The book review digest, Volume 16, 1920
Chapter 4 deals with classification and tabulation; chapter 5 (pp.
42), with graphics; chapter 6, with averages and kindred terms.”—Am Econ R
* * * * *
“The book will be serviceable as an introductory text.”
+ =Am Econ R= 10:388 Je ’20 40w
“No city official or head of a department or a business man who has an annual report to make can afford to miss the suggestions contained in Mr Secrist’s book.”
+ =N Y P L Munic Ref Lib Notes= 7:35 O 13 ’20 100w
“The particular methods explained by Mr Secrist are not new; but they are presented with commendable clearness and brevity.”
+ =Survey= 44:291 My 22 ’20 110w
=SEDGWICK, ANNE DOUGLAS (MRS BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT).= Christmas roses, and other stories. *$2.25 (2½c) Houghton
20–21186
The titles of these stories are: Christmas roses; Hepaticas; Daffodils; Pansies; Pink foxgloves; Carnations; Staking a larkspur; Evening primroses; Autumn crocuses; and in each there is something in the delicately complicated situation or in revelation of character of which the flower is a symbol. The stories are all English in background and reflect the war.
* * * * *
“Quiet delicacy of style and subtle character analysis mark these nine flower-named stories.”
+ =Booklist= 17:160 Ja ’21
“Her understanding of character, her appreciation of beauty in all its forms, her ability to work quietly and effectively, yet with dramatic intensity, all make up the sum total of the satisfaction which we find here.” D. L. M.
+ =Boston Transcript= p8 Ja 29 ’21 580w
“With her happy choice of words and smooth rhythm of her style, the artistry is invisible, yet produces a telling effect. The characters and temperaments of her people are implied and evolved, not labelled.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p5a Ja 30 ’21 480w
=SEDGWICK, ANNE DOUGLAS (MRS BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT).= Third window. *$1.50 (10c) Houghton
20–10315
The setting of this story is the parental estate of a soldier killed in the war, and in it his young widow, Antonia, his maiden cousin, Miss Latimer, of contracted but acutely intensified vision, and Captain Saltonhall, the husband’s friend and now Antonia’s lover. Miss Latimer, whose entire limited emotional life had been concentrated on her cousin Malcolm, has succeeded in putting Antonia in an agonized frame of mind. The latter is torn by misgivings that, by marrying Saltonhall, she will be unfaithful to her first husband. By certain telepathic powers Miss Latimer obtains a knowledge of the unspoken thoughts in the two lovers’ minds and with it conjures up a vision of Malcolm’s sorrowing ghost standing by the fountain (seen from the third window of the drawing-room). The result is a tragedy, for the distressed Antonia takes an overdose of her sleeping powders.
* * * * *
=Ath= p736 Je 4 ’20 850W
=Booklist= 16:350 Jl ’20
“Few writers of fiction today can equal in perfection of style the work of Anne Douglas Segwick. But ‘The third window’ has an intrinsic interest as a story.” F. A. G.
+ =Boston Transcript= p4 Je 9 ’20 1200W
+ =Cleveland= p70 Ag ’20 120w
“It is a welcome relief to find, among the flood of books that exploit the present interest in psychic phenomena, one that is both an artistic piece of work, and a sincere attempt to penetrate beneath the usual morbid sentimentalism of the theme to the vital problems involved in a belief in survival.” H. W. M.
+ =Grinnell R= 15:260 O ’20 260w
“It has much of the delicate precision of line and enhanced effect of perspective which the frame of a fine window can give to the view which it reveals. But the perfection in arrangement is not complete, and the flaws which appear come close to calling in question the validity of Miss Sedgwick’s studied placement of events and deliberate simplification. Yet even with these lapses, ‘The third window’ keeps a singular and exquisite beauty.” C. M. R.
+ − =New Repub= 24:101 S 22 ’20 680w
“Her characters are drawn with deftness, delicacy and skill, the book is beautifully written in a style at once clear and subtle, and all the values of the picture are finely maintained. Yet for all its excellences it has one great flaw, a defect at the very root of the argument. The reader cannot but believe that Antonia’s fondness for Malcolm was a very superficial thing, since she was not only willing but even anxious so quickly to put another man in his place.”
+ − =N Y Times= 25:292 Je 6 ’20 800w
“Somber in theme, the story is written with exquisite delicacy and grasping strength.”
+ =Outlook= 125:431 Je 30 ’20 80w
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
=Review= 3:110 Ag 4 ’20 180w
“The redeeming features of the book are its truth to English life and its brevity. It may be added also that the delineation of the characters, such as they are, is quite skilfully done but there is nothing in the book as a whole which the world could not spare without any great sense of loss.”
+ − =Springf’d Republican= p11a Ag 1 ’20 130w
“So tense and subtilized is the atmosphere of Mrs de Sélincourt’s story that we fear to breathe lest we should break its charm. Indeed, the story is its atmosphere. It seems to emanate from and surround its characters like the perfume of flowers. Yet they affect us at length as if they were mere automata.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p301 My 13 ’20 950w
“The story is told with fine artistry and will appeal to discriminating readers with a taste for mental analysis.”
+ =Wis Lib Bul= 16:196 N ’20 140w
=SEGUR, SOPHIE (ROSTOPCHINE) comtesse de.=[2] Old French fairy tales. il *$5 Penn
20–19079
“An octavo with full-page plates, both in color and in black and white, by Virginia Frances Sterrett, is ‘Old French fairy tales,’ compiled by Comtesse de Segur.” (Springf’d Republican) “The titles are: Blondine, Bonne-Biche, and Beau-Minon; Good little Henry; Princess Rosette; The little grey mouse and Our son.” (Booklist)
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:127 D ’20
“These tales are told in that simple and direct fashion that children love and older folk find good. And the illustrations are in truth among the loveliest that have ever translated fairy tale into fairy scene.” Hildegarde Hawthorne
+ =N Y Times= p4 N 28 ’20 210w
+ =Springf’d Republican= p10 D 17 ’20 80w
=SEIFFERT, MARJORIE ALLEN (ELIJAH HAY, pseud.).= Woman of thirty, and Poems of Elijah Hay. *$1.50 Knopf 811
19–19879
This is vers libre that sings. There is elusive beauty, the sweet and the bitter of life, and the wistfulness of passing youth. The opening piece is a morality play: The old woman, in which the new that makes place for the old is but the old in disguise. The poems are divided into Love poems in summer; Studies and designs; Interlude; Love poems in autumn; and the Poems of Elijah Hay.
* * * * *
=Booklist= 16:272 My ’20
Reviewed by H: A. Lappin
+ =Bookm= 51:214 Ap ’20 100w
“The trouble with ‘A woman of thirty’ is its lack of synthesis. Colour and a free movement, subtleties of thought and rhythm are here, but they have not been integrated: they ravel out into many unconnected loose ends.” L: Untermeyer
+ − =Dial= 68:535 Ap ’20 160w
“The poems are sophisticated and a little cynical. She writes free verse naturally, unaffectedly and effectively.”
+ − =Ind= 104:65 O 9 ’20 130w
“Her figures, elaborate and excellent as they are, do not penetrate that core of the memory which lives on tranquilly and forever.” M. V. D.
+ − =Nation= 111:248 Ag 28 ’20 80w
“Almost one wishes that Mrs Seiffert could produce some disassociation in her personality. Then she might give us, besides the poems that are all too human, much more about the harsh black birds flying in the design—more in the style of that odd and very memorable little morality ‘The old woman.’ These are poems that evidence intellectual conception.” Padraic Colum
+ − =New Repub= 25:54 D 8 ’20 150w
“It must be admitted that in her failing Mrs Seiffert is better than many who achieve their limited successes; but the dominant overtone is an attempt at a deft sophistication, which can never quite conceal that it is the sophistication of rural Illinois, rather than the sophistication of Chicago, London.” Clement Wood
+ − =N Y Call= p10 Mr 28 ’20 500w
“Mrs Seiffert writes equally well in free verse and in regularly stressed rhythm. Her work is remarkable for a felicitous ease in expression and a great variety of interests and ideas.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:193 Ap 18 ’20 180w
=SELIGMAN, V. J.= Salonica side-show. il *$4 Dutton 940.42
“There are four parts to the book, of which the first and last were written in Macedonia during the summer of 1918. Beginning with a description of the Seres road which was of the greatest importance for the British line of communications and on which the writer ‘can really claim expert knowledge’ after spending two years in various camps by its side, he proceeds to give amusing accounts of life behind the front among the British Tommies and Greek Johnnies.... The second part, which explains the events that led to the final offensive of September 15 to September 30, 1918, and gives an account of the battle itself with more details regarding the Anglo-Greek attack at Doiran, will prove of greater value to the historic mind.”—Review
* * * * *
“Mr Seligman’s book embodies a considerable amount of information regarding the expedition, and is printed in a clear and readable form.”
+ =Ath= p932 S 19 ’19 80w
“There is a harmonious combination of humorous anecdote and serious study expressed in an easy but by no means slipshod style. Equally entertaining and instructing, the book is well worth reading.” A. E. Phoutrides
+ =Review= 3:450 N 10 ’20 960w
“Mr Seligman treats the expedition so disconnectedly that his is a terrible rag-bag of a book. Some of his stories are excellent.”
+ − =Sat R= 128:366 O 18 ’19 520w
“His chapter on ‘The tragedy of Constantine’ is worth reading; nothing that he says about the allied diplomacy in regard to Bulgaria is too strong, but he errs in putting all the blame on the British foreign office.”
+ − =Spec= 122:411 S 27 ’19 190w
“Those who enjoyed ‘Macedonian musings’ will certainly take pleasure in ‘The Salonica side show.’”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p493 S 18 ’19 600w
=SELIGMANN, HERBERT JACOB.= Negro faces America. *$1.75 Harper 326
20–10771
This book is a study of the negro problem in the United States today from the friendly viewpoint of a former member of the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post and the New Republic, who is now connected with the National association for the advancement of colored people, The author discusses race prejudice at length and tries to show how many problems that most people consider to be racial are fundamentally economic and political problems. There are chapters on the negro in industry, the negro as scape-goat of city politics, and the effect of the European war upon the American negro. The Chicago, Omaha and Washington riots are explained and the Arkansas trouble of 1919 is treated under the caption “The American Congo.” There is an appendix on the Bogalusa, Louisiana, trouble by the president of the Louisiana state federation of labor. There is no index.
* * * * *
=Booklist= 17:143 Ja ’21
Reviewed by M. E. Bailey
=Bookm= 52:302 Ja ’21 300w
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 Je 30 ’20 1200w
+ =Cleveland= p91 S ’20 20w
“‘The negro faces America’ is the best general survey yet written on the negro in the United States. The book contains much fresh material.” M. W. Ovington
+ =Freeman= 1:573 Ag 25 ’20 800w
“Besides reporting unanswerable facts Mr Seligmann gives us excellent discussion of such questions as ‘social equality’ and sex relationships.” O. G. V.
+ − =Nation= 112:121 Ja 26 ’21 890w
“Mr Seligmann has written an interesting book, a generous, ardent piece of agitation, but its usefulness is greatly impaired by its failure to make good upon the pretences of its arrangement. The issue as to the evolutionary inferiority of the negro, which, if it was relevant at all to his purpose, deserved thorough scientific presentation, is superficially handled.” L. B. W.
+ − =New Repub= 24:151 O 6 ’20 800w
“Mr Seligmann is a vigorous writer, very journalistic, who interests you by the rapid flow of his thought. He has considerable power in arranging his facts, but he quotes and quotes and quotes.”
+ − =N Y Times= p19 Ag 8 ’20 500w
“The question is here discussed in an intelligent, fair-minded manner.”
+ =Outlook= 125:507 Jl 14 ’20 70w
“His book should be read by those who wish to know what negroes think and feel.” W: A. Aery
+ =Survey= 45:24 O 2 ’20 450w
=Wis Lib Bul= 16:232 D ’20 90w
=SERAO, MATILDE.= Souls divided; tr. from the Italian by William Collinge. *$1.75 Brentano’s
20–7144
“The telling of a story by means of a series of letters is a fictional form which, though once exceedingly popular, is seldom used by modern writers. This method is employed in the new volume by Matilde Serao, the noted Italian writer. It is the hero, Paolo Ruffo, who does all the letter-writing, the lady to whom all his passionate epistles are addressed never replying to any one of them. She was an orphan, Diana Sforza, eldest daughter of an ancient house, and practically penniless. Gifted with a rarely lovely and very sympathetic voice, she won Paolo Ruffo’s heart by her singing. For a year he worshipped her, followed her about from place to place, and poured out his heart to her in a long succession of most fervent letters. Then, at last, utterly discouraged and broken, he left his native country, accompanied by the faithful sister upon whose shoulder he had wept more than once, and became a wanderer upon the face of the earth.”—N Y Times
* * * * *
+ =Cleveland= p70 Ag ’20 80w
“‘Souls divided’ is probably a better novel than the translator has managed to project, yet even with this allowance its theme and substance tend toward emotional futility.”
− + =Dial= 68:399 Mr ’20 50w
“The story is like a pressed flower suddenly found in the pages of a Lamartine. For a moment it gives you the nostalgia of the past. Then it crumbles.” L. L.
+ =Nation= 110:sup488 Ap 10 ’20 200w
“Though it is always difficult to judge of the style of a book read only in translation, ‘Souls divided’ would seem to be very well written. As far as its interest and its appeal to the reader are concerned, these will depend largely upon whether that reader is or is not a sentimental temperament.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:128 Mr 21 ’20 400w
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
=Review= 2:434 Ap 24 ’20 540w
“The fact that the whole story, except the epilogue, is related in Paolo’s letters to Diana is bound to give it an air of unreality, since he is obliged to write her a detailed description of her own wedding. But the southern passion of the letters, though it strikes one as a little strained in our colder northern tongue, has a genuine ring about it, and the lady reader who falls under its spell will readily forgive such little improbabilities. The translation is above the average.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p689 N 27 ’19 700w
=SERGEANT, ELIZABETH SHEPLEY.= Shadow-shapes; the journal of a wounded woman, October 1918–May 1919. *$2 Houghton 940.48
20–20217
In this record of her hospital experiences the writer attempts to envisage “a vast, embracing, unseizable truth that was essentially our common possession. The heightened glow cast by danger and death on the faces of the young, and its fading into the rather flat daylight of survival; the psychological dislocation of armistice; the weariness of reconstruction; the shift in Franco-American relations that followed President Wilson’s intervention in European affairs; and the place of American women in the adventures of the A. E. F.” (Preface) The three parts of the book are: The wing of death; Pax in bello; The city of confusion.
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:149 Ja ’21
“It is, indeed, amazing that Miss Sergeant is able to make her meagre details of vivid interest, but such is her art that she ably succeeds in holding attention throughout the pages of this novel journal.” C. K. H.
+ =Boston Transcript= p8 D 1 ’20 390w
“The book derives a unity from its synthesis of fragments—a shade too clinical at times, but otherwise sharply realistic and delicately expressed.”
+ =Dial= 70:232 F ’21 50w
+ =Freeman= 2:501 F 2 ’21 200w
“Books so concentrated, so vivid, and so sustained in their spiritual excitement rarely get written.”
+ =Nation= 112:123 Ja 26 ’21 170w
“How readable ‘Shadow-shapes’ is, and what is more, how full of feeling, of generosity, of the gold of human intercourse delicately essayed, of difficult things bravely thought out, of fine things appreciated, of good things described with sympathy, accuracy—this quite outweighs in my impression of it that vast excess of the sympathy over the accuracy, of the personal over the impersonal which, artistically at least, is a serious fault.” R. L.
+ − =New Repub= 25:268 Ja 26 ’21 1100w
“Originality is a force everywhere, and Miss Sergeant’s ‘Shadow-shapes’ is a very original volume. Miss Sergeant is an accomplished stylist, her art conceals itself. Picture after picture rises before us, in its very color, form and significance. If Miss Sergeant is supremely sensitive to the drama of minds, she is no less sensitive to the beauty of nature. Truly, every one should read this book.” Amy Lowell
+ =N Y Times= p10 N 14 ’20 3200w
“A book of fine perceptions, enriched by a background of feeling and intelligence.”
+ =Review= 3:622 D 22 ’20 820w
“Miss Sergeant has done much more than give a vivid record of hospital experiences. That indeed, although interesting, is the least part of an unusual book. The figures which Miss Sergeant draws from real life, frequently giving initials or only first names, are extraordinarily vivid and human.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p8a D 5 ’20 540w
Reviewed by E. B. Moses
+ =Survey= 45:547 Ja 8 ’21 130w
=SETON-WATSON, ROBERT WILLIAM.= Europe in the melting pot. *$1.50 Macmillan 940.3
20–2792
“One of the most authoritative writers on eastern European politics here brings together a series of important papers which he has written during the war. For the most part they are reproduced from The New Europe, the weekly review which he founded in 1916 to represent the policy of himself and of those who cooperated with him. These embraced a league of nations, looking forward ultimately to all-round disarmament; support of the Slav movement; an advanced democratic programme for Russia; a federal solution for the border nations; agrarian reform throughout eastern and southern Europe; parliamentary control over foreign policy; equality of treatment for big and small nations; ‘satisfied nationalism’ as ‘the first essential preliminary to a new international order.’ A few of the papers have appeared in the Round Table or the Contemporary Review and one in the English Review. There are seven maps.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
* * * * *
=Ath= p1139 O 31 ’19 180w
=Boston Transcript= p10 My 1 ’20 400w
“Especially well informed, competent, and obstinate in dealing with southern Europe.”
+ =Dial= 68:668 My ’20 50w
“The book is the work of a historian at grips with reality, and has the stamp of the best qualities of political writing.” N. C.
+ =Int J Ethics= 30:345 Ap ’20 180w
“The author’s history merely records diplomatic and military events. Of history as a series of processes, dependent mainly on regional economics and national tradition, he shows little conception.”
− =Sat R= 129:412 My 1 ’20 1200w
“His treatment of the Adriatic question in this volume seems to us unfortunate, especially in regard to Fiume.”
+ − =Spec= 123:623 N 8 ’19 200w
=The Times [London] Lit Sup= p595 O 23 ’19 180w
“They are an excellent illustration of the best kind of political writing, viz., the application of genuine knowledge and settled principles to the immediate situation which from time to time presents itself.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p682 N 27 ’19 1300w
=SEWALL, MRS MAY (WRIGHT).= Neither dead nor sleeping; introd. by Booth Tarkington. *$2.50 Bobbs 134
20–8214
“There is a peculiar difference between Mrs Sewall’s communications with the world beyond and most of those with which the public is familiar through books without number. For she says that she found the discarnate spirits, urged and led by that of her husband, anxious to give her help and direction. The whole of Mrs Sewall’s nearly 300 pages is filled with the continuous, detailed, personal story of her intimate association and communication with these spirits. There is not much about conditions of life with them, as there usually is in books of this kind, but its place is taken instead by her account of what they did for her, what they taught her, and what she learned of their anxiety to help human beings. Their efforts in her behalf were mainly inspired, she says, by their wish to make it possible for her to give their message to humanity.”—N Y Times
* * * * *
“Strains certain tenets of temperate spiritualism but is brightly written and replete with interest.”
+ =Booklist= 17:50 N ’20
=N Y Times= 25:18 Jl 4 ’20 300w
“The story is told with such full detail and sincerity, all resting, too, on the character of a woman so widely and favorably known, as to make on any reader a profound impression.” Lilian Whiting
+ =Springf’d Republican= p11a Jl 18 ’20 1000w
=SEYMOUR, HARRIET AYER.= What music can do for you; a guide for the uninitiated. *$2 Harper 780
20–22166
The author holds that we need a new scheme of education which will be based upon the idea that man is his own salvation, that within himself are all the possibilities for harmony and growth. The new education must furnish the stimulus that will awaken this larger self. This stimulus is music and in this sense music is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Contents: Awakening to life through music; Melody, rhythm, and harmony; Melody; Rhythm; Harmony; Music for children; Practicing; Technique; Music for grown-ups; Phonographs and pianolas; Music and health; The philosophy of music. The appended bibliography contains three groups of book: books on psychology taking cognizance of music; biographies and books on music. There is also a list of phonograph records chosen from the catalogue of the Columbia Graphophone Company.
=SEYMOUR, WILLIAM KEAN=, ed. Miscellany of British poetry, 1919. *$2 Harcourt 821.08
A20–533
“This ‘Miscellany of poetry, 1919,’ is issued to the public as a truly catholic anthology of contemporary poetry. The poems here printed are new, in the sense that they have not previously been issued by their authors in book form.” (Prefatory note) Among the contributors are: Laurence Binyon; Gilbert K. Chesterton; William H. Davies; John Drinkwater; Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; Theodore Maynard; Edith Sitwell; and Alec Waugh. There are decorations by Doris Palmer.
* * * * *
“Mr Seymour is to be congratulated on having brought together what is on the whole a very interesting collection of verse. The list of contributors on the cover is in itself reassuring, and when we read the book we find that almost all of them are worthily represented.”
+ =Ath= p94 Ja 16 ’20 180w
+ =Booklist= 16:235 Ap ’20
=Dial= 68:538 Ap ’20 60w
=Nation= 110:855 Je 26 ’20 180w
“Chesterton’s St Barbara ballad contains touches as magical as his Lepanto, although the sustained flight does not equal the earlier chant. Lawrence Binyon is represented by verses full of magic, Davies is his own naive self, Drinkwater is faultless and polished, Edith Sitwell is whimsically delightful, Muriel Stuart is sharply dramatic, and, best of all, W. W. Gibson appears in verses equal to his best.” Clement Wood
+ =N Y Call= p10 Je 20 ’20 900w
“To sum up, Mr Seymour’s book can be recommended to those who already possess collections of contemporary poetry in which poets of more modern temper are represented, or to those reactionaries who will read nothing but the most conservative verse.” Marguerite Williams
+ =N Y Times= p24 Ag 22 ’20 360w
“Mr Seymour has not exercised, or indeed sought to exercise, the faintest critical faculty in forming his collection.”
− + =Sat R= 129:391 Ap 24 ’20 950w
“There is a wholesome (one means esthetically, not morally wholesome) departure from the preciosity, the fine-spun, over-intellectual, finically phrased impressionism that was, in prewar days, the distinctly Georgian note.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p10 Je 22 ’20 150w
=The Times [London] Lit Sup= p23 Ja 8 ’20 100w
+ =Yale R= n s 10:201 O ’20 140w
=SHACKLETON, SIR ERNEST HENRY.= South. new ed il *$6 (4½c) Macmillan 919.9
20–1604
The book is the story of Shackleton’s last expedition, 1914–1917, undertaken to achieve the first crossing of the Antarctic continent. It failed in its object, owing to the loss of one of its ships, but, says the author: “The struggles, the disappointments, and the endurance of this small party of Britishers, hidden away for nearly two years in the fastnesses of the polar ice, striving to carry out the ordained task and ignorant of the crisis through which the world was passing, make a story which is unique in the history of Antarctic exploration.” (Preface) Contents: Into the Weddell sea; New land; Winter months; Loss of the Endurance; Ocean camp; The march between; Patience camp; Escape from the ice; The boat journey; Across South Georgia; The rescue; Elephant island; The Ross sea party; Wintering in McMurdo sound; Laying the depots; The Aurora’s drift; The last relief; The final phase. The appendices contain: Scientific work; Sea-ice nomenclature; Meteorology; Physics; South Atlantic whales and whaling; The expedition huts at McMurdo sound. There are eighty-eight illustrations and diagrams and an index.
* * * * *
“The volume is extremely well illustrated.”
+ =Ath= p1304 D 5 ’19 40w
+ =Ath= p76 Ja 16 ’20 1100w
+ =Booklist= 16:201 Mr ’20
“Sir Ernest Shackleton’s new book adds another to those priceless records of high human quality, and the story that it tells, aside from its scientific value, will have many readers who will find its pages enthralling and deeply moving.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:42 Ja 25 ’20 1500w
+ =Outlook= 124:291 F 18 ’20 200w
“Few modern authors have so effectively utilized the pent-up force of sturdy Anglo-Saxon monosyllables.” Philip Tillinghast
+ =Pub W= 97:607 F 21 ’20 480w
+ =R of Rs= 61:448 Ap ’20 260w
“Sir Ernest Shackleton’s book is written in a vigorous style.”
+ =Spec= 123:862 D 20 ’19 1100w
“The story of the voyage that six men made in an open boat across eight hundred miles of the roughest water in the world, to bring relief to the twenty-two companions who remained on the island, rivals the best sea tale ever written. It is good for any one to read such a narrative as ‘South!’ We see what men may be.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p11a Mr 7 ’20 2500w
“The story is told simply, for the most part without much passion; but there is no need for that to hold our interest. This book, and many another like it, are written for the general reader; and the general reader (who would not read a scientific treatise if it were set before him) is rather prone to forget the scientific aspects of polar exploration. Sir Ernest Shackleton yields, perhaps too far, to this consideration.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p683 N 27 ’19 1250w
=SHACKLETON, ROBERT.= Book of Chicago. il *$3.50 Penn 917.7
20–19424
“To Chicago goes Mr Shackleton, after having exhausted New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The Art institute, the clubs, the theatres, the elevated, the freight subway and the river all come in for his inspection, and Mr Shackleton has apparently gone over, under, around and through Chicago with a thoroughness that not many of its citizens would care to duplicate. Anon, he varies a charming style by telling stories, and by gallant attempts to rake up some worth-while poetry that has been written concerning the city.”—Boston Transcript
* * * * *
=Booklist= 17:151 Ja ’21
+ =Bookm= 52:367 Ja ’21 120w
“For each matter which Mr Shackleton has not set down, there are a dozen that he has. Mr Shackleton is always interesting.” G. M. H.
+ =Boston Transcript= p2 N 24 ’20 600w
+ =Outlook= 126:690 D 15 ’20 70w
“A truly interesting and broadly conceived tribute to the much abused ‘Windy city.’”
+ =R of Rs= 63:112 Ja ’21 100w
“The book is far from being a catalogue of land-marks and monuments, or even of merits and faults. It gives to the city a personal quality, and to the reader a sense that here is a mass of people, living, breathing, and enjoying life.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p6 D 20 ’20 250w
=SHAFER, DONALD CAMERON.= Barent Creighton. *$2 (2c) Knopf
20–11224
“An old time story of youthful romance and hot adventure, well seasoned ... with simple love and pleasant humor”—thus the author himself correctly describes his story. In the early forties, when the hero’s fortunes are at their lowest, an old aunt leaves him a legacy of four old keys, a box full of small gold figures of Inca gods, an undecipherable manuscript and the family estate with 5000 acres to hold in trust for his wife to be. The first three items point to family secrets all of which develop and unravel in the course of the story in quaintly romantic fashion with underground passages and chambers and hidden treasures. Of immediate interest to Barent, however, is to find a wife that is to save him from a debtor’s prison. How a wealthy land greedy neighbor of the Creighton estate offers his daughter to fill the place; how the daughter resents the bargain; how Barent tears up the contract when he finds he loves her and faces a variety of troubles instead; how the tables turn and how Ronella comes to require Barent’s help; and how the two really love each other more than gold and acres, make a fascinating tale.
* * * * *
“Very readable romance.”
+ =Boston Transcript= p4 Ag 28 ’20 350w
“This is Mr Shafer’s first novel, and it is one of considerable promise, colorful and related with no little spirit.”
+ − =N Y Times= p22 Ag 8 ’20 360w
“A broad vein of humor rescues the tale from melodramatic lapses.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p9a O 24 ’20 220w
=SHANKS, EDWARD BUXTON.= People of the ruins. *$1.90 (2c) Stokes
20–17169
According to this “story of the English revolution and after,” (sub-title), the revolution broke out in 1924. During its first skirmishes Jeremy Tuft, physicist, is overtaken by a bomb while inspecting a new scientific discovery. Thanks to the new “ray” he awakens from the shock and crawls out of his hole in the ground in the year 2074 into a ruined and degenerate world. Almost all traces of our civilization are gone and the people are too ignorant and tired to restore what is left or to rebuild better. What is left is a ruling house in England, landlordism, and a degenerate industrialism in the north of England. In the ruler—an old Jew known us the “Speaker”—however, some of the old ambition survives. The form it takes to desire to reconstruct, with the aid of the oldest surviving mechanics, the onetime efficient gun. Now Jeremy Tuft is pressed into his services and the gun becomes a fact. Immediately there is war and more disaster in which the Speaker, his daughter Eva, and Jeremy, her lover, all go down to destruction together.
* * * * *
“The author writes entertainingly, imaginatively, and with a creative skill that makes his work pleasant if not nutritious reading.”
+ − =Dial= 70:231 F ’21 50w
=N Y Times= p22 O 24 ’20 800w
=SHANNON, ALASTAIR.= Morning knowledge: the story of the new inquisition. *$5 Longmans 192
“For two years and a half a prisoner of war in Turkey, the author devoted nearly half of that period to the writing of this work. If, perhaps, somewhat premature as a presentment of philosophy, the book is at all events an essay at the expression of a young man’s ‘positive assurance in the value of man as a real creator.’ Beginning with negations, the author advances by degrees to the conclusions that there is ‘more in life than mechanism, and more in reason than intellect’; that intellect is ‘so formed as to grasp mechanism wholly’; and that reason is so formed as to reflect life wholly and to find for life a purpose which is not yet palpable, though psychologically evident.”—Ath
* * * * *
=Ath= p125 Ja 23 ’20 120w
=Cath World= 111:691 Ag ’20 140w
“A very beautiful and a very sane philosophy will be found in these pages. The poetry in them has a lyrical quality reminiscent of Mr W. B. Yeats, and the prose at times glows at white heat. Although Mr Shannon’s work is uneven, and sometimes baffling, it is never commonplace.”
+ =Sat R= 129:373 Ap 17 ’20 490w
“The condemnation of Mr Shannon’s method lies in the obscurity of his own conclusions.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p134 F 26 ’20 760w
=SHARP, DALLAS LORE.= Patrons of democracy. 80c (8c) Atlantic monthly press 379
20–4555
Professor Sharp of the English department of Boston university, holds that the true end of American education is not life or the getting of a living, but “living together,” “getting-on-together.” For this purpose the higher schools and colleges are negligible and the secondary schools are everything; for all the fundamental things of life are learned by the time a person reaches his eighteenth year. The spirit of democracy is one of these fundamental things and it is a matter of education. The book, therefore, is a plea for the common school and an arraignment of the private, parochial and vocational school.
* * * * *
=Booklist= 16:263 My ’20
“The book is a witty and idealistic appeal for a truer democracy.”
+ =Boston Transcript= p4 Mr 17 ’20 120w
+ =Dial= 68:668 My ’20 80w
“Dallas Lore Sharp’s belief in democracy is a tonic for us all. Moreover, he has a simple and, within limits, entirely practical prescription for democracy.”
+ − =Springf’d Republican= p13a My 2 ’20 1050w
=SHARP, HILDA MARY.= Pawn in pawn. *$1.90 (*7s) (1½c) Putnam
20–8275
Julian Tarrant, a distinguished English poet, comes into a fortune somewhat late in life. He has never married and has no close kin and he one day expresses his intention of adopting a child whom he may make his heir—and then forgets all about it. But his friend, Richard Drewe, who has taken him seriously, goes to the orphanage flippantly known as the Pawn shop, and returns with a little six-year old girl. The story thereafter is concerned with the development of this child, her relations to her adoptive father and uncle, and to one other man, a younger friend of the two others. An anonymously published book of poems proves the girl to have unusual poetic talent and then the secret of her birth and parentage is revealed. The story covers the last years of the nineteenth century and the period up to and including the world war.
* * * * *
=Ath= p464 Ap 2 ’20 100w
+ =Booklist= 17:74 N ’20
=Lit D= p96 N 20 ’20 700w
“‘A pawn in pawn’ is an example of excellent writing, and in point of vital interest and ingenuity of plot quite out of the ordinary.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:30 Jl 4 ’20 500w
“It is a tale which will really give great pleasure in the reading; but its weak construction and the hackneyed coincidences which lie at the back of it must prevent its ranking very high among novels of the moment.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p202 Mr 25 ’20 120w
=SHAW, CHARLES GRAY.= Ground and goal of human life. (Studies in philosophy and religion) $3.50 N.Y. univ. press 171
“The problem which Professor Shaw presents and endeavours to solve is the establishment of a ‘higher synthesis’ between an individualistic egoism and a scientifico-social self-suppression. The ‘higher synthesis,’ when he arrives at it in book three, is expounded in three sections, The joy of life in the world-whole, The worth of life in the world-whole (to be found in work), and The truth of life in the world-whole (to be found rather in culture than in æstheticism).”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
* * * * *
“In formulating his code of ethics, Dr Shaw has succeeded in adding an illuminating and clearly written volume to the already large library dealing with the origins and values of human conduct.” L. M. S.
+ =Boston Transcript= p8 F 28 ’20 550w
=Dial= 68:401 Mr ’20 60w
“Prof. Shaw’s presentation of his case is far from shallow and unconsidered—and has the inestimable merit of making no concessions to prejudices, of being absolutely unafraid. Moreover, it is a positive and too rare joy to find a book with exact footnote knowledge of the history of thought and literature.”
+ − =N Y Evening Post= p9 Mr 13 ’20 1350w
“It may be doubted whether this very substantial volume makes any very definite fresh contribution either practical or theoretical to its subject; and Professor Shaw is by no means free from the tendency among American philosophers to avoid clear logical exposition and to smother their thought under a heavy load of philosophic verbiage.”
− =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p110 F 12 ’20 180w
=SHAW, FREDERICK JOHN (BROUGHAM VILLIERS, pseud.), and CHESSON, WILFRID HUGH.= Anglo-American relations, 1861–1865. *$2.50 Scribner 327.73
(Eng ed 19–18602)
“‘Anglo-American relations, 1861–1865,’ deals with the causes of friction and misunderstandings between Great Britain and the United States during the trying years of the Civil war. The reasons which, for a time, gave prominence to the southern sympathies of the British ruling classes, while rendering almost inarticulate the far deeper feeling for the cause of union and emancipation among the masses of our people, are examined and explained. W. H. Chesson, grandson of George Thompson, the antislavery orator, who was William Lloyd Garrison’s bosom friend, contributes a chapter which attempts to convey an impression of the influence of transatlantic problems upon English oratory and the writings of public men.”—Springf’d Republican
* * * * *
“While Mr Villiers’s general presentation of national attitudes is excellent and very well worth reading in both countries, the facts of history which are brought into his narrative are unfortunately not so well understood by him.” E. D. Adams
+ − =Am Hist R= 25:715 Jl ’20 500w
“The whole book is instructive and very timely.”
+ =Ath= p93 Ja 16 ’20 100w
=Nation= 110:436 Ap 3 ’20 420w
=Springf’d Republican= p8 O 4 ’19 140w
=The Times [London] Lit Sup= p655 N 13 ’19 60w
=SHEDD, GEORGE CLIFFORD.= Iron furrow. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
20–7422
An American engineer of indomitable grit and perseverance sees possibilities in a barren tract of Arizona desert if the land is irrigated. He buys the land and sets to work in the face of the intrigues of a Mexican plutocrat, the wiles of eastern capital, his own shortage of funds, and the inclemencies of an Arizona winter. With all these troubles he still finds time to fall in love with a girl of fickle affections. The successful termination of his work on the canal is marked by the termination of his engagement by the faithless girl and the crowning of his efforts by a true woman’s love.
* * * * *
“It is a pleasant story in a quiet key, and is restful after the many stories where gun-play is a prominent practice.”
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 Je 16 ’20 300w
=SHEDLOCK, MARIE L.= Eastern stories and legends. *$2 Dutton 294
20–18410
An enlarged edition of a collection of stories of the Buddha published in 1910, now issued with a foreword by T. W. Rhys Davids and an introduction by Annie Carroll Moore. “In India, Prof. Davids tells us, crowds may be seen listening all night long to these tales. There are many hundreds of them from which Miss Shedlock has selected only a few, and of these we are assured that their appeal to an audience never fails. She has told them again and again, and Miss Moore, of the New York Public Library, adds her conviction of their admirable suitability for telling.”—Boston Transcript
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:124 D ’20
“In rearranging and expanding this selection of stories from the Buddha rebirths, Miss Shedlock has wisely freed the book from limitations, which in the earlier edition gave it too much the appearance of a text-book to look readable.” A. C. Moore
+ =Bookm= 51:315 My ’20 140w
“Discriminating and valuable selection of stories.” A. C. Moore
+ =Bookm= 52:260 N ’20 60w
=Boston Transcript= p4 O 23 ’20 350w
+ =Springf’d Republican= p8 N 18 ’20 150w
=SHEEHAN, PERLEY POORE.= House with a bad name. *$1.90 Boni & Liveright
The house was an anachronism in a part of New York that had fallen from a former grand estate. The neighborhood would have it that it was haunted. The people living in it were anachronisms and as such full of mystery. Old Nathan Tyrone and his daughter Mélissine lived in an older generation in thought, in dress, in habits. They were paragons of virtue and unworldliness, and their butler a good second to themselves. In due time Mélissine falls in love, and, about the same time, an evil woman appears upon the scene with blackmail and corruption. After the death of Mélissine’s father she insinuates herself into the house and for a time the air is dense with mystery and evil forebodings. But before so much virtue and saintliness even the wicked Belle becomes repentant and the evil mysteries she conjured up fade away. All but one, which comes to light after Mélissine’s marriage: through some estrangement between her father and grandfather, the former had been disinherited and had unwittingly been living on the bounty of the butler, the sole heir, all his life.
* * * * *
=Boston Transcript= p3 D 4 ’20 480w
“Mr Sheehan is a facile, delicate artist in the weaving of such a theme; the texture of it is excellent and his people, especially the two women, are admirably real.”
+ =N Y Evening Post= p11 N 27 ’20 150w
“With a slight, old-fashioned plot, little dramatic action and characters that have been worn threadbare, it still must be conceded that the lazy reader, desiring mild bookish entertainment, will find it worth while to work his way through this placid novel.”
+ − =N Y Times= p26 Ja 2 ’21 420w
“The mingling of love and mystery is well sustained.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p5a Ja 23 ’21 210w
=SHEFFIELD, MRS ADA (ELIOT).=[2] Social case history; its construction and content. *$1 Russell Sage foundation 360
20–19858
The book belongs to the Social work series and deals with the recording of the relief workers’ cases and the purposes it subserves. The record is made with a view to three ends: (1) the immediate purpose of furthering effective treatment of individual clients, (2) the ultimate purpose of general social betterment, and (3) the incidental purpose of establishing the case worker herself in critical thinking. To expound these three ends from every point of view is the purpose of the book. It is indexed and contains: The purpose of a social case history; A basis for the selection of material; Documents that constitute the history; Composition of the narrative; The narrative in detail; The wider implications of case recording.
* * * * *
“‘The social case history’ is a new landmark in the profession of social case work. No one hereafter can undertake case work without first mastering the material and the method put into permanent form by this book. It does for the case record, and incidentally for certain phases of treatment, what Miss Richmond’s book on ‘Social diagnosis’ has done for investigation.” Frank Bruno
+ =Survey= 45:432 D 18 ’20 980w
=SHEFFIELD, LYBA, and SHEFFIELD, NITA C.=[2] Swimming simplified. il $1.75 The authors, box 436, San Francisco 796
20–9362
“The purpose of this text book is to simplify the learning and teaching of swimming from a scientific point of view. Our further objective has been to arrange a series of lessons in their logical progression to meet the demands of schools, playgrounds, clubs and aquatic centers.... A special section upon the class man-procedure for mass instruction and class management has been arranged for teachers of swimming.” (Introd.) Contents: The method of procedure in learning or teaching swimming; The beginner’s first lessons; Analysis of the various swimming strokes; Racing turn—treading water—plunge for distance; Diving; Life saving; The safety valve and the swimming and life-saving tests; Water sports; Suggestions to instructors. There are numerous helpful illustrations. The authors are teachers of swimming in the San Francisco high schools and the University of California.
=SHERARD, JESSE LOUIS.= Blueberry bear. il *$1 Crowell
This biography of a bear cub forms an entertaining story for children altho it belongs to the type of story in which human psychology is attributed to animals. Blueberry with his father and mother lives near the home of Farmer Green. The father is shot by one of the farmer’s men and the little bear thereafter does all in his power to take revenge. Finally the farmer’s boys make him a captive and take him home with them and he learns that his father is still alive and a prisoner. The two escape and the bear family seeks a new home in the canebrake far from the haunts of man.
=SHERIDAN, SOLOMON NEILL.= Typhoon’s secret. il *$1.50 (2½c) Doubleday
20–7516
John Wentworth, a bank president’s son, is suddenly stranded, when the bank fails and his father mysteriously disappears out to sea. John’s friends scent a mystery and foul play connected with the failure and send John in a wild goose chase over the Pacific in search of clues and his father. The rest is a sea yarn full of thrilling incidents which culminate in a yacht’s wild flight before a typhoon, a burning ship, a companion yacht with romance on board, and finally a restored father, a restored fortune and a bride for John Wentworth.
* * * * *
=Booklist= 16:283 My ’20
=SHERINGHAM, HUGH TEMPEST.= Trout fishing memoirs and morals. il *$5 (5c) Houghton 799
The author begins his fishing reminiscences with an account of eel-fishing by hand as a child of nine, newly escaped from London. But he soon found that trout fishing is the sport par excellence and that trout fishers “by-nature,” not merely because sporting fashion prescribes it, belong to the pick of humanity. Among the contents are: Early days; A little chalk stream; The fishing day; The fly question; Minnow and worms; In a Welsh valley; Weather and wind; New waters. There are illustrations.
* * * * *
+ =N Y Evening Post= p11 N 20 ’20 80w
“It is rather long drawn out, and not straight to the point.... Anyway, the angler who can’t learn something and get many new thrills from the book will not be found hereabouts.”
+ − =N Y Times= p19 D 26 ’20 410w
“His volume is as delightfully written as any work on angling which we have recently seen. American anglers will find themselves very much at home in the atmosphere of this work, even though it deals with unfamiliar waters.”
+ =Outlook= 126:689 D 15 ’20 600w
+ =Spec= 125:309 S 4 ’20 860w
“Mr Sheringham’s latest book on fishing is delightful for its humour and sound English as well as for the range of its reminiscences and its insight into the ways of trout. Its morals make it as companionable as its memories.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p395 Je 24 ’20 920w
=SHERLOCK, CHESLA CLELLA.= Care and management of rabbits. il *$1.25 (4c) McKay 636.9
20–14848
The purpose of the book is to set forth the commercial possibilities of rabbits and to point out to beginner and breeder alike the most economical way to success. It is intended as a handy, companionable guide on all phases of the care, breeding and management of rabbits. A partial list of the contents is: Some reasons for raising rabbits; The domesticated rabbit; The commercial breeds; The fancy breeds; The hutches; Feeding adult stock; Feeding young stock; Breeding; Utility value of rabbits; Fur farming; Pedigrees; Diseases and remedies; Appendix-handy feeding schedules. The book is illustrated.
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:59 N ’20
=SHERRILL, CHARLES HITCHCOCK.= Have we a Far Eastern policy? with an introd. by David Jayne Hill. il *$2.50 Scribner 327
20–7581
“One-half of Mr Sherrill’s book is not suggested by its title, and deals with matters which have no political implications—with the flora of the Hawaiian islands, with Japanese umbrellas, footwear, lanterns, street games, chrysanthemum shows, and private gardens. As to whether the United States has a definite Far Eastern policy, a negative is not distinctly asserted but is clearly implied. At any rate our author presents us with one of his own which he considers worthy of adoption by our government. Shortly stated, it is as follows: That the United States should refrain from all opposition to Japan’s expansion north and west upon the continent of Asia, that is, in the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Siberia; that, in return, Japan should agree to abandon her southeasterly development and transfer the Caroline and Marshall islands to international control or to administration by Australia; and, thirdly, that Japan, Australia, and the United States should jointly guarantee the independence of the Philippines.”—Review
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 16:332 Jl ’20
“General Sherrill’s ten months in the East seem to have been insufficient to awaken him to an adequate sense of the intricacy of problems that with such bland simplicity he has undertaken to solve.” R. M. Weaver
− =Bookm= 51:632 Ag ’20 420w
Reviewed by Harold Kellock
=Freeman= 2:188 N 3 ’20 580w
=Lit D= p86 Je 26 ’20 1500w
“This book, though spirited enough, lacks verity of perception, and is typical of the thanks propaganda of foreigners who visit Japan and spend their time with hospitable officials.” F: O’Brien
− + =Nation= 111:250 Ag 28 ’20 560w
Reviewed by W. W. Willoughby
+ − =Review= 2:655 Je 23 ’20 850w
+ =R of Rs= 61:669 Je ’20 100w
=SHERWOOD, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS.= Glimpses of South America. il *$4 Century 918
20–20207
The author knows South America well, as a business man having made several prolonged trips throughout its extent. He calls his book an informal one, covering the ground and containing information about that part of South America that a casual visitor would be most apt to visit and about which he would be less likely to get information from more formal treatises. It is compiled from notes jotted down for personal amusement and is illustrated with the author’s own photographs. It has six maps, a geographical and a general index and the text contains: The beaten track around South America; New York to Kingston and Panama; Panama and the Panama canal in war time; Down the west coast—Panama to Lima, Peru; Lima—the city of the past; Southern Peru and northern Chile; Iquique, Antofagasta and the nitrate desert; Valparaiso and Viña del Mar; Santiago—the capital of Chile; Over the Andes to the Argentine Republic; Buenos Aires—the Paris of America; Montevideo and the republic of Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the way home.
* * * * *
“He gives many valuable tips about hotels, boats, and railroads in an entertaining way. His chapters on Lima and Buenos Aires are rather long, but his chatty method of writing gives charm to the volume.”
+ =N Y Evening Post= p13 N 6 ’20 90w
“‘Glimpses of South America’ is frankly a book of travel—and a very entertaining one—but it will prove highly educational for the man who wishes to learn something of Latin Americans, their customs, mode of living, needs and psychology.” B. R. Redman
+ =N Y Times= p15 Ja 16 ’21 840w
+ =Outlook= 126:470 N 10 ’20 30w
“Mr Sherwood’s characterizations of people and places are terse and vivid and he makes no pretensions to an elaborate study of any of the matters of which he treats. What he has to say is intended to be helpful to the ordinary traveler.”
+ =R of Rs= 62:672 D ’20 100w
“If there are traces of exaggeration, or of facetious inference, the reader, amused thereby, will not be disposed to be too inquiring. The work, as a whole, is vivid and informing—a thoroughly animated travel book.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p9a O 24 ’20 660w
=SHERWOOD, MARGARET POLLOCK.= World to mend. *$2 (2c) Little
20–17008
The story is ostensibly the journal of a working man. He was not always thus, this son of the idle rich, of New England birth, who had lived fifty years of inactivity, addicted to theoretical speculations of a critical and analytical nature, when the European war broke out. The war brings him a sudden realization that he has been but a looker-on in life, has not been a good citizen, not in immediate touch and sympathy with his fellow men. He must act, must become a worker, must undertake a handicraft. He chooses cobbling, settles in a typical New England coast town, and gradually works himself into the confidence of his fellow townsmen and into local influence. His journal records his experiences, is full of philosophical criticism of American life and character in general, of the flaws in our democracy, of our attitude to the war before our entry into it and of the imminence of a regenerated world after the war. Our actual participation in the war fills him with satisfaction and pride and the hope of future greatness.
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:119 D ’20
“Of the high earnestness of her mood there are visible manifestations. The delicate play of humor which we have so often noted in her work is absent. The poetic trend of her prose has been almost as ruthlessly stifled. Yet in spite of the handicap of abandoning two of her largest assets, the spell of the book is very strong. Miss Sherwood here as in ‘The worn doorstep’ has lived up to the magnitude of her opportunities.” D. L. Mann
+ =Boston Transcript= p8 O 16 ’20 1250w
+ =Cleveland= p105 D ’20 40w
“The cobbler of Mataquoit is a good thinker. He thinks through his problems, whether they be of government, economics, education, religion or sociology. He is, moreover, the master of a high style which sounds the tocsin of hope for literature in America once again.”
+ =N Y Times= p23 N 14 ’20 460w
=Outlook= 126:515 N 17 ’20 60w
“Miss Sherwood has genuine literary power, and whatever she writes is worth reading from the point of view of style as well as for its subject. Miss Sherwood has spiritual insight and, looking through her eyes, we have at least a vision of how the new world should be built.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p12 O 20 ’20 240w
+ =Springf’d Republican= p8 D 9 ’20 360w
=SHESTOV, LEO.= All things are possible. *$2 McBride 891.7
21–480
In this collection of aphorisms the author delivers himself of his reflections on life and literature. The work is translated from the Russian by S. S. Koteliansky and has a foreword by D. H. Lawrence, who sees in Shestov the final liberating struggle of the Russian psyche to shake itself free from the bondage of an alien European civilization.
* * * * *
“There is much that is brilliant in the book, much that is even profound. Moreover, if Hamlin Garland is right in reproaching this part of the United States with being ‘hopelessly sane,’ its influence here might be salutary. But we wonder whether a native of Iowa could be cajoled into reading beyond the first two pages. Nevertheless it is well now and then to face a defiant arraignment of the entire fabric of our civilization.” C. M. S.
+ =Grinnell R= 16:309 D ’20 350w
Reviewed by Stark Young
=Nation= 111:693 D 15 ’20 450w
“His style is clear, uncollegiate and literary.” B: de Casseres
+ =N Y Times= p19 O 3 ’20 1000w
“In any proper sense of the word there is not an atom of originality in the book, which is merely a decoction from Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche. To exalt Shestov as original, or as in any sense a philosopher, is mischievous nonsense. He is interesting as an illustration of the Slavonic nihilism which is capturing the fancy of so many of our half-educated modern youths.”
− =Review= 3:273 S 29 ’20 400w
+ =Springf’d Republican= p10 Ja 7 ’21 540w
=SHOWALTER, NOAH DAVID.= Handbook for rural school officers. (Riverside textbooks in education) il *$2 Houghton 379.17
20–10062
The object of the book is to stimulate the rural school officers’ interest in education. The information given is based on personal investigation of the best plans, methods and practices now in use in the best rural communities of the United States. The foreword is a creed of nine paragraphs for the school trustee or director and the ground covered in the text takes in school organization, election and work of officers, resources and finances; school sites, plants, furnishings, apparatus and decorations; selection of teachers; the daily program, home and school cooperation, and supervision; the consolidation of rural schools; manual training and home economics; the question of lunches, health education and medical inspection, and, lastly, citizenship. There are also illustrations, appendices and an index.
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:15 O ’20
+ =El School J= 21:154 O ’20 310w
+ =School R= 28:554 S ’20 210w
=SHUGRUE, MARTIN JOSEPH.=[2] Problems in foreign exchange. *$2 Appleton 332.45
The principles and methods of foreign exchange are briefly described in the introduction to the book which falls into three parts. Part 1 consists of typical problems and solutions fully worked out. Part 2 sets problems for the student to work out. They come under the headings; Sources of supply and demand; Par of exchange; Theory of foreign exchange rates; Conversions in foreign exchange; Financing imports and exports; Arbitrage transactions and finance bills; General problems. Part 3, Appendices, contains foreign exchange documents and tables for the simplification of foreign exchange calculations.
=SHUTE, HENRY AUGUSTUS.= Real diary of the worst farmer. il *$1.75 (1½c) Houghton 817
20–7300
The diary begins with March 10, the appearance of the first bluebird, and gives a delightfully humorous account of all the haps and mishaps of an amateur farmer’s summer, until the reader takes leave of him on November 21, meditating before his empty pork barrel—he still had his pork barrel left—after the pigs, reared with so much effort, expense and expectation, turned out to have been tubercular. He consoles himself with characteristic optimism, that, in spite of a pile of unreceipted grain bills and other debts, he now has before him the satisfying winter pleasures of milking, bedding, feeding and caring for his stock twice a day by lantern light. The book is dedicated to amateur farmers, particularly to professional and salaried men, whose love of the soil and of domestic animals takes them to the country not for the money profit that may result, but for the interest in the life for its own sake.
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:74 N ’20
“Professionally I am inclined to condemn the book as a piece of deliberate manufacture by a man who knows too well that he is expected to be funny; personally I like it very well indeed.” W. A. Dyer
+ =Bookm= 51:686 Ag ’20 650w
“‘The worst farmer’ satisfies all expectations with its dry wit and skilfully woven humor.”
+ =Boston Transcript= p4 Je 9 ’20 460w
+ =Cleveland= p72 Ag ’20 50w
“The book is amusing in its way, and no doubt many amateur farmers will find their own experiences more or less accurately reflected in this ‘Real diary of the worst farmer.’”
+ =N Y Times= 25:236 My 9 ’20 450w
=Outlook= 125:125 My 19 ’20 50w
+ =St Louis= 18:228 S ’20 20w
“Aside from the humor of the book one finds the author a genuine nature lover.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p6 My 24 ’20 370w
=SIDGWICK, CECILY (ULLMANN) (MRS ALFRED SIDGWICK), and GARSTIN, CROSBIE.= Black knight. *$2 (2c) Holt
20–14287
When Michael Winter comes up with a jolt against the fact that his father is a swindler and a suicide he ships for Canada with not a friend to bid him farewell. But a compassionate young girl, noticing his loneliness, proffers her hand as a good-bye for England and cherishes the memory of her daring as her romance ever after. In Canada he roughs it with the roughest and plunges with the rashest and indeed makes a fortune but incurs a term of prison in the bargain. Free again and rich he arrives in Paris in time to rescue his unknown friend from the clutches of a wicked aunt. They marry first and he pays the piper after, to settle his own and his father’s score, and there is an interrupted honeymoon, with a happy ending.
* * * * *
+ − =Ath= p410 S 24 ’20 200w
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 N 3 ’20 150w
“The workmanship of the novel bears intrinsic evidence of its subdivision of labour. The Canadian scene is sketched with descriptive vigour, and enlivened with incident. Mrs Sidgwick, however, scarcely qualifies with her entries.” L. B.
+ − =Freeman= 2:165 O 27 ’20 210w
“The collaboration is only a juncture of opposites and not a mixture of complementary elements. In short, however faithful and interesting a collection of adventures the two authors may have chronicled, however successful they may have been in parts, as a unified whole their book fails because of a lack of unity in construction, in style, in character and in place.”
− + =N Y Times= p27 S 12 ’20 210w
“Life on the great wheat ranch, in lumber camps, and in other more conventional scenes is described with vigor, knowledge, and a certain robust sense of fun. The book holds the attention firmly.”
+ =Outlook= 126:201 S 29 ’20 100w
“Having been given the first innings Mr Crosbie Garstin has scored so fast and freely that the sequel inevitably partakes of the nature of an anti-climax.”
+ − =Spec= 125:861 D 25 ’20 500w
“A live and busy story.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p602 S 16 ’20 100w
=SIEVEKING, L. DE G.= Dressing gowns and glue. il *$1 Harcourt 827
(Eng ed 20–8231)
A book of nonsense verse, with drawings by John Nash. It is published “with an introduction about the verses by G. K. Chesterton and an introduction about the drawings by Max Beerbohm and something about all concerned by Cecil Palmer” and is edited by Paul Nash.
* * * * *
“Introductions, nonsense verses, and pictures are all alike absurd and equally delightful.”
+ =Ath= p986 O 3 ’19 100w
“Nonsense in its finer form will be found in the illustrations more frequently and more definitely than in the text. Captain Sieveking’s verses have got extremely pleasant qualities; some of the poems that he calls ‘examples of blatant naughtiness’ have a real charm of idea; but he is not sufficiently severe, and allows himself to go on writing when the humor of the idea has already been sufficiently illustrated.” R. E. Roberts
+ − =Boston Transcript= p9 O 4 ’19 1200w
+ =Springf’d Republican= p11a Je 27 ’20 320w
“There is not quite enough of this book—that is its only flaw.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p503 S ’19 520w
=SIMONDS, FRANK HERBERT.= History of the world war. 5v v 4–5 il ea *$5 Doubleday 940.3
=v 4–5= “The fourth volume of Mr Simonds’ ‘History of the world war’ is concerned with the crucial developments of the year 1917—the German retreat to the Hindenburg line, the entry of America into the war, the Russian revolution and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the French and British offensives and reverses on the western front, the Italian defeat, and the aggressive submarine campaign on the part of Germany.” (R of Rs F ’20) “The fifth volume marks the culmination of his account of the allied campaigns. He tells with dramatic vividness the full story of American participation.” (R of Rs S ’20)
* * * * *
=Booklist= 16:276 My ’20 (Review of v 4)
“Here again we have, possibly displayed better than elsewhere, his fine sense of historical proportion, his superlatively dramatic style garnishing the most prosaic scientific manoeuvers, if important, with all the color of romance. He has taken critical advantage of the books by German military men published since the war.” Walter Littlefield
+ =N Y Times= p6 D 19 ’20 380w
“The author’s running comment and interpretation are most illuminating and instructive.”
+ =R of Rs= 61:220 F ’20 160w (Review of v 4)
+ =R of Rs= 62:333 S ’20 180w (Review of v 5)
=SIMPSON, CHARLES TORREY.= In lower Florida wilds. il *$3.50 (4c) Putnam 917.59
20–15140
“A naturalist’s observations on the life, physical geography, and geology of the more tropical part of the state.” (Sub-title) The author has been a resident of the region he describes for more than twenty years. He found it an almost unbroken wilderness in 1882, which is now rapidly and forever disappearing. “Today most of its hammocks are destroyed, the streams are being dredged out and deepened, the Everglades are nearly drained; even the pine forests are being cut down.” (Introd.) Many species of animals and plants, found only in this area, have already been exterminated. The author has thoroughly explored the territory in its virgin fecundity and describes it both as a collector and a general naturalist. Contents: The building of the land; The Florida keys; The Ten Thousand islands; Cape Sable; The south shore of the mainland; The Everglades; The planting of our flora; The lure of the piney woods; The origin of the hammocks; In the primeval forest; Along the stream; Along the mangrove shore; The open sea beach; The wonders of Ajax reefs; The secrets of the sea; The story of the land snails; The beauty of the night; The survival of the fittest. There are an index, a map, and numerous illustrations.
* * * * *
“The style is a curious, though pleasant, blending of the scientist’s delight in naming, describing or explaining, and the artist’s sensitiveness to vivid coloring, ethereal lights or deeps of forest.”
+ =Booklist= 17:28 O ’20
Reviewed by S: Scoville, jr.
+ =N Y Evening Post= p9 O 23 ’20 1400w
“He has written well and he has presented his material in as popular a form as was possible, but the reviewer would be failing in his duty if he did not warn the casual book-buyer of the scientific nature of this volume with so attractive a title.”
+ =N Y Times= p18 D 26 ’20 250w
+ =Outlook= 126:238 O 6 ’20 60w
=SIMPSON, EUGENE E.= America’s position in music. *$1 (14c) Four seas co. 780.9
20–9483
A brief essay in which the author points out “that America has for a long time possessed a number of distinctive elements in music which were found in no other country, therefore were inevitably American.” He traces the pioneer efforts in American music, beginning with Lowell Mason in 1821, and he takes special notice of the use made of Indian and negro themes. The chronology at the end lists over ninety American composers, with the titles of their best known works. The essay is reprinted from “Modern music and musicians,” revised edition of 1918.
* * * * *
“Unfortunately Mr Simpson, who means well and has much common sense, tries to write grandiloquently. It is often difficult to understand him.”
+ − =Boston Transcript= p6 Je 23 ’20 450w
+ − =Survey= 44:385 Je 12 ’20 180w
=SIMS, NEWELL LEROY=, ed.[2] Rural community. il *$4.50 Scribner 301
20–12477
“Regarding the present stage of rural community development as one of transition from an individualistic to a co-operative economy, it is the expressed purpose of the volume to bring together in organized form the available ‘knowledge of the past communal order, both ancient and modern, for the shaping and perfecting of the order that is to be.’ The book is divided into three parts, each comprising four chapters, each chapter presenting material from several sources so organized as to constitute a comprehensive discussion of some unit phase of the general topic. Thus, the first part treats of the Ancient community, one chapter being given to each of the following topics: The primitive village; The mediaeval manor; The village community in America; and The disintegration of the village community. Part 2 considers the modern community under the headings, The modern community defined; Types of communities; Institutions of the community; and The evolution of the community. The latter half of the book is devoted to Part 3, Community reconstruction.”—School R
* * * * *
=School R= 28:795 D ’20 450w
=SIMS, WILLIAM SOWDEN, and HENDRICK, BURTON JESSE.= Victory at sea. il *$5 (4c) Doubleday 940.45
20–18578
This is not a complete history of the operations of our naval forces during the great war, but an account of the submarine campaign and the means by which it was defeated. Little or nothing was made public of the anti-submarine exploits at the time of their happening owing to the necessity for secrecy. Contents: When Germany was winning the war; The return of the Mayflower; The adoption of the convoy; American destroyers in action; Decoying submarines to destruction; American college boys and subchasers; The London flagship; Submarine against submarine; The American mine barrage in the North sea; German submarines visit the American coast; Fighting submarines from the air; The navy fighting on the land; Transporting two million American soldiers to France; Appendix; Index.
* * * * *
“This is a very interesting book carrying with it a comprehensive and intelligent description of the submarine and anti-submarine warfare of the late war, and is by far the best yet made known to the world.”
+ =Am Hist R= 26:332 Ja ’21 1050w
+ =Booklist= 17:109 D ’20
=Boston Transcript= p4 O 27 ’20 1050w
“Among the numberless books about the war I have seen no other which is so concise and clear and which shows the march of the main events so unobscured by unessential details. From beginning to end, the reader is never left in doubt on a single point.” B. A. Fiske
+ =N Y Times= p4 O 31 ’20 2600w
“The most illuminating account of the war against the submarines which has yet appeared. It is a thrilling narrative, and we advise everybody to read it.”
+ =Spec= 125:815 D 18 ’20 1850w
“It is in the highest degree authoritative.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p847 D 16 ’20 2100w
“The telling of this story is so attractive that the book ought to have a wide popularity.” W: O. Stevens
+ =Yale R= n s 10:437 Ja ’21 180w
=SINCLAIR, BERTRAND WILLIAM.= Poor man’s rock. il *$1.90 (2c) Little
20–17084
A story of Puget Sound. Jack MacRae comes home from the war to find his father dying. In a letter left to his son the father tells the story of his youth and explains the reasons for his hatred of Horace Gower. Jack also learns that he has been robbed of his inheritance by Gower, and adding his father’s grievances to his own, he sets out to compete with the rich man in the salmon industry. As an independent buyer for his friend, Stubby Abbott, a rival canner, he makes inroads on Gower’s business and soon merits the magnate’s open hostility. In the meantime Jack has fallen in love with Betty Gower and the working out of the story involves the old tangle of youthful love thwarted by family disapproval, which in the end is triumphantly overridden.
* * * * *
+ =Booklist= 17:119 D ’20
“As a student of character, Mr Sinclair is rather clever than profound. His interest lies primarily in the story he is telling and not in its setting, and, fortunately, he has the power to make us follow that story so keenly that only here and there do we miss the background.” E. A. W.
+ − =Boston Transcript= p4 O 20 ’20 600w
“In the telling Mr Sinclair has revealed a strange mental combination of psychologist, economist and artist. Nevertheless, ‘Poor man’s rock’ is an interesting story of an interesting phase of American endeavor.”
+ − =N Y Evening Post= p21 O 23 ’20 220w
“This is by far Mr Sinclair’s best novel. There is a great deal in it that is worth while, and every page is real. The theme is handled with such a blending of strength and beauty that it falls wide of the mark of maudlin sentimentality.”
+ =N Y Times= p26 Ja 9 ’21 520w
“Altogether the novel is a strong piece of writing.”
+ =Outlook= 126:558 N 24 ’20 70w
“Taken all in all, it’s a story that moves rapidly and with a lift straight to the end.” L. M. Harbeson
+ =Pub W= 98:660 S 18 ’20 280w
=SINCLAIR, MAY.= Romantic. *$2 (4c) Macmillan
20–18389
This story of the first weeks of the war in Belgium is a psychological study of cowardice. At the opening of the story Charlotte Redhead has just broken off an episodic love affair with Gibson Herbert, her employer. The qualities that attract her in John Conway are his apparent cleanness and strength. The two work together as farm laborers for a year, maintaining a very satisfactory relationship on platonic terms. With the beginning of the war they go out, in company with two others, as an ambulance corps. And here under danger Charlotte sees John go to pieces. He welcomes the idea of danger and death, but turns tail at the reality, and at the same time develops a strain of cruelty. Charlotte gives in to the truth slowly and it is only after he has been killed, when a psycho-analytic doctor gives her the key, that she comes to understand, and so forgive, his weakness.
* * * * *
“It is not possible to doubt the sincerity of Miss Sinclair’s intentions. She is a devoted writer of established reputation. What we do deplore is that she has allowed her love of writing to suffer the eclipse of psycho-analysis.” K. M.
− + =Ath= p552 O 22 ’20 860w
“Into ‘The romantic,’ which for its greater part is scarcely anything more than a sketchy record of war-time incident, Miss Sinclair has put a curious jumble of pseudo science and pretentious psychology.”
− =Boston Transcript= p4 O 20 ’20 1400w
“In ‘The romantic’ the psycho-analytic purpose stands out like a framework. It is a semi-scientific study rather than a novel, missing almost entirely the effect of mixed, unguided, concrete life which belongs to fiction.” C. M. Rourke
+ − =Freeman= 2:429 Ja 12 ’21 450w
“Her Charlotte Redhead is new and authentic both as a type and as an individual. The implications of Miss Sinclair’s fable and analysis are of the broadest significance. It is these implications that give Miss Sinclair’s book an extraordinary intellectual suppleness and strength.”
+ =Nation= 111:567 N 17 ’20 600w
“A more difficult subject than this one which Miss Sinclair has chosen it would be almost impossible to find. And she has treated it sanely, admirably, with a certain clean honesty which renders it void of offense. ‘The romantic’ is a most unusual and most noteworthy book.” L. M. Field
+ =N Y Times= p10 O 17 ’20 1100w
“The story in all its poignant brevity has that assured touch of artistry which we have a right to expect from the author of ‘The divine fire.’” F: T. Cooper
+ =Pub W= 98:657 S 18 ’20 420w
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
=Review= 3:650 D 29 ’20 660w
“The book is a notable achievement in psychoanalysis, and Miss Sinclair is to be congratulated on the close study of character which she has given us.”
+ =Spec= 125:641 N 13 ’20 640w
“‘The romantic’ is a rather curious book in that it is written almost spontaneously according to fixed theory. Its mechanism is flawless.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p7a D 12 ’20 500w
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p666 O 14 ’20 620w
=SINCLAIR, UPTON BEALL (ARTHUR STIRLING, pseud.).= Brass check. *$1; pa *50c U. B. Sinclair, Pasadena, Cal. 071
20–11913
The book is a fierce arraignment of our present-day journalism. “When you have read this story, you will know our journalism; you will know the body and soul of it, you will know it in such a way that you will not have to be told what it is doing to the movement for industrial freedom and self-government all over the world.” (Introd.) It falls into three parts: part 1, The evidence, which is one half of the book, is a personal story telling what the author himself has seen and experienced in his struggles with the press for a period of twenty years. In part 2. The explanation, other witnesses are heard, “the wisest and truest and best people of our country” and the author pledges his honor that his statements are based on facts and facts only. Part 3, The remedy, has among its contents a practical program for a “truth-telling” weekly to be known as the National News.
* * * * *
Reviewed by H: L. West
=Bookm= 52:116 O ’20 950w
“Mr Sinclair’s book is a brave and sincere effort carried out in the worst of all tastes—so that your attention becomes focused on the writer instead of his writing.” Edwin Björkman
− + =Freeman= 2:212 N 10 ’20 1850w
“Is Mr Sinclair telling the truth? If he is not, the Associated press and every newspaper he includes in his amazing revelations owe the American public the solemn duty of bringing him to justice but if Mr Sinclair’s statements go unchallenged by the press, every honest American must possess himself of the facts. Fascinating as his book is, incredible though it may appear to the dazed reader, it is a treatise based on names, places and dates, convincing despite our great desire to remain unconvinced.” J. J. Smertenko
+ =Grinnell R= 16:329 Ja ’21 1000w
=Int J Ethics= 31:116 O ’20 140w
“This is a most important book which every reader will want to pass on to his neighbor. It is a complete, masterful study, and the presentation of its facts is wholly convincing. With Mr Sinclair’s conclusions, drawn from his facts, it is not necessary to agree. Mr Sinclair is a Socialist. He sees everything through the spectacles of class-consciousness. Also, at times he is humorless, and he has been persistently naive.” E. H. Gruening
+ − =Nation= 111:72 Jl 17 ’20 1050w
“There is nothing here even remotely approximating a rational survey of the conditions and practices of American journalism. There is a vast deal about the topic most interesting to Mr Sinclair—and that is Sinclair himself. The picture, while more or less true in many of its details, is, as a whole, a caricature. Is the book worth reading? It is; indeed, it should be widely read. But it should be read with the intelligence and information which will enable one to sift the truth from the mass of absurd and misleading statements which it contains.” W. J. Ghent
− + =Review= 3:420 N 3 ’20 1350w
“The effectiveness of the facts in ‘The brass check’ for the average reader, not to mention a hostile critic, is seriously marred by the intermittent ‘bow-wowings’ of the writer. Can the author bring to the tragic theme of the prostitution of modern journalism no language but that of the yellow press? The people have been too deeply betrayed by the illusions of language not to demand the facts without the fireworks.” M. C. Crook
+ − =Socialist R= 8:382 My ’20 650w
=Springf’d Republican= p13a F 22 ’20 160w
“A passionate, intimately personal, elaborately detailed and documented indictment.” J. G. McDonald
+ =Survey= 44:307 My 29 ’20 320w
“For the sake of the honour of the American press—the better elements in which cannot but be glad to see the worse exposed—one would like to know that this book was being widely read.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p712 N 4 ’20 720w
=SINCLAIR, UPTON BEALL (ARTHUR STIRLING, pseud.).= 100%; the story of a patriot. *$1.20 (1½c) pa *60c Upton Sinclair, Pasadena, Cal.
21–1179
In fiction form Mr Sinclair has told the story of the Mooney case, bringing in other recent events that show the methods used by business interests and their secret police, under-cover men, and agents provocateur. Peter Gudge is near the scene of the explosion on preparedness day. He is knocked senseless, arrested as a suspect, and given the third degree. Taking his measure, Guffey, the chief of police, decides that Peter is the man for his purpose and uses him first as star witness in the Goober case and later as one of his secret agents, detailed to spy on the “reds.” Peter is faithful and painstaking and rises to the top in his profession, a true 100% American. The data on which the story is built is supplied in an appendix.
* * * * *
“Mr Sinclair has abandoned the Zolaist symbolism and declamation of his earlier books and has chosen an intellectual and artistic method which is none other than that of Swift. Mr Sinclair has gods and a great subject burning, literally burning, out his heart. And so it comes about that this pedestrian mass of graceless prose achieves—in the most fundamental sense—literary values that young intellectuals seeking cultural modes for our American life can never reach. The book is a literary achievement of high and solid worth.”
+ − =Nation= 111:481 O 27 ’20 320w
“Dealing in certain facts that we all know to be true, it carries an impression of verisimilitude, despite elements of sentimentality and exaggeration. It gives a graphic insight into some of the ugliest phases of the class struggle.” G. H.
+ − =World Tomorrow= 4:30 Ja ’21 160w
=SINGMASTER, ELSIE (MRS HAROLD LEWARS).= Basil Everman. *$1.90 (2½c) Houghton
20–5404
Basil Everman, who never once appears in person, nevertheless dominates the entire story. The scene is laid in a small college town, lying a little north of Mason and Dixon’s line, where “the Civil war was still the chief topic of discussion among the older men.” The chief characters (after Basil) are: Richard Lister, son of the president of Walton college; Richard’s mother who is violently opposed to the musical career on which he has set his heart; Eleanor Bent, who has promising literary talent and with whom Richard falls in love; Mrs Bent, formerly Margie Ginter, an innkeeper’s daughter, who conceals Eleanor’s parentage from her; Dr Green, a physician; Thomasina Davis, spinster, who loved Basil Everman; and Mr Utterly of Willard’s Magazine, who has come across a story, an essay and a poem of Basil’s so wonderful that they have sent him to Waltonville to learn all he can about the defunct genius. The story ends happily.
* * * * *
“A good armchair story for people who enjoy this kind of character study, which is pervaded by kindly humor and gentle satire.”
+ =Booklist= 16:246 Ap ’20
=Lit D= p87 S 4 ’20 3500w
“Miss Singmaster gives us a warm and charming picture of her little college town; she catches the external characteristics and harmless little oddities of her people. But she will not let herself regard their real lives with a critical eye.”
+ − =Nation= 110:401 Mr 27 ’20 500w
“Carefully and skillfully written, showing a restraint and finish far removed from the hasty, slipshod performances of so many writers of contemporary fiction.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:120 Mr 14 ’20 500w
“Told with care and dignity, this novel has the quality we call distinction.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:190 Ap 18 ’20 60w
“A fine piece of work.”
+ =Outlook= 124:562 Mr 31 ’20 80w
“Both in plot and in character delineation Miss Singmaster has been very successful in this story. ‘Basil Everman’ ought to be one of the star volumes of the year.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p13a My 2 ’20 550w
=SIRÉN, OSVALD.= Essentials in art. il *$3.50 Lane 704
20–20086
The author of this volume is professor of the history of art at the University of Stockholm and has a world reputation as lecturer on art, especially primitive Italian art, in other European countries, in America and Japan. The essays in this volume are: Rhythm and form; Art and religion; Art and religion during the renaissance; The importance of the antique to Donatello; A late Gothic poet of line. The last two essays are profusely illustrated. The poet of line in the last essay is Parri Spinelli, a list of whose works is appended.
* * * * *
“His book on Leonardo da Vinci is better worth reading than many others that have been written on that, apparently inexhaustible subject. But his new volume can hardly be said to satisfy the expectations that the title might legitimately arouse.” E. M.
+ − =Ath= p836 Je 25 ’20 860w
“Most of the book is objective criticism of the highest order; the essay on ‘Rhythm and form’ is both penetrating and remarkable. Professor Sirén understands art—his volume is a distinctive contribution to aesthetics.”
+ =Dial= 69:666 D ’20 50w
“Really touches essentials only in the initial essay on ‘Rhythm and form,’ in which an important matter is treated with more fulness than precision or originality. The rest is agreeable padding from the author’s recent magazine articles. The book is well made, and has the merit, in a critical work, of being easy to read.”
+ =Review= 3:564 D 8 ’20 90w
“Professor Sirén is a typical modern student, who has travelled much, and has first-hand knowledge of many arts. In his more purely historical essays he does not, in the pursuit of facts, lose sight of underlying principles. The essay ‘On the importance of the antique to Donatello’ is actually marred by a too careless treatment of material facts, and by a strange misconception of the character of Gothic art.”
+ − =Sat R= 130:97 Jl 31 ’19 1200w
“We welcome Professor Sirén’s collection of essays, for, although they contain nothing that is very fresh in point of view, they breathe a reasonable spirit, and state the modern position with moderation and sense.”
+ − =Spec= 124:620 My 8 ’20 520w
“With the subject of line-drawing and rhythm, he is especially happy.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p8a D 5 ’20 360w
“He is not a lively writer, at least in our language; and his thought is so abstract that, dealing as it does with a subject so concrete and particular as art, it is often hard to follow. He is, by the present condition of aesthetic thought, forced to use a number of general terms without defining them; we ourselves have to supply the definition as we read, and we may supply it wrong; but those who are really interested in the subject will find his essay [Rhythm and form] worth reading.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p211 Ap 1 ’20 1750w
=SITWELL, OSBERT.= Argonaut and juggernaut. *$1.50 Knopf 821
20–3704
This volume by one of the young soldier-poets of Great Britain opens with a preface poem “How shall we rise to greet the dawn?” written in November, 1918. The four parts of the volume are entitled: The Phœnix-feasters; Green-fly; Promenades; and War poems. In the war poems satire predominates.
* * * * *
“Poems by one of the more notable exponents of the modern manner, who seems as yet to be uncertain both of his aim and method.”
+ − =Ath= p1208 N 14 ’19 80w
“Some will applaud Mr Sitwell’s political sentiments; others, when they read such things as ‘Sheep song,’ will be profoundly irritated. The intensity of their irritation will be the measure of Mr Sitwell’s success as a writer of satire. When we turn from Mr Sitwell’s satirical to what we may be permitted to call his ‘poetical’ poems, we are less certain in our appreciation and enjoyment.”
+ − =Ath= p1255 N 28 ’19 600w
“Mr Sitwell is thought by many, and doubtless considers himself, to be extremely wild and daring, when in reality he is merely a bad rider of his hobby. The only pieces in this volume in which he betrays genuine feeling are some of the vers libre efforts written in protest against the attitude of society towards the war.” J: G. Fletcher
− + =Freeman= 2:189 N 3 ’20 360w
“As a satirist, and he is nothing if not a satirist, he never is vivid; he nowhere bites or breaks. His abuse is oratorical in its plenitude, oratorical and round and blunt. He by no means has mastered the indirectness, the cut, the slant, the side-sweep, the poetry of satire.” M. V. D.
− =Nation= 110:855 Je 26 ’20 160w
“He is moved to write by unbelief in the ideals of other people rather than by the passionate force of ideals of his own. He is a sceptic, not a sufferer. His work proceeds less from his heart, than from his brain. It is a clever brain, however, and his satirical poems are harshly entertaining and will infuriate the right people. They may not kill Goliath, but at least they will annoy Goliath’s friends.” Robert Lynd
+ − =Nation [London]= 26:352 D 6 ’19 650w
“Mr Sitwell’s impressive title is about the only impressive thing in his book.” Clement Wood
− + =N Y Call= p10 Je 20 ’20 380w
+ =N Y Times= 25:194 Ap 18 ’20 80w
+ =N Y Times= 25:16 Je 27 ’20 300w
“There are passages in these pages which show that Mr Sitwell has embryonic poetic talent that may develop significantly, if he can get far enough away from the disturbing moods and reflections of war to give it free rein. He has the love of nature that is the poet’s best teacher. In ‘Argonaut and juggernaut’ Mr Sitwell is primarily not a poet, but a prophet. And his prophecy is full of flaming indignation and scorn.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p9a F 29 ’20 1000w
“When Captain Sitwell is not occupied with telling home truths he discloses an imaginative mind and a subtle sense of the value of words. Nor can his word-pictures fairly be criticised as rhetorical; each embodies an unobtrusive idea. Thus his ‘Sailor-song’ expresses with Elizabethan freshness the Elizabethan delight in the wonders of ocean and the life marvellous.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p699 N 27 ’19 280w
=SKELTON, OSCAR DOUGLAS.= Canadian Dominion; a chronicle of our northern neighbor. (Chronicles of America ser.) il subs per ser of 50v *$250 Yale univ. press 971
20–3361
“Volume forty-nine of the series is about ‘The Canadian Dominion’ and is by Oscar D. Skelton, professor of political science at Queen’s university. The book takes up the story of Canada from where it was left off by G. M. Wrong in ‘The conquest of New France’ at about 1760 and continues it to Canada’s entry into the great war.”—N Y Times
* * * * *
“The limitations are insignificant in comparison with the high intrinsic merit of the whole book. Its delightful literary form, together with its accuracy and suggestiveness, make it both the most readable and the most valuable of the general histories of the Canadian Dominion. The volume, in short, is a credit to Canadian scholarship.” C. D. Allin
+ − =Am Hist R= 26:350 Ja ’21 620w
“While thoroughly Canadian and more intensely patriotic than the self-styled scientific historians may favor, Mr Skelton is broad visioned, never provincial. To write impartially of Quebec Nationalists and Ontario Orangemen and of the language and separate school questions, required the restraint of a scholar.”
+ =Cath World= 112:392 D ’20 1100w
+ =N Y Times= p16 O 31 ’20 130w
=R of Rs= 52:223 Ag ’20 40w
=SKILLMAN, WILLIS ROWLAND.= A. E. F. who they were, what they did, how they did it. il *$2 Jacobs 940.373
20–7445
“We all have hobbies,” says the author, and his is the collection of facts and figures. From his habit of noting down “bits of information about army organization, divisions, insignia, casualties, dates, awards of medals, and a dozen other subjects of interest to soldiers” (Foreword) grew this book, and its object is to “explain, in terms any civilian can understand, the system by which the American army accomplished its work in France.” Among its distinctive features are statistical tables, maps, charts, diagrams, collar insignia, officer’s insignia, chevrons and a large colored chart of the shoulder insignia of the United States army. The table of contents is: A soldier’s survey of the world war; America’s part in the world war; System of command; The American divisions; The branches of the service; Army honors and symbols; Reminiscences; Appendix; Index.
=SKINNER, ADA MARIA, and SKINNER, ELEANOR LOUISE=, comps. Child’s book of modern stories. il *$3.50 Duffield
20–15344
Sixty-six stories by such authors as Louisa M. Alcott, Julia Darrow Cowles, Abbie Farwell Brown, Josephine Scribner Gates, Mary Stewart, Patten Beard, Thornton Burgess, and others. They are grouped as: Home tales; The story garden; Cheerful stories; and Tales and legends beautiful. There are eight pictures by Jessie Wilcox Smith.
+ =Booklist= 17:127 D ’20
“Filled with seventy or more of the best short stories for children that have been written in recent years.”
+ =Ind= 104:376 D 11 ’20 100w
“The stories have been edited with tact and put into a style easy of comprehension by the simplest minds.”
+ =Lit D= p95 D 4 ’20 240w
“The pictures are characteristically charming.”
+ =Outlook= 126:600 D 1 ’20 40w
=SKINNER, ADA MARIA, and SKINNER, ELEANOR LOUISE=, comps. and eds. Garnet story book. (Jewel ser.) *$1.75 (3c) Duffield
20–3194
For this collection the compilers have brought together “tales of cheer both old and new.” The collection opens with The good-natured bear, by Richard H. Horne, a story praised by Thackeray. The other stories are: Christmas wishes, by Louise Chollet; The man of snow, by Harriet Myrtle; Butterwops, by Edward A. Parry; Finikin and his golden pippins, by Madame De Chatelaine; The story of Fairyfoot, by Frances Browne; The snow-queen, by Hans Christian Andersen; The merry tale of the king and the cobbler, from Gammer Gurton’s Historie; The story of Merrymind, by Frances Browne.
* * * * *
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 Jl 14 ’20 170w
=SKINNER, CONSTANCE LINDSAY.= Adventurers of Oregon; a chronicle of the fur trade. (Chronicles of America ser.) il per ser of 50v *$250 Tale univ. press 979.5
20–4768
“Constance Lindsay Skinner’s ‘Adventurers of Oregon’ describes the Lewis and Clark expedition and the cruise of the Tonquin, through which John Jacob Astor hoped to ‘control a mighty fur-trading system reaching from the Great Lakes to the Pacific ocean and on to China and India.’” (N Y Times) “The titles are: The river of the West; Lewis and Clark; The reign of the trapper; The Tonquin; Astor’s overlanders; Astoria under the Nor’westers, and The king of old Oregon. The period covered is from the beginnings of exploration to the settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute in 1846, and the themes represented by the above chapter-heads are essentially two—discovery and exploration, and the fur-trade.” (Am Hist R)
* * * * *
“This book is a delight. The author treats the dramatic scenes and incidents in the background of Oregon’s history, achieving therein a wholly unusual degree of literary perfection. Thus she has produced a narrative which, for adult readers, deserves to take very high rank in its special field.” Joseph Schafer
+ =Am Hist R= 26:117 O ’20 650w
“Occasionally it would seem that the effort to maintain a swiftly moving narrative has betrayed the author into sacrificing clarity. As a ‘Chronicle of the fur trade’ this work fulfills the purpose of the editors of the series in presenting an interesting account of a romantic phase of American development; historical perspective appears to have suffered in ‘Adventurers of Oregon.’” L. B. Shippee
+ − =Mississippi Valley Hist R= 7:171 S ’20 660w
“The book has the true pioneering tang.”
+ =N Y Times= p16 O 31 ’20 130w
=R of Rs= 62:223 Ag ’20 30w
=SKINNER, ELEANOR LOUISE, and SKINNER, ADA MARIA.= Children’s plays. il *$1.25 Appleton 812
19–1207
The authors urge the use of dramatic material in school work and have designed these plays to that end. They say “The little plays in this book, planned primarily for class room reading lessons, may be used (1) for practice in oral reading, (2) for original dramatizations in language work, (3) for school entertainments.” Some of the plays are original, others are adaptations. Contents: Nick Bluster’s trick; Cicely and the bears; The happy beggar; Professor Frog’s lecture; Cock-Alu and Hen-Alie; Mother Autumn and North Wind; The one-eyed servant; Little rebels; Everyday gold; The village shoe maker; The faithful shepherd; A royal toy-mender; The new New year. There are pictures by Willy Pogany.
* * * * *
“The simple, natural dialogue of these thirteen plays makes them excellent for reading and acting or for exercises in language work.”
+ =Booklist= 16:316 Je ’20
=St Louis= 17:312 O ’19 50w
=SLATER, THOMAS.= Foundation of true morality. *$1.25 (9c) Benziger 171
20–12834
The author holds that man is not a mere physical machine but a moral agent, endowed with freedom to choose between good and evil. What is needed is a moral standard by which man can judge their actions. That this standard can be supplied by the Catholic conception of Christian morality rather than by the Protestant conception is the contention of the book. Contents: Man a moral agent; Legalism; Casuistry; Counsels and precepts; Sin; Grace.
=SLATTERY, JOHN T.= Dante. *$2 Kenedy 851
A course of lectures delivered before the student body of the New York state college for teachers in 1919 and 1920. The author treats of Dante as “Christianity’s greatest poet” and adopts for him Ruskin’s descriptive phrase “the central man of all the world.” There are five lectures: Dante and his time; Dante, the man; Dante’s “Inferno”; Dante’s “Purgatorio”; Dante’s “Paradiso.” There is a preface by John H. Finley.
=SLATTERY, MARGARET.=[2] Highway to leadership. *$1.50 Pilgrim press 174
20–19286
In a series of essays the author expounds all the qualities necessary for leadership and incidentally the necessity of leadership. In the first essay: “A leader—one who leads,” the illustrations of born leadership are taken from children’s playgrounds with the conclusion that the requirements are three: “some knowledge and the hunger for more, an abandon of self-effacing consecration to the purpose, and a real passion for the goal.” The other essays are: The eyes that see; The ears that hear; The heart that feels; The mind that interprets; The practice that prepares; The courage that faces facts; The patience that teaches; The will that persists; The confidence that dares dream.
* * * * *
“In the clear convincing style which is usual with her, Miss Slattery gives the world another of her inspiring volumes.”
+ =Boston Transcript= p4 Ja 5 ’21 180w
=SLOANE, THOMAS O’CONOR.= Standard electrical dictionary; a complete manual of the science; with addition by Prof. A. E. Watson. il *$5 Henley 621.3
20–12131
To this 1920 edition a second part has been added to the first. “In this part all the recent advances in appliances, new developments and refinements in theory have been very fully treated. The second part includes a series of short treatises on a multitude of topics which have arisen in the short period since the last enlarged edition appeared. There are also a large number of what may be properly termed definitions, which are required because of the increased terminology of the science.” (Preface) The new section comprises 175 pages of text with new illustrations and diagrams.
* * * * *
=R of Rs= 62:336 S ’20 40w
=SLOANE, WILLIAM MILLIGAN.= Balkans; a laboratory of history. 4th ed, rev and enl *$2.50 Abingdon press 949.6
20–14471
“The first edition of this work was issued a few months before the outbreak of the world war. Beginning with the fall of the Byzantine empire, the history of this section of Europe, where the blood of so many races have mingled that the author considers it an ethnological museum, the history is followed down to the opening of the year 1914. To make his story of the Balkans complete it was necessary for the author to revise it in the light of the last six years. Seven new chapters have been added. They make a concise and very broad sketch of the events leading up to the war, of the war, and of events up to and including the peace conference.”—Boston Transcript
* * * * *
“The author transforms his pre-war volume so that it becomes one of the best books on the war that we have.” F. W. C.
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 Jl 14 ’20 880w
=Ind= 103:292 S 4 ’20 20w
“In this difficult work he well maintains his reputation for fairness and impartiality as an historian.”
+ =R of Rs= 62:221 Ag ’20 70w
=SLOSSON, EDWIN EMERY.= Easy lessons in Einstein. il *$1.35 Harcourt 530.1
20–8295
“A discussion of the more intelligible features of the theory of relativity.” (Sub-title) Dr Slosson, literary editor of the Independent, has attempted a simple explanation of the Einstein theories, making use of “such crude and absurd analogies as trains and elevators and projectiles flying through space and Coney island mirrors.” A paper by Dr Einstein on Time, space, and gravitation is reprinted from the London Times, and there is a bibliography of eight pages and an index. Parts of the book have appeared in the Independent.
* * * * *
“He is to be congratulated on the enthusiasm he has brought to what must have been a difficult and fatiguing performance.”
+ =Ath= p618 N 5 ’20 260w
“The main points of the Einstein theory and the experiments leading to it are explained in an interesting, informal way so that those not trained in mathematical physics can grasp them.”
+ =Booklist= 16:335 Jl ’20
“Slosson’s ‘Easy lessons in Einstein’ is a good attempt written in an easy style far above the breezy smartness of the Sunday supplements; it is trustworthy and throughout entertaining, if not always instructive. There is perhaps too much about the fourth dimension and somewhat too much striving ‘to loosen up,’ as he puts it, ‘our conventional ideas of the fixity of time and space.’” R: F. Deimel
+ − =Freeman= 1:422 Jl 14 ’20 1700w
=Ind= 102:371 Je 12 ’20 650w
“A book with which the absolute layman may amuse himself for a few hours.”
+ =Nature= 106:466 D 9 ’20 60w
“If the reader will take the time to read this little book only as fast as he can really understand it—say a few pages at a time, with intervals of a day or more to let the ideas soak in, or to think them over—he will find this both stimulating and informing.” B. C. G.
+ =N Y Call= p11 S 12 ’20 500w
+ =N Y P L New Tech Bks= p37 Ap ’20 40w
=Springf’d Republican= p8 Ag 5 ’20 650w
=SMALLWOOD, WILLIAM MARTIN, and others.= Biology for high schools, il *$1.40 Allyn 570
20–17589
“Specifically the book aims to do six things: (1) To teach the pupil to see accurately what he looks at and describe exactly what he sees. (2) To teach him to think clearly and to base his conclusions upon his facts. (3) To broaden his knowledge of his own body through the study of the structure and functions of other animals and plants. (4) To show him by the adaptations of plants and animals how he can adapt himself to the varying conditions of life. (5) To make him a good citizen through his knowledge of good food, good health and good living conditions. (6) To teach him how biology has helped human progress and welfare.” (Preface) The contents are in four parts: Animal biology; Plant biology; Human biology; General biology. There are numerous illustrations and an index.
=SMITH, CHARLES HENRY.=[2] Mennonites. $2.25 Mennonite bk. concern, Berne, Ind.
289.7
“The volume falls into two parts: the Mennonites in Europe, and in America. Beginning with the Anabaptists in Switzerland, and the indigenous movements of a similar character in Germany and the Netherlands, and their unjust and unwarranted identification by the authorities with the tragedy at Münster, the book leads to the systematizing of Anabaptist views by the Dutch ex-priest, Menno Simons, after whom the religion is named. The early scattered congregations in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Cleves-Julich, East and West Prussia, East Friesland, Hamburg, Holstein, Bavaria, Württemberg, Alsace-Lorraine and France, Moravia and Galicia, and their leaders all find their place. The story is one of martyrdom, division, confiscation, dispersion, but of abounding willingness to die for faith. The source for much of this is Thielman von Bracht’s ‘Martyr’s mirror,’ one of the monuments of Mennonite literature. The section devoted to the Mennonites in America is a reworking of Dr Smith’s earlier treatise on the ‘Mennonites in America.’ The final chapters of Dr Smith’s study are given over to special topics.”—Am Hist R
* * * * *
“Dr Smith is to be complimented on the patience and skill which has enabled him to produce what is undoubtedly the most authoritative work on the Mennonites in our language. His impartiality in dealing with the present-day rival branches of the sect is also worthy of commendation.” E: Krehbiel
+ =Am Hist R= 26:310 Ja ’21 1500w
=Nation= 111:164 Ag 7 ’20 80w
=SMITH, CHARLTON LYMAN.= Gus Harvey, the boy skipper of Cape Ann. il *$1.65 (6c) Jones, Marshall
20–14706
A story for boys. Gus Harvey is a New York boy adopted by the captain of a fishing vessel from Gloucester. In spite of his New York bringing up Gus is familiar with boats and he readily adapts himself to the life of Cape Ann, his new home. He wins a yacht race, learns to build a boat and with his chum salvages a wreck and captures a band of burglars. There is a glossary of marine terms.
* * * * *
“Only for the boy who understands sailing and nautical terms. Nicely printed and illustrated.”
+ =Booklist= 17:124 D ’20
“The story has the quality of an old skipper’s talk.” A. C. Moore
+ =Bookm= 52:262 N ’20 50w
=SMITH, CORINNA HAVEN (PUTNAM) (MRS JOSEPH LINDON SMITH), and HILL, CAROLINE R. (MRS WILLIAM HILL).= Rising above the ruins in France. il *$3.50 Putnam 914.4
20–13141
“Observations in the devastated regions of France, made since the armistice, by two American women who have devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the work for ‘the children of the frontier.’ By the use of pen and camera these women undertake to show us in America something of the destruction that the north of France has undergone and something of the brave spirit with which the population has sought to rebuild its devastated homes.”—R of Rs
* * * * *
“The authors’ pictures of the re-awakening of life are simply and impressively sketched.”
+ =Ath= p645 N 12 ’20 160w
+ =Booklist= 17:109 D ’20
+ =Cath World= 112:693 F ’21 440w
“When they speak of conditions actually witnessed they speak with the natural authority of sincerity and lucidity. The book takes a particular value from the large number of photographs with which it is enriched.”
+ − =Nation= 111:331 S 18 ’20 240w
“There is little of deliberate description, there are few adjectives, no one incident or visualization is dwelt on long. But the book is a glimpse of life and indomitable achievement—and that is an epic thing.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:22 Jl 25 ’20 2100w
“It is no small praise of the narrative to say that, while by no means purely descriptive, it matches the pictures in striking or appealing presentation of fact.”
+ =No Am= 212:718 N ’20 980w
+ − =Outlook= 126:515 N 17 ’20 50w
“This incessant use of the historical present time gives their style an air of pretentious artifice; their frequent use of direct discourse gives it an air of fiction. So, except for the pictures and the appendix, they have succeeded in producing only an effect of make-believe in confusion.”
− + =Review= 3:236 S 15 ’20 200w
=R of Rs= 62:222 Ag ’20 70w
“It would be misleading to say that this record of wonderful accomplishment is interesting throughout. Literary interest can hardly be achieved unless the principle of progression and climax be adhered to. Mrs Haven Smith, gives us a good many of those human touches which one always looks for in such a book.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p736 N 11 ’20 420w
=SMITH, DAVID.= Life and letters of St Paul. *$6 Doran 220.92
20–9032
“The author’s point of view in this book is well expressed in the preface: ‘Controversy is a foolish and futile employment; and I have endeavored to portray St Paul simply as I have perceived him during long years of loving and delightful study of the sacred memorials of his life and labor, mentioning the views of others only as they served to illustrate and confirm my own. And I would fain hope that I have written nothing discourteous, nothing hurtful.’ One of the most attractive parts of this volume is the translation of the epistles into modern English. The text is accompanied by a running exposition which takes note of the thought and purpose of these rich writings, and sets them in their historical context in a way that the average mind can understand. On the other hand, the scholar will find a great deal of suggestion from the extensive footnotes, which discuss the deeper questions of Biblical learning on subjects that are not always familiar even to the general run of scholars.”—Bookm
* * * * *
“The warmth of its style is likely to make it more acceptable as an aid to devotion than as a contribution to historical research.”
+ − =Ath= p442 Ap 2 ’20 150w
“This detailed, voluminous, and interesting life of Paul is by the author of ‘In the days of his flesh,’ and bears all the marks of unwearied scholarship, sympathetic interpretation, and exegetical insight that we have learned to associate with the name of Dr Smith.”
+ =Bib World= 54:647 N ’20 450w
“Dr Smith has produced a work of genuine literature. He has a lucid style, a finely poised imagination, deep historical insight, a rich understanding of religious values, and a full grasp of the profoundest scholarship. He has thus written a volume that unquestionably takes rank with the great biographies of recent times. There is not a dull page.” O. L. Joseph
+ =Bookm= 51:303 My ’20 1200w
=N Y Times= p29 O 17 ’20 80w
“This book is disappointing. The notes indicate that the author possesses minute scholarship, but the text does not indicate that he possesses spiritual insight.”
− + =Outlook= 126:334 O 20 ’20 130w
+ =Spec= 124:317 Mr 6 ’20 170w
“It is designed for the general reader rather than for the scholar, and throughout it maintains an allusiveness to general literature and history which will make it specially attractive to a wide circle of readers.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p347 Je 3 ’20 700w
=SMITH, GEORGE GREGORY.= Ben Jonson. *$1.25 Macmillan
20–4866
“After many years Ben Jonson has been admitted to the sacred circle of English men of letters, that series of little critical biographies now numbering more than sixty names. In Mr Smith’s belated biography we have in his two opening chapters a recital of about all that is known of the circumstances of Jonson’s life, the rest of the book being given to a study of his literary work, with chapters on ‘literary conscience,’ the comedies, masques, tragedies and poems, and a final survey of his influence.”—Boston Transcript
* * * * *
=Boston Transcript= p10 F 7 ’20 1450w
“Mr Smith, in his entirely laudable anxiety to write unlike Swinburne, has written the greater part of his book with too much caution. The biography is all crowded into the first fifty pages and the remaining two hundred and fifty are left wholly free for criticism: the easiest arrangement, perhaps, but in this case not the best. It is only in the last two chapters, those on Jonson’s literary criticism and influence, that Professor Smith, himself an authority on sixteenth and seventeenth century poetical theory, comes into his own and does his author the fullest justice.” Mark Van Doren
+ − =Nation= 110:206 F 14 ’20 1100w
“The new ‘Ben Jonson’ is generously written, but Mr Gregory Smith has kept Ben’s secret. It was, of course, impossible to quote much in the limits of space set by the conditions of the series; the more’s the pity that it came out in a series at all. The book is too big for it; it is so rich a harvest that one could wish the master of it had pulled down his barns and built greater; cancelled his contract, and made ‘Ben Jonson’ his magnum opus.”
+ =Nation [London]= 26:608 Ja 31 ’20 1950w
“Mr Smith is constantly on the defensive; he is often arrogant and peevish in his attitude towards other critics. Under his handling Jonson becomes not only dull but a source of dullness in other men, to wit in Mr Smith himself.” S. C. C.
− + =New Repub= 23:342 Ag 18 ’20 500w
“Professor Smith has done full justice to Ben’s robust character without minimizing [his] grave faults. His plays are analysed with much ability, and their peculiar qualities are admirably explained and illustrated with reference to the theory upon which they were constructed. Insight and accuracy are the chief essentials in a short account of Ben Jonson, and Professor Smith possesses both.”
+ =Spec= 124:279 F 28 ’20 550w
“For the critical study in the Men of letters series which Mr Gregory Smith has just produced there is a place; it satisfies curiosity, it supplies many just observations, it provides valuable matter on the neglected masques; it only fails to remodel the image of Jonson which is settled in our minds.”
+ − =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p637 N 13 ’19 2100w
=SMITH, GORDON ARTHUR.= Pagan. *$1.75 Scribner
20–5580
“This is a collection of twelve short stories. In ‘The pagan,’ from which the book takes its title, there are three outstanding characters: Ferdinand Taillandy, son of Maxime Taillandy, a wealthy Parisian; his sister Marthe, and Peter Mason, a young American lawyer whose firm practiced on both sides of the Atlantic. In the ‘Feet of gold’ and ‘The end of the road’ the author draws further entertaining pictures of the same Ferdinand Taillandy—‘poet, pagan and wanderer on the face of the earth.’ The ‘City of light’ and ‘The bottom of the cup’ are pathetic tales of two young sisters, daughters of a widow of Evremont-sur-Seine, who, dazzled by the attractions of Paris, leaves home, only to return broken and disillusioned. ‘Tropic madness’ is decidedly humorous.”—N Y Times
* * * * *
=Booklist= 16:246 Ap ’20
+ =N Y Times= 25:25 Jl 11 ’20 700w
=SMITH, HENRY LOUIS.=[2] Your biggest job, school or business. *$1 Appleton 174
20–21351
These heart-to-heart talks with boys contain “Some words of counsel for red-blooded young Americans who are getting tired of school.” (Sub-title) The author’s object is to give the boy the necessary incentive to develop the will-power that will enable him to go thru with an irksome task for the sake of his future. The essays are: The American freight train; Quitting school for business; Grindstones: A study in tool-sharpening; A neglected art; The key to success in study; A widespread fallacy disproved; On getting rich; The cash value of book-learning; First lesson of the world war: Value of morale; A square deal for the home folks; College and university training; The home half of college preparation.
=SMITH, HERBERT ARTHUR.=[2] American Supreme court as an international tribunal. *$3.50 Oxford 341.6
20–16853
“This small volume essays to draw an analogy between the Supreme court of the United States, when sitting as a tribunal to try cases involving sovereign states, and any international court that may hereafter be established for such purpose. The author reviews the various cases before the Supreme court in which one or both of the litigants have been states of the union, stressing those cases in which the jurisdiction of the court has been challenged, either successfully or otherwise.”—N Y Evening Post
* * * * *
+ =N Y Evening Post= p11 D 31 ’20 180w
“Professor Herbert Smith has compiled a very useful book, deserving close study at the present time.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p642 O 7 ’20 650w
=SMITH, JUSTIN HARVEY.= War with Mexico. 2v *$10 Macmillan 973.6
19–19605
“This exhaustive historical work may be regarded—although the author does not so claim—as a sequel to his previous work, ‘The annexation of Texas.’ Professor Smith devotes two opening chapters to the consideration of the social, economic and political condition of Mexico and the Mexicans, both before and since the revolt from Spanish rule, which made it an independent state under the rule of Iturbide. Next are considered the relations between Mexico and the United States prior to the beginning of the war and the attitude of both powers on the eve of war. The second volume is devoted chiefly to a description of the war itself, the siege of Chapultepec, the capture of the capital city, the naval operations and the final victory and the signing of a treaty. Professor Smith has sought his material for this exhaustive history in public documents and records of the two governments, in collections of historical societies, and public and private libraries, in manuscripts public and private ... and in personal recollections of men still living, who took part in the conflict.”—Boston Transcript
* * * * *
“The reviewer is disappointed, because it seems to him that Dr Smith has not accomplished once for all the results that his immense labor and impressive grasp of the subject would have enabled him to do had he written with more regard to the necessary limitations of his readers. It would be a grievous error, however, to infer that he has not produced a notable book. One may not always agree with the author, but very few will be rash enough to neglect him.” E. C. Barker
+ − =Am Hist R= 25:729 Jl ’20 1400w
=Booklist= 16:309 Je ’20
“This book must be regarded as the definitive work on this important episode in the history of the expansion of our country.” E. J. C.
+ =Boston Transcript= p6 F 4 ’20 1050w
“A thoroughgoing and accurate narrative.”
+ =Brooklyn= 12:106 Mr ’20 40w
“Elaborate, but not very plausible.”
+ − =Dial= 68:669 My ’20 70w
“The many engagements before final victory are described with a particularity which proves the author to have acquired a general understanding of military matters, with an appreciative grasp of the technique of the battlefield that make his narrative markedly convincing.”
+ =N Y Times= 25:300 Je 6 ’20 1000w
“Professor Smith has labored with a keen eye for the human and picturesque qualities in his material. At the same time this is fundamentally the work of a painstaking scholar.”
+ =Outlook= 125:223 Je 2 ’20 100w
=R of Rs= 61:334 Mr ’20 180w
“Mr Smith has made a thorough examination of the available material, and has built it into a monumental work which supersedes all previous histories of the subject. His treatment of the military part is admirable. His book is fully documented, and in every way a credit to the American school of history.”
+ =Spec= 124:869 Je 26 ’20 350w
=Springf’d Republican= p8 Ja 3 ’20 70w
“The public is deeply indebted to Prof. Smith, who after years of patient delving in the vaults of historical societies, in local archives, in private collections, etc., has produced a scholarly and well thought-out history.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p5 Mr 8 ’20 600w
“The episodes are sufficiently distant to have enabled the passions and excitements to grow cold and for their comparative importance to be weighed and allocated in a just position in the history of the construction of the United States. The materials are adequate, even abundant, and the author with commendable industry has fortified his narrative with a wealth of corroborative annotation, and a formidable bibliography of his subject. He has, moreover, compiled a really useful index.”
+ =The Times [London] Lit Sup= p350 Je 3 ’20 950w
=SMITH, LAURA ROUNTREE.= Like-to-do stories. il 55c Beckley-Cardy co.
A book of stories for boys and girls who are just beginning to read for themselves. Each story has its moral, as some of the titles will show: The little girl who liked to wash dishes; The little boy who liked to bring in wood and water; The little girl who couldn’t tell time; The little boy who was afraid of the dark; The little boy who liked to hang up his coat and hat; The little girl who did a kindness every-day.
=SMITH, LEWIS WORTHINGTON, and HATHAWAY, ESSE VIRGINIA.=[2] Skyline in English literature. il *$2 Appleton 820.9
20–20033
The object of the book is to present the story of English literature in continuity by eliminating minor details and minor writers and keeping the attention on the skyline. The authors hold that territorial expansion and intellectual expansion go together and that while English-speaking peoples hold the forefront of the world their literature is the greatest in the world. The book is intended for high school use and its contents are: The English language and the English people; The Anglo-Saxon beginning; The Norman-French expansion; The Englishman’s house in order; The Greco-Italian expansion; The world expansion; Spiritual and social idealism: the overthrowing of masters; Spiritual decadence: the return of the masters; The intellectual expansion; the age of enlightenment; The spiritual expansion; idealism and the rebirth of song; The beauty and fullness of life; The industrial expansion; artists, workers, thinkers; Recent and contemporary writers. There is a list of literary places in England with map; a chronology, a glossary, an index and illustrations.
* * * * *
=Boston Transcript= p5 D 24 ’20 800w
=N Y Evening Post= p10 D 31 ’20 30w
=SMITH, LOGAN PEARSALL=, ed. Treasury of English prose. *$1.75 (3c) Houghton 820.8
20–5686
This collection of extracts from English prose begins with Chaucer in the fourteenth century. From the sixteenth century there are extracts from the “Book of common prayer,” from Sir Philip Sidney, Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare. Beginning in the seventeenth century with quotations from authorized versions of the Bible, there are, moreover, such names as Izaak Walton, Sir Thomas Browne, John Milton, Jeremy Taylor, and on through the eighteenth century, Swift, Addison, Johnson, Burke and Gibbon. Some of the more modern writers presented are Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Shelley, Keats, Carlyle, Emerson, Ruskin, Walter Pater, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and George Santayana.
* * * * *
=Booklist= 16:338 Jl ’20
“Not absolutely representative but includes some charming and little-known prose gems by several famous poets.”
+ =Cleveland= p72 Ag ’20 30w
“Mr Smith has let his ear preside at every choosing, so that his volume is as rigorously cadenced as a collection of sonnets would be. Here with some omissions is the most perfect music which English prose has made.”
+ =Nation= 111:278 S 4 ’20 100w
“What Mr Pearsall Smith holds to be good prose is to us only a kind of good prose; the kind that is alembicated and, as we say, poetical. It is the prose of conceit, imagery, and eloquence which stands over against the prose of narration, argument, or satire. So that it would strike even one who had no critical opinion of English prose and very little reading in it as somewhat strange that there is not one single piece of narrative in all this book.”
+ − =Nation [London]= 26:398 D 13 ’19 2500w
“The contents are charmingly arranged and delightfully savory and brief.”
+ =New Repub= 22:161 Mr 31 ’20 100w
“His treasury is a book of beauty, a book to keep at one’s bed’s head, a book to dip into, to travel with, to reread.” P. L.
+ =New Repub= 22:253 Ap 21 ’20 1500w
“The anthology as it stands is now anything but representative.... The selections from the Bible are entirely admirable. The passages from Jeremy Taylor and Dr Donne are excellently chosen, and Mr Pearsall Smith is to be congratulated upon his phrase from Traherne and upon having recollected that Chaucer was not only the first English poet. Indeed, much of the prose written by poets in this book will delight and surprise most of Mr Pearsall Smith’s readers.”
+ − =Spec= 124:50 Ja 10 ’20 1000w
=SMITH, MABELL SHIPPIE (CLARKE) (MRS JAMES RAVENEL SMITH).=[2] Maid of Orleans. *$1.25 Crowell
19–15636
“M. S. C. Smith has published a new volume of the old story of ‘The maid of Orleans,’ written particularly for girls, but by no means confined to such a constituency. To the length of nearly 300 pages the author relates the story of the girl and the voices that guided her in her efforts to free France from a foreign foe and set her rightful sovereign upon the throne.”—Springf’d Republican
* * * * *
“A commendable piece of work.”
+ =Cath World= 111:254 My ’20 120w
+ =Outlook= 124:28 Ja 7 ’20 70w
+ =Springf’d Republican= p15 N 30 ’19 180w
=SMITH, NORA ARCHIBALD.= Christmas child, and other verse for children. il *$1.75 Houghton 811
20–19659
Verses for children reprinted from the Ladies’ Home Journal, Outlook, Youth’s Companion and other periodicals, including school and educational journals. There are about twenty poems on Christmas themes followed by others, with such titles as The fairy ring; Everybody’s baby; The answer of the flag; Learning to knit; Easter blossoms; The doll’s calendar.
* * * * *
“Miss Smith has the gift of sprightly versification, and her experience as a kindergartner leads her to a knowledge of the theme and the treatment that will please boys and girls.”
+ =Springf’d Republican= p8 N 18 ’20 100w
=SMITH, ONNIE WARREN.= Casting tackle and methods. il *$3 (4½c) Stewart & Kidd 799
20–16779