A NEW ENGLAND READER

A New England Reader is a bedside potpourri of quite short selections from authors more or less (sometimes less) associated with New England, from William Bradford and Jonathan Edwards through Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Whittier to Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Henry Adams, Sarah Orne Jewett, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell and E.E. Cummings. No attempt is made to establish a pattern or follow a thread; the point is, apparently, that New England has given birth to, or been the sometime residence of, some fine writers and historians, though not so many as there used to be,- and here are some of them. Under this formula Clarence Day and Bernard Berenson can appear within the same covers. The selections are not confined to New England subjects for we have William Dean Howells on Zola, Santayana on the British character, Clarence King on the Sierras, and Louisa May Alcott on her nursing experiences in the Civil War. Each author has a short biographical note: these are perhaps the most interesting and useful part of a book which doubtless will find its way to many a Christmas tree.