Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small]

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

AUG 2 1900

CAMBRIDGE, MASS

THE BOOK BUYER

A REVIEW AND RECORD OF CURRENT LITERATURE

ENTERED AT THE POST-OFFICE, NEW YORK, N. Y., AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER

VOL. XXI

NEW YORK, AUGUST, 1900

THE BOOK BUYER is published on the first of every month. Subscription price, $1.50 per year.
Subscriptions are received by all booksellers.

Subscribers in ordering change of address must give the old as well as the new address.

No. 1

Bound copies of Volumes IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, and XIII, $2.00 each. Volumes XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX and XX, $1.50. Covers for binding, 50 cts. each. Bound volume sent on receipt of $1.00 and all the num bers in good condition. Postage prepaid. Volumes I, II, and III out of print. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK.

THE RAMBLER

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

'Twas in the month of chill November,
As I can very well remember
In dismal, gloomy, crumbling hall,
Betwixt moss-covered, reeking walls,
An exiled poet lay-

On his bed of straw reclining,
Half despairing, half repining;
When athwart the window sill,
Flew a bird of omen ill,
And seemed inclined to stay.

To my book of occult learning,
Suddenly I thought of turning,
All the mystery to know,

Of that shameless owl or crow,
That would not go away.

"Wherever such a bird shall enter,
'Tis sure some power above has sent her,
(So said the mystic book) to show
The human dweller forth must go,"-
But where it did not say.

Then anxiously the bird addressing,
And my ignorance confessing,
"Gentle bird, in mercy deign
The will of Fate to me explain,
Where is my future way?"

It raised its head as if 'twere seeking
To answer me by simple speaking,
Then folded up its sable wing,
Nor did it utter anything,
But breathed a "Well-a-day!"
More eloquent than any diction,
That simple sign produced conviction,
Furnishing to me the key
Of the awful mystery
That on my spirit lay.

"Fortune's wheel is ever turning,
To human eye there's no discerning
Weal or woe in any state;
Wisdom is to bide your fate;"
This is what it seemed to say
In that simple" Well-a-day."

Poe's apparent obligation to early Chinese literature brings to mind another interesting parallel. Many persons have remarked the similarity between Poe's tale of The Cask of Amontillado" and Balzac's story of "Le Grand Breteche" the motive being the same in each caseburying a living man in a tomb of mason

Copyright, 1900, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. All rights reserved.

ry. But we wish somebody who is wise in dates would inform us whether Poe was indebted to Balzac for this incident, or Balzac to Poe. It seems to us that it is more likely that Poe read Balzac than that Balzac read Poe, whose fame has waxed since his death. But we should like to be assured by somebody who knows. Perhaps Mr. Stedman can tell, or Mr. Woodberry.

From South Africa to North China is a far cry, but within a few days the eye militant has changed its focus from Africa to Asia. The latest and in many respects the best book to give one a correct idea of the present conditions in North China is "Village Life in China," by Arthur H. Smith, who is now at P'ang Chuang near Tien-Tsin, the storm centre of the present hostilities. Although issued but a few months ago, the book is now in its second edition, and many eminent critics have said that it is quite equal, if not superior, said that it is quite equal, if not superior,

to Dr. Smith's inimitable "Chinese Characteristics," now in its tenth thousand.

"Chinese Characteristics" has been translated into German and "Village Life in China" has been so much appreciated in the land of its birth as to induce a Pekin publisher to arrange for a Chinese translation by a gentleman in the Imperial customs. Dr. Smith's volumes are published by the F. H. Revell Co., of New York.

The initial at the head of the Rambler is from Mr. Mansfield's new edition of "In Memoriam" for which Blanche McManus has made 140 specially designed letters. The volume will be printed in two colors and will contain a frontispiece portrait of Hallam on Japan vellum.

Dr. William A. P. Martin, President of the Imperial College at Peking, whose

book, "A Cycle of Cathay," published some years ago, has acquired new timeliness through the recent events in China, ranks with Sir Robert Hart, the British Inspector of Chinese Customs, as the leading authority on the country, its people, conditions, and policies. Dr. Martin has spent the greater part of his life in China, where he went in 1850 as a Presbyterian missionary. Returning to the United States in 1856, he received two years later from our Government an appointment as official interpreter in the conduct of negotiations with the Chinese government by Mr. William B. Reed, then United States Minister at Peking. In the following year he was attached to the staff of our Minister to Japan-Mr. John E. Ward.

Returning to China, Dr. Martin resumed his missionary labors, and in 1865 rendered a service, not only to that country, but to the whole civilized world, by the translation into Chinese of Wolseley's "International Law," the first book of its kind to be published in the language.

It

gave the Chinese an insight into the rules governing the relations of nations, and became the authority to which they looked for guidance in their intercourse with Western powers. Dr. Martin was specially thanked for his labor by the Tsung-LiYamen.

Soon afterward Dr. Martin was put at the head of the Tung Weng college for the training of Chinese for the government service, established at the suggestion of Sir Robert Hart, with whom he constantly collaborated, and was closely associated in his further educational work. Dr. Martin was made a mandarin of the first class in 1885, and of the second class in 1898, sharing this honor, if we mistake. not, only with Sir Robert Hart, who has, beside the Red Button, the Double Dragon and the Peacock Feather.

In 1894 Dr. Martin returned to this country, and wrote "A Cycle of Cathay,"

one of the most informing books on China available to the student. It was his intention at the time to spend the remainder of his days among us, but the offer of the presidency of the newly established Imperial college at Peking opened up so vast a field of usefulness to him, that he readily accepted the post, which he holds to this day.

The venerable clergyman and educatorDr. Martin is over seventy-five years oldhas been submerged by the upheaval in China. His fate, like that of the Envoys, and of so many missionaries, is, at the moment of this writing, unknown. The last direct communication from him was addressed to his granddaughter, and dated at the "temple called the Pearl Grotto," near Peking, on May 18. His son, Mr. Newell Martin, recently made public extracts from this letter, which show, that, while the movements of the Boxers had not entirely escaped the Doctor's attention, he did not consider them as of a particularly threatening nature. "They have killed one missionary," he wrote, "and burned down a good many churches, and killed some hundreds of Christians. They pray to the idols just before making an attack, and then believe themselves bullet-proof. A few weeks ago, however, some sixty of them were killed in an attack on a Christian village. Their faith is naturally somewhat shaken."

On June 9th two cablegrams from China were received in this city in answer to telegraphed inquiries regarding Dr. Martin's whereabouts. The first of these, from Chefoo, said: "Uncertain; last accounts, Peking." The second, from Shanghai, addressed to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, simply said: "Martin, Peking." There the matter rests at present. We can only hope that Dr. Martin, one of the ablest of our representatives in the Orient, may have escaped the wave of fury and fanaticism.

[graphic][merged small]

Miss Josephine Preston Peabody's new volume of verse, to be published this fall by Small, Maynard & Company, will show this young poet in a new light to those who have known her only from her first volume, "The Wayfarers."

The new book is to be titled "Fortune and Men's Eyes-New Poems, with a Play." The play which opens and names the volume is a one-act Elizabethan drama, founded on the sonnets of Shakespeare. The "player" of the piece is none other than Master W. S. himself, and the play somewhat audaciously presents, with a good deal of ironic humor and human sympathy, the spiritual crisis of the sonnets at a climax on the same afternoon with a bear baiting in South London.

It is not intended as a contribution to Shakespeariana, but as a picture of a great man in his day of self-doubt, elbowed by

[graphic]
[graphic]

HON. WHITELAW REID

[From a photograph by Hollinger]

a thousand circumstances, and the spiritual story remains the same, whether one believes or disbelieves in the Pembroke theory and Mary Lytton. The poetic quality and the purity of the Elizabethan diction and imagery promise for the play a rare literary and artistic success.

The new poems and lyrics which complete the volume show a considerable advance over Miss Peabody's former volume, having wider range, deeper insight, and much more forthright speech, as well as more evident human interest.

To the Century Company, his publishers, we are indebted for the liberty of publishing a new portrait of Mr. Reid whose "Problems of Expansion' Mr. Edward Cary reviews on another page.

R. N. STEPHENS

Robert Neilson Stephens, author and. dramatist, came into literary work by the natural pathway leading through newspaper work.

Mr. Stephens was born in Pennsylvania, July 22, 1867, his father being principal of an academy in Bloomfield. He entered business life as a printer's devil in the office of a country newspaper; later, he became clerk to a bookseller and stationer; then learned shorthand, and eventually became secretary to the managing editor of the Philadelphia Press in December, 1886. He was soon promoted to a staff position, taking charge of the theatrical department, and doing reporting and correspondence. During this period several short stories from his pen were published in various magazines. In 1893 he made his début as a theatrical agent and dramatist, writing melodramas and a

« PreviousContinue »