LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 48

LITERARY NOTES.

— Lieutenant Peary's " narrative of his seven Arctic expeditions will be published in ApriJ by Messrs Methuen and Co.

— At a sale of Burns's works at Edinburgh recently, a copy of the first Kilmarnock edition in the original paper covers, uncut, went for 545gs — a record price.

— Messrs Hutchinson and Co. are issuing a new edition of Mr B. L. Far j eon's very successful Australian story, " Grif," as a volume of their "select novels."

- — Vanity Fair for one penny! It "seems incredible, 'but nevertheless copies, complete with the original Illustrations, were sold in the gutter in Fleet street recently at' that price.

" — Mr Conrad's work has qualities that are rarely met with in English fiction. In descriptive power he equals those novelists of the French decadent school who are masters of the art of word-painting, and his realism, while absolutely iaithful, is applied to less repulsive subjects. — Morning Post. — Felix Gras7 whose story, " The Reds of the Midi," dealing with the French Revolution, was published in this country by Mr Heinemann a year or two ago, is again about to appeal to an English audience, a translation of his work " The Red Terror :> being now in preparation. Effingham, Grenville, Raleigh, Drake, Here's to the bold and free! / Benbow, Collingwood, Byron, Blake, Hail to the Kings of the Sea ! Admirals all, for England's sake, Honour be yours and fame ! And honour, as long as waves shall break, To Nelson's peerless name ! j-ienry Newbolt. —Mr Robert Buchanan's new story " The Rev. Annabel Lee," is in the hands of Messrs C. Arthur Pearson, Limited, for early publication. The author states that his object in writing this novel is to show that if all religions were destroyed and perfect material prosperity arrived at, humanity would reach, not perfection, but stagnation. — Prince Kropolkin is now engaged hi the preparation- of his reminiscences, which will begin in an early number of the Atlantic .Monthly. These reminiscences should be among the most interesting publications of the sort that have appeared for many years, both as a narrative oi an unusual experience and as an explanation of European politics and social conditions.

— /An autograph copy of Wordsworth's sonnet " When Severn's Sweeping Flood had Overthrown" has recently been purchased by Lord Tredegar, and presented by him to the Free 'Public Library at Cardiff. The sonnet refers to the destruction of a Cardiff church in 1607 by a great flood, and the rebuilding of the church on another site in 184/4. Some letters of Wordsworth's relating to the subject, belonging to Mr Robert L. Knight, of Tythegston Court, Glamorganshire, were printed in the -Western Mail (Cardiff) recentty.

— According to the last annual report of the Commissioners of the Clerkenwell Public Library scientific works are greatly in demand by the readers. Biology, including evolution and methods of scientific research, is a very popular subject, the 68 works which the library contains on this topic having been 'issued over 2800 times within recent years. Two copies of Darwin's " Descent of Alan " have been issued nearly 200 times, a record which is exceeded only by the most popular novels. — " Woman and the Shadow," Miss Arabella Kenealy's new novel, has just been issued by Messrs Hutchinson. The "shadow " is not, we understand, a denizen of borderland, but the shadow which iEsop has immortalised in fable — that shadow which the substance grasps at and is lost in the attempt. This, Miss Kenealy thinks, 'is the special 'failing of her sex, which is in danger of discarding the powers it really possesses in "order to snatch at 'the chimerical and meretricious. Miss Kenealy's study of medicine, ! in which she holds a qualification, leads her i to think that the faculties of her sex are specialised to definite ends, only to be fulfilled by work done in womanly ways, but that these womanly powers are becoming fast extinct, and modern woman is becoming a thing neither male nor female, b^ merely neuter. " Woman and the Shadow " is meant to sound a warning note to woman to "stay her too facilis descensus, without compelling masculine interference.

— Reporting " lan Maclaren's " speech at Liverpool on ' Local Patriotism," the London Scotsman gives the following amusing story as the speaker told it : — " Not long ago I was travelling from Aberdeen to Perth. A man sitting opposite studied me for a moment, and then, evidently convinced that I had ordinary intelligence, and could appreciate a sight if I saw it, he said, ' If you wil stand up with me at the window, I will show you something in a minute; you will-only get a glimpse suddenly and for an instant.' I stood. He said : ' Can you see that? ' I saw some smoke, and said so. He said, ' That is Kirriemuir. ' I sat down and he sat opposite me and watched my face to see that the fact that I had had a' glimpse of Kirrie--lnuir, or rather of its smoke, was one I thoroughly appreciated, and would carry in retentive memory for the rest of my life. -Then I said, 'Mr Barrie was born there.' 'Yes,' he said, 'he vras jand I was born there myself.' " ' — The new and revised edition of Thackeray's works, in 13 volumes, for each volume of which Mrs Richmond Ritchie is writing a memoir in. the form of an introduction, is to be known as "The Biographical Edition," a title arrived at (says the Athenseum) after much deliberation. The works will be arranged/ as far as possible; in chronological order, and each novel will be contained in ~a I single volume, published at 6s. The edition S w^ be panted, fgoifi gejy, jtvpe^ it yn\\ iij?

elude many- of Thackeray's letters hitherto unpublished'; and, "in addition to numerous reproductions 'of engravings on steel and wood which appeared in the edition de luxe, it will contain new drawings and sketches by the author, and several facsimiles of his MSIS. , as well as portraits of«him hitherto unpublished.. The latter include those by Maclise in the possession of the Garrick Club, the committee of which has kindly consented to their reproduction. The first volume, " Vanity Fair," will be published by Messrs Smith, Elder, and Co. in this country, and by Messrs Harper and Brothers in the United States, on April 15, and a volume will appear each subsequent month until the edition is completed in April 1899. ,

—Mr Lewis Sergeant has completed for the " Story of the Nations " series a volume on "The Franks," from their origin, as a confederacy to the establishment of the Kingdom of France and the German Empire. In a preface Mr Sergeant remarks that " the story of the Franks, especially of the earlier France, is rich in fable but poor in history." His volume is chiefly devoted to periods in which the historical 'foundation was least secure, to the long struggle between the Romans and the Teutons 'during which .the tribes on the east of the Rhine were perpetually combining against their enemies until the Frank confederacy clearly eriierge'd, and to the subsequent Merovingian -period, during which the v Franks were gradually -subjecting the whole of Gaul.

— A Hungarian girl of 16 is declared by Dr Schaffer, oi the Buda -Pesth University, to be suffering from delirium in consequence, he thinks, ot the shock which her nervous system received from witnessing the play of "Trilby." The girl fancies herself Trilby, walks about the house barefoot, and acts generally like Mr Dv Maurier's heroine, lhis is not surprising, and the modern novelist should beware. A Saturday Reviewer says he has been more affected by the description, in Mr Wells's "War of the Worlds," of the last Martian standing amid the ruins of London howling "Ulla,.Ulla! ' than by anything he has read for years. Surely if the rates are to be burdened with lunatics produced by reaclin? sensational fiction a special tax should be imposed at once on its writers.

— For more than a year past, so far as indifferent health would allow, Miss Dixon, formerly of Girton College, Cambridge, has been engaged upon a translation of selected ' letters from the voluminous correspondence of Petrarch, never before translated into English. The selection was made, in the first instance, from Fracasetti's sympathetic but very prolix Italian translation, by Miss .Helen Ziinmern,, who proposed also to contribute a brief historical introductory paragraph to each letter. But the work' has now passed entirely into the hands of Miss Bixo'n, as sole editor as well as translator. ■• She will probably remodel the work, publishing it eventually in the form of a ' Life and 'Letters." Miss Dixon has done a large quantity of unsigned work of a miscellaneous character during the last 11 ■or 12 years, but is chiefly known within a comparatively small circle as a careful and accurate student of mediaeval and historico-economic subjects, for which her Cambridge classical,. training has stood her in .good stead. Shir- has contributed to the Dictionary of Economics, and to the Journal of Economics and the Reuve d'Economic Politique, and&is quoted in the last edition of Dr Cunningham's monumental work. "The Growth of English Industry and Commerce." Miss Dixon is at present resident in Florence, at work upon Petrarch, and also making investigation into the extent of the existing unpublished material stored in the libraries of Florence in reference to the mediieval Florentine wool trade, the rebult of which will be communicated to .the Ptoyal Historical Society at its June meeting.

— Though Home is called "the Eternal City," the name by right belongs to the city of Damascus, which is the oldest city in the world. As long as man has written records the city cf Damascus has been known.