WIDE AWAKE.  Bound volume for 1884 Boston:  D. Lathrop & Co.  Price 4.00.  Newspapers all parts of the country have repeatedly given the first place in American periodical literature for the young to WIDE AWAKE.  Among its contributors are the very best and brightest writers in America and England, and many of its articles are the same that give reputation to Harper’s and the Century.  Indeed, nothing better has ever appeared in either of these periodicals than some of the full page illustrations which have found place in WIDE AWAKE within the past two or three years.  The list of writers who are regularly employed include the best names in our literature.  It is by the liberal outlay of money on the part of the publishers, coupled with the determination to have the best at any price, that WIDE AWAKE has reached its present high position.  The present volume, which includes the twelve numbers of the present year, is, in general excellence, an improvement upon all preceding issues.  It is a library in itself, and will be a source of perennial pleasure to readers of all ages.

OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN. 1884.  Illustrated.  Boston.  D. Lothrop & Co.  Price $1.50.  This beautiful annual comprises the twelve numbers of the year just closing, and will make an admirable present for the little members of the household.  Its stories are just such as they will read with delight, while the illustrations make them double attractive.

A ROMANCE IN SONG.  Heine’s Lyrical Interlude.  Translated by Franklin Johnson, Boston:  D. Lothrop & Co.  Price $3.00.  The best of the modern German song-writers is unquestionably Heine, and thousands who know and sing his verses even in their translated form can testify to their exceeding sweetness and to their strange insight into the passions and emotions that stir the human heart.  Especially is this true of the sixty brief poems which he published in 1823 under the somewhat singular title of “A Lyrical Interlude.”  What gives them special interest is the fact that they are genuine records of his own feelings and experiences.  Heine was engaged to be married to his cousin, whom he loved deeply and ardently.  She broke her vows and married another, and Heine carried through life an unhealed spiritual wound.  In the translation of these songs Mr. Johnson has been peculiarly successful, while in all cases retaining the original measure of the songs, he has endeavored to make an exact rendering of the thought rather than to be literal.  And yet in some cases he is both, as for instance in the much quoted Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne, and Nacht lag auf meinen Augen.  The publishers have done their part to make the volume outwardly attractive.  It is printed on heavy paper, is beautifully illustrated and handsomely bound.  Coming at this season it makes an appropriate gift book.