LITERARY NOTIONS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1514, 7 March 1901, Page 29

LITERARY NOTIONS

Mr B. L. Far jeon recently finished a novel which Messrs "Hutchinson are about to publish under the title “Pride of Race.” Not many of our novelists have a more intimate knowledge of the Eng-' lish-speaking Jew than Mr Far jeon. His picture of the Jewish character, in its various phases and contrasts, has been recognised as singularly faithful. In this novel he takes for his subject the marriage of an English peer’s daughter with the son of a Jew who has risen to great wealth. The mental developments of this union, the struggle and doubts and transitions of feeling, the pride of the Jew and that of the English aristocrat, are all dealt with.' It is said that Mark Twain has entered into an agreement to write exclusively for the house of Harper. If he has, one assumes that the arrangement will only refer to America, and not to the publication of the book in England. We gather from the “Author” that Mark Twain’s American admirers were curious to see how his long residence in England and Europe had affected his Americanism. They called it the “London way of doing things” when he had a New York cabman punished for overcharging his cook. As for Marie, he thereupon delivered himself of the obiter dictum, “Every good citizen is an unclassified policeman.” A new Irish writer, Miss Julia M. Crottie, made rather a hit in the autumn with a volume of sketches, ‘Annals of a Dull Town.” Mr Justin McCarthy, for instance, expressed warm admiration for the volume. Miss Orottie is now to follow it up with a novel entitled “The Lost Land,” which pictures Irish life under the heavy hand of Cromwell. However, it is the life of individual types rather than of a community. Miss Crottie sketches the ruin, of an Irish family, beginning with the entrance of the stepfather into it, and ending with the outlawry and death of Thad, the hero. She certainly gets the feeling of Ireland into her writings. There is. reason for supposing that the many guesses made at the authorship of “An Englishwoman’s Love Letters” have been amiss. The name of the writer is known to three people, a number small enough to- make the secret fairly safe. It was well kept during the negotiations for the publication of the book, and the passage of it"through the press. Eventually, no doubt, it will come out, and meanwhile the curious bad better apply this rule to the book —that it is fact made into literature. By the wav, the mysterious author is contributing an article to the next number of the “Monthly Review.” The man, above all others, to write q, volume on the new Australian Commonwealth would have been Mr Alfred I>eakin. He is a member of the first Federal Government, and while in London last summer, the idea, was then, it in the summer. The idea was then, it inay be, suggested' to him, only affa rs of State occupied his activities. To Mr Dent’s Temple Primers Mr Arthur W. Jose is now to contribute a volume on “Australasia, the Commonwealth and New "Zealand.” The book tells the story of Australasian settlement, dwelling particularly on points of Imperial moment

which explain the form and divisions of the Commonwealth. An attempt is made to analyse the character of iho Australasian people. Professor Rhys, who is about to publish his long-expected book on Celtic folklore—Welsh and Manx—says that towards the close of the seventies lie began to collect Welsh folklore. He did so partly because others had set the example elsewhere, and partly in order to see whether Wales could boast of any storytellers of the kind that delight the readers v of Campbell’s “Popular Tales of the West Highlands.” A fine new edition of Cassell’s wellknown history of England is to be issued shortly. As a record it will be brought down to the beginning of the century, but the great feature of it will be a series of coloured illustrations. These will be reproductions, in the best style of our modern colour printing, of paintings by leading artists. These pictures represent great events in our history, and mostly the originals belong to the national collections and to the picture galleries of the country. The first coloured plate is horn Mr Ernest Normand’s design for the new cartoon in the Royal Exchange, and shows King John granting Magna Chart a. Among the last pictures is one of the Jubliee procession of 1887In the new “Cornhill,” which with January 1 begins the 41st year of its existence, Mr Andrew Lang tells us of a lady professor in English literature in the States who was lecturing on Mr William Watson, ‘and “probably nas now advanced as far as Mr Stephen Phillips.” He asks: “Where did she begin, ifslie had already ventured so far down the stream of English poesy?” The object, he presumes, was to be up to date. “Thus a school of fiction might sbu,dy nothing earlier than Mr Thomas Hardy, and pass-men would not be expected to take up authors more archaic than Mr Kipling.” Mr Lang concludes a racy paper with these conclusions : —By rapidly eliminating, all kinds of literature except novels at six shillings, progress has, in one way, {simplified' [life. We can boldly say, what most of uS"' think, that poetry is “such footle, you know,” and we can take our opinions, without the labour of study, from our favourite romancers. For these reasons even the conservative Universities must presently establish a tripos, or school, of fiction.”