The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-25

will continue-more or less.
 1 Webster's New Standard Dictionary. Students Common School Edition. G.aird & Lee)
 Laird & Lee of Chicago have pub lished recently one of the handiest dic-
 tionaries for school and home use available. The book covers all of the
 necessary words, with hundreds of new words, definitions, pronunciation. syn onyms and etymology. In addition to this there are biographical. geogra- phical departments, classical and bibli- cal names, musical terms, foreign phrases, English word building, rules in orthography, abbreviations, metric
 system with conversion tables. proof
 reading, full page plates, constella-
 tions, mathematical figures. laces, ar
 chitecture columns, seals of the diff
 ferent United States and state depart
 ments, technical characters and sym
 bols. the hemlsph eres, based on the original Webster and other eminent
 authorities and compiled by F. T. Roe.
 ILL. B., with the assistance of promi- nent specialists. Eight hundred and
 forty illustrations, 19 full page plates. 750 pages. Better than all of that the
 price is under a dollar.
 Concerning Lafcadio Hearn. By George M Gould. fG. W. Jacobs & Co)
 book quite necessary to get any thing like a fair idea as to Lafcadio
 Hearn and his work has just been pub fish ed by IT. George M. Gould of Phil adelphia. There are a great many peo- pie. some of whom have applied for
 information regarding the life and
 work of Hearn, to this book depart
 ment. but who have been unable, from the mass of facts and fiction produced recently regarding that genius, to dis cover any real data upon which to base
 any judgment of the man and his
 work. This book is Just what many of us have been awaiting. In it Dr. Gould takes up the life of Lafcadio Hearn; he tells of his limitations. of his struggles in Cincinnati and New Orleans. on the Louisville Courier Journal" and New Orleans Times Democrat" how Hearn had the wan derlust" thorough dyed imb edded in his nature. How he couldn't remain any place any length of time. consequently he could not hold any position secured. How from New Orleans he went to | Martinique, where he did some su- | perior work. then back and forth to New York and Philadelphia, where at i the latter place he was the intimate I friend of Dr. Gould or as intimate as Hearn ever became with anyone. Drift ing back and forth until he was con- l vinced by pr. Gould that Japan was the place for him, he finally went there. taught In the University of Japan. married Japanese woman Che att ! tmepted to marry a negress in Cincin- natD and died after producing some of the greatest "colored" pen pictures the literature of America contains. pr. Gould brings home to us as no other writer dealing with Hearn has done, the man as he was. Too, he dissects 1 for the reader the faults and merits of what Hearn wrote. It is a most val
 uable, a most entertaining book. Amongst all of the books written re- /! garding Hearn (of which a list is given | in Dr. Gould's book), this one is bound 1 to stand out. It is written simply to make clear to all readers just what
 kind of man Hearn really was, and the l class of work he produced. The book
 undoubtedly succeeds, no more can be
 said in a review. Any reader ambitious ! to know more regarding one of the
 most gifted writers of our day, sh ould l surely read Dr. Gould's entertaining | book.
 The author says that any income | over the cost of the book will be sent
 to Hearn's widow in Japan. Don't fail
 to read Concerning Lafcadio Hearn' {
 you care for character studies admir-
 ably made.