LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, 17 September 1902, Page 29

LITERARY GOSSIP

S ; r James Ramsay lias nearly finished another volume of his historical work dealing with the first twelve centuries of English history. The idea of it, as a whole, is to describe “tlie foundations of England.” and the new volume covers the reigns of Henry 11., Richard I. and John. Sir James Ranisay is the tenth baronet of his house, which belongs to Perthshire, and he is au Oxford man.

Mr John A. Steuart, whose novels have made his name well known, has written a new one, which ho calls “A Son of Gad.” The ideas underlying it are indicated in the following prefatory note:—“Among the.signs of the times there is no more remarkable or more encouraging omen than the swift drawing together of the two great AngloSaxon peoples. This story of Great Britain and America illustrates the community ot interest and sentiment, which is fast Americanising England and Anglicising America.”

Thcro is, at the moment, a very brisk demand from South Africa for'books, and the colonial trade elsewhere is also looking up. As might be supposed, the successful war books are in special request in South Africa, and novels are also being called for. While the war lasted the people of South Africa could not read much, and now they are overtaking the leeway into which they fell. Apart from this, large supplies of school books are being sent out for the instruction of the Boer chill L-en. Perhaps some English publishing house may be encouraged to open a ora noli in South Africa.

“I often wish,” says Mrs Campbell Praed. in her coming book of Australian memories, “that, like the late Mi Du Maurier’s Peter Ibbetson, fine could live one’s childhood over again in dreams.” The book, which Mr Fisher Unwin will publish, gives an intimate picture of Australian life as it appealed to a young girl. The bush and the gum trees, the squatters and the aboriginals—Mrs Campbell Praed has many memory-pictures of a world which has changed since she lived in Australia. Her father, Mr Thomas Murray Prior, was Postmaster-General in several Queensland Ministries, and this leads her to touch slightly upon the Australian politics of the time.

Mr Andrew Lang’s book on that odd episode of Scottish history, the Uowrie Mystery, is understood to demonstrate the innocence of King James- In that event the puzzle will have been carried some way towards a solution. Indeed, it would appear that the fresh manuscripts of the time which .Mr Lang has been able to consult throw light on it all round. Some writers have thought that the Gowrie Mystery was a “put up job,” in th? sense' of King James being an accessory to it. That being disproved, the whole affair gets a fresh setting, and so stimulates once more the romance which gathers round the Scottish Stuarts.

Professor Schecliter lias edited, for the first time, from various old manuscripts, a book which is intefsting in relation to Hebrew literature. says of it:—“The volume here presented to tho students of the Rabbinic literature reproduces the contents of the Morash Hag-gadol to the book of Genesis, extant till now only in MS. The MS. extends over the whole of the Pentateuch. forming a sort of homiletic Thesaurus cohapiled by a Yamen Jew of the fourteenth century. The sources upr-«

which he drew are the usual Rabbinic works commonly passing under the name of Talmud and Midrash, originating in the schools of Palestine and Babylon, followed by a host of commentaries and compendia hailing mostly from_ Western Europe and North America.

A book on the great mountains and forests .of South America' will shortly be published by Messrs Longman. It is by Mr Paul Fountain, who .some year sago wrote a volumo on the' great deserts and forests of South America. He has spent some part of his life travelling over the length and breadth of the American Continent., As he travelled lie filled his note-book with observations on the scenery and nature; Without actually setting out to write books, he gathered a store of information which he could, at a later date, draw upon. South Americawaa loss well known when he travelled in it than it is now, and so there is a touch of the pioneer in some of ■ his chapters.

. A titled and cultured German., Count Frederick Kielmansegg, visited Great Britain about the middle of tlie eighteenth century. He kept a journal, of which an English lady who is married to one of his descendants, writes:— “One clay, on looking through the library at my German homo I came upon a manuscript written by my husband’s great-grandfather, containing a diary °f his journey to England in the years 1761-62. in which he describes, for the benefit of his German family and friends, tlie Coronation of George 111. (which lie witnessed), London and its sights, the society of the day, and his visits to various towns and country places in England.” She thought these impressions might interest English people, and she has translated them in a volume which Messrs Longmans are to publish.

Messrs Isbister and Co., Ltd., the publishers of tho forthcoming voicing’ of Coronation odes, “The Empire’s Greeting,” have incorporated in it, besides tho four which were adjudged worthy of the prizes offered through the medium of “Good Words,” sixtyfive other odes. Great Britain and Ireland are represented by twenty-five, Australasia by twelve, Britisli America by twelve, Africa by two, and Asia by ten.

The August issue of the “Pastoralists’ Review” is to hand. It is of value to everyone interested in the prosperity of Australia. Among the most important articles are:—“Fighting the Drought on the Darling Downs,” “The Australian Slieepbreeders’ Show,*' (illustrated), Tocal Estate (illustrated), Melbourne Sheep Sales, Royal Show of England, Mahonga Imported Scottish Shorthorns (illustrated). The World’s Politics, Railway Tariffs (a comparison between Argentina. Australian States and New Zealand), The Question of Rabbit Extermination and the Question of Disease, Farmers and Settlers in Conference, Argentina Letter, Irrigation in'the United States, Wool from the Manufacturer’s Standpoint, The Making of Silos, Care of the In-foal Mare. Artificial Sheepfeeding, Queensland Pastoral Legislation, Frozen Meat and Produce Information of the World, the latest reports from all the States of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, America and Great Britain.

Apropos of the centenary of Robert Chambers, born July 10, 1802, Mr A. H. Millar writes tlie story of the life of the eminent publisher and writer in the “People’s Friend”:—“When only 16 years, Robert Chambers began business as a second-hand bookseller, in a spirit of despair, for his father had just been robbed and maimed for life. His stock consisted of a few books saved by his father from the wreck of his fortunes, and not worth more than £2. His brother William opened a similar stall; later they joined forces, and thus was laid the foundation of the immense publishing business so long associated with their names.”

“The Story of Cairo,” by Professor Stanley Lane Poole, noticed by the “Saturday Review,” is one of the series of works on “Mediaeval Towns,” published by Dent. Cairo is the Arabio-el-Kahira “the martial,” the name given to the city founded by the first of the Fatimite conquerors of Egypt in 969. It lay to the north' of the older towns of Fostat and Misr, which along with it form the Cairo of European writers. But after the building of el-Kahira the older Cairo became a commercial capital, while the more modern city was the site of the palace, and above all of el-Azhar, the leading university of tlie Moliemmedan world. The older Cairo never recovered from the great fire of 1168, when it was burnt that it might be saved from the Latin King of Jerusalem. Tli6 fire, we are told, lasted for 54 days, and tho smoke rolled in black clouds to tlie slcy like the smoko of a volcano, compelling the invaders to encamp at a considerable distance from the devoted town. Some of the rubbish mounds which still exist on the south side ef Cairo are the remains of the conflagration; a century ago, beforo modern improvements had cleared most of them away, they were a striking feature in the landscape.