Q

QUENNELL, MARJORIE, and QUENNELL, CHARLES HENRY BOURNE. History of everyday things in England. v 2 il *$4.50 (v 1 and 2 in one volume *$9) Scribner 914.2

(Eng ed 19–6495)

“The second volume of a history which applies real historical research to the making of children’s books. As in the first book the authors have described changes in building, furniture, dress, and games as ‘history in stone, wood, and fabrics.’ It is their desire to present work as a ‘joyous sort of business’ which shall give boys and girls the desire to take the pains with their labors which distinguished the craftsmen. Bibliography. Index.”—Booklist

+ Ath p127 Ja 23 ’20 90w

“Charming volume.”

+ Booklist 16:247 Ap ’20

“This second part is not nearly so good as its predecessor. Its authors have been spoilt by success, and the latter pages of the book in particular show, to put it mildly, signs of haste. The first chapter, on the sixteenth century, is the best.”

+ − Sat R 129:435 My 8 ’20 1150w

“The second part is as original and as fascinating as the first, and those who read the first will know that no higher praise can be given.”

+ Spec 124:145 Ja 31 ’20 1000w

QUICKENS, QUARLES, pseud.[[2]] English notes. $15 L. M. Thompson, 29 Broadway, N.Y. 817

20–6982

“In 1842, not long after the appearance of Charles Dickens’s irritating ‘American notes,’ there was published anonymously in Boston a work bearing for its title an obvious parody—‘English notes for very extensive circulation by Quarles Quickens.’ This book is now reprinted by Lewis M. Thompson of New York, with an introductory essay designed to prove that the person who hid under the pseudonym of ‘Quarles Quickens’ was Edgar Allan Poe. Joseph Jackson and George H. Sargent supply an introduction and notes, and the publisher has added two portraits of Poe.”—Springf’d Republican

“The book is valuable as a curiosity rather than as a masterpiece of Poe’s style.”

+ Boston Transcript p6 Je 23 ’20 260w

“The truth is that the pamphlet is mostly dull, a ponderous parody. Its merit today is that it has served Mr Jackson for an excellent and entertaining piece of detective work. In its present form, with this foreword, ‘English notes’ must have a place on the shelves of every collector of Dickens or of Poe.”

+ − Nation 111:382 O 6 ’20 410w N Y Times p9 Ag 1 ’20 2800w

“Unfortunately, the attribution of the work to Poe is sustained by neither internal nor external evidence.”

− Springf’d Republican p6 Jl 19 ’20 600w The Times [London] Lit Sup p305 My 13 ’20 160w + The Times [London] Lit Sup p595 S 16 ’20 600w

QUILLER-COUCH, SIR ARTHUR THOMAS (Q., pseud.). On the art of reading. *$2.75 Putnam 028

20–16869

The spirit of the volume can perhaps best be illustrated by two extracts from the preface: “The real battle for English lies in our elementary schools, and in the training of our elementary teachers. It is there that the foundations of a sound national teaching in English will have to be laid, as it is there that a wrong trend will lead to incurable issues,” and “that a liberal education is not an appendage to be purchased by the few; that humanism is, rather, a quality which can, and should, condition all our teaching; which can, and should, be impressed as a character upon it all, from a poor child’s first lesson in reading up to a tutor’s last word to his pupil on the eve of a tripos.” Contents: Apprehension versus comprehension; Children’s reading; On reading for examinations; On a school of English; The value of Greek and Latin in English literature; On reading the Bible; On selection; On the use of masterpieces; Index.

“We find it as hard to conceive that undergraduates did not enjoy hearing these lectures on ‘The art of reading’ as that ‘Q’ did not enjoy delivering them. The elements of an ideal professor were always in him. To communicate a gusto, a vivid and thrilling delight in literature for its own sake, as a delectable duchy where no passport, save the fact of your own enjoyment, is required, is a gift given to few. ‘Q’ is among them.” J. M. M.

+ Ath p234 Ag 20 ’20 2000w

“Especially useful to elementary teachers.”

+ Booklist 17:147 Ja ’21 + Dial 70:108 Ja ’21 50w

“As an advocate of books, I know of none so well equipped in perspective to give advice as Quiller-Couch; as a precepter, I have met with no one on whom the burden of his task has rested so lightly, so agreeably, so sympathetically, as on him. Out of the fullness of his enjoyment he speaks, and it is refreshing to observe how jealously he tries to rescue the books he loves from the palsied grasp of the pedagog.” M. J. Moses

+ N Y Times p5 Ja 2 ’21 2650w

“Original points of view, apt quotations, and genial play with the subject characterize the volume.”

+ Outlook 126:690 D 15 ’20 60w Sat R 130:219 S 11 ’20 1500w + Spec 125:472 O 9 ’20 1050w

“The style is too discursive, there is too much quoting, some of the long sentences puzzle one on first reading. And yet what a professor of literature! Why do not all universities secure men like this King Edward VII professor?”

+ − Springf’d Republican p8 Ja 6 ’21 570w

“Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his lectures shows that he has the interests of the children and of the young men strongly at heart. His are not the accustomed utterances of the professor of literature at an ancient university. They are not in the great style nor, in their form, are they learned. They abound in irrelevances, with a touch of facetiousness that is often tiresome, and occasionally they breathe the unction of the pulpit rather than the gravity of the chair. The lectures were doubtless more effective in their delivery than in their printed form.”

+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p557 S 2 ’20 3350w