NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 21784, 28 July 1934, Page 19

NOTES

The manuscript of ‘ Vice Versa,’ the famous novel by F. Anstey, who died recently, has been sold in London for £520. Miss Kate Mary Bruce, author of ‘ Snow Storm ’ is a daughter of Mr Justice Maugham and a niece of Mr Somerset Maugham. Her great-grand-father was Mark Lemon, first editor of ‘ Punch.’ ‘ Tho Visitor,’ a book with an allegorical setting by Hugh Studdert Kennedy, brother of the late Rev. G. A. Studdert Kennedy, better known as “Woodbine Willy,” is one of Putnam’s early publications. It is characterised by intimate and comforting religious thought. Putnam’s announce a new series of half-a-crown novels under the title of the ‘ Romance Library.’ It will contain romances by Florence L. Barclay, Myrtle Reed, Flora Klickninnn. Temple Thurston, and others. The well-known artist. Mr W. G. Robb, whose Barclay jackets are so popular, has designed a uniform shelf back. Forty-one times round the Horn during forty-four years of life at sea is the record of Captain James Barker, the famous master of sailing ships. He has set down his experiences in the ‘ Log of a Lime-juicer,’ which Putnam’s have in the press for early autumn publication. Lieutenant-colonel C. H. Grey, D. 5.0., of Hooker Edge Gardens, Crattbrook, Kent, has nearly completed his two-volume work 1 Hardy Bulbs,’ and Putnam’s hope to publish immediately. All bulbs capable of cultivation in the open or in an uriheated greenhouse ill Great Britain are fully described, and Mrs C. H. Grey will illustrate the book in colour and black and white. Mr Hugh Walpole has just finished a new novel entitled ‘ Captain Nicholas,’ a self-contained story .having no relation to his ‘ Rogue Berries ’ senes. Captain Nicholas, who has a capacity for being “ all things to all men ” without ever being anybody but himself, is a most powerful and fasiinating character. Messrs Collins announced that they would publish a new novel by Miss Bose Macaulay this month. Miss Macaulay’s last book was ‘ They Were Defeated,’ a . story based on Hie life of Herrick. Her new novel is in lighter vein; it is called ‘Going Abroad.’ It is the story of a mixed group of char-a-banc tourists who are held to ransom by brigands in the Pyrenees.

, Sir George Macdonald's ‘ The Roman Wall in Scotland,’ first published if 1911, is, being re-issued by the Oxford Press. Tile new book incorporates all oi the old, but adds a great deal mote, much new evidence having come to light since 1911. Sir George is now able to plot the exact line of the wall from end to end. The book is richly il lustrated with maps and photographs.

Recently a well-known English publishing house announced a world-Wide autobiography contest, for which ti prize 'of £I,OOO was offered. A notable competitor (says the Wellington ‘Post’) is Sir T’nlby King, who for some months has been engaged on tilt task of preparing his autobiography It is now practically complete, and wi. b 0 dispatched to London in time t< enter the competition, Which closes oi the last day of this year. Not many postwomen can have become poets. Miss Helen Cruiekshank, author of ‘ Up the Noran Water,’ was at one time postwoman at Glen-Prosen. in Angus. For tfen years she. worked at the Post Office Savings Bank at West Kensington. Now she is an execn tive officer of Child Welfare Work in tlie Department of Health for Scotland, and is secretary of the Scottish P.E.N. Club.

Dastnr Crirsetji Eracbji Party, in whose honour a volume of _ Oriental studies has just been published, is a distinguished Pafsfeo High Priest and author Seventy scholars from seventeen countries have contributed to this book, which was prepared ili hOnblir of his seventieth birthday. The Shah of Persia recently conferred on DaStiir Pavry the Order of Merit, and the Hungarian Oriental Society has piade hirh an honorary member. He is an author: ity on Zoroastriau literature.

Of Stalin; Emil Ludwig writes ill ‘ Leaders of Europe ’ (Nicholson and Watson)“ Everything about this man is heavy-phis gait, lj|s |ook, even the movemchts of his will. He has a habit of laughing often as he talks* And when he does it is a slow, sluggish kind of laughter which seems, to indicate the inherent mistrust that all dictators have toward the rest of mankind. Stalin is a dour nature. He lacks that interior cheerfulness of soul which keeps patient people, line the average peasant, huhian; ,In him the virtue of patience, the ability to wajt, draws its sifstenance from its innate mistrust.”

‘‘Though the present literary production in, Scotland has_ no definite direction, there is one thing ” (writes Mr Edwin Muir in the Spectator ’). “ which clearly distinguishes it from that of Stevenson, Bartie, Crocket, and lan Maelarert at the end of last century. Tlie Scottish characters in which these writers dealt were intended primarily, like Sir Harry Lauder’s humour, for foreign consumption. They were designed for the popular. English taste; they were exports. This was riot true to the same degree of Neil Munro’s Highlanders, who carae_ later, and it cannot bo said at all, I think, of Mr Neil M. Gunn’s or Mr Lewis GrasSic Gibbon's or ‘ Fiona MacColl’s Scottish characters; These writers address themselves first of all to a, Scottish audience, and not incidentally, as their, predecessors die). Certainly Stevenson should not be blamed too much for his literary strategy, for such an audience did not exist in his time. Arid the fact that it does exist now is a clear proof, of an immense increase in national self-ConscioußrießS.’

Dreams as an aid to, authorship haye beeri considered by Mr Alfred Treaf’dder Sheppard in his hook oh * Historical Fiction.' “Ah idea op the broad outlines of a plot may como at any moment and in any place,” he tvrites; “ even from a dream: as Stevenson dad (Horace) Walpole found—though dreamland is peHiaps the most tihsatis r factory country from which the novelist can draw his inspiration. Too often there is disjllusiot) on fiill awakening, ns Jebb (not famous as a novelist) found once when suffering ffopi typhoid fever; he dreamed a dream which seemed to make the plan of a most amazing and admirable novel, only to find it resolve itself into sheer nohsence in davlight, Lytton dreamed, or said that he dreamed, verse—but it was nonsense verse. ‘Dr Jckyll and Mr Hyde,’ though the best dream-story ever written, suffers from its origin; there is at least a grain of truth in Watts-Dunlon’s criticism that had' it not been for the influence upon him of tile healthiest of all writers except Chaucer—Sir Walter Scott —Stevenson might have been in the ranks of the pompous problem-mongers of fiction and the stage, who do their best to make life hideous.”-