LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22413, 28 May 1938, Page 18

LITERARY GOSSIP

, " Jr -*L ' A paragraph in this column cently quoted a letter from a pendent of the “Observer,” wMpr drew attention to the fact that no-,& • thing had been done to mprk'j T nomas Hardy’s house, 1 Amiga u terrace, Trinity road. Tooting, .. “Observer” announced last monththat the London County Council has ; provisionally agreed to affix a plaquf inscribed as follows: Thomas Hardy Poet and Novelist ; 1840-1928 Lived Here ...» 1878-1881’ % Mr Lloyd George’s residence (ifcOO- ■*; 1904) in a house nearly opposite, 172,Trinity road, is commemorated by a’- ,< tablet. Hardy's stay in Wandsworth - had not only been overlooked by the London County Council, however,It is unnoted, in that wonderful book ' by George H. Cunningham, “Lon- r don,” sub-titled as “a comprdhen- - sive survey of the history, tradition, - - and historical associations of build, virgs and monuments.” In another . wonderful book, jf different scope, 1 ' William Kent’s “Encyclopaedia' o£> London,” the fact is recorded. It ap-' pears here, also, that from 1882 to . 1867 Hardy lived at 16 Westboume ; Park Villas, Paddington; and theresome of his early poems were ’", written.

At a recent sale at Sotheby’s the,~r, autoaraph manuscript of an analysis f of Darwin’s “Origin of Specie** ?•* with notes on it, in the hand Samuel Butler, fetched £l7 10* *- Two Matthew Arnold first e4L?.;* tions, “Merope” (1858) and “OnUv Translating Homer, Last Words?,-;-(1862), were bought for only 5s gether, though both were inscribedv,r by Arnold. Ruskin’s “The Ethics of the Dust,” a copy inscribed tp'-* “Mrs Carlyle: With the Old Leeturer’s love, 1 January, 1866,** and- 1 carrying Thomas Carlyle’s book- - plate, was bought at the more spectable and respectful figure £3 10s. - : rl

An American publisher has contracts with Emil Ludwig. A#?n Vjlliers, Bussell Owen, Felix berg, and Hanson Baldwin to cpQ-' tribute tp a new series of popylar historical books'to be-issued under. the, general title of “The Oceans pf the World.” Each book will traps a the history of sea exploration, commerce, and warfare from early tunes dow: to the present day- Emjl Ludwig will do “The Mediterranean,” Alan Villiers is writing “The Coral Seas-” Russell Owen, who covered ithe first Byrd Antarctic expeditionfor the “New York Times,” wifi do » ‘The Antarctic,”. Felix Riesenberg. is .gathering material for ‘The . Pacific.” Hanson Baldwin will write . ‘The Caribbean.” Other volumes.ans to be announced later. . Mr H, M. Tomlinson thinks it strange that no notable booh' has-/" come out of the exploration pf tqp--?-Arctic. All the books abput tfie' :- xnahy attempts gt' the Nprth-wpjft/;

Passage, about the search for Frank? hri, and about travels' in Ajnegfe.l Canada have made less impressing.. thap some bean culture and a littlei; fishing by Walden Pond. - '■<%

In the introduction to a new, u»-x abridged, one-volume edition Gifc* bert Carman, the translator, that * Holland’s - was acclaimed the first great ‘ v of fiction produced during, teg } twentieth century' and to-day is smf ‘ unsurpassed;' Contemporary Frais literary criticism,' however, is be - ginning to veer, and hpL Groos ang. Truc, in their ‘’Tableau du .XXe . Si£cle, 1900-1933,” insist that the , characters in “Jean-Christophe” are scholastic and conventional; that tig. ; philosophy they preach, which onS the surface appears so generous ai# high-minded, is |p reality dull, ih 7 .* sipid, and copybookish. - When war was declared RomaifL--.: Holland was in Switzerland, and* being a convinced pacifist, published : a series of articles in the “Journal ,de Geneve,” condemning war.. w a period of war hysteria, Holland* ideas of course aroused fierce iodlg* nation in France, but in 1915 be W 35 awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Residence in France became impossible for him . and he went to ViHeneuve on Lake Geneva, where ftg still lives. ■ :' .

Dents Have accepted a collection; of essays and sketches by J. H. » Schroder. The book will be issued--in the autumn publishing season «n4' will probably be entitled “Bar membering Things." A. P. Herbert has been ordered - by his doctor to take a sea voyage ' and chose Ceylon for a short hou* * day and a rest from his duties SP ‘ Parliament. The enterprise of the Oxford Unt*. versity Press has taken it into ’a new field—the first publication of modern fiction. The author who has; been chosen for this venture is Mf R. P. Russ, whose “Hussein,” 0?" scribed as an “Indian Night’s enter* ' tainment,” appeared last month. Among new works (non-fiction) received during the week, reports the librarian of the Canterbury Ft®*' lie Library, are “Vienna: The ItoWf, of a Culture in Decline,” by Edwato Crankshaw; “Escape from adventures behind the scenes of year’s rising in Palestine, by C. Raswan; and “One-Man Caravan, by R. E. Fulton, an account of f niotor-cycle journey from Englinu by way of the East to America. Anew biographj* of Henry of Navanw - Henry IV of France, is also recent accessions. . New. novels include Elinor MQg daunt’s “Pity of the World Doreen Wallace’s “The Time of W Roses,” . Recent collections w stories are “Pavements at Anwpt by,” by Winifred Holtby, “Read® Green Bronze,” by Hugh WalPPw 4 “London Lovers,” by Denis iMacKa«» and “Tales by New Zealanders* ™ anthology edited by C. R. AUeft'>