LITERATURE AND ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11686, 22 June 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART

Mr. Hall Caixe's new novel, "The Eternal City," is to be published shortly.

Tho " Purgatorio" of Dante, revised and with an introduction by Mi. Paget Toynbee, has just been added to Methuen and Co.'s Little Library.

The high prices paid the other day at Sotheby's lor Gray's own copies of his " Odes and Elegy" testify that this author has lost none of his hold on collectors or on the publie.

The " Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is the latest volume of the " Flowers of Parnassus" series, issued by Sir. John Dane. The edition, which is exceedingly dainty, contains an introduction by Mr. F. B. Money-Coutts.

A history of education in Scotland from the earliest 'times to the present date is being written by one of His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools iii the North, and will probably be ready for publication by the end of the year.

A very ne'it and well-bound edition of Tennyson's "In Meinoriam." with a charming frontispiece of Mr. <!. F. Watts' " Love and Death," and with wide margin* and red initials, has just been published by Mr. 11. iJrimley-Johnson.

he success of the "Englishwoman's Love Letters'' has created quite a boom in fictitious correspondence. Mr. John Long will, it is said, shortly publish a novel in the form of a series of "letters which will be called "The Aristocrats." The book is supposed to be written by an aristocrratic lady echo withholds her name.

The letters of Balzac to Madame de Danska are to be published in England in the early summer, and an important work relating to the youth of the distinguished French litterateur, and the period 1825-28, when Balzac was engaged as a printer and type-founder, will be issued in France about the same time.

The most recently issued section of the supplement to the catalogue of printed books in the British Museum is that covering the letters." Bible to Boissimon." This part contains the titles of all books added to the library during the years 1832-18159, but which were not incorporated in the general catalogue during the process of printing. It supplements sections Bible" (three parti and appendix, printed 10'.;2-1309) and "P.ibBoi" (printed in 1855) of the general catalogue.

George Egerton, whore "Rosa Amorosa : The Love Letters of a Woman." Mr. Grant Richards will publish shortly, has been the victim of an unfortunate coincidence. Arrangements for the publication of this book were concluded early in 1900. long before "An Englishwoman's Love Letters'' were even heard of. In an explanatory not-e George Egerton says: —"Personally, I cannot see any probability of comparisons, as 1 have heard from competent judges that the other book belongs to the region of exquisite literature ; this pretends to be no more than the veracious expression of the thoughts and love of one little woman, of value only as truthfully human."

A most remarkable work on Heinrich Heine, by George Kartieless, has recently been published in Leipsic. It throws (remarks 0.0. in the Sketch) a wealth of new light on Heme's life and times, and certainly dispels a number of pleasant illusions. To begin with, Herr Karpeles proves that Heine constantly lied as to his age, and that, instead of having written "The Two Grenadiers" at the age of 18. he was at least 21 when the famous song was penned. It is interesting, too, to discover that Heine was, at different times in his career, .Timers. 1 in commerce. He was at one time a grocer's assistant in Frankfort, and afterwards a stockbroker in the same city. He removed, according to Karpeles, to Hamburg, where he carried on a thriving commission business, and, having accumulated a small fortune, made his way to Prague, where he lost every penny of it in a gas " boom."