LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 242, 9 October 1920, Page 18

LITERARY.

Talking with the librarian of one of London's biggest libraries we learnt (says a "Daily Chronicle" writer) that there was a very noticeable increase in the public demand for histories. Where formerly novels were almost exclusively asked for, the taste has veered to books of a more serious nature. There is no doubt, we are assured, that Mr. H. O. Wells is responsible for this rising taste. His "Outline of History" has encouraged readers to take an interest in the past, and has helped to demonstrate that history need not be dull, that in point of view ii can even be exciting. Mrs. George Mavaulay Treve'yan's "Short History of the Italian People" is another book (hat is being called for, and, from all accounts, thoroughly enjoyed. Talking about Mr Wells' "Outline of History," his view of Naivleon is unorthodox. Tile drunken Russian officer |in Mr. Kipling's "The Man Who Was" [ described Napoleon as "an episode"; I Mr. Wells docs not go quite so far, but he is very far from being a hero-wor-shipper. Napoleon's advent is heralded 'in these words: "Against this back- ! ground of confusion and stress and hope j this strained and heaving France and Europe, this stormy and tremendous dawn, appears this dark little archaic I personage, hard, compact, capable, un- ' scrupulous, imitative nnd neatly vulgar." j And when it is all over we read, "Thj career and personally of Napoleon I. - bulks disproportionately in the nineteenth century histories. He was of little significance to the broad onward movement of human affairs; he was an interruption, a reminder of latent evils, a thing like the bacterium of some pestilence." The book-loving capacity of Americans is subjected to some severe criticism by a writer in the "New York Tribune." There are 104,000,000 persons in this country (be says) and 104,000,000 books are sold here in the course of the year, but let it not be supposed from these figures that America Is a nation of book buyers. There is no occasion for undue pride in the fact that one book per capita is sold annually in this country. That is not a particularly high average, and such as it is, it is considerably lowered by a little delving. For one learns almost immediately that of the books sold here 40 per cent are schoolj books, which are given away to the pupils in the public schools of States that follow that policy. Boston is the best book town in the country. More books are sold there in proportion to the population than in any other city in America, but not a few of the book stores there live on their stationery business and expect to go through the I process of bankruptcy, dissolution and reorganisation about once every three years. A big movement, in which authors and publishers will join, is being planned to further the idea of bookbuying among the people. The idea is that if book-buying can be brought up in America to the ratio that it holds in the Scandinavian countries, which is about three times the ratio in 'the United States, writing as well as publishing will be more lucrative. Interesting details of an offer of honours made to Carlyle and Tennyson by Disraeli, in 1874, are given in the last volume of Disraeli's "Life." Dizzy (says Mr. J. C. Squire in "Land and Water," made two offers simultaneously, one to Tennyson and one to Carlyle. He began by consulting Queen Victoria. Dizzy understood that Tennyson could (financially) sustain a baronetcy, and he must have known that the Queen herself had a great respect for her laureate. Carlyle^ old and childless, was a case rather for the Path. There were no K.C.B.'s vacant. Would Her Mnjesty go so far as to authorise a G.C.8., and would she couple the offer of that with that of a Royal pension such as had been offered to and accepted by Dr, Johnson? The Queen assented, and both offers were made. Carlyle was very astonished and moved. No wonder. He had called Disraeli "a Hebrew conjurer," and, when the memory of these coals of fire-had passed, Ihe waR still to refer to him as "an old Jew not ' worth his weight in cold bacon." But he refused; he wanted no titles, and, by his own standard*, after living through a ! period of harsh but not degrading ! poverty, 'he was rich. The interesting . I thing is Dizzy's covering letter, enclosing )l (so to speak) the offer. He told Carlyle . i that looking round in the world of literature he could only see two people (this ' j was in the 'seventies) who could be conj ceived as likely to interest posterity. One was Carlyle himself; the other was I ! a poet, "if not a great poet, a real one" — to wit. Tennyson. He repeated the same thing to Tennyson —of course, without that qualification about greatness and reality. And he repeated the same thing ', to the Queen. Mr. Squire com- . ments on the significance of this . opinion of Disraeli's, as showing the , value of contemporary judgment. WeI know now that there were then several 1 other writers who wore to interest pos- ► jterity a great deal, but even a literary -man like Disraeli did not realise this. , I "Let us, therefore, never be too hasty [ with the assertion —always most freely i \ made in quarters least in touch with j ' contemporary literature-j-that, with the t I exception of one or two grey-headed men, f everybody who is any good is dead." 1 SOME NOVELS. 1 r "Sunshine on the Nile," by May . Crommelia. Jarrold's, London. Sentir ment, England, Egypt, France. A bril- : liant but penniless young Englishman in s the-service of a coarse and unscrupulous I peer; a beautiful Canadian heiress de- ■ sired by both; misunderstandings, and — ' well, you can guess the rest. ! "Jack o' Judgment," by Edgar Wallace. Ward, Lock and Co. A genuine ; I thriller in the familiar style of that masterpiece of its kind "The Four Just Men." Blackmailers, murders, detectives, an attractive heroine, appearance of a mysterious unofficial agent of justice, high speed throughout, and a real surprise at the end. Bince the cheap reprint novel, so wel- ' come to the small purse, bae gone up to half-a-crown in the shops, there is need of a cheaper reprint to take the place it occupied. Realising thiß, Mr. John Murray has issued a number of novels in paper-wrapperB —like the old - sixpenny?—at one shilling net. We ; have received from him in this edition . "Molly Bawn," the best-known of Mrs. ■ Hungerford's novels; "The Honourable ; Molly," by Katherinc Tynan; "Rainbow s Gold." by D. Christie Murray; "From I one Generation to Another," by Henry . I Set on Merriman.