Book Review Digest Devoted to the Valuation of Current Literature Reviews of 1920 Books (continued 2)
Reading edition
“The present writer would unhesitatingly say that it is upon the subjects of meals and packing and costume that ‘Daisy Ashford’ shines pre-eminently.”
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Spec 124:50 Jl 10 ’20 1100w
“‘A short story of love and marriage’ and ‘The jealous governes’ have the truly original ring of the book that made Daisy Ashford’s name famous and her identity wondered at. But the longer efforts of the new volume are merely uninteresting stories amateurishly told. The charm of the precocious but still unsophisticated mind is gone.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Ag 8 ’20 250w
“None of the surviving products of Miss Daisy Ashford’s pen is quite up to the standard of ‘The young visiters.’ The longest, ‘The hangman’s daughter,’ contains some amusing passages, but it is a more ambitious work, written at a later age, and gives the effect of a burlesque of a ‘grown-up’s’ novel more than of a spontaneous efflorescence of childhood.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p426 Jl 1 ’20 140w
Wis Lib Bul 16:237 D ’20 50w
ASHMUN, MARGARET ELIZA. Marian Frear’s summer. *$1.75 (3c) Macmillan
20–10729
Marian Frear and her mother live together on an isolated little farm on the lake shore. They have been very happy together and keep busily occupied with the vegetable garden that supplies their living. But Marian misses the companionship of other girls and the lack of educational opportunities troubles both mother and daughter. Then a happy family of young people comes to spend a summer on the lake. Marian learns to play with other young people and in the fall finds the desired way to education open to her.
Booklist 17:120 D ’20
“A cheerful, wholesome, natural story for girls.”
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Outlook 125:615 Ag 4 ’20 20w
“The young people are simple and natural and the incidents are never strained to produce dramatic effects, but those who have lived in the country may feel that the absolute superiority of Marian and her mother to all their neighbors is exaggerated.”
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Wis Lib Bul 16:197 N ’20 100w
ASLAN, KEVORK. Armenia and the Armenians from the earliest times until the great war (1914). *$1.25 Macmillan 956.6
20–1701
“In this little volume an Armenian historian gives a concise account of the rise and progress of his people, including the formation of Armenian royalty, the early religious ideas and customs, the conversion to Christianity, the dawn of Armenian literature, and finally the four centuries of bondage to the Turk. Many little-known facts have been gleaned from the somewhat obscure records of this long ill-treated people.” (R of Rs) “The work is translated from the original French by Pierre Crabites, whose introduction is an impassioned plea for Armenian independence.” (Dial)
“While at times the author seeks to present his nation in the most favorable light, as in the omission of any mention of the outrages perpetrated by the revolutionary societies at the close of the nineteenth century, his book is free from any attempt at propaganda. Unfortunately, this cannot be said of the preface written by M. Crabites.” D: Magie
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Am Hist R 25:748 Jl ’20 500w
“It is a concise and readable outline, giving not only the main currents of political development but also some information concerning economic and social organization.”
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Am Pol Sci R 14:363 My ’20 60w
“Unlike most writings on the subject the history is stated in a matter of fact way free from propaganda.”
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Booklist 17:23 O ’20
Dial 68:668 My ’20 40w
“There is grievous need of a map and almost equally of an index. But the book is good and solid, sober with historical sense and conscience.”
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Review 2:604 Je 5 ’20 450w
R of Rs 61:446 Ap ’20 120w
“A carefully prepared, though naturally sympathetic, history.”
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Springf’d Republican p10 My 20 ’20 200w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p242 Ap 15 ’20 80w
ASQUITH, MRS MARGOT (TENNANT). Margot Asquith, an autobiography. 2v il *$7.50 Doran
20–20995
With astonishing frankness Mrs Asquith tells the story of her life and when she says in her preface that she has taken the responsibility of the telling entirely upon herself, one can easily believe her. Her dash and courage and unconventionality, her affectionate nature and clever wit, her social position and close association with events and people of prominence make the book unusual. In her own words, she has related of her “manners, morals, talents, defects, temptations and appearance” as faithfully as she could. Her reminiscences are all of a personal nature without reference to politics and public affairs. Both books are indexed and illustrated.
“Mrs Asquith is a sentimentalist, and a sentimentalist of the worst kind, one who keeps it all for herself. She imagines that she is a very rare, very misunderstood person. She has made a serious mistake in writing this book; in it she delivers up her secret to the first-comer. Her book is really a very dull one unless it is regarded as an unconscious self-revelation. From that aspect it is quite interesting though the type it reveals is not very intriguing.” J. M. M.
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Ath p610 N 5 ’20 1850w
Booklist 17:152 Ja ’21
“The self-revelations of Margot Asquith and those of Benvenuto Cellini present more than one parallel. Margot Asquith’s autobiography is essentially human. She has painted a portrait of herself that will live, and she has filled in the background with pictures of many who are sure of a permanent place in the history of English literature and of the politics of England.” J. C. Grey
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Bookm 52:356 D ’20 1250w
“Few writers have at once the intimate acquaintance and the analytic tendency to put forward such keen and living figures. We can hope to possess very few such living documents as is this record of the last forty years.” D. L. Mann
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Boston Transcript p4 N 27 ’20 1400w
Reviewed by H: W. Nevinson
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Nation 111:sup657 D 8 ’20 1900w
“Being a woman born into a society where her game was to be charming, and where she had no chance to be seriously educated, we find her at the age of fifty-six publishing idiocies that Marie Bashkirtseff was too sophisticated to utter at fourteen, and never once attaining Marie Bashkirtseff’s noble realization that ‘if this book is not the exact, the absolute, the strict truth, it has no raison d’être.’” F. H.
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New Repub 25:77 D 15 ’20 2600w
“Her lack of reticence is, plainly, offensive to good taste. It is not the less offensive because it is apparently entirely unconscious. The surprising thing is, however, that with all the material for interesting memoirs that Mrs Asquith should have stored away in her mind, she has given us relatively so little that is of any permanent value.” Stanley Went
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N Y Evening Post p8 D 4 ’20 1700w
“The book is fascinating from the first page to the last.”
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N Y Times p3 N 14 ’20 1650w
Reviewed by R. R. Bowker
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Pub W 98:1883 D 18 ’20 150w
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
Review 3:531 D 1 ’20 500w
“It is after a fashion moral in tone, even religious, as is apparently, the writer’s character; it is reticent in political matters; and it is undeniably clever. With a little more pruning Mrs Asquith’s ‘Autobiography’ might have been a valuable and innocent record of a memorable society and an interesting period; as it stands, it is a scandal. Not, as we have said, for moral reasons in the narrower sense of the word, but for its wanton disregard of reticence and decorum.”
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Review 3:623 D 22 ’20 1000w
“The fascination of the book lies in its bold defiance of British literary and social tradition, and its studied departure from the conventional.”
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R of Rs 63:109 Ja ’21 90w
“A book, particularly one written on some of the first figures in the country, should have some solid worth, and represent some substantial judgment. Mrs Asquith prides herself on saying exactly what she likes, on writing exactly what she thinks; but the result is not often judicious, nor of any importance, except as a tribute to the taste of the age.”
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Sat R 130:418 N 20 ’20 880w
“In spite of the errors in taste, and of certain occasional breaks in a style quite admirable when its purpose is considered, the book justifies those who have declared it to be ‘a true piece of literature’ with all that such words import.”
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Spec 125:598 N 6 ’20 3000w
“This autobiography is a revealing as well as an amazing book. The toes on which it treads are all English. Americans may not approve entirely of its material and its bumptious method, but they still find in it much significance and a great deal of entertainment.”
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Springf’d Republican p8a D 5 ’20 1350w
“Mrs Asquith has moved through great scenes; but the motion is a flitting, rather than an act of spiritual observation, and therefore when she sits down to recall her impression, it is apt to lack both sharpness and refinement.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 D 18 ’20 650w (Reprinted from London Nation)
“She is not well equipped for the panoramic display of the outer world, and the remarkable fulness of her opportunity in that direction is largely wasted. Mrs Asquith is no story-teller, it is not her line; she lacks the seeing eye and the vivifying phrase. And yet she elects to write a book that is all storytelling, all an attempt to reproduce the brilliant phantasmagoria in which she has lived.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p716 N 4 ’20 2200w
ASTON, SIR GEORGE GREY. Memories of a marine, an amphibiography. il *$5 Dutton
(Eng ed 20–8797)
“This volume is in autobiographic form and while it does not pretend to be a complete story of the author’s life it is written along autobiographic lines. The writer gives us some account of his subaltern days, when he was a student and then a budding naval officer. Then he recalls the period of the disturbances in Ireland and the Phœnix park murders. But he soon leaves this region for the East. It is the pleasant side of naval service that he shows us. After this sea experience, the writer tells of his transfer to the admiralty office in London and his experiences. He gives an agreeable account of Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee in 1887, at which the German Crown Prince Frederick, father of the recent Kaiser, was a conspicuous figure. Then, in 1889, Sir George though not then knighted—had an experience at the staff college. Then, later, there were some vigorous experiences to record in connection with the war in South Africa.”—Boston Transcript
“The book is one to be read with enjoyment and interest.”
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Ath p1243 N 21 ’19 120w
“Sir George throughout his narrative is chatty, never tedious or prolix and intersperses his story with frequent anecdotes, which are always fresh and well told.”
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Boston Transcript p4 S 4 ’20 450w
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Brooklyn 12:132 My ’20 40w
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Sat R 128:563 D 13 ’19 1200w
“Altogether, he has given us an exceedingly attractive addition to the literature of reminiscence.”
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Spec 124:460 Ap 3 ’20 1650w
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p638 N 13 ’19 750w
ATHEARN, WALTER SCOTT. National system of education. (Merrick lectures) *$1.50 Doran 377
20–4029
“Professor Athearn frankly states that the church cannot ask the state to teach religion, but the church can teach religion at odd hours during the week and on Sunday. The church can and must organize and administrate a national system of religious education that will parallel and correlate with the national secular system which is in process of formation at the present time. He regards the Smith-Towner bill as a large step in the direction of a unified, national, secular system of education, and accepts it as a challenge to the educational leadership of the church to produce a program which will be equally scientific, equally democratic, and equally prophetic. His discussion of national control, or direction, of a system of secular and religious education is extremely worth while at this, the most critical, time in the history of education in the United States.” (School R) “Bibliography on educational organization and administration.” (Booklist)
Reviewed by J. A. Artman
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Am J Soc 26:240 S ’20 220w
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Booklist 16:260 My ’20
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El School J 20:633 Ap ’20 180w
St Louis 18:217 S ’20 70w
“Timely and vital book.”
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School R 28:392 My ’20 400w
ATTLEE, CLEMENT RICHARD. Social worker. *$2.50 Macmillan 360
20–19448
“‘The social service library,’ of which this is the first volume, is issued under the ægis of the University of London Ratan Tata department of social science and administration. The subjects dealt with in order, each subject being treated under certain general sub-headings, are Social service and citizenship, Charities (these are classified, and one section discusses Waste and over-lapping), Organization, Social service in conjunction with central and governing authorities, the Qualifications and training of the social worker (a talk on the subject which would be of great value to all entering on social work), Religious agencies, The settlement movement (one of the subheads is, The school mission), Varieties of social worker; and there is an instructive chapter at the end on The social service of the working classes (The friendly society—The trade union—The cooperative society—The working men’s club—self-education).”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
Ath p428 Mr 26 ’20 90w
Cleveland p92 O ’20 20w
“It is written in a philosophical spirit and with close-hand knowledge of the subject. Although its descriptions of the various agencies is based on British material, the book as a whole is bound to be useful for the American social worker and student of social problems.” J. H. T.
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Int J Ethics 31:117 O ’20 90w
“The book is full, racily written, and made alive with interesting first-hand illustration.”
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Nature 106:498 D 16 ’20 350w
“To an American social worker possibly the chief interest of the book is the philosophy of the author. He reflects a modern faith in the power of the community as such to deal with the conditions that menace social welfare.” P. R. Lee
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Survey 44:731 S 15 ’20 1200w
“The book is a singularly thoughtful and instructive study of a subject in which a widely interested public really needs well-considered guidance.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p175 Mr 11 ’20 320w
AUDOUX, MARGUERITE. Marie Claire’s workshop; tr. by F. S. Flint. *$2 (3½c) Seltzer
21–759
“Marie-Claire,” to which “Marie Claire’s workshop” is a sequel, was published in 1911. Marie Claire is now employed as a seamstress in a workshop in Paris, and the book describes her life and work there, with character studies of her shopmates. Monsieur and Madame Dalignac are the kindly proprietors and they are portrayed vividly as are Sandrine and Bouledogue and Duretour and her lover and Gabielle and the others. There is also Clement, Madame Dalignac’s nephew, who wishes to make Marie Claire his wife. The strain of working against time to fill a promised order, the monotony of the dull season when there is no work, the everyday contact of the girls, all enter into the picture.
“Very simple and very real, told with sympathy, grace and a fine, sure artistry, this picture of ‘Marie Claire’s workshop’ is a most appealing book.”
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N Y Times p20 N 21 ’20 640w
“In short, this is a special type of realism, and the cumulative effect of it ... recalls as its nearest parallel, not prose but verse, Hood’s ‘Song of the shirt.’” Calvin Winter
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Pub W 98:1195 O 16 ’20 280w
“This is a book for gentle souls; although it is too deeply human for the ingenuous.” A. G. H. Spiers
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Review 4:59 Ja 19 ’21 1100w
“Possesses all the qualities of its forerunner, truth, serenity, freshness, keen observation, united with a deeper understanding of human nature and an even wider sympathy.”
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Spec 125:708 N 27 ’20 540w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p685 O 21 ’20 30w
AULT, NORMAN. Dreamland shores. il *$3 Dodd 821
Poems for children with such titles as My dog, Clouds, Ducks, Pirate gold, The wind, The weathercock, The magic garden, Seasons, Noah’s ark, The moon’s adventure, The clock-man, Travels, A castle in the air, Tree-top. There are six colored plates and other illustrations by the author.
AUMONIER, STACY. One after another. *$2 Macmillan
20–15345
“Success jostles failure in the pages of Mr Aumonier’s latest novel. His hero is his own biographer, and we follow him through a picturesque childhood, along a divergent manhood, and into a more or less ebullient middleage. When the end of the story, but not the end of his life, is reached, we find that after adverse beginnings he has become a prosperous business man, whose temperamental sister has caused him more trouble than any of his own emotions, that he has been twice a happily wedded husband, that he is the loving father of a very desirable daughter, and the expectant grandfather of a child whose father has sacrificed himself to the god of battle in the great war. Except for that single episode near the end of the story, the chronicle has to do with the ways of national, if not individual peace.”—Boston Transcript
“It is rich and poor, cold and hot, dull and deeply interesting. But the impression of the whole is of something which has just not succeeded.” K. M.
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Ath p702 My 28 ’20 470w
“Readers who care for presentation of character rather than for plot, will like this, though some describe it as tedious. Not for the small library.”
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Booklist 17:156 Ja ’21
“Although his theme and the form of his story are conventional, Mr Aumonier has written in ‘One after another’ an unusual novel.” E. F. E.
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Boston Transcript p6 S 8 ’20 1400w
“‘One after another,’ though reminiscent of Butler and Bennett, is of the very recent type, the vegetable school, that deals pleasantly with mediocrity at its best.”
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Dial 59:663 D ’20 70w
“By this sharp definition of the generations blended with his brooding sense of life’s fundamental continuance, Mr Aumonier has made his book as suggestive as it is entertaining and as philosophical as it is concrete.” L. L.
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Nation 111:sup428 O 13 ’20 320w
“The novel is one whose appeal will be to those who care for style and thought rather than for plot and incident. It is a better book than ‘The Querrils.’”
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N Y Times p23 S 19 ’20 650w
“Naturally the interest is of the quiet rather than of the exciting order, but the situations are well thought out and the human interest and humor of sound quality.”
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Outlook 126:333 O 20 ’20 90w
“Here is something to be read by both the new generation and the old, for it links them together, with a fine understanding of both.” D. W. Webster
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Pub W 98:661 S 18 ’20 240w
“The development of the narrator’s character is, to our mind, particularly well done—a very difficult task, and taken altogether the author more than justifies the high opinion we hold of his abilities.”
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Sat R 130:40 Jl 10 ’20 90w
“The book tends more to reflection than to entertainment, and is considerably above the usual run of modern novels.”
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Spec 125:408 S 25 ’20 280w
“Mr Aumonier in this work, while displaying a good deal of keenness alike of observation and thought, fails in the essential task of creating people that impress us as individual and significant. Mr Aumonier’s touch, however, is incisive and dramatic. And, in intention at least, he is not commonplace.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a S 12 ’20 240w
“The scenes are described with the ability which ‘The Querrils’ showed Mr Aumonier to possess; but the book is less carefully constructed, and the sense of incomplete finality which marred the effect of the earlier novel in this one is more obtrusive. Mr Aumonier studies situations rather than characters, and in contriving a situation with a climax that is dramatic but not ‘stagey’ he has a particular skill. At the same time, the book has a tendency to fall into vaguely connected episodes, while the characters approximate too closely to collections of impersonal attributes.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p351 Je 3 ’20 430w
AUSTIN, MARY (HUNTER) (MRS STAFFORD W. AUSTIN). No. 26 Jayne street. *$2 (2½c) Houghton
20–9713
The action of the story takes place in the year after America’s entrance into the war. Neith Schuyler, the heroine, has lived abroad with an invalid father for a number of years, and following his death has done relief work in France. She returns home hoping to learn to understand America. To come nearer to the problem she leaves the luxurious home of her two great aunts and takes a modest apartment on Jayne street, just off Washington square. Here she comes into contact with many shades of radical opinion and contrasts it with the “capitalistic” attitude of her own family and friends. Two men fall in love with Neith, Eustace Bittenhouse, an aviator, and Adam Frear, a labor leader. She becomes engaged to Adam and then learns that there has been another woman in his life, Rose Matlock, one of the radical group. The attitude of the two women, who represent the new feminism, puzzles Adam and he leaves for Russia. Eustace is killed in France and Neith is left to grope her way into the future alone.
“Rather obscure and vague in some places, it will not have many readers.”
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Booklist 16:345 Jl ’20
“Both in subject and in treatment, Mrs Austin’s work discloses its kinship to the social novel of Wells.”
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Dial 69:432 O ’20 60w
“Mrs Austin’s is a sincere and intelligent handling of an intricate subject. Owing to her careful consideration and presentation of the attitudes of her characters the book moves slowly, but it is easy to feel the dynamic forces behind it.” H. S. G.
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Freeman 1:597 S 1 ’20 680w
“Her attempt is original and subtle and its subtlety of presentation is heightened by the fact that, before writing this story, Mrs Austin seems to have steeped herself in Henry James.” Ludwig Lewisohn
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Nation 110:827 Je 19 ’20 550w
“One should not chide Mrs Austin too much for her somewhat blurred vision of the surface, since the greatness of her work lies in the much rarer faculty, which she possesses, of being able to focus on the inner significances.” J. C. L.
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New Repub 24:151 O 6 ’20 900w
“It gives you no more idea of conditions among New York radicals than do the New York newspapers. The story moves slowly and uninterestingly.” Henrietta Malkiel
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N Y Call p11 Jl 25 ’20 1000w
“The novel which is written primarily for some purpose outside itself is a novel which from the beginning is heavily handicapped. Usually the characters tend, in such instances, to become mere mouthpieces to express such divergent views as the author may wish to have uttered, and its situations are likely to descend into the condition of mere obvious illustrations. Mrs Austin’s new novel, ‘No. 26 Jayne street,’ has escaped none of these dangers. The book is very long, more than a little intricate, and at times profound.”
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N Y Times 25:271 My 23 ’20 850w
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Outlook 125:431 Je 30 ’20 50w
“Earnestness and background and an adroit hand belong to it, but all its data, its types, its ‘ideas’ are recognizable and timely. Its style may easily be called admirable. But its art conceals nothing. You do not lay down the book with the feeling that it is a big interpretation effortlessly embodied in its predestined form.” H. W. Boynton
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Review 3:73 Jl 21 ’20 1050w
AUTOBIOGRAPHY of a Winnebago Indian, ed. by Paul Radin. (Publications in American archaeology and ethnology) pa $1 Univ. of Cal. 970.2
A20–741
“‘The autobiography of a Winnebago Indian’ is edited with explanatory notes by Paul Radin. A middle-aged Winnebago called ‘S. B.,’ who belongs to a prominent family of the tribe and has had typical experiences, relates them in considerable detail and with great candor. He tells of his youthful amusements and fasts, of his courting and his many affairs with women, of his various travels, of his time spent with shows and circuses, of his term in prison charged with murder, of his conversion to the peyote rite and of his subsequent visions of Earthmaker (God). The narrative extraordinarily adumbrates customs and sentiments which have almost always been studied from the outside but which here have the most intimate ring of actuality.”—Nation
“A human document of extraordinary value alike for the ethnologist, the psychologist, and the lay reader.” R. H. Lowie
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Freeman 1:334 Je 16 ’20 880w
“As ethnology the account is of great value, and merely as general reading it is highly delectable.”
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Nation 111:164 Ag 7 ’20 40w
AYRES, LEONARD PORTER.[2] Index number for state school systems. 75c Russell Sage foundation 379
20–11840
“In ‘An index number for state school systems,’ Dr Ayres finds a single number which expresses the average of ‘ten different measures of the diffusion, the quantity, and the quality of the public education received by the children’ of the several states. The ten measures averaged into the index are: (1) the per cent of school population attending school daily; (2) average days attended by each child of school age: (3) average number of days schools were kept open; (4) per cent that high-school attendance was of total attendance; (5) per cent that boys were of girls in high schools; (6) average annual expenditure per child attending; (7) average annual expenditure per child of school age; (8) average annual expenditure per teacher employed; (9) expenditure per pupil for purposes other than teachers’ salaries: and (10) expenditure per teacher for salaries. The publication includes tables giving the index numbers of the several states for the census years since 1890 and for 1918, the resulting ranks of the states at the several periods, the correlation between the several items and the final index, and the correlation between the average of the five items that are based on attendance and the average of the five that are based on expenditure.”—School R
School R 28:709 N ’20 420w
Springf’d Republican p11a Je 13 ’20 360w
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Survey 44:495 Jl 3 ’20 190w
AYRES, RUBY MILDRED. Richard Chatterton, V. C. il *$1.75 Watt
20–1371
“One fails to fathom the reason why handsome, indifferent Richard Chatterton, jilted as a slacker by millionairess Sonia, should extort an iron-clad promise from a nice old gentleman, never to tell of his departure as a private in the Blank brigade to France where he chums with his own valet and performs the double deed of heroism which wins him the most coveted of English decorations. One word of that and Sonia would never have thrown herself into the artful arms of his false friend Montague. When unavoidable evidence jams upon her slow credence the facts about Richard, she sees him in London, invalided home, and insane jealousy of his pretty nurse makes her conduct still more complicated. Later, the mistaken report of the hero’s death, the showing up of the villain in lurid tints and Sonia’s abrupt disappearance, get things into a grand tangle. The lovers show a genius for miscomprehension that keeps the action going strong until the pallid convalescent is accidentally discovered by Sonia in a convenient sitting-room, where fate and the author have to get behind the two and push them into each other’s arms.”—Pub W
“The triteness of the story is unrelieved by any felicity of style; this is the sort of novel dashed off in a hurry to meet an uncritical demand.”
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N Y Times 25:287 My 30 ’20 260w
“There are vivid scenes of departing troops, trench warfare and base hospitals, contrasted with gay glimpses of London society and country life. And pleasant is the mellow romance of the plump chaperone and the ‘God bless my soul’ old family friend—they at least have the saving grace of humor.” Katherine Perry
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Pub W 97:177 Ja 17 ’20 300w
AYSCOUGH, JOHN, pseud. (BP. FRANCIS BROWNING DREW BICKERSTAFFE-DREW). Abbotscourt. $2 (2c) Kenedy
(Eng ed 20–8732)
This is preeminently a story of human kindness with enough of harshness in it to throw the kindly people and their doings into relief. The two sides of the picture are represented by two branches of the same family: the clerical, younger son side in spiritual and worldly prosperity throughout successive generations; and the baronet side in as steady degeneration. At last there is a reversion to type in Eleanor, the physically and mentally sound and beautiful daughter of the ramshackle Sir Anthony Abbot of Abbotspark, whom the Rev. Thomas Abbot of Abbotscourt heroically resolves to adopt into his family on her father’s death. The story revolves around poor Eleanor’s plight as a misfit both in the vicar’s family, surrounded by kindness, and in her dissolute brother’s house, exposed to his low designs. To escape both she flees into an unknown world and when her trials have reached their climax a veritable conspiracy of kindness and good will bring her back to life and love.
“The story is a vivid picture, drawn with the author’s customary skill, of provincial social life in ecclesiastical circles and interest is well-maintained.”
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Ath p1168 N 7 ’19 100w
“There is something delicately feminine about John Ayscough’s handling of his theme, his humor, his almost imperceptible irony. ‘Abbotscourt’ cannot be called a great book, nor would its author claim such a distinction for it. But it is worth reading for its style, its purity, and for that fragrance as of lavender and old lace which permeates its pages.”
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Cath World 112:258 N ’20 220w
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Cleveland p105 D ’20 80w
Spec 123:819 D 13 ’19 60w
“It is worth dwelling on the method of approach to the characters; it differs so greatly from much that passes for character drawings now. It is open perhaps to a smile here and a shrug there, but it is supported nevertheless upon a basis of thought which though delicate is secure.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p629 N 6 ’19 580w
AYUSAWA, IWAO FREDERICK. International labor legislation. (Columbia univ. studies in history, economics, and public law) pa *$2 Longmans 331
20–18736
“This book traces the origin and development of international labor legislation from the time of Owen (1818), with chapters on progress toward international agreements (1890–1900), labor conferences and treaties (1900–1913) and the labor development of the world war. Part 2 deals with the difficulties in international labor legislation and Part 3 with the Washington conference of 1919 including a summary of the discussion of the eight-hour day and the employment of women and children.”—Am Econ R
Am Econ R 10:839 D ’20 70w
“The assembled material will be useful to the student in the field of labor, even though he may be puzzled by several indefinite references and by some errors (possibly typographical).” Amy Hewes
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Am Hist R 26:361 Ja ’21 310w
Reviewed by J: B. Andrews
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Survey 45:287 N 20 ’20 180w
B
BABSON, ROGER WARD. Central American journey. (Interamerican geographical readers) il $1.20 (3c) World bk. 917.28
20–4903
This is the story of the Carroll family in their travels through Central America—an attempt to combine in the form of a story for children and an account of travel, certain information on our commercial relations with our southern neighbors. Its aim is to teach children that, in the process of linking nation with nation the world over, friendly trade relations contain the romance of the immediate future, that they imply human relations, fair dealing, and honorable business standards. Among the contents are: Castles in New Spain; The gateway of the world; The great waterway; On the trail of Columbus; A plantation in Costa Rica; Mules and mountain trails; The ancient land of Nicaragua; The wonders of a wilderness; The treasure of San Juancito; The small republic of Salvador. The book has an index and many illustrations.
Booklist 17:120 D ’20
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N Y Evening Post p2 My 1 ’20 250w
BABSON, ROGER WARD.[2] Fundamentals of prosperity; what they are and whence they come. *$2 Revell 174
20–20936
“In this book the statistician of Wellesley Hills holds that we must look to religion and not to modern efficiency methods to insure national prosperity. He contends that down to this hour, mankind (or humanity—or the world at large) has lost its way, chiefly because of its refusal to accept the golden rule as the basis of true living.”—Springf’d Republican
“It is a courageous book, inspired by an unshakable faith in the pricelessness of character, filled with wholesome advice to business men, and garnished with anecdotes that would be equally appropriate at a meeting of the stock exchange and a dinner party.”
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N Y Evening Post p8 N 6 ’20 190w
“It is a business man’s call to business to change its aim, a sermon of a high order of eloquence that if heeded would change the course of civilization.”
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Springf’d Republican p6 D 13 ’20 200w
BABSON, ROGER WARD. W. B. Wilson and the Department of labor. *$2 Brentano’s 353
20–1493
“The present head of the Department of labor at Washington has had the kind of life history that is often described as ‘typically American,’ but it happens that he was born and passed his childhood days in Scotland. He was taken from school at the age of eight and sent to the mines. As he grew up he worked as a common laborer, iron miner, locomotive fireman, lumber-jack, log-driver, farmer, and union organizer. He was sent to Congress from Pennsylvania for three terms, and when the Department of labor was created he became by President Wilson’s appointment the first Secretary of labor. All this and much more is told in the present volume by Roger W. Babson, the statistician, who was himself formerly chief of the Information service of the Department of labor. Mr Babson’s book describes and analyzes the machinery and policy of the department.”—R of Rs
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Am Econ R 10:363 Je ’20 80w
Booklist 17:28 O ’20
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Cleveland p77 Ag ’20 60w
“A well-constructed and interesting biography.”
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N Y Times p30 Ag 1 ’20 160w
“It is a little hard to tell where Babson begins and Wilson leaves off, for the biographer has not been quite able to play the part of Boswell to his Johnson.” J. E. Le Rossignol
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Review 2:333 Ap 3 ’20 420w
R of Rs 61:334 Mr ’20 150w
Springf’d Republican p8 Ag 6 ’20 290w
“Mr Babson has both succeeded and failed. He has done effectively what he set out to do. He has failed to do the much greater thing, such for example, as that which Graham Wallas has accomplished in his life of Francis Place. In a word, his book is not a biography insofar as biography is an art.” W. L. C.
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Survey 44:89 Ap 10 ’20 600w
BACON, FRANK. Lightnin’; after the play of the same name by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon. il *$1.75 (3c) Harper
20–4438
A novel made from a popular play of the same name in which Mr Bacon has been playing the title part. Lightnin’ Bill Jones, so-called because it doesn’t describe him, is a gentle, genial old humorist who keeps a hotel in Calivada, on the California-Nevada line. In fact the state line runs thru the house, so that divorcees wishing to obtain the advantages of the easy divorce laws of one state might do so and at the same time enjoy the privileges of a California resort. Two land sharks, who for reasons of their own, wish to get control of the property, talk Bill’s wife and adopted daughter into their scheme, and then, unable to win Bill’s consent, persuade the wife to get a divorce. But their plans are foiled, and Bill with his genius for “fixing” things also brings about a happy ending to the love romance of two young people.
Booklist 16:280 My ’20
“The pathos and humor of the play seem dry and forced in the story. Still the charm of old ‘Lightnin’ Bill’ Jones stands to some extent.”
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Boston Transcript p4 Ap 21 ’20 220w
“The author continually insists that Jones is a ‘lovable character,’ but to the reader he seems no more than a lazy, shiftless, old drunkard, who looks to his wife and daughter for sustenance. Mr Bacon does not succeed in freeing the narrative from the atmosphere of the footlights.”
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Springf’d Republican p8a Ap 4 ’20 150w
BACON, SIR REGINALD HUGH SPENCER. Dover patrol, 1915–1917. 2v il *$10 (4½c) Doran 940.45
19–19869
“At Dover during 1915, 1916 and 1917, more operations were initiated and carried out than under any naval command since the wars at the beginning of last century.” (Preface) The author enumerates his reasons for writing the book: to write while memory is still accurate; to fill the need for an adequate account of the work of the Dover patrol; to contradict the untrue statements of the press anent his dismissal. Contents of volume 1: Historical; The ships of the Dover patrol; Matters of strategy; Coastal bombardments; The work of the trawlers and paddle mine-sweepers; The Belgian coast, its patrol and barrages; Landing the guns on the Belgian coast; A proposed attack on Ostend; Preparations for a great landing; Plans for blocking Zeebrugge and Ostend; The control and protection of traffic. Contents of volume 2: The incomparable sixth flotilla; The downs and merchant shipping; The barrages in the channel; The drifters and their tasks; The French coast; C.M.B.’s, M.L.’s, submarines and smoke; Operations; The air services of the Dover patrol; Dover harbour and dockyard; Epilogue; Appendixes; Index. Each volume is abundantly illustrated and supplied with charts and diagrams.
“An important contribution from the standpoint of historical truth.”
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Booklist 16:273 My ’20
“As a question of strategy one of the most interesting parts of the book is that dealing with the plans drawn for a joint army and navy effort to turn the enemy out of his Belgian bases.” C. C. Gill
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Bookm 51:477 Je ’20 1700w
“Admiral Bacon’s book has in it much matter for the layman and much for the expert. For that reason it is more shapeless than have been many books written about the war. For that reason also, it is a truer presentment of the conditions obtaining.” Muriel Harris
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Nation 110:657 My 15 ’20 750w
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Outlook 126:768 D 29 ’20 6Ow
“For this lucid and sailor-like account of an essential service Admiral Bacon deserves praise.”
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Review 3:707 Jl 7 ’20 1400w
“This notable book wavers a little between treatise and narrative, but it is well worth reading all the same. A certain sense of grievance animates Sir Reginald Bacon’s pages. But it only obtrudes itself here and there, for instance, in a tendency to belittle the method of Admiral Keyes’s attack on Zeebrugge.”
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Sat R 128:sup13 N 29 ’19 1050w
“Sir Reginald Bacon’s detailed narrative of the Dover patrol is a well-written and highly interesting book, which will rank with Lord Jellicoe’s history of the grand fleet among the chief authorities on the naval side of the war.”
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Spec 123:582 N 1 ’19 1600w
“It is a striking and interesting narrative, gracefully related, with a thousand sidelights on this little-known field of naval operations.”
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Springf’d Republican p6 Je 21 ’20 720w
“The 633 pages of ‘The Dover patrol’ are crowded with statements of fact, criticisms not indeed of persons (for, apart from his official enemy, and vague indications of contradicting sinners, Admiral Bacon is generous in his tone to his colleagues and subordinates), but of principles and the methods of the art of war at sea. Admiral Bacon sometimes writes expressly for the professional reader, but he remembers the little knowledge of most of us, avoids pedantry, and has a respectable share of the blessed faculty for making things clear.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p599 O 30 ’19 2150w
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Yale R n s 10:437 Ja ’21 270w
BADEN-POWELL, SIR ROBERT STEPHENSON SMYTH. Scoutmastership. *$1.50 Putnam 369.4
20–26747
This “handbook for scoutmasters on the theory of scout training” is the American edition of the author’s book on British scout training with a few alterations by way of adaptation. Its arguments are elaborations on the four main principles on which, according to the author, scout training is based, and which require of the scoutmaster that “(1) He must have the boy spirit in him; and must be able to place himself on a right plane with his pupils as a first step; (2) He must realize the psychology of the different ages of boy life; (3) He must deal with the individual pupil rather than with the mass; and (4) He then needs to promote a corporate spirit among his individuals to gain the best results.” After the introductory exposition of these principles the contents are: How to train the boy; Character; Health and physical development; Making a career; Service for others; Reconstruction; The education act and the Boy scout; The attitude of labour towards scouting; Be ye prepared; Appendix.
“A readable handbook.”
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Booklist 17:9 O ’20
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Review 3:215 S 8 ’20 80w
BAFF, WILLIAM E. Inventions, their development, purchase and sale. *$2 Van Nostrand 608
20–6991
“This book is essentially a manual on the marketing of inventions.... In its broader aspect it is a book on business policy and is sent out on its mission of enlightening inventors and others about plans by the aid of which inventions may be profitably exploited.... The problems discussed are the manufacturers’ problems as well as those of the individual inventor.” (Preface) Among the subjects covered are: Value and price of patents; Gauging the merits of an invention; Developing inventions; The market for inventions; Patents as property; Inventor and capitalist; Elementary contract laws. The final chapter consists of Suggestions from the author on every phase of selling inventions. There is an index.
“It should prove of essential service to the inventor who is about to market his ideas.”
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N Y Evening Post p15 My 8 ’20 250w
BAILEY, CAROLYN SHERWIN. Broad stripes and bright stars. (For the children’s hour ser.) il $1.50 (3½c) Bradley, M. 973
19–13373
A series of stories from American history. The author says, “I have written this book because I believe that the story of the American people as it is embodied in the history of our United States supplies the most important material for character building in the entire field of elementary education, and should be offered to children in a new, humanitarian way as a means of helping them to understand the present.” (Preface) The stories are arranged chronologically and include: Pilgrims for freedom; The first fight; The freeman’s charter; Following the beaver’s trail; At the gate of old Harvard; Ringing in the fourth of July; In the wake of the first steamboat, etc. A chronology of main events referred to comes at the close.
“The stories are well told.”
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Springf’d Republican p6 My 25 ’20 100w
BAILEY, CAROLYN SHERWIN. Wonder stories. il $2.50 (3½c) Bradley, M. 292
20–12815
All the well-known myths are here retold for boys and girls. There is an introduction on How the myths began, followed by the stories of Prometheus, Pandora (Hawthorne’s “Paradise of children”), Vulcan, Orion, Perseus, Pegasus, Phaeton, Apollo, Mercury, Proserpine, Jason, the golden apples, the wooden horse, and others. There are six pictures in color by Clara M. Burd.
“An attractive collection.”
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Ind 104:380 D 11 ’20 30w
BAILEY, HENRY CHRISTOPHER. Barry Leroy. *$2 Dutton
20–4707
“When the story opens Barry is a spy in the service of Napoleon; the war is on between France and England. Barry had learned to believe in the people who were fighting for liberty and equality. But there comes a time when Barry’s regard for the French consul is turned to contempt and hatred. The abduction and execution of the Duc d’Enghien, whom Barry knew to be loyal to Napoleon, was the cause of his revolt. Asserting that he would never forgive the Little Corsican for his cold-blooded treachery, he goes over to the other side and offers his services to the British. He forces a duel on Nelson at one moment and saves his life at the risk of his own at another.”—N Y Times
“Rather disconnected and has not quite the charm or vivacity of ‘The gamesters’ or ‘The highwaymen.’”
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Booklist 16:345 Jl ’20
“In criticizing Mr Bailey’s methods in portraying his most difficult figures, I would not subtract from the extent of his accomplishment. He has, we must admit, failed in Napoleon and Nelson. ‘Barry Leroy’ is an excellent story in spite of this lack. It possesses the fine dash, the romance, the joy of adventure for itself, that we have come to associate with other times than our own.” D. L. M.
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Boston Transcript p6 Ag 4 ’20 1050w
“Throughout the book the action never lags; there are no dull moments. As a spy-story having an historic background and interwoven with a charming love affair, ‘Barry Leroy’ is above the average in construction and sustained interest.”
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N Y Times 25:168 Ap 11 ’20 500w
“The fantastic vein of the story is well sustained, though necessarily told in episodes with little organic connection, as if written for serial publication.”
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Sat R 129:234 Mr 6 ’20 80w
BAILEY, LIBERTY HYDE. Nursery-manual; a complete guide to the multiplication of plants. (Rural manuals) il *$2.50 Macmillan 631.5
20–1758
“Rewritten and reset, L. H. Bailey’s ‘The nursery-manual’ is off the press in its 22d edition. It deals fully with seeds, layers, cuttings, buds, grafts and otherwise. To those who are acquainted with the earlier editions—the first having been issued early in 1891—little introduction is needed, save to say that the material is brought up to date with addition of observations gained in further research. An extended alphabetic list of plants with full directions for each is included. The volume also includes an illustrated account of the main diseases and insects of nursery stock, valuable to the commercial grower.”—Springf’d Republican
Booklist 16:231 Ap ’20
R of Rs 61:448 Ap ’20 50w
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Springf’d Republican p10 Mr 12 ’20 240w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p242 Ap 15 ’20 40w
BAILEY, TEMPLE. Trumpeter swan. il *$1.90 Penn
20–17175
“The hero, a young soldier, returns from France to face changes of fortune and soon to realize that the girl he loves has lost her heart to another man. How Randy makes good, writes the romance of ‘The trumpeter swan,’ and wins back the wandering heart of his lady, is all set down. Interwoven is the minor story of baby Fiddle Flippen.”—Boston Transcript
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Booklist 17:115 D ’20
“The plot of Temple Bailey’s latest story is practically nil, but its settings are wonderfully picturesque. The hills of old Virginia and the moors of Nantucket are powerfully contrasted to furnish a background for a readable light tale.” C. K. H.
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Boston Transcript p6 N 3 ’20 500w
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Cleveland p105 D ’20 50w
“Her readers will like this new book. The love passages are wholesome, strike the note of sincerity, and therefore cannot but be acceptable.”
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N Y Times p25 Ja 16 ’21 430w
Reviewed by Marguerite Fellows
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Pub W 98:658 S 18 ’20 190w
“A good simple natural harmless story.”
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Springf’d Republican p5a Ja 2 ’21 230w
BAIN, FRANCIS WILLIAM. Substance of a dream. il *$1.75 (3½c) Putnam
19–19598
The author disclaims all responsibility for his stories which he says come to him “suddenly, like a flash of lightning all together.... I never know, the day before, when one is coming: it arrives, as if shot out of a pistol.” (Introd.) This exotic Hindu tale is half love-story, half fairy tale, and depicts in the extraordinary queen, Táráwalí, a being half male half female. It is in three parts: On the banks of Ganges; The heart of a woman; and A story without an end.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
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Bookm 51:240 My ’20 450w
Lit D p91 S 4 ’20 1300w
“Those who have read Mr Bain’s other Hindu stories will not need to be told of the unique place he now occupies in the world of letters. Here the exigencies of space will permit us to say only that ‘The substance of a dream’ is a worthy successor to the other and earlier volumes.”
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N Y Times 25:145 Mr 28 ’20 600w
N Y Times 25:190 Ap 18 ’20 20w
“‘The substance of a dream’ will please those whom the other books of the author have pleased. It is very feminine; sensuous to the point of orgies of kissing; sensual with soulhuntings and langours and faintings; fleshly in artistic ecstasies; and psychological in imaginative suggestion.”
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Review 2:682 Je 30 ’20 280w
“By no means the least delightful of Mr Bain’s long series of Indian romances.”
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Spec 124:179 F 7 ’20 550w
“You cannot say whether his style is artful or artless; but the words make new associations for us, create an unfamiliar state of being, though they are familiar words.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p669 N 20 ’19 1000w
BAIRNSFATHER, BRUCE.[2] Bairnsfather case; as tried before Mr Justice Busby; defence by Bruce Bairnsfather; prosecution by W. A. Mutch. il *$2.50 Putnam 827
20–21304
In alternating chapters Bruce Bairnsfather and W. A. Mutch tell the story of Mr Bairnsfather’s life and struggles for success. There are illustrations from Bairnsfather drawings.
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Booklist 17:145 Ja ’21
“If anything in late years has been more amusing than Mr Bairnsfather’s adventures in print, it is his adventures in black and white as drawn by himself. Forty drawings grace the book, and many of them are better than the original ‘fragments.’”
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Boston Transcript p4 D 24 ’20 250w
“It has that satirical note without which a whole book of humour is apt to be sticky reading.”
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Spec 135:818 D 18 ’20 60w
“The whole book is a happy means of bettering one’s acquaintance, book fashion, with the delightful Bairnsfather.”
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Springf’d Republican p10 Ja 18 ’21 330w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p685 O 21 ’20 40w
BAKER, ERNEST. Life and explorations of Frederick Stanley Arnot. il *$5 Dutton
“Mr Arnot died in May, 1914, at Johannesburg, having just completed his ‘Missionary travels in Central Africa.’ He first went to Africa, inspired by the story of Livingstone, in 1881, and during his seven years’ residence gained the friendship of the King of the Barotse and was held in much esteem by the natives. Altogether he made nine journeys to the centre of Africa, and his self-devotion and the vast distances he traversed give him a high place among travellers and among missionaries. His life story is worth telling and it is given almost entirely in extracts from his own letters and diaries.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“A valuable contribution to the literature of brotherhood and religious democracy.”
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Boston Transcript p7 N 20 ’20 430w
“Arnot was a noble character, and deserves a much better biography.”
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N Y Evening Post p18 O 23 ’20 300w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p602 S 16 ’20 90w
BAKER, GEORGE PIERCE, comp. Modern American plays. *$2.25 Harcourt 812.08
20–14860
Professor Baker has in this volume collected five American plays chosen from the output of the last ten years because decided success has been theirs, and they are worthy of professional revival, and because the selection shows the greatest possible variety. In his introduction he briefly analyzes each of the plays and ends his general remarks on American play-writing with the assurance that “We have the right to hope that the next decade will give us an American drama which, in its mirroring of American life, will be even more varied in form, even richer in content.” The plays are: As a man thinks, by Augustus Thomas; The return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco; Romance, by Edward Sheldon; The unchastened woman, by Louis Kaufman Anspacher; Plots and playwrights, by Edward Massey.
Booklist 17:104 D ’20
“All the plays collected here are significant—all have added to the pleasure of playgoing. This book makes their remembrance the richer.” W. S. B.
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Boston Transcript p6 O 13 ’20 390w
“Most decidedly, these are not the measure of American drama. They are just five American plays. When a man has done what Professor Baker has done at Harvard, it is disappointing to find him fathering so trivial a venture as the collecting of these five dramas into a single volume.” K. M.
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Freeman 2:310 D 8 ’20 190w
“All these pieces, probably, profit by being printed in their entirety, but a somewhat deliberate study of them leads to the conclusion that, judged by any moderately critical standard, only two of them would be marked for revival on account of their actual merits. The best of them, by all odds, is the somewhat awkwardly named ‘As a man thinks.’ Of the other pieces in the list, ‘The unchastened woman’ is the only one that has substantial or abiding value.” J. R. Towse
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N Y Evening Post p4 O 23 ’20 1150w
“Four out of the five at least have interesting stories, and are flawless in their adaptation to the theatre; but gayly as they trip on the stage, they drag a little in the reading.”
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Review 3:389 O 27 ’20 350w
“This book is intended to interest both readers and amateur players. It has, perhaps, no great significance as a compendium of modern American drama but it should serve its purpose.”
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Springf’d Republican p6 S 13 ’20 240w
Wis Lib Bul 16:234 D ’20 60w
BAKER, KARLE (WILSON) (MRS THOMAS ELLIS BAKER) (CHARLOTTE WILSON, pseud.). Blue smoke. *$1.50 Yale univ. press 811
19–14952
“The poems have been written ‘at intervals since 1901,’ the author says, and consequently their moods are various.” (Springf’d Republican) “Love, children, the cause of woman all move her to song. Among other pieces we have specially noted the well-handled conceit called ‘Winter secrets’; the happy introspective fancy called ‘The lost one’; the truly heartfelt elegy for ‘The dead fore-runner’ of the woman’s movement; and the delightful literary reverie called ‘The love of Elia.’” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)
“These poems are not all smoke. There are many glowing embers and a few blazing coals. Mrs Baker shows something of antique restraint and not a little of the newer and freer impulse.” C. M. Greene
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Bookm 50:634 F ’20 140w
“Not ambitious in manner, Mrs Baker has the soundness and felicity of art to make her themes poetically alive.” W. S. B.
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Boston Transcript p5 S 17 ’19 1400w
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Cleveland p85 S ’20 20w
“Hers is a gentle gracefulness, a light timidity that succeeds most when it is least emphasized.” L: Untermeyer
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Dial 68:532 Ap ’20 150w
“Mrs Baker’s metaphors from nature have an almost unexampled finesse. She draws down trees, birds, stars, prints them on her page with a diamond delicacy, heats and lights them into a tender, fiery transparency. Her ideas are often second-hand, and her ardors, sweet and genuine though some of them, particularly those for her children, may be, are not perhaps distinguished enough to wear well. The solid core of her work, however, though small, is fine.” M. V. D.
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Nation 110:76 Ja 17 ’20 220w
“‘Blue smoke’ is a book of happiness and hope. It is unpretentious, modest, and sincere. The poems read as though publication had been an afterthought; they were not written to catch an exclusive or ‘appreciative’ audience.”
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Springf’d Republican p10 Ja 23 ’20 260w
“Mrs Baker, an American writer, is a craftswoman of much skill, who is never at a loss for ideas, various and fruitful, and can fit them to apt expression. Hence her book is always interesting, though it does not succeed in giving us the thrill of beautiful utterance.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p174 Mr 11 ’20 120w
“Possibly given overmuch to introspection, at times a little over-wistful, this poet gives only her best. Her style is simple, vivid, never précieuse; there is perfect ease in all the beauty of these songs.” E: B. Reed
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Yale R n s 10:204 O ’20 170w
BAKER, RAY PALMER, ed. Engineering education. *$1.25 Wiley 620.7
19–14693
“These fourteen selected articles, written during the past decade by eminent engineers and scientists, are designed not only to inform engineering undergraduates concerning the broad aspects of their profession, but to serve as examples of good English. Simon Newcomb and Sir J. J. Thomson discuss the origins of engineering education; J. B. Johnson and Howard McClenahan deal with the types of engineering education; the relation of language to the profession is considered by J. J. L. Harrington and C. P. Steinmetz. The place of mathematics is discussed by Sir W. H. White and Arthur Ranum; physics by M. A. Hunter and R. A. Millikan; chemistry by J. B. C. Kershaw and Alfred Senier; and the role of the imagination in engineering by Isham Randolph and J. C. Smallwood. The editor is professor of English in the Rensselaer Polytechnic institute.”—N Y P L New Tech Bks
Booklist 16:76 D ’19
“Each is not only well chosen for its primary purpose of use in engineering schools but might also be read, or read anew, by engineers in practice.”
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Engin-News Rec 83:891 N 13 ’19 240w
“It strikes a reader that these addresses, each advocating the claim of some one branch of science, interesting as they are, would have been more useful if there had been a recognition of the distinction between what should be included in the school course preceding the technical course, in the technical course itself necessarily restricted, and what extra academic self-education should be expected to accompany and follow it.” W. C. U.
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Nature 105:258 Ap 29 ’20 700w
N Y P L New Tech Bks p15 O ’19 150w
Pratt p18 Ja ’20 30w
BAKER, RAY STANNARD (DAVID GRAYSON, pseud.). New industrial unrest; reasons and remedies. *$2 (4c) Doubleday 331
20–8811
“The battle is on” between employers and employees, says the author in explaining the raison d’etre of the present volume whose object it is to “present a survey, for the general reader, of the present industrial crisis, and the various reconstructive experiments now under way to meet it.” It is the author’s conviction that the problems are very pressing, very real and intensely human and that, if the American people can only be made to see and know and understand where truly reconstructive experimentation is going on and who are the thoughtful leaders on both sides, they will decide aright regarding them. Some of the contents are: The industrial crisis as it appears from above to the capitalist-employer; The industrial crisis as it appears from below to the worker; The imputed causes of the unrest; The real causes of the unrest; Awakening of the public to the industrial crisis; Approaches to a solution of the problem—by political action, as suggested by the workers—the new labor party; The new shop-council system as applied in a typical small industry—the Dutchess bleachery at Wappingers Falls, New York; Development of the shop-council system in America—method of organization—the movement in England and Germany; Foundations of the new co-operative movement in industry: the new profession of management, and the labor manager.
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Booklist 16:327 Jl ’20
“As a trained journalist, he sees the problem clearly, without that hard definiteness such as an economist who is more reliable but less readable, usually believes essential to correct understanding.”
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Boston Transcript p7 O 9 ’20 280w
“Combining the lucidity of the trained writer, the quick eye of the reporter and the orderly reflectiveness of the born philosopher, Mr Baker’s birdseye view of what is wrong with American industry is the best book of its kind which has yet appeared.”
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Ind 103:319 S 11 ’20 200w
“There is nothing the matter with Mr Baker’s observation, as far as it penetrates, but it does not penetrate to the causes which maintain the struggle in spite of anyone’s reasonableness or good intentions.” G: Soule
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Nation 111:534 N 10 ’20 190w
“He is always the reporter standing outside, trying to understand a technical problem and to help his audience to understand.” Ordway Tead
+ −
New Repub 25:208 Ja 12 ’21 410w
Reviewed by J. E. Le Rossignol
Review 3:504 N 24 ’20 350w
R of Rs 62:110 Jl ’20 30w
“An outlook free from confusing prejudices and a well disciplined ability to obtain facts were carried to the inquiry. Mr Baker’s principal prepossession seems to have been a desire to learn those things which are favorable to the public well being. That, I take it, is not an insuperable handicap. On the whole there is perhaps no other single book which tells so well and so truthfully the story of a large and important part of ‘the new industrial unrest.’”
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Survey 44:316 My 29 ’20 300w
“Mr Baker’s writings are in more or less popular style which makes them decidedly readable without detracting in the least from the accuracy of the facts which he presents.”
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Textile World 57:30 My 15 ’20 220w
“Mr Baker’s honesty and fair-mindedness verge upon genius—though they are plainly aided by his refusal to break through the surface where he is unable to see clearly.” W: E. Walling
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Yale R n s 10:217 O ’20 480w
BAKEWELL, CHARLES MONTAGUE. Story of the American Red cross in Italy. il *$2 (4c) Macmillan 940.477
20–15731
The story tells of the material aid that the American Red cross gave to Italy: at the front, in canteens, in assistance to hospitals, and in helping refugees and the needy families of soldiers, but the emphasis is put less on its achievements than on its contribution to a better understanding between our two people and on the finer and more discriminating appreciation of Italian character that our workers in the field have invariably gained. Some of the topics are: The American relief clearing house; The Baker commission, Red cross emergency commission; Organization; Civilian relief and the “inner front”; Cash distribution to soldiers’ families; Station canteens; Rolling canteens; Surgical dressings; Hospital supplies; Hospitals; Work with American troops in Italy. There are numerous illustrations and statistical appendices.
“A readable book not overloaded with statistics.”
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Booklist 17:139 Ja ’21
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R of Rs 62:671 D ’20 50w
BALDWIN, CHARLES SEARS. God unknown. *$1 Morehouse 231
20–8877
A study of the address of St Paul at Athens, based on lectures delivered at Columbia and Indiana universities. There are five chapters: Religion in the open; Greek and Jew; Philosophy and religion; Personality; Symbol and reality. The author is professor of rhetoric and English composition in Columbia university and has written a book on “The Bible as a guide to writing.”
“One feels grateful for such an intellectual and scholarly work as that of the author of this small volume, who has made real one of the most famous events of ancient times.”
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Boston Transcript p6 S 8 ’20 520w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p623 S 23 ’20 50w
BALDWIN, JAMES, and LIVENGOOD, WILLIAM WINFRED.[2] Sailing the seas; introd. by E: N. Hurley. il *$1 Am bk. 656
20–5112
“A sailor’s imaginary log, full of interest for boys and written at the request of the U.S. Shipping board to promote in the younger generation an understanding of the development of types of American boats of commerce, of the interdependence of peoples and of the importance of the merchant marine. Includes whalers, tramp steamers and ocean liners.”—Booklist
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Booklist 17:120 D ’20
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Springf’d Republican p8 O 5 ’20 240w
BALDWIN, MARIAN.[2] Canteening overseas; 1917–1919. *$2 Macmillan 940.48
20–15730
“What one Y. M. C. A. worker saw in France is told in a collection of letters written by Marian Baldwin and published under the title of ‘Canteening overseas.’ The dates on the letters run from June 30, 1917, to June 19, 1919. The first one was written on board the ship that took Miss Baldwin to France and the last one from Coblenz. Between the two are letters from Paris, Bordeaux, Aix-les-Bains, the Lorraine sector, the Argonne, the St Mihiel front, from Verdun and from Germany. All the letters are reprinted as they were originally written, except for the insertion of names of places, persons, and a few other indications, which, because of the censorship, had perforce to be omitted from the letters as mailed from Europe.”—N Y Times
“There is a gay spontaneity in parts of the book, a sincerity running through it, and more than all else it serves to reveal the effect of these dark days of service, of endurance, often of hardship upon the writer herself.”
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Boston Transcript p6 N 17 ’20 320w
N Y Times p30 Ja 9 ’21 170w
“These letters are made vivid by a natural descriptive touch, by an ever-present sense of humor, and by an admirable spirit.”
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Outlook 126:378 O 27 ’20 130w
BALDWIN, SIMEON EBEN. Young man and the law. (Vocational ser.) *$1.50 Macmillan 340
20–2658
“Professor Baldwin, ex-chief justice and ex-governor of Connecticut, bears a leading name in the history of the legal profession. He discusses the majesty of the law and the lawyer as its minister, the cultivation of mind and heart incident to the legal profession, the lawyer’s various opportunities, the personal and educational qualities requisite of success, and the ideals of the profession.”—Boston Transcript
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Boston Transcript p4 My 5 ’20 120w
“The dominant note of the book is its idealism. Judge Baldwin has the fortunate faculty of seeing things at their best.”
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Nation 110:524 Ap 17 ’20 280w
“Eminently worth while for any young man who is thinking of the law as his profession.”
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Outlook 124:657 Ap 14 ’20 50w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p242 Ap 15 ’20 50w
BAMBER, MRS L. KELWAY, ed. Claude’s second book. *$1.60 (7½c) Holt 134
(Eng ed 20–8723)
“This book records a continuation of the ‘talks’ already published in ‘Claude’s book,’ which described a young airman’s first impressions and experiences of life after death in the spirit-world in which he suddenly and unwillingly found himself when he was killed.” (Preface) The present volume is furnished with an introduction by Ellis Thomas Powell and some of Claude’s “talks” are: Some difficulties of mediumship; The circle of power; Ideal sitters; Spiritualism and occultism; Man’s reincarnation; Dreams; The power of mind; Spirit helpers; God—the war—the Christ-spirit; Development of personality; The prerogative of spirit; Prayer.
“In this second book of Claude’s talks with his mother, we find a considerable advance in thought. Certain chapters, such as that on prayer, would be recognized for their worth, even if they were entirely disassociated with this type of book.”
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Boston Transcript p1 N 27 ’20 280w
“The explanations themselves are as unconvincing and improbable as usual.”
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N Y Times p16 N 14 ’20 310w
BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK. Cheery way. *$2 Harper 811
20–13319
“A bit of verse for every day” says the subtitle, and, indeed, the verses contain a cheery message for every day in the year, full of courage, humor, sympathetic understanding of all human moods, and good advice. The page decorations by J. R. Flanagan are in four designs, one for each season.
“These little stanzas are full of the philosophy of good humor with some real gospel messages.”
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Boston Transcript p4 D 31 ’20 340w
BANGS, MARY ROGERS. Old Cape Cod; the land, the men, the sea. il *$3.50 (4c) Houghton 974.4
20–19426
The table of contents indicates the scope of this book about Cape Cod. The chapter headings are: The land; The old colony; The towns; The French wars; The English wars; Theology and whaling; Storms and pirates; Old sea ways; The captains; The county; Genius loci. There are eight full-page halftone illustrations from photographs and two end maps, one a modern map of Cape Cod and the other a facsimile of a part of Captain Cyprian Southack’s map, made in 1717. There is no index.
“One of the best Cape Cod books.”
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Booklist 17:148 Ja ’21
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Ind 104:242 N 13 ’20 60w
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N Y Evening Post p18 N 13 ’20 220w
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
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N Y Times p9 Ja 9 ’21 260w
“Good stories of pirates, Indians, and sea captains make the book lively reading.”
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Outlook 126:470 N 10 ’20 40w
Reviewed by E: L. Pearson
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Review 3:531 D 1 ’20 70w
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R of Rs 63:111 Ja ’21 20w
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Springf’d Republican p9a D 5 ’20 290w
BANKS, LOUIS ALBERT.[2] Winds of God. *$1.75 Funk 252
A volume containing thirty of the author’s sermons, among them: The east wind; The north wind; The whirlwinds of life; The need of a red-blooded Christianity; The banishment of anxiety; The sorrows of a tangled soul; The freedom of the city of God; Abraham Lincoln; The blessings that come from prayer; The romance and joy of the pioneer; Keeping the soul alive; The Bible ideal of a noble womanhood.
BANNERJEA, D. N. India’s nation builders. *$3.50 Brentano’s
“Fifteen biographies and character sketches of eminent Indians whom the author regards as pioneers of modern India. The leaders include Sir Rabindranath Tagore, Keshab Chandra, Sen., Dadabhoy Naoroji, Gopala Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and others.” (Brooklyn) “The writer would urge, by constitutional means, the immediate grant to India, subject to the stability of the empire as a whole, of a substantial measure of self-government.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup Jl 10 ’19)
Ath p684 Ag 1 ’19 340w
Brooklyn 12:134 My ’20 40w
“The defects of the book lie on the surface. The author follows neither a logical nor a chronological order of treatment. But when due allowance has been made for these unfortunate short-comings, Mr Bannerjea’s realistic character-sketches are on the whole satisfying, critical and varied enough to attract American readers to a closer study of the Indian point of view.” B. K. Sarkar
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Freeman 2:115 O 13 ’20 1000w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p378 Jl 10 ’19 50w
“It is unhappily evident that Mr Bannerjea, for all the sedulous good nature and tolerance which he consciously or unwittingly affects, caters for the kindly enthusiasts who find the careful study of historical origins a bore and an impediment to their pious belief that all men are alike, that India is and always has been ‘a nation,’ and that British administration is an oppressive and obsolete anomaly.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p490 S 18 ’19 1100w
BANNING, MARGARET CULKIN. This marrying. *$1.75 (2c) Doran
20–5228
In this tendency novel the problems of the modern woman are sympathetically discussed. Horatia Grant has taken a course in journalism at college and breaks away from her dull, respectable, middle-class home to make her own way. She shocks her relatives by taking a desk at the Journal, a progressive daily of socialistic leanings with its editor, Jim Langley, socially under a cloud. She meets a new class of people, acquires new outlooks, faces new problems. Putting herself and her friends to the test she learns to discriminate between the real and the acquired instincts. She finds herself and she and Jim Langley find each other.
Booklist 16:345 Jl ’20
“The success of the story lies not in an original plot, nor even in an unusual manner of telling the story, but rather in a certain freshness and joy in the experience of it all.” D. L. M.
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Boston Transcript p10 My 15 ’20 750w
Ind 103:323 S 11 ’20 40w
“The book is so distinctly pleasing, and is written with such unmistakable sincerity, that one passes over the blemishes—very trifling, after all—and gives himself up to the quiet enjoyment of a work that maintains its interest throughout without any strain or outbreak of violent emotion.”
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N Y Times 25:17 Je 27 ’20 400w
“Whether one does or does not think all the incidents probable, one cannot help enjoying the genuine American enthusiasm of Horatia.”
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Springf’d Republican p13a My 2 ’20 300w
“A bright and busy story.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p386 Je 17 ’20 90w
BARBOUR, RALPH HENRY, and HOLT, H. P. Joan of the island. *$1.75 Small
20–4709
“The story opens in an extraordinary way, by a sailor slipping overboard into the South Pacific ocean, just after killing the captain of the tramp steamer in which he sailed. The escaped sailor, who has taken with him no baggage save just a life-belt, is a strong swimmer and after some thirty hours of alternately swimming and floating, the fugitive reaches shore on an island of the South Sea. It is inhabited and the traveller lands just in time to save Joan, the heroine, from injury at the hands of an angry native. With such a beginning proceeds a romance of the Sulu sea and islands. Joan and her brother are the only whites in this vicinity and the brother is absent in another island, leaving his sister who is in care of a great Dane. The dog is poisoned by a treacherous native and Joan is barely saved from attack by the sudden entrance of the fugitive. Of course there are adventures without number, thrilling escapes from peril, a love episode and a pleasant ending.”—Boston Transcript
“Fairly readable.”
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Booklist 16:345 Jl ’20
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Boston Transcript p4 Je 9 ’20 200w
“This is as good a novel of adventure as has appeared for some time, not only because there is a clean-cut story, but on account of the splendid lucidity with which it is related.”
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N Y Times 25:308 Je 13 ’20 620w
“The story is hardly more than mildly interesting.”
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Springf’d Republican p7a D 26 ’20 130w
BARBOUR, RALPH HENRY, and HOLT, H. P. Mystery of the Sea-Lark. il *$1.75 (3c) Century
20–14289
Jack Holden and his chum George Santo salvage an abandoned sloop, the Sea-Lark, and fit her up for use as a ferry boat. Sometime before, Jack’s father had been forced to sever relations with his business partner, Simon Barker, under a cloud of suspicion and Jack is glad of the opportunity to help out the family finances. The venture is a success, but the boys are surprised at the sudden desire of two strangers to buy the boat. Then comes a series of strange midnight visits and finally both boat and boys are kidnapped and taken out to sea. They outwit their captors and in solving the mystery of the Sea-Lark clear Mr Holden’s good name and restore the stolen money that had been the foundation of the trouble.
Booklist 17:77 N ’20
“What a boy will call a ‘dandy yarn.’” Hildegarde Hawthorne
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N Y Times p9 D 12 ’20 80w
“A capital story for boys.”
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Outlook 126:600 D 1 ’20 30w
“The story is well told and the interest is cumulative.”
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Springf’d Republican p9a O 31 ’20 170w
“A good mystery story which, refreshingly, is quite free from German spies.”
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Wis Lib Bul 16:197 N ’20 100w
BARCLAY, FLORENCE LOUISA (CHARLESWORTH) (MRS CHARLES W. BARCLAY). Returned empty. *$1.75 (5c) Putnam
20–11496
A strange story of reincarnation. Luke Sparrow is brought up in a foundlings’ home, where the only clue to his identity is the label found on him bearing the inscription “Glass with care” on one side and on the other “Returned empty.” He is a lonely baby, and grows up to be a lonely man, with one queer trait: he has a passion for peering thru the windows of comfortable homes, as if seeking for something he cannot find. And then one day, he finds it in the home of a beautiful woman. She tells him the strange story that explains his life. In a previous incarnation he had been her husband, and at his tragic death, she had grieved so deeply that her love had called him back to this world to live again. But this great love, altho it brought them together, cannot keep them so, and she steps out of his life again leaving him infinitely richer, for the short remaining span of his life, for the contact.
“She has made a most appealing story which will interest readers who do not usually number Mrs Barclay among their favorite authors.” Cornelia Van Pelt
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Pub W 98:660 S 18 ’20 370w
BARCLAY, VERA C. Danny again; further adventures of “Danny the detective.” il *$1.25 (5c) Putnam
20–12601
This sequel to “Danny the detective” is a book of short stories. The first is a wartime story in which Danny again appears as the captor of a German spy. The other titles are: Christmas eve; A sporting kid; A midnight adventure; The secret room; In mid-air; Dicky’s chance; The bishop’s story. Some of the stories are reprinted from The Wolf Cub, an English Boy scout publication.
BARCYNSKA, HÉLÈNE, countess. Rose o’ the sea (Eng title Pretty dear). il *$2 (2c) Houghton
20–17652
Eccentric Henry Eton was the only father Rose had ever known since he had rescued her from the sea sixteen years before. Now at his death, she determines to go to London to make her way alone rather than stay in the little village which is so lonely without him. She is fortunate in London to fall at once into a congenial occupation and among friendly people. Among her new acquaintances is Denis Mallory, a lovable, wayward boy, whose father, Lord Caister, is much worried about the lad. Rose’s sweet spirit and common sense so appeal to the father that he arranges an engagement between Rose and Denny hoping thus to keep the boy straight. They both try to enter into the arrangement honestly altho Rose realizes she is doing it for Lord Caister’s sake rather than for his son’s. But when she comes into a large inheritance Lord Caister’s pride releases her from the agreement, which Denis, by a hasty marriage with an actress, has already made impossible. There is now no barrier between Rose and Lord Caister himself except pride, and that is finally broken down by Denny’s tragic death.
“The heroine is remarkably artless; a little too artless, indeed, to seem real—in this world, at all events. The author’s experience as a writer of eminently readable fiction enables her thoroughly to enlist the reader’s interest in this wild-flower heroine.”
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Ath p783 Je 11 ’20 110w
“A novel which many girls and women will like.”
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Booklist 17:156 Ja ’21
“Rose in ‘Rose o’ the sea’ is a sort of female St Francis of Assisi. The novel may help an undiscriminating mind to while away a dull hour.”
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N Y Evening Post p22 O 23 ’20 70w
N Y Times p23 O 24 ’20 350w
“It is a little story sure to delight every lover of impossible romance.”
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Springf’d Republican p7a N 21 ’20 160w
BARKER, ARTHUR.[2] British corn trade; from the earliest times to the present day. (Pitman’s common commodities and industries) il $1 (2½c) Pitman 338.1
The term corn trade in British usage includes “all trade not only in wheat, ... but also in any other cereal for which there is any commercial demand, such as barley, oats, maize, rye or rice.” Contents: The British corn trade and its units; The corn trade in old England; The English law on the “cornering” of wheat and other grain; Two hundred and fifteen years of wheat prices in England; The corn laws era; The growth and development of the modern corn trade; The effect of the great war on the corn trade. There are notes at the close and an index.
BARKER, D. A.[2] Great leviathan. *$1.75 (2c) Lane
20–22040
Tom’s life was regulated by principle. As a lad at Harrow his principles brought him into trouble because they ran counter to the rules of the school. Later they interfered with his adopting a settled career and he led a wandering life as a lecturer against social evils. Even as a child he had begun to look upon marriage as wrong, for he had witnessed his mother’s unhappiness, and free unions had become a matter of principle with him. He makes a convert of his beloved Mary. At first they are happy, but as little by little the great leviathan breaks her spirit, love goes and she leaves him. His other endeavors also meet with the world’s scorn and a complete nervous breakdown is the result. After his recovery he goes to India and there he joins a devout and aged Hindoo on his last pilgrimage and finds peace in the “glory of God” as taught by the Bhagavad Gita.
“For a first attempt it is a commendable piece of work, but it does not—if one may be permitted the expression—cut any ice. It is pleasantly written, and there are many happy touches, but we are never certain as to what it is that the author is after.” K. M.
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Ath p78 Jl 16 ’20 200w
“Mr Barker’s story is really very well told, he is greatly in earnest, and the ideals he handles are much ‘in the air’ just now, especially in England.”
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N Y Evening Post p18 D 4 ’20 170w
“A clever account is given of how he spoils his life by his experiment in evading the chains of matrimony. The end of the book is not quite so convincing.”
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Spec 125:439 O 2 ’20 40w
“Technically ‘The great leviathan’ is interesting as showing what Mr Wells’s technique may become in unskilful hands. But the book, though a failure, is an interesting failure. Mr Barker could not have written it without learning a good deal of the difficulties of novelwriting. He has things to say. His next book will probably be worth reading.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p367 Je 10 ’20 560w
BARKER, MRS HELEN GRANVILLE (HELEN MANCHESTER HUNTINGTON). Songs in cities and gardens. *$1.25 Putnam 821
19–19881
The princess’s garden, The narrow glass, To snow, The garden on the hill, The wayfarer, The playmate, Lost gardens, On the river, Songs of the rain and the wind, are some of the titles from part 1 of this collection of poems. Part 2, containing the Songs in cities, is devoted to such themes as: The house; The portrait; Night, and the curtains drawn; Beyond knowledge; Old age; Twilight; To fire; The city; Harvest of dreams. A note says that some of the verses have been printed in earlier books by the author, now out of print.
“Mrs Granville Barker’s great technical accomplishment is the source both of her triumphs and of her failures. Sometimes she is simply exercising her ingenuity in the void, creating bubble-shapes of a tenuous and fleeting prettiness. But at other times, when she has good material on which to employ her skill, she produces finished and distinguished work.”
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Ath p1137 O 31 ’19 70w
“Mrs Barker’s verse may not be for those who can ‘see heaven in a grain of sand,’ but it has a quality that intelligence and taste can thoroughly enjoy.” W. S. B.
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Boston Transcript p8 Mr 20 ’20 400w
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Springf’d Republican p8 D 20 ’19 160w (Reprinted from The Times [London] Lit Sup p595 O 23 ’19)
“These songs are quite short and slight little wisps of fancy, as it were. But one cannot read on without being truly moved by the passing thoughts so tenderly expressed.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p595 O 23 ’19 180w
BARKER, J. ELLIS.[2] Economic statesmanship; the great industrial and financial problems arising from the war. *$7 Dutton 330
(Eng ed 20–11567)
“The publishers have brought out a second edition of J. Ellis Barker’s ‘Economic statesmanship.’ When this book was first published in the autumn of 1918 the negotiations at Spa and Versailles were still in the future. The new edition accordingly includes about two hundred additional pages dealing with problems and movements which have come to the front during the last two years. About half the new material relates to the economic position and future of Russia and Japan.”—Am Pol Sci R
“The descriptive and analytical features of the book are admirable; they contain a wealth of economic facts condensed in statistical form and ably presented to the reader, retaining his interest throughout with no sacrifice of accuracy and precision of detail. Mr Barker does not succeed so well in the development of the theoretical features of his book.” E. S. Furniss
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Am Econ R 10:806 D ’20 1000w
Am Pol Sci R 14:737 N ’20 60w
“One may not agree with all Mr Barker’s conclusions, but there is no doubt that his book is a storehouse of important facts and figures.”
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Ath p224 F 13 ’20 180w
“Neither in the views expressed nor in the compilation of statistics is there much matter of importance for the American student: moreover, many of the chapters are inevitably out of date.”
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Springf’d Republican p6 Jl 20 ’20 200w
BARNETT, EDWARD DE BARRY. Explosives. *$5 Van Nostrand 662
(Eng ed 20–6748)
In this volume of the Industrial chemistry series “the author has endeavoured to give a clear but concise account of the manufacture of explosives, together with an outline of the methods used for investigating this class of substance.” (Author’s preface) Contents: Introduction; Gunpowder; Explosive compounds; Smokeless propellants; Blasting explosives; Safety coal mine explosives; Percussion caps, detonators and fuzes; Matches, pyrophoric alloys and pyrotechny; Explosive properties; Sensitiveness and stability; Conclusion. A brief bibliography follows the introduction. Other references come at the chapter ends and there is an index.
BARNEY, DANFORD. Chords from Albireo. *$1.50 Lane 811
20–4705
This is the author’s second volume of poems. “Dust of stars” was published in 1916. “The present collection includes the work that Mr Barney has done since the publication of his first volume, and hence covers the varied periods before his enlistment, during his service in France, and since his return and discharge.” (Foreword) The four sections of the book are headed: 1917; France; 1919: By the sea. The foreword is by Lawrence Mason of Yale university.
Reviewed by W: S. Braithwaite
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Boston Transcript p6 Ag 14 ’20 600w
“‘Chords from Albireo’ is a worthy successor to his ‘Dust of stars.’ It marks a deepening of the poetic instinct and a firmer grasp of technique. Mr Barney’s work is important because of its spontaneous evocation of moods, its impressionistic appeal to the senses.”
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N Y Times 25:16 Je 27 ’20 240w
“My complaint against Mr Danford Barney is that my understanding is a horse which he overworks—and starves. All this would not have been worth saying in this place, had Mr Barney been destitute of poetical capacity.” O. W. Firkins
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Review 2:519 My 15 ’20 280w
BAROJA Y NESSI, PIO. Youth and egolatry. (Free lance books) *$1.75 (4) Knopf 868
20–11320
“When I sat down to begin these pages, somewhat at random, my intention was to write an autobiography, accompanying it with such comments as might suggest themselves. Looking continually to the right and to the left, I have lost my way, and this book is the result.” (Epilogue) The result is a collection of aphoristic, partly whimsical, partly cynical, always sincere sketches of the author himself, his personality, his beliefs, his literary opinions and inclinations, the main facts of his life. The translation from the Spanish is by Jacob S. Fassett and Frances L. Phillips with an introduction by H. L. Mencken who says of the writer that he is more Spanish than most of his famous contemporaries. The contents are grouped under: Fundamental ideas; Myself, the writer; The extraradius; Admirations and incompatibilities; The philosophers; The historians; My family; Memories of childhood; As a student; As a village doctor; As a baker; As a writer; Parisian days; Literary enmities; The press; Politics; Military glory. The appendices are: Spanish politicians; On Baroja’s anarchists; Note.
Booklist 17:60 N ’20
“Baroja is a Latin: lucid reasoning and clear patterns of thinking teach him to gauge and adapt life.” Stark Young
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Nation 111:693 D 15 ’20 370w
“The book is annoying and at the same time distinctly fascinating. The pages that are worth while are immeasurably fewer than the worthless ones; but these are so worth while that the book’s existence is justified.” C. W.
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N Y Call p11 S 12 ’20 190w
“He is wilful and headlong, but sometimes discerning in his literary judgments.”
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Review 3:322 O 13 ’20 330w
BARR, MRS AMELIA EDITH (HUDDLESTON). Songs in the common chord; songs for everyone to sing, tuned to the C major chord of this life; introd. by Joseph C. Lincoln. *$1.50 Appleton 821
20–1986
“From among the hundreds of poems I have written during forty years I have saved enough to make a small volume which some day I may publish.” So Amelia E. Barr is quoted in the introduction to this, the promised small volume. Among the titles are: The great happiness; The old piano; Lost flowers; The empty purse; At fifty years; Quiet hours; An old street; Harvest song; A country place in heaven; The tree God plants; At the last; A writer’s question.
Booklist 16:233 Ap ’20
Boston Transcript p9 F 21 ’20 320w
“Mrs Barr frankly was content with fireside narrative and easy injunction, with good deeds and cheerful rhythms. Her rhythm occasionally cantered too fast, so that her cheeks flushed and her bonnet bobbed; but there always was a halt somewhere, with no real effect of a runaway.” M. V. P.
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Nation 111:247 Ag 28 ’20 150w
“Mrs Barr was no master of the flaming phrase, to be sure, yet she had her felicity of line. What she looked at she saw clearly, and there was something of the folk quality in the best of her work.”
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N Y Times 25:245 My 9 ’20 700w
BARRETT, WILTON AGNEW. Songs from the journey. *$1.25 Doran 811
20–5607
Among the contents of this book are poems reprinted from Poetry, the Forum, Contemporary Verse, Boston Transcript, McCall’s Magazine, and “Victory,” Mr Braithwaite’s anthology of peace poems. The author employs both free verse and regular meters. Titles are: Songs from the journey; A New England church; To a pair of scarlet tanagers in the square; Soldiers, behold your beauty; The valley and the shadow; The holiday; A song of fulfillment.
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Booklist 16:336 Jl ’20
“Mr Barrett is one of the quieter young American poets who is not likely to be very much talked about, but who will leave an influence upon his readers wherever his book finds them.” W. S. B.
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Boston Transcript p6 Jl 7 ’20 550w
“Novel conceits of fancy expressed with appealing grace and fraught with the glamour of dreams.”
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Cleveland p85 S ’20 30w
“Once only, in ‘Songs from the journey,’ does Mr Barrett touch authentic poetry—in the suave and colorful ‘The vase.’ The book is not distinguished verse.”
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N Y Call p11 Ag 1 ’20 210w
“Mr Barrett is a poet of great promise, a spirit clear-eyed and keen.”
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N Y Times 25:193 Ap 18 ’20 160w
“He has mastered the not too recondite, yet also not too facile, secret of expressiveness in free verse.” O. W. Firkins
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Review 3:171 Ag 25 ’20 100w
BARRON, CLARENCE WALKER. World remaking; or, Peace finance. *$1.75 (4c) Harper 330.9
20–4717
“All history is bound up in the human problems of personal and national finance—personal and national protection to daily subsistence.” (Foreword) It is the object of the book to set forth from the point of view of the financier and the enemy of socialism “the true relations between the work of capital and the work of hand, and the relation of both to the labor of brain,” and to show their bearing on our present-day problems. Some of the articles are: England the great war loser; England’s weakness and restricted output; Ships and shipping; The value of the pound sterling; Protection and protected shipping; Reducing hours and increasing efficiency; The spirit under British finance and business; The social unrest; Peace “without victory”; Helpless Russia; Indemnities and signatures; Socialism versus democracy; Inflation by currency, war bonds, and taxes; Are we to pay for German intrigue at Panama? Bolshevik danger and the remedy.
Booklist 16:260 My ’20
“The book is gossipy and readable, and yet is trustworthy, for Mr Barron had entrée to authorities who talked freely.”
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N Y Times 25:172 Ap 11 ’20 250w
“There are many little affectations of speech scattered through the book which some may find irritating. But it is, nevertheless, a good book and well worth reading.”
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Review 2:464 My 1 ’20 220w
R of Rs 61:556 My ’20 60w
BARRUS, CLARA. John Burroughs; boy and man. il *$3.50 Doubleday
20–20968
“The incidents here related have been told me by Mr Burroughs himself, and are sanctioned by him. During the midsummer and fall for many years past I have wandered with him over the fields and hills and through the woods where he roamed as a boy. In these rambles he has pointed out the places where the narrated events occurred. He has explained in detail the curious and interesting ways and means of long ago—old-time ways which will never come again. And not only in his youthful haunts, but also during many an evening by the fireside at The Nest, he has again recounted the childish recollections, the boyish pastimes, and the youthful dreams recorded here.” (Preface) After a characterization of the “grown-up boy” and his forebears the contents are grouped under the headings: Childhood; Boyhood; Youth; Maturity. There are numerous illustrations and an index.
“Originally intended as a boys’ life of Burroughs, this is full of the human, humorous life of the country boy, with the story of the work and play of the man written in a way to interest readers of any age.”
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Booklist 17:152 Ja ’21
“Cheerfully condescending and commonplace. Mr Burroughs deserves something better.” D. M.
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Nation 112:89 Ja 19 ’21 40w
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N Y Evening Post p10 D 31 ’20 220w
“It is true to the life, sympathetic and intimate. No admirer of John Burroughs can do without this pleasant book.”
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N Y Times p2 D 5 ’20 1450w
“It is a good book for boys and girls as well as for older people up to the nineties.”
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Outlook 126:600 D 1 ’20 50w
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R of Rs 62:669 D ’20 120w
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Wis Lib Bul 16:236 D ’20 60w
BARRY, RICHARD HAYES. Fruit of the desert. *$1.50 Doubleday
20–7295
“A race of sun-worshippers, the Sunnites, rescue the hero, left starving on the desert of Arizona by bandits. He finds his new friends to be survivors of an ancient civilization. Inevitably, as in all stories of this type, he falls in love with their high priestess and escapes with her to the less romantic but more comfortable life of every-day America.”—Outlook
“Having elected to write a romance, and a romance of a very romantic sort, Mr Barry is entirely justified in using romantic methods and in paying just as little heed as pleases him to probabilities. He writes with the skill of a craftsman, he keeps the interest well sustained.”