28 NOVEMBER 1903, Page 25

The Story of My Life. By Helen Keller. With a

Supple- mentary Account of her Education, &c. (Hodder and Stoughton. 7s. 6d.)—Helen Keller, born in Alabama, of Swiss ancestry, lost her sight and hearing by illness in her second year. She tells here the story of how she was taught. The teaching began three months before she had completed her seventh year, and it has been eminently successful, judging by the result that we see before us in this very well-written narrative. At thirteen she began to learn to speak. All this is very interesting, reminding

us of the famous narrative of Laura Bridgman. (Laura was, of course, far more inaccessible to instruction, for she was born a blind deaf-mute.) The supplementary account must not be neglected. There is also a strange and pathetic story of Helen Keller's unconscious plagiarism. Her tale of the "Frost King" was without question borrowed from the "Frost Fairies." Equally without question it is an improvement on the original. Miss Keller may well make for herself a name in letters.