The Orange Fairy - Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. (Longmans and Co.
6s.)—That fairy-tales have a strong family resemblance all of us know. Mr. Lang suggests a cause in the universal prevalence of slavery in early times. "The slave trade," he gays in his preface, "might take a Greek to Persia," or, indeed, any one anywhither. Another suggestion is the similarity of human fanoy,—and to this we are inclined to give much weight. Tho resemblances are found where it is almost impossible to suppose any intercourse. This similarity is very far from wearying readers. Children are never tired of hearing the same marvels, and to "grown-ups" it is interesting. Stories from Mashonaland, from Portugal, from the Scottish Highlands, from Sweden, from the countries of the Slays—we take some of Mr. Lang's sources at random—attract both by what is alike and by what is different in them. Mr. Lang can without fear of overtaxing his readers run through all the doloure, primary or other, and through any other series of titles by which he may be pleased to distinguish his volumes. There is less of the gruesome than we seem to remember in one or other of the earlier volumes, and there are, as usual, some illustrations of excellent quality. The coloured pictures are particularly good, witness, for instance, the "Three Maidens "who are sitting on the rocks, with a sea-monster coming up behind them, in "Ian, the Soldier's Son."
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