LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2209, 2 July 1896, Page 52

LITERARY NOTES.

• . • Mr Andrew Lang suggests that if Sir Walter Bcott had been able" to purchase Asbestitl, Abbotsford, would never have risen from the-sVamps of " Clarty Hole." •,■ Sir Eiwin Arnold has written nearly 10,000 leading articles for the Daily Telegraph. His connection with the paper arose through his answering an advertisement for a leader writer in its columns. . . • Miss Dora Russell, according to a recent biographer, always fixes first of all on the title of her coming, novel, and the following morning, in the aarly dawn, a plot to suit this, title glid.ee into her mind, and gradually^grows until the whole is satisfactory. . • .• Messrs Hulchingon and Co. will publish immediately a story entitled " A Widow on Wheels," aDd as a bicycle and its lady rider come a good deal into the story, it will perhaps attract the attention of the great crowd of followers of the latest craze. Tee authoress cf the_book is Miss Ada L. Harris" . . .. • . ■ Mr Horace Cox has in the press " Pro? Eesaional^Wemen upon their Professions," by ' Miss Margaret Bateson. It will consist of a ■'series 'of conversations with ladies of profes- " gional distinction. Twenty-sisTdifferentpro- ' fessions are treated upon, amongst others be- ■' ing acting, singing, painting, nursing, school ■board work, clerkships, and journalism. * .• Tho conception of a' Russian Jew'pos- '- ses&ed with the belief that he is the saviour of his downtrodden race pretold by Scripture is the central idea of X. L.'s novel, " The ' Limb," just published ->y Messrs A. D, Innes and Co. The Russian background of the Btory gives full scope and effect to the peculiar power which the author displayed in his. recent volume, " Aut Diabolus aut Nihil." • . • Mr Bertram Mitford has been very unwell lately, and has 'been ordered oomplete rest. His new novel is entitled " The Expiation of Wynne Palliser," and will he-issued shortly by Messrs Ward, Lock, and Bowden. The forthcoming volume is this gifted writer's twelfth, and one who has had an opportunity of reading portions of the MS. says tbatjt la, perhaps, more vivid and powerful than Any of the author's jprevious woiks. • . ' Mr Joseph Jacobs is a man of important , intellectual enterprises. At . the. moment he is bending hU energies to a somewhat humbler one than usual, yet withal a very interesting one. It is a " Jewish Yearbook "—a Jewish rival to " Whittaker." It will give in detail the Jewish events of the year, and two important summaries. The first will contain the leading events in the . whole past of Jewish history; the second will deal with the chief episodes n of the ■ history of the Jews in England. • . • One of pur bast-known novelists (says an Eoglieh paper) is at present absolutely' • house-ridden, and, for months has been quite • unable to visit his club to take his cu»tbmary • and favourite hand at whist; His club • • friend?, however, have ■ gallantly .formed , themselves into reuef wbiet parties. On. , certain days of the week three of the mem- , J bers visit the author apd join in the game at which be is an enthusiast. Some very distinguished people have taken part in the|| relief parlies, m '.' Though English classics are greawy appreciated in Germany, the leaders of the Fatherland display a very alight interest in. the English writers of the day. Kipliog is the only one who has secured auy appreciable attention, and even be is but a name to the general German public. It is singular that of, American authors Bret Harte and Mark Twain are wideiy popular, and that the former is thought of " ju9t as if he were a German." 1 • j ••• "Tfce Vigil: A Story of Zululand" is Ihe title of Charles Montague's new book, ' which may be expected from Messrs Constable and Co. in a very short time. Mr ' Montague has passed macy years in South Africa, and speaks the Zulu tongue like a x Dative, so he is one of the few, If not the only novelist who knows something about the real life of the Zulus. The book should be therefore interesting both to lovers of Btory and to students of South Africa and her inhabitants • . • When Spenser had finished his famous • poem •' The, Fairy Queen," he carried it to . the Earl of Southampton, the great patron of the poets of that day. The manuscript being ! sent up to the Earl, he read a few pages, and th'en ordered his servant to give the" writer 1 " £20. Reading on, be cried i "Carry that man another £20 1" Proceeding further, he , exclaimed " Give him £20 more I " But at length be lost all patience, and said , " Go, turn -that fellow out of the' house; for if I read further I shall be ruined 1 " There died in New Orleans early last April Mrs E. J. Nicholson, a lady who.nad an Interesting acd typical American history,

i When her first husband died (in 1878; she took charge of his pa par, the ' Picayune, and managed it so well that she cleared off a ! debt of £17,000 with which it was burdened. ! Then she married her business manager, Mr George Nicholson, who died the week before she died. As Miss Poite 1 vent, before her first marriage, she had earned £5 a week by her pen, and her psn-name, " Pearl Rivers," hacf* made her widely, known in the South. 1 . * Annie Swan tells that when, her novel " Sheila " was running in serial form through a Glasgow paper, a travelling basket woman went on foot one day from Critff to th.3 spene of the story, after a chat with the woman of a certain house, drew a paper out of her pocket, and asked 'to be shown the way to *D.ilmore, the abode of the heroine, as she was certain that kindly lady would purchase her whole stock. She was greatly ditgusted on being' informed that Dalmore and the heroine were entirely imaginary. • . "• Z Z." (Mr Louis ZiDgwill), in his new novel, " The Woild and a Man," has forsaken the milieu, at '\\ D:ain* in Diucb," and breaks fresh ground with an elaborate study of a modem ycung man, half educated, yet eager to reform the .woild The ptory, wh^ch passes' through' many strange- by-ways of existence in detailing the series of reactions between the man and the world, portrays every aspect of his life with such uncompromising realism that the authoT has thought it necessary- expressly to dissociate himself by a ••foreword" from any responsibility for" the opinions and actions of the character under vivisection. •.'""Patrick Geddes and Colleagues," of the, -Lawn Market, Edinburgh, have already wen a very interesting position in the, in-tellectual-world. Their "Evergreen," that " northern seasonal " on novel lines, . set : people talkiDg, and with a few recant books they have decidedly "scored." Professor Geddes has' gathered round him a notable , group of artißtic and liberally enthu- . siasts, one of whose aims is to express their conception- of Scotland as one of the "European Powers of Culture." The professor says- that, those of thsm who are naturalists have departed very far from Darwinian ideas, and uphold the theories propounded in Professor Drutnmond'a " Ascent of Man." • . • " The Woman's Bible," of which so much was expeoted by its prej^c-.ii's ia Chicago, threatens to die in its beginnings). The sensation anticipated for it came, but unfortunately it was a sensation of another sore. The hope of its projectors was, in the first place, that the work would be taken seriously. Or, even if this failed, it was expected that the talk it was destined to create would afc least mean a large sale for the book. But the public refused to accept the book seriously, and the American critics 'refused to review it except in strong words of condemnation. Ia fact, the work has been so ridiculed that the women .who were ready to accept it in' part have refused to stand sponsors for it.

>• . •Mr William. May, the librarian to the Bhkenhead Public Library, had a rare find the other day, when weeding out some old and seemingly worthless volumes, in the ebape of a block-letter book bound at the end of another early printed work, which proved to be a copy of Bonaventura's "Speculum vitas Ohristi," printed by Wy&kyp de Worde in 1494. The great value of the discovery consists in the circumstance that the book is one of the rarest in the world. Mr Gordon Duff states that no other copy ia known, although four leaves of the book are among the greatest treasures of th& Lambeth Archiepiscopal Library. The newly-found treasure, which is the property of M( May, had been used as a children's scrap book.

* . * The old favourites ara not to be elbowed out by the new romanticists. George Routledge and Sons are launching a " King's Own" edition of Marryat's novels in 16 monthly 3s 65 volumes. "The King's Own," "with which the series leads oil, has fighting enough and Eea enough ac.i ifiscellaueou? dare-devilling enough to satufy- the most exigent. The shipwreck is one of the best shipwrecks in fiction. Marryat out to be realistic, for he is drawing- largely upon his own actual experience of the sea during the great years of the war with France. In, these degenerate days theunfortunate naval novelist baa to evolve his fights out of his inner consciousness. Mr W. R. Overend .illustrates the book, and Mr W. L. Courtney, M.A.,'LL.D , supplies a general introduction on the life ' of Marryat and his literary manner. The , late Mr George Routledge bought the Marryat copyrights in 1855 for < £3200, It must .have been a good bargain, i ' . • Few authors are so prolific as Mr William Le Queux. Aa journalist, critic, and novelist, he works with a speed that is amazing, and always seems to have leisure. In addition to writing the new .eetia)*

" Davil's Dies,." for the Weekly Daspatob, he is just now engaged on the final chapter of a new Oriental romance of. an extraordinary character, which will be entitled " The Eye of, Istar." ' For some months past he has been making a caraful study of the Assyrian language, and has spent much time atnorg rhe B'tbjlonian sculptures and inscriptions in the British Museum and elsewhere. Some cuneiform inscrip'ions, vre believe, play an important part in the new story, which, according to its sub-title, is " A Romance of the Land of the No Return."