The author of "Mass and Class" * A biographical sketch of Mr. W. J. Ghent, author of "Mass and Class," has been handed us, and we feel that there are many among our readers who will be glad to know something about this writer. Mr. Ghent was born in Frankfort, Indiana, on April 29, 1866, and received his education in his native town, in Columbus and in Kansas. At thirteen he was placed in apprenticeship to a printer, later becoming a reporter and a sub-editor on various trade journals in New York City. He has edited several socialistic organs and helped to found the Social Reform Club, New York, 1894. He has been actively engaged in politics and in the Mayoralty and gubernatorial W. J. GHENT In the Socialist movement, Mr. Ghent has played a of the Socialist party, and has published two books, "Our Benevolent Feudalism" and "Mass and Class." a Man of Wealth * * * Maxim Gorky is a good business man as well as a great writer. Though the fact is by no means well Gorky known, he is at present at the head of one of the largest publishing concerns in St. Petersburg, a firm which goes by the name of the Knowledge Publishing Company, and it is said that in the few years during which he has been thus engaged he has made some $125,000 out of it. writer with an English audience, this last having lately been extended to include American readers also. ** * * Mrs. Thurston's story, "The Masquerader," has appeared in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish editions. Aberdeen Honors Novelists *** Maarten Maartens and Thomas Hardy have been the recipients of LL. D. degrees from the University of Aberdeen. Both novelists went to Aberdeen to attend the openwith Degrees ing of the remodeled art gallery and this opportunity was seized upon to honor them. That reminds us that Maarten Maartens is too little known on this side of the Atlantic, excellent as his work is and beautiful as is his style. By birth the author of "Dorothea" is Dutch, and his home at the present time is in Holland, though he is often in Paris and visits Italy frequently. "Confessions" of Lord Byron In these days of "Confessions," one is not surprised to hear that among the books soon to be published will be "The Confessions of Lord Byron." Just now, when Byron is a popular hero in new fiction, a role in which he seems more especially favored than in that truer one of great English poet, this is singularly appropriate. Its compilation by W. A. Lewis Bettany and its publication have been well-timed, to say the least. Nevertheless we feel that we shall be unable to view it with other than intensest interest when it arrives. The Appletons buy a Magazine The "Booklover's Magazine" has passed into the hands of D. Appleton & Company, and the intention seems to be to make of it a thoroughly complete general magazine. From the announcements made concerning the July number, the first under the new regime, it would seem that fiction is to hold the place of honor, and a new serial, "The Reckoning," by Robert W. Chambers, will begin at once. The editor has not yet been named, though there has been mention made of Mr. James Barnes in that connection. The periodical will afford the Appletons the same chance that numerous other publishing houses have of exploiting their publications. With the new importations come volumes in the Leicester Library, from L. C. Page & Company. Significant among them is "The Decameron," by Boccaccio. When Tinker marries Noggs * * * Will the "Admirable Tinker" marry Lady Felicia Grandison? Only Mr. Jepson can answer the question, and we suspect that he will scarcely care to do so, even if he has so much as given a thought to the matter. But the fact that Tinker appears in "Lady Noggs" signifies that the story of the angel-faced imp is to be continued, and a better denouement can hardly be imagined than a romance in which Tinker and Noggs play the principal parts. Of course, a neighboring peer would have to be found for Elsie, the little sister that Tinker adopted with so pleasant a charity. "Am not I your Rosalind?"-As you Like It. What! canst not spy beneath the shepherd's vest The bounteous wave of Rosalind's fair breast? As boy she kissed thee. By that touch divine Wert still in doubt with her sweet lips on thine? * * * The London "Book Monthly" assures us that we may look for a new book from Miss Corelli in the autumn. * * * The last complete work of George Gissing is about to be issued in England. It is "Will Warburton," a tale of London life among the humbler classes. The Girl from Home Isobel Strong No life is quite so bewildering, so vivid. or so like a social mirage as that presented by the white colony among a dark-skinned race still ruling those under the shadow of the stronger stranger. Mrs. Isobel Strong, the step-daughter of Robert Louis Stevenson, was in Honolulu with Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson in the closing days of King Kalakana. In "The Girl from Home" which no one who began it in "The Criterion" failed to finish, she has written a novel which groups with skill and picturesque variety, a most adorable personal experience. Not a page but has some fact or incident familiar to those who know the period. The various characters are as thinly disguised as a Kanaka in a beach comber. The story is indeed diary rather than novel. It is a little uncertain as to plot, but its dialogue is bright and its picture of life in Honolulu is as good as a trip to the island. Three things in this book Mr. Valentine sets out to do. He describes scenery with patient care. This takes room but scenery can always be skipped. A census of novel readers would show that the fewest possible even among women, can put his or her hand on her or his heart and truthfully say that they never have skipped. scenery in the modern novel. Second: he has with great patience, and photographic accuracy, described the frontier level of morals which is one in which divorce is infrequent because offenses ante-date marriage. This improves statis tics but is of doubtful value as a social basis. Third: he has fastidioulsy joined together the story of the lives which centered around a successful Quaker ironmaker. His lying stepson, the weak son of his old age, and a daughter-a fine and vigorous creation, who accepts a man (well drawn but stiff) is married to him, and then locks the door. and then locks the door. This disappointment comes at the middle of the story and causes much trouble which could have been easily avoided if the husband had gone around to the other door with which Mr. Valentine has thoughtfully provided the nuptial chamber. The pages thronged with well-differentiated characters of the village. The novel is good illustration; it is not painting. Ilustration has its value. It needs careful drawing-composition and study. It may have inspiration, but when it has, it ceases to be illustration. (Bobbs-Merrill Co.) Walter Pieterse Multatuli core. * * * are The romantic movement in Holland took shape in fiction in fresh attention to the life of the commonalty. Of all the lands the Netherlands is without either slum or aristocracy. It is bourgeois to the Labor has a bourgeois touch, and the aristocracy a business-like. Eduard Douwes Dekker, in this novel which in the original is a running narrative scattered between essays and studies, took the life of a boy growing up in a poor family, living in a little second story flat and of an imaginative turn, and handled it with uncompromising realism. The boy's experience with an older woman resembles Dennison's "Only a Boy." The realism is not that of Zola, but of Flaubert. Dekker lacks the artist in Flaubert. He is not notable for style. He has the capacity for detaching the individual with whom he is dealing from his surroundings. and enables one to see his soul wriggle as if he had suddenly been made transparent. This does not make a particularly wholesome book-the worst of all indecencies is the exposure of the soul-but it is a deeply interesting picture and it gives what Maarten-Maartens does not limn, the quality of lower Dutch life. (Frederici Gareio.) * * * Written after three years' service on the river Yang Tse Kiang, on a British gun Rice Papers H. L. Norris boat, these stories of Chinese life present precisely the view first seen by the "intelligent foreigner," who in a few days at the foreign club picks up all the odd stories on the native afloat for years. Many of them are impossible, palmed off on each "Griphon" as he arrives. They are told in this book with the least possible knowledge and the largest possible suggestion of the complete lack of truthfulness in the Chinese character. Accurate in detail, but written without sympathy or any comprehension of the Chinese point of view, they are misleading. They have a rough vital interest due to a rattling fire of incidents. (Longman, Green & Co.) a Great Influence Mrs. Horace Porter acumen he added a perception of religious and ethical truth, vivid and convincing. In this modest volume, written out of the sincere affection of taught for teacher, there has been grouped in brief extracts his teaching on the leading subjects of Christian. doctrine, conduct and practice. The result is an extremely stimulating volume, full of suggestion, a perpetual reminder of a man who combined a capacity for assimilating all the knowledge of the present and keeping all the faith of the past in the field to which he devoted his life. (Macmillan.) "Don Quixote" which illuminate Cervantes' life. But this volume has a bibliography of editions, a list of Spanish proverbs, a very suggestive and convenient calendar of the manuscript authorities on which our knowledge of Cervantes' life. rests, principally court proceedings, and the fac simile of an interesting group of title pages, with a description of Cervantes' portrait. Of his personal appearance Mr. Calvert shows, with reasonable probability, nothing is known save by vague tradition in regard to one of the figures Pacheco painted in a series of six panels on St. Peter, of Nola, for a Convent in Seville. These things, useful for reference, make up for Mr. Calvert's trivial diction and his lack of skill in the task of biography. (John Lane.) The Heart's Quest Barton Grey * * * These narrative poems written by a working journalist in Charleston, George Herbert Sass, have much story telling verse. The volume will be read by that large class who love verse which is a little like a breakfast cereal. You like it when you take it, but the next day you cannot for the life of you remember what it tasted like. Feeling there is in the verse, reminiscence and a respect for the poetic faculty which prevents Mr. Sass from ever writing a line which has not been carefully considered, well made and accurately measured. (Putnam.) Society in the New Reign By a Foreign Resident * * * Written from the standpoint of English social life, agreeably printed in England and issued in this country with an American imprint, neatly tacked on an English title page, this book sums the facts about the people in London most mentioned. Whether accurate or not one far from the field cannot tell. Nobody can be quite as accurate as this author pretends to be. Much of his apparent accuracy is doubtless due to a literary trick. An accurate manner is often used by people themselves inaccurate. Whether accurate or not, this book takes the phases of society in London, deals with them directly, simply and without concealment; tells nothing that everybody may not know, but of which few know; is interest |