Book Review Digest Devoted to the Valuation of Current Literature Reviews of 1917 Books (continued 41)
Reading edition
+ N Y Times 22:543 D 9 ‘17 570w
“There is little unrelieved tragedy in the book. The letters would be far less significant 527than they are if the writer had not the sensibility to recognize the full horror of what is taking place, but he observes it from an angle which lets the horror be seen in quaint patterns.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p439 S 13 ‘17 620w
SONNECK, OSCAR GEORGE THEODORE. Suum cuique; essays in music. *$2.50 Schirmer 780.4 17-406
Mr Sonneck is the editor of the Musical Quarterly (New York) and has been chief of the music division, Library of Congress, since 1902. “Among the topics treated by him in this volume of essays are ‘Music and progress,’ ‘MacDowell versus MacDowell,’ ‘A national conservatory: some pros and cons,’ ‘A survey of music in America,’ and ‘Signs of a new uplift in Italy’s musical life.’ Also included in this volume are several interesting biographical studies—‘The musical side of our first presidents,’ ‘Benjamin Franklin’s musical side,’ and ‘Was Richard Wagner a Jew?’”—R of Rs
“‘Suum cuique’ is not a particularly alluring title for a book of essays on music, but O. G. Sonneck knows how to hold the attention of all who open this volume.” H: T. Finck
+ Nation 105:546 N 15 ‘17 260w
N Y Br Lib News 4:73 My ‘17 50w
+ R of Rs 55:219 F ‘17 80w
SORLEY, CHARLES HAMILTON. Marlborough, and other poems. *$1 Putnam 821
The author was a young poet and soldier who was killed on the western front in 1916. “Poetry seems to have been the natural expression of his mind, yet he hardly sought this expression until the last year of his life. In a certain mystic quality his poems are comparable to the early work of W. B. Yeats; in intense love of the very soil of his country, to the sonnets of Rupert Brooke; and in fatalism and ardent, heroic realization of the values of life and death to our own young poet so lately dead, Alan Seeger.” (R of Rs)
“This volume, as it stands, will, like the volumes of Rupert Brooke, afford convincing demonstration of what England is sacrificing in this war,—lives that would have shaped the thought and feeling of our country in the first half of the present century. It will bear testimony also to the type of men who, when the bolt fell in August 1914, hesitated not in offering their services to the nation.” G. D. Hicks
+ Hibbert J 14:659 Ap ‘16 1200w
Pratt p33 Ja ‘17
“The poetic work of Charles Hamilton Sorley, late of Marlborough college and sometime captain in the Suffolk regiment, has the double appeal of beauty and of pathos. It is astonishing that a boy of eighteen should have written poetry of so high an order filled with such precocious maturity of thought.”
+ R of Rs 55:210 F ‘17 450w
“The six months that he spent in Germany before the war inspired him with respect and tolerance for our enemies. For the rest, we may note his intense love of Downland and of Marlborough. The later verses are unrevised, and often rough and halting in metre, but they have vision and an unaffected originality of imagery.”
+ Spec 116:661 My 27 ‘16 400w
“The third edition contains ‘illustrations in prose’ which Sorley’s friends will not like to miss. ... He was a careful letter-writer, and his letters, though they were probably written quickly, add materially to the value and dignity of this memorial volume.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p580 D 7 ‘16 250w
SOUINY-SEYDLITZ, LEONIE IDA PHILIPOVNA, baroness. Russia of yesterday and to-morrow. il *$2 (3½c) Century 947 17-18377
“Baroness Souiny is by birth a Czech, a native of one of the Balkan States, and married a Russian baron and lived ever since in Russia until she came to America, soon after the beginning of the war.” (N Y Times) Her first chapter, Awakening Russia, and her last, Russia of to-morrow deal with the revolution of 1917, the difficulty of bringing the Russian peasants to a realization of what democracy means, and what the provisional government really is. Other chapters deal with: The military party; Aristocratic women in Russian life and politics; German influence in Russia; America and Russia; Russian art, dramatic literature and music, etc. That on America and Russia argues that “Russia and America have so much to give each other of ethical, spiritual and practical values that the alliance of which Russians dream and which the Americans once declined must come about.”
“More entertaining than authoritative.”
– + A L A Bkl 14:23 O ‘17
“A leisurely, chatty, well-meaning but unreliable, woefully incoherent book.” Abraham Yarmolinsky
– + Bookm 46:483 D ‘17 190w
“The baroness’s style sometimes suggests that she is herself subject to German influences. Her spelling was certainly made in Germany. ... She has little but good to say of Grigorii Rasputin, who ‘brought back the Czar to his people and the people to the Czar.’ The book, with its comments on literature, art and music, its descriptions of travel, its many entertaining anecdotes and trivialities and its sixteen full-page illustrations is well worth reading, but it must be read with caution, for it abounds in questionable judgments.” N. H. D.
Boston Transcript p6 Je 20 ‘17 800w
“Most interesting is the author’s reaction to the revolution. She makes it very plain that she has little faith in the lasting powers of the democracy. ... Among other word pictures is one of the monk, Gregory Rasputin. The Baroness sees him as a simple peasant, absolutely patriotic and religious, a ‘Russian Billy Sunday.’”
+ — Dial 63:214 S 13 ‘17 300w
Ind 91:30 Jl 7 ‘17 120w
“There is grace, charm, picturesqueness and ease in the literary manner of this book, but the volume is crowded with equivocations, contradictions and half-thoughts. The author’s point of view concerning the temper of the people and the future of the republic is disappointingly feudal. Her prejudices cling to her like barnacles.” D: Rosenstein
– + N Y Call p14 Ag 5 ‘17 2000w
“Her pages are very readable, but the more one reads, the more does one wonder, or doubt, if she is justified always in her generalizations. And those doubts increase when one reaches the chapters in which she deals with recent events and discovers her point of view.”
N Y Times 22:262 Jl 15 ‘17 650w
“Possibly a little hectic, wordy, and hastily put together for the reader’s entire satisfaction.”
– + Outlook 116:593 Ag 15 ‘17 120w
Pittsburgh 22:675 O ‘17 70w
“It is evident that the writer possesses an acquaintance with her people that is the fruit not only of long familiarity but also of intelligent study. In them she has faith.”
+ Springf’d Republican p8 Je 26 ‘17 300w
SPENCE, LEWIS. Myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria. il *$3 (3c) Stokes 299 17-4995
It is the author’s belief that this book will appeal particularly to the modern reader who loves the romance of antiquity. His aim has been “to provide not only a popular account of the religion and mythology of ancient Babylonia and Assyria, but to extract and present to the reader the treasures of romance latent in the subject, the peculiar richness of which has been recognized since the early days of archæological effort in Chaldea.” The book has eight color plates by Evelyn Paul and thirty-two other illustrations.
528“The title of the volume is just a trifle misleading. Although most of the myths and legends of the Babylonians and Assyrians are rather fully presented, the book is after all more largely a discussion of the religion of these two peoples. The author has given his readers a fairly good presentation of that religion, but it is doubtful whether the book is one whit more interesting than many books in the field that are the work of specialists, and it was just this that the volume was intended to popularize. ... The book abounds in inaccuracies, hardly pardonable even in one who is not a specialist. The author has depended too largely upon older writings and upon men like Sayce and Hilprecht, neither of whom is particularly reliable. The black-and-white illustrations are good, but those in color by Evelyn Paul are neither artistic nor historically true.” T. J. Meek
+ — Am J Theol 21:459 Jl ‘17 730w
A L A Bkl 14:23 O ‘17
“Mr Spence, our leading authority on Mexican archaeology and mythology, has here given a popular account of the religion and mythology of ancient Babylonia and Assyria, a subject which he knows well. With the general reader in view, he has endeavoured, not to separate the gold of romance from the darker ore of antiquarian research, but to blend romance and knowledge. The result, with a theme so rich in enchantment, is a picturesque and fascinating book, that, if it does not add to knowledge, will add extensively to the band of readers interested in comparative religion and ancient history. ... There is a first-class index.”
+ Ath p583 D ‘16 130w
SPENCER, HERBERT. Man versus the state. *$2 (2c) Kennerley 301 16-23151
Mr Beale, the editor, has prepared this edition of Spencer’s essays for publication in the belief that they are particularly applicable to conditions in America at the present time. The essays, he says, were written by Spencer “to warn the English people against the blight of officialism.” The same danger of “over-legislation” and “over-administration” now exists in America, he believes. The essays are published with critical comments by prominent Americans, among them Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge, E. H. Gary, Augustus P. Gardner, Nicholas Murray Butler and William Howard Taft.
Cleveland p6 Ja ‘17 50w
“Particularly interesting are Elihu Root on ‘The new toryism’ and E. H. Gary on ‘Overlegislation.’ But it is no disparagement to any of these men to say that the clarity and dexterity in exposition that characterized Spencer put almost any man at a disadvantage whose writing is set side by side with these paragraphs dictated so long ago.”
+ Nation 104:166 F 8 ‘17 300w
“The underlying conception of this edition was an entirely admirable one; its execution has come very near to tragedy. ... Gathering about him in massed formation the heavy artillery of American conservatism—Mr Root, Dr Butler, Judge Gary, Mr Taft—Mr Beale has prefaced Spencer’s essays by a series of prose lyrics which, while they may gratify the few remaining adherents of the Spencerian philosophy, are otherwise valuable only as a somewhat inept expression of the ideals of the last age.” H. J. L.
— New Repub 10:142 Mr 3 ‘17 1650w
“For the man or woman who wishes to see clearly just what problems the United States is facing, and which must be worked out to our best national advantage, there is no better contribution to political thought than this volume of economic and sociological wisdom founded upon the broad philosophical foundation that ‘those forces that create and develop nations are not to be restricted by prohibitory acts of legislatures.’”
+ R of Rs 55:104 Ja ‘17 200w
SPIEGEL VON UND ZU PECKELSHEIM, EDGAR, freiherr. Adventures of the U-202; an actual narrative. *$1 (4c) Century 940.91 17-6334
The title-page tells us the author is commander of the U-202, and a copyright notice says that the book is published by arrangement with the New York World, but it is not stated whether the book is a translation or an original account, whether it was first written for German or for American readers. It gives an account of the routine on a German submarine, of the thrills and dangers encountered, of the methods of attacking enemy ships, of tracking them down or escaping from them, and finally describes the joyous homecoming of a U-boat crew.
“The author is possessed of complete knowledge of under-sea craft and its methods. His technical account of the U-boat in operation and of the life of those who man it, is worth reading.”
Boston Transcript p14 Ap 7 ‘17 200w
“References to the hated English are sometimes unnecessarily vituperative, as was only natural. The book is decidedly out of the ordinary, and will arouse even the jaded reader of war narratives.” P. F. Bicknell
Dial 62:306 Ap 5 ‘17 120w
“Presents us with a ‘peculiar’ sea-faring psychology. It crops out in the bombastic manner of our dare-devil hero and his stage-strutting crew. Compare this stuff with the modest, straightforward narrative of a real sailor such as Captain König of the ‘Deutschland!’ The book does not bear a single German official endorsement.”
— Ind 90:298 My 12 ‘17 60w
N Y Br Lib News 4:58 Ap ‘17
“An exciting and thoroughly interesting book. It has in it a good deal of out-and-out information about submarines and submarine warfare. And it gives its readers many a thrill. It has its place in the public’s war library.”
+ N Y Times 22:182 My 6 ‘17 300w
SPINDLER, FRANK NICHOLAS.[2] Sense of sight. *$1.25 Moffat 17-23764
“The aim of this volume is to tell the story of the wonderful power of vision in plain English and in a readable way, and yet keep true to the scientific facts and theories. There is a chapter on visual illusions, and another analyzing the visual type of mind. The book closes with a chapter on Hygiene of the eye and of vision.” (Boston Transcript) This volume is one of the new series “Our senses and what they mean to us.” One other volume has also been issued, “The sense of taste,” by H. L. Hollingworth and A. T. Poffenberger.
“Though elementary, the book is enlightening; though detailed, it is comprehensive.”
+ Boston Transcript p6 O 24 ‘17 250w
“It rarely rises above meagre adequacy; and it is in a measure unfortunate that so important a subject fails of any distinctive handling. The arrangement of the chapters is admirable.”
– + Dial 64:116 Ja 31 ‘18 230w
“One is pleased to find so much useful information presented in comparatively few pages and couched in simple, popular language.” Medicus
+ N Y Call p15 N 4 ‘17 200w
SPINGARN, JOEL ELIAS. Creative criticism: essays on the unity of genius and taste. *$1.20 (5½c) Holt 801 17-15179
The first essay in this book, The new criticism, was published in 1911, after its delivery as a lecture at Columbia university. It was regarded at that time as quite iconoclastic in its ruthless destruction of time-honored standards. Added to it in this volume are three other essays: Dramatic criticism and the theatre; Prose and verse; and Creative connoisseurship. A note on genius and taste, a reply to a criticism of the first essay by John Galsworthy, is given in an appendix.
A L A Bkl 14:16 O ‘17
529“What Mr Spingarn fails lamentably and completely to realize is that the conception of the drama as ‘a creative art born in the brain of the playwright’ and as something inextricably concerned with theatres and actors are not irreconcilable at all.” F. I.
Boston Transcript p6 Jl 11 ‘17 1400w
Ind 91:184 Ag 4 ‘17 100w
N Y Times 22:248 Jl 1 ‘17 980w
+ R of Rs 56:103 Jl ‘17 180w
“Prof. Spingarn’s views should awaken as much debate on their reappearing as when first promulgated.”
Springf’d Republican p19 My 20 ‘17 800w
“He demolishes more decayed and genteel traditions than the Victorians can justly be taxed with; and in the face of new realities his enthusiasm is so keen and clear-sighted that we wish that he would give us a few examples of the art besides this spirited defence of it. We wish indeed that he had written a longer book; for the subjects he deals with are very complex, and many of the interesting things that he says would be still more interesting if they were discussed more fully.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p271 Je 7 ‘17 1100w
SPRING, LEVERETT WILSON. History of Williams college. il *$3 (4c) Houghton 378 17-15570
Professor Spring for twenty-three years held the chair of English literature at Williams college, and is now an emeritus professor. The opening of the college is described and the history is brought down to date, but “a detailed survey of the present administration is not attempted.” There are eighteen illustrations, nine of them pictures of college presidents, and nine appendixes, one of which gives “Williams volunteers, graduate and non-graduate, in the Civil war and their rank.”
“The general reader may find not a little to attract him in the descriptions of college life a century ago and in the biographical sketch of Mark Hopkins.”
+ Ind 91:296 Ag 25 ‘17 60w
+ Lit D 55:36 S 29 ‘17 270w
“It will hold its field alone, for no history of the college has appeared for many years, and its most exhaustive predecessor contains an intermixture of much historical matter upon Williamstown. The author has proportioned it in an unusual way. The history of the institution proper is held within bounds which leave abundant space for an account of the college life of the more eminent alumni of Williams, and to a certain extent of their later careers.”
+ Nation 105:435 O 18 ‘17 430w
“The author’s text might well have been more vivid.”
+ — Outlook 116:489 Jl 25 ‘17 110w
“A well-written and appropriately illustrated history. Any history of Williams must necessarily be largely given up to biographical sketches of personalities who as presidents and professors have built up the institution. Although always a small college, relatively speaking, Williams has, throughout its history, exerted an influence in the nation out of all proportion to its size.”
+ R of Rs 56:328 S ‘17 70w
“This is not a mere retelling of a story already twice told, but is an authoritative narrative, based upon painstaking researches, which have brought to light a considerable amount of new material having to do especially with the earlier years of the college. ... This well-proportioned, informing, and thoroughly readable book should be attractive to all interested in the early life of New England and in the history of American education.”
* + Springf’d Republican p10 Je 22 ‘17 1500w
SPRUNT, JAMES.[2] Chronicles of the Cape Fear River, 1660-1916. 2d ed $4 Rosa P. Chiles, 142 A st., N.E., Washington, D.C. 17-10368
A revised and enlarged edition of a work that was privately printed by the author in 1915.
“The additions, amounting to exactly one hundred pages of text, are supplemented by six rare maps and a thoroughly adequate index of forty-four pages. The most important additions are ‘Wilmington in the forties,’ eight papers by John MacLaurin which originally appeared in the local newspapers; three reports on Wilmington trade, 1815, 1843, 1872; the sketch, by Miss Rosa Pendleton Chiles, of the distinguished French scientist Alyre Raffeneau Delile, vice-consul in North Carolina (1802-1806); and an extended history of Wilmington churches.” (Am Hist R)
“The book’s most interesting chapter remains ‘Blockade running,’ slightly extended. This volume constitutes a contribution, of permanent value, to the historical literature, not only of North Carolina, but also of the United States.” Archibald Henderson
+ Am Hist R 23:217 O ‘17 250w
“The book is more even than a rarely complete local history. It is a valuable contribution to general history, giving as it does a summary—admirable in its terseness and clarity—of the events in one of the most historical sections of the United States from the time of its exploration and settlement down through the Civil war to the present. A Confederate himself, Mr Sprunt’s personal experience in ‘blockade running’ gives authority to his descriptions of that science. Sketches of the old plantations, of quaintly interesting social customs, of historic localities and individuals, add to the value as well as to the interest of a book, whose vast detail is carefully marshalled and clearly presented.”
+ Boston Transcript p6 Ag 11 ‘17 440w
+ Lit D 55:42 S 29 ‘17 110w
+ Outlook 116:488 Jl 25 ‘17 110w
“Merely as a contribution to local history this volume is of more than ordinary importance, because of the unusual care that has been given to its preparation, and the excellent literary form in which it now appears.”
+ R of Rs 56:108 Jl ‘17 140w
SQUIRE, JACK COLLINGS. Tricks of the trade. *$1.25 Putnam 827 (Eng ed A17-1182)
“One of the most diverting books of parody in recent years. Its range is wide—from Pope to Davies—and almost as many styles of parodic writing are exhibited as there are styles of parodies. In the first half are ten imitations of the work of contemporary writers, mostly poets. In the second are ten duplex parodies.” (Dial) “Wordsworth rewrites ‘The everlasting mercy,’ Mr Masefield gives us his version of ‘Casabianca,’ Henry James revises the church catechism, Lord Byron takes liberties in the ‘Don Juan’ stanza with ‘The passing of Arthur,’ and, most brilliant of all, Gray rewrites his ‘Elegy’ in the cemetery of ‘Spoon River.’” (Spec)
+ Ath p101 F ‘17 50w
“These burlesques are frequently criticisms of no mean order.” Odell Shepard
+ Dial 63:20 Je 28 ‘17 350w
“Mr Squire has already proved himself a master of the art of travesty, and his ‘Tricks of the trade’ is a pure joy. For here we have no crude verbal mimicry, but an appropriation of the spirit of the original, with just that amount of exaggeration and perversion required to pillory its weakness. As a sustained ‘tour de force’ the burlesque on Mr Masefield, ‘the poet in the back streets,’ is perhaps the most deadly burlesque on the violence of the new ‘School of real human emotion’; but we are not so sure that the parody of Mr Belloc in his satirico-comic vein is not even cleverer, for it is a burlesque on a burlesque.”
+ Spec 118:339 Mr 17 ‘17 400w
“Although we may laugh we cannot deny that he tells us more about Mr Belloc, or Mr Wells, or Sir H. Newbolt than many serious and industrious articles where the gifts and failings of these writers are scrupulously weighed to an 530ounce. ... Of the parodies of modern writers, that of Mr Shaw seems to us the least successful.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p112 Mr 8 ‘17 800w
STACPOOLE, FLORENCE.[2] Advice to women. *$1.25 Funk 618.2 17-12840
This work on “the care of the health before, during, and after confinement, with hints on the care of the new-born infant and an appendix on what to get ready for a baby” has been revised from the fifth London edition to conform to American practice, by Lydia E. Anderson, president of the state board of nurse examiners, University of the State of New York. Two interesting chapters tell what modern science has done to lessen danger and suffering in childbirth.
“The work of an Englishwoman high in rank as a teacher of health, and especially of obstetrics, is here supplemented by the revisionary service of an American woman equally deserving confidence. It is a book for women, by women, for the common welfare.”
+ Lit D 55:33 Jl 14 ‘17 100w
STACPOOLE, HENRY DE VERE. François Villon: his life and times, 1431-1463. *$2 Putnam (Eng ed 17-26321)
“My object is to present to you François Villon, one of the strangest figures in all literature, and one of the greatest of French poets,” says the author. His method is to study Villon, the man, thru his writings. “Villon,” he says, “had the magical power of turning himself into literature.” First, however, he describes the France of Villon’s day.
“There is appreciative literary criticism yet the book moves like a story. ... Mr Stacpoole published a translation of Villon’s poems in 1914.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:343 My ‘17
Ath p51 Ja ‘17 80w
“Mr Stacpoole is as picturesque as his theme, as vigorous as the time he depicts, as romantic as his hero. We get a clear view of the fifteenth century in France from his pages, and as complete an understanding of Villon as is possible in the circumstances. If Villon still seems mythical when we close Mr Stacpoole’s book, it is because he will remain a character who is all the more appealing because of the glamour of romance that enshrouds him.” E. F. E.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Mr 3 ‘17 1000w
“However much Mr Stacpoole may take from the French biographers in facts, the able criticisms are his own. ... Mr Stacpoole shows good critical taste in his estimate of the worth of the various ballads, and he includes good poetic translations of most of them, as well as free prose renderings of the legacies.” Nellie Poorman
* + Dial 62:307 Ap 5 ‘17 1300w
“Interest is added to Mr Stacpoole’s book by a series of very satisfying verse translations of some of Villon’s less-known poems.”
+ Nation 105:45 Jl 12 ‘17 270w
+ N Y Times 22:78 Mr 4 ‘17 300w
“This book tells us nothing save that Mr Stacpoole admires Villon in so far as he understands him, but that he does not understand very much. Mr Stacpoole had the opportunity of performing a valuable service. He might have translated M. Champion’s volumes, and so given a work of profound scholarship and exquisite taste the larger public which it deserves. ... Mr Stacpoole would, we suppose, say that his book was not written for those who already knew Villon—that it was, in fact, ‘un oeuvre de vulgarisation.’ If so, it was superfluous.”
— The Times [London] Lit Sup p29 Ja 18 ‘17 750w
STACPOOLE, HENRY DE VERE. Sea plunder. *$1.30 (2½c) Lane 17-11465
Moral questions do not trouble Captain Blood and his friend Billy Harman. If the two German owners of the vessel Captain Blood commands want to cut a Pacific cable, that is their responsibility, not his. What the object of these two plotters really was is never learned, for the first message intercepted on the cut cable tells them that England and Germany are at war. As a matter of fact, they are not. This was one of the false alarms that preceded the real one of 1914. But for all that the message changed the course of this story. The second adventure of the book has to do with a wrecked Chinese ship, said to be carrying twenty thousand dollars in gold; the third takes the two adventurers back to the South seas.
A L A Bkl 13:452 Jl ‘17
+ Dial 62:444 My 17 ‘17 90w
“We do not know, now that Jack London is gone, where to match Mr Stacpoole’s absolutely simple, straightforward, and forcible way of telling a story of outlandish adventure.”
+ Nation 104:633 My 24 ‘17 250w
“A better group of sea yarns, or of yarns better told would be hard to find. ... Along with the wisdom of his seafaring men Mr Stacpoole drops bits of his own, notably his accurate characterization of the attitude of Ireland toward England.”
+ N Y Times 22:195 My 20 ‘17 450w
“Mr Stacpoole’s gift for telling a racy, thrilling adventure story is well established, and this product of his pen sustains his reputation.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 29 ‘17 350w
STANARD, MARY MANN PAGE (NEWTON) (MRS WILLIAM GLOVER STANARD). Colonial Virginia: its people and customs. il *$6 Lippincott 975.5 17-30734
“Historical and genealogical in character, this work is based neither upon history-books nor tradition, but upon sources that are not accessible to the ordinary reader—old diaries, old newspapers, and letters, shop-bills and inventories, and other documents throwing light on the personal and social life of the Virginians in colonial days. ... Mrs Stanard describes the relations between old Virginia and the mother country and the intricacies of Virginia class-relationships, and throws light upon hundreds of genealogical questions that have hitherto been in dispute.”—Lit D
“The labor of preparing so exhaustive a work as this must have been very great, and the author is to be commended for the excellent manner in which the interest is maintained to the very last.” E. J. C.
+ Boston Transcript p7 N 24 ‘17 1300w
“Altogether the book is one that will appeal to every one who is curious about our historic past. The ways of our forebears and the interest of the book are heightened by the large number of illustrations it contains.”
+ Lit D 55:51 D 8 ‘17 150w
“This is a handsome, well-illustrated, well-planned, and comprehensive volume.”
+ Outlook 117:615 D 12 ‘17 50w
“Mrs Stanard is known as an enthusiastic student of the Old dominion’s archives, and is the wife of William G. Stanard, secretary of the Virginia Historical society and editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.”
+ R of Rs 57:103 Ja ‘18 170w
“Although perhaps the book contains little that is new, it brings scattered material together in graphic compilation.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 D 8 ‘17 200w
STANLEY, ELEANOR JULIAN (MRS JAMES LONG). Twenty years at court. il *$4.50 Scribner (Eng ed 17-21843)
Eleanor Stanley, whose private letters are here collected by Mrs Steuart Erskine, was maid of honor to Queen Victoria from 1842 to 1862. “A very few letters have been put into the book which are not by Miss Stanley.” (Spec)
“Perhaps nothing could better witness the fascination of these letters and wide appeal than the fact that a second edition has so quickly followed their publication a year ago. ... 531Clearest of all the pictures she presents are those of the simple home life of the English royal family.”
+ Boston Transcript p9 Jl 21 ‘17 180w
“No one, we think, will read them without enjoyment—it is difficult to say why. ‘It went off pretty flat,’ said Fanny Burney describing an evening spent in the Georgian court circle. Most evenings at the early Victorian court might be said, by these accounts, to have gone off very flat indeed, and yet Miss Eleanor Stanley makes us want to hear about them.”
* + Spec 118:18 Ja 6 ‘17 2100w
“Sprightly, revealing and readable. ... In her pictures of people in the spheres of court and diplomacy there is much covert sarcasm. ... As Miss Stanley grows older she discloses a greater interest in politics, and her notes on political events generally get to the nub of the matter with few wasted words.”
+ Springf’d Republican p15 Jl 29 ‘17 850w
“Miss Stanley’s letters are authentic. ... On the whole the editing is well done, with a number of useful little footnotes giving the names, titles, and dates of the numerous great people who are mentioned. The reader, however, may justly complain of the want of an index; of the want of any reference, or of anything more than the merest hint, with regard to many of the great events of the time; and of the absence of the necessary few words of explanation which would have rendered intelligible certain letters that the ordinary reader of to-day cannot fully understand. ... As a historical document the book is disappointing.”
+ — The Times [London] Lit Sup p634 D 28 ‘16 980w
STANTON, STEPHEN BERRIEN. Hidden happiness. *$1.25 (4c) Scribner 170.4 17-7478
The short essays of this volume have something of an Emersonian flavor. “Remember, all is law. It governs every little act of life—every success, every failure. Things happen according to principles which we can put ourselves in accord with and win, or go counter to and lose. Control then thy destiny by obedience to them. I have no wish other than that of the universe—why should I?” This quotation indicates very fairly the author’s attitude. He writes of: Joy’s neutrality; Ambition; The eternal bulwarks; Influence; Pros and cons of companionship; The trumpet of to-day; The marrow of existence; Ultimate economy; Letter and spirit, etc.
“The volume bristles with sane and sensible advice, with fine bits of figurative writing and with unforgettable epigrams.”
+ Boston Transcript p7 Je 27 ‘17 250w
“Aphorisms for sane and cheerful living. There is nothing original in Mr Stanton’s optimism or in his advice. But he states his confession of faith in the clearest and most vigorous terms.”
+ N Y Times 22:335 S 9 ‘17 470w
+ Outlook 115:760 Ap 25 ‘17 130w
STEEL, MRS FLORA ANNIE (WEBSTER). Marmaduke. *$1.40 (1½c) Stokes (Eng ed 17-26885)
The scene of this melodramatic tale is laid in Scotland and the Crimea in the “forties” and “fifties.” The leading characters are “the sardonic old rake, Lord Drummuir, who marries a ballet-dancer and reduces her to respectability, who keeps his children in perpetual tremors by his evil temper; his gallant soldier son, the Hon. Marmaduke Muir, always hard up and always trying to get money out of the old man; Marrion Paul, a girl of noble mind but supposed humble origin, who loves Marmaduke from childhood and becomes his guardian angel, and the faithful soldier-servant of the hero, who cherishes a hopeless passion for the heroine and talks broad Scotch with mildly comical effect. ... The book includes a fire, a battle, a shipwreck, two sensational escapes from drowning, a frustrated elopement, a carriage accident, and a house of shame.” (Sat R)
A L A Bkl 14:133 Ja ‘18
“A very improbable and old-fashioned, but not altogether unentertaining novel.”
– + N Y Times 22:484 N 18 ‘17 270w
Outlook 117:510 N 28 ‘17 40w
“Her first-hand knowledge of an eastern country, and a talent for describing men and places, give to such books as ‘On the face of the waters’ an interest which will outlast the author’s life. But ‘Marmaduke,’ is in a different category, being outside the sphere of personal experience. ... The habit, inveterate in both hero and heroine, of diving into seas and rivers from high places when they get the chance, with other features of this book, suggests the cinematograph.”
– + Sat R 124:30 Jl 14 ‘17 640w
“The story is not only Victorian in its setting, but its treatment recalls at times the exuberant sentiment of Smedley and the author of ‘Guy Livingstone.’”
+ — Spec 119:15 Jl 7 ‘17 500w
+ Springf’d Republican p17 D 9 ‘17 420w
“It is a tale that engages the interest, in spite of much inaccuracy, much infelicity, much worn coin in Mrs Steel’s English prose.”
+ — The Times [London] Lit Sup p310 Je 28 ‘17 300w
STEELE, DAVID MCCONNELL. Going abroad overland; studies of places and people in the far West. il *$1.50 (3½ c) Putnam 917.8 17-5855
This book of travel is based on three journeys across the North American continent and back. The author, a Philadelphia clergyman, has written it “to acquaint the denizens of eastern districts with their neighbors, far removed but close allied, their fellow-citizens of the Far West.” Contents: Going abroad overland; Following the setting sun; The city of the holy faith; Grand Canyon, the Titan of chasms; A Sunday at Lake Tahoe; The city without a soul; In the land of the Dakotas; A week in Glacier national park, etc.
“Superior to the ordinary because of its keen observations, its accurate facts, its delightful style and its subtle humor.” G. F.
+ Boston Transcript p8 Ja 24 ‘17 750w
“Part of the book appeared in weekly instalments in the Philadelphia press.”
+ Cleveland p98 Jl ‘17 50w
“Unique among such volumes as have yet appeared of American travel articles. Each chapter describes a scene or city, the whole illustrated by many photogravures. Readers are shown that they can really travel, can see and know and feel places and people foreign to their previous experience—all without leaving North America.”
+ Ind 90:439 Je 2 ‘17 60w
N Y Br Lib News 4:30 F ‘17
“Not essential to small libraries but readable.”
+ Wis Lib Bul 13:123 Ap ‘17 80w
STEINER, BERNARD CHRISTIAN. Life of Henry Winter Davis. $1.50 Murphy, J: 16-14479
“Henry Winter Davis (1817-1865) is the last of the great congressional leaders of the Civil war period to find a biographer. ... The first three chapters, which are autobiographical, give an interesting picture of Davis’s boyhood and his life as a student at Kenyon college and at the University of Virginia. Dr Steiner himself covers the period from 1840 to 1865, treating in detail the various stages in his hero’s political career, as a Whig, a Know Nothing, a Constitutional Unionist and a Republican. New light is thrown upon a number of questions, especially upon the so-called Wade-Davis bill and the Wade-Davis manifesto, both of which, as Dr Steiner shows, were primarily the work of Davis and should more properly be described by the term Davis-Wade.”—Am Pol Sci R
532“Should let in a strong light on some of the darkest places of politics in Maryland.” W: A. Dunning
Am Hist R 22:417 Ja ‘17 700w
“Dr Steiner’s book is extremely sympathetic. In fact, if there is any fault to be found at all, it would be that it is too sympathetic, or, in other words, that it is not sufficiently critical. ... When we consider, however, that the unfavorable aspects of Davis’s career have been fully represented by Nicolay and Hay, Gideon Welles, and others, we ought perhaps, after all, to be grateful for this excellent plea for the defense. ... All students of the Civil war and reconstruction will welcome the scholarly addition to the growing literature of that period.” W. R. Smith
+ Am Pol Sci R 11:167 F ‘17 550w
+ Bul of Bibliography 9:87 O ‘16 150w
STEINER, EDWARD ALFRED. My doctor dog. il *50c Revell 18-1116
“Over in the Carpathian mountains where Prof. Edward A. Steiner began his remarkable career, there is a strong belief among the peasants that certain dogs have the power of effecting cures where learned doctors are helpless. Dr Steiner—only he wasn’t wearing any title then, but was just a little curly-headed Hebrew lad—had such a dog. Perhaps he had forgotten it, or had overlooked its literary possibilities, until one day in a college settlement hospital in a city in America he came upon the same superstition, and it called up old memories. That evening around the fire-place in the college social room he told the story to the girls. Now he has told it again in book form as a tale within a tale.”—Springf’d Republican
“When the author forgets himself and his intrusive audience he gives a picture of the dirty, beautiful, simple village and its peasant population which is as engaging as it is convincing. But the frame of this picture is as distracting as it is foolishly ornate. After all, the story is the thing and not the story-teller’s sentimental associations or his ethical convictions.”
+ — N Y Times 22:500 N 25 ‘17 180w
“Lovers of dogs and of dog stories will make a mistake if they do not read this little volume.”
+ Outlook 117:432 N 14 ‘17 50w
+ Springf’d Republican p17 D 8 ‘17 230w
STEINER, JESSE FREDERICK. Japanese invasion; a study in the psychology of interracial contacts. *$1.25 McClurg 325.7 17-7214
In his introduction Robert E. Park of the University of Chicago says, “This book is an attempt to study the phenomenon of race prejudice and national egotism, so far as it reveals itself in the relations of the Japanese and the Americans in this country, and to estimate the role it is likely to play in the future relations of the two countries. So far as I know, an investigation of precisely this nature has not hitherto been made.” The author, who spent seven years in Japan as a teacher in a mission college, writes of: Our first acquaintance with the Japanese; The Japanese attitude toward the West; The closing of the open door; The problem from the Japanese viewpoint; The Japanese “menace”; The isolation of Japanese in America; The reaction of the Japanese to American economic conditions; Organization and solidarity of Japanese immigrants; The problem of intermarriage; The Japanese in America as a race problem; The world significance of waking Asia. There is a bibliography of representative books and articles, followed by an index.
“This book is a very valuable contribution to the means for correctly estimating the present American-Japanese situation. The author displays a thorough knowledge of his subject and much skill and judgment in his handling of it.” H: P. Fairchild
+ Am J Soc 23:548 Ja ‘18 350w
“The work is well documented and has a fairly complete bibliography (14p.).”
A L A Bkl 13:378 Je ‘17
“The most valuable portions of Mr Steiner’s book are chapters discussing the attitude in various sections of the United States toward Japanese residents, the reaction of the Japanese to American economic conditions, the organization and solidarity of Japanese immigrants, and the problem of intermarriage.” F: A. Ogg
Dial 62:430 My 17 ‘17 1300w
“His treatment of the Californian situation is characteristic. He does not blame this government, state or national; he is interested in tracing and diagnosing a condition. He discusses the Japanese as human beings; not as the menacing abstractions which plague Californian imaginations. The last chapter, The significance of waking Asia, is a forceful and fitting close to an extraordinarily suggestive book.”
+ Nation 105:517 N 8 ‘17 540w
New Repub 11:117 My 26 ‘17 190w
Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 8 ‘17 300w
“Sober, restrained, informing, useful.” H: R. Mussey
+ Survey 39:47 O 13 ‘17 870w
STEINMETZ, CHARLES PROTEUS.[2] America and the new epoch. *$1 (2c) Harper 330.9 16-21734
For descriptive note see Annual for 1916.
“Mr Steinmetz, who is by birth and training a German—of Prussia—eliminates, both in his historical surveys and in his study of America’s present condition and future possibilities, all consideration of spiritual forces. He interprets history, and therefore of course the present situation in the United States, solely in terms of material tendencies, material forces, material results.” F. F. Kelly
+ Bookm 45:180 Ap ‘17 450w
“Dr Steinmetz has that rare and suggestive vision of the Socialist who is at the same time a great inventive engineer and an active officer in one of our most advanced and successful industrial corporations. He is personally engaged in fashioning the corporation out of which he hopes the industrial state will be built. His socialism might be called a ‘corporation syndicalism,’ for what he outlines is a union of huge corporations into whose hands will be entrusted the productive work of the nation.” R. S. Bourne
+ Dial 62:134 F 22 ‘17 440w
Ind 90:85 Ap 7 ‘17 180w
“The economic interpretation of history is pressed to its uttermost limits. Along with much that is bizarre, the book contains illuminating passages. The author is at his worst when he deals in historical generalizations, but when he touches more concrete matters he is not infrequently acute and penetrating.”
+ — Nation 104:557 My 3 ‘17 310w
“A book that ought to command the most serious study and thought of every economist in America.” C. M. W.
+ N Y Call p15 Mr 18 ‘17 620w
“The book gains no little of its large value from this quality of personal testimony by a qualified observer who has experienced both systems. As such he has taken and presents a bird’s-eye view of world industries, and speaks industrially where all others are speaking in terms of politics, war, and diplomacy. It is a stimulating volume presenting points of view which ought not to be so novel.”
+ N Y Times 21:574 D 31 ‘16 800w
STEINMETZ, CHARLES PROTEUS. Theory and calculation of electric circuits. il *$3 McGraw 621.31 17-9822
“Doctor Steinmetz is America’s best known authority in the field of electrical mathematics. In revising his well known ‘Alternating current phenomena’ for the fifth edition, the great increase in size made it necessary to divide the work into three parts, of which the present work is the second. ‘In the following volume I have discussed the most important characteristics of the fundamental conception of electrical engineering, such as electric conduction, magnetism, 533wave shape, the meaning of reactance and similar terms, the problems of stability and instability of electric systems, etc., and have given a more extended application of the method of complex quantities, which the experience of these twenty years has shown to be the most powerful tool in dealing with alternating current phenomena.’ (Preface)”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
Bul N Y Public Library 21:484 Jl ‘17 100w
“An authoritative treatise.”
+ Cleveland p109 S ‘17 40w
N Y Br Lib News 4:76 My ‘17
N Y P L New Tech Bks p9 Ap ‘17 130w
Pittsburgh 22:659 O ‘17 30w
STEMPEL, GUIDO HERMANN, comp. and ed. Book of ballads, old and new. (English readings for schools) il 60c Holt 821.08 17-13306
These ballads are grouped under the headings: Old ballads; American ballads; New ballads. The four “American ballads” are reprinted from Lomax’s “Cowboy songs and other frontier ballads” (1910). The “new ballads” range from Campbell, Hood and Lady Nairne, to Kipling, Lowell, Masefield, Newbolt, Noyes, Whittier, etc. There is an introduction, mainly historical, followed by a “descriptive bibliography” of two pages. Appended are 102 pages of “notes and comment”; and a glossary.
“There are fewer of the old ballads, altho much the same ones as those chosen by Professor Hart [in his “English popular ballads,” 1916].”
Ind 91:230 Ag 11 ‘17 90w
“The introduction treats vexed questions of origins fairly and clearly. It strikes us as distinctly the best introduction to the subject we have seen.”
+ Nation 105:263 S 6 ‘17 80w
STEPHENS, HENRY MORSE, and BOLTON, HERBERT EUGENE, eds. Pacific ocean in history. *$4 (3c) Macmillan 904 17-5822
A volume containing papers and addresses presented at the Panama-Pacific historical congress held at San Francisco, Berkeley, and Palo Alto, California, July 19-23, 1915. A brief outline of the history and plan of the congress is given in the introduction. The body of the book is given up wholly to the papers and addresses of the general and special sessions. Among the subjects covered at some of the special sessions were: The Philippine Islands and their history as a part of the history of the Pacific ocean area; The north-western states, British Columbia, and Alaska in their relations with the Pacific ocean; Spanish-America and the Pacific ocean; Japan and Australasia. There is an index that seems to be unusually complete.
“Among the addresses those by H. Morse Stephens on the Conflict of European nations in the Pacific, by Rafael Altamira y Crevea on the Share of Spain in the history of the Pacific ocean, and by Theodore Roosevelt on the Panama canal are noteworthy. The paper by Professor Murakami, on Japan’s early attempts to establish commercial relations with Mexico, embodying his investigations in the archives of Spain, Italy, and Japan, is perhaps the most interesting of all the contributions.” W: R. Shepherd
+ Am Hist R 22:846 Jl ‘17 1000w
A L A Bkl 14:55 N ‘17
“For its condensed summary of historical facts the book should be of use to students.”
+ Boston Transcript p6 My 16 ‘17 70w
“The student of American history will find these papers of most absorbing interest.”
+ Cath World 105:399 Je ‘17 190w
“Much of the book is not of interest to the layman. But this is not true of the opening address of Professor Stephens, in which he discourses upon the conflict of European nations in the Pacific. His wide view of international relations of the past four hundred years may well enlarge the horizon of many a casual reader.”
+ Dial 63:646 D 20 ‘17 330w
“Sixteen of the twenty-nine contributions are by Californians—a fact which explains both the strength and the weakness of the volume. The unfortunate absence of South Americans, of Australians, and of Chinese, though some had been expected to appear, deprived the Congress and its printed record of any claim to represent the ‘Pacific ocean in history.’ Taken singly the average standard of the various papers is distinctly commendable.”
+ — Nation 105:541 N 15 ‘17 1500w
+ R of Rs 56:108 Jl ‘17 120w
St Louis 15:186 Je ‘17
“A useful service for those interested in world politics has been performed in the publication of the minutes and papers of the Panama-Pacific historical congress of 1915. ... All the strings of world diplomacy meet in the Pacific as they do nowhere else.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 22 ‘17 750w
STEPHENS, WINIFRED. Madame Adam (Juliette Lamber); la grande Française; from Louis Philippe until 1917. il *$4 Dutton (Eng ed 18-1178)
“The founder and editor for twenty years of La Nouvelle Revue, the mistress of a political salon, and the friend through more than half a century of leaders of French life and thought, a passionate advocate of self-government and of nationalism, Madame Adam is one of the most notable women of the Europe of to-day. She is here presented to us by one who has written and lectured a good deal about France and French history, and who has had the advantage of Mme Adam’s personal acquaintance and interest in the present work. Her main authority, however, is, of course, Mme Adam’s seven volumes of ‘Souvenirs.’”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Of great interest, and particularly well worth reading at the present time.”
+ Ath p473 S ‘17 100w
Outlook 117:652 D 19 ‘17 120w
“A most comprehensive account of her varied and spectacular career.”
+ R of Rs 57:200 F ‘18 520w
“It was Madame Adam who first suggested and later engineered her country’s alliance with Russia.”
* Sat R 124:68 Jl 28 ‘17 1350w
“We are glad to see this interesting biography of Mme Adam, one of the most remarkable women of her time. She has played a considerable part in French journalism and politics from the days of the Second empire. She was the trusted friend of George Sand and Gambetta and many other eminent people, and she has been a protagonist of the woman’s movement in its largest sense, and of the Revanche for 1870, which is now at last to be realized. As founder and editor for twenty years of the Nouvelle Revue (1879-99), she did much to consolidate the Third republic and to stimulate that wonderful revival of French national spirit which has been manifested in this war.”
* + Spec 119:142 Ag 11 ‘17 1500w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p322 Jl 5 ‘17 110w
“Mme Adam’s own ‘Souvenirs’ end with the year 1880, and though they stand as the main authority Miss Stephens’s book is primarily valuable as filling up the gap of nearly forty years; and here the author has had important aid from Mme Adam herself, from Sir Sidney Colvin, and from other contemporaries. The book is also to be welcomed because it is admirably written ... with a gaiety and zest not often to be found in such generous measure among biographers.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p329 Jl 12 ‘17 1100w
534STEPNIAK, pseud. (SERGIEI MIKHAILOVICH KRAVCHINSKII). New convert; a drama in four acts; tr. from the Russian by T: B. Eyges. $1 Stratford co. 891.7 17-9135
A play of the early days of the Russian revolutionary movement. The author, says Prince Peter Kropotkin in his introduction, “was one of the pioneers who decided to ‘go to the people.’ Disguised as a laborer, he mingled among the peasants in the villages. At the beginning of the so-called ‘terrorist’ movement he was one of its pioneers and heroes.” In the play it is a young girl of good family who follows this course. Her father casts her off and disowns her, but his love for her is so great that when he finds her in danger, he takes her into his house and tries to shield her. In so doing he is himself won over to the Nihilist cause, becoming the new convert.
“It is unfortunate that the translation abounds in foreign English and in all kinds of blunders. With a modicum of proper editing, it would be a very actable and interesting play.”
Boston Transcript p6 Je 30 ‘17 300w
“It is well worth reading at this time as a first-hand document of the pioneer labor for Russian liberty. But, if the truth must be told, it is not likely that this play will add to Stepniak’s literary reputation. ... Yet there is much beauty in the play, a warm sympathy pervades the whole and that big simplicity which emanates from all of Russia’s great men. An hour with ‘The new convert’ will be well spent.” T: Seltzer
+ — N Y Call p14 Ap 15 ‘17 470w
R of Rs 56:102 Jl ‘17 80w
STERN, MRS ELIZABETH GERTRUDE (LEVIN). My mother and I. *$1 (4c) Macmillan 17-16442
A story of the Americanizing of a young Jewess, whose father, a rabbi, and whose self-sacrificing little mother, came from a small town in Russian Poland to the ghetto of a city in the Middle West. The one cellar room which was their first home, the girl’s days in the grammar and high school, her discovery of “Little women” in a rag shop, and later of the public library, are simply but vividly pictured. She wins a scholarship and works her way through college, only to find life in the ghetto insupportable; and to leave home to study settlement work in New York. There she meets her husband, and after the birth of their son, the old mother takes her first long trip in 25 years to see her daughter as “an American woman at the head of an American home” and to experience “an infinite loneliness” because she cannot understand the new ways and the new people. “And yet,” writes the daughter, “if I am truly part of America, it was mother, she who does not understand America, who made me so.” The introduction is by Theodore Roosevelt.
+ A L A Bkl 14:24 O ‘17
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
Bookm 45:649 Ag ‘17 440w
“The remarkable charm of the book lies in the daughter’s faithful picture of the mother and in her appreciation of what the Americanization of the foreign-born means in pain and separation.”
+ Cleveland p100 Jl ‘17 90w
“Describes the loftier and rarer aspect of immigration.”
+ Dial 63:402 O 25 ‘17 90w
+ Ind 91:351 S 1 ‘17 240w
“What affects one just a little unpleasantly is the predominance of pride over tears in the countenance of the narrator as she shakes from her feet the dust of her father’s house and goes to dwell forevermore in the tents of the Americans. The completeness of her break with the ghetto left some precious things behind.”
– + Nation 105:224 Ag 30 ‘17 880w
“The note struck in Mrs Stern’s book appears to be a more sincere one than that sounded by Miss Antin, because, though the narrative is a personal one, the reader is not oppressed by the ego of the writer.” M. G. S.
+ N Y Call p15 S 9 ‘17 280w
“The book is well worth while. Not only because of the picture it gives of the Americanized second generation, ... but also because of the excellent style. ... The best thing in the book is the beautifully tender portrayal of the relation between the mother and daughter, a relation which is at once an idyl and a tragedy.”
+ N Y Times 22:255 Jl 8 ‘17 600w
Pittsburgh 22:744 N ‘17 50w
+ Springf’d Republican p6 D 10 ‘17 350w
“Perhaps an even more useful service of the book will be to open some blind young eyes to the true worth and value of their parents.” K. H. Claghorn
+ Survey 39:48 O 13 ‘17 330w
STERN, FRANCES, and SPITZ, GERTRUDE T. Food for the worker. *$1 Whitcomb & B. 613.2 17-13100
This book is devoted to the problem of how to provide sufficient nutritious food at a low cost. The authors say, “Our contribution towards answering the question is this series of menus, with food values and costs for a period of seven weeks.” The book is not adapted for use by the average untrained housewife in the type of family for which the menus are planned. It will be most useful in the hands of the visiting housekeeper or other social worker. In fact its preparation is due in part to the experience of one of the authors as a visiting housekeeper. Lafayette B. Mendel of Sheffield scientific school has written a foreword commending the book.
“Practical, usable, intelligently planned, for the aid of housewives catering on a working man’s income, and useful to the teacher, visiting housekeeper or social worker. Reprints ‘How to build a fireless cooker’ from Form 776 States relations service. Bibliography. (2p.).”
+ A L A Bkl 14:12 O ‘17
+ Cleveland p20 F ‘18 20w
+ Pratt p26 O ‘17 20w
“Should fill a great need at the present time.” Graham Lusk
+ Science n s 46:18 Jl 6 ‘17 170w
“A direct contribution to the literature of both social service and home economics. Presents in small compass clear and scientific material that will be invaluable for anyone who is responsible for the feeding of families who through force of circumstances must keep to a limited food allowance. ... A book for the trained worker, but the untrained may find in it much to shed light upon their pathways.” W. S. Gibbs
+ Survey 38:373 Jl 28 ‘17 180w
STERNE, ELAINE. Road of ambition. il *$1.35 (1c) Britton pub. 17-13078
Big Bill Matthews is foreman in a steel mill when the story opens. He is a newly elected governor at its close. But unlike many another man who has trod the road to ambition, he does not find achievement bitter, for Bill’s aim is always to help his fellow men, and his way is made bright by the love of the woman who had been the lady of his early dreams. When he first saw Daphne Van Steer, he had no thought of anything but worship from afar. Then came the success of his invention, his fortune, his education in the ways of the world at the hands of May Larrabee, and eventually his marriage with Daphne. For her it was not a marriage of love, in the beginning—that came later.
“Just the book for the reader who likes a story with plenty of thrills and a happy ending.”
+ Cleveland p104 S ‘17 50w
“Elaine Sterne has written the sort of story which we are glad to have from an American novelist. Such a story could have been written more effectively by a man, but one is willing 535to pass over certain feminisms in the discussion of business for the sake of the story itself, which is engrossing.”
+ — Dial 63:280 S 27 ‘17 200w
“A first novel, and a promising one. It is ambitious, faulty, of course, but interesting, with some well written, natural dialogue, and a dramatic quality which, as often happens in the work of novices—and of experienced writers, too—occasionally spills over the line which separates the dramatic from the merely melodramatic. The opening chapters are the best.”
+ — N Y Times 22:195 My 20 ‘17 350w
Reviewed by R. D. Moore
Pub W 91:1318 Ap 21 ‘17 370w
STERRETT, FRANCES ROBERTA. William and Williamina. il *$1.40 (2c) Appleton 17-25816
The heroine of this story, Williamina, a friendly little girl of ten, was found when a baby, by William Kirwin, in a rowboat, after a dreadful storm. Kirwin had gone to live in the country because of weak lungs, and, even when cured, seemed to have no desire to mix again with people. Williamina filled his life and he filled Williamina’s. Yet it was partly due to her that he finally returned to a busier and more conventional existence. Some of the other characters are: Helen Spafford, a school-teacher, who wants to try gardening; Mrs Macartney, who runs a chicken farm; Marietta White, who overworked at college and is taking an enforced rest; Imogene Grace Butters, the stout trained nurse; Mr Brewer, who has no use for “fool females”; Bob Brown, who is hurt in an automobile accident; Hunter Olney, the rich breakfast food man; and tall young Doctor Grey with his “shock of sandy hair.” There are three rather slight love affairs in the book, but the main interest centers in Williamina, who wishes that she and William “should always love each other and really belong to each other and live together happily forever and a day.”
“Williamina is amusing at times, and not quite so aggressively virtuous as some children in fiction.”
+ — N Y Times 22:484 N 18 ‘17 250w
STETSON, JAMES FRANCIS LYNDE, and others. Some legal phases of corporate financing, reorganization and regulation. *$2.75 Macmillan 338.8 17-7837
“A volume of addresses delivered in 1916 by recognized leaders of the legal profession at the instance of the Association of the bar of the city of New York, to audiences drawn from practicing lawyers. Mr Stetson contributes a lengthy paper concerning the preparation of corporate bonds, mortgages, collateral trusts and debenture indentures. ... Mr Byrne supplies an exceptionally valuable treatise on the foreclosure of railroad mortgages in the United States courts. ... Mr Cravath treats of the reorganization of corporations; bondholders’ and stockholders’ protective committees; reorganization committees; and the voluntary recapitalization of corporations. ... Mr Wickersham deals with the Sherman anti-trust law. ... Mr Montague writes about the Federal trade commission and the Clayton act. Mr Coleman and Mr Guthrie discuss the public service commissions.”—Ann Am Acad
“It deals with particular problems in the peculiarly narrow and intensive manner of legal procedure. This is its great merit, but it is also the reason why the broader economic aspects of the problems treated are either totally disregarded or else disposed of with only a few phrases. Yet within their field of legal literature most of these essays are remarkably comprehensive; in fact, several of them, notably Cravath’s on reorganizations, are certainly unrivaled in the sphere of legal finance.” A. S. Dewing
+ Am Econ R 7:645 S ‘17 1150w
“If the volume contained nothing but Mr Byrne’s treatise, it would still be an important addition to legal literature.” J: L. Sullivan
+ Ann Am Acad 72:231 Jl ‘17 250w
Cleveland p92 Jl ‘17 30w
“Although stated to be designed primarily for the practical guidance of practicing lawyers, [these addresses] will be of interest and value to students of corporation problems, the trust problem, and public utilities. The three on corporation problems are by far the most interesting to the economist. With the exception of the last address on public utilities, the other addresses tend to be mainly descriptive, with little analysis.”
+ J Pol Econ 25:756 Jl ‘17 500w
“If ‘a priori’ reasoning is a peculiar weakness of lawyers, there is no trace of it in the legal field ploughed through in the first three essays. The practical corporation lawyer ... begins with a very concrete picture of the result he wishes to attain. He draws upon a wide practical experience to point out the simplest and surest way of bringing the result about. Very different is the situation in the field of public law described in the remaining four essays. Here we are not yet out of the domain of dogma, of question-begging phrases, of concepts that bear the appearance of self-evident truths, but dissolve into meaningless verbiage when we try to apply them to flesh and blood.” G. C. Henderson
New Repub 11:192 Je 16 ‘17 1350w
STEVENS, RUTH DAVIS, and STEVENS, DAVID HARRISON,[2] eds. American patriotic prose and verse. *$1.25 McClurg 811.08 17-28105
The selections in this book are arranged chronologically to conform with the history of our country. In addition to this strictly historical material, selections suitable for the patriotic holidays are included. Each selection is accompanied by a brief note, giving biographical and other data.
“Chiefly valuable for its timeliness, and while it is not without certain historical examples of the kind, it would have been more suitable if chosen with greater care and judgment.” W. S. B.
+ — Boston Transcript p9 D 5 ‘17 40w
Cleveland p134 D ‘17 40w
STEVENS, WILLIAM HARRISON SPRING. Unfair competition; a study of certain practices, with some reference to the trust problem in the United States of America. *$1.50 Univ. of Chicago press 338.8 17-9697
“‘Unfair competition’ is an expansion of the author’s two articles which originally appeared in the Political Science Quarterly for 1914. The new matter consists chiefly of added illustrations of cases of the different methods of unfair competition, the listing of a new heading called ‘Interference,’ and the expansion of the conclusion, where especial attention is given to the trust legislation of 1914 as it relates to this subject.” (J Pol Econ) “The text analyzes many types of unfair competition and gives the concrete and specific facts, as well as the principles involved. It is a valuable companion volume for the compilation by Davies.” (Int J Ethics)
“The chapter on ‘Exclusive arrangements’ is, in the writer’s opinion, the weakest chapter of the book, as these arrangements, while classified and considered separately, are adjudged equally objectionable. The book is replete with illustrations, is written in an interesting style, and will be welcomed by all interested in this important subject.” J. E. Hagerty
+ — Am J Soc 23:274 S ‘17 570w
A L A Bkl 14:114 Ja ‘18
“Dr Stevens has done a real public service by placing in convenient form an assembly of facts on this problem. The tone of the book is not that of an arraignment or accusation. The author shows neither indignation nor heat—he seeks in guarded language to establish the facts.” J. T. Young
+ Am Pol Sci R 11:783 N ‘17 450w
“It is patent that Stevens is not a proponent of large industrial combinations simply because they are large, and he carries the convictions 536of one who has investigated carefully the methods by which, fortunately or unfortunately, big business has grown. The logical soundness of some of his assertions is tinged by a super-vigilant search for recondite motives on the part of business; but he is not unfair.” Frank Parker
+ Ann Am Acad 74:295 N ‘17 350w
+ Ind 91:133 Jl 28 ‘17 160w
+ Int J Ethics 27:534 Jl ‘17 50w
“The volume is sound and timely and is the best presentation of the topic available. While the conclusions of Dr Stevens appear sound, additional weight would have been given them had he tried to set forth and refute in more detail the arguments sometimes advanced to justify the various methods of competition which he condemns.” C. W. Wright
+ J Pol Econ 25:629 Je ‘17 250w
Pratt p12 O ‘17 20w
St Louis 15:321 S ‘17 20w
+ Springf’d Republican p8 F 11 ‘18 300w
STEVENSON, BURTON EGBERT. King in Babylon. il *$1.50 (2c) Small 17-24692
“The story concerns a moving-picture producer and his determination to introduce imagination and art into his work. ... He built a plot about Henley’s lines, ‘I was a king in Babylon and you were a Christian slave.’ The production carried him and his company to Egypt, where a suitable setting was found in a royal tomb practically excavated by an American archaeologist. It is at this point that the seemingly supernatural enters the tale, giving an extraordinarily weird and gripping turn to the story.”—Dial
“The events are thrilling and well suggested, only the final act seems unreal.”
+ — A L A Bkl 14:134 Ja ‘18
“The author provides a rational explanation which is skillfully but not altogether convincingly worked out.”
+ — Cleveland p128 N ‘17 80w
“A thrilling story with a groundwork of common sense!... Instead of yielding to the easy trick of invoking the supernatural in order to gain his effect, the author skilfully erects a framework of logical explanation on which one may stand and enjoy the spectacular climax without danger of doing his intelligence injury.”
+ Dial 63:281 S 27 ‘17 180w
“Some readers may think the story rather long-drawn-out and tedious here and there. But it has the merit of originality in its treatment, if not in its main theme of reincarnation, and in general is of the thrilling stuff of which ‘best sellers’ are made.”
+ — NY Times 22:447 N 4 ‘17 610w
+ Outlook 117:184 O 3 ‘17 30w
“Appeared in McClure’s Magazine, v. 49, May-Oct. 1917.”
+ Pittsburgh 22:751 N ‘17 20w
“But the air of mystery and suspense surrounding the reincarnation theory is sustained until the very close, where a wholly plausible clue brings us breathlessly but safely back to sunlight on terra-firma.” Joseph Mosher
+ Pub W 92:2027 D 8 ‘17 280w
“Cleverly exploits the theory of reincarnation and blends the materialistic present with the mysteries and superstitions of antiquity.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 O 7 ‘17 300w
STEVENSON, GEORGE. Little world apart. *$1.25 (1c) Lane 17-7457
A novel made up of little things. Applethwaite is a country parish that constitutes a little world in itself. The great lady of the neighborhood, the vicar and his family, the farm folk and the serving maids all have a place in the story, so that at its close one feels very well acquainted with all Applethwaite. Into this little world comes a strange woman from the world outside to make friends with the vicar’s family and start tongues a-wagging. In its ending there is a touch of sadness, but the sadness is tinged with hope. Victoria is queen at the time of the story.
+ A L A Bkl 14:171 F ‘18
+ Boston Transcript p7 Jl 3 ‘17 170w
“One does not read of Applethwaite for the sake of its plot or plots, but for the sheer joy of tarrying and gossiping there. Like ‘Cranford’ and ‘Old Chester tales,’ ‘A little world apart’ is ‘rich in veined humanity.’”
+ N Y Times 22:126 Ap 8 ‘17 450w
“A most delightful account of life in a country village in, presumably, the ‘eighties’ of the last century. The character drawing is most delicately finished, and the author has a fresh and discriminating sense of humor.”
+ Spec 118:210 F 17 ‘17 30w
“The author has a happy faculty of characterization, and it is to be regretted that he did not have a stronger center for his story.”
– + Springf’d Republican p17 N 25 ‘17 140w
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p56 F 1 ‘17 450w
“Some very good character portraiture.”
+ Wis Lib Bul 13:222 Jl ‘17 40w
STEVENSON, WILLIAM YORKE. At the front in a flivver. il *$1.25 (2½c) Houghton 940.91 17-25614
The preface tells us that the author left a newspaper position in Philadelphia in 1916 to offer his services to France as driver of an ambulance. “He kept a rough diary which, as the occasion offered, he forwarded to his people. ... These notes are here published almost as jotted down.” The scene of his experiences was in the neighborhood of the Somme.
+ A L A Bkl 14:90 D ‘17
“No heroics or exaggeration mar this simple humorous record.”
+ Cleveland p1 Ja ‘18 60w
“Freshly written.”
+ — Dial 63:589 D 6 ‘17 300w
+ N Y Times 22:453 N 4 ‘17 570w
Pittsburgh 22:827 D ‘17 50w
“A document the very robustness and downright sincerity of which are a real joy to those who honestly want to be made to see.” Philip Tillinghast
+ Pub W 92:1388 O 20 ‘17 200w
“A strong vein of humor adds many lightening touches to the narrative. But in spite of these there is nowhere a denial of the seriousness of the situation confronting the Allies in their fight with the enemy.”
+ Springf’d Republican p6 N 30 ‘17 520w
STEWART, BASIL. On collecting Japanese colour-prints; being an introduction to the study and collection of the colour-prints of the Ukiyoye school of Japan. il *$2 (9c) Dodd 761 17-26875
The author states that because most books on Japanese prints have apparently been written from the historical or artistic point of view, they are of little use to the inexperienced collector. He has, therefore, written this book primarily for the beginner, and refers the reader who wishes fuller information to Ficke’s “Chats on Japanese prints” or Von Seidlitz’s “History of Japanese colour-prints.” “Mr Stewart gives a brief survey of the history and production of prints, mentioning only the better-known artists. In the cases of Hokusai and Hiroshige the various series, states, and editions are enumerated.” (Dial) “The illustrations are from the author’s collection, and are in keeping with the scope of the book. Both the blocks and the text are printed in a brown ink.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) There is a chapter on Japanese chronology as applied to the dating of prints.
+ A L A Bkl 14:84 D ‘17
“It is an artistic book and will prove useful to students.” N. H. D.
+ Boston Transcript p6 O 24 ‘17 730w
537“‘On collecting Japanese colour-prints’ is intended for the amateur who is starting a collection, and as such it is a satisfactory handbook.”
+ Dial 63:352 O 11 ‘17 120w
“Will be found especially useful in the detection of forgeries, imitations, and reprints. The translations of the script and signatures upon the prints illustrated are a praiseworthy feature of this volume.”
+ Int Studio 63:85 D ‘17 110w
“Mr Stewart has not anything really new to tell us, though his information is usually accurate and his views sound.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p294 Je 21 ‘17 650w
STILES, PAULINE. New footprints in old places. il *$2 (2c) Elder 914.5 17-25821
It is to Italy, and in particular to Rome, where the author spent a winter, that the greater part of this book of travels is devoted. Her travels date back to 1913 and 1914, August, 1914 bringing them to a close. Contents: En route to Rome; First days in our Roman home; Rome—The mother of nations; Roman holidays; Rome and a new year; We travel in the south; Spring comes to Rome; Last Roman days; We become Parisians; Touraine and Belgium; We encounter London; War and England. There are eighteen illustrations.
“Travel books written in diary form are usually avoided by the experienced reader; this one, however, is exceptionally well done, and is quite charming both in the joyous enthusiasm of its descriptive matter and in the well-printed photographic illustration.”
+ Outlook 117:519 N 28 ‘17 40w
“Miss Stiles is a good letter writer, and there is nothing stilted in her word pictures of the most familiar places. Add to that fact that she saw some places that are not in the beaten track, and had the privilege of being a guest in various Roman houses where the mere tourist never goes, and the charm of the book is enhanced. Typography, illustrations, binding, all combine to make this a travel book above the average.”
+ Springf’d Republican p15 D 1 ‘17 230w
STILES, PERCY GOLDTHWAIT. Human physiology; a text-book for high schools and colleges. il *$1.50 Saunders 612 16-15031
“The announcement in the preface, the ‘purpose is to present concisely the accepted facts with only a limited description of the experiments by which these facts have been established,’ gives an idea of the scope and nature of the book. ... Little of historical importance is mentioned, the omission being purposeful.”—Science
“The book before us is an excellent attempt to provide a text-book for high schools. But, good as it is as an elementary account of the present state of physiological science, it cannot be regarded as altogether successful. It is apt to be dull and didactic rather than stimulating. ... It would be an improvement if a part of the wealth of the book in facts were sacrificed for a more intensive treatment of some of them. ... The book is remarkably free from errors.” W. M. Bayliss
+ — Nature 99:101 Ap 5 ‘17 880w
“On the whole, the book fulfills its particular purpose better than any other with which I am familiar. Writing such a book is a particularly difficult task, and the author has succeeded better than most. There are many new diagrams of unusual clearness.” F. H. Pike
+ Science n s 45:482 My 18 ‘17 670w
STIMSON, FREDERIC JESUP (J. S. OF DALE, pseud.). Light of Provence. *$1.25 Putnam 812 17-14539
This dramatic poem pictures troubadour life and the French court in the thirteenth century. The foreword states that the drama is entirely historical, though the character of Douce is partly imaginary and Adelais is compounded of Adelaide, Countess of Burlatz and Ermengarde, Countess of Narbonne. It also lists the authorities on which the drama is based. Mr Stimson seems to have worked over it for sixteen years and then kept it by him for twenty-one more before publishing it.
N Y Br Lib News 4:108 Jl ‘17
“The plot traverses troubadour life at its best. ... By far the best portion of the play is the best in which troubadour courtly love is described. ... Mr Stimson’s diction is always good,—at times it is exquisite. ... But the last portion of the poem is too sanguinary to harmonize with the opening scenes.”
+ — Springf’d Republican p8 S 14 ‘17 290w
“‘The light of Provence’ is ‘a dramatic poem,’ not a poetic drama; and as for historical accuracy, none but a pedant will demand it when the author knows his subject so well as to give the profounder accuracy of spirit. That is the great merit of this poem. The author has so ‘soaked’ himself in old Provence that, externally, he sees it and makes his reader see it as vividly as if it were now before the eyes.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p378 Ag 9 ‘17 870w
STIMSON, FREDERIC JESUP (J.S. OF DALE, pseud.). My story; being the memoirs of Benedict Arnold. il *$2 (1c) Scribner 17-28796
Author and publisher have given to this book every mark of a genuine autobiographical work, yet have made no pretense that it is other than a work of fiction. It purports to be the life story of Benedict Arnold, written by his own hand, with the purpose of justifying his career in the eyes of the British king. Events of his public and private life are closely followed. He is represented as a Tory by nature, an aristocrat with no understanding of the more democratic aims of the revolution. To see the colonies self governing under the British king, was from the beginning his ideal, and the alliance with the British which has branded him as traitor appears to have been partly motivated by a desire to bring about this end.
“There is artistic mastery in the way in which the bumptious assertions of loyalty to ‘my King’ are followed by apparently half-unconscious expressions of pride in the achievements of the Americans. ... Arnold’s love story is touched upon with a simple tenderness that adds to the tragedy of the whole. And the revelation of his gradual tempting is a masterly piece of work.”
+ N Y Times 22:465 N 11 ‘17 800w
“Arnold’s nature is admirably portrayed.”
+ Outlook 117:514 N 28 ‘17 120w
“Though presented in the guise of a novel, one of the most important as well as most graphic historical books of the year.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 N 18 ‘17 1300w
STIRLING, YATES. Fundamentals of naval service. il *$2 (1c) Lippincott 359 17-13524
This book “has been prepared to serve as a manual to those of our citizens who are interested in the United States navy and who may choose to serve their country on the water. ... The great increases in the personnel of the navy must be supplied in part from our inland states, where the navy and its work is little known; to the citizens of those states this book gives in a single volume information on naval matters possible to obtain only by the reading of many different volumes.” (Preface) The following special chapters have been contributed to the volume: The naval aeroplane, by Lieut. Comm. H. C. Mustin; Electricity in the navy, by Lieut. Comm. C. S. McDowell; First aid and hygiene, by Dr Ralph Walker McDowell.
“Short bibliographies at the head of the five parts into which the book is divided.”
A L A Bkl 13:430 Jl ‘17
+ Ath p522 O ‘17 360w
“A comprehensive up-to-date handbook.”
+ Ind 90:311 My 19 ‘17 40w
“Thanks to its clear print and thin Japan paper, ‘Fundamentals of naval service,’ despite its 564 pages, is a handy volume. As a piece 538of book work it reflects credit on its publishers. Commander Stirling’s facts are beyond question, and may be accepted; his opinions are his own. In professional matters they are sound, but we cannot always agree with him in those not professional, as, e.g., his advocacy of ship subsidies.”
+ Nation 105:323 S 20 ‘17 160w
N Y Br Lib News 4:90 Je ‘17
N Y P L New Tech Bks p15 Ap ‘17 100w
Pratt p15 O ‘17 50w
“The same excellent method by which Captain Andrews dealt with military affairs in a small volume, recently issued by the Lippincott Company, is followed in ‘Fundamentals of naval service,’ brought out by the same house.”
+ R of Rs 55:668 Je ‘17 80w
“Read by and published with the approval of the United States navy department, in which the author is an officer.”
+ Wis Lib Bul 13:182 Je ‘17 70w
STOBART, MABEL ANNIE (BOULTON) (MRS ST CLAIR STOBART). Flaming sword in Serbia and elsewhere. il *$1.75 Doran 940.91 (Eng ed 17-19162)
Mrs Stobart, who had spent four years “on the free veldt of the South African Transvaal,” returned to London and offered a Woman’s unit to the Belgian Red cross, went to Brussels and was captured, together with her husband, by the Germans, and condemned to death. They escaped to London, but were back in Belgium in three weeks. “Arriving in Antwerp three weeks before the bombardment Mrs Stobart lost all her hospital material there, offered her services to the French Red cross, established herself at Cherbourg, worked there for four months, and then, in February, 1915, resolved to volunteer for Serbia, starting from Liverpool on April 1. The unit numbered forty-five. ... Most of the book is devoted to this final adventure and its sequel: the terrible march over the Albanian mountains to Skutari and the sea—‘through snow, ice, boulders, unbroken forest, mud-holes, bridgeless rivers.’” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“If we had to choose between ‘The Anabasis’ and Mrs Stobart’s ‘Diary of the Serbian retreat’ the vote would be preponderatingly in favor of the latter, not only as a piece of literature, but as an account of difficulties surmounted, of bravery unexcelled, of human agony described, of cheerfulness in the most depressing circumstances, of adaptability when there would seem to have been almost no escape, of feminine practicality that won the admiration of the most sceptical. Amid all the literature called forth by the Great war this epic account of the Katabasis of the Serbians and of the hospital unit conducted by Mrs Stobart will best deserve to be a classic in the millenniums to come. ... It is the most telling document against war that the war has produced, it shows the horror of it, and it shows the futility of it. ... The book sparkles with wit and has amusing passages, and it fills one with admiration for its stories of gallant deeds of heroism—not in the taking of life, but in saving life.” N. H. D.
+ Boston Transcript p6 S 5 ‘17 1200w
+ Cleveland p130 D ‘17 90w
“Her graphic narrative and observations come to us with the weight of the best authority.”
+ Ind 92:342 N 17 ‘17 130w
“Much more than the usual narrative of war relief work. Hating war and all its methods supremely, she has done not a little thinking about it, especially about woman’s relations with it. ... Mrs Stobart was the first woman in history to mobilize and command a field hospital in war.”
+ N Y Times 22:348 S 16 ‘17 400w
+ Pittsburgh 22:827 D ‘17 70w
“Mrs St Clair Stobart has written an admirable book.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p636 D 28 ‘16 750w
STODDARD, CHARLES WARREN. Poems; collected by Ina Coolbrith. il *$1.25 Lane 811 17-21944
Miss Coolbrith states in her Foreword that in 1909, at Stoddard’s death, she volunteered to edit his poems “inclusive of the volume of verse published in 1867,” together with all that had appeared since, on the understanding that Mr Stoddard “had himself collected and arranged them for this purpose.” No such book was found among his effects, and as the files of local magazines and newspapers have been largely destroyed in the San Francisco fire of 1906, and no clue existed to non-local publications in which they might have appeared, Miss Coolbrith’s task has been a long, difficult one. Some of the poems in the volume are on the South Seas which Stoddard so loved, and some are on California. The book opens with tributes in verse by Joaquin Miller, George Sterling, Thomas Walsh, and Ina Coolbrith. The frontispiece is a portrait of the author.
“Forty years ago William Dean Howells said of Charles Warren Stoddard’s prose writings that they had in them ‘the very make of the tropic spray, which knows not if it be sea or sun.’ The same elusive charm, at once refreshing and languishing, opulently rich and inexpressibly delicate, characterizes Stoddard’s poetry. ... In these poems we catch glimpses of the inner man even more revealing than any given in his other books.”
+ Cath World 105:822 S ‘17 700w
“Miss Coolbrith was a co-worker with Stoddard and Bret Harte on the staff of The Overland Monthly, and, as she is, herself, a lyricist of unquestioned merit, and laureate of ‘The golden state,’ crowned at the recent exposition, she is well equipt to judge which poems of all that Stoddard wrote should be collected and preserved. The volume includes the best of his verse, the famous ‘Bells of San Gabriel,’ ‘Tamalpais’ and the sonnet ‘Yosemite.’”
+ Ind 92:66 O 8 ‘17 100w
“There is singularly little that is antiquated about these poems, though some of them were dated from the early 60’s. Stoddard was a supreme artist in verse as well as in prose, and was well in advance of his time in his entire sincerity and lack of literary pose.”
+ N Y Times 22:449 N 4 ‘17 600w
STODDARD, THEODORE LOTHROP. Present-day Europe: its national states of mind. map *$2 (3c) Century 940.91 17-14686
This book, the author states, is not a story of current events, but a study of “the war psychology of the various European nations.” It covers England, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, the Balkan states, Turkey, Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Spain, and Portugal. The author believes that “the only satisfactory method of portraying thought and emotion is the use of direct evidence,” therefore, he has quoted freely from contemporary speeches, press-comment, pamphlets, etc. The narrative takes us to the opening months of 1917.
A L A Bkl 14:21 O ‘17
“Throughout his investigation Mr Stoddard seems to have preserved a scrupulously scientific attitude of mind. Indeed it is impossible to determine from his book whether his sympathies are with Germany or with the Entente. Those who wish an intelligent understanding of the problems that will arise around the international council table when the nations meet to settle the terms of peace will find ‘Present-day Europe’ both informative and suggestive.” R. T. P.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Je 6 ‘17 1200w
“The value of such a study depends on the judgment with which the excerpts are selected. Mr Stoddard’s judgment is excellent.”
+ Nation 105:434 O 18 ‘17 260w
“An extremely valuable work, valuable because its subject matter is in itself new, and has not been treated in the ordinary run of war literature. Of course, such a subject is extremely difficult to handle, and its accuracy 539cannot be more than loosely guaranteed. It is an approximation, but an approximation under the circumstances is the only thing possible.” Joshua Wanhope
+ N Y Call p14 Je 17 ‘17 570w
“There is a powerful lesson in this volume, and it comes directly from the people themselves.”
+ N Y Times 22:294 Ag 12 ‘17 500w
“Dr Stoddard’s book is most interesting not in those passages wherein the author attempts by means of numerous citations of conflicting views to body forth contemporary public opinion, but rather in the purely historical parts. ... The author seems unable to do what a writer in close spiritual contact with the nations concerned could certainly do—that is, to give his readers some sure clue to the nature and motives of the prevailing national feeling. The result is a confusing medley of views.”
— No Am 206:482 S ‘17 470w
“In the chapters dealing with the greater nations only natives are allowed to testify; thus in the chapter on England only Englishmen speak, and in the chapter on France only Frenchmen. Not all observers of the conditions precedent to the war, however, will agree with this author’s conclusion that ‘everywhere ... the spirit of unrest was setting the stage for the final catastrophe, and that the catastrophe was ‘inevitable.’”
+ Outlook 116:412 Jl 11 ‘17 90w
Pratt p42 O ‘17 30w
+ R of Rs 56:107 Jl ‘17 250w
STONE, GILBERT. England from the earliest times to the Great charter. (Great nations ser.) il *$3 Stokes 942 (Eng ed 17-26257)
“The present volume, which is the first of a series, treats of the history of England from earliest times to Magna carta. In this period the English race was being evolved, and the English constitution, as we to-day know it, was slowly struggling into being. The volume, indeed, is concerned with the birth of the English state.” (Preface) The work aims to treat of the social history of the English people as well as of political events. The method adopted has been to insert chapters dealing solely with the condition of literature, art and society in certain periods. A list of important dates and an index complete the work. A book by the author on “Wales” was published in 1915.
“A solid and authoritative piece of work, drawn largely from secondary sources. ... It is well illustrated and good for reference, but is not very readable.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:308 Ap ‘17
“Mr Stone has chosen a fascinating and extensive period of great historical value; he treats it fully from various points of view, and the illustrations, which are plentiful and well selected, will be of great use to his readers.”
+ Ath p53 Ja ‘17 30w
N Y Br Lib News 4:23 F ‘17
“Through the mazes of Anglo-Saxon history Mr Stone, like everybody else, follows the unfailing guidance of Mr Plummer. ... This is the only chapter in which his readers have reason to complain that he has failed to make use of recent advances in historical criticism. This part of the book is marked by a knowledge of Welsh history which few, if any, of Mr Stone’s rivals have possessed, and he is able to throw fresh light upon some obscure incidents and questions. ... He is, throughout, specially happy in his exposition of legal conditions and legal reforms, and these passages, and his chapters on manners and customs, are always fresh.”
The Times [London] Lit Sup p620 D 21 ‘16 450w
STONE, GILBERT, ed. Women war workers. il $1.65 (3c) Crowell 940.91 (Eng ed 17-21956)
In her foreword to this book Lady Jellicoe says: “The truth is, this is not a ‘men’s war,’ as wars have been hitherto, but one in which both sexes must share the burdens and responsibilities.” In these accounts, contributed by representative workers among British women in the more important branches of war employment, we learn of work done in munitions, on the land, as postwomen, as bank clerks, as butcher-boys (“Delivering the goods”). The second part of the book, entitled “Works of mercy” discusses nursing at the front and in the V. A. D. (Volunteer aid detachments) hospitals, the cheering of the men by entertainments and constructive work for the disabled, etc., and welfare work among the women. Chapter 11 is a tribute to the women of Paris during the German advance and chapter 12 contains most valuable information on war organizations for the 600,000 new paid industrial women workers and the enormous army of volunteers. These last include those of Queen Mary’s needlework guild, those with the Vegetable products committee (whose 40,000 women volunteers supply the fleet and the naval hospitals with fresh vegetables), the workers at the Soldiers and Sailors buffet (at the Victoria railway station, London), and many others. The book lacks an index.
+ A L A Bkl 14:55 N ‘17
“The facts throughout should receive all possible publicity, though some of the deductions and thoughts regarding the future are rather superficial and shortsighted.”
+ — Ath p357 Jl ‘17 120w
“Employers of women, also, will gather from representative worker writers valuable hints for the preservation of their employees’ health and strength.”
+ Ind 92:342 N 17 ‘17 160w
“The women war-workers of England, from V.A.D. nurse to munition maker, have so often been held up in a semi-heroic pose that it is refreshing to have in a volume written by the women themselves, a purely human picture. A really eloquent, vivid, and closely knit description of nursing at the French front is given by Grace Ellison.”
+ Nation 105:407 O 11 ‘17 390w
“The book not only offers entertainment, but has value and interest as an offhand sketch of some of the results of the great war that may have consequences of the greatest social importance.”
+ N Y Times 22:348 S 16 ‘17 510w
+ Spec 118:616 Je 2 ‘17 120w
STONER, WINIFRED SACKVILLE. Manual of natural education. il *$1 (2½c) Bobbs 370.1 16-20505
A note says that this book is meant to be used in connection with “Natural education” and “Facts in jingles.” It is a book of methods and devices. Among the chapters are: What is natural education; The natural education book shelf; How to use the natural educational tools; Training the physical part of the child’s trinity; Character building; Requirements for natural educational schools.
“A valuable book for parents and teachers, for the ideas are not only in line with those of other advocates of naturalism in education, such as Rousseau and Mrs Johnson of Fairhope, Ala., but are practical, although frequently expressed too concisely.”
+ Cleveland p149 D ‘16 50w
Ind 89:559 Mr 26 ‘17 40w
“There is really nothing added here to what she said in her first book, nor, it may be added, has she given to the science of education anything new. ... This book should be read by all mothers and teachers, because they will get from it some of Mrs Stoner’s exuberant enthusiasm for the noblest work in the world—the proper upbringing of our children.” R. F. Zametkin
+ N Y Call p14 Mr 18 ‘17 330w
540STOURM, RENÉ. Budget; Thaddeus Plazinski, tr., Walter Flavius McCaleb, ed. (Institute for government research. Studies in administration) *$3.75 Pub. by Appleton for the Institute for government research 336.44 17-19729
“This is the second volume published for the Institute for government research, the first being ‘The financial administration of Great Britain.’” (Survey) The translation is from the seventh edition of “Le budget” (Paris, 1913). There is a foreword by the editor, who is dissatisfied with the translation; an introduction by Charles A. Beard, and an author’s preface. “The book is an extremely minute historical and critical study of the French budget system, with some consideration of the systems of other countries.” (Springf’d Republican) Two introductory chapters are on The budget and The budgetary prerogative. The author then divides the subject-matter into four parts: part 1, Preparation of the budget; part 2, Voting the budget; part 3, Execution of the budget; part 4, Control of the budget.