Books of the Month

Travel. Under the Southern Cross, or Travels in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Samoa, and other Pacific Islands, by Maturin M. Ballou. (Ticknor.) Mr. Ballou has a fresher subject than in his previous books, and he seems a little less dull, in consequence, but it is hard to take up the book anywhere and feel drawn on by the form of presentation. — California of the South ; its physical geography, climate, resources, routes of travel, and health-resorts ; being a complete guide-book to Southern California. By Walter Lindley and J. P. Widney. (Appleton.) The earlier portion of this book, devoted to climatology and physical aspects, is systematic, clear, and valuable ; the second part, taking up localities and describing them and their prospects, is uneven, not very well digested, and approaches too nearly the mode of the real-estate agent. — Monarchs I Have Met, by W. Beatty-Kingston. (Harpers.) Mr. Kingston says at the outset that his acquaintance with monarchs was chiefly on his own seeking, and he also admits that he chose the title of his book in order to catch readers. He is, in short, a special correspondent, who uses his occupation as a passport. The narrative takes him over a good part of Europe and Asia, and gives him a place as spectator at a good many pageants and shows. He uses his opportunities with cleverness, but one must be tolerably enamored with royalty to take so much fuss and feathers with enjoyment. — The United States of Yesterday and of To-Morrow, by William Barrows. (Roberts.) This book is rather the product of travel and reflection than the direct record of observation. Dr. Barrows is an enthusiast upon the future of the United States, but he fortifies his large statements by an array of facts and figures. He makes a wise use also of history, and his book brings into convenient form a great variety of material for thought upon national growth.

Fiction. Before the Dawn, a story of Paris and the Jacquerie, by George Dulac. (Putnams.) An historical romance, the scene being laid in France in the latter half of the fourteenth century. The author has taken pains, and has read Scott. — Queen Money, by the author of The Story of Margaret Kent. (Ticknor.) — German Fantasies by French Firesides, Tales by Richard Leander ; translated from the German by Pauline C. Lane. (Putnams.) The significance of the title lies in the fact that a surgeon of the German army wrote these fancies when quartered near Paris in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. They are pleasing little sketches, with the German sentiment held back from the jumping-off place.— Mahaly Sawyer, or “ Putting Yourself in her Place ” by S. E. D. (Cupples & Hurd.) A curious piece of work. The writer, who is unskilled in telling a story, but with a faculty for making her people stick out in their conversation and situations, attempts to illustrate the golden rule in its application to domestic service by telling a love story. There is much ingenuity expended upon it, and odds and ends of shrewd observation. The result is not very important, but one can scarcely help being interested in the book out of all proportion to its importance. — The Man Behind, by T. S. Denison. (T. S. Denison, Chicago.) A sensational novel, with a rude kind of force in the telling, but the author uses tragic situations without very clear perception of their value. The story is pretty near the earth, but not near enough to give it exceptional interest on that account. — The Nun’s Curse, by Mrs. J. H. Riddell. (Appleton.) Mrs. Riddell has recovered her strength in this book, and has written a novel worth reading. — For the Right, by Karl Emil Franzos ; translated by Julie Sutter. (Harpers.) The work of a strong novelist, and perhaps more emphatically a moralist. The strangeness of the scenery and characters in the story — for the scene is laid in Poland, and Polish Jews play an important part, — may deter some readers, but will be found serviceable in detaching the mind from accidents, and concentrating it on the essentials of the tale. — Roy’s Repentance, by Adeline Sergeant. (Holt.) A volume of the Leisure Hour Series. A weak story bolstered up with conventional scenes. The writer has a moderate degree of ability, but is at an idle business. — How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney kept New Year’s, and other stories, by W. H. H. Murray. (Caledonia County Publishing Co., St. Johnsbury, Vermont.) Four stories, the first of which is a far-off echo of Dickens, and all are artificial and lack the touch of nature. — The Angel of the Village, by L. M. Ohorn ; translated by Mrs. Matthews. (Cupples & Hurd.) A story of factory and village life in Germany, with a dash of sentimentalism. The story is stiff and conventional, and the melodramatic close fails to galvanize it into semblance of liveliness — Narka the Nihilist, by Kathleen O’Meara. (Harpers.) A novel which seems to depend for its subject on the current popularity of Russian themes. It has an unpleasant kind of power about it. — The New Antigone, a romance. (Macmillan.) The work of a man of ability, who takes to fiction because that form of literature seems to be the most convenient vehicle for ideas, not because he has a story to tell. He is a student of society and social problems, not a novelist. — The Deemster, a Romance of the Isle of Man, by Hall Caine. (Appleton.) Mr. Caine shows a strong grip of large and fundamental passions and motives of human conduct, but has he yet learned to make his strong scenes strong also in their compact expression ? To dilate on passion and moving scenes is to weaken their force. — An Unlaid Ghost, a study in metempsychosis. (Appleton.) A somewhat ingenious conceit of repeating in modern life the story of Poppæa and Nero. The ancient tale is first told, and then its modern parallel. The stories are rather melodramatic in their telling. — Black Ice, by Albion W. Tourgee. (Fords, Howard & Halbert.)— Maximina, by Don Armando Palacio Valdé’s; translated from the Spanish by Nathan Haskell Dole. (Crowell.) By means of this novel one may get a glimpse of contemporaneous political and social Spain. — The Story of Colette. (Appleton.) A translation of La Neuvaine de Colette, which appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes. It is told in the form of diary and letters, but the author has not been scrupulous about preserving the spirit of this form. — David Poindexter’s Disappearance, and other Tales, by Julian Hawthorne. (Appleton.) — Recent numbers of Ticknor’s Paper Series are A Tallahassee Girl, by Maurice Thompson, and A Moonlight Boy, by E. W. Howe. — Only a Coral Girl, by Gertrude Forde. (Harpers.) A handsome young Englishman falls in love with a fisher-girl of Capri, marries her, takes her to London, runs a gambling rig himself, and finally repents in dust and ashes after the untimely death of his wife. Conventionality in fiction changes in minor particulars, but remains essentially the same. The unhappy end is a conventional unhappy end.—A Magnificent Plebeian, by Julia Magruder. (Harpers.) Magnificent, and so of course he conquered the patrician, in spite of his vulgar surroundings. — Esther the Gentile, by Mrs. Mary W. Hudson. (Geo. W. Crane & Co., Topeka, Kansas.) A tale of life among the Mormons, written apparently at first hand. The writer has not learned how to tell a story swiftly, nor how to leave out the unessential. — The Vagrant, and other Tales, by Vladimir Korolénko ; translated from the Russian by Mrs. Aline Delano. (Crowell.) This collection of tales strikes one as less Russian in thought and sentiment than many of the novels from the Russian. The scenes and incidents are Russian, and the writer has had a Siberian experience ; he deals very directly with materials drawn from his own life, and he writes like a thoughtful, courageous man who has no special fads of his own. — A Russian Proprietor, and other Stories, by Count Lyof N. Tolstoï; translated from the Russian by Nathan Haskell Dole. (Crowell.) Of varying interest, but always marked by those grotesque touches of nature which give one the feeling that he is looking at life through beveled glass. — The Last Von Reckenburg, by Louise von François ; translated by J. M. Percival. (Cupples & Hurd.) A piece of German fiction.

Science. The New Astronomy, by Samuel Pierpont Langley. (Ticknor.) A lovely book with lovely illustrations, written in an interesting style, and aimed distinctly at the lay, and not the professional, astronomical student and reader. Any one who has been familiar with general astronomical treatises will be struck by the freshness and novelty of one which goes so much more to the photometer, the spectroscope, and the photographic lens than to the telescope. When has a science in its comparative infancy, like the new astronomy, had so lucid, so animated, and so untechnical a presentation to the general public ? The compliment is almost as great to readers as to author. — The fifty-ninth volume of the International Scientific Series (Appleton) is on Animal Magnetism, by Alfred Binet and Charles Féré The authors leave the earlier history of this science to historical students, and begin at once with Mesmer, bringing the survey to the present day. They then proceed to discuss hypnotism in its various phases, and illustrate the subject with a variety of interesting experiments, concluding with a thoughtful consideration of the responsibility attaching to investigations in hypnotism. — The True and the False Theory of Evolution, by Rev. Chauncey Giles. (W. H. Alden, Philadelphia.) An examination of evolution in the light of the doctrines of Swedenborg. —The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century, by T. H. Huxley. (Appleton.) This is a reprint from a larger book on the Reign of Queen Victoria, in which it formed a chapter. It is a rapid survey of generals, illustrated by particulars now and then. — The Asteroids, or Minor Planets between Mars and Jupiter, by Daniel Kirkwood. (Lippincott.) A brief statement of the historical facts and discussion of them. — Volume LXI. of the International Scientific Series (Appleton) is the Geological History of Plants, by Sir J. William Dawson. Its object is to give in a connected form a summary of the development of the vegetable kingdom in geological time. From the nature of the subject, the book appeals both to geologists and to botanists. — Modern Ships of War, by Sir Edward J. Reed and Edward Simpson, with supplementary chapters and notes by J. D. Jerrold Kelley. (Harpers.) This book consists of articles originally contributed to Harper’s Monthly. It is well illustrated, and the treatment by experts makes it not only of general service, but of special value to those scientific students who wish to make a general survey of the subject.

Books for Young People. Blue Jackets of 1812, a History of the Naval Battles of the Second War with Great Britain, to which is prefixed an account of the French War of 1798, by Willis J. Abbot. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) We suppose, from the general appearance of this book, that the author expects his audience amongst boys ; and he ought to find a first-rate audience, for he has told an interesting story, in an interesting manner, without recourse to the rather cheap frills with which juvenile literature is apt to be decorated. Mr. Abbot writes brightly, and occasionally allows himself the use of imaginary dialogue ; but for the most part his work is narrative drawn from good sources. — Boys and Other Boys, by Lucy A. Scott. (Woman’s Temperance Publication Association, Chicago.) A small book of plain talk, by one who writes from strong religious motives, but does not neglect to use the arguments and illustrations which will be likely to arrest attention. It is easier, we suspect, for such a writer to feel a personal interest in her audience than for her audience to return the feeling. — Burnham Breaker, by Homer Greene. (Crowell.) A story of the Pennsylvania mines, a field already worked by this writer. The book is written with praiseworthy simplicity of language and directness of narrative. The plot is that of a book for mature readers, adapted to the uses of the young. — The Story of Keedon Bluffs, by Charles Egbert Craddock. (Houghton.) Miss Murfree, when she has a young audience in view, does not feel obliged to change her style ; she simply selects those scenes and movements likely to interest the young, and reduces the amount of her landscape drawing. In this she shows her good sense and her trust in art. — Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. (Scribners.) The story of an odd child, who was left at a fashionable school in London by her papa while he stayed behind in India. At first rich, she was petted and left to do as she pleased. Then of course, or there would have been no story, the papa lost his money and Sara became a drudge at Miss Minchin’s; and then of course again, the Indian gentleman who was the villain at first that robbed her papa turns up at the nick of time, makes things straight, and reinstates Sara in riches and happiness. The story in its outlines is rather conventional, but Mrs. Burnett is too good a story-teller not to invest it with animation and a sharp sort of spirit.