LITERARY NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1291, 26 November 1896, Page 12

LITERARY NOTES.

" I xr.?ii!d rather bs r» poor man in a garret with plenty of hooka than ti kirig who did not love ie*»aii>K-" —Luru JMacaulay.

Address all communications for this column to 'Thf Ktlitor, Nnw Xi.ai.anu Mail." Publishers and booksellers tire invited to send books and publications of general interest for notice In this column, thereby enabling country readers to be in touch with the latest works in the Colony. Publishers sending books for review are requested to mention their price.

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

R. D. Blackmore's new story, " Dariel,*' begins in the October number of Blackwood's Magazine.

Red seems to be a favourite colour in literature in America and England judging by two books which have been very successful : " fled Badge of Courage" and " The Reds of the Midi."

Mrs L. T. Meade, although still writing under that name, is now Mrs Elizabeth Thomas Toulmin Smith.

Mr 11. T. Merriman, author of " The Sowers ," has finished a new novel entitled " Dross," winch will appear serially in The Qveen." His latest book, " Flotsam," is having a good sale.

Mr Max Pemberton, author of "The Iron Pirate/' has been appointed editor of

Cassells' Magazine. His new storj', " A Puritan's wife " —the scene of which is at Windsor Castle and Hampstead at the time of the Restoration and treats to some extent of the Great Plague of London — will shortly be published in Cassells' Colonial Library.

A series of " Stories of Old Paris," by Mr Max Pemberton, will appear in Pearson's Magazine next year, as will also Mr Rudyard Kipling's " Captains Courageous." These two writers should materially increase the popularity of this magazine.

Mr Guy Boothby has re-introduced Dr Nikola in his new book " The Lust of Hate," a story that will shortly be published by Ward, Lock and Co.

The well-known " Scott Library" of English classics has reached its hundreih volume with " The Poetry of the Celtic Races," by Ernest Penan. The choice as to what will be the hundred and first volume has been left to a plebiscite cf readers.

Mr Rudyard Kipling is residing with his family at Torquay, England. His new volume of verses, " The Seven Seas," is expected to have a first edition of 20,000 copies. The Christmas number of the Graphic will contain a story by him recounting the further adventures of Engineer McPhee, well-known as the unwilling friend-of " Brugglesmith."

Messrs Dent and Co. have just completed the publication of their dainty " Temple " edition of Shakespeare, and will now commence a new series entitled the " Temple Dramatists."

Yet another book from the pen of Miss Braddon, entitled " London Pride." She has a very close follower in " John Strange Winter," whose 50th novel is announced. It is said that more than two million copies of her works have been sold.

" Forty-one Years in India," by Lord Roberts, V.C., should make interesting reading. It is announced by Bentley and Co.

Professor Cesare Lornbroso, the wellknown scientific writer and author of '* The Man of Genius," was recently cast in damages to the amount of .£IOO for plagiarism. On appeal the amount was reduced to <£2o.

Mark Twain hopes to have his new book —giving an account of his lato travels — published during December.

Mr A. E. Fletcher, some time editor of the London Daily Chronicle, and more recently of the Neiv Age, a religious political paper, will shortly join the firm of Ward, Lock and Co. as literary adviser.

An American paper states that the publishers of Harper's Magazine have the complete manuscript of the late Mr Du Maurier's new novel, " The Martian," also the illustrations for seven of the ten parts into which the story is divided. The Atheno&um says that owing to his illness he was not able to revise the proofs of the last chapters.

"Illumination," which according to the Review of Reviews is " the cleverest work of fiction issued this year," has reached Wellington in Heinemann's Colonial Library.

According to a writer in the Bookman, if a book published in New Zealand is registered in the Colony it secures protection in the United Kingdom, but in order to secure international copyright it must be registered at Stationers' Hall, London, with deposit of copies.

Mr " Anthony Hope" is said to be contemplating a sequel to his " Prisoner of Zenda," under the title of " The Constable of Zenda."

Nearly 6000 visitors have made a pilgrimage to Carlyle House, in Chelsea, since it was opened in July, 1895. This should be satisfactory news to the promoters of the purchase scheme.

The test of popularity has been again worked out, at the Nottingham Public Library this time, by an analysis of the first hundred books issued alter the annual stocktaking, with the following result:

Marie Corelii heads the list with a scorn of eleven ; Crockett follows with six ; Edna Lyull with five ; Hall Caine with four ; and the next six writers of fiction with throe each —Conan Coylo, Du Maurier, Rider Haggard, A. C. Gunter, Mrs Burnett and G. A. Henty.

At the forefront of "My Lady Nicotine," in the new and handsome "Thistle" edition of his works which Mr J. M. Barrie has prepared for Messrs Scribner, is this amusing confession:—"Readers unknown to me frequently write to ask whether I have really given up smoking, and, whether or not, will I kindly let them know where the Arcadia Mixture is to be got ? But I seldom answer either question. After keeping it locked in my breast for years, however, let me here divulge a ' dark secret. When I began to writu this book I was no smoker; instead of having given up the practice most reluctantly; as described in these untruthful papers, I was smoking my first pipe gingerly, not because 1 liked it, but because all my friends smoked, and it seemed unsociable not to emoke with them. I had no pleasure in -anoking: my highest ambition was to !•■■ able do. bmoko now and again without apparent effort. How I drifted into writing a book on the subject I cannot remember, but the desire to know both sides was doubtless the reason why I wrote as a slave to tobacco. Oddly enough, this assumed character obtained an influence over me. I read his views with attention,

and began to see that there must be something in them. By the time he had clearly demonstrated the folly of smoKing I was a convert to the practice."

A melancholy interest will be felt in Du Maurier's new story, " The Martians/' begun in the October number of Harper's Magazine. It is supposed to be a biography of Bartholomew Josselin, " the greatest literary genius this century has produced," written by his old schoolfellow and friend, Sir Robert Maurice, who introduces himself as " a mere prosperous busy politician, and man of the world," and promises to reveal the strange secret of his hero's genius, which, as he says, has " lighted up the darkness of these latter times as with a pillar of fire by night." Party Josselin is a strange lad of half French and half English origin, an orphan, and it is in the development of this character that the interest of the opening of the story i 3 concerned. Here is a sample: —"His constitution, inherited from a long line of frugal seafaring Norman ancestors (not to mention another long line of well-fed. well-bred Yorkshire squires), was magnificent. His spirits never failed. He could see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye ; this was often tested by M. Dumollard, maitre de mathematiques (et do cosmographie), who had a telescope which, with a little goodwill on the gazer's part, made Jupiter look as big as the moon, and its moons like stars of the first magnitude. His sense of hearing was also exceptionally keen. He could hear a watch tick in the next room, and j perceive very high sounds to which ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later) ; and when we played blind- j man's-buff on a rainy day, he could, blind- •• folded, tell every boy he caught hold of— f not by feeling him all over like the rest of J us, but by the mere smell of his hair, or his hands, or his blouse ! No wonder he \ was so much more alive than the rest of j us ! According to the amiable, modest, j polite, delicately - humorous, and ever- j tolerant and considerate Professor Max Nordau, this perfection of the olfactory sense proclaims poor Barty a degenerate. I only wish there were a few more like bin., and that I wore a little more like him myself ! By the way, how proud young Germany must feel of its enlightened Max, and how fond of him, to be sure ! Mes compliments ! But the most astounding thing of all (it seems incredible, but all the world knows of it by this, and it will be accounted for later on) is that at certain times and seasons Barty knew by an infallible instinct where the north was, to a point. Most of my readers will remember his extraordinary evidence as a witness in the Rangoon trial, and how this power was tested in the open court, and how important were the issues involved, and how he refused to give any explanation of a gift so extraordinary. It was often tried at school by blindfolding him, and turning him round and round till he was giddy, and asking him to point out where the North Pole was, or the north star, and seven or eight times out of ten the answer was unerringly right. When he failed, he knew beforehand that for the time being he had lost the power, but could never say why. Little Doctor Larcher could not get over his surprise at this strange phenomenon, nor explain it ; and often brought some scientific friend from Paris to test it, who was equally nonplussed."

" St. Ives," the late R. L. Stevenson's last story, will commence in the November issue of The Pall Mall Magazine, in succession to " The City of Refuge," Sir Walter Besant's story, which concludes this month.

Mr F. G. Bettany, a young scholar and writer, whose career at Oxford was exceptionally brilliant, has become literary adviser to Messrs Ward, Lock and Co. The late Professor Bettany, a gifted and accomplished author of scientific books, and a relation of Mr F. G. Bettany's, filled the same post in the same publisher's establishment. He was succeeded by Mr Coulson Kernahan, who has just been appointed to a like office with, another firm.

Mr TJnwin is about to publish a large and profusely illustrated work on the Armenian massacres. " Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities," as the work is entitled, is written by the Rev E. M. Bliss, and is introduced by Miss Frances Willard. To some extent this book is a history of the L'urk, leading up to his latter-day excesses, which are fully described with summaries and reports contributed by eyewitnesses. The attitude of the United States is an interesting chapter. The pictures are mainly troin photographs.

Messrs Chatto and Windus were to have a new volume of stories by Bret Harte ready for* publication in October. The volume was to appear under the title of " Barker's Luck," with a large number of illustrations by A.. Forestier, Paul Hardy, A. Morrow and T. Julich. At a later date a volume of new poems by Bret Harte will be issued by the same publishers, who also announce Mr Christie Murray's new novel, " A Capful o' Nails," a picture of North Country life.

Mr "William Simpson, the famous war artist of the Crimean, Indian, Afghanistan and the France and Germany of 1870, has written a work for Messrs Macmillan. Its subject is the Buddhist praying wheel, and it is illustrated.