LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1714, 4 January 1905, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP

The traditional sympathy between America and France has helped to make many Americans students of French literature. For instance, Miss Katherine Wormeley, who is known as a translator of Balzac, has two volumes of his essays appearing in English with Messrs Putnam’s Sons. They include, as subjects, many of the most notable persons in the history and literature of France during the seventeenth century. We have no more delightful writer of books for the little people than “E.

Nesbit,” ihe poetess, who is the wife of H.ube- t Bland, the well-known Socialist writer and lecturer. She has another volume, entitled “New Treasure-Seekers,” just appearing with Mr Fisher Unwin. It is the third one in a trilogy, of which the others are tho “Treasme-Seekers” and the “Would-Be-Gods. It was an eminent and veteran novelist who said that the children in “E. Nesbit’s” books are “the real thing.’

Mr Gibson Bowles, M.P., has written a pamphlet on what lie regards as the perilous state of Britain’s national finances. Its note may be gathered from one sentence:—“A close student of British finance cannot but conclude that the vast increase in our national expenditure, on the whole mainly arises from a want of duo control of ambitious departments, from a disregard of economies, a contempt for frugality, and a lavish, wasteful. wanton and unnecessary expenditure all round.” Mr Fisher Unwin is publishing the pamphlet.

Messrs Methuen and Co. have published Mi- Hew A. Wilson’s ‘Thaw in Business.” This is another of the publisher’s valuable business volumes. Here, if you are a business man, you may learn most legal things that concern you without paying more than half-a-crown. Mr Hew Wilson lays down the law as it auulies to the business affairs of the day. It is hard, especially for the legal mind, to be economical in words. Mr Wilson, lawyer though he be, has command of the art, to the great advantage of this book, which is an excellent addition to a useful series.

Mr Maurice Hewlett’s long-expected book of travel papers on Tuscany is published. In preparing it he has gone to work on two bases:—‘First, that the traveller does not get to know a country by seeing its great towns; second, that let the history, fine arts, monuments, and institutions be as fine as they may, the best product of a country will always be its people, who themselves produced those other pleasant spectacles.” Messrs Macmillan are the publishers.

Mr George Allen is publishing a book having the elusive, and therefore attractive, title “In Pursuit of Dulcinea.” It is an account of Spanish, life and character, differing essentially from any of the travel and guide bookj» for the Peninsula which have been puT lished in England. The author, hi# Henry Bernard, describes a leisurely and erratic tour through La Mancha, a province rarely visited and yet very interesting, especially in view of the Cervantes celebration next January. Messrs Macmillan are publishing the book in which Dt Randall Davidson gives a selection of the sermons and addresses that he delivered during his American tour. They have been chosen ohiefly on account of the general interest attaching to the subject or the occasion concerned. The book opens with a sermon preached in Quebec Cathedral, and closes with a speech to Err angelical ministers at Boston. There are some new notes by Mr John Morley in the Elversley edition of his “Cromwell,” which is just appearing. They were suggested to him by an essay on the work which Dr Gardiner wrote when it was originally pub lished. Mr John Lane is publishing an original comedy in blank verse, by Dr Richard Garnett entitled “William Shakespeare, Pedagogue and Poacher,” the plot being based on traditions of tha poet’s early life. The first volume of the late Lord Salisbury’s contributions to the “Quarterly Review,” will consist of biographical articles, the second of the articles in which he discussed foreign politics. Professor Saintsbury has been editing the minor poetry of the reigns of Charles I. and Charles 11., for a twovolume edition which the Oxford University Press will publish, with introductions from his pen. One volume is nearly ready, and the other is also well forward. Dr Paget, the Bishop of Oxford, contributes an appreciation of Canon Liddon to his biography, which Messrs Longman have published. It is fourteen years since the Canon died, but that lapse of time should only mean the warmer a welcome for a work which revives him to us in an intimate way. Mr Murray is publishing a translation of the “Georgies” of Virgil, by Lord Burghclere. He was Mr Herbert Gardner, and Gladstone's Minister of Agriculture, before he became a member of the Upper House. His rendering, in blank verse, of the “Georgies” lias been known to his friends, and now all may know it.