New Publications

THE LAND AND THE BOOK. By W. H. Thompson, D. D. Two Volumes. Harper and Brothers.

The author of this work, Dr. W. H. Thompson, was for twenty-five years a Missionary of the American Board in Syria and Palestine, and there are few men more competent to write a work of this kind than himself. His volume contains a survey of the geography and agriculture of the Holy Land, as well as of the manners, customs, laws, and institutions of the country. Although of late there have been published very many publications of a similar kind, yet the field is large and is not by any means exhausted as yet. The present work is eminently a popular one, much more so than the books of Robinson, Stanley and others, and fairly rivalling those of Prime. The style is simple and adapted to the comprehension of all readers, and the illustrations are very profuse, maps being given, together with wood cuts, and the whole being made complete by an index of subjects and also an index of Scriptural passages referred to in the text. "The Land and the Book" would make a most valuable gift-book at this season, and is in every point of view a most valuable contribution to the literature of travel.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE¹—Leonard Scott & Co,; Fulton st., N. Y.—The number of Blackwood for the current month fully sustains the high reputation which "Maga" has borne for so many years, as a first-class serial. The magazine opens with a pleasant and gossiping article on "Japan," in connection with the social usages of the strange people who inhabit that island empire. Then follows the continuation of Bulwer's novel—"What will he do with it"—which is evidently approaching conclusion. Several miscellaneous articles follow, in one of which the "Campaign in India" is discussed at some length, and the number winds up with a most scathing review of Mr. John Bright and his Reform speeches, in which the great Quaker Agitator is handled without gloves, as "Blackwood" was wont to dispose of political antagonists in the palmy days of Christopher North. Blackwood, to use a Carlyleism, is one of the "Perrenials."

THE HOUSE TO LET. By Charles Dickens. T. B. Peterson & Co. Philadelphia.

This enterprising firm has issued Charles Dickens's last Christmas story, uniform with the former works of the great novelist, and it makes a handsome pamphlet, printed in clear and legible type, on good paper.² Of the literary merits of the book our readers have had an opportunity to judge for themselves, we having reprinted its most piquant portions. The genius of the author of Copperfield does not appear to decline in the least, and the present effort, if it does not increase his fame, will not detract from it in the least. We commend the pamphlet to the attention of his admirers.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.³—This excellent periodical, which has received the greatest praise from English as well as American critics, is obtaining the success it merits. We learn that the entire January edition of the thirty thousand copies was disposed of on the first day of publication, and many new subscribers and others are obliged to wait until the publishers have a second edition ready. It is, however, not surprising, when we think of its excellent list of contributors, that the Atlantic Monthly should meet with such flattering success.—[Evening Post.