Mont Ventoux, by Francesco Petrarca. 21 pages. Munich, 1936. Der Tummelplatz Europas, by Leslie Stephen. 8 vo. ; 186 pages, with 19 illustrations. Munich, 1936.

In their two most recent publications, the Gesellschaft Alpiner Bücherfreunde again demonstrates that Alpine classics can be translated and presented to modern readers at low cost and in attractive format.

On April 26th, 1336, young Petrarch, accompanied by his brother and their servants, ascended Mont Ventoux in Provence. The Latin narrative, accompanied by the classic German translation of Viktor von Scheffel are printed in commemoration of the six-hundredth anniversary of an event from which Petrarch has become known as the “father of mountaineering.” It is an attractive, moving story, fresh and ingenuous as if written yesterday and containing at least one passage which might well be inscribed on club-room walls : In summo finisest omnium, etviae terminus, ad quem peregrinatio nostra disponitur.

W. Rickmer Rickmers is the able translator of the first German edition of The Playground of Europe, its publication coinciding with the Blackwell edition, edited by H. E. G. Tyndale, in England. The carefully selected illustrations add much to the pleasure one has in re-reading this ever delightful book.

J M T