Mention Richard Jefferies to anyone under thirty-five and he or she will almost certainly say, ‘ Do you mean The Story of My Heart man? I never read it’; and they may recollect having read Bevis when young. An uninviting title and a boy's classic seem to be all that remains for the majority of a once considerable reputation. It is excellent therefore that selections from his works should be issued now to bring him before a new public, calling attention to the variety of his genius, with critical essays by the editors enouncing its nature. Unfortunately, these selections have been undertaken by the wrong people or in the wrong spirit. It is not true, as some of the reviewers alleged, that they have chosen almost identical extracts—only two pieces are in fact duplicated—but neither book is likely to do Jefferies much good in the way of inducing the intelligentsia to give his entire ceuvre a trial. Mr Williamson's selection is much the more attractive and more just in its representative variety, but unhappily so strongly does the editor's personality interleave the pages and so possessive is his attitude to his victim (‘My Jefferies’ he calls him, apostrophizes and converses with him with complacent impertinence) that many readers who will decide or have long ago decided that they can't stomach the author of The Village Book will not realize that Jefferies is quite another kind of writer on rural themes. It would be a pity if Jefferies should become the property of Mr Williamson, as Cobbett became the property of G. K. Chesterton.