LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 46, 23 February 1929, Page 2

LITERARY.

It is more important for the young to know the story of helium than to be steeped in the tiresome orations of Cicero. —Dr. Herbert Levinstein. Education is giving to every boy and girl a sense of right values and teaching them to follow them. —Dr. Cyril Norwood. Tho Prime Minister goes about the country making speeches in which he says more things of general interest than any Prime Minister I have ever known about.—Mr. Augustine Birrell. Tho greatness of the vogue of detective stories may be gauged by the fact that in America there is a Detective Story Club. It has recently chosen Lynn Brock's "The Slip-Carriage Mystery" as the best detective novel published in 192S in England or America. Britons will be both pleased and surprised to learn that Mr. A. A. Milne's "Winnic-the-Pooh" has been translated into German, The Berlin correspondent of the "Observer" says that considering how many years Germany gave fairy tales and legends to English nurseries, tho translation of the English children's books, which began with "Dr. Doolittle," should bo regarded as something gained for this branch of literature. The correspondent sends another interesting piece of news. Mr. Edgar Wallace is very popular in Germany. Not only was "The Squeaker" going to be produced as the principal Christmas novelty 011 the Berlin stage, but Edgar Wallace, in German translation and in Tauchnitz, now occupies a place in bookshop windows sacred hitherto to Mr. Shaw and Mr. Galsworthy. For a new author to issue a limited, numbered, and signed edition of a book is to invite criticism, and although there is talent in Mr. Corrie Denison's "Gilmpses" (the Scholartis Press, London), wo do not find distinction sufficient to warrant this course. It is a curious medley. The first item, "The Valley," is a sketch of childhood in a country district of New Zealand, a sketch without point. The second, "The Schooldays of Tom Warner," takes us to Australia and includes a shrewd comparison of New Zealanders and Australians. "Jim Dawson, Teacher," is also Australian. Then we are introduced to tho Great War, in which Mr. Denison served with the Australians. The war chapters are interesting, but not very impressive. Then there are some general stories of 110 remarkable merit, one of which is astonishingly frank even in this age of frankness.