The book deals more particularly with the changes that have taken place during the last five hundred years in the spoken forms of English. The development of English pronunciation and the changes in grammatical usage are dealt with in considerable detail, and there is a chapter on idiomatic colloquialisms, modes of greeting, forms of address in society, conventional and individual methods of beginning and ending private letters, expletives, etc. The main part of the book is based almost entirely upon new material collected from the prose and poetical literature, and also from Letters, Diaries and Wills written during the five centuries following the death of Chaucer. A sketch is given of the chief peculiarities of the English dialects from about 1150, to the end of the 14th century, and special chapters are devoted to a general account of the languages of the 15th, 16th, and 17th and 18th centuries respectively. Many questions of general interest are dealt with, such as the rise of a common literary form of English, and its relation to the various spoken dialects; the recognition of a standard form of spoken English, and its variations from age to age, and among different social classes. The various types of English are illustrated by copious examples from the writings of all the periods under consideration. This will be a work of much interest for the intelligent general reader as well as for the scholar. Professor Wyld is the author of many well-known and widely read books of which this ought to prove not the least popular. Zanzibar: Past and Present. By MAJOR FRANCIS B. PEARCE, C.M.G. (British Resident in Zanzibar), With a Map and 32 pages Illustrations. Super Royal 8vo, cloth. (Spring, 1920.) 30s. 0d. NET. Inland Postage 6d.