Book Review Digest Devoted to the Valuation of Current Literature Reviews of 1920 Books (continued 13)
Reading edition
“The range of topics treated and the definite nature of the discussions make the book suitable for wide use in courses dealing with a survey of the psychology of the learning process.”
+
El School J 21:392 Ja ’21 600w
“In this comparatively brief and quite readable treatise, one finds less space taken up with academic discussion of pedagogic bugaboos than in most books on similar themes.” C. L. Clarke
+
Survey 45:611 Ja 22 ’21 400w
EDWARDS, CLAYTON. Treasury of heroes and heroines. il *$3 (2½c) Stokes 920
20–19159
“A record of high endeavour and strange adventure; from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D.” In the book so described in the sub-title the life stories of many famous men and women are given. The “Heroes of reality” include: Buddha; Julius Cæsar; Saint Patrick; King Arthur of Britain; Mohammed; Alfred the Great; Robin Hood; Saint Elizabeth of Hungary; Dante; Robert Bruce; Jeanne d’Arc; Christopher Columbus; William the Silent; Queen Elizabeth of England; Sir Francis Drake; Henry Hudson; Peter the Great; George Washington; John Paul Jones; Molly Pitcher; Napoleon Bonaparte; Giuseppe Garibaldi; Abraham Lincoln; Grace Darling; Florence Nightingale; Father Damien; Catherine Breshkovsky; Theodore Roosevelt; Edith Cavell; King Albert of Belgium; Maria Botchkareva. Four heroes of fiction are included: William Tell; Don Quixote; Robinson Crusoe; and Rip Van Winkle. There are illustrations in color by Florence Choate and Elizabeth Curtis.
“The stories are brief, but they are by no means mere sketches; nor are they ‘written down’ in a way that children dislike. It is a good book and a useful one.”
+
N Y Evening Post p13 N 13 ’20 180w
“The big book is interesting and well done, full of information that reads like wild romance.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
+
N Y Times p9 D 19 ’20 120w
EDWARDS, GEORGE WHARTON.[2] Belgium old and new. il *$10 Penn 914.93
20–21326
“The illustrations, numbering forty-one, are full-page and are mostly in color. These reproduce ancient or famous buildings, towers, sections of historic structures and open spaces in Antwerp, Brussels and other cities and towns of the several provinces in the kingdom. Much of the text is historical in character. In the first chapter, Mr Edwards touches upon the natural resources of the little country and its condition at the close of the war, concluding with an optimistic forecast of its quick recovery and future well-being. He then proceeds, in separate chapters, with historical sketches of Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, Tournai, Couillet, Liège and Mons. This done, the author returns to the present and discusses Belgium’s colonies, characteristics of the country and people and the constitution. The work concludes with chapters devoted to Cardinal Mercier and the king and queen.”—Springf’d Republican
“The text of the book is eminently satisfactory, but chiefly so because it puts us in precisely the right attitude of mind and spirit for enjoying to the full the charm of the book’s generous wealth of illustration.” F: T. Cooper
+
Pub W 98:1893 D 18 ’20 300w
+
Springf’d Republican p8 D 15 ’20 380w
EELLS, ELSIE SPICER (MRS B. G. EELLS). Tales of enchantment from Spain. il *$2 (6c) Harcourt
20–17754
The author has brought out two earlier collections of South American tales and her studies in this field have led her to an examination of the folk lore of Spain, from which many of the Spanish-American tales are derived. Among the titles of the fifteen stories are: The white parrot; The carnation youth; The wood cutter’s son and the two turtles; The luck fairies; The bird which laid diamonds; The enchanted castle in the sea; The princess who was dumb. The pictures are by Maud and Miska Petersham.
+
Booklist 17:121 D ’20
EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS, and KENNEDY, JOHN JAMES BRIGHT. Knights of Columbus in peace and war. 2v il *$5.25 Encyclopedia press 267
20–6359
“The first of these two handsome illustrated volumes is devoted to the origin, growth, and constitution of this celebrated Anglican Roman Catholic friendly society, founded by the Rev. M. J. McGivney in Connecticut in 1882; its work in peace time of protecting homes, promoting higher education, allaying religious prejudice, opposing bolshevism, etc.; and its war work during the fighting in France, with the navy, and after the armistice. The Canadian Knights’ war work has a special chapter. The second volume is chiefly taken up with the roll of honour of the Knights.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
N Y Times 25:258 My 16 ’20 1250w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p671 O 14 ’20 90w
EGGLESTON, MRS MARGARET W. Use of the story in religious education. *$1.50 Doran 268
20–4125
“In this book the author has brought together some of the recommendations on story-telling that have been current in secular education for some time and has applied these to problems directly connected with the Sunday school.”—El School J
“Will interest all storytellers.”
+
Booklist 16:328 Jl ’20
“The book will be suggestive to Sunday school teachers and will lead to an improvement in the story-telling which is an important part of the Sunday school’s work.”
+
El School J 20:633 Ap ’20 180w
Wis Lib Bul 16:110 Je ’20 140w
EINSTEIN, ALBERT. Relativity: the special and general theory. il *$3 Holt 530.1
20–17742
“The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.” (Preface) The translation is by Professor Robert W. Lawson who has added a biographical note of the author. The contents are in three parts: The special theory of relativity; The general theory of relativity; Considerations on the universe as a whole. There are appendices, a bibliography and an index.
“Although Professor Einstein’s own exposition is as clear and simple as could be expected, the book is of exceptional interest, not as a popular exposition, but as an indication of the mental processes of its author.”
+
Ath p311 S 3 ’20 260w
+
Booklist 17:98 D ’20
“An excellent translation of Einstein’s book.”
+
Nature 106:336 N 11 ’20 1200w
“Written in an unpretentious, straightforward style. The trend of his exposition can be followed in the main by any attentive reader who is not scared by algebraic formulae.” E. E. Slosson
+
N Y Evening Post p7 O 23 ’20 2400w
“The book is ‘intended to give an exact insight into the theory to those who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.’ In the opinion of the reviewer, in this attempt he has been eminently successful, that is, if an essentially mathematical notion can be made intelligible without algebraic symbols.” A. G. Webster
+
Review 3:384 O 27 ’20 1000w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p539 Ag 19 ’20 90w
ELIAS, MRS EDITH L. Abraham Lincoln. (Heroes of all time) il *$1.50 Stokes
20–18583
This story of Lincoln for young people is in seven sections: Years of inexperience; Years of development; Years of self-expression and experience; Years of public recognition; Years of leadership; Years of supremacy; Triumph and death. Each section is prefaced by an extract from Lincoln’s speeches. There are nine illustrations, a list of presidents of the United States up to Abraham Lincoln and a chart showing method of government in the United States.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
+
N Y Times p9 D 12 ’20 80w
ELIAS, MRS EDITH L. Periwinkle’s island. il *$1.50 (4c) Lippincott
An English story for children, all about the surprising adventures of Meg, Peg and Topkins, who go to the country with their mother, the queen, Fuzzy Wuzz, their nurse, and Tut-Tut, their tutor. Only good children are allowed to land on Periwinkle’s island and at first attempt Meg, Peg and Topkins can not pass the test, but they improve and after the second trial go ashore to take part in the great chase after the Creepingo, aided by the Top Twins, the Elastic Dog and other queer folk. The pictures in color are by Molly Benatar.
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne
+
N Y Times p9 D 12 ’20 70w
ELIOT, CHARLES WILLIAM. Road to unity among the Christian churches. *$1 (8½c) Am. Unitar. 280
20–2426
This little volume contains the first lecture delivered under the Arthur Emmons Pearson foundation, established in 1918 with the object of promoting “the advancement of mutual understanding and helpfulness between the people of all denominations and creeds.” Dr Eliot points out the factors that have promoted division in the past and then enumerates the present forces that are encouraging unification. He says, “To the United States the world is indebted for the demonstration that on the principle of federation a strong, stable, and just government can be constructed.... The same principle applied to the divided Christian churches will produce analogous good results; but as in a group of federated states federation will not be fusion.”
+
Ind 103:318 S 11 ’20 50w
ELIOT, SAMUEL ATKINS, ed. Little theater classics, v 2 il *$1.50 Little 808.2
18–19312
This is volume two of “Little theater classics” adapted and edited by Samuel Atkins Eliot, jr. Each one of the four plays has an introduction giving its origin and history, and staging suggestions. The plays are: Patelin, from “Maître Pierre Pathelin” by Guillaume Alécis; Abraham and Isaac, from the Book of Brome and the Chester cycle of miracles; The loathed lover, from “The changeling” of Middleton and Rowley; Sganarelle, or, Imaginary horns, from Molière. Three of the plays have already been produced by little theaters and are illustrated with photographs from the production.
Booklist 16:233 Ap ’20
“Sganarelle is a charming little antique. Abraham and Isaac is a beautiful piece of work.”
+
Boston Transcript p6 Ap 14 ’20 520w
“There are some intrepidities in Mr Eliot which rather stagger me, though whether the protest comes from real disapprobation or simply from that unusedness which whimpers at the approach of novelty it is hard for me to say. For instance, I stand agape, if not aghast, at Mr Eliot’s consolidation of the Chester play and the Brome play on Abraham and Isaac into one drama.” O. W. Firkins
+ −
Review 2:608 Je 5 ’20 340w
“On the whole, this second volume measures up to the high standard set by the first. The work has been done with fine taste and intelligence and forms a valuable contribution to the dramatic literature available to little theatres.”
+
Theatre Arts Magazine 4:256 Jl ’20 300w
ELIOT, THOMAS STEARNS. Poems. *$1.25 Knopf 811
20–4200
Mr Eliot is a poet of American birth who lives in London. “He published ‘Prufrock’ in 1917 and ‘Poems’ in 1919—this volume assembles the contents of the two, together with a number of other poems, and is the first volume to be published in America, where heretofore it has been exceedingly difficult to obtain his poems.” (Publisher’s announcement) Some of the poems have appeared in Poetry, Others, the Little Review, and other periodicals.
“Mr Eliot is always quite consciously ‘trying for’ something, and something which has grown out of and developed beyond all the poems of all the dead poets. Poetry to him seems to be not so much an art as a science.”
+ −
Ath p491 Je 20 ’19 600w
Booklist 16:305 Je ’20
“The ‘Poems’—ironically so-called—of T. S. Eliot, if not heavy and pedantic parodies of the ‘new poetry,’ are documents that would find sympathetic readers in the waiting-room of a private sanatorium. As a parodist, Mr Eliot is lacking in good taste, invention, and wit.” R. M. Weaver
−
Bookm 52:57 S ’20 1400w
“Reading these poems (?) is like being in a closed room full of foul air; not a room in an empty house that is sanctified with mould and dust, but a room in which the stale perfume of exotics is poisoned with the memory of lusts.” W. S. B.
−
Boston Transcript p6 Ap 14 ’20 500w
Reviewed by E. E. Cummings
+
Dial 68:781 Je ’20 1400w
“At least two-thirds of Eliot’s sixty-three pages attain no higher eminence than extraordinarily clever—and eminently uncomfortable—verse. The exaltation which is the very breath of poetry—that combination of tenderness and toughness—is scarcely ever present in Eliot’s lines. Scarcely ever, I reiterate, for a certain perverse exultation takes its place; an unearthly light without warmth which has the sparkle if not the strength of fire. It flickers mockingly through certain of the unrhymed pictures and shines with a bright pallor out of the two major poems.” L: Untermeyer
+ −
Freeman 1:381 Je 30 ’20 2000w
“He is the most proficient satirist now writing in verse, the uncanniest clown, the devoutest monkey, the most picturesque ironist; and aesthetically considered, he is one of the profoundest symbolists.” M. V. D.
+
Nation 110:856 Je 26 ’20 300w
“In such poems as ‘Gerontion,’ the ‘Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ ‘Portrait of a lady,’ ‘Cooking egg,’ we get a glimpse of the visions and tragedies that are in the soul—it does not matter that the soul in these situations has to look out on restaurants instead of on temples.” Padraic Colum
+
New Repub 25:52 D 8 ’20 980w
“His is a book to gaze upon worshipfully and humbly. We shall always cherish it, for its shrieking modernity—though we are one of the Philistines who still ask for poetry and sanity in lines presented as poetry.” Clement Wood
− +
N Y Call p10 Je 20 ’20 270w
“Mr Eliot, like Browning, likes to display out-of-the-way learning, he likes to surprise you by every trick he can think of. He has forgotten his emotions, his values, his sense of beauty, even his common-sense, in that one desire to surprise, to get farther away from the obvious than any writer on record.”
− +
The Times [London] Lit Sup p322 Je 12 ’19 550w
ELLIOT, HUGH SAMUEL ROGER. Modern science and materialism. *$3 (*7s 6d) Longmans 146
20–4021
“The philosophy expounded by Hugh Elliot in ‘Modern science and materialism’ is the complete materialism which not only makes mind dependent upon matter but identifies mind with matter. The world is thus conceived as consisting of one substance. Not all of those who agree with the materialistic hypothesis will accept this extreme simplification of it. To many Mr Elliot’s view will seem as metaphysical as the opposite view which regards matter as a form of mind. Mr Elliot’s book, however, is not merely an argument against the commonly accepted dualism in the conception of matter and mind. It is also a survey of the creation of man and the universe, as interpreted by a method which reduces all processes to the working of blind, but immutable, laws. In all respects, Mr Elliot’s view of the universe is rigidly mechanistic.”—Springf’d Republican
“It is difficult not to be unjust to ‘Modern science and materialism.’ Its science is above reproach and occupies the center of the author’s interest and the bulk of the book. But it is impossible to say more of the author’s ‘materialism’ than that it is what physical science always is when it attempts to substitute itself for life.” C. E. Ayres
+ −
Am J Soc 26:249 S ’20 280w
“A good bird’s-eye view, not unduly technical, for the interested layman or student.”
+
Booklist 16:257 My ’20
+
N Y Times p18 O 17 ’20 140w
“Mr Elliot is one of the most intolerant of materialists, but those who read his book are likely to see that he frequently falls into the sin he castigates, that of accepting ideas as true which are merely speculative. Mr Elliot also falls into the familiar error of claiming to be an agnostic and, from this negative doctrine, he immediately and cheerfully builds up a most positive philosophy.”
+ −
Review 3:45 Jl 14 ’20 850w
Sat R 128:613 D 27 ’19 1150w
“Mr Elliot writes with refreshing clearness and vigour; he is always entertaining, and he never leaves his readers in doubt about his meaning. But while admiring Mr Elliot’s gifts of exposition and assertion, we would urge upon him, with some diffidence, the advantages of a larger share in his own writing of that agnosticism whose value he so strenuously upholds.”
+ −
Spec 124:214 F 14 ’20 480w
“Unquestionably able book. Mr Elliot states his stern ideas with the utmost simplicity and clarity.”
+
Springf’d Republican p13 F 1 ’20 1400w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p634 N 6 ’19 40w
ELLIOTT, LILIAN ELWYN.[2] Black gold. *$2.25 Macmillan
20–19915
“The ‘black gold’ which gives its title to L. E. Elliott’s novel is rubber. Though it opens in England, the greater part of the scene is laid in Brazil. The heroine is an English girl, Margarita Channing, whose elder sister, Francina, is the wife of a musician, Salvatore. Both Margarita and her sister sing nicely, and with the help of some rich Brazilians Salvatore organizes an opera company and takes it up the Amazon as far as Manaos. The voyage and the people they meet on board the steamer afford opportunities for the discussion of Brazilian affairs, of which the author makes full use. Presently they reach Manaos, are taken to see all its sights and especially the operations of the rubber industry, and have some experiences with South American politics. Of course there is a love story for Margarita, with a young Englishman, an inventor and the owner of a rubber plantation, as its hero.”—N Y Times
“I have felt nowhere else so keenly the spell of South America, the power of the golden blood of the ‘rio das Amazonas,’ and the power of the forest.” D. L. M.
+
Boston Transcript p1 D 4 ’20 1300w
“The novel is neither good nor bad; merely mediocre. Those who enjoy swift moving tales will find it slow. Those who like style, characterization, will find it uninteresting. As it is, it exemplifies the immortal (and overworked) ‘words, words, words.’”
− +
N Y Evening Post p18 D 4 ’20 90w
“It is in this descriptive portion of the volume that the author has done her best work, for, though her style is usually good, she lacks dramatic and character sense, and is essentially an article rather than a fiction writer.”
+ −
N Y Times p28 Ja 2 ’21 350w
“Not only the physical beauty of Brazilian scenes, but the industries, social conditions and political upheavals are set forth interestingly.”
+
Springf’d Republican p5a Ja 23 ’21 170w
ELLIS, JULIAN. Fame and failure. il *$3.75 Lippincott 920
(Eng ed 20–8729)
“Short biographies of a number of famous people who ended as failures. Amongst the characters discussed are Edwin James the lawyer, Wainewright the murderer, Lady Hamilton, King Ludwig of Bavaria and Beau Brummel. In all there are eighteen biographies.”—Ath
Ath p1412 D 26 ’19 40w
Ath p174 F 6 ’20 390w
“A better selection to illustrate his thesis that fame and success are not alway marriageable ideas could not have been made.” B: de Casseres
+
N Y Times 25:12 Jl 4 ’20 2300w
“Notwithstanding his rather absurd classification, Mr Julian Ellis has written a very amusing book. His style is clear and lively; and he doesn’t bore us with footnotes or authorities, which so often spoil the pleasure of reading biographies.”
+ −
Sat R 128:587 D 20 ’19 640w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p753 D 11 ’19 80w
“If we must decline to take Mr Ellis too seriously as a biographer, this need not prevent us from wiling away some pleasant time in his company. If he has the faults of the journalist, he has also no small measure of his virtues.”
+ −
The Times [London] Lit Sup p5 Ja 1 ’20 2550w
ELLIS, STEWART MARSH. George Meredith. il $6 Dodd
20–26976
“This book follows the lines of articles which Mr Ellis contributed to the Fortnightly Review and the Saturday Review. His primary object was to use his information about the early life of Meredith, who was his father’s first cousin, and to reconsider in connexion with it the inner history of some of the novels, particularly ‘Evan Harrington,’ ‘Beauchamp’s career,’ ‘Vittoria,’ and ‘Diana of the crossways.’ There are numerous portraits and other illustrations.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Mr Ellis makes an absorbingly interesting volume out of his revelations.”
+
Ath p62 F ’19 2100w
Booklist 17:112 D ’20
“All the details in this volume are of surpassing interest, and it contains not a little acute criticism of Meredith’s novels. The work as a whole is an exceptional pen portraiture of a literary personality who was as great and influential as he was interesting.” E. F. E.
+
Boston Transcript p6 S 25 ’20 1350w
“Written without any distinction of style, Mr Ellis’s contribution belongs to that class of biographical work which owes its existence to the fact that some one or other has known, or been connected with, a famous man and is able to satisfy, by the composition of a book of this kind, the promptings of his own personal egotism.” Llewelyn Powys
−
Freeman 2:189 N 3 ’20 740w
“That Meredith, in Evan Harrington, misinterpreted and, as the biographer holds, maligned the character of Mr Ellis’s grandparents may, or may not, have been a contributing cause of the publication of this rather shallow and rather malicious book. Certain it is that George Meredith was on no very friendly terms with his Ellis cousins, and the reader must be warned of the evident animus on the part of the biographer.” S. C. C.
− +
New Repub 25:267 Ja 26 ’21 1200w
“Mr Ellis’s book on Meredith is to be welcomed, though it appears to be in no sense an ‘official’ biography and though it is not written in a manner which could have pleased Meredith himself. It is neither an ‘inspired’ exposition of his career nor a book which could be counted excellent on its own independent merits. But it is the only biography in existence.”
+ −
New Statesman 12:378 F 1 ’19 2050w
“What should have been a great portrait is only a rather ordinary photograph. He is painstaking and accurate enough. Any one who is interested in Meredith can gather from this book much which he will be glad to know. But he will seek in vain and with growing exasperation for the things which are really needful.” W. H. Durham
+ −
N Y Evening Post p9 D 31 ’20 600w
“Extremely interesting and well-written book.” R: Le Gallienne
+
N Y Times p6 N 21 ’20 2350w
+
Sat R 127:157 F 15 ’19 700w
Sat R 130:182 Ag 28 ’20 340w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p46 Ja 23 ’19 70w
ELWELL, AMBROSE. At the sign of the Red swan, il *$1.75 Small
19–19053
“A rollicking old-fashioned story of the sea with romance, murder and suicide generously interwoven is told by Ambrose Elwell in ‘At the sign of the Red swan.’ From a quiet, simple fisherman’s home on the rockbound Maine coast, Elwell, who tells the story in the first person, sails forth over the horizon to seek a living and money with which to support his widowed mother and younger brother. His quest, teeming with adventure, leads him into strange paths and foreign waters—Liverpool, the south seas, and, finally, back to the old home. At the Red swan inn, sailors’ dive on a South Sea island, he becomes entangled in the law, charged with deserting his ship and murder of a wealthy Jewish trader. All looks black for him with a gibbet as the closing chapter of his adventurous career. But the devotion of a settlement physician and a chaplain aids him to escape in the nick of time. Later, the sensational suicide of the guilty one, while at sea on the same ship, clears the name of our hero.”—Springf’d Republican
“The fact that this story is ‘different’ from most of the large grist of fiction turned out so steadily and voluminously since the armistice will probably cause it to attract more than ordinary attention.”
+
N Y Times 25:33 Ja 18 ’20 500w
Springf’d Republican p11a Je 13 ’20 160w
EMERSON, GUY. New frontier. *$2 (3c) Holt 304
20–12285
A series of papers on Americanism. The new frontier is the present social and industrial situation and the author’s plea is that it be faced with the spirit that conquered the old geographical frontier of the expanding west. This spirit is for him typified by Theodore Roosevelt. The introduction says, “In this book two main points are emphasized; first, that the spirit of that portion of our people which has actually shaped the destinies of America has been liberal, rather than radical or conservative.... Second, it is claimed that our national spirit has taken its essential liberal flavor from the frontier, from the generations of tireless, self-reliant effort which won this continent for the men and women of our own day and which stamped them with its indelible character.” Contents: The frontier of American character; The leadership that made America; What is a liberal? The politics of the middle of the road; Public opinion and the industrial problem; The need for fifty million capitalists; An American federation of brains; Human resources; The weapons of truth; The American spirit in world affairs; The new frontier. There is a bibliographical appendix, also an index.
“Written by a layman for laymen, with a limited and somewhat uneven bibliography appended for the use of readers not especially familiar with the development of the United States, the book is interesting and valuable as an illustration of one type of thought which has to be taken into consideration by the student of forces making American history today.” L. B. Shippee
+
Am Hist R 26:370 Ja ’21 400w
+
Am Pol Sci R 11:738 N ’20 40w
Booklist 17:11 O ’20
“Excellent book. He sees clearly and writes as clearly, giving no handy panaceas as such, on a topic where the temptation is great.” R. D. W.
+
Boston Transcript p7 Jl 17 ’20 450w
“Mr Emerson knows his American history thoroughly. He is also a student of American psychology, as is shown by his success in directing the publicity of the Liberty loan drives. These two characteristics probably account for much of his ability to strike out a new path in the already overcrowded field of ‘Americanization.’ For that there is novelty and freshness in his attack on an old problem, no one can deny. Nor should it be held against him that he has achieved this novelty through a distinctly original and forceful use of another man’s idea. He has developed Professor Turner’s profound conception of the influence of the frontier in a new field; for the purpose of his argument he has made it his own.” Lincoln MacVeagh
+
Dial 69:303 S ’20 1800w
“The best chapter, we think, is the one on ‘The industrial problem,’ but the whole book is vital and invigorating.” C. F. L.
+
Grinnell R 15:258 O ’20 500w
Reviewed by G: Soule
Nation 111:478 O 27 ’20 1700w
“A book of timely consequence, whose pages deserve wide and careful reading.”
+
N Y Times p21 Ag 15 ’20 1900w
“An interpretation of America which is thoughtful and scholarly, which is simply and forcibly written, and which is well worth anybody’s reading.”
+
Review 3:421 N 3 ’20 900w
R of Rs 62:333 S ’20 90w
ENGLAND, GEORGE ALLAN. Flying legion. *$1.90 McClurg
20–12813
“In a lofty tower at the summit of the palisades of the Hudson is the eyrie of the master where he dwells with his Arabian servants. Mysteriously he summons a company of thirty veterans of the war, all longing for excitement, a battalion is formed and a new, giant aeroplane, just ready for service on the Jersey shore is seized and the party take to flight for the Arabian desert. Mysteriously they went away, mysteriously they returned after scores of adventures.” (Boston Transcript) “One of the thirty with the master had been an uninvited member—a ‘Captain Alden,’ who is a mysterious personage altogether and whose identity, ultimately discovered, furnishes the story’s principal romantic interest.” (N Y Times)
“A tale of romance and adventure in which improbability is obscured by thrills. The style is awkward.”
+ −
Booklist 17:70 N ’20
“Well-told tale.”
+
Boston Transcript p4 Ag 28 ’20 220w
“The story is told in a casual, rather than an inspired, way. But when the action once really starts, the reader forgets the critical attitude in a breathless absorption in the vigor of the narrative.”
+ −
N Y Times p25 S 5 ’20 470w
+
Springf’d Republican p11a S 12 ’20 150w
ENOCK, C. REGINALD. Spanish America: its romance, reality and future. 2v il *$8 Scribner 918
20–26989
“The scheme of Mr Enock’s book is what Stowe would have called a perambulation. Beginning with Central America and Mexico, he takes us right along the Pacific coast through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, with an excursion into Bolivia: the remaining two chapters of the first volume are devoted to the Cordillera of the Andes. In the second volume we are taken down the Atlantic coast, with its rich and still imperfectly explored hinterlands, from the ‘lands of the Spanish Main’—Colombia, Venezuela and Guiana—through the Amazon valley and Brazil to the River Plate and the pampas, the go-ahead countries of Argentina and Uruguay and the secluded pastures of Paraguay. The historical associations, natural resources, and present industrial life of each district are uniformly described in passing.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
+
Booklist 17:150 Ja ’21
“He has prepared what might quite accurately be called a primer of Latin America. It contains much valuable information, of course, but so does an ordinary primer. He expects practically nothing of his readers.” D. J. M.
+ −
Boston Transcript p4 D 31 ’20 600w
“Such comprehensive, birdseye-view books as Mr Enock’s are of value as a starting point for more detailed study.”
+
N Y Times p4 N 7 ’20 2350w
+
Outlook 126:654 D 8 ’20 70w
“In spite of an occasional tendency to slipshod writing Mr Enock has given us a readable and informing work.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p643 O 7 ’20 900w
EQUIPMENT of the workers. $4 Sunwise turn (*10s 6d Allen & Unwin) 331.8
“There have already been exhaustive surveys of the physical and economic condition of the workers; and the findings of Booth and Rowntree have almost become classical. It was plainly necessary, however, to have these surveys supplemented by an inquiry far more inward and intimate into the mind and the outlook of the workers. What are they thinking? What are they living for? Do they read? If so, what? ‘The equipment of the workers’ gives us the answer to these and the like questions. The inquiry was planned and carried out by a group of workers at a Y. M. C. A. settlement in Sheffield; and it deals exclusively with Sheffield conditions. The finding of the group is that 25 per cent of the workers are well equipped, 60 per cent inadequately equipped, and 15 per cent ill equipped. The body of the book consists of a detailed record of the results of the inquiry in 408 typical cases.”—Nation
“An extraordinarily interesting inquiry. The results are very illuminating and important.”
+
Ath p894 S 12 ’19 60w
Ath p975 O 3 ’19 1500w
“In the main the tests applied and the judgment passed upon the reaction of the investigated persons to the tests seem sound. We have in this volume an important datum for our thought upon reconstruction and the problems of the new world.”
+
Nation 109:766 D 13 ’19 550w
“This book combines the exactness of scientific inquiry with the vivid appeal of art. A picture such as this of American life would be one of the most revealing documents in our time.” H. J. L.
+
New Repub 21:322 F 11 ’20 1600w
“It is an exceedingly interesting and valuable study of certain elements in the standard of living about which there is too little trustworthy information.” L. B.
+
Survey 43:554 F 7 ’20 1400w
“A close and systematic investigation, with abundant particulars of individual cases.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p487 S 11 ’19 200w
ERSKINE, JOHN. Democracy and ideals: a definition. *$1.50 (3c) Doran 304
20–11647
The author’s preface states: “These chapters, with the exception of the first and the last, were written while I was serving as chairman of the Army education commission with the American forces in France in 1918 and 1919, and as educational director of the American expeditionary force university at Beaune, 1919.... I have tried to express here from several angles a central conviction that we in the United States are detached from the past, and that this detachment is the striking fact in all our problems; that if in the future we are to become and to remain a nation, we must collaborate for common ends.” The six essays are: Democracy and ideals; American character; French ideals and American; Society as a university; Universal training for national service; University leadership. The author is professor of English in Columbia university.
“A pleasing clarification of ideas not particularly new or startling.”
+
Booklist 17:11 O ’20
“Among the best of the recent books dealing with the problems of citizenship and Americanization. It is written in a style so simple that anyone with but an elementary knowledge of English can enjoy it.” A. Yezierska
+
Bookm 52:497 F ’21 720w
“Scattered here and there through the volume are observations showing a thoughtful understanding of American problems, but the generalizations suitable to public addresses seem somewhat commonplace in their published form, when the inspiration of the occasion is past.”
+ −
Cath World 112:400 D ’20 200w
“The author has looked about him with sympathy and understanding; and he has pondered in his heart over the things he has seen. Curious intolerances stand out the more abruptly by reason of the general temper of liberality and discrimination which marks the book as a whole. The book has it in it to do for its readers the most fruitful service possible in these bewildering times. It might and should start them thinking.” R: Roberts
+ −
Freeman 2:91 O 6 ’20 1000w
+
Ind 104:69 O 9 ’20 80w
“One may share his vision without subscribing to his specific educational program.”
+
Nation 111:277 S 4 ’20 390w
“He seems to assume, as is usual nowadays, that democracy, as distinguished from aristocracy and monarchy, can somehow be made immortal, and that education can of course succeed where religion has failed. Granting these assumptions, the only fault to find with his work is that it appears, here and there, sometimes hasty and again fatigued. To wake it into literary life would have required an interval of repose. For that very reason, it is the more valuable as a document.”
+ −
Review 3:94 Jl 28 ’20 170w
+
School R 28:637 O ’20 170w
“By an accurate understanding of the French character as well as of our own, Prof. Erskine is able to make this study of Americanism very illuminating.”
+
Springf’d Republican p8 Ag 20 ’20 250w
“They are happily written and are frequently stimulating, but their neglect of social undercurrents—economic and psychological, which determine the application of intelligence, and are not deflected by it—mars their value.” N. W. Wilensky
+ −
Survey 45:546 Ja 8 ’21 200w
ERSKINE, JOHN. Kinds of poetry, and other essays. *$1.50 Duffield 808.1
20–12047
Poetry, the author holds, is not subject to evolution in its essence but is an unchanging function of an unchanging life and its three genres, the lyrical, the dramatic and the epic, are comparable to the three eternal ways of meeting experience: “as simply a present moment, or as a present moment in which the past is reaped, or as a present moment in which the future is promised.” The other essays of the volume are: The teaching of poetry; The new poetry; Scholarship and poetry.
+
Booklist 17:21 O ’20
“Of great value to all lovers of poetry is Mr Erskine’s book. His criticism is keen and trenchant and happily expressed in a style peculiarly his own.” C. K. H.
+
Boston Transcript p4 O 27 ’20 490w
“When his moral prejudices are not in the way, Mr Erskine is a sound writer.” Llewellyn Jones
+ −
Freeman 2:405 Ja 5 ’21 800w
+
Ind 104:248 N 13 ’20 20w
Reviewed by W: McFee
+
N Y Evening Post p2 D 31 ’20 1700w
“One will find great pleasure in his book, but it will hardly take its place as an important document.”
+
N Y Times p10 O 3 ’20 1050w
“They are characterized by a fine mingling of discrimination and common sense. His breadth of view, his refusal to rest content with mere special scholarship, gives value to his advice about the teaching of poetry.”
+
No Am 212:572 O ’20 850w
Reviewed by L. R. Morris
+
Outlook 126:377 O 27 ’20 720w
“An uneven book in which the critical elements are decidedly superior to the constructive ones.”
+ −
Review 3:321 O 13 ’20 410w
“There is somewhat too much of that intellectual writing around a subject which is common with persons who are afraid of the obvious, but, on the whole, the book will awaken thought; it will not do this the less because some of its reasoning will arouse criticism.”
+
Springf’d Republican p9a Ag 15 ’20 1100w
ERVINE, ST JOHN GREER. Foolish lovers. *$2 (1c) Macmillan
20–8447
Mr Ervine’s new book is dedicated to his mother, who asked him to write a story without any “bad words” in it, and to Mrs J. O. Hanny, who asked him to write a story without any “sex” in it. It is the story of a charmingly conceited young Irishman who goes to London to write novels and plays and comes home again to be a grocer. John’s boyhood is spent in the home over the shop where three generations of MacDermotts had preceded him. He grows up under the care of his mother, his Uncle Matthew, the dreamer whose dreams come to nothing, and his Uncle William, who supports the family. He goes to London where he meets Eleanor. He asks her to marry him almost at first meeting, dogs her steps and finally persuades her to marry him, only to find that she has leagued herself with his mother to persuade him back to Ballyards and the shop.
“‘The foolish lovers’ has nothing to commend it but a good beginning. Why did he write it? Or, rather, why did he give up writing it? Perhaps he would reply that what is not worth doing is not worth doing well. It is a possible explanation.” K. M.
− +
Ath p78 Jl 16 ’20 600w
+
Booklist 17:31 O ’20
“It is regrettable that so good a story as this bears so poor a title. ‘The foolish lovers’ is neither an exact nor an appealing designation for a novel that is so full of the commonsense of life.” E. F. E.
+
Boston Transcript p10 My 22 ’20 1950w
“Mr Ervine, in spite of his obvious determination to fix securely the ‘local coloring,’ has failed to evoke the fine, harsh, sincere reality of the Black Northerners with whom his story deals. Prose drama is, after all, this author’s true medium.”
+ −
Cath World 112:696 F ’21 100w
Lit D p97 O 23 ’20 1850w
“John McDermott himself is not altogether credible. His exploits, especially his wooing of Eleanor—the central thing in the book—have none of the homely vigor and quiet truth of the Irish scenes and incidents. Here and there Mr Ervine gives us glimpses of a more searching novel he might write about the people of Ulster. But he deliberately cut himself off from that possibility here by the kindly promises to be harmless which he records in his dedication.” Ludwig Lewisohn
+ −
Nation 111:74 Jl 17 ’20 500w
“To put it all as briefly as possible, ‘The foolish lovers,’ while not so remarkable a book as ‘Changing winds,’ is worthy of its author—and to say that a book is worthy of St John Ervine is to give it high praise.”
+
N Y Times 25:264 My 23 ’20 1200w
“Modern taste hardly asks for anything really better than such a suave and frank, sympathetically critical and wisely humorous treatment of life as is found in this book. Its tone just suits the mood of the cultivated man or woman of today who has outgrown youthful tastes but has retained a certain independence of view-point. In charm and in acuteness—the two qualities generally most worth commending in the fiction of the day, in which hysteria is so apt to take the place of power—‘The foolish lovers’ is preeminent.”
+
No Am 212:287 Ag ’20 660w
“‘The foolish lovers’ exemplifies to a very high degree the special gifts which have made its author’s novels notable among recent fiction. Mr Ervine has something of Dickens’s love for people. No more delightfully tender description of a courtship is contained in recent fiction, nor any which so finely sets forth as that in ‘The foolish lovers’ the unconscious humor of young love.” L. R. Morris
+
Outlook 125:388 Je 23 ’20 2950w
“Mr Ervine’s tale is in the new-British mode, the post-Wellsian, somewhat diffuse, somewhat overburdened with scenes and ‘characters,’ if not, in this instance, with ‘ideas.’” H. W. Boynton
+ −
Review 3:91 Jl 28 ’20 350w
“The portraits of his family are excellent, and the way he imposes himself on Eleanor is ably studied.”
+
Sat R 130:164 Ag 21 ’20 110w
“Mr St John Ervine has chosen an old theme, but he has invested it with the freshness and vigour which we have come to expect from his work.”
+
Spec 124:22 Jl 3 ’20 550w
“The story is rich in whimsical observations on personal characteristics and political trends, and engages the reader’s close interest in all its phases.”
+
Springf’d Republican p11a Jl 25 ’20 600w
“By far the most attractive part of his story takes place in Ballyards. The characters of Uncle William and Uncle Matthew are delightful. The success with which Mr Ervine brings out their simplicity and nobility of character is a convincing proof of his gifts as a novelist.”
+ −
The Times [London] Lit Sup p399 Je 24 ’20 800w
ESCOUFLAIRE, RODOLPHE C. Ireland an enemy of the allies? tr. from the French. *$2.50 Dutton 941.5
20–5757
“M. Escouflaire’s thesis in this volume is that the Irish question so-called is ‘an international imposture.’ In years past this French writer had accepted anti-British propaganda from Ireland at its face value, but his contact with British statesmen during the war led him to question his earlier conclusions, and in the present volume after an independent study of Ireland’s relations with England he declares categorically that the whole Irish claim of oppression by England, so far as the present generation is concerned, is a myth.”—R of Rs
“The egotism of his attitude is bewildering, but it is the key to a treatment of Irish affairs which would otherwise be merely stupidly unfair and ungenerous.”
−
Ath p1275 N 28 ’19 80w
“The book is a grotesque perversion of all Irish history, ancient and modern. The author’s gross ignorance is never corrected by the translator.” E. A. Boyd
−
Ath p1397 D 26 ’19 200w
“Lovers of England must trust that she will not listen to such counsels as these.” Preserved Smith
−
Nation 110:769 Je 5 ’20 360w
N Y Times pl Ag 1 ’20 750w
“His book is well written, but without the wise judgment that comes through the sympathetic understanding that such men as Lloyd George bring to the problem.”
+ −
Outlook 125:29 My 5 ’20 100w
“M. Escouflaire’s book must be laid down with a sigh of disappointment. It is the sort of work which can help no one, a perfect specimen of how Irish matters should not be discussed, and those most anxious for the object he sets before himself should be the first to repudiate the methods by which he is seeking it. The present critic hates Sinn Fein and all its works as much as M. Escouflaire can hate them, but he would wish to see it attacked with artillery not so far out of range.” H. L. Stewart
− +
Review 2:676 Je 30 ’20 2000w
R of Rs 61:556 My ’20 80w
“Accurate and spirited little book.”
+
Spec 123:732 N 29 ’19 440w
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p699 N 27 ’19 30w
ESSEN, LÉON VAN DER. Short history of Belgium. il *$1.50 (3c) Univ. of Chicago press 949.3
20–2285
This second and enlarged edition of the original book contains a special chapter on Belgium during the war. The book is illustrated and has a bibliography and an index. The first edition was published in 1916.
“Dr Van der Essen has succeeded admirably in confining a record of monumental size within the compass of a small volume. Yet, in doing so, he has not sacrificed clearness for brevity nor interest for compactness.”
+
Cath World 112:117 O ’20 210w
+
Outlook 126:767 D 29 ’20 40w
“Professor van der Essen has treated this difficult and often intricate subject with admirable skill; though writing with a scholar’s intimate knowledge of his country’s history, he has succeeded in steering clear from the shoal of ponderosity and dulness. Here and there the Roman Catholic has led the historian astray.”
+ −
Review 2:335 Ap 3 ’20 750w
“It is a fascinating story told by a master of the facts who writes with a fine sense of proportion.”
+
R of Rs 61:445 Ap ’20 200w
+
Springf’d Republican p11a Je 27 ’20 140w
EVANS, CARADOC. My neighbors. *$1.75 (5c) Harcourt
20–5187
More stories of a Welsh rural neighborhood by the author of “My people” and “Capel Sion.” In a prologue entitled “The Welsh people” the author offers some explanation of the ugly and distorted aspects of human nature that he presents. The stories are: Love and hate; According to the pattern; The two apostles; Earthbred; For better; Treasure and trouble; Saint David and the prophets; Joseph’s house; Like brothers; A widow woman; Unanswered prayers; Lost treasure; Profit and glory.
“I happen to know something of Welsh religion, and I have written not a little in criticism of it. But the religion which Mr Evans describes I have never met with. We Welsh have many grievous faults, and we have not been as faithful in self-criticism as we should have been. But Mr Caradoc Evans’s book does not describe us. It describes only Mr Caradoc Evans’s own soul; and it is not a pretty sight.”
−
Freeman 1:430 Jl 14 ’20 550w
“Mr Evans’s artistic gift is very genuine but hard and narrow. In its present trend one can see little chance for its development. The stories are like rocks—impressive but barren. The preface is written in a more flexible vein and a more ironic mood. In it the language of the English Bible, from which Mr Evans draws, is transmuted for the uses of his artistic intention. In the stories themselves it is employed merely as a weapon. But his work has fierce honesty, concentration, power. It is sanative and, within its definite limits, completely achieved.”
+ −
Nation 110:522 Ap 17 ’20 450w
“But does he really traverse the whole stage? We cannot think so. Where there are Goneril and Regan we cry out for a Cordelia, and Mr Evans would, we think, have made his terrible portraits more effective even than they are already if he had introduced more contrast and relief into them.”
+ −
Nation [London] 27:77 Ap 17 ’20 600w
“Mr Evans knows the Welsh intimately and searchingly, and his portrayal of their daily lives, their bickerings, prayings and aspirations is altogether ruthless and incisive.” Pierre Loving
+
N Y Call p10 Ap 18 ’20 800w
“The hardy reader who will persist beyond the almost impenetrable idiom of Caradoc Evans will be richly rewarded. Especially do we recommend the book to reformers, utopists, spinners of millennial dreams.”
+
N Y Times 25:160 Ap 4 ’20 600w
N Y Times 25:191 Ap 18 ’20 60w
Springf’d Republican p13a My 2 ’20 320w
“He is sometimes difficult to follow, partly because the dialogue is in English literally translated from the Welsh, and partly because the stories are almost excessively condensed; but the subdued irony and false simplicity are delightful, and he knows the sovereign power of the restraint which leaves events to explain themselves without heavy exegesis.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p154 Mr 4 ’20 450w
EVANS, EDWARD RADCLIFFE GARTH RUSSELL. Keeping the seas. il *$3 Warne 940.45
20–2282
“Captain Evans saw a great deal of the Dover patrol and of all it included. He tells his experiences, so to speak, right on end and in a kind of chronological order. He is a witness who was there and records what has remained in his mind of what he saw. And he had notable things to remember; for he commanded the Broke in the action of March, 1917, in the Straits. The war produced few such passages of conflict as the action in the Straits. Captain Evans’ services, like those of other officers, consisted in the main of cruising and watching. At the end he was afforded a change in the direction of Gibraltar and the Portuguese coast.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
+
Booklist 16:307 Je ’20
“His ‘simple sailor volume,’ as he calls it, is full of miscellaneous stories which would have been the better if they had been more carefully digested; but if the whole is rather confusing, not a little good matter is to be found in the heap.”
+ −
The Times [London] Lit Sup p74 F 5 ’20 1050w
EVANS, MRS ELIDA. Problem of the nervous child. *$2.50 (3c) Dodd 136.7
20–6871
This volume comes with an introduction by Dr C. G. Jung of Zurich who says of the author: “Mrs Evans’ knowledge of her subject matter is based on the solid foundation of practical experience, an experience gained in the difficult and toilsome treatment and education of nervous children.... This book, as the reader can see on almost every page, is the fruit of an extended work in the field of neuroses and abnormal characters.” Its purpose is to aid parents in the training and education of their children, not to add another “to the already long list of textbooks explaining psychoanalytical treatment for nervous troubles.” It does not presuppose scientific training in the laws of human development on the part of those for whom the book is intended and therefore avoids technical terms and abstruse discussions as far as possible, giving only end results of present day research and observation on the subject, with examples of cases. Contents: Statement of the problem; The development of repression; Symbolic thought; The child and the adult; Mental behaviour of the child; Defence reactions; The parent complex; Buried emotions; Child training; Muscle erotism; The tyrant child; Teaching of right and wrong; Self and character; Index.
+
Booklist 16:303 Je ’20
“There are spots in the book where the all-absorbing panacea of psycho-analytic therapy is too powerful, and she over-stresses the environment, losing sight of the medico-psychological fact that many defects are organically directed. The book needs a broader sensing and interpreting of the ever present interplay between the hereditary and environmental forces.” H. F. Coffin, M.D.
+ −
Survey 44:494 Jl 3 ’20 270w
EVANS, LAWTON BRYAN. America first. il *$2.50 Bradley, M. 973
20–16082
“Instead of being what the title might imply, the volume contains one hundred stories from the history of America in condensed form and written in a style that will prove interesting to the juvenile reader. The author goes on the supposition that the nearer a story is to the life of the child, the more eagerly it is absorbed. True stories, he says, about our own people, about our neighbors and friends and about our own country at large, are more interesting than true stories of remote people and places. The stories grouped in the volume open with ‘Leif, the lucky,’ and continue down through history to the time when Americans made history over-seas.”—Springf’d Republican
“An excellent piece of work. The book will be a valuable supplement to school study of our national history and it will stimulate a healthy national pride.”
+
Ind 104:378 D 11 ’20 100w
Outlook 126:470 N 10 ’20 40w
+
Springf’d Republican p7a N 21 ’20 180w
EVARTS, HAL GEORGE. Cross pull. *$1.90 (3½c) Knopf
20–4269
The hero of this story is Flash, a cross between wolf, coyote and dog. Clark Moran took him as a puppy and tamed him and the dog in him responded to kindness. To one other Flash gives his allegiance, to Betty, the girl from the East who comes into the mountains. To most other humans he is indifferent, but there is one he hates. The story tells how he served his two loved ones in a crisis, and how in so doing he took his own revenge on his enemy. In the end he settles down as a safe and trusted house dog, but there were times when the wild strain awakened and at those times, on still nights during the mating moon, certain civilized suburbanites would experience a primitive shudder at hearing the lone wolf’s call.
“Not over humanized or sentimentalized; one of the best dog stories.”
+
Booklist 16:243 Ap ’20
“A better novel it might have been, but a better animal study it could scarcely have been.”
+ −
Boston Transcript p7 Je 23 ’20 200w
“A story of more than ordinary interest either as an ‘animal story’ or a ‘live’ western romance.”
+
Springf’d Republican p11a Je 13 ’20 200w
EVARTS, WILLIAM MAXWELL. Arguments and speeches: ed., with an introd., by his son Sherman Evarts. 3v *$15 Macmillan 815
19–16299
“Mr Evarts (1818–1901) as leader of the American bar, orator, and statesman, was one of the most conspicuous of American citizens in the nineteenth century. This substantial collection of his public utterances not only provides a record of his career, but an important document for the social and political events of his day and for the history of American oratory. He was the leading counsel for the defendant in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Jackson in 1868; and in 1872 was counsel for the United States in the Alabama arbitration at Geneva. He was secretary of state during President Hayes’s administration (1877–1881) and one of the senators for New York 1885–1891.”—The Times [London]. Lit Sup
“The editor’s introductions and comments are brief and well chosen throughout. Taken as a whole, the volumes are a worthy memorial to one of the influential leaders of the American bar, and of the Republican party during a difficult period of our history.” W: A. Robinson
+
Am Pol Sci R 14:349 My ’20 360w
“The ‘Springbok’ argument is said by our leading authority on international law to be as good an argument in a prize case as he has ever read. The defense of Andrew Johnson was equally worth reprinting. As to the rest of the three volumes there is much room for doubt.” Zechariah Chafee, jr.
+ −
Nation 111:692 D 15 ’20 1100w
+
N Y Times 25:116 Mr 28 ’20 1650w
“These volumes should find a place in all public libraries, especially those of the higher institutions of learning, and in many private libraries. especially those of persons interested in the political history of the United States.”
+
Outlook 124:161 Ja 28 ’20 300w
R of Rs 61:559 My ’20 100w
“We are glad to find, in sampling these volumes, that Evarts’s high reputation for eloquence is fully justified.”
+
Spec 124:316 Mr 6 ’20 180w
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p158 Mr 4 ’20 100w
Reviewed by Moorfield Storey
Yale R n s 10:189 O ’20 1200w
EVISON, MILLICENT. Rainbow gold. il *$1.75 Lothrop
While their father is serving a term of imprisonment on a charge of embezzlement three young people, Toni, Basil and Cecily, go to live with their grandfather in a lonely old house in Maine. The grandfather is crabbed and cold and the two aunts have become as dull and drab as the old house. The story tells how the children bring new life into it and how Toni wins her grandfather’s heart and moves him to take steps toward a new hearing of their father’s case which proves his innocence.
F
FABRE, JEAN HENRI CASIMIR. Secret of everyday things; informal talks with the children: tr. from the French by Florence Constable Bicknell. il *$2.50 Century 504
20–17586
This book for young readers contains another selection of Uncle Paul’s talks, following “The story-book of science,” “Our humble helpers” and “Field, forest and farm.” Among the everyday things discussed are Thread; Pins; Needles; Silk; Wool; Flax and hemp; Weaving; Woolen cloth; Moths; Calico; Dyeing and printing; Human habitations; Soap; Fire; Matches; Glass; Iron; Rust; Pottery; Coffee; Sugar; Tea; Bread; Air; Evaporation; Rain; Snow; The force of steam; Sound and light. There are occasional illustrations in the text.
“Would be useful in junior high schools.”
+
Booklist 17:121 D ’20
“Didacticism flies before Fabre’s freshness of style like dust before a broom.”
+
Lit D p86 D 4 ’20 80w
“The insect world has been recreated for lay readers by the patience and the genius of Fabre. Here his themes are homelier but his gift for accurate information, made fascinating in the telling, is the same.”
+
N Y Evening Post p25 O 23 ’20 90w
“The heart and mind of a scientist, the style of an artist, and the sympathy of a man whose child spirit never died live in the book.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
+
N Y Times p9 D 12 ’20 150w
FAIRBANKS, HAROLD WELLMAN. Conservation reader. il *$1.20 World bk. 338
20–8813
This book is one of the Conservation series and is especially designed for the education of children in right ways of looking at nature. It is the author’s opinion that much of the enthusiasm for conservation will expend itself uselessly unless it can be made to reach the children and the purpose of the book is to present its principles to pupils in a simple and interesting manner. Among the contents are: How our first ancestors lived; The earth as it was before the coming of civilized men; How far will nature restore her wasted gifts? Things of which soil is made; The use and care of water; How the forests are wasted; Our forest playgrounds; What is happening to the wild flowers; What shall we do when the coal, oil, and gas are gone? What is happening to the animals and birds; How to bring the wild creatures back again. Among the many illustrations are two color prints and there is an index.
+
Booklist 16:352 Jl ’20
“Well adapted for use in the intermediate grades.”
+
El School J 21:156 O ’20 120w
FALKENHAYN, ERICH GEORG ANTON SEBASTIAN VON. German general staff and its decisions, 1914–1916. *$5 Dodd 940.343
20–2294
“The book will attempt to set forth in an intelligible form, according to my knowledge at the time of their occurrence, those operative ideas by which the best of us were guided in battle and victory during the two years of the war when I was at the head of the general staff. My statements do not afford any history of the war in the ordinary sense of the word. They touch upon the events of the war, and other occurrences connected with the latter, only in so far as is necessary to justify the decisions of the general staff.” (Preface) Contents: The change of chief of the general staff; The general military situation in the middle of September, 1914: The battles of the Yser and around Lodz; The period from the beginning of trench warfare in November-December, 1914, until the recommencement of the war of movement in 1915; The break-through at Gorlice-Tarnow and its consequences; Operations against Russia in the summer and autumn of 1915; Beginning of the unrestricted submarine campaign; Attempts to break through in the west in the autumn of 1915, and the campaign against Serbia; The situation at the end of 1915; The campaign of 1916; Comparative review of the relative strength of forces (Appendix); Maps.
“The work itself is a memoir, rather than a history. It makes no references to authorities, and furnishes little in the form of documents, but it bears evidence of more careful preparation than is usual with memoirs and of being based on authentic records or accurate first-hand knowledge.” J: Bigelow
+ −
Am Hist R 25:500 Ap ’20 750w
Booklist 16:307 Je ’20
Reviewed by W. C. Abbott
Bookm 51:286 My ’20 2800w
Lit D p123 Ap 17 ’20 1400w
“Both as a personal apologia and as a revealing of inside German military history this volume is a worthy companion to Ludendorff’s book—indeed, it is better; it is less clumsy and tart, its language is clearer and terser.”
+
Outlook 125:541 Jl 21 ’20 240w
“With one exception, his book is a candid and apparently straightforward statement of the problems he was called upon to solve, and as such it will always be valuable to the special student, but not to the general public: it proves nothing.”
+ −
Review 3:533 D 1 ’20 2100w
“General von Falkenhayn’s book on the war is, from the military standpoint, a much more serious production than General Ludendorff’s memoirs, though it does not appeal in the same way to the natural man’s desire for revelations of the enemy’s domestic controversies. The attentive reader of his book will be impressed with General von Falkenhayn’s personality. He writes like a soldier, not like a politician.”
+
Spec 123:895 D 27 ’19 1750w
“Von Falkenhayn’s book is a worthy companion to Ludendorff’s. It has the merit of being shorter; it contains a much smaller admixture of politics; and its handling of personal controversies, though sufficiently tart, is less clumsy and disagreeable than Ludendorff’s.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p723 D 11 ’19 2200w
FARIS, JOHN THOMSON. On the trail of the pioneers; romance, tragedy, and triumph of the path of empire. il *$3.50 Doran 978
20–7011
The present volume does not give in full detail the historical background of the successive great movements of population from the East to the West but rather actual typical cases of emigrants on the move. “It ... gives glimpses of many of these great movements, the routes the emigrants took, and the sections to which they went. The endeavor is made to answer the questions, Who were the emigrants? How and where did they travel? What adventures did they have by the way? What were their impressions of the country through which they passed? What did they do when they reached their destinations?” (Preface) For this purpose full use has been made of the records of early travellers and pioneers. Contents: Through the Cumberland gap to Kentucky and Tennessee; Through the Pittsburgh and Wheeling gateways; Floating down the Ohio and the Mississippi; From northern New York and New England to the West; The Santa Fe trail; The Oregon trail; Across the plains to California; Toiling up the Missouri; Bibliography; Index; Maps and illustrations.
+
Booklist 16:307 Je ’20
“An excellent, condensed history.”
+
Cath World 111:697 Ag ’20 120w
+
Nation 111:164 Ag 7 ’20 50w
N Y Times p30 S 12 ’20 150w
“While sketchy and disjointed, Mr Faris’s book presents enough that is piquant or solidly interesting to lure the reader to search further for himself.”
+
Springf’d Republican p11a My 30 ’20 700w
“The author has accomplished a scholarly piece of work without pedantry or tedious generalization. The writing of the book is so fresh and entertaining that the general reader will find it a real pleasure to peruse it.”
+
Survey 44:592 Ag 2 ’20 110w
“There are evidences of haste in the compilation of the book and in the explanatory matter which introduces the excerpts from diaries, resulting in too general statements of specific historical events, and some minor errors. The charm of this book lies in the abundant passages from old journals which happily escaped the improving pencils of ‘literary’ friends.” C. L. Skinner
+ −
Yale R n s 10:185 O ’20 330w
FARIS, JOHN THOMSON. Seeing the Far West. il *$6 Lippincott 917.8
20–17297
“John T. Faris’s ‘Seeing the Far West’ has chapters upon the scenery of Colorado, Arizona, the Yellowstone, the Sierras, Oregon, and Washington.” (Review) “He regales his readers with bits of gossip and local history that enliven and endow with a human interest the scenes to which he leads them.” (N Y Times)
“The writing of the book is simple and direct, gaining thereby in clearness and force. Its sincerity cannot be questioned and its personal touches and humanness stir alive one’s jaded interest in travel volumes.” J. W. D. S.
+
Boston Transcript p5 D 11 ’20 560w
“‘Seeing the far West’ is a desirable addition to any home library.”
+
Bookm 52:344 D ’20 140w
“Occasionally the reader finds flashes of description that are characterized by originality, but, on the whole, the writer is content with conventional utterance.” B. R. Redman
+
N Y Times p9 O 31 ’20 160w
“The book will take its place as one of the best of the ‘boosters’ for seeing the great West.”
+
Outlook 126:654 D 8 ’20 50w
“Mr Faris has the enviable trick of making one see. He sets one dreaming golden, fantastic, rainbow dreams, and leaves one,—as only the most vivid dreams can leave one,—half convinced that one has actually been there in the flesh.” Calvin Winter
+
Pub W 98:664 S 18 ’20 370w
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
+
Review 3:345 O 20 ’20 40w
“It is well illustrated with photographs which show that Mr Faris is not too enthusiastic in his descriptions.”
+
Spec 125:748 D 4 ’20 120w
+
Springf’d Republican p9a D 5 ’20 200w
“Mr Faris’s main difficulty is that he has so many things to write about. In fact, he would have given a clearer idea of the country if of its natural features he had been content to describe fully one of each kind instead of—in perhaps a spirit of democratic equality—giving a shorter account of several.”
+ −
The Times [London] Lit Sup p755 N 18 ’20 1250w
FARNELL, IDA.[2] Spanish prose and poetry old and new. *$5.25 Oxford 860.8
20–22172
“‘Spanish prose and poetry, old and new.’ by Ida Farnell is a collection made in the belief that one of the consequences of the war will be an increased interest in the literature of the Latin races. Miss Farnell has endeavored to show something of the spirit of Spanish literature by translated extracts from authors ranging from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century (omitting the eighteenth as an age of decadence), to which she has prefixed short biographies of the writers.”—Springf’d Republican
“Her versification is unusually successful in coping with the peculiar difficulties of Spanish verse. Her biographical sketches, her comments and her notes are lively and entertaining. It is a delightful book.” N. H. D.
+
Boston Transcript p9 D 1 ’20 1250w
“Her prefaces, though enfeebled as criticism by moral and patriotic bias, are enthusiastic, and arouse keener expectations than her translations satisfy.”
+ −
Nation 111:278 S 4 ’20 60w
Springf’d Republican p10 My 29 ’20 80w
FARNOL, JEFFERY. Black Bartlemy’s treasure. *$2.15 Little
20–20647
This is a veritable treasure island and piracy story. Martin Conisby, Lord Wendover, is sold as a slave to a Spanish galleon by Sir Richard Brandon, the slayer of his father. After making his escape and returning to England, swearing vengeance, he unwittingly becomes the rescuer of Brandon’s daughter. He does not find Sir Richard, who has since been lost at sea. But he falls in with a man about to set forth in quest of a treasure and joins him. Lady Joan Brandon embarks on the same ship and presently the two are set adrift in a boat and reach the island. Here they live for some time, a la Robinson Crusoe and love grows to such an extent that the hero is ready to abjure his vow of vengeance. The treasure is also found. When rescuers come events develop in such a way that he renounces love and all and remains a solitary hermit on the island as the ship sails away. Much rough fighting and slaughter punctuate the various phases of the story.
“Some reminiscences of Stevenson and Charles Reade may have gone towards shaping ‘Black Bartlemy’s treasure,’ but Mr Farnol gives a good account of himself as regards both these models.”
+
Ath p442 O 1 ’20 110w
“The story would be much more effective were it narrated in forthright English.” E. F. Edgett
+ −
Boston Transcript p2 N 27 ’20 1600w
“The author has written a thrilling and convincing sea story with so many quaint characters and so much cut-and-thrust action that it is hard to find anything which may be offered as a parallel in very recent fiction.”
+
N Y Times p26 Ja 2 ’21 380w
“The action is as rapid as ever. The ingenuity with which Mr Farnol creates fresh situations of romance is tireless.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p583 S 9 ’20 700w
FARNOL, JEFFERY. Geste of Duke Jocelyn. il *$2.50 Little
20–16930
In this merry jest is romance and knight errantry of old. The tale tells of one Duke Jocelyn of Brocelaunde, a puissant knight, but marred of face so that he despairs of winning the love of the beautiful lady Yolande. He dons his fool’s motley garb with cap and bells and sets out with one lonely, poorly garbed knight to act the part of the Duke’s envoy and press his suit. They meet with many adventures in the forest, fall in with Robin Hood, make friends and fight many a brave fight with and for him. Even the Lady Yolande is intrigued by the fool’s merry songs and after he has rescued her from a hated suitor, she yields to his love and openly declares it before the assembled knights of the Duke of Brocelaunde. Songs and rhymes, blank verse and prose mingle in the telling of the tale.
“He tells it for his young daughter’s edification, and has hit on a medium—his own swaggering prose and a sound, swinging, rough-and-ready metre—that suits both the matter and his now familiar manner.”
+
Ath p1411 D 26 ’19 70w
“This is a good Christmas book for the incorrigibly romantic, young or old.” Margaret Ashmun
+
Bookm 52:347 D ’20 120w
“A pretty manner Mr Farnol has adopted for the telling of his latest story. Accepting the artifice for what it is one cannot deny that it makes good entertainment.” W. S. B.
+
Boston Transcript p4 O 6 ’20 540w
“One of the most charming and delightfully whimsical fictional products that have come from the presses this year.”
+
N Y Times p16 N 28 ’20 740w
+
Springf’d Republican p7a N 21 ’20 360w
“The choice of the genre is a very happy one for Mr Farnol; it admits of his wearing his heart on his sleeve and carrying his tongue in his cheek at one and the same time. In fact, this is such a tale as any father—did he but dispose of Mr Farnol’s vocabulary, humour and invention—would tell his daughter, providing her liberally with marvels to her taste and amusing himself with Shakespearian allusions that would escape her.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p742 D 11 ’19 650w
FARNSWORTH, CHARLES HUBERT. How to study music. *$2.10 (3½c) Macmillan 780.7
20–19843
Professor Frank M. McMurry in his introduction to the volume points out that the teacher’s method of teaching may unduly overshadow in importance the child’s method of study. This little book places the emphasis on the child’s method of study and takes the form of home conversations between the children and the adults of the family. It shows how a child’s appreciation of music requires a fertile home soil for its growth and how Jack’s initial “I hate music” can be changed into his final “I love music.” Contents: Difficulties in the study of music; How listen to music; How learn notation without awakening a dislike for music; How a child should learn to sing; How learn to play the piano; How learn to enjoy classical as well as modern music; How to select music; How make use of music in the family; Library of piano compositions.
“The unusual characteristic about the book is the fact that the problems are presented from the viewpoint of both pupil and teacher. In this respect it is better than a formal text would probably be. Indeed, the author evidently sought to exemplify his philosophy of teaching by the book itself.”
+
El School J 21:317 D ’20 510w
FARRAR, JOHN CHIPMAN. Forgotten shrines. (Yale ser. of younger poets) *75c Yale univ. press 811
20–3703
“Mr Farrar has earned a reputation which foreruns this book of his with a war poem called ‘Brest left behind.’ He divides his poems in groups called Portraits, Songs for children and others, Miscellaneous and Sonnets. The first group of Portraits won the eighteenth award of the prize offered by Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook at Yale for the best unpublished verse by an undergraduate.”—Boston Transcript
“Beautiful in thought and expression.”
+
Booklist 16:305 Je ’20
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
+ −
Bookm 51:454 Je ’20 200w
“He gives us a fine sense of diversity of interests and a balance of form that is admirable.” W. S. B.
+
Boston Transcript p4 My 5 ’20 340w
“Mr Farrar has achieved clear and tender outlines in the section called Portraits, and should be encouraged to proceed further.”
+
Nation 111:278 S 4 ’20 60w
FARRISS, CHARLES SHERWOOD.[2] American soul. $1 Stratford co. 920
20–22043
“An appreciation of the four greatest Americans and their lesson for present Americans.” (Sub-title) The four Americans are: George Washington; Abraham Lincoln; Robert E. Lee; and Theodore Roosevelt.
“On the whole, the author is quite happy in his attempt to draw the moral without overpainting the tale.”
+ −
N Y Evening Post p10 D 31 ’20 220w
+
R of Rs 53:222 F ’21 30w
FAY, CHARLES RYLE. Life and labour in the nineteenth century. *$8 Macmillan 331.8
(Eng ed 20–16219)
“Though the title sounds as if ‘Life and labor in the nineteenth century’ were solely on economics, and though economics gets plenty of treatment, Captain Fay’s lectures cover the political history of England and its international adventures. It is only the fact that wars are not described that prevents it from being a history of England in the nineteenth century.” (N Y Times) “The volume contains the substance of the author’s lectures, delivered at Cambridge in 1919, to students of economics among whom were officers of the Royal navy and students from the United States army.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
Ath p47 Jl 9 ’20 800w
Reviewed by G: Soule
+
Nation 111:534 N 10 ’20 100w
“It is marred by a certain ignorance of American events, or at least American points of view.... But these evidences of careless historical reading and insufficient information about a foreign country, although they impair the value of Mr Fay’s book, do not prevent it from being a careful study of the economic life and free-handed study of its politics, written in a vivacious style.”
+ −
N Y Times p13 S 26 ’20 1950w
“Mr Fay attempts to develop no clear-cut definite theories. He does not indulge in the harmless but futile pastime of prophecy. One of the freshest and most original portions of the book is in the chapters in which Mr Fay traces the prevalence and disastrous consequences of ‘semi-capitalism,’ the stage of transition from domestic industries to manufacture.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p359 Je 10 ’20 1650w
FAYLE, CHARLES ERNEST.[2] Seaborne trade. il *$7.50 (*12s 6d) Longmans 940.45
v 1 The cruiser period.
“From the outbreak of the war and the mobilization of the British fleet to the beginning of the submarine warfare, Mr Fayle covers every incident, every move of the Allied and the German fleets. He takes up in turn the flight of the Goeben and the Breslau to the shelter of the Dardanelles, the protection of the Atlantic terminals, the precautions taken to cover trade in the Far East, the situation in the South Atlantic, and the depredations of the Karlsruhe.”—Boston Transcript
“Altogether, ‘The cruiser period’ is a notable addition to the history of the war.”
+
Boston Transcript p7 Ja 8 ’21 350w
+
Spec 125:707 N 27 ’20 1350w
+ −
The Times [London] Lit Sup p787 D 2 ’20 1650w
FELD, ROSE CAROLINE. Humanizing industry. *$2.50 Dutton 331.1
20–8521
“Miss Feld has written a story concerning one Struthers who, inheriting an industrial plant run on old-fashioned lines of benevolent despotism, tries to introduce modern ideas and overcomes one by one the obstacles created by a bad tradition. It is not fiction, but the method of telling enhances the impression of the author’s belief in good personal relationships and common sense as the most promising approaches to a humanization of industry. Incidentally, the book discusses in detail and with reference to successful experiments the merits of welfare, educational, insurance, pension, profit sharing and industrial representation schemes.”—Survey
Booklist 17:11 O ’20
Reviewed by G: Soule
Nation 111:534 N 10 ’20 50w
“There seems to be one thing overlooked. In speaking of human relations, the author seems to have in mind kindliness, friendliness, charitableness—of which we have none too much. She does not mean anything as fundamental as the economic relationship of classes to one another, to the soil and natural resources, to the powers of government. She reminds me pathetically of the reformers who hoped to save the institution of slavery by inducing slave holders to treat their slaves and mules in a more kindly way.” B. C. G.
− +
N Y Call p11 S 12 ’20 580w
“It is a book that all employers of labor ought to read, because whether or not they have sensed that new era, or even entered upon it, they will find in it eye-opening ideas, helpful suggestions. It is a book that all laboring men who have begun to think ought to read, because it will set them on the right track in their thinking.”
+
N Y Times p30 Ag 22 ’20 780w
R of Rs 62:110 Jl ’20 30w
Survey 44:638 Ag 16 ’20 130w
FELLOWES, EDMUND HORACE, ed. English madrigal verse, 1588–1632. (Oxford English texts) *$6.25 Oxford 821:04
20–17023
“This is a reprint of the known words of Elizabethan songs, arranged under their composers and, among these, under the particular type of song, with the names of the poets in the few cases where they are known. In all of these songs both words and voice part were paramount. For if, as in the first half of the book, they were madrigals (for from three to six voices), each voice was sovran in turn, and each vied with the other in the amount of meaning it could impress on the words. If, as in the second half, they were solos or duets, then they had the sketchy accompaniment of the lute, or the support of veiled and velvety-toned viols. The first are necessarily short, for the madrigal form required much repetition of words; pithy, for if a voice is only to be heard at intervals it should have something terse to say; and conventional, for you cannot put intimate sentiments into the mouths of half a dozen different people in succession. The second are more elaborate. They are all true lyrics in that they take one point and press it home.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“To all who love the lyric, English madrigal verse will be a genuine delight. Its careful editing makes the musical construction quite clear, and the material is indeed a treasury of quaint verse.” C. K. H.
+
Boston Transcript p3 D 1 ’20 680w
“A learned and careful work which only a scholar both in literature and in music could have brought to a conclusion.”
+
Nation 112:47 Ja 12 ’21 260w
“Interesting and scholarly book.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p493 Ag 5 ’20 6300w
FELSTEAD, SIDNEY THEODORE. German spies at bay; comp, from official sources. il *$2 Brentano’s 940.485
(Eng ed 20–8200)
“This is a record of interest, exactly recording the actual work of our Secret service and the particulars of the chief German spies whom it traced and dealt with, and exposing the error of much of the panic about spies in England which at one time prevailed.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
+
Ath p386 Mr 19 ’20 70w
“Mr Felstead is not dull, nor truthfully can one think, brilliant. Those who are interested in spies will be reading for information (possibly thrills), and herein the author is enthusiastically cyclopedic.”
+ −
Boston Transcript p4 O 23 ’20 230w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p174 Mr 11 ’20 50w
“Mr Felstead has written an amusing as well as an instructive book, and he seems to have steered cleverly between the rocks of reticence and indiscretion.”
+
The Times [London] Lit Sup p178 Mr 18 ’20 1050w
FENWICK, CHARLES GHEQUIER. Political systems in transition; war-time and after. *$3 Century 342
20–20220
The book is one of the Century New world series of which W. F. Willoughby is general editor. Since the war, the author holds, the question of the organization of the state and the scope of the functions it is to perform has become once more an open one, for the war has made it clear that there are some serious defects in the machinery of government that call for radical amendments to our constitutional system. The relative strength and weakness of the several political systems and the probable line of future reconstruction, form the subject of the present study. Contents: Part 1, Political ideals and demands of war; War a test of democratic government; The constitutions of the great nations on the eve of the great war; Part 2, Changes brought about by the war in the political institutions of European countries; Countries with autocratic governments; Countries with democratic governments; Part 3, Changes in the political institutions of the United States; The war and the constitution; War powers of the president; Emergency legislation adopted by Congress; Changes in the organization of the government; The separate state governments: new legislation and new administrative activities; Part 4, Problems of reconstruction in the United States raised by the war; New ideals of democracy; The program of political reconstruction; The program of international reconstruction; Index.
“An excellent account of the shake-up in governments produced by the war, full of material which must be included in any adequate history of it.” E. N.
+
Boston Transcript p14 D 8 ’20 950w
Ind 103:442 D 25 ’20 70w
“The volume is a valuable compendium of war measures in the belligerent nations and of the political problems which the war has left.”
+
N Y Evening Post p11 Ja 29 ’21 300w
“He writes with eminent fairness, and writes only to inform. He achieves his aim strikingly. Sometimes he falls into the error of taking a phrase at its face value. Since even small things are important in a work of this kind. Professor Fenwick should be more careful about his dates.”
+ −
N Y Times p22 D 19 ’20 2250w
R of Rs 62:668 D ’20 100w
FERBER, EDNA. Half portions. *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
20–8793
The nine short stories of this collection are: The maternal feminine; April 25th, as usual; Old lady Mandle; You’ve got to be selfish; Long distance; Un morso doo pang; One hundred per cent; Farmer in the dell; The dancing girls. They are stories of life as it is lived in Chippewa or Winnebago, Wisconsin, or on South Park avenue, Chicago. Some are stories of war time. One is an Emma McChesney story. They are reprinted from the Ladies’ Home Journal, Metropolitan, Colliers, and other magazines.
+
Booklist 16:347 Jl ’20
“All these stories and all these pages are thronged with real men and women, and in them Miss Ferber continues to display not merely her skill at story telling, but also her greater skill at breathing into them the breath of life. Reality and imagination combine equally in their making.”
+
Boston Transcript p4 Je 2 ’20 1600w
“Miss Ferber’s talents go to polishing the bright pebbles of life, rather than to touching the bedrock of reality, but there’s no denying the world would be duller without an occasional pretty pebble.”
+
Dial 69:546 N ’20 50w
“The highest praise you can give an author in these days is to say that his or her book is ‘thoroly American,’ from which, alas, it does not necessarily follow that it is an excellent piece of workmanship. Edna Ferber’s ‘Half portions,’ however, wins on both counts.”
+
Ind 103:53 Jl 10 ’20 160w
“Miss Edna Ferber is not thoughtful about the affairs of the world. She simply does not let herself think. If some one would endow Miss Ferber, and make it no longer too expensive for her to think or bring a story to an honest conclusion, she might become a sort of American Arnold Bennett.” Ludwig Lewisohn
+ −
Nation 110:828 Je 19 ’20 200w
“It is a book that is thoroughly enjoyable and laughable from beginning to end.”
+
N Y Times 25:236 My 9 ’20 620w
FERBER, EDNA, and LEVY, NEWMAN. $1200 a year. il *$1.50 Doubleday 812
20–18069
A three-act play in which a university professor gives up his $1200 a year position in the university to earn $30 a day in a mill. He immediately becomes popular as a labor leader and lecturer and is in demand all over the United States, but it is only when he is offered a salary of $5000 a week in the movies that the magnate who owns the university as well as the mill is moved to consider the question of an adequate salary for a professor.
“Interesting to read. One would like to see it acted.”
+
Booklist 17:61 N ’20
“The complications hold the kernel of genuine comedy, but instead of cracking their nut, Miss Ferber and Mr Levy have contented themselves with merely painting funny faces on the shell.” L. B.
+ −
Freeman 2:94 O 6 ’20 180w
“The authors have challenged serious criticism by calling the play a ‘comedy’ and by permitting the publishers to proclaim it a ‘timely satire.’ It is an amusing and clever farce, containing many touches of skilful character depiction.” Jack Crawford
+ −
N Y Evening Post p3 S 25 ’20 800w
“As a vehicle for amusement ‘$1200 a year’ is both ingenious and satisfying. Its characters are human, its situations vivid. It portrays with little exaggeration the wretched circumstances of our little world of scholars with sympathetic and understanding treatment. But what of that other world? Have not the authors exaggerated the affluence of mill labor to crown their dramatic purpose?”
+ −
Springf’d Republican p7a N 28 ’20 560w
Reviewed by A. E. Morey
+
Survey 45:137 O 23 ’20 240w
“Rather a good story, though highly illogical and incredible.”
+ −
Theatre Arts Magazine 5:86 Ja ’21 230w
FIELDING, WILLIAM JOHN. Sanity in sex. *$1.75 (3c) Dodd 176
20–10067
The past few years have seen a remarkable change in the public attitude toward sex. The ban of secrecy has been largely removed and the need for rational sex education is generally recognized. The author’s purpose in this book has been “to subject the social processes responsible for these changes to a thorough analysis, classifying all the important factors and tendencies involved, and to give as concise and accurate an account as possible of this historic period of the sex-educational movement.” (Introd.) Subjects covered include: the government’s campaign of sex-education, sex-education in the army, venereal disease, sex hygiene in industry, sex education in the public schools, the relation of sex knowledge to marriage, sex ignorance and divorce, birth control, and psycho-analysis, and the final chapter discusses economic sufficiency as a basis of sex hygiene. There is a classified bibliography of seventeen pages, followed by an index.
+
Booklist 17:57 N ’20
Int J Ethics 31:117 O ’20 80w
“Mr Fielding is not an alarmist; he strikes more than a note of hope in his account of the work which the United States government did with the army during the war.”
+
Nation 111:135 Jl 31 ’20 650w
“The book for the most part quotes authorities worth considering, and is modern in its attitude, but overestimates the theories of psycho-analysis, and is weakened by rather easy generalizations.”
+ −
Springf’d Republican p9a Jl 4 ’20 90w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p688 O 21 ’20 90w
Wis Lib Bul 16:113 Je ’20 70w
FIFE, GEORGE BUCHANAN. Passing legions. il *$2 (2c) Macmillan 940.477
20–20541
“How the American Red cross met the American army in Great Britain, the gateway to France.” (Sub-title) The work of the Red cross commission in Great Britain was almost wholly with passing troops, on the way to the front or returning, and the aim of the author has been to bring out those features of the service which distinguished it from that of other commissions. Among the chapters are: A call through the storm; When the commission was born; Where a million men went by; The incoming legions at Liverpool; Here and there in Britain; The bluejackets of Cardiff and Plymouth; With the army to Archangel; The unbreakable link with “home.”
“Even now, books of the war continue to be written, and Mr Fife’s is among the distinctly lesser lights of the contest. He writes in a business-like but boresome monotone.”
+ −
Boston Transcript p11 D 8 ’20 260w
“The opening story of the book is a story of heroism almost unbelievable, yet intense in its realism, pathos and altruism. Great as is the Otranto story, it but serves to fix the attention on what is to come and so onward to the ‘valedictory’ is read a succession of just such tales.” E. J. C.
+
Boston Transcript p13 D 8 ’20 540w
+
N Y Times p13 Ja 30 ’21 700w
+
R of Rs 53:223 F ’21 120w
FILENE, CATHERINE, ed. Careers for women. *$4 Houghton 396.5
20–21359
The object of the book is to give vocational information to high school and college women, to supplement the work of vocational advisors in schools, and to help decrease the number of “square pegs for round holes.” It is composed of articles written expressly for the book by a number of specially qualified contributors and its compiler, Miss Filene, is the director of the Intercollegiate vocational guidance association. The vocations considered are grouped under the headings: Accounting; Advertising; Agriculture, etc.; Architecture; Arts and crafts; Business; Dramatics; Education; Finance; Government service; Health services; Home economics services; Industrial work; Institutional work; Insurance; Law; Library work; Literary work; Motion-picture work; Museum work; Music; Newspaper work; Personnel work; Physical education; Politics; Religious work; Scientific work; Secretarial work; Social work; Specialists; Statistical work; Vocational training. Suggested readings accompany most of the chapters and there is an index.
“By far the most practical and complete book in its field. Will be useful in any library.”
+
Booklist 17:140 Ja ’21
“It should be of great value to high-school and college students and the new graduate. The suggestions are, on the whole, sound.”
+
N Y Evening Post p11 D 31 ’20 220w
“Differently as the various authors write, there is uniformity in one respect—in the brisk, snappy, pungent way in which they push their points at you and make you see the picture.”
+
N Y Times p15 D 26 ’20 1750w
“Both for its merit as a model of the way in which occupational information should be presented, and for what it signifies in the modern outlook of thoughtful college women and, it may be added, of college men as well, this book is noteworthy. The publishers deserve mention for the most attractively printed book in the field of vocational guidance.” Meyer Bloomfield
+
Survey 45:674 F 5 ’21 490w
FILLMORE, PARKER HOYSTED. Shoemaker’s apron. il *$2.50 (5½c) Harcourt
20–17679
This is the author’s second book of Czechoslovak fairy tales and folk tales with illustrations and decorations by Jan Matulka. It is a companion volume to the earlier collection and contains besides the fairy tales five nursery tales and a group of devil tales. They are not so much translations as a retelling of other versions to suit the English-speaking child. The fairy tales are: The twelve months; Zlatovlaska the golden-haired; The shepherd’s nosegay; Vitazko the victorious. The shoemaker’s apron is one of the devil tales.
“An interesting collection of twenty stories drawn from original sources and retold with simple charm.”
+
Booklist 17:163 Ja ’21
Reviewed by A. C. Moore
+
Bookm 52:261 N ’20 90w
+
Freeman 2:190 N 3 ’20 150w
FINCH, WILLIAM COLES-, and HAWKS, ELLISON. Water in nature, il *$2.50 Stokes 551
(Eng ed 20–1223)
“W. Coles Finch and Ellison Hawks, two English scientists, have contributed to the Romance of reality series a volume entitled ‘Water in nature.’ In it they deal scientifically, and at the same time entertainingly, with practically all of water’s manifestations in the natural world, including its relations to cloud, atmosphere, ocean, rain, hail, snow, ice, glaciers, springs, rivers, lake, waterfalls, mountains, caves, rocks, reefs, and corals.”—N Y Times
N Y P L New Tech Bks p12 Ja ’19 40w
+
N Y Times 25:55 F 1 ’20 70w
“Any one who is interested in natural phenomena will find fascinating reading in this résumé of popular science.”
+
Outlook 123:243 O 29 ’19 50w
FINDLAY, HUGH, ed. Handbook for practical farmers. il *$5 Appleton 630
20–16999
A comprehensive handbook “dealing with the more important aspects of farming in the United States.” (Sub-title) Special chapters have been contributed by practical experts in different parts of the United States. Subjects covered include the various farm and garden crops, farm animals, the care of milk and the curing of meat on the farm, farm buildings, running water, the use of explosives, the care of tools, fence posts, roads, the farm loan system, farm records, pets, weeds, etc. There are 258 illustrations and an index. The editor is lecturer on horticulture in Columbia university.
FINDLAY, JOSEPH JOHN. Introduction to sociology, for social workers and general readers. (Publications of the University of Manchester) il *$2 Longmans 301
20–14079
“The central theme of sociology, as conceived by Professor Findlay and lucidly expounded in this excellent introduction to a comparatively new, extremely comprehensive, but somewhat elusive science, is ‘the definition of social groups, their classification and their relations to each other.’ The treatment is systematic, though some problems of considerable importance, such as the institution of land tenure, have had to be omitted. The first five chapters are devoted to principles. The second part relates to types of social grouping, such as family, state, religion, and occupation. In the third part, which is concerned with organization, the positions of the leader, the official, and the representative, are discussed: and there is an analysis of the instinct of loyalty.”—Ath