24 NOVEMBER 1888, Page 23

From Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode we have received a well-

executed reproduction of Jack the Giant-Killer, by Richard Doyle. Richard Doyle did this in 1842, when he was sixteen. His writing has been fac-similed, with one or two curious mistakes in spelling —" immence," for instance—a little touch which does not fail to give a new interest to the book. We get the lad's actual work as he did it. The illustrations it is needless to praise. The giants, who are most happily varied, are quite ideals of comic savagery. Doyle's subjects in after-life were, of course, more interesting, and took a wider range ; but he arrived at something very like per- fection in the humour and technical excellence of his work at an extraordinarily early age. The work, "written, drawn, and coloured by hand," was purchased recently at a sale of Messrs. Christie and Manson's, and lent to the publishers for reproduction.