Storks of Deep Sea Fish. Stories of W hales and
Other Sea Creatures. By Frank T. Bullen. (R.T.S. 3s. net each.)— The stories in these two volumes. are taken from Bullen's larger work, entitled Creatures of the Sea. Nowadays there is no need to speak of Bullen's imaginative insight into the life of the greater world that lives under the water. Whales and barracouta, albacores and cattle-fish, and, perhaps most fascinating of all, the strange chimeras of the deep sea such as the Regalecus and the Chiasmodon niger, swim familiarly through his pages. Sometimes the sea-creature tells its own story, and no animal of the land has a more exciting life. Every chapter, too, is replete with the queer sights and out- of-way knowledge that Bullen acquired in the course of his sea-faring life... The .sea-serpent is unmasked and the legend of the Kraken exploded by the more horrifying truth about the Cuttle-fish.. Bullen, indeed, has a place among the few writers who have pierced that baffling barrier which separates us from a full fellonShip with the lower animals. His is not the sentimental humanization of the popular nature-hook, but the knowledge won by close observation and a wholesome love for Nature. Everyone between the public school and dotage must treasure his maritime books.
We welcome a new edition of Andrew Lang's The Maid of France (Longman,_ 7s. 6d. net), probably the best of his biographies. Although the weight of historical opinion has long decided in favour of Joan of Arc, this does not lessen the value of Lang's ardent and convincing advocacy. His book first -appeared soon after M. Anatole France's Vie de Jeanne d' Arc, which, though delightful for its flawless prose and its cultivated irony, has. none of the minute accuracy and critical acumen of Lang's biography. The Maid of France is, in filet, a healthy counter-agent to M. France's Vie de Jeanne cr Are: Equally noteworthy is Abraham Lincoln, by John G. Nicolay (T. Werner Laurie, 21s. net), a condensation into one volume of the ten-volume biography written by Lincoln's two private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. Much important correspondence is retained, including some of the remarkable letters written by Lincoln during the Civil War.
Mr. John Murray has been reissuing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's earlier stories at 2s. the volume; There are two series of them : one which includes the Sherlock Holmes stories, and one which does not. That is the only distinction one can make between them so far as selection goes. For the rest, they arc uniformly printed in good-sized type.
Messrs. Constable and Company have published The Amazing Marriage (5s. cloth, 7s. 6d. leather} as the first volume of the Mickleham Edition of George Meredith's works. The book is pleasantly bound in slightly flexible covers and is of a size which will slip easily into a great-coat pocket. The paper is of a good quality and the type large and clear.
Mr. William Heinemann has reissued Henry James's volume of charming sketches called A Little Tour in France (7s. 6d. net). It is illustrated by Mr. Joseph Pennell and attractively printed on glossy paper in flexible covers. The volume makes a pleasant supplement to a Baedeker : to the judicious it is, in fact, a substitute for that work.
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