"English Fairy Tales" and "More English Fairy Tales" should be in the hands of every child. The stories are told in a way that preserves all of their dramatic interest and humour of phrase and situation. This characteristic humour of English folk-fancy, Mr. Jacobs has skilfully caught. He has this to say of his way of telling them: "I am inclined to follow the traditions of my old nurse, who was not bred at Girton and scorned at times the rules of Lindley Murray and the diction of polite society. And I have left vulgarisms in the mouths of vulgar people. Children appreciate the dramatic propriety of this as much as do their elders. Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse would speak when she tells Fairy Tales. I am doubtful of my success in catching the colloquial-romantic tone appropriate for such narratives, but they had to be done or else my object, to give a book of English Fairy Tales which children would listen to, would have been unachieved. This book is to be read aloud and not merely to be taken by the eye." All children should rejoice, that, so long after Puritanism had suppressed these tales in many parts of England, and after its decline they had come to be supplanted by the Mother Goose tales of Perrault, there has come such an excellent retelling of them in the Jacobs books. If there be anything in fairy literature better than "Tom Tit Tot," I have not found it. It is altogether fitting to have it stand first in such a great collection. And with other such very good tales as "Cap o' Rushes," "The Three Sillies," and "Jack and the Golden Snuff Box," to say nothing of the dramatic telling of "Hop o' My Thumb," "Jack the Giant Killer," and "Jack and the Bean Stalk," the pleasure from reading the book at the right age will mayhap never be surpassed. One might regret that the curious and helpful information of the notes had not been reserved for a separate treatise for mature readers, did not the amusing illustration of the court-crier by John D. Batton give the warning that the tales are closed and children must not read any further. After having learned some of the best stories through the ear, the boy must certainly buy and keep these two books.