D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY, Publishers, Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
SPECIAL HOLIDAY BOOKS.
The special Holiday Book list of Messrs. D. Lothrop & Co. and their general Booklist for the season embrace volumes of fresh beauty, and also sterling works fully abreast with the growing demand for attractive books of some educational value. Their array of costly illustrated volumes includes seven Fine-Art issues. Foremost is the magnificent folio, Idyls and Pastorals, comprising twenty-four poems by Celia Thaxter written expressly for this work, accompanied by twenty-four superb fac-simile photogravures from paintings, water colors and line drawings by eminent American and foreign artists, including Kate Greenaway, Howard Pyle, Wm. T. Smedley, Edmund H. Garrett, F. Childe Hassam, Jessie Curtis Shepherd, Miss L. B. Humphrey, W. L. Taylor, Joseph Pennell, Thomas Hovenden, F. H. Lungren, T. W. Wood, N. A., Charles Volkmar, Hy. Sandham, F. T. Merrill and Henry Bacon. These photogravures are printed by hand, in colors, on the finest imported India paper. The book is bound in vellum cloth with designs in two metals, also in white calf embossed in imitation of antique carved ivory. A Popular Edition, octavo, with a selection, and fine wood engravings is bound both in cloth and embossed leather. Youth in Twelve Centuries is another de luxe folio, holding twenty-four bold picturesque drawings by Hassam of youthful race-types of both sexes, ranging from Egyptian, 1500 B. C., down through Chinese, Greek, Roman, Scandinavian, Gaul, to the Renaissance of the Medici and the American Colonial. These drawings are in hand-printed photogravures in twelve tones, and are accompanied by twenty-four poems by “M. E. B.” The book is in two styles of binding: in rich silk canvas from the New York Associated Artists’ art-fabrics with emerald calf corners and back, and in linen fabric overprinted in photogravure with a rich and mystic design. A Popular Edition of the same, with wood engravings, is bound in fine cloth. The Minute Man, by Margaret Sidney, is a Ballad of “the shot heard round the world;” it has drawings by Sandham printed with the text, also a strong water-color and three historic Concord views in toned photogravures. Beautiful binding. In Bye-o-Baby Ballads, the “color-book” of the House, the little folks have a volume as perfect in taste as the costly adult gift-books; the ballads are by Charles Stuart Pratt (editor of Wide Awake and Babyland), and the pictures, by Hassam, the popular water-color painter, include many strong charming full-pages and hundreds smaller, reproduced in exquisite colors by Buek & Co.; withal, the book is distinctively fresh and American. Sonnets from the Portuguese. The immortal love-sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning are so richly printed and bound as to become a standard presentation volume. New editions of recent favorite gift-books group with these new ones, notably Ideal Poems, Heroines of the Poets and Stabat Mater.
The Holiday Quartos in black-and-white for popular use are hardly less rich in their handsome bindings. First of course, are the regular Annuals, Wide Awake “U” and “V,” Babyland, Our Little Men and Women and The Pansy. Wide Awake “U” contains complete serials by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney and Margaret Sidney, “How the Middies Set up Shop” and “A New Departure for Girls;” “V” has the beautiful complete story of “A Girl and a Jewel,” by Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford. Our Little Men and Women has the delicious English serial written for it by L. T. Meade. Babyland has that dainty dozen of “Crib-Curtain Stories,” by Mrs. Ella Farman Pratt. Pansy has Margaret Sidney’s “St. George and the Dragon” and “Reaching Out,” by Pansy. A quarto volume of Children’s Ballads is particularly rich in historical stories. The new edition of the great encyclopædia of poetry, The Young Folks’ Golden Treasury, has several hundred illustrated original poems. Sights Worth Seeing is gorgeous with spectacles and carnivals, while the small quartos and the tiny books for the Christmas Stocking People are countless in their rainbowy profusions. One choice volume of short stories for adults is included in the Holiday List, Hester, and Other New England Stories, by Margaret Sidney. This is beautifully gotten up, the artistic covers being designed by Mrs. Henry Whitman; one choice historical novel for young folks, In Leisler’s Times, a story of Knickerbocker New York, by E. S. Brooks; and one beautiful Wonder Story for the little folks, The Bubbling Teapot, by Mrs. Lizzie W. Champney.
Among the new issues for popular reading are The Land of the Czar and the Nihilist, by Rev. J. M. Buckley, LL. D., an illustrated octavo of recent travel. All Among the Lighthouses, by Mrs. Crowninshield (the wife of Commander Crowninshield U. S. N.,) finely illustrated and uniform in size, price and importance with the famous Family Flights; and Souvenirs of My Time, by Mrs. Jessie Benton Frémont, a large book crowded with personal reminiscences of famous people, at home and abroad, celebrated places and notable scenes and events.
Famous Stories, by those royal story tellers, Mary Hartwell Catherwood, David Ker and Charles R. Talbot, make a strong bid for the favor of boys and girls of from fourteen to sixteen; Bib and Tucker Folks, compiled by Mrs. Humphrey, is crammed full with illustrations, and the two volumes of the Fun for the Family Series is full of jolly stories and pictures. Then for the smaller ones there is Wonder People, which tells interesting stories about some curious folks; Baby’s Story Book; Jack, Jill and Tot; a collection of amusing stories under the title of So Funny; three charming books by Mrs. Humphrey either one of which would be a treasure to the little ones—Kings and Queens at Home, with twenty-four portraits and pictures; Queen Victoria at Home and Stories about Favorite Authors. All these are quartos in handsome cloth or chromo bindings.
Among the new issues in the regular library form are the issues in the Through the Year with the Poets Series, one of the choicest collections of poetry upon special themes ever made in this country: With Reed and Lyre, Clinton Scollard’s charming collection of poems; the enlarged edition of the poems of James Berry Bensel; Willis Boyd Allen’s Silver Rags, the second issue in the Pine Cone Series; Miss Ryder’s Hold up your Heads, Girls! and a very remarkable volume of sermons by the Rev. Reuen Thomas, under the title of Divine Sovereignty.
Besides these there are two new “Wonder Stories” forming additional volumes in the series of that name; the first volume being devoted to stories of history and the second to those of travel. Hosts of young readers will remember Plucky Boys, which had such a popularity a year ago. This year the publishers bring out a companion volume, Brave Girls, which will be every whit as popular. There is announced, too, a new story by Joaquin Miller, called “The Gold Miners of the Sierras;” an entertaining volume called Foreign Facts and Fancies, and a collection of Stories of Danger and Adventure.