OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Messrs. Blackwood have got as far as Felix Holt in the re-publication in popular form of the works of George Eliot. It would be interesting to know how the venture has fared with the popular fancy for which it was designed. It is said young men and maidens of the present date cannot read the Charles Dickens whose books enthralled their fathers and mothers. How does George Eliot, who in her day held a position with the novel-reading public second only to Charles Dickens, withstand the changes of fancy and fashion? My Baronite has been trying the experiment on himself by reading again, after the lapse of many years, The Mill on the Floss. He reports that he finds the first volume flag a little, by reason of the minute record of childhood's troubles and schoolday tasks. But in the second volume, where the tragedy of love is worked out with surpassing power and infinite skill, the old spell is woven again. The Mill on the Floss is certainly one of the best of George Eliot's novels, being completed before the malign influence of schoolmaster George Henry Lewes made itself felt. To this extent, it is not a fair test of the problem suggested. But the collection as a whole is rich in value. In "the Standard edition" Messrs. Blackwood present it in daintiest form, and at a marvellously cheap price.
The Shoulder of Shasta is not a new joint from an entirely new animal, as those who are tired of "the Shoulder of Mutton" may be sorry to hear; but, it is a charming romance, in one volume, written by Bram Stoker at his best. The heroine's name is "Esse"; and the whole interest of the story lies in the question, "Esse or non Esse"—"to be or not to be" the wife of "Mr. Dick." For there is a "Mr. Dick"—not in any way related to Dickens's "Mr. Dick,"—who is a kind of Buffalo Bill among the Indians. There is a Miss Gimp, a governess, whose peculiarities certainly do recall those of Mrs. Nickleby. Mr. Bram Stoker's plot is a boîte à surprise, and yet a most simple and natural story. Go to your butcher's and order The Shoulder of Shasta, to be served up "à la Stoker." N.B.—For "butcher's" read "bookseller's"; 'tis published by "A Constable" who "knows what subjects to take up," says the thoughtful
Baron de Book-Worms.