+ =N. Y. Times.= 12: 337. My. 25, ’07. 450w.
“We are warned that the Smiths are neither superior nor fashionable, but it would have been more kind to warn us that they are absolutely uninteresting. We object to the inference that superiority and fashion are required in order to be interesting.”
“Many a person who is genuinely depressed by the mere sight of a suburb from a train-window, and who would be utterly bored by half an hour’s companionship with the Smiths in real life, will find himself oddly interested in Mr. Howard’s little story, until he comes to the love affairs of Phyllis, when the conversations become tedious.”
+ − =Sat. R.= 101: 210. F. 17, ’06. 200w.
“The story of ‘The Smiths of Surbiton’ is not told with any distinction of literary style or any subtlety in the analysis of the human heart. The want of literary artifice in the treatment makes it therefore obvious that the approval with which the book has been greeted is due solely to its subject.”
=Bell, Lilian.= Why men remain bachelors, and other luxuries. **$1.25. Lane.
A group of half humorous half philosophical essays which deal with such subjects as The management of wives, The management of husbands, The luxury of being stupid, How men propose, The broken engagement, Modern mothers, etc.
+ =N. Y. Times.= 11: 810. D. 1, ’06. 220w.
“These very personal little essays are amusingly frank, and clever in a journalistic way, but they have none of that delicacy of form—and spirit—which pleases the artistic sense.”
+ − =Outlook.= 84: 1084. D. 29, ’06. 60w.
=Bell, Malcolm.= Old pewter. (Newnes’ lib. of the applied arts.) *$2.50. Scribner.
Contains little if any new information but deserves recognition on account of the numerous carefully chosen illustrations.
“His various brief chapters show a considerable mastery of, and love for, his subject. One of the weak points of the letterpress is the ‘Useful books of reference,’ a list which occupies only a single page immediately before the index. The only works named in this insignificant list that deal with church pewter are wrongly cited.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 11: 179. Mr. 24, ’06. 420w.
=Bell, Nancy R. E.= Historical outskirts of London. **$2. McClure.
“Mrs. Bell conducts her readers on a tour of the places situated on the fringe of London, recalling the historic associations in which they abound and noting the changes they have undergone down to the present time when these once isolated hamlets and townships have become practically merged in the great metropolis.” (Int. Studio.) Highgate, Hampstead, Woolwich, Epping Forest, Epsom, Fulham, Hammersmith, Greenwich and other places are described with interesting anecdotes of people whose history is associated with them.