Current Literature.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 139, 9 December 1911, Page 17

Current Literature.

From the latest English and Americ following items :—: — Much interest has been aroused in American centres by the announcement that Mr. "James Loab, a retired banker, is arranging, at Ire own expense, for -the publication of English, translations of the classical authors of all periods. Mr. Loeb is now in Europe arranging detail? of his plan. His brother, Mr. Moms Loeb, formerly Professor of Chemistry in New York, says that the projected publication will comprise about 200 volumes. The books will probably bear the imprint of soxno leading pu|/isher whom, Mr. Loeb will guarantee against loss. It is understood that the enterprise was suggested fco Mr. Loeb -by M. Salomon, Eoinach, of the Institut de France and Conservator of the Museo do St. Germain. A n6w volume of essays by the Hon. Joseph. H. Choate, formerly American Ambassador in London, will be published by the Century Company this week. Ifc gathers together addresses delivered by Mr. Choate at various times and places in America from 1864 to 1011. Rufua Choate, Admiral Farragut, Florence Nightingale, the Sanitary Fair in '64, trial by jury, and Harvard College commencements are some of the persons and events recalled' in these essays. " Stories of Useful Inventions," by S. E. Forman (Century Company), deals with the origin and development of many of the more ordinary adjunct* of .daili life, such, as the match, the stove, thi lamp, the loom, and the steam engine There are sixteen chapters, each devotee to some special invention of which tin history is well described and illustrated "Under Western Eyes," a novel bj Joseph^ Conrad, author of "The Secrei A^ent," is announced for immediatf publication by Harper and Brothers The title suggests the strange reveiatioi to Western people of the depths of Rus -aian national temperament which, Mr Conrad, himself a Russian by birth, hert portrays. Miss Bradley has revised, and is republishing with Messrs. Smith, Eldei and Co.. nor studies of child life in various European cities which appeared originally in the Nineteenth Century and After. The book will be i&sued under the title "Children at Play, and Other Sketches." Mr. G-. M. Trevelyan intends shortly to publish a collection of poems dealing with the liberation of Italy under the title "English Songs of Italian Freedom." Mr. Trevelyan has written a special historical and literary introduction to the poems, which axe by many of our most distinguished poets, and elucidatory motes have been added where necessary in order that the meaning of the poems may be made intelligible to the general reader. Lord Rosebery, m opening recently a library at Glasgow which contained 180,0000 books, expressed a feeling of intense depression at, being in the midst of an enormous mass of books, most of which were dead. He was convinced that the number of living books was, comparatively speaking, very small. A writer in the Spectator recalls that the same feeling of horror at the thought of the number of dead books which eilt up in such, terrifying masses in every library is expressed by a most amusing passage in Lowell's "Fable for Critics" : "I've thought very oft6n 'twould be a good thing In all public collections of books, if a wing Were set off by itself, like the seaß from the dry lands, Marked Literature suited to desolate islands, And filled with such books as could never be read Save by readers of proofs, forced to do it for bread — Such books as one's wrecked on in small country taverns, Such as hermits might mortify over in caverns, Such as Satan, if printing had then been invented, As the climax of woe would to Job have presented. Such as Crusoe might dip in, although there are few bo Outrageously cornered by fate as poor Crusoe." Among the forthcoming publications of the. University of Chicago Press, to be issued in England by the Cambridge University Press, will be an anthology of "American Poems," selected and edited with notes and bibliographies by Walter C. Bronson ; and " Heredity and Eugenics" 1 a volume oi lectures by various authorities on the more important movements in biology, edited by John M. Coulter. "The Letters of 'Peter Lombard,' Canon Benham." edited by Ellen Dudley Baxter, with a preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Macmillan and Co., London), record the writer's impressions of English places of interest, and on archaeological and other special topics. Canon Benham was the trusted, friend, ao his Grace of Canterbury tells us, of men ao widely different as Archbishop Tait, Bishop Creighton, Alexander Macmillan, Frederick Denison Maurice, Bishop Potter of New York, and, in a more general way, of Dean Stanley, Bishop Lightfoot, Lady Wake, and many more whose appreciation was worth having. Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. expected to have Admiral Mahan's new work, "Naval Strategy," ready early next month, when they will also have ready a> volume of studies and sketches in North Africa, entitled "'Twixt Land and Sea," by Cyril F. Grant and L. Grant, and a study of " The Art. of the Great Masters," by Frederick Lees, with illustrations. Later in the month the same publishers were announced to issue the Baron de Meneval's memoir of "The Empress Josephine," translated from the French by D. D. Fraeer. An American book about China rather opportunely opens with an account of Hanchow —or Hankov as it is written now — and Wu Chang. TThiss s ia Dr William Edward Geil's " Eighteen Capitals of China " (Constable and. Co.) This, well illustrated volume is far from being merely descriptive. It comprehends not a little history and literature, with examples of Chinese poetry and philosophy done into English by the author. Mr. J. M. Barries new book, "Peter and We^dy,'* which had to be postponed because- of the large .oTder, has now been issued. Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton informed the Evening News* that two editions have already been called for, and a third i& now printing. The same author's " Margaret Ogjlvy " is now in ite eighth edition, 50,000 copies of "The Little White Bird" have been sold, and of " Auld Licht Idylls" no fewer thau 100.GOO. " Mr. Henry James is believed to be a warm advocate of the indeterminate sentence," is the New York Evening Post's neat criticism of the novelist's style. The H. M. Caldwell Company, of Eoston and New York, have produced a tasteful little edition of six of the be'ter-knosvn essavis of Sir John Lubbock, including the beet of *U. "The Beauties of Nature." The novel is of bijou size, firmly bound in red leather svith. gilt decorations.

can papers and reviews we have taken the n. I Mrs. Anne Warner French, the famous t American writer, has gone to live in ", j England. In the Daily Mirror she 6ays: c I "In this peaceful old village I can 0 load an arcadian life on a -modest income. _ There is no peace or rest for s the middle classes in America. Rest can s only be enjoyed by the millionaire who y can afford to buy a huge estate and 1 build a sound-proof house in the centre - of the property, after it has been sure rounded by high walls. The charm of 2 this side of the water is. that one learns '. the great secret of being able to rest, s Sometimes I think that from ocean to i ocean America new rests. I know that i I never rest there." Or Mr. Eoberfc Hichens's "The Fruitful Vine" (Fisher Unwin) the Telegraph . says :— " 'Pretty well all the big things 1 women do are done for men, I believe. 1 Foolish it may be, but I suppose- it's fc human nature. We are made so, and f must put up with it.' In these words a Nurse Jennings sums up the leading » idea of Mr. Robert Hichens's latest novel" a and those who are familiar with his , methods will be able to imagine the in- - finite ingenuity with which the idea is I developed and elaborated." "The Story of the Roman People," by ; Eva March Tappan, Ph.D. (Houghton ' Mifflin Company, Boston), is well adapt- ' ed for children. The language is simple ' and precise and the illustrations are numerous and good. The author divides j he* subject into "Rome as a Kingdom," s "Rome as a Republic," and "Rome as an Empire/ and she is to be commended for pointing out the similarities between r the difficulties and advantages of the . Roman republic and those of the Ameris can republic of to-day. L Among the new books of special int«rest to Australasians, either already fublished in London, or due in the near ( uture, are : — "The Dreadnought of the Darling," by C. E. W. Bean; "The ' King's Caravan/ by E. J. Bradj; "Passers-by," by C. Haddon Chambers; "The Great Duke,"' by W. Fitchetfc; "Alone in West Africa," by Mary Gaunt; "New Zealand," by Max Heoz; "The Fire Seeker," by Iota; "Moonseed," by Rosalind Murray ; \ "Across Australia," by Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F. S. Gillen. The scene of "Partners," Mrs. K. H. Weston's new novel, is laid among the islands off the north-west coast of Australia, "Captain Quadring," a new novel by William Hay, author of "Herridge of Reality Swamp," has itsecenes, or some of them, set hi Australia in the early days. .Another new book of Australian interest is "Danger Mountain," by Robert Macdonald, author of ""Chillagoe Charlie." Danger Mountain is a mysterious peak in the middle of New Guinea. Mainly based on the artist's own correspondence and papers is "The Biography of John Gibson, li.A., Sculptor, Rome' (Heinemann), by T. Matthews, with many illustrations. This volume, in fact, is "largely an autobiography," and written as far as possible in his own words. It is surmised that Mrs Sandbach/ the grand-daughter of William Roscoe, who v visited Rome in 1838, had obtained a promise, from Gibson to correspond with her to enable her to write a memoir of him. To the intimate letters that followed the sculptor subsequently added various notes. Unfortunately, says Mr. Matthews, Mrs. Sandbach died before this intention could be realised. The life and times of a famous Elizabethan lady, to whom, probably, more songs were addressed by the poets of the day than to any other lady, is the theme of the well-illustrated volume, "Penelope Rich and Her Circle," by Maud Stepney Rawson (Hutchinson, London). It is a large and illustrious circle of courtiers, beauties, poets, and statesmen that is here depicted. There are some- wellproduced portraits of the Herberts^ the Sidneys, and others, by way of illustration. Messrs. Chapman and Hall publish "The Surgeon's Log, being • Impreeeions of the Far East," by J. Jehnston Abraham. The title gives- a good idea of the contents. The author seems to have travelled extensively in Japan and in the Malay Archipelago, and it is about these parts of the world, that he writes. The volume is illustrated from photographs. John L. Mathewe, whose new book, "The Log of the Easy Way," a record of his honeymoon trip of five months drifting down the Mississippi River, is jusfc published by Small, Mayrtard, and Co., Boston, is at present pursuing his studies of river life in the interior of that almost unknown South American land, Colombia. He and Mrs. Mathews left some months ago for the western coast of Columbia, and after a journey over the mountains to the high plateau in the interior are to take the long river journey down the Magdalena River. People in America (says the New York correspondent of the Standard) are asking why novelists, who cause their heroes and heroines to marry and live happily ever aftor, should be unable themselves to maintain unbroken households. The query is the result of the number of 1 recent announcements of domestic strife in literary circles. Mr ' George Ran- 1 dolph Chester, the creator of "Getrichquick" Wallingford, a very popular character in light fiction, has been divorced by Mrs. Chester, who received £320 a year m alimony for herself, and £580 for the maintenance and education of Mr. Chester's two sons until they are 25._ Mrs. Booth Tarkington, herself a writer, though less famous than her husband, has instituted proceedings for divorce ; and Mr. Upton Sinclair has an- I nounced his intention to secure a divorce. Mr. Oack London was divorced I several years ago; Mr. and Mrs. Richard Harding Davis are separated ; and Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett divorced her first-_ husband ; as did Amelie Rives, whose iirst novel, "The Quick or the q Dead," won her instant fame. This list I could be largely extended, and it is causing a discussion as to whether novelists expend sc« much care and attention in developing the domestic traits of their fictitious characters that they have no energy left to safeguard their own happiness. An interesting literary anniversary is the jubilee of the publication of Charles Reade's famous novel. "The Cloister and the Hearth," which Swinburne ranked among the "very greatest master- j pieces of narrative," and extolled for A "its stirring adventure and inexhaust- I ible incident, its tender sympathy, its ardour and depth of feeling, the con- J stant sweetness of its humour, and tho * frequont passion of its pathos." The story first appealed as a short serial \ in "Once a Week" in 1859, under the title of "A Good Fight" ; but Ruade saw that, there were greater possibilities in the material, he Jiad used, and devoted '}■ two years to fashioning it afresh on a more ambitious scale. Hie liberal draw- ■, ings upon "authorities" in his paesion for accuracy of detail gave rite to some p foolish charges of plagiarism. Reade's reply to his critics is characteristic : "I C milked 300 cowa for it t but the cheese I made k mine."