LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1932, Page 17

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

Zane Grey has a new book of adventures among the giant fish of the South Seas, entitled "Tales of Tahitian Waters."

In an election speech recently Mr. Baldwin said that he hoped before ho died "to make the use of inverted commas ia England illegal."

Mrs. Guy Boas, who has written a first novel called "The Vicar's Wife," is a daughter of the late Sir Beethani Whitehead, the distinguished diplomat, and a niece- of Lord Middloton.

Mr. John Heygate, author of the much-discussed novel about Eton, "Docent Fellows/ hag the strange hobby of riding on the engines of express trains whenever ho gets the chance.

Mr. Gilbert Frankau has been, ordered by his doctor to take a rest from writing. Consequently his new novel, which he intends to call "Christopher Strong," will not be ready until January. .

The : Masque Theatre of Edinburgh for the 1932 season has resolved that one of the outstanding novelties shall be a new play on Sir Walter Scott, presented by Mr. Compton Mackenzie. The Scott centenary falls next year, and the play will be produced in June.

According to the will of Dr. Arthur Schnitzler, the Viennese novelist, -who died recently, his diaries until 1599 must not be published until twenty years after his death, and the others not until forty years after. His autobiography is not to appear for twenty years, and then without any alterations or cuts. ■

A novel that is not about people is something new and strange. "The Kingdom That Was," shortly to be publishod, is a tale of Africa as it may have been, thousands of • years ago, when tho animals were supreme and man was subservient and despised—a little creature running and hiding. Mr. John Lambourne, the author, has undertaken to give the animals themselves individualities. These ho makes the characters of his story.

"Africa Speaks" was a film of ■world-wide reputation, and now the book, by Paul L. Hoefler, will be published under the same title by The Bodley Head. The book does not follow the story of the motion picture. It. is a more comprehensive account, which follows the actual course of the Colorado African Expedition, the first motor expedition to cross. Central Equatorial Africa from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. A feature of the book is a collection of 146 photographs, all taken by the author at close .'.angc, frequently not more than twelve feel; separating him from the roaring or stampeding animals lie was photographing. :

No more extraordinary story of charlatanism and mass credulity exists'than that of the rise and fall of Sabbatai Zevi, tho son of a poor Jewish poultrymonger of Smyrna, who became known as the Messiah of Ismir in the seventeenth century. At that time tho Jews of Central Europe, especially Poland, were suffering the extremities of oppression, and tho appearance of a Saviour was expected in the year 1(36(5. Sabbatai Zevi conceived himself to be this Messiah, and soon tho whole Jewish world were divided between his supporters and opponents. How he failed at tho supreme moment, his subsequent fate, iv fact the whole story of this gigantic fraud, is told iv "Tho Messiah of Ismir" bv_ Joseph Kastein, translated by Huntly" Paterson, which is published with twelve illustrations from contemporary sources.