LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 23

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

The story of the old Discovery, how safely moored in the heart of London as a memorial to Captain Scott and his comrades, as well as a training ship for Sea Scouts, has been told by Lieutenant-Commander L. C. Bernacchi in a book which Blackie's are publishing; v "Saga of the Discovery."

Mr. Upton Sinclair's new novel, "Little Steel," will be his sixtieth book —appropriately,, for he has just celebrated his sixtieth birthday. Werner Laurie, his English publishers, will shortly issue a bibliography of all his translations and foreign editions. These include 761 titles in 47 languages and 39 countries —probably a record.

Librarians ' in the -,British Foreign Office are compiling a series of volumes on the Constitutions of the world. The first, dealing with the British Empire, is about Jo be published through the Stationery Office. Costs have been kept as low as. possible, and this volume of nearly seven hundred pages is being sold for half a guinea. •■-,-..

"Sleep in Peace," a novel by Miss = Phyllis Bentley, has been banned in Germany. No reason is given by the German authorities, but the author believes they object to a chapter "which might be looked upon as an: attack on dictators" and to another* about the war, ''which' was not very complimentary to the Germans."

The writer of "Literary Gossip" in the "Pall Mall Gazette" of 50 years ago said: —"The largest sum ever given to a woman for any single story has just been offered and accepted in America. The authoress is Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, and the sum is said to be £3750. I am told, by the way, that the extraordinary success of 'Robert Elsmere' will bring in a very large sum to its authoress, and that she has already received correspondingly large offers for her next novel. But Mrs. Humphrey Ward's 'figure' is still, I imagine, not jmore than half Mrs. Hodg-son-Burnett's,": .■.■..

, Dickens is still a firm favourite with children, though even "Oliver Twist" must give precedence to the "William" iaftd.. ','B.iggles" books, according, to a census at Bethnal Green public ; libraries; (London); Children of varying ages from eight to fourteen were invited to give the name of the bobk they liked best of all the books they had ever read, and 800 responded. In his report, issued recently, the Borough Librarian, Mr. George F. Vale, discloses that "the incorrigible William, that type and spokesman of boyhood the world over, like Abou Ben Adhem, leads all the rest."* ;

Mrs. Anita Boutell, author of a first novel entitled "Tell Death to Wait," is a descendant- of Aaron Burr, the man; who killed' Alexander Hamilton the American statesman, >in a \ duel. Burr was vice-president of the United States at the time, and although he hacl to flee, he later returned and completed his term of office. Later still he attempted to establish, . a republic in Texas, and was tried for treason. Mrs. Boutell was formerly well known in America as a dancer. In 1924 she came to England and has spent most of her time there:ever since. Her,daughter is studying for the stage under Mr. Michel St. Denis at the London Theatre Studio..

Princess Marthe Bibesco's story of "Katia," the film version of which has just been produced, in London, with Mile. Dannielle Darrieux in the chief part, will shortly be published by Heinemann in an English translation by Priscilla Bibesco, granddaughter of the late Lord Oxford and Asquith. The book is written round the romance between the Tsar Alexander 11, who was assassinated in St. Petersburg some 60 years ago, and Princess Katia Dolgorouky, who, many years later, came to know Princess Marthe Bibesco in Paris. Some of the illustrations in the book are reproductions of the Tsar's "own sketches of "Katia."

Commending his wife, Elsa Lanchester's "Charles Laughton and I," the famous actor declares that her method alternates between naivette and observations like a kick from a giraffe. "As I. read through this, I said to myself: 'Dear Elsa; bless her heart; the little pet'; and suddenly I came across a line which, made my bones rattle inside their covering of fat. Mind you, in her relationship to me those blows would always be salutary and invariably thought out for my own good—like castor oil in childhood. But the little brute does enjoy summing up relationship", and situations in one shattering line. To keep her friendship you certainly have to be able to 'take it,' but it must be worth it, for she has never lost a friend."