BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1260, 23 April 1896, Page 12

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

1 am glad to be able to announce that the proprietois of the New Zealand Mail have purchased the serial right lor Wellington of Mr Anthony Hope’s latest story, a romance which, so English readers of the advance proofs declare, surpasses in interest and literary charm the samo writer’s “ Prisoner of Zenda.” Publication of the new story will commence in the Mail in about three weeks time.

A few weeks ago Mr Percy White’s novel “ Corruption,” was reviewed in tho Mail. L now read that a disgusted English critic has been exhausting himself in adjectival pyrotechnics over this books. Ho calls it a “pican pubescent”—the story of a “peccant pair” —of a “ brilliant, specious and utterly conscienceless” man, and a “ beautiful ” girl with a “ prurient ” soul —tin “immuiid study of storcoraceous souls!” Dear me!

An English translation by Mr Vizetelly of Emile Zola's latest novel “Rome” is now appealing in serial form in a southern weekly. The opening chapters strike me as being fearfully verbose. And Zola in English is at any time a salad without oil and vinegar.

Rudyard Kipling, so 1 read, has tired of his American home and intends to shortly take up his permanent residence in England. Mrs Kipling is an American lady, sister of the late Weolcott Balesticr, author of “ Benefits Forgot,” a novel recently reviewed in the Mail and part author with his brother-in-law of the curious Indian story, “Tho Naulakha,” which, however, only achieved a snares d’ esl Lae.

Mr Robert Buchanan and Miss Marie Corelli don’t, to use a colloquialism, “ play speaks” just now. The twain used to be I firm friends, but from a pamphlet recently published by Mr Buchanan, entitled “ Is Buruhbas a Necessity ?” it appears there is a rift in the lute. Mr Buchanan says, inter alia: “Now, 1 like Miss Corelli. Whatever the authorised critics may say of her, she has won her public —a very large I one—by sheer energy of pluck and talent. | 1 have taken tea with her, and I have it in her own pretty band writing that I am a Great Poet', that she sits (metaphorically) j at my fed. and that she has drunk rapture | and inspiration from my masterpieces of song. I was a little surprised, therefore, I when she went out of her way, about a | year ago, to call me ‘ a Scottish playwright,’ j and to say that ‘ there would lie something iuexni'es-ibiy fttiitiy in a R ibcrt Buchanan 1 pronouncing doom o.u tin.' Christ, if it were | not so revolting.’ This , alas! after all the i tea, all the missive.-; on pink-tinted paper, I ami all the adoration! But I fancy that j the angry little lady conceived, for some reason or other, that / was one of her adverse critics, and that / had inspired my friends to treat her writings cavalierly. She actually believed, 1 fear, that i, tho very Ishmael of Authors, who never had a log rolled for me in my life, had been in league against her with the Nonconformist Conscience and The Daily (Jhronicte ! Hence I the sudden and startling ‘’Tilda, 1 hate you!’ from Fanny to her dearest friend.” I am now rather curious to see the reply | which the author of “ The Borrows ot j Satan” is sure to publish. Henri Rochefort, the famous French | politician of the “firebrand” type, is about J to publish an English edition of his i Memoirs. M. Rochefort Ims seen a good ! many stirring events in his time, and his | jeminiscenc'.:.. ought to he very readable. “Too thin ” is a colloquialism, a bit of I modern slang, the origin of which is I generally assumed to be American. But in an American magazine, Shakespeariana, I read that “too thin” has been traced to a passage in “Henry YJJi.” (v., 3, 125) — { "But!: 1 ! iw I come net To hear sueli ll.ittcry now, ami in my presence They are 100 thin and bare lo hide offences. The Literary I Vo,-id points out that in the play tiie phrase is a simple and natural metaphor, ae it continued to be in speech

and writing until quite recently, when, by vulgar iteration, it lapsed imo slang.

A friend of Air Thomas Hardy states that Jude, the hero of the novelist’s latest book, “Jude the Obscure,” is in some directions a portrait of the author—not in tho story of his career, of course, but in diveis characteristics, and especially in some of his dislikes.

Mr John Morley who, both as a literary man and a politician, is nothing if not dogmatic, has recently expressed the opinion in an article in one of the magazines that “ there are probably not six Englishmen over 50 now living whose lives need to be written or should be written.” Most people will consider that Mr John Morley himself is assuredly not one of the six.

According to the Bookman this is a list of the book's most hi demand at Home bookshops during the month of February:— Fire and Sword in tho Soudan. By R. C. Slatin Pasha. Trilby. The Sorrows of Satan. The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. By A. Conan Doyle Beside tho Bennie Brier Bush. The Days of Auld Lang Syne. Mistress Dorothy Marvin. By J. C. Snaith. Sweetheart Travellers. ByS. R. Crockett. Comedies of Courtship. By Anthony 1 lope. The Creed of the Christian. By C. i .lore. Dictionary of Fhra.se and Fable. By E. C. Brewer. The <larden that 1 Love. In Veronica's Garden. The Life of the Right Hon. J. Chamberlain. Flea for Simpler Life. By G. S. Keith. The Village Watch Tower. By Kate D. Wiggin. TheFrisoncr of Zenda. John Halifax. The Homes and Haunts of Carlyle. The Red Badge of Courage. By Stephen Crane. For 11 is Sake: Elsie Marshall. Absolute Surrender. By Andrew Murray. Encyclopaedia of Gardening. By T. AY. Saunders.

At the end of this month there is to be published in London the long awaited biography of that delightful poet, and yet more delightful philosophic gossippor, the late Oliver Wendell Holmes. The biographer is tin American gentleman, Air John T. Morse, a well-known man of letters and ail old and intimate friend of the genial “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” Much of the autobiography left by Holmes, and his correspondence is a Iso of the highest interest. The book is sure to be packed with human interest, for Holmes was tho most lovable and companionable of men, and his literary life covers tho entire period of modern American literature.

Other biographies to appear shortly and which are bound to lie widely read are a life of Sir John Franklin, t ho famous Arctic explorer, and a Life of the Fopo (for the Public Men of To Day series) from the pen of Air Justin McCarthy.

Mr Trail's Life of Franklin was to bo published early this month by Air John Murray. Air Trail has had the advantage of a mass of interesting material gathered together by Franklin’s niece, the late Aliss Sophia Cracrol’t, who for many years was companion to his widow. Aliss Cracroft had intended to write the life herself but. the work has now been entrusted to Air Trail by her executors. Valuable .assistance lias been received from Admiral Alarkhair.

Two new editions of Byron are on tho verge of publication. One to lie issued by Alessrs Alotluiens is edited by Air Henley, the other is to be issued by the firm of John Alurray, Byron’s own publishers It is understood that Air Aim ray’s edition will contain much new mattered’ .special interest to lovers of Byron.

Air Becky’s new book, “ Democracy and Liberty,”shortly to bo published at Home, will open with a chapter on English representative government in the eighteenth century. A discussion of fhe I'T'onch and American democracy, the Irish land ques-

tion, tho House of Lords, nationalities as illustrated by America and Italy—these are other features of the volume. It doses with a consideration of the question of democracy and rcl-gious liberty, this

being continued in the .second volume. Then, amid a further wide group of topics which Air Lucky takes up are Socialism ill i iermany and certain features of t he Labour problem; and his final chapter is entitled “Arguments against Female Bull rage.” Alarryatt’s popularity must be reviving, for two new complete editions of nis famous novels are now being published, one by Alessrs Rout-ledge and Son and the other by Messrs Dent and Co. Both editions tire to be fully illustrated. As recently as 1815 Thomas Carlyle wrote a letter —which, with others, v.as to be sold by auction in London early this month—in which, says the Duly Chronicle., he described in no measured terms tho great ovilu of high-priced hooks. Although from an a Ksl rant point ot view the < ncl./ .i • .'go regarded the matter as a public calamity, he° considered it in one way as less of an evil than his correspondent’s fancy represents it. “One title-page,” ho says, with much sound wisdom, “ read well is worth many volumes carelessly run over.” Tho average bibliographer, indeed, does not pretend to read farther than the title-page (.J a book. Carlyle was not .a bildiographei, scarcely perhaps a bibliophile, and his books he regarded rather as necessary tools than as intellectual companions. “ Aly reverence for books,” ho says in the above-

mentioned letter, “ does not increase with my years,” a sweeping assertion which may have been written under the influence o*f dyspepsia. Although Carlyle reverenced books less and less as ho grew older, his “reverence for earnest reflection and meditation. . . . does go on increasing,” and ascribes “clearness of vision” as the great source of “ honest, manful conduct.” Altogether, the letter is one of exceptional interest, and thoroughly characteristic of the man and of tho times in which ho was then living. C. Wilson.