The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Swiss Family Robinson. Laurie's Entertain-
ing Library. Longman and Co.
As the seventh volume of this charming little
Shilling Library of sterling literature—issued from
the press quarterly under the supervision of Mr. J.
S. Laurie—we have that delightful pendant to
Defoe's masterpiece, " The Swiss Family Robin-
son." Of the work itself, it were bootless here to
speak, but in reference to the edition of it now pub-
lished, some few passing words may be not altoge-
ther superorogatory. Compacted though the text is
within the compass of one of these tiny volumes (the
present one numbering up in all just 252 pages)
" The Swiss Family Robinson," as here edited and
revised by Mr. Laurie—for the enhancement of the
value already attached to his juvenile Library, by
his previous selection of works, at once of sound in-
struction and genuine entertainment—possesses
merits and advantages very peculiarly and essen-
tially its own. In it, that is, in this present edition
of " The Swiss Family Robinson," as carefully re-
vised by Mr. Laurie, the information is in every
possible way, not alone nominally, according to
the old publishing phrase, but literally, " brought
down to the scientific knowledge of the day."
Mistakes of these different kinds are by this means
thoroughly eliminated from the text of the nar-
rative. Foremost among them—foremost that is
to say, for inasmuch as the blunder about to be
particularized is, among all, the most glaring of
its kind—there is the geographical error notified
on the:second, or sub, title of the work, where upon
the very title-page, the scene in which the story is
:aid is spoken of as situated on an island—the said
island being proved by subsequent information to
be an integral portion of the mainland ! A tran-
sparent inconsistency, again, is here notified by Mr.
Laurie—namely, that representing all the leading
ferce nature as existing " not only in the same zone,
but on a small section of one particular district"—
an inconsistency obnoxious to the skilled physical geo-
grapher of nowadays ! Added to all which, care has
had to be taken of what the Editor of the Enter-
taining Library mentions as so many specific " mis-
takes on individual matters a fact." As, for in-
stance, the jumbling;together in the original, in the
wildest disorder—contrary to all the laws regulat-
ing the distribution of the fauna over the surface of
the globe—bear and gazelle, tapir and onagra, the
Siberian ondatra and the Australian opossum, the
elephant and the kangaroo! Other errors as to sheer
matters of fact, are referred to, no less pointedly
then are these,in the brief but searching Preface : such
as the mention of land tortoises feeding on snails
and insects, the said amphibious creatures being in
reality notorious vegetarians ! Such, moreover, as
the absolutely amazing, the nothing less than Mun-
chausen.like account of the ass swallowed by the
twenty-seven feet long:boa constrictor ! It must
not, however, be imagined for a moment that the
integrity of the famous original, has, in any unneces-
sary way, been interfered with. The difficulties that
had to be met, in the revision, have been very easily
indeed obviated : and this simply by the selection, as
the scene of the narrative, of—a certain tropical part
the South American continent. By this easy con-
trivance, most of the discrepancies referred to have
been readily enough reconciled. The closing
sentence of this Preface we will give in the
editor's ipsissima verba—" In short," he says, " the
work is at length presented to the public [we our-
selves are tempted to interpolate here emphatically,
we believe for the first time] in a form so revised
and corrected as, it is presumed, the author
himself would have adopted had he re-
written the whole in the light of the
present day." In the confident expression of which
conviction, we are ourselves satisfied that Mr.
Laurie is to the full justified. The work is on the
whole excellently well got up, in this resembling the
half-dozen earlier volumes of the Library. The
illustrations, however, certainly do appear to ns,
very inferior to those contained in any one of the
said six predecessors.

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated Edition,
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.
We have already so often had occasion to com-
ment upon the extraordinary merits of this very
beautiful edition of the great re'igious Allegory of
the Puritan Tinker—the most popularly well
known of any allegory perhaps that was ever
written—that we have little left to us here to re-
mark, now that the work is actually completed,
beyond recording the simple fact of its completion.
Now, that the periodically issued instalments,
weekly and monthly, have been collected together
into a handsome volume, a volume bound in a style
of elegance corresponding to the remarkable merits
of the illustrations contained in it, we can in truth
not merely endorse all that we have previously said
as to the beauty of the edition, but beyond that we
can emphasise, so to speak we can italicise, all we
have said previously, from time to time, in its
commendation. Mr. H. C. Selous and Mr.
Paul Priolo have vied with each other in the
animation and imaginativeness of their very harmo-
nious designs. It is impossible to decide as to which
of the two ought to have awarded to him the palm.
Those artists being, in reference to the sketches
here contributed by each of them, about equally
meritorious. The entire work, 1. e., both letterpress
and embellishments, will be found to have been
printed upon beautifully toned or tinted paper, the
woodcuts, many of them fall-page size, being
scattered through the narrative in absolute pro-
fusion. As a seasonable giftbook—(if but one or
two snarling, fanatical sentences could but be struck
out of the original text, as disfiguring a work other-
wise so very admirable and even wonderful !)—as a
seasonable giftbook, Cassell, Petter, and Galpin's
magnificent illustrated edition of Bunyan's
Progress takes its place in the very front rank of
the Christmas and New Year's offerings. At the
purchaser's or the recipient's pleasure, it may either
enhance the value of the library shelves, or lend a
new charm and beauty to the elegant litter of one
of the drawing-room sides tables,