LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22941, 10 February 1940, Page 16

LITERARY GOSSIP

Mr J. B. Priestley’s dramatic fame spreads wide. “Johnson Over Jordan” and “I Have Been Here Before,” a few months ago, were pro. duced in Oslo and Copenhagen, The first was recently being rehearsal in Stockholm; and only the of war prevented its performance in Helsinki. “I Have Been Here Before” flopped in the United States; but it was to be followed, at the end of last year, by “When We Are Married.” Besides, “Music at Night” was the first play ventured in the West End of London against the disadvantages of the black-outs. Mr Harold Nicolson, in the “Spectator,” tells the story of a contribution made by William Heinemann, ■ the publisher, to a discussion of the problem of selling books. Advertisement? Certainly not. Reviews? Very rarely Then what? “If Icoul t d have my way,” remarked Mr Heinemann,. ‘T should pay two people to lunch out regularly and to talk about my books.” Mr Nicolson reason at all why Mr Heinemann should not have had his way. Many people would be delighted to receive a fee for .lunching out repeatedly and for turning the conversation on to specified new books. Warner Brothers, in conjunction with their film, “The Fighting 69th,” mistakenly announced that Mrs Joyce Kilmer had expressed an opinion disparaging Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees.” This error, according to Warner Brothers, was the result of a report from a source which proved to be inaccurate, and they corrected it by giving out the following statement from Mrs Kilmer: I am distressed by the recent misstatement in the press of my reasons for asking that “Trees” should not be used m tL film "The Fighting 69th.My reasons actually are these. It 18 without question a misfortune for any poet’s reputation to be exclusively associated w’th one poem. “Trees” has had magnificent recognition. Moreover, written some years before we entered the war, “Trees” has no natural connexion with the subject of the picture. It seems to me far more fit- . ting that Joyce should be represented in the film by one of the poems he wrote while in France with the Sixtyninth. “Peterborough,” in the “Daily Telegraph,” has dug up a pretty quotation for the study of Dr. Goebbels and the anti-British hatemong- , ers: National hatred is a peculiar thing. You will always find it strongest and most violent where culture is at its lowest. . „ It comes from Goethe. Osa Johnson’s biography of her explorer husband, Martin Johnson, with whom for 20 years she shared life and dangerous adventure in many parts of the world, has been completed. The book, “I Married ' Advehture,” will be published soon; but before that Osa Johnson will | have sailed for Africa on another i picture-making expedition. I The Oxford University Press was to issue last month a collection of Adolf Hitler's speeches, translated and edited by Professor Baynes. For , simultaneous publication there was announced what is described as a “companion volume.” consisting of speeches by Lord Halifax. Its editor is Dr. Craster. Following are the answers to the ■ .questions under “Know That Girl,” -elsewhere on. this page: 1. Topsy, in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by • Harriet Beecher Stowe. 2. Glufndalclitcli, in - M GuJliv.er*s. Travfc. vels” (the voyage to Srobdingnag), by Swift. ■ • ■ • ;.f ■■ '3. Jane Baxter, in “Seventeen.” by BOoth Tarkington. 4. Little Nell, in “The Old Curiosity Shop,” by Dickens. 5. The Infant Phenomenon, in “Nicholas Nickleby,” by Dickens. 6. “Elsie Dinsmore,” by Martha Finley. 7. Eppie, in “Silas Marner.” by; George Eliot. 8. Alice, in “Alice in Wonderland,”-; by Lewis Carroll. 9. Pearl, in “The Scarlet Letter," by Hawthorne. ■ ,■■■■■■ 10. “Little Orphan! Annie,’,' by James Whitcomb Riley.

New non-fiction at the Canterbury Public Library, reports thq librarian, has included E. Keble Chatterton’s “Severn’s Saga,” the story of the five years* career of H.M.S. Severn; M. Barnard Eldershaw traces the evolution and development of Australia as a different and . distinct people in “My Australia”; Nicolas Bentley’s “Le Sport” is a collection of humorous sketches on all branches of sport, with drawings by the author; and in “South Sea Vagabonds,” J.- W. Wray, a young New Zealander ahxious to sail the seas in a small yacht, tells his story. Robert Hichens’s “That Which is Hidden ” Naomi Jacobs’s “Full Meridian,” and another volume of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, “In the Teeth of the Evidence,” are new fiction volumes.