SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have no been reserved for review in other forms.] The Struivivelpeter Alphabet. By Harold Begbie. Illustrated by F. Carruthers Gould. (Grant Richards. 3s. 6d.)—The Struwwel- peter Alphabet is a delightful series of political caricatures, but the reader is tempted to ask, Why Struvrwelpeter ? The immortal and shock-headed-Peter book is not an alphabet, it is a collection of Moral Stories, and the present political "A B C "borrows very little from "Peter,"---except the style of the pictures. The martial figure on the cover does indeed bear a glorious resemblance to our old friend, and Sir William Harcourt poses with much success as Frederick's doctor ; but Sir Michael Hicks-Beach provides us with a terribly mangled version of the beautiful legend of "Johnny Head in Air,"—and where in " Peter " is the original of "11 k," or "0 de of Y," or the "big D," all which delightful ideas are the joint-creators' "very own" ? Never, certainly, were pictures funnier, or more true to life, and the delightful pencil of "P. C. G." has never been used to better purpose. The portraits are so cleverly caricatured that they remain por- traits, and the " uglification " is so good-natured that the reader can see through it to the real man below. "This elevating book" is emphatically a work to buy. It is amusing now, and twenty years hence will be as politically interesting as, and more enter- taining than, the most absorbing contemporary Blue-book.
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