Book Review Digest Devoted to the Valuation of Current Literature Reviews of 1920 Books (continued 42)
Reading edition
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Bookm 51:570 Jl ’20 1850w
“The style is fascinating, the temper sincere, and the argument (granting the hypotheses) convincing. But there are faults of method, prejudices of standpoint, and manipulations of material, which make the book not only a most biased interpretation of the French revolution but one of the most mischievous and malicious attacks on democracy that have come to our notice. The book is called ‘a study in democracy’; it is a studied insult to democracy from cover to cover.” D. S. Muzzey
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Nation 111:300 S 11 ’20 2200w
“Allowing for Mrs Webster’s tenderness for that old régime, to which in other respects she is only just, she deserves our devout thanks for having shown that the French revolution was not at all a democratic movement. To a large circle of younger readers who are more and more getting their knowledge of historical events from text books and novels, this volume will prove a real delight.” M. F. Egan
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N Y Times 25:10 Je 27 ’20 2350w
“She has written an interesting and ingenious survey from her own special angle, but one can not help feeling that the angle is a somewhat narrow one.”
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Review 2:653 Je 23 ’20 1300w
“Is there anything left to be said on the subject? Frankly, we thought not, and the first glance at Mrs Webster’s book seemed to confirm this opinion. Yet Mrs Webster makes good. The style of the book has no particular individuality: it is plain, straightforward and devoid of ornament. But the author is scrupulous in affording ample data for every statement made.”
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Sat R 128:386 O 25 ’19 900w
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Sat R 129:29 Ja 10 ’20 950w
“Mrs Webster, by drawing largely on Royalist and Moderate sources, supplies a much-needed corrective to the many books which glorify even the wild and wicked excesses of the revolution. Yet she goes too far in suggesting that the revolution was unnecessary and disastrous.”
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Spec 123:245 Ag 23 ’19 1700w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p402 Jl 24 ’19 100w
“Mrs Webster’s book is full of vivacious interest, and the lines of her argument are followed through the mass of detail with an artistic skill. Her ardour communicates to the reader a desire to get close to facts. But the facts may not be the same as Mrs Webster’s, for though she has read extensively and marshalled her authorities, her use, and often her choice, of them shows how strongly she is bent on proving a case. So she does not convince us that her book is the one true history of the revolution.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p443 Ag 21 ’19 1650w
Reviewed by W. C. Abbott
Yale R n s 9:879 Jl ’20 1150w
WEIGALL, ARTHUR EDWARD PEARSE BROME. Madeline of the desert. *$2 (1½c) Dodd
20–20189
Madeline had been born beyond the pale of respectable society at Port Said in Egypt; had grown up in ignorance of conventional morality and lived in open defiance of it until she was twenty-three. But there had been growing pains and a crisis came when she must either die or be reborn. Father Gregory—retired from ecclesiastical honors in England to a hermitage in the desert—and his nephew, Robin Beechcroft, the young explorer, help her to a rebirth. The former points her to her supreme need, Christ, the latter loves and makes her his wife. The story traces Madeline’s unfoldment as a woman, a thinker and a seer. She and Robin pass through trials, even tragedies, but it is Madeline’s fineness and clear-sightedness that at last saves the day for them both.
“Under its appearance of superficiality there is a quite unusual and remarkable understanding of the character of Madeline.” K. M.
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Ath p702 My 28 ’20 580w
“Mr Weigall’s novel grows weaker with the turning of pages, and there is no marvelous rising above climax after climax. Madeline, vivid at first, becomes more and more pallid as the tale progresses.”
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Boston Transcript p12 D 8 ’20 310w
“It is impossible to withhold from Mr Weigall a tribute of admiration for the amazing fluency and fertility of imagination which enable him to make a long story out of very scant material. Whether the story was worth making is another question.”
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N Y Evening Post p22 O 23 ’20 250w
“The author’s vivid pictures of Egyptian life are explained by the fact that he has lived in Egypt a great deal, and has the faculty of presenting pleasingly and convincingly that which he sees. On the whole, he has presented to the world a very readable, as well as clever, book.”
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N Y Times p22 N 21 ’20 220w
WEIGLE, LUTHER ALLAN. Talks to Sunday-school teachers. *$1.25 Doran 268
20–6997
“While much of the subject matter is in essence that contained in ‘The pupil and the teacher,’ it is given here in the form of delightful chatty chapters, supplementing the previous work. The book brings the same pleasure and information that often comes from the question period following a lecture. The first chapters deal with the pupil and seem to be repetition of much that has already appeared for the use of the teacher of religious education, though special mention should be made of chapter 12, ‘How religion grows.’ The last chapters are most suggestive, especially ‘Learning by doing’ and the ‘Dramatic method of teaching.’”—Springf’d Republican
“Professor Weigle is a trained pedagogue who has lost neither his enthusiasm, his love of youth, nor his sound common sense, and is excellently fitted to be the teacher of teachers that he proves himself to be by the test of his last book.”
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Bib World 54:648 N ’20 170w
“Written popularly and made effective for more intensive work by chapter questions and carefully chosen bibliographies.”
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Booklist 16:301 Je ’20
“The lists for further reading at the end of each chapter are excellent and quite up to date.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Jl 18 ’20 110w
WELLES, WINIFRED. Hesitant heart. *$1 Huebsch 811
20–6983
Poems reprinted from the North American Review, the Century, the Liberator, Contemporary Verse and other periodicals. Among the titles are: The hesitant heart; From a Chinese vase; The unfaithful April; Driftwood; Threnody; Love song from New England; Moonflower; Surf; Setting for a fairy story.
“Miss Welles’s is an art at times as ingenuous as Emily Dickinson’s though always classical in its impeccable taste.” R. M. Weaver
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Bookm 51:457 Je ’20 280w
“The mood of the book is April’s mood. The process by which the poems arrive at bloom is exactly the process by which April arrives at fulfilment. You can only feel the pulse of it, the subtle and mysterious thrill in it, and by that realization know without defining the loveliness of a miracle.” W. S. B.
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Boston Transcript p10 Ap 3 ’20 1800w
“Like a handful of golden pollen scattered on the wind is the little book of Winifred Welles’ poems, ‘The hesitant heart.’ Simple, fresh, luminous, of the early morning, they are as whimsical as charm itself, and as reticent in their cool distinction.”
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Freeman 1:71 Mr 31 ’20 100w
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Nation 111:247 Ag 28 ’20 70w
“Hers is a limited gamut, an obviously restricted range. Yet, within that range, her voice is pure, the art is skilful and the melodies exquisite. None of the younger singers has communicated with more charm her accents of soft delight mingled with a perturbed wistfulness. Even her more intense affirmations have a timid tenderness.” L: Untermeyer
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New Repub 23:156 Je 30 ’20 550w
“‘The hesitant heart’ is a lovely collection of fragile lyrics. Miss Welles has a deft and magical touch all her own, a slight and restrained magic, but an authentic one.”
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N Y Call p11 Ag 1 ’20 180w
“Miss Welles is no purveyor of novelties. She cannot be called original, or even inventive. Yet she has a magic of lyrical speech that gives the reader a sense of new delight and of a new personality in the world of lyric artists.”
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N Y Times 25:193 Ap 18 ’20 180w
“Her technique is much like that of Miss Millay, although she is not so mature as an artist. But this is not to say that Miss Welles has imitated Miss Millay. She is very much herself.”
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N Y Times p15 Ja 9 ’21 220w
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Springf’d Republican p9a Jl 4 ’20 70w
WELLS, CAROLYN (MRS HADWIN HOUGHTON), comp. Book of humorous verse. *$7.50 Doran 827
20–20663
This volume is intended for everyone of the human race who possesses the power of laughter. The compiler calls attention to the book as a compilation, not a collection, as no cover of one book could contain the latter. The poems are classified under the headings: Banter; The eternal feminine; Love and courtship; Satire; Cynicism; Epigrams; Burlesque; Bathos; Parody; Narrative; Tribute; Whimsey; Nonsense; Natural history; Juniors; Immortal stanzas. The book is indexed for authors, titles and first lines.
Booklist 17:147 Ja ’21
“As a whole. Miss Wells has done a most excellent piece of work that should be an addition to the library of every lover and maker of verse.”
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N Y Evening Post p3 Ja 15 ’21 520w
“Here at last is a collection of humorous lyrics, chosen and set in order by an expert anthologist, who is also an expert humorist.” Brander Matthews
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N Y Times p3 D 12 ’20 1600w
“‘The book of humorous verse’ has done in its province what Burton Stevenson’s ‘Home book of verse’ has done for all poetry.” E. L. Pearson
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Review 3:531 D 1 ’20 300w
WELLS, CAROLYN (MRS HADWIN HOUGHTON). Raspberry jam. il *$1.60 (2½c) Lippincott
20–7522
Sanford Embury is found one morning dead in bed. He was an exceptionally healthy man, and absolutely no reason can at first be discovered for his death. His proud, hot tempered wife is at once suspected, for the two had many tiffs about money matters, for although Embury was rich, it pleased his pride to give his wife no ready spending money. Detectives are called in, investigations made. No headway is gained until Fleming Stone and his irresponsible “kid” helper, Fibsy McGuire, appear on the scene. Then the mystery slowly clears, through the aid of a “spook,” a trumped up medium, a pot of raspberry jam and certain information in regard to a “human fly.” Mrs Embury is acquitted, the real murderer at once arrested, and a long delayed love comes at last into its own.
N Y Times 25:153 Ap 4 ’20 350w
Reviewed by M. A. Hopkins
Pub W 97:602 F 21 ’20 240w
Sat R 130:262 S 25 ’20 70w
“The story stirs a lively interest in the reader.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Mr 14 ’20 160w
“As is common in detective stories of this type, Miss Wells makes considerable demands on her readers’ credulity or ignorance.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p426 Jl 1 ’20 160w
WELLS, HERBERT GEORGE. Outline of history. 2v il *$10.50 Macmillan 909
20–19599
Mr Wells’ “plain history of life and mankind” (Sub-title) is in two volumes, composed of nine books, as follows: The making of our world; The making of man; The dawn of history; Judea, Greece and India; Rise and collapse of the Roman Empire; Christianity and Islam; The great Mongol empire of the land ways and the new empires of the sea ways; The age of the great powers; The next stage in history. The work has been written with the advice and editorial help of Mr Ernest Barker, Sir H. H. Johnston, Sir E. Ray Lankester, and Professor Gilbert Murray. It is illustrated with maps, time diagrams and drawings by J. F. Horrabin.
“A history of this kind is just what is wanted at the present day. There are now sufficient scientific and historical data to make the attempt possible; it is time we had a glimpse of the wood: we have had innumerable examinations of the separate trees.”
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Ath p1256 N 28 ’19 400w
“In praising so large a work, one must presumably begin with its arrangement. Arrangement is a negative quality, but a great one: it is the faculty of not muddling the reader, and Wells possesses it in a high degree. Selection is of course a more controversial topic, and here the critics can get going if they think it worth while. A third merit is the style. The surface of Wells’ English is poor, and he does not improve its effect when he tints it purple. But it does do its job. Arrangement, selection, style; so these make up the case for his ‘Outline,’ and it is an overwhelming case.” E. M. F.
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Ath p8 Jl 2 ’20 1100w
“Now for the defects, and the first of them is a serious one. Wells’ lucidity, so satisfying when applied to peoples and periods, is somehow inadequate when individuals are thrown on to the screen. The outlines are as clear as ever, but they are not the outlines of living men. He seldom has created a character who lives and a similar failure attends his historical evocations.... Such are the defects of the book; but, as the previous article indicated, they are entirely outweighed by its great merits.” E. M. F.
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Ath p42 Jl 9 ’20 1950w
“It has been a great book, finely planned, well arranged, full of vivid historical sketches and of telling raps upon the knuckles and noses of the great, but as soon as it starts for the stars its charm decreases.” E. M. F.
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Ath p690 N 19 ’20 1500w
Booklist 17:110 D ’20
“The great thing which Wells has done—and it is, unqualifiedly, a very great thing—is to state the evolutionary concept of history as a continuing, growing entity, in terms readily understandable of the common man. It is not too much to call it the most potentially formative book of our day.” H. L. Pangborn
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Bookm 52:358 Ja ’21 950w
“In his entire career Mr Wells has never written a more important book than this. It is a superlatively fascinating piece of writing, in all its details and as a whole, and it proves that the best historian is the man with imagination who has created, or who is capable of creating, real literature.” E. F. Edgett
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Boston Transcript p6 N 24 ’20 2850w
“This is the true and lasting value of the work of Wells—that he has given our world a greatest common historical denominator.” H. W. van Loon
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Dial 70:202 F ’21 720w
“History as seen through the temperament of Mr Wells is novel, piquant, and entertaining. Mr Wells has no sense of time, for he discusses events in the remote past as if they were still happening. This gives vividness to his story and truthfulness, too.... With the chapter on Buddhism the ‘Outline’ reaches its high water mark. From thence on, a startling change is noticeable. And the change is for the worse. J. S. Schapiro
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Nation 112:sup224 F 9 ’21 9250w
“There is one criticism that I should like to make. Mr Wells has written political history and overlooked economic facts.... One cannot help wishing that Mr Wells had restrained his enthusiasm a little by omitting Book 1, and thus clipping off several hundred million years from the period which he was seeking to cover. He might also have eliminated Book 2 on ‘The making of man.’ I am glad that there was someone in the English-speaking world brave enough and earnest enough and with enough leisure time to write it.” Scott Nearing
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N Y Call p8 N 29 ’20 1500w
“It is eminently readable. Mr Wells could not write dull if he tried to. The first impression made by his volumes is deepened by their study. It is that Mr Wells has undertaken a task too great for his powers and equipment. Mr Wells has, of course, read widely and industriously. Yet his sources are plainly meagre. They are almost exclusively English.”
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N Y Times p1 N 14 ’20 2550w
“Certain sections—the early chapters upon the origin of the earth and of man upon the earth, the part dealing with the rise and spread of Buddhism, for examples—are excellent when read by themselves.” E. L. Pearson
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Review 3:558 D 8 ’20 60w
“Most of us think of history only in terms of the records of particular nations, races or periods. Mr Wells ventures on a far bolder conception—viewing all human history as one whole. If the work did nothing more than to fix definitely this new viewpoint it would be worth while.”
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R of Rs 63:111 Ja ’21 220w
“High-school history teachers and students will read the work with profit. They certainly come more nearly being world-history than any previous work in the field.”
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School R 29:155 F ’21 900w
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Spec 122:698 N 22 ’19 190w
“It is good to take a broad view of history, and Mr Wells has done a real service to his generation by writing this entertaining ‘Outline.’ He has found a talented illustrator in Mr Horrabin, whose numerous maps and diagrams and reconstructions of extinct mammals are very attractive and helpful. There are also many photographs, well chosen and well reproduced.”
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Spec 124:798 Je 12 ’20 300w
“There is room for Mr Wells’s ‘Outline of history,’ for the hand of the specialist has lain heavy on this branch of scholarship, and the books which give a bird’s-eye view of world history are few and not very accessible.”
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Springf’d Republican p15 D 21 ’19 380w
Springf’d Republican p13a F 8 ’20 1000w (Reprinted from London Nation)
“The ‘History’ is a remarkable one: there should be more books as readable and provocative and daring.” P. B. McDonald
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Springf’d Republican p7a N 21 ’20 1100w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p693 N 27 ’19 880w
“Magnificent as is the panorama which Mr Wells unfolds, the details of it are sometimes questionable.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p415 Jl 1 ’20 1050w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p612 S 23 ’20 2000w
“Mr Wells’s work should find its way into all but the most bigoted sectarian colleges and even into the schools, as supplementary reading for both teacher and pupil.” J. H. Robinson
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Yale R n s 10:412 Ja ’21 2650w
WELSH, JAMES C. Underworld. *$1.75 (1½c) Stokes
20–17082
A story of the British coal industry by the author of “Songs of a miner.” While yet a mere boy Robert Sinclair sits up long past his bed time to listen to the talk between his father and Robert Smillie, and it is the inspiration of that remembered conversation that sends him far in the growing labor movement. Robert goes into the pit at twelve years and on that very day there is an accident in the mine that kills his father and brother and leaves him his mother’s chief support. The story pictures the hard conditions in a disorganized industry, the tyranny of the foreman and his control of the private lives of the men, and the discouraging efforts to form a union. Robert loses the girl he loves and in the end meets his father’s fate in the mine while trying to save others. His mother is left desolate and the author’s final plea is to the men to stand firm together and protect their women folk from such tragedies.
“James Welsh, the miner, has rough-hewn a rather powerful and readable tract.”
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N Y Evening Post p22 O 23 ’20 230w
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Sat R 129:477 My 22 ’20 180w
“As he commands a fluent and forcible pen, complete mastery of the dialect, and an unflinching realism in the treatment of details, his work claims attention as well as respect.”
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Spec 124:765 Je 5 ’20 670w
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p202 Mr 25 ’20 170w
WENDELL, BARRETT. Traditions of European literature, from Homer to Dante. *$6 Scribner 809
20–20996
This book has developed from lectures given at Harvard between 1904 and 1917. The author says: “Years of dealing with Harvard students had shown me not only that Americans now know little of the literary traditions of our ancestral Europe, but also that they are seldom aware even of the little they know.” (Introd.) He adopts the point of view of “English-speaking Americans of the twentieth century of the Christian era” and concerns himself with those traditions of literature “which, we need not ask why, have chanced among ourselves to survive the times of their origin.” His task is somewhat simplified by the fact that during the period covered, from Homer to Dante, the traditions “originating in the primal European civilisation of Greece, and extending throughout imperial dominion of Rome, remained for many centuries a common possession of all Europe.” It has been possible therefore to treat the subject as a whole. This is done in five books: The traditions of Greece; The traditions of Rome; The traditions of Christianity; The traditions of Christendom; The traditions of the middle ages. Bibliographical suggestions occupy twenty-three pages and there is an index.
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Booklist 17:147 Ja ’21
“Nothing brings a keener joy to the heart of a conscientious reviewer than to have in his hands to appraise and to praise a book which seems to him altogether good—worthy in theme, comprehensive in conception, shapely in plan and skillful in execution. This joy is mine now that I have read this admirable example of interpretive scholarship.” Brander Matthews
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N Y Times p3 D 26 ’20 1750w
WEST, WILLIS MASON. Story of modern progress; with a preliminary survey of earlier progress. (Allyn and Bacon’s ser. of school histories) il $2 Allyn 940.2
20–7751
This work is a successor to the author’s “The modern world” written with a redistribution of time to give more space and emphasis to the period since 1870. The author says, “I have taken glad advantage of the chance to write a new book, better suited, I hope, to elementary high-school students; and I have used the treatment in the ‘Modern world’ only when I have found it simpler and clearer than any change I could make today.” (Foreword) An unusual amount of space has been given to English history, while American history, which is sure of full treatment elsewhere, is omitted “except where the connection of events demands its introduction.” Contents: Introduction: a survey of earlier progress; Age of the reformation, 1520–1648; England in the seventeenth century; The age of Louis XIV and Frederick II, 1648–1789; The French revolution; Reaction, 1815–1848; England and the industrial revolution; Continental Europe, 1848–1871; England, 1815–1914; Western Europe, 1871–1914; Slav Europe to 1914; The war and the new age. There is a list of books for high schools, followed by an index and pronouncing vocabulary.
“This present ‘Story of modern progress’ is consoling in a measure, but also provoking. The writer has some straight views, then again, the three-hundred-year-old tradition enfolds him.”
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Cath World 111:824 S ’20 550w
“For a one-year course in modern European history there is possibly no better text on the market.”
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School R 28:549 S ’20 280w
WESTERVELT, GEORGE CONRAD, and others. Triumph of the N.C.’s. il *$3 Doubleday 629.
20–7597
The N.C.’s are flying boats as distinguished from hydroaeroplanes and the present volume contains the story of their design and building and of their first achievements. In part 1 Commander G. C. Westervelt tells “How the flying boats were designed and built”—the immense number of details that had to be worked out, the numerous tests that had to be conducted, and the many troublesome features that had to be corrected. Part 2—The “lame duck” wins—is Lieut.-Commander A. C. Read’s story of the transatlantic flight of the N. C. 4. Part 3 contains the log of the N. C. 3 by Commander H. C. Richardson, who also gives an account of previous attempts at transatlantic flight.
Booklist 16:335 Jl ’20
“The story of the crossing is told in lively and readable narrative, with picturesque details and with unassuming modesty.”
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N Y Times 25:22 Jl 18 ’20 500w
WESTON, GEORGE. Mary minds her business. il *$1.75 (2½c) Dodd
20–4960
Of the long line of Josiahs of the firm of Josiah Spencer & son, successful manufacturers, Mary’s father was the last. His cousin, Stanley Woodward, had long been figuring on the eventuality of Josiah’s demise, to get entire control of the business. But he had not counted on Mary. His first shock came when Mary had herself chosen president of the corporation and proceeded, with the coaching of a friendly judge and business councilor to run things for herself. And run them she did in a most revolutionary manner. She employed women to such an extent that the factory was finally worked entirely by women on a greater level of efficiency than ever. Other reforms went hand in hand—a rest room, nurseries, kindergarten, laundry, an orchestra of one hundred pieces all played by women. Of course there was fighting to do, Uncle Stanley to be over-ruled, his son Burdon to be shown his place. When the scheme was out of the woods and the most pressing suitor married off, the woman in Mary was alone and aweary and it was then that Archey Forbes, the construction engineer, came into his own.
Booklist 16:315 Je ’20
“The light story has sometimes, under Mr Weston’s pen, developed a diaphanous quality, which has made us wonder why it was worth writing at all. Now in surprising manner Mr Weston has discovered some ideas—not very new ones perhaps, but nevertheless things of substance.”
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Boston Transcript p4 Je 2 ’20 200w
“Brightly written, full of action, and with a love interest kept discreetly subordinate to that of the extremely efficient Mary’s management of the factory, this story also has the merit of dealing with a question which many will think has been thoroughly answered—the proper sphere of women in this age.”
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N Y Times 25:30 Je 27 ’20 400w
WEYL, MAURICE. Happy woman. *$1.75 (2c) Kennerley
20–6129
The distinctive feature of this story is its character drawing. There is Henry Hardwick, a man of decided ability but with just that grain of iron lacking in his make-up that would make him a success in his enterprises and the master of his domestic circumstance. Fred Pemberton’s efficiency, on the other hand, verges on hardness and almost wrecks his love-life, deep and true though it is. The two leading women of the tale are likewise opposites, but both in the end can claim the title. Ruth Bernstein, proud, reticent, an unusually able business woman, but feminine in the best sense when off guard, is happy when she yields to her love for Fred Pemberton. Dowdy, voluble, irresponsible Mrs Hardwick is happy when she discovers that her “gift of gab” can be put to good use in swaying and winning admiration from an audience.
“‘The happy woman’ is that rather unusual thing—a genuinely realistic novel.”
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N Y Times 25:1 Mr 7 ’20 850w
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N Y Times 25:190 Ap 18 ’20 50w
WHALE, GEORGE. British airships: past, present and future. il *$2 (4c) Lane 629.1
20–9651
Without attempting a lengthy and highly technical dissertation on aerostatics the book briefly describes the main principles underlying airship construction. It then gives a general history of the development of the airship to the present day before taking up the British airship, which had been practically neglected prior to the twentieth century. The contents, with many illustrations and charts are: Early airships and their development to the present day; British airships built by private firms; British army airships; Early days of the naval airship section—Parseval airships, Astratorres type, etc.; Naval airships: the nonrigids; Naval airships: the rigids; The work of the airship in the world war; The future of airships.
“A useful account, well illustrated.”
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Ath p353 Mr 12 ’20 40w
“It is a pity that the usefulness of the book is hampered by the absence of an index.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p717 D 4 ’19 80w
WHARTON, ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH.[2] In old Pennsylvania towns. il *$5 (6c) Lippincott 974.8
21–155
The author describes a motor trip thru Pennsylvania, on which Lancaster, Lebanon, Gettysburg, Carlisle, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barré, Bethlehem and other towns were visited. Philadelphia and Germantown are omitted, as too well known, for it is the author’s purpose to call attention to the quaint and unusual. The pictures show many of the interesting old Pennsylvania houses.
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Boston Transcript p5 D 29 ’20 460w
“The illustrations will delight all who are interested in early American architecture.” M. K. Reely
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Pub W 98:1891 D 18 ’20 300w
WHARTON, MRS EDITH NEWBOLD (JONES). Age of innocence. *$2 (1½c) Appleton
20–18615
The milieu of the story is New York “society” in the early seventies. It describes the old aristocracy who took life “without effusion of blood,” who “dreaded scandal more than disease,” who “placed decency above courage” and who considered “nothing more ill-bred than ‘scenes.’” Newland Archer was one of the few whose vision penetrated this crust of conventionality and he fell in love with the one off-color member of the tribe just as he had engaged himself to its most perfect product. Ellen Olenska, wife of a profligate European count, had left her husband and returned to America at this critical moment and Archer hastens his marriage to May Welland before he becomes too deeply involved with Ellen. Ellen’s fine sense of honor and of human kindliness, on the other hand, holds him to his compact and puts the ocean between herself and Archer by returning to Europe. Almost thirty years later, Archer has the satisfaction of seeing his own children step out freely and joyously on the road that had been closed to him.
“The time and the scene together suit Mrs Wharton’s talent to a nicety.” K. M.
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Ath p810 D 10 ’20 620w
Booklist 17:161 Ja ’21
“On the book’s enduring quality it is idle to speculate. The slight theme beaten out with delicate care is the fashion of the day, and the best examples will no doubt remain. What is certain, however, is that a multitude of readers today will read with a well-justified delight this picture of New York in the ‘seventies.’” A. E. W. Mason
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Bookm 52:360 D ’20 780w
“As a matter of fact, the author of ‘The age of innocence’ is not the Mrs Wharton of ‘The valley of decision,’ ‘The house of mirth,’ ‘Ethan Frome’ or of any one of the several volumes of short stories with which her reputation was made. She is the Mrs Wharton—with some of her skill and much of her knowledge of life remaining—of a new era that demands yellow pages in its fiction as well as yellow newspapers in its journalism. Until she becomes again the Mrs Wharton of a decade ago, she certainly cannot maintain her once high place among the novelists of today.” E. F. Edgett
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Boston Transcript p4 O 23 ’20 1200w
“One must occasionally be grateful in a day devoted, on the one hand, to detail, and on the other to a futuristic sketchiness, for a literary gift as serene as Mrs Wharton’s. Her new novel, ‘The age of innocence,’ is the perfect fruit of an austere and disciplined art.” L. M. R.
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Freeman 2:358 D 22 ’20 240w
“The interest of the story lies, not with the doings of the rather wooden characters of the book, but with the picture it purports to give of New York some fifty years ago. Here the author is clearly at fault in portraying a society of such portentous dullness and also in representing the town as devoid of anything else. The book is full of anachronisms which are sure to be noticed by old New-Yorkers.”
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Lit D p52 F 5 ’21 880w
“‘The age of innocence’ is a masterly achievement. In lonely contrast to almost all the novelists who write about fashionable New York, she knows her world. In lonely contrast to the many who write about what they know without understanding it or interpreting it, she brings a superbly critical disposition to arrange her knowledge in significant forms.” C. V. D.
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Nation 111:510 N 3 ’20 580w
“Someone told me that ‘The age of innocence’ was ‘a dull book about New York society in the seventies.’ This is amusing. It is, undoubtedly, a quiet book, and quietness is dullness to the jazz-minded. It is really a book of unsparing perception and essential passionateness, full of necessary reserve, but at the same time full of verity.” F. H.
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New Repub 24:301 N 17 ’20 1450w
“Mrs Wharton’s story-telling method is precise and neat, and it is her own. What surprises us, however, in ‘The age of innocence’ is the pervasive glint of oblique criticism that dazzles our eyes from almost every page. And that criticism is no wise lessened because it happens to be leveled against New York society of the ’70s. Is New York, or America, so different in the year 1920?” Pierre Loving
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N Y Call p10 D 12 ’20 1100w
“A fine novel, beautifully written, ‘big’ in the best sense, which has nothing to do with size, a credit to American literature—for if its author is cosmopolitan, her novel, as much as ‘Ethan Frome,’ is a fruit of our soil.” H: S. Canby
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N Y Evening Post p3 N 6 ’20 1100w
“By the side of the absolute mastery of plot, character and style displayed in her latest novel, ‘The house of mirth’ seems almost crude. Edith Wharton is a writer who brings glory on the name America, and this is her best book. It is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and looks like a permanent addition to literature.” W: L. Phelps
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N Y Times p1 O 17 ’20 1950w
“Mrs Wharton’s new novel is in workmanship equal to her very best previous work. In its adequate dealing with a large motif this is a book of far more than ephemeral value.” R. D. Townsend
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Outlook 126:653 D 8 ’20 620w
“The plot is unobvious, delicately developed, with a fine finale that exquisitely satisfies one’s sense of fitness, and as always with Mrs Wharton, the drama of character is greater than that of event. One revels recognizingly in her clean-cut distinction of style, the inerrant aptness of adjectives, the vivisective phrase.” Katharine Perry
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Pub W 98:1195 O 16 ’20 520w
“The limitations of the present note on Mrs Wharton’s new story may be revealed by the confession that the annotator’s delight in it as a picture is greatly tempered by his distrust of its leading male figure. I don’t much like this Newland Archer, and I don’t quite believe in his existence; and this doubt curdles my faith in the integrity of the story as a whole.” H. W. Boynton
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Review 3:476 N 17 ’20 1100w
“From a literary point of view, this story is on a level with Mrs Wharton’s best work. As a retrospect of the early ‘seventies, it is less satisfactory, being marred by numerous historical lapses.”
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Sat R 130:458 D 4 ’20 360w
“The picture is so finished, so convincing, and withal so entertaining, that the study of these pages is recommended to all students of manners.”
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Spec 126:55 Ja 8 ’21 720w
“The greatest defect in the book is that of the character of Ellen, whom her creator constantly asserts to be charming, but who does not in the least produce that effect on the reader.” Lilian Whiting
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Springf’d Republican p9a D 5 ’20 720w
“Altogether Mrs Wharton has accomplished one of the best pieces of her work so far. As for her picture of the times, how is any of us over here to criticize it, beyond saying that it is full of vivacity and of character and of colour, and that there is not a point in it which seems to be false?”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p775 N 25 ’20 1200w
“This theme, the contrast of times and manners, dealt with in some of her short stories, is one Mrs Wharton handles with skill.”
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Wis Lib Bul 16:239 D ’20 90w
WHARTON, MRS EDITH NEWBOLD (JONES). In Morocco. il *$4 Scribner 916.4
20–17098
“In 1918 Mrs Wharton, under the guidance of a French military mission, in a French army motor, spent a month traveling in Morocco. Her account of her travels in a country without a guide book is for the benefit of the travelers who she feels sure will flood the land when the war is over. All the properties of an Arabian Nights tale are here.” (Nation) “In the space of one month a military automobile carried her from Tangier to Marrakech, from Rabat to Fez. She entered the sacred city of Moulay Idriss, the surviving stronghold of the Idrissite rule; she walked the streets of ancient Salé, the ‘Phoenician counting house and breeder of Barbary pirates’; she examined the ruins of Volubilis, the African outpost of the Roman legions; and she enjoyed the hospitality of his Majesty the Sultan Moulay Youssef and his favorites in ‘the happiest harem in Morocco.’” (N Y Times)
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Booklist 17:68 N ’20
“Edith Wharton’s ‘In Morocco’ is a model of restrained and rounded prose, as well as a vivid picture of oriental richness.” Margaret Ashmun
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Bookm 52:344 D ’20 60w
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Boston Transcript p4 D 22 ’20 920w
“‘In Morocco’ adds another swiftly-told, graceful, vivid, and yet informative travel book to Mrs Wharton’s globe-trotting shelf.”
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Dial 70:231 F ’21 50w
“The best thing a returned traveler can do is to give you not facts but atmosphere. Edith Wharton in ‘In Morocco’ does this for you excellently well, partly because she is so impersonal, never intruding her own reactions, simply bringing up the scene around you with all its blinding sunlight, desert heat and vivid colors.”
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Ind 104:242 N 13 ’20 170w
Reviewed by Irita Van Doren
Nation 111:479 O 27 ’20 680w
“The combination of authenticated facts and illuminating comment makes her book fascinating.”
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N Y Evening Post p18 N 13 ’20 150w
“The publication of ‘In Morocco,’ by Mrs Wharton, is practically simultaneous with that of her most recent novel, ‘The age of innocence.’ Both of these books add security to their author’s position as one of the foremost contemporary writers of English prose. Never before has Mrs Wharton enjoyed so ideal an opportunity to display her gifts of colorful description as she does in this volume.” B. R. Redman
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N Y Times p9 O 31 ’20 980w
“Nothing seen by her sensitive, unsparing eye is omitted, and her nervous style never fails to convey the effect at which she aims.”
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Sat R 130:339 O 23 ’20 360w
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Spec 125:541 O 23 ’20 200w
“The duration of her visit—one month—was fortunately too short for her to carry out her intention of writing a guide-book. One writes ‘fortunately,’ for her book would have lost in broad suggestiveness far more than it would have gained from precision in detail. With her knowledge of other countries and peoples, her sensitiveness, her gift of vivid description, and her unobtruded skill in ordered presentation, she does more than one would have thought possible to convey what was suddenly revealed to her eyes to those who will never see it with their own.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p649 O 7 ’20 1200w
WHEAT, GEORGE SEAY, ed.[2] Municipal landing fields and air ports. il *$1.75 Putnam 629.1
20–22004
The book is a compilation with chapters by the chief of the army air service, General Menoher, the director of naval aviation Captain Craven and their officers in charge of landing field operations. The most acute and immediate problem now facing commercial aeronautics is the need for flying routes and landing fields. It is the object of the book to present all that this involves in concrete form. Besides illustrations, diagrams, a map and an appendix containing a list of landing fields on file in the office of the chief of air service, the contents are: The need for landing fields; The present plight of flight; How to construct a field; Aircraft hangers; Aerial routes; Naval air ports; Airplanes and seaplanes.
WHEELER, EVERETT PEPPERRELL. Lawyer’s study of the Bible; its answer to the questions of today. *$1.50 Revell
19–19947
“Mr Wheeler’s book is really a study of life, and he uses the Bible in interpreting life. His chapter titles indicate this characteristic of his volume: they are such as The presence of God in the soul of man; Prayer; Socialism; War; Labor, capital, and strikes; Immortality. Incidentally he asks what light does the Bible throw on these problems?”—Outlook
Boston Transcript p6 D 24 ’19 550w
Outlook 124:119 Ja 21 ’20 220w
“Perhaps the most important feature for the average reader is the adaptation of legal procedure into rules for the study of the Bible.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 Mr 18 ’20 180w
WHIBLEY, CHARLES. Literary studies. *$3 Macmillan 820.4
20–1521
“Five of these eight studies are from the ‘Cambridge history of English literature.’ They deal with phases of literature in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries. The others are on Rogues and vagabonds of Shakespeare’s time (a chapter in ‘Shakespeare’s England,’ 1916), Sir Walter Raleigh (from Blackwood’s), and Jonathan Swift, a Leslie Stephen lecture at Cambridge, 1917.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup N 13 ’19
“Mr Whibley is as readable as ever.”
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Ath p1241 N 21 ’19 70w
“He has the first requisite of a critic: interest in his subject, and ability to communicate an interest in it. His defects are both of intellect and feeling. He has no dissociative faculty. There were very definite vices and definite shortcomings and immaturities in the literature he admires; and as he is not the person to tell us of the vices and shortcomings, he is not the person to lay before us the work of absolutely the finest quality.” T. S. E.
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Ath p1332 D 12 ’19 1350w
Reviewed by Augustine Birrell
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Nation 111:159 Ag 7 ’20 20w
“Mr Whibley, by being included among the journalists, dignifies journalism. His way is not that of the headline, nor are his literary manners those of the siren in a fog—a not unfair description of much that appears in the journal to which he is a weekly contributor it?) acquired the habit of writing for the sake of filling a column.”
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Sat R 129:61 Ja 17 ’20 650w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p653 N 13 ’19 60w
“It is very convenient to have these essays detached from the larger volumes in which they first appeared. Here they express the author’s own mind, they support and answer one another, not dressed and drilled by an editor in company not of their own choice. Here there is harmony among them.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p691 N 27 ’19 2000w
WHIPPLE, GUY MONTROSE. Classes for gifted children. (School and home education monographs) $1.25 Public-school 371.9
19–14686
Detailed account of an experiment successfully carried out in the year 1917 in the public school of Urbana, Illinois, consisting of selecting and training especially gifted, or super-average children. Fifteen pupils from the fifth grade, also fifteen from the sixth, constituted the special class. Of these thirty, it was found eight had been wrongly selected as gifted. The remaining twenty-two completed a two years’ course in one, without forcing or fatigue, in addition to gaining certain cultural advantages. Through tests applied, and results observed, a more reliable standard of selecting children than that of teachers’ marks was evolved. The book includes an analytical study of talent in drawing, with an annotated bibliography, and it closes with a partial bibliography on gifted children and education. Dr Whipple, formerly professor of education, University of Illinois, is at present professor of applied psychology, Carnegie institute of technology.
WHITAKER, ALBERT CONSER. Foreign exchange. *$5 (2c) Appleton 332.4
20–1958
The book, the author suggests, will serve the double purpose of a practical business manual, and a treatise in economics. “Stated briefly, the subjects of study in this volume are the methods or proceedings and the forms or documents of foreign-trade settlement, banking, and financing. Belonging with these, the international movement of gold and the measures taken to influence it are examined at length.” (Preface) A partial list of the contents is: Means of payment and commercial paper; The negotiability of commercial paper; Discount and interest; Commercial banking; The rates of exchange; The bank credit and letter of credit; Foreign money market factors; Speculation in exchange; The mint price and the market price of gold; Standard money; Monetary systems of the leading nations; Specie shipments; Addendum and index.
“This volume is probably in many ways the most satisfactory that has appeared up to the present time on foreign exchange.” M. J. Shugrue
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Am Econ R 10:370 Je ’20 450w
R of Rs 61:447 Ap ’20 120w
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Springf’d Republican p13a Ap 18 ’20 80w
WHITAKER, CHARLES HARRIS. Joke about housing. *$2 Jones, Marshall 331.83
20–6282
Housing is here treated as a problem of land values. The remedy for present conditions is “for the state to put an end to the frightful waste involved in our present riotous development of land, and thus make the house a stable element of our national life, free from the destructive effects of speculation in land which forces speculation in building and which always brings communal disaster in its train.” The subject is discussed in seven chapters: Why do we have houses? The house and the home—a world program; Houses and wages; The employer and the housing question; The two plants; What are the possible ways out of the dilemma in housing? The general problem of land control. In the appendixes two prize essays on the solution of the housing problem are reprinted. The author is editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects.
“The style in which the book is written should make this book one of the most popular works on housing. Like all books devoted to the presentation and emphasis of one fundamental idea the work suffers from lack of perspective in so far as its use as a work upon which a thoroughly constructive housing program could be built.” Carol Aronovici
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Am J Soc 26:244 S ’20 370w
Booklist 16:301 Je ’20
Reviewed by L: Mumford
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Freeman 1:501 Ag 4 ’20 440w
“Some will no doubt assert that he lays too much stress upon the idea that the solution hangs upon the disallowance of speculation in land. Possibly this single subject is over stressed. But relative emphasis is a matter of little importance. What is of importance is that the subject of land and profit and speculative adventuring has been intimately connected with housing in the sense of cause and effect. The importance of this change of base, so to speak, in approaching the problem can not be overrated.” F. L. A.
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J Am Inst of Architects 8:342 S ’20 1050w
N Y Times 25:268 My 23 ’20 1000w
“The book is written from a full heart and with sympathetic understanding for the aspirations of common folks; it is one of the most readable tracts from the ‘left wing’ of the housing movement that we have seen.” B. L.
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Survey 44:253 My 15 ’20 360w
WHITE, BENJAMIN.[2] Gold, its place in the economy of mankind. il $1 Pitman 669.2
20–21980
In the volume of the Common commodities and industries series devoted to gold, chapters take up: Its appreciation—ancient and modern; Its properties and distribution; The production of early times; The production of the nineteenth century; Present production and prospects; The evolution of British coinage; The mintage of the world; The gold standard; The movements of gold; Stocks; Industrial use; Gold and the great war. There are illustrations, tables, an index and a brief list of works consulted.
“The tables should be of interest to students of commercial geography and economics.”
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Nature 105:774 Ag 19 ’20 80w
WHITE, BENJAMIN. Silver, its intimate association with the daily life of man. il $1 Pitman 669.2
(Eng ed 18–801)
In this volume of Pitman’s common commodities and industries the author treats his subject under three heads; Production; Industrial consumption; Utility as money, past and future. There are several illustrations and tables and two folding charts. Some of the tables are based on the annual reports of the director of the United States mint. There is an index.
“Contains much of service to teachers and students.”
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Nature 105:774 Ag 19 ’20 60w
WHITE, MRS GRACE (MILLER). Storm country Polly. il *$1.75 (2c) Little
20–8242
The scene of the story is a squatter colony on the shores of Lake Cayuga. The colony is known as Silent City and Jeremiah Hopkins is its unofficial mayor. His daughter Polly is the story’s heroine. Polly, the one person in Evelyn Robertson’s confidence, knows the story of Evelyn’s secret marriage to Oscar Bennett. Evelyn desires release, for she is now in love with Marc MacKenzie, the man making war on the squatters, and Bennett will grant it only on condition that Polly agrees to marry him. And Evelyn, who might intercede with MacKenzie, promises to do so if Polly will pay the price, but Polly cannot, for she is in love with Robert Percival, Evelyn’s cousin. Marc carries out his threats. Daddy Hopkins is sent to jail, wee Jerry is torn from Polly’s arms and her love is turned to hate. But not for long and love triumphs all round in the end.
“A more apt title for the book would have been ‘Storm country Pollyanna,’ for the leading figure in the novel is so good that it almost hurts to think of her. In spite of the archaic construction and material of the story, it manages to sustain a certain amount of interest.”
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N Y Times 25:252 My 16 ’20 200w
WHITE, SAMUEL ALEXANDER. Ambush. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday
20–11893
In the days when the Hudson’s Bay company, north of Lake Superior, is fighting two rival fur trading companies, Paul Carlisle is factor of one of their most important posts. In addition to his never-ending disturbances with the Free traders and the Northwest Fur company, his position is further complicated by the fact that he is in love with Joan Wayne, daughter of the Free trader’s chief. And as if being his business rival were not enough, Ralph Wayne is in addition Paul’s bitter personal enemy, for a reason which Paul at first can not understand. But the cause of this enmity is made clear to him presently by Richelieu, the third party in this three-cornered rivalry, the manager of the Northwest Fur company, and also in love with Joan. Eventually Paul wins out both in business and love, after a series of exciting and dramatic events.
Booklist 17:75 N ’20
WHITE, SAMUEL ALEXANDER. Foaming fore shore. il *$1.50 (2½c) Doubleday
20–16344
A tale of the sea. Cap’n Walter Taylor is a fisherman in Newfoundland waters, but becomes a fugitive as the result of breaking some of the fishing regulations. He takes refuge in the Magdalen Islands and there finds Madeline Boucher, with whom he speedily falls in love. But Jacques Beauport, his hereditary enemy, as his father before him had hated him, has been on the field first, and considers Madeline engaged to him. He seeks Taylor out to return him to justice, but Taylor has no idea of tamely submitting to this, and the chase grows exciting before its finish. Finally a decision of the Hague tribunal puts Taylor in the right, but not before Beauport has lost his life in his spiteful attempt to make Taylor suffer. The story is full of descriptions of fishing and sailing in the turbulent northern waters.
WHITE, STEWART EDWARD. Killer. il *$1.75 (1c) Doubleday
20–9477
“The killer,” which opens this collection, is a story of novelette length. It is a story of the old West with a central character whose malignity and propensity for killing extends even to birds and insects. He never kills men, but has only to nod to one of his Mexican servitors and the desired deed is accomplished. How a reckless young cowboy took a dare and asked for a night’s lodging at his ranch and what followed form the substance of the story. Two shorter tales, The road agent and The tide, come next and the remainder of the book is taken up with three descriptive essays reminiscent of Mr White’s earlier work in “The forest.” The titles are: Climbing for goats; Moisture, a trace; The ranch.
Booklist 16:351 Jl ’20
“‘The killer,’ the first story in Stewart Edward White’s new book, is crammed with action, exciting, unexpected, mysterious; in the last story, ‘The ranch,’ nothing happens at all and yet the chances are that you will read them both with interest and joy. The moral of which of course is that the important thing about a tale is the way you tell it.”
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Ind 104:66 O 9 ’20 150w
“The essays in the volume are entirely delightful.”
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N Y Times 25:237 My 9 ’20 550w
“Mr White knows the old land of the cowboys, desert, ranches, and border raiding settlements as do few writers of the present day.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Je 20 ’20 380w
“Mr White belongs to the school of American literature which has been more popular than any other in this country principally because we ourselves have nothing similar to it. From the point of view of construction his stories are, as he himself allows, irregular, but for sheer gustiness they are hard to equal.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p586 S 9 ’20 360w
WHITE, STEWART EDWARD. Rose dawn. *$1.90 (1c) Doubleday
20–21290
This novel follows “Gold” and “The grey dawn” and completes Mr White’s California trilogy. It is a story of the transition period of the eighties when the great ranchos of the cattle era began to give place to irrigation and the small fruit farm, and pictures the land boom that heralded the change. It opens with a fiesta at Corona del Monte, the rancho of Colonel Peyton, an old time Californian, who with his wife, Allie, dispenses hospitality to all comers with the high-handed manners of the old days. Other characters are Brainerd, the easterner who experiments with irrigation on a small scale, foreseeing the future of the country from a scientific point of view, and Patrick Boyd, who recognizes its financial future. The romance of the story develops between Daphne Brainerd and Kenneth Boyd, and the plot turns on the rallying of all the colonel’s friends, including Sing Toy, his cook, to save Corona del Monte. The story ran as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post.
“Mr White has always written good books, but he has never written as good a novel as ‘The rose dawn.’ Incidentally it is by far the best of his California trilogy.” G. M. H.
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Boston Transcript p7 N 13 ’20 440w
“The book is written by one who loves to write. We have the leisurely style of the Victorians. The writer goes into byways of description and character drawing, forcing us to his mood. In the art of description he is unusually gifted. One could not imagine this book dramatized, the action is of so little importance. The story, nevertheless, is delightful.”
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N Y Evening Post p10 O 30 ’20 300w
“In this sequel to ‘Gold’ and ‘The grey dawn,’ there is all the charm, scenic coloring and clean-cut delineation of character which distinguished the earlier works.”
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N Y Times p23 O 31 ’20 380w
“With much to commend it as narrative and as descriptive of California, ‘The rose dawn’ is an addition to the White novels that many readers will welcome.”
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Springf’d Republican p9a D 5 ’20 150w
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Wis Lib Bul 16:239 D ’20 90w
WHITE, WILLIAM ALANSON. Thoughts of a psychiatrist on the war and after. $1.75 Hoeber 940.3
19–15865
“The author sees in the social upheavals incident to the war and after merely a reflection on a huge and unprecedented scale of the phenomena which the psychiatrist encounters daily in frustrated individual lives. It is because of this that he endeavors to apply some of the psychological principles which have been found to be of help in adjusting individual lives for the purpose of a better understanding of the changes that have come with the war and as an aid to their adjustment.”—Survey
“The brevity of the book will make it difficult for readers unacquainted with psychoanalytic literature. If it leads some of these into the more extended discussions of the psychology of war it will accomplish what doubtless was the purpose of the author.” E. R. Groves
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Am J Soc 26:238 S ’20 150w
Reviewed by A. R. Hale
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Freeman 2:333 D 15 ’20 650w
“The psychiatrist adds his hope to the hopes of the advocates of a league of nations that shall make it possible to outgrow war, as men in socialized communities have outgrown their older, cruder ways. Such a confirmation of our political hopes by scientific analysis is encouraging; and Dr White maintains his thesis with skill and interest.”
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Nation 110:114 Ja 24 ’20 650w
“The book is an interesting contribution to individual and social psychology and is written with the lucidity characteristic of the author. It ought to prove of considerable help to those interested in the problems of individual and social maladjustment.” Bernard Glueck
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Survey 44:307 My 29 ’20 360w
WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON. Hidden trails. il *$1.90 (1½c) Doubleday
20–12058
This tale starts merrily with two wild west killings before the twentieth page, and whiskey and shots follow one another briskly thruout the book. Johnny Ramsay, “an impulsive young man of uncertain temper,” is the hero. He undertakes to earn the reward offered for the capture of the bandits who are making the life of Sunset county exciting at the time. He has two pals in partnership with him in his private detective work, Racey Dawson and Telescope Laguerre, but to Johnny belongs most of the credit. The bandits prove to be a large band, and it is no easy job to round them all up, but Johnny very nearly accomplishes it. His life is not always safe; once he comes perilously near being lynched, but thanks to a girl, he is spared. The tale is certainly not lacking in adventure, with a dash of romance added.
“There is a clever, though somewhat involved plot which keeps the reader guessing. The dialect and style seem crude in spots. On the order of ‘The Virginian,’ though not so well done.”
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Booklist 17:161 Ja ’21
“Though the story possesses a definite human appeal, is entertaining, and contains several suggestive bits of landscape description, it is not done with deftness or a sure touch.” L. B.
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Boston Transcript p10 D 8 ’20 430w
“It shows so firm a touch, such sure and skillful handling of materials and so good an eye for local color that it bespeaks for Mr White a cordial welcome to the realms of authorship and gives hopeful promise of his future work.”
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N Y Times p23 Ag 8 ’20 300w
WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON. Lynch lawyers. il *$1.75 (1½c) Little
20–625
A story of the wild West opening with a stage coach robbery. The occurrence is one of a chain of daring deeds and, much to the discomfort of Red Kane, the evidence seems to point to a recently arrived “nester,” Ben Lorimer. At first sight Red had fallen hopelessly in love with Lorimer’s daughter Dot and he knows that a man who takes a stand against her father will have no chance with the girl. He protects the father from a lynching mob, is shot and nursed back to health by the girl. Eventually after much action and many complications the mystery of Lorimer’s past is cleared away and all ends well.
“The story as a whole is a masterpiece of remarkable conversation, and excellent descriptions.”
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Boston Transcript p4 Je 2 ’20 250w
“Written along thoroughly familiar lines, the story is considerably longer and very much slower in movement than are the majority of such tales. The book contains a fair amount of bloodshed, and gunplay enough to satisfy the most exacting.”
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N Y Times 25:22 Ja 18 ’20 300w
“A cowboy story with wild excitement in every chapter and a strong touch of romance to offset the sensationalism.”
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Outlook 124:249 F 11 ’20 20w
WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON.[2] Paradise Bend. il *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday
20–18297
A story with all the features of the western thriller. Tom Loudon is in love with Kate Saltoun, his employer’s daughter and when he learns that she is engaged to Sam Blakely he throws up his job and leaves. He had long suspected that Blakely is responsible for the frequent disappearances of cattle, but “Old Salt” had refused to believe his neighbor guilty and Kate sides with her father. With Tom’s departure for Paradise Bend Blakely manages to throw the blame on him and he narrowly escapes arrest and lynching. Sudden death lies in wait and is averted in countless other forms before the story closes, with the villains receiving their just deserts and the lovers happy.
Booklist 17:161 Ja ’21
“Nothing in this book distinguishes it from the crops of mediocre western novels which glut the market year after year and which all seem to be made according to a standard recipe.”
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N Y Evening Post p21 O 23 ’20 120w
“What ‘Paradise Bend’ lacks in literary finish and pretensions to intellectual pabulum it replaces with a plenitude of skill in construction and dialogue.”
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N Y Times p20 D 5 ’20 430w
WHITEHOUSE, VIRA (BOARMAN) (MRS NORMAN DE R. WHITEHOUSE). Year as a government agent. il *$3 (4c) Harper 940.48
20–2700
When our country entered the war Mrs Whitehouse was appointed by George Creel as representative for Switzerland of the Committee on public information. Her duties were to give every possible publicity to American news through the press, through special articles and pamphlets and motion-picture reels. The book is an accurate, honest account of her experiences, throwing interesting sidelights on diplomacy open and otherwise. Not until the difficulties she encountered in the American legation at Berne drove her to abandon her undertaking and return to America, did she in her second attempt succeed in breaking through the diplomatic armor plate and in gaining a foothold for her work. The contents are: My appointment; Diplomatic methods; The vanishing news service; Apparent defeat; To America and back; At work; Success under difficulties; One thing after another; Swiss problems; The approaching end; Grief and adventure; Strife and confusion; The end of the year. There are illustrations and appendices containing the correspondence and cablegrams between Washington and the American legation on the one hand and Mrs Whitehouse on the other.
Boston Transcript p6 Mr 13 ’20 460w
“She writes of important international work from an agreeably personal angle.”
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Ind 104:244 N 13 ’20 220w
“Our conviction that her story is essentially true is not only because of her own definiteness and of the evidence the older diplomatic tradition gives about itself in the appendix, but also because of our general experience throughout the reign of war psychology. Mrs Whitehouse has the gift of taking the reader along with her in her adventure.” Edith Borie
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New Repub 23:67 Je 9 ’20 1100w
“Aside from its historical interest, the book has fascination as a narrative, for Mrs Whitehouse possesses the very great gift of unconsciousness. The story runs as simply as though she were telling it over a table, and there is a delightful, if somewhat caustic, vein of humor that gives color to the whole.” G: Creel
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N Y Times 25:1 F 22 ’20 1700w
“A reading of her book, interesting as it is, leaves one in doubt as to whether it is an apologia or a suffrage tract. Further, it exposes again the error of creating an extra-legal government department, the Committee on public information, with authority to act abroad in matters of foreign policy independently of the Department of state.”
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Review 2:208 F 28 ’20 380w
R of Rs 61:445 Ap ’20 50w
“Besides being a woman of invincible courage and executive ability, as her work in Switzerland proved, Mrs Whitehouse shows in her book that she has a sense of humor and pleasing ability as a writer.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 Ap 8 ’20 300w
“In a delightfully straightforward style Mrs Whitehouse has told the story of her work in Switzerland.”
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Wis Lib Bul 16:120 Je ’20 80w
WHITELEY, OPAL STANLEY. Story of Opal (Eng title, Diary of Opal Whiteley). il $2 (2c) Atlantic monthly press
20–19873
This “Journal of an understanding heart” (Sub-title) is the diary of an orphan, brought up in a lumber camp, and is ascribed to the end of her sixth and to her seventh year. Before her adoption by strange people she evidently had a careful bringing up and careful instruction from a loving mother, as the outpourings of her childish heart and bits of her history reveal. The records are remarkable for the deep and loving insight into nature and the child’s communion with animal and plant life, which they reveal. Parts of the diary have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.
“We have no space to pursue our analysis into details. An amateur Sherlock Holmes will find much of interest in this volume. For instance, is the vocabulary consistent? Is the idiom consistent? Is the ignorance consistent? For the rest, and in spite of Earl Grey’s ‘sheer delight’ in the book, we find it flat, dreary, utterly uninteresting, a reductio ad absurdum of, as we have hinted, the American sentimental novel.” J. W. N. S.
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Ath p372 S 17 ’20 1400w
“Nature lovers and lovers of childhood especially will be delighted by it.”
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Booklist 17:69 N ’20
“The truest thing about the journal to my own mind is its truth of emotion—it is the absolute record of a child’s emotion.” A. C. Moore
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Bookm 52:258 N ’20 740w
“Completely delightful book.” C. H. O.
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Boston Transcript p4 S 29 ’20 2200w
“That it is a beautiful and touching and piercingly honest revelation of an imaginative child’s spirit seems to me evident beyond cavil.” Christopher Morley
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N Y Evening Post p4 N 13 ’20 1200w
“The question asked with regard to ‘The young visiters’ is being repeated in connection with the present book—‘Could a child really write it?’ Only a child could have written ‘The story of Opal.’ No adult could put into language such innocent and spontaneous grace combined with such freshness of perception.” Marguerite Wilkinson
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N Y Times p14 O 3 ’20 1900w
“If ever the word unique is appropriate to a literary production, certainly it is here. The reader sometimes tires of the singular manner and strange expressions in the diary, but he never fails to feel the genuine fineness and charm of Opal’s love for animals and trees and all of out-of-doors, and her sweetness and affection toward the few human beings who responded to her appeal.”
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Outlook 126:201 S 29 ’20 1150w
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
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Review 3:269 S 29 ’20 120w
“The book is so incessantly sentimental as to be very tiresome reading to most English people—Americans seem to have stronger stomachs. Again, the inverted style is tedious—almost perhaps as tedious as the humour.”
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Spec 125:504 O 16 ’20 750w
“The style of the diary is irresistible. Full of quaint phrases, unconscious humor, the profound philosophies of childhood, the sentences move along in solemn, yet sparkling procession.”
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Springf’d Republican p9a O 24 ’20 720w
“It is not safe to dogmatize upon the limits of precocity, but the hand at work in many passages is prima facie not that of the six-year-old, but of the more mature professional humorist. Whatever be the solution, the main interest of the book is its vitality of imagination and its pregnancy of issues bearing upon child life remains unaffected.”
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Springf’d Republican p10 N 13 ’20 230w (Reprinted from London Observer)
“We may say without absurdity that the child has a style. And it reaches, particularly towards the end of the diary, a rare poetic suggestiveness. We hope that Opal Whiteley will write the other books she planned in childhood, but we do not expect them to be like this book; it is one of those inspirations which can seldom be repeated.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p593 S 16 ’20 2500w
WHITHAM, G. I. St John of Honeylea. *$1.75 (1½c) Lane
20–7526
When Evelyn St John was ten he was left an orphan in the keeping of a hard aunt. Of his father’s family he knew nothing. By force of character and personal charm he holds his own, makes friends and achieves a sheep farm at the Cape, when at the age of thirty he falls heir to the ancestral estate of the St John’s, Honeylea, in the south of England. In reality he had inherited much more: dark mysteries, a curse and the hatred and suspicions of a neighborhood. Honeylea had once been abbey land, had been wrested from the monks, who still haunted the woods where they had been murdered and had cursed the place. What became the banqueting hall of Honeylea had once been a church and all the St Johns had come to grief—the curse and their own pride being their undoing. The modern skepticism and moral courage of the present St John struggles bravely against the atmosphere and hidden malignity of the place which he loves for its beauty. Not until he has learned to pray as a last refuge from despair and the house is burned, is the curse lifted and fortune in love returns to a St John.
Ath p1354 D 12 ’19 40w
“A very good bit of character work, an intensely absorbing story, this will appeal equally to those who love realistic tales of today, and to the fortunate folk who are made happy by medieval legends of days of old. For the book has both.”
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Boston Transcript p6 O 9 ’20 480w
“Those who read ‘Mr Manley’ will not need to be told that G. I. Whitham knows how to write an interesting story. And ‘St John of Honeylea’ is an improvement on her earlier book, more convincing and better written, to say nothing of its possession of an unusually romantic and picturesque atmosphere.”
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N Y Times 25:236 My 9 ’20 600w
“It is a good book, and many interesting people are to be met in it; not the least of whom are two who live only in the descriptions of the neighbours who have known them, ‘Uncle Charles,’ and his nephew and successor Cecil, the two last owners of the house. They are perhaps more distinctly drawn than any of the actual characters of the story.”
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Sat R 128:590 D 20 ’19 480w
“The subject sounds familiar, but Mr Whitham has treated it in an original way.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p694 N 27 ’19 450w
WHITIN, CORA BERRY. Wounded words. *$1 Four seas co. 793
20–1007
A little book of rhymed charades designed by the author for the entertainment of convalescent soldiers. At the end a key is provided by which answers may be tested.
Boston Transcript p10 Ap 17 ’20 140w
Cath World 111:554 Jl ’20 70w
“Mrs Whitin has been more concerned with ingenuity of expression than with Tennysonian polish of her verses.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 Mr 2 ’20 120w
WHITING, GERTRUDE. Lace guide for makers and collectors. il *$15 Dutton 746
20–2109
“While this is a book which few people would enjoy for leisure reading, it represents the work of years of careful study of a subject which is nearest and dearest to the author’s heart. The work was produced, with the cooperation of lace experts of the Metropolitan museum for the guidance of students, makers, collectors and classifiers of bobbin laces. The author explains in detail the general rules for making various laces. These rules are expanded to include all variations from the simple grounds to the most complex stitches of many patterns of laces.” (Springf’d Republican) “The book is profusely illustrated with plates giving key designs, with accompanying directions to show students of lace how certain meshes are woven, to aid those planning to produce lace, and to assist classifiers and collectors in identifying laces. The book also contains a bibliography and lace nomenclature in five languages.” (Nation)
“There is an increasing interest in lacemaking and lace collecting in this country, and Miss Whiting’s thorough technical knowledge as imparted in this book will do much to foster the movement.”
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Nation 110:773 Je 5 ’20 280w
“The author has undertaken an arduous task, which she accomplishes with seeming ease. The explanations are made yet more valuable by the excellent photographs.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 N 26 ’20 380w
WHITING, JOHN D. Practical illustration; a guide for artists. il *$3 Harper 741
20–21999
The book deals with the problems peculiar to the work of the illustrator and the commercial designer and proposes to acquaint him with actual conditions in the publishing world. It is offered as a textbook for the teacher of “applied art” and a guide to the student. It is indexed and profusely illustrated—many of the plates in color—and the contents are: Looking over the field; Pictorial art for reproduction; Concerning illustrations; Concerning cover designs; Concerning commercial designs; Filling “rush orders”; Mechanical reproduction; Processes in color; Some concrete examples; The published art of tomorrow.
WHITLATCH, MARSHALL. Golf; for beginners—and others. il *$2 (4c) Macmillan 796
The author had disdained golf as a mollycoddle game but when he tried it, it hit him hard. He spent much time—wasted it—copying the style of professional experts, till he came to the conclusion that—barring a few fundamentals—it is an individual game for which each player must develop his own method. The object of the book is to call attention to the fundamental principles that must be observed under every form or method. The book is well illustrated and some of the chapter headings are: Balance the foundation of golf; Getting the power into the ball; Accuracy—not distance; Making the swing; Ease rather than effort; The part the body plays; On the putting green.
“There is little advice in it which may not be found in other books of its kind, but Mr Whitlatch has suited his instructions particularly to the man who takes up golf in middle age with the handicap that his years force upon him. The illustrations are rather more radical than the text.”
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N Y Times p28 Ag 1 ’20 390w
WHITMAN, ROGER BRADBURY.[2] Tractor principles. il *$2 Appleton 621.14
20–17311
Tractors are far from being as standardized as automobiles and there are almost as many types and designs as there are tractor makers. A man competent to handle and care for one type may be at a loss as to how to handle another. The purpose of the book is to describe and explain all the mechanisms in common use so that anyone may be able to identify and understand the parts of any make. The contents are: Tractor principles; Engine principles; Engine parts; Fuels and carburetion; Carbureters; Ignition; Battery ignition systems; Transmission; Tractor arrangement; Lubrication; Tractor operation; Engine maintenance; Locating trouble; Causes of trouble. The book is indexed and carefully illustrated.
WHITMAN, WALT.[2] Gathering of the forces. il 2v *$15 Putnam 814
The books contain the editorials, essays, literary and dramatic reviews and other material written by Walt Whitman as editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846 and 1847. The editors of the collection are Cleveland Rodgers and John Black, the latter contributing a foreword, inspired by the spirit of Whitman, and the former a sketch of Whitman’s life and work. The contents fall into seven parts with classification of the articles as follows: Part 1—Democracy: American democracy; Europe and America; Government; Patriotism. Part 2—Humanity: Hanging, prison reform, unfortunates; Education, children; Labor, female labor; Emigrants; England’s oppression of Ireland. Part 3—Slavery and the Mexican war: The extension of slavery; The union of states; War with Mexico; The Oregon boundary dispute. Part 4—Politics; Political controversies; Two local political campaigns; Civic interests; Free trade and the currency system. Part 5—Essays, personalities, short editorials; General essays; Personalities of the time; “The art of health”; Short editorials; Whitman as a paragrapher. Part 6—Literature, book reviews, drama, etc. Part 7—Two short stories not included in Whitman’s published works: The love of Eris; A legend of life and love. The books are illustrated and indexed.
Reviewed by E. F. Edgett
Boston Transcript p4 D 24 ’20 1550w
“To those who knew him only by his great and minor poems or by the stories of his vanities and eccentricities, these volumes will be a revelation. They reveal his soul as it grew; and nothing will be more surprising than their conventional form, their respect for the current conventions of morality, and their unforced and clear style.” M. F. Egan
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N Y Times p2 Ja 2 ’21 3000w
“It is a human document, a great side-light on Whitman’s poems, and incidentally, a mine of information on a host of matters of temporary and local interest.” F: T. Cooper
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Pub W 99:168 Ja 15 ’21 600w
WHO was who. *$6.50 Macmillan 920
(Eng ed 20–14622)
“This book fills the gap between the standard biographical dictionaries and the current Who’s who. It contains the notices, reprinted from former volumes of Who’s who, of those more or less well-known persons who died between 1897 and 1916, with the dates of their deaths. It runs to nearly eight hundred pages of small type.”—Spec
“There is no reason why ‘Who was who’ should not be a democratic work instead of what it is now. There is even no reason why it should not be readable. Accidental exclusion must always occur; deliberate ought never. We commend to the editors the ‘Modern English biography’ of Frederic Boase, as a model of hard fact, of brevity, and yet of amplitude. At the same time, we recognize the greatness of their task and the great usefulness (in the right quarter) of their volume.”
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Ath p79 Jl 16 ’20 280w
Reviewed by Ralph Bergengren
Boston Transcript p4 S 22 ’20 2250w
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Sat R 130:40 Jl 10 ’20 370w
“As a work of reference it will be found exceedingly useful, all the more because many of the persons named will never figure in the ‘Dictionary of national biography’ if, as we hope, that great work should be continued.”
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Spec 124:88 Jl 17 ’20 90w
“Apart from its utility as an indispensable book of reference for the man of affairs, ‘Who was who’ will remain as a permanent store house of information about the personalities of one of the most important and critical epochs of British history.”
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The Times [London] Lit Sup p458 Jl 15 ’20 220w
WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER). Boardwalk. *$1.60 (3½c) Harcourt
20–773
Omitting all the rose-garden atmosphere of her novels, Margaret Widdemer has written a series of short stories about boys and girls of high school age. The scene is one of the summer resort towns along the Atlantic coast during the months of the year when the boardwalk belongs to the young people who live there the year round. The titles are: Changeling; Rosabel Paradise; Don Andrews’ girl; Black magic; The congregation; The fairyland heart; Good times; Oh, Mr Dreamman; Devil’s hall.
“Clear cut, interesting little sketches into which the same people step again and again until one knows quite the whole village.”
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Booklist 16:173 F ’20
“We must admit of them all that they piece together with their small tragedies and happinesses into what seems a very truthful representation of an American town. Whether or not these stories meet with the immediate popularity of ‘The rose garden husband,’ it must be conceded that Miss Widdemer has done a more difficult thing and revealed a more mature and a surer art.” D. L. M.
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Boston Transcript p6 Ja 21 ’20 850w
“It is a sordid, tawdry, unwholesome atmosphere, the sort of atmosphere that one would shun if the ideas back of the stories and their psychology, for they are primarily stories of character, were not really interesting. Is the skill with which it is done a sufficient excuse for painting dead fish and tinsel?”
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Ind 102:374 Je 12 ’20 190w
“Her delving into the substrata of inarticulate being is sometimes faltering, and her presentation of the less obvious springs of human emotion is not always convincing, but her distinct penchant for transferring to paper the elusive quality of personality is undeniable.”
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N Y Times 25:145 Mr 28 ’20 650w
“On the whole, it is a strong and searching collection.”
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Springf’d Republican p11a Mr 7 ’20 420w
WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER), comp. Haunted hour. *$1.75 Harcourt 821.08
20–5609
The little volume presents an anthology of ghost-poems and contains only such poems as treat of the return of spirits to earth. Even so no attempt has been made at inclusiveness, but the selections range from the earliest ballads to the present time. With an opening poem by Nora Hopper Chesson: “The far away country,” the poems are arranged under the headings: “The nicht atween the sancts an’ souls”; “All the little sighing souls”; Shadowy heroes; “Rank on rank of ghostly soldiers”; Sea ghosts; Cheerful spirits; Haunted places; “You know the old, while I know the new”; “My love that was so true”; Shapes of doom; Legends and ballads of the dead. There is an index.
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Booklist 16:272 My ’20
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Nation 111:278 S 4 ’20 70w
“A most unusual anthology of real merit and charm.”
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Springf’d Republican p10 Ap 29 ’20 120w
WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER). I’ve married Marjorie. *$1.75 (3c) Harcourt
20–13699
Married in haste, Marjorie Ellison has had ample leisure to repent while her soldier husband has been away in France. Now on the eve of his return she is badly upset at the thought of the reunion. When Francis comes, it is as bad as she had feared. With the best intentions on both sides, he frightens her, and she hurts him. Hot tempers and strained nerves almost complete a tragedy of separation. But Francis is really in love with Marjorie and so he ventures on an experiment before giving her up entirely. In a delightful spot in the Canadian woods, his scheme is tried out, a scheme which leads through storm and stress to final joy and happiness for both.
“This will be liked by young girls and many women, though some readers will find it light and sentimental.”
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Booklist 17:75 N ’20
“Her theme in ‘I’ve married Marjorie’ is cut from the sheerest gossamer material. Also it possesses all the old essential ingredients of cuteness, wistful humor and the necessary serious touch that brings the theme to a sweet conclusion. But there is a sparkling sanity about it.”
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N Y Times p27 Ag 22 ’20 550w
“A lively and amusing tale. Not a big book nor a provable story, but agreeable ‘summer reading.’”
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Outlook 126:67 S 8 ’20 80w
Wis Lib Bul 16:196 N ’20 70w
WIENER, LEO. Africa and the discovery of America. 2v ea $5 Innes & sons 970
20–7013
The book is archaeological and etymological, showing how many of the plants believed to have been indigenous to America, and how much of the language and customs of the Indians, have an African origin. Besides a long list of the sources quoted, illustrations, a word and a subject index, the book contains: The journal of the first voyage and the first letter of Columbus; The second voyage; Tobacco; The bread roots.
“It is unfortunate that one so well trained in this field of study should not have undertaken to present his material in a more logical and readable manner. He is not always convincing, and is often dogmatic.” E. L. Stevenson
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Am Hist R 26:102 O ’20 550w
“It is not to be expected that a work like this can pass unchallenged, and the soundest of criticism and the most profound of scholarship should be invoked before an exact estimate can be made of its value. But the erudition displayed in this volume is enough to make us wait with impatience Professor Wiener’s second volume.” G. H. S.
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Boston Transcript p8 N 13 ’20 1050w
“Worthless as a scholarly contribution, the book provides the psychologist with a valuable example of distorted erudition and methodological incompetence.”
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Dial 69:213 Ag ’20 90w
“His book indicates the widest scholarship.” W. E. B. Du Bois
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Nation 111:350 S 25 ’20 390w
WIGMORE, JOHN HENRY. Problems of law; its past, present, and future. *$1.50 Scribner 340
20–26999
“Professor Wigmore discusses the law’s evolution, its mechanism in America, and its problems as they relate to world legislation and America’s share therein. These lectures constituted one series of the Barbour-Page foundation lectures at the University of Virginia.” (N Y Evening Post) “It is assumed by Dean Wigmore that a new age is at hand, for which a considerable amount of new legislation will be required, and in view of this fact he urges that our legislators must be made experts ‘(1) by reducing their numbers, (2) by giving them longer terms, (3) by paying them enough to justify it [that is, apparently, the work of legislation] as a career for men of talent, (4) by making their sessions continuous.’” (Review)
“Three clarifying lectures for the thoughtful layman.”
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Booklist 17:96 D ’20
“Dean Wigmore demonstrates anew the wide range of his intellectual rummaging and the queer quirks of his marvelous mind. The second lecture on ‘Methods of law making’ is intelligible and sensible.”
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Nation 111:568 N 17 ’20 500w
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N Y Evening Post p26 O 23 ’20 90w
Reviewed by E: S. Corwin
Review 3:449 N 10 ’20 250w
WILDE, OSCAR FINGALL O’FLAHERTIE WILLS. Critic in Pall Mall. *$1.50 Putnam 824
(Eng ed A20–616)
A selection from the reviews and miscellaneous writings of Oscar Wilde made by E. V. Lucas. The papers were contributed to the Irish Monthly, Pall Mall Gazette, Woman’s World and other journals and date from 1877 to 1890. At the end under the heading Sententiæ Mr Lucas has grouped a number of briefer extracts from other reviews.
“The extent to which Wilde was a deliberate poseur is made very clear by this book, for here there is very little pose. In these reviews, chiefly from the Pall Mall Gazette, we see Wilde as a critic with strong common sense, general good taste and with an outlook on life and literature sufficiently ordinary to be indistinguishable from that of half-a-hundred other critics of his time and of ours.”
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Ath p1258 N 28 ’19 600w
“It has all his delights and all his superficialities and all his faults.”
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Dial 69:212 Ag ’20 110w
“There is nothing especially characteristic about the collection except, perhaps, a lightness of touch that distinguishes its contents from the ordinary book-review, and while they reveal the delicacy of Wilde’s taste and the sincerity of his delight in art and letters they reveal his limitations, also, and the shallowness of his intellectual draught.”
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Freeman 1:430 Jl 14 ’20 250w
“There is certainly no adequate reason why these forgotten writings of Oscar Wilde should be sought out and set in order, and sent forth in a seemly little tome of two hundred pages. Their resurrection does not add anything to his reputation, nor does it detract anything. It does not enlarge our knowledge of the writer or cast any new light upon the character of the man.” Brander Matthews
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N Y Times 25:69 F 8 ’20 3400w
“These modest criticisms impress one collectively as good-natured, orthodox, and sensible. Its art vibrates between distinction and mediocrity—which is another way of saying that it is undistinguished.”
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Review 3:152 Ag 18 ’20 330w
“Collections of this kind usually do no honour to their author. But in this case the result is a contribution to literature; in the first place, because the selection has been made by Mr E. V. Lucas, and in the second place, because it illustrates not only Wilde’s gift for perverse banter, but also his genuine scholarship and his ability to perform plain, downright work in an honest, craftsmanlike way.”
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Spec 124:492 Ap 10 ’20 1450w
“These chapters are slight, but they are models of literary criticism of the less formal and serious type. Apart from style their superiority over the contemporary causerie lies chiefly, perhaps, in the cultivated background that they denote in the writer and presuppose in the reader.”
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Springf’d Republican p8 Je 10 ’20 800w
The Times [London] Lit Sup p605 O 30 ’19 1350w
WILDMAN, EDWIN. Famous leaders of industry. il *$2 (3c) Page 926
20–3587
This is a book for boys about boys who have gained success, wealth, honor, and prestige in the business world. It contains more than twenty-six sketches of successful men, among them: Philip Danforth Armour—California pioneer and Chicago packing king; P. T. Barnum—the world’s greatest showman; Alexander Graham Bell—immortal telephone inventor, and humanitarian; James Buchanan Duke—American tobacco and cigarette king; Henry Ford—the Aladdin of the automobile industry; Hudson Maxim—poet, philosopher, and wizard of high explosives; John Davison Rockefeller,—oil king and world’s greatest industrial leader; John Wanamaker—America’s foremost retail merchant and originator of the department store; Orville and Wilbur Wright—who achieved immortal fame as airship inventors. A portrait accompanies each sketch.
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Booklist 16:317 Je ’20
“In these conventionally laudatory portraits of a group of American inventors and business men there is no departure from the old Sunday school type of ‘helpful’ stories for the young except in a decided journalistic snappiness of style.” E. S.
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Survey 44:323 My 29 ’20 140w
WILKINSON, MRS MARGUERITE OGDEN (BIGELOW). Bluestone. *$1.50 Macmillan 811
20–11184
A volume of lyrics. In her preface the author touches on the relation of lyric poetry to music as she employs it in the composition of her poems. Contents: Bluestone; Songs from beside swift rivers; Songs of poverty; Preferences; Love songs; Songs of an empty house; Songs of laughter and tears; Whims for poets; California poems; The pageant.
“Songs with a wide appeal because they are mostly ‘themes of the folk.’ The appreciation of nature and outdoor feeling are keen.”
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Booklist 17:63 N ’20
“There is an undoubted poetic element in these poems of Mrs Wilkinson, but it is dew rather than flame. And being excellently even in craftsmanship, there is no poem that fails to satisfy the reader’s interest in being what it is.” W: S. Braithwaite
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Boston Transcript p6 Jl 31 ’20 1050w
“Marguerite Wilkinson has decided moral and metrical spring without conspicuous originality; though she is deeply touching here in Songs of an empty house, on the childless state.” M. V. D.
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Nation 111:248 Ag 28 ’20 70w
“Mrs Wilkinson undoubtedly possesses a deal of talent; it is evident throughout her work, cropping out in felicitous stanzas here and rhythmical lines there, but she allows an occasional triteness to retard the success of the book as a whole.”
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N Y Times p16 N 7 ’20 590w
Spec 125:280 Ag 28 ’20 560w
WILLARD, FLORENCE, and GILLETT, LUCY HOLCOMB.[2] Dietetics for high schools. il *$1.32 Macmillan 613.2
20–12948
“Home economics teachers will be interested to learn that a much needed textbook of dietetics has recently appeared. The content of the book is especially significant in view of the experience of both authors as teachers of the subject and of one of them as worker with actual problems of malnutrition and of family feeding on low incomes in the Association for improving the condition of the poor. The book starts with a comparison of the weights and heights of the girls in the class with the standards for their ages. Following this is a study of food values as to fuel, protein, mineral, vitamines, and the requirements of a good diet. Following the general study of the basis for planning meals, the authors make an interesting and concrete section of the book by selecting a family containing children of various ages and discussing the marketing problems of this family. The high-school girl thus makes application of her earlier nutrition study to actual food purchase for the family’s need.”—School R
“This book is a distinct contribution to the very small group of elementary textbooks in nutrition. The work is accurate and up-to-date. The points are supported and illustrated by suitable tables and charts in such number as to constitute a unique feature of a beginner’s book in nutrition. One specially commendable feature is the fact that it may be used quite as appropriately as a textbook for boys as for girls.” M. S. Rose
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J Home Econ 12:513 N ’20 300w
“A splendid and thoroughly scientific body of material makes the book a well-rounded and teachable text.”
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School R 28:798 D ’20 360w
WILLIAMS, ARIADNA TYRKOVA- (MRS HAROLD WILLIAMS). From liberty to Brest-Litovsk. *$6 Macmillan 947
19–18461
“This is a narrative of events from the first uprisings of the revolution in March, 1917, to the ratification of the peace with Germany a year later. Herself a member of the Petrograd municipal council and the Moscow conference, Mrs Williams has described in detail the cabinet crises and political vicissitudes of the provisional government and the steady trend of the socialist center toward bolshevism. Less complete is her account of the first months of the bolshevist régime and its negotiations with Germany at Brest-Litovsk.”—Survey
Ath p1275 N 28 ’19 220w
“Although the book is emotionally coloured with righteous anger and hatred towards the Bolsheviks, we cannot but welcome it as an honest attempt to narrate the history of the first year of the Russian revolution.” S. K.
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Ath p1367 D 19 ’19 1100w
“The facts here recorded will be most impressive to all who keep even an approximately open mind on the Russian question.”
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Ind 102:66 Ap 10 ’20 150w
“She might have made her book a skilful and telling arraignment of her political opponents if she could have restrained her quite intelligible hatred and indignation. She betrays her prejudice and weakens her case most seriously in loading on the Bolsheviki the blame for all that Russia has suffered since the beginning of the revolution.” Jacob Zeitlin
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Nation 110:399 Mr 27 ’20 360w
“When we had finished this long book of Mrs Harold Williams, we asked ourselves why it left us with the taste of the dust of Dead Sea apples. The answer is, we believe, that nothing is so barren as perpetual denunciation. Only a political controversialist could be quite so self-blind as Mrs Williams.”
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Nation [London] 26:402 D 13 ’19 700w
“This book may be recommended as a storehouse of facts, and it is to be hoped that the author will in due course produce another volume, bringing the story down from Brest-Litovsk to the present day.”