published in the very nick of time, one of the popular successes of these stirring days. times, suggestions of help in a very practical form. Much astonishment has been caused by the sale of his library; he had some rare treasures, but they were placed in the hands of a firm of auctioneers not accustomed to deal in books, and went for beggarly prices. The manuscript of "Lost Sir Massingberd" fetched only £3. Few writers have increased their reputation so much recently as Mr. Joseph Conrad, whose most recent book, "Tales The death of Mr. James Payn, which occurred on March 25, has left English letters the poorer, not so much by a firstrate draughtsman, as by a charming and permeating personality, possessed by few writers of our time. When one comes to sum up his place in fiction, it is difficult to see his claim to ultimate enshrinement. As a novelist he had of Unrest," has just ceased to be talked been published in this about, although his country by the Scribbooks appealed to that ners. A former story, large class of middle"The Nigger of the aged people who do not Narcissus," received wish to be harrowed by the commendation of the latest sensational Mr. Henley, who pubnewcomer and are unlished it in the New Reinfluenced by authors view, while Mr. Heine"on the boom." Mr. mann issued it in book Payn will really be reform. This book was membered by his friendpublished here by ships, and his place in Messrs. Dodd & Mead, latter-day literature has under the title "The much in common with Children of the Sea." the position held by Mr. Conrad is a man of some writers of an about forty. Early in earlier date, notably life he went to sea, risCharles Rogers and Southey. Mr. Payn, ing to be a captain of a vessel engaged in during the later years of his life, had the South Sea trade. Like Mr. Louis gathered round him a circle of acquaint- Beck, a writer of the same school, he pubances who called constantly at his house, lished his first work, "Almayer's Folly," where very bad health compelled him to through Mr. Fisher Unwin, in 1895, and remain a prisoner. An excellent whist- the following year he gave us 66 An Outplayer and an unmatched raconteur, he cast of the Islands." We have had books cultivated the gift of friendship as a galore about the sea, but not one of them busier man of to-day is unable to do, and is conceived in the same spirit of poetry his weekly appearance in the Illustrated as Mr. Conrad's. His forthcoming book, London News made him known to English-The Rescue," will make its appearance speaking people all over the world, and in serial form in the English Illustrated brought him quantities of letters. It is an Magazine, and Mr. Heinemann will afterinteresting fact that his successive illnesses wards publish it. We believe the Doublecreated the greatest anxiety among people day & McClure Co. have the American who had never seen him, and brought, at rights. Mr. Conrad leads a quiet life in JAMES PAYN JOSEPH CONRAD the quaintly named Ivy Walls Farm, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, and does not figure in literary circles of London. "Pendennis" is issued as the second volume in the new Biographical Edition of Thackeray, in which there is so much to praise. Yet it may not be hypercritical to call attention to the fact that while many hitherto unpublished drawings by the author are included in the biographical introductions to this new edition, the smaller text pictures of earlier editions are not included, and full-page drawings, even, are not to be found. For instance, in "Vanity Fair," everybody remembers the picture called "Becky's Second Appearance as Clytemnestra," but that picture is not given in the new edition. This is to be the more regretted since it is by this picture alone that we are informed that Becky was within earshot when Dobbin went to see Jos that night at the By an unlucky accident the titles of two of the pictures illustrating Mr. W. L. Andrews's review of "Historic New York" in the May BooK BUYER were sadly confused. The title given to the picture at the head of the article, "Nieuw Amsterdam-1665," should have been attached to the print used as tail-piece, and the date should have been 1656, instead of 1665. The view given in this second print is of the city a few years later. "A Yankee" writes to THE BOOK BUYER to call attention to the fact that Dr. Conan Doyle's "local color" is a bit confused in his last story, "A Desert Drama." He says: "The Tremont Presbyterian Church' may go down with foreigners, but not with New Englanders. They know there is no Presbyterian church in Boston." Four volumes in the Scribners' popular edition of George Meredith's novels have appeared: Richard Feverel," "Diana," "Sandra Belloni," and "Vittoria." The problem of compressing stories so long T within the limits of a light, compact rial to the gifted woman whose influence duodecimo volume, at a low price, has and memory are so much deeper influbeen accomplished with considerable skill. ences than those of the ordinary teacher Thoroughly inconspicuous in typography of young women. As has been said of and binding, the literature held between her: "When Barnard College was estabthe sober green covers is allowed to be its lished, Miss Weed was one of the first own first attraction. women called upon to give practical form and substance to the idea that inspired its institution, and Barnard owes to her its systematic organization and its insistence on high standards of scholarship. Her judgment of character was a positive force in the development of the college, and she has left an ineffaceable impression upon it." It is safe to guess that Mr. Gladstone's name will turn up frequently in a new volume of English parliamentary reminiscences, called "Collections and Recollections," written by a Radical M.P., who signs himself "One Who Has Kept a Diary," and to be published shortly by the Harpers. The author is said to be a member of the literary craft, as well as a statesman. The many friends of Mr. Charles F. Lummis will be interested in the progress of his ambitious plan to make his magazine, The Land of Sunshine, the leading illustrated literary magazine of the Pacific coast. A strong literary and financial support has been secured, and Mr. Lummis's strenuous enthusiasm and energy are pretty sure to bring him success. Among those who have pledged themselves to work together for the broadening and brightening of The Land of Sunshine are Theodore HI. Hittell, David Starr Jordan, Constance Goddard Du Bois, Mary Hallock Foote, Margaret Collier Graham, Ella Higginson, Grace Ellery Channing, John Vance Cheney, Frederick Webb Hodge, Dr. Washington Matthews, George Parker Winship, Charles Warren Stoddard, Ina Coolbrith, Charles Edwin Markham, Charles Frederick Holder, T. S. Van Dyke, and many others. Under the title, "Pearls Strung by Ella Weed," Miss Anne Brown has published a volume to which we take pleasure in calling attention. It is a slight memo The book consists of short extracts in prose and verse, arranged in the form of a year-book. It was originally given by Miss Weed to Miss Brown as a birthday remembrance, "chance lines chosen as her fancy dictated, copied in her own strong, unique hand-writing... These selections were never intended for publication, nor would I have printed them [remarks Miss Brown in the short preface] except in answer to the many requests from those who wished them as a personal memorial. In no way must. they be criticised as a specimen of her literary ability. To her friends everywhere I pass on the string of pearls as she handed it to me." . The book is daintily printed and bound, and copies are for sale at $1 each at Putnam's, Dutton's, Jenkins's, and by Miss Brown at 715 Fifth Avenue. All the proceeds of sales are to be devoted to the Ella Weed Scholarship at Barnard College, where Miss Weed worked so faithfully until her untimely death. Prof. James Bryce is writing for a summer number of the Atlantic Monthly an article upon the new relations between England and America, for which we are likely to be grateful to the war with Spain. Prof. James K. Hosmer is treat ing the same subject from the American point of view. Students of Shakespeare cannot fail to be interested in "The Poems of Shakespeare," edited with an introduction and notes by George Wyndham, and announced for immediate publication by Messrs. T. Y. Crowell & Co. The purpose of the book is to supply a separate, adequate edition of all the poems, apart from the plays, together with such explanatory and critical comment as the editor, in the light of modern scholarship, has seen fit to provide. A copy of the first edition of Hawthorne's Fanshawe" brought what is said to be the "record price" at the recent Blanchard sale" in Boston. This was $165; but it is to be doubted whether there was so much profit for any one concerned as in the sale for $110 of that other copy of the book which, together with a razor and an earthen jar, was once bought for ten cents at an auction in a Maine village. Alas! for collectors and booksellers, such transfers are all too rare. Four volumes of graceful and workmanlike fiction which have just been issued by the Harpers are a book of tales by Miss Wilkins, called "Silence, and Other Stories"; Mr. Howells's "Story of a Play" (which appeared last summer in Scribner's Magazine, and whose plot, curiously enough, has been almost duplicated in real life by the experiences of a young playwright here in New York during the past few months); and The Hundred, and Other Stories," a volume of Miss Gertrude Hall's delicate and fanciful tales. The Harpers also issue a new edition of Mr. II. G. Wells's Thirty Strange Stories," published last year by Mr. Edward Arnold. The career of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt has been so brilliant as to command considerable admiration from the discriminating public, a smallish body which often grudges its praise. He has been called a scholar in politics; he is, more definitely, a scholar in the athletics of public life. Born in 1858, graduated at Harvard in 1880, an Assemblyman from 1881 to 1884, Mr. Harrison's Civil Service. Commissioner, a Police Commissioner who overthrew Pharaoh, a biographer of Gouverneur Morris and Thomas H. Benton, an honest historian, a forcible essayist, and a mighty hunter-now, when barely forty years of age, he leaves the Navy Department (where his energy has had greater results than are yet fully seen) to lead a cavalry regiment in the field and "show how a Knickerbocker can whip a Hidalgo," to use the classic phrase of one of his heartiest admirers. As he himself put it one day in conversation, he has been a Jingo a good many years, and now is going to take his own medicine." We take great pleasure in publishing the best photograph ever made of him, with the permission of Mr. Rockwood, by whom the plate is copyrighted. And when he comes back from the war he will doubtless write the most interesting book of all, for it will be the story of a hunting trip for the biggest game in the world. Perhaps the most notable novels announced for immediate publication are Mrs. Humphry Ward's "Helbeck of Bannisdale," now in the Macmillans' press, and George Moore's "Evelyn Innes," to be published in this country, we believe, by the Appletons. Among the books by less distinguished writers are Mrs. Atherton's The Californians," which Mr. John Lane has in preparation. After "The Virginians" and The Bostonians," one must look for a brilliant |