LITERATURE, BRITISH, IN 1899. 



437 



way to the pole. Returning to our own country, 

 we have Fifty-two Years in Florida, by John 

 C. Ley; Colorado in Color and Song, from various 

 hands; Nooks and Corners of Old New York, by 

 Charles Hemstreet, illustrated by Edward C. 

 Peixotto; New York's Chinatown, by Louis J. 

 Beck; Old Cambridge, by Thomas Wentworth 

 Higginson; Historical Mansions and Highways 

 around Boston, by Samuel Adams Drake, a new 

 and revised edition of Old Landmarks and His- 

 toric Fields of Middlesex; History Towns of the 

 Middle States, edited by Lyman P. Powell, in the 

 series of American Historical Towns ; and Famous 

 Parks and Public Buildings of America, by John 

 L. Stoddard. 



The table on page 436 gives the statistics of 

 book production during the year, compared with 

 those of 1898, from the columns of the Publish- 

 ers' Weekly. 



LITERATURE, BRITISH, IN 1899. Not- 

 withstanding the outbreak of war during the 

 year, the production of books in England during 

 1899 showed a slight increase over those of 1898, 

 the figures standing respectively 7,567 and 7,516. 

 The decrease from 1897, it w r ill be remembered, 

 was 410 last year. Of the total number of vol- 

 umes issued from the press, 5,971 were new books 

 and 1,596 new editions, as compared with 6,008 

 new books in 1898 and 1,508 new editions. As 

 these last are held a better indication of the value 

 of trade than new works, satisfaction was ex- 

 pressed by the publishing world, especially as the 

 largest increase was shown in new editions of 

 novels, which reached 92, while 67 new books 

 of fiction were also recorded. There was an in- 

 crease of 102 in essays and monographs, 44 in 

 the department of art and science, 32 in books of 

 travel, and 23 in poetry. In political and kin- 

 dred books there was a falling off of 70 from last 

 year, and 177 from 1897. Books of history and 

 biography were less numerous, while theological, 

 educational, and serial works showed nearly the 

 same numbers as last year. Of miscellaneous 

 works there were 200 less. The honors of the 

 year remained with biography, in which several 

 volumes of importance are to be noted. 



Biography. In an embarrassment of riches it 

 is difficult to choose, but The Letters of Robert 

 Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, 1845-'6, 

 in two volumes, given to the public with ques- 

 tionable taste by the writers' son, were welcomed 

 most eagerly by the literary world and enjoyed, 

 albeit with a sense of guilt and stealthinessl The 

 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson to his Family 

 and Friends were edited with notes and an intro- 

 duction by Sidney Colvin, and filled two volumes 

 also, as did The Life and Letters of Sir John 

 Everett Millais, President of the Royal Academy, 

 by his son, John Guille Millais. A. Lys Baldry 

 also wrote on Sir John Everett Millais: His Art 

 and Influence. The Life of William Morris, by 

 J. W. Mackail, in two volumes, was superbly il- 

 lustrated, and one of the most important books 

 of the year. Ruskin, Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelitism : 

 Papers, 1854 to 1862, arranged and edited by Wil- 

 liam Michael Rossetti, were full of the most de- 

 licious gossip .and detail of that remarkable fra- 

 ternity; Pre-Raphaelite Diaries and Letters were 

 also edited by him; and in this connection may 

 be mentioned Pictures and Poems of Dante Ga- 

 briel Rossetti, with an introduction by Fitz Roy 

 Carrington. Letters of Benjamin Jowett were 

 edited by Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell, 

 and The Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. M. 

 O. W. Oliphant were arranged and edited by Mrs. 

 Harry Coghill. Fragments of an Autobiography, 

 by Felix Stone Moscheles, were full of artistic 



and literary interest; from Max Miiller came a 

 second series of Auld Langsyne, devoted to My 

 Indian Friends; and two volumes contained Notes 

 from a Diary kept chiefly in Southern India, 1881- 

 '86, by Sir Mountstuart E. Grant Duff. Two vol- 

 umes of Recollections, 1832 to 1886, came from 

 Sir Algernon West, and Sir Edward Russell re- 

 viewed the same events and personages from the 

 point of view of a newspaper editor in That Re- 

 minds Me . Memories of C. Kegan Paul con- 

 tained the confessions of a publisher; Reminis- 

 cences of Justin McCarthy filled two volumes; 

 and three contained A Sailor's Life under Four 

 Sovereigns, by Admiral Sir Henry Keppel. 

 Sketches from Memory, by George Adolphus 

 Storey, was a characteristically pleasant volume 

 of anecdotes, as was Memories of Half a Cen- 

 tury, by Rev. R. W. Hiley. The Life of William 

 Ewart Gladstone, edited by Sir Wemyss Reid, 

 with contributions by F. W. Hirst, Canon Mac- 

 Coll, Rev. W. Tuckwell, G. W. E. Russell, and 

 others, was completed and issued in book form; 

 Vols. II and III of Sir Robert Peel: From his 

 Private Papers, edited by Charles Stuart Parker, 

 completed that valuable work; Hubert Hervey: 

 Student and Imperialist, was the title of a memoir 

 by Earl Grey of the late administrator of Rho- 

 desia; and from James Milne came The Romance 

 of a Great Pro-consul, Sir George Grey. John 

 Hookham Frere and his Friends, by Gabrielle 

 Festing, contained much interesting information 

 of the times of that " brilliant trifler " ; Francis 

 Turner Palgrave: His Journals and Memories of 

 his Life were edited by his daughter, Gwenllian 

 F. Palgrave; and Letters of Walter Savage Lan- 

 dor, Private and Public, came to us edited by 

 Stephen Wheeler. Letters of Thomas Carlyle to 

 his Youngest Sister were edited with an intro- 

 ductory essay by Charles Townsend Copeland. 

 To Arthur H. Beavan we were indebted for James 

 and Horace Smith, Joint Authors of Rejected 

 Addresses, a family narrative based upon hither- 

 to unpublished diaries, letters, and other docu- 

 ments; Vols. II and III were sent out of the 

 new edition of Byron's works, containing his Let- 

 ters and Journals, edited by Rowland E. Prothero ; 

 Lamb and Hazlitt was the latest batch of Eliana 

 by W. Carew Hazlitt; Unpublished Letters of 

 Dean Swift were edited by George Birbeck Hill, 

 who contributed an introduction to one of the 

 two volumes of Eighteenth Century Letters edited 

 by R. Brimley Johnson, sent out during the year, 

 devoted to Johnson Lord Chesterfield. That 

 covering Swift Addison Steele had an introduc- 

 tion by Stanley Lane-Poole. Two volumes con- 

 tained the Life, Writings, and Correspondence of 

 George Borrow, 1803-1881, by William J. Knapp, 

 accompanied with a portrait and illustrations; 

 Hood in Scotland was the title of reminiscences 

 collected and arranged by Alexander Elliot in 

 this the centenary year of the poet; John A. 

 Doyle edited a Memoir of Susan Ferrier ; and from 

 Walter Herries Pollock we had an essay in crit- 

 icism of Jane Austen: Her Contemporaries and 

 Herself. The Life and Letters of John Donne, 

 Deane of St. Paul's, 1573-1631, by Edmund Gosse, 

 was reckoned one of the important contribu- 

 tions of the year. Ellis Yarnall contributed 

 Wordsworth and the Coleridges; a Life of Wil- 

 liam Makepeace Thackeray, in two volumes, was 

 written by Lewis Melville; and the Biographical 

 Edition of Thackeray's works was completed with 

 the issue of the four remaining volumes, the bio- 

 graphical introductions being by his daughter, 

 Mrs. Anne Ritchie. Stephen Gwynn contributed 

 Tennyson : A Critical Study, to the Victorian 

 Era Series, and from George Edward Bateman 



