THE BOOK BUYER A REVIEW AND RECORDARD CURRENT LITERATURE ENTERED AT THE POST-OFFICE, NEW YORK, Y., A SECOND-CLASS MATTER VOL. XXI NEW YORK, DECEMBER, 1900 THE BOOK BUYER is published on the first of every month. Subscription price, $1.50 per year. No. 5 Subscribers in ordering change of address must give the old as well as the new address. PENELOPE IN BRITAIN BY LAURENCE HUTTON P ENELOPE is one of the few heroines of classic ages whose name has been perpetuated and semi-immortalized in the fiction of these prosaic days. The original Penelope, of Greek mythology, was married to Ulysses, it will be remembered, and she spent a great deal of her spare time in making and in unmaking an elaborate garment for Lærtes, her father-in-law. Her successor, Miss Penelope Hamilton, "artist, of the great American working class, limited "-the words are her own - was created by Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin to delight countless readers on both sides of the Atlantic; and among her other natural womanly traits she displays a fondness for dress, on her own account. When we first met her in Dovermarle street, Piccadilly, London, at the end of a Cathederal Courtship, PENELOPE'S EXPERIENCES. I. England. II. Scotland. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. Holiday Edition. With 108 Illustrations by C. E. Brock. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 2 volumes, 12mo, $4.00. some seven or eight years ago, she was robed in a perfect-fitting tailor-made gown of sober grey; but when she made her subsequent progress to Edinburgh, she appeared in a most brilliant, but not unbecoming, gown of Royal Stuart tartan, a combination of colors which none but a Royal Stuart, or an American, has the From "Penelope's Experience ."-Houghton, Mifflin & Co. THE WEEKLY BILL Copyright, 1900, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. All rights reserved. From "Penelope's Experiences." THE DECAY OF ROMANCE Houghton, Mifflin & Co. right to wear. Now she is presented to the world, by her publishers, in apparel befitting the station into which she was born, and the social position she has won for herself. Her dress is green and gold, her figure is taller, her type clean and clear, and she is profusely ornamented with illustrated trimmings which show her to the best advantage. Penelope Hamilton ranks very high among the original and attractive young women who figure in modern romance. She tells her own story of her experiences and progress through the Sister Kingdoms of Great Britain in what she herself terms Ian omelette soufflé style," which is not only gratifying to the palate, but is satisfying to the most jaded appetite. She is sweet, wholesome and nourishing, always, and she never palls upon the taste. Her first course, served in 66 England, is as delicate and as savory as is her second course, purveyed in Scotland; while her third course, now being dished up in Ireland, promises as well as did those which preceded it. We can only hope, before the symposium is brought to a close, that she will regale us with Wales as a salad; and with the Isle of Man as a dessert. It must not be inferred, however, that Miss Hamilton is all sauce, and all jelly, and all dressing. She is a most careful and elaborate study of advanced femininity, as it is displayed sometimes in the American Girl Abroad; and she is, as well, a finished and complete picture of that sturdy, honest, self-reliant, self-respecting common sense and sensibility, in which the American Girl is so rarely deficient, abroad or at home. Taken seriously, Penelope will be found to be as instructive and edifying as she is entertaining and amusing. One can read From "Penelope's Experiences." Houghton, Mifflin & Co. no better Guide to Great Britain and its characteristics, its classes, its mode of life, high and low, than are contained in her vivid descriptions of domestic service, for instance. She is peculiarly happy and supremely at home in the British lodging-house and in the private hotel. The studies of these are valuable lessons to the uninitiated travelers, and they are most refreshing reminders to the tourists of long experience. Her Dawson, the butler at Smith's, in the English capital, is drawn from life, and he is only equalled in his line by Mr. Aldrich's Smith at Jones's, who pervaded the place like an atmosphere and was a person whose gravity of deportment lent seriousness to the coal-scuttle every time he replenished the fire; while her Susanna, at Mrs. M'Collop's, in Houghton, Mifflin & Co. "HE'S AYE DINGIN THE DUST OOT o' the POOPIT CUSHIONS" the capital of Scotland, stands From "Penelope's Experiences." a very Scottish Christian 6 the potato to a second careful scrutiny and answered, 'I wouldna say it's no' !"" Few aboriginal, deeply observant, sympathetic analysts of the Kail Yard school of fiction, from Scott to Barrie, have drawn a more thoroughly Scottish character than is this handmaiden of Mistress M'Collop's, sketched by the pen of a woman born in Philadelphia, educated in Massachusetts, identified with California, having a winter home in New York and a summer home in Maine. And when the most uncommunicative of Scotsmen is asked if the picture is a true one, he canna say it's no'. SICH BY EVANGELINE WILBOUR BLASHFIELD ICILY, the most fertile, and, in some respects, the fairest portion of the kingdom of Italy, has too long been considered the realm of the brigand and the specialist. The former have faded into the limbo of "Keepsakes," and "Romantic Tales," but the latter still retain their hold on the garden of the Mediterranean. Much has been written, and well written on Sicily, but from a limited point of view. The Greeks, the Romans, the Saracens, the Normans have all had their special historians, archæologists have devoted themselves to the study of its various groups of monuments, men of letters have collected and classified its RULERS OF THE SOUTH: SICILY, CALABRIA AND MALTA. BY F. Marion Crawford. With many illustrations in photogravure and a hundred drawings in the text by Henry Brokman. Macmillan Co., 2 vols., 8vo, $6.00 net. folk songs, and each successive age has found its own chronicler. Nor has Sicily lacked enthusiastic and literary travelers. Renan in his "Vingt Jours en Sicile," in which to his seductive style he united a rare degree of sympathetic appreciation, invested the island with an almost magical charm. Symonds in his "Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe," has left us a detailed and sumptuous picture of Palermo, and a moving description of the agony of the Athenians in the quarries of Syracuse. Dumas père translated the glories of sunrise on Mt. Etna into noble and vivid prose. Later, August Schneegans, combining with German scholarship and the German historic sense, the un-Teutonic quality of picturesqueness and mobility of style, published the "Sicily" which was received with en thusiasm in Italy, and was translated into Italian with an eloquent preface by Signor Pitré. Herr Schneegans's book was a comprehensive study of the natural features, the history, or rather the dramatic episodes in Sicilian history which interest the general reader, the manners and customs, and the arts and architecture of the island. It was, perhaps, the most rounded and complete book of travel which had been given to the public. Mr. Crawford has done for the student of Sicilian history what Herr Schneegans has done for the tourist. Mr. Crawford's task has not been an easy one. The embarrassment of riches has been his, and the difficulty of deciding between many different and differing authorities. For the history of Sicily is as complex as a mosaic in the Capella Palatina, and is composed of as many widely differing From "Rulers of the South."-Copyright, 1900, by The Macmillan Co. CLOISTER OF MOORISH CASTLE AT RAVELLO From "Rulers of the South."-Copyright, 1900, by The Macmillan Co. BALCONY AT TAORMINA elements. Mr. Crawford has wisely chosen to base his account of each successive epoch of Sicilian history mainly on one authority and thus avoids the confusion. and vagueness of impression left in the reader's mind by a juxtaposition of conflicting statements, or a plethora of citations, and references. His aim has been to simplify the story of the rulers of the South, and he has attained his object largely by judicial elimination. Myth and legend have not been overlooked, the myths which seem so much at home on the shores of the many-colored |