LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 31

LITERARY GOSSIP

The “London Times,” in a notice of the work recently written by Professor Maclaurin says:—“lt seems strange that there should come from Wellington, in New Zealand, an erudite essay on ‘The Nature and Evidence of Tine to Realty.’ The explanation is that Professor Maclaurin wrote the essay for the Yorke Prize at Cambridge, and that in his new position as Professor of Mathematics at Wellington'he has re tained interest in tiie study of English law. He refers to the results of his studies as only an approximation to the truth. At all events, he has produced an original book that is not on the same lines as any other with which we are acquainted, and which concisely states the outcome of much reading. One of the most original parts of the volume is the examination of the technical parts of early conveyances; hut throughout the work he goes carefully over the ground, consults the original sources, and does not merely summarise wellknown text hooks.”

Sir William Laird Clowes is just sending to press the final volume of the history of our Navy which he lias edited. Ho and Mr A. It. Waller are the advisory and acting editors of that interesting departure in publishing, the Unit Library. Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities” is about to appear in it, and Browning’s poems written between 1833 and 1858 will follow in two volumes. Thackeray’s “Esmond” will be an early issue, and a hundred works have, thus far, been chosen for the library. They do not exhaust the “best books” of literature, but their publication will occupy several years. Now and then a copyright volume will be included in the library.

A finely illustrated book dealing with two figures of Fi’ench history, Louis Xy. and Madame de Pompadour, is to appear in the Goupil series. It has been written by M. Pierre de Nolhac, the learned conservator of the Musee de Versailles. He wrote .the memoir on Marie Antoinette as Queen, with whioh the Goupil series was begun. Copies of the Japanese edition of that book are now worth sixty or seventy pounds. Of the coming work there will bo 100 copies on Japanese paper at ten pounds net each, and 800 ordinary copies at four pounds net. Orders for all these copies have already been received. The text of the book will be French.

On an early date Messrs Putnam will publish the first part of an anthology of Russian literature -which Professor Wiener, of Harvard University, is preparing. He writes in his preface:— “The time is not far off when the Russian language will occupy the same place in the curriculum of American universities that it now occupies in. those of Germany, France and Sweden. A language that is spoken by more than one hundred million people, and that encompasses half of the Northern Hemisphere, in itself invites the attention of the curious and the scholar. But the points of contact between the Anglos Saxon and the Slavio races are so many, both in politics and literature, that it is a matter of interest, if not yet of necessity, for every cultured person of either nationality to become well acquainted with the intellectual and social life of the other.”

- The fi ua ! volume of Mr Murray’s definitive edition of Byron is now printing, and will appear in the autumn. «r\^ S a vp^ume verse, and contains Don Juan,” the epigrams, a bibliography and an index. The work involved in connection with this edition has been very great, and has occupied fiome years. The original manuscripts have been examined with minute caro, and little new ground can now remain the Byron student to investigate. As Mr Asquith said on one occasion at Edinburgh, the edition “hah laid all

lovers of literature under a heavy debt.”

Buckle’s “Civilisation” is to he included by Messrs Longman in the Silver Library. This is, of course, one of the works in our literature that were never completed. Buckle’s idea was to write a. full history of civilisation in Europe. He issued one volume in 1858 and another in 1861, while in 1867 a cheaper edition of both appeared at 245. The present issue is to be in three volumes, at 3s 6d each, or half a guinea for the set. When Buckle died he had finished his introductory sketch to what was to be the detailed history. That is the value of the volumes, which are thus complete so far they go.