The Literary News.

EDITED BY A. H. LEYPOLDT.

JUNE, 1890.

MUDIE'S GREAT CIRCULATING

LIBRARY.

EVERY one knows something of the great circulating-library system of England. The magnitude of the Mudie library is of itself proof of the existence there of a very large, alert, and eager book-reading community. We have many libraries in this country-public libraries, circulating libraries, free libraries—but their aggregate consumption of books is much below that of Mudie's. In truth, it is not uncommon for Mudie to take on the day of publication more copies of a book at a high price than could be sold throughout the United States at a lower price. When, for instance, Anthony Trollope's autobiography was published, Mudie subscribed for 1500 copies, the retail price being five dollars. I think any publisher here will bear me out in saying that it is doubtful if so many copies could be sold in this country even at half the price. The book was published here in cheap form, at about twenty-five cents, and had, no doubt, a very good sale. Had it been published in England at that price, I am justified in saying that the sale would have reached some immense figure. When Froude's "History of England" was first published, Mudie subscribed for a thousand copies; yet no publisher here thought it prudent to make an edition for this market, although a thousand copies, at the usual price of works of the kind, would have insured the publisher against loss. These instances indicate the volume of Mudie's business. The ordinary edition of a three-volume English novel is five hundred copies, the greater number of which are taken by Mudie. Published here at a dollar and a half, the edition could not exceed two thousand copies, or if in paper covers at fifty cents, five thousand might be reached. The English edition must be estimated to have for each copy from ten to twenty readers, counting each family as one reader.

But while the prices by the library system are high, English readers obtain books for perusal at a very small cost. For five dollars a year a subscriber has the command of all the literature of the day; for twenty-five dollars a year he receives his fortnightly parcel of various books, which he may taste, read, or reject at his pleasure. Here with us every individual book, so far as it looks for individual buyers, has to overcome the reluctance, if not the hostility, of the public; for no man will deliberately purchase a book unless he has assurance that it is what he wants. Under the English library system the reader is brought in contact with every book, no given book involving a special outlay; and hence every new production enjoys an opportunity that is denied most of the new books under our methods. I believe that the English library system, with its large body of alert and accessible readers, has been the means of building up an expansive and catholic literature. It may be asked how is it that the innumerable public libraries with us do not produce similar results. There are several thousands of them, and yet, while they obtain books at much less cost than the English libraries do, they seem to exert a very small effect upon numbers printed. On the contrary, editions have become smaller as these institutions have multiplied, so that the suspicion arises whether they are not detrimental to literary interests. How there should be this difference in results between circulating libraries supported by subscription and libraries free to all comers, I am not prepared to say. As for subscription circulating libraries in this country, they are wholly insignificant. Their total purchase of books make a paltry showing by the side of Mudie's splendid orders.-O. B. BUNCE, in the April North American Review.

VANQUISHED.

on Browning; and deeming she meant Peter he said he thought perhaps

of books for circulating libraries are very high, and with every notably successful book the profits are greatly beyond anything that we experience in America.

She would like to hear of Ewing and what Brother Ward was doing, recalcitrant old Anson, and of Kelly's tender taps.

lated the history of every game down to the present year.

And when his tale was ended, she said he was just splen

did, as she got down upon her knees to adore him as
her peer.
-TOM MASSON, in:N. Y. Sun.

ARTISTIC, MUSICAL, DRAMATIC. PARSONS, ALBERT Ross. Parsifal, the finding of Christ through art; or, Richard Wagner as theologian; abridged edition for distribution as a souvenir of the Parsifal festival in Brooklyn, March, 1890. Putnam. 8° pap., 40 c.

MAGAZINE ARTICLES.

Ibsen as a Dramatist. Garland. Arena.

A Modern Colorist.* (Ryder.) Eckford. Century.
The American Burlesque.* Hutton. Harper's.
Art of the Painter-Etcher. Haden. Nine. Century (May).
The City House.* Sturgis. Scribner's.

BIOGRAPHY, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. GRIFFIS, W. ELLIOTT, D.D. Matthew Calbraith Perry: a typical American naval officer. New ed. Houghton, M. por. 8° $2. MCKEEN, PHEBE FULLER. A sketch of the early life of Joseph Hardy Neesima; with an introd. by Philena McKeen. Lothrop. hf. cl., 60 c.

16°

The subject of this little sketch was a native of Japan, who came to this country some twenty years ago and became a student at Andover. RUSSELL, W. CLARK, and JACQUES, W. H. Horatio Nelson and the naval supremacy of England. Putnam. 12° (Heroes of the nations ser., ed. by Evelyn Abbott, no. 1.) $1.50; hf. mor., $1.75; large-pap. ed., $3.50.

The first of a series of biographical studies of the lives and work of certain representative historical characters, about whom have gathered the great traditions of the nations to which they belonged. With the life of each typical character will be presented a picture of the national conditions surrounding him during his career. narratives are the work of writers who are recognized authorities on their several subjects, and, while thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present picturesque and dramatic "stories" of

The

the men and of the events connected with them. WOOD, Rev. THEODORE. The Rev. J. G. Wood, his life and work. Cassell. por. 8° $2.50.

turning overland. The writer is a Chicago lady, and she was accompanied by a small party of friends. Her journey was full of interest, and her descriptions of life and society in the places visited bright and graphic.

MURRAY, W. H. H. Lake Champlain and its shores. De Wolfe, F. por. 12° $1.

Pt. I is devoted to the traditional and historic period. Pt. 2 to the great national park-the Adirondacks. Pt. 3 describes Lake Champlain and the facilities it offers to yachtsmen, with sailing directions. Pt. 4 contains historical reminiscences and facts connected with the shores of Lake Champlain; the game fish and fishing of Lake Champlain. The volume opens with an interesting paper on "Outdoor life."

MAGAZINE ARTICLES.

An Arthurian Journey. Atlantic.
How to See Europe. Hume. Belford's.

An Artist's Letters from Japan.* La Farge. Century. Excursions to a Famous Convent. Schuré. Chautauquan.

A "Poisoned Paradise" (Monte Carlo). Scott. Cont.
Review (May).

The Coaching Era.* Taylor. Cosmopolitan.
Through the Caucasus.* De Vogüé. Harper's.
The Best Governed City in the World.* (Birmingham.)
Ralph. Harper's.

Lakes of Wisconsin.* Ingersoll. Outing.
Canadian Rambles with Rod and Tent. Bayles. Outing.
Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. Stanley. Scribner's.
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL.

HERRICK, CHRISTINE TERHUNE. Liberal living upon narrow means. Houghton, M. 12° $1.

Gives a bill of fare for a week's meals in each month of the year, with recipes for all the dishes named. The compiler claims that they are extremely simple, and moderate as to cost. There are other chapters on: Christmas week-the Christmas dinner; Cheap mutton and beef; The seamy side of summer; The tea-table-how to make it attractive; Dainty dishes for tea; High tea Country boarding; Summer desserts; Food for the sick. The compiler is the daughter of Marion Harland and has inherited her mother's invaluable common sense."

purely topographical, archæological, and histori cal details are correct. The language is everywhere well chosen, and is both clear and forcible.

New Testament scenes are introduced with unusual skill and in such a way as to make a vivid impression upon the reader's mind. The book will delight the young, and I am confident that persons of more mature years will find it both entertaining and instructive in its portrayal of Christian life in the times immediately following the death of our Lord."

DANVERS jewels (The), and Sir Charles Danvers. Harper. 12° (Harper's Franklin sq. lib, new ser., no. 669.) pap., 40 c.

"The Danvers jewels' is an anonymous story, sufficiently interesting to have warranted the author in affixing his name. It begins in rather a sensational way by the murder of an old English officer in India, who is known to be possessed of valuable jewels. On the day of the murder, knowing himself to be in danger, he entrusts the jewels to a young man about starting for England, to be delivered, on his arrival, to the old officer's namesake. The carrying of these precious gems to England and the various adventures that befall their guardian before they were ultimately handed over, constitute the story, which at no time is lagging in interest. Within the same covers is a sequel, entitled Sir Charles Danvers.' The two stories form an interesting and readable romance."-Boston Commonwealth.

DARNELL, H. FAULKNER. The craze of Christian Engelhart. Appleton. 12° (Appleton's town and country lib., no. 50.) 75 c. ; pap., 50 c. DOUGLASS, Mrs. R. DUN. A romance at the antipodes. Putnam. 16° $1.

This romance begins on an English steamer,

bound for Australia, and ends in Australia. narrator is an American lady.

The

FLAMMARION, CAMILLE. Uranie; from the French by Mary J. Serrano. Cassell. 12° (Cassell's sunshine ser., no. 46.) pap., 50 c.

In a series of highly imaginative episodes, mostly of a supernatural character, the author seeks to give definite form to his philosophy regarding the future life. There are a pair of lovers, who after death upon earth are found living in other forms upon the planet Mars. Astronomy plays a large part in the work. To the knowledge science has given us concerning the planets, the author has added his brilliant imagination, peopling space and the other spheres with strange sights and beings. Progress, he believes, is the law of nature, and he has aimed

in his book to show the soul's development after leaving earth.

HAGGARD, H. RIDER. Beatrice: a novel. Harper. il. 16°, hf. cl., 75 c.; Same, 12° (Harper's Franklin sq. lib., new ser., no. 671.) pap, 30 c. HARRISON, LEWIS. A strange infatuation. Rand, McN. 12° (The Rialto ser., v. I, no. 22.) $1; pap.. 50 c.

The book opens in Germany, with the hero, Dr. Frank Willian, a young New Yorker, who has just finished his medical studies, on his way to Carlsbad. At Carlsbad the heroine appears. She is the daughter of a Russian count, who is devoting an immense fortune to the welfare of the laboring classes. The scene shifts to New York, where all the former characters are again brought together, and a new one introduces a certain Robert Weir, who proves to be the villain

of the story. It is upon his occult influences upon the heroine that the tale turns. HEALY, MARY, [Mme. C. Bigot.] A foreign match. McClurg. 12° $1.

The Sanfords are the owners of a silver mine in The story of an American family in Paris. Colorado, and are fabulously rich. There are and the other, Miriam, a cousin, inherits half the three young girls in the family; two are sisters, silver mine through her father. It is with her fortunes the story deals. An Italian Prince seeks her for her fortune, but when the mine no longer yields and the Sandfords are reduced to poverty he deserts her. Then Miriam thinks she will go on the stage, and remains alone in Paris, the other members of the family having gone back to America, studying art. The remainder of her story is full of incidents and quite dramatic. HEARN, LAFCADIO. Youma: a story of a West Indian slave. Harper. 12° $1.

JESSOP, A. The trials of a country parson. Putnam. 12° $1.75.

Miss Jewett's most characteristic tales, viz.: Miss Tempy's watchers; The Dulham ladies; An only son; Marsh Rosemary; A white heron; Law lane; A lost lover; The courting of Sister Wisby.

"Such books as this are not to be reckoned with the ephemeral output of what is very properly known as summer fiction, although the seeker after mental provender for the coming dog days may wisely include it in a list of indispensables; it is a book to be wintered as well as

summered, for its charms are of the sort that endure."-Boston Beacon.

LAMARTINE, A. DE. Raphael; or, pages of the book of life at twenty; from the French. New American ed. McClurg. 16° (Laurel crowned tales.) $1.

"There are no doubt many readers of a certain serious age and cultivated literary taste, who can remember having read Lamartine's idyllic romance of Raphael,' when the sentiment seemed fresh and not wholly lackadaisical; when the heroine did not come and go as a wretched speaker of artificial lines on a stage, and the hero's copious and incessant weeping did not suggest the action of a force pump. the Atala,' 'Paul and Virginia,' and ' Raphael' sort has happily seen its day. It stands for nothAs such the English ing now but primitive art. reader can have it in admirable translation and convenient form.”—Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.

But fiction of

LAWRENCE, MARGARET WOODS, ("Meta Lander," pseud.) Marion Graham; or, higher than happiness. New rev. ed. Lee & S. 16° cl. $1.50.

"Given to the public a number of years ago, and welcomed as a story of rare wholesomeness. The large number of theological and pseudotheological novels that have recently followed in the wake of Robert Elsmere' have led the author, after giving the volume some revision, to bring out another edition of 'Marion Graham,' in the hope that the principles herein inculcated may have no little effect in combating the injurious influence of some of the recent so-called theological novels. Marion Graham' is a sincere and

earnest young woman struggling through many doubts and misunderstandings of Christian dogmas into the final light."-Boston Commonwealth. LUDLOW, JA. M., D.D. The captain of the Janizaries: a story of the times of Scanderbeg and the fall of Constantinople. (New issue.) Harper. 12° $1.50.

MELVILLE, J. G. WHYTE. Novels. New ed.
Ward, L. 12°, hf. persian, ea., $1.
O'BRIEN, W.When we were boys: a novel.
Author's ed. Longmans, G. por. 12° $1.50.
PERRY, BLISS. The Broughton House. Scrib
ner. 12° $1.25.

RAJAH'S HEIR (THE): a novel. Lippincott, 12° (Lippincott's series of select novels, no. 109.) pap., 50 c.

The author has a wide knowledge of the life, scenery, manners, history, etc., of India. The story is fresh and dramatic, and has for its central motive the mutiny of the Sepoys, some thirty-four years ago, with all its accompanying horrors. The rajah's heir, "Tom Gregory," is a young Englishman fresh from college. His journey to India to take possession of his inheritance is rich in romance. A slight supernatural element adds to the interest of the story. SCHEFFEL, Jos. VICTOR VON. Ekkehard: a tale of the tenth century; from the German. Gottsberger. 16° $1.50; pap., 80 c. "An historical novel of unusual merit and vividness of coloring. It purports to be founded on the annals and tales written by the monks of the monastery of St. Gall, in the Swiss canten of that name, and notably by one Ekkehard, an unconscious poet, whose narratives are marked by invention and a charming freshness and simplicity of style. It was an age pregnant with great things to come, which witnessed the beginning of that revival of literature and the arts which culminated a few centuries later in the Renaissance.-New York Sun.

SIENKIEWICZ, HENRYK. With fire and sword: an historical novel; from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin. Little, B. 8° $2.

SULLIVAN, T. R. Day and night stories. Scribner. 12° hf. cf., $1; pap., 50 c. Seven short stories: The lost Rembrandt; Out of New England granite; Cordon!" The tincture of success; The rock of Béranger; Maestro Ambrogio; Through the gate of dreams. "Mr. T. R. Sullivan writes like a clever man of the world, who is master of an agreeable and finished style, and makes his studies from the life. There is not a hackneyed or conventional character to be found in the half-dozen tales contained in this volume. They are unquestionably of higher quality than ordinary works of their class, exhibiting refined humor and the fruits of travel and social intercourse with cultured people."

N. Y. Sun.

TASMA, (pseud.) In her earliest youth: a novel. Harper. 12° (Harper's Franklin sq. lib., new ser., no. 670.) pap., 45 c.

TOLSTOI, Count LEO. The Kreutzer sonata; tr. by B. R. Tucker. Tucker. 16° $1.

The story is simply a medium for the expression of some of Tolstoi's peculiar views of love and marriage, etc. The story in itself is brief, and relates to a murder committed by a husband through jealousy. Beethoven's Kreutzer Sona

Love in the Lippin

WHITE, Mrs. CAROLINE EARLE. tropics: a romance of the South seas. cott. 12° $1.

"An unusually well-told story of shipwreck and adventure on one of the South Sea Islands.

Capt. Edward Hargrave, the hero of the tale, is cast upon the remote island of Paloa, inhabited by a rather superior class of aborigines, where he marries Narounga, the beautiful daughter of King Owahi. But his happiness is cut short by the murder of the princess by a rival suitor, who himself meets with a horrible death through the deadly influence of the kankerara tree.' From the author's description this appears to be a peculiar species of the pitcher plant, which attracts insects only to devour them. But the kankerara derives its sustenance from flesh and blood, absorbing human beings into its essence. The narrator's escape from such a catastrophe and his rival's destruction by it, besides being a novelty in fiction, are very dramatically described and form the main incidents of the story."—N. Y.

Sun.

WOLFF, JULIUS. The salt master of Lüneburg; from the 21st German ed., by W. H. and Elizabeth R. Winslow. Crowell. 12° $1.50. "The author, who holds high rank in his native country as a poet and novelist, has presented a lively picture of industrial life in Germany during the fifteenth century, when the struggle between the wealthy burghers and the imperial power was at its height. The scene is laid in Lüneburg, and the relations between master workmen and apprentices, and the operations of the numerous guilds then in existence, are described with what appears to be remarkable fidelity to the truth of history. Mr. Wolff has produced in this novel a work which has enjoyed immense popularity, the volume before us having been translated from the twenty-first edition in German."—N. Y. Sun. WoOD, H. Edward Burton. Lee & S. 12° 75 c.; pap., 30 c.

"A book with a purpose. Itfis not the ambition of the author to follow in the wake of the realistic school of writers, writing simply with the intention of being true to life; nor is it his ambition solely to amuse and divert; rather, it is obviously his wish, by means of an interesting and charming story, to inculcate right principles in the mind of the reader. The story opens in Mt. Desert in the summer, and the scenes are laid partly in Mt. Desert, and partly in Boston. The object of the story is to depict the result in human character of certain mental associations; and incidentally the effect of studying the different systems of theology and ethics now so fashionable."-Boston Commonwealth.