LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 50, 27 August 1932, Page 19

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

Air. Rhys Hopkin Morris, M.P., ■is writing a biography of Sir John Simon.

The fourth volume of the Bulow Memoirs, which is to appear in the ; autumn, deals with' this famous and provocative German T statesman's early years and diplomatic service.

Fergus Hume, who died recently, wrote 138 novels. His first and most famous, "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," of which over half a million copies wore sold, brought • him £50 the rights being sold to a friend, who disposed of them to a publisher.

The original scoro of Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll" fetched £1150 at a recent London sale. Another interesting itein-rwas the autographed manuscript of R. L. Stevenson's "Lesson on tho Sea" (£46), representing about £,2 5s a line.

Mme. Sigrid Undset, the Scandinavian novelist who won tho Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, is to visit the United States. She will probably spend most of her time in the Scandinavian settlements in tho Middle West,

Dr. Arthur Lynch discusses in "The Oaso Against Einstein" three aspects of relativity, psychological, physical, and mathematical; and arrives at an adverse verdict concerning the claims of relativity in each domain.

Mr. J. K. Pollock has completed a comparative study of the methods by which political funds are raised and used in England. France, and Germany. It will be published by George Allen and Unwin under the title "Money, and Politics."

Mr. ■ Koland Wild, said to be one of the few Englishmen who have been in Afghanistan except on official business, tells the story of that country in his book on "Amanullah." Hurst and Blaekett, who are publishing the volume, say that it is a story of adventure and dishonesty, savagery and terrible retribution. It forecasts tho future of tho country, now peaceful under a less impetuous ruler.

. "Tho Rosary," by Florence Barclay, continues. to sell well oven .after all these years. It.was published in 1909. Putnam announce for publication in tho autumn an unpublished novel by this famous author, written when she was only twenty-two years old. She had often considered revising it for publication with her other novels, but when she died the plan had not been completed. : Her intention , has now been carried out' by, her literary executor, to whom she entrusted; the responsibility for her unfinished work. It is to bo called "Guy Mervyn."

American newspapers are telling this story:— Mark Twain once desired to borrow a book from a neighbour of his, but was tolcl that though he might refer to it in the library with pleasure, the books were never allowed to leave the house. Not long after the neighbour asked Mark Twain to lend him his lawn sprinkler. Ho was informed that the writer never allowed the sprinkler to leave his own garden, but that the neighbour was quite welcome to make use of it, if he liked, on tho lawn of the humorist.

The Oxford University Press expects to publish early in 1933 "A Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" in two quarto volumes, containing 2500 pages. It is designed to make available in shorter and cheaper form tho materials collected and sifted for the great Oxford Dictionary (completed in 1928 after nearly thirty years_ spent on its compilation), together with the materials for the Supplement to the monumental work, which is now in an advanced state. A feature of tho Shorter Dictionary will be tho inclusion of selected dated quotations.