#The Man Who Understood Women#, and #While Paris Laughed#, by _Leonard Merrick_ (E. P. Dutton and Company). These two volumes of the collected edition of Mr. Merrick's novels and stories are of somewhat uneven value. The best of them have a finish which is unsurpassed in its kind by any of his English contemporaries, but there are many stories in the first of these two volumes which are somewhat ephemeral. Mr. Locke in his introduction to "The Man Who Understood Women" rather overstates Mr. Merrick's case, but at his best these stories form an interesting English parallel to the work of O. Henry. The second volume suffers the fate of all sequels in endeavouring to revive after a lapse of years the pranks and passions of the poet Tricotrin. The first five stories in the volume, while they do not attain the excellence of "The Tragedy of a Comic Song," are worthy stories in the same kind. The other seven stories are frankly mawkish in content, although redeemed by Mr. Merrick's excellent technique. #Workhouse Characters#, by _Margaret Wynne Nevinson_ (The Macmillan Company). This collection of newspaper sketches written during the past fifteen years have no pretensions to art, and were written with a frankly propagandist intention. The vividness of their portraiture and the passion of their challenge to the existing social order warrant their mention here, and I do not think they will be forgotten readily by those who read them. This volume has attracted little comment in the American press, and it would be a pity if it is permitted to go out of print over here. #The New Decameron#: Volume the First (Robert M. McBride & Co.). There is more to be said for the idea which prompted these stories than for the success with which the idea has been carried out. A group of tourists seeking adventures on the Continent agree to beguile the tedium of the journey by telling each other tales. Unfortunately the Nightingale does not sing on, and the young Englishmen and women who have collaborated in this volume have gone about their task in a frankly amateurish spirit. The stories by W. F. Harvey and Sherard Vines attain a measured success, and some mention may be made of M. Storm-Jameson's story, "Mother-love." It is to be hoped that in future volumes of the series, the editor will choose his contributors more carefully, and frankly abandon the Decameron structure, which has been artificially imposed after the stories were written.