... London, January 2nd, 1901. 'The influence of the Christmas holidays is not con- ducive to much desultory reading, but during the week or so I have read the following A Thorough-bf.ed Mongrel. By Stephen Townesend. T Fisher Unwin The Silver Fox. By Martin Ross and E. (E. Soraerville. Long mans The Three Friends a Story of Rugby in the Forties. By A. G. Butler. Oxford University Press.) Mrs. ...

... London, January gth, 1901. We have been reminded once or twice of late that we are no longer entitled to use the term fin de siècle. I am tempted, however, to use the expression once again as applicable to the two books which apparently enjoyed the largest share of popularity in the closing week of the old year:-- An Englishwoman's Love Letters. {John Murray.) 1 The Visits of Elizabeth. By ...

... London, February 19th, 1901. The other day the Academy asked some of its readers for the names of the books of the year that have most interested them. Mr. Frederic Harrison declared emphatically that there was only one good book in the year 1900-- Mr. Maurice Hewlett's Richard Yea and Nay. Mr. Harrison's delightful dogmatism explains how it is that the cult which he started well nigh a ...

... London, February 27th, 1901. We live in an age of good guide-books. Few but have long derived adequate joy from Murray, and our own generation has acquired an abundance of hard facts from Baedeker. Every one of us, however, has had reason to feel that at any given place of interest on our travels we do not get quite enough elucidation of its anecdotal surroundings. This has been largely ...

... London, March 13th, 1901. T have just read a story that has had a very con siderable vogue in the United States, but has only during the past two or three months commenced to sell in this country. It bears the following title Dave My New Curate: A Story gathered from the Stray Leaves of an Old Diary. By the Rev. P. A. Sheehan, P. P. Doneraile (Diocese ofCloyne). Author of Geoffrey Austin, ...

... London, March 20th, 1901. Dr. Garnett is shortly to publish through Mr. Heine mann a volume of miscellaneous critical essays. I hope they will consist largely of articles he wrote in earlier years for the old Examiner newspaper, as in those days assuredly Dr. Garnett's great, and indeed extra ordinary, learning was brought to bear with remarkable judiciousness upon the best literature. Of ...

... London, March 27th, 1901. The recent death of the Rev. William Arthur recalls to me a book written years before I was born, but which still had a considerable vogue during my boyhood-- The Successful Merchant. As one looks at it now one realises what a really mischievous work it was. although written by a Non conformist minis ter, and intended to point a highly virtuous moral Samuel Budgett, ...

... London. ADril 3rd. iooi. The lamented death of Miss Charlotte Mary Yonge occurred after I had sent my last Literary Letter to press. It is impossible to hear of the departure of Miss Yonge from the stage of life without a pang, for not only was she a popular author but she was a woman of untiring zeal in many good causes. The Heir of Redclyffe was published in 1853, when she was only thirty ...

... London, April ioth, 1901. To the handsome series of books entitled The Highways and Byways Series-- a series that contains Donegal, by Stephen Gwynn, and Normandy, by Percy Dearmer-- has just been added East Anglia, by William A. Dutt. The title-page runs:-- Highways and Byways in East Anglia. By William A. Dutt, with illustrations by Joseph Pennell. Macmillan and Co.. 1901.) Mr. Dutt's book ...

... London, April 17th, 1901. Mr. Sidney Lee has been commissioned by the delegates of the Clarendon Press to assist in the production of a collotype facsimile of Shakspere's First Folio, 1623, the first collected edition of Shak spere's plays. This will be a delightful possession for those who have the good fortune to secure a copy. Mr. Lee is to contribute a preface, and he asks for information ...

... ndon, April 24th, 1901. T n reference to the statement that I copied from the Freeman's Journal of Dublin to the effect that the heroine of The Heir of Redely ffe enjoyed 369 fits of weeping in the course of the story, Miss Christabel Coleridge, the well-known novelist who is to give us the authorised Life of Miss Yonge, writes to me as follows This is not only an egregious misstatement, ...

... London, May ist, 1901. There is no doubt that the talk of the week has been devoted to the article on Queen Victoria in the new number of the Quarterly Review. This article is even more interesting as the beginning of intimate gossip about the Queen than for what it actually con tains. The reticence extending over a long period of years of those who served the late Queen has been not the least ...