LIBER’S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 257, 26 July 1930, Page 30

LIBER’S NOTE BOOK

The late W. J. Locke, whose first success was scored with “The Beloved Vagabond,” and who died recently on the Riviera, where he had lived so many years, left £25,000. One would have thought he had made more, seeing that for years he had been a Very popular writer. Mr. Locke’s last book, “The Town of Tombarel,” will be reviewed in these columns later.

Discussion of the plans for erecting a memorial to Rupert Brooke in the island of Skyros has evoked an interesting correspondence in English newspapers upon other British authors buried abroad. It is recalled that in the Protestant cemetery in Rome are buried Keats, the ashes of Shelley, Joseph Severn, John Addington Symonds, R. M. Ballantyne, William and Mary Howitt, and Augustus William Hare; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Walter Savage Lamlor, and Arthur Hugh Clough lie in Florence, “Ouida” at the Baths of Lucca, Smollett in Leghorn, Fielding in Lisbon, John Richard Green at Mentone, John Stuart Mill and S. R. Crockett at Avignon, J. D. Bourehier at Sofle (where a street Is named after him), and C. J. Wells (author of “Joseph and His Brethren”) at Marseilles', George Gissing and E. W. Hornung are buried side by side at St. Jean de Luz, Julian Grenfell at Boulogne, D. H. Lawrence at Vence, near Nice, and R. L. Stevenson od the peak of Vaea, Samoa. * * * Compton McKenzie's new book “April Fools” deals with those “Poor Relations” to whom Mr. Touchwood, the successful dramatist, made a free gift of his beautiful country house. The novelist himself lives on a small island close to Sark. ♦ ♦ • That prisoners who defend themselves sometimes do harm to their own eases Is shown by Mr. Evelyn Graham In his “Fifty Years of Famous Judges.” Lord Alverstone told of an instance when he was on the Bench: — The man was defending himself well to the jury, but the Lord Chief Justice could not quite bear all he said. “What was yonr last sentence?' asked the Judge. “Six months,” came the prompt but

unfortunate reply, disclosing a fact hitherto unknown to the jury. » » • Mr. Graham tells Of a court Incident in tho career of Baron Bramwell:— Whilst he was trying a prisoner on the South Wales Circuit, counsel asked leave to address the jury in Welsh. The case was very simple, and permission was at once given. The judge, however, was surprised. at the jury’s prompt verdict of “Not guilty.” Later he inquired what the “learned counsel” had said to the jury. “Very little,” was the reply. “I just said, ‘This case, gentlemen, lies in a nutshell. You see yourselves exactly how it stands. The judge is an Englishman, tha prosecuting counsel is an Englishman. But you are Welsh, and I am Welsh, and the prisoner is Welsh. Need I say any more?’" That was the last time Baron Bramwell allowed a Welsh counsel to address the jury in his native tongue.

At a sale at Sotheby’s, Loudon, Fanny Burney’s “Evelina: or A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World,” 1778, an entirely uncut copy of the first edition in the original boards, published at 95., brought £4OOO. Miss Burney received £2O for the copyright from Lowndes, the publisher, to which another £lO and ten handsomely-bound copies were added.

The Berlin magazine “Ulm” sent a Circular to a number of leading literary men, who were requested to inform the public which twelve post-war books they would select to take with them on a prospective visit, lasting a year, to a lovely and lonely South Sea island. Mr. Shaw’s characteristic answer runs: “The Whole charm of the island would be dispelled if there were a single book on it. You might as well ask a cobbler to imagine himself on a South Sea island with twelve pairs of boots to amuse him.” The German novelists Carl Zuckmayer and Georg Kaiser both agree with Mr. Shaw that twelve months on a South Sea island could be better enjoyed without any books. Albert Einstein is satisfied with half-, a-dozen volumes, among which are Friedell’s “History of Modern Culture,” G. B. Shaw’s “Women and Socialism,” and Segher’s “Revolt of The Fishers.”

There is to be a new complete, and, of course, limited edition of G. Bernard Shaw in thirty volumes. The price, equally, of course, will be very high. But the American “collectors” will buy it. They did not “bite” very freely at the Atlantic edition of H. G. Wells, in twenty-five volumes nt, I think, a guinea each, but, then, Wells is not an author who is “rare.” The set now Sells at from £lO to £l5. But the earlier Shaws are worth much more than Wells.