27 JUNE 1914, Page 13

Alone in the Wilderness. By Joseph Knowles. (Longmans and Co.

58. net.)—This candidly egotistic volume is the record of what Stevenson would have called a "compendious lark." Its author—who is a well-known American landscape painter— entered the virgin forest of Maine, naked and unashamed, in August of last year. Two months later he emerged from it, clothed and in his right mind. Starting with nothing at all— not even a knife or a match—he contrived to get himself food and garments, to live healthily, and to paint some very primi- tive but agreeable pictures with burnt sticks on birch-bark. His story is worth reading, if only to show what a civilized man can still do in the Robinson Crime line.