WISE'S BOOK STORE, DUNEDIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2202, 14 May 1896, Page 52

WISE'S BOOK STORE, DUNEDIN.

LITERARY NOTES.

• . • " Eomola " was the only book that Lord Leighton ever illustrated. ■ . • Charles Darwin was a great reader, and also fond of ease. When a book was too heavy to be conveniently handled, be used to out it in halves, and lay aside the part he did not just then need. • . • Mr Robert M'Olure, of "Ye Auld Baik Shop," Glasgow, has in the press " A Short and Easy Guide to the Practice of Shorthand," baaed on Taylor's famous "loop" system. • . • "By Your Leaves, Gentle Men I " a poem in reply to Mr W. Watson's " Apologia," with some other poems and fragments, by. " Bertram," is published by Messrs Simpkin, Marshall, and 00. * . ' The admirers of the works of Olive Bchreiner will be glad to hear that the new edition of "The Story of an African Farm," whioh Messrs Hntchinson and 00. are issuing, will have us a frontispiece a reproduction in photogravure of a recently taken portrait of the author. Over 80,000 copies of this book have now been sold, and ttys new edition completes the eighth-third thousand. *.*Mr Julian Hawthorne has arrived in New JTork from his Jamaica home. His £2000 prize story, " A Fool of Nature," as published in book form, will have restored to it the 20,000 words cut out for purposes of serial publication in the New York Herald. Mr Hawthorne wrote the story in 19 days, which means that he earned £500 per diem on 18 successive days, and £200 on the nineteenth. ■ . • Mrs Hodgson Burnett's versatility in fiction is as remarkable as her excellence. " That Lass o' Lowrie's," " Louisiana,". " A Fair Barbarian," " Through One Administration," and " Little Lord Fauntleroy " are as different in kind as they are comparable in superiority of merit. And her recentlypublished book is in a kind different again from eaob of these. " A Lady of Quality " Is a historical story of the time of Qaeeft Anne. •.• "The History of the House of Blackwood," on which Mrs Ollphant has now been for .some time engaged, will contain many facts concerning the progress of the famous publishing firm which have never been made public, the present chiefs of the house, in view of Mrs Oiiphant's work, having withheld from accredited literary applicants material* which otherwise would willingly have been granted. Mrs Oliphant, together with Dr John Skelton, the Shirlay of " Maga," are now the oldest contributors to Blackwood'fi living. • . '-The Boston Transcript may be prejudiced against the Ohicsgoans, and a story it tells of an amusing mistake in illustrations made by a prominent Chicago newspaper recently should perhaps be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. The blocks had got somewhat mixed. A fine picture of the late Cardinal Manning was labelled "Fran Kroger, wife of Oom Paul," and accompanied with an entertaining sketch of that excellent lady ; while in another place was a picture of Mrs Kruger, looking grand and intensely Dutchy, which bore the legend, "Cardinal Manning." * . * It it the firm conviction of Mr Robert Buchanan that the ordinary publisher ia a " barnacle on the bottom of the good ship Literature, yet presuming to criticise the quality of the cargo in the hold." Therefore his name will appear to bis new poem, " The Devil's Case: A Bank Holiday Interlude," as publisher aa well' as author. In addition, he will issue a pamphlet explainirg his attitude in this matter, and will for the future issue all. his Own works direct to the bookseller. We trust Mr Buchanan will not have to repent of his venture, but bankruptcy (if indeed that be any terror to so brave a man) has been known to He t-bat way. • . • The ever-increasing annual accretion of books is enough to set one thinking. One wonders how much of all that is written there is time to get read. How many hooks, in fact, can the average man get thr< iigh in a lifetime? MrSaintabury, in biacew " History of Nineteenth Century Literature," says of Southey (no doubt a persistent and insatiable reader) that "of tne nearly 14..000 books which he possessed at his death, it is safe to say that all bad been methodically read, and most read many times." Well, if a man were to read a new book through every day in the year, Sundays included, leap years and all, it would take him more than 38 years and four months to read 14,000 books through once. • . • An important work entitled "A Federal South Africa," by Mr P. A. Molteno, LL.B., of the Inner Temple, barrister-at-law, and advocate of the Supreme Court of the Cape of Good Hope, is now in the press, and will be published by Messrs Sampson Low. It is a comparison of the critical period of American history with the present position of the colonies and States of South Africa, and a consideration of the advantages which. a Federal Union would offer for the solution of the- present difficulties in South Africa. The Uitlander population, the ultimate settlement of the great territories now under the Chartered Company, and the native questions are among the subjects, discussed in the volume, which is dedicated to Sir Gfaorge Grey. " . "^ ■ . • Mr Robert Barr com€S in for some hearty appreciation in the American Bookbuyer, where he, ia described as " first and foremost a cosmopolite. A Scotchman by birtb, a Canadian by early association, an American by immigration, an Englishman by long reiidenco, and ft maa of t&fl world by

travel. Mr Barr has seen more kinds of life ' than often fall to the lot of a man still on the right side of 50." Mr Barr, we are told, drifted from teaohing into journalism, joining the editorial staff of the Detroit Free Press, of which the Hon. William E. Qainby, now Minister to the Netherlands, was at that time the editor. Here he found his true sphere, and his humourous sketches, tinder the penname of " Lake Sharp," made him known to a wide constituency 'the country over. In 1881 be was selected to start the Eoglißb edition of the Free Press, which has proved a great sucoess, and he has since lived in London or its suburbs. He was thus brought Into contact with many well-known English writers, with all of whom bis geniality and humour made him a favourite For come time he lived with Rudyard Kiplicg in chamber*, just off the Temple Gardens; and with Mr Jerome K. Jerome he founded the Idler, from whioh he lately retired to devote himself entirely to (storytelling. Quite recently be has passed several months by the River Moselle, working an American typewriter in a mouldy German castle (begun in the year 1200), producing a fourteenth - century romance, with a celebrated siege of that castle for a background. • .• la the race of tragic actors dead 7 With one or two notable exceptions, the emotional and the sentimental have entirely superseded j that lofty dramatic expression of t\ s ,e human passions which once gained world-vt^ds fame for tue actor. Man's taste has altered in the years that have elapsed since Macready and the Booths, father and son, frcze the marrow in his bones. Tho influence of thesa soul- j stirring memories, however, has not wholly vanished, and tradition still commands respect for the genius that inspired them. But the race of great tragic players is dead,. Only ghosts of what have been now recall our fading interest in the drama of the poets. And_ it Is aa though they, too, were weary of that" higher plane and longed to descend to our grost-er and more material sympathies. With inimitable stagecraft at his hand, tbe j accomplised student vainly tries to perform the miracle of raising the dead, but after all ■ it is only a tinselled glow that rewards his efforts. The age is strangely out of joint. A malady that might almost be classed as paresisetic, but which it is the fashion to term decadent, seems to have the world. Its victims ciave a tonic that pierces their nerves, that rather tickles ttian stabs theii imaginations. | They desire the horrible attired in cap and bells, the clown with a crown of thorns on his head. The majestic simplicity of dramatic art must give way to sensational, theatrical situations of "contemporaneous interest," with Euripides and Shakespeare tucked snugly away in the background. Fate, after knocking at the door, must be received in modern drawing-room style, or the public will have nothing to do with the iade. And then 1 If the " star " be of the first degree a great success is chronicled In the box office. j