Krestomatio. The Krestomatio of Dr. Zamenhof is a book of selected pieces of prose and of verse. Much of the book was written by Zamenhof himself, and everything contained in it has his approval. It is regarded by all Esperantists as the model of Esperanto style.

The book contains four hundred and fifty pages, two-thirds of which is prose and the remaining third verse. It begins very simply with the well-known Ekzercaro (Exercises for Beginners). These occupy twenty pages, and are followed by forty pages of Fabeloj kaj Legendoj (Fables and Legends), among which are found translations of two of the best of Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales.

Then come thirty pages of Anecdotes and sixty pages of Rakontoj (Tales or Novelettes).

Another sixty pages are given up to articles dealing with scientific and commercial subjects.

Then follow eighty pages of Artikoloj pri Esperanto. One of them is the famous 16 Rules: another is the well known “preface to the first book” of Dr. Zamenhof. The concluding article is a magnificent plea for Esperanto, translated from a report read before the Congress of the French Association for the Advancement of Science. (Paris, 1900.) This article is by the well-known Esperantist, M. Louis de Beaufront: and merits the serious attention of all Esperantists, both for its substance and for its style.

The last third of the book is occupied by verse, about sixty pieces. A dozen of these are original, and the rest are translations, for the most part, of short poems of Heine, Lermontow, Schiller, Mickiewiewicz and Longfellow. These short pieces are followed by the First Act of Hamlet, translated by Dr. Zamenhof; and by the First Canto of Homer’s Iliad, translated by A. Kofman.

From this cursory description of the Krestomatio one can see that the book is most interesting and that it contains something for all Esperantists—for the beginner, for he who has made some progress in the language, and even for the skilled Esperantist. This book has been accepted by the “Tutmonda Esperantistaro” as the standard of Esperanto style. The careful reading of it must therefore be extremely useful to every person who really desires to master the international language; to authors and to translators it is absolutely indispensable.

The book is well printed on good paper. It can be procured from the- American Esperanto Association or from other dealers in Esperanto literature. Its price in this country, postage paid, is $1.00 (paper cover); $1.25 (cloth).