Chapter 122

20–17082

A story of the British coal industry by the author of “Songs of a miner.” While yet a mere boy Robert Sinclair sits up long past his bed time to listen to the talk between his father and Robert Smillie, and it is the inspiration of that remembered conversation that sends him far in the growing labor movement. Robert goes into the pit at twelve years and on that very day there is an accident in the mine that kills his father and brother and leaves him his mother’s chief support. The story pictures the hard conditions in a disorganized industry, the tyranny of the foreman and his control of the private lives of the men, and the discouraging efforts to form a union. Robert loses the girl he loves and in the end meets his father’s fate in the mine while trying to save others. His mother is left desolate and the author’s final plea is to the men to stand firm together and protect their women folk from such tragedies.

“James Welsh, the miner, has rough-hewn a rather powerful and readable tract.”

“As he commands a fluent and forcible pen, complete mastery of the dialect, and an unflinching realism in the treatment of details, his work claims attention as well as respect.”

WENDELL, BARRETT.Traditions of European literature, from Homer to Dante. *$6 Scribner 809

20–20996

This book has developed from lectures given at Harvard between 1904 and 1917. The author says: “Years of dealing with Harvard students had shown me not only that Americans now know little of the literary traditions of our ancestral Europe, but also that they are seldom aware even of the little they know.” (Introd.) He adopts the point of view of “English-speaking Americans of the twentieth century of the Christian era” and concerns himself with those traditions of literature “which, we need not ask why, have chanced among ourselves to survive the times of their origin.” His task is somewhat simplified by the fact that during the period covered, from Homer to Dante, the traditions “originating in the primal European civilisation of Greece, and extending throughout imperial dominion of Rome, remained for many centuries a common possession of all Europe.” It has been possible therefore to treat the subject as a whole. This is done in five books: The traditions of Greece; The traditions of Rome; The traditions of Christianity; The traditions of Christendom; The traditions of the middle ages. Bibliographical suggestions occupy twenty-three pages and there is an index.

“Nothing brings a keener joy to the heart of a conscientious reviewer than to have in his hands to appraise and to praise a book which seems to him altogether good—worthy in theme, comprehensive in conception, shapely in plan and skillful in execution. This joy is mine now that I have read this admirable example of interpretive scholarship.” Brander Matthews

WEST, WILLIS MASON.Story of modern progress; with a preliminary survey of earlier progress. (Allyn and Bacon’s ser. of school histories) il $2 Allyn 940.2

20–7751

This work is a successor to the author’s “The modern world” written with a redistribution of time to give more space and emphasis to the period since 1870. The author says, “I have taken glad advantage of the chance to write a new book, better suited, I hope, to elementary high-school students; and I have used the treatment in the ‘Modern world’ only when I have found it simpler and clearer than any change I could make today.” (Foreword) An unusual amount of space has been given to English history, while American history, which is sure of full treatment elsewhere, is omitted “except where the connection of events demands its introduction.” Contents: Introduction: a survey of earlier progress; Age of the reformation, 1520–1648; England in the seventeenth century; The age of Louis XIV and Frederick II, 1648–1789; The French revolution; Reaction, 1815–1848; England and the industrial revolution; Continental Europe, 1848–1871; England, 1815–1914; Western Europe, 1871–1914; Slav Europe to 1914; The war and the new age. There is a list of books for high schools, followed by an index and pronouncing vocabulary.

“This present ‘Story of modern progress’ is consoling in a measure, but also provoking. The writer has some straight views, then again, the three-hundred-year-old tradition enfolds him.”

“For a one-year course in modern European history there is possibly no better text on the market.”

WESTERVELT, GEORGE CONRAD, and others.Triumph of the N.C.’s. il *$3 Doubleday 629.

20–7597

The N.C.’s are flying boats as distinguished from hydroaeroplanes and the present volume contains the story of their design and building and of their first achievements. In part 1 Commander G. C. Westervelt tells “How the flying boats were designed and built”—the immense number of details that had to be worked out, the numerous tests that had to be conducted, and the many troublesome features that had to be corrected. Part 2—The “lame duck” wins—is Lieut.-Commander A. C. Read’s story of the transatlantic flight of the N. C. 4. Part 3 contains the log of the N. C. 3 by Commander H. C. Richardson, who also gives an account of previous attempts at transatlantic flight.

“The story of the crossing is told in lively and readable narrative, with picturesque details and with unassuming modesty.”

WESTON, GEORGE.Mary minds her business. il *$1.75 (2½c) Dodd

20–4960

Of the long line of Josiahs of the firm of Josiah Spencer & son, successful manufacturers, Mary’s father was the last. His cousin, Stanley Woodward, had long been figuring on the eventuality of Josiah’s demise, to get entire control of the business. But he had not counted on Mary. His first shock came when Mary had herself chosen president of the corporation and proceeded, with the coaching of a friendly judge and business councilor to run things for herself. And run them she did in a most revolutionary manner. She employed women to such an extent that the factory was finally worked entirely by women on a greater level of efficiency than ever. Other reforms went hand in hand—a rest room, nurseries, kindergarten, laundry, an orchestra of one hundred pieces all played by women. Of course there was fighting to do, Uncle Stanley to be over-ruled, his son Burdon to be shown his place. When the scheme was out of the woods and the most pressing suitor married off, the woman in Mary was alone and aweary and it was then that Archey Forbes, the construction engineer, came into his own.

“The light story has sometimes, under Mr Weston’s pen, developed a diaphanous quality, which has made us wonder why it was worth writing at all. Now in surprising manner Mr Weston has discovered some ideas—not very new ones perhaps, but nevertheless things of substance.”

“Brightly written, full of action, and with a love interest kept discreetly subordinate to that of the extremely efficient Mary’s management of the factory, this story also has the merit of dealing with a question which many will think has been thoroughly answered—the proper sphere of women in this age.”

WEYL, MAURICE.Happy woman. *$1.75 (2c) Kennerley

20–6129

The distinctive feature of this story is its character drawing. There is Henry Hardwick, a man of decided ability but with just that grain of iron lacking in his make-up that would make him a success in his enterprises and the master of his domestic circumstance. Fred Pemberton’s efficiency, on the other hand, verges on hardness and almost wrecks his love-life, deep and true though it is. The two leading women of the tale are likewise opposites, but both in the end can claim the title. Ruth Bernstein, proud, reticent, an unusually able business woman, but feminine in the best sense when off guard, is happy when she yields to her love for Fred Pemberton. Dowdy, voluble, irresponsible Mrs Hardwick is happy when she discovers that her “gift of gab” can be put to good use in swaying and winning admiration from an audience.

“‘The happy woman’ is that rather unusual thing—a genuinely realistic novel.”

WHALE, GEORGE.British airships: past, present and future. il *$2 (4c) Lane 629.1

20–9651

Without attempting a lengthy and highly technical dissertation on aerostatics the book briefly describes the main principles underlying airship construction. It then gives a general history of the development of the airship to the present day before taking up the British airship, which had been practically neglected prior to the twentieth century. The contents, with many illustrations and charts are: Early airships and their development to the present day; British airships built by private firms; British army airships; Early days of the naval airship section—Parseval airships, Astratorres type, etc.; Naval airships: the nonrigids; Naval airships: the rigids; The work of the airship in the world war; The future of airships.

“A useful account, well illustrated.”

“It is a pity that the usefulness of the book is hampered by the absence of an index.”

WHARTON, ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH.[2]In old Pennsylvania towns. il *$5 (6c) Lippincott 974.8

21–155

The author describes a motor trip thru Pennsylvania, on which Lancaster, Lebanon, Gettysburg, Carlisle, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barré, Bethlehem and other towns were visited. Philadelphia and Germantown are omitted, as too well known, for it is the author’s purpose to call attention to the quaint and unusual. The pictures show many of the interesting old Pennsylvania houses.

“The illustrations will delight all who are interested in early American architecture.” M. K. Reely

WHARTON, MRS EDITH NEWBOLD (JONES).Age of innocence. *$2 (1½c) Appleton

20–18615

The milieu of the story is New York “society” in the early seventies. It describes the old aristocracy who took life “without effusion of blood,” who “dreaded scandal more than disease,” who “placed decency above courage” and who considered “nothing more ill-bred than ‘scenes.’” Newland Archer was one of the few whose vision penetrated this crust of conventionality and he fell in love with the one off-color member of the tribe just as he had engaged himself to its most perfect product. Ellen Olenska, wife of a profligate European count, had left her husband and returned to America at this critical moment and Archer hastens his marriage to May Welland before he becomes too deeply involved with Ellen. Ellen’s fine sense of honor and of human kindliness, on the other hand, holds him to his compact and puts the ocean between herself and Archer by returning to Europe. Almost thirty years later, Archer has the satisfaction of seeing his own children step out freely and joyously on the road that had been closed to him.

“The time and the scene together suit Mrs Wharton’s talent to a nicety.” K. M.

“On the book’s enduring quality it is idle to speculate. The slight theme beaten out with delicate care is the fashion of the day, and the best examples will no doubt remain. What is certain, however, is that a multitude of readers today will read with a well-justified delight this picture of New York in the ‘seventies.’” A. E. W. Mason

“As a matter of fact, the author of ‘The age of innocence’ is not the Mrs Wharton of ‘The valley of decision,’ ‘The house of mirth,’ ‘Ethan Frome’ or of any one of the several volumes of short stories with which her reputation was made. She is the Mrs Wharton—with some of her skill and much of her knowledge of life remaining—of a new era that demands yellow pages in its fiction as well as yellow newspapers in its journalism. Until she becomes again the Mrs Wharton of a decade ago, she certainly cannot maintain her once high place among the novelists of today.” E. F. Edgett

“One must occasionally be grateful in a day devoted, on the one hand, to detail, and on the other to a futuristic sketchiness, for a literary gift as serene as Mrs Wharton’s. Her new novel, ‘The age of innocence,’ is the perfect fruit of an austere and disciplined art.” L. M. R.

“The interest of the story lies, not with the doings of the rather wooden characters of the book, but with the picture it purports to give of New York some fifty years ago. Here the author is clearly at fault in portraying a society of such portentous dullness and also in representing the town as devoid of anything else. The book is full of anachronisms which are sure to be noticed by old New-Yorkers.”

“‘The age of innocence’ is a masterly achievement. In lonely contrast to almost all the novelists who write about fashionable New York, she knows her world. In lonely contrast to the many who write about what they know without understanding it or interpreting it, she brings a superbly critical disposition to arrange her knowledge in significant forms.” C. V. D.

“Someone told me that ‘The age of innocence’ was ‘a dull book about New York society in the seventies.’ This is amusing. It is, undoubtedly, a quiet book, and quietness is dullness to the jazz-minded. It is really a book of unsparing perception and essential passionateness, full of necessary reserve, but at the same time full of verity.” F. H.

“Mrs Wharton’s story-telling method is precise and neat, and it is her own. What surprises us, however, in ‘The age of innocence’ is the pervasive glint of oblique criticism that dazzles our eyes from almost every page. And that criticism is no wise lessened because it happens to be leveled against New York society of the ’70s. Is New York, or America, so different in the year 1920?” Pierre Loving

“A fine novel, beautifully written, ‘big’ in the best sense, which has nothing to do with size, a credit to American literature—for if its author is cosmopolitan, her novel, as much as ‘Ethan Frome,’ is a fruit of our soil.” H: S. Canby

“By the side of the absolute mastery of plot, character and style displayed in her latest novel, ‘The house of mirth’ seems almost crude. Edith Wharton is a writer who brings glory on the name America, and this is her best book. It is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and looks like a permanent addition to literature.” W: L. Phelps

“Mrs Wharton’s new novel is in workmanship equal to her very best previous work. In its adequate dealing with a large motif this is a book of far more than ephemeral value.” R. D. Townsend

“The plot is unobvious, delicately developed, with a fine finale that exquisitely satisfies one’s sense of fitness, and as always with Mrs Wharton, the drama of character is greater than that of event. One revels recognizingly in her clean-cut distinction of style, the inerrant aptness of adjectives, the vivisective phrase.” Katharine Perry

“The limitations of the present note on Mrs Wharton’s new story may be revealed by the confession that the annotator’s delight in it as a picture is greatly tempered by his distrust of its leading male figure. I don’t much like this Newland Archer, and I don’t quite believe in his existence; and this doubt curdles my faith in the integrity of the story as a whole.” H. W. Boynton

“From a literary point of view, this story is on a level with Mrs Wharton’s best work. As a retrospect of the early ‘seventies, it is less satisfactory, being marred by numerous historical lapses.”

“The picture is so finished, so convincing, and withal so entertaining, that the study of these pages is recommended to all students of manners.”

“The greatest defect in the book is that of the character of Ellen, whom her creator constantly asserts to be charming, but who does not in the least produce that effect on the reader.” Lilian Whiting

“Altogether Mrs Wharton has accomplished one of the best pieces of her work so far. As for her picture of the times, how is any of us over here to criticize it, beyond saying that it is full of vivacity and of character and of colour, and that there is not a point in it which seems to be false?”

“This theme, the contrast of times and manners, dealt with in some of her short stories, is one Mrs Wharton handles with skill.”

WHARTON, MRS EDITH NEWBOLD (JONES).In Morocco. il *$4 Scribner 916.4

20–17098

“In 1918 Mrs Wharton, under the guidance of a French military mission, in a French army motor, spent a month traveling in Morocco. Her account of her travels in a country without a guide book is for the benefit of the travelers who she feels sure will flood the land when the war is over. All the properties of an Arabian Nights tale are here.” (Nation) “In the space of one month a military automobile carried her from Tangier to Marrakech, from Rabat to Fez. She entered the sacred city of Moulay Idriss, the surviving stronghold of the Idrissite rule; she walked the streets of ancient Salé, the ‘Phoenician counting house and breeder of Barbary pirates’; she examined the ruins of Volubilis, the African outpost of the Roman legions; and she enjoyed the hospitality of his Majesty the Sultan Moulay Youssef and his favorites in ‘the happiest harem in Morocco.’” (N Y Times)

“Edith Wharton’s ‘In Morocco’ is a model of restrained and rounded prose, as well as a vivid picture of oriental richness.” Margaret Ashmun

“‘In Morocco’ adds another swiftly-told, graceful, vivid, and yet informative travel book to Mrs Wharton’s globe-trotting shelf.”

“The best thing a returned traveler can do is to give you not facts but atmosphere. Edith Wharton in ‘In Morocco’ does this for you excellently well, partly because she is so impersonal, never intruding her own reactions, simply bringing up the scene around you with all its blinding sunlight, desert heat and vivid colors.”

Reviewed by Irita Van Doren

“The combination of authenticated facts and illuminating comment makes her book fascinating.”

“The publication of ‘In Morocco,’ by Mrs Wharton, is practically simultaneous with that of her most recent novel, ‘The age of innocence.’ Both of these books add security to their author’s position as one of the foremost contemporary writers of English prose. Never before has Mrs Wharton enjoyed so ideal an opportunity to display her gifts of colorful description as she does in this volume.” B. R. Redman

“Nothing seen by her sensitive, unsparing eye is omitted, and her nervous style never fails to convey the effect at which she aims.”

“The duration of her visit—one month—was fortunately too short for her to carry out her intention of writing a guide-book. One writes ‘fortunately,’ for her book would have lost in broad suggestiveness far more than it would have gained from precision in detail. With her knowledge of other countries and peoples, her sensitiveness, her gift of vivid description, and her unobtruded skill in ordered presentation, she does more than one would have thought possible to convey what was suddenly revealed to her eyes to those who will never see it with their own.”

WHEAT, GEORGE SEAY, ed.[2]Municipal landing fields and air ports. il *$1.75 Putnam 629.1

20–22004

The book is a compilation with chapters by the chief of the army air service, General Menoher, the director of naval aviation Captain Craven and their officers in charge of landing field operations. The most acute and immediate problem now facing commercial aeronautics is the need for flying routes and landing fields. It is the object of the book to present all that this involves in concrete form. Besides illustrations, diagrams, a map and an appendix containing a list of landing fields on file in the office of the chief of air service, the contents are: The need for landing fields; The present plight of flight; How to construct a field; Aircraft hangers; Aerial routes; Naval air ports; Airplanes and seaplanes.

WHEELER, EVERETT PEPPERRELL.Lawyer’s study of the Bible; its answer to the questions of today. *$1.50 Revell

19–19947

“Mr Wheeler’s book is really a study of life, and he uses the Bible in interpreting life. His chapter titles indicate this characteristic of his volume: they are such as The presence of God in the soul of man; Prayer; Socialism; War; Labor, capital, and strikes; Immortality. Incidentally he asks what light does the Bible throw on these problems?”—Outlook

“Perhaps the most important feature for the average reader is the adaptation of legal procedure into rules for the study of the Bible.”

WHIBLEY, CHARLES.Literary studies. *$3 Macmillan 820.4

20–1521

“Five of these eight studies are from the ‘Cambridge history of English literature.’ They deal with phases of literature in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries. The others are on Rogues and vagabonds of Shakespeare’s time (a chapter in ‘Shakespeare’s England,’ 1916), Sir Walter Raleigh (from Blackwood’s), and Jonathan Swift, a Leslie Stephen lecture at Cambridge, 1917.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup N 13 ’19

“Mr Whibley is as readable as ever.”

“He has the first requisite of a critic: interest in his subject, and ability to communicate an interest in it. His defects are both of intellect and feeling. He has no dissociative faculty. There were very definite vices and definite shortcomings and immaturities in the literature he admires; and as he is not the person to tell us of the vices and shortcomings, he is not the person to lay before us the work of absolutely the finest quality.” T. S. E.

Reviewed by Augustine Birrell

“Mr Whibley, by being included among the journalists, dignifies journalism. His way is not that of the headline, nor are his literary manners those of the siren in a fog—a not unfair description of much that appears in the journal to which he is a weekly contributor it?) acquired the habit of writing for the sake of filling a column.”

“It is very convenient to have these essays detached from the larger volumes in which they first appeared. Here they express the author’s own mind, they support and answer one another, not dressed and drilled by an editor in company not of their own choice. Here there is harmony among them.”

WHIPPLE, GUY MONTROSE.Classes for gifted children. (School and home education monographs) $1.25 Public-school 371.9

19–14686

Detailed account of an experiment successfully carried out in the year 1917 in the public school of Urbana, Illinois, consisting of selecting and training especially gifted, or super-average children. Fifteen pupils from the fifth grade, also fifteen from the sixth, constituted the special class. Of these thirty, it was found eight had been wrongly selected as gifted. The remaining twenty-two completed a two years’ course in one, without forcing or fatigue, in addition to gaining certain cultural advantages. Through tests applied, and results observed, a more reliable standard of selecting children than that of teachers’ marks was evolved. The book includes an analytical study of talent in drawing, with an annotated bibliography, and it closes with a partial bibliography on gifted children and education. Dr Whipple, formerly professor of education, University of Illinois, is at present professor of applied psychology, Carnegie institute of technology.

WHITAKER, ALBERT CONSER.Foreign exchange. *$5 (2c) Appleton 332.4

20–1958

The book, the author suggests, will serve the double purpose of a practical business manual, and a treatise in economics. “Stated briefly, the subjects of study in this volume are the methods or proceedings and the forms or documents of foreign-trade settlement, banking, and financing. Belonging with these, the international movement of gold and the measures taken to influence it are examined at length.” (Preface) A partial list of the contents is: Means of payment and commercial paper; The negotiability of commercial paper; Discount and interest; Commercial banking; The rates of exchange; The bank credit and letter of credit; Foreign money market factors; Speculation in exchange; The mint price and the market price of gold; Standard money; Monetary systems of the leading nations; Specie shipments; Addendum and index.

“This volume is probably in many ways the most satisfactory that has appeared up to the present time on foreign exchange.” M. J. Shugrue

WHITAKER, CHARLES HARRIS.Joke about housing. *$2 Jones, Marshall 331.83

20–6282

Housing is here treated as a problem of land values. The remedy for present conditions is “for the state to put an end to the frightful waste involved in our present riotous development of land, and thus make the house a stable element of our national life, free from the destructive effects of speculation in land which forces speculation in building and which always brings communal disaster in its train.” The subject is discussed in seven chapters: Why do we have houses? The house and the home—a world program; Houses and wages; The employer and the housing question; The two plants; What are the possible ways out of the dilemma in housing? The general problem of land control. In the appendixes two prize essays on the solution of the housing problem are reprinted. The author is editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects.

“The style in which the book is written should make this book one of the most popular works on housing. Like all books devoted to the presentation and emphasis of one fundamental idea the work suffers from lack of perspective in so far as its use as a work upon which a thoroughly constructive housing program could be built.” Carol Aronovici

Reviewed by L: Mumford

“Some will no doubt assert that he lays too much stress upon the idea that the solution hangs upon the disallowance of speculation in land. Possibly this single subject is over stressed. But relative emphasis is a matter of little importance. What is of importance is that the subject of land and profit and speculative adventuring has been intimately connected with housing in the sense of cause and effect. The importance of this change of base, so to speak, in approaching the problem can not be overrated.” F. L. A.

“The book is written from a full heart and with sympathetic understanding for the aspirations of common folks; it is one of the most readable tracts from the ‘left wing’ of the housing movement that we have seen.” B. L.

WHITE, BENJAMIN.[2]Gold, its place in the economy of mankind. il $1 Pitman 669.2

20–21980

In the volume of the Common commodities and industries series devoted to gold, chapters take up: Its appreciation—ancient and modern; Its properties and distribution; The production of early times; The production of the nineteenth century; Present production and prospects; The evolution of British coinage; The mintage of the world; The gold standard; The movements of gold; Stocks; Industrial use; Gold and the great war. There are illustrations, tables, an index and a brief list of works consulted.

“The tables should be of interest to students of commercial geography and economics.”

WHITE, BENJAMIN.Silver, its intimate association with the daily life of man. il $1 Pitman 669.2

(Eng ed 18–801)

In this volume of Pitman’s common commodities and industries the author treats his subject under three heads; Production; Industrial consumption; Utility as money, past and future. There are several illustrations and tables and two folding charts. Some of the tables are based on the annual reports of the director of the United States mint. There is an index.

“Contains much of service to teachers and students.”

WHITE, MRS GRACE (MILLER).Storm country Polly. il *$1.75 (2c) Little

20–8242

The scene of the story is a squatter colony on the shores of Lake Cayuga. The colony is known as Silent City and Jeremiah Hopkins is its unofficial mayor. His daughter Polly is the story’s heroine. Polly, the one person in Evelyn Robertson’s confidence, knows the story of Evelyn’s secret marriage to Oscar Bennett. Evelyn desires release, for she is now in love with Marc MacKenzie, the man making war on the squatters, and Bennett will grant it only on condition that Polly agrees to marry him. And Evelyn, who might intercede with MacKenzie, promises to do so if Polly will pay the price, but Polly cannot, for she is in love with Robert Percival, Evelyn’s cousin. Marc carries out his threats. Daddy Hopkins is sent to jail, wee Jerry is torn from Polly’s arms and her love is turned to hate. But not for long and love triumphs all round in the end.

“A more apt title for the book would have been ‘Storm country Pollyanna,’ for the leading figure in the novel is so good that it almost hurts to think of her. In spite of the archaic construction and material of the story, it manages to sustain a certain amount of interest.”

WHITE, SAMUEL ALEXANDER.Ambush. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday

20–11893

In the days when the Hudson’s Bay company, north of Lake Superior, is fighting two rival fur trading companies, Paul Carlisle is factor of one of their most important posts. In addition to his never-ending disturbances with the Free traders and the Northwest Fur company, his position is further complicated by the fact that he is in love with Joan Wayne, daughter of the Free trader’s chief. And as if being his business rival were not enough, Ralph Wayne is in addition Paul’s bitter personal enemy, for a reason which Paul at first can not understand. But the cause of this enmity is made clear to him presently by Richelieu, the third party in this three-cornered rivalry, the manager of the Northwest Fur company, and also in love with Joan. Eventually Paul wins out both in business and love, after a series of exciting and dramatic events.

WHITE, SAMUEL ALEXANDER.Foaming fore shore. il *$1.50 (2½c) Doubleday

20–16344

A tale of the sea. Cap’n Walter Taylor is a fisherman in Newfoundland waters, but becomes a fugitive as the result of breaking some of the fishing regulations. He takes refuge in the Magdalen Islands and there finds Madeline Boucher, with whom he speedily falls in love. But Jacques Beauport, his hereditary enemy, as his father before him had hated him, has been on the field first, and considers Madeline engaged to him. He seeks Taylor out to return him to justice, but Taylor has no idea of tamely submitting to this, and the chase grows exciting before its finish. Finally a decision of the Hague tribunal puts Taylor in the right, but not before Beauport has lost his life in his spiteful attempt to make Taylor suffer. The story is full of descriptions of fishing and sailing in the turbulent northern waters.

WHITE, STEWART EDWARD.Killer. il *$1.75 (1c) Doubleday

20–9477

“The killer,” which opens this collection, is a story of novelette length. It is a story of the old West with a central character whose malignity and propensity for killing extends even to birds and insects. He never kills men, but has only to nod to one of his Mexican servitors and the desired deed is accomplished. How a reckless young cowboy took a dare and asked for a night’s lodging at his ranch and what followed form the substance of the story. Two shorter tales, The road agent and The tide, come next and the remainder of the book is taken up with three descriptive essays reminiscent of Mr White’s earlier work in “The forest.” The titles are: Climbing for goats; Moisture, a trace; The ranch.

“‘The killer,’ the first story in Stewart Edward White’s new book, is crammed with action, exciting, unexpected, mysterious; in the last story, ‘The ranch,’ nothing happens at all and yet the chances are that you will read them both with interest and joy. The moral of which of course is that the important thing about a tale is the way you tell it.”

“The essays in the volume are entirely delightful.”

“Mr White knows the old land of the cowboys, desert, ranches, and border raiding settlements as do few writers of the present day.”

“Mr White belongs to the school of American literature which has been more popular than any other in this country principally because we ourselves have nothing similar to it. From the point of view of construction his stories are, as he himself allows, irregular, but for sheer gustiness they are hard to equal.”

WHITE, STEWART EDWARD.Rose dawn. *$1.90 (1c) Doubleday

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