LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12849, 6 July 1907, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP.

The Tilbury school managers, in selecting books for tho library, have instructed the clerk to purchase an expurgated edition of Kingsley's " Westward Ho!" with tho passage commending tobacco omitted

The managing committee of the public library at Worcester (Mass.) have decided that "'Evelyn Innes." by Georgo Moore, and "Tho Forest Lovers," by Maurice Hewlett, aro not books for their to read. Both works have consequently been removed from the library.—"Central News."

Mr A. C. Bensou, author of "The Upton Letters," and until recently an Eton house-master, has, says tn« "Evening News,"' chosen the Following list of ten character creations as u\e greatest in English fiction :— 1. Jeanio Deans.—Scott. 2. Emma.—Jane Austen. 3. Piul Emauuel (Villette).—Cherlotto Bront* 4. Maggie Tulliver.—George Eliot. 5. David. Copperficld.—Dickens. 6. Clara Middloton (The Egoist).— Meredith. 7. Colonel Nowcome.—Thackeray. 8. Catriona.—Stevenson. 9. Kirn.—Kipling. „ 10. Ralph Tonchott (The Portrait of a Lady).—Henry v times.

Mr Lawson, the financier, offered £1000 for the best review of his novel, "Friday, tho Thirteenth." '-We nee:l that money,"' says "Collier's Weekly." ''Mr Lnnson's novel marks the first time in history that literature has ever iocus6«d into something perfect and complete. To the chaste selection of the Greeks this work unites tho profusion and vitality of the grent Elizabethans. To the delicacy of Dante it adds the humour of Molirre. In touches al external nature it surpasses Wordsworth. In culture and wisdom one is reminded irresistibly of Goethe. Tho style sings like a verse of Schiller, and for the characters they have the minute verisimilitude of Balzac, combined with the generalising touch and sweeping truth of the artist who created Falstaff. With any mere novel it could never be com oared. Roll 'Don Quixote,' 'Wilholm Me'ister,' 'Anna Karenina, , The Scarlet Letter,' 'Tom Jones' and "Vanity Fair' together into one, and you would but faintly suggest tho merit of the immortal 'Friday. , It will bo read when 'Hamlet' is forgotten. In this flash the human soul is supernal, grand and free. The struggling biped reaches higher than the angels. The Titnnic and the Olympian unite and fuse, and Genius becomes a final fact. Cheque should be made payable to the litemry editor, and addressed simply, 'Collier's, , New York."

"The Story of the 'Cheoryble , Grants," by W. Hinne Elliot ilfa-itratoe somewhat clearly the question of the limits of fipecriafisation "frays the 'Tribune"). Two or Ihree years nigo "The Dickens Country" aippeared. in which all the localities wer<» desoribed with which the great novelist had ever had any connection*. The. subject-, of course, had a certain kind; of "initerost, especially for lovers of minute detail, but fclie habit of specialisation is being carried rather far when a whole book, is written about the originate of two of Dickene's characters.

Tho "Grand" has aekefl several authors to describe their methods of compo<iition. Mr Stanley Weynran. writes: —"I am not anxious, as a rule, to go into particulars of matters thaiti, in truth, are not of an imiportanoe- to merit detail, but it would bo very disoourteous not to answer yon. I usually select first a period, and in the period a crowning event. I then use 6omo short motive, suggested, perhaps, by two or threo lines in a memoir, and round this weld a ekcleton. plot very ske.tohy and incomplete as a rule. Tho motive itself eusgests two or three, of tho principal characters, and I picturo the opening scenes and the denouement, which I sot down. The result is that the middle part of the book, before the run to the end, ie the weakest. So far as I can tell, that ih how p. story sugcests itself. But, like meet of my colleagues, if I may call them e.o, my notion is to tell -n story, and mv rules ere the rulo of thumb."

Mr Max Pemberton writes:—"l have no stereotyped method of writing. As a rule, however, the plot of every book has been in mv head for some years before I actually begin to work unon it. It is very curious how n plot will sometimes refuse to shape iteelf for quite a long time, and then, suddenly tho whole thins becornre perfectly clenr. The story of "Lafayette," which I wrote for the "Strand M3gazino," wrs in the form of an idea of mine for no lesH than Feven years before I wrote it. In , tho same wa.y I am now at work trpon a novel for which I made a note in my memorandum-book many years a«?o. I max eoVL, by the way. that th ,; s memorandirm-book'ifi the staff of my literary Hfe. I enter into it all notions, vague and otherwise, as they come to mc. Sometimes I am nbl<» to put down a complete plot, in , half a dozen lines; ait other times there is but a By this I can keep ideas eininwrmg, as it were, and when thinking them over, from time to time, can add .much to them on each occasion-. It woniid not be correct, however, to say that this is my invariable method of .writring a novel. I can ri-collect an occasion, when a plot came to mc one day and I started Uirwn it the next—that was .my etory "The Puritan's Wife." Such velocity, unfortunately, ie excetytional. As a rule. I find the construction of an, intricate plot a very exeriting piece of work."