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LITERATURE AND ART.

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Hardy is to collaborate o,u a novel with Hon. Mrs. HennHcer, a daughter of the late Lord Houghton, and an authof of several Boqiety novels. . The latest favourite novel in London is called " The Yellow Aster," and the author is Mrs. Manningbon Caffyn, wife of Dr. Caffyn, both of whom at one time resided, and were well known, in Sydney. Several interesting books are on the eve of publication. Mr. Grant Allen's novel is to be called "The Lower Slopes. The Flower of Forgiveness, and Other Stories, will be the title of Mrs. Steel's new volume of short stories. A quarterly magazine of bibilograpny is soon to make its first appearance m London. It will contain a series of papers by writers of authority on various points of book-lore , and, successful or not, will end its existence with the twelth number, to be published in December, 1896. _ Though Jules Verne's works of scientific fiction have sold by the hundreds of thousands, and returned millions of francs to his publisher they have earned for their author only about £1000 a year—nob even enough for him to buy the house he rents ab Amiens. M. Verne wrote poetry at the early age of twelve, tragedies at seventeen, and at twenty-five his first scientific novel. Mrs. Humphry Ward's forthcoming novel, " Marcilia," will, it is said, appeal particularly to women. It is a story with a purpose, and it aims to show, among other things, what a young woman can accomplish in the way of good works if she sets about them in a determined spirit. " Marcilia" is not so long as either of Mrs. Ward's other novels. lb will have as a frontispiece a new portrait of the author. Two works, now in the press, by comparatively unknown lady writers, are likely to prove interesting. One is the work of Miss Fiona Macleod, a young lady interested in the Celtic renascence. This is entitled new " Pharais : a Romance of the Isles," and deals with a strange and tragic episode, the scone of which is laid in the unfamiliar and lesser known islands off the Hebrides. The other is a story called "The Wiugs of Icarus," and its author is Miss Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Miss Tadeina, a relative of the famous artist, wrote a novel some seven years ago which had a considerable success—" Love's Martyr" — but has remained silent till now. An American bookseller has hit upon the following method of extending his business and his income. He will take a papercovered novel, published at 50 cents, but which he has bought for 30, and sell it for 35 cents, with the understanding that the buyer is to return it when read. When the book comes back he p;iys 20 cents for is, and puto it up for sale again at 30 cents. The second buyer returns the book and receives 15 cents, and for a third time the book is on the shelves, this time marked 20 cents. Again it comes back, the reader takes 10 cents, and the book will change owners half a dozen times. Books hare often thus paid 200 per cent, on the original investment. Mr. Andrew Lang hardly thinks that justice has been done to Scott's " Quentin Durward" by popular taste and by criticism. " As a boy's book," he says, " it is so superabundantly excellent that a common prejudice hinders people from placing it among the very best of men's books. Mr. Lung reckons it ' finer and better, more profitable, less complicated,' than ' Ivanhoe.' He goes so far as to say, ' In a sense it is perhaps the best of the Waverley novels. It is far beyond them all in construction.'" Mr. Andrew Lang gives this opinion in his editorial introduction to the " Border' edition of "Quentin Durward" (J. C. Nimmo), which is illustrated by twelve etchings by Ad. Lalauze. A book that is being much read and talked of just now is " Mr. Bailey-Martin," the autobiography of an up-to-date scamp and snob, whose lines are cast in the uncongenial society of provincial Dissent. Its author is Mr. Percy White, the editor of a weekly literary paper, and the son of a schoolmaster, who had a private school at Hove. Mr. Percy White spent some time as professor of English literature and language at a French college, and then drifted into journalism. He has made during eight years a great name as a leader writer, and is another instance of Mr. Christie Murray's dictim that journalism makes a good novelist. "Mr. BaileyMartin" is his first novel.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18940421.2.62.29

Bibliographic details

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

Word Count
766

LITERATURE AND ART. New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART. New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)