LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 102, 26 October 1929, Page 25

LITERARY NOTES

"The New Forget-me-not," to be issued by. Eichard ;Cobden-Sanderson, will bo au attempt to revive tho long obsolete literary annual. It will bo illustrated by*Bex Whistler, and will contain, forty original contributions by authors of more.or less distinction. Of all racing yachts tho King'a cutter Britannia is perhaps {ho most remarkable. She was built for his father thirty-sis years ago, and she ia still racing successfully with modern vessels. Her non-technical history has never been written, but it will be found in the book, "Britannia and Her Contemporaries," which Mr. Heck-stall-Smith has done for Methiien. He n'ot only tells her remarkable career in a way which landsmen as well as yachtsmen may understand, but he introduces the stories of other contemporary yachts. Captain Einar Lundborg, in his recently published book, "The Arctic Rescue," says of the chief of the ilk fated "Italia" Arctic expedition:— "Whether or not General Nobile carried out his Italia expedition scientifically is a matter that I cannot decide. But I know that ho is a fine and noble man, and I am convinced that all tho severe judgments passed on him and certain details of his Polar expedition would nover have boon uttered if catastrophe had not befallen it. And to criticise the General becauso I took him off the floe first, I consider inhuman and cruel." Nearly thirty years ago Mrs. Ella Fuller-Maitland and Sir Frederick Pollock wrote "The Etchingham Letters," a story told by the method of correspondence. It had a wide vogue, and it. set for a little while a fashion of fiction in the form of letters, though this form was not, of courso, an originality. The fashion has come round again in several recent books as literary fashions like other fashions do, and Mrs. Fuller-Maitland is joining in it with the "The Clero Family." For collaborator she has Commander s Spenco Bernard, and they tell, between them, a story of English country life. Several books dealing with the tragic adventures of the Tsar Nicolas and his family after the Eussian Revolution have recently appeared in London. Another one, called "The Plot to Save the Tsaritsa," is just published by Putnams. It answers the question: Why was no attempt made to save the Tsar, Ins wife, and their children ? There was a plan which aimed at their rescue, but it ended in talk aud fiothing else. The affair is related by Lieutenant Markov, who was an orderly to the Tsaritsa, and who himself reached Tobolsk