Chapter 99

20–9836

A book intended as a companion volume to the author’s “Trout stream insects,” and like that work illustrated with pictures in color painted from living specimens. The author states: “This book has a two-fold object. First: to multiply largely all species of game-fish for the people’s use by a new method and a logical system of ‘feeding’ that will more rapidly attain a better result in the conservation of American fresh-water game-fishes.... Second: to vastly improve present angling conditions by introducing a new and entirely superior style of fishing with artificial nature lures in place of the live bait that is now being employed in ever-increasing quantities.” (Preface) The illustrations include pictures of live creatures that fish eat and of artificial nature lures; also chart plans to show feeding places. The book is indexed.

“Mr Rhead’s new volume is commended to Outlook anglers as a book which deserves a place in every library beside the writings of George La Branche and Dr Henshall.” H. T. Pulsifer

RHOADES, CORNELIA HARSEN (NINA RHOADES).Four girls of forty years ago. (Brickhouse books) il *$1.50 (2½c) Lothrop

20–20005

A story for girls picturing the social life of New York in 1880. The four girls, Dulcie, Daisy, Maud and Mollie, live in an old house near Washington Square and spend their summers on the Hudson river at Tarrytown. They live with a stepgrandmother who enforces the rule that children should be seen and not heard, but there is an Uncle Stephen who comes from California and takes them to see “The pirates of Penzance,” and they have other good times. The news that their father is coming home from China bringing a stepmother fills them with consternation, but the dreaded stepmother proves to be their loved friend Miss Leslie and every one is left happy at the close.

RHODES, HARRISON GARFIELD.American towns and people. il *$3.50 (6c) McBride 917.3

20–20209

Papers that have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, touching lightly and with humor on the external aspects of certain American cities. There are six essays of this character: Why is a Bostonian? Who is a Philadelphian? What is a New Yorker? The portrait of Chicago; Washington, the cosmopolitan; Baltimore; and one other, Is there a West? devoted to California. To these are added: The hotel guest; The high kingdom of the movies; The American child; The society woman.

“Although there are serious moments and some penetrating analyses, the sketches are on the whole light and entertaining, not thorough studies.”

“Never is Mr Rhodes dull, never does brilliancy become an obsession with him, but his writings on American days and ways are of decided value.” G. M. H.

“‘American towns and people’ has its classic prototype in Henry James’s ‘The American scene,’ but it is a version highly journalized and simplified, intended not so much to interpret as to amuse. In this doubtless quite as important capacity, it for the most part succeeds admirably, only at times seeming a little fatuous, a little too effusive, a bit bland perhaps.”

“Generally speaking, Mr Rhodes only sees about one-third of his subject. He sees the Four hundred, but not what O. Henry called the Four million. The book is a credit to its publishers, and is beautifully illustrated. If it is one-sided or no-sided, it is at any rate written in a swift, bright style, illuminated by a keen sense of the comic.”

“The unusually discriminating comment of this book is matched by exceptionally good pictures.”

“To have discovered the individuality of some of our American cities and to have in so many little things shown exactly in what it consists, is no small achievement. So much for the social student’s appreciation of this book. As a piece of descriptive writing, its excellence is likely to appeal to a much wider circle.” B. L.

RHODES, HARRISON GARFIELD.[2]High life: and other stories. *$2 (3c) McBride

20–17527

High life, the first and longest story, is an amusing skit picturing life in a colony of exiled royalty in Switzerland. The other stories are: The little miracle at Tlemcar; Fair daughter of a fairer mother; The importance of being Mrs Cooper; The sad case of Quag; Springtime; Vive l’Amerique! They have been copyrighted by the Curtis publishing company, Collier’s, the Ridgway company, the Metropolitan and Harper’s.

“It is all told with much grace, cleverness and conversation, realism, and with a Daudetesque humor. Mr Rhodes is a cosmopolitan, and he understands the art of the short story; only in two or three passages is his manner of writing open to any censure.” N. H. D.

RHODES, JAMES FORD.History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley, 1877–1896. *$2.75 Macmillan 973.8

For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.

“Mr Rhodes’s new eighth volume is not a fair continuation of his memorable five volumes on the Civil war, or even of the sixth and seventh in which he gave a partial picture of the next dozen years. Its abbreviated scale of treatment affects both contents and manner of presentation. Rarely do the related facts in this volume appear to have meaning or to be parts of a coherent structure.... Stopping short of McKinley’s inauguration, he fails to show the foundations of the silver movement and the Populist party, with the result that his picture of the second Cleveland term lacks its background. Yet he fails also to explain the emergence of the tariff issue and the identification of the Republican party with it, although these facts are vital to the period of his choice. Mr Rhodes has probably not broadened his historical repute by this volume, but he has not ceased to be sagacious along the lines of his experience and attainment.” F: L. Paxson

“The author’s impartiality is little short of miraculous. South and North can read him on the Civil war without great irritation.”

“If the most recent volume of the ‘History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley, 1877–96’ is of less importance than those which preceded it, this is not due to any shortcomings on the part of the author. Dr Rhodes shows the same robust good sense, severe impartiality, and scrupulous accuracy which have secured him his position among American historians.” H. E. E.

“This volume is of the same general character as the preceding volumes and with one possible exception, deserves to rank with them. While the style is not brilliant, it affords easy, sometimes even attractive reading. Yet, for all that, the student of our recent history will close the book with disappointment, a disappointment due to the feeling that the author has failed to show a discriminating sense of proportion. On the topics discussed the author, in most cases, can hardly be said to have touched the bottom. The treatment of industrial unrest falls far below chapter IV of his earlier work, dealing with slavery.” D: Y. Thomas

“It seems invidious to speak in any tone of disparagement of a work of Mr James Ford Rhodes, who has given us the classic interpretation of our history from the compromise of 1850 to the close of the reconstruction period. And yet competent judges must feel grieved that the ‘History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley’ is added, as an eighth volume, to the classic seven. It is as thin as the lean kine that followed the seven fat ones in Pharoah’s dream.”

“He has industry and a judicial temperament which, though not always quite unbiassed in regard to individuals enables him to survey contemporary politics without evidence of partisanship. He has, moreover, a lucid narrative style and a happy gift of choosing apt and trenchant phrases. Not all his authorities are first-rate; but he uses them nimbly. It is very much to be regretted that a book which represents so much sound labour and has so much permanent value, in the assistance which it will be to all future writers on this period, should be so marred by petty faults.”

RICE, ALICE CALDWELL (HEGAN) (MRS CALE YOUNG RICE), and RICE, CALE YOUNG.Turn about tales. il *$1.90 (8c) Century

20–16343

There are ten short stories in this book, five by Cale Young Rice, and five by his wife, Alice Hegan Rice, arranged alternately. Mrs Rice’s contribution includes Beulah; The nut; A partnership memory; Reprisal; and The hand on the sill; while Mr Rice’s are entitled Lowry; Francella; Archie’s relapse; Under new moons, and Aaron Harwood. Some of the stories have appeared in magazine form.

“This volume of stories should hold its own with any collection likely to be published this year. They cover a wide range of emotion, background, and subject, and are of high literary merit.”

RICHARDS, MRS CLARICE (ESTABROOK).[2]Tenderfoot bride. il *$1.50 Revell

20–21005

“A cultured eastern woman with a delight in new things and a sense of humor describes events on a Wyoming ranch.” (Booklist) “When the ‘tenderfoot bride’ arrived it was still a lawless, pioneer land, with cattle, cowboys, and desperadoes. Then came a pastoral age: sheep and Mexican herders, followed by the farmer. Her record covers but sixteen years, yet the earlier phases are as extinct as the Pharaohs. She has caught them all in passing, and portrayed them to the life.” (Bookm)

“She has given us more than a bit of current history, for one senses the writer’s personality,—a growth through the delights and trials of existence among elemental conditions to a broad vision of life and its responsibilities. Therein lies the rare charm of the book.”

RICHARDS, CLAUDE.Man of tomorrow. new ed *$2 Crowell 174

“A discussion of vocational success with the boy of today.” (Sub-title) The author believes that there is special need of attention to vocational guidance today. “Following this great world war, civilization will take on an aspect of general reconstruction, and hence the man of the future will need an equipment that will fit him to take his place in a society with difficult problems to solve and big tasks to perform.” (Preface) The book is divided into seven parts: The need of vocational guidance; The importance of specializing; The need of a broad foundation; Choosing a vocation; Representative vocations; Avocations; General conditions of vocational success. An appendix contains a word to the counselor and there is an index. The author states that while the work is intended primarily for men there is little in it that does not apply equally to young women.

“An excellent vocational guide-book. Its tone is high and the little ethical teaching that it contains is safe and sound.”

RICHARDS, GRANT.[2]Double life. *$1.75 (2c) Dodd

20–18767

Olivia Pemberton was the wife of a semi-commercial, therefore fairly successful novelist. She was all that a wife and mother should be until her two children were away at school, when she became bored and restless. Half apathetically she accompanied her husband to Newmarket one day where he went in quest of racing atmosphere for a new novel. It ended with a tentative, very small and haphazard bet on one of the horses. From now on Olivia secretly takes to reading sporting papers and making greater and greater ventures, even ordering a trainer to buy and train a horse for her. She goes thru all the stages of the gambling fever, sometimes on the verge of a breakdown. Twice her horse wins and when she is dreaming of the triple crown at the Derby with honored publicity to herself, her trainer informs her that the horse is broken down and will race no more. But with her winnings and the sale of the horse, she is enabled to accompany her confession to her husband with a goodly sum of money and her complete renunciation of gambling.

“The technical details will be found interesting even by neophytes, and the whole produces that effect of coherence and facility proper to a practised pen.”

“The book will prove entertaining, but hardly more than that.”

“To put it bluntly, Mr Grant Richards is not an artist. ‘Double life’ has some power to please, partly because it conveys double the number of sensations enjoyed in the ordinary routine of life by that never realized type—the average, everyday person.”

RICHARDS, MRS LAURA ELIZABETH (HOWE).Honor Bright. il *$1.65 (3c) Page

20–17823

The story of an American girl’s school days in Switzerland. Honor is an orphan and the Pension Madeleine is the only home she knows. She speaks in the quaint French-English of her teachers and is very happy with her school-girl companions. While on an expedition into the mountain, she slips and sprains her ankle and is kept a prisoner in an Alpine cottage for a time. It is a delightful experience and Honor thereafter dreams of spending her life in the Alps, making cheese and tending goats. But an unknown cousin from America comes to take her away to a new and strange world.

RICHARDSON, C. A.Spiritual pluralism and recent philosophy. *$4.50 Putnam 192

(Eng ed 20–7073)

“Mr Richardson, a disciple of Professor James Ward, sets himself the task of elaborating, on purely metaphysical lines, the case for the ‘spiritual’ and theistic pluralism which formed the basis of his master’s ‘Realm of ends: pluralism and theism.’ Incidentally he undertakes to answer the neo-realists in general and Mr Bertrand Russell in particular. He accepts Mr Russell’s conclusions as valid with limits, i.e., the limits of reality considered as objective. But, Mr Richardson urges, Mr Russell and his school, with all their ingenuity, do not account for the subjective reference, whereas spiritual pluralists can account for it without detriment to the positive results of the neo-realists.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup

“The book is written with great care and much subtlety. There is, however, a tendency to rely too much on arguments from concepts, without due inquiry into their meaning and source. In general, I think the book would gain cogency through a larger use of empirical material.” D. H. Parker

“To speak bluntly, Mr Richardson is excessively difficult reading, and some part of the fault lies with himself, and not with the subject. As a provisional guess, one would suggest that he has thought mainly about the general philosophic attributes of his universe, and has not sufficiently pondered, not only the position but the capacity and attributes of the individual who exists therein. This part of his work, it seems to us, he will not get right until he dips down more thoroughly into the grand question of consciousness.”

“It is not easy to justify a pluralist metaphysic on intellectualist grounds, and one cannot help feeling that, as against Mr Russell on the one hand and Mr Bradley on the other, Mr Richardson is ‘playing the odd’ all the time. But he plays with spirit and no mean dialectic skill.”

RICHARDSON, DOROTHY M.Interim. *$2 Knopf

20–9715

“Fifth in the long series of volumes published under the general title of ‘Pilgrimage,’ Miss Dorothy M. Richardson’s new novel, ‘Interim,’ continues the history of that young woman, Miriam Henderson. So closely connected with its predecessors as to be a part of them rather than a separate book, ‘Interim’ would probably be almost unintelligible to any one not possessed of a close acquaintance with the earlier books. When ‘The tunnel’ came to an end Miriam Henderson was apparently on the verge of leaving Mrs Bailey’s house, but we find her still living there when we meet her in ‘Interim,’ despite the coming of the boarders. Among these boarders there are several young physicians from Canada, and one of them, bearing the unattractive name of von Heber, supplies the suggestion of a plot, which is the only thing of the kind the book contains.”—N Y Times

“She leaves us feeling, as before, that everything being of equal importance to her, it is impossible that everything should not be of equal unimportance.” K. M.

“We prefer our novels as novels, and not following the technique of Chinese chess explained by a politician in yachting terminology. There are pages and pages of drivel, too.” C. W.

“From no point of view could ‘Interim’ be called easy reading, and a method of sometimes almost ignoring punctuation and printing dialogue in solid pages does not tend to make it any the easier.”

“There lies the secret of Miriam’s appeal. Nothing seems to escape her. She is never dull or unaware; she never ceases to live and to respond to stimulus. And thus life, seen through her eyes and felt through her emotions, comes to be an exciting business, and the world an infinite stretch of inexhaustible delights.”

RICHARDSON, NORVAL.Pagan fire. *$1.75 (1½c) Scribner

20–21002

Anne Rennell was quite contented and happy as the wife of an American politician in Washington. Franklin Rennell, too, was contented as United States senator. He took his work seriously and was of the eternal-boy sort of type, honest and plodding without intellectual brilliance. The first disturbance came when political intrigue put the flea into Anne’s ear that she was cut out for an ambassador’s wife in Rome. Rome it must be, henceforth. Anne feels that she has a right to her own life and happiness and that Franklin’s career must give way to it. In Rome she blossoms out, the romance of it enters her blood and with it an infatuation for Prince Cimino. The latter ends with a night with the Prince at his castle in the Campagna. After that Anne has something to live down, which, the reader trusts, she will be able to do with the aid and the sacrifice of two devoted friends.

“The most human and most logical character in the book is that of Senator Lelong. The story is pleasantly told in the slow analytical style of the English novel.”

“While Norval Richardson’s well-written novel ‘Pagan fire’ is far from uninteresting as a story, the greater part of its claim on the reader’s attention is derived from its quite fascinating setting.”

“The interest of the novel is derived less from the actual story than from the glorious settings of the drama.”

RICKARD, L. (MRS VICTOR RICKARD).Cathy Rossiter. *$1.75 (1c) Doran

20–772

Cathy Rossiter, by birth of the English aristocracy, was a modern woman who, without breaking her old ties, became interested in all sorts of progressive movements. Her personal charms make her a favorite in every circle from the aristocratic drawing room down to the half-starved strikers in Sabury road. Her most intimate friend is Dr Monica Henstock, a successful practitioner and her opposite in character and temperament. At her house she meets John Lorrimer who is about to propose to Monica when Cathy’s beauty and personality intrigue and side-track him. In time Cathy marries Lorrimer and through a complication of circumstances Monica’s and Lorrimer’s emotions and ethics both become befuddled and Cathy after an illness is locked up in an insane asylum on a flimsy pretext. Her experiences at the asylum and her rescue by some of her old friends make a thrilling tale.

“Mrs Victor Rickard has here achieved, without directing her energy towards any lofty or even wayward ambition, a marked success. The story is sheer melodrama from beginning to triumphant and happy end; but melodrama tempered with sound observation of character.”

RICKARD, THOMAS ARTHUR.Technical writing. *$1.50 Wiley 808

20–7844

“Mr Rickard has served as editor of three leading mining periodicals and has written several well known professional works. He laments the carelessness shown by engineers in the preparation of reports and papers and has brought into this work the expansion of five lectures which he delivered in 1916 to engineering classes in the University of California. The many faults of composition and errors of vocabulary are discussed and illustrated by many examples of bad writing (with corrections) gleaned mainly from mining books and periodicals.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks

“Mr Rickard’s exposition is vigorous and broad-minded.”

“It is well worth discriminating perusal, the chapter on style being particularly good. Violations of present-day typographical orthodoxy mar nearly every page of his book. They suggest the amateur. They are not classic. Also, in a work of this sort, it is only reasonable to expect that the author will observe his own precepts.” W. N. P. R.

“The lay reader should also get much from the volume.”

RIDEAL, ERIC KEIGHTLEY.Ozone. *$4 Van Nostrand 546.2

The author begins with the Early history of ozone and its general properties, and continues his treatment of the subject with chapters on: The natural occurrence of ozone: Chemical production; Thermal production; The electrolytic preparation of ozone; Production by ultraviolet radiation and by ionic collision; Production by means of the silent electric discharge; The catalytic decomposition of ozone; Industrial applications; Methods of detection and analysis. There are two indexes, to names and subjects. The author is professor of physical chemistry in the University of Illinois and the book is published as one of the series, A treatise on electro-chemistry, edited by Bertram Blount.

“The author deals with the whole fascinating subject in a manner which should appeal to most readers.”

“The author has been distinctly successful in his effort to collect and correlate the various references to ozone which occur in chemical literature, and his monograph will be welcomed if only for that reason. In addition, it contains a valuable summary of what is known about ozone, and by indicating problems which remain to be solved should also serve to promote investigation.”

RIDEOUT, HENRY MILNER.Foot-path way. *$1.90 (2c) Duffield

20–6491

A story of the Far East. Dan Towers, the hero, is an American adventurer who has decided that it is time to go home. Fate brings him across the path of an old friend, Parimban, an Arabian merchant. Parimban is murdered and Towers is left with Leda, his friend’s beautiful young daughter, on his hands. He finds a refuge for her with a religious order and goes on his way, accepting the dangerous mission he had earlier made up his mind to refuse. He has many adventures, some in company with a religious fanatic, called Hury Seke, from his habit of writing gospel messages on walls and rocks, all beginning “Hury Seke Jehovah.” To others he is introduced by a gay young troubadour, Runa la Flèche. In the end the beautiful ward, who had once shown uncomfortable signs of falling in love with Towers, is more suitably mated with Runa.

“I turn the last page and lay down the book with the sense of having enjoyed a modest work of art instead of having been merely diverted by a pretentious bag of tricks. I like his story, but I like still more his way of telling it, his freedom from the slipshod smartness now fairly encouraged as normal by editors still getting pay-ore from the vein (or the tailings) of the Kipling-O. Henry tradition.” H. W. Boynton

“The tale is entertaining, swift-moving and romantic, and gives a colorful picture of adventurous lives.”

“This is not of a genre that all novel readers care for, but those who do will find this book an excellent example of it, exciting and amusing.”

RIDGE, LOLA.[2]Sun-up; and other poems. *$1.50 Huebsch 811

These are free verse, imagiste poems. In the group “Sun-up,” the poet sees the world through a child’s eyes and gives us glimpses of a child’s soul. All the poems express modernity, a free spirit and a turbulent world. They are grouped under the headings: Sun-up; Monologues; Windows; Secrets; Portraits; Sons of Belial; Reveille—the last group containing lines to Alexander Berkman, to Emma Goldman and to Larkin.

“No adult knows what little girls think about, but one is willing to believe that it is approximately what he finds here, where Freud rather than Plato is read back into the infant mind.” D. M.

“The series of poems from which the book takes its name are vividly poignant renderings of the child-mind, intimate in their apperception and flaring forth in arresting magic and color at times. Her method is free verse, but it is a distinct free verse. It is the sudden throwing of vivid phrases before one that conjure up limitless thoughts.” H. S. Gorman

RIDSDALE, KNOWLES.Gate of fulfillment. *$1.50 (4c) Putnam

20–6634

A story told in letters. Margaret Bevington, a very charming and brilliant widow, answers an unusual advertisement calling for a secretary for an invalid. The invalid, who is also a misogynist, sends her a caustic reply declining her services, but a correspondence develops out of the incident. Later, learning that the secretary he had preferred to her had proved incompetent, she applies in person under an assumed name and is engaged. She then leads a double life, as staid, prim Martha Pratt and as witty Margaret Bevington, and the misogynist finds himself falling in love with two women. The tonic good sense of one and the mental stimulus of the other do their work. He is restored to health to learn that the two characters who have meant so much to him combine into one person.

Reviewed by H. W. Boynton

“This is a very commodious, even lazy, way of writing a book; and, unless the letters are uncommonly brilliant, the result is generally disappointing. In this case, however, Mr Ridsdale has turned out a worthwhile correspondence in developing an ingenious though rather slender plot. ‘The gate of fulfillment’ will be read with interest.”

“It is a piquant situation, and some of its possibilities are well realized. But it wants a light, tactful, restrained treatment of which the author knows nothing. The letters of every one concerned are as fulsome, as precious, and as humourless as they can possibly be; and their prolix affectations become painfully tiresome long before the end is reached.”

RIHANI, AMEEN F.Descent of bolshevism. $1 (9c) Stratford co. 335

20–6355

A small book written to prove that bolshevism is of oriental origin. The author goes back to fifth century Persia and has chapters on: Mazdak and Mazdakism; The Khawarij; The Karmathians; The Assassins; The Illuminati.

“Mr Rihani’s little book ends suddenly and without a satisfactory conclusion. His statements must be read with great caution.” N. H. D.

“He tells his stories roundly and underlines his morals blackly; but his essential facts are sound.”

RIHBANY, ABRAHAM MITRIE.[2]Hidden treasure of Rasmola. il *$1.75 (5½c) Houghton

20–19674

This story of the digging for a treasure is a true story and a personal experience of the author’s. The scenes portrayed are real phases of the life of the common people of Syria and the people participating in the enterprise were real. The psychology, beliefs and mode of life of the people concerned are also depicted and the thrilling part of the story is that the treasure too, to all probabilities was real although it eluded the grasp of the diggers thru the machinations of a clever rogue.

RINEHART, MARY (ROBERTS) (MRS STANLEY MARSHALL RINEHART).Affinities. *$1.75 (2c) Doran

20–9275

A volume of short stories. The first is the story of a group of married people who decide on an affinity picnic, with husbands and wives left at home. The affair comes to grief and when the parties concerned learn that the other set of wives and husbands have been carrying out a similar idea there are mutual recriminations and forgivenesses. The other stories are in like vein. Contents: Affinities; The family friend; Clara’s little escapade; The borrowed house; Sauce for the gander. The stories were copyrighted by the Curtis Publishing Company and date from 1909 to 1915.

“Entertaining, but several readers say not up to her usual standard.”

“Delightful tales each with a snap at the end.”

“Mrs Rinehart always writes entertainingly and she tempers humor with rare human sympathy and common sense. These stories are just the thing for hammock reading on a lazy afternoon.”

“Each one as unexpected and as amusing as the others, stories that keep you laughing and interested, stories full of the little absurdities of human nature and the queer tricks of fate.”

“If laughter really does promote health, Mrs Rinehart should take her place among the great physicians of the age.”

“The studies of English life and manners would strike most English readers as imaginative, and it is hard to believe that life in America exactly tallies with the authoress’s description, though it may really be like this. Anyhow it makes cheerful reading.”

RINEHART, MARY (ROBERTS) (MRS STANLEY MARSHALL RINEHART).Poor wise man. *$2 (1½c) Doran

20–17961

The time of the story is immediately after the war and the circumstances social unrest, strikes, plots, political campaigns, mobs, riots, bombs, wise vigilance on the part of the Department of justice and timely interferences of the American Legion. The romance is supplied by Lily Cardew, granddaughter of the richest man in town, just back from her war-work and much changed, and Willy Cameron, a poor drug clerk who had been Lily’s pal in camp and is one of nature’s noblemen. Soon after her return Lily is ensnared by the wiles of an arch anarchist and all-round fiend. She even marries him but at that very crisis is rescued by Willy. Many are the adventures and hairbreadth escapes of both before their final reward.

“The story is well told, but our hearts are not touched by the romance of the impossible hero and heroine.”

“Mrs Rinehart gives us a very thrilling story, and a sense of disappointment with her method need not obscure the good points and readable character of this ‘novel with a purpose.’”

“The novel is alive and vigorous.”

“The book is exceedingly timely. It states the problem between labor and capital fairly and proves the futility of mob violence. And it states it in the lives of very actual people.” Katharine Oliver

“A story well worth reading.”

RINEHART, MARY (ROBERTS) (MRS STANLEY MARSHALL RINEHART).[2]Truce of God. il *$1.50 Doran

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