Summer Days in Shakespeare Land. By C. G. Harper. (Chapman
and Hall. 7s. 6d. net.)—As an indefatigable traveller on English roads Mr. Harper has earned considerable gratitude for sharing his pleasures with many readers. In this volume he gives us a guide- book to Stratford-on-Avon and the surrounding country, namely, a broad strip of Warwickshire with corners of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, from Coventry in the north to Chipping Camden in the south. Especial prominence is given to the overshadowing genius of Shakespeare, but Mr. Harper is at his best in the least- known parts of the area. There are plenty of opportunities for explaining local allusions in the plays. On the whole the book should make the reader the more interested in the country, and that is the test by which it ought to be judged. But we could have done with a shorter volume. The serious Shakespearean will find portions of it intolerably "chatty" ; and the occasional sarcasm is clumsy. Few will be amused or impressed by the title-page, on which Mr. Harper claims that there are in the book " many things both new and entertaining . • . prettily set forth." He adds there that "certain fanatics are handsomely confuted ": though he adduces many points which would confirm reasonable people in their belief in Shakespeare's authorship, the Baconians are more likely to be infuriated than convinced by his style of confuting them. The title-page again describes the book as "for the most part also illustrated by him with a pen." His pen- drawings are simple and inoffensive. There are also some good photographs, but a guide book ought to have a map too.
The Boy's Own Book of New Inventions. By H. E. Maule. (Harpers. 6s.)—There is a somewhat bombastic tone about this book. Prominence is, of course, given to aeroplanes and to the wireless transmission of electric power in various ways. There are also chapters on the treatment of steel and concrete, and another upon " motion-photography," which tells us all about the cinematograph. It is well illustrated with photographs.
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