The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-01-22
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

RUEY's LATEST WoRK.-James Whit
comb Riley the Hoosier poet has just COM
piled another collection of his fugitive
verse, which is worthy of presentation,
Green Fields and Running Brooks" is the
alluring title, and no one who appreciates
what Is best in human nature can turn its
pages without realizing that the author
of these musical lyrics is indeed
poet of the people. His dialect poems
come very near to the hearts
of the folks among whom he has always
lived, and his more serious efforts reveal
power of thought and grace Of expression
rarely found II recent verse. Alexander
Smith, hat erratc genius who once flashed
like a cornet across the literary armament
might have written these lines:
why, I am as a Iong-lost boy that went
Atduk TO bring the cattle TO the bars.
And was not found again, though heaven lent
lis m Other all the stars
oh, years OF nights in VAIN stars never rise,
But well might miss their glitter in the light
OF tears in mother-eyesi
Joaquin Miller has reached this level,
but such heights of fancy are only sus-
tanned by the great poets, and Riley is not
of these. His very next lines are:
My avant-courier must be obeyed.
There is no need. however. of pointing
out defects in verse which even its author
does not compare with that of the masters.
1t is enough to say of these poems, crude in
form though some OF them may be, viewed
from the standard of a Stedman or a Stod-
dard, that in every line Riley has here
penned may he found the ring of truth and
the throbbing OF heart in sympathy with
the sorrows and aspirations of his fellow
men. Published by the Bowen Merrill
Company, Indianapolis
GrccTp oborpoipo
volume for book-lovers is Gossip in
Library" by Edmund GOsse. In his
preface the author states that he wrote the
book at the suggestion of an American, the
late John Eliot Bowen. The idea was to
make a -eview of short studies on
the history and contents of certain
famous or curious books in his own library.
He was TO deliver short sermons to select
audience, gathered in Imagination, within
the rooms in which the books were kept.
The owner was TO chat Familiarity about the
personal character OF each volume and its
varied adventures. This was In brief the
plan with which the writer started out to
do his Gossip In q Library" A glance
at the pages will show that he succeeded
admirably. Among the notable books thus
brought 20 the attention of his readers and
chatted about are Camden's BRITANNIA"
"AVoume of Old Plays" 'Smarrs Poems,"
"The Life of John Bunee," Beau Nash"
ultra Gre pidarns," The Duke of Rut-
lands Poems" and The Shaving of Shay
pot" In all twenty-eight hooks are intro
duced to the reader New York: Lowell,
Coryell & Col
MOSTLY MARJORIE DAY.-Virginia f.
Townsend has written conventional love
story in a perfectly conventional way in
"Mostly Marjorie Day." Everybody is
prosperous, every woman virtuous, every
man chivalrous and lgh-minded-the sort
of everything. in fact, one meets IN books OF
this sort and nowhere else There IS
young woman who leaves her friends. but
in perfectly lady-like fashion, to
earn her bread aud young man
who comes down out OF her former
world, knows his own kind by instinct, and,
IF course, makes love TO her. That is the
purpose of young men aud young women in
this kind of book. In brief, II you care
about that sort of book, "MOstly Marjorie
Day" is precisely the sort of book you will
care about. Boston: Lee q Shepard.]
A CLEVER SATIRE.-Under the title of
"Mr Punch's Model Music-hall Songs and
Dramas" Z. Anstey, the very clever author
of "Vice Versa" has written series of
burlesque songs and stage dialogues which,
Notwithstanding the TACT that many of
them first appeared in the columns of Eng
lands leading humorous. journal. are
really funny. So much has been writ
ten in the American press receatly de-
scriptive of the London music halls that
even people who are not Anglomaniacs have
become somewhat familiar with their pc
culiar style of entertainment. Mr.. Austey's
songs are too we'll written not 10 be remem-
bered long after the originals he travesties
are forgotten. Published by the United
States Book Company. New York. Price ST.
THE AMERICAN MARINE ENGINEER
This is an important work by Emory Ed
wards. the well-known author of "a Cate
chsm of Marine Steam Engines" and MANY
other works on the subject of which he Is a
master. 1t is eminentIy practical in scope
as we'll as in the treatment of the
subjects discussed, and is illustrated
by eighty-iive most excellent engrayings.
IL should be in the hands OF all marine en-