LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 26

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

The Duke of Windsor has under consideration an autobiography spanning the period from about 1900 to 1930, states the London "Daily Express." Believed to be the last living link with. Charles Dickens, Mr. George Chapman Woolley, of Coxtie Green, Essex, celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday last month. Asa young man Mr. Woolley was a gardenei- at Gad's Hill, the Kentish home of Dickens, and was in the novelist's service "when lie died in 1870, ■■'"- : ■■■ ::' "[' The general opinion in London literary, circles regarding, the Kipling autobiography, "'Something of' Myself," is that it is too short. It is described/as the briefest -autobiography to. come from any man of letters for many a day. But the valuable feature of the book is the-insight it, gives into "Kipling's methods as a creative artist. It takes a hero to write a successful novel, if one judges by the experience of Mr. Hicharcl Aldington, who made his riame with his war novel, "Death of a Hero." Within six weeks of the book's publication he had received three proposals of marriage, an offer to go on the films, had been claimed as a long-lost-husband, and was recognised by a German soldier whose life he had saved during the war. Mr. Noel Coward tells In his autobiography that he once wrote, a play ("The Young Idea").on the model.of ."You Never Can ,Tell," and sent" a copy to Mr. Shaw. He received a reply to the effect "that I showed every indication of becoming a good playwright, provided that I never again in my life read another word that he (Shaw) had ever written." It was sound advice, for probably Mr. Shaw has spoiled mdre dramatists than he has made. They always insisted on looking at "life through his eyes; and they are unusual eyes. G. K. Chesterton figures in two books just published. "The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond," which comes from Cassell's, is a volume of stories which were among the last written by G.K.C. himself. They introduce a character who has a family likeness to Father Brown —a dapper little civil servant with a beard and a habit of making strange remarks. The other book is about G.K.C. It was written by one of his oldest. friends,; M.. Emile Cammaerts, and. is called "The Laughing Prophet)' "with' the sub-title; "The Seven Virtues' and G. X.' .Chesterton." It' is 'a Methueri publication.' '' ' ' ; " * Lovers of Australian literature (says the: "Australasian") will be glad to know that an effort is being made by the A. G. Stephens Memorial Committee to publish a memorial volume containing selections from' the work •of him whowas adjudged by J. F. Archibald to'be "the best judge of literary values in Australia." Australia' owes Stephens much. To him is due our knowledge of the best Qr first works of Ogilvie, Furphy,: Davis, O'Dpwd, Quin, Brady, Church, Adams, Hebbelthwaite, Phil May, Hopkins, and other Australian writers and artisrs. And he rescued Shaw Neilson's poetry'from oblivion, bringing out the first volume of Neilson's work in 1919. ' More than 2,500,000 copies of Hitler's political confession book, "My Struggle," has been sold. In addition to this gigantic sale,' the book has been translated into seven foreign languages, and of these more than 50,000 copies have been disposed of. It is described as the world's greatest "best seller." Up to the time when Hitler came into power, on January 30, 1933, only 192,000 copies of his book had been sold. During the first nine- months .'of his dictatorship: more than 1,000,000 additional copies, had been sold. From then, on sales went on steadily. The first foreign edition appeared in England.and America in 1933. So far 19,000 copies have been ,sold •in England, 7100 copies in America, 7000 copies in Denmark, and 3300 copies in Hungary. The book has not been translated into French.