LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19482, 1 December 1928, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP.

In the annual predatory raids on the English bookshops this year the American booksellers came off as a rule second best (the "New York Times" thinks). That is to say, the majority of them had to withdraw either' emptyhanded or v. ith . purses so sorely depleted that only cabled appeals tor reinforcements saved them from the necessity of working their way .back home. So swift and sudden has been the rise in the money value of rare books, particularly in the field of English literature, that the atmosphere has become tainted with suggestions ot manipulating, hoarding, etc. Certainly there is something a little mysterious in the almost complete disappearance from the market of books until recently not uncommon, such as "The Vicar," "Tristram Shandy," and "Gulliver." The prices asked for these and other notable 18tb century treasures when they are to be had at all are truly fabulous. Equally incomprehensible are the values attached to th© less coveted pieces of minor literature which can hardly be considered even rare. The repeated occurrence at auction this summer of Johnson's didactic poem "London," which won new high fame with each successive appearance (£260 for the last, in our recollection) is a case in point. The outlook is none too happy for the collector of English literature. Either he must be a man of great wealth, in _ which case lie can afford to have liis collecting done for him, or he must learn to do without the great literary landmarks and blaze new trails for himself.

One of the most valuable discussions at the annual meeting of the Library Association at Blackpool, says an exchange, was introduced by another outsider, J. C. Squire, and dealt with the question of book reviewing. Mr Squire's main object was to emphasis© the distinction between it and literary criticism. In the case of new books, he said, we did not primarily want to know what the reviewer thought of any subject accidentally discussed in the book, but what the book contained. The most conppiouous fault of contemporary reviewing was the failure to quote sufficiently. He sometimes thought that a really skilful "skimmer," deliberately looking, for salient elements, might write a better review than if he read every. word of the book. Stanley Jast. chief librarian at Manchester, suggested that what was wanted in the book-reviewing world was the same sort of thing one got in the guide-book world Baedeker. Book reviewing, he added, was a technical Job that did not require brilliance at all, and brilliant men like Mr Squire were wasted upon it., They _ should confine themselves to big criticism.

In "Bonnet and Shawl," Mr Philip Guedalla's recent study of the wives of a few famous Victorians, there is a typical reference to the* marriage of Gladstone

The sir of 1839 was heavy with impending nuptials. In the bright dawn of a new reien matrimony swept over England like a genial epidemic, and the land, was loud with banns. For the; Queen'B hand was asked and given; and, inspired by this event, a highly representative selection of her subjects moved with an almost simultaneous impulse to the altar, Disraeli and his Mary Anne, Victoria and her Albert, even Lord Palmerston and his delicious Emily, prepared for felicity that season, . . . The Queen betrothed, Lord Pfilmerston proposing marriage, Disraeli kneeling with Mrs Wyndham Lewis at St. George's, Hanover square, were a mere prelude. Now Mr Gladstone has received his bride) and the Victorian age waß ready to begin.

There is a bright passage also on Disraeli's wooing—and its result. Disraeli had onoe written}' "I inay Commit many follies in life, but 1 never intend to marry for 'love,' which I am sure is a guarantee of infelicity.' He did not marry for love; His Wife was rich. She was 47 when he married her and ho was 34. And yet j

This lively, lovable eccentric informed.the world with cheerful candour that ,'Plzzy mar? ried me for my money, but If he had the chanco again he would marry me,for Jove. The world was sceptical. But then the world waß unaware of how she mothered him; it never heard who supplied hi? medicines and cut his hair; it knew nothing of, little dinners eaten off two pair? of knees. In a.watting brougham between division bells in Palace Yard; it never stood outside a. lighted house that overlooked the park to wofch a carriage drive lip after midnight aiid release a hungry politician to .poUph off-* bottlo and a bird under a fcair of eyes that had Waited up for him. It knew so little of heriimmenee devotion.. But her husband krtfw; _and Ms long memory ' Was capable Of' jnexh&ustlule gratitude. •

From a reoent fesue of the "OJN server": — . _ , The . casket which Sir James Barrie will receive from Jedburgh to-morrow bears "Peter Pan on the right panel, and on the left Barrio's own coat-of-arms and motto." His coat-of-arms 18 distinctive, humorous and professional; It is technically described as:

Ahn».—Barry of »ix »rg., «fld fa chief a lion passant guardani pxppiN! changed and issuing: izonx " -th*' Imm Medi An open book amM r*4dl fcll ppr. ■ Motto.—Amour de bont<. Barry is the heraldio tenn for ».space divided by bars; and the , reeds wl ppr" was an unnecessary detail in the case of Sir James. Bnt it is difficult to imagine what Petei*Pan woald have said of it alt r

The treatment of music- in t ßngliah verse, from Chancer and Shakespeare to Browning and Tennyson, wiu be discussed by Dr. E., ™ "The Poets of Mubic" (Dent). Incidentally he will explain the doctrine of the music of the spheres.