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Evening Star, Issue 21724, 19 May 1934, Page 21

NOTES

Among writers of novels and plays who are qualified medical men are Somerset Maugham, Warwick Deeping, A. J. Croning, and James Bridie. Chilvers Coton Vicarage, Nuneaton, Warwickshire—-the “ Shepperton Vicarage ” of George -Eliot's ‘ Scenes of Clerical Life ’ —has been declared to bo uninhabitable. It adjoins the church where George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) was baptised. Tooting Hall, Tooting Junction—where Defoe is said to have lived when he was writing ‘ Robinson Crusoe ’ — has been sold and will probably bo demolished. Tooting has roads named Robinson, Crusoe, Friday, Defoe, and even Island. Miss Dorothy L. Sayers states the difference between a thriller and a detective story as mainly one of emphasis. In both there are agitating events, but in reading the thriller the cry is “ What conies next!'” and in reading the detective story, “ What came first?” The one we cannot guess, the other we can, if the author gives us a chance. This paragraph from the ‘ Hundred Years Ago ’ column of the ‘ Observer ’ indicates prosperous bookselling in 1834 by a firm that has become historic: —Mr Murray, of Albemarle street, gave his annual sale dinner to tlic London booksellers at the Albion Tavern last Friday. The company consisted of nearly 100 persons. Upwards of ninety thousand books were sold as a result of the sale. Disagreement with Mr Cosmo Hamilton’s opinion that Dickens was the last novelist to create enduring characters as well known to the general public as if they had hew; living ccjcbrities is expressed by the ‘ Evening Standard ’ (London). Characters mentioned in support of its view are the Sherlock Holmes of Conan Doyle, the Soamcs Forsyte of Galsworthy, and the Jeeves of P. G. Wodchouse.

“ Anglo-Welsh ” poets represented by books at the filth annual Welsh book exhibition at Cardiff were W. H. Davies, Itichard Hughes, Gwili. Evan Morgan, A. G. Prys-Joncs. Ernest Rhys, Edward Thomas, and Huw Menai. A number of other exhibits related to manuscripts of the tales of the Mabinogoin—•“ the supreme romantic production of the Welsh people in the field of medieval prose literature.”

Mr John M'Carthy, the “ Irish Mac " of Mrs /Eneas Gunn’s story ‘ We of the Never Never,’ has died in the Adelaide Hospital, where he had been a patient for some time. He was more than seventy years of age. Shortly before his illness he was prospecting in Northern Australia, where he had lived most of his life. Last year the surviving characters of the book—■ Messrs T. M. Pearce (“Mine Host”), J. M‘Leod (“'the Quiet Stockman”), A. Bryant (“The Dandy”), and McCarthy— met in Adelaide for the first time in thirty years.