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WILLIAM DE MORGAN,

(Author of "It Never Can Happen Again")

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Never Can Happen Again." A number of individuals of as many different classes in English society are brought together in this book in a series of strange yet possible events that never can happen again." At least three distinct stories are slowly evolved through the 687 pages of this book. All these stories show the author's mastery of the construction and mechanics of novel writing, as well as subtle insight into the minutest phases of human character. It is interesting to note the fact that this book was published on the author's seventieth birthday.

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Maurice Hewlett, in "Open Country," reminds us once more of certain marked resemblances to the late George Meredith, and at the same time reveals original qualities of style and creative power that forbid his being classed with the mere imitators. The heroine of "Open Country," a young English girl who defies the conventions of modern English society, is more likely to win the reader's sympathy than are the various members of her aggrieved family. Yet the real mystery of the story is Senhouse, whose outpourings of sentiment, mingled with the shrewdest and most practical of philosophy, make up the vital part of the book. In the end it is the personal influence of Senhouse, the radical, that makes for true conservatism.

ROBERT E. KNOWLES

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(Author of The Attic Guest ")

Sir Gilbert Parker has again given us one of his stories of the Canadian West. In "Northern Lights " he tells a rattling good story of the Canadian West, the action, in his own words, covering "the period since the Royal Northwest Mounted Police and the Pullman car first woman, Margarita, has learned none of the startled the early pioneer, and either sent him

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things that ordinary young women learn and

John Marvel, Assistant. By Thomas Nelson Page. Scribners. 573 pp., ill. $1.50.

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5 The Attic Guest. By Robert E. Knowles. Fleming H. Revell Company. 402 pp. $1.20. 6 Margarita's Soul. By Ingraham Lovell. Lane Company. 304 pp., ill. $1.50.

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she never, or very seldom, does what other young women would do under certain circumstances. Therefore she is an interesting but perhaps not very useful literary creation. The author, "Ingraham Lovell," has been variously guessed to be Robert Hichens, Edith Wharton, Booth Tarkington, and Mr. Dooley.

A very powerful, but depressing and gloomy, study of life among the working classes of Holland is given by I. Querido, one of the most powerful of modern Dutch novelists. This story, "Toil of Men," tells of the sordid, sensual life of the lower Dutch classes in the city. As a bit of realism it is very noteworthy, but the aftertaste is, to say the least, exceedingly disagreeable.

The conception of a man "becoming anxious when he had been dead about thirty years" because he had not yet reached Heaven is startling

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titled Actions and Reactions.":

We think that in some of these Mr. Kipling may be found at his best, notably in the ones entitled "With the Night Mail" (already noticed in these pages in August), "The Puzzler," and "The House Surgeon."

It

One of the strongest and most outspoken of the novels of the present season, treating of the sex question in a simple, direct, and powerful way, yet without offense to the best taste, is Mrs. Havelock Ellis' "Steve's Woman." is the tense life story of a crippled Cornish 3 Actions and Reactions. By Rudyard Kipling. Doubleday, Page & Co. 324 pp., ill. $1.50. Steve's Woman. New By Mrs. Havelock Ellis. York: John McBride Company. 259 pp., ill. $1.50.

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"The Ruinous Face," gives him a chance to retell the story of Helen of Troy in his own appealing, picturesque, and poetic style.

The

A remarkable analysis of a social situation in the true James fashion is "Julia Bride," " the latest piece of fiction of Henry James. story is more of an incident analyzed and elaborated to create an impression than a novel with plot or movement. It is masterly, but not particularly sympathetic reading.

SHACKLETON'S ANTARCTIC NARRATIVE

Lieutenant Shackleton's impressive two-volume story of his South Polar expedition" is one of stirring adventure and human experience as well as scientific discovery. Throughout the more than nine hundred pages of this absorbing recital, told in the simple, forceful language for which the explorer has already become known around the world, he gives not only the actual achievements of the expedition but the experiences, many of them soul-harrowing and bodyracking, of himself and other members of his party. Lieutenant Shackleton, it will be remembered, succeeded in reaching a point within one hundred geographical miles of the South Pole, of discovering the south magnetic pole, of ascending Mt. Erebus (more than 13.000 feet above sea level), of discovering eight mountain chains, finding rich coal deposits, and confirming the belief held by scientific men for some years that the South Pole itself lies on a high plateau. The illustrations to this volume, which are over three hundred in number and reproduced from photographs taken by the author and his party, bring very vividly to the

1 The Ruinous Face. By Maurice Hewlett. Harpers. 43 pp., ill. $1.

2 Julia Bride. By Henry James. Harper. 84 pp., ill. $1.25.

3 The Heart of the Antarctic. 2 vols. H. Shackleton. Lippincott. 900 pp., ill.

By Ernest $10.

reader's senses as well as intellectual comprehension the great achievement set forth so modestly and convincingly.

BIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIRS

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In two smoothly written volumes that veteran diplomatist, John W. Foster, gives his "Diplomatic Memoirs." Mr. Foster's diplomatic career began in 1873 when he was appointed Minister to Mexico. Ever since that date, through his experiences at St. Petersburg, Madrid, as American Minister, and as special international commissioner on various other highly important international bodies, Mr. Foster has served his country with distinction, and his reminiscences could not fail to be "worth while." The two volumes are illustrated with portraits.

It is difficult for any of us moderns to realize how frequent and radical have been the changes in "modes and manners" during the past century among civilized men and women. Just now startling have been some of these changes in customs and dress can be seen very graphically in the beautifully illustrated three-volume work entitled "Modes and Manners of the Nineteenth Century," originally compiled in French from the pictures and engravings of the time, now

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translated by M. Edwardes. This work is not merely a fashion chronicle but an incisive history of the life and social ideas of the people of Europe from early in the '90s of the eighteenth

4 Diplomatic Memoirs. 2 vols. By John W. Foster. Houghton Mifflin Company. 669 pp., ill. $6. Modes and Manners of the Nineteenth Century. 3 vols. Dutton. 500 pp., ill. $7.

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MELBA

(Frontispiece to the recently published biography by Agnes Murphy)

unpublished portraits of the singer add to the attraction of the volume. There is also a descriptive list of the operas in which Melba has appeared.

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The tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, from the personal rather than the political point of view, has been told by Richard Davey in an illustrated volume entitled "The Nine Days' Queen." Keeping as he has frankly done to the personal viewpoint, Mr. Davey yet admits that it is this very element of personal pathos that has obscured the wider national significance of the brief occupancy of the chair of state at London by the saintly, unfortunate girl. Mr. Davey has given us in this book a picture of the society of England at the time of Henry VIII.'s various matrimonial adventures.

THE FAMILY AND ITS PROBLEMS In the large and increasing list of books of advice published for parents about their physical, intellectual, and moral preparation for

1 Melba: A Biography. By Agnes G. Murphy. Doubleday, Page & Co. 348 pp., ill. $2.75.

2 The Nine Days' Queen. By Richard Davey. Putnams. 372 pp., ill. $3.50.

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parenthood and the proper home training of the child itself, we find a few worthy of special notice. In "The Modern Mother,"1 Dr. H. Lang Gordon has adequately and delicately discussed "Girlhood, Motherhood, and Infancy." The companion volume to this, by Ernest Edwards, is entitled "For Boys," which consists of personal information upon sex matters clearly and delicately put. In two volumes designated as separate series Dr. Mary Wood-Allen discusses Making the Best of Our Children.' In these little talks the right and wrong methods of child training are illustrated through concrete examples of individual cases. Each chapter discusses the right and wrong way of handling some childish crisis, and these are arranged according to the years of the child's age up to sixteen for both boys and girls. A Mother's List of Books for Children," compiled by Gertrude Weld Arnold, contains synopsis and descriptive matter about a great many useful and educative books for the little people, and of this compilation Thomas Wentworth Higginson says that it is a most excellent analysis." In "The Care of the Child," Mrs. Burton Chance gives some excellent advice in simple, direct language to the "average mother to help her solve her daily problems with children."

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In a trenchantly written little volume of essays under the general title Why American Marriages Fail," Mrs. Anna A. Rogers dissects the matrimonial problem as it is solved in this country. She has some strong, frank things to say, and a perusal of her volume cannot fail to be suggestive and useful to all who are interested in the alarming increase of divorce in the United States.

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

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Among the books for young people recently issued and not receiving mention in these pages last month are: "The April Fool Doll," by Josephine S. Gates (Bobbs Merrill); When Mother Was a Little Girl," pictured by Ida Waugh, with verses by Amy E. Blanchard and others (Dutton); "Laboulaye's Fairy Tales," illustrated by Arthur A. Dixon (Dutton), and "Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes," illustrated by John Hassall (Dodge Publishing Company). For the older children there are three new publications in the Children's Bookshelf series, "The Story of King Arthur," Pilgrims' Tales from Chaucer," and "The Red Cross Knight and Sir Guyon" (Dodge Publishing Company); "Stories Children Love," edited by Charles Welsh; "Poems Children Love," edited by Penrhyn W. Coussens, and "A Child's Garden of Verses," by Robert Louis Stevenson, issued by the same publishing house; "Trees Every Child Should Know," by Julia E. Rogers (Doubleday, Page & Co.), and "Stories from

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1 The Modern Mother. By Dr. H. Lang Gordon. R. F. Fenno & Co. 278 pp., ill. $2.00.

2 For Boys. By Ernest Edwards. R. F. Fenno & Co. 94 pp. 50 cents. 3 Making the Best of Our Children. 2 vols. Dr. Mary Wood-Allen. Vol. 1, 254 pp.; vol. 2, 285 pp. $1.00 each

4 A Mother's List of Books for Children. Compiled by Gertrude Weld Arnold. McClurg & Co. 268 pp. $1.

The Care of the Child. By Mrs. Burton Chance. Penn Pub. Co., Philadelphia. 242 pp., ill. $1. 6 Why American Marriages Fail. By Anna A. Rogers. Houghton Mifflin Company. 214 pp. $1.25.

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Greek Tragedy," edited by H. L. Havell (Dodge Publishing Company).

The grown boy and girl will find good reading in "First at the North Pole," a timely story by Edward Stratemeyer, containing references to both the Peary and Cook expeditions (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard); "Basil, the Page," by G. I. Whitham (Dodge Publishing Company); When She Came Home from College," by Marian K. Hurd and Jean B. Wilson (Houghton Mifflin Company); "The Coming of Hester," by Jean K. Baird (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard), and "Mother Tucker's Seven," by Angelina W. Wray (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard).

BOOKS FOR MUSICIANS

Because so many young musicians do not reach the roots of their art they fail. This dictum, with an explanation of why the art roots are not reached by the many and how they may be reached by every one, forms the subject of Henry T. Finck's "Success in Music and How It Is Won." This volume is a sort of symposium in which many of the world's greatest singers, pianists, violinists, and teachers, all known personally to Mr. Finck, tell the secrets of their success. There is a chapter by Paderewski on "Tempo Rubato."

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In replies to 250 different questions about the essentials of piano playing put to Josef Hofmann and printed during the past two years in

7 Success in Music and How it Is Won. By Henry T. Finck. Scribners. 471 pp. $2.

8 Piano Questions Answered. By Josef Hofmann. 183 pp. 75 cents.

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