OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Messrs. Blackwood are issuing a standard edition of the works of George Eliot. Adam Bede, of course, comes first, admirably printed in dainty volumes of blue and gold. Glancing over the work brings back to the memory of my Baronite a certain schoolboy who, instead of going home to dinner, used to spend the interval in the reading-room of a free library, literally dining off Adam Bede, then just out. It will be interesting to observe how far the public of to-day, more especially the young men and maidens who read novels, will take to George Eliot. In this new standard edition opportunity, alike in respect of charm and cheapness, is made alluring.
The Curse of Intellect is an unattractive title, suggestive rather of a series of essays on the melancholy lives of certain geniuses than of the weird tale—for such it is—of a Man-Monkey. This story, published by Messrs. Blackwood, and written by Machiavelli Colin Clout, is a modern version of Frankenstein, the distinction being that, whereas Frankenstein constructed his own monster, the hero of this romance, one Reuben Power, finds a monster ready to hand in a kind of "Mr. Gorilla," whom he educates to speak a strange language, also to read, write, and think in excellent English. This Converted Ape kills his maker, and then considerately puts an end to his own miserable existence; he does not, however, possess a soul (Frankenstein's Monster was also deficient in this respect). "For O it is such a 'norrible tale;" and, except to those who occasionally enjoy "a 'norrible tale," this cannot be recommended by
The Baron de B.-W.