LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 24, 27 July 1929, Page 21

LITERARY NOTES

. A new English version of Karl Marx's "Das Kapital," which tho Russian Revolution made historic, was recently published by Allen ajid TJnwin. As a companion volume they now announce a fresh biography of Marx by Hcrr Otto Ruhle. He sketches intimately tho setting of Marx's activities and analyses his character with sympathy and insight. His weaknesses and shortcomings are not passed over, but that "strength which has made his teaching a living force" is insisted on.

Military students of the Great War have known that behind the Hinden-burg-Ludendorff facade of the German command there was the personality of General Hoffmann. He has, indeed, beeii named, beside Marshal Foch as one of the genius-gifted soldiers of the time. General Hoffmann kept a diary of his experiences, and it has been translated by Mr. Eric Sutton for publication by Martin Seeker. It is said to be almost devoid of prejudice, and to he full of sardonic humour.

The diary of a Swabian knight, Jorg yon Ehingen, who lived betwech 1-JuO and 1457, is about to appear with the Oxford Press under the editorship of Mr. Malcolm Letts, Ehingen travelled through most of Europe and parts of Asia, and ho served ugainst the infidels tit Ceuta, in Africa, where he engaged in a victorious single combat. He has much of interest to tell of the varied courts at which he was a visitor, and he gives an agreeable picture of the touring knight of the 15th century, in search of adventure and amusement.

Louise Gerard, according to the Macaulay Company, publishers of her novel, "Winds of Desire," made a journey of nearly 13,000 miles from London to South. America, then up the River Amazon through the unexplored forest to the strange jungle city of Manaos, in order that her novel should be correct in every detail. To s>ueh lengths will writers who can afford it go in search of local colour. Explorers have been so busy in recent years that imagination is 110 longer a safe guide in writing about the remote corners of the world.

I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd, How- sweet, how passing sweet, is soli- : ' tud.el I But grant mo still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, Solitude is . sweet. —William Cowpor. (