Music and words copyrighted, 1877, by Wm. K. Bassford

* * * * *

“THE BABY’S OPERA” AND WALTER CRANE.

Of the many great artists of England, Walter Crane is accounted among the ablest and most gifted.  As a painter on the canvas he stands high with critics; and in this country he is most widely known by his designs of colored picture-books for children.  This is what one critic says of him in this regard:  “Walter Crane has every charm.  His design is rich, original, and full of discovery.  His drawing is at once manly and sweet, and his color is as delightful as a garden of roses in June.  And with these accomplishments he comes full-handed to the children,—­and to their parents and lovers too!—­and makes us all rich with a pleasure none of us ever knew as children, and never could have looked to know.”

After this, it is very discouraging to learn, from a letter of Mr. Crane’s to the Editor of SCRIBNER’S MONTHLY, that one may be deceived in buying Mr. Crane’s books.  This is particularly the case with “The Baby’s Opera.”  So now we tell the readers of ST. NICHOLAS that every true copy of “The Baby’s Opera” bears on its title-page the name of Messrs. George Routledge & Sons, the publishers, as well as Mr. Crane’s, and that of the engraver and printer, Mr. Edmund Evans.  To a purchaser, it would matter little that there were two editions of a work as long as the unauthorized one was exactly like the original; but Mr. Crane says that “the pirated edition grossly misrepresents his drawings, both in style and coloring; that the arrangement of the pages is different; and that the full-page colored plates are complete travesties, and very coarse ones, of the originals.”  And it does not at all improve the false copy that it is to be bought for less than the true one costs.  It would be bad enough merely to deprive Mr. Crane of the profits of selling an exact imitation of his book, but it is far worse to put a bad sham before the people as the work of a true artist.  This not only lessens his gains, but also takes away from his good name, besides spoiling the taste of the youngsters.

* * * * *

THE LETTER-BOX.

GIRLS AND BOYS:  You will all be very sorry, we know, to learn that the beginning of Miss Alcott’s serial story, “Under the Lilacs,” has been postponed to the December number; but in place of it, we print this month the capital short story of “Mollie’s Boyhood,” which, we feel sure, will go far toward repaying you for the disappointment.  We must ask you to wait a month longer for the opening chapters of the serial, and we mean to give you then a much longer installment of it than could have been printed in the present issue.

Meanwhile, you will find that the splendid article on Christmas Gifts, which occupies twenty-two