LITERARY iSTOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2309, 2 June 1898, Page 47

LITERARY iS T OTES.

• . ■ A " School Shakespeare "is beicg projected by Messrs William B'jxokwood. and Sons under the editorial direction o£ Mr Brimlev Johnson.

• . • There is undoubtedly a tremendously large sale for the popular novel in the now familiar sixpenny edition printed in doable columns with paper covers.— London Daily Mail.

• . * Messrs Mothuen and Co. will publish shortly & romaacs of adventure, by Mr Victor W»ite, entitled " Cross Tr&ita." The story is a sketch of that raodexu Ecglhh outlaw, the ne'er-do-wsel " remittance saaa " of the colonies.

• . • Messrs Melhuen and 00. will publish immediately Mr S. R. Crockett's new romance, "The Standard Bearer." The story opens with the persecution of the Covenanters In 1685, and the hero is the minister of a Galloway parish.

■ . • Mr Donnelly has ready another book on the Baconian cipher, entitled " The Cipher in the Plays and on the Tombstone." This, according to an American contemporary, Mr Donnelly claims to be a " clincher regarding the Baconian authorship of the Shakespeare plays."

• \-' " The Deemster," the most popular of Mr Hall Caine's early novels, appears immediately in a cheap paper-covered edition. It was first published in 1887, and was dramatised in 1889. Another cheap sixpennyworth is Mr W. Clark Russell's " John Holdswortb, Chief Mate," which is published at that price in a "popular edition" by Messrs S. Low and Co.

• . • Sir Walter Besant's lecture on •• King Alfred the Great," which waß delivered at Winchester in February last, in anticipation of the millenary of that king, has been reprinted in pamphlet form, with a frontispiece of the lecturer. Any profits that may arrive from the sale of the pamplet will be devoted to the King Alfred Memorial Fund.

■ . • Sir George Robertson, who was, at the time, Britifh Agent at Gilgit, ha 3 written a story of Ohitral from the point of view of one actually besieged in the forfc. The book is of considerable l3Hgfch, and is not only a detailed history of the siege, but is a connected narrative of the stirring episodes on the Cbitral Frontier in 1895. It will contain numerous illustrations.

• . • According to " LouDger," of the New York Critic, those who know Henryk Sienfeiewicz, the author of " Quo Vadis," say that he would rather go shooting or tramping over the mountains any day than write. He writes his serials from week to week, and sometimes in the middle of one, when the most exiciting situation is reached, he takes his qua and disappears. His publishers tear their nair, but his readers have to restrain their curiosity till he returns, when he takes up the thread of bis narrative and carries it on to the end, unless another fit of restlessness seizes him.

■ . • A. private soldier is said to be the author of " An Experiment in Imitation " in the Cape Times — some meritorious verses by way .of welccme to Mr Kipliag. The last verse runs : But you're our partie'lar author, you're our patron an' our friend,

You're the poet of the cuss- word an' the swear, You're the poet of the people, where the redmapp;d lands extend, You're the poet of the jungle au' the lair, Ap' compare, To the ever-spe3king voice of everywhere 1

■ . • Messrs Methuen and Co. have published Mr Lionel Decle's long-deferred work, " Three Ytars in Savage Africa." Mr Decle's tiavela extended over 7000 miles, and in addition to its interest as a record of adventure the book is notable for its minute descriptions of native habits and customs, and for its comparison of the colonial systems of the various European governments.

• . • Mr Zacgwill's new book, " Dreamers of the Ghetto," which Mr William Heinemann will publish shortly, is not, ia the ordinary sense of the term, a volume of short stories. One definite idea pervades it — viz., that the character of all Jews, whether they lived in the days of Rameses or the days of Victoria, has bsea influenced by practically the same forces abd the same environment. This idea Mr Zasgwill has worked' "out in a variety of inbtamces, llend3»g the leal with the imaginary. Moses, Heine, Beaconsfield flit through his pages alongside fictitious " Dreamers of the Ghetto " of the fourteenth century and of our own day.

• . • Mr Maynard 4. Domiuick, secretary of .Frederick A. Stofees Company, the wellknown publishers cf New York, has sailed for that. cuy. He has oeen very successful, we learn, in arranging with leading English authors, who now recognise that they have even a larger auditmce in America than at home. Among those whose works ha w e been or will be brought out by Frederick A. Stokes Company are Anthony Hope, Harold Frederic, Marie Corelli, S. R. Crockett, •' John Oliver Hobbes," George Gissing, Stephen Crane, A. E. W. Mason, W. W. Jacobs, Sir W&lter Besant, S. Bari«?g-Gould, Robert Barr, William Le Queuz, Bertram Mitford, Adeline Sargaant, Eden Phillpotts, W. Clark Eassell, " Ouida,'' Frankfort Moore, and Guy Boothby.

• . ■ "A Monograph of the Turdidse ; or, Family of Thrushes," by the late Mr Hsnry Seebohm, has been edited and completed (after the author's death) by Mr E. Bowdler Sharpe, for publication by subscription in 12 parts by Messrs Henry Sotherau and Co. The author devoted a period of 20 years to the study of the thrushes, a family of birds in which he took a great interest, ever since the publication, in 1881, of the fifth volume of the " Catalogue ot Birds," of which he was the author, and he possessed an unusually line collection of thrushes, which he has bequeathed, with the rest of his collection, to the British Museum. At the time of his death the MSS. of the " Monograph," which he contemplated publishing, had been begun and nearly all the plates were coloured.

• . ■ "A Man of Kent " understands that Mr Savage Landor has received the very handsome offer of £5000 for the book he is to write on his recent remarkable adventures. As this offer is on account of royalties, it may be pronounced exceptionally generous and enterprising, and it shows the increasing popularity of books of travel and adventure of Shis nature.

DANTE EOSETTI. WHAT KIND OB 1 MAN TIK WAS.

The picture of Eosetti that Hved ia Viia

public mind was f.hat of a poet and painter of extraordinary imaginative intensity ?.»d magic, whose personality — as romantic as his work — influenced all who came into contact with him. He was, indeed, the only < romantic figure in the imagination of lbs"; literary and art world of his time. It ■ seemed as if in his very asms ifcsre was an unaccountable music. The present v?n-.o\ well remembers being at a dinner party many years ago when the late Lord Leightcn ; was talking in his usual delightful war. j Hia conversation was specially attended to only by big interlocutor, until the name of Rosetti fell from hie lips. Then the general murmur of toxigues ceased. Everybody wanted to hear what was being said about the mysterious poet-painter. Thus matters stood when Rosetti died. Within 48 hours \ of big death the many-headed beast cla- ,

mouied for its rights. Within 48 hours of I bis death there was a leading article in an important newspaper on the subject of his suspiciousness as the result of cbloral-drink-ing. And from that moment the romance had beeD rubbed off the picture as effectually by many of those who have written about him as the bloom is fingered off of a clumsily gathered peacb.

But the reader vviil say, " Truth is great, and must prevail. The picture of Rosetti that now exists in the public mind is the true one. The former picture was a lie." But here the reader will be much mistaken. The romantic picture which existed in the public mind during Rosefcti's life was the

true one ; the picture that now exists of hit* is false.

Does anyyne want to know what kind of a man was the painter of " Dante's Dream," and the poet of " The Blessed Datnosl," lefc him wipe out of his mind most of what has been written about him, let him forget if he can most of the Rosetti letters that have been published, and let him read the poet's poems and study the painter's pictures, and he will know Kosetti — not, indeed, as thoroughly as we know Shakespeare and M chyles and Sophocles, but as intimately as it is. possible to know any man whose biography is written cniy io his works.— Alhecfenm.