LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 34

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

The Belgian nation's memorial to the'late King Albert is to take the form of a National Library called the Bibliotheque Albertine. The estimated cost is £ 1,500,000.

If it is as colourful as her paintings, Danie Laura Knight's autobiography, which she is writing, should be worth reading. Before settling in London, she- .lived ,for many years in Yorkshire and Cornwall.

"Seven Gothic Tales," by Isak Dinesen,1 is /being translated by the author —her-Teal name is Baroness Blixen — into Danish, her native tongue. The book- will later appear in Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

. ."New- Pathways in Science," a new book-by Sir Arthur Eddington, is announced for publication by the Cam- ( bridge University Press. It is based on! a course of lectures delivered at Cornell last year.

. Fraulein Ruth Feiner, author of "Cat Across the Path," is one of those who h?d t,o leave Germany when Herr Hitler came into power. Her father is an. actor, producer, and playwright, and she herself has acted for films and composed songs.

A well-preserved set of the first four Folio : editions of Shakespeare, the property of the Massachusetts General Hospital, has been sent back to England to be.sold. Does this mean, asks -an English paper, that Americans are no longer able to afford to buy our treasures? •' '. . ■

... During-the Boer War, Mr. James Barnes; the author of "From Then Till Now;" ::was a newspaper correspondent... At the Battle. pf-Magersfontein, h3 \tells us in his book, he noticed a non-commissioned officer in charge of some stretchers carrying in fi"is hand a long, white ostrich feather which could; have, been seen a mile. One of the -shells from the Boer gun fell but- a few yards away; as it struck, the man with the plume fell forward on his face. "Pick that poor fellow up," an officer shouted. But no one had been hurt. . Out of the dust rose the supposedly wounded one. It was Edgar Wallace—before long one of the—most- prolific short-story writers and: playwrights and sporting journalists known to the English reading public.

Among other centenaries of interest! to the publishing world which occur in 1935, perhaps that of Samuel Langhorne Clemens ("Mark Twain") is outstanding. Mark Twain the writer was successful—but as the publisher he met-with disaster, although, like Sir Walter Scott, he repaid his creditors in full. He became virtually owner of the publishing house of Webster and Company—and its fall in 1894 involved him in ruin. Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835. Colenso (brother of the famous Bishop of Natal) published in 1835 the first book to appear in New Zealand. A noteworthy bicentenary of 1935 is that of .the birth (September 28, 1735) of William Julius Mickle, the poet, author of "There's Nae Luck About the House" and "Cumnor Hall." r.T'rliln was corrector to the Clarendon Press. Robert Dodsley opened a bookseller's shop in Pali Mall in 1735. Dodsley was also a dramatist, and his "Toy Shop" was successfully produced at Co vent Garden that same year.