New Poems. By Francis Thompson. 139 pp. 12mo, $1.10; by mail, $1.18. This is a collection of poems by Francis Thompson, one of the newer English poets and a reviewer on the staff of The Academy. His lines are cast in rather obscure language, full of subtle meaning, and requiring fixed attention for their understanding. The poet sings, with some of his richest imagery, in praise of nature, as the following lines of the "Orient Ode" illustrate : "Lo, in the sanctuaried East, Day, a dedicated priest In all his robes pontifical exprest, From out its Orient tabernacle drawn, Yon robed sacrament confest Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn. Blessed-ere the frail fingers featly Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte, Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast, The sun in august exposition meetly Within the flaming monstrance of the West." Students of poetry will be interested in Mr. Thomp son's experiments with metre. These are to be especially noted in his "Heard on the Mountain," from Hugo's "Feuilles D'Automne." Here the fourteensyllable metre of Chapman is treated after the manner of Dryden's rhyming heroics, with the occasional triplet and even the occasional Alexandrine, represented by a line of eight accents, a treatment Mr. Thompson believes can well extend the majestic resources of the metre. The writer delights in perfection of style, in the completest finish, and his book, which is a worthy successor of his "Poems " and "Sister Songs" is notable in its class. Hartford Post. Mammon-A Spirit Song. By Louis M. Elshemus, author of "The Moods of a Soul," etc. 126 pp. 12mo, $1.25, postpaid. Mr. J. Gordon Coogler, the sweet singer of the South Carolina cotton fields, must look to his laurels. Another and a rival poet has appeared in Mr. Louis M. Elshemus, whose native wood notes wild, sounded in the two volumes entitled respectively "Lady Vere" and "Mammon-A Spirit Song,' have much of the artlessness and unfettered originality that have made the Southern singer famous. We miss, perhaps, the infinite variety and range of vision that distinguish the inimitable Coogler, for the muse of Mr. Elshemus inspires him almost exclusively to thoughts of love; his song is one long passionate plea for freedom from the trammels and conventionalities of these loveless modern days of ours-a protest against the fickleness and mercenary spirit of the women of our time: Ah, cruel woman! heartless-full of guile! At least it shall not be in silence that we submit, while there are those among us who can voice their protest. Here is a type of woman that invites our poet's scorn: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, The. Astronomer-Poet of Persia. Rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald. New edition. 93 pp. 16m0, 75 cents; by mail, 81 cents. A fairly good small reprint of Fitzgerald, prefaced by Lang's verses and the translator's essay on the Persian poet. Romance of Arenfels, and Other Tales of the Rhine, The. By C. Ellis Stevens. 90 pp. 16m0, $1.25, postpaid. The author has struck no dominant note in his book of verse, 66 Romance of Arenfels, and Other Tales of the Rhine." He has, however, sung in an unpretentious way a few very sweet tones. He lacks strength and vigor of both thought and diction, but he gives in places reasons for his existence as a poet, that while they may or may not bear bigger fruit, are certainly a justification of his present little volume. Philadephia Inquirer. Vintage of Verse, A. By Clarence Urmy, author of A Rosary of Rhyme." 119 pp. 12m0, $1.00; by mail, $1.06. There are poems of sentiment and poems of nature, in both of which the writer shows himself a keen observer, a genuine lover. His praise of the Golden Gate, with which the book opens, is a delightful bit, and indeed, he who enjoys smooth flowing verse will not be likely to lay the volume down until the acquaintance of each page is made A dainty little conceit is the following, called "The Approach of Night": By the yellow in the sky, Night is nigh. By the murk on mead and mere, Night is near. By one faint star, pale and wan, Night comes on. By the moon, so calm and clear, Night is here. BOYS AND GIRLS. Hartford Post. Blissylvania Post-Office, The. By Marion Ames Taggart. 152 pp. 16m0, 40 cents; by mail, 48 cents. Four children, who were tired of a rainy day in the country, form themselves into a club called the Happy Thought Club, the object of the club being to write letters for amusement. The post-office, which was in an orchard, is named by the only boy in the club. The story tells of the children's methods of conducting their post-office, and gives events in the lives of two honorary members of the H. T. C. Publishers' Weekly. Boys in the Block, The. By Maurice Francis Egan, author of "The Vocation of Edward Conway,' etc. 85 pp. 18mo, 25 cents; by mail, 30 cents. The block was a short row of houses in a New York street, leading into the Bowery. The boys in the block were divided into two cliques. Their hands were against each other and both were against the Chinese. The story is for Catholic boys, and is by the Professor of Literature in Notre Dame University, who is also a poet of reputation. Heir of Dreams, An. By Sallie Margaret O'Malley. 168 pp. 16mo, 40 cents; by mail, 45 cents. A tale for Roman Catholic youth, prettily presented and well printed. By Parent's Assistant; or, Stories for Children, The. Maria Edgeworth. Illustrated by Chris Hammond. With an introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Illustrated Standard Novels. 465 PP. 12mo, $1.10; by mail, $1.25. As Mrs. Ritchie says in her introduction, it is hard to make a choice among the charming and familiar histories comprised in "The Parent's Assistant." They open like fairy-tales, recounting in simple language the stories of little ones who in doing good or doing wrong reap their respective rewards or meet with their due punishments. We need more books like those that Maria Edgeworth wrote. The present volume is mightily refreshing to one jaded with a long course of the modern school of favorite authors. The illustrations by Miss Hammond are as usual dainty and correct in their details. Three Girls and Especially One. By Marion Ames Taggart, author of "The Blissylvania Post Office, etc. 150 pp. 16mo, 40 cents; by mail, 48 cents. Marcella, or 66 Marcy as she was called, was a little girl of twelve, the eldest of the Merrick children. She was a pretty, gifted child, who is made a cripple for a number of years through a bad fall. The home life henceforth centres about her invalid couch, and her whole character changes. A little cousin from Kansas visits the New York Merricks, and though at first the children laugh at her, they learn to love her dearly. Publishers' Weekly. of the present city and wanders with the dainty Dutch maiden, Freida Van Dycke, through the prosperous farm lands which lay along the route of the later day Bowery. During the period of this story the town was suffering from a ruinous scourge of piratical buccaneering, the famous Captain Kidd being the dreaded terror of the seas. A charming love story is developed by the affection of Freida for Adrian de Witte, the heir of the Patroon, who is opposed to the match. Adrian's magnetic personality but weak moral character naturally befit him for leader among the buccaneers and though suspected he passes among the citizens with the dash and daring of an innocent man. When at last he murders the Patroon and cowardly allows the crime to be fastened on Freida, her eyes are opened and the honest devotion of another suitor is rewarded. The characters are depicted with distinctness and a pastoral charın that give one a sort of personal relationship with those early New Yorkers and their simple manners and customs. Philadelphia Times. Beautiful Miss Brooke, The. By "Z. Z." Author of "A Drama in Dutch," etc. 153 PP. 16m0, 75 cents; by mail, 83 cents. "The Beautiful Miss Brooke" is a peculiar, complex and altogether interesting type of that modern "bachelor girl" who seems to have supplanted the old-fashioned pink and white ingenue dear to novel readers of fifteen or twenty years ago. The setting in which the author, Mr. Louis Zangwill, has placed her is of the slightest, the story being but a mere episode in the career of a brilliant, somewhat unscrupulous, and thoroughly modern young woman, but the analytical skill shown in her presentation is sufficient to make the book worth reading. V. Y. Sun. Basile the Jester. A Romance of the Days of Mary, Queen of Scots. By J. E. Muddock, author of "A Dead Man's Secret, etc. Illustrated by Stanley Wood and others. 375 PP. 12mo, ço cents; by mail, $1.05. The author has done much admirable work in making known to youthful or idle readers the finer works and greater events in English annals. His "Robin Hood" was delightful reading. The present tale deals with Mary Queen of Scots and her times. Castle Meadow. A story of Norwich a hundred years ago. By Emma Marshall, author of "The White King's Daughter," etc. With a frontispiece. 286 pp. 12mo, 90 cents; by mail, $1.01. A tale founded on the life in Norwich, when that English town was noteworthy for its circle of cultured people. John Crome. William Crotch, Amelie Alderson (afterwards Opie) and other celebrities appear. Captain Molly. A Love Story. By Mary A. Denison, author of "That Husband of Mine," etc. 257 PP. 12mo, 75 cents; by mail, 86 cents. Mary A. Denison will add to her popularity by her latest story of "Captain Molly." It idealizes the Salvation Army, but it does not exaggerate the good points, even if it may omit some of the less pleasant. A banker's daughter chooses to go down into the slums and work in Paradise Flats. A young man whom she considers a dude, and with whom she will have nothing to do, disguises himself as a workman and goes down into Paradise Flats for love of her, joining the army as a private to win the love of his captain, and he does it. Everything comes out just as you want it to. The story is intensely human and interesting and good in every use of the word. N. Y. World. " Devotee, A. An episode in the life of a butterfly. By Mary Cholmondeley, author of "Diana Tempest,' etc. 211 pp. 12mo, 75 cents; by mail, 85 cents; paper, 38 cents; by mail, 43 cents. In this short tale Miss Cholmondeley has omitted the sensational element, modeled upon Wilkie Collins, which marred to some extent her clever novel "Diana Tempest," and consequently her new story is much more homogeneous. Her sketches of young men and women belonging to fashionable society are as clever as ever; but Mr. Loftus is altogether a lady's hero, a far-away connection of Sir Charles Grandison's, and quite as unreal. No wonder his first wife ran away from him. London Athenæum. Derelicts. By William J. Locke, author of "At the Gate of Samaria," etc. 414 PP. 12mo, $1.10 ; by mail, $1.23. In "Derelicts," Mr. William John Locke tells the story of a man who has gone under; who, having dropped to the lowest depths of weakness, misery, and self-contempt, is yet redeemed by the saving grace of a woman's love. Stephen Chisely, an Oxford graduate and a lawyer, has, at the beginning of his career, been led by weakness and folly into -crime, and has served a term of two years in jail for embezzlement. Then, when after his release he is drifting gradually to the gutter, he meets a woman known to him in happier days, and for the first time since his disgrace hears a word of kindness. He, with his struggles and relapses, his weakness and his gradual winning of self-respect and manliness, is admirably drawn, while the woman, great in her charity and unawakened capacity for infinite love, and with much of the unconscious, half pathetic charm and irresponsibility of a child, has the warmth and brightness of a ray of sunshine. In all her matrimonial and other troubles-and she had some sufficiently awkward ones-she is frankly a child. Not till in her time of need she is helped by the man she once tried to save, and till, in winning him back to self-respect, she first learns to really love, does she become a woman. The story of Chisely's fight to get on his feet again, as a chorus singer in a traveling opera company, a farm hand in South Africa, and finally as a writer, is always interesting, while some of the minor characters are sketched with more than N. Y. Sun. average skill. Extracts from the Diary of Svengali. Translated and edited by Alfred Welch. 89 pp. 18mo, 38 cents; by mail, 42 cents. Some one has discovered the private diary of Svengali! The discoverer is Alfred Welch, and he has been to the trouble of translating passages of it from its difficult Polish Hebrew dialect, that the Englishreading public may become acquainted with some of the inmost thoughts and intentions of this remarkable maestro. It tells among other things of how Trilby was found after she left the studio and relieves Svengali of the imputation of craft. The diary Free Lance in a Far Land, A. Being an Account of the Singular Fortunes of Selwyn Fyveways, of Fyveways Hall, in the County of Gloucester, Esquire; for seven years a Free Adventurer in the Kingdoms of Hindostan. By Herbert Compton, author of "The Dead Man's Gift," etc. Cassell's Union Square Library. 373 PP. paper, 12m0, 38 cents; by mail, 43 cents. A Stevensonesque romance, written with spirit and carrying the reader into many lands. Fall of a Star, The. A novel. By Sir William Magnay, Bart. 269 pp. 12mo, 90 cents; by mail, $1.03. Smart society in provincial England, by one of the smart set. Fatal Diamonds, The. By Eleanor C. Donnelly, author of " Petronilla," etc. 73 pp. 16mo, 25 cents; by mail, 29 cents. The fatal diamonds were given by Dr. Kenrick to his young wife; they were bought with money that the Doctor intended to spend in charity. The story tells how the proud owner of the jewels lost them by an act of vanity, also other interesting episodes of her life, and shows finally the beauty of humility. Publishers' Weekly. Fierceheart, the Soldier. A Romance of 1745. By J. C. Snaith, author of Mistress Dorothy Marvin." Appletons' Town and Country Library. 329 pp. 12mo, 75 cents; by mail, 85 cents; paper, 35 cents; by mail, 40 cents. A tale of English life in the early eighteenth century, full of good humor and character sketching. Gadfly, The. By E. L. Voynich. 373 pp. 12mo, 90 cents; by mail, $1.00. The fierce struggles of the Italians and their conspiracies, all directed toward the Austrians, in the first half of this century, form the subject of Voynich's dramatic story. The author excels in the presentation of dramatic situations. "The Gadfly is distinguished for force and vigor. N. Y. Times. Ghost of Guir House, The. By Charles Willing Beale. With a frontispiece. 184 pp. 12mo, 80 cents; by mail, 89 cents. A weird tale of a haunted ruin and an agonized ghost who appears as Ah Ben, an old man. Half-Caste, The. An Old Governess's Tale. By the author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." Illustrated. 75 cents; by mail, 87 cents. Some of Dinah Maria Muloch's early contributions to periodical literature are brought together in this interesting volume, in the belief that the present generation will read with pleasure and profit what charmed and instructed our fathers and mothers. From another point of view this work is interesting, as it contains the germ which blossomed more fully in the author's longer stories. Her first long story appeared in 1849, four years after she had begun her literary career with Messrs. W. and R. Chambers. The letter in the preface is dated from the author's house at Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, and was written to Mr. Robert Chambers, in January, 1882. The writer refers to the approaching fiftieth anniversary of the "dear old Journal," and adds: "Would I could assist' thereat, and say an affectionate and grateful word for the firm with whom I began my career in 1845, nearly forty years ago." The volume contains six short stories, which may be unhesitat ingly recommended to such as relish fiction that is free from all morbidness, and is at the same time interesting. London Publishers' Circular. Hired Furnished. Being certain economical housekeeping adventures in England. By Margaret B. Wright. With a map. 455 pp. 16mo, 90 cents; by mail, $1.00. A record of a visit made to England by Mrs. Wright and her son, and of their sojourn in various interesting rural suburbs of cities and towns, in cottages and villas, "hired furnished"; their plan has much to recommend it in the way of economy and absence of trouble, and was attended by many fresh and interesting adventures. The sights they saw are also graphically described. Publishers' Weekly. His Native Wife. By Louis Becke, author of By Reef and Palm,' etc. Illustrated. The Lotos Library. 202 pp. 16mo, 57 cents; by mail, 64 cents. This is a tragedy of an ill-assorted marriage and the misplaced love of a wedded woman for a man who is totally unconscious of her passion. Jack Barrington, the hero, is an English sailor, who after quarreling with his captain, settles as a trader in Losop, where he takes a native girl, Nadee, to wife. Unfortunately for all concerned, Helen Parker, wife of the Rev. Hosea Parker, a narrow-minded missionary, falls in love with Barrington. The trader not only does not return her love but fails to recognize it, notwithstanding which his native wife's jealousy is aroused and she murders Helen. The story is interesting and gives a vivid picture of but little known scenes. Philadelphia Record. His Letters. By Julien Gordon, author of "Marionettes," etc. Cassell's Union Square Library. 280 pp. 12mo, paper, 38 cents; by mail, 43 cents. A novel of a man's life told in letters and bearing the imprint of this novelist's well-known characteristics. Lily of the Valley, The, (Le Lys dans la Vallee.) By H. de Balzac. Translated by James Waring. With a preface by George Saintsbury. Illustrated. Comédie Humaine. Edited by George Saintsbury. 312 pp. 12mo, $1.10; by mail, $1.21. This is a story highly characteristic of one of Bal zac's moods that is not to be overlooked. It is not his strongest or his best mood, and this particular lily will strike most English or American readers as a very unhealthy blossom, while the men are generally detestable. But Balzac has put a great deal of himself into the book. The minutely detailed pictures of landscape and architecture are full of charm, and there are not only vivid flashes of characterization, but not a few chapters of uncommon imaginative force. However, it is not necessary to review Balzac now. We are called on only to review this new English edition, which is so nearly ideal in form, so much better for its purpose than any available French edition, that it offers quite a new temptation to read Balzac in a tongue not his own. Philadelphia Times. My Lord Duke. By E. W. Hornung, author of "A Bride from the Bush," etc. 299 pp. 12mo, 90 cents; by mail, $1.00. The story turns on the identity of the heir to an English dukedom. The man brought forward is an Australian found in the bush, rough and uncouth, but with an apparently well-authenticated claim. He has no desire to be a duke, and would willingly at any time return to his old life. His unconventional ways are the cause of many amusing scenes in his introduction to English society. He has a love-story which is also unconventional, and his career takes a most unexpected, turn. Publishers' Weekly. Marietta's Marriage. By W. C. Norris, author of "The Dancer in Yellow," etc. Appletons' Town and Country Library, No. 218. 455 pp. 12mo, 75 cents; by mail, 86 cents; paper, 45 cents; by mail, 50 cents. Characters and scenes to which the author always lends an individual charm. English high-life by a trained observer. Middle Greyness. By A. J. Dawson, author of "Mere Sentiment." 458 pp. 12mo, $1.10; by mail, $1.23. In "Middle Greyness" Mr. A. J. Dawson has not only written a powerful and interesting story, but has enriched it with some descriptions of the Australian bush that recall the sombre, awe inspiring beauty of that strange region more vividly than does the work of any writer we can recollect since the late Marcus Clarke, whose introduction to the poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon stands as the point of highest achievement in Australian descriptive literature. Henry Manton Darley, the man who, beginning life with a brilliant career before him, has, by reason of the black streak in him, drifted downward through successive stages to the bush, that vast beach on which so many wrecks are ultimately cast, is the central and imposing figure of the book. His two sons, who have been educated in England by a millionaire uncle, represent the conflicting sides of the man's nature. Robert, brilliant, superficial and selfindulgent, has the black streak in him; while William, the unpractical dreamer, has the artist's soul and the possibilities of achievement that, but for the stronger evil tendencies, might have dominated the father. There is a charming and simple love story interwoven with all the sadness, and some pleasant descriptions of English riverside life, but the real strength of the book lies in the fact that the author has embodied, in the character of the old outcast, much of the spirit of weird sadness and grim, cynical despair that broods in the vast shadows of the great Australian bush. N. Y. Sun. Cover 151 pp. 16m0, Ocean Sketches. By Frederick W. Wendt. designed by Ethel W. Mumford. 57 cents; by mail, 63 cents. "Ocean Sketches" are from the point of view of the cabin, not of the forecastle. They are very brief stories of contemporary social life, evidently designed to while away the moments of idleness spent by ocean passengers on the deck of a steamer. Dealing with the varying phases of that indolent existence, the book will interest the transatlantic traveler, who finds something personally attractive in a detailed description of the flirtations, the comedy and the tragedy that centre in the little world afloat in mid-ocean. Philadelphia Times. ་་ One Man's View. By Leonard Merrick, author of 'Cynthia, a Daughter of the Philistines," etc. 258 pp. 16mo, 75 cents; by mail, 84 cents. Love, separation, a reuniting and all that goes between in the fin de siecle manner, here serve as the substance of an international novel, well-written by an observer with keen perceptions. Pursuit of the House-Boat, The. Being Some Further Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, Esq. By John Kendrick Bangs. Illustrated by Peter Newell. 204 pp. 16m0, 90 cents; by mail, $1.00. See review. Pink Marsh. A story of the Streets and Town. By George Ade, author of "Artie." Pictures by John T. McCutcheon. 197 pp. 16mo, 90 cents; by mail, $1.00. Ripple and Flood. A novel. By James Prior. Lippincott's Series of Select Novels. 378 pp. 12mo, 75 cents; by mail, 86 cents. Paper, 35 cents; by mail, 43 cents. James Prior's romance is a study of family temperament. The scene is laid in provincial England, and the author puts his story into the mouth of his hero, Edward Allison. Years before the action of the romance begins the lad's father has killed his wife in a fit of drunken mania, and the boy is brought up by his uncle, a rough-grained, but kind-hearted farmer, who is cursed with an ungovernable temper. Ignorant not only of his paternity, but even of his own name, the boy develops into an imaginative youth, loving the changing colors of the sunset and dreaming his time away over the mysterious shadows along the river's bank. He takes to drawing as naturally as a duck does to water (his father has been an artist), and despite his uncle's viclent and pronounced objections eventually becomes a landscape painter. A mad-cap girl, Ivy Sivil, daughter of a drunken ferryman, makes her way into his life. Despite his boyish antipathy and youthful indifference she thrusts her comradeship upon him and the threads of their destinies become entwined almost against his will. The development of this hoiden into a woman, beautiful in soul as well as in body, through her love for her whilom playmate is beautifully portrayed. The introduction of the Salvation Army into the story, however, seems a little strained, although it must be admitted that Ivy's membership in that body is treated with a delicacy of touch which throws the glamor of romance about the episode. The interest is maintained throughout the book. Philadelphia Record. Romance of a Jesuit Mission, The. An historical novel. By M. Bourchier Sanford. 292 pp. 12mo. 90 cents; by mail, $1.01. "The Romance of the Jesuit Mission," is an historical novel which embodies a charming story of love, adventure and devotion to lofty ideals of life and conduct. The scene is laid for the most part at Fort Sainte Marie, the central station of the missions to the Huron Indians, near the site of the present town of Midland, Canada. The time is the middle of the seventeenth century. The story is written by a Protestant who does not fail in appreciation of the sublime courage and devotion of the early missionaries, who were deterred from their unselfish labors neither by the privation of a rude life in the American wilderness, nor an almost certain martyrdom at the hands of those to whom they brought a message of peace. Philadelphia Press. Symphonies. By George Egerton. 256 pp. 12mo, 90 cents; by mail, $1.02. The first of the stories, "A Chilian Episode," is a tender little romance of love and war, somewhat too liberally besprinkled with italicized French and Spanish words and phrases, but full of moonlight and dreamy, sensuous music, and closing with a soft minor chord of real pathos. A young naval cadet, a gallant, handsome lad, who has alternately sung love songs to his sweetheart in the moonlit garden, and spent stolen hours with one of the lights o' love of the Calle Maipu in Valparaiso, is shot as a traitor by Balmaceda during the revolution; and while the girls cry for a while and then sleep and forget, the mother sits in the guest chamber of her lonely house weeping over the body of her son. "For the love of a man to a maid is grand; but the desire of possession is the pith of its strength; and the love of woman to man ripples like the sea on the waves of its own emotion, crying unceasingly; love, love me ever! But the mother love of an unwarped woman for the son of her soul is stronger than the love of man, more tender than the love of woman, for it asketh nothing in return—just gives, gives, gives, as the ocean gives salt and savor and healing! And when the dawn rose and the candles had burned down the mother still knelt with the cold of her dead son's hand chilling her heart." The most powerful of the stories are "Pan" and "At the Heart of the Apple." The first is in form as flawless as the work of one of the masters of the modern French school, and from the opening passages, which are full of the wondrous sunshine of the summer of the south of France to the tragic ending, the pages sparkle with the color and careless vivacity of the Basque peasant life; while behind all is the pathos and grim irony of an episode of untamed human passion. The reader may often take exception to the author's views and to her bluntness and audacity in putting them forward, but he will be bound to acknowledge the strength and artistic beauty of much of her work. N. Y. Sun. Story of Mollie, The. By Marian Bower. 153 PP. 16mo, 75 cents; by mail, 83 cents. A pathetic story of a little plain, sensitive, reticent girl, misunderstood by every one but a father whom she had adored and lost. Her mother is a pretty, shallow woman, who wishes Mollie were like other children, and who bestows upon Mollie's pretty baby brother all the affection she possesses. A cousin of Mollie's father comes to stay at the Dower House, and to him the child transfers the love of her intense nature. The ending is a double tragedy. Publishers' Weekly. Secret of Saint Florel, The. By John Berwick. 397 pp. 16m0, 90 cents; by mail, $1.02. A fairly interesting story of modern life, suitable as literature for any into whose hands it may fall, is usually welcome. "The Secret of Saint Florel" is decidedly readable. It leads up to a somewhat violent climax, where a lunatic with a pistol in one hand and a fiddle-bow in the other, makes a husband and wife dance up and down the room while he |