“Except Mrs. Browning, Jean Ingelow is first among the women whom the world calls poets,” —The Independent.

“Miss Ingelow’s new volume exhibits abundant evidence that time, study, and devotion to her vocation have both elevated and mellowed the powers of the most gifted poetess we possess, now that Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Adelaide Procter sing no more on earth. Lincoln­shire has claims to be considered the Arcadia of England at present, having given birth both to Mr. Tennyson and our present Lady Laureate.” —London Morning Star.

“We have read and reread, always with a better and softer heart. . . . We wish everybody loved Jean Ingelow’s writings, or, rather, that everybody would read them, for their admiration would follow.” —Providence Post.

“The book is certainly among the most beautiful of the holiday offerings. The lovers of the poet will not tolerate even this slightly qualified praise, but pronounce it the most beautiful.”

“This work is an acknowledged triumph of typographic art, with its delicate creamy page and red-line border.”

“Simple in style, warm with human affection, and written in faultless English, these five stories are studies for the artist, sermons for the thoughtful, and a rare source of delight for all who can find pleasure in really good works of prose fiction. . . . They are prose poems, carefully meditated, and exquisitely touched in by a teacher ready to sympathize with every joy and sorrow.” —Athenæum.

“This is one of the most charming juvenile books ever laid on our table. It is beautifully printed and bound, and profusely illustrated. The stories are very interesting, and breathe a sweet, pure, happy Christian spirit. Jean Ingelow, the noble English poet, second only to Mrs. Browning, bends easily and gracefully from the heights of thought and fine imagination to commune with the minds and hearts of children; to sympathize with their little joys and sorrows; to feel for their temptations. She is a safe guide for the little pilgrims; for her paths, though ’paths of pleasantness,’ lead straight upward.” —Grace Greenwood in “The Little Pilgrim.”

“A lovely story, told in most sweet and simple language. There is a deep spiritual signi­ficance in the character of the poor half-idiot boy, which should touch the hearts of ’children of a larger growth.’” —Grace Greenwood in “The Little Pilgrim.”

“‘On the Heights,’ in its calm beauty, is like a hillside meadow on a bright May morning, when every blade of grass holds a sparkling world, and the air is stirred by no sound save the matin songs of the birds, and no darkness falls upon the ground save the occasional shadow of a cloud, which creeps slowly away, giving place to the full flood of sunlight.

“The ‘Heights’ are heights of social position, of intellectual striving, and of moral purity; and the problems treated are the deepest problems of life.” —Rochester Democrat.

“The remarkable thing about this book is the knowledge as well as the candor displayed in describing the different sects, their peculiar beliefs, the varieties of belief existing in the same sect, and the history of the various denomi­nations; and while there are now and then sharp thrusts at some of the denomi­national points, a genuinely charitable and Christian spirit pervades the whole.” —Springfield Republican.

“Often playful, but always in earnest, the writer says a great deal which will be entirely new to minds that should be familiar with all that concerns the lives of boys. His book, indeed, is one that demands the best attention of parents, especially, and ought to receive it.” —The Leader.

“Not since Henry Taylor wrote his essay on children have we seen anything on the important subject of this work so sensibly conceived or uttered so gracefully. It ought to find its way at once to the hands of every pupil teacher in the country; but the oldest member of the profession will be a man of no ordinary accom­plishment and experience if he does not here find something to encourage, to incite, to instruct, and to console him.” —London Daily Review.

“Her own contributions to it are exceedingly brief, but her individu­ality permeates the whole work and gives it unity. She was undoubtedly a woman of genius; but it was in her life alone, in her noble friendships, in her unselfish devotion to all bound to her by any ties, that gave her genius expression, and it is only fair, therefore, that she should attain immortality not through the labor of her own spirit, but rather through the praise of those by whom she was so well beloved.” —Virginia Vaughan in “The Leader.”

“The Life and Letters of Madame Swetchine, is a companion volume to Mme. Recamier, and both works give us two phases of contem­porary Paris life, and two characters that, with some accidental resem­blances, present strong points of contrast.

“The social influence both women exercised was good, but when we compare the two, Madame Recamier’s sinks to a much lower level. She (Madame R.) was gentle and kind, ready to sacrifice herself to any extent to advance the material influence of her friends, but she was essentially a worldly woman; whereas Madame Swetchine was ‘in the world but not of it.’ She exerted an immense spiritual as well as intel­lectual influence on all who approached her, and raised her friends to her own level. Madame Recamier made her associates pleased with themselves, whilst Madame Swetchine taught hers to forget themselves.

“As a biography, the life of Madame Swetchine is more satis­factory and much better written; that of Madame Recamier is fuller of personal anecdote respecting distin­guished persons, and as a book of reference is more valuable. We frequently meet the same people in each, and in this respect they serve to illustrate and explain each other.” —Providence Journal.

“Mr. Alger is among our most diligent students and earnest thinkers; and this volume will add to the reputation he has fairly earned as the occupant of quite a prominent place in American literature. He deserves all the popularity he has won; for, always thoughtful, sincere, and excellent of purpose with his pen, he allows no success to seduce him into any content with what he has already accom­plished. His ‘Friendships of Women,’ for many reasons, will have a wide circle of readers, and cannot fail to increase our sense of the worth of human nature, as it enthusi­astically delineates some of its most elevated manifesta­tions. By telling what woman has been, he tells what woman may be; intellec­tually as well as morally, in the beauty of her mind as well as in the affections of her heart, and the loveliness of her person.” —Salem Gazette.

Pall Mall Gazette.— “The size and shape of this volume justifies the name given to the series, and it is as well and as clearly printed as many a book of double the price.”

Athenæum.— “The size is handy, the type neat, the paper good, and the price moderate.”

Illustrated Times.— “We hail this new series of ‘Handy Volumes’ with pleasure, and shall be careful to add each work as it appears to our own private library; and would advise all who value good, substantial, interesting reading to go and do likewise.”

London News.— “The handy volume,—the pretty volume,—the volume of good reading, is a cheap volume.”

“Of the many ‘Happy Thoughts’ which have occurred either to Mr. Burnand or his hero, the thought of having such thoughts is the happiest. As we read, we laugh and we admire. Mr. Burnand is so fertile in extravagant comedy, that we have no other resource; but, at least, our laughter is genuine. We do not feel ashamed of having been amused. There is no painful feeling of humiliation afterwards, like the ‘next morning’ which follows a revel. We may say of Mr. Burnand’s fun, that there is not a headache in a hogshead of it. Utterly ludicrous as his characters are, they are neither monstro­sities nor abortions. They are exagger­ations of what is perfectly real, living ‘humors,’ combined too copiously, but not invented. But then he overlays them with such a vivid wealth of caricature that we forget our first impression, and give ourselves up to the most uncritical enjoyment. . . . . We cannot decide whether we ought to quote or not; we find ourselves again reading and laughing: and, after all, we resolve upon sending our readers to the book itself, that they may read and laugh with us.”

“‘Happy Thought!’ (Mr. Burnand must have said to himself when he reprinted these papers)—‘puzzle the critics.’ The present critic confesses himself puzzled. There is such a fund of humor in every page of the book that calm analysis is out of the question. Mr. Burnand is not only comic, but he knows it and he means it. He contrives the most ludicrous situations and thrusts his man into them simply to see what he will say. It is not enough that his man should drink too much at a club dinner, and take short-hand notes of his inarti­culate phrases, but he must go and have a serious interview with his ‘s’lic’tor,’ merely in order that his note-book may record all the stages in the typical development of drunkenness. This interview with the solicitor is, perhaps, the most charac­teristic part of the book. It is marked by more than Mr. Burnand’s usual daring. The idea of a man writing down in a note-book, ‘Happ Thght.—Go to bed in my boots,’ is not comic if you try to analyze it. But then you don’t analyze it. You accept it without scrutiny. You know the whole thing is a caricature, and so long as you laugh heartily you don’t ask whether this or that detail is out of drawing. If you did, the absurdity of a man who can’t speak plainly writing down his words exactly as he pronounces them would of course shock your nice sense of proportion. Somehow or other, it does not shock ours. We are in Mr. Burnand’s hands. He may do what he likes with us.”

“It is a handsome little book, and as good as it is good-looking. We do not know when we have seen more fun, or a truer or better kind of fun, than that which sparkles from end to end of Mr. Burnand’s brochure.”

“Mr. Burnand is a skilled inventor of clever nonsense, and there is this peculi­arity about his fooling which distin­guishes it from funny writing in general,—he is never vulgar. A more idle book could not, perhaps, be bought, or one which a reader would sooner buy when he or she wanted to feel idle. It needs no more effort to take in what Mr. Burnand wishes to say than it does to smoke a cigar. . . . . He only aims to amuse, and he succeeds admirably.”

“This is a story which partakes somewhat of the domestic style of the German novelists without their extreme tediousness. It represents certain phases of life which afford but little scope for novelty or adventure, but which never­theless call out whatever there is of good or bad, of passionate or enthu­siastic, in the nature of each individual. . . . . Doctor Jacob is the centre figure, to which all the others are subordinate; one of the most skilfully drawn, original, and unsatis­factory characters we have ever met with. A man of brilliant attainments, not bad at heart, but seemingly devoid of principle, with a profound appre­ciation of all that is good in others, and trusting to his intel­lectual strength to keep him from the conse­quences of his errors. Though sixty years of age, his attractions are so great that he wins the love of a very young girl, whose affection is displayed with such artless simplicity, and yet with such earnestness that we can scarcely blame the doctor for lacking courage to resist the temptation of loving in return.”

“Her hero, Doctor Jacob, strikes us as a new acquain­tance in fiction. He is a clergyman of the English Church, who comes to Frankfort for the purpose of raising funds to aid him in fulfilling his duties as a self-appointed missionary to the Jews. He is sixty years old, but handsomer than most handsome men of thirty. He has also a ‘vast and well-stored mind,’ great knowledge of human nature, manners which fascinate everybody, and a ’gift’ in preaching which charms money out of all pockets. The actions of this aged Adonis do not in all respects conform to the received codes of either clerical or lay morality. In the first place, the reader is left until nearly the close of the book in suspense, which, considering that it is intentional on the author’s part, is not too harrowing, as to the nature of his relations with Miss Macartney, the English governess in a school super­intended by the Fräulein Fink. Miss Macartney is evidently greatly troubled by Doctor Jacob’s advent in Frankfort; she has a horror of meeting him, and yet she loves him tenderly.”

“This is a novel of the higher order,—a German story told in that smooth, graceful, leisurely style that contrasts so strongly with the crispness and sparkle of some of our most acceptable American novels,—an admirable style for certain purposes, and perfectly adapted to a minute and subtle analysis of character like this. Dr. Jacob, the hero, is a nobler sort of Harold Skimpole, with none of the childish incon­sequence of that exasperating innocent. This is a generous-gifted, high-toned, and powerful nature, marred by one fatal flaw,—a tendency to profuseness and improvi­dence. The reader feels throughout all the charm and attrac­tiveness of the winsome and benignant old man who, all his life, had ‘plucked down hearts to pleasure him, as you would roses from a bough.’ Yet his career is carried out unflinchingly to its logical sequence, and we see the gray-haired Sybarite sitting solitary and repentant among the ruins of a mistaken life, yet we view the wreck with compassion, and not without respect for the inherent nobleness visible through all. Only a profound student of human nature could have drawn such a portrait.”

The ‘Layman’s Breviary’ will adorn drawing-room centre-tables, boudoirs, library nooks; it will be a favorite travelling companion, and be carried on summer excursions to read under trees and on verandas. For every day of the year there are thoughts, counsels, aspirations—many of them Oriental in tone, or patriarchal in spirit; there are deline­ations of nature, pure utterances of faith; each page contains fresh and earnest expressions of a poetic, believing, humane soul—often clad in exquisite language. It is eminently a household book, and one to be taken up and enjoyed at intervals.” —Boston Transcript.

“Each poem is in itself a sermon; not of dry, theological dogmas, but the love and care of the Infinite, the yearning and outreaching of the human to grasp the divine. It is a book not to be lightly read and carelessly tossed aside, but to be studied daily until the lessons it conveys are learned, and its comforting words written on every heart. Of the author’s religious opinions we know nothing; what creed he subscribes to we cannot tell; but we do know that he is a true worshipper of God, and lover of his fellow-men. This book should be on every table; all households should possess it; we cannot too highly recommend it to the notice of all. It has been truly said, that ‘these blooming pictures of Nature, praising the love, the goodness, the wisdom of the Creator and His work, form in truth a poetical book of devotion for the layman whom the dogma does not satisfy—a breviary for man.’” —The Wide World.

“Some thirty-five years ago the publication of “My Prisons, Memoirs of Silvio Pellico,” first appealed to the sympathies of the Italian people. The history of a martyr to freedom is always enter­taining, and the pathos and beauty which surround the narrative in question have always kept alive the interest of all intelligent nations. It ranks, therefore, deservedly high in biogra­phical literature. The present edition is a very superior one, and is introduced by Epes Sargent, who vigorously reviews the despotism of Austria in the incar­ceration of Pellico, and the changes which have since occurred in European politics.” —Chicago Evening Journal.

“The story is simply told, for adventures like those of the author need no graces of style or highly wrought figures. The book has a charm which few novels possess; indeed, one can hardly believe that it is true, and that so few years have passed since men of noble birth and fine culture were condemned to suffer for years in prison on account of their political opinions.” —Boston Transcript.

“One of the pleasantest books we have read for a long time is ’Little Women,’ the story of four young girls,—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. This is a thoroughly natural and charming book, fresh and full of life, and we heartily recommend it to all young people, big or little. We gave it to a little girl of twelve to read, for whose opinion we have great respect, and she pronounced it just the nicest book. ’I could read it right through three times, and it would be nicer and funnier every time.’ And, to our certain knowledge, she read it twice in one week, and would have read it again had not the book been carried off.” —Putnam’s Magazine.

“It is seldom we find a story so rich in material. There is truth, simplicity, pathos, romance, variety, purity, kindness enough concen­trated for a dozen ordinary books. We give our unqualified approbation to the artistic merits and unwearying interest of The Little Gypsy, who has stolen our heart by her rare loveliness and goodness, just as she did that of all those who came within the sphere of her magnetic influence.” —Boston Transcript.

These illustrated picture-books are produced in the highest style of the art, and will please the little folks beyond measure.

“The illustrations are very successful, and are just naughty enough to please the little folks. They always take special pleasure in the tragic element, and find stories of perfectly good boys and girls too tame and uninter­esting to suit their desire to see in books just such children as they are themselves,—passionate, proud, vain, struggling with their evil impulses, and only growing better by constant effort, aided by wise precept and the highest of all influences, good example.” —Boston Transcript.

This narrative of a voyage planned by four adventurers, who, fascinated by reading Robinson Crusoe, wished to become great travellers, is made irresis­tibly humorous by Frölich’s admirable designs.