BOOKS.
THIS WEEK'S BOOKS.
THE pause in book-production is completely over. There were just eighty-nine books on my table this morning. However, among a mass of books certainly or probably unnecessary there were eight or nine that are pretty certain to prove of interest. Perhaps the most important is Mr. Ray Stannard Baker's two-volume treatise on Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (Heinemann). This book is a substitute for the autobiographical vindication that Mr. Wilson was too ill to write. It seems to give an intimate and com- pletely informed account of events not only of momentous significance, but of considerable human and psychological interest.
But perhaps readers forty or fifty years hence, if they could look at my table to-day, would say that Mr. Harold Cox's The Problem of Population (Jonathan Cape) was the more important book. It is not without significance that Mr. Cox, an economist of European reputation, should turn to this aspect of the problems which face us just now.
Mr. F. A. Simpson's long-expected book on Louis Napoleon (Longmans) has appeared. 1848 to 1856 is a period of history which is deservedly receiving a good deal of attention at present. It is near enough to our own to be very susceptible to the modern method of psychological historical analysis, and is, further, a time when many of the dragon's teeth, which we are now harvesting, were sown.
The Letters of II. H. Furness , the Shakespearean commentator, are published in England by Messrs. Constable. At first glance they appear to be less interesting than might have been expected. They seem to consist mostly of the straightforward narration of commonplace events. However, sometimes such letters on nearer acquaintance prove to possess a good deal of charm. Lady Butler's Autobiography is alsoissuedthis week by Messrs. Constable. It is illustrated by the author's sketches. Messrs. Hutchinson have published a history of the Howard family. It is by Miss Ethel Richardson and is called The Lion and the Rose. There are some attractive photographs of the usual family portraits—Hoppners, Knellers, and so forth—and there is even a Van Dyck, beside a Mytens of Robert Sackville second Earl of Dorset, a character in Miss Sackville-West's book on Knole which was published a month or two ago.
Messrs. Daniel O'Connor publish a beautiful edition of The Beggar's Opera, with an introduction by Mr. Oswald Doughty. It has some charming portraits and a beautiful facsimile title-page. It is interesting to compare the dresses with those worn at the Lyric, lIammersMith. The original costumes are for the most part very much more ornate, and -apparently very much less suitable to the characters por- trayed. Mrs. Cones, Mrs. Catticy, and Mrs. Cargill, who were suceessive Ponies, for instance, all appear to be wearing the actress's best dress rather than the costume of Mr. Peachum's daughter. If Mr. Ranalow is exactly like the Hogarth picture, Mr. Pitt-Chatham, who plays the part in Polly, is extraordinarily like Mr. Walker as Captain Dfacheath.
There are a good many new novels. The most notable seems to be a collection of short Stories, Dreams and Allegories, by Olive Schreiner (Fisher Unwin). They arc the papers which were left unpublished at her death, with the exception of a long novel. There is also a good deal of poetry, the most interesting book being a new collection of Mr. Conrad Aitken's called Nocturne of Remembered Spring (Martin Seeker).
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