LITERARY NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 86, 4 January 1908, Page 13

LITERARY NOTES.

Thero aro 914,826 peoplo in New Zoaland. Of t.heso 013,426 aro nobodies. -'Tho 1400"—1000 bettor than New York, we are proud to calculate—will xhako; acquaintance with thomselves and their merits shortly in "Who's Who in New Zealand: a national biography of 1400 Now Zealanders."- . The book which is going to produce tho gigantic gnashing of 913,420 sots of teeth Ve 160 be published by Gordon and Gotch.

"Comments," a noV Molbourho weokly, promises to begin beating all tbo. world's records shortly in threepenny sprints. One loses count of tho children of ; tho current "boom" in Australian literary-paper production, "The Bulletin," "Tlio. Leiio Hand," tho short-lived and ninch-regrettcd "Bookfelloiv," "Iho Trident," "Tho Nativo Companion, ■ Tbo Heart of the Rose," "Comments"—whero will thoy stop? '• ■

. Tho January numbor of tho "Lone-Hand" has a special interest for New Zealanders through its publication of the "prizo story" written by Miss Dulcio Deamer. It may 'bo said at onco that tho story, wonderfully well illustrated by Norman Lindsay, deserves, tho prizo, not because of any unusual merit thit possesses . but., because any good story would win against the-mcdiocrity which we have previously complained of in tho fiction department of a generally .ifino magazine. Thia must not bo read, as disparagoment of Miss Deamer'? interesting aud well-handled story, which is a bright and well-visualised conception of an anciont .theme. A primeval barbarian carries off a woman, but lie fails cither to. break her . spirit or overcome her wild-beast hatred of him. The sudden, menace of a lion reveals tho man. to her as "taller and broader, at tlio shoulders than the men folk of her people, triumphing over the groat beast that ho.liad:slain, dominant in the pitiless struggle for lifo. Slio thought 'vaguely.of an antlercd. stag,- lording it over ■the hind sthat looked for his protection, with tlio littlo calves lie had fathered running at tehir bellies." mato suddenly. appears and leaps upon tho man, knd is at .once slain by tlio Woman. "Tho strong man'squatted besido her; she did not shrink Ho jjilt his hand on her hair; ahe,bent her head as if to display it to him and,-filially, '"tho.tenso strength of'his ami. made lier •T.reen eyes swim liquidly, an dtheir warm breaths mingled as he fondled her." Tlio thomo, of course, is very old. Miss Deamor's merit is tho strength with which sho has imagined tho setting. Of the other stories tho best, in that it is the most amusing, is Milton Macgrcgor's "Enchantod Samplo Caso." Edward Dyson continues —past cnduraneo, it is suggested in all friendliness— his memoirs of the "Battlers and the Boar." Arthur Adams, again quaintly amatourish in technique, tell? of another of "Tlio experiences of Clarenco"; and "Ambrose Pratt's serial' proceeds. * The pictures and iverso aro as good- as ever. A batch of Australian, English and New Zealand competitors in the world's beauty contest aro pictured, and, as before, it must be confessed that tho AmoriCan beauty,, Marguorito Frey, is still millions of miles in - front. : .

In the just issued volumo xxi. of "BookPriooa Current," a record .of tho prices at which books havo been sold at in England from Oetobor, 1900, to July, 10D7, somo striking facts aro given to show tho high prictjs readied, last season:—"Some 31,800 works wero sold and realisod very uoarly £134,000, this. di&elosing an averago of £4 4s. 2d., tho highest recorued since 1B',»

whon tho system ot striking an avorago and in that way showing the comparative importmoo of each season's book salos was inaugurated. I'd 1893 tho. avorago stood -at £1 (ss. 7d., gradually increasing >to A:2 ,19s. sd. ill 1899, falling again at the time of the Boer war, recovering to £3 7s. lOd. immediately .liter its conclusion., and during the last t-hreo years falling again considerably below £3. This year, tho averago has rison, as stated, to £4 4s. 2d.; and it must be rornombered that meditoval illuminated manuscripts, many of thorn realising vei'y largo sums, liavo not been brought into the computation." Tho result is_ Gaid to bo duo chieily to American competition.

The best things, of courso, will always got olio best prices. For instance, last season a copy of tho Kilmarnock editioii of Burns' I'ocms realised £700; Cicero "On Old Ago," and other piccos, printed by Caxton in 1481, £600; Shakespeare's First Folio, 1023, £3,000; the third folio, 1664, £650; and Walton's "Comploat-Angler," ' 1653, £1290. But sot against theso prices £4 for tho first edition, earliest issue, of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," £1 Bs. for two volumes, first edition, of Thackeray's Paris Sketch Book, £7 15s. for two volumes of tho first edition of Dickons's. "Sketches by Boz," £4 4s. for three volumes, original cloth, uncut, of the first edition of "Oliver Twist," £3 10s. for tho first edition of "Nicholas Nickleby," and £3 for the first edition of "Martin Chuzzlewit," and tho reader will readily perceive tho great chasm that has to bo crossed to roach these sensational top prices. This -,'nould console' even tho purchasers of the tenth edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," when they road that only one copy of this great masterpiece of advertisement and literature was. sold by auction in a principal London saleroom, and that tho 35 volumes, half morocco, gilt, roalised exactly £9.

A really sound suggestion is made b.v that entertaining gossip, Mr. E. V. Lucas, in his essaya, "Character and Comedy." Thero in, ho thinks, an opening for a writer who will apply tho principles of tho detective story to blameless affairs—that is to say, retaining tho detectivo, but eliminating tho bloodstains and the-dark passions of Moiitmartre. For, after all (ho proceeds), tho fascinating part of a detectivo story is not tho murder or tho theft, but tho methods of tho detective; not tho poetical jusfcico at the close, but the steps by which it has been reached. In a word, tho fascinating tiling about a detective story is the search. Tho search is ono of tho oldest motives in literaturo, and it remains ono of tho strongest—tho search either for an object or an idea—for a golden fiecco, like Jason's, or a father, liko Telemachus's; for deiinito hidden treasures, liko John Silver's; or adventures that may come, liko Don Quixoto's or Lavengro's;' for a criminal, liko Lecoq's or Sherlock Holmes's, or a roligion, liko Lothair's; for a wifo, liko Coelebs's, or for position, liko Evan Harriugtan'a.