The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-11-01
CASH OR CREDIT 1!
-'t He World 0f Books ~*



 and privileges, intolerance and cruelty and he destroyed them.
 He found the good land covered with abuses in church and state and every so- cial order; abuses political, personal; of the rights of the living, and the decent re- speet owed to the dead-ahd he uprooted them. With a laugh and blasphemy on his lips but with eyes and soul afire, and the nervous, tireless hands trembling with eagerness, the most dauntless, pas sionate, logged little worker in all human history hewed and hacked at the mon- strous tyranhies of centuries and flung them dead from the fair and beautiful soil they had usurped.
 "At last. after sixty years of super human effort, he had cleared the place and made 1t ready for the planting of the Tree of Liberty.
 'Whoso sits under that tree today in any country, free to worship his God as he will. to think, to learn, and to do all that does not intrench on the freedom of his fellowmen,-free to progress to heights of light and knowledge as yet un- seen and undreamt.-- should in grati- tude remember Voltaire.i
 This work is published in two volumes,
 
 views in half-tone and photogravure.
 By virture of having seized the place, David Graham Phillips has acquired a position among novelists that might be described by the title social censor" What he writes is sure to be somewhat pertinently upon topics of the day, or upon phases savory and otherwise, of American society. This is especially true of his new book, '"rhe Master Rogue, which Mcclure, Phillips and Company bring out this month. the subject of which is the great American fortune, and the chase of the almighty dollar that 1t en- tails The hero of MT. Phillips tale is a species of commercial eormorant prey ing everywhere. conscienceless, and de- string only one thing; money and it's power Mr., Phillips carries his hero through life and shows how the harvest of his endeayor is care, dishonor and unhappiness.
 Stewart Edward White, author of "The Blazed Trail" and "Conjuror's House, is now in New York working with Robert Edeson. the actor, on the dramatization of the latter novel, MT. Edeson will open the Hudson theater, which is now buld- ing. with "Conjuror's House." next Jan uary, if the theater. as expected. is ready by that time. The stars part will be Ned Trent, the free e-trader, who defies the power of the Hudson Bay company is captured by one of its tyrannical fac tors, and, while a prisoner. woos and wins the factors daughter. The costumes will be prepared under the direction of MT. White, who has spent much time in the remote parts of the Hudson Bay coun- try.
 The first volumes of "The Contempor- ary Men of Letters Serles,' of Mcclure, Phillips and Company, which will be edit ed by William Aspenwall Bradley, are to be published this month The purpose of the series is to give brief estimates of writers of our own time, or of writers whose influence Is a contemporary pow CT. The books are as complete as possl- be under the circumstance, from the bio graphical side, and from the critical side, aim to give an understanding and sympa- thetc estimate of the writer's work. They stand. as it were, as a summing up, in more authoritative form of newspaper and magazine articles which can, by their mature, be only fragmentary, and are frequently distorted. The volumes to ap- pear this month are Bret Harte,' by H. w. Boynton, editor of the Riverside Pope" which is the first American es- innate of this American author; and ''Walter Pater." by Ferris Greenslet, which is the first connected life of the greatest English stylist. r
 Roger Pocock, the author of 'Folowine the Frontier just brought out by Me Cure, Phillips and Company, reverses the usual attitude of an author toward his work. Whether consciously or un- consciously most writers put themselves and their experiences into their novels and then spend much time denying tho suspicious of connection aroused. But in "Following the Frontier" MT, Pococl has written autobiography, which is no sparing of scathing comment on the hero and MT. Pocock is not ashamed to owr up to it. Some persons reviewed hi' book as novel which resulted in MT i Pocock appearing in print with "a sol | emn declaration" under oath, in whicf he asserts that my said book is an au 1 photography and a literal statement o facts, save that to avoid causing pair 1 or injury certain names and dates have been suppressed
 Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archi' | bald Smith. the joint editors of "Tht i Posy Ring and Golden Numbers" tw' anthologes of poetry for children, pub lished by Mcclure. Phillips and Company ! have that greatest of satisfactions,-be | ing appreciated by artists of their owr !, craft. Praise for the work the editors 1 have done in the two books has beer spontaneously and universally given by poets. Nothing, however could be more charming or felctous than the following verse written by a young Scottish poet and published in recent number of a l New England magazine
 To K D. ". and N. A. s. | With such true taste, such loving 1 thought
 l So wisely and so well you wrought
 To heap your Golden Numbers bright And shape your "Posy Ring alright, That when I look upon the two,
 T feel that what is owed to you. ! From children all, and all beside