19 FEBRUARY 1887, Page 24

Old Salem. By Eleanor Putnam. Edited by Arlo Bates. (Houghton,

Mifflin, and Co., Boston and New York.)—There are in this volume five sketches of persons and places in Salem, one of the typical homes of New England life. The subjects of these five are "Old Salem Shops," "A Salem Dame-School," "Two Salem Insti- tutions," and "Salem Cupboards." A. sixth, left in an unfinished condition by the author at her death, is added; and there are a few unconnected fragments of thought jotted down, which have been also included. Mrs. Putnam's work was rather a promise than a per- formanoe, perhaps necessarily so from its very brevity and frog- mentary character ; but that it is a promise, unhappily never now to be fulfilled, no one can doubt.