A good book on etiquette—and, as it often happens, a very ordinary one—is pretty sure of finding a wide circle of readers in America. A sensible, reliable guide-book into the mysteries of the best society has lately been published by the Harpers.[K] We like it. The writer knows exactly what her readers need and is competent to supply their want clearly and reliably. What more could be asked of the writer of a book on etiquette?
Uncle Remus[L] has become the representative of a vanishing type of American life. It is a matter of congratulation that so much of his humor, shrewd sense and peculiar dialect has been saved to us in “His Songs and His Sayings,” a little book which, though we are apt to consider it merely humorous, really has much material for interesting study. The aim of the author was as he says: “To preserve the legends [of the plantation] in their original simplicity, and to wed them permanently to the quaint dialect—if indeed it can be called a dialect—through the medium of which they have become a part of the domestic history of every Southern family.”
BOOKS RECEIVED.
How the Bible was Made. By Rev. E. M. Wood, D.D. Cincinnati: Walden & Stowe. 1884.
The Exodus and Other Poems. By Rev. T. C. Reade. Cincinnati: Printed by Walden & Stowe for the author. 1884.
Quicksands. From the German of Adolph Streckfuss. By Mrs. A. L. Wister. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1884.
Standard Library: The Fortunes of Rachel. By Edward Everett Hale. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1884.
Standard Library: Chinese Gordon. By Archibald Forbes. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1884.
There was Once a Man. A Story. By R. H. Newell (Orpheus C. Kerr). New York: Fords, Howard & Hurlburt, for Our Continent Publishing Co. 1884.