LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20026, 6 September 1930, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Announcement of the winners of its chief prizes by the French Academy was recently made. The Grand Prix <iu Roman went to Jacques de LaCfetelle, the remarkable psychological analysis of whose "Silbermann" brings h.m quite naturally in the group, which, since the foundation of the prisa in 1916, has included Francis Carco, Alphonse de Chateaubriant, Emilo Henriot, Francois Mauriac, Joseph Kessel 'and, last year, Andre Demaison. Jacques de Lacrctelle's other works include "La Bonifas," "Jean Hermelin," and "Amour Nuptial." The Grand Prix de Littferature was awarded to Marie Louis© Pailleron. Her books have been In the main agreeable anecdotal chronicles of the literary of Paris, —history for which she undoubtedly has special taste as the granddaughter Of Francois Buloa, founder of the "Hemo des Deux Jfendes." A special prise of 16,000 francs was bestowed upon Georges Duhamel who, says the London "Observer," "is not a member of the Academy—nor was Balzac —but is frerhaps the most interesting medern French observer of the evolution of world thought. His "Scenes de la Vie Future," written after a voyage to the United States, is a most formidable and witty indictment of the oppression of the individual by tlie community, the enslavement of man by the machine, and the disproportionate worship of material success, which be sees as the three main characteristics of American social life." A letter listed by the Union Square Book Shop, New York, in a recent amotion catalogue, was from the physician, Dr. J. J. Moran, who attended Poe Ob his deathbed: He did not dio from delirium Tremens or Mania, had no smell of liqiior ipos las breath or person when received -nto the Hospital of which I had ~ the *ol« charge. . . . The scandalous etory should be and I think has been ioraVet Set at ttot, Iff the statement ■ 1 made in affidavit. . . He \yas sent to the H. about 10 o'clock a.m.; was found lying on a bench by the Side of a large hoUBa. . . . 1 pud the hachman who brought him, and nurse attended, and paid for his coffin, wife and lady friends made his shroud. ... In my attention to him he said 1 wa» rery kind, and asked "Where am If" I answered "in the hands of friends." Ha aaid: "the beet friend to me wovld be the man wlit . would blow my brains. put with a pistol." . . . He said "wretch that 1 am. Sir, When I behold tnV degradation and ruin' What I have Buffeted and -OSt and the misery I have brought upon others; I fenl liko' I could sink thorugh this bed into . the towermost abyss below, forsaken by Odd and man, an outcast from Soeiety"' . . . after much more and to tsdotts questions, he said "Dr. I am dying" to which I replied "I fear it is At.- fMt J«St trust in your Saviour, there, is mercy for Vou.-" He then said "write to toy mother Mrs Clemm and say Eddie's no mart." I said, "look to. God for S&lV&tiOil. .' .

A tablet to the memory of Bobttt and Elizabeth Barrett Browning hAs been placed on the facade of the villa at Bagni di Lucca, where the two poets spent the summers of 1863 and 1857, says the "Observer's" correspondent la Florence. The tribute is due to members of Baylor University, Waco, Texas, which has what is believed .to be the largest collection of Browning works and of books and articles lating to them that has yet been gftt together. The ceremony of onveilwg the tablet at "Villa Tolomei" (now Villa Bastiani) took place recently in the presence of a large gathering. Bome of Mrs Browning's finest poetry belongs to the Italian period and KU inspired by the After her, death in 1861, d tablet With ft#':, inscription saying that hat verses |md "forged a golden link, befween Itafy ' and England," was pIaCM 'by theMunicipality of Florence on the facade - of Casa Guidi, where she died. Jfn 1316, whep the two countries wave again drawn very elose to one another, tl#. Florentines remembesrd Mrs Browning, and added a eecond imall-taMet tJ the side of the "house where w» ; poetess. had .looked out rpm CJaaa . Guidi windows by the-Church," With a quotation from the poem. . Closing an article on literary worft . that speedily "dates,'* Mr St. John Ervine turns to tlie fancy, Or hop®, that the quantity of ephemeral staff, which reveals its weakness in this way, may diminish: It is possible, of course, that the whole ; business of writing; which Is now ««£ mon, may pass intd jjlisaftSßt# and thmt a ■MK§ i:lsi p friends and relation*" will whisper to «■*» " other, "poor Bob, he's taken to* f wxiti*al ■ and will subscribe money topthim <wt « v the country. "Is ttat a rnfltttw* swat people in Auttralia andOanada wWmjmm ; and they will be told. "No, he's a wgW In these tiiaes, L has been Burre£tit*ousty Wuod feeu ttlt >M most fill at leMi «M* : MTOdwd WB** w» an account of her emotions during tta uideeJ, one may wish that the bulk of lite popplatiOß were illiterate, but ,p«rh*ps there wffl cow a reaction and none will Tnh, muw sjjj • she has something important to say. Wa nw i then obtain books that will lass "date than dosdiae- ttot iM Ho* linM - from the presses; for many of the no»*w» that are printed to-day '^daK* 4 Won the r»views of them' can bo published. The home of the Pepys family, Impington Hall, near Cambridge, where Samuel Pepys visited his nncTe Talbot and his couaifl Soger, ali Is recorded. in the Diary, is to be used as a vill*c* college by the Cambridgeshire . Edneation Committee. It has been presented to the County by lift John Chivers and her sons for that purpose in memory of Mr John Chivers, who lived there. ' .; t '' An interview with Mr E V. I*wi| in the "Book Window" ends with * charming irrelevance: "Do yon - like being a publisher!" I "I should like to win the Calcutta Swmqi,** he replied. •>! t There ought to be a Greek nm (perhaps there it) for this figure of speech, says the dom" column of the "Observer. 1 '