CURRENT COMMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14668, 30 October 1909, Page 13

CURRENT COMMENT

In announcing various new editions of their books the Harpers make tho comment, that "Wilkic Collins has exhausted as ntajiy editions of his books iu lite last year as though 113 were a popular contemporary novelist.'' Mrs Humphry Ward has written introductions to "Robert Elsmere" and "David Grieve," which are to appear in a new complete edition of her works. Those introductions have .111 autobiographical value, and are in some sense an account of tho literary move.me.nt in progress at the time when the bcoks appeared. We are a Ions; way from these limes, but no doubt the pith of Mrs Humphry Ward's message to the world was given in " Boberli Elsmero" and " J)avitl Grieve." It is mot only by such losses to the world of letter as were wrought by Hie recent deaths of Swinburne and Meredith that- wo of to-day are reminded how close wo yet stand "to that golden hundred years of British literature which opened with Hums and closed with Tennyson. Every month of this present twelve has brought, some mine to put us in mind of 01:3 or another of tho great, ones of that just-closed era of splendour; and August called back one who markedly was of that brillia.nl group which dominated the last century's earlier days. On the 28th of that month, a short 50 years ago, Leigh' Hunt died at Putney—where the singer of the "Atalanta in Calydon " and " Laiis Veneris " breathed his last, only yesterday, as it seems. According to the Spectator, the late George Meredith's father, Augustus Urmston Meredith, emigrated to Capetown in the middle of the nineteenth century, kept a shop at the corner of St. (.ieoW's and Hout streets, and returned to Lugland after a stay of some years. The Gape Times has published letters from several persons who remember him and knew that he was the novelist's father. His fine presence a.ud dignified reserve, his fondness for walking, and his readithe age of 66 to make the ascent of Table Mountain are among (he things recorded, and also his pride in his soil's "Farina," published in 1557. Meredith was not wont to talk •. -.[.\insively of his parentage, says the Spectator* writer. Considering the quality of English wit on the subject of tailors'. vim blames him? Ono cannot pass one's days in knocking men down for repealing ancient jokes at the expense- of one's father. A new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is promised for ne-xt year, a simple announcement thai will be of more than usual interest to the publishing and loading fraternity. This famous encyclopaedia first appeared in Great Britain in 17oS, and has since then been issued in various revised editions, as occasion has demanded them, the last, or ninth edition, appearing iu 1875-59. Tho great problem for all encyclopedia makers is, necessarily, to keep their work up to date in all matters of im'o.-mation, r.cientilie progress, etc. No matter how scholarly tmch a work may be, one would hardly think of appealing to it to-day on such matters a; telegiapiiy, aeronautics, biology, or any subject- of science whatever, if it is more than a decade old. Hence, a tenth edition of tho Britannica. seems, of all things, ■a timely and necessary undertaking. But. when it is published, what v.-iil"become of the ninth edition anii the luckless assessors thereof? Clement K. Shorter, wnti'ig in the Spin-ire this month, remarks: ''I am. informed, although this .wins hard to believe, that purchasers of the iast- edition wiil be allowed (0 possess lie new form upon exceedingly moderate lentv, which are to inelude"lhc return of liio older work to the publishers." There could be no bit of news in regard to books better calculated to plcase°the owner of an old edition of the Encvclopiedia Brihmiica than that; but, as" Mr .Shorter icmarks, it " *ems hard to believe.' 1