The beautiful edition of the Works of Thomas De Quincey, which Ticknor & Co. have for some time been publishing in Boston, will soon be completed, and the eight or ten duodecimos which it will comprise will be added to as many libraries as are owned by persons of a genuine appreciation in literature. They have never before appeared collectively.
Mrs. (Fanny Forester) Judson has been several weeks in England, on her way via the Cape of Good Hope, to the United States. She is in better health than she had been during the last year of her residence in the East.
An octavo volume has just been published in Philadelphia under the title of The Female Prose Writers of America, with Portraits, Biographical Notices, and Specimens of their Writings, by John S. Hart, LL. D. The book is beneath criticism, and we will dismiss it very briefly after demonstrating the truth of this statement. We have scarcely ever seen so melancholy an illustration of incompetence for a task voluntarily assumed. It appears that to every woman whose name he had ever seen in print Dr. John S. Hart sent nearly a year ago a circular from which the following paragraphs are extracts:
Authors interested in having their merits placed on a proper footing before the public, will contribute important facilities to the accomplishment of this end by furnishing me with information in regard to the following particulars:
1. The name in full (the middle name, as well as the first and last), and written carefully so as to prevent misprints.
2. Date of birth, where there is no objection.
6. Extracts.—Indicate any passages, amounting in all to five or six octavo pages, that, in the opinion of the author or her friends, may be taken as fair specimens of her style. The passages should be such as are complete in themselves, and contain something of general interest.
8. Critiques and commendatory notices.—Well-written critiques upon the author's style or writings, whether published or unpublished, will be acceptable. In almost every case, probably, articles of this kind have been published, or exist in manuscript, or may be written for the occasion by those entirely acquainted with the subject, and if forwarded would furnish the present editor the most reliable means of doing full justice in each particular case.