The Girl's Own Annual and The Boy's Own Annual (56
Paternoster Row) are yearly volumes, containing the weekly issue of two papers, and are always welcome. Both have a special suitability to the audience for whom they are intended, the girls possibly getting the best of it, as there is very little in the boys' journal which they will not feel interested in reading. In the first volume there are several serial stories. "Our Bessie," by Miss Rosa Nouchette Carey.; "A Young Oxford Maid," by Miss Sarah Tytler, a tale of Oxford during the War of the Commonwealth ; and "The Hill of Angels," by Miss Lily Watson, are among them. Of practically useful items we have a variety ; perhaps the hand of a masculine critic may be detected when a series of papers, appearing, it would seem, every month under the title of "Our Chef." is put at the head. These are due to the authorship of Mrs. Mary Pocock. Another series is "Dress in Season and in Reason," by "A Lady Dress- maker," presumably a person of "light and leading," which dressmakers cannot always be said to be. "How Working Girls Live in London" is one of a short set of papers which will anyhow do the good service of arousing interest and sympathy. —The Boy's Own Annual, of course, abounds with tales of adven- ture. M. Jules Verne relates the story of "Adrift in the Pacific," noticed elsewhere ; "Conqueror Compass," by Mr. Franklin Fox, already favourably known as the writer of sea-stories ; "A Marvellous Conquest," by A. Laurie ; "Sir Ludar," by Talbot Baines Reid, also separately noticed, are among them. Fiction, indeed, seems to have a lion's share of the annual's con- tents ; but the editor presumably knows his business, and the article which he supplies is, anyhow, wholesome and of good quality. Nor are there wanting other things,—papers on natural history, for instance, on such practical matters as fire-engines, coins, gilding, poultry-keeping, and the like. Athletics, of course, are not forgotten. Both annuals may be confidently recommended as storehouses of entertaining and, it may be added, useful reading.
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