LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 53, 2 March 1907, Page 10

LITERARY.

Of making many books there is no end, is a remark a good deai truer today than when it was first -made. Year by year the number of. new books published is greater. It -trill probably astonish, some people to hear that close upon 7000 masterpieces— to be exact, 6985 —were born to an admirim* -world last year. This total includes every sort and kind of book— solemn treatises on surgery, sermons, school books, pam■phlets, as well as the lightest novels and stories for children. Some notion of the vicissitudes of public taste can be formed by comparing the figures for different classes of books in 1905 and 1906. From the annual resumes of the "Publisher's Circular" it appears that 163 more new books were published in 1906 than in 1905. The respective totals are--1906, 6985; 1905, 6817. No one will be much surprised to hear that the novel class is the largest contributor to these totals. There were 2108 new novels published last year, against 1733 in 1905. The increase is marked, and the more striking compared with decreases in other classes. There were only 541 hook 9of history and biography published, a decrease of 16. There were only 522 books dealing with the arts and sciences, a decrease of 70. There were only 268 in the class of "belleslettres and essays," a decrease of 52. Theology supplied 628, but that -was a falling off of 37. Educational books have been numerous. Their total, 769, shows the remarkable increase of 127. The output of this class of book is growing at a rate far in excess of any other. Books on "political and social economy, trade, and commerce" are also becoming much, more numerous. Five hundred and ninety-seven were published last year, 95 more than in 1905. It is a J good deal more surprising to find "poetry and the drama," not as a rule a profitable speculation, on the increase. Three hundred and ninety-five is the total for this class, 33 more than the year before. All these figures' refer to new books. The Ameer of Afghanistan is much in the public eye just now. There is. therefore, present interest in a book published by Messrs. Harper, " Under the Absolute Ameer." Its author, Mr. Frank A. Martin, has lived" for eight years in Afghanistan, and therefore can write from his own knowledge of the great men of Afghanistan, its soldier, politics, religion, commerce and social life. Colour books are to be a notable part of the spring publications of Messrs. Chatto and Windus, and those who know the admirable colour reproductions of the old Italian masters issued by the firm will await the new enterprise with interest. " Switzerland " is to be the first book of the series. Fifty-six coloured plates from paintings by Mrs. James Jardine are given. The book itself- has been written by Mr. Clarence Rook. In his book, "Education and National Progress," Sir Norman Lockyer explains that he " has endeavoured to show how vital it is from a national point of view that the education of everybody, from prince to peasant, should be based upon a study of things, and cause and effects, as well as of words, and that no training of the mind is complete which does not make it capable of following and taking advantage of the working of natural law, which dominates all human activities." He argues for a change of attitude towards science by the Government. Mr. Haldane has written an introduction. The publishers are Messrs. Macmillan. A drama m five acts of blank verse is something of a bold undertaking in these days. Such a play, upon the Elizabethan model, "Sir Walter Raleigh," is shortly to be published by Mr. Fisher Unwin. Mr. H. A. A. Curso is the author, and his subject is the tragedy of Raleigh's later years. Sir Spencer Walpole's various books dealing with the political life of last century are well known. His latest work, " Studies in Biography," to be published by Mr. Fisher Unwin, has among its subjects Sir Robert Peel, Cobden, Bismarck, Disraeli, Napoleon DX, and Lord Dufferin. v A Summary of the Literatures of Modern Europe" is a book which, compiled by Mies Marian Edwardes, deals with the literatures of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain from thensources to the year 1400. It is " in.- ---• tended to act as a signpost to the student." Messrs. Dent are the publishers. Count Leo Tolstoi comes forward with a bran new theory that Shakespeare worship is sheer hypnotism; that Shakespeare was a bad poet and a worse dramatist; that the critics of all ages have written under the spell of mesmeric "suggestion"; and that it has been reserved for him to give to men the first true estimate of the very commonplace individual of the sixteenth century whom a long chain of deluded votaries have apotheosised. In the course of two extended articles in the " Fortnightly," the Russian celebrity prosecutes his thesis I without any perceptible mark of cerebral softening, except in the confident cheerfulness with which he sets his individual judgment against that of the world of letters. It does not trouble Tolstoi in the slightest that all the judgment of mankind for 300 years has concurred in the opinion that Shakespeare, i was, in the words of one of his old i cronies, rare Ben, the " Soul of the age, I the applause, the delight, the wonder of jour stage." Indeed, he admits it most fully as a kind of curious hallucination. He says: "It is generally asserted that in Shakespeare's dramas the characters are especially well expressed; that, notwithstanding their vividness, they are many sided, like those of living people; that, while exhibiting the characteristics of a given individual, they at the same time wear the features of a man in general. It is usual to say that the delineation of character in Shakespeare is the height of perfection." He sets down with apparent relish all this and very much more as embodying the consensus of a panopinion, and then adds: — " However much I endeavoured to find confirmation of this in Shakespeare's dramas, I always found the opposite. In reading any of Shakespeare's dramas whatever, I was from the verj first instantly ;-onvinced that he was lacking in the most important means of portraying character—individuality of language. ■ • • All his characters speak, not their own, but always one and the same Shaker spearean pretensions and unnatural language, in which not only they could not speak, but in which no living mehas ever- spoken or does speak. . Therefore* whatever the blind panegyrists of Shakespeare may say, in Shakespeare there is no expression o* eharac>r."

. _ Lord ; Roberts' has , written an- introduction, to Mr. Loraine Petre's book, "'Napoleon's Conquest of Prussia,-"* which is to be published shortly by Mr. John Lane. The story of the notorious -/Timing]Charles Peace; is of lasting initerest-, as is shown by the fact that a little book has just been published in which. Mr. 2& Kynaston. Gaskell retells the history of Peace's life of crime, under the title of "The Romantic Career.of a Great Criminal." Although more than a quarter of. a century has elapsed since the" execution of Charles Peace at Leeds, he is still remembered by many as one of the most remarkable villains -who ever baffled the police and the public. His personality was indeed an interesting one. The son of a. shoemaker at Sheffield, he betrayed his criminal instincts at an early age, -when he used to pilfer from his schoolfellows. Though he was a talented artist, a brilliant performer on the violin, and a lover of animals, he committed several murders and many daring burglaries. At one time in his career he furnished a house at Peckham, where he posed as a benevolent and philanthropic old gentleman, carrying en hisbase practices by night. In this way he evaded the police for some time. The story of his hairbreadth escapes and ultimate capture affords interesting, though melancholy reading. A valuable addition to the history of the United States will be made by the publication of the concluding volume of Dr. Rhodes's "History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule to tlie South in 1877," announced by Messrs Maemlllan. Dr. Rhodes's work has already been recognised as a remarkably complete and judicious history of the American Civil War. This last volume desoribes the "final restoration of Home Rule" to the Southern States in 1877.. "The withdrawal," says Dr. Rhodes, "of the United States troops from South Carolina and Louisiana, following upon the tacit consent of the North to the overthrow of the other Southern carpet-bag-negro governments by the educated and property-holding people of several States was proof that the reconstruction of the South, based on universal negro suffrage, was a failure, and that, on the -whole, the North -was content that the South should work out the negro problem in her own way, subject to the three constitutional amendments which embodied the results of the Civil War; and subject also to the public opinion of the enlightened world." Dealing with such matters the book is of great interest at a time when problems of race are in the forefront of politics both, in America and in our own Empire. The announcement of a book with 1116 pages, 1400 illustrations, and which, even on Bible paper, comes to 2rkl\> in weight, is a trifle alarming. Such is the largest and latest abridgment of Webster's "International Dictionary," prepared by Messrs. BelL The "Collegiate Dictionary" is the title of the new work, -which contains, besides a full dictionary proper, a glossary of Scottish words,- vocabularies of rhymes and proper names, and many other useful articles.