New Fairy-Tales from Brentano. Told in English by Kate Freiligrath
Kroeker. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—The success of the publication in English of a first series of fairy-tales from Brentano, has naturally led to the issue of a second series. The new volume deserves, to say the least of it, to be as well received as its pre. decessor. It consists of five tales in all, "The Story of Gockel, Hinkel, and Gackeleia," "The Story of Frisky Wisky," "The Story of the Myrtle Maiden," "The Story of Brokerina," and "The Story of Old Father Rhine and the Miller." As the translator reminds us, the first of these was a favourite with Brentano himself, and un- doubtedly the humour in it is of the subtlest. Bat, in it, Brentano seems to us to fire over the heads of very little children, as, indeed, be does in most of his stories, notably in his commercial or anti- commercial skit, "Brokerina." Of the five tales, indeed, which corn. pose this volume, we confess that the shortest, "The Story of Frisky Wisky," is the most childlike, perhaps because there is in it most struggling of the "Jack the Giant-Killer" sort with difficulties; and then the lucky Frisky Wisky displays an amount of ingenuity that the immortal Jack cannot lay claim to. Altogether, this book is not so mach one to put into the hands of children to master and enjoy for themselves, as for a father or an elder brother to read to a child. In point of paper, type, and illustrations, it is a model gift-book. The realism of the illustrations in particular is equalled by their humour.
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