LONDON LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1107, 19 May 1893, Page 11

LONDON LITERARY GOSSIP

PEE BEINDISI MAIL. (from our own correspondent. ) London, March 24. The next addition to the admirable Men of Action series, published by MacnlillartSj will be 'Marlborough,' by Sir William Butler, whose ' Cordon' was a big hit and universally considered a model of what such handbook biographies should be. The same firm have added to their Globe Library (green cloth, crown octavo, 3s 6d) ' Boswell's Life of Johnston, edited, with an interesting introduction, by Mowbray Morris, and to their 3s 6d Dickens ' The Letters' of the great novelist, edited by his eldest daughter. The publication of the Dickens novels in this edition is suspended till copyright of remainder lapses. Macmillans endeavoured to come to an equitable arrangement with Chapman and Hall, but the latter were impracticable. The concluding volume of the ' Twelve English Statesmen' series, the longpromised John Morley's ' Chatham,' is at last in the press. Chapman and Hall's new edition of Carlyle at 2s 6d a volume proves to be simply a reprint from the type used for the six shilling edition on thin paper and plainly bound. The initial volume contains ' Sartor Eesartus' and Latter Day Pamphlets.'

James Brydges, first Duke of Chandos, commonly known as ' Princely Chandos,' from his sumptuous style of living, was one of the many remarkable personages of Queen Ann's reign. As Paymaster of the Forces he did quaint things even for that period, and Pope bitterly satirised him. Mr J. R. Eobinson (of the Daily News) now furnishes us with a life of His Grace, which will be published forthwith by Sampson Low.

Pressmen are always making blunders concerning the two sisters, Gertrude and Florence Warden, and blending them into one personality. It was the latter who wrote the ' House on the Marsh,' and the former who is the clever actress associated with Willard's success in ' Judah. Miss Gertrude Warden not long ago married Wilton Jones, author of 'A Yorkshire Lass,'' The Scapegoat,' and pantomimes galore. Last Christmas Mr Jones supplied books for nine provincial shows and one at Melbourne. His wife's chief success, apart from the Girton girl in ' Judah,' was Mrs Linden in ' A Doll's House.' Miss Florence Warden is a pseudonym writer, her real name being ?drs George James. She made her first success in 1884, with ' The House on the Marsh.' It nearly fell dead on the market when issued in the Family Herald series two years previously. Edmund Yates discovered it accidentally, and sensational yarns being then the rage, and his puff in The World helped to sell tens of thousands. Mrs James now commands big figures for serials. Her best book—which isn't first-rate—was ' The Prince of Darkness,' originally published in The World.

The first four volumes of 'Eminent Persons' Biographies,' from the Times, published by Macmillans at 3s 6d a volume, are now ready, and form an invaluable work of reference. They cover twenty years (1870 to 1890), and contain upwards of 130 lives, most of them of course written by the best men available for the purpose.

Mr Yates Thompson, erstwhile proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette, addresses a savage letter to Mr Stead, in which he quarrels with his late editor's statements concerning the Northumberland street journal and himself in the February Eeview of Eeviews. Having perused it with care, Mr Thompson finds the portions which relate to facts with which he is personally familiar ' bristle with —inaccuracies.' For example, Mr Thompson did not receive the Pall Mall Gazette as a dowry with his wife, his people are Conservative not Liberal, and the story of his travelling with Lord Milton in Canada and accepting the horrors of roughing it in the backwoods with unruffled tranquillity is a mvth. Mr Thompson does not even know Lord Milton. Mr Stead,%i. an introductory ' par' concerning this churlish epistle, simply regrets that in repeating statements current in the Pall Mall Gazette office during his reign, he should have done Mr Yates Thompson more than justice. The ' good man 'is particularly sorry the legend re Lord Milton should be unauthentic. ' I have told it so often as it was told to me,' he sighs,' in order to convince hostile critics that they did not know the real Mr Thompson, and behold it was not true I Next time I try to say kindly things about my late proprietor I must really take care to send him a proof.' Methinks Mr Thompson will wish he had left his late editor alone, '.' ' ■ The Westminster has now migrated to its new offices, and is printed with elaborate new machinery, the leaves being gummed inside each other like the Chronicle and Telegraph.