NEW FRENCH NOVELS.-The following are among the last announcements: by George Sand, "Mdlle. La Quintinie,” reprinted from the "Revue des Deux Mondes;" by Paul de Kock, "La Fille aux Trois Jupons ;" and "A Cycle of Three Tales," by the renowned author of "Fanny," M. Feydeau-respectively called: "Un Début à l'Opéra," "M. de SaintBertrand," and "Le Mari de la Danseuse." Besides these the following, some of a strong sensational character, are also forthcoming: (An old novel); "Les Mystères du Palais-Royal," Georges de Rieux (Xavier de Montépin), with engravings by Delaville and Hildibrand, after drawings by J. A. Beaucé and Andrieux; "Les Amours d'Artagnan," by A. Blanquet: "Les Cavaliers de la Nuit," by Ponson du Terrail; "MonsieurCherami," by Ch. Paul de Kock; "Les Amours Vulgaires," by A. Vermorel; "Les Secrets d'une Jeune Fille," by the Countess of Bassanville.

GUSTAVE AIMARD.-This seemingly exhaustless romancist has just published a new Indian story, entitled: "Stronghand; or, the Noble Revenge." It has been first published in England, and in English, not French, the author's language.

A "SERENE" AUTHOR.-The Grand Duke of Cobourg, who is addressed as "His Serene Highness" (even when he may have his temper ruffled), is getting up a splendid work on the late visit of himself and wife to North Africa. It will be in three parts. The first will contain the journey to Egypt, the stay at Cairo and Alexandria, a Nile journey, the journey to the Red Sea and Massana. The second part, written by the duke himself, will describe hunting and travelling adventures in the mountains of Abyssinia, and will include observations on the Bogos countries and their inhabitants. The last part will contain a history of the events which befell the travelling company at Massana, the return over Egypt, the second stay at Cairo, a visit of the ladies of the harem, and the journey home. Twenty chromo-lithographs, after original water-color drawings by Robert Kretschmer, and scientific addenda will complete the work. It is to appear in large folio, and its price is fixed at about twenty-five

dollars.

BEN JONSON.-Mons. E. Lafond is translating the

works of "O Rare Ben Jonson" into French.

MISS BRADDON.-"The Captain of the Vulture," an early and only tolerable novel by Miss Braddon, has been dramatized in London as "The Mystery." The plot of the novel is not closely followed, and the main idea of the play (a murderer discovered by an idiot), may have been suggested, on the rule of contrary, by the character of "Softy" in "Aurora Floyd."

A ROYAL EDITOR.-The King of Holland is editor of a magazine published at Amsterdam.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND BOOKSELLERS.

PROSPERITY OF THE BOOK INTEREST.-The "London Bookseller" for October 31, in noticing the books to be published in England during the next year, says: "We have never seen so many announced, nor, on the whole, so satisfactory a list; let us hope that, at the end of the year, the various publishers will be able to say that it was the most prosperous within the recollection of the oldest member of the trade; and, as publishers do their best to make a good profit, let us trust that the retail booksellers will endeavor to imitate so worthy an example." If the actual present and the anticipated future condition of the trade in England is so favorable, we may truly say that the state of affairs on this side of the water is no less encouraging.

We think we can safely assert that such a healthy and successful condition of the book trade has never heretofore been known in the United States. While paper has advanced in price about one hundred per cent., and binding and printing have also increased in cost, the manufacture of books at the present time is larger than it has ever before been, and business is done, as a rule, for cash or at very short credits. The high price of paper has prevented a great deal of trash from being published, but there has been no lack of good sound literature. The crowded state of our book-table, and the increased amount of advertising in this and the previous number of the "Gazette," show conclusively that, while we are engaged in perhaps the most stupendous war known in history, we are, nevertheless, able to continue the pursuits of ordinary life, and even, by increased activity, make claim to be considered the first publishing nation of the world. We venture to say that even in our present distracted state we are issuing more books, magazines, and newspapers than any other people. This may, abroad, be set down to the score of boasting, but the facts will sustain us.

SCRIBNER & Co., New York, have, notwithstanding the high price of exchange, brought out from Europe some of the most elaborate and tasteful presentation books ever imported. Their catalogues of English books embrace the lists of nearly all the leading British publishing houses.

MESSRS. HARPER & BROS., New York, propose to bring out the Notes and Appendix to Kinglake's fourth edition of the "Invasion of the Crimea," in a separate form, so that those possessing the earlier edition may have all that the author has thus far added to his original work, the text of which has undergone no alteration. Prof. Draper's "History of Intellectual Development in Europe" is passing to a second edition, with a new Preface by its learned author. In our present number the Messrs. Harpers advertise a long list of desirable works.

D. APPLETON & Co., New York, have issued in a sumptuous manner "The Dusseldorf Gallery," containing gems from the Dusseldorf Gallery of Paint

ings, photographed from the originals by A. A. Turner, under the superintendence of B. Frodsham, with letter-press descriptive of each work. This, with their superb work on the "New York Picture Galleries," published in the same style, are the most elegant and tasteful presentation books ever offered to the American public.

POEMS BY JEAN INGELOW.-A volume of poetry with this unpretending title recently appeared in London, published by Longmans. The book soon attracted to itself much attention. The naturalness, thoughtfulness, and beauty of the verses have received high critical commendation. Readers in this country will soon have an opportunity of judg ing for themselves whether the praise be well merited, as the volume is shortly to be republished by Roberts Brothers, of Boston. The "London Athenæum" says: "This new volume will make the eyes of all lovers of poetry dance with a gladder light than if they had come upon a treasure-trove of gold." The "Critic" says: "We find here some of the most exquisite verses which could have been written."

HEINE'S "Book of Songs" has reached the twentysecond edition in Germany. It has been four times translated into English, once into French, once into Dutch, and a portion of it, according to Heine's own testimony, into Japanese. A new translation, by Charles G. Leland, has just been published by F. Leypoldt, Philadelphia.

JOHN HOWE'S WORKS.-Few men of the seventeenth century lived to better purpose than John Howe. At the age of twenty-seven, being in London, he attended the Chapel of Whitehall, and the Protector was so impressed with the noble, intellectual physiognomy of the young man, that he sent for him and requested him to preach. He excused himself on the ground of his obligation to his parish, and the Protector promised to write to them himself and obtain their acquiescence. Such was the impression his preaching made that he was invested with the dignity of domestic chaplain to the Protector (a place of quite as much political as ecclesiastical influence), which he held till after the Protector's death. He was a very voluminous writer, his published works being one hundred and sixty-eight in number, many of them quartos, besides numberless prefaces, introductions, &c. One edition of his works was prepared by himself in two volumes folio. Of these a new edition, in six volumes 8vo., averaging nearly 500 pages each, has just been published by the Religious Tract Society of London, besides a seventh volume containing the author's life and an analysis of his writings. It argues well that a work of this character finds a market, and we hazard little in saying that we can think of nothing that will impart a more vigorous and healthy tone to the religious sentiment of our times than familiarity with such writings as John Howe's.

LUDWIG NOHL, the biographer of Mozart, now about preparing a life of Beethoven, calls on all those who are in possession of letters and papers of Beethoven, to communicate with him, addressing him at Munich.

KARL VON HOLTEI is at present resident of Waldenburg, Silesia, engaged in arranging the posthumous works of Ludwig Tieck, which are now in possession of Tieck's daughter, the wife of Gustave Alberti, who is living there.

COTTA, Stuttgart, is preparing a beautiful illustrated edition of Uhland's poems. The illustrations are to be executed on wood, by Schröter, Camphausen, and other artists.

will have the opportunity to print several valuable manuscripts of great interest to the historian. The officers for the present year, elected May 25, 1863, are: S. G. Drake, President; Thomas Waterman, John Ward Dean, J. Wingate Thornton, Vice-Presidents; J. Colburn, Treasurer; W. S. Appleton, Recording Secretary; W. H. Whitmore, Corresponding Secretary; and these constitute the Council. LONGFELLOW'S NEW POEM.-Messrs. Routledge will be the London publishers, probably by arrange"Idler of a Wayment, of Longfellow's new poem, side Inn." It is announced to be printed on toned paper, and embellished with a new steel portrait of the author.

WILKIE COLLINS.-The miscellaneous writings of this popular author are to appear in two volumes. They will include Sketches of Character, Social Grievances, Fragments of Personal Experience, Nooks and Corners of History, Cases worth looking at, and Curiosities of Literature.

66

ELIHU BURRITT, "the learned blacksmith," as he is truly called, has been travelling from one end of Great Britain to the other, and will immediately End to John O'Groats; with Notes by the Way." publish the results as This walk, from the most southern point of England to the northern extremity of Scotland, is over six hundred miles long.

A Walk from the Land's

DR. STRAUSS.-In retirement (at Heilbronn, on the Neckar), Dr. David Friedrich Strauss has lately re-written his notorious "Life of Jesus," so as to bring all its scientific results within the comprehension of even the unlearned; in other words, to popularize it and spread its poison far and wide. It may not be generally known that Marian Evans (now Mrs. G. H. Lewes ), author of "Adam Bede," commenced her literary career, over fifteen years ago, by translating Strauss' book into English.

HUMBOLDT'S CORRESPONDENCE.-There has been published, at Leipsic. the Correspondence of Alexander von Humboldt with Heinrich Berghaus. It extends from 1825 to 1858, and the "Athenæum" reports "may be said to comprise a complete history of geographical science and discovery during a period exceeding thirty years. The intimacy between Berghaus the geographer and the great Humboldt, which began at Paris in 1815, seems to have arisen entirely from their devotion to the same branch of knowledge: hence, the communications that pass between them are entirely free from that gossip which is almost associated with the very name of correspondence, and the collection bears a resemblance to the Transactions of a learned So

THE PRINCE SOCIETY FOR MUTUAL PUBLICATION, organized in the year 1858, in Boston, for the publication of manuscripts and rare books relating to American history, announce that their first volume will be issued at once, and that it will consist of a reprint of the first half of Hutchinson's "Collection of Original Papers relative to the History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay," 1769, with an Index and Notes. This volume will be followed by others

during the year, and will be furnished to members at cost. The limit of cost, for the present year, has been fixed at ten dollars; and an agreement to take books, if issued, to that amount is the only condition of membership. Very few copies of any book will be printed in excess of the number of members, and they will be sold for the benefit of the printing fund. There is every reason to anticipate that the Society

The epistles frequently inclosed regular treatises on matters of interest, including memoirs by different hands, and these necessarily reappear in the collection."

MARK LEMON.-This gentleman, editor of "Punch,” is editing an illustrated book, entitled "Tom Moody's Tales," and has "Wait for the End," a novel, about being published.

don publishers, are issuing a People's Edition of MACAULAY'S ENGLAND.-Longman & Co., the LonMacaulay's History of England, in fourteen shilling

numbers.

CARTOONS FROM "PUNCH."-John Tenniel, who has contributed most of the whole-page designs to "Punch," since Richard Doyle's secession from that work in 1850, announces a folio volume, price $5 50, of "Cartoons from Punch."

CHARLES READE'S "VERY HARD CASH."-This novel is coming to a close in "All the Year Round," and

"Harper's Weekly," and the author demands $15,000 for permission to publish it, in London, in book-form. It is a great demonstration against the evil working of the lunacy code of England. CHARLES KNIGHT.-This gentleman, founder of the Penny Magazine," over thirty years ago, and, ten years earlier, editor of "Knight's Quarterly Magazine," in which Macaulay and Praed first broke into authorship, having successfully brought his Popular History of England, in eight volumes, Svo., to a close, announces his autobiography, under the title of " Passages of a Working Man's Life, during half a century; with a Prelude of Early Reminiscences,' to be comprised in Three Epochs, each forming a volume. The first of these will be published this month. Charles Knight is a veteran author and bookseller, having been born at Windsor in 1791. The story of his connection with authors, artists, and politicians cannot fail to be eminently valuable as well as interesting.

DR. JENNER.—Mr. J. B. Curgenven has published a fac-simile of the quarto pamphlet of Dr. Jenner, originally printed in 1801, giving an interesting account of the origin of Vaccine Inoculation.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

A FEW NOTES ON BOOK-BINDING.-There are some professed lovers of books who affect either indifference or contempt for the style in which their favorites are dressed. A well-known epigram of Burns is often quoted against the fondness for fine bindings which widely prevails, as well in the present day as in that of the Scottish poet. Yet no real book-lover fails to appreciate the neatness or beauty of a tasteful binding, any more than he is indifferent to the same qualities in literary style. Slovenly binding is almost as offensive to a cultivated eye, as slovenly composition. No doubt both are "mere externals," and so are the splendors of scenery, the beauty of flowers, and the comeliness of the human form or features. Talk as men will of the insignificance of dress, it constitutes a large share of the attractiveness of the world we live in. Your Homer or your Shakspeare may be very dear to you in rags, or in a frowzy, greasy, rough leather binding; but if you tell me that it would not please you better to read it in a dress of fine, smooth French calf, or genuine Levant morocco, I shall respectfully but firmly decline to believe you. "Genius in rags" is genius still, but do the rags constitute any part of the genius?

It is pleasant to note the steady improvement in American bindings of late years. As the old style of "half-muslin boards," with paper titles pasted on the backs, has given way to the neat, embossed, full muslin gilt, so the clumsy and homely sheepskin binding has been supplanted by the half-roan or morocco, with marbled or muslin sides. Few books, however, are issued, either here or abroad, in what may be called permanent bindings. The cheapness demanded by the buyers of popular books forbids this, while it leaves to the taste and fancy of every one the selection of the "library style" in which he will have his collection permanently dressed.

What is the best style of binding for a public library is a question often discussed, with wide discrepancies of opinion. The so-universally-prevalent cloth binding is too flimsy for books subjected to much use-as most books in public collections are likely to be. The choice of more substantial bindings lies between calf and morocco, and between half or full bindings of either. For nearly all books, half binding, if well executed, is quite as durable as full leather; for, if a book is so worn as to need

The relative

rebinding, it is generally in a part where the full binding wears out quite as fast as the other. The exceptions are the heavy dictionaries, encyclopædias, and other works of reference, which are subjected to much wear and tear at the sides, as well as at the back and corners. merits of calf and morocco may be thus stated: calf is smooth and pleasant to handle, gathers little dust, takes on a beautiful polish, and gives a light and cheerful aspect to the shelves of a library; while morocco has the superior advantage (if good leather) of more durability in wear, less liability to be disfigured by scratches and stains, and exemp tion from that besetting sin of all calf bindings-a tendency to break at the "joints."

In the Library of Congress, where the rule has always been to have every book substantially bound in leather, calf bindings have been disused of late years, except for law books, and half-morocco substituted; and the reason given is the great proportion of volumes bound in the former leather which show serious injury from attrition, or else bindings broken at the joints by constant opening, or the weight of supporting the contents. A similar expe

rience is understood to have led to the abandonment of calf bindings at the British Museum Library, where, moreover, Mr. Panizzi has adopted the plan of binding the several classes of books in differently colored morocco, e. g., history in red, botany in green, poetry in yellow, theology in blue, etc. This relieves the library from the sombre aspect which the use of a monotonous dark morocco would give.

The

The system of binding pamphlets singly, so as to make a volume of each, instead of conglomerating them ten or a dozen in a volume, was first employed on an extensive scale at the British Museum. style of binding is "half roan," or with a back of colored sheep-skin, with muslin sides, and the expense was stated by Mr. Panizzi, in 1848, at 20d. per pamphlet. The cost is understood to have been reduced about one half, and the expense is now eighteen to twenty cents for this style of binding at the Museum Library. But the merit of discovering a method by which pamphlets can be separately bound, at no greater cost than by the old method, belongs to the conductors of the Boston Public Library in this country. This plan, the simplicity and economy of which commend it to all libraries, has been lately adopted by the Boston Athenæum for its very rich collection of pamphlets, and its use must extend far more widely as its merits become known. As no patent is claimed for the invention (or rather the modification of well-known methods) it may be briefly described. The thinnest tar-board is used for the sides, which are cut down to near the size of the pamphlet to be bound. The latter is prepared for the boards by adding two or more waste leaves, and backing it with a strip of common muslin, which is firmly pasted the full length of the back, and overlaps the sides to the width of an inch or more. The pamphlet has to be stitched, in the manner commonly practised with thin books, after which it is ready to receive the boards. These are glued to a strip of book-muslin, which constitutes the ultimate back of the book, being turned in neatly at each end, so as to form, with the boards, a skeleton cover, into which the pamphlet is inserted, and held in its place by the inner strip of muslin before described, which is pasted to the insides of the boards. The latter are then covered with marbled paper, turned in at each edge, and the waste leaf pasted smoothly down to the boards on the inside. The only remaining process is the lettering, which is done by printing the titles in bronze upon glazed colored paper, which is pasted longitudinally on the back. A small font of type,