Review of Reviews,  20 (1899), 527–30.

Gift-books for Young and Old. A Guide to Christmas Literature

Anon

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Lang 1899

Subjects:

Animal Behaviour, Palaeontology, Monstrosities, Anti-Scientism, Monographs, Reading, Truth


    Recommends numerous books as Christmas presents for children, including Andrew Lang's volume of 'truly wonderful stories'. Comments that 'Anticipating the question, "Are your stories all true?" Mr. Lang confesses in a brilliant preface that they are not all true, for the Phœnix, at any rate, is never met with in any known part of the world; but he points out the difference between the scientific animals (whose bones are now stones) and the unscientific ones, like the Sea Serpent and the Fire Drake. It is comforting to find Mr. Lang admitting after all that there may be plenty of strange animals which scientific men have not yet dissected and called by long names—those, for instance, which have been remembered and called "Dragons". "For, if there were never any Dragons, why did all sorts of nations tell stories about them?"'. Adds that 'Mr. Lang says this is not altogether a scientific book, but there is much more that is true in it than in some other books he has published'. (527)



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