LITERARY GOSSIP.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 23

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Mr John Long, publisher of Nat Gould’s new novel, “One of a Mob,” an nounces that on and after April 16, 1905, he will publish all Mr Nat Gould’s stories.

Mr John Long announces that “Nat Gould’s Annual” will be ready for the colonial trade in October.

When does*a “Mr” cease to be a Mr? This (says a correspondent of the “Morning Chronicle”) is asked not as a conundrum but merely by way of ascertaining the proper use of the prefix. Twice in one day have I been confronted by seemingly inconsistent usage in this matter. In the opening sentence of his “Caroline Poets,” Professor Saintsbury refers to “Mr Matthew Arnold” and “Merimee.” and maintains the distinction. I pick up a newspaper containing an article by Mr Andrew Lang on “An Adventurous Author,” and in the first paragraph I meet “Thackeray” and “Mr Stevenson.” Is there no rule? Is it not time to drop the prefix after a man has made his double qualification—by notability and death—for inclusion in the National Portrait Gallery ? Or are we to be guided by personal caprice and only to drop the “Mr” when we think the man refer-, red to has earned the honour by his greatness in our eyes? Thus in a subtle fashion we may criticise a man by dub-1 Ling him, posthumously, a “Kir.”

Mis© Helen Mathers has written a novel, “The Ferryman,” which will be out within the next few weeks (Methuen). “The Ferryman” is Paul Vravanel, who ferries across the Styx all those broken-hearted and afflicted ones to whom life is a long-drawn out agony. Incidentally death is presented, not as a spectre, but as a strong, beautiful man, who promises something better than a,n earthly state. “Death,” said Sir George Grey, who w.?s even greater as a thinker than as a man of action, “is a romance if we can only see it rightly.”' Here are his words being made good. ;

A l ©markable and learned work, which gives the origin of myths, fairy-tales, and traditions in all parts of the world, is being published by Mr Murray. It is entitled “The Childhood of Fiction,” and

is by the Rev. J. A. MacCulloch. He has grouped the folk-tales and primitive thought, which were the first form of fiction, into certain classes, and traced them to their sources. It will -probably be found that, of ‘ all the familiar fairy stories, there is not one which is not described and tracked down in this “source” book, as the Americans would call it.