DECLINE IN NOVELS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 45, 4 February 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

DECLINE IN NOVELS.

The .public taste in England lor novels is declining, so it appears from tlie fall announcements of the publishers (says the London correspondent of the New York “World”). Fiction, indeed, nctads the least important place, numerically, in the list of 5000 new books and new editions. The quasi-historical biogranhy, written in a popular manner and illustrated uxth reproductions of old manuscripts, portraits and prints, seems to bj the most popular form of literature for Britishers just now. In the publishers announcements, the division of history, biography and travel leads. J hen come, in order, naval and military works, poems and belles-lettres educational books, works of a logical kind, scientific bonks, fairv stories and other juvenile volumes, and gei eral fiction.

‘The reading public,” says a publisher in the Daily Express.” “is bored with the flashy ‘sex’ novel and is tired ot what was once known as the great human story.’ Almost all our successful authors are adopting a lighter, brighter vein. The only ‘best seller’ is the humorous book. A re-illy goed humorous story can always command a market.

The new historical and bographical works *ire almost all hi<rh priced, rarerin gfrom IBs. up to £2 10„ and the avei age author gets more royalty on snen a book then on a novel. English i rr,^m. r ” 0 .l ; as heavy now as formerly The habit of borrowing novels and also the popular libraries are blamed for a part of the decline in novels.