IN BOOKLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 29 September 1928, Page 13

IN BOOKLAND

Ellislaud, the Dumfriesshire farm which Burns tenanted in the years between his Edinburgh and Dumfries periods, has, by the will of a publicspirited Edinburgh merchant, John Wilson 'Williamson, passed into the hands of trustees for national use. Ellislaud is at the eastern end of the parish of Dunscore. At the western end, 15 miles away, “amid the sullen moor,” is Craigenputtock, where Carlyle Avrote “Sartor Resartus” and the •‘Essay on Burns.” The trees over Nith from Ellisland hide the artifical lake where, on October 14, 17S8, Burns’s landlord, Patrick Miller ol Dalswinton, tried out the first steamboat ever launched on British waters. The original manuscript of “Alice in Wonderland’, will not be tucked aAvay on some dark library shelf. Dr. Rosenbach, who bought the manuscript at Sotheby’s in London for £15,000, has resold it to “a famous American collector,” who has purchased the manuscript to display it to the public and gi.e “Alice’s” admirers an opportunity of becoming acquainted Avith the forms in which their heroine’s adventures first appeared. The manuscript will be first placed on public display in the main entrance hall of the Philadelphia Free Library, After a short stay there it will travel to other parts of the,, country, and may even return to England for a- A’isit. The manuscript is said to be insured for £55,000. There should be some interesting side-lights on Napoleonic history in “The Memoirs of Queen Hortense,” shortly to be published by Thornton Butterworth. lor Hortense de Beaune. rnais, daughter of the Empress ■Josephine by her first marriage, became not only step-daughter of Napoleon, hut .also lus sister-in-laA\-by her marriage to the Emperor’s brother Louis, afterwards King of Holland. On Napoleon’s downfall Hortense fled to Switzerland, and there wrote her memoirs, the greater part of Avliich have never been publishd They passed on the AA T riter’s death to her youngest son, afterwards Napoleon Ilf., from him to the late Empress Eugeneie, and so into the possession of Prince Napoleon, who Avas preparing them for publication when lie died two yeans ago.

School children of LWerpool (Engrecently celebrated with pageantry the unveilling of a Peter Pan Statue in one -of the city’s parks. Sir James Barrife, the creator of “The Boy Who- Would Not Grow Up,” sent a telegram to Peter, ‘‘Behave to-day, il for the only time. Take care the Lord Mayor does not find you out. For heaven’s sake don't grow Avhen they remove your swathing sheet.” Among the messages sent by carrier pigeons from the park was one from Peter Pan to Sir Janies Barrie, which declared, “Wendy loves her new home. We wished you Avere here. We have put Jimmy Hook in the lake where the crocodile is. Our love and kisses.” The statue is a replica of the , famous work by Sir George Frampton in Kensington Gardens, London. The New York “Bookman” for July prints the folloAving list of novels most in demand in the libraries of the United States: 1. The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton. Wilder; 2,. Wintersmoon, Hugh Wrilikile; 3, Kitty, Warwick Deeping; 4 Jalna, Mazo de la Roche: 5, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Will a Gather; 6, Red Rust. Cornelia James Cannon ; 7, Giants in the Earth. O. E. Rolvaag; 8, Claire Ambler, Booth Tarkington; 9. Sorrell and Son, Warwick Deeping; 10, A President is Born, Fannie Hurst; 11, The Ugly Duchess, Lion Feuchtwanger; 12, Dr-sty Answer, Rosamond Lehmann. Tn his .reminiscences of his father Sir Henry Dickens refers to the “Life of Christ” which Charles Dickens wrote for his children. The manuscript is in the possession of Sir Henry Dickens, hut his father impressed on the family that as it Avas not intended as a litWarv effort it was never to lie published to the world? Many efforts to obtain it have been made by American puhlisljprs and editors. In all' likelihood the manuscript will find a resting place at the British Museum. Members of the Dickens’ Fellowship at the last annual conference at Nottingham expressed relief at the new light thrown by Major-General White, in the course of a recent lecture in London, on “Charles Dickens and Maria Beadnell.” It was a simple love story of the youth of Dickens. Maria Beadnell, who became Dora; Spend low in “David Gopperfield,” rejected him, and, like a Avise man, he Avent his way. ft Avas true that some 20 years afterwards Maria Beadnell, who had become Mrs. Winter, Avrote to Dickens, and in tiie warmth of his -heart he replied. A most interesting correspondence ensued. A meeting was arranged between them through the intermediary of Dickens’s Avife. Absolute disillusionment followed. Dora became in fictiori Mrs. Flora Finching in “Little Dorrit.” They never met agaiii, and the correspondence ceased. As for Dickens, the only consequence of the discussion concerning this incident in iris life is a increase in the esteem, admiration, and -affection for the great master of humour and pathos. Miss Alice Grant Rosman, Australian author of “The Back Seat Driver.” “The ToAver Wall,” and other novels, has achieved success in the United States with her new novel, “The WindoAV,” which is being published in London by Mills and Boon. The American edition of “The Window” was issued by Minton Batch arid Co., New York, on June 29, arid a second edition was prepared before publication. The “New York Times Book Review” of July 1 Avarmly praised this novel Miss Rosman belongs to an old South Australian family. Her great-grandfather. Mr. Henry Mildred, M.L.C., bought in London in 183 G “paper” land in the new province, as it was then called, and sailed with hi-s young family to settle there. Her maternal grandfather, Mr. John Varley, S.M.. as a lad sailed as a. midshipman on the Java Avitli convicts for Tasmania. Her paternal great-grand-father, Captain Rosman, fought witli Nelson at Trafalgar. Her mother, Mrs. A. M. Bowyer-Rosman, is a writer of A'erse, one of her best-knoAvu works being the words of the wellknown song “God be with You,” which were written for and published in “The Australasian” when she was a- girl in her ’teens.

Robert. Louis Stevenson’s play “Monmouth,” after remaining in manuscript for nearly sixty years, has been published. Written Avhen SteA’ensori was at the age of 18, when lie had published only two- pamphlets, “The Pent-land Rising” and “The Charity Bazaar,” it remained unknoAvn until 1922, Avhen it Avas disewered Avith a mass of “juvenilia,” gif Edward Gosse wrote to- “The Timas” stating that he had asked Stevenson to burn the manuscript, and he had suppfessedi

it when he issued the Pentium! edition of Stevenson. Sir Edmund Gosse added, “The whole question of emptying the nursery wastepaper basket of eminent authors into the public press is one which more and more loudly calls for a decision. The dead should be protected against their own carelessness.” In this Sir Sidney Colvin concurred, without. it seems, having read the manusfcfip't On the other hand Mr. Lloyd Osbourne and Mr. E. V. Lucas demurred. The manuscript passed into the hands of Mr. John Quinn, and was sold with his collection in March, 1.924, for £309. Now it appears in a beautiful octavo- hook of 80 pages in an edition limited to 250 copies.