20 JANUARY 1906, Page 22

Pannell's Reference Book (The Granville Press) is a com- pendium

of universal knowledge, which it compresses within the quite moderate compass of something less than a thousand pages. First we have an "English Dictionary," not of words in general, but of such as, while in current use, may present some difficulty as to meaning or spelling. Then we have "Common Errors of Speech," "Derivation of English Words," "A List of English [British and American] Authors "—reaching the quite modest total of seventeen hundred (about)—" Names in Fiction," "Phrases," "General Education," and various special guides.