Book Review Digest Devoted to the Valuation of Current Literature Reviews of 1920 Books (continued 35)
Reading edition
“Not much characterization, but brisk and interesting.”
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Booklist 17:118 D ’20
“It is a rattling tale, full of new complications and exciting incidents. The interest does not flag, the characters are sharply differentiated human beings, and not automata. It is an admirable mystery story.”
+
N Y Times p29 Ja 2 ’21 200w
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Springf’d Republican p7a N 21 ’20 120w
ROYCE, JOSIAH. Lectures on modern idealism. *$3 Yale univ. press 141
20–7505
“The ground covered by the book is largely the same as the substance of Royce’s ‘Spirit of modern philosophy,’ but the treatment is wholly different, being as professedly technical as the earlier book was not. And, whether wisely or unwisely, the author has avoided repeating what is contained in the ordinary histories of philosophy by emphasizing the neglected aspects of the thinkers whose systems he expounds.”—Springf’d Republican
“Interesting as a pre-war study of German philosophy.”
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Booklist 16:259 My ’20
Reviewed by Hartley Alexander
Nation 111:sup409 O 13 ’20 2600w
“Throughout, Royce’s accurate scholarship and gift of sympathetic interpretation are at their best, but nowhere more so than in the three lectures on Hegel’s ‘Phaenomenology of spirit.’” R. F. A. H.
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New Repub 25:325 F 9 ’21 900w
“The initial presumption that we have a book here worthy of careful study is amply justified by the reading.”
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Springf’d Republican p13a Ap 18 ’20 1150w
RUSH, THOMAS EDWARD. Port of New York. il *$3.50 Doubleday 387
20–10357
The purpose of this book, by the surveyor of customs of the port of New York, is to make it easier for business men, officials, teachers and students, to understand New York harbor, and to estimate its importance for the city, the country, and the world. It tells its history from the very beginning and points out five agencies as responsible for its improvements: the cities within the port areas; New York and New Jersey state governments; the federal government; the projected bi-state unified port control; and extra governmental agencies voicing the public’s demands and needs. Many drawbacks and inefficiencies are pointed out and the fact emphasized that New York is “first and foremost a port.” Among the contents are: Birth, christening, and youth; Piracy and privateering abolished; Eternal vigilance against smugglers; Giant growth in commerce; Government far-sightedness and short-sightedness; The port awakening of New Jersey; Forts and fortifications; New York, the nation’s first air harbor; Advertising New York port’s nautical school; Immigration’s gateway to America; Bibliography and illustrations.
Booklist 17:15 O ’20
“The port of New York is deserving of a more comprehensive and more technical study of its processes than is provided by Thomas E. Rush. An adequate study of the port from the transportation or engineering point of view it emphatically is not.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Je 20 ’20 450w
RUSSELL, BERTRAND ARTHUR WILLIAM. Bolshevism: practice and theory. *$2 Harcourt 335
20–20991
A book containing the articles which appeared in the Nation together with new material. Bertrand Russell writes as a communist who finds much to criticize in the bolshevist method of putting communism into practice. He says: “A fundamental economic reconstruction, bringing with it very far-reaching changes in ways of thinking and feeling, in philosophy and art and private relations, seems absolutely necessary if industrialism is to become the servant of man instead of his master. In all this, I am at one with the Bolsheviks; politically, I criticize them only when their methods seem to involve a departure from their own ideals.” (Preface) The book is the outcome of a brief visit to Russia. Part 1, The present condition of Russia, has chapters on: What is hoped for Bolshevism; General characteristics; Lenin, Trotsky, and Gorky; Art and education (written by Mr Russell’s secretary, Miss D. W. Black); Daily life in Moscow; etc. Part 2, Bolshevik theory, is a criticism of the materialistic conception of history and other accepted doctrines, with chapters on: Why Russian communist has failed; and Conditions for the success of communism.
“We have found the most interesting part of Mr Russell’s book to be, on the whole, his analysis of the theory of Bolshevism.” J. W. N. S.
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Ath p695 N 19 ’20 780w
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Booklist 17:142 Ja ’21
“A clear and convincing critique of Bolshevism as a social theory.” E: E. Paramore, jr.
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N Y Evening Post p4 D 31 ’20 700w
“No such remarkable book as his ‘Bolshevism: practice and theory,’ has been published on this subject. Small as the volume is, only 192 pages, it is amazing how much he says.”
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N Y Times p10 D 26 ’20 1400w
“Bertrand Russell is not a clear thinker. The chief value of this book lies in the fact that it is a condemnation of the spirit of Bolshevism by one whose prejudices for its avowed principles would naturally make him its apologist if not its defender.”
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Outlook 126:767 D 29 ’20 180w
Socialist R 10:30 Ja ’21 120w
“Mr Bertrand Russell’s book is likely to remain the most damning criticism of Bolshevism, whether that strange delusion be considered as a faith or as a political institution. Although Mr Russell seems to us to be no more practical than a Russian Bolshevik, he is beyond doubt a brilliant philosopher, and often one cannot help finding fineness in his thought, even when he seems to us least to understand the ways of the ordinary man. Among the most interesting things in the book are the accounts of Mr Russell’s meetings with Lenin and Trotsky.”
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Spec 125:705 N 27 ’20 1900w
“Not the least interesting chapters are those on ‘Revolution and dictatorship’ and ‘Mechanism and the individual,’ in which Mr Russell reveals his own views as to the future industrial system which is to replace the present. Mr Russell himself is sanguine as to a new economic order emerging from the present chaos. But his grounds of faith are unconvincing.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p747 N 18 ’20 1200w
RUSSELL, CHARLES EDWARD. Story of the Nonpartisan league; a chapter in American evolution. il *$2 Harper 329
20–11024
Altho covering practically the same ground as Herbert E. Gaston’s “Nonpartisan league” this book goes more fully into the conditions out of which the league movement developed, bringing together much illustrative material and documentary evidence to show the workings of the system under which the farmer was exploited. The author says in beginning, “I have no idea that in the succeeding pages I can remove the fixed belief of the dwellers in cities that the farmer of America is becoming clog-footed with wealth, but it has occurred to me that a plain record of the tragic struggles of a large body of American farmers for bare justice and a chance to live ... might have some interest as a human as well as a social and political document of facts.” The part devoted to the rise and present organization of the league is correspondingly less complete than Mr Gaston’s, but the main facts are sketched. The book has been carefully indexed.
“Rather more interestingly and dramatically written than Gaston.”
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Booklist 17:15 O ’20
“Admirable book.” W. H. C.
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Freeman 2:282 D 29 ’20 480w
“The book should be viewed as a clever piece of journalism, effective but inaccurate. It has the earmarks of being scientific; it cites references: it affects a certain restraint in statement. Yet the critical reader will find its ‘citations’ ex parte, fragmentary, undated for the most part. The book is a good example of skilled juggling with half-truths. In short this book is not what it pretends to be—the facts about the Nonpartisan league.” J. E. Boyle
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J Pol Econ 28:705 O ’20 1400w
“While this book is not to be compared with the more intimate and comprehensive work by Mr Gaston, it is none the less a valuable account of a movement that has been much misrepresented in the public press.”
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Nation 111:162 Ag 7 ’20 240w
“Mr Russell’s defense of the league’s attitude during the war is the best that can be put forward, and it is put forward by a sincere patriot who risked and suffered much for his loyalty. But the country has made up its mind on that point, and his defense, honest as it is, is unconvincing.”
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N Y Times 25:16 Jl 18 ’20 3950w
Springf’d Republican p6 Jl 26 ’20 300w
Wis Lib Bul 16:233 D ’20 60w
RUSSELL, MRS FRANCES THERESA (PEET). Satire in the Victorian novel. *$2.50 Macmillan 823
20–2031
“The author of this book is a professor at Leland Stanford junior university, and her interpretation of the satiric contributions to literature, offered by novelists of the Victorian epoch, has literary as well as scholastic value. Written primarily as a thesis, offered at Columbia university for the degree of doctor of philosophy, the author’s style bears necessarily unmistakable and potent signs of academic standards. The volume is divided into Premises, Methods, Objects and Conclusions. After giving to her readers the groundwork of her scheme, making certain that they understand the satiric motive, Professor Russell passes to the categorical stage in her exposition. She analyzes methods of satire, romantic, realistic, ironic. For this purpose she quotes from the writers of the period she is considering, writers such as Samuel Butler, Thomas Love Peacock, Meredith, Disraeli, Thackeray, Trollope and Dickens. She takes pains to show us how much ingenuity these men display in their methods of satiric attack and how their weapons vary, likewise their skill.”—Boston Transcript
“A thoroughly competent and scholarly study.”
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Booklist 17:22 O ’20
“What will interest the un-academic mind particularly in this treatise is the author’s personal contribution. She offers, sometimes with a charming unconsciousness, her philosophy of living; and more than one of her reflections has a satiric thrust which makes us realize that the talent for touching on the weaknesses of humanity with a deftly humorous hand did not die with the Victorians!” D. F. G.
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Boston Transcript p4 Mr 17 ’20 600w
Lit D p126 Ap 17 ’20 950w
“She has a better talent for the abstract than for the concrete; her analyses are better than her discussions of actual examples. The reader learns much from her pages by gleaning over wide territory, but he drives behind an inexorable chauffeur who whirls him past alluring byways and leafy vistas. Names and ideas spin by like telephone poles. The author has a nice ear for the turn of a sentence, but she cannot train sentences to speak together.”
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Nation 111:50 Jl 10 ’20 250w
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N Y Times p26 Ag 15 ’20 50w
“It is full of sustaining, gently amusing reading, and—most important—the reader will want to read it all. There is no waste.”
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Spec 124:83 Jl 17 ’20 900w
“A certain rehabilitation of the Victorians is the chief service that Prof. Russell seems to have performed, often, seemingly, in spite of herself.” G: B. Dutton
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Springf’d Republican p5a Ja 30 ’21 1900w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p242 Ap 15 ’20 200w
RUSSELL, RUTH. What’s the matter with Ireland? *$1.75 Devin-Adair 914.5
20–13138
“Miss Russell has undertaken her theme objectively, in the best reportorial sense, and by sounding a number of disparate apostles—as widely dissimilar as De Valera, George Russell, Countess Markiewiecz and the Bishop of Killaloe—she manages to throw light upon all phases of the problem. The book opens with a chapter on statistics, which bring the present plight of the country into the foreground of the reader’s imagination, and with this accomplished, the author turns to the narration of incidents, and to the gleaning of opinions, which are set down with impartial emphasis.”—Freeman
“She succeeds in rousing our sympathy for the poor working girls of Dublin, and the other unfortunate people of the city and the bog-field. But when she takes up the political, she seems unable to do justice to her subject. There is no doubt Miss Russell’s intentions are good, but it is doubtful if such books as this will help Ireland’s cause.”
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Cath World 112:396 D ’20 210w
“She wisely refrains from any ex cathedra dogmatism on her own account.” L. B.
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Freeman 2:214 N 10 ’20 140w
RUSSELL, THOMAS. Commercial advertising. (Studies in economics and political science) *$2.50 Putnam 659
20–297
“Mr Russell is the president of the Incorporated society of advertisement consultants, and was sometime advertisement manager of the Times. He writes, therefore, with authority, and he deals fully with such themes as the economic justification of advertising, the functions and policy of advertising, the chief methods of advertising, and with advertising as a career.” (Ath) “The six lectures were delivered in the spring of this year at the London school of economics.” (Springf’d Republican)
“The book should be useful and suggestive to commercial men and others.”
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Ath p929 S 19 ’19 70w
Springf’d Republican p8 F 7 ’20 400w
“The six lectures are not only worthy of their academic auspices but might well serve as models of modern academic exposition. They have the breadth and insight that is properly called philosophic, whatever the subject-matter may be, and the concreteness that makes a philosophic treatment glow with interest.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p510 S 25 ’19 900w
RUTZEBECK, HJALMAR. Alaska man’s luck. *$2 Boni & Liveright
20–26890
“The book is a unique autobiographical chronicle, told in the form of a diary, of the struggles of its author-hero to make a home for himself in the land of the snows. Hjalmar Rutzebeck, or Svend Norman, as he calls himself in his book, was born and raised in Denmark. He left school at the age of twelve and has had no further formal schooling since then. We first meet our twentieth century viking in Los Angeles, just after he had been honorably discharged from the United States army. With winning naïveté he tells us how he has fallen in love with Marian. When Svend learns that the northland is as dear to Marian as it is to him, he immediately sets out to make a stake there.... As Svend goes on from adventure to adventure he records them in his diary, and it is this diary, mailed to Marian piecemeal as he went along, that is reprinted in ‘Alaska man’s luck.’”—N Y Times
“Interesting specially to men or older boys.”
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Booklist 17:74 N ’20
“It must be confessed that the tale is fascinating, in spite of, or perhaps because of its naïveté.” Margaret Ashmun
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Bookm 52:344 D ’20 120w
“An extraordinary story.”
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Boston Transcript p4 Ja 19 ’21 330w
“There is no self-consciousness in ‘Alaska man’s luck,’ nor is there any suggestion of a sophisticated striving to return to the simple and primitive.” L. M. R.
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Freeman 2:454 Ja 19 ’21 110w
“For his first novel, Hjalmar Rutzebeck has wisely chosen a hero of his own race and temperament. He attains a consistent realism by letting Svend Norman’s diaries and letters tell their own story.”
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N Y Evening Post p20 O 23 ’20 220w
“The simplicity and directness with which the author tells his blood-stirring story, even the occasional crudities in his English, serve to enhance rather than mar the epic quality of his narrative.”
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N Y Times p14 N 14 ’20 2250w
RYAN, AGNES. Whisper of fire. *$1.25 Four seas co. 811
19–18255
A series of poems arranged as: Wood, Kindling, Smoldering, Smoke, Blaze, Smoke again, Flame, Coals, Ashes. Altho they are loosely strung together the succession of verses tells the story of a woman’s love life.
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Booklist 16:272 My ’20
“Several of the verses, notably ‘I wonder,’ are compact and vivid in imagery and spiritual message.”
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Cath World 110:844 Mr ’20 40w
Nation 111:247 Ag 28 ’20 40w
“Each poem is a mere fragment in free verse, a chip off the old block of femininity. This will please readers of poetry of the hour. For the present vogue is fragmentary. Many of these poems are trivial and unimportant, but a few have the eloquence of reality.” Marguerite Wilkinson
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N Y Times 25:82 F 8 ’20 120w
RYAN, JOHN AUGUSTINE. Church and socialism; and other essays. (Social justice bks.) *$1.50 University press, Brookland, Washington, D.C. 304
20–221
“A collection of papers that have appeared in various publications during the past ten years. Only the first paper relates intimately to the title of the book. Other topics discussed are: A living wage; The legal minimum wage; Moral aspects of the labor union; The moral aspects of speculation; Birth control; and Woman suffrage.”—Am Econ R
Am Econ R 10:385 Je ’20 50w
“The essay, ‘False and true conceptions of welfare,’ is to our mind the most practical of the entire series.”
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Cath World 111:392 Je ’20 280w
“They reveal a large acquaintance with economic and industrial problems. It would be beside the point to criticize these papers without remembering that they were written for Catholics. While we agree with many of Dr Ryan’s conclusions, we should find it difficult to subscribe to some of his premises and to submit to the intellectual limitations which follow.” R: Roberts
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Nation 110:266 F 28 ’20 280w
Springf’d Republican p8 D 13 ’19 90w
RYAN, JOHN AUGUSTINE. Living wage; with an introd. by R: T. Ely. *$2 Macmillan 331.2
20–1611
“A revised and abridged edition of a work that has had much influence in bringing about the enactment of minimum-wage laws and the acceptance of the principle that the laborer has a moral claim to at least a decent living wage. The author is a priest of the Roman Catholic church and a professor in the Catholic university of America.”—R of Rs
“It is agreeable to say that Dr Ryan argues the living wage question better than almost anybody else.”
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N Y Times 25:267 My 23 ’20 550w
R of Rs 61:447 Ap ’20 60w
“Ethically it is far in advance of the thought of a generation ago, and many even now will find themselves unable to keep pace with it.”
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Springf’d Republican p10 Je 22 ’20 100w
RYAN, WILLIAM PATRICK. Irish labor movement. (Modern Ireland in the making) *$2 Huebsch 331.09
(Eng ed 20–113)
In reviewing the history of Irish labor in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the author points out how the genius of the Irish people was submerged and its spirit broken by the enforced assimilation of a foreign social system, a foreign speech and a foreign character. However cruel and inhuman English dominion has proved itself to be, the struggle for freedom has been mental and spiritual as well as economic. “The breaking of the chains, the unloading of the degrading burdens that we know, will inevitably lead to the resurrection and the flowering of the workers’ deeper natures, now blunted and buried. Then they may be artists and creators.” Contents: Labor and the Gael; Land workers’ ordeals and deeds; William Thompson, Robert Owen and Ralahine; Our early trade unionism; The guilds and the unions; Illusive emancipation; O’Connell and tragi-comedy; Weavers and “lock-ups”; Lalor and lean years; In Davitt’s days; Connolly in the schools of labor; Connolly’s teaching—industrial unionism; Larkin’s youth in the depths; The rise of “Larkinism”; Up from slavery in Ulster; The struggle of 1913; The ultimate sacrifice; Towards the commonwealth; Authorities and sources.
Ath p412 My 30 ’19 70w
S
SACKVILLE, MARGARET, lady. Selected poems. *$2.50 Dutton 821
“Lady Margaret Sackville is a feminine version of the late Richard Middleton. Her themes are the themes of Middleton—the gay seasons, love and desire with their antithesis of crepuscular quiet, a selected Greek mythology, and the vaguely idealistic ‘dreams’ of the romantics.” (Ath) “She writes lyrics and short plays: her subjects are largely Greek, and, so far as effects of brightness and directness, of clear air and frank sunshine, are concerned, the atmosphere is Greek.” (Review)
“Out of her materials she makes a bright, easy poetry, which it would be unfair to subject to the test of frequent reading. It is only at rare intervals that something of more permanent quality, as, for example, ‘Invitation au repos,’ rises above the level of pleasant facility.”
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Ath p225 F 13 ’20 110w
“Lady Margaret Sackville is the possessor of charm. Original or powerful she may not be, but charm in itself is fortune.” O. W. Firkins
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Review 3:318 O 13 ’20 330w
“Lady Margaret Sackville has suffered by reason of being Lady Margaret. The paths were made too easy for her. She set out with the true throat of the bird at dawn, but somehow somewhere the music went wrong. It is wrong now.”
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Sat R 129:392 Ap 24 ’20 170w
“Pieces that give the effect of having been written as technical exercises, but which are not without charm.”
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Spec 124:429 Mr 27 ’20 30w
SADLER, MICHAEL. Anchor. *$1.75 (2½c) McBride
The interest of the story centers about Laddie Macallister, an over-sensitive, introspective young man whose self-questionings and doubtings make him feel hopelessly adrift and unstable for all his solid foundation of a clean and honest manhood. We meet him first as newspaper correspondent for an English paper in Paris; later as literary secretary for a radical London weekly. The anchor, the “something-firm-to-cling-to” which he craves he finds in Janet Tring, daughter of a country squire and a singularly well-poised, straightforward bit of young womanhood. It is the character-drawing rather than the plot that is significant in the story. Some of the other characters that stand out are Laddie’s father, the country parson, whose mellow wisdom and dependable love for his son are the latter’s safe armor; Dermot Gill, the very odd, very lovable and very radical Irishman, whose friendship Laddie picked up en route; Janet’s cousin, the militant suffragette, proud of her prison record; and the wily newspaper woman whose vindictive designs on Laddie rebound from Janet’s good sense.
“The sentimentality of such fiction lies in its slavish worship of youngness—the mere state and act of being young, of muddling through youth.” H. W. Boynton
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Review 2:489 My 8 ’20 900w
“The story is lacking in form and consistency; the latter half, which tells the love story, has the greater driving force. The character of Laddie is, within limits, fairly clear and truthful. Mr Sadler’s method is psychological, but not unduly so, and the story of the partial love affairs which accompany his great love is done with some originality and insight.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Je 13 ’20 480w
SAFRONI-MIDDLETON, A. South Sea foam. *$2 (2c) Doran 919.6
20–18944
In “the romantic adventures of a modern Don Quixote in the southern seas” (Sub-title) the author has attempted to capture and hold for all times, some of the earliest “poetic babblings” of the children of nature of the South Sea islands before, with the advent of the missionary, “island mythology and heathen legends were sponged off the map of existence.” He has attempted to see the mysteries of nature with the eyes of the primitive man and, in retelling the legends of some old Polynesian chiefs, to remain as faithful to primitive conceptions as is possible to a sophisticated mind. The contents give glimpses of the author’s own adventurous youth in following the call of the “true poetry of life” and some of his island reminiscences in: Fae Fae; The heathen’s garden of Eden; In old Fiji; Kasawayo and the serpent; O Le Langi the pagan poet; An old Marquesan queen; Charity organization of the South Seas.
Ath p1395 D 26 ’19 500w
“Not the least stimulating portions are those devoted to the sailing vessels in which the author has pursued his study of man and nature.” Margaret Ashmun
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Bookm 52:343 D ’20 200w
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Boston Transcript p5 O 6 ’20 350w
Cleveland p76 Ag ’20 70w
“The jerky transitions, the Bowdlerized legends, the tantalizing sequels that the author ‘can’t tell,’ the dialect never heard on land or sea, the author’s occasional verse ... contrive to trip the reader up time after time just as the magic joy of life is beckoning him farther into fairyland.”
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Nation 111:786 D 29 ’20 260w
“Here is a chronicle of vagabonding among the isles of the South seas that sets him who has lived amid the cities of civilization to wondering whether or not he has squandered his life.”
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N Y Times 25:301 Je 6 ’20 540w
“Much of the same delicate charm of fantasy which belongs to so many of the Hindu stories told us by F. W. Bain distinguishes, also, these tales of the isles in the far seas.”
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N Y Times p26 S 12 ’20 380w
“It makes one long for Stevenson, who could be frank and downright enough, but never wrote with a leer.” E. L. Pearson
−
Review 3:229 S 15 ’20 300w
“Mr Safroni-Middleton gives us a glimpse of true natural poetry that should appeal to the lover of life and beauty.”
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Springf’d Republican p9a O 17 ’20 300w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p709 D 4 ’19 320w
ST JOHN, LARRY. Practical fly fishing. (Outing handbooks) il *$1.25 Macmillan 799
20–3413
“As the title indicates, it is a treatise about luring the finny inhabitants of pond, lake or other watery area into human hands, through the medium of the ‘fly.’ There are numerous illustrations that will please and enlighten both the amateur and the ‘old-timer.’ There is a brief historical review of this form of fishing, while considerable space is given over to tackle, other chapters are given over to flies, reels, apparel, biological, preparatory and casting. The final chapter is entitled ‘strategy,’ and deals with methods of best making use of the tackle, reels, etc., previously described.”—Springf’d Republican
Booklist 16:269 My ’20
R of Rs 61:560 My ’20 80w
“The descriptions are written in simple direct form, and are easily understood and applied.”
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Springf’d Republican p10 Mr 12 ’20 160w
ST MARS, F. Way of the wild (Eng title, Pinion and paw). il *$2 (2c) Stokes 590.4
20–100
Epics of the wild would truly characterize these tales of thrilling adventures of wild things in their own haunts. They are not natural history but stories of animals befitting their characters as men conceive them. Thus in “Gulo the indomitable” we see the wolverine—most hated of all the animals among themselves, with a character “that came straight from the devil,” and with brains “that only man, and no beast, ought to be trusted with”—and his ghoulish escapades. The weak and the powerful, the four-footed and the winged tribes, even the legless viper, engage our human sympathies for their fears, their passions, their struggles and their wiles. Contents: Gulo the indomitable; Blackie and co.; Under the yellow flag; Nine points of the law; Pharaoh; The cripple; “Set a thief”; The where is it? Lawless little love; The king’s son; The highwayman of the marsh; The furtive feud; The storm pirate; When nights were cold; Fate and the fearful; The eagles of Loch Royal; Ratel, V. C.; The day; Illustrations.
“Real art here, with the scientist’s passion for strict accuracy. It is a book for the whole family, a book to be kept and cherished and handed on to the children as they grow old enough to appreciate it.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
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N Y Times p4 D 5 ’20 150w
SAINT-SAËNS, CAMILLE. Musical memories; tr. by Edwin Gile Rich. il *$3 Small 780.4
19–15405
“This book is virtually an autobiography, but the story of the author’s life is told briefly, so as to leave room for chapters on Rossini, Meyerbeer, Offenbach, Viardot, Louis Gallet, Delsarte, Victor Hugo, which, however, are also more or less autobiographic, for these were among his friends. The English volume omits some of the chapters in the original French edition and changes the order of others.” (Bookm) “Contents: Memories of my childhood; The old conservatoire; Victor Hugo; The history of an opéra-comique; Louis Gallet; History and mythology in opera; Art for art’s sake; Popular science and art; Anarchy in music; The organ; Joseph Haydn and the ‘Seven words’; The Liszt centenary at Heidelberg (1912); Berlioz’s requiem; Pauline Viardot; Orphée; Delsarte; Seghers; Rossini; Jules Massenet; Meyerbeer; Jacques Offenbach; Their majesties; Musical painters.” (Pittsburgh)
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Booklist 16:80 D ’19
“It should be in every library.” H: T. Finck
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Bookm 51:171 Ap ’20 250w
“Camille Saint-Saens is not only one of France’s greatest living composers but a musician who can write excellent and witty prose, and an erudite scholar who knows how to impart information without being pedantic.” Henrietta Strauss
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Nation 111:75 Jl 17 ’20 320w
Pittsburgh 25:35 Ja ’20 70w
Reviewed by Lawrence Gilman
Yale R n s 9:872 Jl ’20 1100w
SAINTSBURY, GEORGE. Notes on a cellar-book. *$3 Macmillan 663
“Mr Saintsbury, it will be remembered, had proposed to write a history of wine; for sundry reasons he renounced his intention; and what he gives us in this small volume are ‘notes and reminiscences on the subject which may ... add a little to the literature of one of the three great joys of life.’” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The body of the work is occupied by a history of Mr Saintsbury’s experiences in keeping a wine cellar; literally, as the title has it, the record of a cellar-book.” (Review)
“Here, then, is a book which few men, and no woman, could have written, full of knowledge that comes of experience, and is therefore, as a rule, useless to others—full of the ripe humour that characterizes all the best things of the world.” R. S.
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Ath p301 S 3 ’20 800w
“A quaint and delightful chronicle it is, and as we have a right to expect from such a pen, interspersed with many an apt literary hint and suggestion.” Michael Monahan
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Review 3:559 D 8 ’20 2150w
“Mr Saintsbury was prevented from carrying out his original intention of writing a history of wine, but he has done the next best thing in giving us this book.”
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Spec 125:114 Jl 24 ’20 1900w
“No man could be less of a pedant. His erudition does not obtrude itself; it merely supplies suitably evocative expressions; the bubbles wink, and so does he. There is the very spirit of wine in the genial ferocity with which he denounces those who would deprive him of that good gift.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p436 Jl 8 ’20 1000w
SAMPSON, EMMA SPEED. Mammy’s white folks. il *$1.50 (2c) Reilly & Lee
20–4267
Dr Andy Wallace is a shy young doctor with no use for women folks when a baby girl is left on his doorstep. His negro Mammy persuades him to keep the child and he brings her up as his own daughter. The story tells of the happiness she brings to him, and of the happiness that comes to her when she grows to womanhood. Mammy has a large part in the story and the widow Richards and her daughter Lucile, who try to steal Esther’s privileges, are also factors, as is Dr Jim Dudley, the doctor’s assistant.
“A good wholesome story dominated by the motherly old negro’s philosophy.”
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Booklist 17:36 O ’20
SAMPTER, JESSIE ETHEL, ed. Guide to Zionism. il $1.50 Zionist organization of Am. 296
20–8649
The book has grown out of an earlier publication, ‘A course in Zionism,’ now out of print. The present volume is more than twice the size of the first and presents as many more problems and facts concerning the Zionist movement. Its purpose is to serve not only for individual perusal but as a text-book for groups of students. Of its thirty-three chapters the first ten deal with Zionist theory, history and organization, the next ten with more specialized phases of the movement, and the last thirteen with Palestine. Each chapter is followed by a short bibliography and there are important appendices, a general bibliography, an index and illustrations.
SANBORN, MARY FARLEY (MRS FRED C. SANBORN). First valley. *$1.75 (2½c) Four seas co.
20–8860
A story of life after death. Tina, a pleasure-loving girl, killed in an automobile accident, is speeded to the other world in the swift car of Death, not knowing what is happening to her. She finds herself in the first valley of the life to come and valiantly sets herself to learn its ways. She makes friends with the Spade Man, who teaches her to cultivate her garden, and with Odo, the childlike poet, and she lends a helping hand to those who follow her to this new world, to St Leon, the university professor who bemoans his lost career, and to Helene, the beautiful woman whose worldly ideals have not been abandoned. The story ends with her passage to the second valley.
“A curiously interesting book.”
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Cleveland p106 D ’20 20w
“It is a little book conceived in a spirit of singular purity and reverence, and almost faultlessly executed; without cant or sentimentalism or any forcing of the risky note.” H. W. Boynton
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Review 3:234 S 15 ’20 250w
SANCHEZ, MRS NELLIE (VAN DE GRIFT). Life of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson. il *$2.25 (2½c) Scribner
20–3787
“Whoever reads this book from cover to cover will surely agree that no woman ever had a life of more varied experiences nor went through them all with a stauncher courage.” So writes Mrs Sanchez in the preface to this biography of her sister Fanny, wife of Robert Louis Stevenson. There are thirteen chapters: Ancestors; Early days in Indiana; On the Pacific slope; France, and the meeting at Grez; In California with Robert Louis Stevenson; Europe and the British Isles; Away to sunnier lands; The happy years in Samoa; The lonely days of widowhood; Back to California; Travels in Mexico and Europe; The last days at Santa Barbara. There are a number of portraits and other illustrations. Letters from Henry James and others are quoted and the book closes with an account of the services at Vailima in 1915 when the ashes of Mrs Stevenson were carried to her husband’s resting place on the summit of Mount Vaea.
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Ath p650 N 12 ’20 580w
“Well worth while, not only as an addition to Stevensoniana, but also as a picture of a very interesting woman.”
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Booklist 16:241 Ap ’20
“To the Stevensonian, this book is a mine of delight. It sets down what has never before been sufficiently made clear, that Mrs Stevenson was, in her own way, as remarkable and as gifted as her husband.” Christopher Morley
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Bookm 51:356 My ’20 850w
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Boston Transcript p6 Mr 3 ’20 2650w
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Cleveland p73 Ag ’20 150w
“So interesting that one could wish it more extended. We are inclined to think the book better worth while than anything that has been printed about Stevenson since the Letters.’”
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Outlook 124:431 Mr 10 ’20 150w
“This concise and vivid narrative reveals Mrs Stevenson clearly as the splendid woman she was, but it also reveals her, first and last, as the reason why the literary world today possesses some of the most highly valued of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson.”
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Springf’d Republican p6 My 3 ’20 600w
“One might venture to say she has written a manly book. She has drawn the character of a frank and courageous woman with a straightforwardness that would surely have pleased its possessor.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p699 O 28 ’20 2000w
SANDBURG, CARL. Chicago race riots, July, 1919. pa 60c Harcourt 326
19–19136
“Reprinted from articles contributed at the time to a Chicago newspaper, Mr Sandburg’s description tallies with other authentic accounts of the origin and progress of the race riots. Though he acted merely as a reporter, the author evidently formed strong opinions of his own as to the most promising line of action to prevent the recurrence of this outrageous happening. Better housing, more and better industrial opportunities, and—immediately—a thorough federal investigation of the unsatisfactory race relationships that lead to race conflicts seem part of such a program.”—Survey
“A serious and intelligent investigation into conditions which made the race riots possible. A contribution to the solving of the negro problem in any section of the country.”
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Booklist 16:154 F ’20
“The pamphlet is naturally less constructed, less pondered than Mr Seligmann’s careful thesis. But it has the advantage of its journalistic method, for by personal narrative and comment it makes vivid its statistics and analysis, and brings the general problem down to more specific terms.” M. E. Bailey
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Bookm 52:303 Ja ’21 170w
“Everyone in this country who is interested in our sharpest national disgrace—our treatment of negro citizens ought to read this collection of articles. Especially every Chicagoan ought to read it.” E. F. Wyatt
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New Repub 22:98 Mr 17 ’20 1750w
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Spec 124:51 Jl 10 ’20 700w
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Survey 43:408 Ja 10 ’20 100w
SANDBURG, CARL. Smoke and steel. *$2 Harcourt 811
20–17899
The sections of this new book of poems are called Smoke nights, People who must, Broken-face gargoyles, Playthings of the wind, Mist forms, Accomplished facts, Passports, Circles of doors, Haze, Panels. Some of the poems are reprinted from Poetry, the New Republic, Liberator, and other periodicals.
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Booklist 17:63 N ’20
“‘Smoke and steel’ is both an epic of modern industrialism and a mighty pæan to modern beauty.” L: Untermeyer
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Bookm 52:362 Ja ’21 360w
“Mr Sandburg has no sense of the past, no vision of the future, and so his reality is a little huddled bunch of dried-up aspects out of which have escaped the aspects of life about which he is so passionately concerned. This is a great pity, because I believe there is no poet in the country who has by nature the qualities of spirit which, if fused and blended in the proper alembic, would not make some of the loveliest and most convincing poems of our day.” W: S. Braithwaite
* + -|Boston Transcript p7 O 16 ’20 2050w
“Sandburg has lost (at least temporarily) the one and only thing which makes him great—the ability to determine when he has written something good. He now apparently believes that everything he writes is a poem. He imitates Gary, and turns his product out on a quantity basis.” Arthur Wilson
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Dial 70:80 Ja ’21 680w
“‘Smoke and steel’ is longer than either of the earlier volumes, and not so uniformly good. Over many pages, it must be admitted, Mr Sandburg has rather obviously repeated himself, has put himself through motions that were more profitable once than they are now. But the book as a whole has great fascination and pull. Technically, Mr Sandburg is as interesting as any poet alive.”
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Nation 111:621 D 1 ’21 750w
“This new collection establishes what ‘Chicago poems’ only promised and ‘Cornhuskers’ plainly intimated. It proves that these states can now claim two living major poets: Sandburg and Frost.” L: Untermeyer
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New Repub 25:86 D 15 ’20 1450w
“He is misty, rather than descriptive or truly evocative; he is the whole antithesis of the imagist demand for a sharply evoked image, if this is their demand; and, sometimes at least, it should be. We see the smoke, and miss the steel.” Clement Wood
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N Y Call p6 Ja 9 ’21 600w
Reviewed by Babette Deutsch
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N Y Evening Post p6 N 27 ’20 1150w
“Reading these poems gives me more of a patriotic emotion than ever ‘The star-spangled banner’ has been able to do. This is America, and Mr Sandburg loves her so much that suddenly we realize how much we love her, too. Either this is a very remarkable poet or he is nothing, for with the minors he clearly has no place. He has greatly dared, and I personally believe that posterity with its pruning hand will mount him high on the ladder of poetic achievement.” Amy Lowell
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N Y Times p7 O 24 ’20 2500w
“Mr Sandburg has introduced themes which have seldom, perhaps never, been treated before. There is an impressive display of energy in ‘Smoke and steel.’ His poems are true to a certain kind of life, they are undoubtedly American. They do succeed, then, in doing what they set out to do, but whether this in itself constitutes a high and right art is another question.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p816 D 9 ’20 1700w
SANDERS, LLOYD CHARLES. Patron and place-hunter; a study of George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe. il *$5 Lane
20–5659
George Bubb Dodington was a prominent political and social figure in the reigns of George I and George II on whom Lord Chesterfield bestowed the sobriquet of “blest coxcomb,” on account of his supreme conceit and ostentation, but who nevertheless had some compensating qualities of sincerity, capacity for friendship, and courage. His notorious diary has made him a historical figure and the present account of his life is a picture of the England of his day. Contents: Dodington’s ancestry; The youth of George Bubb; George Bubb, plenipotentiary; The seizure of Sardinia; Dodington and Walpole; Eastbury; A prince and a duke; From Walpole to Pelham; Frederick, Prince of Wales; La Trappe; Henry Pelham; The duke of Newcastle; Chaos; The end of the reign; Dodington’s last years. There are illustrations.
“Mr Lloyd Sanders puts with ease what the usual maker of research states heavily, and the confusions of politics for forty years up to 1762 become almost agreeable in his animated narrative.”
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Ath p1285 D 5 ’19 1400w
“Casual references to Dodington abound in the political histories and studies of social life of the eighteenth century. It must have been a source of regret to those who study this period that no intimate material regarding Dodington has been procurable. Mr Sanders’s volume fulfills this want. Besides, a man that Robert Browning parlayed with for more than 300 lines is well worth attention.”
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N Y Times 25:241 My 9 ’20 1350w
“If it be easier, as Mr Lytton Strachy assures us, to live a good life than to write one, Mr Lloyd Sanders deserves not only praise but gratitude for presenting us with his admirable monograph on Bubb Dodington. If we have a complaint to make of Mr Sanders it is that he repeats the common saying that Bubb was a wit, but gives us no specimens.”
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Sat R 128:487 N 22 ’19 1150w
“A good biography of a second-rate man often throws more light on the period in which he lived than a biography of a great man, who is necessarily exceptional and abnormal. We should recommend any one interested in the early Georgian era to read Mr Lloyd Sanders’s witty and scholarly memoir of George Bubb Dodington, who was a typical eighteenth-century politician.”
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Spec 123:660 N 15 ’19 1500w
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Springf’d Republican p8 Ja 24 ’20 150w (Reprinted from The Times [London] Lit Sup p779 D 25 ’19)
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p632 N 6 ’19 80w
“Bubb’s biographer is not biassed in his favour. He makes a cold, exhaustive investigation of the career of a place-hunter when Walpole ruled the roost and every man had his price, and he is successful in every respect save one. He cannot make a picturesque ill-doer of his hero. His story constitutes not so much a page of eccentric biography as a quaint footlight to the rather squalid politics of George the Second.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p779 D 25 ’19 2150w
SANDES, EDWARD WARREN CAULFEILD.[2] In Kut and captivity with the Sixth Indian division. il *$10 Dutton (*24s Murray) 940.472
(Eng ed 20–656)
“Major Sandes has written an interesting book on the earlier phase of the war in Mesopotamia. Major Sandes was attached to the Sixth Indian division, under General Townshend, which formed the main portion of Sir John Nixon’s expeditionary force. He was in charge of the bridging train which followed the army up the Tigris. He describes the capture of Kurna, the rapid advance up to Amarah, the battle of Es Sin, where the Turks offered a strenuous resistance, the occupation of Kut, and the fatal advance upon Baghdad which ended at Ctesiphon. He gives a full narrative of the retreat, which was most skilfully conducted, and relates the history of the five months’ siege of Kut. After the surrender in April, 1916, he was taken to Asia Minor, and remained at Yozgad till Turkey capitulated a year ago.”—Spec
“It is likely to remain for some time a classic on the heroic stand of the Kut garrison and the awful sufferings they subsequently endured.” R. C. T.
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Ath p912 S 19 ’19 1050w
“Depressing as it must needs be, the undauntable spirit which it shows, the endurance, simplicity, modesty, lift this book into the class of great siege narratives and give it high place among the first-hand records of great military disasters. And so, for all its unconscious concreteness and scattered masses of detail, it gives in the end that purging of the spirit which Aristotle assigned to high tragedy.”
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Review 3:380 O 27 ’20 800w
“Major Sandes is rigidly objective; he sets down plain facts and leaves his readers to rely on their own imaginations. We are not sure, all the same, that his story of Kut is not rendered more remarkable by his resolute avoidance of fine writing.”
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Sat R 128:343 O 11 ’19 950w
“The story of the siege of Kut is well told by Major Sandes.”
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Spec 122:544 O 25 ’19 1400w
SANDWICH, EDWARD GEORGE HENRY MONTAGUE, 8th earl of. Memoirs of Edward, Earl of Sandwich, 1839–1916. il *$7 Dutton
(Eng ed 20–442)
“The ‘Memoirs of Edward, eighth earl of Sandwich, 1839–1916,’ have been edited by Mrs Steuart Erskine from the material which Lord Sandwich himself collected from old diaries with the object of publishing his autobiography. Besides the intimate pictures provided of society at home and abroad, of state visits to Berlin and St Petersburg, of missions to Fez, and travels in many lands, the story is told of his experiences in spiritual healing and other psychical phenomena which became his dominant interest towards the end of his life.”—Boston Transcript
Ath p1139 O 31 ’19 170w
Boston Transcript p9 Jl 12 ’19 80w
“Such material as is found in these selections from the diary not only furnish valuable matter for the historian, but it reveals the personality of the diarist, and thus makes very interesting and enjoyable reading for those who delight in following the movements, personal and social, of human beings.” F. W. C.
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Boston Transcript p4 Ag 28 ’20 850w
Brooklyn 12:133 My ’20 40w
“So varied a life clearly presented opportunities for an interesting book. We cannot say, however, that Mrs Steuart Erskine has been altogether fortunate in her materials. Lord Sandwich’s wit in conversation vanishes when he tries to commit it to paper. He intended to write his biography, but here we only get it in the raw, so to speak.”
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Sat R 128:367 O 18 ’19 750w
“The value of these memoirs lies in the picture they afford of a typical representative of a long-established order now apparently in the throes of dissolution.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p527 O 2 ’19 1050w
SANGER, MARGARET H.[2] Woman and the new race. *$2 (4½c) Brentano’s 176
20–15159
In his preface to this book Havelock Ellis says that its contents are already as familiar as A B C to the few who think, but to the millions and to the handful of superior persons whom the millions elect to rule them, they are not familiar, yet it is a matter of vital importance to the race that they should be. The reason why is clearly set forth in the book which is a plea for a free and voluntary motherhood. The chapters are: Woman’s error and her debt; Woman’s struggle for freedom; The material of the new race; Two classes of women; The wickedness of creating large families; Cries of despair; When should a woman avoid having children? Birth control—a parents’ problem or woman’s? Continence—is it practicable or desirable? Contraceptives or abortion? Are preventive means certain? Will birth control help the cause of labor? Battalions of unwanted babies the cause of war; Woman and the new morality; Legislating woman’s morals; Why not birth control clinics in America? Progress we have made; The goal.
Freeman 2:310 D 8 ’20 440w
“Calm, temperate, informed, sound, and winning book.”
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Nation 111:597 N 24 ’20 400w
“While Mrs Sanger’s book contains nothing new to students of the subject, it is an excellent summary of the arguments for voluntary motherhood. In several instances, however, she overstates her case.” B. L.
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Survey 45:706 F 12 ’21 260w
SANGER, WILLIAM CARY, jr. Verse. *$1.50 Putnam 811
20–10004
The poems of this volume are arranged under the headings Tides of commerce (Verse of the railroad); The city of toil and dreams; Miscellaneous poems; With the armies of France; Additional war poems, 1918: In the land of the harvest. Most of the poems are reprinted from earlier volumes by the author and the original prefaces to these volumes appear in an appendix.
Reviewed by R. M. Weaver
Bookm 52:64 S ’20 40w
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Boston Transcript p6 Jl 17 ’20 730w
SANTAYANA, GEORGE.[2] Character and opinion in the United States; with reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and academic life in America. *$3.50 Scribner 304
20–26993
“Mr Santayana, who was professor of philosophy at Harvard, has now come to live in Europe. In this book he looks back with intimate knowledge and complete detachment at the intellectual life which he has left. He is, he says, an American only by long association.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The book is a keen, kindly analysis of American life, particularly of the more subtle mental attitudes. It seems to centralize around a conception of the American character as vigorous, hopeful, good, somewhat childish; hampered intellectually by conventional prohibitions and compulsions; and devoted to a liberty based on cooperation and the spirit of live and let live.” (Booklist)
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Ath p724 N 26 ’20 1350w
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Booklist 17:95 D ’20
“In ‘Character and opinion in the United States,’ Professor Santayana has written what one is inclined to believe will become the classic essays on William James and Josiah Royce.... What must he think of America? On the whole, his answer to this question is an extraordinarily kindly one. When he is most perceptive, he gives his generalizations amiably rather than scornfully.” Harold Stearns
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Freeman 2:378 D 29 ’20 3450w
Reviewed by Alvin Johnson
New Repub 24:221 O 27 ’20 1600w
“A compelling, stimulating, and essentially a significant book. The book itself is a unique essay in interpretation, an attempt to evaluate American character under the play of the ideas which it has projected and by which, in turn, it has been influenced.” L. R. Morris
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Outlook 126:729 D 22 ’20 2450w
“On the whole he is eminently fair, if not more than fair, in his judgments. It is another question whether there is much profit in such an attempt as he has made to analyze the temper of a people.”
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Review 3:625 D 22 ’20 400w
“Professor Santayana has written one of the most fascinating books imaginable.”
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Spec 126:19 Ja 1 ’21 1500w
“The book is a very original one; indeed, the two chapters on William James and Josiah Royce belong to a new genre of literature. They are character-studies of philosophers, studies of the reaction between character and philosophy, which ought to be dull but are as amusing as if he were talking scandal about the manners and habits of fashionable ladies. His book is one of the best he has written.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p775 N 25 ’20 1850w
SANTAYANA, GEORGE. Little essays, drawn from the writings of the author by Logan Pearsall Smith, with the collaboration of the author. *$3 Scribner 814
20–26891
“Mr Pearsall Smith explains in his preface that this book owes its genesis to his habit of copying out such passages as particularly interested him in the writings of Santayana. He came to see, however, that these extracts ‘were bound up with, and dependent upon, a definite philosophy, a rational conception of the world and man’s allotted place in it, which gave them a unity of interest and an importance far beyond that of any mere utterances of miscellaneous appreciation—any mere “adventures of the soul.”’ He therefore persuaded Mr Santayana to arrange these extracts in such a way as to preserve their original connection as far as possible.”—Ath
“We confess that we are agreeably surprised at the result. The masterful and inclusive vision of the author of the ‘Life of reason’ appears here broken and disconnected, but not betrayed.” J. W. N. S.
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Ath p143 Jl 30 ’19 1500w
“Contains a vast amount of interesting material distilled from profound scholarship and meditation.”
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Booklist 17:49 N ’20
Bookm 52:368 Ja ’21 130w
“Any one who has a taste for short essays will find a good feast provided for him. While the essays can well hold their own as detached disquisitions on special subjects, they form a catena of thought which hangs logically together, exposing a rational philosophy. Indeed it has been said that George Santayana has imperiled the recognition of his philosophy by the fine robes in which he has consistently presented it.” Robert Bridges
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Dial 69:534 N ’20 5000w
Nation 111:221 Ag 21 ’20 1300w
“A new immortal book.” P. L.
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New Repub 25:321 F 9 ’21 2650w
“I believe that this publication will accomplish two things: it will establish Mr Santayana’s reputation as one of the foremost masters of English prose now living, and it will persuade many readers to buy the complete works from which these essays are drawn.” W: L. Phelps
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N Y Times p8 Ag 22 ’20 3050w
“It is a notable book. Professor Santayana possesses charm of style; that merit must be accorded to him by his worst enemy, if enemy he has. His culture is broad, and his mind is discursive, touching in its range many points of metaphysics and art and literature and morals.”
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Review 3:346 O 20 ’20 1350w
“Short though the pieces may be, they are, as a rule, brief only through extreme compression, and the great beauty of the style in which they are written links them together rather than divides them. Hidden in the book there lurks the exposition of a theory of life.”
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Spec 124:239 Ag 21 ’20 800w
“Even if his philosophy does not satisfy us, we must enjoy his art. If we cannot believe that he tells us the truth about the nature of the universe, he tells us many incidental truths about the nature of man.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p573 S 9 ’20 2500w
SARETT, LEW R. Many many moons; a book of wilderness poems. *$1.50 Holt 811
20–6453
Of these poems on Indian themes the author says that they “are in no sense literal translations of original utterances of aboriginal song and council-talk; they are, rather, very free, broad interpretations ... in the light of Indian symbolism and mysticism, of the mythology and superstition involved, and of the attendant ceremonies.” (Preface) This is especially true of Parts I and III of the poems, and an appendix of expository comments has been added to make them clearer to the reader. Part II consists of nature poems giving the atmosphere of the Indian’s environment. The book has an introduction by Carl Sandburg and the three parts are: Flying moccasins; Lone fires; Chippewa monologues.
“A book of beautiful, rugged verse.”
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Booklist 16:306 Je ’20
“Mr Sarett makes one understand the Indian. We understand the Indian in relation to his thoughts, moods, his customs, his legends, his symbolism, his natural mysticism. With the poet’s full equipment, he has psychologically become an Indian and thus his interpreter to the outside world. ‘Many many moons’ is a remarkable book!” W: S. Braithwaite
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Boston Transcript p8 My 8 ’20 2300w
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Cleveland p86 O ’20 50w
“Noise clearly is his forte; heap big Indian talk is his best line. The pale-face stanzas which attempt quieter and tenderer sorts of interpretation are vacant and over-facile in their faith.” M. V. D.
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Nation 110:856 Je 26 ’20 120w
“He does not prettify the wilderness. Especially good are ‘The granite mountain’ and ‘God is at the anvil’ and ‘Of these four things I cannot write.’”
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N Y Times 25:193 Ap 18 ’20 120w
“When Mr Sarett writes of nature he is writing with genuine feeling of something he really knows. He has been in the wilderness.” M. Wilkinson
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N Y Times p18 Ag 8 ’20 290w
SAROLEA, CHARLES. Europe and the league of nations. *$2.50 Macmillan 341.1
“This book by Professor Sarolea of the University of Edinburgh is, as its title implies, devoted principally to the league of nations, although there are chapters of interest on other subjects. The author warmly supports the league as a panacea for the ailing world.” (N Y Times Mr 14) “He takes up a number of problems growing out of the treaty of peace and out of the league covenant such as The status of small nations within the covenant, America within the league, The trial of the kaiser, The future of Poland, Germany’s political reconstruction. The author expresses great dissatisfaction with the economic terms of the treaty.” (N Y Times Ap 18)
N Y Times 25:117 Mr 14 ’20 600w
N Y Times 25:196 Ap 18 ’20 120w
“Dr Sarolea’s book is excellent in temper and spirit, but its sentimental idealism is unrestrained by the realities of present-day politics.”
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Sat R 129:252 Mr 13 ’20 1300w
“‘Europe and the league of nations’ cannot be described as a weighty book, but it is fluently and brightly written.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p23 Ja 8 ’20 300w
SASSOON, SIEGFRIED. Picture-show. *$1.50 Dutton 821
20–3705
“The contents of the volume, in spite of its suggestive title, are not wholly given over to the sidelights, fevers and fantasms of modern warfare. Almost one third of the book is a record of those passages of love which verge from the physical to the metaphysical; reflections of an emotion that is half-celebrated, half-stifled.”—New Repub
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Booklist 16:235 Ap ’20
“Every last utterance of Siegfried Sassoon’s makes a farce out of the deeds of the romantic soldier-poet the world has worshipped during the last five years.” W. S. B.
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Boston Transcript p11 Ap 24 ’20 1550w
Reviewed by Malcolm Cowley
Dial 68:621 My ’20 1600w
“He knows the secret of the clean pentameter, he is distinct and clever and casual; yet there exists no feelable personality behind his lines. It is not required that he have intellectual drive or spiritual mounting-power: it merely is required that he show some sort of intellectual edge and awareness. He does that nowhere in ‘Picture show.’” M. V. D.
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Nation 110:855 Je 26 ’20 160w
“Now we have ‘Picture show,’ a vigorous answer to those who feared that Sassoon had ‘written himself out’ or had begun to burn away in his own fire. The same outrage and loathing of war is in the new poems but a darker restraint is here; an emotion remembered not so much in tranquility as in irony. One of the most rousing of his recent poems. Aftermath, might well be the title of this volume, so firmly does it balance and round off his trilogy.” L: Untermeyer
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New Repub 22:37 Mr 3 ’20 950w
“There is a mass of the verse that is heavy and halting—far too large a mass for so small a book. More careful pruning hereafter will lift the worth of his collections amazingly.” Clement Wood
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N Y Call p10 Je 20 ’20 250w
“In this book Mr Sassoon describes warfare just as he did in his two earlier books. But the last lyric in ‘Picture-show,’ [Every one sang,] is, perhaps, the very loveliest of all the songs written to welcome peace.”
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N Y Times 25:194 Ap 18 ’20 140w
“Mr Sassoon sometimes is as shaken in his expressions as in his emotion, and then he is apt to write as though art could not contain him. But every poet must learn that no man feels too deeply or too quickly to write well.... At its best here is a proud, tender poetry, indignant often but magnanimous always, the creation of a loving and aristocratic art.” J: Drinkwater
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N Y Times 25:235 My 9 ’20 1550w
“When it comes to sheer poetry, I find in Mr Sassoon but two outstanding merits, a feeling for phrase and a sense of the occult, both present in the degree which redeems verse from insignificance without lifting it to distinction.” O. W. Firkins
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Review 2:520 My 15 ’20 220w
SAUNDERS, CHARLES FRANCIS. Useful wild plants of the United States and Canada. il *$3 McBride 581.6
20–26546
The purpose of the book is to call attention to certain useful wild plants, growing in the woods, waters and open country of the United States, that have in the past formed an important element in the diet of the aborigines and that could be both interesting and useful to dwellers in rural districts, to campers, vacationists and nature students. It is copiously illustrated by photographs and line drawings and the contents are: Wild plants with edible tubers, bulbs or roots; Wild seeds of food value and how they have been utilized; The acorn as human food and some other wild nuts; Some little regarded wild fruits and berries; Wild plants with edible stems and leaves; Beverage plants of field and wood; Vegetable substitutes for soap; Some medicinal wildings worth knowing; Miscellaneous uses of wild plants; A cautionary chapter on certain poisonous plants; Regional index and general index.
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Booklist 16:304 Je ’20
SAUNDERS, MARSHALL. Bonnie Prince Fetlar. *$2 (2½c) Doran
20–18408
The hero of this new story by the author of “Beautiful Joe” is a Shetland pony, and there are many other characters, both animal and human. The scene is a Canadian farm to which the pony and his master, a delicate boy with over-strung nerves, are sent. Neither likes the strange, wild country at first but in time both come to love it, the young master’s health is restored, he makes new friends with a family of six lively Canadian children and in the end the mother he had believed dead returns to him. All this story is told in the words of the pony.
“The author of ‘Beautiful Joe’ has written a horse story which friends of Beautiful Joe will be disappointed in. But after all, comparisons are unnecessary—and ‘Bonnie Prince Fetlar,’ left to itself, is an attractive book, full of incident and interest.”
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Ind 104:378 D 11 ’20 70w
N Y Evening Post p25 O 23 ’20 60w
“It is hardly necessary to say that here is an offering which any healthy boy or girl must enjoy, but to this it may be added that also it makes a strong appeal to grown-ups.”
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N Y Times p23 D 12 ’20 270w
SAVI, ETHEL WINIFRED. When the blood burns. *$2 (1½c) Putnam
20–22037
Marcelle was a typist in a London office. Her beauty attracted her employer and his charming personality easily persuaded the inexperienced girl that she loved him; also—since he was married to a much older woman who would not hear of divorce—that it was right for her to go away with him to India. The monotony of the life there soon palled on David and he is glad, eventually, of the summons back to England. Marcelle, left behind, suffers untold miseries and excruciating experiences, and is finally rescued by the one friend who has stood by her from the first and who takes her home as his wife. The interesting feature of the story is its description of life in India.
Ath p698 N 19 ’20 150w
“It is a very old situation upon which E. W. Savi bases her story. She gives it no new twist, but she infuses into it so vital a sense of reality that it draws us and holds us keenly interested in its developments. She possesses the story-telling art in a very marked degree, and her story is full of both the beauty and strangeness of genuine romance.” D. L. M.
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Boston Transcript p4 S 29 ’20 2000w
“The author hero has been content to tell a plain, somewhat sordid, tale of illicit love, with its inevitable penalties, which has little more color than can be found in the records of the average divorce suit. None of the characters commands much sympathy. As a whole, the offering may be called just a passable novel.”
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N Y Times p22 S 19 ’20 500w
“The scenes which pass in India are much the most interesting.”
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Spec 125:782 D 11 ’20 50w
“The story has a certain sympathetic charm with a moral that cannot be missed.”
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Springf’d Republican p9a O 3 ’20 220w
“Despite a great deal of burning talk about love and passion, the story leaves one quite cold.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p686 O 21 ’20 120w
SAWYER, RUTH (MRS ALBERT C. DURAND). Leerie. il *$1.75 (2½c) Harper
20–13146
“Leerie” was what the patients at the “San” lovingly called their nurse Sheila O’Leary, and like Stevenson’s “Leerie,” she brought light into the lives of her charges as no other nurse could. Especially to Peter Brooks, she brought light which they both felt could never die out. Then just on the very eve of her marriage to him, she felt the call to go to France, and went. But she did not leave him behind for he too found his place over there. There, after her period of service which offered experiences both bitter and sweet, they were reunited, “glad they had both paid their utmost for the love and happiness that she knew was theirs now for all time.”
“Somewhat sentimentalized and improbable, but women and girls will like it.”
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Booklist 17:74 N ’20
“The book contains the correct philosophy of life throughout, showing that happiness comes from making others happy, from giving freely.”
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Cath World 112:408 D ’20 210w
“A vivacious story, with plenty of sentimental appeal and written with a good deal of cleverness and ingenuity, Ruth Sawyer’s new novel springs lightly out of the conventional lines of fiction and goes its own gait.”
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N Y Times p28 Ag 15 ’20 400w
Wis Lib Bul 16:196 N ’20 70w
SAYLER, OLIVER M. Russia white or red. il *$2.50 Little 947
19–18648
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
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Booklist 16:200 Mr ’20
“The author took with him his best gifts as critic—a quick eye, ready critical discernment, and an easy pen. He added to these gifts something of the historian’s grasp of the unity of events. The result is a quite unusual freshness and lucidity in the view we get of the Russian theatre.” T: H. Dickinson
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Bookm 51:492 Je ’20 850w
“The value of his account is in its freedom from political interest. Without prejudice toward either white or red but with sympathy for the struggles and sufferings of both sides, he simply relates what he observed of the surface and common movement of things.”
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Nation 110:597 My 1 ’20 200w
“‘Russia white or red’ is free of any taint of propaganda, and among a torrent of writings full of distorted pictures of revolutionary Russia, it stands out as a truthful and honest if by no means profound contribution.” M. J. Olgin
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New Repub 22:426 My 26 ’20 2000w
“Altogether, the book reveals a sympathetic understanding of the Russian masses, and an appreciation of their yearnings for freedom and peace. It does not pretend, however, to be a serious treatise on the fundamental changes which have come about since the revolution.” Alexander Trachtenberg
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Socialist R 8:250 Mr ’20 320w
“It is neither a complete record nor an interpretation of events, and will appeal primarily to those who may still be interested in getting the background of revolutionary events and vivid glimpses of daily living during the first months of the Bolshevist régime.” Reed Lewis
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Survey 44:53 Ap 3 ’20 100w
SAYLER, OLIVER M. Russian theatre under the revolution. il *$2.50 (3½c) Little 792
20–692
The author chose the winter of 1917–1918, while the Bolshevik revolution was in progress, for a study of the Russian theatre. It was a time when the theatre had not significantly survived either in England or France or even in neutral New York and war had revealed it as being only too clearly a luxury, a pastime and an industry. But the Russian theatre is one of profound introspection and inspiration. “Out of their sorrows the Russians have builded all their art. And in the days of their profoundest gloom, they return to it for the consolation which nothing else affords.” In Moscow and Petrograd, the author testifies, the modern theatre has been carried to its finest achievement. Among the contents are: Plays within a play; The world’s first theatre; The plays of Tchehoff at the Art theatre; From Turgenieff to Gorky at the Art theatre; The Russian ballet in its own home; The deeper roots of the Russian theatre; The Kamerny, a theatre of revolt; Meyerhold and the theatre theatrical; Yevreynoff and monodrama; Russian theories of the theatre. There are numerous illustrations and an index.
Booklist 16:194 Mr ’20
“Interesting and remarkable book. It is a valuable contribution to the literature of the theatre.” N. H. D.
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Boston Transcript p6 Ag 4 ’20 800w
Cleveland p32 Mr ’20 170w
“A book so eager, so cordial, so intelligent, so frankly the expression of a personal appetite that one would like to think of it as typical of a new dispensation.”
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Freeman 1:70 Mr 31 ’20 280w
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Nation 110:596 My 1 ’20 1250w
“He seems overstimulated by the shock of strangeness and the pervading atmosphere of idealism and experiment so different from the atmosphere of Broadway. Nevertheless, his book is tonic for the knowledge it brings us of theatrical theories, experiments and striking achievements in a land which is far ahead of ours so far as the theater is concerned.” W. P. Eaton
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N Y Call p10 My 2 ’20 420w
“The author presents his material in such a way that not only will those interested in the theatre be attracted to it, but also those who are drawn to the puzzling topic of the Russian revolution.”
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N Y Times 25:303 Je 6 ’20 500w
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Outlook 124:563 Mr 31 ’20 60w
“His sincerity is unquestionable but his temper runs to hyperbole. In spite of all doubts and deductions, Mr Sayler’s book should be read by all students of contemporary drama. If it is not a striking history, it is a spirited and curious novel.”
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Review 2:259 Mr 13 ’20 420w
“A comprehensive and graphic account.” Reed Lewis
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Survey 44:53 Ap 3 ’20 80w
“It cannot be recommended too highly when considered merely as a source of knowledge and inspiration to those who are organizing our theatre guilds, Greenwich Village theatres, arts and crafts playhouses, and other steps toward a native art theatre. The casual reader will find the chapters absorbing with a human appeal quite lacking in most books about the theatre; but the same reader will meet something of a jolt when he reaches the last chapter—for here are gathered in concentrated form (and often in darkly philosophical terms) the most recent of revolutionary theories of the stage. A handful of Americans will find these few chapters worth more than all the rest of the book together—worth more, too, than scores of the usual superficial books of criticism.”
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Theatre Arts Magazine 4:173 Ap ’20 700w
SCHAEFER, CLEMENS T. Motor truck design and construction. il *$2.50 Van Nostrand 629.2
20–991
“This volume has been written to fill a pressing want; to give a practical discussion of the gasoline propelled commercial car of the present type, and to present this subject in the plainest possible manner by the use of numerous illustrations.” (Preface) A chapter on the general layout of the chassis is followed by chapters devoted to the various details, engine, cooling system, carburetion, ignition systems, etc. The illustrations number 292, consisting largely of figures in the text. There is an index.
Booklist 16:229 Ap ’20 (Reprinted from Pratt p21 Ja ’20)
N Y P L New Tech Bks p33 Ap ’20 100w
Pratt p21 Ja ’20 50w (Same as Quar List New Tech Bks O ’19)
Quar List New Tech Bks O ’19 50w
SCHAUFFLER, ROBERT HAVEN. Fiddler’s luck. *$1.90 (3½c) Houghton
20–9475
Being “the gay adventures of a musical amateur.” (Sub-title) The young son of a family in which the flute was hereditary finds a cello in the garret and sets about to teach himself. He is sent to a musical cousin for his education and returning, as a fairly well equipped fiddler, has a falling out with his puppy love, Priscilla, because her progress on the piano has not kept pace with his, and she plays an ear-splitting fortissimo for his accompaniment. After many musical vicissitudes in the army he comes unexpectedly on Priscilla in Paris. She no longer strums but is a finished pianist and the harmony is now complete.
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Booklist 17:36 O ’20
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Boston Transcript p6 Je 30 ’20 1200w
“One of the most thoroly enjoyable books—whether you are a musician or not—that you have read in a long, long while.”
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Ind 103:442 D 25 ’20 170w
Lit D p94 S 18 ’20 2750w
“‘Fiddler’s luck’ is full of love, laughter, music and good drink. It is worth a ton of best sellers and ‘serious studies’ in these melancholy days that are upon us.” B. De C.
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N Y Times p22 Ag 8 ’20 800w
“‘Fiddler’s luck’ is a charming series of war sketches that Mr Schauffler tries to make impersonal, but his own engaging personality sparkles through the sketches.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 Je 30 ’20 170w
“A cheerful vein of optimism is in evidence continually, and its influence on the reader will be anything but depressing.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Jl 11 ’20 220w
Wis Lib Bul 16:196 N ’20 120w
SCHAUFFLER, ROBERT HAVEN.[2] White comrade; and other poems. *$1.50 Houghton 811
20–19672
Poetry in many forms and in many moods is represented in this volume: the ballad, the ode, the lyric, the sonnet, thoughts of this life and of the beyond, of the country, of love and of war. They fall into four groups: Between two shores; Magic casements; Conflict; and Other poems.
“Out of all the book—and it contains much which repays reading and re-reading—there is nothing which more fully satisfies the high poetic mood than does the little poem called ‘Worship,’ as lovely and distinguished a bit of verse as Mr Schauffler has ever given us.” D. L. M.
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Boston Transcript p3 D 18 ’20 520w
SCHEM, LIDA CLARA (MARGARET BLAKE, pseud.). Hyphen. 2v *$6 Dutton
20–17964
“The book is really a pamphlet masquerading as a novel, and it offers an analysis of the state of mind and fundamental character of the large German element in the United States, and also a vision of the ideal of American democracy as it appears to a thoroughly un-English observer. Her hero is presented as a personification of acquired Americanism. The son of a Prussian-American father and a Nihilist Russian princess, he is conceived as a synthesis. Brought up in a wholly German environment (Hoboken is thinly disguised as Anasquoit), the boy aspires to become a ‘real American.’ Curiously enough, and yet convincingly, he gets the strongest stimulus toward Americanism from a young Englishman. The war disillusions him as to German kultur, and he concludes that the only way out for those of German blood who truly aspire to Americanism is to ‘go and fight Germany.’”—Review
“The story is very rich in material, a novel to be read slowly and thoughtfully for it contains a wealth of contemporary opinion and criticism. It is a colossal work and yet it is human.” D. L. Mann
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Boston Transcript p4 Ja 19 ’21 1200w
“Excellent in parts, it is dismally unsatisfactory as a whole; rich in promise, it is a triumph of frustration. The author, apparently, drew the plans for an imposing work of fiction, but as the business of construction proceeded she became so engrossed in ornamental details and features of dubious importance that she mislaid her drawings.” B. R. Redman
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Nation 112:88 Ja 19 ’21 520w
“Complicated, and presenting many divergent points of view, the book is nevertheless full of repetitions. It impresses one as a kind of storehouse in which the author has stowed away a number of opinions on a number of subjects; the story merely provides a sort of makeshift for these opinions. There is no artistry shown in its construction.”
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N Y Times p22 O 31 ’20 1150w
“It is especially interesting to those who are concerned about the Americanization of immigrants, because it shows so clearly what the reactions of the newcomers are to the influences which begin to surround them almost as soon as they set foot in their new country.”
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N Y Times p10 Ja 16 ’21 900w
“Regarded merely as fiction, ‘The hyphen’ would be of small moment. The book’s chief interest lies in its minute portrayal of many and variant types of German-Americans both before and during the war.”
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Review 3:506 N 24 ’20 540w
SCHINZ, ALBERT. French literature of the great war. *$3 (2c) Appleton 840.9
20–8608
The author distinguishes three periods in the war literature of France between 1914 and 1918. “The first was one of spontaneous, sudden and strongly emotional reaction, following immediately the first bewildering shock; the second, one of documentation on the causes of the war and on the war itself; and the third, a period of calm philosophical consideration of all that was involved in the gigantic struggle.” (Introd.) Although the lyric and satirical note predominated in the first period, memoir literature in the second, and philosophical essays and treatises in the third, no period can be said to have produced one type of literature to the exclusion of all others. The contents of the book fall into two parts, part 1 discussing in successive chapters the three periods and part 2 containing: Poetry of the war; The stage and the war; War-time fiction; Epilogue. The appendices contain a bibliography; documents relative to the war; and a catalogue, in alphabetical order, of some of the best war diaries and recollections. There is an index.
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Booklist 17:23 O ’20
“The French literature of the late war is very adequately discussed by Professor Schinz. The chief defect of his treatise is a tinge of partisan feeling, somewhat out of place in work of this kind, and his attack of Romain Rolland is hardly just.” C. K. H.
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Boston Transcript p8 Je 19 ’20 300w
“A very interesting and scholarly account.”
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Cath World 112:267 N ’20 280w
“The scholarly orderliness and completeness of Mr Albert Schinz’s ‘French literature in the great war’ contrast glaringly with its temper. He prefers polemics to poetry. Instead of writing the history of a literary movement which is memorable even if not great, he still is battering the Teutonic hordes with the familiar accumulation of civilian energy unspent on any other field.”
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Nation 110:861 Je 26 ’20 280w
“We consider the work, as a whole, timely and important. It must have been the labor of love, for no other motive could have produced a result so eminently satisfactory.”
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N Y Times 25:13 Jl 18 ’20 950w
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Review 3:110 Ag 4 ’20 400w
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Springf’d Republican p8 Ag 12 ’20 650w
“He is quite prodigiously well read in French war literature. But unhappily there is hardly any criticism in the book, nothing profound, nothing illuminating, nothing very thoughtful even—except for a few passages—and none of those fortunate phrases by which the real critic ‘gets at’ the significance, the vitals, so to speak, of the work he is discussing.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p686 O 21 ’20 580w
SCHLEITER, FREDERICK. Religion and culture. *$2 Columbia univ. press 201
19–9320
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Dr Schleiter has given us a critique of method which not only challenges modern methods and theories but deliberately drives them all from the field, some more gently than others.... As a preparation for a methodology—a destruction of methods to make way for method—Dr Schleiter’s work deserves the serious attention of all workers in the field of origins, social and religious, and may well be the most significant work of recent years.” A. E. Haydon
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Am J Theol 24:293 Ap ’20 850w
“On page after page the false assumptions, the blundering reasoning, and the erroneous conclusions that have hitherto characterized comparative religion are laid bare with a detachment of judgment and a wealth of erudition that make the book a model of criticism. Dr Schleiter has put out of action a good many of the heavy guns that were to batter the walls of the citadel of religion.”
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Cath World 111:393 Je ’20 400w
“Dr Schleiter, though an acute critic, is not a lucid writer, and his work is critical rather than constructive.”
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Nature 105:451 Je 10 ’20 260w
“He deserves special credit for rescuing from obscurity the principle of convergence, i.e., the doctrine that like cultural results may evolve from unlike antecedents. However, it is the more original treatment of casuality that not only arrests attention but makes one hunger for more.” R. H. L.
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New Repub 21:364 F 18 ’20 600w
“The book is a signal illustration of two characteristic features of American thought—the tendency to concentrate on what authorities have written about a subject rather than on the subject itself, and the neglect to cultivate any grace or clarity of literary style.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p91 F 5 ’20 100w
SCHMAUK, THEODORE EMANUEL. How to teach in Sunday-school. (Teacher-training handbook) $1.50 (2c) United Lutheran publication house 268
20–3582
A book devoted to the art, the method, the material and the act of Sunday-school teaching. The author suggests that for a short and effective teacher-training course chapters 20–22 (comprising the discussion of the act of teaching) be used. For a more comprehensive course the sections devoted to method and material are suggested. The author is professor of pedagogy in the Theological seminary at Philadelphia and has had “twenty-five years’ experience in Sunday-school reconstruction.”
SCHOFF, WILFRED HARVEY.[2] Ship Tyre. il *$2 Longmans 224
20–18184
The dooms of the ship “Tyre” and of the “King of Tyre” as pronounced in the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth chapters of the book of the prophet Ezekiel are here shown to be entirely symbolic and the material things mentioned to refer not to any real commerce but to matters of a political and religious significance. According to the sub-title, the ship “Tyre” is “a symbol of the fate of conquerors, as prophesied by Isaiah, Ezekiel and John and fulfilled at Nineveh, Babylon and Rome.” Contents: Introduction; The tabernacle; Division of spoil; The temple and palace; Ophir voyages: Profanation and pillage; Captivity; The ship “Tyre”; The prince of Tyre; The king of Tyre; Notes to the allegory; The second temple; The great city “Babylon”; The Holy City; The pomp and the trappings; Precious stones; The specifications compared; Date of the tradition; Appendix; Index.
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Boston Transcript p3 N 27 ’20 420w
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N Y Times p23 Ja 16 ’21 240w
SCHOFIELD, ALFRED TAYLOR. Modern spiritism. pa *$1.25 Blakiston 134
“Dr Schofield, a student for over thirty years of psychological problems, and a rather copious writer upon them, especially from the medical point of view, gives an instructive review of the history of spiritism, and of its modern developments, and discusses, with many examples from his own experience and with an open mind, the strange phenomena of ‘possession,’ ‘second sight,’ etc. His own position is that, while the facts of spiritism cannot all be explained by purely human agencies, communications with ‘spirits’ are certainly not with the disembodied spirits of the dead. He regards spiritism as practised today to be full of the gravest dangers, mental and spiritual, and to be definitely anti-Christian.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
Ath p93 Ja 16 ’20 60w
Reviewed by B: de Casseres
N Y Times 25:189 Ap 18 ’20 180w
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Springf’d Republican p13 F 1 ’20 80w (Reprinted from The Times [London] Lit Sup p783 D 25 ’19)
“The author’s argument is trenchantly expressed and is supported by evidence. But the fact that he has a religious belief of his own to uphold against the beliefs of the spiritists somewhat weakens his argument.”
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Springf’d Republican p9a Ag 29 ’20 750w
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p783 D 25 ’19 120w
SCHOFIELD, WILLIAM HENRY. Mythical bards, and The life of William Wallace. (Harvard studies in comparative literature) *$3 Harvard univ. press 821.09
20–9501
“This is primarily a discussion of the authorship of the metrical fifteenth century life of the Scottish patriot (d. 1305), which is ascribed to ‘Blind Harry.’ Mr Schofield contends that ‘Blind Harry’ is a pseudonym, and that the biographer was no quiet scholar or amiable ecclesiastic like Barbour, but ‘a vigorous propagandist, a ferocious realpolitiker without principle when it was a question of Scotland’s place in the sun.’ The writer diverges from this problem to chapters on ‘Blind Harry and blind Homer,’ and on Conceptions of poesy which occupy the last two chapters.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is all readable enough and often not uninteresting: whether it proves anything must be left to the reader to decide.”
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Ath p761 D 3 ’20 450w
“Every page of it betrays the author’s enjoyment of an opportunity to build a huge structure of learning around—a soap bubble.”
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Boston Transcript p6 Jl 21 ’20 950w
“In general, ‘Mythical bards’ is marked by the broad scholarship and the keen vision of literary problems which have always been the chief characteristics of the author’s work.” T. P. Cross
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Mod Philol 18:53 Ag ’20 1200w
“Like most of Prof. Schofield’s books this shows originality as well as the result of deep research, with an undoubted power of holding the attention of the reader.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 Je 30 ’20 120w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p706 O 28 ’20 100w
SCHOLEFIELD, GUY HARDY. Pacific, its past and future, and the policy of the great powers from the eighteenth century. il *$5.50 Scribner 990
(Eng ed 19–8578)
“Mr Scholefield, a New Zealander, adds materially to our knowledge. There is a growing tendency, on wholly right and sound lines, to treat of the vast Pacific ocean as a single unit. ‘The Pacific: its past and future’ is a short political history of the Pacific from the first days of European exploration and intrusion, excluding in the main the history of Australia and New Zealand, but by no means excluding their Pacific aspirations and policy. The appendices contain selections of the principal treaties and conventions relating to the Pacific, and a chronological table. The maps are adequate, the last being a map of the whole ocean.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“His book is illuminative and opportune.”
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Ath p351 My 16 ’19 300w
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Booklist 16:238 Ap ’20
“There are numerous books on the subject of the Pacific and its problems, but in none will be found so careful and discriminating an account of the past history as is here given. It is based mainly on the British parliamentary papers, and, though the author has strong views, he shows himself commendably free from exaggeration or prejudice.” H. E. E.
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Eng Hist R 35:157 Ja ’20 240w
Review 3:254 S 22 ’20 400w
“Mr Scholefield’s narrative is well arranged and most interesting.”
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Spec 123:219 Ag 16 ’19 180w
“Mr Scholefield has spared no pains in consulting the best sources of information, and gives chapter and verse for his authorities. In a book of 311 pages, excluding appendices, he has produced a clear, well-arranged, temperate and accurate account, which was wanted and will be used and valued.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p331 Je 19 ’19 1400w
SCHOLL, FRANK B. Automobile owner’s guide. il *$2.50 Appleton 629.2
20–14778
“The purpose of this book is to serve as a practical guide for those who own, operate, or contemplate purchasing an automobile. The contents cover the entire field that would be of value to the owner or chauffeur in making his own repairs.... Technical terms, tables and scales have been entirely eliminated.... Since there are many different makes of cars, motors, and equipment, the functional action of all is practically the same, therefore we use for illustration only those which are used by the majority of manufacturers.” (Preface) An introductory chapter gives the history of the gasoline engine and of early automobile construction. The parts of the automobile are then taken up chapter by chapter and a Ford supplement of sixty pages occupies an appendix. There are 154 illustrations and an index.
N Y P L New Tech Bks p61 Jl ’20 50w
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R of Rs 62:336 S ’20 60w
SCOTT, ARTHUR PEARSON. Introduction to the peace treaties. *$2 (2½c) Univ. of Chicago press 940.314
20–7755
The book is an attempt at an altogether impartial statement of the causes leading to the war, and the treaties and peace conference resulting from it. The author states that he has no inside knowledge of what went on in Paris or of any unpublished documentary material, that he has relied largely on newspaper and magazine material, unsatisfactory as that may be, and that his object is to give his readers a clearer idea of what is going on in the world. “A considerable part of the book is taken up with a detailed summary of the treaty with Germany, including more or less extensive explanatory comments on many of its clauses,” (Preface) and an attempt has been made to summarize as fairly as possible the arguments on both sides. Contents: War causes and war aims; Peace plans and negotiations during the war; The peace conference; The framing of the treaty of Versailles; The supplementary treaties; The Austrian settlement; The Bulgarian settlement; Hungary; Elements of the Near-eastern settlement; Italy, the South Slavs, and the Adriatic; Public opinion and the settlement; References for additional reading; Index.
“Mr Scott’s book is an excellent illustration of the value of perspective combined with careful study of documents, as opposed to the impressions of first-hand observation. It seems to the reviewer that he has succeeded admirably in a difficult task.” C: Seymour
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Am Hist R 26:137 O ’20 320w
“The author’s comments are discriminating, unbiassed, and always helpful.”
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Am Pol Sci R 14:737 N ’20 100w
“A useful aid to the reader or voter who wishes to form intelligent opinions.”
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Booklist 16:332 Jl ’20
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Ind 103:187 Ag 14 ’20 100w
“Though the author escapes the criticism of partisanship to which Keynes, Dillon, Baker, and other commentators on the peace have been subjected, his book lacks the interest and color of theirs. A good many of the author’s comments upon treaty clauses might be questioned.” Quincy Wright
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Mississippi Valley Hist R 7:165 S ’20 480w
“A volume which may be especially commended to students and teachers.” W: MacDonald
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Nation 111:247 Ag 28 ’20 100w
“Professor Scott’s ‘Introduction to the peace treaties’ should prove an invaluable volume to students of the great settlement. Not all of Mr Scott’s conclusions can be passed without challenge. For the most part, however, Mr Scott has done his work extremely well and it was work worth doing.” E. S. Corwin
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Review 3:70 Jl 21 ’20 280w
“If the question of treaty ratification is to be one of the leading issues of the coming presidential campaign, this book will prove an invaluable source of information.”
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R of Rs 61:669 Je ’20 120w
SCOTT, CATHARINE AMY DAWSON. Rolling stone (Eng title, Against the grain). *$2 (2c) Knopf
20–13696
Harry King is an unusual boy. He is uncommonly well built and strong and active. He does his own thinking in his own way, has little use for books and the conventions, is direct and honest to a fault in his dealings with men and a little hard. But he saves a school-fellow’s life at the risk of his own. At an early age he runs away from school and sees a bit of the world and on his return learns a trade and becomes a practical engineer. But youth and strength lure him on: he becomes a foot-ball champion and a pugilist. When his family frowns upon such fame he goes to India. Returning, he enlists as a volunteer in the Boer war where his love of fair dealing leads to insubordination and he barely escapes the firing squad. Later on in New Zealand his experiences include women. He is not averse to making a fortune and plans for the future, but his innate restlessness plays with opportunities and at the age of thirty-five he is back in England, without a career and looked upon askance by his family. The reader leaves him possessed with a new craving for a settled life, a family and children of his own and haunted by the hazel eyes of a young widow.
“Mrs Dawson-Scott has created in Harry a notable character, though not a likeable one. Mrs Dawson-Scott has not the resource of style to fall back on, and her descriptive powers are not of the best. As it is written ‘The rolling stone’ is an excellent example of masculine psychology as seen by a woman. It is not an excellent portrait of a man.”
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Boston Transcript p4 Je 2 ’20 420w
“If the book has no weaknesses neither has it passion or exaltation. If it is not absurd neither is it poignant, exotic, or brilliant. It moves steadily onward, never wandering; it is competent, well-fed, without beauty of conception or expression. It is realism without passion or accuracy.”
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New Repub 23:261 Jl 28 ’20 440w
“A minute and interesting study of character.”
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N Y Times 25:70 F 8 ’20 950w
“In her latest work she has elected to adopt a masculine standpoint, and we feel that she is, as a result, less convincing.”
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Sat R 128:322 O 4 ’19 300w
“As Harry is interested merely in himself, he is not very interesting to other people. In fact, he proves himself real not by his doings—about which one is sceptical—but by boring the reader just as in real life he would have bored the people he met.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p514 S 25 ’19 600w
SCOTT, EMMETT JAY. Negro migration during the war; ed. by D: Kinley. *$1 Oxford; pa gratis Carnegie endowment for international peace 326.1
20–9134
In this volume of Preliminary economic studies issued by the Carnegie endowment for international peace, the movement of population among negroes during the war is handled by Emmett J. Scott, a member of that race and secretary-treasurer of Howard university. The introduction compares the recent migration with earlier movements of similar character. The chapters then take up: Causes of the migration; Stimulation of the movement; The spread of the movement; The call of the self-sufficient North; The draining of the black belt; Efforts to check the movement; Effects of the movement on the South; The situation in St Louis; Chicago and its environs; The situation at points in the middle West; The situation at points in the East; Remedies for relief by national organizations; Public opinion regarding the migration. There is a nine-page bibliography of books and periodicals, followed by an index.