Mrs. Mary Tappan Wright, who contributes to the May number of Scribner's a bright and cheery story, entitled "A Fragment of a Play," is the wife of a Harvard professor.

Owing to the serious illness of the editor, Maximilian Toch, the publication of the Photographic Globe, New York, has been suspended.

"Men with a Mission" is a new fifty-cent series of brief biographies in handy form, devoted to characters in English and American history, whose lives were full of action and great aims. The volumes nearly ready are devoted to Tyndale, Stanley, Latimer, and Kingsley. Those to be issued during the spring are devoted to Lincoln, Howard, Lord Lawrence, and Livingstone. Thomas Whittaker, New York, is the publisher.

Mr. Metcalf, who has recently resigned the editorship of the Forum, is an authority on caves. This is said to be his hobby. Another original fad is that of Edward A. Oldham, the Southern contributor to the Century, who has a collection of photographs of famous trees. He is accused of being a veritable crank on this subject, and goes into raptures at the sight of a beautifully developed oak or tall and majestic pine.

"Julien Gordon" (Mrs. Cruger) has a brief article in the North American Review for May on "The Modern Extinction of Genius," in which she takes the ground that they speak not wisely who say that the former times in literature were better than the present. She singles out for special praise Tolstoï, Daudet, De Maupassant, Bret Harte, Valera, and other recent novelists. The policy of the Review to lay before its readers from month to month the carefully matured opinions of the most eminent men and women in this country and Europe, upon topics of interest to all intelligent readers, is fully maintained in this number.

A jolly party is now travelling to the Pacific coast. It consists of Julian Hawthorne, Mayo Hazeltine, Nugent Robinson, and Joseph Stoddard. They were entertained at the University Club at Chicago, and by the various clubs in San Francisco. They will return by the Northern Pacific road the second week in May.

The prizes offered by the American Economic Association for the best essays on the subject of "Women Wage-Earners" have just been awarded. There were about thirty competitors. The first prize of $300 was given to Miss Clare de Graffenreid, of Washington, D. C. The essay written by Mrs. Helen Campbell, of New York, received the second prize of $200.

John Ernest McCann stood manfully by the Echoes of the Week to the last echo, which was published some weeks ago. In collaboration with Nugent Robinson, he wrote two plays of one act. One play has been sold to Augustin Daly, the other to Richard Mansfield.

Helen Marshall North, in the New York Ledger, says that Mrs. Amélie Rives Chanler is rapidly recovering from her recent illness, and will soon publish a novel that may eclipse all of her previous efforts.

The "American Catalogue" of new books prepared by Adolph Growoll, managing editor of the Publishers' Weekly, is made by photography not by photographing printed pages, but from paragraphs suitably rearranged. Each number of the Publishers' Weekly gives a list of the week's new books. At the year's end an annual catalogue presents the titles in alphabetical order. Mr. Growoll clips them out from the Weekly and pastes them on sheets of paper the size of the Annual's page. Photo-lithographed, his sheets give him plates for the press at something less than half the cost of resetting the matter in type.

Says the Publisher's Weekly: "The statement that Graham R. Tomson is the pseudonym of Miss Frances Wynne has been questioned. We made the announcement on the information of an authority whose accuracy we had no reason to question. M. E.' writes that the wife of Arthur Tomson, a well-known English artist, is the author of a dainty lyric with which the name of Graham R. Tomson' has become identified. Her name in full, he claims, is Mrs. Arthur Graham Tomson, but that for some reason she prefers to be known as Graham R. Tomson. Her maiden name, on the authority of a letter written to Mr Griswold, is said to have been Graham Rosamond Ball."

The successful competitors for the onethousand-dollar prize offered in 1889 by the American Secular Union for the best essay, treatise, or manual adapted to instruct children in the principles of morality, without inculcating religious doctrines, are N. P. Gilman, editor of the Literary World, and E. P. Jackson, a master in the Boston Latin School, between whom it is to be divided.

A new book on Carlyle, written by Dr. Ewald Flugel of the University of Leipsic, and translated by Miss Jessica Gilbert Tyler, daughter of Professor Moses Coit Tyler, of Cornell University, will be published this summer or

autumn.

A new book of short stories is promised from Joel Chandler Harris, who figures in the minds of a host of readers as "Uncle Remus." It is entitled "Balaam and his Master, and Other Stories," and will be issued from the Riverside Press.

The New York World for April 22 says: "Advices from Camden state that Walt Whitman got out in the mid-April sun and warmth of Thursday, propelled in his wheel chair, the first time after four months of imprisonment in his sick-room. He has had the worst winter yet from grip and gastric troubles and threatened blindness, but keeps good spirits, and has a new little forthcoming book in the printer's hands." Mr. Whitman's book is to be called 'Good-by, My Fancy!" and will contain in its seventy-five pages all of his recently published verse and prose, besides a number of new poems.

Stuart Merrill, the translator of "Pastels in Prose," has just published a book of French poems in Paris. Though Mr. Merrill is an American by birth, he has lived nearly all his life in France, and French is consequently the language which he uses with the greatest ease, and in which he chiefly writes. He has been spending the present winter in New York, busily engaged in several literary schemes.

William Shepard contributes to Lippincott's for May an interesting article upon "Lost Treasures of Literature," in which he tells how many priceless manuscripts of the greatest authors have been lost or ruthlessly destroyed.

Says the New York Home Journal for April 15: "Mrs. Fanny Barrow, so well and lovingly known in the literary world of young readers and old readers as Aunt Fanny,' has been very ill for the past six weeks, and is, we regret to learn, not yet convalescent."

The Boston Transcript gives the full name of Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth as Emma Dorothy Elixa Neuette Southworth. "When I was born," said Mrs. Southworth, "my people were too poor to give me anything else, so they gave me all those names."

The Quarterly Register of Current History (Detroit) is something new. Its purpose is the "bringing together at intervals of three months of such matters as may be valuable for permanent preservation." The first number treats of the most important events of 1890.

Annie Besant is not, as commonly supposed, a sister of Walter Besant, but his sisterin-law, having married a brother of his in 1867, when she was twenty years old.

"Stanton Page," the author of "The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani," is Henry B. Fuller, of Chicago.

Marion Crawford's new story, just completed, is called "Khaled."

Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton has been Her visiting her brother at Putnam, Conn. birthplace, Pomfret, is but a short distance from Putnam.

On the title-page of "Jerry," now published. in book form by Henry Holt & Co., appears the name of the author, Sarah Barnwell Elliott.

C. N. Caspar, the enterprising Milwaukee publisher, has done a useful service in preparing the "Practical Catalogue of Law Books " that he has just issued. It is arranged by subjects, has a complete index to authors, and includes lists of the latest editions of all standard text-books. Mr. Caspar means to follow this with other bibliographies of special subjects.

A second edition of Arthur Howard Noll's "Short History of Mexico" has been required.

Four of the photogravures in Sun and Shade (New York) for April are from paintings, those from Boughton's "Olivia" and from W. R. Orchordson's "Hard Hit" being especially good.

Edward W. Bok, editor of the Ladies' Home Fournal, says that during 1890 he received at his office a total number of 15,205 manuscripts. Of these, 2,280 were poems; 1,746 stories; and 11,179 miscellaneous articles. Of the poems, sixty-six were accepted; of the stories, only twenty-one ; and of the articles, 410, of which latter, however, over 300 were solicited articles. Thus, it will be seen that of the entire 15,000 manuscripts only 497 were accepted; a trifle over three per cent. Deducting from this the 300 accepted articles written at the editor's solicitation, the net percentage of unsolicited manuscripts accepted is brought down to 197, or a little more than one per cent.

The Magazine of Poetry (Buffalo, N. Y.) for April contains sketches and portraits of Robert Buchanan, Arlo Bates, George Bancroft Griffin, Margret Holmes Bates, Robert Lord Lytton, Sir Edwin Arnold, Orelia Kay Bell, Mrs. M. Swafford, Charles M. Dickinson, and other writers, together with many of their best poems and the usual interesting departments.

-

Miss Amelia B. Edwards has left England for the Riviera, Italy, and Sicily — for the benefit of her health. She has never entirely recovered from the effects of the accident she met with, just a year ago, at the end of her lecturing tour in the United States.

T. Fisher Unwin (London) is shortly going to publish what promises to be a very interesting work. This is nothing less than "A History of the Press," dealing, first, with the British press, and, afterward, with that of the Continent and America. The story of the foundation and rise of the various great journals which exercise such a wondrous power among men, will be related, and the entire first volume will be devoted to the Times. Other volumes will deal with "The Provincial Press," French Press," "The German Press," "The American Press," and "The Comic Press."

"The

Mary R. P. Hatch, author of that successful story, "The Bank Tragedy," has another novel, Palimpsa a Psychical Study," ready for publication.

Horace L. Traubel contributes to the New England Magazine for May an article called "Walt Whitman at Date." For the last twenty years Mr. Traubel has been a constant companion and friend of the poet at his Camden home, and in this article he reveals more of the man personally in his daily communion with his fellows than has ever come before from such a reliable source.

Olive Schreiner, who wrote "The Story of an African Farm," will visit England this sumShe is now engaged on another story.

mer.

D. Appleton & Co. announce for early publication: "We All," by Octave Thanet, with many illustrations, a new book in the successful series of good books for young readers; "Tourmalin's Time Cheques," a new story by F. Anstey, author of "Vice Versa," etc.; "The Maid of Honor," by the Hon. Lewis Wingfield, author of "Lady Grizel"; "From Sunshine to Shadow," a novel, by the Marquis of Lorne; "Consequences," a novel, by Egerton Castle; "Baldwin's Applied Psychology and Art of Teaching "; Herbart's Psychology"; "A Descriptive Guide Book to Canada," including full accounts of the opportunities for sportsmen and tourists, by Charles G. D. Roberts, the Canadian poet and littérateur; new and revised editions of Appleton's 'Dictionary of New York, Summer Resorts, and General Guide to the United States and Canada"; and "North America," Volume XV. of Reclus' great work, "The Earth and its Inhabitants."

If any well-informed man were asked what are the most important topics that have engaged public opinion during the month of April, and about which the public desires authoritative information, he would be sure to an swer (1) the Italian difficulty, (2) the new Australian commonwealth, (3) our reciprocity treaties with South America, (4) religious discussions caused by a large number of trials for heresy, and (5) silver coinage. The Forum for May contains articles on every one of these subjects, all by writers of the highest rank.

Miss Phelps will shortly delight and reassure her host of readers by bringing out a book of her unsurpassed short stories, named from the leading story, "Fourteen to One."

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D. C. Heath & Co. have in press for early publication "An American Literature for High Schools and Colleges," by Julian Hawthorne and Leonard Lemmon. Regarding it Mr. Hawthorne says: "My aim has been to make this book an organic structure; to represent the authors to the pupil as living persons; conveying to them a comprehension of the nature of the authors' mind and genius, of what they tried to do, and of how near they came to doing it, - rather than enumerate in conventional phrases their merits and defects. I have maintained throughout the book a thread of reference to the general historical situation during the successive literary periods, and have indicated how the literature was thereby affected; and I have shown by what political or other influences bias and tone were given to writers and books. In short, I have tried to produce a manual as different as possible from the ordinary, hackneyed school text-book; one that would stimulate the pupil's thought and arouse his sympathies, rather than merely tax his memory; and that he would read with spontaneous interest instead of perfunctorily and me·chanically.”

Ignatius Donnelly's latest book, "Cæsar's Column," is now in its seventeenth edition. The publishers, F. J. Schulte & Co., Chicago, announce that a Swedish translation is in press, and that a German translation, also, will be issued this year. Special editions for the Eng. lish and European markets will be brought out by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, the great London publishing house, who have also arranged with the Chicago publishers to bring out Mr. Donnelly's forthcoming book, "Dr. Huguet," simultaneously with its publication in America.

H. O. Houghton, of the firm of Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., has the sympathy of a multitude of friends, who mourn with him the loss of his wife, Mrs. Nanna W. Houghton, who died at their residence in Cambridge April 13, leaving three daughters and one son.

William Dean Howells and his family are to make their permanent home in New York City next autumn, after the graduation of their son from Harvard, in the class of '91. They are now living at No. 54 Commonwealth avenue, Boston, but, as Mr. Howells expresses it, are "ready as soon as the diploma is. " Young Howells is said to be one of the brightest men in his class at college.

A paper on "The Early History of the Press of the United States" was read before the Historical Society of Washington April 14, by Ainsworth R. Spofford, LL. D., Librarian of Congress. The first printing press used in Amer. ica was set up in the City of Mexico in 1535, the first English press was established in Philadelphia in 1685, and the first newspaper (the Boston News Letter) was published April 24, 1704. Fourteen years later it boasted a circulation of 300 copies. It was discontinued at the outbreak of the Revolution. At the beginning of the present century there were ninety-one newspapers published in the United States as against 18,000 at the present time. But previous to the Revolution there had been over 8,000 books, pamphlets, and periodicals published here, 7,350 of which were of American authorship.

One of the best-posted writers on political economy is Walter O'Dwyer, of the New York Press, who has lately come to Gotham from Montana, where he edited a paper.

Emile Zola will begin work as soon as possible on his next novel, "La Guerre." He will visit the city and battle-ground of Sedan, in order to obtain material for an account of the famous battle fought there between the French and the Prussians, September 2, 1870, when Napoleon III., at the head of an army of 90,000 men, surrended to the victorious Prussians. This description of the battle of Sedan will occupy a third of his forthcoming novel.

Nellie Corrinne Bergen is a new and clever writer in both prose and verse whose name is occurring quite frequently in current literature. She lives in Washington, where she writes for the Post. She is a native of East Saginaw, Michigan, is preparing a novel for the press, and is described as being a beautiful brunette.

"Jerome K. Jerome" is a pseudonym. The real name of the successful young dramatist and humorist is J. W. Arrowsmith, and his home is in Bristol.

Miss Mary E. Wilkins has gone to Philadelphia to pay a visit to the family of Dr. Furness. She will afterward spend a little time in Metuchen, the Jersey home of H. M. Alden, editor of Harper's Magazine.

The publishers of the American Bookmaker (New York) have issued Part I. of "The American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking," — technical, historical, biographical, - which when complete will make a book of 600 pages, profusely illustrated. This valuable work, the most comprehensive of the kind ever pnblished, will be issued quarterly, and will be presented without cost to all subscribers to the American Bookmaker. No one else will be able to obtain these parts, as no sales will be made until the whole volume is completed, when the price will be twelve dollars a copy. The subscription price of the American Bookmaker is two dollars a year, and the publishers guarantee to deliver the " Dictionary" complete to subscribers who will pay now for three years in advance. Considering the character and value of the work, this offer is a very generous

one.

The English Club of the Harvard "Annex," although small in numbers, has entertained some very distinguished people during the year. Its first guest in January last was Richard Moulton, A. M., of Cambridge, Eng., who read Browning's "Caliban upon Setabos" before a large and cultivated audience. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes consented to meet the young ladies of the "Annex " at a quiet reception, which was tendered to him April 14. Dr. Holmes was at his best and wittiest; he read with charming ease and feeling his poem of "The Chambered Nautilus," and concluded with the piquant "Dorothy Q—.” marks about poetic inspiration were listened to with deep interest by the 150 "Annex " students. The last reception of the season is to be that given to W. D. Howells, who has graciously consented to meet the girl students May 2.

His re

The Magazine of Art (New York) for May has for its frontispiece a photogravure of Sir Everett Millais' painting, "Jephthah's Daughter," one of the most striking paintings of this popular artist. The opening article is devoted to Benjamin-Constant. An especially timely paper is the one on Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier by Walter Armstrong. These and other articles are beautifully illustrated.

Arthur J. Munby, the author of a charming poem beginning, "I sat with Doris, the shepherd maiden," -author also of "Dorothy," the dainty pastoral published anonymously some years ago, is bringing out a volume of his collected verse.

A number of receptions to literary people have recently been given by the New England Woman's Press Association. April 9 the club entertained at the Parker House Mrs. Elizabeth T. Custer, and for three hours the parlors were thronged with poets, authors, army officers, and city and state officials thronging to do honor to the spirited and plucky little woman. Among those present were Secretary Tracy, of the cabinet, Governor Russell and staff, Admiral Kimberley, ex-Governor Long; and among the poets, James Jeffrey Roche, editor of the Pilot, Oscar Fay Adams, Arlo Bates, Howard Ticknor, and many others. A reception was given April 24 to Mrs. Annie Besant, sister-in-law of the novelist, Walter Besant, a woman prominent in many radical reforms, interested in theosophy, and a vigorous worker, both with tongue and pen. To celebrate the twenty-first year of the entrance into journalism of Mrs. Sallie Joy White, of the Boston Herald, for so many years president of the association, an elaborate reception was given on the evening of April 29 at the Parker House. The rooms were elaborately decorated with flowers, and a diamond breastpin, the gift of the members of the association, was presented to their former president.

Every reader of THE WRITER is directly interested in the copyright laws of the United States, a complete reprint of which is included in the magazine this month. It has been prepared with great care by the F. H. Gilson Company, printers and bookbinders, of Boston, and will be found useful for convenient reference.