LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22593, 24 December 1938, Page 20

LITERARY GOSSIP

Giving the first of a series of talks arranged for the “Sunday Times National Book Fair, Sir Hugh Walpole took book-collecting for his subject. He. advised collectors to take note that first editions of Yeats, “the greatest poet alive to-day,” and of Hilaire Belloc, “one of the finest living writers, whether in poetry, fantasy, the detective novel, satire, history, or travel,” are still to be bought “incredibly cheap.” Sir Hugh recalled his first purchase of a book, when he was eight: I went into a bookshop, assisted by my old governess, and saw a little book which smelled strongly ox manure. It was one of Stead s Penny Classics. *1 bought -the, .-top , one, and as soon as I was in my bedroom I began to read the tiny print. I finished the book, feeling pale and yellow, in the early morning. The title of it was “The Talisman.” I once accompanied the late Gerald du Maurlor to a sale at Christie s. “What do you have to do to get these books?” I asked. “You have to nod,” he said. So I began to nod. Then the hammer came down, and I knew the book was mine, as I had been the last to nod. But du Maurier told me: “You fool, I was bidding for it for you! If I had only known, I might have got it for about 2d.” Sir Hugh, whose collection has become rich in manuscripts—-his library was lately the subject of a bibliographical article in the Literary Supplement of “The Times” — had something to say of the fascination of this branch of collecting: In 1917 I went to a sale and found there twenty-one volumes of all the letters written to Sir Walter Scott, and bound by him. Among them were letters from Goethe, Byron, Wordsworth, and all the other great poets of the day. The happiest moments in my life were, first, when my first novel was accepted, and, second, when I heard the sound of the hammer at the auction of the Scott letters and heard the man say, “Mr Walpole.” At the annual dinner of the Robert Louis Stevenson Club, Edinburgh, an appeal was made by the chairman, Mr F. A. Hardy, that the Edinburgh Corporation should endow Stevenson’s birthplace in Howard place, in view of its interest and importance to the city. The house, he said, attracted a great many people from oversea, and it should not be left to a private club to keep live house open and in repair. There were displayed at the dinner a picture of Stevenson dictating the last few lines that he wrote of “Weir of Hermiston,” a play bill, sent by Miss Rosaline Masson, and showing the name of R. L. Stevenson in the mrt of “a messenger” in the play, “Deianira,” and as Sir Charles Pomander in “Art of Nature,” at performances on May 21,

22, and 23, 1877, at 3 Great Stuart Lord Tweedsmuir, honorary vicepresident of the club, had asked the chairman to convey his greetings; and to say how glad he was to find Stevenson still had so many admirers in Edinburgh. “7 The chief speaker at the annual dinner was Mr Lewis Spence. An interesting passage from his address was the following: Stevenson was a man of two worlds —of this, the material, and of the other, that sidereal world of which we know so little, guess so much, and so wistfully await trustworthy information. The bruit and desire of it runs through all his work; you get the impression of spirit as clearly, as boldly, as you do of matter. Frequently, when reading him, and as in the case of Poe, or the ballads, you experience that sensation as when hearing great and thrilling music, as of standing with a foot in either plane, a sensation never experienced unless in literature the terrestrial body of which is suffused or overlaid by the spiritual sense. He was exceedingly sure of his position, and not even Henley, out of the majesty of true corpulence, could bully him out of that assurance. He knew from the first.

The London correspondent of the “New York Times,” impressed by gloomy predictions that the detective novel will at the present rate displace all other fiction, has made some investigations and calculations among the autumn lists. He reports not so gloomily: I find that William Heinemann announces 12 detective novels out of 41 novels altogether; Longmans four out of 12; Michael Joseph three out of 12: Methuen three out of 16; Rich mm Cowan three out of 20, and Hamish Hamilton two out of five. Macmillan is publishing 10 new novels, Jonathan Cape eight. John Murray and Peter Davies six each, and Lovat Dickson three, but not one of these five publishers has a detective novel on his list. To complete my inquiry I have examined the last six issues of “The Times” Literary Supplement. .These contain reviews of 99 novels m an. Out of this number only 21 come m the category of detective fiction. Among those few who cultivate the science of punctuation must be reckoned the Archbishop of York. Presenting the prizes recently at the Royal Infant Orphanage, 'Warnstead, he declared himself on the SAibiecV. In writing essays there are tw° things one has difficulty with—spea* ing and stops. Nearly everybody says it is the spelling that matters Now spelling is one of the decencies of life, like the proper use of knives and forks. It looks slovenly and na sry if you spell wrongly, like trying to eat your soup with a fork. But, intellectually, spelling—English spelling—does not matter. Shakespeare spelt his own name at four different ways, and it may nave puzzled his cashier at the bank. Intellectually, stops matter a great deal. If you are getting your commas, semi-colons, and full stops wrong. » means that you are not getting you* thoughts right, and your mind muddled. Mr Howard Spring disputes and refutes a recent statement that he made “enormous profits” from ‘O Absalom.” In the “Evening Standard,” of which he is literary editor, he has set out an analysis of t..e payments he has received, and s that, what with American and British income tax and other deductions, it has brought him nothing like as much as is supposed. He says tna the main financial advantage of wniing a best-seller is not the sum derived from royalties but the tige it gives the author as a of articles or short stories. A y®«*r ago he could sell a short story t°y £2O. To-day he is selling stori'is of the same length and no bette quality for £ 150. That is, he adds, in America. The committee which set itself save Wordsworth’s birthplace a - Cockermouth from the threat of molition is reported to have succeeded.