(Inclusion in this category does not preclude a more extended notice.)

The Return of the Prodigal, by May Sinclair. [The Macmillan Company, New York.] Eight short stories, all subtly done. The Cosmopolitan proves beyond a doubt that women, or at least the thousandth woman, is capable of a disinterested love of life and of nature. It is a big story and a very finished one.

John Addington Symonds, by Van Wyck Brooks. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] A biography of rare charm and distinction in which Mr. Brooks builds a clear picture of Symonds’s life as it is related to our day.

The Sister of the Wind, and Other Poems, by Grace Fallow Norton. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] Some of this will disappoint lovers of Little Gray Songs From St. Joseph’s—in fact, none of the poems here has such extraordinary poignancy. But there are many that are worth knowing.

The Continental Drama of Today, by Barrett H. Clark. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.] Invaluable to the student of continental drama. A half dozen pages of critical analysis devoted to each of thirty modern playwrights.

Stories and Poems and Other Uncollected Writing, by Bret Harte, compiled by Charles Meeker Kozlay, with an introductory account of Harte’s early contributions to the California press. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] A very beautiful Riverside Press volume with photogravures.

I Should Say So, by James Montgomery Flagg. [George H. Doran Company, New York.] Yes, he is silly; but Mr. Flagg is so nicely naughty and so naughtily human that you simply must laugh.

Broken Music, by Phyllis Bottome. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] Charming and well done. The story of a young French boy’s struggle to create music, and his success after the tradition of a “broken heart” had been fulfilled.

The Old Game, by Samuel G. Blythe. [George H. Doran Company, New York.] A temperance tract by a man who knows; minus sanctimoniousness and plus a punch.

Dramatic Portaits, by P. P. Howe. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] One man’s opinion of the modern dramatists. A “shelf book” for occasional reference.

Billy and Hans, by W. J. Stillman. [Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine.] A charming story of the most temperamental of pets, the squirrel. A Mosher book bound in a cover dark enough to stand wear. A distinct relief from the Alice blue and pale old rose of Mr. Mosher’s more delicate periods.

Billy, by Maud Thornhill Porter. [Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine.] The true story of a canary bird. One of those little documents written for the enjoyment of a family circle and read on winter evenings. Bright, human, and personal.

The Social Significance of the Modern Drama, by Emma Goldman. [Richard G. Badger, Boston.] Miss Goldman discusses Ibsen, Strindberg, Sudermann, Hauptmann, Wedekind, Maeterlinck, Rostand, Brieux, Shaw, Galsworthy, Stanley Houghton, Githa Sowerby, Yeats, Lenox Robinson, T. G. Murray, Tolstoy, Tchekhof, Gorki, and Andreyev, outlining the plays of each and emphasizing their relation to the problem of modern society. She is the interpreter here rather than the propagandist, and her interpretations are not academic discourses. They give you the plays partly by quotation, partly in crisp narrative, and they are not the kind of interpretations that make the authors wish they had never written plays. Whether you like Emma Goldman or not, you will get a more compact and comprehensive working-knowledge of the modern drama from her book than from any other recent compilation we know of.