BOOKS IN SWEDEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

BOOKS IN SWEDEN.

ENGLISII " BEST SELLERS." Stockholm booksellers declare that books in English, or translated from English, had tho biggest Christmas sales of all foreign literature in the Stockholm bookshops last year. Although the sales of English detective and humorous novels decreased, iirst-class English fiction and poetry were in greater demand, while there was a good demand for travel books and memoirs. Mr. Winston Churchill's " My Early Life " and the new volume of " The World Crisis," as well :<s Norah Moult's " Rooms to Let." James Joyce's " Dublin Sketches," several works by 1). 11, Lawrence, and Cronin's " The Hatter's Castle," were excellent sellers. A notable contribution to poetry was Erik Riomberg's exquisite lyrical translations of Masefield, I)o la Mare, Hardy, Yeats, and several other English poets. Translations, too, are plentiful. Dr Heymau has translated Boswell's " Life of Dr. Johnson," wkh ample commentaries. and a new translation of Shakespeare's plays has been offered to the public. The latter, in twelve volumes, has been made by Dr. Per Hallstroem. tho newly-appointed permanent secretary of tho Swedish Academy, and one of " the Big Five " awarding tho literary Nobel prize. The work was begun in 1922, and is now completed. Onco before, in the middle of the past century, Dr. Hagberg, a professor in the Lund University, turned the whole of Shakespeare into Swedish blank verse, ilis easy-flowing translation became very popular, and will probably remain in use for stage prodjelion also in the future. Dr. Hallstroem, an author of high standing with an intimate knowledge of English, has made a quite independent version following the original more closely, but his verse is occasionally a little too difficult for the stage.