THE BOOKMAN'S HARVEST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18891, 13 December 1924, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE BOOKMAN'S HARVEST.

GLEANINGS IN THE FIELD.

From Heineman's monies the announcement of a new edition of Michael Arlen'i first book "A London Venture." It is <jrie inevitable result of a novelists' success that his or her earlier and cruder attempts are thus foisted unknowingly upon the public, for the small announcement of the actual date of writing is easily overlooked. * * « Lately, admiring readers of Sheila Kaye-Smith and Mi'-y Sinclair have suffered from the resuscitation of earlier i-fforts which had—quite deservedlyfailed to find a public when first issued. An event in the literary world is the publication of a new Galsworthy. His latest book is called "The White Monkey/' and deals with certain episodes in the married life of Fleur and Michael Mont, thus providing a pendant, to "To Let," the list novel of "The Forsyte j

The "Every Man" Library now numbers 762 volumes. Recent additions to it include "The Paston Letters," and Swifts "Journal to Stella." Impecunious Jovers of good literature have cause to Mess the name of Dent. Robert Louis Stevenson, like all ■writers whose personality equals or surpasses in fascinat.on their literary output, continues to provoke endless discussion of his maiits and demerits. The latest Life by J. A. Stewart - gives a particularly frank account of certain failings hitherto glossed over in the official accounts. One of tho darkest and saddest episodes in the life of R. L. S. was his quarrel with Henley. The quarrel haunted Stevenson's heart and, according to Mr. Stewart, "it is not too much to say that the vision of Henley's averted face in the Far North poisoned all the joys of the odorous, gorgeous, seductive South." Mr. Stephen McKenna is nothing if j not prolific. "Tales of Intrigue and Re- I venge," was recently published by Hutchinson, and now he has finished a new novel "An Affair of Honour." to ba published early next year by Thornton Butterworth. * % tic On Armistice Day was published, appropriately Sir Phiiip GibbV new book, entitled "Ten Years After." * * * For the James Tait Black Memorial Book Prize, offered annually for the best novel of the year, the judge. Professor Grierson, has selected (for 1923) Arnold Bennett's "Riceyman Steps." Professor Grierson succeeded Professor Saintsbury in the Engl sh Literature Chair at Edinburgh. Publishers anticipate that the number of bcoks i&<raed this year will create a record. Last year there were oyer rine thousand new books, and counting new editions, over twelve thousand. Whatevor opinion may be held of the character of Lord Birkenhead his worst ' enemy will not deny that in his new book, "Contemporary Personalities," he has shown courage of no mean order. It must be awkward, to say the least of it, to meet either socially or politically persons whose personality one has just been ruthlessly dissecting in print. The studies include Winston Churchill, Earl Haig, Lord Carson (very interesting, surely, this one) and Ramsay Macdonald. Two little volumes of essays have just been added to the collections that make excellent holiday reading. One is " Encounters and Diversions," by E. V. Lucas (Methuen and Co., London). Most of these have recently appeared in Punch, and all have the" quaint touch that makes this writer popular. Less knowrj is James Agate, who writes for the Daily Chronicle. Under the general title of "On an English Screen," he has issued •through John Lane (The Bodley Head, London), a very racy selection of some of his best work. **■ • • Madeleine Nightingale has quite a Stevenson touch in her poems for children, and very welcome is a re-issue of two of her booklets by Basil Blackwell, Oxford. They are, " The Babe's Book of Verse," and "Nursery Lays of Nursery Days." To say that they are reminiscent of "A Child's Garden 'of Verses," by R. L- S.. is praise enough for anybody. writer deserves it. Even the illustrative woodcuts, by C. T. Nightingale have caught the flavour, and the quill scr'ot in which the verses are printed adds a charm.