BOOK-LOVERS’ NOTES

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 10 March 1934, Page 12

BOOK-LOVERS’ NOTES

AUTHORS AND REVIEWS HANS ANDERSEN’S TALES. AX' EXTRAORDINARY LIFE. There is a stage of childhood when the inquiring and developing mind hungers for a wider world than that of the playroom and yet is not. ripe for a conception of society and history, and it is in this stage that Hans Andersen is supreme. It has long been obvious that Andersen had such power to enchant children because he himself saw the hard world closely enough, but always reflected in a private fantasy of his own, in which sorrow and evil were jet-black and joy and goodness snowwhite. He was indeed the ugly duckling who became a beautiful swan. (His grandfather was a simpleton, rather than a madman, but people were always ready to reproach flans with eccentricity which they interpreted as insanity. The son of a cobbler, ho was brought up in dire poverty in Odense, a small town which, with its palace, its resident prince, its canals, and .soldiers and marshes, furnished much of the background for his later stories. A vain, ugly; and “peculiar” child, he ran away to Copenhagen in IS'l9 at the age of fourteen, determined to win fame on the stage. He failed as a carpenter, a singer, an actor, and a ballet dancer. He was frequently in danger of starvation, and only hi's intense artist’s innocence preserved him from corruption. A kind and respectable official named Collin sent him to a State school in order that the poetic plays he was writing might at least be correctly spelled and his verbs agree with their subjects. To the end hi's ambition was to write sublime tragedy, and he took to spinning fairy tale.s_ almost by accident. Always inoffensivelv conceited and greedy for praise (he would burst into tears at an unfavourable sentence in a review), ho was deeply gratified at the world-wide fame brought him by his stories for children. The privation and disappointments of his early life were offset by the day-dreams in which he enveloped himself. The comfort, and fame of his later years, when he was made an honorary Privy Councillor and travelled and met Dickens and Dumas and Ibsen as equals, and kings and queens went out of their way to make his acquaintance, was poisoned for him by the humiliating thought that his reputation rested on “trifles,” and the world had no use for his major rvorks. .lust before he died a subscription was raised to erect a statue to him, and when he was shown a design depicting him telling stories to a group of children, he lost his temper—and the sculptor had to remove every one of the children and leave him alone in adult dignity!

The writing man. is a nuisance in his home, and ought to be suppressed.—Mr 11. G. Wells.

The librarian at the Hawera Public Library reports the following books in greatest demand: “The Cross of Peace” (Philip Gibbs), “The Dragon' Murder Oa.se” (S. S. Van Dine), “Comrades of the .Storm” (iPeter B. Kyne), “'Wife for .Sale” (Kathleen Norris), '“'"One Thing I Know” (A. J. Bussell), “The Arches of the. Years” (H. Sutherland), “Skyways in Maoriland” (ill. Gardiner), “'Work of Art” (Sinclair Lewis). ***** The last word of evolution is this: The race is not to' the swift nor to the strong, but to the wise.—Dr. W. Langdon Brown. * * - * * To avoid complaints from editors about the non-delivery of review copies, C-ollins, the publishers, have introduced a rule under which delivery messengers are not permitted to leave copies without obtaining a legible signature, full name, and initials. Some of these lads will have a whole-time job, getting legible signatures out of newspaper offices! ***** At the Southport County Court (England) an application, was recently made for an order for the return of a book. The Judge granted an order for its immediate return. ***** All the articles in a new Polar, magazine, which has appeared in Leningrad, are printed in English, iGerman, and Russian. It is called the “Arctic.” ***** A film version, is to be made of Mr Bernard Shaw’s play, “The Devil’s Disciple.” It deals with the American Revolution and was (first produced in 1899. ***** In his intimate and diverting memories “G.G.” (Mr George Grossmith) tells how as a young man he was introduced to Sir Henry Irving, w r ho said, “Are you going to follow" your father’s profession!? ’ ’ <GJG-., his vanity not a little wounded, replied, “I’ve been playing on the otner side of the road to you for the last year or tw-o.” “Oh, indeed; yes, I believe there is some sort of entertainment, going on there.” *****

Miss Ruth Draper, whose “onewoman” shows are famous on both sides of the Atlantic, breaks new ground by becoming a translator; she has rendered into English prose a poetic drama called “Icaro.” The author, Lauro de ißosis, was the young airman and poet who, in, October, 1031, flow over Rome and was never heard of again. * * * * *

Tlodder and Stoughton will publish a volume of humorous poetry entitled “Dominican Pete and Other Verses,” by Alan D. Mickle, the Melbourne author. The book will be illustrated by Mr James Cook, a young New Zealand artist whose work is attracting the appreciative attention of leading London artists and critics. ‘Mr and Mrs Mickle arc staying for the winter months in (Bournemouth, where Mrs Mickle is convalescent after a serious illness. *****

Nina Lady Campbell, who died recently, was a granddaughter of Robert Chambers, the founder, with his brother William, of the publishing firm of W. and R. Chambers. He, was also joint editor of “Chambers’s Journal,” and the author of several books, probably the best known being “Vestiges of Creation.” At her parents’ house Dickens, Browning, Rubinstein, Millais, Leighton, and other famous men were frequent visitors.