CURRENT LITERATURE
THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS IN OUTLINE. _ (Thq Amalgamated Press, Part I. is.)
MR. J. A. HAankrEaTox is bringing out in fortnightly parts a new edition, rearranged, revised, and augmented, of The World's Greatest Books in Outline, which he and Mf:Aithui Mee brought out together 16 years ago. The first number contains
" Eighteen literary masterpieces in condensed fOrrn.r The greater part of our readers would perhaps open the magazine- like volume before us with a feeling of prejudice ; but we think as they read the feeling would pass away. Undoubtedly its effect is not to stave off literary hunger and so starve the mind while offering it an unhealthy satisfaction, but simply to whet the literary appetite, and make men read or reread. Mr. Hammerton's method of condensation is not exactly the method of typical selections. It is as though a lecturer were to lecture for about 20 minutes on any given book, almost entirely in the words of the author. They are non-critical reviews of the gut-the-book " type. Mr. Hammerton says he has tried to imitate the famous Bibliotheca of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (ninth century), who made a summary chiefly from memory of all the books he- had read during the long absence of an intimate friend. This first instalment is not arranged upon any system but the editor's pleasure, and contains such varied names as Shakespeare, Boswell, Erasmus, Fielding, Hilaire Belloc, and Karl Marx.
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