LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21940, 14 November 1936, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP

In an article, "Megtefiwi of A. E. Housman," hia describes some juvenile enrowi. w prose and verse. Of a lywg than was later jaodiieea W F? " classical scholar and the F®** JP* “The Shropshire Lad”: But In those flat yean while rig at Oxford, his correspondence vrtte members of the family was qwg Jg - amusing; and during yeestfan ttge was no diminution « his social Wl* bility. It must have been during warn intervals of college lift that te «: lighted us with some of his beet of nonsense-verse. Our. evening diversions, almost as long a* I can leiuw* her, bad often been of a femHilpesjV character. One of these was the «nt- .• ing of short poems, containing a collection of nouns, each member 0* toe company supplying one. Here te a sample of the sort of thing winch Alfred was able to turn out In »• course of 15 or 20 minutes. The neaps - were: hat, novel, banker, cucumber, yacht, and abridgment Obviously tee last was the crux: and this is bow Alfred tackled it: . “At the door of my own little hovel Reading a novel I sat; And as I was reeding the novel A gnat flew away with my bat As fast as a fraudulent banker Away with my hat it fled, | And calmly came to an anchor In tee midst of tee cucumber-bete I went and purchased a yacht And traversed tee garden-tank. And I gave it that insect hoc When I got to tee other beak; Of its life I made an abridmneni By squeezing it somewhat flat And .1 cannot think what that midge meant , . « By flying away with my hat One Christmas (1879, I thiriO.se attempted something more ambit W*j% which produced a memorable BWWt Each wrote a story, ami on Christmas Eve, or thereabouts, the stories Were read out to the assembled family. Alfred’s contribution was a djwmape sketch in verse and prose emitlen A Morning with the Royal Family, the opening sentence of which ran; on the front lawnl’ cried •Lend ine a cannon. somebodyf Nobody lent him a cannon, so seizing a teaspoon from tee breakfast-table be rushed from the apartment.* *«• whole - story—tee only complete wane of fiction, I think, which heever ply* duced—was published a year or tea later, without his permission, in tee school magazine, of whkte at ttw time another brother was editor; and » has remained ever since a prized*®* - rather private family possession, refinnlication having been strictly forbiddW by tee author. The only known photographic . print of Mark m Langdon Clemens, was inducted m a Bret Harte exhibition of tanuaua| scope and variety displayed at the bookshop of G. A. Baker and Company, 3 West 46th sired. New York, last month. Langdon Ciemmu «•* born at Elmira, New York, N<wpmber 7, 1870, and died at Hartford. June 2, 1872, The photograph bears this inscription to wet Harte lit Mark Twain’s hand: “The meet determined singer in America aenda his warm regards to the most notorious one. (Signed) Langdon Clemens. The lady is his and, who sat for his mother and did it very I well indeed, with the exception « ■; resemblance —she broke qotfn ** there.” The designation “most wotorius singer” refers, of course, to thj tremendous acclaim wUd» had greeted Harte’s “Plain Laaguaae from Truthful James.” more gn *arally if erroneously known as *The Heathen Chinee.” The G. A. Baker, exhibition, held in honour of the centenary of Bret Harte’s birth, included all of his writings In both,, American arid English editmoa. man*erous presentation copi es of raaaK ally mtimate association, photo- _ graphs, and more than 300 letters., % A note by “Lucio” in the "WBacri- . lany” column of the “Manchester Guardian”: As the subject—or victim—ofa -mmand far from flattering biography. Nr i Baldwin would have had tee sympathy of his hero Lord Beaconsfield. "fhtt are billed ‘Lives* of ma abound, wrote the Victorian in . when Tauchnitz proposed adomg to . the number, “and they are generally infamous libels which I, heve wWin* ably treated with utter indiltewnce. I sometimes ask myself what will Grub Street do after my departure. . Who . will there be to abuse arid caricature?” He would seem to have mated the ingenuity and atthWeßL« the professional “debunkwes*; can always find somebody on whom to practise their facile art, P. G. Wodehouse, with hj» latest book, “Laughing Gas,” has his usual large number cl supperi***, W*J» the librarian, of th% Canterbury- Public Library, Mr -£. J. Befl. OBnv novels by popular in the Jungle,” by PMarriage of Nicholas Cotter, w Nelle Scanlan, and “The Flagg family,” by Kathleen Norris. A mystery novel ia demand is Freeman Wills Crofts’s latest, “Man Overboard.” In the general section, two Idographics are being asked for: “Labby,” the life of Henry ’ there, by Hesketh Bearam, and,. “Molly Lepell—Lady Hervey." by Dorothy M. Stuart A travel book which is proving very popular Is “Away From It All,” by Cedric Bel- j. frage. John Gunther’s “Inside Europe” and Beverley Nichols’s “Hfo Place Like Home” are still frequently asked for, as are also “Seven—An Essay in Confession.” by Rom Landau, and “Wake Up and Live!” by Dorothek Brande.

MAGAZINES ~

The October Issue of the “CSlpB; -> tryman,” a non-party review tod miscellany of rural life and industry, is an excellent number of a quarterly which should be better known in New Zealand. Sir Daniel Hall’s opening article offers two solutions of the problem, where to go for “a day’s journey that shall be memorable of England . . . for an example of the English countryside with its roots in the past*’ It iliapossible to detail the many oontnbutions that variously fill these 400 pages; but lovers of George Bourne’s rural writings, especially “The Wheelwright’s Shop.** will be pleased to find one of a series of M> letters that are being printed^—-J. W. Robertson Scott, Wbury, Kingham, Oxfordshire: 2s 6d quarterly* The October number of "Corhhin* * contains a striking article by Henry * Rhodes on the modern nnqsgleft whose contraband is illicit anußL and other articles, stories, verse, mw ;; regular features maintain the reputation of this always readable monthly.—John Murray: Is g& Contributors to the fieptmflWir “Good Housekeeping" (Id jadsfe Dame Ethel Smyth, the vTto ofw*' Dean of St. PauTs, Lady Qplrifd ted Asquith, A. J. Cronlmaad InihflMl Aldington. The “Wide *» November (is) has in Scan, -Mmj. narrative of fact the •* peal to those who Idem wWl| : action and thrill; and ttaWHMto ber “Novel” (7d) assenaidiM^K. Plete stories tor ” erceval Gibbon, and SBtoiflHMa * ■ 't'" 1 ' 1 ' '..-If jtLgj. [jffiffi! Jjjf:»