roaring" melodrama, says the announcement and gives us "The Road to En-Dor". Another Italian immigrant becomes articulate "Reamer Lou" by Louis Forgione sounds as if it might prove to be an entertaining book, the story of a youngster's rough and terrible experiences in an American shipyard. Algernon Blackwood has an overwhelming sense of the psychically unusual. It is in this field that he again wanders in "Tongues of Fire".

Still more of Russia this time of its economic policies is told by Edwin W. Hullinger, a United Press correspondent, in "The Reforging of Russia". Even more important, perhaps, is a new Ossendowski book, in which the romantic author of "Beasts, Men and Gods" attempts to show why Russia fell and what her future is. He calls his book "The Shadow of the Gloomy East". Samuel Gompers's autobiography, "Seventy Years of Life and Labor", should have a wide public, appearing as it does so shortly after the great labor leader's death. James Moore Hickson, whose healing work in this country was much discussed, has in "Heal the Sick" written a combination study of spiritual healing in the past and its place in present day religion. Poets and others interested in poetry will watch for Clement Wood's "Poets of America" with unusual eagerness. Mr. Wood is not calm in his opinions, and this series of comments on his contemporaries is likely to cause alarums and excursions in many a Poetry Society.

In the same building which houses several large motion picture companies, on Madison Avenue not far from the Ritz Hotel, is the new home of Harcourt, Brace and Company. The reception room is a lovely one, with walls of soft grey-green, quiet-shaded lamps,

bookshelves well filled. The twenty first American printing of Papini's "Life of Christ", this time in a popular edition, is perhaps almost as worthy of note as Sinclair Lewis's "Arrowsmith". This, his first novel in two years, will be much discussed. It covers a wide range of American scenes and characters, and deals with the life work and hopes of young Dr. Martin Arrowsmith. Three college novels prove that Mr. Harcourt believes Percy Marks has not entirely absorbed the market for them. "The Western Shore" by Clarkson Crane gives us coeducational treatment of the University of California, and its sponsors term it "the first grown up treatment in fiction of undergraduate life in an American university". George Shively's "Initiation" is a story of college, war, postwar. Stanley Johnson's "Professor" shows with humor and a touch of bitterness an instructor's life in a small southern university.

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Essays, "The Common Reader", and a novel, "Mrs. Dalloway", announced for the brilliant Virginia Woolf; essays, too, from Charles S. Brooks, whose "A Thread of English Road" is still popular. The author of "Barnum" now analyzes the rather startling career of Brigham Young. Two other general books on this list which seem of particular interest to me are Count Hermann Keyserling's "The Travel Diary of a Philosopher", a book already much read and discussed in Europe, and another study of the great English mystic, titled "William Blake in This World", by Harold Bruce of the University of California.

In the Forties too, but farther west nearer the theatrical district, as befits a publisher who is entering the field of dramatic production, is the elaborately furbished house which shelters Boni and Liveright. A grand piano, stained

glass windows, elaborate brocades, and what not surround this publisher with a Belasco-like setting. From a literary standpoint, Theodore Dreiser's novel, "An American Tragedy", his first fiction in many years, is important. "Replenishing Jessica", Maxwell Bodenheim's new prose effort, is announced as a "tale of a modern Thaïs", which suggests possibilities of one kind and another. On this list, too, is fiction by two American poet-critics. Herbert Gorman's novel of New York's literary smart set is titled "Gold by Gold", while Conrad Aiken calls his collection of short stories "Bring! Bring! and Other Stories".

Hendrik Willem Van Loon found time while preparing his lengthy tome on "Tolerance" to cut a few capers both with writing and illustration in "The Story of Wilbur the Hat", a satirical and humorous sally through modernity. John Macy's long announced "Story of the World's Literature" will appear, and Alfred Kreymborg's autobiography "Troubador". In poetry, one of the most important books of the season is found on this list: "Collected Poems of 'H. D."" offers us a new chance to appreciate this American poet whose work, first known in connection with that of the Imagists, has steadily progressed.

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West Fiftieth Street glows with dress shops and tearooms. Among these are the modest offices of Thomas Seltzer. "The Guermantes Way", a two volume addition to the works of Marcel Proust, is quite obviously the most important book on his list. author of "Invisible Tides", Beatrice Kean Seymour, has just completed a new novel, "Unveiled", which is said to be a vivid and detailed study of love and marital relations. D. H. Lawrence has translated some sketches of Sicilian peasant life from the Italian of

Giovanni Verga. He calls them "Little Novels of Sicily". Dr. Ira S. Wile, after many years' work among children, has collected the stories of fifty of his most interesting cases and presents them as "The Challenge of Childhood".

The offices of Alfred A. Knopf and the home of "The American Mercury", while luxurious, are businesslike, with their black and white tiled floor, well upholstered library, and neatly arranged desks. Floyd Dell follows "Janet March" with "This Mad Ideal", a most interesting study of an interesting girl, which I believe to be his best novel since "MoonCalf". This, Francis Brett Young's "Sea Horses", and Geoffrey Dennis's second novel "Harvest in Poland", seem to me to be the most arresting novels on the Knopf spring list, with the exception of several important foreign translations-a Knut Hamsun among them and a first novel by an American, "The Spring Flight". Lee J. Smits is said to have a gift for the picaresque; in fact, so enthusiastic does the genius of the Borzoi become that he claims this work approaches "that somewhat chimerical ideal"-i.e., the Great American Novel - "more closely than any other first novel in recent years". I have reviewed in the March number Will Irwin's "Youth Rides West", for which one can find little but the most extravagant praise.

To the growing library of American period literature and biography Knopf adds Thomas Beer's "The Mauve Decade", and a life of Washington Irving by George S. Hellman, extracts from which appear elsewhere in this number. Mr. Hellman's discoveries throw light not only on the character of Irving but on the history and politics of early America. "Paul Bunyan",

by James Stevens, with woodcuts by Allen Lewis, gives us a vivid interpretation of this great American folk figure. Stevens has worked for many years in lumber camps and mills, where the legends of this hero sprang up.

This season, too, Knopf inaugurates a new collection, the Blue Jade Library, the "semi-classic, semi-curious books

books which for one reason or another have enjoyed great celebrity but little actual distribution". The first two titles are "The Life of Henri Brulard" by Henry (Beyle) Stendhal, and "The Diaboliques" by Barbey d'Aurévilly.

One of the recent romances of the publishing business is the stupendous success of Simon and Schuster, with their cross word puzzle books. Two at least of this far famed series will issue from their offices on Fifty Seventh Street this season. "The Celebrities Cross Word Puzzle Book" has several interesting features, among them a thousand dollar prize for the best puzzle constructed on a design given in the book. Among those who have contributed puzzles to this collection are Chauncey Depew, Admiral Sims, Irving Berlin, Harry Houdini, Governor Smith, Will Rogers, etc., etc. The advertising for this volume carries the slogan, "Glorifying the American Cross Word Puzzle." Also with this, or soon after, will be published "The Cross Word Puzzle Constructor's Book", the back of which will be found a "cross word puzzle dictionary", which shows all possible three letter words beginning in "a", etc. This dictionary, of course, will be useful in solving puzzles. Those who know H. T. Webster's "Bridge" book will be even more amused by this human caricaturist's "Poker Book". Somewhat to offset their puzzling activities, these two young publishers are bringing out

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Franz Werfel's "Verdi", a study of the musician heavier in tone, but not unlike, the Maurois "Ariel". Terry Ramsaye's history of the motion picture, "A Million and One Nights", will be an elaborate study of that industry; in fact, the most inclusive and ambitious book on the subject yet attempted.

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Two more houses, an old and a young, and we must leave Manhattan. Duffield and Company, long known for attractive children's books, have a number of adventure and mystery novels. Among their general books are explorer Nansen's "Hunting and Adventure in the Arctic", and "Sonata and Other Poems" by Professor John Erskine of Columbia University. recently established Dial Press offers "Sixty-Four Ninety-Four", a novel by R. H. Mottram whose "The Spanish Farm" won the 1924 Hawthornden Prize. There is also a collection of Gorky stories. On the general list are a volume of essays on present day literary figures, "Men Seen", by Paul Rosenfeld, and collected poems by those modernists E. E. Cummings and Marianne Moore.

Of publishers outside New York City, the nearest virtually of course, in town are Doubleday, Page, with their great plant at Garden City, Long Island. Gardens, a restaurant, offices both elaborate and simple, are to be found in this combination press, publishing, and magazine organization. Their "Tales of Hearsay" include unpublished Conrad material - his first stories and his last. "Love", by the author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden", ought to be interesting and popular. It is a brave title, at any rate. Ellen Glasgow's "Barren Ground" will be published in a luxurious edition. A light novel, or rather a series of sketches of literary value, is A. P. Herbert's "The Old

Flame". A variety of popular fictionists appear here: Alice M. Williamson, William MacLeod Raine, H. Rider Haggard, Sax Rohmer, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, Julian Street, etc., etc.

The late Gene Stratton-Porter's "Tales You Won't Believe" consists of elaborately illustrated nature sketches. This and Kathleen Norris's autobiographical "Noon" are among the most important of the Doubleday general books. Carveth Wells's "Bouncing Fish Balls and Other Things" has been characterized by one gentleman with the the phrase, "Truth is stranger than Traprock." In the case of this Malay travel book, the statement is said to be true. William McFee's "An Engineer's Notebook" is presented in a new edition including new material, some of which has appeared in THE BOOKMAN. Humorous, fantastic, and for some time successful in England, is Ben Travers. His first book to be published here will be "The Cuckoo in the Nest".

Boston cannot be neglected as a centre of the publishing trade. There on Park Street, in new offices in which quaintness has yet religiously been preserved, are Houghton Mifflin. Rafael Sabatini's "The Carolinian" will certainly be one of the season's most read books. The famous romancer has chosen Charleston in 1774 as the scene for an adventure tale of early America apparently as filled with glamor and heroism as have been his old world stories. Willa Cather has edited "The Best Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett". The clever and already critically appreciated Michael Sadleir gives us a picture of Victorian England in "Obedience". Samuel Merwin turns from Chinese history, which he celebrated in "Silk", to his

theatrical background and life, in a romance, "The Moment of Beauty". Amy Lowell's "John Keats" will probably rank as one of the greatest biographies by an American. Miss Lowell has spent three years gathering original material for this work, even more, when one considers the time she has given to amassing her own collection of Keats manuscripts and letters, probably the most comprehensive in existence. Lowell Thomas's "The First World Flight" should be a thrilling narrative, unique certainly in its recounting of this amazing adventure. A companion volume to Hilaire Belloc's "The Path to Rome" is "The Cruise of the Nona" in which he gives not only an account of voyages on his yacht, but many stories and speculations, humorous and wise, fruits of a life active both intellectually and physically. "So You're Going to Italy!", a travel guidebook, will need no introduction to those who know Clara Laughlin's unconventional handling of travel advice in "So You're Going to Paris!"

In a large remodeled home on Beacon Street, with a good bookshop on the first floor, are Little, Brown and Company. Of their fiction, "Soundings" by A. Hamilton Gibbs, brother of Sir Philip, is likely to prove most read. It is a wholesome love story with French, American, and English characters, and is written by the author of one of the finest war books, "Gunfodder". Two second novels by Americans that should be interesting are "To Babylon" by Larry Barretto, whose "A Conqueror Passes" was a novel of the war generation which received much praise, and "The Cobweb" by Margaretta Tuttle, whose "Feet of Clay" appeared last season. Popular authors abound here: Cosmo Hamilton, Oppenheim, Farnol.

Little, Brown's most important biography is the "John L. Sullivan: An Intimate Narrative", done, apparently in the modern manner, by R. F. Dibble. An autobiography which should have color and many interesting anecdotes is Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson's "A Player Under Three Reigns". "The New Barbarians" by Professor Wilbur Cortez Abbott of Harvard is a study of the principles of American. democracy, and a prophecy.

Along by the public gardens, in a charming old fashioned home beautifully furnished, are "The Atlantic Monthly" and the Atlantic Monthly Press. They announce three romantic novels as a result of their memorial prize to Charles Boardman Hawes, author of "The Dark Frigate" and other excellent adventure tales. The prize winner itself, like Sabatini's new novel, is a story of the Carolinas, a tale of the struggle of French Huguenot colonists with the Spanish from Florida. It is by Clifford M. Sublette and is called "The Scarlet Cockerel". The other two stories are "Old Brig's Cargo" by Henry A. Pulsford, a humorous sea tale laid eighty years ago, and Alfred H. Bill's "The Clutch of the Corsican", a romance of Napoleonic days.

In Philadelphia are Lippincott and the Penn Publishing Company, businesslike establishments both, the former concerned perhaps most with the sale of elaborately illustrated gift editions, the latter with children's books, yet both with general titles on their lists. From Lippincott's comes a new book by the anonymous author of "Uncensored Recollections", called "Things I Shouldn't Tell". Along with this is the unconventional portrait of Anatole France, already much read abroad, written by the great author's secretary Jean-Jacques Brousson, and

titled "Anatole France at Home". A study of J. M. Barrie by Patrick Braybrooke and a novel of the younger generation, "Choice" by Charles Guernon, seem interesting items.

Another swashbuckling yarn there are aplenty this season comes from the Penn Publishing Company, "At the Sign of the Silver Ship" by Stanley Hart Cauffman. We are asked not to reveal too much of the story, whose setting is old Philadelphia. From this house come also Alice Ross Colver's second novel and Sidney Williams's third. Mr. Williams is the jovial literary editor of the Philadelphia "North American". His new tale is called "Mystery in Red".

Indianapolis is represented in matters of publishing by the house of BobbsMerrill. Two first rate American novels are found on their list, at least two. "Stacey" by Alexander Black is a study of the man who wants to find success quickly, a type as universal in America as Babbitt and as human. "Father Abraham" by Irving Bacheller is a story of the last years of President Lincoln's life. A novel by the popular playwright, author of "Liliom", "The Swan", and "The Guardsman", should be interesting to many. It is called "Prisoners".

Important in the biographical field will be "The Life of Abraham Lincoln" by William E. Barton. A book which combines travel and history in an unusual manner is Paul Wilstach's "Along the Pyrenees". On this list, also, are two important inspirational books - Bruce Barton's study of Jesus Christ, "The Man Nobody Knows", and Mary Austin's "Everyman's Genius", an elaborated version of the articles which appeared in THE BOOKMAN during the past year.

-J. F.