Waily Wanderoon and his Story - telling Machine. By Joel Chandler Harris.
(Grant Richards. 6s.)—Mr. Harris's readers will doubtless remember "Sweetest Susan" and "Billy Buster," grandchildren of Mr. Abercrombie, ex-planter somewhere in the Southern States. They are to be met with again in this book, though they do not play any important part. Wally Wanderoon takes them to listen to his "machine," and the machine, after getting over a tendency to talk of folk-lore, variants, and so forth—he is really a man after the way of the "automaton chessplayer "—contrives to amuse them very well. This might be expected when the man is nobody else but the creator of "Brer Rabbit" and his company. The fairy-stories are excellent.—The Pedlar's Pack, by Mrs. Alfred Baldwin (W. and R. Chambers, 6s.), gives us another pleasing collection of the same kind, though the stories have more of the Old World tone about them. The " pedlar " brings out of his stock things new and old; whether they be the one or the other, they are sure to please. Yet another volume to be added to the two mentioned above.
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