Page images
PDF
EPUB

years being spent in going from one farm to another in search of health, and finally living for some time on a ranch in the far west. He probably inherits his taste for literature from his mother, who wrote for the magazines at the time when the "Ladies' Repository" was one of the more important monthlies. Mr. Henry is another graduate from the school of journalism, having served for some time as a reporter for the Chicago Herald and later in the capacity of city editor with the Toledo Blade.

[graphic]

Messrs. Small, Maynard & Company will publish in September a new novel by Miss Emma Rayner, author of "Free to Serve" and "In Castle and Colony," which may be confidently expected to exceed in popularity these books, each of which enjoyed a large sale. The new book is not a historical romance, but is a vivid picture of life in the Kentucky mountains, the time of action being about 1875. The plot of the book is, as the scene would indicate, full of stirring incidents, and the characters are admirably drawn with the skill and power which readers of Miss Rayner's earlier books have learned to expect of her pen.

Mr. William Vaughn Moody is publishing this fall, through Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co., of Boston, a poetic drama entitled "The Masque of Judgment." Mr. Moody is, perhaps, best known at present as the writer of many remarkable short poems. The latest of these, "An Ode in Time of Hesitation," and a poem entitled "Good Friday Night" appeared in recent numbers of the Atlantic Monthly. Mr. Moody was born in July, 1869, at Spencer, Ind., and was brought up in the town of New Albany, on the Ohio River. On the death of his father, at seventeen, he began teaching in a district school in Southern

MR. ARTHUR HENRY

Indiana, and for several terms while teaching he prepared himself at the same time for college. He entered Harvard in 1889 and later graduated from that institution. He was for one term an assistant in English at Harvard University, and thereafter went as instructor in English to the University of Chicago, which position he now holds. He has traveled both in Italy and in England, and it was while upon a walking trip through the dolmite country of southeastern Tyrol that the conception of "The Masque of Judgment" came to him. That was in 1897 that it was begun. He took the matter up again while in New York in 1899, continued working at it while in London in the same year, and finished it this spring in Boston. His latest work is a prose play entitled "The Faith Healer," recently completed; the scene of this drama is laid in Missouri and the action is based on a recent occurrence.

The Daughters of the Confederacy have recently erected at Norfolk, Va., a monument to the memory of Father Abraham J. Ryan, who will be remembered as the Laureate of the Lost Cause. His "Conquered Banner," "Sentinel Songs," "The Sword of Lee," and other battle poems are among the most effective of those which the Civil War incited on either side, and compare favorably with the work of Henry Howard Brownell. His war songs had at one time a vogue in the North as well as the South, and they are still read. In the homes of the South, especially, volumes of his verses are everywhere to be found.

[graphic]

A volume of fifty cartoons by Homer Davenport, illustrating the economic problem of the day, is announced for immediate publication by Messrs. Small, Maynard & Company, under the title of "The Dollar or the Man?" This book, which is said to "picture the struggle between the Democracy and Plutocracy," is edited with an introductory chapter on "The Problem, the Cartoon, and the Artist," by Horace L. Traubell, the editor of the Conservative. At the present time it is likely to be an effective campaign document-amusing if not convincing.

During the fall months Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., of Boston, will bring out a definitive edition in seven volumes of the works of Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. These volumes will include all of Colonel Higginson's work that he considers most worthy of preservation, and will cover his contribution to permanent American literature. It will be known as the Riverside Edition, and will include three portraits of the author; one from a recent photograph; one from a reproduction of an old-time daguerreotype of the author as Colonel of the first South Carolina Volunteers, and the third an interesting portrait taken in his youth.

Miss Howard Weeden, whose "Bandana Ballads," published last year by the Doubleday & McClure Co., is so popular, is a resident of Huntsville, Alabama. Her home is one of those delightful old Southern houses whose great halls and spacious rooms are crowded with the associations of a lifetime and the memories of her forbears. Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. will publish this fall a new book of twenty-four" Songs of the Old Scuth," with as many pictures of the "old-time" negro from Miss Weeden's pen. There is probably no author or artist to-day who preserves better the sentiment, the humor and the feeling of the plantation darkey.

An interesting little volume, probably the first of Chinese authorship published in this country, bears the date of 1887, and the imprint of the Lothrop Company of Boston, who are now making a new edition of the book. It is entitled "When I Was A Boy in China," and embodies the recollections of Yan Phou Lee, who was one of the first young men sent to this country

[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

Dr. John Clark Ridpath, the noted historian and author of popular lives of President Garfield and James G. Blaine, died at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York on the 31st of July. Dr. Ridpath, who was born near Fillmore, Putnam County, Indiana, in 1840, was a graduate of the Du Pauw University, where later he became professor of English literature and history and finally vice-president. His influence upon the multitude was no less wholesome and stimulating on account of his reputation being, perhaps, subordinate to most of the great historians among the cultivated few. His "History of the World" is probably better known and more widely read in this country than any of the works of Parkman, Bancroft, MacMasters, Gibbon, Hume or Freeman.

Among the new books about China announced for early publication is one by Rounsevelle Wildman, formerly United States Consul General at Hong Kong, entitled "China's Open Door." This volume will contain an introduction and a chapter on Peking, of special interest at the present time, by Colonel Denby, formerly United States Minister to China. The John Murphy Company, of Baltimore, announce also "The World Crisis in China," being an account of various uprisings and wars in the Celestial Empire, including the present war with the Boxers. This work is by Mr. Allen S. Will, of the Baltimore Sun, and will be handsomely illustrated.

MR. W. A. FRASER

(Photograph by Wm. Kay, Georgetown, Can.)

Mr. W. A. Fraser, well known as the writer of many interesting stories of the American Indian, has in press a volume of stories of the North Woods, entitled "Mooswa and Other Animals," which will be illustrated by Arthur Heming. Both author and artist know the Canadian wilderness with the thoroughness of long familiarity, and they have co-operated in making this story of the woods and its denizens a book of imaginative interest and romantic realism.

Two interesting contributions to the romance of American history are announced for early publication by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. The first of these is a graphic and interesting portrait of the most romantic figure in American Revolutionary history, and reveals many hitherto unknown exploits in the career of "Paul Jones, the Founder of the Ameri

[graphic][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]

can Navy." This definitive life of Paul Jones is the work of Augustus C. Buell, and will be published in two volumes with many illustrations. Mr. John R. Spears's "History of the American Slave Trade," which has been appearing in the pages of Scribner's Magazine, will appear in an octavo volume with illustrations by Mr. Appleton Clark toward the end of September. No one who has seen these papers in the magazine needs to be reminded of the unusual interest of Mr. Spears's account of the slave trade, or of Mr. Clark's realistic pictures which illustrate it.

Governor Roosevelt's brilliant monograph on Oliver Cromwell will appear in book form at once, with fifty illustrations from original drawings by distinguished English and American artists, and with portraits, fac-similes, etc., from the most notable British collections of interesting documents relating to the Protector.

Professor Barrett Wendell's "Literary History of America," upon which he has been at work for several years, will be published by the Scribners this autumn. The nineteenth century is treated in greatest detail, the eighteenth is discussed less fully, and the seventeenth century obviously more briefly still. The author has tried to define the ways in which the native character and thought of America. have diverged from those of England.

Mr. John Murray announces a forthcoming periodical The Monthly Review, whose first number, edited by Mr. Henry Newbolt, is to appear this month, in England. The Monthly Review will be illustrated, and will contain a serial novel, besides poetry, criticism of current literature and art, and editorial comment upon the whole field of human interest, from

religion and science to pastimes, politics and social questions.

Professor Henry A. Beers's experience in writing fiction, much of which is humorous, may to some degree explain the charm in his "English Romanticism of Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. are bringing the Eighteenth Century," of which out the third impression. Professor Beers expects to have his "English Romanticism of the Nineteenth Century" ready in the spring of 1901.

*

Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson and collaborator in "The Wrong Box," publishes his first volume of stories this autumn, under the title "The Queen versus Billy, and Other Stories." The Scribners also announce a new book of short stories by Mr. Stockton, called "Afield and Afloat"; a volume of Cy Warman's tales, called "Short Rails"; a book of short character sketches by Paul Bourget, called "Domestic Dramas," and another volume of Q's capital yarns, with the attractive title, "Profitable Ghosts."

We do not remember ever to have seen M. Gribayedoff's etched portrait of Stevenson reproduced before in any periodical. This portrait seems to us almost as fortunate and vivid as the same artist's etching of Paderewski's wonderful head. The Stevenson portrait was made about ten years ago.

Mr. Henry T. Finck contributes a new volume upon "Songs and Song Writers" to the "Music Lover's Library," of which the Scribners published the initial volume last year in Mr. Henderson's "Orchestra and Orchestral Music."

The Rambler.

« PreviousContinue »