BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1250, 13 February 1896, Page 17

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

By the last ’Frisco mail Mr Herbert Baillie, of the well-known firm of booksellers of Cuba street, received a longletter from Mr Rudyard Kipling. I have been privileged to peruse Mr Kipling’s epistle, which is brimful of good wishes for New Zealand and New Zealanders, and instinct with that grim humour which is so characteristic of the writer. Referring to certain rumours which have found their way into the colonial papers, the author of “Soldiers Three” says most distinctly that his eyesight is not giving way, and that he has never entered into any negotiations with Mr Smytho or any other agent for a lecturing tonr through the colonies, further remarking in this connection that he hates public speaking, .and that when on a platform his first anxiety is to get oil it as quickly as possible. Mr Kipling also says that he has not been doing much storywriting of late, having been mainly engaged in revising a number of poems shortly to appear in another collection of Barrack-room Ballads. He sends his compliments to .more than one New Zealand journalist, and altogether says many nice things about the Colony and its inhabitants.

Mr Kipling, by the way, has recently written and published, in the Ladies’ Home Journal, an American magazine of immense circulation, a story of about 12,000 words, entitled, “ William the Conqueror.” The same story will be published in an English weekly paper, The Gentlewoman.

Mr John Baillie, of Cuba street, is, 1 hear, oft' to London for a few months’ holiday, leaving in a week or two. Mr Baillie, whose skill as an artist is well known, is taking some of his latest work Home with him. Ho intends to devote a good deal of his time to study, in London principally, but also, if time permits, in Paris.

Pierre Loti’s new book, “ Jerusalem,” is very highly spoken of by Homo papers. Loti’s books suffer a good deal in translation, but “ Madame Chrysantheme,” a delightful record of a French naval officer’s amatory adventures in Japan, has had a large sale in its English form.

Sarah Grand, of “Heavenly Twins” celebrity, has been a good deal in the background of late, but is shortly to publish a now story in which, so the author herself thinks, she has struck out au entirely new line. A short story of very mediocre merit appears under Sarah Grand’s name in the December Cosmopolitan.

The posthumous works of Robert Louis Stevenson have been eagerly competed for by publishers, and some high prices have been paid. “A Story of the Great North Road ” has commenced publication in the Cosmopolitan, an American magazine which I strongly recommended to the attention of readers of the Mail some time ago, and which has been ordered by not a "few Wellingtonians. “ St. Ives,” another serial by Mr Stevenson, is to run through McClure’s Magazine and an English magazine this year.

AjrtTojpos to Stevenson, a curious fact is mentioned by Professor Mahaffy, who recently visited Samoa and had a look around ‘'poor Louis’s library. ? r ?" fe3sor found a big collection of Bohn s well-known translations of the classics, but

the Odyssey in the original Greek and Horace in the original Latin were uncut. Hence, argues the Professor, Stevenson had left his classics severely alone, save in translations.

Stevenson had a fine collection of lGth and 17th century French books, and a complete set, well thumbed and evidently read again and again, of Balzac. Of modern poets he had a great store, also of Scotch ballads and folk lore.

Grant Allen, so I read in an English paper, is dramatising his now notorious novel, “The Woman Who Did.” If the play be as dull as the novel it should not have a very notable success.

Mr Swinburne has no sympathy with new-fangled ways of spelling the name of the world’s great poet. He will have neither Shakspero, nor Shakespere, nor Shakspeare, but is fain to abide by the good old-fashioned form of Shakespeare. “ Why not Flitcher, Meddletun, Messenger, and a few other novi homines?'’ asks Mr Swinburne.

One thing of which tho late Baron Tauchuitz, the gieat publisher, was especially proud, was the fact that, although Leipsic has long been a hotbed of Socialism, no strike has ever occurred at the Tauehnitz printing works.

Mrs Humphry Ward, tho author of “Robert Elsmere” and “ David Grieve,” is, so rumour lias it, to receive ABOOO ironi Messrs Smith, Elder and Co. for her new book. She has recently built herself a “lordly pleasure house” at Aldbury, a sleepy English village of SCO people, under the Chiltern Hills. Mrs Ward’s residence is called “Stack’s House,” back from the main road at the end of an avenue of trees. The house is quaint and picturesque, and from the windows a fine view of the surrounding country is obtained. Near Aldbury is the village of Ivinghoe, from which Sir Walter Scott derived his “Ivanhoc” title.

Mr F. Marion Crawford’s latest pubblisbed book “ Casa Braccio,” to be reviewed in the Mail next week, is his 25th novel, and is dedicated to his wife. Mr Crawford is only 41. For a few years he was connected with journalism in India, but he now lives at Sorrento, a lovely place in Italy, and is the best living authority on Rome and Roman society.

Up to the present the Strand Magazine has eschewed serials, but Sir Goorge Newnes has given way at last to the inevitable, and so Dr Conan Doyle is to furnish a new serial entitled “ Rodney Stone.” It is a picture of English life in the days of the Regency, and is said to be full of graphic passages, amongst the best best being the description of a prize fight. Dr Doyle, I may add, is an ardent champion of the Ring-, when properly conducted, hien entendu. The best description of a prize fight 1 ever read is in one of George Borrow’s books, “ Lavengro ” is it not ?

The American papers publish some terribly slipshod inaccurate stuff under the title of “Literary Gossip.” Thus the N-. Y. World recently “chortled” about “dead reputations ” and so forth, instancing the alleged fact that a copy of the first edition of “ Vanity Fair,” presented by Thackeray to Charlotte Bronte, and bearing his inscription, was recently sold in London for Gs. As a matter of fact, so it is pointed out by the Bookman, the book bought was “ Esmond,” and the price paid was A‘2o.

Thackeray sells as well as ever, says a London publisher recently interviewed by The Sketch, but in Dickens there is a great falling oft. Complete editions of Scott still sell well, mainly, adds the cynical publisher, “ because every Englishman imagines that it adds to his respectability to have a set of the Waverley novels on his shelves.

The “ boom ” in Scots stories still continues, Mr lan McLaren’s “In the Days of Auld Lang Syne” being at the top of the list of best selling books for December. The same author’s “ Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush” also sells well. Mr Hardy’s “ Jude the Obscure ” (“ Jude the Obscene” the Pall Mall Gazette promptly christened it) also sells well at Home, but I know a Wellington man who got it out of the library the other day and returned it next morning, being disgusted with the Z.ffaesque description of some rustic eroticisms, and as he said, being “afraid to leave the beastly thing about the house.”

The “Trilby” boom, after hitting the Americans very hard, now rages in London. it turns out that, contrary to the expressed belief of all the smart critics, Du Maurier actually wrote “Trilby” some time before his previously-published novel, “Peter lbbetson.” Wellington book-lovers who may be fortunate enough to possess copies of the Gs illustrated edition of the latter will be interested to learn that the English value is now 30s.

Mr Anthony Hope’s forthcoming new story deals with an Englishman’s adventures on a small island in the Grecian Archipelago. His latest-published stories, “ The Chronicles of Count Antonio,” have been very coldly received by Home reviewers.

Miss Marie Corelli’s new story, “The Sorrows of Satan,” is, in my humble opinion, very inferior to her earlier stories. The inflated, flamboyant style often drifts into sheer vulgarity, and the introduction of the author’s personality under a most palpably thin disguise was a sad mistake. The book has not sold in England half so well as did the much-puffed and muchdiscussed “ B^rabbas.”

One of the pleasantest, most readable

novelists we have is Mr W. E. Norris, who first made a name, now some years ago, with “Mdlle de Mersac,” which came out in the dear old Cornhill. Mr Norris is by some critics, notably by Professor Saintsbury, acknowledged to be a latter-day Thackeray. A new serial story from his pen, and bearing the curious title of “ Clarissa Furiosa,” is to appear in tho Cornhill this year, and will afterwards be published by Messrs Methuen and Co.

In the Ma.il last week I noticed Mr Snaitli’s clever historical romance “ The Story of Mistress Dorothy Marvin. Since then I read in the December Bookman that Mr Snaith is a mere boy, being not yet 20 years of ago. He is a cleik in the Midland Railway Company’s office at Nottingham, and the clever novel was written “ after hours.” Mr Snaith has made an astonishingly good start for one so young.

I wonder, writes Mr Joseph Ilalton in London People, if all the humourists smoke. Mark Twain says a weedless life would be an utter failure. Jerome, Barry Pain, and Zangwill smoke. Neither of them bite their weeds like Grant or Bismarck. At least, they didn’t when they were humourits; perhaps they do now that they are taking life seriously. I did not know until I read Spielman’s Punch that these three humourists were “ driven to despair by tho sneers of the Press.” They were, it seems, nevertheless. (There are lots of things a man doesn’t know even about his neighbours.) Thereupon they met in solemn conclave and swore never to make another joke. So Mr Zangwill set to work on a serious novel, Mr Jerome took to editing a weekly paper, and Mr Pain began writing for Punch ! Witticisms, jokes, epigrams, all have both near and distant relations. There is the story of the discontented pitman in a Northern parish. He had a grievance against his cliapel, and didn’t like the Presbyterians, so lie informed a neighbour that lie was sick of the whole business, and that in future lie should go to church and be of no religion at all.

Odds and Ends. —Mr Coulson Kernelian, the author of “ God and the Ant,” lias found that as a rule the large - brained men of letters are the largest-hearted also. —In the lato R. L. Stevenson’s sanctum were on shelves above his bed Shakespeare and a “Record of Remarkable Crimes and Criminals.” —Mrs Frances Hodgson Burnett says there are three evils which she most dreads in life — hanging, drowning, and making a formal speech. —Mr Le Galiienne has latterly been giving the finishing touches to liis romance. It will bear the title of “ The Quest of the Golden Girl.” —According to Dr Robertson Nicoll, an average six-shil-ling book should be read through in six hours, without “skipping.”—Mr Stead is about to follow up his series of “ Penny Poets ” by a series of “ Penny Novels.” C. Wilson.