IN BOOKLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 January 1929, Page 16

IN BOOKLAND

An autobiography of the late Lord Haldane will be published by Hodder and Stoughton early this year. Mr. Oliver Elton, late of English Literature at Liverpool University, is to be. the biographer of C. E. Montague. Mr. H. G. Wells has provided his son, who ha® adopted the career of film producer, with the scenario for six short films. There is reported to be a melodramatic touch in them that is not in his novels.

Mr. D. P. Messel’s ‘‘This .Film Business” (Benn) is a serious and competent study of the history and technique of the cinema and of the psychology of its audiences. While severely critical of many present-day tendencies, it concludes on an optimistic note. The biography or Thomas Hardy, now being written by his widow, will deal with his early life only- —i.e., the period from 1840 to 1891.

Sir James Marchant has, under the title ‘‘The Madonna,” prepared an anthology from ancient and mediaeval sources which is shortly to be published.

New light is said to he. thrown on the tragedy of the Tsar Nicholas by li|is private correspondence while at general headquarters, tvliicli is to be published shortly. The Last Chance tavern, Oakland, California, in which Robert Louis Stevenson was staying when ho planned liis trip, to the South Seas, has been destroyed by lire. The late Sir Rider Haggard leit several unpublished novels. One of these, “Mary of Maryon’s Isle,” is being issued, and another, “Belshazzar,” will probably appear early this year. Mrs. Ray Steadier, who is preparing a volume on religious fanaticism, has had an unusual career. Among other things she stood for Parliament three time® and built her own house from pressed mud. Professor H. W. Garrod, Professor of Poetry at Oxford University since 1923, has been chosen to occupy the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry at Harvard University in 1929-30. In “Songs -from Heine,” Professor Alexander Gray has performed the difficult feat of translating into the Scots vernacular the. sixteen poems which Schumann set to music as the “Dichterliebe.” At a recent auction in Berlin of Goethe relics, a number of letters written by the poet to a countess whom he met in 1812 remained unsold, but several poems and drawings sent- to the same lady found purchasers. The birth of Baron Munchausen is to be commemorated by the erection of a monument at Bodenwerder, on the Weser. It. will stand in the garden where the baron often entertained his friends with his fantastic stories.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury is a great admirer of “R.L.S." While an Inner Temple student he wrote a romance of Bonnie Prince Charlie, “The Young Clan Boy,” which showed traces of Stevenson’s influence.

A third impression of Miss Elsie K. Morton’s booh, “Along the Road," has had to be issued to keep pace with the demand. Eor this to happen within two months of publication indicates how warm is the welcome accorded to the book. Although a number of copies have gone oversea, it is the demand within the Dominion that is particularly notable. It is evidently not the portion of all prophets to be denied honour in their own country.

Henry Cecil Sotheran, of the Strand firm of booksellers, who died recently, after a motor accident, forty years ago made the biggest private book deal in history. He paid £250,000, on behalf of Mrs. Hylands, of Manchester, for the famous Althorp library, which then belonged to Earl Spencer. To-day it is worth over £3,000,000. Apropos the publication, for the first time, of “Peter Pan,” Ernest Jeffs suggests that Sir James Barrie made a mistake when lie stopped writing books and gave himself to the stage. He has enriched the stage enormously, of course, but when he stopped writing books “lie cut the cord which bound him, however lightly, to the sort of writing which is more than entertainment-.” When he took to the stage he escaped from life and lured his admirers after him.

Says “John o’ London’s Weekly”: “I see that Sir James Barrie has accepted the presidency of the Royal Scottish Corporation, and is to preside over its annual dinner. The special significance of this announcement lies in the fact that Sir James has never before held any such official position, and that until recently lie could not he persuaded even to speak in public. He will be called upon to do a good deal of speaking in his new office, and no doubt he will do it extremely well. All who have read Sir James’s inspiring address on courage and his more recent utterances on cricket and Mary Queen of Scots, will rejoice at the prospect of following him more frequently in their morning paper. The corporation is an old one, and is one of the biggest charities of its kind in England. Among its many activities is the control of the Royal Caledonian Schools near London.”

The Nobel prize for literature for 1927 has been awarded to M. Henri Bergson, the French essayist and philosopher, and that for 1928 has been awarded to Sigrid Undset, the Norwegian woman novelist. Mr. Bernard Shaw is in negotiation for the lease of an island on Lake Maggiore (says a writer in “Passing Show,” London). Mr. Compton Mackenzie may pride himself that he was the first of our authors to acquire an island. Mr. Mackenzie did this in order that he might work in a quietness broken only byt the melodies of his own gramophones. His island in chief is Jetliou, in the Channel. He lias others in the Hebrides. “Pioneering in Poverty Bay,” which Mr. Murray will publish, is Mr. Philip T. Kenway’s record of the more interesting and amusing parts of a settler’s life in New Zealand. The author was for 20 years engaged in converting fern and forest country into land for sheep. He gives a breezy account of his earlier experiences, fresh from an English office, “roughing” it on a bush selection, and then proceeds to write on various subjects connected with country life.

The “Spectator” (London) offered a prize for the best true “lost-and-found story.” Th© following won the prize, the author being Mr. W. Buchan, Isle of Mull: A motoriist gave his son a hedgehog-as a pet. One day lie took his son for a drive and the hedgehog went too. After the driv*» the hedgehog was nowhere to he found. A few days later the motorist heard queer squeakings behind the dashboard of the ear. Imagining it to be the engine, he sent it to a garage. The next day ho received a bill from the garage for overhauling /the car and removing one large and five email hedgehogs.