LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12484, 21 April 1906, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP.

An American lady, Miss Myrtle Reed, has dared to attack man, tho novelist, on tho ground that ho breaks down whenever he attempts to describe a woman's dress. To remedy this, she suggests a courso of lectures on feminine attire at tho School of Journalism at tho University" of Columbia. The defect is* attributed to British authors only. French writers, such as Paul Bourget and George Olinet, are admitted to bo assiduous students of tho fashion plates.

American millionaires will be glad to learn that a company has been formed in Rome, with a capital of £14,000. for the express purpose of reproducing Dante's "Divine Comedy" in facsimile trom the original .manuscript. Tho work will bo divided into three volume*., with a fourth containing explanatory notes. One edition of five hundred numbered copies will be printed on or dinary paper; one of two hundred on Japanese paper; one of seventy-five on special paper: and one of twenty-five on hand-painted minis Lures by Nestoro Looni, as in the original. Each of tho twenty-five copies will cost Clooo—■a rare chance this for the Yanderbilts and tho Rockefellers. King Victor Emanuel and Queen Elena take a great interest in the venture, and liave promised their support.

A volume of the greatest literary and liktoric.il. value, consisting of the original official and secret despatches written by Lord Bolingbroke at the conference of the Powers held at Utrecht from 1711 to 1713, was to lie sold at Sotheby's rooms on March '"Oth. The volume contains not only 110 letters from Boiingbroke, hut the only complete record of the instructions sent to the English representatives, at I'treeht. Portions of the despatches are in cypher, above which there is a transliteration in the holograph of the Bishop of Bristol. With the exception of fourteen unimportant letters, nothing in the volume lias previously been published

Miss King*-ley, daughter of the Rev. ! Charles Kingsley. has been appealed to :by a Chester correspondent to settle , the disputed point whether her father's j beautiful' poem. "The Sands o' Dee." i referred to the Cho'.er or the Scottish ; Dee. In reply, she writes:—"'lt is al- ' ways a pleasure to bo of the slightest ! dm! to anyone in Chester, and in this j catso I am particularly glad to lx» able Ito settle the point about 'The Sands |o' Dee' one*.* and for all. Not only did imy father tell mc that it was written jaliout the Chester Doe. but a moment's 'thought, I should have supposed, would i show" those who claimed the. poem for j Scotland that they are in error, if they [ read the first and second verses carefully. Trie Scottish Deo flows to the east. How, therefore, would if be possible for the western wind to bring up tlie western tide? Also, the poem was written in IS4O. and nt that time my father had never set foot in Scotland, though Cheshire, from which our family o.amo'originally. was well known to him by' study and affection, ii not by close observation."

Among the receiving orders in bankruptcy announced last month was that of Mr T. W. H. Cros!an„. of Gerrard street. S.liO". Mr CiCf-La.nd is the author ct the books, "Th. Unspeakable

Scot" and ''Lovely Woman," and ha 6 twice indulged in litigation on the strength of the criticisms to which his extraordinary style of satire Tendered him liable. Hfs appearances in Court were on both occa?ions unsuccessful.