LITERACY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22195, 11 September 1937, Page 18

LITERACY GOSSIP

Mr 1010 A. Williams, in an artiela on the closing of Mudie's Library, recalls its enormous purchases of some famous books: Macaulay's "History of England* Vols 111 and IV, 2500 ~T* Livingstone's "Travels in Africa* 3250 copies. ... „, Tennyson's "Idylls of the Bnf« 1000 copies. _ McClintock's "Voyage on Search o( Franklin." 3000 copies. G Eliot's "Silas Maimer," 3000 conks. Stanley's "Darkest Africa," 34» CO ConWay's "Called Back,; 2000 Hall Caine's "Christian," 3500 copjap Mrs Humphry Ward's "Marriage of William Ashe," 3216 copies. Nansen's "Fathest North," ia» C °Moriey's "Life of Gladstone," ion copies. Mr Williams mentions among fan*. ous frequenters of Mudie's W. 5. Gladstone, who went "searching tat bargains in the second-hand depart. ment." Others often seen there wen Samuel Butler, Cardinal ManniM, Richard Garnett, of the Brium Museum, and S. R. Gardmer the historian. The Oxford University Press an. nounces that Dr. Percy A. Scfaoka has nearly completed a life of Dr. Charles Burney. In the course of years Dr. Scholes has collected a large amount of holograph con*. spondence of Burney, the members of his family, and his friends. He also possesses Burney's own manuscript of the unpublished portion of his diary of travel in France and Italy, his manuscript Italian dietionary, copies of his compositions/, and other Burneyana. The only life of Burney that at present exists is that of the three-volume "MemofeT compiled by his daughter in her old age, described by Macaulay as "written in the worst style that has ever been known among men" audi as "impossible to read without sensation made up of mirth, sfeapt and loathing." A scheme has been proposed tor the erection of a shrine in Kirriemuir, in memory of Sir James lap* rie. A piece of ground at School Wynd Corner has been suggested as the site. Meanwhile the projeetlor a Barrie Museum irl Kirriemuir 1m been temporarily held up by the purchase of the house in which Ik was born and its presentation to the National Trust for Scotland. In 1599 the German senate, Thomas Platter, made a tout JnJjl south of England and kept a jaw* nal. This has been translated, ay adorned with a pleasant <amiDjaV tary, by Mrs Clare .Williams, nhaff "Sophie in London" charmed nacjf readers/a few years ago. v ; The issue of new and i&eaf editions of Shakespeare coutttjtam The Travellers* Library (Cape) H to include one. ' This edition wffl present the more popular plays in a volume. Annotations have beo/j cut down to a minimum, bat a Aotjm glossary of. unusual word* l»s pern \ included. f i The Irish Academy of Letters :te awarded the Harmsworth Pursalf £ 100, for the best v/ork of imafmr tive prose published last yea^g nwefi 3 ' 'T^^puse^nfclwß^^^R . Mafcr" Friricis author of /'Bengal "Lancer atTE&rgje,** has cuiiwfjgfj a new book'Vhich delves IMfHfl' into-the question of Yogi. ~ly|fj Two interesting books wbicJjjjajf' arrived at the Canterbury IWI Library recently, reports tb*jSf!' rarian, are J. Dixon-Scott's '^SSk 'land Under Trust,** and .Brttißßl'' ; HuTs "Water Into Gold," U4W{! markable for the numbar^Mlti | beauty of the illustrations, ag, Jraphy of startlmg ■ realism i» fGg ules," by Mari Sandoz—the Wmm her father, a notable figure in) ftp pioneering days of Nebraska, at little controversy teas been ttftit by Andre Gide's "Ba.dk. «rou| #• U.5.5.R.," which has offended a# porters, of a regime Gide bad b*» expected to favour in practiced well as in theory. Captain Uann Hart's "Europe in Arms" and JWj|' McCabe's "The Papacy in B4fjf To-day" are two important CMS butions to the literature of *#* problems. J*f Among new novels YnfMp Woolf s "The Years" is one «*£ has been both immoderately uwn and immoderately decried. Jml» Marquand's "The Late Gei*|l Apley" is an admirable ttttJSSm Bostonian culture. "Found Iflr ing," the latest by the welHaalit detective novelist, Freeman, JK Crofts, is another recent atfM||