THE RAGE FOR REPRINTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13984, 17 August 1907, Page 7

THE RAGE FOR REPRINTS.

The title of the London anthology of prose and verse that Mr Alfred H. Hyatt is editing for Messrs Ohatto and Windus has been changed from " The City That I Love" to "The Charm of London,"

Mr Philip Wellby is publishing a new edition of Leigh Hunt's "Religion of the Heart," for which Mr Hyatt ha-s written an introduction. This unique and charming work of Leigh Hunt's has long been inaccessible, and many will be glad to know that it is to bo brought again within the reach of the general reader. Messrs Macmillan are taking over the publication of Mr Maurice Hewlett's "New Canterbury Tales," and they are ■ about to publish another sixponny edition of his " Forest Lovers," Also, they announce sixpenny editions of "John Inglesant" and of Mr Owen Wister's " Virginian." A welcome reissue is one of the latest volumes in the "King's Classics" series, nothing less than "Wine. Women, and Song"—John Addington Symonds's versions of the songs of the wandering students. Symonds was a graceful and happy translator, though, oi course, no good lyric is really translatable. Here is a use of Latin that no Roman ever dreamed of; nor would he even if he had known how. to rhyme. These good songs "of wantonness and wine" are most'comfortable to read in the pocketable little Teubner book—in usum laetitiae—that Stevenson knew. Some of them find a place, as they should, in Mr Thomas's "Pocket Book of Poems and Songs." Mr Dent has published the final three volumes of his new edition of the writings of Dumas, which runs altogether to 48 volumes. Nobody needs a better edition of the French romancist than this, for its type is very readable, its get-up is workmanlike, and its frontispiece portraits do help one to realise a little the characters of the novelist.

The next volume in Longmans' Pocket

Library (2s and 3s net) will be William Morris's poem "The Life and Death of Jason." Stevenson's "Dynamiter" is also to be given in the library about the same time as Froude's " Short Studies on Great Subjects." This work, which has always been popular among Froude's writings, makes five pocket volumes. A new pocket edition in three volumes of " Horae Subsecivae," by Dr John Brown, is forthcoming with Messrs Black (Zs net leather. 2s 6d net cloth). It will be printed on thin Bible paper, and bound uniform with Black's new pocket edition of the Waverley Novels. Volume X will have a photogravure frontispiece of a portrait of Dr Brown by Sir George Reid. ,A multitude of "sixpennys" have reoently appeared for the random reader, but Messrs Newnes have others to issue. They promise Mr Maurice Hewlett's story "The Fool Errant," Mr W. J. Locke's novel " Idols," and Mr Rider Haggard's "Joan Haste." They are bringing out a sixpenny edition of Mr Fitchett's floras hiateis e £ $8 'Man Mutisx,

As a writer Harriet Beecher Stowo is really known to fame by her "Uncle Tom's Cabin." But she wrote, other books which are 'better in a literary sense, and Messrs Sampson Low propose to revive some of these. Thus they are reissuing her "Dred," which, "as a tale of a Great Dismal Swamp," also touched upon the slave question in tho Southern States of America. A half-dozen sixpenny reprints of novels which have already won their way with readers are being published by Messrs Ward, Lock. .They include "A Study in Scarlet," by Sir Arthur Conan I>oyle; "The Betrayal," by Mr Phillips Opgenheim; "Mr Hawley Smart's "A Racing Rubber"; and two talcs by the late Guy Bootbby, "An Ocean Secret'' and " Tho Race of Life." Macmillan's thin-paper edition of Mr Thomas Hardy's works is completed. lhe final volume contains in one small volume, at half a crown, all his shorter pieces in verso. These have hitherto been available only in two volumes, each of which, besides being dearer, was too largo to'be carried in the pocket, an objection that cannot be urged against the present edition. To their National Library Messrs Cassell have added a sixpenny edition of John Buskin's "Political Economy of Art," which later was re-entitled "A Joy for Ever." The volume has an introduction by Mr C. P. G. Masterman M.P., who is a leauing figure among what we may call the young intellectuals of the present Parliament, This will mako the _ llltli volume of Cassell's National Library in its new and revivified form,

A new edition of Rankc's " History of the Popes" is appearing in Bell's excellent York Library (2s and 3s net a volume). The edition has been revised according to the latest German issue, and the chapters on Pins IX and the Vatican Council have been added. Another famous German book announced for the York Library is Goethe's autobiography, of which a revised translation has been made by Mr P. A. Steele-Smith. Messrs Ruttledge's latest reprints include:—"The Pocket Rnskin," edited by Miss Rose Gardner, in the Warfarin" Books (2s 6d net); Mr Duff Brown's Manual on the Small Library " (2s 6d) • Macaulay's "History of England," edited by Mr T. F. Henderson, in tlio Library of Standard and Historical Literature (5s net); Sir Alfred Lyall's "Poems," m the Muses Library (Is 6d net and 2s net); and various volumes in tho New Universal Library, including Arnold's " Essays in Criticism," Miss Bronte's "Jane Eyre,"- Carlyle's "Past and Present, Dante's "Inferno, Purgatorio' and Paradiso," according to Longfellow's translation, Martineau's " Endeavour After the Christian Life/* and ■ Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies."

The latest volume in the Golden Poets (T. C. and E. C. Jack; 2s 6d net) is the "Poems of Lord Byron." Mr Whibley's introduction to this excellent book of selections from Byron is biographical rather than critical. Byron's life has become the. subject of so much controversy that it is difficult to mite of , the poet in an altogether impartial fashion. Mr Whibley shows clearly the direction in which his sympathies lie. The story of Byron's marriage and its sequel is a sufficiently squalid and ugly one, but most readers will agree with Mr Whibley that Lady Byron was not altogether blameless. "It is doubtful whether Byron could have made any woman happy. Beneath a superficial exterior of geniality and almost boisterous good humour there was a core of egotism, Byron loved to pose. A writer of indefatigable industry, it pleased him to bo regarded as an_aristocratic trifler. "He delighted to think of'himself as a great noble," writes Mr Whibley, "or a man of pleasure, who achieved a masterpiece now and again to save him from boredom." But this intellectual coxcombry represented one sido only of Byron's nature, and that the least important. Ho never allowed the numerous distractions of a life of pleasure to interfere with the labour of composition. Since the death of Byron there has been a rearrangement of values in the world of poetry. Both Wordsworth and Keatstwo poets whom he held in the profoundest contempt—have, to a large extent, superseded him in the popular favour. But such a reaction of taste and sympathy is powerless to affect the permanent value of Byron's work. A stubborn defender of the. classical tradition, he remains the greatest of the Romantics. His range was limited by his own personal emotions and experiences, but what he lacks in breadth is more than atoned for by dramatic depth j and intensity. As Mr Whibley remarks, "His poetry was but his life transmuted into another shape," Sufficient time having now elapsed to ascertain the sucoess of the seven penny novels issued by Messrs Thomas Nelson and sons, a member of that publishing firm volunteered the following interesting information:—"The series has caught on very well," said this authority, "and has quite realised our expectations. We have already decided what novels we are going to publish from July to the end of this year, at the Tate of two volumes per month, on the first and third; Wednesdays. The library will be continued indefinitely, and our object is to make it comprise all first-class fiction by living authors. Our reprints really prove of advantage to the publishers. Hitherto a 6s novel has ted a very short life: after twelve months, or .six, or, sometimes even less, it becomes practically dead. But our purpose is to give a longer lease of life to these novels, and also to increase their reading public by reissuing them at a popular price. There is, of course, a large novel-reading public, but most people get their novels from libraries. What we wish to do is to increase the novel-buying public, and. that is an aim that should be welcome both, to publishers and authors. As a matter of fact, our venture has been' warmly approved by authors. It should bo remembered that the effect of- our series is not to trench upon any existing bookbuying public, but to create an entirely new one. Prom the- point of view of culture, also, it has been beneficial. Yon may now meet in the train many people reading good fiction who were formerly absorbed in _ rather trashy novelette. Without quoting exact figures, I may say that a 6s novel which has a sale of only. 3000 or 4000 copies immediately becomes accessible, at 7d. to an enormously large public. It lias been suggested that the low price of our publications must involve tho overworking and underpaying of our workmen in Edinburgh. There is absolutely no ground for such a suggestion, as our men are treated excellently. Incident-ally, I may mention that our books, like books generally, sell much better in Scotland than England, in -proportion to the population,"