LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23053, 22 June 1940, Page 14

LITERARY GOSSIP

Readers of Sir Nevile Henderson’s “Failure of a Mission” will have noticed the curious piece of informal tion that, during, the Czechoslovakian crisis of September, 1938, on one of his diplomatic journeys, he ran out of stationery and had to use blank leaves from detective stories for his reports to the Foreign Office. Inquisitor Quercus-Morley, of the “Saturday Review of Literature,” wrote to ask Sir Nevile what these detective stories were and received a “courteous note” in reply. One was “Murder on Safari”; the other, an Agatha Christie, but the Ambassador to Berlin had forgotten which one. He had had no time to read either book. A correspondent of “Notes and Queries,” who had wondered whether his own habit of re-read-ing old favourites were common or not, mentioned that every year he reads through Jane Austen again, one or other of the Barchester series every two or three years, and certain individual novels of Scott’s once in three or four years. But the poets, he thinks, respond better to annual reading than the prose writers; and he supposes that many persons do, in fact, read their favourite plays of Shakespeare every year,,and that those who love Dante pay him the same tribute. He is doubtful whether this could be said of “The Faerie Queen” or “Paradise Lost. In a later issue a clergyman wrote that, for at, least 55 years, he had read every year Jane AdSjen, the Barchester series, Scott,:■■■• .Boswell, “Verdant Green,” and Marryats “Children of the New Forest. Helen Simpson, the novelift. and author of an excellent cook book, “The Gold Table, confesses that she has lately, in days of rationing and high prices, found it wonderfully soothing to read the cook kooks of her grandmother’s time. In those days they seemed to take it for granted that food was always cheap and Plentiful. But “wonderfully Sothmg ” this historical reflection?

Six William Rothenstein, the third volume of whose memoirs appeared some months ago, under the title ‘‘Since Fifty: Men and Memories,

1922-1838,” has been appointed the official war artist to the Royal Air Force. Much of his time has been spent- in observation, so far, flying over the North Sea and in France.

If changes in the map of Europe bring business to the publisher of atlases, they also bring expensive trouble. The managing director of George Philip and Son, a London firm, which for more than a century has specialised in all kinds of geographical publications, has been discussing the subject with an interviewer from the “Publishers’ Circular.” Every alteration in frontiers entails a great deal of overprinting apd altering by hand. Moreover, the frequent changes in the spelling of place names give further trouble. In Czechoslovakia, for instance, many names were first German, then became Czech, and are—for the present—German again. Manchuria pro-

vides another example. All this, remarked Mr Philip, is very troublesome to the map-maker. Incidentally, he mentioned the interesting fact that recent developments in the methods of geography teaching have occasioned many changes in the kind of atlas used in schools. The trend has been toward a more graphic representation in maps—the sort of thing one finds in the pictorial work in Hendrik van Loon’s books. There is being evolved, indeed, a type of mind that cannot grasp the story in the old style of map. Department of History and Literature, Radio Section. . , . The “New Yorker” reports: The script submitted for a recent program of one of the radio comedians had a line in it referring to a bad cook as “the Lucrezia Borgia cf her generation.” According to the usual routine, the script was turned over to the legal department, to be examined for possible libels or violations of censorship rules. The lawyers O.K.’d the script, except for the mention of Lucrezia Borgia. This was potentially libellous, they explained, and they had been unsuccessful in their attempt to locate her and obtain her written approval. During their search they had been in touch with Miss Lucrezia Bori, who had said that she didn’t think she was the lady they wanted, but that she didn’t disapprove of the line, except on aesthetic grounds. Non-fiction additions in the lending department of the Canterbury Public Library, reports the librarian, are Estelle Hamburger’s “It’s a Woman’s Business,” the autobiography of an American woman employed in advertising, Hewlett Johnson’s “The Socialist Sixth of the World,” Qsorge Lgnsbury’s “This Way to Peace,” and Herbert Rosinski’s “The German Army.” Fiction includes Jules Remains’ “Verdun,” a translation from the French by Gerard Hopkins, L, A, G. Strong’s volume of short stories, “Sun on the Water,” and Stephen Longstreet’s “Decade, 1929-1939.”