The Mother of Goethe. By Margaret Reeks. (John Lane. 10s.
6d. net.)—To learn something about the parentage of a great poet is, of course, a gain, but one asks whether it could not have been more easily acquired. A book of about a quarter the size and price would have amply sufficed. This volume has had to be " made up." Much is hypothetical. Sometimes the description is, so to speak, by contraries. At the age of seventeen Elizabeth Textor—this was her maiden name—marries a middle-aged man. " Alas ! there was no room for romance," cries Miss Reeks, and straightway gives us a couple of pages of romance from the Hermann and Dorothea. Of course there is much to interest us as we read, but we do not carry away a wholly favourable impression of the lady ; nor do we quite understand the attitude of her biographer. " Her heart's desire was that her son should marry." Instead of doing this he lived with a mistress, Christiana Vulpius. " Therefore she accepts Christiane's position as nearly as possible as a wife's, and writes to her as such." Surely this is not a little amazing.
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