2. _The Ancient History of China_, by F. Hirth, Ph.D., Professor of Chinese at Columbia University, New York. A sketch of Chinese history from fabulous ages down to 221 B.C., containing a good deal of information of an antiquarian character, and altogether placing in its most attractive light what must necessarily be rather a dull period for the general reader. 3. _China_, by E. H. Parker, Professor of Chinese at Victoria University, Manchester. A general account of China, chiefly valuable for commercial and statistical information, sketch-maps of ancient trade-routes, etc. 4. _A Chinese Biographical Dictionary_, by H. A. Giles, LL.D., Professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge. This work contains 2579 short lives of Chinese Emperors, statesmen, generals, scholars, priests, and other classes, including some women, from the earliest times down to the present day, arranged alphabetically. 5. _A Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire_, by L. Richard. This work is rightly named "comprehensive," for it contains a great deal of information which cannot be strictly classed as geographical, all of which, however, is of considerable value to the student. 6. _Descriptive Sociology (Chinese)_, by E. T. C. Werner, H.B.M. Consul at Foochow. A volume of the series initiated by Herbert Spenger. It consists of a large number of sociological facts grouped and arranged in chronological order, and is of course purely a work of reference. 7. _A History of Chinese Literature_, by H. A. Giles. Notes on two or three hundred writers of history, philosophy, biography, travel, poetry, plays, fiction, etc., with a large number of translated extracts grouped under the above headings and arranged in chronological order. 8. _Chinese Poetry in English Verse_, by H. A. Giles. Rhymed translations of nearly two hundred short poems from the earliest ages down to the present times. 9. _An Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art_, by H. A. Giles. Notes on the lives and works of over three hundred painters of all ages, chiefly translated from the writings of Chinese art-critics, with sixteen reproductions of famous Chinese pictures. 10. _Scraps from a Collector's Note-book_, by F. Hirth. Chiefly devoted to notes on painters of the present dynasty, 1644- 1905, with twenty-one reproductions of famous pictures, forming a complementary supplement to No. 9. 11. _Religions of Ancient China_, by H. A. Giles. A short account of the early worship of one God, followed by brief notices of Taoism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Mahommedanism, and other less well-known faiths which have been introduced at various dates into China. 12. _Chinese Characteristics_, by the Rev. Arthur Smith, D.D. A humorous but at the same time serious examination into the modes of thought and springs of action which peculiarly distinguish the Chinese people. 13. _Village Life in China_, by the Rev. Arthur Smith.