NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18089, 13 May 1922, Page 6 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

Messrs. Cassell have published Mr. Edmund Gosse's new book " Aspects and Impressions." It »is a volume of essays, estimates, and appreciations of a wide range, of rubjerts. whirl) includes George Elliot, Henry James. Swinburne; a set of criticisms and impressions of French literature, and an account of a visit to the friends of Ibsen in Scandinavia. A new hook by Sir John Hall, entitled " Four Famous Mysteries." in which new light is thrown upon certain baffling controversies in life and politics has just been published. The first mystery discussed concerns the revelation of the Treaty of Tilsit to Canning, through which Nelson was enabled to carry out the victory of Copenhagen. Other chapters deal with the Strange Story of Mr. Bathurst and the murders of Kdmimd Berry Godfrey and Paul Louis Courier. It is surprising to hear that at this time of day there should be any unpublished manuscript in existence from the pen of Jane Austen, but Messrs. Cbat'to and Windus are, able to make a most interesting announcement to this effect. In a volume, to bo called " Love, and Friendship," they are about to publish a collection of papers written by Jane Austen in her youth which seem a likoly to prove well worth preservation. The first item in the list is a short novel, earlier than " Northanger Abbey," but marked with that peculiar wit and quiet persiflage which were characteristic of its author's first excursions into literature. This is followed by an outline, "History |of England," and a series of shorter studies in life and character in the true Austen vein. Mr. Gilbert Chesterton supplies an introduction, and a pago of the. original Austen MS. is produced in facsimile.