Messrs. Chatto & Windus have embarked on the not inconsiderable enterprise of a new edition of Thiers's "Consulate and Empire," in twelve volumes, with steel plates. Mr. Swan Sonnenschein is to issue the English version of M. Jusserand's "Literary History of the English People," and one is blissfully certain that M. Jusserand is not likely, as many Frenchmen have been and a few are, to plagiarise from Horrebow and write "The English people have no literary history, and English men of letters very little." If Dr. Dollinger's "Addresses on Literary and Historical Subjects," translated by Margaret Warre for Mr. Murray, do not secure readers, it will certainly not be because that Bavarian sage has not been "took up" (as Lady Clavering would say) by persons of distinction amongst us.

Finally, to conclude this, I hope not too dry, catalogue, let us acknowledge that there is a great deal in names by mentioning two books about them. One, an "Encyclopædia of Proper Names," to be issued by Mr. Unwin, is anonymous but big, and is to contain in about one-fourth of a cubic foot 50,000 appellations; the other, less monumental and less ambitious, is to be written by Canon Isaac Taylor, and published by Messrs. Rivington, Percival & Co. It directs itself chiefly to the nomenclature of historical geography-a subject quite sufficiently interesting and indeed quite sufficiently wide.

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

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II. FICTION.

HE man on the watch-tower has, from the days of Eschylus, inclined to pessimism; and the easiest and most fashionable thing, in taking an outlook upon the field of fiction that lies before us, would undoubtedly be to groan of poverty and decay. Nothing, after all, is so popular as condemnation, but, at the same time, nothing is so fallible; and just now I would not hesitate to give the pessimist the lie direct, and to maintain that the publishing season which is just opening before us is fuller of healthy, wealthy, and wise promise for the best of its novelists than any we have seen during the last few years. There is a new spirit astir: a new order is on the eve of establishment; and fiction will probably undergo, during the next few months, as wholesome a weeding-out and re-arrangement as it has ever experienced in the history of letters. The result cannot but be of vital importance to its welfare.

In the first place, we stand, in no ordinary sense, at a parting of the ways. For some time there has been a vague suggestion of discontent with the present conditions of the book market; there have been occasional eruptions into print of publishers' grievances and booksellers' hardships, which, though they may have passed for little at the moment, were still unmistakable signs of the times. At last the storm has burst. It was supposed that publishers would, in the event, revolt against the libraries; but the miracle of miracles has happened the libraries have revolted against the publishers. The immediate result is the suppression of the three-volume novel. At present, perhaps, we have hardly grasped all that this suppression will mean for the future of literature; even now, however, we can foresee certain inevitable effects. There must be a wide clearing of the ground. The number of novelists whose literary value is inconsiderable, but whose library circulation has been the sole reason for their existence, is very large; and most of these writers will now find their occupation gone. While it was necessary to supply a certain cargo of three-volume material to the provinces, the circulating library had its use for them; but they never touched the purchasing public, and in single-volume form they will cease to be valuable to Messrs. Mudie. In the course of justice, then, they go to the wall. There is no doubt that, at first sight, this general reversal seems a hardship; but when we reflect that the position which these novelists filled in the literary world was at once easy and artificial, that they were simply supplying a demand of trade and not of art, it cannot, I suppose, be denied that their loss will really be a benefit to literature.

Indeed, at the very outset of the present season we seem to trace the immediate advantages of the reformation. We have lately been oppressed by a distinctly manufactured "boom" in fiction—the novel of feminine sensation. The eagerness for this unwholesome fare has resulted in the making of many reputations built upon a basis less stable, perhaps, than any in the history of fiction. Names have leapt into notoriety for performances that lacked every quality except the license of speech, and the vineyard of fiction has been for the hour given over to strange and alien labourers. But with the coming of the new season we shall find (I think to the general satisfaction) that we are settling down again into a rational and normal condition. The summer's rest, the period of Henley and Lords, of moor and loch, has

brought us back to a wholesome frame of mind, and the fiction of female physiology has been left behind.

The new movement is the old and eternal one; the tendency is once more to romance. The reputation of Mr. Hall Caine's "The Manxman," of Mr. Blackmore's "Perlycross," and of Mr. Stevenson's "The Ebb-Tide," are sufficiently new and lively to be mentioned as current topics; and these three books, it will be remembered, were among the first comers of the present season. It may be, perhaps, that Mr. Blackmore has done stronger and more individual work than in this his latest novel, but the inimitable atmosphere of the country blows as freshly across the pages of "Perlycross" as over those of "Lorna Doone," while Mr. Stevenson, however many the shortcomings of his latest work, has certainly never before written so effectively in collaboration as in "The Ebb-Tide," and Mr. Hall Caine is allowed on every hand to have succeeded to a new level altogether with the publication of his eager and manly "Manxman."

The lead thus set is being admirably followed. Mr. Stanley Weyman, who has been one of the most conspicuous and consistent successes of the present year, is ready with "My Lady Rotha" (Innes), Mr. W. Clark Russell has entrusted Messrs. Chatto and Windus with the manuscript of "The Good Ship 'Mohock,'" his latest contribution to the romance of the sea; Mr. John A. Steuart, whose "Kilgroom" made him an early reputation, will shortly issue, through Messrs. Sampson Low & Co., a new story upon which he has been occupied for some two years, with the promising and stirring title "In the Day of Battle"; and Mr. W. Laird Clowes may be expected to have made an exciting and well-informed novel of his "Double Emperor," which is to proceed from the house of Mr. Edward Arnold. Then there is also Mr. Gilbert Parker, who has, I believe, been spending his summer holiday in Lincolnshire upon a complete revision of that already excellent story, "The Trail of the Sword" (Methuen). Mr. Parker, in this little matter, has set a new fashion for himself. Instead of resting content with work which has passed the approval of editors, he lets a considerable period elapse between the conclusion of his story serially and its appearance in book-form, and during that period he re-reads and retouches as though engaged upon a new story. It will be interesting to see how his latest romance issues from the hands of the polisher. But we must pass on.

Before, however, we leave the subject of romance, it is worth noting that, when we consider that, in addition to these names, Mr. William Black's "Highland Cousins" (Sampson Low) is just now among the works most sought for at the libraries, it is impossible to deny that the present season's output is more than commonly representative of what is best in our romantic fiction. We miss, it is true, the name of Mr. Anthony Hope; but it is scarcely probable that, after the genuine success of "The Prisoner of Zenda," he will long be content with clever, but somewhat trivial, satires of society life. He is sure to be among the romanciers before the

summer.

From romance the pen slips naturally to fairy-lore; and, thanks to the magic wand of Mr. Andrew Lang, the Christmas season is still suggestive of gnomes and pixies. That versatile editor is again ready with his "Fairy Book," the fourth, and this time a yellow one,—as is but fitting in the year of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley and the editorial indiscretions of Vigo Street. Moreover, Mr. Lang has written an introduction to a translation of F. Van Eeden's "Little Johannes," which Mr. Heinemann is shortly to bring out a story, it may be added, so full of delicate imagination and of pathos, that in its new dress, as in its old, it ought to find many adherents. There is to be a collection of Cossack fairy tales, too, translated by Mr. R. Nisbet Bain, and published by Messrs. Lawrence & Bullen, whose tasteful edition of Hans Andersen was one of the most popular Christmas books of 1893. And, since fairy tales are supposed (though the limitation is questionable) to be intended for children's consumption, this is, perhaps, a fitting place to mention a new book by Blanche Willis Howard (Madame von Teuffel), "A Battle and a Boy," which will also see the light in October. The tale, if I mistake not, appeared first in Atalanta, and a beautiful piece of work it is, delightfully simple and sympathetic, in every sense a book for all ages and for any hour.

But we have tarried too long before turning to several past-masters of the art of fiction, from whom we have long since become accustomed to expect distinguished entertainment. One recalls at once the name of Mr. Walter Besant. During the coming season he will be represented by two works of fiction, besides a volume of essays, the discussion of which does not come within the province of these random notes. In the early autumn, Messrs. Chatto & Windus will publish a twoVOL. XI.-No. 65.

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As for

volume novel, "In Deacon's Orders," and early in 1895 a full-length three-decker, "Beyond the Dreams of Avarice," each of which is sure to bear the impress of its author's careful and masterly hand. Mr. Marion Crawford, his fecundity seems illimitable. "Love in Idleness" (Macmillan) is due during the coming month, and it is said that he will be represented by yet another story in the immediate future. Dr. George Macdonald, the veteran novelist, is also the author of a new "Lilith," which may be expected with no long delay. Then, too, Dr. Conan Doyle has sent to press a new volume of short stories, which take the shape of incidents in a doctor's life-the title "Round the Red Lamp"; Mr. George Gissing has finished "In the Year of Jubilee" (Lawrence & Bullen), Mr. Baring Gould's new novel is to be called " Kitty Alone" (Methuen), and Mr. Bret Harte will be represented by "The Bellringer of Angel's." From America we are also to get a new story by Mr. G. W. Cable, "John March, Southerner." These authors are old faces that we could ill-spare from the library fireside; and older, and perhaps dearer still, comes the reverend name of Dickens, whose "Oliver Twist" is to be issued in an edition de luxe, with Cruikshank's water-colour drawings, by Messrs. Chapman & Hall. I can imagine no pleasanter present for a reader who has the courage to resist the affectation of carping at a genius whose principal fault appears to be that his work is growing mellow with time.

And so to the young men; and one always thinks of Mr. W. H. Mallock among the young. He has just concluded a long novel which will start its serial course at once in The Fortnightly Review, and subsequently appear in book-form from Henrietta Street. Mr. Crockett, too, is not going to rest for long upon the laurels which he reaped from "The Raiders." He has a short story ready, one of Mr. Fisher Unwin's natty Autonym series, "The Play Actress," and he is also to enjoy the luxury of a limited edition of "The Stickit Minister," with illustrations by Mr. Ernest Waterlow, A.R.A., Mr. Joseph Pennell, and others whose names are written in black and white. John Oliver Hobbes is also to appear in costlier form than hitherto, her "Pseudonym" contributions having been collected into a single volume, and about the same time she will tempt the elements with her first effort towards a long story, which has a name that refuses to be remembered, and will be published by Messrs. Henry & Co. Those who appreciated that caustic, but not ineffective, satire, "The Autobiography of