Mr. FISHER UNWIN is, my Baronite writes, still engaged in the
important work, some time ago undertaken by his house, of
publishing _The Story of the Nations_. The last volume issued is the
thirty-fifth, in which Mr. GREVILLE TREGARTHEN deals with the History
of the Australian Commonwealth. Australasia is a mere chit among the
nations of the world, and story, God bless you, it has hardly any to
tell. It has never been at war except with the aboriginal settlers,
who were, at the outset, so lost to all proper feeling as to resent
the incursion of the white man, occasionally carrying their prejudice
to the absurd extent of eating him. But this is ancient history in a
record which, beginning a little more than a hundred years ago with a
convict settlement--it was on January 26, 1788, the British flag was
for the first time unfurled in Sydney Bay--has already spread out
lusty limbs over a vast Continent. _The Story of the Nations_ forms a
library of itself, and this last volume is not the least fascinating
of the series.
The Baron, while greatly admiring and certainly grateful for the
Diamond editions of all the best works, and Diamond editions should
reproduce only those that can be classed among the "brilliants," of
which two or three specimens at a time can be carried easily in
the pocket of an ulster, begs to remind Messrs. ROUTLEDGE, the
republishers of DICKENS'S works in a very pocketable form, that
much of our journeying is done by such gaslight as railway companies
supply, and therefore, as this is not always of the most powerful
kind, a book in small type, however clear the type may be, is
unreadable. That is what the publishers have to consider. This
excellent little pocket volume of, for example, _The Cricket on the
Hearth_, is of no use to the Baron when once out of the pocket. True,
the publishers may say "it is intended for the pocket only"; but if
this be the case, then the pockets that would suffer would be those of
the publishers, not those of the reading public. The Baron's hints are
well worth consideration. For travelling, the publishers might provide
and sell a small case containing the Diamond edition and a portable
candle-lamp by which to read it. Only this would rather add to the
expense, and with every volume one does not wish to be obliged to
carry a candle-lamp. Therefore, bigger and clearer type. That's all.
Try it, and if it does not succeed, blame the hitherto blameless