The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-26
About Books and Authors.

With the recent overturn in the Turkish constitutional in which women have played an important part, it is interest ing to read or reread Pierre Loti's "Des- enchantees' of two years ago. In this charmingly written book the author only gave a wider publicity to the known fact l that European ideas and manners had followed Parisian clothes and novels into the confines of Constantinople's leading families.
 We take it that Lott Is true to life when he makes his heroine speak Eng | l.sh, French. German, and Italian with equal excellence, and includes in her list | of reading, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and Spencer, and the very freshest of symbolists and decadents. Recently, at Hollis, Me-, Kate Douglass i Wiggin gave her annual reading for the | benefit of charity.
 l The gifted creator of "Rebecca" only appears publicly on this single occasion, which fact might serve as a warning to secretaries who do much polite corre- spondence on the subject. l Boston, from the time of Blackstone to | the outbreak of the American Revolution, will be the theme of Mary Caroline Craw- ford's book, which will appear early next month, entitled "St. Botolphs Town in 1 Colonial Days."
 Lovers of Dickens will be interested In learning that a Dickens exhibition in London includes the identical wooden midshipman mentioned in "Dombey and Son." a model of the Maypole inn, which was bought by J. l.. Toole as a present for Dickens but never delivered owing to the novelist's death, the costume worn by Dickens when he played Captain Bo- | badil in Every Man in His Humor," and many of the playblls of the performance in which he appeared. The letters and autographs are many, among them being a pregnant note from Dickens father, letters from Dickens and Georgina Ho- garth about Loves Martyrdom." and a letter in English from Count Leo Tolstoy which calls Dickens the greatest novel, writer of the nineteenth century," l
 Mrs. Elinor Glyn will give the public something new to talk about when the Duffields next month publish her book called "Elzabeth Visits America" Her impressions of this country teach pub licty In this way. through her well-known heroine, and the volume Is described as "a book destined to create a furor from the day of publication"
 
 Mrs. Edith Wharton will defend the | the romance of travel" in her forthcom- ing work, "A Motor Flight Through i France"
 Book lovers will appreciate quartette of new novels which will shortly appear from some favorite authors. These are: "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" by John Fox, Jr. "Kincaids Battery" by George W. Cable Peter" by F. Hopkin- son Smith; and ''The Wind in the Reeds,' by Kenneth Grahame.
 
 MT. Thomas Nelson Page will be rep | resented in the new books of the early fall by his Robert E. Lee, the South 1 erner." In this work the great Confed- crate commander will be considered as a man and soldier MT. Page holds that Lee was greater in defeat than in vic- tory.
 Michelet's brilliant munitions, Carlyle's adequate equipment, and Taine's nasty examination of such sources as suited his preconception, are to be relegated to the background, so far as the writings of these "Old Masters" are concerned with the French Revolution, for a group of scholars at present is engaged upon what promises to be complete recon struction of the whole story.
 Camille Block an Aulard man, Is the ! instigator and the book Is Assistance ct | fetat en France a lar veile de la revolu- ton. (Generalities de Paris, Rouen, Alen- con, Orleans, Chalons, Sossons, Amiens.)
 Mary E. Waller, whose fascinating "The Wood Carver of 'Limpus," Is now in the twentieth edition, is summering at her home in the Vermont mountains. She is revising her story Through the Gates of The Netherlands.1
 Christian Scientists will hall with de- light the forthcoming Life of Mary Ba- ker G. Eddy and the History of Chris i tian Science by Georgine Milmine The latter book is referred to as being the only complete history of Christian Science not written by "salaried official"