers this nature story does something like that which Maeterlinck’s famous book on the bee did for older people.”
MCCANN, ALFRED WATTERSON.Thirty cent bread; how to escape a higher cost of living.*50c (3c) Doran 641 17-14406
The author says, “With regulation, now, we can have all the food we need for home use and export to our allies, 200,000,000,000 pounds. Without regulation, we shall have bread cards and soup kitchens within a year.” He discusses the situation with regard to various foodstuffs and offers suggestions for their conservation.
“His book goes into a number of interesting details on several phases of the ‘food problem,’ such as the classification of and speculation in eggs, the conservation of grain, and the preservation of vegetables.”
“A simple, convenient argument.”
MCCARTER, MARGARET (HILL) (MRS WILLIAM ARTHUR MCCARTER).Vanguards of the plains.il*$1.40 (1½c) Harper 17-29178
A story of Kansas and the Santa Fé trail and of the part played by peaceful commerce in the upbuilding of the prairie empire. On one of his early trips over the trail between Kansas City and Santa Fé, Esmond Clarenden, a pioneer merchant and trader, takes the three children who are his wards with him, feeling that they are safer with him than they would be if left alone. This is early in the ‘forties, when the journey is fraught with grave perils. The youngest of the three children, Gail Clarenden, tells the story and in following its development from his childhood to manhood, gives a panoramic picture of the growth of the West. The story has elements of historic interest, adventure and romance.
“A good story of adventure, intrigue and mystery to which the historical background lends an added interest.”
Reviewed by J: Walcott
“No American can read [this book] without a keener realization of what that security, which has been ours from our birth, means.”
“The story as a whole is thrilling enough to hold any reader’s attention. But the value of the book lies in its pictures of early life on the plains and its pages from the book of the Middle West’s development.”
MCCLELLAN, GEORGE BRINTON.Mexican war diary. il*$1 (5c) Princeton univ. press 973.6 17-11694
This war diary begins with McClellan’s departure from West Point in 1846 and is continued thru the battle of Cerro Gordo in 1847. The editor, Professor Myers of Princeton, is at work on a life of General McClellan, and this diary forms a part of the collection of manuscript material in the Library of Congress which he is using as a basis.
“This diary was decidedly worthy of publication. The true character of our ‘citizen soldiery’ is presented with a tinge of prejudice but essentially in colors true to the original. And much interesting information is given in reference to certain episodes of the Mexican war—particularly the march from Matamoros to Victoria and Tampico (pp. 21-50), the siege of Vera Cruz (pp. 53-73), and the battle of Cerro Gordo (pp. 79-90). In his account of this battle McClellan makes a distinctly important contribution to the history of Pillow’s operations.” J. H. Smith
“Well worth publishing, for it gives a perfect picture of the young army officer who was to become in the Civil war the idol of the Army of the Potomac.”
“Besides containing a remarkable revelation of General McClellan’s much debated personality, and graphic pictures of the march on Mexico City from Vera Cruz, fully explains, at that early date, the unwisdom of employing raw volunteer forces in active military operations.”
“Gives vivid glimpses of the campaign of 1846 and makes clearer than ever the failure and futility of the ‘volunteer system’ as a national reliance in time of war.”
“From it we gain an intimate view of the Mexican war not to be found in ordinary books of history.”
MCCLENDON, JESSE FRANCIS.Physical chemistry of vital phenomena. il*$2 Princeton univ. press 541 17-13355
A work for students and investigators in the biological and medical sciences. The author is assistant professor of physiology in the University of Minnesota and the work is based on lectures and laboratory work given to graduate and advanced medical students in that institution. “The purpose of the book is not to go far into physical chemistry but to develop a tool for physiological research. Lengthy discussions of debated questions are avoided by tentatively accepting the hypothesis which fits the most facts, until a better one appears. For further discussion of any subject the reader is referred to the literature list and index.” (Preface) The literature list is extensive, occupying thirty-six pages, with a subject index (to the list) of seven pages following. There is no index to the text.
“If the reader of this book, as is certainly advisable, has had a course in physical chemistry, he will find occasion to use marginal question marks, or to make corrections, in a number of places. Defects of the sort pointed out are, however, only slight and somewhat excusable misadventures in the first edition of a volume which has so much to commend it, and which is a noteworthy and valuable contribution to scientific literature.”
“As a whole the book exhibits the defects as well as the merits of its extreme brevity and condensation. The author evidently wishes to be as concise as possible, and largely for this reason his discussion and statements of fact frequently appear dogmatic and lacking in much needed qualifications. Certain explanations are incomplete or otherwise open to criticism.” R. S. Lillie
MCCLINTOCK, ALEXANDER.Best o’ luck.*$1 (4c) Doran 941.5 17-28776
Tells how a fighting Kentuckian won the thanks of Britain’s king and a D.M.C. He was a sergeant in the “Canadian overseas” and rendered conspicuous service during a raid on the enemy’s trenches and, later, in rescuing wounded men at great risk. Contents: Training for the war; The bombing raid; “Over the top and give ‘em hell”; Shifted to the Somme; Wounded in action; A visit from the king.
“Told in the picturesque style of the better class of sporting writers, abounding in humorous, pathetic and thrilling incidents, the story is sure to gain large favor with those who wish to understand war as it is.”
“A random set of reminiscences, a trifle wordy, but sincere.”
“Though less comprehensive than Empey’s ‘Over the top,’ it deserves a place beside that genial chronicle, because of its absolute honesty, its utter realism, and its unabashed humor. There are several chapters devoted to his training as a bomb thrower. These pages are of particular interest and value because of the fact that the American troops in France are being specially trained for bombing.”