CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18861, 8 November 1924, Page 4 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

. THE BOOKMAN'S HARVEST.

' > GLEANINGS IN THE FIELD.

The present is pre-eminently an age of anthologies. The latest include "Public -School Verse," a collection of boyish po&tic efforts : " Rogues in Porcelain," -eighteenth century love-poetry; and " Smoke-Ring and Roundelay," which has garnered all that English poets have said in honour of the witching weed. |" Soon, perhaps, we may expect to see *'An Anthology of Anthologies." ■ • * '* * Carl Hertz, the famous conjurer and illusionist, published shortly before his death his life-story, under the title of i "A Modern Master* 7 Merchant. Despite I his name, he was an American, born in San Francisco. Among his school-fellows • were James Corbett, the boxer, an Claus Sprekels, the sugar king. His first appearance in London was at the I .Palace, and proved so successful that | thenceforward engagements poured in I upon him.

In the list of recent anthologies " given above there is one important omission. Mr. Langford Reed, in " The Complete a Limerick Book," shortly to be published, has .selected and assembled some 500 Limericks (out of more than 15,000 examined I). The authors include many "well-known men of diverse types, such as Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett, Dean ; Inge, lan Hay, Woodrow Wilson and Robert Louis Stevenson. • * * The late Mrs. Hubert Bland, much known as " E. Nesbit," creator "of a very individual kind of fairy story, directed that the only memorial over her grave should be a wooden tablet bearing let name. However, the people of DymKent, where she lived, have decided to set up to her memory a reading room and village club. a• - • * A good story is the rounds about the famous contralto, "Dame Clara Butt. She' had been singing at a breaking-up party at a preparatory school on the South Coast, where one of her sons is a pupil. When the younger boys had gone ,to bed, a fog came down over the Channel and the sirenS of ships began to boom. A sleepy youngster broke the silence of the dormitory by shouting out " I say, ' Ri'mford," is that your mater still sing- • ing?" jar;s-The evolution of Sherlock Holmes is told in *Memories and Adventures," Oonaii Doyle's latest book. The famous -* character was based on "Joe Bell (an Edinburgh surgeon), with his eagle face, his curious -ways,- and his eerie trick of '■•spotting details." We read almost with horror that Sherlock was an after .'thought, Sherringford having been •the name fij-st selected. But one thing we 'are not told, who was Dr. Watson, ; the apotheosis of devoted inanity, th§ • 'perfect foil"? : ' Lady Clifford, wife of Sir Hugh Clif-r"ford;--"the new Governor of Ceylon, was formerly Mrs. Henry de la Pasture, l\author of "The Lonely Lady of Gros--rtvenor. Square " and other pleasant novels. Her daughter by her first marriage, who i,>.writes under the pseudonym of E. M. .Belafiqld, has easily outstripped her mother's achievements, and is in the [ - first rank of modern women novelists.

' * » • * The relation of noise to literary pro- ■ duction: is whimsically treated by E. V. Lncas in. an English weekly. England, he points out, is without any successor ..to Shakespeare or Milton. .Can such - poverty be the result of the callous brutal cacophony of modern life? Carlyle, even in his comparatively quiet era, had double- doors, double windows, and feltlined -walls to guard his thought-pro-cesses, while Herbert Spencer used earflaps "to shut out idle talk. /*' * ' Literature is nowadays the favourite . recreation, of politicians, corapulsorily or I retired, and rumoiir has it • that* General Smuts is contemplating the ■ publication of a volume on his pet sub- . ject, philosophy. Boots, for children have in recent years become quite a strong feature of publishers' lists.. A good example is to hand .' from Australia in " Busnlarid Babies" (Mills and Boon). It tells of Australian birds and small creatures in story fiction, .the tale centring round the adventures in 'nature's world of a small boy. Perhaps the. most intriguing aspect is the way Mr. . Charles Barrett makes each bird tell its family story, and contrast its habits in Superior, fashion with those of its neighbours. Each little history has a photographic illustration, all being the work of the brothers Kearton. who have done "their work among sucn timid sitters remarkably well. Throughout the book there is taught implicitly —not the explicit, distasteful pill of a moral rammed home by the old school —the . lesson of gentleness to the helpless feathered creatures. Altogether it is a production '.to charm the little folk after their elders have taken what will prove a prolonged i "peep" at it. V ' * • • • : ""With ihe holiday season coming round, many peirple will not quarrel with ' Leaps and-Bounds" (Mills and Boon, London), a collection of short stories by "W. Pets Ridge. "• The stories bear evidence of hurried work, lack of finish, lack of ideas even, but if" tb«ir production has made few demands on the author, the ' reading will be equally easy! That is all ■the average reader asks nowadays. thing to'fill an idle moment, to be picked np and dropped as easily. " Leaps and • Bounds " fills the bill and little more.