"Between Two Thieves," by Richard Dehan, is not marred by the fault from which many modern novels suffer, namely slightness of theme and scant material. The author conceives his characters and events on a large scale and gives good measure, heaped and running over. We are permitted to follow the eventful career of one Hector Dunoisse from childhood to helpless old age. Under the corrupt influences of Paris under the presidency of Louis Napoleon, this naturally honorable young military officer abandons his ideals and plunges into every sort of dissipation. His guiding angel, the person who turns him to a life of repentance and self-sacrifice, is Ada Merling, whom we immediately recognize as Florence Nightingale. Vivid scenes from the Crimean War add to the power of the story. It is intense, emotional and idealistic in the extreme. Frederick A. Stokes Company.

William M. Lacy's "An Examination of the Philosophy of the Unknowable as Expounded by Herbert Spencer" attracted wide attention in this country and in England when first published nearly thirty years ago; and was commended by high authorities as a keen, searching and destructive criticism of the Spencerian philosophy. The publication of a new edition of the book by Ernest Lacy-presumably the author's son-from the press of Sherman & Co., Philadelphia, is made the occasion for some disclosures regarding the circumstances of the first publication. It appears that all the arguments which the book contains, with a single exception, were written on slates while the author was a student in a Philadelphia academy; and that when, the year after graduation from the academy, the author developed his arguments into the present work, being unable to obtain a publisher, he became his own publisher and set the type himself. The present edition is

printed from the original plates. It is not surprising to learn that, eight years after the book was printed, the author died from a fever brought on by overwork. These personal details add fresh interest to a work which, in itself, is a remarkably acute bit of philosophical polemics.

That an author should be able to illustrate his own book, or that an artist should have the power to write a text for his pictures, seems an ideal condition. "Bill the Minder," which is surely the most charming juvenile since "Peter Pan," is both written and illustrated by W. Heath Robinson. The book is enriched by 16 colored plates and innumerable drawings in black and white, all of which are characterized by delicious humor, originality and imaginative feeling. They are the kind over which children will pore again and again, and to which grown people will return with a chuckle for their fun and appreciation for their poetic fancy. Bill the Minder is a little boy, but instead of being famous for pranks and mischief he is known as the most successful "minder" of fretful and ill-tempered children in the whole world. One day while Bill was out amusing nine of his young charges, he came across the exiled old king of Troy, who so appealed to the children that they straightway formed an expedition to restore him to his kingdom. The progress of this party and the interesting characters that joined it by the way form as delightful and whimsical a bit of reading as has been printed in many a long day. The author's humor is inexhaustible; sometimes he brings the reader up with a start by some droll turn of phrase or piquant situation, and again his fun is dry and quiet. "Bill the Minder" bids fair to become a classic, and is already one of the rarest literary "finds" of the year. Henry Holt and Company.