LONDON LITERARY NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1130, 27 October 1893, Page 12

LONDON LITERARY NOTES.

SPECIAL TO MAIL. (from our own correspondent.) London, September 9. ' The Religion of a Literary Man,' which Mr Le Gallienne will publish at the end of this month, is an attempt to see what Renan and the German commentators have left us in the way of religion—or, in other words, where a naturally religious man finds himself after eating his peck of modern doubt. In attempting this, Mr Le Gallienne goes on the principle that *in religion it is best to be content with as few outside comforts as possible.' For example, he does not discuss the probabilities and improbabilities of immortality, but whether or not we care about it as much as we imagine—whether, indeed, it is a belief necessary to human happiness. The success of Mr Frankfort Moore's ' I Forbid the Banns ' has been so great that Hutohinsons have routed out a novel of his called ' Daireen,' published several years ago by Smith, Elder, and are reprinting a cheap edition. If I remember the story aright, the scene is laid almost wholly on board a mail steamer outward bound to the Cape. Mr Moore's new novel, ' A Gray Eye or So,' will be published by the same firm on the 25th instant. ♦Through Canada with a Kodak' is the title which ' that dear, sweet woman, Lady Aberdeen,' has given to an unpretentious account of her recent journeyings in the Dominion. It is quite a small volume, reprinted from Her Ladyship's magazine Upward and Onward.

Captain Wawn, an Australian shipmaster, has written an important work ou the South Sea Islanders and the labour traffic, which Messrs Sonnenschein will shortly publish. The author has for 20 years commanded vessels engaged in the trade, and he contends that the labour traffic has proved by far the most civilising agency amongst the Kanakas. The book will contain numerous maps and illustrations, and it is anticipated Captain

Wawn's statements will arouse both interest and discussion.

Readers of Stevenson's «Catriona' will do well, prior to perusing it, to revive their memories of Mr David Balfour's earlier adventures in 'Kidnapped.' The latter admirable story was first published in 1886 in Young Folks. Stevenson had not then achieved his present fame as a novelist, and I was offered the serial rights for New Zealand for a very moderate sum. Partly because I had no actual buying commission on hand at that time and partly because I feared it might be too juvenile in tone for the general reader, I declined the agent's proposals. It was a great opportunity missed, and I shall always regret it. There is no credit in recognising a genius when all the world's discovered him.

Mr Stevenson's popularity, I imagine, never stood higher than at present. The bookstalls are piled up with huge stacks of ' Catriona.' One thousand copies were delivered to Mr Mudie on Friday morning, and at five the same afternoon there was not one left in the library. An unprecedented occurrence this.

. Mr Walter Besant has come back from America full of new enthusiasms and appreciations. Of course everybody was very kind to the author of the ' Golden Butterfly.' Amongst other men of letters he saw Oliver Wendell Holmes, and found him ' much stronger and more chirpy' than when he was over here six years ago. The genial Autocrat speaks of himself as ' 84 years young,' and is fond of enumerating the great men of his year—lßo9. Mr Besant declares he has ' never met a man more full of sunshine.'

Mr Besant confides to the Author that the two novelists most read in America are Thos. Hardy and Conan Doyle. After them he places Barrie and Kipling. As to where W.B. comes in he is modestly silent, but he adds of living Frenchmen Paul Bourget alone has a following in the States.

Two new volumes of Angio-Indian short stories are out this week. 'To Let,' by Mrs Croker, author of 'Proper Pride,' contains half a dozen tales of social life in India, the best being ' The Other Miss Browne.' This details how Tom Galway, quartered in India, writes home inviting Miss Lily Browne, living with her aunt, Miss Lavinia Browne, to come out and marry him. The epistle falls into the hands of Miss L. Browne senior, who graciously accepts the proposal, and duly arrives per P. and 0. boat. To relate how Tom Galway acts in the embarrassing circumstances would not be fair. 'To Lpt' is only 2s (Chatto and Windus), so your curious readers can find out cheaply enough.

Mrs Flora Annie Steele, author of the ' Bhut Baby' and other tales attributed by many to Kipling, is responsible for other Anglo-Indian volumes to hand this week. It contains light stories, and has been christened ' From the Five Rivers.' I have not read'it yet, but hope to do so next Sunday. Mrs Steele has lived in India for 20,years.

Miss Mary Tennyson, author of 'Friend Perditas ' (the story of a man who suddenly and mysteriously lost his memory), will publish her new novel, 'A Cruel Dilemma,' through Griffith and Farran early next month. .

Chatto and Windus promise Grant Allen's 'The Scallywag' to-morrow and Walter Besant's ' The Rebel Queen' on the 15th instant. ,

Mr W. E. Henley and Mr Charley Whibley have a very pretty turn for literary parody, and their reviews of ' The Newcomes,' 'ln Memoriam,' Boswell's ' Johnson,' Macaulay's ' History,' and ' Coningsby,' in the. various styles of up-to-date journalism in Saturday's National Observer form capital reading. The editor explains that there being no new books to review just now, he has fallen bapk on old ones, and deals with them as the critic of today probably would were they just out. The notice of Buswell, in the jargon of the latest ' advanced' school, is excellent.

Whilst it lasted, the ' missing word' craze ' boomed' Mr Pearson's periodical so fiercely that one can scarcely wonder at that enterprising gentleman trying to find a gamble with which the law, in its present state, cannot interfere. After much conference with lawyers and barristers, he last week announced a weather forecast competition, which was, he declared (and had been legally advised), a game of skill, and perfectly permissible. Sir A. K. Stephenson "(Public Prosecutor), however, at once jumped on the scheme, and its legality will be argued out in the Courts this week. [ln has since been declared illegal.—Ed. Mail.]

The young Duchess of Sutherland, who writes a good deal for the newspapers anonymously, has recently become a member of the Women's Press Club. This is a curious society of petticoat scribblers, who meet occasionally in a dingy fourth floor, Fleet street. The Dowager Duchess can also wield a fairly fluent pen, and is said to be preparing a defence of her marriage with the late Duke, which will cause the public, if not the family, to take a different view of the affair, I fear, however, myself, that no tale which Her Grace can pitch will practically mitigate Mrs Blair's misconduct.

Apparently Miss Marie Corelli is to be added to the list of Romancists who have ventured to ' embroider' on Scripture. ' Barabbas : A Dream of the World's Tragedy,' as her new story (to be published next month by Methvens) is called, sounds suspiciously as though the lady had tampered with the New Testament.

It is the custom of some critics to compare Mr W. E. Norris with Thackeray, but really Mr Norris' pictures of upper, middle class and ' smart' society are much truer to life than the greater man's. This is because Mr Norris simply describes his own set. - Besides being a novelist, he is a well-to-do country gentleman and a family tree. His books are

like his cucumbers, too sleek and smooth 6vet l I to seriously exeite or move the reader, but he is never a bore. In his new novel, ' Countess Radna,' Mr Norris describes how Douglas Calborne, a matter-of-fact young fellow with brains and good looks, falli passionately in love with Countess Radna, a beautiful, wealthy and proud Austrian, who travels about the world en princesie with a small train of dependents. The Countess has rto thought of doing more than amuse herself with Mr Colborne, but she grows to cafe for him, and eventually scandalises her aristocracy by marrying the comparatively obscure Englishman. Though both husband and wife are well-meaning, misunderstandings arise, and the Countess eventually leaves Colborne. He fails to read her unreasonableness aright, and has ceased to love her, when she dies of a broken heart in volume three.