LET ME SHOW YOU VERMONT.

By Charles Edward Crane '06, with an introduction by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1937. pp. xix+347+xxiv. $3.00 net.

If you were born in Vermont, if you have ever lived within its borders or in sight of its verdant hills, if you have ever toured its highways or plan to do so on your next vacation, or even if you merely wish you could—and that must include everyone,—you will want to read Charles Crane's delightful volume. It contains more accurate, useful, and entertaining information about Vermont than has ever before been gathered between the covers of a single book, yet it does not remain a mere encyclopedic guide. Its author knows his compact little state with an astonishing thoroughness; no doubt if you should carry him blindfolded into some remote valley among the mountains, he could sniff the air and immediately tell you what town he was in and all the things that had ever made it noted or notorious. But his knowledge is not greater than his love, and he has written not merely to show you Vermont but to make you love it with him.

A brief review can only hint at the great variety of topics Mr. Crane treats. He introduces you to Vermont's people, past and present-her heroes and farmers, her authors and artists, her educators and inventors,—and lets you hear them speak their native tongue. He conducts you through her churches, schools, and colleges, her factories, mines, and quarries, and always he brings you back to her trim and highly productive farms. He talks of her antiques, her museums, her libraries, her lovely old-time houses, her ancient taverns and modern hostelries. He reads you quaint epitaphs from her cemeteries and spins you yarns about her odd characters. He leads you along her railroads and her improved highways and then entices you up her back roads—shun-pikes he calls them—into the hills; on horseback and afoot he explores for you her bridlepaths and mountain trails; he takes you fishing and hunting; and everywhere he reveals for you Vermont's beautiful landscape—mountains and valleys, notches and hills, lakes and streams.

All this and much more is set forth in Mr. Crane's charming style. He writes with humor, with the tang of Vermont in his dry wit, but also with a touch of poetry that is in him. His pages are flavored, often most unexpectedly, with his background of reading in the English classics and with his wide knowledge of men and affairs. To make it all complete, he has embellished his volume with ten useful maps and fortythree photographic reproductions of Vermont scenes and people.