The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-15
"cHR1sTMAs NIGHT IN THE QUAR-

|
 Kemble The Century Co, publishers,
 New York.
 | "Christmas Night in the Quarters is an illustrated collection chiefly of those negro dialect poems with which Irwin Russell awakened the interest of the American rea4.ng public in the vast store of unwritten folklore to be found among the black people of the south. Russell was among the first, if not the very first, 1 of southern writers to appreciate the lit- erary possibilities of the negro character and of the unique relations existing be- tween the two races before the war, and was among the first to develop them. Ills negro operetta, which gives it's title to the book, combines the features of a character study with a series of bold and striking plantation pictures that have ! never been surpassed" says Joel Chand' ! Ter Harris, who contributes a preface, and whose general opinion was that, | had Russell been spared to letters. all | the rest of us would have taken back seats so far as the representation Of life ! in the south is concerned. The other poems in the book are brief, humorous ballards chiefly of negro life, though some of them are Irish dialect poems 1 and some deal with aspects of ordinary southern life just after the war.
 Irwin Russell was born in Mississippi l in 1853 and died after a short and by no means happy life at the age of 2o He was a graduate of the Jesuit university of St. Louis, and the few years that he | lived after leaving college were spent in wanderings that led him as far aiield as | New York, where his work had attracted | the particular attention of Richard Wat son Glider He died in tragic circum- stances at New Orleans in 1879, and 1t was not till some years late that Thomas Nelson Page, with Harris and other I southern writers, acclaimed him as the | leading pioneer in one of the richest l fields of American literature.
 l "Christmas Night in the Quarters" con | tains a sympa thetic introduction dealing with Russells life. It is illustrated with | 20 pen-and-ink drawings by E. w. Kem- i ble.
 "A REVERSIBLE SANTA CLAUS" l By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by ] Florence Minard Houghton Mifflin Co, I publishers, Boston.
 1 "A Reversible Santa Claus is a merry little yarn spun in Meredith Nicholson's I happiest style, whimsical and tender and ! full of laughter. It is the sort of thing that appea Is to all ages and all classes. | A ehoO0e l a reformed burglar "The Hopper" who, on Christmas Eve. was anxious to hurry home to his own fireside, and fell from grace sufficiently to appropriate an idle automobile in which to do the hurry ing over the srowy roads. And then. to his dismay, he flndsin the seat beside hlm \ a growing gurgling baby, all starry eyes, and cheeks like winter apples and al laugh | like summer brooks. Of course, The !, Hopper didn't want to kidnap the little | shaver, and so he takes him back to lis own house, and the shaver's beautiful mother catches The Hopper and thinks he | is a burgIar-preposterou thought-and then the beautiful mother enters into a | benevolent conspiracy with The Hopper | by which she hopes to bring to an end a | fued between the shavers two grandfath- CTS, so that they may all be able to say on Christmas Day, God bless us every oner' Which they do, thanks to | The Hopper
 "IN HAPPY VALLEY"
 1 By John Fox, Jr. Illustrated Charles 1 Scribner's Sons publishers New York | Happy Valley and St. Hilda's are the ! center of the comedy and tragedy in which Allaphair, Christopher, Parson Small, the Marquise of Queensberry, ano the goddess play their parts, sometimes amusing sometimes pathetic. Always they stand out as real people of tht Imountains-notable additions to the gal | lery of Kentucky mountaineers Wltf I which MT Fox has for so many years enriched our literature. They have taker a place not only in the books that are permanently read. but on the stage, the film, and in music.
 This is MT. Fox's first book of fctior in four years and it will receive wide welcome
 WOODROW WILSON AND THE
 WORLDS PEACE
 By George D. Heron. Mitchell-Ken-
 nerly, publishers, New York
 No more important volumes have been published during the war thar "The Menace of Peace" and "Woodrov Wilson and the Worlds Peace.' Just as President Wilson is today the lead ing statesman of the world so do these books reveal new spirit of interpre. tation of world events.
 The papers comprising this volume as published in leading journals il
 France, Italy and Switzerland, hat much to do with creating favorable
 understanding of President Wilson, to
 ward whom the allied public was Ions
 hostile, taking Roosevelt's criticisms al
 just and sincere.
 Americans ought to be thankful tha
 so sturdy and understanding fellow
 countryman as MT. Heron lives in EU
 rope and endeavors to interpret tn
 mind of America to Europeans In
 formed Americans are prone to bewail
 much and loudly, the ignorance of Flu
 ropean affairs that prevails througl all the length and breadth of tn
 United States. It is quite true. On
 would have to search with magnify ing glass all over this country's broa
 miles to find more than a general an superficial knowledge of European af
 fairs, social, economic. or political. Bu Ieven that ignorance does not compar in stygian blackness with the ignor
 ance of America that prevails in edu
 cated circles all over Europe. An
 there is this difference in our favol
 We have always known we were ig
 norant and have pretended to neithe
 information nor interest. The Europea
 has summed a knowledge he did nc
 possess, and out of the depths of hi Ignorance has judged and sneered an
 condemned for decade upon decad'
 down to the present time. But MT. Her ron, who comes from that distinctivel
 and essentially American region, tn
 middle west and has lived in Europ
 for the last dozen years or more, hs
 been interpreting the United States
 European readers with an insight an
 penetration and understanding fe
 which every American ought to
 thankful. Indeed, good many Amer
 cans who have never been out of the
 own country will do well to read M
 Herrons book and gain thereby les
 superfcial understanding of the polio
 of this government toward the work
 war during it's first two years and upc
 other matters.