A new edition of Arthur Oilman’s The Kingdom of Home is announced by the publishers, and will form a strong attraction for holiday book-buyers.  No poetical anthology has been received by the general public with such favor as this, and the reason is not far to seek.  It contains the choicest poems on home subjects ever brought together, and the merits of its selections and pictures will keep it perennially in demand as one of the best gift books in the long catalogue of household treasures.  The illustrations are abundant and exquisite.  There are full page pictures, tiny ones, panel ones, head pieces, end pieces; some woven into the text, some the key-note of the stanzas, some of broad suggestions, some of quaint conceit.  All subjects that bring up home associations are pictorially told in what, as to the rule, is the best of engraving.  The old water-wheel is there, making music in the village glen; the limpid stream winding near the farmhouse; the spinning-wheel, “merrily, noisily, cheerily whirring;” the baby of the home saying her evening prayer, and John asleep beneath the summer boughs.  Everything that clusters about the fireside, breathes in farewells, sings in marriage and throbs in love, finds embodiment.  The idea of home comprises everything we hold dear—­wife, children, friends; the roof that covers us, and the things we have learned to love about us.  It lies at the very foundation of religion, and our ideal of heaven is simply a home.  It is the love of home which strengthens us to endure toil, privation and suffering, and thousands in all ages have met death willingly to sustain the sanctity of their hearthstones.  There is not a poet who has lived since the dawn of historic times who has not sung its praises, and from the vast amount of literature which has thus grown up, the contents of the present work have been selected.  The compiler has shown rare judgment in the performance of his task, he justly says that the treatment of this subject has not been confined to the great poets.  “It is not the poetry of the intellect, but of the heart; and many who have been eloquent on no other theme, have sung the praises of home in a way that has touched the hearts of thousands.”  The collection, therefore, includes not only the productions of the masters, but those of many a minor poet as well.  The paper is beautifully white and clear, the margin liberal, and the binding at once chaste and elegant.  It will make a book for the household; “one not for a day, but for all time.” 8mo, Russia leather, seal grain, $6.00.

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A SPECIAL LETTER.

As an indication of the great interest aroused by the matter of one of the recent publications of D. Lothrop & Co., while it was passing through the WIDE AWAKE magazine in serial form, we print the following letter written from BROOKLINE, Mass., and dated Oct. 6, 1884, and signed “A well wisher.”

    DEAR WIDE AWAKE: