"BEST – SELLERS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 6, 8 January 1934, Page 6

"BEST - SELLERS."

BOOKS OF A CENTURY.

j (By NE-LL.E M. SCANLAN.)

What is a "best-seller"? If you believed every publisher, he would claim at least half a dozen each season. It has been said taat. any book that exceeds 5000 or 6000 copies may claim that title: But when you run through the real "best-sellers" of the- past century, and sec some touching the million mark, like Elinor Glyn's "Three Weeks," and several reaching half a million, then you have the real thing. Recently Sir John Squire said that no books written fifty years ago were being read to-day, and that none of the- books of this generation would be read fifty years hence. Immediately Hugh Walpole rushed in to contradict him, and has, I think proved his case. Much of this talk of books and "best-sellers" has arisen through the London "Sunday Times" Book Exhibition, which has just closed, after a period of striking success. (Hard times have had their compensations. Many people having been deprived of the expensive pleasures of travel, theatres and cabarets, have sought solace in books. Never before, perhaps, has the general public been so keen on reading. Nor is it the thriller and light fiction alone that have compelled interest, but the demand for books on historical, political and scientific subjects rivals the inquiry for mere entertainment. Tho problems of peace, no less than war, drive home to the young as well as the old, the poor as well as the rich, and have sharpened their appetite fior knowledge. The younger generation is doing its own thinking, and it refuses to accept ready-to-wear opinions handed on by parents. It is seeking for itself a way out, challenging accepted theories, and often ruthlessly shattering the idols of an older age. To-day ie a typical winter's day. A heavy grey mist—a November fog—shrouds the city. It is damp and chill, and wet underfoot. It is a day to sit by the fire; to draw the curtains and shut out the gloomy picture of deserted streets, for it is Saturday afternoon. But the Book Exhibition was crowded, and it was difficult to elbow your way through Sunderland House. Priceless Volumes. Here nearly fifty London publishers have exhibits of their latest, as well as, their most famous, book.s. In one room you could see, in glass cases, priceless volumes, going back Ito the first bonk printed in England in 1477. Jit was "The Dictee and Sayenges of the I Philosopheres," by Wyndeville, Earl Rivers, Next came Chaucer's "When that Apprill with <Her Shoures Sote." There is Shakespeare's first edition of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," one of the few plays to appear in Shakespeare's lifetime, with his name on the title page. Frances Bacon, Ben Jonson, Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress," Dryden, Congreve and Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe." A first edition of vSheridan's "Tho Rivals," Fanny Burney's "Evelina," Robert Burns' poems, Blake, Burke, Wordsworth, Jane Austin, Sir Walter Scott. Among these treasures was tho original manuscript of Byron's "Don Juan," written by hand on huge sheets ot paper, and much scored and corrected; Shelley's "Ode to Naples," Disraeli, Dickens, "the Brontes, Thackeray, Tennyson. In another room you may see the "bestsellers" of the past century. In the great ealon of this once famous home, Sunderland House, with its ornate gold and marble walls, and huge crystal chandeliers, now lit with electric candle*, I heard Vera Brittain, the small, dark-eyed author of "The Testament of Youth," speak on "best-sellers," and there was scarcely breathing room. Unpredictable. It was not always literary genius that made a "best-seller," she said. No one could predict what book, or type o5 book, would catch the popular fancy, and sell in thousands. Usually it was perfect of its type, and struck some responsive chord in the lives of the multitude. There was something, too, in its timing. The book that would appeal this year might have met with comparative failure last year, or ten years ago. In nearly all of them was to be found some urgent human quality, some appeal that touched the lives and stirred the imagination of the mass of everyday people. A hundred years ago Harriet Beecher •Stowe swept the world with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This book, more than any other factor, no doubt, led to tho liberation of the South American slaves. Then we have Elizabeth Wetherall's "The Wide, Wide World." How different in its appeal! Running through the list I saw Lord Lytton's "The La*t Days of Pompeii," Mrs. Craik's "John Halifax, Gentleman," Dean Farrar's "Eric, or Little by Little," quoted by to-day's youth in jest. Mrs. Henry Wood's "East Lynne," which can still,, bring sentimental tears even in this, sophisticated age; "OuidaV "Under Two Flags," Helen Mather's "Coming Through the Rye," Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines," Francis Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy," Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" and Marie Corelli's "Wormwood." Fergus Hume's "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" was first printed in Australia, and the early editions were not obtainable for this exhibition. The copy shown was the 100,000 th. Then we come to Sir James Barrie's "Little Minister," Du Manner's "Trilby," Hall Caine's "Christian," A. E. W. Mason's "The Four Feathers," Baroness Orczy's "The Scarlet Pimpernel," Nat Gould's "The Boy in Green," Elinor Glyn's "Three Weeks," Edgar Wallace's "The Four Just Men," De Vere Stacpoole's "The Blue Lagoon." Jeffrey Farnol's "The Broad Highway," lan Hay's "The First Hundred Thousand," Robert Keable's "Simon 'Called Peter," Hutchinson'e "If Winter Comes," Warwick Decping's "Sorrell and Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front , ' and J. B. Priestley's "Good Companions."