5 JANUARY 1889, Page 33

The Encore Reciter, edited by F. E. Marshall Steer° (Warne

and Co.), contains 128 pages of selections, divided into humorous, serious, and dramatic (a cross division, but intelligible, and, from the writer's point of view, useful, for a " dramatic " piece requires certain mechanical powers of voice). The authors from whom these selections are taken number fifty in all, and Artemus Ward, Barham (Ingoldsby), 0. W. Holmes, J. Russell Lowell, Mark Twain, Thackeray, Aytoun, and Edgar A. Poe, are among the names. The editor tells us that two-thirds of the pieces have never before been included in any collection of the kind.