NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18173, 19 August 1922, Page 6 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

♦ . Charles Dickens wrote a Life of Christ for his. children, and left definite instructions that it should never be published. Six hundred letters which Charles Dickens, the novelist, wrote to th© late Baroness Burdett-Coutta. his lifelong friend, were sold for £2100 at Sotheby s rooms, London, to> Mr. 0. B>. Barrett, a Chicago collector. The correspondence opened in 1839, and there, is hardly a feature in the novelist's life which remains untouched, whether in regard to the launching of his books or hia domestic life. f , The transformation of wireless from an expensive luxury into a praotical, everydav hobby within the reach of all, iB reflected in the publication of a new weekly paper dealing with this great new science from the amateur's point of view. " Popular Wireless" is a non-technical journal, which, in brightlv pictorial style, - will takei the reader step by step through the/elementary stages of wireless xip to (the crowning developments of this marvellous discovery. There has been published a new edition of "How to Catch Trout," by Three Angler B (Edinburgh: Douglas and FouKs). a practical little handbook to Scottish troutine which first appeared in 1888. Its merits arer sufficiently proved by ite long life. This edition must be at least the eiVhth, and it may deserve, a still bigger numeral. The chief alteration is the addition of a long chapter on /dry-fly fish; ing and of another on flies from the entomological point of view. '■ < That the English writer of fiction is " slowly but surely being starved out" is the burden of complaint in a remarkable letter in the Times from " English Novelist," who foresees residence in "a gaunt grey building in Marylebtme," (the work-house). He blames unfair American competition, and points out how British publishers, by obtaining (ready for binding) printed sheets of novels from the States, can save the many composing-room, foundry, and machine-room costs. It is astonishing to think that anything Jane Austen wrote should have remained unpublished for over a hundred years. Yet such is the fact. When she was a girl of 17, it is conjectured, she began her career as a novelist. But not seriously. Her first efforts at fiction took the form of rattling burlesaues of the prevailing style of novel writing. And after remaining in manuscript all these years they are at length published in a pretty little volume entitled "Love and Friendship," (Chatto and Windus). The contents of the volume are two burlesque novels, " Love and Friendship " (with the original spelling), and " Lesley Castle," a " History of England," and a Collection of Letters, all delightfully humorous and/ ironic*!.