12 OCTOBER 1889, Page 39

CURRENT LITERATURE.

GIFT-BOOKS.

Fifty-two Stories for Boys and Fifty-two Stories for Girls are two volumes which appear under the editorial care of Mr. Alfred H. Miles, and are published by Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. "The volume," says Mr. Miles of the first-mentioned of the two, "had its origin in a desire on the part of the editor to issue in a per- manent form a number of stories originally written for the pages of magazines and annuals edited by him from time to time ;" and

he gives the same account of the sister-volume. It will be sufficient to mention some of the contributors, hailing, it may be observed, from both sides of the Atlantic, whose work has been put together in this convenient and attractive form. The "table of authors" in one volume shows twenty-four names, and in the other as many as thirty. Mayne Reid, W. H. G. Kingston, Ascott Hope, Man- ville Fenn, Alice Corkran, Louise Chandler Moulton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, are only a few of the names which every reader of this kind of literature will recognise, not without many pleasur- able associations.