Book Review Digest Devoted to the Valuation of Current Literature Reviews of 1917 Books (continued 15)
Reading edition
+ A L A Bkl 14:95 D ‘17
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
Bookm 46:341 N ‘17 70w
“An element in the story which we are seldom allowed to forget is the racial one. With all the recent emphasis upon the Jew in literature, it is hard to call to mind a story which so fully developed those distinctly higher attributes of the Jew. ... Fanny Brandeis becomes, as we read the story, something more than an individual character. She becomes typical of that slaying of the ideal for the material which is going on day after day in thousands of Fanny Brandeises all over the United States.” D. L. M.
+ Boston Transcript p7 N 17 ‘17 1000w
Cleveland p128 N ‘17 50w
“The most serious, extended and dignified of Miss Ferber’s books. Its first half, in particular, is quite the best work that the creator of Emma McChesney has done.”
+ Dial 63:463 N 8 ‘17 260w
Nation 105:431 O 18 ‘17 400w
“It is Molly Brandeis who, with the little town of Winnebago, Wis., makes this story of ‘Fanny herself’ worth while.”
+ — NY Times 22:380 O 7 ‘17 800w
“A notable advance in the author’s previous fiction work.”
+ Outlook 117:386 N 7 ‘17 70w
“Yet there were here and there discerning readers who failed to find in them [the Emma McChesney stories] a fulfilment of the promise offered in ‘Dawn O’Hara.’ For this reason there should be much rejoicing over Miss Ferber’s new volume and second novel. And the fact that she has produced her effects out of practically the same well-worn, almost shabby stage properties of her earlier stories, is perhaps the most conclusive evidence that she has this time arisen from mere talent to something containing a lurking spark of what, for lack of a better word one may call genius.” F: T. Cooper
+ Pub W 93:208 Ja 19 ‘18 360w
185“Fanny’s mother is a striking creation, and her personality goes a long way toward lifting the story above the commonplace.”
+ — Springf’d Republican p17 N 4 ‘17 450w
FERGUSON, JOHN DE LANCEY. American literature in Spain. (Columbia univ. studies in English and comparative literature) *$1.50 (2c) Columbia univ. press 810 17-263
“Systematic study of the European reputations of American authors is a thing of recent date,” says the author. His purpose in this book is to make such a study with respect to Spain. The chief source of knowledge of American literature in Spain, he finds, has been France. There have been a few exceptions in which communication between the literatures of the two countries has been direct, notable among them the case of Irving, whose relations with Spain were personal. Another way of entry has been thru Spanish America. Chapters of the book are devoted to Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Prescott, Emerson, Whitman. The bibliography is pronounced by the author the most important part of the work.
+ Cath World 105:107 Ap ‘17 350w
“Regarding his work as a dissertation for the doctorate, one is disposed to be severe upon this contribution to scholarship: it deals chiefly with the exuberant and bombastic opinions of men whose words are without value; it is devoid of philosophical conclusions; further, we do not recall reading a dissertation whose body was so compactly made up of quotation.”
— Nation 104:552 My 3 ‘17 400w
Springf’d Republican p6 Ap 18 ‘17 450w
FERNALD, ROBERT HEYWOOD, and ORROK, GEORGE ALEXANDER. Engineering of power plants. il *$4 McGraw 621 16-24435
“To the worthy treatises on power-plant engineering of Gebhardt, Hutton, Hubbard and others, these eminent authors have added an equally worthy volume. The new book is of great interest to industrial-plant owners and engineers, as the treatment is both by description and discussion and introduces specific data at every turn. All kinds of power are touched on, though steam and internal-combustion plants are naturally given the most space.” (Engin News-Rec) Of the two authors, the first is professor of dynamical engineering in the University of Pennsylvania, the second is a consulting engineer in New York city.
“Useful in connection with Gebhardt (4th ed. Booklist 10:80 O ‘13) but will not replace that standard work.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:204 F ‘17
+ Engin News-Rec 78:363 My 17 ‘17 70w
“Is a happy medium of practice and theory that has been greatly lacking in books of this nature. ... Does not cover details of design or operation of the different parts of power plant equipment ... but considers the power plant as a whole from the standpoint of economical power production.”
+ Pittsburgh 22:451 My ‘17 50w (Reprinted from National Engineer p149 Ap ‘17)
FERNAU, HERMANN. Coming democracy. *$2 (2c) Button 940.91 17-24321
Herr Fernau, a German democrat and pacifist and author of “Because I am a German,” published the original German version of his present book in Berne, Switzerland, under the title “Durch!... zur demokratie,” before the Russian revolution and the entry of the United States into the war. “The whole of this new book is devoted to the thesis that war now, as always, springs from a false and perverted form of internal government—a form of government to which he gives the name of a ‘dynasty’; the form under which the whole welfare of the people is subordinated to a small ruling caste or family; external war has always been and will always remain the chief weapon by which the dynasty maintains authority over its own people, and the only means by which it can be overthrown is defeat in war.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) Herr Fernau preaches “Germany for the Germans,” and hopes for a defeat of the German arms as the best way of realizing this. “For what would happen if we Germans emerged victorious from this war? Our victory would only mean a strengthening of the dynastic principle of arbitrary power all along the line. Those of us who bewail the political backwardness of our Fatherland must realize that a ‘German’ victory would prolong this backward condition for centuries. And not only Germany but the whole of Europe would have to suffer the consequences.”
A L A Bkl 14:123 Ja ‘18
“He writes rather in anger than in sorrow; and, since he is a German, he would be more conciliating and convincing if he were less vehement and intemperate in his language.”
– + Ath p517 O ‘17 250w
Reviewed by C. H. P. Thurston
Bookm 46:286 N ‘17 30w
“The author clearly shows what indeed only a native German could show, the very strong differences and opposition between the German people and their rulers.”
+ Cath World 106:389 D ‘17 400w
“He sincerely believes, in common with many Americans, that wars will cease with the disappearance of dynasties. If his book will enforce this illusion, its present value is questionable.” V. T. Thayer
— Dial 63:515 N 22 ‘17 1050w
+ Ind 91:512 S 29 ‘17 130w
“There is little that is new, in these bitter and even cynical pages, for the reader who has kept moderately well abreast of the anti-German literature of the war. Moreover, destructive criticism, especially when forged in great heat, may easily go too far. Indeed, a reading of the book suggests the extremely useful service that would be rendered if some one who knows Germany and its people as well as Mr Fernau does would point out just what the Germans could do, under their existing constitution, to bring about the régime of popular government which President Wilson, for example, believes to be a prerequisite to peace.”
– + Nation 105:516 N 8 ‘17 330w
“Herr Fernau has given us a most remarkable work, a most powerful and convincing analysis of past German history.” J. W.
+ N Y Call p14 S 23 ‘17 700w
“‘The coming democracy’ is an astounding book, so unexpected is it to find such clear, keen insight into German conditions, such fearless presentation of facts, such merciless, sardonic, biting humor in statements coming from a German source.”
+ N Y Times 22:396 O 14 ‘17 1050w
+ R of Rs 56:550 N ‘17 90w
“For the most part, Fernau’s logic is inexorable, but here and there he is guilty of a curious fallacy, as when, for instance, he holds dynasties exclusively responsible for the horrors of war, and also declares that the ideal of fighting for a fatherland perished with the Greeks.”
+ — Sat R 124:229 S 22 ‘17 1050w
“Hermann Fernau is a true patriot, a passionate lover of the German people and of the old German fatherland. ... A considerable part of his book is given up to showing, as only a German brought up under the system can appreciate and show, how a small ambitious group of men may, by means of it, control absolutely the souls, minds, and bodies of a great nation. ... His analysis of the German constitution should be studied by those who still believe that the German people have any active share in the government of their country.”
+ Spec 119:217 S 1 ‘17 1850w
“The book is one of the most important contributions to the literature of the war. The subject and matter, is, indeed, not new, but it is put in a new light. ... The translation is excellent.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p398 Ag 23 ‘17 2050w
186FERRI, ENRICO. Criminal sociology. (Modern-criminal science ser.) *$5 Little 364 17-13931
This book by “the first of living criminal sociologists,” is divided into four parts: Data of criminal anthropology; Data of criminal statistics; Positive theory of penal responsibility; Practical reforms. “Signor Ferri, who belongs to the so-called positive school of criminology, is a scientific socialist; moreover, he utterly demolishes the orthodox theory of freedom of the will. He regards all crime as a social disease which must be treated as every other disease is treated: clinically. Mild forms need only a change of diet or environment with very little if any medicine of the law; the contagious cases must be isolated as we isolate smallpox and diphtheria until there is a perfect cure or until it is proved that there is no cure possible. He recognizes that many criminals are insane, hopelessly insane. His own belief is that the penalty of death is advisable in the instances where an insane criminal is dangerous to society; but that is immaterial. Protection of the community in which criminals are found is the one vital thing.” (Boston Transcript) The book, first published in Italian in 1880, is translated by Joseph I. Kelly and John Lisle; edited by William W. Smithers; and has introductions by Charles A. Ellwood and Quincy A. Myers.
“An important book for college and special reference libraries.”
+ A L A Bkl 14:75 D ‘17
“This volume gives one of the best pictures of the changes through which criminal sociology has passed in the last half century.” W: B. Bailey
+ — Am Pol Sci R 11:772 N ‘17 240w
“No one today can make a pretense of familiarity with the modern sciences of criminology who has not read this work. If criticisms are to be made of the Italian school, they should be made on the basis of the ideas here set forth. The American institute has rendered a great service to English civilization by the translation of this book.” J. P. Lichtenberger
+ Ann Am Acad 74:303 N ‘17 380w
“It may be that the author of this volume is (as certainly he makes it abundantly evident that he thinks he is) the greatest living authority on criminology, but he is so rambunctiously controversial that he overloads his treatise with a vast mass of perfectly unnecessary arguments directed against every person who has ever dared to enter this great field. ... It is much to be desired that a greatly shortened summary of Signor Ferri’s constructive philosophy of crime might be extricated from his bulky volume, eliminating entirely the controversial portions and leaving only the pure gold of his admirable doctrine, based on his actual observations.” N. H. D.
+ — Boston Transcript p6 Ag 8 ‘17 1150w
“Enrico Ferri, is a positivist of the Italian school, who holds that crime is a biologic and social abnormality, produced in part at least by extra-social forces. ... His hatred of religion breathes on every page. ... We regret very much that the American institute cannot find American scholars to write on these topics objectively, instead of translating works nearly forty years old of anti-Christian bigots.”
— Cath World 105:548 Jl ‘17 300w
“This book still remains the most distinguished general contribution to the subject of criminology, though much of its data and some of its conclusions are now out of date.” L. L. Bernard
+ Dial 63:338 O 11 ‘17 1000w
+ Lit D 55:45 O 13 ‘17 500w
R of Rs 56:440 O ‘17 70w
“One of the most valuable volumes in a useful series. Ferri’s classification of criminals appears to us now somewhat overlapping and difficult to establish in given cases by practicable tests.” K. H. Claghorn
+ — Survey 39:47 O 13 ‘17 350w
FETTER, FRANK ALBERT. Economics. 2v v 2 *$1.75 Century 330
v 2 Modern economic problems.
“A year ago there appeared a book by Professor Fetter dealing with the broader economic principles of value and distribution. This is now followed by a volume entirely devoted to the treatment of practical problems which furnish concrete illustrations and applications of the principles developed in the earlier volume. These are grouped under the following heads: Resources and economic organization; Money and prices; Banking and insurance; Tariff and taxation; Problems of the wage system, and Problems of industrial organization. The two books are intended to cover a complete course in economics, but they are so arranged that they may be used separately.”—R of Rs
“The sentiment of the book is thoroughly modern and progressive, but the policies advocated are based upon scientific principles throughout rather than upon the popular reform policies of the hour. The wisdom of confining references to other works, and bibliographical material in general, to a separate manual, may be questioned. Many readers of the text will, presumably, never see the ‘Manual’ but still will need guidance to further study of those problems in which they are particularly interested.” W. I. K.
+ Ann Am Acad 71:234 My ‘17 230w
“The reviewer knows of no other economic text book where the application of principles to practical problems is more successfully made. The result is that much merely confusing descriptive material is eliminated, and what remains is solid and stimulating. From this point of view, the book will probably make a strong appeal to the teacher, to the student and to the general reader.” E. E. Agger
+ Educ R 54:90 Je ‘17 780w
“This work is, in a sense, a sequel to a book published by the same author a year ago. ... It will repay careful study because it dispels a number of popular fallacies and because, as has been said, it offers an excellent introduction to the more modern method of dealing with economic phenomena.”
+ Ind 89:507 Mr 19 ‘17 180w
“Professor Fetter’s discussion is clear and well-informed, and his conclusions are temperate and suggestive.”
+ Nation 104:557 My 3 ‘17 100w
R of Rs 55:220 F ‘17 100w
FICKE, ARTHUR DAVISON. April elegy. *$1.25 Kennerley 811 17-12484
“An April elegy,” the poem that fills the first half of this book, is a verse narrative, telling the story of two lovers who fail ever to recapture the passionate beauty of their first meeting. The remainder of the book is taken up with three groups of poems: Seven Japanese paintings; Lyrics; Café sketches. Some of the poems have appeared in the Little Review, Poetry, Century, Midland, and other magazines.
+ A L A Bkl 13:439 Jl ‘17
“Unlike some of his fellow poets of the new school, however, Mr Ficke has a genuine gift of poetic expression; he has, too, a disciplined metrical skill that shows to advantage in his handling both of the ordered verse forms and of free verse; finally, he always has something to say and says it intelligibly. ... In all his work it is when Mr Ficke is most purely lyrical that he is most delightful.” R. T. T.
+ — Boston Transcript p6 Ap 18 ‘17 1000w
“The poems mingle bald realism and free verse with imaginative and lyric beauty. In intellectual content, they are subtle and at times difficult of interpretation. Mr Ficke is best known from his ‘Sonnets of a portrait painter’ and as an interpreter of Japanese art.”
Cleveland p74 Je ‘17 80w
“The whole-hearted sentimentalism of ‘An April elegy’ will certainly recommend it to many, though scarcely to those readers whom Mr Ficke’s real powers and previous performance fit him to address.” Odell Shepard
– + Dial 63:341 O 11 ‘17 380w
187“In eight sonnets of his new volume the proud and sombre note of Mr Ficke’s ‘Sonnets of a portrait-painter’ is audible in renewed vigor and beauty. Next in merit to these poems, I should place, I think, ‘Seven Japanese paintings.’ ‘An April elegy’ is equally unworthy of its associates and its parentage.” O. W. Firkins
+ – — Nation 105:245 S 6 ‘17 300w
N Y Br Lib News 4:78 My ‘17 60w
“Full of impassioned beauty, rich restraint, and romantic appeal.”
+ N Y Times 22:168 Ap 29 ‘17 300w
+ R of Rs 56:105 Jl ‘17 80w
“Verily, this is a book for a diverse public or for a single reader with very catholic taste. Mr Ficke at times reaches the Pierian hights of the old school, and at times approaches the gutter depths of much of the new.”
+ — Springf’d Republican p17 N 4 ‘17 450w
FIELD, CLIFTON COUTARD. Retail buying. (Harper’s retail business ser.) *$1.25 (2½c) Harper 658 17-21788
The author, recently instructor in merchandizing in the University of Wisconsin, has also held positions with Marshall Field & Co., of Chicago, and James McCreery & Co., of New York. His book aims to give “a simple and readable explanation of what is best to-day in buying principles and practice.” (Editor’s introd.) Contents: The merchant as a buyer; Merchandise; Buying practice; Stock systems.
“A book list of descriptive material issued by manufacturers will be suggestive to librarians who wish to build up a working trade collection.”
+ A L A Bkl 14:45 N ‘17
Cleveland p112 S ‘17 20w
“Gives many convenient hints as to kinds and qualities of commodities, especially in the clothing trades.”
+ Ind 91:441 S 15 ‘17 60w
“The style is matter of fact, almost laconic. There is an element of stiffness and bluntness in it that appears to arise from lack of practice in writing. The discussion, however, is clear and usually simple. The real contribution in this book is to be found in part 3, entitled ‘Buying practice.’ It is just here that an undeveloped field was entered.” C. S. Duncan
+ — J Pol Econ 25:1053 D ‘17 1200w
Pittsburgh 22:758 N ‘17 40w
“Instructive reading for any one connected with retail buying or selling.”
+ Quar List New Tech Bks O ‘17 90w
FIELD, LOUISE MAUNSELL. Little gods laugh. il *$1.40 (2c) Little 17-23975
In this story of New York society Miss Field has given us a picture of the development of a high-minded young woman of good family, who, bred to position and ease, finds herself obliged to make her own way in the world. The refreshing side of the story is in its normality. Nita Wynne, through the interest of friends, uses and develops her natural abilities and though she, of course, loses leisure, she does not in any way lose her proper position. But her experiences do teach her to view life whole rather than from the narrow angle of her girlhood.
“The story is told with dignity and charm.”
+ Boston Transcript p9 O 31 ‘17 150w
Cleveland p128 N ‘17 70w
“There is some clever characterization, but that is not a sufficient excuse for the addition of one more novel to the already overlong list of American mediocrities.”
– + Dial 63:354 O 11 ‘17 50w
“It is a real achievement of the author that Nita is never a prig. In her most intolerant moments there is something likeable, and very human, about her. The characters and incidents of the book are interesting and its theme is thoroughly wholesome and sane.”
+ N Y Times 22:333 S 9 ‘17 450w
Fifes and drums; a collection of poems of America at war. (Vigilantes books) *$1 Doran 811.08 17-18155
“The Vigilantes’ headquarters are in New York, its members are authors, artists and other professional workers, and its purposes are thus described: ‘To arouse the country to a realization of the importance of the problems confronting the American people. To awaken and cultivate in the youth of the country a sense of public service and an intelligent interest in citizenship and national problems. To work vigorously for preparedness, mental, moral, and physical.’” (Boston Transcript) “These poems, written under the immediate stress of great events by the Vigilantes, furnish a striking record of the emotional reactions of the American people during the fortnight preceding and the six weeks following the declaration of war.” (Foreword) Some of the contributors are Amelia Josephine Burr, Don Marquis, Clinton Scollard, Wallace Irwin, Edith M. Thomas, George E. Woodberry, Cale Young Rice, Theodosia Garrison, Percy MacKaye and Hermann Hagedorn.
“Their literary excellence is very high. It would be easy to forgive much under the circumstances, but there is nothing to forgive. ... To single out a single poem in any collection as superlatively the best is usually futile and an invitation to violent argument, but we have no reluctance to place Miss Garrison’s ‘April 2nd’ at the head.” E. F. E.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Je 27 ‘17 1000w
“The whole anthology carries a glowing atmosphere of enthusiasm, every page breathing the wide range of high human emotion which is brought into being during the stress of wartime.”
+ N Y Times 22:287 Ag 5 ‘17 260w
Springf’d Republican p15 Ag 26 ‘17 180w
FIGGIS, JOHN NEVILLE. Some defects in English religion, and other sermons. (Handbooks of Catholic faith and practice) *$1 (3½c) Young ch. 252
The defects in English religion to which the author devotes the first four sermons in this book are Sentimentalism, Legalism, Cowardice, and Complacency. This series of sermons was preached in Grosvenor chapel, Mayfair, in August, 1916. Among the other sermons in the volume is a group on The mysteries of love, preached as a Lenten series.
“A master of the philosophic ideas of history, and equally at home with Bernard Shaw or Nietzsche and the significant movements of today in letters, Dr Figgis is a preacher of an unusual sort.”
+ Sat R 123:260 Mr 17 ‘17 370w
FIGGIS, JOHN NEVILLE. Will to freedom; or, The gospel of Nietzsche and the gospel of Christ. *$1.25 Scribner 193 17-15172
“Dr Figgis, who is a member of the Community of the Resurrection, a religious order of the Church of England, was invited to deliver the Gov. Bross lectures at Lake Forest university in Illinois in 1915, and made the German philosopher his subject.” (Springf’d Republican) “In the lectures he aims at correcting some prevalent misconceptions as to Nietzsche and his influence in Germany. The six lectures deal in turn with ‘Nietzsche the man,’ ‘The gospel of Nietzsche,’ ‘Nietzsche and Christianity,’ ‘Nietzsche’s originality,’ ‘The charm of Nietzsche,’ and ‘The danger and the significance of Nietzsche.’ In particular Dr Figgis insists that, unlike Stirner, Nietzsche did not teach egotism, but rather a religion of valour involving the sacrifice of immediate desire to an ideal of nobility; egotism being, indeed, in direct opposition to some of Nietzche’s most important principles, such as natural asceticism, the sacrifice of ages in order to speed the superman, the raising of the type of man. But while endeavouring to set before us a reconsideration of much of Nietzsche’s position in a more favourable light than the controversialists of recent years generally allow, Dr Figgis protests equally against those who argue that because 188Nietzsche in his later years held and loudly expressed anti-Russian views therefore modern Germany was not deeply influenced by him.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
Reviewed by W. C. A. Wallar
Am J Theol 22:150 Ja ‘18 650w
A L A Bkl 14:39 N ‘17
+ Ath p462 S ‘17 180w
“There may be, however, some doubt whether many who call themselves Christian would accept Dr Figgis’s statement that they ‘assert the will to freedom.’ That is the weakness of the book; for it is only too easy to make out that anything that is true or good is Christian.”
+ — Ath p508 O ‘17 550w
“For the reader who has not time for the writings of Nietzsche but who would like to know what it is all about, this is the book.”
+ Bib World 50:254 O ‘17 700w
Reviewed by C. H. P. Thurston
+ Bookm 46:290 N ‘17 30w
+ Cleveland p105 S ‘17 50w
“The discussion is pitched in a key so much lower than Nietzsche’s own writing, and is conducted in such obvious and pedestrian terms that the many quotations blaze across the page with a heat that seems almost to shrivel the unfortunate commentator. What Dr Figgis has done here is to make the common mistake of confusing a diagnosis with an ethics. The common mind seems unable to keep from confounding Nietzsche’s analysis of what is with his ideal of what ought to be. ... The book must be credited, however, with what is perhaps the best short sketch of Nietzsche’s life to be found in English.” Randolph Bourne
– + Dial 63:389 O 25 ‘17 1200w
“A book of real weight and of philosophic power.”
+ Educ R 54:528 D ‘17 100w
“The relation of Nietzsche to contemporary thought and particularly to Christianity, as well as to the prevailing ideals in Germany, is well brought out in Dr Figgis’ book.”
+ Ind 92:109 O 13 ‘17 380w
“His study of Nietzsche is able, fresh and sympathetic. Perhaps because he is under Nietzsche’s charm, he does not quite come to grips with his subject.” M. J.
+ — Int J Ethics 28:287 Ja ‘18 280w
“We can not praise too highly this exposition. It is unbiased, fair, and square. No debatable characterization of the subject lacks chapter and verse from Nietzsche’s writings.”
+ Lit D 55:39 S 15 ‘17 430w
“The title gives a sufficient intimation of Dr Figgis’s purpose, but one could wish that he had followed this purpose a little more tenaciously. As a matter of fact, the best part of the book is the exposition of Nietzsche’s philosophy before the author enters upon his critical comparison.”
+ Nation 105:323 S 20 ‘17 350w
“It would be difficult for any Christian reviewer to excel Dr Figgis in combining just criticism of an iconoclastic atheist with so impartial an appreciation of his merits.”
+ Outlook 117:260 O 17 ‘17 160w
Pittsburgh 22:699 O ‘17 20w
Pratt p6 O ‘17
“Dr Figgis’s books have an unusual circulation, which they deserve. Christianity has few apologists of equal power, for he is not only learned in divinity, he is also an historian and a philosopher who keeps in touch with the spirit of his time. He knows the latest book of Mr Bernard Shaw as well as of the Modernists. ... Nietzsche is much more talked about than read, and Dr Figgis does well in adding to his lectures typical specimens of his writings and the views of the best critics on them.”
+ Sat R 124:188 S 8 ‘17 1300w
“The analysis Dr Figgis offers in these lectures is at once the most painstaking and the most convincing we have seen.”
+ Spec 119:270 S 15 ‘17 1450w
“Dr Figgis approaches his subject fairly and judiciously, though hardly with the freedom from preoccupation which is essential to a complete comprehension of Nietzsche. ... He devotes much space to the progress of Nietzschian ideas in modern German.”
+ Springf’d Republican p15 Ag 26 ‘17 650w
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p383 Ag 9 ‘17 170w
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p388 Ag 16 ‘17 1450w
FILLEBROWN, CHARLES BOWDOIN. Principles of natural taxation; showing the origin and progress of plans for the payment of all public expenses from economic rent. il $1.50 McClurg 336.2 17-5160
Of part 1 of this book Mr Fillebrown is compiler; of part 2, author. Part 1 is a compilation, the object of which is “to trace the metamorphosis of the land question into the rent question; of the equal right to land into the joint right to the rent of land, etc.” The authors represented in this progression are, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Patrick Edward Dove, Edwin Burgess, Sir John Macdonell, Henry George, Rev Edward McGlynn and Thomas G. Shearman. For each of these a biographical sketch with an estimate of the man’s importance to the single tax movement is provided. Part 2 has chapters on: A burdenless tax; Land; Taxation and housing, etc. The preface says, “While this volume is a revision and enlargement of ‘A single tax handbook for 1913,’ which it was thought might reappear at intervals, it is issued with the idea of permanence, as representing the best authorities, early and late, upon the development of the idea.”
“The book will prove a very useful single-tax document, and Mr Fillebrown has performed a real service to economists in calling attention to the need for a redistribution of emphasis in discussing certain aspects of the single tax. As is perhaps to be expected, where the material has been gathered from scattered sources, an occasional slip in statement has crept in.” R. M. Haig
+ — Am Econ R 7:894 D ‘17 350w
+ A L A Bkl 14:41 N ‘17
Ann Am Acad 73:236 S ‘17 240w
“For a full exposition of the subject, we have seen few books equal to Mr Fillebrown’s latest effort.” Alexander MacKendrick
+ Masses 9:32 S ‘17 1050w
“The second part of Mr Fillebrown’s book contains the kind of polemic for the single tax with which readers of his former publications, and of single-tax propaganda generally, are familiar. There is much in it that is plausible, much even that is sound; but there is also a great admixture of shallow assumption as well as an ignoring of vital difficulties.”
+ — Nation 104:656 My 31 ‘17 1000w
N Y Br Lib News 4:58 Ap ‘17
St Louis 15:169 Je ‘17 30w
“Particularly interesting chapters are ‘The professors and the single tax,’ disclosing incidentally how much the professors are like the man in the street in missing the essential point of the doctrine, and ‘A catechism of natural taxation,’ carefully revised by the best authorities to meet the inquirer’s questions with the best possible answers.”
+ Springf’d Republican p11 Ja 27 ‘18 380w
FILSINGER, ERNST B. Exporting to Latin America; with a foreword by Leo S. Rowe. *$3 Appleton 382 16-17440
For descriptive note see Annual for 1916.
“Two qualities in Mr Filsinger’s book stand out as noteworthy: it is specific and it is comprehensive. When to this statement I add that it is distinctly a business man’s book, written by a business man who still has the student’s knack of covering a subject fully and expressing himself clearly, it may easily be understood that this is one of the best publications on Latin America that has been placed on the American market. ... Among the many writers on 189Latin American trade Mr Filsinger seems to be almost the discoverer of the effective work being done by the Bureau of foreign and domestic commerce, to which he devotes considerable, but by no means excessive, space. ... It would certainly pay every prospective exporter to have a copy not in his library but on his desk for constant reference and study.” E. E. Pratt
* + Am Econ R 7:122 Mr ‘17 1050w
“An especially interesting chapter is that on Export commission houses and agents. ... Mr Filsinger’s outline of the function of the export commission house is followed with the chapter on Traveling salesmen, general and local agents, which is of particular interest to manufacturers desiring to market their product by direct representation overseas. This includes suggestions as to obtaining foreign agents by correspondence. ... This book is a valuable addition to a quite substantial bibliography developed by the painstaking work of Hough, Aughinbaugh and other students of Latin-American trade problems.” R. H. Patchin
+ Ann Am Acad 71:227 My ‘17 650w
“Of unusual practical value is the appendix. This contains, besides other important information, a detailed description of each of the Latin American countries, including language, newspapers, currency, with American equivalents, weights and measures, postage, location, area, and physical characteristics, population, purchasing power, railways and transportation, resources, industries, mines, principal cities, best methods of canvassing the country and the articles most needed. In another part of the appendix he gives the typical advertising rates in Latin American export journals, the principal directories of the Latin American republics, and the principal banks of the large cities.”
+ Nation 104:369 Mr 29 ‘17 1350w
“Manufacturers and merchants anxious to discover and improve foreign trade opportunities will find of particular interest the chapters on Latin-American correspondence, Banking documents, Credits, Catalogues and quotations, Parcel post and mail order business, but the subjects covered extend to practically all the questions that business men are compelled to ask in advertising new lines.”
+ New Repub 11:167 Je 9 ‘17 400w
“The work of a man who is president of the Filsinger-Boette shoe company and consul of Costa Rica and Ecuador in St Louis, and who was formerly president and commissioner to Latin-America of the Latin-American foreign trade association. Incidentally Mr Filsinger is the husband of Sara Teasdale, the poet. ... The book is plainly the most valuable of its kind that has yet been published.”
+ Springf’d Republican p6 F 23 ‘17 200w
FINCK, HENRY THEOPHILUS. Richard Strauss; the man and his works. il *$2.50 (3c) Little 17-26876
A carefully prepared life of the first great realist in music who “has done for programme music what Wagner did for the opera.” Besides the story of Strauss’s life and a number of reliable anecdotes, there is an estimate of his place in the history of music, and a full description, with critical comments, of his more important compositions including all the tone poems and operas which have been launched with so much interest and success. A sympathetic appreciation of “Richard Strauss: seer and idealist” is contributed by Percy Grainger who sees the inborn effortless greatness of a man who is a genius of the purely inspirational order.
“Stimulating to musicians who do understand Strauss; and, for mere bewildered music lovers who do not, it will serve to foster at least an ‘intelligent ignorance.’”
+ A L A Bkl 14:83 D ‘17
“This is a useful survey of the external facts touching the life and musical compositions of Richard Strauss. But it does not, on the whole, suggest that it has been a labor of love. Mr Finck makes it abundantly clear that his reason for writing the book was rather the fact that Strauss is considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of living composers than that he himself considers him to be such. And the general tone of Mr Finck’s book is blasé, sometimes yawningly so.” E: Sapir
+ – — Dial 63:584 D 6 ‘17 1900w
“Not only the biggest but also the most interesting and the most valuable work on this composer yet produced in English. If the book contained only this sort of intensely personal dislike, paraded as an attempt to determine Strauss’s place in the history of music, it would be of small worth. But it contains a deal of more profitable matter.”
+ — Ind 92:385 N 24 ‘17 350w
+ Lit D 55:42 D 8 ‘17 240w
“It is a big book in more senses than one. ... To be sure, all the thrice-familiar Finckian critical stigmata are present; his Wagner worship and the clamorous praise of Rubinstein, Grieg, Paderewski, Liszt, MacDowell, and Percy Grainger. ... Mr Finck’s musical enthusiasms are always exhilarating, and while his study of Strauss is not as significant as his ‘Life of Wagner’—the best biography in English—we must remember the difference in the career of the two men. Wagner’s life, like his music, was dramatic. The life thus far of Strauss has been almost commonplace.” J. G. Huneker
+ — Nation 105:462 O 25 ‘17 1550w
“This biography of Strauss the composer has the quality of sprightliness to an exceptional degree—partly, no doubt, because of its subject.”
+ R of Rs 56:551 N ‘17 150w
FINDLATER, MARY, and FINDLATER, JANE HELEN. Seen and heard before and after 1914. *$1.50 Dutton 17-26479
“There are six stories in this book—the stories of Scottish life that the Misses Findlater know so well how to tell—and the coming of the war divides them square in half. This in itself gives the book added value as a picture of the conflict’s far reactions. For the war came to the Scotch villages of the Highlands and changed the face of life for the village folk. And the things that were ‘seen and heard’ after Aug. 1, 1914, were very different from the Highland happenings of the hills and villages in the months before. ... The first story is of the wandering tinkers of the Highlands, and of the claim of their gypsy life upon all the tinker ‘clan.’ ... The second story is a strange bit of Highland pathos. ‘When Johnny comes marching home’ is a human little tale of a village ne’er-do-well, who lost his chance of manhood, but the second war story is full of whimsical humor and sweetness. Jane Findlater has written all the tales but one—the last, ‘Real estate,’ longer than most of the others, and rich in human understanding and charm.”—N Y Times
+ A L A Bkl 13:449 Jl ‘17
“The stories are written with the same feeling for words and situations which has previously distinguished the work of these two authors. They show life within a very narrow radius, but the stamp of truth is on all they write.” D. L. M.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Je 2 ‘17 1250w
+ Dial 62:527 Je 14 ‘17 150w
+ Ind 91:353 S 1 ‘17 60w
“Jane Findlater’s writing has the charm of an older time. ... What we really get in ‘The little tinker’ is more like the scene of a Dutch master, incident and atmosphere and character projected upon a tiny canvas, with sympathy but without sentimentalism. The stories written after the war are less happy.”
+ Nation 104:632 My 24 ‘17 180w
N Y Br Lib News 4:74 My ‘17 30w
“A lovable, human book.”
+ N Y Times 22:186 My 13 ‘17 300w
+ Spec 118:175 F 10 ‘17 1600w
“As always with these writers, it is not the story in itself but the shrewd and intuitive handling of its elements which gives marked individuality to the work.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p572 N 30 ‘16 570w
190FIRTH, JOHN BENJAMIN. Highways and byways in Nottinghamshire. (Highways and byways ser.) il *$2 Macmillan 914.2 (Eng ed 17-7460)
“To an excellent series this is a most readable addition. Mr Firth writes well and has accumulated a mass of curious information. The chapters on Nottingham and Newark and the parts they played on opposite sides in the civil war, the account of Southwell and its ancient minster, the elaborate description of the dukeries—Welbeck, Clumber, and Thoresby, all set in the remains of Sherwood Forest—are the chief features. Robin Hood is cautiously handled. Byron in poverty at Southwell and in transient splendour at Newstead is another picturesque figure.”—Spec
“Gives fewer descriptions of scenery than other books in this series.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:397 Je ‘17
+ Dial 62:531 Je 14 ‘17 130w
“The book is crammed with information, yet it is written with an ease and grace that any novelist might envy.”
+ Nation 104:373 Mr 29 ‘17 190w
“The book is profusely and beautifully illustrated, and the large-scale maps will be invaluable to the explorer of the byways of Nottinghamshire.”
+ Nature 99:4 Mr 1 ‘17 300w
“Especially interesting in its relation to several of the best-known families of England.”
+ R of Rs 55:556 My ‘17 40w
“There has scarcely been a better book in the series, and one can often dip into his ‘Nottinghamshire’ with pleasure and relief. It is a book to enjoy, and the hours given to it will not be wasted. Mr Griggs’s illustrations are often delightful too. Some of his drawings of domestic architecture—notably of old houses in the city of Nottingham—are very nearly as good as Prout, and we much like his Southwell minster, west front.”
+ Sat R 123:sup10 Mr 31 ‘17 150w
Spec 118:141 F 3 ‘17 140w
“For Americans no other town of Nottinghamshire can have so great appeal as Scrooby. For Scrooby was the home of William Brewster, the Pilgrim father, and the little band of Brownists met usually at Brewster’s house. ... Mr Firth’s spirited pen traces the features of Nottinghamshire towns, and revives much entertaining local history.”
+ Springf’d Republican p15 F 25 ‘17 1350w
“A book like this brings strongly home to the reader the tides of change which have helped to mould the most placid English landscapes.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p53 F 1 ‘17 1300w
FISH, ADA Z. American Red cross text-book on home dietetics. il *$1 Blakiston 641.5 17-6350
“The author of ‘Home dietetics’ has emphasized the means of avoiding illness rather than the ways of catering to it. She has suggested very concisely the important principles involved in the cooking of food, and so far as possible has illustrated these principles by directions for the preparation of common articles of diet.”—Survey
A L A Bkl 13:336 My ‘17
“A unique and valuable feature of the book is the emphasis placed on the importance of hygiene which should be observed in the handling of food to prevent the spread of disease.” L. H. G.
+ Survey 38:75 Ap 21 ‘17 120w
FISHER, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Francis Thompson; essays. il $1 (15c) Franklin pub. co., Canton, O. 821 17-17070
A short sketch of the life and an appreciation of the poetry of a rare spirit whose genius is the nacre covering the grains of hardship as a pearl was produced for poetry. While after years were kinder to him than the early period of cruel hardship, he was broken in health and died at the age of forty-eight. The late Benjamin Fisher was a sympathetic student of Thompson’s poetry and hoped thru his essays to interest many in the clear quality of Thompson’s poetical gifts.
“Students of Francis Thompson’s poetry will find interest in this attractively bound little book.”
+ Dial 63:409 O 25 ‘17 170w
“Of flowery and figurative language, this tiny book possesses real critical grasp, and has itself real beauties of phrase that make us curious to see that earlier work, ‘Life harmonies,’ praised of Alice Meynell.”
+ Ind 91:514 S 29 ‘17 50w
FISHER, DOROTHEA FRANCES (CANFIELD) (MRS JOHN REDWOOD FISHER). Understood Betsy. il *$1.30 (3c) Holt 17-23050
“Betsy has been brought up from infancy by her Aunt Frances, a maiden lady past her first youth who has deluged the child with love and anxiety and determination to ‘understand’ her. And so at the age of nine she has been ‘understood’ into an anaemic, morbid, neurotic, egotistic condition that saps her rightful enjoyment of childhood and undermines the promise of useful womanhood. ... A sudden upheaval in Aunt Frances’s family makes it necessary for Betsy to be sent along to relatives who live on a farm in Vermont. And there life takes on a very different complexion. Nobody tries to ‘understand’ her, nobody pays attention to any of the things that caused Aunt Frances to cuddle and care for her as if she were an infant. Instead, they put responsibilities upon her for herself and others, expect her to amuse herself and in general to be an upstanding, self-reliant little girl.”—N Y Times
“Published in St Nicholas.”
+ A L A Bkl 14:26 O ‘17
“The one girls’ story of the season which seems to have the qualities that make for permanence—Miss Alcott’s qualities, say, of warm feeling, golden common sense, and ease and simplicity of style.” J: Walcott
+ Bookm 46:499 D ‘17 120w
“Betsy is the concrete example of so much that Mrs Fisher has written on child training, that we are obliged once again to remark the skill with which a true story teller can reveal her morals while she is telling a thoroughly interesting story.” D. L. M.
+ Boston Transcript p6 S 12 ‘17 1250w
“The book is intended primarily for children, but Mrs Fisher with her usual insight has touched upon a modern tendency in education with an irony that will be appreciated by their elders.”
+ Dial 63:403 O 25 ‘17 100w
+ Ind 91:514 S 29 ‘17 70w
“It is a story for a child—or for the child-lover with many suggestions in child-development and training quite suited to a teacher.”
+ Lit D 55:48 D 29 ‘17 210w
“Dorothy Canfield is always extraordinarily likable, even if she has grown troublingly wistful, and doubtful about cities. ... Her wistfulness for pioneer conditions saps a necessary confidence in cities in a way her Montessori mother did not. But is it, after all, a book for children? Would it not be, of itself, just a little bit of an Aunt Frances?”
+ New Repub 12:166 S 8 ‘17 300w
“It has ostensibly been written for children, but we should be sorry for any adult who could not enjoy it. ... As a gift to a little nine or ten year old girl who reads easily, we cannot recommend anything more charming and worth while than ‘Understood Betsy.’” M. G. S.
+ + N Y Call p15 S 30 ‘17 340w
“This story about a little girl will be read with pleasure by people who are small and young, while people who are larger and older also will read it with pleasure combined, if they have humor and sense, with profit. ... The scene is that section of New England where Mrs Fisher has made her home for a number of years, and the people are the same sturdy Vermonters whom she has put into her 191short stories about ‘Hillsboro people.’ She interprets the New England character with truth and verve.”
+ N Y Times 22:294 Ag 12 ‘17 800w
“A charming and entertaining little story.”
+ Outlook 117:26 S 5 ‘17 170w
“As a story pure and simple, it is delightful, a mine of fun, wisdom and common sense.”
+ R of Rs 56:557 N ‘17 150w
“A most delightful narrative. The reader feels an impulsive affection for Aunt Abigail, Uncle Henry and Cousin Ann.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 D 9 ‘17 230w
FISHER, GEORGE JOHN, and BERRY, ELMER. Physical effects of smoking; preliminary experimental studies. *$1 Assn. press 613 17-12837
Dr Fisher is connected with the International committee of the Y. M. C. A., and Professor Berry is professor of physiology in the International Y. M. C. A. college at Springfield, Mass. Professor Berry states that “the material here brought together represents an effort to secure definite experimental data regarding the effects of smoking,” that the work, covering researches conducted 1914-16, has been done as graduation theses under his direction, and that it is presented as “entirely preliminary and tentative.” The subjects were “normal, healthy, athletic fellows between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five.” The experimenters returned results remarkable for their uniformity and general consistency, showing that smoking raises the heart rate and blood pressure, that it markedly delays the return of the heart rate to normal after exercise, and that it impairs the neuro-muscular control as indicated by delicate finger exercises and gross muscular coordinations. There is a bibliography of eight pages.
A L A Bkl 13:433 Jl ‘17
“With rare good judgment the authors refrain from conclusions, and rest their case upon a simple statement of recorded facts, not claiming infallibility but presenting their results so that the reader arrives at his own conclusions. The book is an excellent short story to put into the hands of school teachers and high-school boys.” Haven Emerson, M.D.
+ Survey 39:370 D 29 ‘17 400w
FISHER, MARY. The Treloars. *$1.35 (1c) Crowell 17-13953
“The scene is California. The Treloars, who live in the country near Berkeley, are a family of high cultivation and of warm humanity. The father is a brilliant man who has ceased to be a parson because he can no longer conform to the creed of the church. ... Hard by lives his friend, who is also a detached philosopher—of another school. Their chief recreation is in controversy. Treloar has three grown children. One of the daughters, Catherine, has brains enough only for the hard and selfish part of the modern feminist practice. Margaret, the other, is a woman of intellect and character. Her brother Dick holds the centre of her stage, and responds to her devotion. We meet her at the moment when Dick is about to try his fledgling wings at journalism. In the city he presently meets an enchantress, an actress of none too savoury past. The wrecking of his sister’s happiness and a luckless marriage are the result. He is released before the total crippling of his life, and after an illuminating experience [at] the war-front, achieves a real union with the girl he should have married in the first place; to Margaret also the chances of war have brought a fitting mate.”—Bookm
“A book of scope and power by a hand fresh at story-making. Readers who like swift action may find the conduct of the narrative too leisurely. By others, the digressions and discussions which fill so many of these pages may be regarded as the cream of the book.” H. W. Boynton
+ Bookm 46:209 O ‘17 370w
“What a godsend the war has been to lazy or unimaginative novelists! With it they can cut every Gordian knot.”
— Dial 63:463 N 8 ‘17 140w
“The book’s fault is talk, tho much of it is Interesting enough and clever. But there is too much of it.”
+ — Lit D 55:39 O 27 ‘17 240w
“A book of uncommon flavor: to begin with, its style instead of falling in with modern fashions of briskness or nonchalance, takes its own time and goes its own way, with a faint suggestiveness, perhaps, of George Eliot rather than any later writer. It is the medium of an intelligence both sympathetic and scholarly, interpreting character in the light of present conditions.”
+ Nation 105:371 O 4 ‘17 350w
“‘The Treloars’ belongs to a class of novels written not because the author has a story to tell, but because he has views to ventilate, theories to expound, a fund of information of which to disburden himself. ... Although well written, showing wide reading, and expressing forcible opinions upon nearly all the subjects now agitating the public mind, ‘The Treloars’ does not take hold of the reader. The characters seem to have been created to hold long conversations upon every conceivable topic, ... while certain of the situations are almost amusing in their improbability.”
+ — N Y Times 22:266 Jl 15 ‘17 200w
FISK, EUGENE LYMAN. Alcohol. *$1 Funk 178 17-20843
“A non-scientific discussion for the general reader of the deleterious effect of alcohol. Divided into three parts, it discusses its relation to life insurance, to physiology, and human efficiency. Supplementary notes give views of Great Britain, Russia and France and the attitude of the American medical profession.” (A L A Bkl) The contents appeared first in the form of articles in the Atlantic Monthly.
A L A Bkl 14:73 D ‘17
“Modest and yet most important volume. It would be a good thing for America and the world if his pages could be carried in the knapsack of every soldier, at home and abroad, and studied by every citizen of our country.”
+ Lit D 55:46 D 1 ‘17 280w
“It is too slight, too dogmatic, and too evidently written to maintain a theory.”
— Outlook 117:285 O 24 ‘17 60w
FISKE, MINNIE MADDERN (MRS HARRISON GREY FISKE). Mrs Fiske; her views on actors, acting, and the problems of production; recorded by Alexander Woolcott. il *$2 (6c) Century 792 17-29247
Witty, spontaneous, unconventional bits of theatre wisdom dropped over the tea cups by one of the foremost producers, directors and actresses of the present day and recorded out of the long memory of the dramatic critic of the New York Times. The seven chapters set forth Mrs Fiske’s theory of the theatre,—a theory which has been evolving thru years of honest, sincere progress towards the goal which the world has seen her brilliantly achieve. Deductions are interpolated with interesting comment on the portrayal of certain of her well known rôles. The book is full of inspiration and food for thought and study for young actors, while for the theatre goer who never misses a Fiske play it will serve as a review of her successes.
“Expensive for its value to the average library.”
+ — A L A Bkl 14:118 Ja ‘18
“Mr Woolcott is an adept prompter; he usually sets the scene piquantly; fills the pauses neatly; gives Mrs Fiske her head, as it were, while his memory sits elastic in the saddle; and generally conducts himself as a beaming Boswell, save for a tendency to the simpering and airy phrases of literary and artistic youth at tea in the college across the Charles. As for Mrs Fiske herself, she courses through the conversations like Delilah in Milton’s chorus, ‘bedecked, ornate, and gay.’”
+ — Boston Transcript p12 O 24 ‘17 2800w
“No one could doubt the authenticity of these repeated conversations, for they are so consistent with her life and seem so possessed of her 192personality as to make one see the lift of her head, the whimsical light in her eye, and visualize the touch and gesture of her personality.”
+ Lit D 55:50 D 1 ‘17 170w
“Woolcott expresses the hope that some day Mrs Fiske will write her own book. It is here seconded, for it must be admitted that there is a feeling, especially in the opening chapters, that just when the actress is about to say something really vital, the writer interrupts her train of thought.” L: Gardy
+ — NY Call p15 D 29 ‘17 580w
“The book is full of interesting exposition, nuggets of wisdom, conclusions clearly thought out and forcibly presented. No one who is in the least interested in the theatre can fail to find the book fascinating and stimulating.”
+ N Y Times 22:578 D 30 ‘17 360w
+ R of Rs 57:108 Ja ‘18 110w
“The public needs not be told that Mrs Fiske is no ordinary theatrical celebrity, and there will be general expectation that a book of her views, if authentically reproduced, will be an individual and entertaining book. It is.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 N 25 ‘17 550w
FITCH, GEORGE. Twenty-four; where I took them and what they did to me. il *$1.25 (5c) Little 17-1930
George Fitch once went to Europe with twenty-four girls, winners in a newspaper circulation contest, in his charge. As he puts it, “Some reporters go to war, some have to jump out of balloons in patent parachutes, and some have to take parties of young and beautiful girls to Europe. It’s all in the game.” In this book he has given his own humorous version of the expedition.
“Appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal.”
A L A Bkl 13:315 Ap ‘17
“As a ‘cheer-up’ story to amuse girls of sixteen, we recommend the book heartily. For older readers it is a little too thin, and the situation is a bit overworked. ... The end drags.”
+ — Boston Transcript p8 Mr 28 ‘17 120w
N Y Br Lib News 4:24 F ‘17
“Very amusing.”
+ N Y Times 22:13 Ja 14 ‘17 300w
“The story emphasizes the loss sustained in the death of the kindly humorist.”
+ Springf’d Republican p15 F 25 ‘17 200w
FITZMAURICE, GEORGE. Five plays. *$1.25 Little 822 (Eng ed 15-5685)
“‘Five plays,’ by George Fitzmaurice, the Irish folk-dramatist, carry one into the midst of life in the Irish countryside. They are ‘The pie-dish,’ the story of an old Irishman who worked twenty years molding a fine pie dish and died cursing God because he wouldn’t let him live long enough to finish it; ‘The country dressmaker,’ ‘The magic glasses,’ ‘The dandy dolls,’ and a strong play, ‘The moonlighter,’ which pictures the peculiar conditions that nurture violence and revolutions in Ireland. The scene is the period of the agrarian revolt. Peter Guerin, the leading character, is a splendid type of an old Fenian.” (R of Rs) The book was first published by Maunsel (London and Dublin) in 1914.
A L A Bkl 14:49 N ‘17
“Mr Fitzmaurice is a connecting link between the earlier and the later writers of the Irish dramatic movement. In his technique, he is a contemporary Irish dramatist; in his simpler point of view and freer imagination, he is a true son of the pioneers. His vivid dialogue and character-drawing surpass most contemporary work. For sheer beauty, either of thought or expression, he does not equal his predecessors. As a realist, he writes in the modern vein; as a fantast, in the spirit of the earlier men. ... These ‘Five plays’ justify the hope that, if only the Abbey theatre will cease trying to be a Hibernian branch of Drury Lane, it can still produce real Irish dramatists.” Williams Haynes
+ — Dial 63:208 S 13 ‘17 820w
+ Ind 91:189 Ag 4 ‘17 50w
N Y Br Lib News 4:86 Je ‘17
“Fitzmaurice’s dialect has a richness of idiom that surpasses the familiar and monotonous Kiltartan, a gusty blowing freshness that is typically Irish, yet unlike that of Synge, or Colum, or the work of any other Irish folk-dramatist.”
+ R of Rs 55:662 Je ‘17 140w
FLANDRAU, GRACE HODGSON. Cousin Julia. *$1.40 (1½c) Appleton 17-22295
This is the story of a family in a middle western town. “Cousin Julia,” wife of a successful business man, is a social climber with two beautiful daughters, Virginia and Louise. Virginia, the finer and cleverer of the two, is, though she herself is ignorant of the fact for many years, an adopted daughter. Other characters are Félix de Lorme, a French marquis, who marries Louise, but falls in love with Virginia; Tom Collingsworth, a rich and rather commonplace young business man, who is Virginia’s other lover; Frau von Ernst, Virginia’s elderly friend; and Bob Tillinghurst, in the United States diplomatic service, and his wife Violet.
+ A L A Bkl 14:95 D ‘17
“A painstaking care for details of characterization distinguishes ‘Cousin Julia.’”
+ Boston Transcript p9 N 21 ‘17 700w
“Yet the book is more than readable; its charming pictures of the Middle West and its sardonic understanding of the Cinderella background of ‘les nouveaux’ help to point a shrewd moral.”
+ — Dial 63:353 O 11 ‘17 150w
“Written with sincerity. ... Interesting, principally because of the well-drawn figure of Julia. The Frenchman, Félix de Lorme, ‘an amateur of everything, of letters, of science, of love’ is also well done, and so is the small-natured and commonplace Louise. ... The picture of middle western society is amusingly presented.”
+ N Y Times 22:343 S 16 ‘17 320w
FLEAGLE, FRED K. Social problems in Porto Rico. $1 (3c) Heath 917.29 17-17543
A collection of data on the social problems of Porto Rico which the author brought together in the course of his work in rural sociology in the University of Porto Rico. Contents: Population; The jíbaro; Overpopulation; The family; Rural housing conditions; Woman and child labor; Industries; The land problem and unemployment; Poverty; Sickness and disease; Crime; Intemperance; Juvenile delinquents; Rural schools; The school and the community; Relation of the teacher to the community; Present-day rural school movements; Physical development and longevity.
Ind 92:487 D 8 ‘17 40w
“This book is a specific and not a general picture, and by no means an attractive one. But it satisfies a thirst for information that has been growing with those who hear constantly of the great poverty in Porto Rico. ... It may also assist some in a position to do so to set their shoulders to the task of amelioration—a task that needs more American shoulders.”
+ Nation 105:430 O 18 ‘17 1300w
+ R of Rs 57:221 F ‘18 140w
“‘Social problems in Porto Rico’ is short and to the point, almost to the extent of being dogmatic. It is well worth reading.” S. B. Grubbs
+ Survey 39:202 N 24 ‘17 400w
FLECKER, JAMES ELROY. Collected poems. il *$2 Doubleday 821 17-26316
James Elroy Flecker was a young English poet who died in 1915. J. C. Squire, who was with him at Oxford has edited his poems, contributing a biographical introduction to the volume. He had published four books of verse: 193“The bridge of fire,” 1907; “Forty-two poems,” 1911; “The golden journey to Samarkand,” 1913; “The old ships,” 1915. It is from these volumes that the present collection is reprinted, with twenty new poems added. The poems are arranged in two groups, Juvenilia, and Later poems, and they follow roughly a chronological order.
+ A L A Bkl 13:341 My ‘17
“It has been the fate, and perhaps the happy fate, of many English poets to die young. ... Great as was the promise of Middleton and Brooke, it is the death of Flecker that is perhaps our most grievous loss.”
+ Ath p527 N ‘16 1300w
Boston Transcript p7 F 24 ‘17 300w
“Poems of a young Englishman who died in 1915 at the age of thirty, and who belonged to the so-called Parnassian school—a group of seekers after perfection of form and the objective interpretation of beauty, represented in France by de Heredia and Leconte de Lisle.”
+ Cleveland p65 My ‘17 210w
“His achievement in verse is consistently high, but no single poem stands out as specially memorable.” Odell Shepard
+ Dial 63:19 Je 28 ‘17 180w
“He is almost the only upholder of art for art’s sake who can justify his practice to the unbeliever.” O. W. Firkins
+ Nation 106:90 Ja 24 ‘18 450w
“His family was Austrian, and perhaps it was because of such affiliation that he was attracted to eastern romance. ... He did a thing more difficult than the bringing back of an eastern glamour—(the glamour is there in The ballad of Iskander, and The golden journey to Samarkand)—he brought into contemporary poetry metres that suggest and may actually be derived from oriental verse. ... Except James Clarence Mangan no other poet has been able to weave English into such exotic patterns.” Padraic Colum
* + New Repub 10:sup12 Ap 21 ‘17 1250w
N Y Br Lib News 4:62 Ap ‘17
“There are a hundred interesting aspects of the man and his work which space forbids us to attempt. Like Rupert Brooke, he greatened to the last.”
+ N Y Times 22:77 Mr 4 ‘17 850w
+ Sat R 122:485 N 18 ‘16 1400w
+ Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 22 ‘17 800w
“His achievement is unlikely to occupy the industrious commentator, or to become the esoteric nucleus of a learned society. If it live, it will be because beauty created in words cannot easily die.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p457 S 28 ‘16 3600w
FLEMING, GUY. Diplomat. *$1.50 Longmans
“A picture of early 19th-century social and political life as seen in the family of a Yorkshire squire rich in sons who follow various careers, and a daughter who becomes a countess. But Guy Fleming, a novelist of considerable gifts, concentrates mainly on the career of the fourth son, which culminates in a long residence in a foreign capital. Upon his journals the story is supposed to be based.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Written in the leisurely Trollope manner.”
+ Dial 62:482 My 31 ‘17 120w
Ind 91:353 S 1 ‘17 40w
“There are sundry crimes, all vividly depicted, but leaving the reader disposed to wonder why it was worth while to write—and to write so well—a novel containing no character enlisting much sympathy and with but one scene that really touches the heart; a novel which, with all its merits, leaves the reader cold.”
– + N Y Times 22:131 Ap 8 ‘17 250w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p626 D 21 ‘16 70w
“Mr Fleming is so interesting that it is a pity his unweeded rhythmless style should make him so difficult to read.”
+ — The Times [London] Lit Sup p5 Ja 4 ‘17 580w
FLEMING, GUY. Off with the old love; a war story. *$1.50 (2c) Longmans 17-21972
“Though toward the end the scene of the story is shifted to France, to the trenches, and the hospitals, it is at Ravenscroft [in England] that most of the action takes place, and very many of the numerous characters live. ... The plot is an intricate one, with a lost daughter, a murder, an elopement, and no less than three love stories, not to mention several past romances, to increase its complications.”—N Y Times
“There are touches of comedy and two or three amusing characters in the book ... while the author’s intermittent comments are usually clever, often pungent, sometimes satiric, and always entertaining. The quiet restrained style has a good deal of charm. ... There is too much of the pleasantness and placidity in the book; at the end, one feels that persons such as the author has drawn, placed in situations such as those in which he has chosen to place them, would have been a good deal less comfortable than his various characters finally were.”
– + N Y Times 22:303 Ag 19 ‘17 580w
“Mr Fleming makes all the people in his new book subject to a great variety of coincidences, and when it is all over one feels that they and their surroundings have been a good deal wrenched to make them fit his little stage. ... The war does little to influence the course of the plays except that it provides a fanciful background for a series of coincidences and a target at which Mr Fleming aims a number of rather inapposite and bitter sayings.”
– + The Times [London] Lit Sup p316 Jl 5 ‘17 450w
FLETCHER, ALFRED CHARLES BENSON. From job to job around the world. il *$2 (3c) Dodd 910 17-25257
Mr Fletcher, a graduate of the University of California, tells in this book how he started with his fare paid from San Francisco to Honolulu and a five dollar gold piece in his pocket, and worked his way around the world in three years. He visited Hawaii, Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, Ceylon, India, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Europe, England, Norway, Spitzbergen, Sweden, and finally crossed the Atlantic to America. Mr Ralph J. Richardson, who was equally short of funds, was the author’s traveling companion on part of the trip, and took the photographs from which the book is illustrated. The narrative was originally published in the Wide World Magazine.
“A buoyant, high-spirited account of personal adventure, with graphic pictures of places and people. Illustrated with good photographs.”
+ A L A Bkl 14:92 D ‘17
“A very entertaining story he spins, not only about the world, or such considerable portions as he visited, but also about the calm assurance and readiness of American boys to make themselves at home in strange places and under remarkable conditions.” A. M. Chase
+ Bookm 46:334 N ‘17 90w
“His account of his adventures comes, in vivacity and shrewd observation and humorous description, a close second to Mark Twain’s Innocents abroad.’” N. H. D.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Ja 12 ‘18 520w
“Boyishly light-hearted but rather crude narrative.”
+ — Cleveland p138 D ‘17 70w
N Y Evening Post p1 O 13 ‘17 1800w
“Most of the traveling was done third class or steerage, a fact that affords interesting reading because so few American travelers choose to go in this fashion.”
+ N Y Times 22:574 D 23 ‘17 300w
St Louis 15:430 D ‘17 10w
194FLETCHER, CHARLES BRUNSDON. New Pacific; British policy and German aims; with a preface by Viscount Bryce, and a foreword by the Right Hon. W. M. Hughes. *$3 Macmillan 325.3
“‘The new Pacific’ is an Australian’s review of British and German dealings in the Pacific ocean, a lucid exposure of German methods and German designs, a statement of Pacific problems present and future, and an account of some representative Britons who have shaped history in those southern seas. The author, Mr Brunsdon Fletcher, is a leading journalist in Australia, associate editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“In this volume, to which Lord Bryce and the Prime minister of Australia have contributed some introductory pages, the author gives a clear and interesting exposition of German policy and aims in the Pacific, and of the long-growing misgivings on the part of Australians respecting the aggressive tendencies of their German neighbours.”
+ Ath p247 My ‘17 80w
Cleveland p99 Jl ‘17 70w
“His indictment of German aims amounts to very little. ... None the less, the book deserves the attention of American students of the whole political situation. The United States has large interests in the Pacific.”
+ — Nation 105:42 Jl 12 ‘17 750w
N Y Br Lib News 4:109 Jl ‘17
“We advise every one who wants to understand what Australia looks for in the terms of peace to read this book.”
+ Spec 118:590 My 26 ‘17 1300w
“Mr Brunsdon Fletcher has had access to first-hand information, written and oral, from the best sources; he has presented and arranged his facts with practised skill, grouping them round well-known characters; and the result is a book of singular interest and substantial value. ... If ‘The new Pacific’ had no other recommendation, it would be valuable as illustrating very forcibly and with much picturesqueness the great and much underrated influence which missionaries have had upon the onward movement of the British empire.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p147 Mr 29 ‘17 2100w
FLOURNOY, THÉODORE. Philosophy of William James; auth. tr. by Edwin B. Holt and W: James, jr. il *$1.30 (3c) Holt 191 17-6639
The author of this interpretation of William James’s philosophy is a professor in the faculty of sciences at the University of Geneva. The book itself is based on lectures which, delivered in 1910, were intended, in a way, as a memorial. In his first chapter the author makes some interesting observations on the importance of James’s artistic temperament. “He was a born psychologist and a psychologist of genius precisely because of this artistic insight, which in him, by a rare exception, was combined with the exact scientific spirit.” The chapters that follow take up in turn: Early environment; Rejection of monism; Pragmatism; Radical empiricism; Pluralism; Tychism; Meliorism and moralism; Theism; The will to believe; Summary and conclusion. A review of “The varieties of religious experience,” from the Revue Philosophique, is reprinted in an appendix.
+ A L A Bkl 13:373 Je ‘17
“This study of the philosophy of James is admitted by many to be the best that has been written upon the philosopher and is now translated into English by two men who personally and professionally are especially well fitted to be just both to James and to Professor Flournoy. ... It reminds us of the work of James himself in its very readable character.”
+ Boston Transcript p8 Mr 28 ‘17 350w
“It is clearly and simply written and furnishes an admirable introduction to the study of William James—quite the best that we have seen. And it is, moreover, a book that will be read with equal pleasure and profit by those already familiar with his work.”
+ Nation 104:462 Ap 19 ‘17 1000w
“Written in so simple a style that even those unversed in philosophical technology need not feel doubtful concerning it.”
+ N Y Times 22:141 Ap 15 ‘17 270w
St Louis 15:135 My ‘17 14w
+ Springf’d Republican p15 Ag 19 ‘17 290w
* + The Times [London] Lit Sup p376 Ag 9 ‘17 1750w
FLOWERS, MONTAVILLE. Japanese conquest of American opinion. *$1.50 (2c) Doran 325.7 17-3170
The author believes that the Japanese are carrying on a systematic campaign to win over American public opinion. The objects to be gained are: “The removal of restrictions on immigration; the rights of naturalisation, American citizenship, and of intermarriage with the white race; the overthrow of all anti-Asiatic land legislation in western states; the rapid acquisition of those lands; and all that follows.” The book is issued as a warning to America and as an offset to the writings of Sidney Gulick, H. A. Millis and others, deemed by the author vicious. The book consists of three parts: The Japanese problem; Forces and methods of the Japanese conquest; Bases of opinion, old and new.
“Will be useful in debate work.”
Cleveland p53 Ap ‘17 30w
“The temper of Mr Flowers is not altogether admirable. He is sometimes narrow and often vituperative; but he is, as we have noted, sincere and his contribution to the discussion of the ‘Japanese problem’ is worthy the careful attention of those who differ most widely from him.”
N Y Times 22:36 F 4 ‘17 650w
“His discussion is valuable solely as a presentation of an extreme point of view held by a number which, it may be supposed, increases geometrically as the Pacific coast draws nearer.”
Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 8 ‘17 130w
“We have heard much of Mr Flowers and his diatribes against the Japanese and his dreadful arraignment of such men as Sidney L. Gulick, Hamilton Holt, the late H. W. Mabie, the present reviewer and others. ... The pith of Mr Flowers’ argument is in an outcry against amalgamation. His peculiar ideas as to philosophy, history and ethnology are largely his own. ... He should have furnished an index for students of his closely printed and rather bulky work, so rich in fallacies.” W: E. Griffis
— Survey 37:699 Mr 17 ‘17 200w
FOERSTER, NORMAN, and PIERSON, WILLIAM WHATLEY, eds. American ideals. *$1.25 Houghton 815 17-25284
Under the heads of Liberty and union, State and nation, American democracy, American foreign policy, and Foreign opinion of the United States, are brought together certain essays, addresses and state papers that express ideals of statesmen and of men of letters from Thomas Jefferson to Woodrow Wilson, from Alexis de Tocqueville to Alfred J. Balfour. The authors refer to the collection as “expressions of our national and international conscience” on ideals, policies and political tendencies of our country.
A L A Bkl 14:121 Ja ‘18
“Ushered in by Mr Woodbury’s splendid sonnet, ‘Our first century,’ these selections challenge as well as inspire.”
+ Boston Transcript p8 O 17 ‘17 270w
“The purpose of the volume is evident and praiseworthy. It might well be adopted as a school reader. But for the public at large, outside the schools, it is valuable, for it brings together the finest utterances on a theme of vital importance, many of them not easily accessible.” J. B. Landfield
+ Educ R 55:75 Ja ‘18 600w
195“The selections are judiciously made and we believe that the book should prove useful in the inculcation of a thoughtful and intelligent patriotism among the rising generation.”
+ Ind 92:193 O 27 ‘17 70w
R of Rs 56:549 N ‘17 60w
FOGARTY, KATE HAMMOND. Story of Montana. il *$1 (1½c) Barnes 978.6 16-16737
This story of Montana was written “to meet the demand for a suitable textbook for schools, and also for the many lovers of Montana who wish to become familiar with the main facts of its early as well as present-day history without having to consult many separate volumes.” (Preface) The book is made up of ten chapters: Early explorers in Montana; The Indians; The fur trade; Visitors to the posts; The missionaries to the Indians; The first settlers; The soldiers in Montana; Development of the state; Transformation of the Indians; National problems in Montana. The national problems treated in this last chapter are Irrigation, Dry-land farming and Forestry.
+ Boston Transcript p8 Ja 31 ‘17 110w
“Intended as a text-book for the public schools, ‘The story of Montana’ also makes its appeal to the adult reader.”
+ R of Rs 54:683 D ‘16 50w
FOOTE, JOHN TAINTOR. Dumb-Bell of Brookfield. il *$1.35 Appleton 17-6535
“One need not be an enthusiast about hunting dogs or dogs in general to appreciate and thoroughly enjoy half a dozen stories, all related, that are grouped in this volume. Dumb-Bell appears first as a runt of a puppy, the son of the late champion setter, but so insignificant as to be ‘a stone despised by the builders, that is made the head of the corner.’ His anonymous triumph puts him instantly on the throne of his father, as told in the first story. Later chapters have to do partly with his own career and partly with his owners and other people and dogs at Brookfield.”—Springf’d Republican
“Full of pathos and humor, they show a complete understanding of dogs without making them in the least human. Good for reading aloud.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:315 Ap ‘17
+ N Y Times 22:136 Ap 15 ‘17 200w
+ Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 29 ‘17 150w
“Somewhat out of the ordinary. Appeared in American Magazine.”
+ Wis Lib Bul 13:158 My ‘17 20w
FOOTE, MRS MARY (HALLOCK). Edith Bonham. *$1.50 (2c) Houghton 17-8582
The friendship between two women is the foundation of this story. One of them marries and goes out into the unknown West. (The time of the story is fully a generation ago.) Here the other, Edith Bonham, follows her some years later, intending to make her home there and to help in caring for her friend’s children. She arrives just in time to learn of Anne’s death. For the sake of the children, she remains, resolved to make up as best she can for their loss. She at first wholly misunderstands her friend’s husband, a quiet man of deep feeling and few words. But in time a sympathetic understanding breaks down the barriers and they are drawn together.
“Distinctly a woman’s book, one of the few which interpret the best American types.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:402 Je ‘17
“The reader may find himself (if not herself) in a rather impatient mood before all the misapprehensions and mystifications of a fairly simple situation are permitted to be cleared up. Mrs Foote’s style, as always, with its quiet clarity, offers grateful refreshment to ears which may be a trifle weary of the din and ‘punch’ of the current literary mode.” H. W. Boynton
+ — Bookm 45:648 Ag ‘17 350w
“Will probably be considered her most appealing novel. Mrs Foote writes with the method of the great novelists of an earlier generation. There is nothing of sketchiness in her literary product. Her characters are limned with delightful attention to details.” H. S. K.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Ap 21 ‘17 550w
“A detailed leisurely story with a few excellent characterizations but with what seems to be a wilful and superfluous piling up of barriers between the two chief characters.”
+ — Cleveland p63 My ‘17 50w
“Mrs Foote is one of our veteran novelists and she knows her business. I ask, however, with due respect whether the book should not end on page 321, whether the postscript is not superfluous.” J: Macy
+ — Dial 63:113 Ag 16 ‘17 100w
“So much for the crude substance of the book: its merit lies elsewhere, in the quiet and sure rendering of that substance by a delicate womanly hand.”
+ Nation 105:40 Jl 12 ‘17 500w
“The story has the human appeal and sure touch in dealing with life found always in Mrs Foote’s work.”
+ Wis Lib Bul 13:158 My ‘17 50w
For France; ed. by C: Hanson Towne. il *$2.50 Doubleday 940.91 17-29466
Tributes to France in story, poem and song, from the hearts of a notable group of America’s authors, painters, musicians, sculptors and actors. The offerings are all short, with a note of deep loyalty and affection for the people who from ‘76-‘83 sent us their money and their men under the leadership of their Lafayette and Rochambeau. The chapters, full of sympathy, and of the sense of debt we owe, have a heartening message for the heroic, dry-eyed patriots who have been shaken to the depths with sorrow; while for Americans they serve as a new spur to fight the harder for justice, humanity, liberty, democracy.
Reviewed by Albert Schinz
+ Bookm 46:292 N ‘17 150w
“While there is much repetition of sentiment in it, and while some of the writers are so emotional and temperamentally strung that they are unable to give vision to their words, there are, nevertheless, a number of notable and significant contributions. Such, for example, is Mr Owen Wister’s address in French. But from the standpoint of literary permanence the volume is sorely lacking.”
+ — Ind 92:561 D 22 ‘17 140w
“It is amazing simply as a collection of names, if nothing more. The volume strikes a lofty note as a work of art—art with a purpose, certainly. A peculiarly rich and beautiful tribute to France.”
+ N Y Times 22:476 N 18 ‘17 850w
“It appears to us that the theme has appealed to the writers and artists and that there is little or nothing in the volume that is not inspired by very genuine feeling.”
+ Outlook 117:521 N 28 ‘17 90w
+ Springf’d Republican p8 N 23 ‘17 410w
For the right; essays and addresses by members of the “Fight for right movement.” *$1.50 Putnam (*5s T. Fisher Unwin, London) 940.91 (Eng ed 17-3139)
“A series of addresses, which were delivered at King’s college, London, to explain the principles for which the Allies are fighting and to show how they may be established in the life of nations when the peace settlement has been made. The aim of the Fight for right movement is to keep these ideals before the nation, and prevent it from being diverted by ‘minor questions of trade and territory and retaliation.’ The authors of the papers included in the present volume are Lord Bryce, Sir Henry Newbolt, Mr Maurice Hewlett, Mr Wilfrid Ward, Dr Robert Bridges, Dr L. P. Jacks, Prof. Gilbert Murray, Prof. Ramsay Muir, Sir Frederick Pollock, Mr Philip Kerr, Mr A. F. Whyte, Mr H. Wickham Steed, the Rev. W. Temple, Evelyn Underbill, Mr Arthur Boutwood, and M. 196Painlevé.” (Ath) There is a three-page bibliography for Mr A. F. Whyte’s lecture, “The outlook of a good European.”
Ath p584 D ‘16 130w
“We, too, have learned, ever since the second of April last, how much harder is the task, how much greater is the sacrifice we have undertaken than we at first supposed. So it comes about that the words of this book, which were meant for England, seem made for us.”
+ Nation 105:228 Ag 30 ‘17 380w
“‘For the right’ would make uncomfortable reading for the German Chancellor; it would cause him to search his conscience. Our publicists, now busy with the stale and futile ‘barbarian’ whipper-up of public feeling, might learn from this even-tempered volume how to put democratic driving-force behind the complex realities of a liberal peace.”
+ New Repub 10:303 Ap 7 ‘17 400w
Pittsburgh 22:681 O ‘17 130w
FORBES, JOHN MAXWELL. Doubloons—and the girl. il *$1.25 (1½c) Sully & Kleinteich 17-10668
A tale of treasure hunting. The discovery of an old Spanish pirate’s chart has the usual effect on the imagination of the finders. No one who has a pirate’s chart in his possession can rest easy until he is aboard ship and on his way after the treasure. In this case the search party consists of two old men, one of them the captain, two young men, and one girl, the captain’s daughter. The mate, a one-eyed seaman who has discovered the purpose of the expedition, is the villain who all but destroys the success of the expedition. The island on which the treasure is buried is volcanic, and eruptions and earthquakes are added to mutiny to give color to the tale.
Boston Transcript p6 My 2 ‘17 200w
“The tale is related with some spirit, and is not unentertaining.”
+ N Y Times 22:138 Ap 15 ‘17 200w
“A lively, though conventional tale.”
+ Springf’d Republican p19 My 20 ‘17 200w
FORBES, NEVILL. Russian grammar. 2d ed rev and enl *$2 Oxford 491.7 17-13555
“Dr Forbes’s ‘Russian grammar’ is timely. ... Dr Forbes seems to have made a point of omitting those rules which, although accepted in standard grammars, are nevertheless subject to numerous exceptions. Russian grammar can safely undergo this process of simplification to a considerable extent. ... Perhaps the greatest difficulty presented by the Russian language lies in the aspects of the verb. ... The author’s treatment of this part of the subject is particularly thorough.”—Ath
“The book is intended for the use of students working with a teacher or those who, working alone, wish to learn to read. It seems to us admirably suited for its purpose. ... We believe that those who have already an elementary knowledge of the subject will find the ‘Grammar’ excellent.”
+ Ath 1915, 1:161 F 20 480w
“The interest in Russia that has grown up during the present war has produced a large number of grammars and handbooks to the Russian language. The fullest and most scientific of these books is Mr Nevill Forbes’s.”
+ St Louis 15:140 My ‘17 40w (Reprinted from Modern Language Review)
FORBES, NEVILL, ed. Third Russian book. *$1 Oxford 491.7 (Eng ed 18-383)
A reader of selections, supplementing the language teaching of the “First Russian book” and the “Second Russian book.” “Four notable men of letters are represented in Mr Forbes’s ‘Third Russian book’: Aksakov, aristocrat, naturalist, sportsman, and author: Grigorovitch, painter, novelist, and art-critic; Herzen, philosopher, historian, reformer, and exile; and Saltykov, satirist. The text is clear, and plentifully provided with foot-notes.” (Ath)
Ath p305 Je ‘17 40w
“The notes are good, though somewhat needlessly full on the simpler passages and scanty on those more difficult; the vocabulary is adequate and carefully prepared. The weak point of the volume is in the choice of material. ... No one of the authors represented is of the very first rank, and of the five selections two are the opening chapters of novels. It is a model of neat, careful printing.”
– + Nation 105:266 S 6 ‘17 150w
FORBES, WALDO EMERSON. Cycles of personal belief. *$1.25 (3c) Houghton 121 17-10884
The cycle of personal belief which the author traces comprises a process of illusion, disillusion, and reillusion. Disillusion cannot be permanent because of the soul’s craving for positive elements. “Thought, phoenix-like, begins perpetually to create new beliefs, to build, to affirm, and to renew the world.” But belief, after all, plays little practical part in our lives, for we discover that a perception of truth does not guarantee an obedience to truth. There is another cycle, growing out of experience, that follows the cycle of belief. The stages of this the author terms generation, degeneration and regeneration. But he does not imply that, even with regeneration, a permanent goal is reached: “Our moments of peace are given for the reception of new visions, and these, however gently the hint at first is given, are each and all incentive to action. Human life embosomed in paradise at one pole plunges into turmoil at the other. The struggle is not over, the problems are not solved.”
“Mr Waldo Emerson Forbes has succeeded in cultivating something of the style both of thought and of expression which one finds in the writings of the great essayist, his grandfather, whom his name brings to mind.”
+ Nation 105:152 Ag 9 ‘17 230w
N Y Br Lib News 4:94 Je ‘17
Pratt p6 O ‘17 10w
+ St Louis 15:167 Je ‘17 10w
FORD, SEWELL. Wilt thou, Torchy. il *$1.35 (2c) Clode, E: J. 17-5451
Sewell Ford’s clever stories, told in the latest up-to-the-minute vernacular, seem to lose none of their popularity and Torchy is a hero who rivals Shorty McCabe in public favor. This book contains seventeen new stories, reprinted from Every Week. Torchy relates his own adventures, telling of his progress upward in the Corrugated trust company, and of his mishaps and final success in courtship under the keen and not encouraging eye of “Auntie.”
“Will be popular.”
A L A Bkl 13:353 My ‘17
“Torchy is still the unique creation of Mr Ford’s brain and it is to be hoped that the advancing years will not materially change him, it being taken for granted that more of his delightfully humorous tales will soon be forthcoming to give pleasure to young and old.”
+ Boston Transcript p8 Mr 28 ‘17 230w
+ N Y Times 22:80 Mr 4 ‘17 150w
Reviewed by E. P. Wyckoff
+ Pub W 91:968 Mr 17 ‘17 450w
FORDYCE, CLAUDE POWELL. Touring afoot. (Outing handbooks) il *80c (3c) Outing pub. 796 17-4213
A three mile walk daily in the interests of health is the author’s advice, given in the first chapter. The man who has kept himself in trim thru this daily exercise will be ready for the longer tramps discussed in the remainder of the book. The author writes of: Hitting the trail; Going in “light”; Woods walking with a pack; Map reading; Packs and packing; Footwear; Efficient cruising shelters; Camp making; The outdoor bed question; Choosing the light weight mess kit; The ration list; Health hints for hikers; Winter travel afoot.
+ Wis Lib Bul 13:218 Jl ‘17 50w
197FORNARO, CARLO DE.[2] Modern purgatory. *$1.25 (4c) Kennerley 365 17-31926
“This book is a record of the prison experiences of Carlo de Fornaro, artist, writer, editor, revolutionary. It is a record of experiences in the famous Tombs prison, in New York city, and in the New York city penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island.” (Introd.) The offense against the laws of the state of New York on which the author was convicted was criminal libel against Diaz, then president of Mexico. If the reader does not see the relation between facts and consequences as set forth in the introduction, he must accept the situation as another evidence of the strange and wonderful ways of justice in our land. The book itself is a narrative of daily prison life told without bitterness and with only unspoken condemnation of a heartless and futile system.
“Mr Fornaro’s is not what the Puritan calls a pleasant book. But it possesses the rare degree of truth that one finds more often in Russian than in American writing. His is the most vivid, concrete description of the mediaeval survival in the heart of our modern cities, and the most realistic illustration of the need for such reform as Mr Osborne has instituted that has yet appeared.”
+ Boston Transcript p4 D 15 ‘17 380w
“The book is interesting, but neither subtle nor detailed enough to rank as literature. He paints at all times with the artist’s love of a picture, never with the scientist’s love of accurate statement.” W. D. Lane
+ — Survey 39:469 Ja 26 ‘18 450w
FORSTNER, GEORG GÜNTHER, freiherr von. Journal of submarine commander von Forstner; tr. by Mrs Russell Codman. il *$1 (5½c) Houghton 940.91 18-8
This translation of the journal of a German submarine commander appears in book form with an introduction by John Hays Hammond, jr., who writes of “The challenge to naval supremacy.” In her foreword the translator says, “The following pages form an abridged translation of a book published in 1916 by freiherr von Forstner, commander of the first German U-boat. ... Many repetitions and trivial incidents have been omitted in this translation; but, in order to express the personality of the author, the rendering has been as literal as possible, and it shows the strange mixture of sentimentality and ferocity peculiar to the psychology of the Germans.” In part the work is a personal account, in part a technical description of the activities of a submarine. There are seven illustrations from photographs.
“Gives American readers a good opportunity to get the German conception of the deadly efficiency of their favorite sea weapon.”
+ R of Rs 57:101 Ja ‘18 70w
FORSYTH, PETER TAYLOR. Justification of God. (Studies in theology) *90c (1c) Scribner 231 17-9816
“Lectures for war-time on a Christian theodicy” is the sub-title of this book, and the unfamiliar word is defined as “the attempt to adjust the ways of God to conscience.” Contents: Overture and outline; The expectations of popular religion and their fate; The problems: revelation and teleology; Metaphysic and redemption; What is redemption? Salvation theological but not systematic; The failure of the church as an international authority; Teleology acute in a theodicy; Philosophical theodicy; The eternal cruciality of the cross for destiny; Saving judgment; History and judgment; The conquest of time by eternity; Bibliography.
“It is a pity the book could not have been written in simpler style. To understand it will be far beyond the average layman, and parts of it will puzzle the theologian. Taken as a whole, however, the purpose of the author is clear and his reasoning conclusive.”
+ — Boston Transcript p6 S 12 ‘17 180w
N Y Times 22:500 N 25 ‘17 50w
FORTESCUE, GRANVILLE ROLAND.[2] France bears the burden. il *$1.25 (3c) Macmillan 940.91 17-30748
This book devoted to France and her part in the war consists of chapters on: The glory of France; Monsieur Poilu of Paris; Verdun, the battle epic; In the Argonne; In the stream of the Somme fighting; The business of war; The flying fighters; Thoughts on shrapnel and tanks; Who pays for the war? The burden France has borne. In a letter, reprinted as a foreword, M. André Tardieu says to the author: “That which, in my opinion, gives special value to your book on France in war time, is that you have not been content only to gather therein the excellent articles sent by you from Paris and the front to the Washington Post, but you also, from your observations and experiences, develop a picture of the whole subject. Yours is the work of the historian.” Major Fortescue is author of “At the front with three armies,” and other works.
“Full appreciation of France is revealed on every page of Mr Fortescue’s book. One might almost complain that his praise of France and her brave men implies a discrimination against the British and American troops.”
+ — Boston Transcript p6 Ja 2 ‘18 200w
“Much above the average level of the descriptive war books now appearing.” Joshua Wanhope
+ N Y Call p14 D 29 ‘17 320w
+ Outlook 118:32 Ja 2 ‘18 50w
FOSDICK, HARRY EMERSON. Challenge of the present crisis. *50c (3c) Assn. press 172.4 17-28192
A message for all who are asking these questions: In what mood shall a Christian, or for that matter an idealist of any kind, face the catastrophe? With what considerations and insights can he support his faith and hope? How can he harmonize his ideals with his necessities of action in a time of war? His answer gives reasons for accepting the present crisis as a challenge and concludes with: “The present war is an appalling commentary upon our failure to fulfil or even to acknowledge our obligations. We have seen our duty in too little terms; we have but dimly understood what the Master wanted of us. We are challenged to understand it now; the call is written in lines of fire on the map of the world; and we shall be renegade, indeed, if we do not now accept before it is too late the opportunity for international service which this war reveals.”