31 MAY 1873, Page 25

Friendly Fairies ; or, Once Upon a Time. (Nimmo.)—" This

volume," says the editor, "is composed of adaptations of certain fairy tales from foreign sources which are scarcely so well known in England as they ought to be." We do not see that they are very different from what we do know, our old friends "Jack and the Beanstalk" and the rest of them. "Johnny's Journey," with its realistic account of the marvels which he accomplished—the giant's copy-book, for instance, when he had to write a copy miles long and was nearly drowned in making the dot to an "i "—is perhaps the most peculiar and the best.—If any one wants to read "Jack the Giant-killer" on a large scale, with nearly as much matter as would fill a three-volume novel, let him take up Giant Land; or, the Wonderful Adventures of Tim Pippin. By ."Roland Quiz." (J. Henderson.)—But why must we have love-making stuffed into everything that we read? Our old friend Jack knew nothing about such nonsense.