LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 15 September 1928, Page 21

LITERARY NOTES

Another mystery story by Lofil'Gorell, "He Who rights," is forthcoming with John Murray. Sir Henry Imbert-Tcrry- hus ulso writtCJi :i mystery yam and Hutoliinson 'is to publish it with the title, "Acid." "Winter Words in Various Moods and Meters" will lie the title of Thomas Hardy's posthumous volume of poems. The Holy Office in Rome, which seventeen years ago banned certain works of the poet D'Annunzio, has now added to the list a number of later publication^ "which offend the faith and morals of the Catholic Church." One of James Branch Cabell's earlier books is issued from the Bodley Head, under the title of "Chivalry." Closely linked up with Mr. Cabell's other books, it contains stories of ten queens, the tales being told ostonsibly by that "extremely venerable person and worshipful man," Nicolas de Caen. The "Lua Angeles Times" intimates that the sole surviving relative of Ambrose Bierce bas organised an investigation in Mexico, intended to reveal the exact fate of that brilliant storyteller. Bierce disappeared mysteriously just before the Great War. lv November, 1913, he wrote to his daughter saying that ho was adventuring and campaigning with the Mexican forces. Since then nothing has been heard of him, and rumour has been busy ever since with speculations as to his fate. Lord Beaverbrook, in his "Politicians and the War, 1914-16," incidentally tells of Lord Birkenhead's remark to a club bore. Birkenhead came to loggerhcade with him as a partner over the bridge table. "Do you know who is the most unpopular member of this club?" "I suppose," replied Welsford,' "that you mean me." "No I don't," said Birkenhead. A silence followed. "Do you know who is the most unpopular member of this club?" repeated Birkenhead. There was no answer. "Well, I am, because I proposed you for membership." A rare edition of Dante's "Divine Comedy" has been discovered in a trunk filled with old books which had been unopened for more than fifteen years. Mr. Standish Chard, a Now York lawyer, inherited the trunK from his uncle, George M. Standish, who lived in Italy for forty years. Mr. I Chard placed the trunk in a barn on his farm at Sunderland, Mass. In going through it recently he came upon a yellow leather-bound volume inscribed "Dante—l4B4." Bibliophiles pronounced it to bo tho work of Octoviano Scoto, a Venetian. Only eleven other copies of the Scoto "Divine Comedy" are known to exist.