The Winborough Boys. By the Rev. H. C. Adams. (Routledge.)-
This is a volume which would have been noticed among the "Christmas Books," but for a certain reason which will be presently seen. As it is, we do not intend to say a word about its merits or demerits, but shall make it the text of an appeal to publishers. Some of them do not act fairly either to reviewers or to the public. What with "annuals," which are sometimes bound-up magazines that have appeared and some- times bound-up magazines that are about to appear, and those books which appear without a hint on the title-page of their having been pub- lished before, whether in magazines or in separate volumes, an unfortu- nate reviewer may be entrapped into reading the same thing over and over again. It is not easy, when one has to read as many tales as crowd in upon a reviewer at this time, to keep a distinct notion of each. Luckily, we are infallible, or we might actually give two different opinions after two several readings. But the public is exposed to a worse danger. It may very well buy the same book twice. For our- selves, we are finally resolved not to notice any book of which we have reason to believe that it has appeared before in the same form,—we do not mean that a serial tale in a magazine ought not to appear in a com- plete form without special notice of the magazine in which it was pub- lished as a serial,—unless the fact be honestly stated on the title-page.
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