LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10037, 25 January 1896, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

The North American Review announces that it will publish in January the first of a series of articles on " The Future State," by Mr. Gladstone. Mr, Stead is about to follow up his very successful series of "Penny Foots" by a series of "Penny Novels." Early in the year, a series of penny popular novels will begin with Mr. Rider Haggard's " She," the author and Messrs. Longmans having given their consent.

It is not often that both husband and wife are literary. But Mr. Egerton Clairmonte, whose wife, under the pseudonym of "George Egerton," wrote those two very clever books, " Keynotes" and "Discords," is about to have published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwina book entitled "The Africander: A Plain Story of South Africa." Miss Beatrice Harraden, the authoress of " Ships that Pass in the Night" and other stories, lias returned to California after a brief visit to England. She will publish a novel shortly dealing with English life, but she is working up her Californian experiences into a series of short stories, to be produced later in 1896. Miss Harraden's friends will be glad to know that she has quite recovered her health. Some yoars ago a Greek millionaire named Skylitzi gave M. Falguiore, the French sculptor, a commission to execute, at a cost ol £8000, a group of sculpture representing Greece opening her arms to Byron, who was removing the chains from a slave crouching at his feet. On the completion of the work M. Skylitzi offered it to the Greek Government, on condition that it should be erected in the Constitution Square, the finest open site in Athens. M. Tricoupis, who was then at the head of the Government, refused to sanction this, but offered tho Zappion as a site. M. Skylitzi would not near of it, and a few months afterwards proposed to build a hospital in Athens, at an outlay of £80,000, still stipulating that the Byron Memorial should occupy the position he had designated. M. Tricoupis was obdurate, and M. Skylitzi, shaking tliedusb of the Greek capital off his feet, transferred himself and his money to Paris, whore ho built a gorgeous church for his co-religionists in the Rue Bizet. In the meanwhile, the group of statuary was offered to England, to Turkey, and to the Argentine Republic; but, while negotiations wore ponding with these countries, Skylitzi died, and his brother, more reasonable, has caused the memorial to bo set up in the Zappion, facing the Temple of Jupiter Olympus. Glancing at the book world for 1895 (says the Sydney Herald) the feeling 1 on the whole is one of disappointment. The "great" books are but few. The literary ranks, too, have been weakened by the deaths of some men of the first rank. The deaths of prominent literary men included Alexander Dumas the youngor, Stepniak, G. A. Sala, Gustavo Droz, Professor Blackie, Frederick Locker - Lampson, Christina (Jeorgina Rossetti, Professor Soeley. Among the men of interest in literary circles the deaths may be mentioned of Baron Tauchnitz, the originator of the continental edition of standard authors which bears his name; Joseph Whitaker, founder and editor of " Wliitaker's Almanack," and George Bentley publisher. Among the more interesting books of the year are—Nordau's I "Degeneration," Paul Bourget's "Outre Mer: Impressions of America;" Robert Louis Stevenson's "Vailima Letters,"edited by Sidney Colvin; Lombroso's "Tho Criminal Woman," Crockett's" The Men at -Moss Hags," Kipling's "Second Jungle Book," Marion Crawford's " Tho Ralstons," Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure," lan Maclaren'B Old Lang Syne," George Meredith's " Lord Ormontand His Aminta" and "The Amazing Marriage." In biography we have had "John Stuart Blackie," by Anna M. Stoddart, and " Jowett," by Tollemache. "The Letters of Matthew Arnold" forms a notable addition to the books of the year. The sensational book of the year has, of course, been Du Maurier's "Trilby." Though strictly nota last year's book it may be classed with those issued in 1895, for it was not until its appearance in single-volume form that its popularity was assured. Grant Allen's " The Woman Who Did" has been one of the much-discussed i books of the ephemeral kind,