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is growing larger every year. Twelve of the most stately of the old English country houses are described, in several instances by their present owners, and hundreds of photographs of their beauties, indoors and out, accompany the text. The volume is edited by Mr. A. H. Malan, who writes several of the sketches, and Lord Frederick Hamilton contributes a preface. Lord Sackville writes of his ancient home of Knole, perhaps the finest example still in existence of a monastic building adapted to domestic use; the greater part of the present house was probably built by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, before the middle of the fifteenth century, though there are portions whose architecture seems to indicate an earlier origin; the first record of the occupancy of Knole is to be found in the reign of King John, when it belonged to William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke. It is situated in Kent, and has been the

home of the Sackville family since the time of Queen Elizabeth. It is a vast treasure house of works of art, and one of the most interesting houses in the world. Rufford Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, near Sherwood Forest, is the home of Lord Savile, who writes the sketch. This house contains, besides many other wonders, the finest collection of tapestry in England. Cotohele, Levens and Compton Winyates are examples of manor houses; Glamis and Naworth are feudal castles, built originally for defense, but gradually converted into residences; and Bickling, Longleat and Wilton are stately palaces built early in the sixteenth century, when it was considered proper for a great nobleman to surround himself with some degree of magnificence. The descriptive articles are necessarily brief, but of the keenest interest to all who find sympathetic pleasure in the idea of a beautiful family home enriched by the

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loving care of many generations. The "American spirit" does not seem to breed such steadfastness of residence and loyalty to family tradition as go to produce homes like these; we are not without enormously expensive residences, even palaces, but their ownership changes so quickly that the glamor of tradition finds few architectural monuments to illumine.

Beside this chronicle of "Famous Homes," on the Christmas book-table lies a very valuable book-and, we think, the first of its kind-by Mr. John Kimberley Mumford, with the alluring title," Oriental Rugs" (Scribners). Here, ye builders of houses in town or country, is a subject fit for your minds. Mr. Mumford has undertaken to write a book which shall be, among other things, a guide to the intending buyer of rugs, which shall give him some definite and intelligent information as to the general mean

ing and specific significance of the names by which the average purchaser, unlearned in Eastern geography, is usually perplexed when he tries to select a rug or two from the piles guarded by Armenian refugees who bewilder him with syllables and, too often, sell him just what he would wish to avoid, had he any standard to go by. Since the art of rug-weaving is as old as most oriental traditions, it is not to be expected that the novice can learn from a book ail necessary knowledge of the subject, but the chapters are so arranged as to give the layman some little chance to distinguish an old rug from a new one which has been boiled in coffee, perhaps, or in some other way been "doctored" in order to change its color or increase its lustre. The different peoples who weave rugs are set down, and materials are discussed; there is a chapter on "Dyeing and Dyes," and another on "Design." The difference between Turkish, Persian and India

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Little, Brown & Co.

From "The Pilgrim Shore." "AS NECESSARY AS CHURCH AND PREACHING

rugs and carpets is explained in detail, and the names of tribes, districts and methods of weaving are so classified that any intelligent person can gain such a general knowledge of the subject as to be of practical service to him as a buyer, as well as a respectable addition to his fund of general information. The book is a large octavo, illustrated with photographs of scenes in the rug countries, and with

brilliant reproductions in monochrome process and in color, of sixteen selected rugs. Each of these reproductions is a study in the soft, beautiful colorings which, until very recent years, were seen in no other fabrics than the antique rugs. Space prevents longer notice here of this important book, which will receive critical review in a later number of THE BOOK BUYER.

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Mr. Whiteing has written so well of "Paris of ToDay" as to seem, for the moment, to have covered the ground; how impossible an undertaking this would be, if anybody were reckless enough to embark upon it, is not hard to understand. Paris has been for so many years the inspiration of so many poets, prophets, romancers and historians that her bibliography stands mountain high. Miss Esther Singleton has made a few scratches on the surface of the mountain in her wellplanned volume, "Paris as Seen and Described by Famous Writers," which Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co. publish with an abundance. of good photographs. Making three topographical divisions to begin with, Miss Singleton starts in La Cité and goes thence to the Left Bank, then to the Right Bank, and gives us the kernel of description by a score of writers, from Balzac and Gautier to Victor Hugo and P. G. Hamerton.

Two more of the compact and admirable volumes in the

"Mediæval Towns"

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series are just issued (Macmillan), "The Story of Florence," by Edmund G. Gardner, illustrated by Nelly Erichsen, and "The Story of Moscow," by Wirt Gerrare, illustrated by Helen M. James. Besides the very pretty and decorative pen-drawings there are several photogravure reproductions of famous paintings and old prints. These volumes are histories in little of the places with which they deal, necessarily brief in detail, yet well planned to serve also as the best kind of guidebooks to the student of mediaval history and art. Each volume has an index and several maps and plans.

Mr. Edmund H. Garrett has traveled neither to Moscow nor Florence, nor even to Paris, but simply along the South

From "Down South.'

Shore of Massachusetts Bay-"The Pilgrim Shore," as he calls it in naming his book of rambling memoranda of pleasant days and nights on that milder coast than the rocky "North Shore," whereof he wrote a year ago. His book is full of pictures, little and big, now squared well in the centre of the page, and again straying from corner to corner, or tucking themselves modestly up in the margins-pictures which fit the text exactly and are like so many remarques strewn through his pleasant, low-keyed paragraphs (Little, Brown & Co.). In "Sport and Travel, East and West," the reader may make a

WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY

R. H. Russell.

flying leap from the South Shore to Asia Minor, from Scituate to Smyrna, so to speak; and instead of pursuing parish registers or old furniture and china, chase the wild mountain one-horned goat of the Maimun Dagh, and then, leaping again half-way round the world with the sportsman-author, Mr. Frederick Courtney Selous, shoot prong-horned antelope in the Rocky Mountains. The handsome volume includes notes of two hunting expeditions, literally antipodal, and is illustrated with good photographs (Longmans, Green & Co.). A new edition of Victor Tissot's "Unknown Switzerland "-what

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