Part 28

THE STORY OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. By Padre Luis Coloma, S.J., of the Real Academia Española. Translated by Lady Moreton. With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.

⁂ “A new type of book, half novel and half history,” as it is very aptly called in a discourse delivered on the occasion of Padre Coloma’s election to the Academia de España, the story of the heroic son of Charles V. is retold by one of Spain’s greatest living writers with a vividness and charm all his own. The childhood of Jeromin, afterwards Don John of Austria reads like a mysterious romance. His meteoric career is traced through the remaining chapters of the book; first as the attractive youth; the cynosure of all eyes that were bright and gay at the court of Philip II., which Padre Coloma maintains was less austere than is usually supposed; then as conqueror of the Moors, culminating as the “man from God” who saved Europe from the terrible peril of a Turkish dominion; triumphs in Tunis; glimpses of life in the luxury loving Italy of the day; then the sad story of the war in the Netherlands, when our hero, victim of an infamous conspiracy, is left to die of a broken heart; his end hastened by fever, and, maybe, by the “broth of Doctor Ramirez.” Perhaps more fully than ever before is laid bare the intrigue which led to the cruel death of the secretary, Escovedo, including the dramatic interview between Philip II. and Antonio Perez, in the lumber room of the Escorial. A minute account of the celebrated auto da fe in Valladolid cannot fail to arrest attention, nor will the details of several of the imposing ceremonies of Old Spain be less welcome than those of more intimate festivities in the Madrid of the sixteenth century, or of everyday life in a Spanish castle.

⁂ “This book has all the fascination of a vigorous roman à clef . . . the translation is vigorous and idiomatic.”—Mr. Owen Edwards in Morning Post.

THIRTEEN YEARS OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE. By Mrs. Alec Tweedie. With Nineteen Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net. Third Edition.

⁂ It is a novel idea for an author to give her reasons for taking up her pen as a journalist and writer of books. This Mrs. Alec Tweedie has done in “Thirteen Years of a Busy Woman’s Life.” She tells a dramatic story of youthful happiness, health, wealth, and then contrasts that life with the thirteen years of hard work that followed the loss of her husband, her father, and her income in quick succession in a few weeks. Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s books of travel and biography are well-known, and have been through many editions, even to shilling copies for the bookstalls. This is hardly an autobiography, the author is too young for that, but it gives romantic, and tragic peeps into the life of a woman reared in luxury, who suddenly found herself obliged to live on a tiny income with two small children, or work—and work hard—to retain something of her old life and interests. It is a remarkable story with many personal sketches of some of the best-known men and women of the day.

⁂ “One of the gayest and sanest surveys of English society we have read for years.”—Pall Mall Gazette.

⁂ “A pleasant laugh from cover to cover.”—Daily Chronicle.

THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN THE XVIITH CENTURY. By Charles Bastide. With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

⁂ The author of this book of essays on the intercourse between England and France in the seventeenth century has gathered much curious and little-known information. How did the travellers proceed from London to Paris? Did the Frenchmen who came over to England learn, and did they ever venture to write English? An almost unqualified admiration for everything French then prevailed: French tailors, milliners, cooks, even fortune-tellers, as well as writers and actresses, reigned supreme. How far did gallomania affect the relations between the two countries? Among the foreigners who settled in England none exercised such varied influence as the Hugenots; students of Shakespeare and Milton can no longer ignore the Hugenot friends of the two poets, historians of the Commonwealth must take into account the “Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres.” the French gazette, issued on the Puritan side, by some enterprising refugee. Is it then possible to determine how deeply the refugees impressed English thought? Such are the main questions to which the book affords an answer. With its numerous hitherto unpublished documents and illustrations, drawn from contemporary sources, it cannot fail to interest those to whom a most brilliant and romantic period in English history must necessarily appeal.

THE VAN EYCKS AND THEIR ART. By W. H. James Weale, with the co-operation of Maurice Brockwell. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

⁂ The large book on “Hubert and John Van Eyck” which Mr. Weale published in 1908 through Mr. John Lane was instantly recognised by the reviewers and critics as an achievement of quite exceptional importance. It is now felt that the time has come for a revised and slightly abridged edition of that which was issued four years ago at £5 5s. net. The text has been compressed in some places and extended in others, while certain emendations have been made, and after due reflection, the plan of the book has been materially recast. This renders it of greater assistance to the student.

The large amount of research work and methodical preparation of a revised text obliged Mr. Weale, through failing health and eyesight, to avail himself of the services of Mr. Brockwell, and Mr. Weale gives it as his opinion in the new Foreword that he doubts whether he could have found a more able collaborator than Mr. Brockwell to edit this volume.

“The Van Eycks and their Art,” so far from being a mere reprint at a popular price of “Hubert and John Van Eyck,” contains several new features, notable among which are the inclusion of an Appendix giving details of all the sales at public auction in any country from 1662 to 1912 of pictures reputed to be by the Van Eycks. An entirely new and ample Index has been compiled, while the bibliography, which extends over many pages, and the various component parts of the book have been brought abreast of the most recent criticism. Detailed arguments are given for the first time of a picture attributed to one of the brothers Van Eyck in a private collection in Russia.

In conclusion it must be pointed out that Mr. Weale has, with characteristic care, read through the proofs and passed the whole book for press.

The use of a smaller format and of thinner paper renders the present edition easier to handle as a book of reference.

COKE OF NORFOLK AND HIS FRIENDS. The Life of Thomas Coke, First Earl of Leicester and of Holkham. By A. M. W. Stirling. New Edition, revised, with some additions. With 19 Illustrations. In one volume. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. By Joseph Turquan. Author of “The Love Affairs of Napoleon,” “The Wife of General Bonaparte.” Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

⁂ “The Empress Josephine” continues and completes the graphically drawn life story begun in “The Wife of General Bonaparte” by the same author, takes us through the brilliant period of the Empire, shows us the gradual development and the execution of the Emperor’s plan to divorce his middle-aged wife, paints in vivid colours the picture of Josephine’s existence after her divorce, tells us how she, although now nothing but his friend, still met him occasionally and corresponded frequently with him, and how she passed her time in the midst of her miniature court. This work enables us to realise the very genuine affection which Napoleon possessed for his first wife, an affection which lasted till death closed her eyes in her lonely hermitage at La Malmaison, and until he went to expiate at Saint Helena his rashness in braving all Europe. Comparatively little is known of the period covering Josephine’s life after her divorce, and yet M. Turquan has found much to tell us that is very interesting; for the ex-Empress in her two retreats, Navarre and La Malmaison, was visited by many celebrated people, and after the Emperor’s downfall was so ill-judged as to welcome and fete several of the vanquished hero’s late friends, now his declared enemies. The story of her last illness and death forms one of the most interesting chapters in this most complete work upon the first Empress of the French.

NAPOLEON IN CARICATURE: 1795-1821. By A. M. Broadley. With an Introductory Essay on Pictorial Satire as a Factor in Napoleonic History, by J. Holland Rose, Litt. D. (Cantab.). With 24 full-page Illustrations in Colour and upwards of 200 in Black and White from rare and unique originals. 2 Vols. Demy 8vo. 42s. net.

Also an Edition de Luxe. 10 guineas net.

NAPOLEON’S LAST CAMPAIGN IN GERMANY. By F. Loraine Petre. Author of “Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland,” “Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia,” etc. With 17 Maps and Plans. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

⁂ In the author’s two first histories of Napoleon’s campaigns (1806 and 1807) the Emperor is at his greatest as a soldier. The third (1809) showed the commencement of the decay of his genius. Now, in 1813, he has seriously declined. The military judgment of Napoleon, the general, is constantly fettered by the pride and obstinacy of Napoleon, the Emperor. The military principles which guided him up to 1807 are frequently abandoned; he aims at secondary objectives, or mere geographical points, instead of solely at the destruction of the enemy’s army; he hesitates and fails to grasp the true situation in a way that was never known in his earlier campaigns. Yet frequently, as at Bautsen and Dresden, his genius shines with all its old brilliance.

The campaign of 1813 exhibits the breakdown of his over-centralised system of command, which left him without subordinates capable of exercising semi-independent command over portions of armies which had now grown to dimensions approaching those of our own day.

The autumn campaign is a notable example of the system of interior lines, as opposed to that of strategical envelopment. It marks, too, the real downfall of Napoleon’s power, for, after the fearful destruction of 1813, the desperate struggle of 1814, glorious though it was, could never have any real probability of success.

FOOTPRINTS OF FAMOUS AMERICANS IN PARIS. By John Joseph Conway, M.A. With 32 Full-page Illustrations. With an Introduction by Mrs. John Lane. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

⁂ Franklin, Jefferson, Munroe, Tom Paine, La Fayette, Paul Jones, etc., etc., the most striking figures of a heroic age, working out in the City of Light the great questions for which they stood, are dealt with here. Longfellow the poet of the domestic affections; matchless Margaret Fuller who wrote so well of women in the nineteenth century; Whistler master of American artists; Saint-Gaudens chief of American sculptors; Rumford, most picturesque of scientific knight-errants and several others get a chapter each for their lives and achievements in Paris. A new and absorbing interest is opened up to visitors. Their trip to Versailles becomes more pleasurable when they realise what Franklyn did at that brilliant court. The Place de la Bastille becomes a sacred place to Americans realizing that the principles of the young republic brought about the destruction of the vilest old dungeon in the world. The Seine becomes silvery to the American conjuring up that bright summer morning when Robert Fulton started from the Place de la Concorde in the first steam boat. The Louvre takes on a new attraction from the knowledge that it houses the busts of Washington and Franklyn and La Fayette by Houdon. The Luxembourg becomes a greater temple of art to him who knows that it holds Whistler’s famous portrait of his mother. Even the weather-beaten bookstalls by the banks of the Seine become beautiful because Hawthorne and his son loitered among them on sunny days sixty years ago. The book has a strong literary flavour. Its history is enlivened with anecdote. It is profusely illustrated.

MEMORIES OF JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER: The Artist. By Thomas R. Way. Author of “The Lithographs of J. M. Whistler,” etc. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 4to. 10s. 6d. net.

⁂ This volume contains about forty illustrations, including an unpublished etching drawn by Whistler and bitten in by Sir Frank Short, A.R.A., an original lithograph sketch, seven lithographs in colour drawn by the Author upon brown paper, and many in black and white. The remainder are facsimiles by photo-lithography. In most cases the originals are drawings and sketches by Whistler which have never been published before, and are closely connected with the matter of the book. The text deals with the Author’s memories of nearly twenty year’s close association with Whistler, and he endeavours to treat only with the man as an artist, and perhaps, especially as a lithographer.