FAIRY-STORIES.
THE brothers Grimm were Germans, but their fairy-tales, like Grimm's Law, are the possession of the whole world, and there
is no cause for regret that each year another firm of publishers should draw attention to them as a present for children. If we regret anything, it is that no tribute whatever is paid to the brothers beyond the single name on the title-page, Grimm's Fairy Tales (Hump and Co., 7s. (3d. net), nor to the translator.
In this volume are forty or fifty of the tales clearly printed and two dozen full-page illustrations by Mr Munro Orr, some coloured, some black-and-white. They show good, clean workmanship, but do not seem to have caught any particular inspiration from the fairy-tales themselves.—The same publishers also issue a handsome, well-printed book whose contents are drawn from the country of our Russian allies. Runian Fairy Tales (7s. (3d, net) consists of twenty-four stories chosen from M. Polevoi's Russkiya Shazki and translated by Mr. Nisbet Bain. They will delight children, and are extremely interesting as studies of the Russian mind. The slow, the stupid, and the dull are generally rewarded for patience and piety. Some of the tales remind one of Grimm, others show plainly an Eastern influence. There are magicians and slaves of rings hardly distinguishable from the jinns of The Arabian Nights. Mr. Noel Nisbet provides sixteen full-page illustrations in colour or black-and-white.
The coloured ones appear to aim at a Russian gorgeousness which they do not attain without also seeming rather heavy
and confused. The black-and-white remind us of Mr. Heath Robinson's work, such as his illustrations of Urquhart's Rabelais; they are clever, but again have a slightly confused effect.
The Russian Garland (McBride, Nast, and Co., 3s. (3d. net) is another very attractive collection of similar stories taken from old Moscow chap-books by Mr. Robert Steele. They are illus- trated with six characteristic pictures by a Russian artist.
Some of these stories, or bits of them, appear again in Fairy Tales of Eastern Europe (same publishers and price). This is a collection, of stories made by the late American linguist and scholar, Mr. Jeremiah Curtin. Besides Russian, they include Hungarian and Bohemian tales and one Serbian. These too have signs of Oriental influences. They ought to please any well-conducted child, for the magic and adventures have the right inconsequence. There are some quite attractive coloured pictures by Mr. George Hood.—Lastly, Indian Fairy Stories (Blackie and Son, 3s. 6d. net) have the true Oriental atmosphere. Mr. Donald Mackenzie has chosen a number of tales some of which deal with human beings, .magicians and other supernatural beings ; more of them are concerned with animal life and the characteristic qualities of the various races. Several are more what w re accustomed to call fables. The illustrations by Mr. Maxwell Armfield are very satisfactorily decorative without colour, except in the frontispieces.
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