At Christmas time all pleasant things abound:--from turkeys to
pantomimes, from oysters to gift books, from staid family gatherings to
snapdragon and hunt the slipper; all domestic and social charities are
in highest exercise, as if the carol of the angel, and the blessed
advent of the Holy child inspired all forms of brightest joy and most
loving thought. Not least among the blessings which Christmas pours
from her cornucopia are her gift-books. If we welcome with satisfaction
the higher works of art which Christmas brings, and which, ministering
to the sense of the beautiful, elevate and refine the entire man, moral
and intellectual, as well as æsthetical, we welcome still more heartily
the affluent Christmas supply of books which more especially address
themselves to the young. Artistic excellence, romantic adventure, fairy
imagination, natural phenomena, the wonders of travel and of science,
creations of fiction and fancies of poetry, are all brought under
requisition--and their very highest products consecrated to the nurture
of youthful imagination and fancy, mind and heart. This is one of our
distinctive glories, and, we will venture to say, a mark of distinctive
wisdom, that our literature for the young is so rich in quality and so
affluent in quantity. Few nations possess a juvenile literature--France
has no children's books; neither has Spain, nor Italy. Even our American
cousins have a very meagre native supply. Only Germany can make any
pretence to a comparison with us. Month by month books for the young are
produced, and at Christmas-tide they are poured forth in bewildering
profusion; publishers of gravest repute lay themselves out for them; the
staidest literary journals review them. We have come to understand that
no service to a people can be greater or more momentous than to supply a
pure, bright, merry-hearted literature for the young, which shall wisely
minister to their imaginations, and in pleasant ways sow the seeds of
good things in their hearts. Happy are the children of these days
compared with those of the days of 'Goody Two Shoes' and 'Sandford and
Merton.' What a small British-Museum-library a child of twelve would
possess who should have, from its birth, acquired and retained the
hundreds of juvenile publications of each year; and what is more, how
intelligent, if it had imbibed all their instructions, how good if it
had embodied all their lessons. Tales of fairies and genii abound, as is
fitting and wise; but it is no less a national blessing that our
juvenile literature is so wholesome. We can speak only of a very few of
the books which, in every variety of form and character, seek to
brighten the nursery and the fire-side.
In the very foremost rank, whether in respect of artistic attractiveness
or of literary excellency, we must place the dainty publications of
Messrs. Nelson. _In the Eastern Seas; or, The Regions of the Bird of
Paradise._ A Tale for Boys. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. _In the Wilds of
Africa._ A Tale for Boys. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. Two books of imaginative
travel, in the style that Mr. Kingston has made his own, full of
descriptive information carefully compiled, and of adventurous incidents
well imagined. Mr. Kingston wraps the pill of useful information in the
jam of romantic adventure so deftly that young patients will scarcely be
conscious of the physic--only of the gratification of their intellectual
palate. In the first of these works Mr. Kingston carries his young
friends to fresh scenes and pastures new, and opens out to them the
tropical wonders of the Malay Archipelago. Walter Heathfield, the hero
of these adventures, is a fatherless boy, who, with his sister, are
taken to the East by Captain Davenport. The voyage is, of course, full
of adventure and peril, and all the phenomena of Eastern seas and skies
are observed. Singapore and Nagasaki open to the young travellers the
worlds of China and Japan. Walter, with a companion, is washed overboard
in a typhoon, and, of course, is cast upon a desolate island; after
hair-breadth escapes he returns to England, as the heir and successor of
his relative, Lord Heatherley; the personal story being cleverly
interwoven with the useful knowledge. In the second book named, Andrew
Crawford is sent to sea, in consequence of the mercantile reverses of
his father, with a due charge of good advice from the latter. The
captain dies, and the ignorant mate permits the ship to be stranded on
the coast of Africa. A slaver picks up Andrew, and part of the crew
getting on shore, they resolve to journey inland to the Crystal
Mountains, through the gorilla district, the wonders of which are
described. On the river, among the mountains, through the wilderness,
they wander, until all the marvels of Central Africa are described.
These two books will be prime favourites with boys. They are worthy of
Mayne Reid.--_The Sea and its Wonders._ By MARY and ELIZABETH KIRBY.
This is a companion volume to 'The World at Home,' published last year,
of which it is in every way a worthy successor. Both books are
beautifully got up as to paper, type, and binding, and are most
profusely illustrated with steel engravings. The wonders of the sea
itself, and of its productions, are described in a clear and simple
style, and in short chapters, with paragraphs and words equally short,
so that the book has a most inviting look to even an inexperienced
reader. It would be difficult to find a more interesting as well as
instructive book for children from seven to fourteen, while to many
beyond that age, its facts will be new and interesting.--_The Fall of
Jerusalem and Roman Conquest of Judea._ A condensed account of the 'Fall
of the Sacred City,' and a summary of the events that led to it;
followed by a vivid narrative of the final subjugation of Judea. The
last chapter gives us the characters which Dean Milman introduces in the
'Fall of Jerusalem,' and quotations from it. It is an interesting and
valuable little book, well furnished with engravings.--_Lighthouses and
Lightships._ By W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS. A very complete and readable
account of the ancient Pharos and of our modern lighthouses, with their
principles of construction; together with a correct list of those that
guard the dangerous coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. A chapter is
given to French lighthouses, and to the manner of life of those who
spend their days in tending these safeguards for our sailors. As a book
of reference it will be very useful, but it will repay a careful reading
before being consigned to the reference shelf. The illustrations, over
sixty in number, give life and interest to the little volume, which is
intended for no especial class of readers, but for both young and old
who care for the welfare of humanity.--_Cyril Ashley._ A Tale. By
A.L.O.E. Another of A.L.O.E.'s instructive stories for young people,
which the authoress, in a touching preface, 'thinks will be the last
time she may be permitted to bring her pitcher from the well-spring in
which she has so often dipped it.' Cyril Ashley is a young man of
singular prudence and goodness, who has thrust upon him by stern duty
the reformation of a weak, selfish step-father, and a number of unruly
half-brothers and sisters. The history of Jonah is the stimulus and
deeply pondered lesson which gives him the resolution to carry that
trying task to a satisfactory issue.--_Birds and Flowers._ By MARY
HOWITT. A volume of verses on birds and flowers, enlarging the latter
term, that is, so as to include orchard and forest trees; written on
that high level of excellence which makes Mrs. Howitt's poetry so
pleasant and readable, although there are not many pieces of it that
abide in the memory, or will take their place in our permanent poetical
literature. The illustrations by M. Giacomelli, the French artist who
illustrated 'the Bird' of M. Michelet, are very beautiful. They are all
vignettes, or initial letters, or chapter headings, but they are done
with great artistic skill and delicacy. Altogether this is one of the
most beautiful of smaller Christmas books. Graceful song and artistic
picture together will charm young readers, and supply a very choice
gift-book for them.--_The Spanish Brothers._ A Tale of the Sixteenth
Century. By the Author of 'The Dark Year of Dundee,' &c. The author of
the series, of which this is one volume, has much of the careful skill
and fascination of the author of the Schönberg-Cotta series. Many
suspected her first work to be from the pen of the latter. The 'Spanish
Brothers' contains a vivid picture of the horrors of the Inquisition,
and of the heroism with which many of the early Protestants in Spain
endured its inflictions--life-long incarcerations, and _auto-dá-fé's_,
at which men, and even women of gentle birth were burned to death before
crowds of exulting spectators. Such things are strange to read of in
these our 'soft times,' but there is abundant evidence to prove that
both the cruelty and the heroism in their extremest forms were real
facts. The fictitious part of the book is a story (interesting, but
rather too long) of two brothers devoted to each other, and to the idea
of a father whom they had never seen, until one of them comes
accidentally to share his prison. The two then remain together till the
death of the father and the martyrdom of the son.--_The Story of our
Doll._ By Mrs. GEORGE CUPPLES. The adventures of little Maggie's
foundling doll will appeal very successfully to the make-believe
imagination of little children, and greatly delight them.--_Wonders of
the Plant World; or, Curiosities of Vegetable Life._--_Useful Plants.
Plants adapted for the Food of Man, Described and Illustrated._--_Walter
in the Woods; or, Trees and Common Objects of the Forest Described and
Illustrated._ Three little books designed to give young people popular
botanical knowledge. The first is the more scientific in form. The last
two have recourse to that kind of conversational incident and
illustration which children will listen to for hours. All three may be
commended.--_Pictures and Stories of Natural History._ A series of short
sketches of different animals, with very effective coloured plates of
each animal described. Admirable for juveniles.
Foremost and best among Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton's juvenile books
comes _Old Merry's Annual_, the prince of its class, as Aunt Judy's
volume is the princess. Brilliant in crimson and gold, and chubby in
form like a winter apple, Old Merry comes forth to brighten Christmas
firesides, as cheery, wise, wholesome, and quaint as ever. Among the
annuals we like it the best. Stories, gossipy chats _de omnibus_,
puzzles, useful information about most things that interest boys, and
didactic papers, make up a miscellany which it is impossible to
describe, and difficult to overpraise. M. D. Liefde's story is the
_vale_ of an able man, a great favourite with young people. It is
chiefly a posthumous publication.--_Madeleine's Trial, and other
Stories._ From the French of MADAME DE PRESSENSÉ. A group of simple
stories illustrative of the law of love. The translator has made them so
English in tone as well as in style that the flavour of the original is
well-nigh exhaled.--_Walter's Escape; or, The Capture of Breda._ By J.
B. DE LIEFDE. A spirited account of one of the most remarkable exploits
in the heroic struggles of the Dutch to secure their liberty. It is
written with the author's wonted vigour.--_Model Women._ By WILLIAM
ANDERSON. This volume gives us slight sketches of the Mother of the
Wesleys, Elizabeth Fry, Amelia Sieveking, Felicia Hemans, Hannah More,
Elizabeth Browning, Caroline Herschel, Selina Countess of Huntingdon,
and a few others whom the author conceives to have been respectively
'model women,' either in domestic life, philanthropic effort, literary
achievement, scientific research, or Christian consecration. There is
not much power or point in the characterization of these distinguished
women, but the brief memorials of some of them are interesting, and may
help to raise the idea of women's work.
Messrs. Griffith and Farran sustain the reputation of the house that
became famous by the publication of 'Goody Two Shoes.' They have an
admirable staff of writers for young people, and the works they produce
are of a highly interesting and instructive character. One of the best
this year is _Household Stories from the Land of Hofer; or, Popular
Myths of Tirol._ By the Author of 'Patrañas; or, Spanish Stories.'
Between twenty and thirty stories of myth and magic of the old-fashioned
sort, embodying the wild legends that hang about the valleys of the
Tyrol (the writer pedantically spells it Tirol), and have haunted them
for a thousand years. The Norgs, or little men, are the chief heroes, a
kind of southern Trolls, or dwarfs of the Black Forest. It is a class of
myths less known than those of Scandinavia, but having many of their
weird characteristics. The most popular are 'Nickel of the Mine,' the
little man of the mountain who dug riches for the covetous, selfish
Aennerl; and the 'Rose Garden of King Sweyn,' made by the Norg king for
his mortal bride, whom, however, after a fierce combat, he had to
surrender to Theodoric the Visigoth. Many of the stories are legendary
embodiments of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism. Since Dr.
Dasent's 'Norse Tales,' a more important and interesting collection of
legends has not appeared.--_Tales of the Saracens._ By BARBARA HUTTON.
These tales are history, not fiction, treating first of Mohammed as
prophet and as conqueror, and then of the line of Caliphs by whom he
was followed. The book is written in a clear and lively style, and to
intelligent readers will prove both entertaining and instructive.--_Sunny
Days; or, A Month at the Great Stowe._ The Great Stowe is a farmhouse in
the country, at which a family of little town-folk spent a month. We are
told all that they saw and did, and a right merry party they were; none
the less so for the wise discipline and sententious wisdom and clever
stories of Aunt Gommie. 'Aunt Gommie is like a spider; she goes on spin,
spin, spin, and she is never at a loss for a web.'
Sampson Low & Co. have re-published a charming American Story, _Little
Women; or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy_. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. Whether Miss
Alcott is the most popular of American writers for young people we do
not know; but beyond all question, 'Little Women' is just now the most
popular American juvenile fiction. You see it upon every American
book-stall, and find it in almost every American home. It is having a
greater run than any recent fiction; and it is really a very charming
story. The 'Little Women' are the four children of Mr. March, an
American pastor, away South at the war. Their characters are delineated,
and their history, from early girlhood to motherhood, traced with a
consummate cleverness. Miss Alcott has not, perhaps, so delicate a touch
as the author of the 'Gayworthy's,' nor so graphic a power as Mrs.
Beecher Stowe; but she has delicacy, descriptive power, and force of no
ordinary kind. One of the most promising characteristics of American
fiction is its individuality. There is a marked family likeness among
the fictions by female writers, which during the last few years have
obtained such popularity among ourselves. They are redolent of American
character and life, especially of New England life, and have also an
intellectual cast of their own--a kind of household idealism,
quaintness, and piety, not easy to describe, but unmistakably to be
recognised. We predict for 'Little Women' a popularity greater than that
of the 'Wide, Wide World,' 'The Gayworthy's,' or 'Faith Gartney's
Childhood.' We are not sure that our American cousins do not, in this
department of literature, far excel any writer that we can boast There
are two or three other books of Miss Alcott's ('The Old-Fashioned Girl,'
for instance) with which we should like English children to be
acquainted, although they are not quite equal to 'Little Women.'
Messrs. Bell and Daldy send _The Brownies, and other Tales_. By JULIANA
HORATIO EWING. Beautiful stories, charmingly told, with capital
illustrations by our old friend George Cruikshank.--_Aunt Judy's
Christmas Volume for Young People_ contains a wealth of instruction and
amusement, which we have neither time nor space to describe. Our young
readers should get it, and judge for themselves, and we assure them they
will not be disappointed.--_Waifs and Strays of Natural History._ By
Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. An elementary book of instruction, concerning corals
and coral islands, the Beaver, sponges, zoophytes, microscopic objects,
&c., conveyed in Mrs. Gatty's charming way. Nothing lends itself more
easily to romance than natural phenomena, and Mrs. Gatty's readers need
not to be told how magical Aunt Judy's pen is.--_Parables from Nature._
Fifth Series. By Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. Eight more of Mrs. Gatty's popular
parables, about 'Consequences,' 'Ghosts,' 'Unopened Parcels,' 'See-Saw,'
&c. The one on 'Unopened Parcels' is the longest and the
best.--_Deborah's Drawer._ By ELEANOR GRACE O'REILLY. The author of
'Daisy's Companions' cannot fail of an eager welcome from the readers of
that charming little volume. Here is a companion to it. Deborah is the
dead sister of Lavinia Meek, who had a great gift of telling and writing
stories for children. These had been put away in a drawer, which Lavinia
Meek opens for the amusement of little Averil, who reads four or five
clever and touching little stories which she found there. These are set
in a neat framework of personal history. The little book is a gem.
Messrs. Seeley and Co. send us _Aunt Judith's Recollections; a Tale of
the Eighteenth Century_. By the author of 'Missionary Recollections.'
Aunt Judith flourished in the days of Wesley and Whitfield, and in a
pleasant chatty way, though somewhat garrulous withal, the old lady
tells her young niece Annie the story of those times--of the darkness
which had settled on this England of ours, and of the great awakening
that followed the labours of those holy, earnest men.--_Hetty's Resolve;
a Story of School Life._ By the Author of 'Under the Lime Trees.' There
is but little power or point in these rather prosy details of school
routine; but if they should lead some young readers to shun the slippery
ways of Florence Benson, and to imitate the honest work of the
kind-hearted Maggie, they will not have been written in vain.--_Curious
Facts about Animals._ For Little People. _Evening Amusement._ Two little
books for little folk, simply written and attractively illustrated; the
former describing the habits of the mole, the badger, the otter, the
deer, the dog, the sheep, the horse, &c., and telling anecdotes
respecting them; the latter a series of juvenile stories of the simplest
kind, which derive their main interest from the children cutting out
figures in black paper to illustrate them.--_Tony and Puss._ From the
French of P. J. STAHL. With Twenty-four Illustrations from designs by
Lorenz Frölich. Another dainty book for very little children, with
multitudinous groupings of Tony and Puss in varied relationship. Some of
the illustrations are very clever, though Herr Frölich's typical 'Papa'
looks rather of the feeble order; but he may not be less welcome to the
Tinies, for whose special advantage Messrs. Seeley and Co. cater so
lavishly.--_Sunday Echoes in Weekday Homes._ By Mrs. CAREY BROCK. This
book is a history of the home life of some young people, who having been
trained to look upon the Bible as connected with every thought and
incident of their lives, find in the journeyings of the children of
Israel types and emblems of their own doings and trials, at home and at
school. It is none the less interesting to the class for whom it is
written, if less true to Nature, that the children themselves suggest
the warnings given and the lessons taught by God's dealings with the
Israelites. From the 'passing over Jordan' of the youngest of the family
the rest derive much comfort in seeing one of their number enter the
'promised land.'
Messrs. Cassell cater liberally and successfully for young readers. _The
Log of the Fortuna: a Cruise on Chinese Waters._ Containing Tales of
Adventure in Foreign Climes, by Sea and by Shore. By Captain AUGUSTUS F.
LINDLEY. A Collection of 'Seven Sailors' Yarns'--not all of them,
however, relating to China. The scene of one of them is laid in Paris;
of another, among Australian Bushrangers; of another, in the Sea of
Azof. The 'Yarns' are told on board the _Fortuna_, which has got upon a
mud-bank in Chinese waters, and waits for spring tides. Captain Lindley
wields a vigorous, incisive, and humorous pen. His stories are therefore
clever and amusing: some of his descriptions and bits of rollicking
humour would not discredit Charles Lever. The book is profusely
illustrated, and, like all the publications of this firm, marvellously
cheap.--_Home Chat with our Youngsters._ By C. L. MATEAUX. Never was
instruction more acceptably given or more sweetly sugared than in this
attractive volume. The twenty-two chapters on 'People, and things which
the Young Folks see or hear about,' are illustrated on almost every
page. The chapters are conversational in form, the young folks asking
only sufficient questions to mask the monotony of unbroken information.
The story of 'Columbus' is thus told, and is made lucid by
illustrations. Simpler synonyms for some of the words might have been
found, but the book will be a great favourite in the nursery. It is, for
children a stage farther advanced, almost as good as 'The Children's
Album.' We can give it no higher praise.
From the Religious Tract Society we have received--_Spanish Pictures
Drawn with Pen and Pencil._ By the Author of 'Swiss Pictures Drawn with
Pen and Pencil.' We have done--what doubtless some of our readers have
done--tested the 'Swiss Pictures' by taking it to Switzerland as a
_quasi_ guide-book. We found it carefully accurate, and full of
intelligent observations. This bespeaks our confidence for this
companion volume about Spain. 'Africa begins at the Pyrenees,' says the
French proverb: so does our author: and even veteran travellers will
feel that once over the Pyrenees they are in a _terra incognita_. And
yet few lands are physically more unique, romantically more full of wild
legends, historically more full of romance, ethnologically more
interesting, and socially and religiously more full of undeveloped
possibilities. Madrid, the Escurial, Granada, Seville, &c., are visited
and described. Cathedrals, bull-fights, gipsies, Murillo, religious
customs, literature, trade, the Moors, all receive due notice; and have
thrown upon them gleams of history, snatches of poetry, and visions of
the future. The author has freely laid under contribution writers of
renown, large extracts from whom are interwoven with his narrative of
personal experience. Gustave Doré is among the eminent artists who have
supplied the illustrations. It is an instructive and effective popular
book.--_The Picture Gallery of the Nations_ is a series of short
descriptive chapters of about seventy of the nations of the earth; each
occupying only a page or two, and illustrated with very effective
wood-cuts, some of them whole-page size, others smaller. It is a popular
book of the best kind for young people who delight in the help which the
eye affords to the instruction of the pen.--_Original Fables._ By Mrs.
PROSSER. Readers of 'The Leisure Hour' and 'The Sunday at Home' are
familiar with Mrs. Prosser's name as the writer of two or three capital
serial stories which appeared in these publications. With these fables
they will, through the same medium, have made acquaintance. To write
fables successfully has been given to only three or four of the human
race--the author of those which pass under the name of Æsop, La
Fontaine, and Kriloff are the only three names of great fable-writers
that occur to us. Mrs. Gatty very successfully attempts parabolic
stories, but not the terseness and brevity of the fable proper, which is
to fiction what the sonnet is to poetry--what the proverb is to the
sermon. Mrs. Prosser has done fairly where so few have done well. From
the nature of the case we cannot quote (to analyze would carry us beyond
our space); we content ourselves therefore with a general commendation.
The morals which she weaves into fables may catch the fancy of children,
whom an apothegm would only make callous.--The _Leisure Hour_ and the
_Sunday at Home_ are sustained at a degree of almost unrivalled
adaptation and efficiency. Tale, biography, sermon, and song, often of a
very high order, diversify and enrich their pages. We are glad to see in
the 'Leisure Hour' the wise breadth and impartiality which supplies
biographers of characters so diversified as those of Miss Burdett
Coutts, Charles Dickens, Père Hyacinthe, Professor Huxley, Mr. Disraeli,
and General Trochu. Mr. Lord, Naturalist to the Egyptian Exploring
Expedition, supplies a valuable series of papers on the 'Peninsula of
Sinai.'--_Cousin Mabel's Experiences._ By E. JANE WHATELY. Cousin Mabel
having been absent from England for some years, in visiting various home
circles is much struck by the diversified errors and follies into which
religious people have fallen, whose earnestness and seriousness cannot
be doubted. The ritualism of young ladies run wild upon church
decorations, the spiritual gossip in which certain elderly people
indulge, the doing for the poor and strangers to the neglect of home
duties, the party spirit pervading missionary work, with other forms of
worldliness and selfishness, which are so largely mixed up with many
forms of religious life--all these grave errors are exemplified in a
series of unconnected stories of family life. Miss Whately does not
exaggerate in her characters the follies she wishes to point out; and
her way of combating them is one of much wisdom, and is combined with
many practical hints, calculated to effect in actual life the reforms
which in these tales is always achieved. We trust the practical result
may be the same.--_The First Heroes of the Cross._ By BENJAMIN CLARKE.
Sunday School Union. Mr. Clarke's 'Life of Jesus, for Young People,' has
been received with so much favour that he has attempted to tell the
story of the Acts of the Apostles in the same way. He has done this
admirably, with great simplicity, and in a very interesting way. Mr.
Clarke has spared no pains to qualify himself for forming and expressing
true conceptions of the incidents that he narrates.