LITERACY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22105, 29 May 1937, Page 17

LITERACY GOSSIP.

Mr Edward A. Hibbitt, whose novel, “The Brittlesnaps,” has won wide applause in England, started writing “on the dole.” He noticed that a friend of his. a draper’s canvasser, was scribbling notes on scraps of wallpaper and wrapping paper. The friend was Walter Greenwood, and the notes were the beginnings of “Love on the Dole.” a book which made a considerable stir and was afterward turned into a successful play. Greenwood’s achievement roused Hibbitt. He wrote two novels, both of which were turned down by publishers, but Greenwood encouraged him to go on. He thought he had better study literary models and methods; so he applied himself to the masters of fiction and such criticisms of them as he could find in the public libraries. He learned French and Italian. Next, he wrote a critical essay of 5000 words on a novel by each of the principal authors he had been studying. Presently he wrote another novel, though meanwhile the handicap of illness was added to poverty. The novel was completed, rewritten, submitted to a publisher, and accepted almost at once. A note in this column not long ago referred to the indication ol a more liberal policy in the appointment of Mr Leslie Montgomery (“Lynn Doyle") to the Irish Fre« State Censorship Board. Mr Montgomery, however, resigned after five weeks. In a public statement he criticised various defects in the system. He noted, for instance, the element of chance in the banning of books. One book brought to his attention had been in circulation for eight years, having passed unnoticed at the time of its appearance. In Mr Montgomery’s opinion, to ban a book published eight years before is to revive a harmful thing that has become happily moribund. He believes that in practice the Irish censorship works out wonderfully well, but he does not think it worthy of the Free State to rely on an act (the Censorship of Publications Act. 19291 “whose excellence consists in its bad drafting.” Charles Hazelwood Shannon. RJL. died on March 19. The London correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” wrote as follows: To some artists of middle age the news Of the death of Charles Shannon seemed to open a long-closed chapter of, artistic life in London. In the early years of the century to be Invited to the studio of Ricketts and Shannon high up on the top of 'a block of new flats near Holland Park Station was much like what It was to the generation earlier to be taken to Queen’s House in Chelsea where Rossetti lived with fiis friends. It was a chamber of the great world of art. or, as some said, a suburb of Florence and Venice of the Renaissance. One who went often these as a young man said that there is nothing like it to-day. Nothing existed to that brotherhood outside art. On Friday nights they received their friends, and there were always among them European artists, scholars, musicians. and men concerned witK the making of art objects or beautiful books. They met in a room like _a chapel, with a long marble table, in which dinner was served without a tablecloth, which was unusual in those days. Like all coteries, theirs had a particular kind of wit of its own—darting, fastidious! drifting into French and Italian, requiring a large culture to follow it. They saw the world in the mirror of the Old Masters. It was a beautiful friendship. Ricketts and Shannon • met in the Lambeth School of Art when youths, and for most of their life they tra- _ veiled and lived together. Ricketts conceived it his mission to set Shannon free of worldly cares to become a great artist, and by his production of books and connoisseurship and discovery of pictures which he sold foe large amounts he financed the Partnership, and Shannon devoted has fine, but not great gifts to their uttermost. They had everything in common. After Shannon’s accident which deadened his contact with life. Rnketts died, and Shannon was not able to know it and now Shannon has passed out of the world, which tor many years had been only a darkened place to him. Ignazio Silone, author of “Fontamara” and, “Bread and Wine.* which has lately been translated from the Italian, was bom In Italy in 1900. Although be comes of an aristocratic family, he early developed strong sympathies with the peasants and working classes, and at the age of 18 became the editor of a radical newspaper. When the Fascists came into power Silone was forced to flee from Italy and now lives in exile in Switzerland. Two weeks before his death on March 9, Paul Elmer More delivered to the Princeton University Press the revised manuscript of a little book entitled “Pages from an Oxford Diary.” This diary, written originally about a dozen years ago while he was living in Oxford, is a confession of faith which the publishers believe will prove useful to many who are bewildered in this troubled, modern world. Andre Gide’s “Return From the U.5.5.R.,” a record of his impressions and observations during a trip through Russia, has been published in Paris, where it sold more than 100,000 copies in a few weeks. Several years ago Gide proclaimed that the Soviet Union was the hope of the world; but his book expresses disappointment and disillusion. Critics of the Soviet Union have hailed his book as a remarkable document of the highest value, while friends of the present regime in Russia have denounced him as a misguided betrayer. John Gunther’s “Inside Europe,* which has now reached a sale of nearly 100,000 copies, heads the list of books in demand, reports the librarian of the Canterbury Public Library. This is closely followed by Webb Miller’s “I Found No Peace,* a journalist’s impressions of the past 20 years. Other volumes attracting attention include E. M. Delafield’s entertaining account of life in Soviet Russia, “Straw Without Bricks.” “London’s Eigh. Millons,” by James Jones, and Victor Bayley’s splendid recollections of Indian life and railway engineering, “9.15 from Victoria.” In fiction, people are busily reading James Hilton’s “We are Not Alone." i H. M. Tomlinson’s “All Hands,” and A. Edmondson’s humorous novel, “Old Amos.” Other novels in constant demand include Charles Booth’s exciting story, "The General Died at Dawn,” and Eric Linklater’s “Juan in China.” The May-June issue of the “Canterbury Public Library Journal,'* i which has just appeared, is a very full and interesting guide to the latest accessions, with reviews and 1 notes of current interest.