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DR. MAGINN’s “Homeric Ballads,” which gave so much attraction during several years to Fraser’s Magazine, have been collected and republished in a small octavo.
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Mr. KENDALL, of the Picayune, has sailed once more for Paris, to superintend there the completion of his great work on the late war in Mexico upon which he has been engaged for the last two years. The highest talent has been employed in the embellishment of this book, and the care and expense incurred may be estimated from the fact that sixty men, coloring and preparing the plates, can finish only one hundred and twenty copies in a month. The original sketches were taken by a German, Carl Nebel, who accompanied Mr. Kendall in Mexico, and drew his battle scenes at the very time of their occurrence. He has engaged in the prosecution of the whole enterprise with as much zeal and interest as Mr. Kendall himself, and has spared no pains to procure the assistance of the most skillful operatives. The book is folio in size, and will be published early in the fall. The letter press has long been finished, and only waiting for the completion of the plates. These are twelve, and their subjects are Palo Alto, the Capture of Monterey, Buena Vista: the Landing at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Cherubusco, Molino del Rey, two views of the Storming of Chapultepec, and Gen. Scott’s entrance into the city of Mexico. The lithographs are said to be unsurpassed in felicity of design, perfection of coloring, and in the animation and expression of all the figures and groups. No such finished specimens of colored lithography were ever exhibited in this country. The plates will have unusual value, not only on account of their intrinsic superiority, but because of their rare historical merit, since they are exact delineations of the topography of the scenes they represent and faithful representations in every particular of the military positions and movements at the moment chosen for illustration.
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MRS. TROLLOPPE is as busy as she has ever been since the failure of her shop at Cincinnati—trading in fiction, with the capital won by her first adventure in this way, “The Domestic Manners of the Americans.” Her last novel, which is just out, has in its title the odor of her customary vulgarity; it is called “Petticoat Government.” Her son, Mr. A. Trolloppe, his just given the world a new book also, “La Vendee” a historical romance which is well spoken of.
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THE REV. DR. WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS, it will gratify the friends of literature and religion to learn, has consented to give to the press several works upon which he has for some time been engaged. They will be published by Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, of Boston. In the next number of The International we shall write more largely of this subject.