CHOOSING A TITLE FOR A TALE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1966, 29 October 1891, Page 40

CHOOSING A TITLE FOR A TALE.

Choosing a good title is a writer's main difficulty, and he expends upon it no little mental labour. Charles Dickens was as painstaking about bis titles as about his characters, and was usually very successful. But he slipped once— when he perpetrated the barbarism of " Out Mutual Friend." On the other hand, " Great Expectations " " A Tale of Two Cities," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," were decidedly felicitous. Wilkie Collins was not less sedulous, nor less haoDV "The Woman in White "-what could be more fascinating in its suggestion of the mysterious and terrible? Charles Reade too, made some good hits, [as in "The Cloister and the Hearth," " Hard Cash," " It is Never Too Late to Mend," and " Put ' Yourself in His Place." A wit suggested, apropos of the latter, that the novelist was obviously going through the Book of Proverbs. Lord Lytton had a penchant for finality "The Last Days of Pompeii," "The Last of the Saxon Kings," "The Last of the Barons," The Last;of the Eoman Tribunes." " Night and Morning » was a good title. But he was very nearly spoiling it, for he wanted to add L^ 1 ! 11 * ,, and darkness," "Sunshine and Shadow, and this repetition of contrasts would have been too much for the public Mr Besant's choice of titles is not to be filled at " This Son of Vulcan »is good : By Oeha's Arbour," better; and "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," best. George Eliot, too, was well advised. It would not be easy Sr.J lfc ™"S° ntn ttt mm ° Te s °ggestive title than The Mill on the Floss " ; and « Adam Bede," with its alphabetical succession of initials, was decidedly good. There is too much barefaced plagiarism, or at least imitation, in the matter of titles. A S'. ap ? arß ~l lThree Men and a D °g in a •Boat, boon afterwards we are invited to read about " Two Girls on a Barge," and by » D m by ® P e S a P s we B hali be favoured with lwo Old Women on a Tricycle." " Hester's History is followed by « Hester's Venture " and "Hester's Sacrifice": "His Little Mother" by "His Little Cousin" "Molly Bawn," by "Mollie Darling." Glancing down a page of a literary catalogue I note no fewer than 33 novels which deal with " Miss i Somebody or Other; 1—«1 — « Miss Angel," «Mi SS

Beauchamp," "Miss Brotherfcon," "Miss Brown," " Miss Bouverie," and so on. " This representation " clearly suggested " miscali culation." There are at least a dozen " Margarets." Three of our novelists have been troubled about the fortunes of a nobleman's daughter — " Lord Maskellyne's," " Lord Oakburn's," " Lord Vanecourt's " ; and more than a score about those of " Lady This" or "Lady That." I cannot stop to enumerate them. Surely this shows some barrenness of invention — a reproach which cannot be levelled against our ancestors. What abundant promise lies in the title of Painter's "Palace of Pleasure " 1 The writer who entitled his treatise on purgatory " A Fan to Drive Away Flies " may certainly claim the merit of originality ; and as much may be said of " Matches Lighted at the Divine Fire " ! What could be better than " The Pilgrim's ; Progress " ? or Sir Thomas Elyot's " Castle of Health " ? or more minatory than Knox's "First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Eegimen of Women " ? or more novel (and grotesque) than '•' Grains of Truth for the Chickens of Salvation " 1 A page might easily be devoted to comic titles, such as " Broad Grins," by Coleman ; I " The Tin Trumpet," by Horace Smith ; Marryat's " Pacha of Many Tales "; Jerrold's "Caudle Lectures"; and Hood's "Whims and Oddities." These are rapidly on the increase ; and almost every week brings forward a specimen of this class. For example, we find on our table a diverting account of an excursion to the Western Islands, which bears the punning title of "Echoes from the Sounds, a Run Through with the Claymore," a Tale of Hair-breadth Adventures, by Ah Ren (which means, we suppose, R. Wren), published by Frederick Johnstion, Falkirk. This is a decidedly clever and amusing little book (though here and there a trifle poarse), and contains some absurdly comical illustrations. But we are not in love with the title, which to the public at large must be almost unintelligible. In explanation of it we may add that " the Claymore " is the name of Messrs Mac-Brayne's steamer in which the voyage from Glasgow to William Black's Ultima Thule is performed.