LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22627, 4 February 1939, Page 20

LITERARY GOSSIP

The Limited Editions Club, issuing a six-volume edition of Tolstoy's “War and Peace,” the last proofs of which were corrected by Aylmer Maude a few hours before his recent death, has circulated a few reminiscences of the friend, translator, and biographer of Tolstoy. Two things never failed to enrage him:

One was to pee Tolstoy’s name spelled “Tolstoi.” Tolstoy himself, said Mr Maude, intensely disliked this spelling, which was only a French, 'transliteration of his name erroneously adopted by some of the English translators. The other was the frequent publication of a picture said to be that of Tolstoy. It showed a bearded man in a' loose gabardine, with a long staff in his hand, and was invariably described as “Tolstoy in a rough moujik costume made by his own hands.” As Mr Maude never tired of pointing out, the picture was not of Tolstoy but of a Russian beggar, first published as an illustration to an American edition of his works. Mathematicians always write good English, remarks Harold Nicolson, and of all mathematicians Bertrand Russell is among our most conspicuous stylists. Bertrand Russell has been lecturing recently at the University of Chicago, and the interest in his lectures was so great that listeners were obliged to come 45 minutes ahead of the scheduled hour m order to obtain seats. On one occasion Mr Russell himself was denied admission by an attendant, who told him that the room was packed to capacity and he would have to come back another time. Albert Maltz, who won the first prize, of 300 dollars in this year’s' O. Henry Memorial Award, was born in Brooklyn in 1908 and graduated from Columbia in 1930. He attended the Yale School of the Drama under George Pierce Baker and then wrote “Merry-Go-Round” in collaboration with George Sklar. He has written two other plays—one of them with George Sklafr-and a book of short stories, “Season of Celebration.” The story for which he won the prize was “The Happiest Man on Earth,” published in “Harper’s Magazine.” The second prize winner was Richard Wright, a 30-year-old negro writer, born on a plantation near Natchez, Missouri. After an unhappy childhood he ran away to the North, where he read and studied while working at odd jobs. He is at present correspondent for a Harlem newspaper. “Fire and Cloud” is the title of his prize story. The third prize, 100 dollars, went to John Steinbeck, author of “Of Mice and Men,” for “The Promise,” published in “Harper’s Magazine. These three stories, together with 12 others, are published in “The O. Henry Memorial. Award Prize Stories.”

In a recent issue of the “Atlantic Monthly” Edward Weeks relates an incident, ibid him by a Boston publisher who asked a bookseller how he accounted for the steady-going success of Marjorie Kmnan Rawlings’s “The Yearling.” “The bookseller,” continues Mr Weeks, “looked around to make Sure the coast was clear, then leaned over-the counter and whispered to my friend, Tt’s the cleanest novel of the lot.’ “..'So far has the pendulum swung from those days a decade ago when people were looking naughty for having read '‘Jurgen’.” • ■

Constance M. Fiske contributes, to the “Saturday Review of .litersture” a sketch-study of John P. Marquand, author of the brilliant Bostonian satire, “The Late George Apley,” and of those very different . successes, his “Mr Moto” stories. ; She describes him so:’ Now in his middle forties, he has been heard to remark that he is “something of an Apley” himself. Of average build and with average cured hair, he has a kindly, hafllfed face, and dresses with the typhSal Bostonian disregard of current fashion. His voice is his most outstanding characteristic. It starts somewhere In the vicinity of his shoes, and is usually quiet and restrained, with a pronounced Bostonian accent, but it can achieve sudden extraordinary volume and range of pitch when he is aroused; , so much so that strangers have been known to Inquire:—“ls it just an act or does he really talk that way?" ' Marquand does not much care for the society of other writers: he finds them “difficult.” As may be illustrated by his one literary reminiscence: On a trip to Italy, when he was still an unknown young writer, Henry James Forman introduced him to a cadaverous man with red hair and burning eyes, who was wearing sin- „ dais and a white shirt open at the neck. “I want you to meet D. H. Lawrence,” said Forman. Marquandhad never heard of such a person. He , did not like him very much, and very soon they separated. . “What did you think of Lawrence?" Forman asked later. “I think he is a nut,” replied Marquand. . Forman gave a horrified exclamation: “How can you say that about , one of the world’s greatest writers?” Then he continued, "However, Oddly enough, when I asked D. H. Lawrence - how he liked you, all he said was, T think he is quite mad.’” A book of essays by Mr Alan Mulgan is to be published shortly in London by J. M. Dent and Sons. - This will be called "First With the Sun” and will consist of essays con- ‘ trlbuted to newspapers In New' Zealand, including “The Press,” and, some new matter. The book will be illustrated with line drawings by Miss Olivia Spencer-Bower, the. well-known Canterbury, artist.

Among recent accessions in non-. Action at the Canterbury Public Library are three biographies of general interest. They are Margaret Lane’s “Edgar Wallace: The , Biography of a Phenomenon"; “Donogh.ue Up!”—anecdotes of the famous jockey Steve Donoghue; and “Journalist's Wife,” by - Lilian T. Mowrer, whose husband’s career as a newspaper correspondent in Italy, Germany, and France, until 1936, has given her abundant material. A book which will be widely read is “Spain’s Ordeal,” by Robert Sencourt, containing a description of pre-war Spain and a documented survey of recent events. “Without Knowing Mr Walkley,” by Edith Olivier, is described as “a book of great interest, not only as a record of a state of society as dead as Queen Anne, but as a delightful revelation of the character and pur-lj suits of an intelligent woman.” fly