LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9635, 6 October 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Mb. H. F. Brown has completed his selection of the letters of the late Mr. John Addington Symonds. The Life and Inventions of Thomas A. Edison," which Messrs. Chatto are to publish, will have no fewer than 2.30 illustrations.

The demand for Olive Shreiner'a " The Story of an African Farm" increases. Messrs. Hutchinson have gone to press with another edition of 5000 copies, completing the 7Sth thousand.

Messrs. Cas&ell and Co. will shortly issue in serial form an entirely new and revised edition of Dr. Brewer's " Dictionary of Phrase and Fable." The first part was to appear at the end of Augusb. The author is now in his eighty-fifth year. The French Government is continuing the purchase of British pictures. Mr. William Mainwaring Palin has received a notification that his picture, "Orphans," recently exhibited in the Salon, has been acquired fcr the French nation. M. Tissot, whose remarkable series of pictures on the Life of Christ created such a stir in Paris last year, has decided to become a monk. The illustrious painter had lived the life of a recluse during the seven years he was engaged in his work. The Egyptian Gallery at the Louvre has just been enriched by a statue in ebony of the Priestess Tui, a work of art admirable in its execution. The names and qualities of the priestess are written on the pedestal, followed by the prayer " May the heart of the suppliant not be heavy." The " Penny Dreadful" is not unknown, ib seems, in Germany, where it bears the characteristic title of "Shudder Romance." It is carried about from street to street, and village to village, by colporteurs. The Berlin Tagliche Rundschau says there are no fewer than " 43,000 Shudder-Romance colporteurs" who earn their bread by the sale of the weekly numbers of these novels in Germany and Austria. It estimates the regular subscribers at about 20,000,000! These " novels" usually run to about 150 weekly numbers, and rarely conclude.in less space than 100 numbers.

A posthumous work of Guy de Maupassant will soon be published. Ib is called "L'Angelus," and was written whilst the author was in full possession of his powers. Indeed, ho regarded it as the corner-stone of the literary edifice he had reared, and often spoke of it to his mother as the book which bad given him more pleasure in the writing than any other. Some chapters of another work have been written, and will also be published. The title is " L'Ame Etransrer," and the fragment contains some of the finest passages over written by the gifted author. The danger (says the Athenaeum)of adopting romantic plots from the newspapers has been curiously illustrated in the case of a grim story reprinted about a year ago from an American source. A young doctor was said to have resolved upon exhuming the corpse of a patient who had died of some interesting disease, and, while engaged upon his task, he was surprised by the husband of the deceased, with whom he had to fight for his life. This plot reappears, with various developments, in a three-volume novel published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, in a story contributed to Tit-Bits, and in a poem by Mr. Lewis Morris.

Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. published in one volume, on August 15, Mr. R. D. Blackmore's new novel, " Perlycross : A Tale of the Western Hills," which recently completed serial publication in Macmillan's Magazine. In consequence of the circular recently issued by Mudie and Smith, this firm will in future (except in occasional special cases) avoid the publication of novels in three volumes, and produce original novels at once in the popular one-volume form. Other volnmes, to be announced in due course, will follow the issue of Mr. Blackmore's story. It is obvious (says the publishers) that, in order to be successful, the price of 6s a volume must be maintained. No cheaper edition of " Perlycross" will therefore be published for at leasb eighteen months or two years. Mr. Hall Caine's new novel, " The Manxman," which Mr. Heinemann has just published in one volume, has met with considerable success, being largely subscribed for by the libraries and booksellers. Mr. William Black's new novel, " Highland Cousins," was to be first issued in one volume a few weeks after the publication of *' Perlyeross " fcy- Messrs.. Sampson Low.