NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 83, 9 April 1910, Page 13

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

"Her Suburban Hiuhne**." A Romanr*. liy Gurner Oilimaii, author of "A Suburban Scandal." "Only April," rt< . IxJiidon : Greening and Co., Limited. There i* exuberant life and vigour in Mr. t 'oilman'* bright little utovy ; iU interest never relaxes from the first pa go to the last. The heroine U "the bestlooking Printe#s in Europe," Irma of Kriesbund. the idol of a little German Principality. For diplomatic reasons th* has been promUed in marriage to Prince Karl of Guntberg, whom the ha* never *een, and ihe it a young lady of strong character, who has a natural objection to b« treated as a chattel. While her father,* and the Archbishop, and other wiseacres are scheming aa to vrhat kind of prewnre will be moat effective, her diplomatic aunt, the Dnches4 of Buda, takes things in band. "It was her ctu£om to succeed where others had failed, and she had intervened in the affairs of States vastly more inportant than GorsUin, and wiUi unvarying aucce«»." The princess has two specially devoted attendants, Colonel Graf and her British governess, Miss Saunders. With theit aid she diaap pears from Garstein, and as MiM Isabel Mainwarins is eßectively hidden in a London suburb, where, aa we are told, she runs up against some of the truth* of life that in her exalted station she had been taught were nonexistent. Her beauty, her wealth, and her graciousneoc make her a popular personage, and in her new sphere she becomes the right hand oi the vicar's wife, and, it is needles* to say, the divinity of the u*piring young men. But, though the ia h\lf Englifch, she longs for the lanKuago and the old fellowship of the homeland, and as if to mitigate her homesickness, iwo well-to-do young gentlemen from Germany, desirous 01 perfecting their English, arrive in tho Suburb, and are received as> "paying I t,'ti£.-t.*" in a stylish but somewhat irapecunious private home. One of the«e voting men, a certain Karl Neuen, is greatly attracted by Miss Mainwaring, .vhile his companion, Fritz, falls in love .it pitht with her friend, Enid Grey, une of those who "is commonly called i lady. In better phrase, she waa a ■.veil bred young woman, whose instincts •veic right, and whom environment had tViled to spoil." Needlew to odd, Neuen i* i.onp other than Prince Knrl, who has hern admitted by the Durhcss to her f^ret. and connnelled by her, haa set himself to win the obstinate Irma. on his own merits. There are three very m.ntf«rful wooers in the story, for the elderly governe&s meets ht London with her old lover, n gallant officer in the army, and tne early romance i« renewed. German Court etiquette and London MiburbanLsm are satirised in the story with a humour utterly devoid of bitterre«s; the characters are sharply defined, the simple plot is well maintained, and the liule romance is in every way an excellent piece of work. "The New Children's Encyclopedia." Edited by Arthur Mee. Part I. London : Amalgamated Press, Ltd., Carmelite-street. The fact that a second series of this work has been undertaken would seem to imply the success of the first, which was completed in eight neat \olumes, containing more than five thousand pages and eight thousand pictures, of which 542 were in colour — a book which, according to Mi. Benjamin Kidd, would "have more effect on the education of the nation than many Acts of Parlia meut." The first number waa noted in our pages when it appeared ; and the only exception that we fancy any one would be likely to take to the new leries is that it is a pudding with too many plums — in fact, it seems to be an embarrassment of riches. Only a great firm, with every possible facility, could have produced the work in so thorough aud efficient a style. Its frontispieco is a fine coloured reproduction of Mr. Gotch's painting of the Child— "The Heir of all the Ages." The opening number contains 112 pages, with decorated borders, and more pictures than we should care to count. There is "a little book of travel" — three weeks in Normandy ; followed by "Sir Walter Raleigh, the founder of the British Empire. .In "The Box that Speaks to Us," we have a description, admirably adapted to children s intelligence, of tho principle and mechanism of tho phonograph ; further on, there is an account, with many pictures, of the conversion of iron ore into steel in a blast furnace. There are uaturaJ history sketches, and stories from Chineee folk-lore ; there are contributions from ' the .eaders themselves ''How to Read the Stan" shows us diagram* of the constellations tv seen •aonth by month from the Greenwich meridian— the Parliamentary clock-tower and Westminster Abbey in the foreground indicating the direction, due south, in which the observer pazes. There are play-pages and puzzles er gaz<>s. Tbere are play -pages and puzzle*, there are portraits, scattered through the pages, of a thousand boy and girl readers, of course on a minute scale. We have not counted them, but are prepared to accept the statement without question. The youngHters are invited to seartji each for his or her own face among them. There are prizes offered for postcard essay competitions ; there is a "League of the- Helping Hand," which boys and girls of all lands are invited to join; and with every copy of No. 1 a toy kinematograph *is presented. To grown-up readers tho editor's account of the origin and evolution of the idea of the serial will be of interest. Among the wonderful examples of modern enterprise in popular educational literature this monthly takes a high place. Considerable alarm (writes a Home paper) is being felt by authors, owing to the threatened passing of the sixshilling nove' in favour of cheaper editions. An interim report of a sub-com-mittee appointed by the Incorporated Society of Author: "to consider the price at which new worxs should he issued," gives come interesting facts and figures, showing that there will hesmaller profits for novelists if there is any departure from the conventional price of the novel. Although their enquiries aa not yet concluded, they have already recommended the retention of the six-shilling edition. Seventyeight authors, representing "varying decrees of position as men and women of letters, and greatly different conditions of popularity," were invited to give their opinions. Of these thirty opposed any systematic reduction of the publishing price of new novels, while seven weie m favour of cheaper editions. The rest either were non-committal or gave no information. Mr. J. M. Dent, whoso literary discoveries are apt to be of no small ti(f niilcance, has unearthed a hitherto unknown manuscript of Milton's "Com us, ' v.hich he is shoitly about to publish to the world. Ihis seems to be the piompt c-opv fiom which the play was acted at Ludlow Castle in 1654. it has lain for years in the libraiy of Lord Kllesmere ut Bridgnwater ll cruse, and differs consnlerably from the version familiar to t lie general reader. 'Ihe Kllesmere version is believed to be in the haud-writ-ing of Henry Lawes, whotc mutic adorned the 'original performance of -(Joraua" at Ludlow. 'ihe publication is on* of conspicuous interest to «vary gkujfeit-Pl 1 UUMra'a. po-try.