LITERARY NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 2394, 18 January 1900, Page 65

LITERARY NOTES

John Oliver Hobbs's drama in three acts, "Osbcrn and Ursyne," is issued by John Lane. "A Voyage at Anchor" is the title of a new story by Mr Clark Sussell. Messrs White are shortly to publish it. Mr Walter Paget has completed a series of drawings to illustrate the new edition of Stevenson's "Treasure Island," which Messrs Cassell and Co. will publish shortly. Mr Arthur Waugh, the author of an excellent volume on Tennyson,- is-to- contribute a book on Browning to the "Westminster" paries of biographies. To Gay and Bird's series of "Bibelots," has been added "Trivia, and Other Poems," by John Gay. These tiny volumes are very dainty in get-up. "Little Dornt" in three volumes and Hard Times" in one are the latest additions to the dainty Temple Dickens. There are bibliographical notes by Walter Jerrold, and each volume has a coloured frontispiece. Mr Stephen Crane, whoso "Active Service" has just appeared, will shortly publish another volume, "The Monster, and Other Stories." The' first story takes Mr Crane's pen in a new direction. Messrs Harper announce the book. Dr Campbell, the director of the Royal Normal College lor the Blind, and who is himself totally devoid of sight, is one of the most rapid workers on the typewriter in the worldYet another work on Shakespeare's sonnets, this time by Mr Samuel Butler, author of "Erewhon," etc. The full title of the' book is "Shakespeare's Sonnets, Reconsidered and in part Rearranged, with Introductory Chapters, Notes, and a Reprint of the Original 1609 Edition." The publishers are Longmans. The second volume of the Haworth edition of the Bronte novels will be "Shirley." It will contain, in addition to Mrs Humphry Ward's preface, a facsimile of the title-page of the first edition of the work, and views of many places described in the story. To the ever-growing list of dramatisations of famous novels is added a stage version of "Adam Bede," made by an American writer, Mr R. L. Weed. At least one other play based on the same book was brought owt at a London minor theatre some, fifteen years ago. George Eliot's "Romola," also, has quite lately been presented on the Transatlantic stage. 'lhe new story on which Miss Emma Brooke has been at worki for the last two years is to be called "The Engrafted Rose," and the scene is laid in Yoiikshire. It will probably be published by Mesprs Hutchiuson. Miss Brooke. is a writer of commendable reticence and carefulness, and must aim high to hit again the excellence of her "Superfluous Woman." _ « Lieutenant-colonel Newnham Davis is about to publish, with Messrs Sands, a book entitled "The Transvaal under the Queen." The author was on the staff of Sir Owen Lanyon, and was also engaged with 'Sir Theophilus Shepstone when the Zulus were on the point of swarming over the Transvaal ; and he describes many incidents of the fighting dvtring the Zulu war, and recollections of Oom Paul and Piet Joubert. A well-known author had once entered into an engagement to write a story of 20,000 words. In the pressure of other work he forgot all about it. The day before the date fixed for publication, a meek young sub-editor glided into the room, and said he had come for the story. The author sat up all night dictating into the phonograph, his two secretaries Bat up with .him, and the story was ready by the time the paper went to press. And it was a very good story too. But the author had to go to bed for 24 hours to recover tone. Baroness Orezy, the author of "The Emperor's Candlesticks'," is a Hungarian by birth. She has moved a good deal in the best English society and studied art in England, where she first met her husband, Montagu Barstow, the well-known artist. She herself is an artiste of repute-, having illustrated many books and exhibited at the Royal Academy. Like, moat Hungarians, who are singularly gifted in this respect, she speaks seven languages fluently, and has a bowing acquaintance with at least as many more. The Rev. J. F. Hogan, D.1)., i-iofessor of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, is the amivjr of "The Life and Works of Dante Allighieri ; being an Introduction of the Study of the Divina Commedia,' " published b.y Ihe Messrs Longmans. The work is intended chiefly for those who have neither the time nor the inclination to become specialists in the fclv.'Jy of the "Divina Commedia." Mr John Murray has chosen an opportune moment for the reissue of a volume which appeared in 1856. Mr Henry Cloete, who was her Majesty's High Commissioner for Natal, wrote at first hand "The Story of the Great Boer Trelo," and, though the book has practically dropped out of remembrance, the account of this remarkable event in Boer history cannot fail to be interesting. It is edited by _the grandson of the author, Mr W. Brodrick Cloete. Mr Archibald Colquhoun, the author of "China in Transformation" — a standard work on the subject — has written a new book, which Messrs Harper will publish next February, under the title of "Overland to China." Mr Colquhoun, who knows more about the Far Eastern question than any living writer, deals in his forthcoming book with Mongolia and Siberia, the new Siberian railway, Southwestern China, and the Upxier Yangtsze. In the profusion of books on South Africa, ii is interesting to recall that Colonel Plumer and Colonel Baden-Powell, whose names are familiar to all readers of war news, are themselves authors. Colonel Baden-Powell's book on the Matabele War of 1896 was published two years as>'o. It is a stirring picture ol "flannel shirt life," and a tempting one to young Britonb .ithirbt for adventure. About the same time there appeared Colonel Plumer's book, describing the services of "An Irregular Corps" in Matabeleland. The railwny, at the time of Colonel Plumer's story, had only reached Mal'eking, 600 miles from Buluwayo. Tho late Mr Ed. Sheridan Purcell, author of. the "Life, o£ Cardinal Manning," in the

forthcoming "Life and Letters of Ambrose Phillips do Lisle," gives a sympathetic survey of the career of one who played a leading part among those who about 50 years ago became converts to the Church of Rome. Among the many letters of importance is a considerable correspondence to and from De Lisle and Gladstone, between whom a strong bond of intellectual friendship appears to have existed. The book embraces the period of the Oxford Movement, with the forces which led up to it, and Pu&ey, Newman, Manning, and Wiseman are constantly to be met in its pages. — Do you know that charming series called "Modern English Writers" (Blackwood 1 .-)? Mr Cope Cornford has just done "Robert Louis Stevenson, and done it very well, too. At a time when we have ceded Samoa to Germany, the little volume comes as a pleasant complement to the bulkier "letters." I think it is a pity to agitate for the removal of Stevenson's bones from his lofty mountain height. There is an utterance of his on this same subject, which is almost prophetic: Under the wide aiicl starry sky, Lay me down and let me lie ; Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me; Here he lies where he longed to be : Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill. — Wentworth Smee., in the Sunday Sun. — Chapman and' Hall hold what remains of the Dickens copyrights. They. have just issued "The Pickwick Papers" in two neat volumes at Is net each. The volumes are nicely printed and bound, with gilt tops, and ha.ye each a coloured frontispiece. Along with thede come several of the minor books of Dickens, also in very attractive shilling volumes: "A Christina's Carol." "The Battle of Life," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Haunted Man," and "The Chimes." Each volume has a coloured title-page and frontispiece. The type is large, the paper is good, and the binding is chaste, with gilt top. Altogether, a very attractive little set. —Mr Leslie Stephen, as the guest of the London Authors' Club recently, made a genial speech in praise of literature and those who made it. No doubt, he said, it had its temptations, but so had every other profession. There were statesmen, and he had even read of physicians and lawyers, who more or less thrived upon humbug. Though authors had their weaknesses, he believed there were as many high-minded, upright, and honest persons among them as in any other calling ; and sometimes he was even inclined to think that the career of letters was the only one quite suitable for the honest man, because, at least, he could say what he thought and had to depend upon his own qualities. It was a hard game, 1 ufc, on the whole, ifc was. one of fair play.