LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 156, 1 July 1916, Page 14

LITERARY.

Coningsby Dawson, air&jor of "The Garden Wrtfconi WaDs," "The Eaft," etc., has joined the Canadian forces, and is taking this training to be an artillery officer at the Kingston MiKtaryKJoflege.

The April number of the "Literary Wortd" specially commends "The Yeoman Adventurer," by G. W. Gonghj "An Outraged Society," by A. Brownlow Fforde; "A Cathedral Singer," iby James Lane Allen; and "The Bright Eyes of Danger," by John Foster. Tho "first novel" that has won the £250 in the JVlelrose Competition is "Unhappy in Thy Daring," by Marina Lyle.

Mr. John Pollen, the Esperanto enthusiast, who said recently that this ingenious language is destined to do away with the curse of Babel, is the author of a literal translation into English of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." Dr. Pollen's version is in ordinary hymn metire. Here is a. characteristic verse:—

'If measures two of wine you gain Do not from drink in Hall refrain, lie careth not—wJk> made the world— liow your moustache or mine is curled!"

A well-known publisher states that, while the war is not crippJing the publishing business, few expensive books aro being issued. The trade consists mainly in cheap editions of Trovels, with the result that millions of readers iroho never read before are being made. "What is there to do for many of the lonely women but to sit at home by the fire and read? And. the soldiers in the trenches, and the wounded soldiers at home and in the hospitals—what can they do but read?"

The bare "fiver" left as the entire estate of the late Stephen Phillips comes as a reminder once again of the slim guerdons that poetry yields to its votaries. Tne astonishment of the eighteen-nineties when a young man named Kipling actually succeeded in minting ilia verses into real London ■money was celebrated at H\c thne by T. \V. 11. Crosland, from whom we quote an extract:—■

Tor it's verses this, and verses that, ami things rnn pretty rough. Bat there's Albert Gate Iα verses, 11 yon only write the stuff. If you only write tbe stnff, my boTS, If you only write the stuffi, O, it's yncbts ami rows of homes, If yon only write the stnff!"

"A. Book of Homage to Shakespeare, lfllfi," edited by Israel Zangwill, hon. secretary of the Shakespeare Tercentenary, is a prodigious work—nearly 600 pages of poetry and prose, contributed by a 'hundred and sixty-six of the most representative literary men in the world, in thirty different languages. These last include such unfamiliar tonfiurs as Sanscrit, Fhmrah, Armenian, Icelandic, Bengalee (this is Sir Rabindranath Tagore's tribute), Urdu, Burmese, and the Bechuana dialect. One language, indeed, is not to be foimd which in other circumstances would have held a prominent place; but we arc glad to see that room has been found for an appreciative article by Professor C. H. Herford on "The German Contribution to Shakespeare Criticism."

The issue of Mr. H. G. Wells' "An Englishman Looks at tho World," by Caseell and Co., at one shilling net, will bring within popular Teach a series of clever essaps on current topics. The articles written by Mr. Wells before the war on t\ic subject of conscription and the possibility of creating a great British army have been falsified by events, bnt his predictions regarding the probable course of Gorman naval tactics display a good dc-.i4 of foresight. Among other articles of special interest in this book aro those in which the author makes a concise statement of his opinions on Socialism, and shews wherein Fabian socialism has already failed and why the qualified Socialism championed by Mr. Chesterton and Mi-. Belloc is likely to encounter a similar fate.

Mr. Henry Halsalle, in a book entitled "Degenerate Germany," which Mr. T. Werner Laurie has published, adduces a mass of evidence, including witnesses of German nationality, to prove that savagery and swinishness, rapacity and lack of scrapie, have been dominant traits of the race throughout history, and the ghastly horrors perpetrated in this way are not really out of scalo with the moral features of its ordinary life. Crimes of brutality, lust, and di.-r----honesty were at all times rampant in Germany to a degree which eclipses entirely the modest statistics of our own country. In a single year more than 8,000 children were the victims of criminal assault. The annual number of convictions of every kind in fcho United Kingdom is less than 15,00fi. But in a year's German statistics we find 93,000 convictions for "aggravated assault and battery," 48,000 for embezzlement, 51,000 for fraud, 12,000 for forgery, and more than 160,000 for larceny of various degrees.

Mr. William Le Queux, writing in the "Daily Mail" on the effect of the war upon the book publishing trade, says that although most of our leading novelists published at least one or more books during last year, the issue of new fiction and new editions showed a falling- off of 410 volumes as compared with 1914. "A question often asked," he continues, "is whether people read war etoriei, or do they prefer, for relaxation, fiction which causes them for a brief hour to forget the stress of our times. Though I have ever set my face against the so-called sex novel—and I am not alone among novelists —yet one cannot conceal the fact that the subject best in fiction to promote sales is the sex question. Wholesome love stories, with, a spice of adventure, always seD well, and so do good, exciting detective stories, especially if science is brought in to aid the investigation of crime, but the sex novel is certainly the one that sells best of all. Whether this is a. good sign is qrreationarble. Novels dealing with such a question are, unfortunately, apt to degenerate into volumes unfit for the hands of our daughters, hence every now and then we bear of a book receiving the advertisement of being ""banned by the libraries.' However much the fact may be deprecated, it nevertheless remains that one erTect of tbe war is to induce a frivolity in fiction, jnst as in the theatres we ha,ve the frivolous Teviiß and the fox--trot. A further change effected by the war is the Tapid fall of tho Victorian novelist in the barometer of public favour. Notwithstandmg that literary men harvc. in recent lyears, strenuously endeavoured to elevate the Brontes and others into a kind of cult, yet the sales of the works of the greater novelists of the nineteenth century, among thorn Mrs. ITenry Wood, Miss Rosa Carey. Miss Braddon, Trollope and Grant, are steadily dropping out. Other times, other manners. They wore only for en age, after- all, and not for all time."

Two of the latest issues in | Hodder and Sfcoughton's shilling I net cloth - bound books are Morice ] Gerard's popular historical nwel, ; "The Grip of the Wolf," and Arnold Bennett's "The Glimpse." Mi. Gerard's romance deals with events in [ the reign of the Emperor Otho, and | abounds in knightly deeds performed in reecning a noble lady from deadly peril. Mr. Arnold Bennett'e story is a brilliant up-to-date society novel in wiiich love and jealousy are subjected to incisive analysis.

Mrs. Sussell Barrfngton's story of the kite-flying gives a pleasing glimpse of Wellington's kindness towards children. Another is to be found in Sir Mountstuart Grant-DufTs diary:—"Dined with the Spencer Walpoles. She told a story of playing as a child in the gardens by Apsley House. The old duke came out, and tile children stood in a row while he passed. He stopped and said to one of them, ' You are a very nice little fellow; -when you are old enough I will give you a commission in the Guards.' ' But I am a dirl, Mr. Dook, , said the child."

Tuesday, May 2nd, was the anniversary of the publication of the first part of " Robinson Crusoe," which was issued to the public on April 25, 1719. And it was an immediate success. Its author, Defoe, was 60 years of age, and it set the seal of fame upon his career, whilst, for its publisher, it laid the foundation of bis fortune. Within four months three editions were published and bought, and so insistent was tho demand that several printing oflices were kippt busy in order to supply it. From the profits, which amounted to a thousand pounds, the publisher, William Taylor, was able to double the size of his premises and adopt a new coat of arms used by his successors, Messrs. Longmans, to" this day.

The pursuit of "Happiness," which supplies tho title to the book, is the theme of a novel by John Traver3, author of "Sahib Log," and tie moral to he drawn seems to bo that the condition desired by all mankind belongs exclusively to no class of society, an-1 is greatly qualified under the best of circumstances. Koifch Wendhover, and Pauline, his poet wife, pass through a good many experiences. He sets out on a military career, keen for hie profession, and conies through the great war unscathed physically, but morally so changed that he is resolved to enter the Church. The scene changes from England to the cantonments of a regiment stationed on the Indian frontier, where old acquaintances meet in new environment. Pauline's literary friend Doris has married a Hindoo doctor, and finds the racial barriers unbroken by comradeship in the battJefleHs of France. Hnman nature, trie old prejudices and passions reassert themselves, and happiness ts still elusive. Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton are the publishers.

" Battery Flashes," by " Waggcr" (John Murray), gives the personal" experiments of a gunner m Kitchener's army from raw recruit to eergpant with his battery in action at the front. The Btory opens with the training of troops on Salisbury Plain, and describes in a clear unvarnished style the round of the duty It traces their movements through the months of preparation until we find "Wagger" in the firing line, and here is the roH of his companions: "Old K. of K_ doesn't waste troops hanging about as they did at first in South Africa. We wero in the firing line five daps after leaving . England, "and have relieved a regular battery -who were the first to open fire in the waT in August; they have. I suppose, gone to a more important position. AVn have got a rum lot of occiipntions in our battery. A shop mamigc.r was laying A gun, an apprentice engineer B giin. an analytic chemist C pin. and a mechanic D gun. The sergeant-major (acting) was a solicitor's clerk, and the signaller a bank cashier, and the O.C. the son of a late director of the Imperial Tobacco Co. 1 don't know- what he is personally. Other gun 'numbers' and signallers were commercial travellers, mechanics, college men, a wine merchant, and a pood supply of various clerks! Truly thterc wil] be some chatting over old times when they get back to their business trains!" The experiences of toe Territorial Army arc described ■with graphic realism and without exaggeration, aad the anther succeeds in presenting a very interesting story of the war as seen by one wJilo has taken an active part in it POETRY Or THE EMPIRE : ITEW ZEAXjANTPS SHABE THEREIN. In more ways than by war is New Zealand coming into its own in these days. Oxford, no less, that last stronghold of Contpulßory Greek, has had its Professor of Poetry, Sir Herbert Warren, devoting a lecture to the poetry of Nerw Zealand. How does this learned professor of Magdalen, who is himself a poet, class our Dominion? "The New Zcalandere," he said, "were an island race, yet connected with a huge neighbour continent, part of Australasia, and, what .-was more important, part, and no small part, of the Empire. The three notes of Imperial poetry lie had distinguished before were theirs too—love of the new home., lore of the old home, love of the Empire. New Zealand had the advantage of coming a little late into the Empire, and had not been used as a human dumping ground, but had been settled to a considerable extent by men of business, yeomen, gentlemen, and even scholars. In the Maoris, themselves emigrants, it possessed a native race of a superior kind. These factors appeared in its poetry, of which, in its short life, it had already produced a large and rich crop. Tfte best collection was "New Zealand Verse,' by W. P. Alexander and A. X Curric, published in 1906. The Gxst poem, entitled 'New Zealand,' formed an excellent introduction. It wae the work of the Hon. William Pember Reeves, who, in hie ' Long Wnite Cloud,' had also written an excellent history of the island. "New Zealand poetry had a most creditable father, Alfred Domett, Browning's friend 'Warring,' a Cambridge graduate, a ibarrister, a travelled and educated man, who went out to New Zealand about 1842. Domett made his career there an interesting and successful one, culminating with his becoming Prime Minister in 1862, returning in, 1871 to England to renew Ws friendship ■ with Browning and to publish his epic of ! New Zealand, "Ranolf and Amohia." This fine poem wae a description of New' Zealand as it was before man had de-1 Rtroyed much of its colour and icharac- ] ter. The story of Domett was excellently told by Sir Frederick Kenyon in his little volume entitled 'Robert Browning and Alfred Domett.' A beautiful and touching poem, the contrast between the old and the new, was 'Onawe,' by Dora Wilcox. There were other New Zealand poets whose works were woT*thy of note, such as P. W. Broome, H. Chirroh, W. Lawson, MaryColborno Veal, and Amc Qtonnic WOaon."