An almanac for the family has long been an imperious American necessity. Judging from the success of the Catholic Publication Society's Almanac for the year now drawing to an end, a Catholic almanac was much needed and greatly desired by our Catholic population throughout the United States, and that it should have met with a large sale was not surprising when we remember that, in addition to all the useful information furnished by all well-prepared almanacs, The Catholic Family Almanac provided agreeable, edifying, and instructive literary matter profusely and admirably illustrated with superior engravings.
In size, amount of matter, illustrations, and literary merit, the Catholic Almanac for 1870, just published, is a decided improvement upon its predecessor, and must receive universal approbation.
The Life of Christopher Columbus. From authentic Spanish and Italian Documents. Compiled from the French of Rosselly de Lorgnes. By I. I. Barry, M.D. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1869.
The translator or compiler of this work states in his preface that he has had to condense the matter of some pages into almost as many lines. We feel compelled to add that neither history nor literature would have suffered if he had gone on condensing indefinitely, even if, in the process, the book had been compressed to the vanishing point. Rosselly de Lorgnes, a veteran writer, the author of Le Christ devant le Siècle, and other works well known in Europe, is entitled to all respect and honor for his sincere and enthusiastic vindication of the memory of Columbus, and of his claims to veneration as a man of saintly character, over and above all his other well-known merits; but his work, in two volumes of nearly six hundred pages each, independently of other objections to it, sadly wants brevity and method.
The truth is that, notwithstanding the praiseworthy efforts of M. De Lorgnes, and of various authors who have preceded and followed him in this field, the life of Columbus is yet to be written. More than that, it can only be well written in Spain and with Spanish materials. When that country has a historian who is not afraid of telling the truth about the king of Spain who was the husband of the noble Isabella of Castile, and will use without fear or favor the writings of Columbus himself—for, after all, such a great soul is his own best interpreter—we shall have a life of Columbus, and not until then.
The Improvisatore. The Two Baronesses. Romances by Hans Christian Andersen. New York: Hurd & Houghton.
These two volumes, from the fascinating pen of the great Danish novelist, we recognize as old friends in new garments, and hasten to bid them welcome.
Andersen, who charms the little ones with the beauty and naturalness of his fairy tales, is equally a favorite with children of a larger growth.