LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15023, 18 July 1914, Page 9

LITERARY GOSSIP.

• A work by the lato Samuel Butler which should have a particular interest for New Zealand readers, but which has long been out of print, is his early book "A First Year in Canterbury Settlement." Mr R. A. Streatfield, Butler's literary executor, is proposing to publish some time this year a new edition of this work, together -with other juvenile essays, including ■some writings dating from his Cambridge days. Wo havo received a letter from Mr S treat field, asking permission to reprint, in addition, those of Butler's writings which., appeared in "The Press." These are "Darw;n on the Origin of Species," "Darwin xVmong the Machines" —subsequently' incorporated in, "Erewhon" "Lucubratio Ebria," and some verses on tho visit .of the English cricketers. The* publication of this volume should practically complete the series of Butler's collected works.

Sir Sidney Lee is preparing a life of the Lite 'King ESward VII. Papers from the Royal archives and correspondence to which access lias not hitherto been available have been placed at his'disposal, and in the_ preparation of his work ho is receiving indispensable assistance from Ministerial and other sources. The aim will be to produce a. duly authenticated reobrd of tho late King's reign on historical lines and in fuller detail than it was possible «to" attempt in the article in the "Dictionary of National Biography so early after the Sovereign's demise.

Mr Thomas Hardy, who entered on liis seventy-fifth year last month, is

niiother example of the longevity of authors. Amongst those who have died since 1900. Sir Theodore Martin and Samuel Smiles were over ninety; over eighty were Sir Edwin Arnold, Edward Everut. Hale, Professor Masson, .Justin McCarthy, George Meredith. Herbert Spencer, (ioldwin Smith. "Mark Rutherford.'' aud Leo Tolstoy; while amongst those who passed their throe-seore-years-iind-ten may bo mentioned Alfred Austin, "Mark Twain,'-' Sir Lewis Morris, Joaquin Miller, and "Ouida." Hanpilv wo have still with us (says the ''Westminster Gazette"), though in their eighties. Mr BaringGould. Mr Stopford Brooks, and Mr rrederic Harrison: Lord Morlev is ia his seventy-sixth year. Mr William de Morgan m his seventy-fifth: while Mr Henry James is seventy-one and the Poet-Laureate sixtv-niue.

, For from the Madding Crowd." the nrst of Mr Hardy's books to win a wide, popularity, and, with" perhaps one exception, the best known of his works, was published a* a serial in the "Cornhill -Magazine"" just forty years a<-.. and it appeared anonymously. On its being published in volume torm. however, by Smith. Elder and Co., the author's name appeared upon the titv page. Mr Hardy two books feavs the "Westminster Gazette") did not attract widespread attention, for "Desperate Kennedies" did not run into a second edition until eighteen years after its first a~-iearanee. and even "Under the Greenwood Tree" had to wait four years before that same proof of popularity was forthcoming.

Wales is to have a National Library-, which is to be housed at Aberystwyth, where a "permanent building is now in course of erection. The coat of the work now-in progress will be £106.W0. and this sum ha<> already been raised with tho exception of something be10,000 and £1-5.000. Provision is being mado for storing a million and a half volumes. ''One has only to glance at tho collections boused in the temporary building -to realise how the National Library reflects with tho most quickening effect the very life of the people,' , says the "Manchester Guardian." ' "Here in ono corner, kept intact as such collections ought to be, is tho library of John Parry, of Llannnnon, the Denbighshire farmer who started, the anti-tithe agitation in tho eighties—theology, of course, history , . biography, and a. set of volumes on tho laws relating to tithes,. With these hooks before one and a little imagination which, one can see to tho life tho village Haropden at his studies by tho aid of an oil lamp after his farm work was done. . There, again, in another corner is the library of Richard Williams, of Cclynog. a Methodist attorney, who fixmt a full day at the law. but,on every day except tho seventh day found a quiet hour in tho early morning, and perhaps two in the evening, to Avrite his records of Montgomeryshire worthies ami edit a new edition of tho 'Royal Tribes of Wales.' And so on from.shelf to shelf. Apart from the priceless follectiorus of the Penarth and other manuscripts, these little sectional libraries, reflecting tinder various aspects the literary home life or the Welsh people, make tho National Library a truly and distinctively national possession."