LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 19, 22 July 1933, Page 18

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

"The Great Illusion, 1933," just published, is an up-to-date version of Sir Norman Angell's book which originally appealed in 1912.

Tho Archbishop of Canterbury says that, to judge by his brethren on the episcopal bench, piety and the study of works of devotion seem to go with a predisposition for the reading of dc-te-etive stories.

The sale of the "Tarzan" books runs into millions, which must please Edgar Eice Burroughs' and his publishers. The latest, "Tarzan the Invincible," introduces old friends, such as Tantor the elephaut.

The Brahms centenary finds another expositor in a little book on "Brahms, a Study in Musical Biography,'' which Mr. Ealph Hill has written. It is introduced by Mr. Howard-Jones.

According to Mr. Ernest Jeffs, the strong and silent hero of fiction is an impossible fantasy, the product of our weak day-dreams of attaining power and glory without going through the necessary human drudgery of argument, compromise, and co-operation. Ho is quite a modern invention. Dickens and Thackeray knew nothing of 'him.

The Northcliffe Prize, for a French literary work of imagination, has been awarded to M.A ndre Chamson for his novel, "Heritages." The value of the prize is £40, and the selection committee included Miss Rebecca "West, Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith, and Mrs. J. L. Garvin. Another coveted literary award, the Pulitzer Prize, has been won by Mr. Archibald MacLeish's poem, "Conquistador."

A collection of 254 letters written by Maeaulay was sold in London recently for' £42. A three-page letter from Dickens fetched £170, and four sheets of pen-and-ink sketches by Thackeray, one bearing an autograph note to Edward FitzGerald, £130. The sum of £460 was paid for a forty-line Burns MS., "The Vision," which belonged to Captain Victor Cazalet, M.P. It is to go to the Burns Museum at Alloway. Ayrshire.

' ' Society Racket; a Critical Survey of Contemporary Society," by the Hon. Patrick Balfour, is to be published shortly. Mr. Balfour has "something to say about Bright Young People and Clever 'Young Men, about that muchadvertised creature the modern debutante, about gossip-writers and their ways; and few of the characters who flit across the canvas of present-day London escape his trenchant pen." Clearly an important book, remarks a London cynic.

iir. Alfred Noyes said recently that, when at work on a long poem, ho often has scraps of verso which do not quite fit into his scheme. He puts them on one side and goes on with the long poem. Later, he comes upon some of these scraps and says: "I will finish that up as a separate sonnet." Mr. Noyes offers the suggestion that Shakespeare's sonnets may have originated somewhat in this way, and that accordingly they were more closely linked with the long narrative poems than is commonly thought.

The sale by auction at Sotheby's, London, of the fifth Earl of Eosebery's library yielded £30,639. Cheers terminated a spirited competition when Dr. Eosenbach paid £14,500, thus eclipsing Mr. Gabriel Wells's bid of £14,200 for the Mauley copy o.f a first folio Shakespeare, which originally cost £1. It is tho finest copy ever sold at auction. The highest price on record is £15,000, which was paid privately in the United States for the Daniel iirst folio. In May, Bernard Quaritcli, Ltd., book dealers, of London, offered a copy of the first folio Shakespeare for £15,000 to the trustees of tho Public Library of Victoria. The price quoted was beyond tho resources of the library, .and the offer was passed on to the Felton Bequest trustees, with a recommendation that the book should be purchased. The trustees refused the offer.