LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1675, 6 April 1904, Page 19

LITERARY GOSSIP

Messrs Macmillan will publish almost immediately, as a volume complete in itself, the “Notes to Palgmve’s Golden Treasury,” which have hitherto only appeared in the separate issues in the series of English classics. Biographical notes ar'e given respecting each author.

Mr St. Leo Strachey, the editor of the “Spectator,” lias been revising, for a second edition, a little volume which ho publishes with Messrs Macmillan. It is a handbook giving a general view of the industrial and social life of England, and of the organisation of the British Empire. As its title, “The Citizen and the State,” might indicate, it also sets out the duties and privileges of a citizen. Written in veby simple language, and iillustrated with suitable pictures, it has been adopted as a text-book for schools.

Mr Herbert, Spencer’s autobiography is to be published in April. It ends before ho completed his system of Synthetic Philosophy, and when he left .London for Brighton. There, as everybody knows, he isneut the later years of las life, a period with which ‘the supplementary biography will deal. In a long preface to Ins autobiography Mr Herbert Spencer calls it a ‘‘natural history” of himself. While it is that it is .also a book full of side-lights on the intellectual life of the Victorian era. Indeed its two volumes will probably be found to contain notes by Tyndall; Huxley, and other distinguished men who saw the book in proof.

To meet private persons a work like “Walford’s County Families” (Chatto and Winclus) is more useful than ,a “Peerage.” It gives particulars of our foremost private families as well as of those 'bearing titles. About 14,000 names are included, each accompanied by a short notice giving all information likely to be required by anyone;consulting the bonk. Among so many heads of

families, deaths and changes provide material for much annual revision, and great care seems to be taken to ensure all the .standing matter being kept well up to date.

Mr Sidney Lee, in a preface to the* popular edition .just issued by Messrs Smith, Elder, of his life of Queen Victoria, has the following reference to tho “Gladstone” :—“Mr Morley’s volumes form a contribution of first-rate importance to the history cf the Queen’s reign, and they place all students of the subject under vast obligations.” Mr Lee has availed himself of the new light which the “Gladstone” throws on Queen Victoria’s personal relations with the longest-lived of her Prime Ministers. In revising his biography of Queen Victoria lie has also used additional information sent to him by correspondents, some of whom wore in close relations with Queen Victoria.

If to seventy-five per cent, of the

“Review of Reviews” we add per cent, of the “World’s Work,” and per cent, of the New Journalism, vs obtain as a result the “Rapid Review,” published by Messrs 0. Art-bus? Pearson, Limited, at Gd net. The magazine is bright, well illustrated and ultramodern. It will be particularly acceptable to those who like the principle avid arrangement of Mr Stead’s monthly, but do not wish their examination cf the world’s Press to be interfered' with J>.y political discussions. The ‘Rapid I&r view’ lias uo fads or cranks of its own/”* is Mr Pearson’s more direct wa'y cf putting it. Naturally -it will deal with, “live” subjects. The ideal of the publication is not cf c.ne highest', per ha pabub the review itself will be serviceably if it is taken in its own spirit, a.s a guide to current literature, iand not as an easy substitute for careful reading. ‘‘Topics of ‘the Times,” illustrated with maps and car looks, is the opening article, and it in followed by ■excerpts oui “Our New Army,’ 1 the Tariff discussion, and articles on Aut, Music, Science, the Drama and Literature. The personal clement is represented by the illustrated feature, “Men and Women of the Month.”

Messrs Blackwood and Sons, E ; din« burgh, are publishing a book on local government in Scotland. It is by a lady, Mis.s Atkinson, who has devoted special study to the subject. When she first gave attention to it she endeavoured to find some elementary hook whiolj would deal with it as a whole. In this she was not successful, for the simple reason that noi book-of the sort existed. Thereupon she set about the collection cf information necessary for the under* standing of the main points, in the development and present organisation of Soots local bodies. She embodied th? results in two sets pf lectures, delivered at 'Glasgow University and the Loudon School of Economics, and the present book is based on them.

Mr Grant Richards will publish tin version of “Ruy Bias.” which Mr John Davidson has written for Mr- Lewis Waller, “A Queen’s Romance,” as the play is called. Cannot be better described than as Mr Davidson’s version of Victor Hugo’s tragedy. It is in vc-rse and) prose after Mr Davidson’s fashion, and tli© five acts of -the original have been com* pressed into three.

Mr Arnold announces a. book of recent travel in Montenegro and Servia. It ifc by Miss Mary Durham, and is well ilr lustrated. It contains the record of three expeditions, in the course of which ska rode, walked, and sketched throughout} the length and breadth of the lauds cf the Serb. She tells of picturesque scenery and -of picturesque peoples—tin* Montenegrins and Servians —between whom she found a high state of tension existing.

Two novels have been published by Mr T. Fisher Unwin. One is a study of modern movements and tendencies in tho Church of England, is entitled “Facing the Future,” and is by Mr R. Tlhynne. Tho other is a story of Sclots village life. It has tho title “He That Hath Received tho Five Talents,” and the author is Professor Clark Murray, of Montreal.