THE RAGE FOR REPRINTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14002, 7 September 1907, Page 7

THE RAGE FOR REPRINTS.

Messrs George Routledge and Sons have brought out an excellent reprint of A'Beckett's "Comic History of England," with reproductions of the' two hundred delightful engravings by John Leech, and twenty page illustrations. Messrs Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. are publishing a new edition of Compton's weird story of " The Undertaker's Field; or, Murder Will Out." In this new edition there will be a brief account of Compton's restless lite and tragic end, and the tale itself has appropriately striking illustrations.

Messrs Pearson have just transferred their Illustrated Scarlet- Library to Messrs Secley and Co. This series consists of reprints of such well-known books as "The Pilgrim's _ Progress," "Don Quixote," "The Wide, Wide World," etc., and is probably one of the best of its kind in circulation. The illustrations are for the most part by H. M. Brock, Lancelot Speed, Fred Pegram, and other artists of the first rank. A new collected edition of "The Poetical Works of George Darley" is soon to be added to Messrs Routledge's Muses' Library. This reprint- is to include "Sylvia, or the May Queen," a lyrical drama much admired by Coleridge when it was first published in 1827, . and "Nepenthe," a- remarkable poem of which only three oopies of the original edition are extant-. The new edition will contain an introduction by Ramsay Colics, who lately edited the " Poems of Beddoes."

Messrs Macmillan and Co. are publishing a complete edition of the poems of the late T. E. Brown, and Messrs Walter Scott and Co. (Ltd.) have published a "Life" with many quotations from his poems. He may be called the literary and national spirit, of Mainland. His'poems are full of humour, pathos, and real poetry. The barriers to the great popularity which they deserve are the dialect in wliich they are written, and the length of some of tho poems, without break or breathing place.