BOOKLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 2 April 1927, Page 6

BOOKLAND

Many well-known authors affect certain little characteristics an their ap r pearance or dress. Hall Caine has a liking for the artistic cloak which accentuates his picturesque figure. Arnold Bennett’s grey hair, slightly ruttied, as it were, is noticeable at many first night shows. H. G. Wells has a go-as-you please style, and if you did not know he was one of the most distinguished authors of the day, he could be simply labelled, when you glanced ,at his smiling, almost boyish face—a jolly good fellow! Sir Henry Newbolt is very fond of a game of billiards. He may often be found at the Athenaeum after lunch having a hundred up with some other member.

Hlulbert Footner, whose latest book of detective stories As called “Madame Storey,* , was born in the United States, though his ancestors emigrated from Christchurch, Hants, where the name is found on tombstones in the rriory churchyard. Footner is a great gaidener. He cares little for this detective stories, which bring him in a big income, and has been secretly engaged on his “great” novel during the leisure of many years. Tie has hopes of yez being forgotten as a detective writer and becoming immortal. Footner finds that ho can work better in London than anywhere else, and when the mood is on him he comes over for months at a time and works in an attic flat in Chelsea. He is fond of roving London in the early hours of the morning in the company of a journalist who is a great authority on London.

Byron’s letters, which have been described by Macaulay as “among the best in the language, more natural than those of Pope and Walpole, and with more matter than those of Cowper,” are at present only available in the six-volume edition edited by Lord Ernie. Mr. Murray, however, will publish early in January a selection in one volume, edited by H. V. Collins, under the title “Lord Byron in His Letters.” Apart from giving specimens of Byron's art as a letter-writer, the book is so designed as to provide a running commentary on his life and character.

W. Howard Hazell, a large employer of labour, has written a- book on “Labour and Capital in Alliance,” which Mr Murray will publish immediately. The author discusses with frankness the attitude of the employers and the workers and their responsibility in industrial progress. The book opens up a new vista of possibilities for attaining cordial co-operation between Capital and Labour, .and an introduction by the Bight Hon. J. B. Clynes, P. 0., M.P.. shows that the methods are acceptable to both sides.

When an essayist of distinction turns to novel writing the .results would appear to be disquieting. Mr J. St. Loe Stracliey’s many friends were last year disappointed and a little perplexed bv“The Madonna of the Barricades,” the loose construction and general lack of interest of which did nothing to enhance the reputation of the eminent late editor of the “Spectator.” The construction of Mr. J. P. Priestley’s first novel, “Adam in Moonshine,’’ published by Messrs Heinemann last week, is also its weak point. The book is an exquisitely written little fantasy—but again the novel of an essayist. Perfectly chosen words run like a silver thread, here and there, zig-zag, through a small irregularly woven tapestry, ami a touch of fancy, like a will-o’-the-wisp, lures us on, until, looking hack we find that we have lost our starting point and don’t quite know where we are going. But the story which tells of Adam’s adventures in a moorland Area dy is a quaint extravagance, and Mr Priestley, perhaps, never intended that, his readers should seek a solid foothold in his little fleet-of-heels story.

A .Hardy story.— 1. was told an excel lent story of Thomas Hardy, says a- writer in “The Weekly Dispatch.'’ It concerned an American corespondent who went down tu Dorchester to interview the great man. According to the technique of the business, lie repaired to a tavern to gather any information. Hardy, you see, hates being interviewed. “Do any pf you know Mr. Hardy down here?” lie asked alter a time. “Mr. Hardy? Mr. Hardy?” said a grey-haired old fellow. “Oh, you mean young Tom, eh? “I knows him . . . since he was a youngster. . . . All, young Tom’s grown nji a line man.” So up they went, alter a few pints, to Hardy’s house. The old man, who turned out to be. ninety odd, walked in without knocking. and in a loud voice shouted : “Where’s young Tom?” And when Hardy was found the interview was conducted through the n an who still thought of the great writer, as .a schoolboy. He had never .read any of the master’s works, and seemed just a little doubtful as to liow liis young friend had risen in the world.

There is something rather epic about the tale; some suggestion of the thought behind Gray’s “Elegy.’.’.

A recent article by Mr. St. John Ervine in the “Daily Mail,” .answering the question, “Who are our greatest living writers?” called forth a vigorous retort from the veteran actor Mr. William Earren. Mr. Farrcn wrote: “Of what value can be the judgment of ‘A Novelist’ who compiles a list of our greatest living writers and leaves out the name of'one writer of fiction who has never sullied his pages with ‘sex’ nastiness, who has given us the sweetest and most lovable women and the manliest and cleanest men? i mean Mr W. J. Locke. What romance of the war has equalled “The Hough Hoad,’ a beautiful book? Do not ‘The Beloved Vagabond,’ ‘Clementina Wing,’ ‘Septimus,’ Aristide Pujol’ live in our happy and grateful memories?”