LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 78, 1 April 1905, Page 10

LITERARY.

"The Letters and Literary Remains" of the author of "John Inglesaot" will not be published for some time to come, his widow having determined to bring ! out a completer biography than was at ■ first intended. j Miss Marie Corelli is publishing a number of cries in the wilderness under the title of "Free Opinions Freely Expressed." They are tart criticisms of various phases of social life. BOOKS AND INDIA PAPER. ! (By THETA.) It is a strange fact that people don't realise the meaning of India paper, and what it has done for the book trade. I read the other day a furious and, to my mind, quite an un-called-for attack on the popularity of the delicious little thin paper volumes which, to many others, seem to herald a new order in the methods of publication. In the first place, what is India paper? Rougly speaking, it is a tissue that, while extraordinarily thin, has the seemingly incompatible virtues of being both tough and nearly or (as with the true Clarendon Press paper, and one or two of the imitations) completely opaque. The paper itself is far from a novelty. lt is many years since the late Dr. Legge, Professor of Chinese in the University of Oxford, returned from the lengthy holiday in China allowed him by the three pupils whom he had to instruct in the language of Confucius, with some samples of a marvellous paper he had discovered somewhere within the wide confines of this Oriental Empire. He gave these specimens away, and for years forgot his discovery. Then one day he happened to be talking to Mr Frowde, the Controller of the University Press, when he bethought him of the paper, and described it to his very willing heareT. Diligent search was made for those specimens, and efforts were made to get more from China, but in both cases without success. Then the University Press, seeing a fortune in the secret manufacture of the tissue, set about experimenting, and went on experimenting, as 1 believe, over a period of ten years. "India paper" was the eventual result, and the secret of its manufacture at the University paper mills has t»een kept with remarkable success even unto this day. But the Clarendon Press did not make a. full use of their advantage. Beyond probably millions of Bibles and Prayer-books, and a few ot the Ancient and Modern Clafesics, nothing was printed *on this paper until the holders of the copyright of t&e works of Charles Dickens made an arrangement with the University for the publication of a complete, edition of the works of "Bbz" in pocket volumes, each containing a complete novel in large and bold type. That was the beginning of things. Another publisher with a zeal that did not begin in originality followed this example with a fresh edition of Dickens; then with Tha-ckeray and Lytton, and. finally, with Cervantes' '"Don Quixote," Kingsley's "Westward Ho!-'' and half a dozen other.' standard works of fiction. Next came a well-known newspaperproprietary, who were perhaps, the last firm in the world wnom one would have ' expected to embark on such apurely literary enterprise. And, strange to say, in some ways they have been the most literary of alllthe .publishers in. their- jchoice of wor-ks«for. reproduction. Their chef-d'oeuvre is .a singularly beautiful edition of Shakespeare in three pocket volume** —Tragedies, Comedies," and r J±istOTic*al plays respectively. They have alsp,_issued (all ' for the pocket) Evelyn's and.Pepys' Diary. Boswell's "Life of Johnson," "Don Quixote," and the novels of Thomas Love Peacock That indicates only the beginning of what one cannot but think will be a great movement in the direction of pocket reprints (as witnessed .by the beginning by the copyright holders of a complete edition of Oarlylc and several others of the classic Victorian men of letters). Now what is the meaning of all this? I am certain, in the first place, that it means more and closer reading. Their haudiness gives these dainty little volumes a< capacity for companionship that is not shared by their bulkier predecessors. A book that is heavy in quarto, and even octavo, becomes relatively light and pleasant when it is held between the finger and thumb. The lazy man will find the virtues of India paper even in the literary nightcap of a read in bed. Then there is travelling. Where you once thought before you took half a dozen books on a holiday, you may now take twenty,, and they will fill less space. I have heard this love of India paper books called a craze. I regard it, as no more of a craze than to prefer a modem watch to its enormous forebear of two generations hack. People say they can see the print through the page of these books. That is not true as it stands; if is only with some of them that this is the case; and then no more so than with most of the paper four times the thickness, which people prefer to' its substitutes. Lastly, say these critics, you can't read the names on the books without looking at them closely. My answer to that must be a little brutal —a man that has to read the names on his books is buying them mostly as furniture, and doesn't const. I have chatted with all the Auckland booksellers, and there is only one that does not think that the India paper has not only come to stay, but to develop rapidly at the expense of bulkier editions. One of them went so far as to discuss the bookshop of the future as being a place one-third its present size. I don't believe quite that, for the book-thief is an enemy of India paper books, even more than of their bulkier rivals.