Mr. Ballou has for many years been known as one of the most industrious, accurate, and entertaining of American scholars. The present volume (his latest work) is a peculiarly interesting one, full of anecdotes and memorabilia, which set forth the intimate inner lives of the world's heroes and notables. They have been gathered from the most recondite sources, and skilfully massed in attractive array, forming a great collection, that is at once valuable and interesting.
A WONDERFUL WORK OF ART.
Mrs. Browning's Love Sonnets.
SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Illustrated by Ludvig Sandöe Ipsen. 1 vol. Oblong folio (pages 13 × 16 inches), beautifully bound, gilt top. $15.00; full tree-calf, $30.00.
This magnificent work has been a labor of love for years with the artist, who is the prince of decorators, and has lavished upon it all the resources of his imagination and skill. The result is a magnificent monument to the poems that are enshrined therein, and a series of designs, the equals of which as a mere treasury of decoration and invention, apart from their significance in illustrating the immortal verse of Mrs. Browning, have never been issued in America. Each sonnet is prefaced by a richly ornamental half-title, on a full page, and is surrounded by a handsome border, emblematic in its design and composition. Mr. Ipsen has for many years been recognized as the foremost leader of art-decoration for books, both inside and outside, and has set more fashions for imitation than any other artist. This book is his crowning work, and will afford an inexhaustible treasury of decoration for students of art, and a life-study for all lovers of beauty and symmetry. Mrs. Browning's sonnets are among the noblest productions of ancient or modern literature; and their literary excellence and incomparable beauty of diction insure for them certain immortality.
RECOLLECTIONS OF EMINENT MEN, and Other Papers. By Edwin Percy Whipple. 1 vol. Crown 8vo. With new steel portrait of the author, and preceded by the Memorial Address delivered by the Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol. $1.50; in half-calf, $3.00.
A new book by Mr. Whipple is a literary event; and so many years have elapsed since his last publication, that the interest will be more intense in the present volume, which contains some of his most charming and characteristic papers, including monographs on Sumner, Motley, Agassiz, Choate, and George Eliot.
STORIES OF ART AND ARTISTS. By Clara Erskine Clement. 1 vol. 8vo. Profusely illustrated. In cloth, $4.00; in half parchment cloth, $4.50.