Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-12-13


book as a holiday present one can
= scarce go wrong. But, like every
ether glib commonplace. this Is but a
half truth at best. In experience often
nothing is more hazardous. more
provocative of anxious hoifrs. You
may know your friends preference in
cigars, his taste in wine, and yet know
no more of the volumes over which he
unbends. as Sarah Battle was wont to
do, than though he were the.inhab3fant
Of another planet. Who has not known
Afa,d business men whose secret prefer
ences were for "Nick Carter; self
Respecting persons who would not !
board car in motion. whose inner
selves We're keyed to the temper OF
Dumas dashing blades?
So this task Of selecting book for
friend is not an adventure lightly 10
be entered upon, particularly IN TINS
day of multiple presses and grimiy III
6ustrious authors. The holiday DOCKS
proper. the illustrated editions and
sumpiuous bindings. are too numerous
for enumeration even. The 'i"oa Oh
contemporary fiction fills every nook
and Granny of the market. The sea-
son. too. has been unusually rich in
tory have not been forgotten, and if
nothing of transcendent worth has
been produced, there is at least much of
contemporary interest. In the face OF
all this wealth he is difficult, indeed,
who cannot find something to his Tx
ing.
II was not the least of the merits OF
the late G.. A. Henty, as writer for
boys. that he was painfully accurate
i'm his dealings with geography and
history. 1t has been said of him by
orc of the greatest of English
ceoeraphers that he has done more to
teach geography to English boys than
all the SCHOOLGIRLS that ever We're
written. MIR Henty left one, perhaps
two. new books in manuscript. He
worked with extraordinary rapidity,
we are told. sometimes producing
book of forty thousand words in three
weeks, He started without any settled
thought. allowing the story to develop
naturally as it went on. He is des-
cribed as a man of exceedingly attrac-
tive personality. Big and burly, with
a patriarchal white beard and great
voice. he was transparently honest and
sincere. Strangers liked him instant
w: his friends loved him. 1t was Ow-
ing to the entreaties of his crew, who
were devoted to him. that he was not
removed from his yacht during his i'll
ness. as had at first been decided. but
drew his last breath on board the boat
which had been the source of so much
Measure to him. He was a notable
type of the author who could not pro-
duce literature. but who could write
workmanlike books. giving legitimate
pleasure to a host OF readers.
Alfred Olivant's Danny" just pub
lshed in book form, is not at all the
same Danny which recently APP
peared as serial in a magazine. The
bools--version is longer and CONTAINS
much that the editor was obliged to cut
in serial publication, and a good deal
of the omitted portion the author
thinks represents perhaps the best part
of the book 1t is dog story in
different vein from Mr.. Ollivant's
Bob Son of Battle" that is frequently
called the best dog story ever written.
The publishers, Doubleday, Page & Co,
have issued a beautiful new illustrated
edition of Bob
Archer Butler Hubert, who wrote
that pseudo historical romance, THE
Queen of Quelparte," is also the author
of series of sixteen monographs en-
thled THE Historic Highways of
America" now being issued.
Mary Catherine Crowley, author of
The Heroine of the Strait her second
romance of Old Detroit, is at work on
events of a much later period of his
tory.
A novel is no more like play than
a bird is like a fish. Any attempt to
turn one into the other is apt to result
in a sort of fiying-fish, a betwixt-and-
between thing. capable indeed of both
swimming and flying, but good at
neither.-Bliss Perry in "A Study of
Prose Fiction"
1t now appears that John r. CARING
the author of THE Shadow of The
Car is a veteran school-master in
England. His novel is now in its
third edition..
A three-volume edition of Holiness
1.-The Autocrat Of the Breakfast
Table" "The Poet at the Breakfast
Table" and "The Professor at the
Breakfast Table" with illustrations by
II. NJ. Brock. has just been issued by
Houghton. Miffiin & Co, in association
with the London publishing house of J.
NJ. Dent 4 Co. Each volume is hand
somely bound in muslin boards, and is
printed on a light paper in clear type,
with ornamental titlepage in two
,Dlors, and designed end papers All
OF Holiness prefaces are included. and
there is also a biographical and critical
introduction prefaced to the Auto
crat' volume. presumably written by
an English critic He says: He will
go down to posterity in his inimitable
Breakfast Table series, as the great
est of American essayists, as the Ella
of transatlantic letters, who with q
skill little. if ut all. inferior. to the inn
mortal creator of Sarah Battle
Bridget Ella and Dream Children
has alimned for us new types of char
lacter which will live with and he
: loved by us while the language lasts
TO wit. the dictatorial but delightful
no col ~;,,sz