In their format these are two of the most attractive books of the season. Wolf von Schierbrand in an interesting volume gathers together the papers which have appeared in a number of magazines on "Germany" (Doubleday, Page). He supplements these papers with others, and so makes a connected book of the whole. There are no pictures. The book doesn't need any. It's good enough without.

"Our European Neighbors Series" has another volume in"Swedish Life in Town and Country" (Putnam) by G. von Heidenstam. These are attempts to write contemporary accounts of people and institutions rather than histories or descriptions and they deserve well of the public. There is only one book on Russia. That is from the pen of Mr. Hugo Ganz, a Viennese newspaper correspondent. The book is about equally divided between St. Petersburg, Moscow and Tolstoi! It aims to present an unbiased description of the real state of affairs in Russia to-day. Aptly enough the author has called his book "The Land of Riddles" (Harper), but it will take a great many books to solve the ever-present problem of Russia. "The Book and the Land" (Eaton and Mains) by R. W. Van Shoick, is a pleasant little account of a journey through the Eastern Mediterranean. And so farewell to Europe!

Out of Africa there is always something new they say. The newest thing, also the best, is Major Gibbons's account of his exhaustive explorations of Marotse Land, "Through Africa from South to North" (Lane), and his journey from one end of the continent to the other. The book is worthy a place by Stanley. The style is clear and interesting, and lots of things happened. One object of Major Gibbons's expedition was to make maps. The publishers have presented those he made in the best style. Most maps in the travel books are

flimsy folded paper affairs which tear on the slightest provocation. These maps are mounted on linen and placed in a pocket in the cover. Let the makers of such books consider the propriety of doing this sort of thing in the future. "Fetichism in West Africa" (Scribners) by Robert Hamill Nassau, contains the interesting results of forty years close observation of native customs and superstitions. The book is a study in religion and folk-lore, and African romance as well. It is deeply interesting not merely to the specialist but to the general reader.

Morocco gets two titles, "The Truth. About Morocco" (Lane) by M. Aflalo, is most political. This country doesn't especially care which of the European countries gobbles up Morocco so long as our citizens are afforded protection there. The book is disfigured by a slurring reference to the President of the United States in Mr. Cunninghame Graham's Graham's unfortunate introduction. Mr. A. J. Dawson probably knows more about the true inwardness of the Moroccan character than any man living.

His "Things Seen in Morocco" (Funk & Wagnalls) comprises stories, sketches and random observations of the land of the Moors. It is full of Oriental atmosphere and makes the reader feel at home. "Dar-Ul-Islam, the Heart of Islam" (Scribners), by Mark Sykes is one of those exhaustive books of travel which seem only to come from the thoroughgoing efforts of Englishmen. Captain Sykes saw everything there was to see in that section of Asia Minor which he visited and he tells about it in-an agreeable way, albeit he must have a fling or two at what he supposes to be the typical American from Chicago.

"By Nile and Euphrates" (Scribners) is another pleasant adventure book, covering some part of the same territory written by Mr. A. Valentine Geers, of the staff of the Babylonian expedition of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. William Eleroy Curtis has gathered together his newspaper letters from that section in an interesting volume called "To-day in Syria and Palestine" (Revell). No pictures. "Along the Nile with General Grant" (The Grafton Press) by Hon. Elbert E. Farman, will attract those who like to travel in the company of the great commander. The journey was made sometime since, but the book has been brought thoroughly up to date. Mr. G. Manville Fenn edits a little descriptive book on Egypt, called "The Khedive's Country." (Cassell.)

It is a far cry from the Holy Land of the Christian, to the Holy Land of the Orient. Here are two books on India. In the series about "Our Asiatic Neighbors" is a well-written little volume on "Indian Life in Town and Country" (Putnam) by Herbert Compton. Mr. Compton has been a long time in India, and he knows his subject thoroughly, also he knows how and what to tell about it. A curious book is "The Web of Indian Life" (Holt) by the Sister Nivedita, who is otherwise Miss Margaret E. Noble,

a member of a Calcutta communityhouse in the following of the SwamiVivekananda. She has abundant opportunities for getting at the concealed feminine side of Hindoo life, and has told about it well, though from Christian point of view.

A notable little book is "The Kingdom of Siam" (Putnam) edited by A. Cecil Carter and written in large part by a number of Siamese government officials. It must be a pleasant thing to be the absolute ruler of a small kingdom and able to devote oneself to the introduction of that kingdom to modern civilization. His Majesty Chulalongkorn has not the least enviable position among the monarchs of the world and is filling it, if this book be a criterion, very admirably. "In Further India" (Stokes) Mr. Hugh Clifford has collected and set down in a connected way the story from the earliest times of the exploration of that portion of the Malay Peninsula southeast of the Brahmaputra River which includes Burmah, Annam, Cambodia and Siam, one of the least-known sections of the earth, the Golden Chersonese of Ptolemy. The book is unusually good.

Mr. Robert A. Speer, Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, has circled the earth, not merely with the purpose of seeing the unusual and the beautiful, but with the idea of finding out what part the missionaries have played in some of the great crises of modern history in foreign lands. His book, "Missions and Modern History,' (Revell) constitutes the noblest defense of the peripatetic bringer of the Gospel that has come under my notice. It is a book of travel, of philosophy, of high purpose and fine achievement. "Blame it on the missionary" is a favorite shibboleth of thoughtless people when things go wrong in foreign lands. Mr. Speer shows, and shows conclusively, that when things have gone wrong it has been

in despite the missionary and not because of him.

The modern traveler is a philosopher. The day is past when a mere description, a chronicle of events, things seen and in some instances things not seen, is of importance. Dr. Arthur Judson Brown has traveled through China, not merely with an eye for its present, but with a thought for its future. The most valuable section of his interesting book "New Forces in Old China" (Revell) is that which refers to the future of China and our relations to it.

Another Chinese book is "A Yankee on the Yangtze" (Armstrong) by William Edgar Geil. The author's reflections on the opium question and other problems are of value. The book will be read with interest on account of its vivid and graphic style even by those who do not agree with the author's discussion as to the work of missionaries. "Chinese

Pictures" (Cassell) by Mrs. J. F. Bishop is frankly a picture book with notes explanatory of the illustrations. "Gems of the East" (Harper) is a vivid and graphic account of a sixteen thousand mile journey in the Philippines undertaken by that most entertaining and adventurous of modern travelers, Mr. A. H. Savage Landor. We talk a great deal about the Philippines, but most of us really know little or nothing about them. There is no other book within reach of the ordinary individual which is so full of valuable information, which is withal so interestingly set forth that one does. not realize how instructive it is until one has finished the bulky volume. There is some amazingly good fighting between the American Army and the Moros in it, too, in which Mr. Landor-happily for him! got mixed up. Fighting in the Philippines is much like fighting on the plains used to be. The American army

gets little or no credit for it. Nobody knows anything about it, and those who do know do not care. The future of the Philippines is one of our American problems, the first basis of a correct solution of it is knowledge such as this

book furnishes.

The

The renewed interest in Corea is responsible for another edition of Dr. Wm. Elliott Griffis' standard classic on "The Hermit Nation" (Scribners). seventh edition has been fully revised, and the history brought down to the present day, even the movements of the Japanese army, as far as Liao-Yang, are indicated. In "Koreans at Home" (Cassell) Miss Constance J. D. Taylor has given us the impressions of a Scotswoman in that strange land. The pictures, five of which are in color, are portraits rather than scenes, and are the more interesting on that account. The picture of the poor little Emperor is a striking representation.

The most important section of this year's travel books, I take it, is that which I have reserved for final treatment. It deals with that marvel among nations, Japan. There are three large books and one small one. "Our Asiatic Neighbors" affords another volume, "Japanese Life in Town and Country" (Putnam), by George William Knox. The book is small but full of meat. Doubtless many who shrink from the larger and more serious books will find it adequate to the present craving for knowledge about Japan. The other three books, however, are especially notable. It is significant that though they are published by different houses and have no natural relation one to the other, yet they supplement one another perfectly.

The first one is "Japan by the Japanese" e" (Dodd, Mead & Co.). Mr. Alfred Stead is the editor of this book. He has also written a few chapters. Most of the subjects or topics into which the

book has been divided are treated by the Japanese themselves. The highest available authority in each case has discussed the subject appointed him in which he is supposed to be an expert. For instance, Marquis Ito writes the chapters on the Constitution, the Duties of Political Parties, the Growth of Japan; Field Marshals Yamagata and Oyama discuss the Army; Rear-Admiral Saito treats of the Navy; Baron Kaneko considers the Organization of Japan as a Constitutional State. Count Okuma describes the foreign policy, and so on. Nearly everything imaginable is treated and treated admirably, so far as I am able to judge. If the book has a limitation, it is in the discussions of the status of the Japanese women and the description of the Japanese religion.

In "Japan an Interpretation" (Macmillan) the late Lafcadio Hearn has thrown a most admirable inside light on the Japanese religion and Japanese character. The much-lamented Hearn wrote with the eye of a seer and the imagination of a poet. Racially and temperamentally no man was better adapted to enter into the spirit of the mysterious East than he. You feel that what he says is truth; that he knows. You realize that he has divined the secrets of the Orient, and that which is hidden from the casual eye he has, by some intuition, arrived at the very heart of. The book is also literature of a high order. And in large degree it supplies the lack mentioned in the first volume.

Mrs. A. M. Campbell Davidson's "Present Day Japan" (Lippincott) gives the observations of a thoughtful and observant woman who has traveled much in the land. She tells what she saw, what the people did; and she tells it extraordinarily well.

In general the travel books are entitled to a high rank in the season's output. There is not a poor one in the lot.

THE

HE flurry incident to the output of books for the Christmas market is practically over, and the problem of the fall novel has passed from the hands of the book-maker to those of the bookseller.

On the whole, the season is lacking in sensations. There are readable novels, dozens of them; but there are few surprises; and while a number of authors who may always be relied upon for work of good quality, have contributed to the fall fiction list, no one of them has made a stride beyond his previous efforts, unless we except Marie Corelli.

In "God's Good Man," Miss Corelli has come nearer writing a convincing human story than ever before in her career. The love story of a sturdy English parson and a delectable lady of the manor, set in rural England among scenes and folk essentially and picturesquely English, is a revelation of natural feeling and simple style heretofore unsuspected in the popular but melodramatic author. (Dodd, Mead.)

From Stanley Weyman one knows what to expect, and in the "Abbess of Vlaye," one gets exactly what one expects. Beginning somewhat drearily in the council chamber of Henry IV of France, where the peasant uprisings in Poitou is the theme discussed, the story comes to life in the second chapter and from that time on until the Captain of Vlaye and his love the Abbess are overthrown, and the mission of Vicomte des Ageaux, Lieutenant of Perigord, is fulfilled there are no dull pages. Much of the mechanism is familiar, and there is displayed no great originality of plot or style, but to readers who like novels of the Weyman school, the story may be confidently recommended. (Long mans.)

Henry Seton Merriman's posthumous novel "The Last Hope" is also a tale of France, and it, too, has a flavor of history; but the novel of Mr. Weyman and the novel of Mr. Scott are things apart Mr. Weyman tells a dashing story, but Mr. Scott's work had subtlety as well as spirit, feeling as well as action.

"The Last Hope" is a romance of a lost cause, a tale woven round Loo Barebone, sailor of the Channel Isles, in whom the French Legitimists believe they have found Louis the Dauphin, who should have been Louis XVII of the Bourbon line. the Bourbon line. The theme offers scope for poetry and pathos as well as for action; and, with the skill of the true story-teller, the author has seen and used his opportunities. It is a pleasant thing to be able to say of this last novel by an author deservedly popular, that it shows no falling off in the art that won the popularity. (Scribners.)

"The Reaper" is, so far as we know, a first novel; but the conclusion is drawn from no crudity in the book. As a matter of fact, this story of the Shetland Isles and their folk has a quality in both matter and style that lifts it above the amateurish and should win serious consideration for the future work of Miss Edith Rickert. The sea winds and waves and mists dominate the tale. Life is a grim. thing in that Northland "toon," but such as it is Miss Rickert has shown it, and the story, with its homely pathos and sentiment and tragedy and content that is hardly joy, grips at the heart because it has the ring of truth. (Houghton, Mifflin.)

"Dr. Luke" too, is a story of a fogbound Northland, of a bleak coast where life and love go hand-in-hand with sorrow and death. Norman Duncan's