“In the hands of a well-equipped educator this volume will render a separate study of civics unnecessary.”
“The author is successful, it appears to us, in his desire to make government so completely an integral part of the history of a nation that the people will rightly see and understand this relationship.”
*Double-knot and other stories.†$1.25. Benziger.
Mary T. Waggaman, Anna T. Sadlier, Magdalen Rock, Mary E. Mannix, Mary G. Bonesteel, Eugene Uhlrich, Maurice Francis Egan, and seven other Roman Catholic writers have written the thirty stories which make up this volume. Nearly all of them are sweet, simple little love stories, but some are merry ones, like the story of the pretty stenographer, who, thru a misdirected letter, succeeded in marrying a millionaire, and some are sad, like the story of the two lovers who, parted for a life time, met at last as inmates of the Home which the Little Sisters of the Poor provide for the needy and aged.
Dougall, Lily.Summit House mystery. $1.50. Funk.
The events recorded here transpire in the shut-away section of the mountains of northern Georgia, where two women seek seclusion. “The story concerns a mysterious crime, and a strong-willed, long-suffering religious woman is the central figure. It recalls, in the solution of the mystery, and in one powerfully dramatic passage, Miss Braddon’s famous ‘Henry Dunbar.’ It also recalls (as vividly) superficial facts of the Borden murder mystery at Fall River about sixteen years ago.” (N. Y. Times).
“One class of fiction lovers will read it for the ‘mystery,’ while another will care more for its delicate, and subtle observations of nature and character, and the admirable English the author commands.”
“Miss Dougall’s frequently too fluent descriptive facility is freely exercised. There is beauty, however, in her descriptive phrases, and she can place a scene before the reader’s eyes with just the effect she aims at. The plot is ingenious and sufficiently original, and is remarkably well worked out. Miss Dougall is one of the cleverest of contemporary story tellers. Better still are the studies of character. The novel has value, too, as an impartial comparison by an outsider of Northern and Southern traits of character. It is a readable book, and it deserves success.”
“The plot isingenious and original and remarkably well worked out.”
“The plot of this novel is managed with much skill, holding one’s interest without disclosing the solution of the puzzle until the very end. It is a cleverly told tale, with many original points.”
“This book was published in England under the title ‘The earthly purgatory,’ and the title was well chosen. For the lover of adventure the book is to be commended.”
*Douglas, Amanda Minnie.Little girl in old San Francisco.†$1.50. Dodd.
“The little girl first reached San Francisco in its earliest days. When the book closes, San Francisco is the great metropolis of the West. Giving the life story of the ‘little girl’ from her childhood past her wedding-day, the author also pictures the changes and growth of the city.”—Outlook.
*“The book has not only human interest but some historical value.”
Douglas, James.Old France in the new world. $2.50. Burrows.
This detailed description of Quebec in the seventeenth century forms a study of the French occupation of Canada, their explorations into the wilderness, and their struggle with England for supremacy. The volume is fully illustrated with reproductions of old pictures, maps, diagrams and portraits.
*“An important addition to the historical literature of Northern America.”
“In fact, though Dr. Douglas has trod in paths that had been pretty well blazed out and explored before him, he has achieved a work of value.”
“Dr. Douglas’s book may find fit place alongside Sir Gilbert Parker’s ‘In old Quebec,’ Sir John Bourinot’s ‘The story of Canada,’ and the dozen volumes of Parkman’s histories.”
Douglas, James.Theodore Watts-Dunton: poet, novelist, critic.*$3.50. Lane.
Mr. Douglas has exhibited Mr. Watts-Dunton to the world mainly as a novelist and poet. This view does not accord with Mr. Joseph Jacobs’ notion, for instance, which maintains that Mr. Watts-Dunton’s highest place is one among the critics. “The work comprises: (1) Reminiscences and anecdotes concerning Watt-Dunton’s distinguished friends and associates; (2) Watts-Dunton’s last words about Rossetti, and the campaign of slander in connection with his relations with his wife; (3) Unpublished poems by Watts-Dunton; (4) Letters from George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and other distinguished men; (5) An account of the life at the Pines, and the relations between Swinburne and Watts-Dunton; (6) Extracts from Watts-Dunton’s articles in the London Athenæum.” (Int. Studio). The illustrations include Welsh and English landscapes, works of art by Rosetti and others, and both outside and inside views of the Pines, the joint home of Watts-Dunton and Swinburne.
“The volume is precisely what it claims to be—a biographical and critical study, and the subject has been extremely fortunate in his biographer; for Mr. James Douglas is not only a fascinating and discriminating critic, but is in such perfect rapport with Watts-Dunton and his dearest literary companions that the rare sympathy of deep friendship lights up a story that even without warmth would have been fair and fascinating, and gives to it a peculiar charm.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton.
“The author is an enthusiastic admirer of his subject, not a calm and critical biographer.” Jeannette L. Gilder.
“The object of Mr. Douglas in this work is to give a general view of the man and his writings. As far as the man is concerned, the work is by no means a formal biography, but rather a series of dissolving views of a strong personality. His [Douglas’] own commentary is rambling and possibly overwrought, but will be found serviceable as a sort of connective tissuewhereby the reprinted passages are held together.” W. M. Payne.
“There is no doubt whatever that Mr. Watts-Dunton’s reminiscences, collected and arranged by one so eminently able as Mr. James Douglas, form a very important addition to contemporary records of the leading lights of the nineteenth century in the literature and art of America and England.”
“Mr. Douglas’s vicarious autobiography of the mind of Theodore Watts-Dunton is in plan and execution pretty much everything that a study of a living man of letters ought not to be. The chief value of the book is as an anthology of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s scattered and too little known work in criticism, in fiction, and in verse.”
“Mr. Douglas in this book has chosen to represent Mr. Watts-Dunton as critic by very few, and those for the most part badly selected, specimens. This book does less than justice to the great position of Mr. Watts-Dunton in contemporary English letters. He lays stress upon the wrong thing, praises his hero for his lesser qualities, reproduces too little of his criticism, and too much of his poetry. Whoever wants to know Mr. Watts-Dunton in his capacity as poet and novelist will find his merits more than sufficiently exemplified and insisted upon in Mr. Douglas’s book.” Joseph Jacobs.
Dowden, Edward.Montaigne.**$1.50. Lippincott.
The initial volume in the “French men of letters series.” With a clever distribution of detail which Montaigne bequeathed to the world about himself, Professor Dowden “seeks to interpret the author not merely by the facts of his life but also by what he reveals of himself in his writings. And ... Montaigne lays himself bare for the inspection of the reader.” (Dial.)
“He has told the old tale clearly and simply, as far as possible in Montaigne’s own words, and we know no handbook better fitted to enlighten those readers who have not the time or industry to read the essays themselves.”
*“In the admirable biography ... Montaigne’s life and work are considered with sympathetic discretion.” Edward Fuller.
“It is no cut-and-dried biography, but an illuminated record of the mind and soul of the man whom Sainte-Beuve called ‘the wisest Frenchman that ever lived.’”
“For the book itself is evidently no quickly commissioned and machine-made production. It is the result rather of affectionate assiduity, or serious collection of materials, and collation of authorities.”
“What makes this volume specially pleasing is that, in the spirit of ‘entente cordiale,’ it shows the desire to appreciate, with the graceful help of a winning style, the essentially French writer, who nevertheless finds a literary home in all countries.”
“Prof. Dowden’s ‘Montaigne’ has the quality we always look for in the work of that capable critic. This writer is not a virtuoso among biographers; but what he lacks in brilliancy is more than made up for in sober force.” H. W. Boynton.
*“And it is the distinctive characteristic of Mr. Dowden’s work that in it Montaigne lives for us again. This effect, moreover, is produced with a deftness which defies analysis. The treatment is essentially impressionistic but it is none the less convincing.”
“A critical and sympathetic account which every genuine lover of Montaigne will prize.”
“He makes Montaigne as interesting as a man’s biography can be made whose real life is contained in his books. Our feeling about the book is rather that it is too much biographic; and that more space should have been given to the study of Montaigne’s influence on French and on English literature.”
*“Professor Dowden’s work is entirely worthy of its attractive setting. We do not think he has ever made a literary sketch so satisfactory.”
Dowson, Ernest.Collected poems.*$1.50. Lane.
This volume contains all of the poetical works of Ernest Dowson, including “Verses,” published in 1896; “The Pierrot of the minute,” in 1897; and a posthumous collection entitled “Decorations.” Mr. Arthur Symons has written an appreciative memoir to the book.
“[He] wrote in verse with sad sincerity, and in exquisite lingering rhythms and a diction poignant in its reserved perfection.” Ferris Greenslet.
“The delicate talent of Ernest Dowson is appraised with intelligence, and the subtle sympathy which it so peculiarly needs, in the introductory essay by Mr. Arthur Symons which accompanies the final edition of Dowson’s ‘Poems.’” Wm. M. Payne.
“We quote a poem which will illustrate both his musical grave way and the destructive and unpoetical philosophy that he had acquired.”
“A volume of decadent poetry, so called, of exceptionally fine quality.”
“The poems before us justify the praise Mr. Symons bestows upon them. They vibrate with feeling, and are stamped with reality, as having been lived before they were phrased.”
“We may well believe that a few of these poems at least will live and be treasured, never indeed by the many, but by those who are sensitive to music and choice expression, and to sentiment that is genuine, however fatally stamped with too much sadness, born of disease.”
Doyle, (Arthur) Conan.Return of Sherlock Holmes.$1.50. McClure.
Thirteen short stories which chronicle the last adventures of the famous detective, who now retires from the public gaze to end his days on his Sussex bee-farm. There is the story of the mystery of the second stain, the adventure of the priory school, the adventure of the six Napoleons and others of equal mystery.
“Mr. Holmes is so interesting that he might easily be more so. Moreover, he is not so accurate as of yore.”
“The novelist has not shown anything like as much ingenuity in the construction of fresh problems as the detective shows in solving them.” Herbert W. Horwill.
“Speaking generally, this volume does not average as high as its predecessors; but this is only because its best are not quite equal to the best he has told before.”
“The stolen examination paper, the missing foot-ball player, and the professional blackmailer, for all his miserable death, seem rather small game for the redoubtable Holmes after the stirring scenes of his earlier days.”
“The new stories are not so fresh as the old, not so ingenious, nor do they offer that full measure of breathless suspense without which the fiction of crime is only weariness and vexation.”
Doyle, Edward.Haunted temple and other poems. $1. Edward Doyle, 247 W. 125th st., N. Y.
“The haunted temple” by the blind poet of Harlem is a criticism of life. The temple is builded of “the lifeless dross of the heart and the spirit,” the law of construction is “antipodal—not one, with that of the ascending stars and the sun.” Introspection and poetic fervor mark this work and the accompanying poems.
“A daring and somewhat unregulated imagination is the chief characteristic.” Wm. M. Payne.
“Many of his verses are deeply religious in tone and are healthily, almost buoyantly trustful, with an entire absence of morbidness.”
Drayton, Michael.Poems.$1.25. Scribner.
“The latest edition to the ‘Newnes’ pocket classics.’ ... Instead of attempting to show every side of Drayton’s work in so narrow a compass, the editor has wisely selected only the best side, and has accordingly presented a very full collection of his shorter pieces.”—Outlook.
Driscoll, Clara.Girl of La Gloria; il. by Hugh W. Ditzler.†$1.50. Putnam.
This love story of Texas, which pictures the rough but romantic life on the plains, is the story of a young New Yorker who falls in love with a girl who is the last of an old Mexican family whose estates have gradually been taken from them by the Americans.
“Miss Driscoll can tell a tale with freshness and an engaging individuality. She has not quite got the knack either of omitting unessential details, or of saving essential ones from being a trifle tedious.”
“The author’s diction is commonplace, and her grammar none too sound.”
“The story is really too good, as stories go, to be treated altogether flippantly.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“It is a very little story and very simple.”
“And nothing in particular to recommend or condemn it.”
Drummond, William Henry.Voyageur, and other poems.**$1.25. Putnam.
The new French-Canadian poems which make up this volume sing sadly and gayly, by turns, of the hunter, and the pioneer, of home and of country, of youth and of “The last portage” when “De moon an’ de star above is gone, yet somet’ing tell me I mus’ go on.”
“It is only when the author forsakes his patois, and writes in the English tongue, that he lays himself open to serious fault-finding.”
“Heartily can we commend every page of Dr. Drummond’s latest volume.”
“The patois is not beautiful in itself, and to many readers it may seem a little barbarous; but it is Mr. Drummond’s true material, for the dialect songs have a merit which is absent in the few pieces written in ordinary English.”
Dubois, Dr. Paul.Psychic treatment of nervous disorders; tr. from the French by Smith Ely Jelliffe, and William A. White.*$3. Funk.
The author both a psychologist and physician gives in this volume of nearly 450 pages the experience and principles of psychic treatment of nervous disorders based upon twenty years of successful specialization and practice in this branch of medical skill. “The strong optimistic tenor of the book, its simple untechnical language, and the directness with which its philosophy is applied to life, make it capable of becoming a vital fact not merely to physicians but to every one who has pondered on the relations between the psychic and the physical.”
“The charm of Dr. Dubois’s style is preserved in spite of the difficulties and occasional errors of translation. The entire absence of pedantry, the constant good nature and wit, a marked dramatic and rhetorical instinct and honest zeal make his book one of the most readable in medical or psychological literature.”
Duckworth, W. L. H.Morphology and anthropology: a handbook for students.*$4.50. Macmillan.
“Mr. Duckworth defines the subject-matter of his book as an inquiry into (1) man’s zoölogical position: (2) the nature of his ancestry.... In the classification adopted by Mr. Duckworth, man retains the position assigned to him by Huxley.... Nor has the evidence which has accumulated in the last thirty-three years permitted Mr. Duckworth to make a more definite statement as to the ancestral chain ... of man than was made by Darwin in his first edition of the ‘Descent of man’ in 1871.”—Nature.
“Within the limits at his disposal he has been able to marshal his facts and inferences in a methodical and convincing manner.”
“It would not be just to close this review without acknowledging the number of original facts and fresh opinions that mark the pages of this work. The opening chapters are perhaps too condensed. The chapters on the cerebral organization are specially well done, and contain the best exposition yet published of our knowledge of that part of the Primate organization.” A. K.
“Duckworth’s observations strike us in the main very favorably, as both candid and judicious. A very good and useful handbook.” T. D.
“Is an invaluable piece of exact work, somewhat beyond the needs of the general reader, but admirably adapted to those of the student.”
*Duclaux, Mary (Mary Darmesteter) (Agnes Mary Frances Robinson).Fields of France: little essays in descriptive sociology. $6. Lippincott.
Madame Duclaux’s interesting description of France and the French is now reissued as “a beautiful quarto with twenty reproductions of water-color sketches by W. B. Macdougall, chiefly in illustration of French dwellings from farm-houses to chateaux.... The seven divisions of the book carry one from Normandy to Provence with apparently equal sympathy and shrewd observation.” (Nation.)
*“One of the most gorgeous of holiday books, and one that deserves to be read from cover to cover, not only because of its subject but for its literary style as well.”
*“Altogether this is a delightful book.”
*“Altogether she has made an instructive and attractive book.”
*“The artist’s work is often amateurish and the arrangement of the pictures awkward.”
Dudley, Albertus True.In the line.†$1.25. Lee.
The third volume in the “Phillips Exeter” series tells the story of a sturdy Boston boy who having worked up to the position of guard on the football team is forbidden by his father to play in one of the crucial games of the season. Opportunity is thus given for arguments on both sides of the much-discussed football question.
“Except in so far as it lends encouragement to football ... the book is bent to encourage all sorts of good things—honesty, democracy, morality, courage, a harmless gayety.”
Duff, Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant.Notes from a diary, 1896-1901. 2v.*$4. Dutton.
These volumes close the notes from a diary which contains the record of half-a century ending as the reign of Edward VII. begins. Sir Mountstuart has avoided the chief interests of his life, politics and administration but has preserved “some interesting and amusing things that would otherwise have soon disappeared,” anecdotes, bits of verse, stories of travels, of dinners, and of visits among the most brilliant men of his time.
“Very entertaining volumes. They paint the manners of the time more graphically than any novelist has been able to do.”
“They are a treasure-house of entertainment. There is a good deal of pleasant classical lore; there are riddles, too, and jokes galore, so that the ordinary man as well as the scholar should be pleased.”
*“A mirror of the times indeed and it is with sincere regret that I read Sir Mountstuart’s ultimatum that these volumes are his last.” Jeannette L. Gilder.
“Though by no means dull reading are a little cloying if taken in course and at a sitting.”
“They are bed-candle reading. As such they will divert, interest, and offer diverse suggestion to different people.”
“Not an unkind word enters these pages. The author is amiable both by nature and grace. He is an accomplished raconteur.”
“He has made such a contribution to the gaiety of the world as seldom comes from a single pen.”
Duignan, W. H.Worcestershire place names.*$2.40. Oxford.
A glossary which brings the history and place names of Worcestershire down to date and “has more than a merely local interest; for the English place names, which nearly all have their root in Anglo-Saxon, occur again and again throughout the whole country, and in them England’s early history is latent.” (Nation.)
“It is not surpassed in excellence by any other work of its class with which I am acquainted.” Henry Bradley.
Dumas, Alexandre.Three musketeers.$1.25. Crowell.
This novel running almost to the six hundred page limit, depicting the court life of France during the closing years of Louis XII’s reign and the opening years of the Grand Monarch is in this edition fashioned after the “Thin paper classics” model. It offers a complete revised translation with introduction and cast of characters by J. Walker McSpadden.
Dumas, Alexandre.Twenty years after.$1.25. Crowell.
An edition of Dumas’ novel which is uniform with the “Thin paper classics.”
Dunbar, Agnes B. C.Dictionary of saintly women. 2v. ea.*$4. Macmillan.
In volume one “the author has collected the facts and legends concerning thousands of Catholic saints, canonized or beatified maids and matrons, from ancient Britain to the Japan of the seventeenth century, their austerities and charities, their martyrdoms and miracles.” (Outlook.) Volume two draws its material mainly from the “Acta sanctorum,” and “the author’s survey extends over the whole church before the parting of the East from the West, the Western church as a whole to the Reformation, and afterward the Roman church. Besides being of value as a pious work, the dictionary will also be useful as a work of reference.” (N. Y. Times.)
“It is written with ardent sympathy and with a highly respectable erudition.”
“Every statement is accredited to a certain writer.”
*“But Miss Dunbar has worked out the problem in each case, and made a remarkably complete book—the only one of the kind in English we think.”
Dunbar, Charles Franklin.Economic essays.**$2.50. Macmillan.
“The volume now before us brings together fifteen essays which had been published in various journals, chiefly in the Quarterly journal of economics, and adds thereto five others which have never before seen the light. With the former, the task of the editor was comparatively simple; the latter, by the pious care of a disciple, have been brought ‘as nearly as possible into the form which the author would have wished’ to give them. The introduction by Professor Taussig, carefully avoiding mere eulogy, is the fit tribute of a student to a revered master. While the book cannot repair, except in slightest measure, the loss which economic science suffered in Professor Dunbar’s death, it is a worthy memorial to one who contributed so much, as teacher, editor, and investigator, to the progress of economic study in the United States.”—Nation.
“Especially helpful are the chapters on the panic of 1857 and the description of the state banking systems in the middle of the century. Serve as admirable examples of interestingand intelligible generalizations based upon trade and banking statistics.” D. R. D.
“Some of those essays are models of careful research. The easy literary style in which they are written should make the volume one of unusual interest to the general public as well as of value to the student.”
“He separates fact from fancy, and presents the results of scientific inquiry, largely in the field of banking and currency, in an eminently judicious and scholarly manner.” Arthur B. Woodford.
“While it does not do full justice to his attainments, the present volume gives sufficient evidence of Professor Dunbar’s firm hold upon his science in its broadest relations, his skill in handling questions of the day, and his special aptitude for patient and fruitful historical research. All [the five now printed for the first time] display the nice workmanship of the author, and must be reckoned with by him who would write the definitive history of our banking system.”
*“It is hardly too much to say that an hundred pages may be selected from Professor Dunbar’s writings which are as well worth preservation and careful study as a similar number of pages in the works of any of the great masters of the science since Adam Smith. Certainly there is no American economist whose writings deserve a higher rank.” G. S. C.
*Dunbar, Paul Laurence.Howdy, honey, howdy.**$1.50. Dodd.
“In this collection of verse the ... many-gifted lyrist of his race strikes again almost exclusively those chords of pathos and humor, in purely dialect verse, which have won for the author a quite unique position among America’s ‘minor poets’ of to-day. The publishers have rendered the volume very attractive by adding to the racy metrical text characteristic photographs and tasteful decorations; the former by Leigh Richmond Miner; the latter by Will Jenkins.”—Critic.
*“Mr. Dunbar’s part in the volume needs no description, save to say that it is in his characteristic vein and well up to his usual standard in quality.”
Dunbar, Paul Laurence.Lyrics of sunshine and shadow.**$1. Dodd.
About eighty poems are grouped here which range from the grave to the gay. The author keeps well to his special field of folk lore. A number of the poems are in negro dialect, “portraying the pranks and plottings of a rollicking pickaninny world.”
“His present volume is in no wise disappointing: as in its predecessors we find in ‘Lyrics of sunshine and shadow’ a rich sympathy with the homely characteristic themes treated and a happy deftness in the management of rhyme and rhythm.”
“Mr. Dunbar’s poetic inspiration is slender but sincere. He is at his best in simple ballad measures, writing of the common joys of health and out-of-doors.”
Duncan, Edmondstoune.Schubert. $1.25. Dutton.
Modern methods of compilation are employed, modern demands for the conditioning forces of a career are met, and the modern accompaniment of illustrative matter is supplied in this complete life of Schubert recently added to the “Master musicians series.” The biography of Schubert, Schubert the man, and Schubert the musician constitute the three divisions for treatment.
*“His little book is for the most part dull, flat and prosy, overloaded with trivial details, in the midst of which the real essentials are lost sight of.”
“The chief fault of Mr. Duncan’s book is a curious habit of repeating biographic details or criticisms in different sections of it. Some of his best and most important things are printed in footnote type in the bibliography.”
“An agreeable and generally trustworthy biography.” Richard Aldrich.
“It brings out facts not before known, though it is far from being an ideal biography.”
*“His own observations are marked not only by the warm personal affection which Schubert invariably inspires in his admirers, but by excellent taste and sound critical judgment.”
Duncan, Frances.Mary’s garden and how it grew.†$1.25. Century.
Mary is typically the child enthusiast, while her instructor, the kind Herr Trummel, “gardener, horticulturist, retired florist, and above all, Switzer,” teaches her the simple forms of practical, scientific gardening. Aside from the tale of good comradeship existing between the gray haired gardener and the little “Liebchen,” the book is a practical handbook of instruction for all garden makers. It covers the possibilities for the different months, showing what may be accomplished in winter as well as in the favorable summer time. The illustrations by Lee Woodward Zeigler are suggestively good.
“Miss Duncan’s little book, with its helpful illustrations, will do the best sort of missionary work. Her knowledge of her subject is intimate and her teaching technically sound; her graceful English....”
Duncan, Norman.Dr. Grenfell’s parish, the deep sea fishermen.**$1. Revell.
In this book the author’s “freight is fact ... and the language is vigorous. What he calls Dr. Grenfell’s parish is the long, rocky coast of Labrador and of Newfoundland ... where Dr. Grenfell has labored, and is laboring, sailing the icy seas in fog and storm and tending the bodies (and minding somewhat also the souls) of the scattered dwellers in a vast, drear, country, which is less desolate since he came into it. Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell is an Englishman, and he is commissioned by the ‘Royal national mission to deep sea fishermen.’ ... Mr. Duncan’s account is chiefly concerned, not with the doctor, but with his monster parish and the inhabitants of it.”—N. Y. Times.
“It is a better and more interesting piece of work than either of its predecessors from the same pen.”
“By his literary gift Mr. Duncan opens the eyes of the least imaginative to the significance of the work he describes.”
“This is indeed a different, and a better tale from any figment of the imagination. It reaches the heart with the force of verity.”
Duncan, Norman.Dr. Luke of the Labrador.†$1.50. Revell.
Mr. Duncan “has added a new province to the realm of literature. The gray ice-bound fields of Labrador, those stern, grim seas, that virile, simple folk, and its life of tragic monotony,—these things are now possessions to the imagination, possessions of enduring value.” (R. of Rs.) “Doctor Luke is a philanthropist, who, putting aside an early career of dissipation, devotes his life to relieving distress on the bleak coasts of Labrador.” (Ind.)
Reviewed by G. W. A.
“With his keen faculty for seizing the essentials and dismissing the superfluous, Mr. Duncan has brought us face to facenot only with the rigors and romance of life on the Labrador coast, but with its humor as well—and a varying humor it is, now droll and again grim, but always an accurate depiction. A romance full of interest and charm.”
“There is a group of figures of excellent variety and of the best sort of originality, self-stamped as made up of discovery and sympathetic interpretation. The story is perfectly fitted into the strange, wild surroundings.”
“As an organic, thoroughly-developed novel, it is a failure.”
“A novel of unusually high merit. But Mr. Duncan has not only a new field to exploit, he has style. The swift yet long and undulating sentences move with a distinctive rhythm that is as fresh as it is new. They tell a strong, beautiful love story. Altogether, ‘Dr. Luke of the Labrador’ is one of the season’s two or three best books.”
Duncan, Norman.Mother.†$1.25. Revell.
Mr. Duncan “lets heaven into the attic shekinah of a vaudeville actress, where she kept her child. Her love for him was the holy effulgence that covered her pitiful, painted life, and sanctified her. It is a fine argument for the way to heaven in women, dramatically expressed and quaintly proved, even if we leave out the philosophy of the ‘dog-face’ man, which to appreciate one must read.”—Ind.
*“The treatment is at once realistic and idealistic, and the two elements do not at all times blend quite harmoniously.”
“Norman Duncan’s new story, ‘The mother,’ gives the impression that he wrote it with his light turned a trifle too high and with his keynote of pathos taken an octave above where the reader’s sympathies reach comfortably.”
*“Altogether, in delicate balance of humor and pathos, in quick clutch upon the heartstrings, in revealing vividness of imagination, the art and spirit of ‘The mother,’ put it in the noble class of ‘Rab and his friends.’”