Books Abroad ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Albert J. Beveridge. Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Company. 2 Vols. 1928. $12.50. (John Drinkwater in the Manchester Guardian) SEN ENATOR BEVERIDGE had already established a wide literary reputation in America by his Life of John Marshall, a comprehensive work in four volumes, when he undertook to follow up his study of American history with a life of Lincoln on the same generous scale. His sudden death left the work uncompleted, but in these two ample volumes, amounting to thirteen hundred pages, we have his investigations as far as he had taken them, which was to the period of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858. We say investigations, because Senator Beveridge's book is based throughout on original and immensely painstaking research. It is a story that has been told often before, notably by Mr. Carl Sandburg two or three years ago, but it is here told again with a freshness that we should hardly have believed to be possible. At great length, though hardly ever tediously, Senator Beveridge takes us over the familiar ground of the Kentucky and Illinois pioneers, the Springfield law circuit, the political campaigns that shook the Middle West during the violent quarrels on slavery and State rights, and so intimately is he in touch with the detail of his narrative that we never complain that we have heard all this before. The truth is that Lincoln is so large a theme that scholarship and perception such as Senator Beveridge's could not fail to expound it with an individuality that makes us feel that, after all, we have not heard just this before. To any reader, indeed, who has not himself examined the vast Lincoln literature listed in Senator Beveridge's bibliography a great deal in these volumes will have been hitherto unknown. This amounts to saying that everyone who has any interest in the subject will find here much to reward his labors. And very pleasant labors they will prove, for Senator Beveridge writes a distinguished if somewhat Quakerly style, he arranges his material with the clarity possible only to complete understanding, and he brings to his task a wide experience of his own in American public life. These volumes have the stamp of authority on every page. It is, moreover, an authority that is never labored. A great charm of the book is that the facts of Lincoln's life are left to make their own impression, and that the narrator seldom allows himself to point a moral or adorn a tale. This is not the only way of writing biography; it may not even be the best way; but it is an extremely good way, and Senator Beveridge does it to perfection. He is particularly happy in his account of the time when, in the sometimes incredibly narrow conduct of State politics in Illinois, Lincoln, who was frequently no better than his rivals in that unimpressive school, was slowly maturing toward the heroic statesmanship of his great years. In this section of his book Senator Beveridge presents the growth of Lincoln's mind in what will be for most readers a new and somewhat unexpected light. But he does so with easy conviction; and, if possible, we like Lincoln the better for the ordeal that he survives. We see more clearly than ever before that not only was his victory difficult. but that it was won only after many temptations and some lapses. Lincoln's moral decision was not a quality that he came by easily; he had to shape it slowly, and with frequent hesitation, from a web of dangerously seductive circumstance. He might, with small blame to himself, have become or remained no more than an astute politician with a natural gift for leadership. Instead, he became one of the two or three supreme examples of the prophet in action. There has perhaps never been a more notable triumph of character. Travel Books To anyone addressing himself to the Travel Editor, THE LIVING AGE, 280 Broadway, New York City, any desired information about travel books and travel bibliographies will be gladly given. DENMARK. By H. Clive Holland. 32 illustrations in color by A. Heaton Cooper. London: A. & C. Black, Ltd. 1928. 3/6. Most of the books hitherto written about Denmark, as the author points out in his preface, treat of her commercial interests and systems of agriculture and education. The present work is a thorough view of Denmark from the holiday-maker's standpoint. Though lacking the spectacular scenery of the Scandinavian peninsula, this country of islands and canals has many a forest, lake, and fishing village of authentic charm. Jutland, the only 'mainland' of Denmark, is chiefly attractive for its deeply indented eastern seacoast. Picturesque and characteristic towns, notably Fredericia, Aarhus, and Jellinge, reveal castellated ruins and delightful half-timbered houses unexpectedly containing the full furniture and fittings of centuries bygone. Fünen and Zealand, the two largest island' provinces, are surprisingly fertile and beautiful. Castles and manor houses, many of them surviving from mediæval times, stand encircled by moats, parks, and well kept gardens. Kronberg or Elsinore Castle, at Helsingör on the northeastern tip of Zealand, is a famous place of pilgrimage. Tradition fixes this as the home of Hamlet. The Danes, says Mr. Holland, rather smile at Elsinore as a veritable literary shrine; but they have made of the castle Denmark's best museum of antiquities. Copenhagen, whose charm and rich collections of art are all too little known, occupies a good half of Mr. Holland's book. Nothing fails of entertaining description. from the city's earliest origins as a herring fishery to the modern dinner party where ladies smoke a prodigious number of 'whiffs,' or short black cigars. The author appraises Danish painting, porcelains, novels, folk songs, for in Copenhagen one has opportunity to see Danish life truly represented, in all its varied aspects. Good theatres and orchestras are the rule, while half a dozen distinct art galleries represent every phase of Danish painting. The concluding chapter, ‘Life in Town and Country,' describes most of the Danish customs and superstitions still current. The Danes appear a most hospitable people, to strangers no less than to friends and relatives. Their family ties are strong. Children, upon finishing a meal, kiss their parents in turn and say, 'Thank you for the food.' Holidays and festivals are made much of, though with less abandon than in olden ceremony. A. Heaton Cooper's illustrations, as in all Black's Popular Colour Books, are fully as alluring to the tourist as the text. W. W. COMMONS MODERN FRENCH PAINTERS. By Maurice Raynal. Translated by Ralph Roeder. New York: Brentano's. 1928. $7.50. Although one might quarrel with M. Raynal's omissions in this volume, one must grant that, exactly as it stands, it is exceedingly useful. It consists of short chapters on 'movements' since 1906; short biographical notices on nearly fifty outstanding painters, representing all schools; and reproductions of from one to three paintings from the work of each artist. The quality of printing, binding, and engraving is excellent. To the tourist who wishes to be posted on modern painters as well as on the masters, nothing could be more serviceable than a series of such volumes. For the person desiring to keep himself informed on contemporary art and artists, such a series has long been lacking. One hopes that M. Raynal's volume will be so successful that it will induce the publishers to bring out other volumes dealing similarly with the art of other countries. One cannot but recommend Modern French Painters to any traveler who is interested in painting and who plans to visit France. SPANISH SHORT STORIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (THE WORLD'S CLASSICS, VOL. CCCXXVI.) London: Oxford University Press. 1928. 80¢. Travelers to Spain will be interested in this edition of several of the best tales of the 'Golden Century.' Its early English translations have been well selected to give the flavor of a country whose spirit has changed little since its classic period, and the small size of the World's Classics series makes it an excellent volume to read on the way. UNDERSTANDING SPAIN. By Clayton Sedgwick Cooper. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 1928. $2.50. Mr. Cooper's fluent essays on Spanish culture and education are sketchy but generally THE LIVING AGE The first Atlantic Prize Novel Competition, in 1927, was won by Miss Mazo de la Roche with her novel "Jalna” which was received with enthusiasm by critics and public, became the novel of the autumn, and enjoyed a sale exceeding 125,000 copies. "Jalna" is a novel of permanent value, and has been translated into several foreign languages. To secure a novel that will attract attention, to secure the best, and to make of it not only the serial, but the story, of its year, the Atlantic Prize, Ten Thousand Dollars, is again offered for the most interesting novel of any sort, kind or description by a living author. This sum will be paid to the winner for the right to serialize the story in the Atlantic, and to publish it in book form, and will be in addition to all royalties accruing from book publication. Cinema or dramatic rights remain with the author. We desire that authors of all nationalities compete, stipulating only that, whatever the original version, the final manuscript must be submitted in English. We do not care whether manuscripts have pseudonyms or not. This is not a competition for this or that kind of story. The author is absolutely free to write the book he likes. Our sole criterion will be the interest of the novel. We hope to print in book form several novels beside the winning serial, but we reserve the right to reject any or all the manuscripts submitted. Every novel published as a result of this competition will be given wide and continued publicity. No effort will be spared to make each an outstanding individual 469 readable. It has been his exacting object to reveal the principal features of the transition in Spanish life and civilization 'in terms of the people themselves rather than by means of the many monuments and works of art and architecture, all of which have been treated at length in many books.' Curiously enough, Mr. Havelock Ellis magnificently fulfilled this very object just twenty years ago in The Soul of Spain. With such a model, Mr. Cooper might well have succeeded in bringing his reader nearer to an even superficial understanding of Spain. Mr. Ellis's study remains more modern to-day than does Mr. Cooper's volume written a few months since. CRISES IN VENETIAN HISTORY. By Laura M. Ragg. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company. 1928. $5.00. In direct contradistinction to the aim of Mr. Cooper's essays on Spain is the aim of Mrs. Ragg in her history of Venice. It is her purpose to connect 'each outstanding and critical episode or group of events with some building, picture, or object which may be viewed easily by the tourist.' The result is a painstaking study which is admirable for accuracy and detail but would offer difficult reading, even for the scholar. The bibliography of authorities consulted appears to be a very complete one; of especial comfort to the prospective student of Venetian art is the section on 'Authorities for Special Periods and Chapters,' in itself a valuable little source book. The lengthy volume has but eighteen illustrations; the subject-matter calls for at least a hundred. THE HAMMER AND THE SCYTHE. By Anne O'Hare McCormick. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1928. $3.50. This very readable volume by Mrs. McCormick does not pretend to be a study, economic, social, or political, of Russia or of Bolshevism. It constitutes the unbiased record of an American newspaperwoman, made during a summer's stay in the cities, towns, and hamlets under Soviet rule. The picture she presents is an absorbing one, wisely conditioned by the principle that today, ten years after the Revolution, 'nothing in Russia is fixed enough to hang a judgment on.' WHEN IT'S COCKTAIL TIME IN CUBA. By Basil Woon. New York: Horace Liveright. 1928. $2.50. Mr. Woon calls his book an 'impression'; he has set down in informal manner what the fashionable tourist to Cuba will see, do (and drink) in a land where personal liberty and climate are blended in just the right setting of beauty and romance.' The result is a sort of Cuban Vanity Fair or American Sketch between book covers. To the serious student of the island's affairs, he recommends on more than one occasion Terry's Guide to Cuba; but it is to be doubted if any traveler can fully appreciate Havana on his first visit without recourse to Mr. Woon's gay and timely volume. LADIES THIRD. By Mary Lena Wilson. New York: Duffield & Company. 1927. $2.50. If you are a young woman in good health who contemplates a short trip abroad at very small expense, this book will be the 'find' of the season for you. Miss Wilson describes her six weeks' trip through France, Switzerland, and Italy, comfortably made at a cost of less than six hundred dollars including steamer passage. She has planned a remarkable route for so short a period, and with it she interlards travel experiences and a detailed schedule of expenses. Even should you prove to be a gouty bachelor who seldom journeys farther than a few blocks from his club, her lively book is guaranteed not to bore you. SAILS AND SWORDS. By Arthur Strawn. New York: Brentano's. 1928. $3.50. Hitherto there have been but three fulllength biographies of Balboa: that of Gaffarel published in Paris in 1882, and the two in Spanish by Altolaquirre (1914) and by Urretia (1916), which are better known to historians. Mr. Strawn's life of the discoverer of the Pacific claims consideration as the first to appear in English. For the present, English and American readers must content themselves with his semi-fictionized account of 'The Golden Adventures of Balboa and his intrepid company, freebooters all . . .' It is an agreeably written narrative, adequately documented with historical notes. The definitive biography of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa remains to be written in any language. THE NEW WORLD. By Isaiah Bowman. Fourth Edition. Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book Company. 1928. $4.80. Dr. Bowman's textbook on problems in political geography is now completely revised to conform with the events of the period since 1921. Its maps, of which there are more than 250, constitute a most convenient one-volume aid to the student of world politics. Its thirtyfive chapters deal regionally with international policies; an essay on the rarely comprehended subjects of mandates and colonies, minorities, boundaries, and disarmament, precedes each chapter. The New World can be recommended to statesmen for its fine maps and to high school students for its clarifying text; on occasion, vice versa. IN THE IMPERIAL SHADOW. By Mirza Mahmoud Khan Saghaphi. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company. 1928. $3.50. This colorful account, the early chapters in the autobiography of Prince Saghaphi, presents the story of a Persian babyhood and boyhood at the court of the mad Shah, where his father was royal physician. Delicately conceived and charmingly written, it ends with the assassination of the tyrant in 1896. Both as a personal memoir and as a contribution to the chronicle of a reign that was perhaps the maddest since the days of Cyrus the Great, Prince Saghaphi's book deserves the attention of students of the East. CHINA'S MILLIONS. By Anna Louise Strong. New York: Coward-McCann. 1928. $4.00. This lengthy account of a journey across the interior of China from Hunan to Mongolia during the fighting in the spring, summer, and early autumn of 1927 covers one of the most critical periods in the national history of China. It is especially valuable for its discussion of the birth of the Nationalist Party. Unfortunately Miss Strong does not endow her most important material with the advantages of a concise style. THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES WITH SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. By James Boswell, Esq. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company. 1928. $3.00. This entertaining chronicle of the unwieldy and unwilling Dr. Johnson traveling about the bleak Hebrides with the indefatigable Boswell has lost none of its freshness with the passing years. The Boswellian 'nose for news' tracked down details of the countryside with amazing accuracy, and a visitor to Scotland to-day could make good use of the journal for a faithful guide book. Its only defect in this respect is that Boswell, convinced that 'every thing relative to so great a man is worth observing,' naturally ignores the countryside and the Scotch people if his idol happens to be conversing or feeling ill or grumpy. Johnson was disconcerting as a companion in travel. Boswell records, for instance, how they passed through Glenshiel, 'with prodigious mountains on each side . . . Dr. Johnson owned he was now in a scene of as wild nature as he could see; but he corrected me sometimes in my inaccurate observations. "There," said I, "is a mountain like a cone." Johnson: "No, sir. It would be called so in a book; and when a man comes to look at it, he sees it is not so. It is indeed pointed at the top; but one side of it is larger than the other." Another mountain I called immense. Johnson: "No; it is no more than a considerable protuberance." We have our modern tourist counterparts of this debunker of nature. Johnson, like so many of his spiritual descendants, went to Scotland with a preconceived and profound prejudice against the country and its people. He had not the vision of Boswell, who delighted in the land of his birth and who reflected that, during one dreary ride, 'we were sometimes relieved by a view of branches of the sea, that universal medium of connection amongst mankind.' THE CARIBBEAN CRUISE: A HANDBOOK FOR THE TRAVELER. By Harry L. Foster. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. 1928. $3.00. A GUIDE BOOK TO PORTO RICO. By M. S. Wolf and I. A. de Mier. New York: Brentano's. 1928. $1.00. Mr. Foster's volume adequately covers Porto Rico and in addition the entire Caribbean area, including Trinidad, the Spanish Main, and Central America. Thoroughly readable, trustworthy, and full in historical essentials, The Caribbean Cruise should be in the possession of every Caribbean cruiser. The Porto Rico guide is rather useless unless one has stock in a banana or sugar-cane plantation there. Outside of San Juan, there is little of tourist interest on the island. SHRINES OF THE GREAT IN EUROPE. By Edwin Robert Petre. New York: The Literary Digest (Funk & Wagnalls). 1928. $2.00. This Unique Tourist Guide is just that, although one may easily quarrel with Mr. Petre's idea of 'great' shrines — meaning places of birth, death, work, or allusion on the part of masters of literature, music, drama, science, and art. They are listed alphabetically by countries. Russia is included. Part II is an alphabetical identification of persons, with cross references to countries. Names range from Eschylus and Edward Bok to Freud and Xenophon. With Richard Halliburton and Marie Corelli in, one wonders at the omission of Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Cézanne, Paul Claudel, Eleanora Duse, and many another. An invaluable book for the traveler making a ‘litera-tour' or getting next to the life and times of E. Phillips Oppenheim. One anticipates with pleasure an equally accurate and detailed work on America. WHERE IT ALL COMES TRUE. By Clara E. Laughlin. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. 1928. $2.00. Subtitle: In Italy and Switzerland (apparently promising further appearances of Miss Laughlin under this new serial title). The Experiences and Observations of Belly and Mary as Related by Their Aunt. A travel book for children, in words of one syllable and the first person plural, it is the best of its kind yet published. It seems especially good in comparison with others of like scope and intent. CHINESE ART. By R. L. Hobson. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1927. $12.50. This is an ideal book. Study of it will reward any reader with real insight into China, and cannot fail to give joy in the process. It is a perfectly made book: one hundred plates, all in full colors, six pages of introduction, and a short bibliography. Here is Chinese art, not some author's opinions of it, but just the art, which all may look at and enjoy and understand. Here are pottery, porcelains, bronzes, paintings, lacquers, rugs, wood carvings. A study of the volume will show at least this much: that China is and has been a much diversified land; that Chinese taste was highly ornate only in its decadence; that the loveliest of Chinese works of art excel in their simplicity and are as fine as any creations of human genius and handicraft. To learn this much is to be on the road to understanding the Chinese people. Mr. Hobson, of the British Museum, has chosen the plates with great skill. He has condensed into a few paragraphs of introduction all that one must know of the history of Chinese art. Macmillan's has done itself proud in the illustrations, which are as good as 'four-color process' can be. POETRY OF THE ORIENT. Edited by Eunice Tietjens. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1928. $5.00. An anthology of the poetry of Arabia, Persia, Japan, China, and India, assembled chronologically and by countries, omitting the great body of Oriental religious poetry, the selections being entirely secular. Mrs. Tietjens states in the introduction that in choosing translations she has been 'governed in every case by one consideration, that the translation shall be poetry in its English dress.' In cases where no translation seemed to her 'poetry,' she 'omitted the original, preferring to let it wait for its presentation till some later time when it shall have been adequately rendered.' The reader will not be disappointed in the selections which are the result of this demanding standard. Among the distinguished translators included are John Paine, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lafcadio Hearn, Edward FitzGerald, Arthur Waley, L. Cramner-Byng, Edward Powys Mathers, James Legge, Paul Elmer More, Ezra Pound, and the editor herself. Mrs. Tietjens has prefaced each section with a lucid consideration of the main characteristics of the poetry it contains. There is a very complete bibliography of volumes of English translations of Oriental poetry, the earliest of which was published in 1765, the latest in 1927. THE TRAGEDY OF GREECE. By S. P. P. Cometatos. New York: Brentano's. 1928. $4.50. M. Cometatos's strenuous indictment of Allied policy in Greece during the World War was published in France two years past under the title, L'Entente de la Grèce Pendant la Grande Guerre, and now appears in an intelligently condensed and slightly revised version translated by E. W. and A. Dickes. It is interesting to note that a considerable proportion of the most important material is derived from the original diplomatic documents preserved in the archives of the French and Greek Foreign Offices and that the author has made valuable use of the Russian White Book, published by the Bolsheviks in 1922, but hitherto untranslated. Since the British Foreign Office documents relating to the events in Greece dealt with in this work (i.e., August, 1914, to June 26th, 1917) have not yet been published, documents of British origin occasionally appear in retranslation from official French translations. One is humorously tempted to wonder just how much of the formal official savor is lost (or possibly gained) by this process. The attraction of The Tragedy of Greece for the lay reader is in the dramatic interest of the story itself and in the not too chauvinistic fashion in which the author offers his accusations against the propagandist methods employed by both the Germans and the French to break down the neutrality of Greece. It is only fair to say that the status of these apparently justifiable accusations, as serious contributions to the history of the War, still remains to be determined, together with the great controversial mass of problems of international policy. GENTLEMEN UNAFRAID. By Barrett Willoughby. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1928. $3.50. The subjects of the six sketches which make up Miss Willoughby's generously illustrated and enlivening volume are six pioneers of Alaska, whose achievements are for the first time presented in book form. The three, perhaps most fascinating, biographies of the collection tell of the discoveries of Dr. C. C. Georgeson, one of the world's great experts on cross-breeding, who has given most of his life to evolving plants and cattle suitable to conditions in Alaska; of the exploits of George Watkins Evans, consulting engineer of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, who 'has made the commercial history of nearly every virgin coal field in Alaska'; and of the adventures of the author's father, 'one of those Irishmen, debonair, fearless, and gay,' who early in life outfitted a small vessel 'for a trip to Alaska then considered the jumping-off place of the world.' Not an important book, Gentlemen Unafraid will none the less delight readers who are seeking a realistic picture of life in Alaska that national territory regrettably unknown to most citizens of the United States save through the vivid pages of 'gold-rush' ballads and the frigid films produced beneath a blazing California sun. THE POLAR REGIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. By A. W. Greely. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1928. $4.00. The publishers' claim that this history of discoveries in polar regions takes its place as 'the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the subject' is not a false one. Since 1884, when Major General Greely returned from a three-year polar expedition, the names of Peary, Amundsen, Shackleton, and Byrd citing only a few have become prominent throughout the civilized world for their Arctic achievements; while such men as MacMillan, Mawson, and Davis have made important contributions to scientific knowledge through their field work in the northern territories. In addition to his historical summaries, the author provides a convenient record of the industrial evolution of the north, arising from the increased utilization of the immense material resources of the polar regions. In making his survey, he received the coöperation of the several Bureaus of the Canadian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Russian, and Swedish Governments as well as that of the National Geographic Society, which, incidentally, is responsible for the splendid folding map at the end of the volume. Twentythree illustrations are helpful to the comprehension of the text. Though valuable as a compendium on Arctic discovery and industrial evolution, this book has forfeited a merited right to popular esteem through the uninspired method of its presentation. TRAILS OF THE HUNTED. By James L. Clark. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1928. $4.50. The handsome format and fine photographic reproductions immediately prejudice one in favor of this volume, nor is one disappointed in the contents. Mr. Clark, for long a member of the staff of the American Museum of Natural History, writes with the authority of a trained and intelligent observer about his field experiences in North America, Africa, and Asia. Kermit Roosevelt has contributed an appreciative introduction. SPEARS IN THE SUN. By James E. Bam. Chicago: Reilly and Lee Company. 1928. $2.00. The author went to Abyssinia as member of a Field Museum expedition. Assuredly he would have acquitted himself better in a direct account of his journey than he does in this weak, tedious novel of three American men and a girl pursuing one another for idiotic reasons at the head waters of the Nile and through the hinterlands of Abyssinia. THE NEARING NORTH. By Lewis R. Freeman. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. 1928. $3.50. A personal record of a journey up and down the great Canadian rivers which flow toward the Arctic the Peace, the Athabaska, the Slave, the Mackenzie followed by a thousand-mile canoe trip down the Saskatchewan. Mr. Freeman's account does not serve precisely as either guide book or adventure story, but travelers already acquainted with the territory traversed may experience a reminiscent pleasure in checking up on his lengthy and courageous journey. Half a hundred photographic reproductions add interest to the volume. THOSE ANCIENT LANDS. By Louis Golding. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1928. $4.50. Modern pilgrims to Palestine will not care to overlook Mr. Golding's tranquil prose poem of 'those ancient lands whose citadel is Zion.' His literary vignettes of the life, manners, and customs of the pioneers in modern Zion form a sympathetic estimate of their ideal, and are recorded in prose that is an opulent contribution to contemporary belles-lettres. FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. By Hubbard Hutchinson. Illustrated. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1928. $2.75. Now and then a sentimentalist writes a really good travel book. Mr. Hutchinson, whose several novels and Saturday Evening Post stories have been successes, does it in this case. Whether one covers the historically rich strip of country from Rome to Florence by train or motor, one will find the present volume invaluable. Viterbo, Orvieto, Spoleto, Assisi, Perugia, Siena, and twice as many smaller towns are described with sympathy |