LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

The difficulty in choosing a name for a book must be prodigious. A writer claims that the title used by Mr.' A. CV Benson for his new book, " Beside .Still Waters," has already been used for ? novel. "The Case of Woman's Suffrage-" is set forth by some of the best-known supporters of the movement in a* book which Air. Unwin announces. They include Mrs,! Fawcett, Mrs. -Pankhurst; and Miss Eva Gore Booth. There % are also articles by • Mr. Zangwill, ■ Mr.- Bernard Shaw, . and Mr. Keir Hardie. The literary copyright of " Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," by Lewis Carroll, will expire in November of this year. The copyright iof the illustrations by ; Sir John Tenniel will, however, continue for some years > to> come. ' This : Messrs. Macmillah, who publish "Alice," make known for the benefit of all who may be: concerned. , -:• ; ; .. As a boy "Dick Donovan," the .'.wellknown writer of detective : stories, was" in India, during the Mutiny. He met Nana Sahib, saw the arrest of the King of Oude, and was present at Fort 1 George, Bombay, when two rebels were blown from the guns. j These matters open 'the volume of reminis- j cences which. Mr. : Preston ; Muddock is about to publish with Mr.. Werner Laurie. '•> Major-General Sir Henry Colvile recently visited Japan, and that is why he has written a book, " The Allies," which Messrs. Hutchinson announce. It tells many things about the Japanese methods in peace and war which we, as their allies, ought _to know. Sir Henry Colvile had talks with most of the leaders of Japan, and he gives the views which they communicated to him. ;■■;' \ " Old English Sports" is a book by-Mr. F. W. Hackwood which Mr. Fisher Unwin. announces. •It deals f mainly with sports which have become obsolete. It gives their origin and history, sometimes their evolution and • decline. Facts arc illustrated .by the aid of song and ballad, by quaint extracts from old records, and by ■ apt quotations;! from romance and poetry. i ; ; The : memoirs ; of Alexandre Dumas are almost as good reading as his romances, but they have .never ; ! been translated into English. Shortly, however, Messrs. Methuen are to publish the first volume of a translation which will make six volumes. In other words, it- will be complete, being done from the unabridged ; edition which Dumas authorised. In French the memoirs have long been favourite reading. Mrs. Frances Campbell, the-author' of that delightful volume " Dearlove," recently- visited Morocco.; She^journeyed l into the . country, saw Raisuli, and lived .'under canvas in the Moorish hills. .: She; was in quest of material for a book which Messrs. Hodder ■ and ; Stoughton • are about to. publish., It is not a book recounting her experiences, '■ but a 'novel wherein she- tries to present 'the atmosphere and the life -of Morocco. For a superb copy of the first.folio edition "of '■ Shakespere's "Plays," issued; in 1625,., the record sum of £3600 was given at the sale of the library of Mr; W. C. van Antwerp, of New York, at Sotheby's.' Never before has a copy of this work realised such a remarkable sum, ,: the nearest approach being the £1720 paid for the copy at Christie's rooms six- years ago, which now rests in the Scribner Library, New' York.; ■-/',. Every woman wants to know how flowers may best be used for decorating a. table or brightening up , a room. Pleasant and practical. instruction on such matters is given by Mrs. Gertrude Jekyll, who writes so well on gardening, in a book that Messrs. Ne'wnea. announce. : A point of special difficulty dealt with is the relationship of flower-colour to artificial light. Wild flowers and foliage can be used with effect in a house, and Mi's. ' Jekyll has something: ; to say on that. ' ' ;,.;,.'; I™? Principal Lindsay lias nearly ready for publication the second volume of his " History of the Reformation," the first volume of which, ; dealing with the Reformation in Germany, appeared some time. ago. The second ; volume will deal with the subject in lands beyond Germany. Few living writers know the subject so ■ intimately as Principal Lindsay, who has devoted many years to its study, the fruit of which has already appeared in a "Life of Luther" and a " Handbook on the Reformation." : - South America—according to Mr. G. F. Scott-Eliot, who has a book on Chili in preparation with Mr. Fisher Unwin—is the coming continent in which "the overcrowded masses from the Old, World _ are destined to form new £ racial combinations and develop new national characteristics." The forthcoming volume, which is at once a political history of the country and an account, of its present condition, shows the immense ■ possibilities of Chili • in. this ; respect. Major Martin Hume writes an introduction to the work. The first four volumes of the new edition of the " Imperial Gazetter of India" are now practically complete, though no date has yet been fixed for their publication. The editor of the whole ,work, in succession to Sir William Hunter, is Mr. Burn, who has just arrived in England to assist in passing the work through the press. The four volumes deal respectively with the physical, historical, economical, and administrative aspects of India, and are purely general in character. The remaining volumes, on the provinces, districts, . and towns of India, taken in alphabetical order, will not be complete until later. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has written a story entitled " Josephine's Troubles," which wiil form a new volume in Unwin's Colonial Library. It is a story of the Franco-Ger-man war, and is based on incidents which the author himself witnessed in France during that great struggle. His impressions are vividly reflected in the tale. The scene of its episodes was the house at Versailles in which he lodged ; from the windows he saw the soldiers going out to or returning from the fight, and the rural crowd firing after them, not balls but scowls and maledictions; while within, ■he every day saw and talked with the chief actors. .','■>■ ■''.';' :T' '■•:■ '■".„■:;'■.' -/' ;, .■■'", Here is a glimpse of Shelley offered by Mr. Andrew Lang: "It seems almost incredible, but it is true, that I once knew a man who was at Eton with Shelley, who left in 1810. This was Mr. Hammond, a senior fellow of Merton College, when I was an inquiring junior. About 1870 he told me all that I could extract from him about the poet:' Shelley was not a clever boy; he never. sent up for good," which means, I conceive, that he never did a remarkable exercise in Latin verse. Mr. Hammond added that Shelley had a habit, when he was walking alone, of suddenly breaking into a sprint at hundred yards pace. That was all." "London Lovers," a .new story by Margaret Baillie-Saunders, who won the £100 prize in the First Novel Competition, is J being added to Unwin's Colonial Library'. It is the story of a Jew stockbroker who tried to found a model country estate in Leadenha'O-street, inspired by -a lovely woman, herself most gaily unconscious of the drama and engaged to another man. The tale circles round these three people's cross-purposes, but Mordecai Lucason, the Jew, is the central figure, and upon his development, : and final discovery of the truly Will-o'-the-Wisp character of his ideal hangs the "chief part of the novel's interest. The rapid alternations of fun and seriousness, of large social ideas and light comedy cannot ■ fail. to interest all those who know j anything of present-day life in London. The principal scenes are laid in Regent's '' Park, the city, and the West End, and the character sketches of modern society Jews ere intensely true to life," crisp and picturesque, without the disfigurement of the usual racial bitterness.. " ,