Famous Book Recalled

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 223, 24 September 1934, Page 2

Famous Book Recalled

THE LAST DIRECT LINK.

By the death recently at Ncwcastlo-on-Tyno of Mrs. Lillian Drydcn within a week of her SOtli birthday, tho last direct link with one of tho most popular of Victorian writers has been severed.

Mrs. Dry den was the last surviving child of Samuel Smiles, author of “Seif Help,” who (lied in 1904. “Self Help” was an enormous success. Between 1850, its date of publication, and 191:2, some 250,000 copies had been sold. It was translated into nearly all the languages in the world, including some of the Indian native tongues. Yet, as has happened more tluyr once in the case of such works, it was rejected bv the first publishers to whom it was offered. Mrs. Dry den married in romantic circumstances. In her early twenties she mot Frederick Elliott. Dryden, then a mate in the Merchant Service. Her father was against the marriage, but the young couple took matters into their own hands and eloped. It was some time before l)r. Smiles forgave them. After only a. comparatively short period of married life, Mrs. Drydcn's husband, who hod obtained his captain's certificate, was lost at sea when the vessel he was commanding disappeared during a gale. With tin help of her father, Mrs. Dryden brought up her four children. Three of them were with her during her last illicss, but one daughter is in Persia.