IN BOOKLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 26 May 1928, Page 8

IN BOOKLAND

. “Tales from Greenery Street,” a new t&oic by Denis Mackai-l, appears an Heinemann’s spring list. **. * * *

Putman announces "The Holy Devil: Rasputin anil the Court,” by Reno Piilo'p-Miller, who has recently •written a good deal about Russia. a .» * * * ."Sullivan’s Comic Operas" (Edward Arnold) is an appreciation of them as music by Thomas E. Dun hill, who defends Sullivan both from his hostile critics and his undiscriminating admirers; . * * * * *

Tho Countess of. Oxford’s novel, "Oetavia,” is a prominent feature of Cassell’s spring list. The heroine is Oc-t-avia. Daventry, the dhnghter of a wealthy Border family, who pays a series of visits to the English shires. * * * *

Sir William Watson, who recently celebrated his poetic jubilee, has marked it by preparing a volume of his "Selected oPems.” They are published by Thornton Butterworth and include the. famous "Ode in May,” "Wordsworth’s Grave,” and the "Coronation Ode.” ** * * *

Major Brook Northey and Captain C. J. .Morris have collaborated to produce a full and authoritative account of the Gurkhas.of India, their customs, country and manners. The book, which is published by the Bodley Head, emphasisesl the services rendered to the Empire by the Nepal Government in the war. * -X- -X- *

"The Capri Air” is the name given to an English translation of an Italian book by Signor Chorio, who is lucky to •have as his translators a- trio such as Norman Douglas, Louis Golding and E. Brett Young. The publishers, Hcinemann, claim for the book, ‘wit, grace, and a really remarkably insight into the life and spirit of the island.” * X- -x- x-

Sir Basil Thompson has utilised his experiences at Scotland Yard in a "thriller,” which Messrs Methuen are to (publish this spring under the title ‘ ‘ Carfex. Abbey. ’ ’

Mr Cosmo Hamilton’s play, "Pickwick,” adapted from "Pickwick Papers” and recently published by Putnam, lias received the blcsi.sng of Sir Martin Conway, president of the Dickens Fellowship. * * * *

Onlv a few weeks .before his sudden

death in Tahiti, Robert Keable had ffin- * ashed 1 a- new novel, "Tho Madness of Monty,” a typical protest against convention. It is being published by Messrs Nisbct. -* * * *

Mr George C. Foster takes the title of his' new novel, "Cats in Clover,” from Darwin’s "Origin of Species.” He observed that the .more clover there ia the more bees; the more bees, the mbre mice; the more mice, the more cats. * * * *

Mr Cecil Roberts, who used to be the editor of a .Nottingham newspaper, and is now a popular novelist, is at present in Venice to supervise the making of a Him version of. his. last novel ‘ ‘ SagTlstO.” ° * * « *

"Jane Austen and the Brontes have no rivals among men. writers, as Dickens and Scott have no rivals among women writers,” says Robert Lynd in an essay ‘‘ AV omen as Writers,” apropos a controversy of tho hour. *****

The "Daily Telegraph” has secured the first serial rights in fifty unpublished poems by Thomas Hardy. . . • The publication 'by Thornton ButtcTwort'h of a selection from the works of Sir William Watson is likely _to revive interest in a poet, still living and writing, who was recommended by Asquith for tho Laureatcship when Tennvsen died. .- . . • "I believe

firmly,” d eclares Humbert Wolfc> "that both heat and cold are indispensable to great verso—tho heat of an overroasting impulse and the cold command of resolute technique.” » * * *

This is Jules Verne's centenary year. Strangely ehough, Verne was not a traveller, as one might imagine Jrom his books. He never visited any of the places he wrote about. He was blessed with a. great imagination. '1 o read any of Verne’s best books one would think he was a scientist, but lie was neither mathematician, astronomer, nor. an author of scientific books, but a novelist pure and simple, who scattered his knowledge hero and there, in the manner of a conversationalist. However, his study was crowded with all sorts of instruments, such as a quadrant, an electrical machine, a thermopile, globes of different sizes, maps, calendars, and charts. Verne worked hard, his output being SfJ imaginative novels in less than 40 years. His fame diminished as his writings waned. His faculty for making money departed with the advent of old age. His friends died and he became blind. * * , -w •* *

Hr. Rosen bach in “Hooks and Bidders’ ’.writes on one page of “the fourteen of fifteen Caxtons in my New York vault,’’ and in another of having in store there “four manuscripts of Chaucer, two of Gower’s ‘Confessio A mantis,’ several of Lydgate’s ‘Falls of Princes,’ and the famous manuscript of Ocelevc’s poems with a contemporary portrait of Chaucer.” In his private he records the possession of a volume of eighteenth-century pamphlets, including the first edition of Giray’s Odes (also the first book from Horace Walpole’s press at Strawberry' FTi llj and the long-lost first-edi-tion of Dr. Johnston’s Prologue recited by Garrick on the opening night of Drury Lane in 1747. This, while still ail undergraduate at the University of Pcnnyslvannia, he picked up at an auction in Philadelphia, under the eyes of the trade, for four dollars. During his post-graduate course a well-known collector dandled a cheque for 50,000 dollars’ before his eyes ; hut. though he needed money very badly, he stuck to his book. • * * * «* *

Mr. Edward Lyiiam writes in the London Observer” in conclusion of an article on the New Oxford Dictionary;.—“ln the past the English language has gained two or three words and lost one or two every year. The rate of gain and loss is now much higher. Since the world has grown smaller, we have gained many scientific . and foreign words, but because time also lias dwindled, we have lost many that were worth a thought. While the spread of a literary sense of 1 humour is forcing some good Anglo. Saxqn words out of use. the mechanical and scientific apparatus which now form a great part of our outer life are

bringing in an era of modified, democratic Latinity. “The old speech, though it served George Eliot well, will hardly serve us. The scientific and analytic spirit qf the day, which Lakes too little for granted, has made words derived from Greek and Latin fashionable with .English writers, while the imposing language used in commercial advertising must eventually affect the vocabulary of the general public.”